Family and the Global Church: Cultural and Political Challenges

Bruce D. Porter

Bruce D. Porter, “Family and the Global Church: Cultural and Political Challenges,” in Global Mormonism in the 21st Century, ed. Reid L. Neilson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2008), 249–65.

Elder Bruce D. Porter was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy when this was published. This essay was presented at “Family and the Church: Cultural and Political Challenges,” the International Society’s ninth annual conference, August 1998, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

I will begin by making some general points about the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the growth of the Church internationally and then turn to what I know is your specific interest in this conference, the proclamation on the family and how our family values may assist us as the Church expands internationally. I will make five points, and I will elaborate on each of them regarding the growth of the Church across the world.

First, God is in charge. This is His kingdom, His plan, and He has a way and a means prepared for it to succeed.

I had an interesting experience several years ago. I was living in Frankfurt, Germany, as a member of the Europe East Area Presidency. Other members of the presidency and I were driving to the office in Frankfurt. Now, at this particular time we were having political troubles all across our area. We were having tremendous difficulty with the government in Bulgaria; we were even fearful that our missionaries might be expelled. There was unrest in Albania. There had been several Russian cities that our missionaries had had to leave or were faced with the threat of having to leave. We had problems in Ukraine and so forth. As we drove into the office, we began talking about all these various challenges. The picture looked rather bleak, and it was not clear what we could even do about most of these things.

As we drove farther and talked a little more, one of the members of the presidency suddenly began to laugh. There was not anything obviously funny about the situation, but he started to laugh. We said, “What are you laughing about?” He said, “Isn’t it wonderful to discuss problems that we all know will be resolved? To know that everything will work out, because the work cannot fail.” We thought about it, and we started laughing too.

It is a great advantage to be part of a work in a kingdom where you know that victory is certain in the long run and that any problems that may exist are but temporary setbacks along the road to that ultimate success.

I learned a lot from Elder Charles A. Didier, under whom I served in the Europe East Area Presidency. Whenever problems came up, of whatever nature it was, political or otherwise, Elder Didier would never panic. He would never say the situation is grim. He would never send off a letter to the First Presidency and tell them we needed help. Elder Didier simply would smile and say, “The Lord will take care of it,” and He did again and again and again. I mentioned that long list of challenges that we faced. Every one of those challenges was resolved or at least tempered within a week or two of that conversation, and we had nothing to do with it. The miracles took place; the Lord took care of the vineyard.

Now nearly ten years have passed since communism collapsed in Eastern Europe. I am not sure even today that we fully appreciate what a remarkable and miraculous event that was. I was, at the time, heavily involved. I was with the federal government, and I was involved with international broadcasting, specifically Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. We were broadcasting to those countries on the front lines of the Cold War, so to speak. We had the best information available anywhere in the world on what was happening. Yet we had no inkling of what was about to hit. I can tell you that across the spectrum of specialists on Russia, on communism, on Soviet economics, sociology, whatever it is, no one expected it to happen. No one predicted that it would happen. It came as a complete and total surprise. To this day scholars are arguing about what caused the collapse of communism. They cannot agree, they cannot explain it, and it does not fit any of their theories. But there is an explanation, and it is a very simple one: a decree went forth from God Almighty that the time had come for His gospel to be preached in Poland, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, in Russia, in Ukraine, and so forth. When that decree went forth, the governments of men and the power of man wilted and became as naught before the power of God.

A revolution took place—a peaceful, largely nonviolent, velvet revolution across Eastern Europe. Within months we had missionaries going into those countries. For twenty years prior to that, I had spent my life studying Russia, studying Russian politics, and international relations. Like many members of the Church who did that, one of the reasons I studied it is that I wanted to see the gospel go forth to those countries. I would occasionally meet with other Latter-day Saints who were Russian specialists, and I would say, “How is this going to happen? What will bring this to pass?” And we would speculate about how the gospel could ever be preached in Russia. I remember many times thinking we would send clandestine missionaries or we would begin radio broadcasting and all kinds of things. But the conversation would almost always end by our agreeing that whatever else happened, we would not see young elders from the United States with name tags going into Russia. So you can imagine my feelings in 1991 when I walked into the branch in Moscow and was greeted by a missionary from the United States with a name tag right in the middle of what we previously had thought of as enemy territory, or at least communist-controlled territory.

