THE TEN VIRGINS

President Spencer W. Kimball

An address given at a youth conference in Las Vegas; Nevada, 16 April 1978

Abstract
        President Kimball applies the parable of the ten virgins to members of the Church in the latter days to illustrate the need for spiritual preparation. The bridegroom is the Lord at his second coming. The virgins are the members of the Church—some are wise and some are foolish. Half will not have sufficient oil when the Lord comes. The kinds of oil that members must have in their lamps include family prayers, fasting, attendance at Church meetings, the Word of Wisdom, missionary service, Church service, temple ordinance work, tithing. and chastity. None of these oils is available at midnight; none can be borrowed from others. The oil must be accumulated drop by drop through dedicated living of the commandments daily.
        In fulfillment of the parable of the ten virgins, President Kimball quotes the promise of the Lord that those who are wise and prepare themselves (fill their lamps with oil) “shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire.” “The earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance,” and “the Lord shall be in their midst, and His glory shall be upon them.” (D&C 45:56-59: 63:53-54.)

Application to LDS Social Services
        This reading will help inspire each practitioner to evaluate his spiritual preparation and to build his spiritual strength. He will therefore be able to better serve the Church and LDS Social Services. By applying the principles in this reading, each practitioner can also become a better model for clients.

Learning Activities
        After reading this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is President Kimball’s central message?
2. What problems might a practitioner encounter in his professional work if he does not have sufficient quantities of oil in his life?
3. List the kinds of oil that President Kimball discusses. What others could be added?
4. In what way could the concepts taught in this reading be used to help clients of LDS Social Services?
5. List areas of your life in which you need more spiritual preparation. Decide what you can do to add oil to your lamp.

Reading
        When I was a little boy, our lamps were glass vessels, perhaps a foot high, with a base on which to stand, then an enclosed basin perhaps as large as one’s fist—this to contain the oil, with a six- or eight-inch wick extending from down in the oil through the upper narrow neck into a little metal protective device and with a little wheel or crank so that the wick could be easily turned up or down to increase or decrease the illumination. Held by little metal springs was a glass lamp chimney designed to protect the flame from the wind, and clothing and other combustibles from the flame. It was my responsibility to walk to the store some blocks away to get coal oil for the lamps as often as our supply was exhausted. It was a little gallon can I carried, and it had a spout for pouring. With my can full of new oil and a little potato over the spout to prevent loss of the precious oil, I carried the fuel home.
        To prepare the lamps for use for the darkness of the night, my sisters and I would gather from all the rooms the lamps, remove the chimneys and wicks, and drain the dregs from the lamp. We would then fill the lamp globe with fresh oil, pinch off with our fingers or cut off with scissors the burned part of the blackened wick, clean the soot from the chimney with paper or by washing and drying, then set the ready lamps on the lamp shelf.
        When the sun had retired and the dusk had faded and darkness enveloped our world, with a lighted match we ignited the wicks and lighted the rooms of the home. Between the wider base of the lamp and the oil globe, the glass was perhaps an inch in diameter, making it handy for one to carry the lamp in one hand from room to room. On the organ was a little lamp shelf on either side, and with a lamp in the center of the table, we could sit around and study our school lessons. Later we were fortunate enough to have a hanging lamp, a large shaded one which lighted the whole room and pulled down from the ceiling.
        A lamp in the time of the Lord’s ministry is said to have been a little earthen vessel, not unlike a modern gravy dish into which the oil was poured and into which the wick was inserted, the wick drawing by the capillary system the oil to the top of the wick which was ignited.
        The Lord, trying to project the future for his people, gave parables using situations which they knew to make them understand the situations which they did not know:

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold. the bridegroom cometh;  go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying. Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. [Matthew 25:1-13]

