This is another lesson that attempts to take a smattering of verses from the Doctrine and Covenants 58:21-22, 26-28; 98:4-10; 134, and Article of Faith 12.
There is much in these verses about obeying, honoring, and sustaining earthly laws as well as doing good of our own accord. The Articles of Faith were originally created for a history of Mormonism written for the Chicago Democrat, but first published in the Times and Seasons in 1842. Mormons waged an uphill battle in the nineteenth century trying to convince Americans that they could be good American citizens, so including a specific article of the faith to that end seems reasonable and inline with the snippets we get in Joseph's revelations.
Section 134 of the Doctrine and Covenants is likewise an effort to the end. It is not a revelation received by Joseph Smith, though it was later canonized. In August 1835, Joseph was away on a mission to Michigan. Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon presented this "Declaration of Belief" regarding governments as written by Oliver Cowdery. Here is the earliest version published in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, 1835. What is now Section 134 was most frequently quoted in General Conference during the social unrest during the 1960s as church leaders called for respect and order.
There are a lot of different directions we could take with these verses, following the example of Ardis Parshall and her excellent post on this lesson here, I think President Joseph F. Smith's words the same day that the United States entered World War I are significant:
In speaking of nationalities we all understand that in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is neither Greek nor Jew nor Gentile; in other words, there is neither Scandinavian nor Swiss not German nor Russian nor British, nor any other nationality. We have become brothers in the household of faith, and we should treat people from these nations that are at war with each other, with due kindness and consideration.
Treating everyone as our brothers and sisters despite different nationalities or political persuasions is a hallmark of the gospel. This flies in the face of the oft-used tactic to demonize the opposition and make them a nameless and faceless mass. Rather it asks that we encounter them as believing individuals and our brothers and sisters despite different nationalities and political persuasions.
Section 98 verse 5 offers the caveat of following the law which "is constitutional"--the footnote would apply this to governments in general. The governments should maintain "rights and privileges" for all. Section 58 says if we keep the laws of God then we will likewise keep the laws of the land "for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land." This week I've been thinking a lot about what we do when the laws of the are not inline with God's laws, more significantly when they make us break our covenants. These thoughts only expanded with the death of Nelson Mandela.
The concept of civil disobedience has a philosophical history reaching at least back to the early nineteenth century. As Latter-day Saints we don't have our own comprehensive philosophy of civil disobedience--that is left to us to use our agency to decide. In the nineteenth century Latter-day Saints in Utah actively participated in civil disobedience as the US Federal government began to pass new laws directed at Mormon polygamy. Some went into hiding, some were arrested and jailed as prisoners of conscience. Scripture gives us plenty of examples of governments that tried to get believers to compromise their covenants: King Nebuchanezzer and Sharach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3), Haman and the Jews--particularly Queen Esther (Esther 3), King Noah and his priests versus Abinadi and then Alma (Mosiah 11), Zeezrom and the leaders of Ammoniah versus Alma and Amulek (Alma 14), and more. There is no one way to deal with an unjust government.
The example I will focus on in my lesson is that of Helmuth Hübener, a Latter-day Saint teenager in 1940s Germany. Watch this on Hübener's actions and think about the situation of the German Saints, those in Hübener's ward including his bishop. Don't ignore the real danger they were all in. In 1941 Hübener listened to BBC broadcasts and believed that the Nazi government was not telling the German people the truth, he felt it his duty to share the truth and used a typewriter he had from a church assignment to type leaflets which he and his friends distributed. In February 1942 Hübener worked to translate his pamphlets into French and distribute them among prisoners of war. He was arrested by the Gestapo at work. For his actions he became the youngest person sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshol and executed.
The Lord wants us to be involved. He asks us to care and to seek out good people to lead. He wants us to be agents unto ourselves and do much good of our own accord. We have to decide what that means for us individually.
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