I do not want to focus just on Eastern Europe, but I emphasize this point that when the time came that our Father in Heaven knew it was right for His gospel to be preached in those countries, it happened. It happened overnight. It was so quick and so sudden that the Church had to scramble to find mission presidents and literally hundreds of missionaries, all who went within a short period.

In the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord said: “And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days. And they shall go forth and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them” (D&C 1:4–5). We have certainly seen that happen not only in Eastern Europe but in country after country across the world. In that same section, a few verses later the Lord explains how it will happen: “The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones. . . . That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers” (D&C 1:19, 23). Now, I think that the “weak and simple” and “the weak things of the world” refer to our young men and women who serve missions. For that matter, it refers to all of us. We are weak and simple before the powers of the world, and yet the Lord has made us and those missionaries His instruments to take forth His gospel.

In September 1996, I traveled to Siberia and toured the Yekaterinburg mission of the Church. This was the first mission in Russia to be headed up by a native Russian mission president. One of the cities we went to was an industrial city called Cheliabinsk. We had a little branch there of about fifty members. Incidentally, they had all been baptized within the last six months, all fifty members. We had six full-time missionaries serving there. We held a zone conference with those missionaries, just the six of them, myself, and the mission president. One of those missionaries was from Mexico. He was a humble, sweet, pure-hearted young man. Like so many people from his country, he grew up humble. You could read it in his face. As the zone conference proceeded and I spoke, the young man was touched and tears began to roll down his cheeks. As I looked at him, I thought of this scripture, “That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world” (D&C 1:23). There we were, literally at the end of the world, and here were the weak and simple proclaiming the Lord’s gospel.

You may recall that in 1995, a new law was passed in Russia governing religion, denominations, and the preaching of the gospel. I was back in the United States at that time, no longer in the East Europe Area Presidency. That law was getting tremendous headlines in Utah: an interview with a missionary or mission president that had just come home,[1] statements from U.S. senators on how they would deal with the new law,[2] and legislation being passed in the U.S. Congress cutting off aid to Russia if this religious oppression continued.[3] It was a big event.

I called Elder Didier, who was then the East Europe Area President. We had a nice conversation, but he never mentioned anything about the law. So finally I said, “Elder Didier, how is this law going to affect the Church?” And he said, in effect, “What law?” I explained that I was thinking of the Russian law on religion. He said, “Oh, that thing. We’re not concerned about that. The Lord has always taken care of us in the past, and He will take care of us again.” And that is exactly what happened. That law did not slow the growth of the Church at all. It had no effect on our bringing missionaries into the country. It had no effect on the growth of the Church. If there was any effect at all, it was to give us a little free publicity, which we can always use, and that was all.

What appeared to be a huge threat to the future of the Church proved to have little effect. Now, I am not saying there will never be setbacks, because there will be, or that we will not occasionally have to leave a country for a time, but what I am saying is that the Lord has all these things in His hands. We need not fear. We need not panic. This is His work.

Now, a second point. The Church, wherever it has gone, has been built on the foundation of the most humble, simple people in those countries. In an organization such as yours, the International Society, you have many talented people with contacts around the world. There may be a tendency to think that the Church goes forward the same way other organizations go forward—through networking and contacts and gaining influence with the powerful of the world. Occasionally it is true that someone who is powerful has proven to be a friend of the Church, but that is not generally how the Church is built up.

The Church is built up by the most ordinary and humble people who hear the message of the gospel and enter the waters of baptism. As the Apostle Paul said, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:26–27). When I read that scripture, I think of the experience of Elders Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young and the first Apostles who went to England.

Kimball and Young had tremendous success out in the English countryside. But when they tried to open London to missionary work, they had little success for several weeks. London was a very worldly city. They were trying to find leaders, as we often do; therefore, they were going to the more prosperous parts of the city. They were trying to meet local leaders in government, industry, and so forth, and they were getting absolutely nowhere, not a single baptism. Finally the Spirit moved upon Elder Wilford Woodruff and others, and they went down to the industrial quarters of the city where the common laborers, just off the farms, were working. We know from Charles Dickens and other sources that the working conditions were terrible. These people were in abject poverty, almost slavery. They were truly the most humble of the earth. They were baptized by the hundreds, and the Church began to be built up in London. They were the weak and simple things of the earth, but their descendants became apostles and prophets, great leaders in the world and in the Church. And so it has been in every country that we have ever gone into. We almost always start out with the most simple and ordinary of people, but they become great through the power of the message. Now there are occasional exceptions, and I will give you one.

