The public announcement of new temples and the candidacy of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for high political office has created a great deal of high level press exposure, some positive and some negative. Often it is not the individual or the event but the fact that it involves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that causes the ears to open. Hearing the negative comments, Latter Day Saints, too, have a tendency to harbor some resentment for statements that are clearly untrue about their faith. Elder Robert S. Wood of the Second Quorum of Seventy remarked that “Closely related to mockery is a spirit of cynicism. Cynics are disposed to find and to catch at fault…they display a sneering disbelief in sincerity and rectitude… In this regard, the Lord has counseled in latter days that we “cease to find fault one with another,” and “above all things, clothe [ourselves] with the bond of charity, as with a mantle…” President George Albert Smith, in a 1914 conference talk, observed, “There is nothing in the world more deleterious or harmful to the human family than hatred, prejudice, suspicion, and the attitude that some people have toward their fellows, of unkindness.” In matters of politics, he warned, “Whenever your politics cause you to speak unkindly of your brethren, know this, that you are upon dangerous ground.”
The church and its members are no stranger to prejudice, as we can be reminded by reviewing the political career of Apostle Reed Smoot.
There are very few practices by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that raise more opposition than that of temple ordinances for the dead. Christians and non-Christians alike generally have very little understanding of the work being done in temples and therefore look at members of the church as strange indeed. Prejudices are often born of ignorance, and they are sometimes based on a less than healthy personal self concept by those who feel the emotion. If a person feels good about themselves and they feel that life has treated them fairly and that they have progressed as well as they had expected, they usually have an absence of prejudice as well. Those who have not been so blessed need to find someone or something to blame for their life’s frustrations. Sometimes it is directed toward whomever is handy, and sometimes it is directed toward a group or groups that have been a common target for hate. They just join the club. Sometimes hatred is handed down from a frustrated parent to a dependent and developing child, and it is a hard mindset to break or turn away from.
The best answer to prejudicial emotions is an understanding of the universal brotherhood of man and that we are all God’s children sent here for a purpose. That we all have the same needs: physically, socially, emotionally and mentally, is a given, regardless of the color of our skin or the language we speak, etc. We should all have immediate compassion for another human being when they suffer, for whatever reason. We should also have the same thrill of accomplishment for whoever finds success. “But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?” —Albert Camus. May God bless us with an abundance of charity, for without charity life and the human experience is nothing more than “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals” (nothing).
As Elder Wood has stated, “Charity should be worn as a mantle or cloak about us always.”