A Candle on a Hill...

With all the increased attention coming towards members of the church as of late because of Mitt Romney, the way that Jet Blue CEO David Neely handled the recent problems his airline faced, and BYU sports, it has been interesting for me to see the media attention that has been given to the church.

As you would expect, a lot of it focuses on the sensational and mostly erroneous points that make for an interesting drama, but offer little in the way of accuracy or truth. While not all the reports are negative, in fact, quite a few are very positive, I found myself deciding to focus on the not so positive and feeling frustrated at the information being "reported" as facts. This information is offensive to something I hold very dear to me and so it is expected that I would feel frustrated at it. While I would imagine that most of these reports are not by people who have an axe to grind with the church, I do wish they would consider the source of their information and be more balanced in their reporting.

Last night I started to feel really frustrated about it and made it a point of prayer. As I pondered on it, I realized something that I am sure all of you already understand. That, in spite of being one of the quickest growing religions in the world (in my opinion, illustrating the truthfulness of the message), the church is relatively unknown on the world stage. There are a considerable amount of misunderstandings about us and what we believe and as more and more people become aware of us, hear about us, and investigate us, there will be more and more written about us. While we would love for all of it to be positive, this isn't realistic, so we have to take the good with the bad. The members of the church aren't perfect (hence, the reason to have a church in the first place, to perfect the saints and learn) and sometimes bad behavior from one of us reflects badly on all of us...although it is interesting to note that this doesn't seem to apply to most other religions. However, before our Savior returns more and more people will have the opportunity to hear his gospel and seek him, so the increasing visibility of the church is inevitable. Even more, it is a very positive thing! Already, I have had more opportunities to discuss our beliefs and who we are as a result of this increased attention in the media.

I believe, as time goes on, we will become a more unique and peculiar people as our beliefs and standards will grow farther and farther away from what is accepted by society in general. This is something that will be difficult, but necessary as there is less and less gray area in terms of living a life that follows the teachings of the Savior compared to the teachings found in our increasingly secularized world where there is no room for Him.

We will need to be courageous and steadfast in our faith and our standards. There will not be any room for us to try to have it both ways, we will have to decided whose side we are on and act accordingly. This isn't supposed to sound so bleak, in fact, it is full of wonderful opportunities. If you haven't read President Hinckley's message this month, it is absolutely wonderful and deals with exactly this very topic. Check it out here.

So, as the church gets more visible, we need to be ready to answer more questions that people will have about us. We need to be ready for people to misunderstand us and believe incorrect and inflammatory information and respond thoughtfully and explain the truth without getting defensive. Remember, what one person or group may report doesn't affect what we know to be true nor does it put in question the validity of those things that have been confirmed to us through the Spirit.

Wow, that was more than I anticipated writing, but it feels good to get some of my thoughts down on "paper".

-Cim