Elder F. Enzio Busche of the Seventy, now in the Area Presidency in Eastern Europe, was a very prominent man in Germany at the time of his baptism. He was heir to a large fortune and a printing company that was one of the largest in the world. He was highly educated and affluent, yet after lengthy study he received the gospel and joined the Church. His joining the Church and his influence proved to be a great blessing for the Saints in Germany. So there are exceptions to the rule that only the poor and simple of the earth join the Church, although if you know Elder Busche his case is not really an exception, for Elder Busche is one of the most humble men I have ever known in my life. There are few humble men among the mighty and great of the world. Elder Busche happened to be one of them, and he was able to receive the gospel—taught by simple ordinary American missionaries with their thick accents—and perceive its truth, then join the Church.

I have a friend who, a number of years ago, was reading about the handcart companies in the book Handcarts to Zion by LeRoy and Ann Hafen.[4] As he was reading this book, he came across a passage that talked about a particular company of handcart pioneers in which there were two blind people, a man who could not walk, a man with one arm, and a single sister with several children and no husband to help her. As he read that passage, he was struck that in his ward, just in the past year, there had been baptized two blind persons, a man who could not walk, a man with one arm, and a single sister with several children. He observed that they had a hard time finding callings for these people. It was a ward with an abundance of talent, and these converts were handicapped to some degree. The ward leaders were not sure what they could do. For a long time these newly baptized members went without a calling. How interesting, he thought, that 150 years ago we took people like that, assembled them into companies of pioneers, and demanded greatness of them. We sent them across the plains and said, “You can do it. You can do anything.” That is the spirit we need to have as we go forth and build up the Lord’s Church.

Now a third point. I have heard a certain phrase used many times by members of the Twelve and of the First Presidency. When we go to new countries and open them up to missionary work, we always go through the front door. Now what does that mean, the front door? We do not hide who we are. We do not do anything clandestinely. We obey the laws of the land and knock on the door and say, “May we come in?” to the powers that be. That is how we always do it. That is how it will happen in China, Cuba, Bangladesh, or any of the nearly one hundred countries where we still do not have missionaries. We will go right in the front door. That may seem virtually impossible, but it will happen. Some of those doors are still closed, tightly closed. But if it is not possible to go through the front door, we will wait patiently, and the time will come when God will open those doors and we will go through them.

I do not know how many of you have been in the chapel of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I think it is one of the most beautiful rooms in the world. There is a powerful spirit there. The General Authorities of the Church meet there during every general conference for training. In that chapel, as you look up to the stand and above the organ, there is a beehive carved in wood, the symbol of the state of Utah. But it is more than that. I believe that the beehive is a symbol of the Church and kingdom of God in the last days, but not in the way we usually think about it. We usually think of a beehive as highly organized, and the bees are all very diligent. We as Latter-day Saints do tend to be very organized and, for the most part, fairly diligent. But that is not the analogy I would use. Every early spring or late winter when the earth is dead and the flowers and plants have retreated into their hibernation for the year, the bees begin to go forth. By their diligent labors, they pollinate those dormant flowers, trees, other plants, and grasses, making possible the renewal of the earth each spring. As I think of the Church and kingdom of God, I think of us here in the tops of the mountains as a beehive that sends forth tens of thousands of missionaries and other leaders to renew the earth and prepare the way for the spring and the summer of His coming.