        The people of the kingdom are likened to the ten virgins. The bridegroom is the Lord in his second coming. The bride is the Church or the people. The virgins are members of the Church, some active and ready and prepared, and others inactive, careless and unprepared for the coming of the Lord. These are members who have been baptized and are his people and have a right to expect but an unworthiness to receive. I like to think of the lamp as a symbol of truth and the oil of good works and of midnight as the time of the coming of the Son of God in his last advent. Light dissipates darkness, and the Lord used a telling figure to illustrate.
        The foolish virgins were unprepared. and when the cry came that the bridegroom cometh they, being unable to obtain from their neighbors, rushed out at midnight into the darkness to purchase from the merchants the needed oil and found that by the time they could obtain the necessary oil and light, they were too late. Too late is a sad phrase. In the verses of the Maud Miller poem, the concluding lines are these: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.”
        Oil is indispensable to produce light—to dispel physical darkness. The oil of good works is indispensable to dispel spiritual darkness. The bridegroom cometh” is the cry. “Go ye out to meet him.” The end of the world has come; the Lord is coming for the judgment; he will suddenly come to his temple. Are we ready?
        Now, there are many kinds of oil—that made from olives, from minerals, from vegetables, and that brought from animal or fish from underground, or from the blubber of whales. There are many kinds of oils which illuminate the way to perfection and exaltation and to the judgment bar. Let us consider oils:
        There is the oil of family prayer. It is a good oil and illuminating, and makes the way bright and cheery, but it is difficult to obtain at midnight. One could awaken the families and have one prayer when the cry is made and thus produce a drop or two of oil, but one drop of oil will not keep the lamp burning very long. It is late. One can hardly find an oil merchant at midnight. Stores may be opened on the Sabbath but seldom at midnight. We should have, long ago, established the habit of family prayer, kneeling with as much of the family as possibly can be brought together every night and every morning, all through life. The lamp then is always full of oil, and wicks are always trimmed and the way is always illuminated brightly. Children should be given opportunity to pray also so they will love this communion and their lamps will always be ready.
        There is the oil of fasting. At that last midnight it is a little late to fast. It should have been a regular sacrifice. Lives should already have been disciplined by frequent fasting. Minds and hearts should, for long years, have been cleansed and prepared for the great day of the Lord.
        Attendance at priesthood, sacrament, and other meetings is a good oil designed to enlighten minds, impress hearts, and stir righteousness. But this also can hardly be purchased or obtained in that last midnight. Time is necessary to establish the meeting habit. The sermons of years and of a lifetime to stir and purify and encourage can hardly be concentrated in a single night and especially at midnight. That is too late to do much good!
        There is the oil called the Word of Wisdom oil, but like the other kinds, it is hard to find at midnight. Seemingly all oil merchants are drowsy or asleep at midnight. Perhaps in that final moment one might desire deeply that oil but how can one produce enough drops of oil in a moment to make up for months or years of neglect? How can one purge from his system the desire, the longing for the forbidden thing? How can one prove to himself or to his God whether his sudden desire for that oil is an escape from punishment or a determination to be obedient?
        Missionary service is a potent oil and contributes much to the illumination of one’s soul, but the mission service oil, like all other kinds, is not obtainable in a moment or an hour when the bridegroom cometh. The work of two years. with its study, its earning, its preaching, its baptizing, its organizing, can hardly be compressed into a moment or an hour. The desire might suddenly have been awakened, but this oil must have been squeezed out drop by drop through two or more years of selfless service and sacrifice. Too late! Such sad words! This oil, while most desirable, is not indispensable, but if it is not available, there can be found a fair substitute for it in the oil of home service.
        There is the rare oil of service. It is accumulated a drop at a time through years of devotion. Each lesson prepared and given, each visit to the sick, each funeral attended, each time a helping hand is raised, an additional drop of oil is stored. Each committee meeting, each sacrifice for others, each sermon preached, each testimony borne is another drop of precious oil, but these cannot be drawn on until accumulated, and a life’s accumulation cannot be stored in the moment of the final midnight when the cry comes that the bridegroom cometh.
        There is another rare and indispensable oil without which no one can be fully prepared to meet the bridegroom and dwell with him. It is an oil which, obtained in proper amount and if no dregs or impurities or contaminating things are permitted to enter, is a never-exhausting oil. This is temple ordinance oil. Though, if kept clean, it will never need to be replaced entirely, it is well to add to it frequently that it may not get stale. Sweethearts, clean and worthy, go to one of the holy temples where they are sealed for eternity so their children may be born under the covenant. But they should return often to the temple to add to their supply of temple ordinance oil by renewing their promises and covenants and keeping the promises and responsibilities always in mind. This oil, like the other brands, is unobtainable at midnight when the final cry, the vital and last cry, is made. Distance intervenes, time is an element, finances for the trip are not available, darkness reigns. We have been civilly married five years. ten years, twenty years. We have been on many vacations. Grand Canyon we have seen, Yellowstone Park we enjoyed, Yosemite we explored. The lakes of Maine heard our laughter, and Florida beaches saw us cavort and enjoy ourselves, but the temple? No! Children have been born and some grown up in the darkness. The cry is made, “Go ye out to meet the bridegroom.” How we’d like to go! But this kind of oil is available only from a certain limited number of ~merchants and not available at midnight. We knock and say, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.” but we seem to hear in that late fateful moment, “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.”
        There is an oil readily available to every soul, old and young, rich and poor, well and ill, and no one needs to be without it. The light from this oil is brilliant. Darkness is dispelled, and the oil increases with use. Like the widow’s cruse of oil, the more one uses of it, the more is left. It is easy to purchase in the day when man can work but cannot be had at night when “no man can work.” This is called tithing oil. It is midnight the cry is made. We rush to meet this obligation of tithing. Perhaps we find our bishop is awake with his lamp burning brightly and in his kind heart he would like to share his oil with us. but these kinds of oil are strange commodities. Each individual must produce his own. Even a generous wise virgin cannot share even a great supply. One must obtain through producing his own. We check on our finances; our bank balance is low. We would like to at this moment, settle our tithing. But there is no credit. It is cash. Bankers are not open at midnight. Assets cannot be released from mortgages at midnight; bonds, cattle, sheep, crops, securities cannot be turned into cash at midnight. Tomorrow is too late, besides tomorrow never comes. What a pity! Why did we leave this important duty till so late? Why did we not think of it yesterday, last week, a year ago, when we first came to know about this eventual day? How foolish were we!
        “Yes, bishop, we want to settle our tithing. We’ve been negligent for all these years. We can’t do much tonight, but here is a little. It is impossible, as you know, for us to raise five years’, ten years’. twenty years’ tithing in a night. Will you accept this little, this from my last paycheck? This from my last shipment of beef, my final payment on beets, my last week’s salary?”
        “Of course,” says our wonderful bishop, “but as you know, I can give you only a few drops of this tithing oil. It will light your path for only a few feet and will then be exhausted, and darkness will envelope you before you can reach the temple.”
        Now our lamentation: O that we had been awake to our opportunities long ago! We have been slumbering and sleeping while the bridegroom tarried. 0 that we had accumulated our oil weekly, monthly, annually. How much we would give tonight if we could change our program of the past years. How diligently would we now process the precious oil for this night of nights.
        There are numerous other kinds of oil of which we shall not speak, but one final one we must advertise. It is so precious that without its being added to the other oils, no wick will burn, no oil will illuminate all the way to the destination. Without this oil the light from all others is uncertain and dim and will surely go out before we reach our destination. This is the oil of chastity. Take this away and the light flickers, and indeed it may go out. Certainly the light will be extinguished unless the oil is restored to the blend.
        There is no compatibility between light and darkness. Unchastity is darkness. It is ugly, bitter, destructive, and consuming. It neutralizes good. It darkens minds. It produces spiritual amnesia. It comes in many ugly forms and has many distasteful names. It is born in the mind and is given expression with directed body members. It is a tyrant, demanding and uncompromising and unreasonable, tending toward monopoly. It is like creeping paralysis, slipping up in the darkness, getting hold with its tentacles and clinging so tenaciously that it takes a prince with a sharp sword to cut it loose. But the oil of which we speak is destructive of the cruel monster, uncleanness. It prevents and soothes and heals. With this oil in full proportion blended with all the other oils a brilliant light is made, a light which will dispel all darkness, drive away all gloom, reach into all hidden corners, and illumine the way to the temple and to the feet of the bridegroom, the Lord, who will have us judged and weighed and measured and assigned. With this unfailing oil supply we shall climb up the difficult, straight and narrow stairs to the eternal seat of God our Father and his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
        Virgins are not necessarily unmarried girls. A virgin forest is one uncut. Virgin land is new land unexploited. Virgin men and women and children of all ages are those who have not been damaged, contaminated, defiled:

        And at that day, when I shall come in my glory, shalt the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins. For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide; and have not been deceived—verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day. And the earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance; and they shall multiply and wax strong, and their children shall grow up without sin unto salvation. For the Lord shall be in their midst, and his glory shall be upon them, and he will be their king and their lawgiver. [D&C 45:56-59]

        These things are the things that ye must look for; and, speaking after the manner of the Lord, they are now nigh at hand, and in a time to come, even in the day of the coming of the Son of Man. And until that hour there will be foolish virgins among the wise; and at that hour cometh an entire separation of the righteous and the wicked; and in that day will I send mine angels to pluck out the wicked and cast them into unquenchable fire. [D&C 63:53-54]

SOCIAL SERVICES

President Marion G. Romney, First Presidency

Remarks given at the LDS Social Services Directors and
Assistant Directors Seminar 6 October 1977

Abstract
        March 1948 and February 1949 letters from the First Presidency helped establish LDS Social Services. In 1969 the Indian Student Placement, Youth Guidance, Child Adoption. and Unwed Mothers programs were correlated through the Unified Social Services Committee. LDS Social Services grew in response to increasing wickedness. Elder Harold B. Lee said that in today’s world, “Members may need counseling more than clothing." Agency practitioners should work with priesthood leaders and respond to their direction. Agency practitioners should realize the sacred trust which has been given to them and the high standards they are expected to maintain. Practitioners must have integrity and be worthy to receive inspiration from God. Each practitioner should have a vision of the part Welfare Services is to play in preparing for the second coming of the Savior. When practitioners understand the importance of their work, they will feel greater commitment and dedication to it.

Application to LDS Social Services
        This reading will give the agency practitioner a historical perspective on LDS Social Services and establish guidelines for his performance in all service areas. These guidelines deal with the proper relationship to priesthood leaders, the importance of personal standards, and the need for inspiration in one’s work. President Romney emphasizes the need for agency practitioners to help relieve heavy counseling demands upon the priesthood. However, his remarks should not be understood to mean a change in the policy governing the proportion of time spent in consultation vs. the time spent in treatment.

Learning Activities
        After reading this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What events of concern to the First Presidency in 1949 are related to the beginnings of LDS Social Services?
2. What three programs were combined into the Unified Social Services?
3. Although most problems can be solved by following the counsel of a bishop, what reasons does President Romney give for establishing Social Services agencies?
4. Why is the practitioner with LDS Social Services “uniquely qualified to help priesthood leaders solve the problems of their members”?
5. In a world where rules and standards are being changed to accommodate the wickedness of the world, what is expected of the LDS practitioner?
6. Why is it essential that agency practitioners maintain personal integrity when counseling others?
7. How is the ability to receive inspiration linked to the ability to effectively serve others?

Reading
        Brethren, I am honored to have been invited to come and talk to you. You, of course, know that I am not skilled in the field in which you excel, so I shall not try to tell you anything about your particular assignments. My experience has been in the general field of welfare. This department is of rather recent date compared to the work we did forty-five years ago. Our Social Welfare Services Program has an interesting background. Here are a few reminders. It was a long time after the welfare program was started that it took its present form.
        In March of 1948, the First Presidency wrote this letter. It was signed by President George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David 0. McKay.
        Pursuant to a special assignment, Elder Spencer W. Kimball and Elder Mark E. Petersen of the Council of Twelve have the responsibility of a program to assist young women who come to Salt Lake City and other large centers from various parts of the Church. These young girls come to the cities to obtain employment or for other reasons, and are sometimes disappointed in the conditions they find. When lonely and discouraged some of them fall into bad company and enter the paths of sin.
        It is our hope that an efficient policy of procedure may be planned that will assist these young women to become acquainted as soon as possible with good people, affiliate in the wards and become active in [their] Church duties.
        We believe that every young woman should be contacted immediately when she moves into the cities so that she might form those friendships and associations which will lead her into wholesome living and religious activity.
        That’s the first statement about the beginnings of our Welfare Services that I am acquainted with.
        Then again, eleven months later, on February 23, 1949, the First Presidency (this is the same First Presidency) sent the following letter to all the bishops of the wards:

Dear Brethren:
        You will recall that under date of March 22, 1948, [that was the date of the letter I just read,] we wrote you with regard to the program initiated to assist your young women who leave their homes to come to Salt Lake City and other larger centers in pursuit of education, employment, or for other purposes. We called attention to the dangers besetting these young women who leave the wholesome influences of their home and Ward, and, sometimes unchaperoned, find themselves strangers in larger communities.
        To the end that these young women might be properly supervised and encouraged, we have appointed Elders Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Petersen of the Council of the Twelve, [Elder John Longden was later added to that committee,] to follow through on a program which would assist these young women to avoid the pitfalls of sin coming from bad companionship and to find the warm and friendly relationships in the organizations of the Church in the localities to which they have moved.

        During the next twenty years several Social Services programs were developed: Indian Student Placement, Youth Guidance, and Child Adoption and Unwed Mothers.
        Elder Monson reported to the Council of the Twelve in August 1969 that the First Presidency had brought about a correlation of these three social service agencies, the Indian Student Placement, the Youth Guidance, the Child Adoption, and Unwed Mothers programs. It was intended to carry on the work through the ward organization, the bishop and his counselors, and the stake president and his counselors. This correlation brought into being what was known as the Unified Social Services Committee with President Kimball representing the Indian Placement (he was not then president, of course); Brother Monson the Youth Guidance; and one of the advisors of the Relief Society over the Child Adoption and Unwed Mothers program. Brother Vandenberg at that time was the Presiding Bishop, and he represented the Bishopric. Elder Marvin J. Ashton was chosen as the managing director of this combined group known as the Unified Social Services Committee.
        This Unified Social Services Committee met September 25,1969, one month and four days after the time it was organized. The minutes of that meeting close with this statement:

It was understood that the supervision of the work of the Indian Student Placement Program, the Youth Guidance Program, and the Relief Society Social Services, will be assumed by this committee as rapidly as it can be absorbed.

