The Role of Religion

There are those who believe that the world has its working remedies for the struggles of this life, and that those remedies are sufficient.

I say that they have a limited view on the purpose of life. Sure, it is wonderful to have remedies in this world, of this world. But by relying on those remedies without turning to God is like meditating without prayer: you fulfill a purpose limited to this life, rather than extending oneself to eternal goals and potential.

It is like entering a university degree to study and learn, but not seek, nor accept a job by your university efforts–for this life is a university for the next life.

I quote below seven reasons Elder Oaks so beautifully explains why religion is a necessity in our public domain. There are many others in both personal and societal contexts.

Here are seven other examples of the social values of religion:

1. Many of the most significant moral advances in Western civilization have been motivated by religious principles and persuaded to official adoption by pulpit preaching. So it was with the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States, and the Civil Rights movement of the last half-century. These advances were not motivated and moved by secular ethics but were driven primarily by persons who had a clear religious vision of what was morally right.

2. In the United States, our enormous private sector of charitable works—education, hospitals, care for the poor, and countless other charities of great value—originated with and is still sponsored most significantly by religious organizations and religious impulses.

3. Western societies are not held together primarily by the overall enforcement of laws, which would be impractical, but most important by citizens who voluntarily obey the unenforceable because of their internal norms of correct behavior. For many, it is religious belief in right and wrong and an anticipated accountability to a higher power that produces such voluntary self-regulation. In fact, religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of Western nations that we cannot lose the influence of religion in our public life without seriously jeopardizing all our freedoms.

4. Along with their private counterparts, religious organizations serve as mediating institutions to shape and temper the encroaching power of government on individuals and private organizations.

5. Religion inspires many believers to render service to others, which, in total, confers enormous benefit on communities and countries.

6. Religion strengthens the social fabric of society. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has taught: “[Religion] remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. … Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history.”7

7. Finally, Clayton M. Christensen, a Latter-day Saint who is hailed as a worldwide “thought leader” on business management and innovation,8 has written that “religion is the foundation of democracy and prosperity.”9 Much more could be said about the positive role of religion in economic development.

I maintain that religious teachings and the religiously motivated actions of believers are essential to a free and prosperous society and continue to deserve special legal protections.

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2017/06/religions-vital-global-role?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_TU_27-6-2017_dPFD_fLHNA_xLIDyL2-3_