Now another point about the growth of the Church worldwide. We must not fear opposition or persecution. If there is one thing that spreads as fast the gospel, it is anti-Mormon literature. I was astonished to see in Russia how fast anti-Mormons would catch up with us. We were always one step ahead, but not by far. We would open up a city, and within a few weeks some minister would pass through, handing out anti-Mormon literature beautifully translated into Russian. When we dedicated our first chapel in Russia in the city of Vyborg, which is just north of St. Petersburg, a center devoted to the distribution of anti-Mormon literature opened up, complete with full-time employees, a building, and everything else right in that same city. I used to worry about that. I used to worry that our Saints would get hold of this stuff and be poisoned by it or disillusioned. I do not worry about that anymore. I have come to understand what President Brigham Young meant one time when he said that the more it is attacked, the stronger it will become. On one occasion he put that in a more colorful way when he said, “Every time you kick ‘Mormonism,’ you kick it up stairs: you never kick it down stairs. The Lord Almighty so orders it.”[5]

You may recall another so-called crisis that took place in Russia when a very prominent military officer made some very unkind statements about the Church. He said that Mormons were, in effect, idiots, that the Church was a cult, that it was evil, and that it had to be eradicated from Russia. Now we know that someone was putting words in his mouth because he did not know a thing about the Church, which he later admitted. But someone with influence on him had gotten him to put that into the speech. We were very concerned. This got quite a bit of publicity in Russia and abroad. Members of the Church were frightened. They thought the officer might become president of Russia, and he still might. They did not know what this meant for their future. But again, you can kick Mormonism, but you will only kick it upstairs.

In the months immediately following his statement, our missionaries had a notable increase in success. Why? Because, number one, there had been so much publicity about it that people were curious. They wanted to know, what in the world is this? And, number two, as several people said to the missionaries, Russians have learned from a lifetime of experience that when a prominent leader says something is bad, it has got to be good. We had a sudden flood of discussions and baptisms. In the end, the military officer in question apologized for his remarks and admitted that he did not know what he was talking about. We got another burst of publicity. I can honestly say that the whole incident turned to the good of the kingdom. Again, it appeared to be a crisis, but it turned to our good.

A fifth point about preaching the gospel. More people are born into the world every few months than the entire population of the Church. Our task from this perspective may seem hopeless, but in the long run the gospel will indeed be preached to every creature and will resound in every ear. The long run may include the Millennium, and it certainly includes the vast work taking place in the spirit world. It is prophesied in the scriptures that the gospel will be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people before the end shall come (see D&C 42:58). I believe that literally means that every nation and every people will have an opportunity to hear the gospel in some form or another. But it does not necessarily mean that every individual on the face of the earth will hear the gospel message before the Savior comes. Every people, to some degree, or in some degree of representation, will hear the gospel message, but not necessarily every person. Why do I say this?

It is clear from prophecies about the last days and the Millennium that when Christ comes, there will be at least three categories of people on the earth. There will be the righteous remnant waiting to meet Him. There will be the wicked who will be destroyed. The wicked, I take to mean, are those who have willfully rejected the gospel, willfully rejected every call to repentance and gone on in pursuit of evil things. But it is also clear that there is a third group sometimes referred to in the scriptures as the “heathen nations” (D&C 45:54) who will remain but will not yet be members of the Church.

The prophet Zechariah prophesied that after the Lord comes the rain would not fall on those nations until they submit to the Lord’s law (see Zechariah 14:17–18). I do not know who those nations are, but I suspect that they may include some of the larger nations of the earth where we will preach the gospel but be unable to reach every last person. I share this thought with you—and it is my personal thought—but I share it because we need to understand that God has a timetable, that no one will be left out. No one will fail to receive their salvation, either because we did not do our part or because there was not enough time. God will allow all to hear His word before the Judgment Day.

I want to turn now to the proclamation on the family and talk specifically about families and what I would call the Church’s competitive advantage as we go forth into the world. About twenty years ago, I was a graduate student in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an unusual opportunity came for me to attend a conference in Italy. This was a conference of the International Society of Strategic Studies, and it brought together prominent political, industrial, and academic leaders from around the world—cabinet members, CEOs from the defense industry, and some of the world’s most prominent specialists on national security.

I hasten to add that I was not there because of my own prominence. I was only a graduate student, but I had been able to go represent an organization that had a permanent membership. So there I was in Stresa, Italy, this beautiful resort town, staying at a five-star hotel, rubbing shoulders with very prominent people before whom I felt very intimidated. As the conference went on—it was about a three—or four-day conference—I became more and more overwhelmed by the people I was meeting just casually at dinner and before dinner—names I had heard about, titles that sounded very important, and so forth.