        During October of 1969, the Unified Social Services was given the added responsibility of the youth of the Church living away from home, those between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.
        This great organization in which you brethren are serving today, developed from these early beginnings.
        Speaking at the Regional Representatives’ seminar in October 1970, President Lee said, concerning the Social Services of that day:

[This] program has already been a great blessing to our Church members. . . . [It] seeks to respond to many problems that beset our members in an affluent society, and it will no doubt increase in its importance, because so many of the problems which this cluster of agencies deals with are symptomatic of our time. Members may need counseling more than clothing, and members, who, through bishops, are referred to any agency in our social services program should feel no more hesitancy in asking for help of this kind than they should in requesting help through the priesthood [production] program.

        The people of the earth are today rapidly increasing in wickedness. No group, I guess, is more acquainted with that than you brethren. We are constantly confronted with all forms of immorality—abortions, perversions. prostitution, divorce and other evils.
        In your service you must remember that you as professional staff and those whom you supervise should always be responsive to the priesthood. You are set up as a resource for the priesthood in dealing with these problems. We do not doubt the inspiration that bishops are entitled to receive, and in practically every case, if an individual would do as the bishop counseled him to do, his problems could be solved. However, we often find that bishops carry a very heavy workload and therefore have difficulty in providing the time necessary to help motivate and assist members in overcoming their individual problems. We also realize that much of such work requires a great deal of training and that many problems require a great deal of skill to solve. We also appreciate that much of the work you do requires licensing from the individual states in which you work and therefore priesthood leaders and others cannot legally perform it. We appreciate the fact that you men and your staff have professional training and skills which can teach people how to communicate, how to solve problems, and how to meet the problems and challenges of life. When you are professionally trained and also have firm testimonies of the gospel, you are uniquely qualified to help priesthood leaders solve the problems of their members. I hope you remember this and understand that what has been given you is a sacred trust. Because of the wickedness of the world and the inability of priesthood leaders to find professional help which is consistent with the principles of the gospel, you have been called to provide the required help. There are too many in the world who advocate changing rules and standards to ease the conscience of the transgressor. The world does not understand what you understand, that conscience is God-given and cannot be eased by simply changing the rules. Eternal laws and principles cannot be brushed aside. Justice demands payment, and of course, through repentance, mercy claimeth her own. We often hear of professionals advocating the violation of sacred covenants as ways to promote personal or marital happiness. This course never works. We look to you brethren to hold the standards high as you provide this important help to members of the Church.
        We are grateful that recently the Welfare Services Department has come together under the direction of Brother Quinn Gardner. This has allowed us to emphasize our focus of the ‘whole man” concept. We are interested not only in feeding, clothing and employing people. We are also anxious to see that they are happy, that they are as free as possible from emotional and social problems, that they are able to think and reason and feel good about themselves. It is as heartbreaking to see an individual unable to cope with the strains of life as it is to see him go without food. The Lord expects us to help individuals meet the vast array of human needs.
        Be careful as you work with individuals who need love and attention. Make sure that the attention you give them is acceptable and proper. Never allow yourselves to compromise your principles as you seek to comfort and aid a distressed person. As you keep your standards and actions high, you will preserve your personal integrity. Never allow yourselves to compromise and bring unhappiness and sorrow to yourselves and your loved ones. Remember that your ability to help others will to a great extent be based upon your ability to receive inspiration from your Heavenly Father. To the degree that your thoughts and actions are inconsistent with the standards of the gospel, you will find yourself unable to help others. Your work requires inspiration from the Lord in understanding and dealing with these serious problems and if you in any way are involved in activities, whether they be thoughts or actions, which would compromise the Spirit of the Lord, you will find yourself unable to understand the hearts of people, and therefore you will be limited in your ability to help them. We must have faith in the Lord and we must help others have like faith.
        May each of you understand that your responsibility is to help the people you work with to gain salvation in the kingdom of God. This you can best do by responding to and assisting the priesthood leaders who request your help. Your vision of this work should go beyond your everyday duties and tasks. You should have a vision not only of the individual and his salvation, but of the part Welfare Services can play in preparing the earth for the second coming of the Savior. When you truly understand your work, you will have a deeper dedication and commitment to it than you have heretofore felt.
        I bear you my testimony, brethren, that I know that this program is of the Lord, that he is pleased with it, and that he is pleased with us in our efforts to solve the problems and help our people go through this time of wickedness and debauchery in the world.
        I do not have words to express my love and appreciation to you for what you are doing. I know of some cases where you have brought families together, where you have brought parents who were estranged from their children together, and you have filled in the gaps of broken homes. It is a marvelous experience and a marvelous service. The Lord bless you that you may have joy and that you may help save Israel from the pit into which this civilization is falling, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

SELF-RELIANCE

Elder Boyd K. Packer, Council of the Twelve

A fireside address delivered at Brigham Young University 2 May 1975 (Published in Speeches of the Year, 1975 [Provo] Brigham Young University Press, 19761 pp. 343-60; revised for this module by Elder Packer; reprinted by permission.)

Abstract
        Elder Boyd K. Packer believes that many people rely too heavily on counseling services. The principle of self-reliance can and should be applied to the emotional and spiritual side of our lives as well as to the temporal. Members are encouraged to become self-reliant in meeting emotional and spiritual needs. They should call upon every personal and family resource before seeking assistance from the Church. Elder Packer fears that the extensive counseling services offered by the Church and by professionals may be “doling out counsel” without requiring members to first utilize individual and family resources. Emotional doles can weaken a person’s ability to receive personal revelation. When people chronically seek counsel but never follow the advice that is given, their spiritual strength is lost.
        A directive approach in counseling is “at least as respectable" as non-directive approaches. Inappropriate counseling methods can be dangerous, especially those which help create the very problem the individual is trying to prevent. Suggestions to help individuals solve problems through personal efforts include meditation, scriptural study, and prayer, especially early in the morning when the mind is clear.

Application to LDS Social Services
        This talk is fundamental in establishing an appropriate context for the delivery of agency services. Agency clinical services should only be provided after the individual has fully explored and utilized individual and family resources and has gone to the Church for assistance. This talk will help the practitioner understand why he should encourage self-reliance in members of the Church.

Learning Activities
        After reading this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why is Elder Packer concerned about the network of counseling services in the Church?
2. What are the dangers of an “emotional dole system”?
3. Why is a nondirective approach to counseling often not the best approach? How can a client exercise self-reliance and agency when he is counseled directly?
4. What are the dangers when counselors “delve deeper into the lives of subjects than is emotionally or spiritually healthy”?
5. Under what circumstances should there “not be the slightest embarrassment for any member of the Church to receive welfare assistance”?
6. How can an individual become self-reliant and able to solve his own emotional and spiritual problems?

Reading
        I think I should alert you to the fact that the talk I have prepared is not really very interesting. That, I must claim, is not because I have not spent time in preparing it, for I have—a good deal more than usual. I want very much to be informative, and if you find that the talk is not interesting—and you may—be patient with the thought that in this case I would rather teach a few of you than entertain all of you.
        For a long time I have had a subject on my mind that I have wanted to discuss with the young adults of the Church. I have set it aside time after time because it is very difficult to explain. Although the subject is very commonplace, I have never heard anyone else talk about it.
        Before I’m through, perhaps some of you may be like the student who attended a lecture and then wrote:
        I don’t like the teacher. The subject’s too deep.
        I’d cut this class, but I need the sleep.
        Now, if you find yourself in that situation, and you may, be my guest. But no snoring please. We’ll try to awaken you somewhere near the end.
        There is a principle of education known as transfer, and I should like to make use of it by talking about a familiar program of the Church and then transferring the fundamental principle of it to another part of our lives. First. let me review for you some of the basic principles of the Church welfare program. Church welfare, however, is not the subject of my sermon. I’m only going to use it to illustrate a point.
        The Church was two years old when the Lord revealed that “the idler shall not have place in the church, except he repent and mend his ways” (D&C 75:29). President Marion G. Romney in our last conference explained this principle with his characteristic simple directness: “The obligation to sustain one’s self was divinely imposed upon the human race at its beginning. ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground’ (Genesis 3:19).”
        The welfare handbook instructs, “[We must] earnestly teach and urge members to be self-sustaining to the fullest extent of their power. No Latter-day Saint will . . . voluntarily shift from himself the burden of his own support. So long as he can, under the inspiration of the Almighty and with his own labors, he will supply himself with the necessities of life.” [Handbook of Instructions for the Welfare Plan, 1952, p. 2.]
        We have succeeded fairly well in establishing in the minds of Latter-day Saints that they should take care of their own material needs and then contribute to the welfare of those who cannot provide the necessities of life. If a member is unable to sustain himself, then he is to call upon his own family, and then upon the Church, in that order, and not upon the government at all.
        We have counseled bishops and stake presidents to be very careful to avoid abuses in the welfare program. When people are able but are unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord, that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer. The simple rule has been, to the fullest extent possible, to take care of one’s self. This couplet of truth has been something of a model: “Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”
        It’s not an unkind or an unfeeling bishop who requires a member of the Church to work to the fullest extent he can for what he receives from Church welfare. It is not a quick handout system merely for the asking. It requires a careful inventory of all personal resources, all of which must be committed before anything is added from the outside. There should not be the slightest embarrassment on the part of any member of the Church to be assisted by the Church welfare program—provided, that is, that he has contributed all that he can contribute. Every personal resource of his own must be called upon first.
        Some of you are struggling to get through school and you’re suffering from some financial pressure, perhaps even some deprivation for a season while you’re preparing so that you can be self-sustaining all the rest of your lives. If you’re in need, it is quite in order for you to turn first to your family, and then to the Church.
        Because of the probability that some may join the Church for the material security they think they will find here, missionaries are counseled not to emphasize the Church welfare program in their proselyting. I met an investigator once in New Hampshire who was joining the Church for just that reason. He told me how impressed he was with the welfare program and how much he wanted that security. I told him, “Yes, by all means, if you know about the welfare program, join the Church for that reason. We need all of the help we can get, and you shall be called upon continually to contribute to the welfare of others.” His enthusiasm for baptism faded immediately.
        When the Church welfare program was first announced in 1936, the First Presidency made this statement:

Our primary purpose was to set up, insofar as possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of the dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift, and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help people to help themselves. Work is to be reenthroned as a ruling principle in the lives of our Church membership. (Conference Report, October 1936. p. 3: emphasis added.)

        President Romney has emphasized, “To care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good. The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve a Church member from taking care of himself” (Welfare Services Meeting, 5 October 1974).
        I accept the principles of the welfare program. I endorse them. In too many places, in too many ways, we’re getting away from them. The principle of self-reliance is fundamental to the happy life. Now to the point. The substance of what I want to say here tonight to you students of Brigham Young University is this: That same principle, self-reliance, has application in emotional and in spiritual things.
        I have become very anxious over the amount of counseling that we seem to need in the Church, and the network of counseling services that we keep building up without once emphasizing the principle of self-reliance as it is understood in the welfare program. There are too many in the Church who seem to be totally dependent, emotionally and spiritually, upon others. They subsist on some kind of emotional welfare. They are unwilling to sustain themselves. They become so dependent that they endlessly need to be shored up, lifted up, endlessly need encouragement, and they contribute little of their own.
I have been concerned that we may be on the verge of doing to ourselves emotionally (and therefore spiritually) what we have been working so hard for generations to avoid materially. If we lose our emotional and spiritual self-reliance, we can be weakened quite as much, perhaps even more, than when we become dependent materially. On the one hand, we counsel bishops to avoid abuses in the Church welfare program. On the other hand, we seem to dole out counsel and advice without the slightest thought that the member should solve the problem himself or turn to his family. Only when those resources are inadequate should he turn to the Church.
        We recognize at once that it would be folly to develop welfare production projects to totally sustain all of the members of the Church in every material need. We ought likewise to be very thoughtful before we develop a vast network of counseling programs with all of the bishops and branch presidents and everyone else doling out counsel in an effort to totally sustain our members in every emotional need.
        If we are not careful, we can lose the power of individual revelation. The Lord said to Oliver Cowdery, and it has meaning for all of us:

Behold, you have not understood: you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.  But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind: then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you: therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong. (D&C 9:7-9.)