On about the third day of the conference, I took a break and walked up to the train station in Stresa to buy a ticket for my departure following the conference. The conference meetings had been in a large hotel by a lake, and as I walked up the hillside into the town, I left the resort area of five-star hotels. I found myself in a very ordinary, quiet, little Italian town. I think I had been feeling a little bit tense at this conference, always wanting to be on my best behavior. As I walked into the little town of Stresa, I relaxed. I felt very peaceful and calm. I no longer felt that I had to be on guard to say the most intelligent thing at every moment. I could just be myself. As I walked, I saw a little Italian family, a mother and her little children playing in the street. The children were running back and forth playing some kind of a game, and the mother was watching over them. I felt a great love for this family. Looking at them, I also felt an impression that it is of such people that the kingdom will be built. It will not be built by our networking with the most famous people in the world, making contacts with them, and using their leverage and power to somehow open those doors. It will be built by the plain and simple of the earth. They will hear our message because they are plain and simple and because what we have for them will bless their lives and the lives of their families.

BYU’s Kennedy Center studies culture extensively. It even publishes Culturgrams that try to help people understand different cultures, how they think, how they operate, and their manners and traditions. It is a very important and worthwhile endeavor, and I think that it has been recognized not only within the Church but more broadly by industry and others who use Culturgrams. It is important that we study culture. It is important that we understand the languages, history, literature, and sociology of other nations and ethnic groups. But the human family has more commonalities than differences among us. Among the things that unite us is the great human universal—the family.

There may be various cultures with different wedding traditions, different courtship traditions, different degrees of patriarchy versus matriarchy, and so forth, but the fact remains that the concept of a family, of a biological father and mother who raise their children, teach them what is right and wrong, socialize them into the values of their culture, is virtually universal. The exceptions, if there are any, are very minor and might generally occur in some very primitive, throwback-type cultures. But where you find civilization in any degree, you find family. We understand as Latter-day Saints the importance of families. The Turkish people understand that, the Mexican people understand that, the Lebanese people understand that, the African people understand that, the Chinese people understand that, and the Japanese people understand that. The only people who seem to not understand anymore are our fellow Americans.

It is here, and to some degree in Europe, that intellectual movements have arisen in the last forty years that deliberately and openly seek to undermine the family as the fundamental unit of society. As a result we are heading toward disaster in our own country. In the proclamation on the family, the Brethren say, “Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”[6]

In the last ten years, believe it or not, the crime rate in the United States has been dropping. There are a lot of reasons for that, but among one group it has been rising, and rising dramatically. Do you know what group that is? Children. Crimes committed by children and juveniles are going up at a stunning rate. Crimes committed by other age-groups are going down. What is happening and what will continue to happen with increasing frequency is that as the family breaks apart, as children are raised without fathers by single mothers or sometimes simply by institutions, including day care, they are often not socialized, not taught what they need to know about right and wrong, not taught love and affection, and not taught how to compromise or how to get along with others.

A generation is being raised without conscience. The amazing thing about the terrible crimes that have been committed by children and juveniles has been the complete lack of remorse on the part of the perpetrators. In many cases, they do not feel any sense of guilt nor any sense of sorrow. They did what they wanted to do. They had never been taught differently. It is literally an impending disaster for our nation.

I am going to recommend a book, and while I do not usually do this, this book did not get the attention it deserved. Published by Oxford University Press in 1991 (and I am still amazed to this day that they published it), it was written by cultural historian James Lincoln Collier and is called The Rise of Selfishness in America.[7] It shows how at the turn of the century there was a culture of vice that existed in ghettos of our inner cities, where prostitution, drug use, crime, and the like was contained. The values held to by those little pockets were values of selfishness. “I can do whatever I please. I do what satisfies me alone.” The author, in exquisite detail, shows how that culture of selfishness has spread and been adopted more widely until it has become the culture of U.S. society. He also makes this interesting observation about families. He talks about the fact that we are abandoning our children to an enormous degree. Between a soaring divorce rate and the number of children born to unwed mothers, a majority of our children will spend at least a portion of their childhoods in single-parent homes, in effect being raised without fathers.

This is an extremely unusual circumstance, perhaps unique in human experience. In no known human society, past or present, have so many children been raised outside of an intact nuclear family. The author goes on to talk about the consequences of that. His solution (and this is why I say it is astonishing to think this was published in the 1990s by Oxford University Press) is for sexual morality to be reinstituted in our society, including premarital chastity, for women to stop working and come back home to raise children, and for the family and family values to be made the crowning values of our whole society.