        Has it occurred to you that many problems can be solved by reading the scriptures? We should all personally be familiar with the revelations. As part of your emotional self-reliance, read the scriptures.
        I fear that leaders, both in the stakes and in the University, may be doling out counsel and advice without first requiring you to call on every personal resource and every family resource before seeking a solution of your problems from the Church.
        When we mention family, you may say, "Well, my parents are not here.” I simply respond that your University admission presupposes that you can write. And should it be an emergency, there’s the telephone.
        Some may say that “my parents are not members of the Church.” I say, “Well, that may be, but they are your parents. We expect you to turn to them in times of financial reverses. The same principle has great merit in times of emotional and spiritual stress."
        I had one student come to my office. I knew him personally. He had a very difficult problem. He was trying to decide should he or should he not marry. I asked him, “You’ve come for counsel?”
        “Yes. indeed,” he said.
        “Are you going to follow it when I give it to you?” I asked. That was a surprise to him.
        Finally he consented —“Yes.”
        I happened to know his father—a patriarch in the Church, and as wonderful a man as there is. I said. “This is my counsel. Go home this weekend. Talk to your father, get him in a bedroom or some private place, tell him your dilemma, ask him for his counsel and do what he tells you to do. That is my counsel.”
        I think an emotional dole system can be as dangerous as a material dole system, and we can become so dependent that we stand around waiting for the Church to do everything for us.
        A few years ago I received a telephone call from a bishop whose son had been inducted into the military service and was at an army basic-training center. The father said, “He’s been there for three weeks and he hasn’t been to church yet.” Then he described his son as being an active Latter-day Saint, faithful in his duties. He had received his Duty to God award and was typical of the fine young men in the Church. “He’s never missed a church meeting before,” his father said. “Isn’t there something you can do to help?” The boy had telephoned and said that no one had come yet to invite him to go to church.
I made an investigation of the circumstances. Can you picture the following: In the barracks a few feet from his bunk was a bulletin board. On it was an 8½-by-11 bulletin with a picture of the Salt Lake Temple on it, and a listing of the meeting times at the base chapel. He had been to an orientation for all new inductees, conducted by one of the base chaplains. While in this case it was not a Latter-day Saint chaplain, there was a Latter-day Saint chaplain at that installation. This fact had been noted in the lecture, incidentally. He had been told that if he wanted to know about church services to talk to the sergeant on duty, or he could contact any chaplain’s office and that information would readily be given him.
        He, however, had been told before he left home that the Church had a wonderful program to help young men in the military service. He was assured that the Church was doing everything to take care of our men and that we would find them and look after them and bring the full Church program to them. He had, therefore, laid back on his bunk, propped up his feet, put his head on the pillow, and waited for the Church to do everything for him. He waited three weeks and was disappointed enough that he called his father, the bishop, to say that the Church had failed him.
        Now this was not malicious. It was just that he had been brought up with the idea that the whole effort and duty of the Church was to look after him. (He had missed the very point that the whole effort of the Church is to give him the opportunity to serve someone else.) Surely, since he was away from home and in a strange place and needing attention more than he had ever needed it in his life, all of that help, he was sure, would be forthcoming immediately without any effort on his part. He had been weakened by a dole system and was now in mortal spiritual jeopardy because he would not act for himself.
        That experience had a great effect on me, and when we reorganized the military relations program, it was entirely changed in its emphasis from what it had been before over the years.
        This change can be illustrated by one thing. The old program urged the ward or the quorum to subscribe to the Church magazine for every man entering the military service. It was the duty of the bishop to see that the subscription was renewed during the time of his enlistment.
        Now we have changed all of that. Now we counsel the young man to subscribe to the magazine himself and to pay for it out of his own money. He ordinarily has money to spend on less useful things, and he should learn to take care of himself at the very beginning. If he cannot, for one reason or another, then his family should supply it. If they cannot, or if in some cases they will not, then and only then would it be the responsibility of the ward or the quorum to step in and see that this important Church publication is sent to him.
        We found That our men would not bother to file change-of-address cards for the magazines if the subscriptions had been doled out to them. They had done nothing to earn them, and they didn’t appreciate them. On one occasion we had a communication from the commanding general at Fort Ord asking us to please cease and desist from sending subscriptions of Church magazines to men in basic training. They were there for only a few weeks and then they moved on. He advised, “We literally have a roomful of what now must be termed ‘junk mail.’ Under military regulations we cannot forward it and therefore must destroy it.”
        It is interesting to see what has happened in that military relations program. It used to be that every week there would be many letters, My boy is somewhere. Please, won’t you get all of the Church working to find him?” We have put the shoe on the other foot. He’s finding himself now. He is more self-reliant.
        In virtually every ward or branch there are chronic cases of individuals who endlessly seek counsel but never follow the counsel that is given. That, some may assume, is not serious. I think it is very serious! Like the common cold, it drains more strength out of humanity than any other disease. We seem to be developing an epidemic of “counselitis’ which drains spiritual strength from the Church. Spiritual self-reliance is the sustaining power in the Church. If we rob you of that, how can you get the revelation that there is a prophet of God? How can you get answers to prayer? How can you know? If we move so quickly to answer all your questions and provide so many ways to solve all of your problems, we may end up weakening you, not strengthening you.
        Now, I say here that I know quite well that some counselors are apt to say, “My counseling does not rob one of his self-reliance because I use the nondirective counseling approach. I am scrupulously careful not to take a position. I merely reflect back comments and feelings of the individual so that he will make the decision totally himself. I do my counseling by nondirection and never make a value judgment.”
        While I have respect for that procedure of counseling as a method, I think that if that’s all they do, nondirection, very often that’s precisely what we get from the counseling—no direction. When counselors schedule interminable sessions to say as little as possible while the student is struggling to try to decide if something’s right or wrong, and the counselor already knows, that’s a waste of time. So is the fussing around trying to determine whether it is right for you under the circumstances or wrong for you under the circumstances, when anyone with any moral sense would know that if a course is wrong, it’s wrong for anybody and it’s wrong for everybody.
        In the Church, the directive pattern of counseling is at least as respectable and decent and desirable and needed as the nondirective approach to counseling. Unfortunately, we see very little of it anymore. How sweet and refreshing for a branch president or a bishop or a counselor to say clearly to a student, “This course is right and this course is wrong. Now, you go make the decision.” The student ought to know what is right and what is wrong by the quickest method possible, and that may be very directive. There is a crying need for counselors who will say pointedly and plainly, “This is wrong. It’s evil. It’s bad. It will bring you unhappiness. This course is right. It’s good. It’s desirable. It will bring you happiness.” Then the agency comes when the individual determines for himself whether or not he will follow the right course.
        In the world, this preoccupation with counseling has led to a number of experiments from which we are not entirely free in the Church. There are those counselors who want to delve deeper into the lives of subjects than is emotionally or spiritually healthy. I think I should explain here that when I use the word counselor, I’m not just talking about professional counselors. I’m talking about all of us who are responsible for counseling. There are those who want to draw out and analyze and take apart and dissect. While a certain amount of catharsis is healthy and essential, overmuch of it can be degenerating. It is seldom as easy to put something back together as it is to take it apart.
        There have been developed several procedures for group therapy. They are promoted under a number of titles: sensitivity training, self-actualization, training groups or T-groups, simulation, transactional analysis, encounter groups, marathon counseling sessions. Some even function under such titles as value clarification, one or two under the title of character education, and so on. Although they differ in some respects (none of them is exactly alike), one or more of the following elements is apparent in all of them: They recognize no ultimate source of truth. All values are those established by the individuals or by the group. There is no reference to God. They encourage a free and full expression, something of a confession, before the group of every intimate and personal feeling and experience. They encourage an openness. a touching, and a closeness among the members of the group, and they attempt to resolve problems simply by finding a comfortable interaction. Above all, they avoid any feeling of guilt.
        There are major emotional and spiritual dangers involved in such procedures, and members of the Church would do well to be very cautious, perhaps even to leave them alone.
        There is a question at times whether or not the sessions are for the good of the counselee or for the curiosity and amusement of the counselor. Young people, you should know that when you’re dealing with things of the mind and of the spirit, it’s so easy to cause the very thing you’re trying to prevent.
        I remember years ago, on the island of Kauai, seeing a little sign in a photographer’s shop that said:

If there is beauty, we will take it
If there is none, we will make it.

I fear that some of us. in our overmuch counseling, seem to be saying:

If there are problems, we’ll abate them.
If there are none, we’ll create them.

        That, incidentally, is my first poem. Now, I know it isn’t Carol Lynn Pearson, but it has a thought to it.
        I want to emphasize this point: I am fully aware that there are times when deep-seated emotional problems will respond to the procedures we have been talking about. They can have therapeutic value. There is, however, no justification to employ them in the absence of deep-seated emotional problems. There is no more justification for doing that than there is justification for a medical doctor to perform unnecessary surgery. When someone is just experimenting or riding the crest of the wave of a new counseling theory, I would no more encourage you to submit to such counseling procedures than I would recommend that you submit to brain surgery under the hands of a nurse or an intern or a ward attendant.
        I think you’ve probably heard the account of the parents who were leaving their children untended for a few hours. They had gone out the door. Then the mother opened the door again and said, “Now, children, while we’re gone, whatever you do, don’t take the stool and go into the pantry and climb up and reach up on the second shelf and move the cracker box to reach back and get that sack of beans and put one up your nose, will you?”
        I say again, it’s very easy when you’re dealing with things of the mind and the spirit to cause the very thing you’re trying so desperately to prevent. When you go for counseling, remember this from the Book of Mormon:

Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. (2 Nephi 28:31.)

        The Lord also gave this warning:

O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. (2 Nephi 9:28-29.)

        Now, if you are willing to agree that the basic principles underlying the Church welfare program have application in your emotional and spiritual life—specifically, that independence, industry, thrift, self-reliance, and self-respect should be developed; that work be enthroned as a ruling principle in your life: that the evils of an emotional or spiritual dole should be avoided; and that the aim of the Church is to help the members to help themselves—then I have some principles and some suggestions for you.
        We mentioned earlier that there should not be the slightest embarrassment for any member of the Church to receive welfare assistance, provided he has exhausted his own personal resources first, and those available in his family. Likewise. there should not be the slightest embarrassment on the part of any member of the Church who needs counsel to receive that counsel. At times it may be crucial that you seek and that you accept counsel.
        When you are discouraged and feel that you cannot solve a problem on your own, you may be right, but at least you are obligated to try. Every personal resource available to you should be committed before you take another step, and you have powerful resources. The Book of Mormon declares this one, which is often overlooked:

For the Spirit is the same, yesterday. today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free. And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. (2 Nephi 2:4-5; emphasis added.)