If we do not do this, he predicts, we will have a disaster on our hands, just as the Brethren suggested in the proclamation. Another article that recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal talked about the consequences of day care for children.[8] It pointed out that dozens of studies by social scientists, many of whom do not share our values, show that with few exceptions, children who are raised in day-care centers, particularly young children—one-, two-, and three-year-olds—become much more aggressive in their dealings with other people. They prove to be unable to compromise. They prove to be unable to show affection. They prove to be more abusive in all their relationships. These are not ideologically biased studies; they are simply scientific studies on the impact of day care on children.

If I were to say this at almost any other university across our country, it would be very controversial, cause a big uproar in the audience, and I would not be invited back again because these are not popular views. They are not politically correct views. But if I were to go to almost any country in the so-called Third World—Africa, Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America—these views would be accepted as common sense and normal. Perhaps these views would not be accepted in every university by every professor, but in general those societies still defend and still understand the importance of traditional family values.

I hope you are familiar with the work that Brother Richard Wilkins is doing, a professor at the BYU law school, and the organization he has established, NGO Family Voice. His organization is going to United Nations–sponsored conferences on the family and other world conferences to defend the traditional family against the wave of antifamily values that are being spread, mostly by U.S. social scientists and by some European social scientists. What he is finding is that while he and his colleagues are pariahs among those from the United States, they are winning friends and influence across these other countries and cultures who are appalled by what they see happening in the United States.

These countries for decades have looked up to the United States as a model of what a country can be because of our prosperity, technology, freedoms, and human rights. Many of those people still see the United States as a model. But when they send their children to U.S. universities and those children come home, they are shocked by the experiences their children have had and the strange ideas they have in their heads. They do not want to send their children back to the United States.

We have had an interesting experience here at Brigham Young University bringing students from Jordan and other Arab countries, but especially Jordan. These are the children, sons and daughters, of the elite of Jordan, who in increasing numbers are anxious to have their children come to BYU—not Harvard, not Yale and Princeton, not Berkeley but BYU. Why? Because here their children can find some refuge from the vices and aberrant social philosophies that are so prominent at other universities. Here they find support for the traditional family, for high moral standards, for good health practices, for wholesome living.

In other words, what we believe in and what we stand for may not be highly popular in elite circles in our own country today, but it makes eminent sense to most of the people of the world. In increasing numbers, they will flock to our banner. Our love and support for the family thus gives us a great comparative advantage as we strive to build the kingdom of God around the world. It is one of the strongest and straightest arrows in our quiver. It will soften hearts and prepare people everywhere to accept the fulness of the restored gospel.

I have spoken today of five ways in which the kingdom of God will go forth across the earth. In conclusion, I would bear witness of him who is the author of this work, whose power and glory makes it all possible. When all is said and done, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will prevail not because of the efforts of man but because of the power of God working miracles across the face of the earth, preparing the hearts of God’s children to receive their Lord and Redeemer. I bear witness that He lives. I bear witness that this is His Church and kingdom. I bear witness that He will come again and the day shall come when the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Notes

[1] See Michael Nakoryakov, “Mission Impossible Spread the Word: Russian Law May Rein in Mormons,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 21, 1995, A1.

[2] See Christopher Rosche, “Bennett Talks Religion with Top Russians,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 10, 1997, A8; Don Baker, “Hatch Turns Up Heat on Russia Religion Law,” Deseret News, July 15, 1997, A1.

[3] See Lee Davidson, “U.S. Seeks Religious Freedom Worldwide,” Deseret News, July 3, 1997.

[4] See LeRoy R. and Ann Hafen, Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western Migration, 1856–1860; with Contemporary Journals, Accounts, Reports, and Rosters of Members of the Ten Handcart Companies (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1960).

[5] Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–86), 7:145.

[6] “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, November 1995, 102.

[7] See James Lincoln Collier, The Rise of Selfishness in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

[8] See Sue Shellenberger, “Child Care Is Worse than Believed, with Safety Jeopardized, Study Suggests,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1995, 7C; Sue Shellenberger, “Impact of Child Care Is Mixed, Study Says,” Wall Street Journal, April 4, 1997, A5.