        It is critically important that you understand that you already know right from wrong, that you’re innately, inherently, and intuitively good. When you say, “I can’t! I can’t solve my problems!” I want to thunder out, “Don’t you realize who you are? Haven’t you learned yet that you are a son or a daughter of Almighty God? Do you not know that there are powerful resources inherited from Him that you can call upon to give you steadiness and courage and great power?"
        Most of you have been taught the gospel all your lives. All of you know the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong. Isn’t it time then that you decide that you’re going to do right? In so doing you’re making a choice. Not just a choice, but you’re making the choice. Once you’ve decided that, with no fingers crossed, no counterfeiting, no reservations or hesitancy, the rest will all fall into place.
        Most people who come for counsel to the stake presidents. branch presidents, bishops, and others, and to us as General Authorities, don’t come because they are confused and they are not able to see the difference between right and wrong. They come because they’re tempted to do something that deep down they know is wrong, and they want that decision ratified.
        When you have a problem, work it out in your own mind first. Ponder on it and analyze it and meditate on it. Read the scriptures. Pray about it. I’ve come to learn that major decisions can’t be forced. You must look ahead and have vision. What was it the prophet said in the Old Testament? “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).
        Ponder on things a little each day and don’t always be in the crisis of making major decisions on the spur of the moment. If you’re looking ahead in life, you can see major problems coming down the road toward you from some considerable distance. By the time you meet one another, you are able at the very beginning to take charge of the conversation. Once in a while a major decision will jump out at you from the side of the road and startle the wits out of you, but not very often. If you’ve already decided that you’re going to do what is right and let all of the consequences follow, even those encounters won’t hurt you.
        I have learned that the best time to wrestle with major problems is early in the morning. Your mind is fresh and alert. The blackboard of your mind has been erased by a good night’s rest. The accumulated distractions of the day are not in your way. Your body has been rested also. That’s the time to think something through very carefully and to receive personal revelation.
        I’ve heard President Harold B. Lee begin many a statement about matters involving revelation with an expression something like this: “In the early hours of the morning, while I was pondering upon that subject," and so on. He made it a practice to work on the problems that required revelation in the fresh, alert hours of the early morning.
        The Lord knew something when He directed in the Doctrine and Covenants, "Cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated” (D&C 88:124).
        I have a friend who bought a business. A short time later he suffered catastrophic reverses. There just didn’t seem to be any way out for him, and finally it got so bad that he couldn’t sleep. So, for a period of time he followed the practice of getting up about three o'clock in the morning and going to the office. There, with a paper and a pen, he would ponder and pray and write down every idea that came to him as a possible solution or a contribution to the solution of his problem. It wasn't long before he had  several possible directions that he could go, and it was not much longer than that until he had chosen the best of them but he had earned an extra bonus. His notes showed, after going over them, that he had discovered many hidden resources that he had never noticed before. He came away more independent and successful than he ever would have been if he hadn't suffered those reverses.
        There's a lesson in that. A year or two later he was called to preside over a mission in one of the foreign lands. His business was so independent and well set up that when he came back he didn't return to it. He just has someone else managing it, and he is able to give virtually all of his time now to the blessing of others.
        I counsel our children to do their critical studying in the early hours of the morning when they're fresh and alert, rather than to fight physical weariness and mental exhaustion at night. I've learned that the dictum "Early to bed, early to rise" is powerful. When under pressure-for instance, when I was preparing this talk-you wouldn't find me burning the midnight oil. Much rather I'd be early to bed and getting up in the wee hours of the morning, when I could be close to Him who guides this work.
        Now, about revelation. We have all been taught that revelation is available to each of us individually. The question I'm most often asked about revelation is, "How do I know when I have received it? I've prayed about it and fasted over this problem and prayed about it and prayed about it, and I still don't quite know what to do. How can I really tell whether I'm being inspired so I won't make a mistake?"
        First, do you go to the Lord with a problem and ask Him to make your-- decision for you? Or do you work, read the revelations, and meditate and pray and then make a decision yourself? Measure the problem against what you know to be right and wrong, and then make the decision. Then, ask Him if the decision is right or if it is wrong. Remember what He said to Oliver Cowdery about working it out in your mind.
        Listen to this sentence if you don't hear anything else: If we foolishly ask our bishop or branch president or the Lord to make a decision for us there's precious little self-reliance in that. Think what it costs every time you have somebody else make a decision for you.
        I think I should mention one other thing, and I hope this won't be misunderstood. We often find young people who will pray with great exertion over matters that they are free to decide for themselves. Suppose if you will, that a couple bad money available to build a house. Suppose they had prayed endlessly over whether they should build an Early American style, a ranch style, modern-style architecture, or perhaps a Mediterranean style. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps the Lord just plain doesn't care? Let them build what they want to build. It's their choice. In many things we can do just what we want.
        Now, there are some things He cares about very much. If you're going to build that house, then be honest and pay for the material that goes into it and do a decent job of building it. When you move into it, live righteously in it. Those are the things that count.
        On occasions I've had to counsel people that the Lord would probably quite willingly approve the thing they intend to do even when they want to. It's strange when they come and almost feel guilty about doing something because they want to, even when it's righteous. The Lord is very generous with the freedom He gives us. The more we learn to follow the right, the more we are spiritually self-reliant, the more our freedom and our independence are affirmed. "If ye continue in my word," He said, "then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth she make you free" (John 8:31-32).
        There is great meaning in these words from Carol Lynn Pearson, entitled "The Lesson":

Yes, my fretting,
Frowning child,
I could cross
The room to you
More easily.

But I’ve already
Learned to walk,
So I make you
Come to me.

Let go now—
There!
You see?

Oh, remember
This simple lesson,
Child,
And when
In later years
You cry out
With tight fists
And tears—
“Oh, help me,
God—please.”—
Just listen
And you’ll hear
A silent voice:

I would, child,
I would.
But it’s you,
Not I,
Who needs to try
Godhood.
(Beginnings, [Provo: Trilogy Arts. 1967], p. l8.)

        Laman and Lemuel complained to Nephi, ‘Behold, we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken.”
        “Have ye inquired of the Lord?” Nephi asked them.
        And think of this answer. They said to him, “We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.”
        “How is it,” he answered. “that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that ye will perish, because of the hardness of your hearts? Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you” (see 1 Nephi 15:7-11).
        In conclusion, if we lose the spirit and power of individual revelation, we have lost much in this Church. You have great and powerful resources. You, through prayer, can solve your problems without endlessly going to those who are trying so hard to help others.
        Now, if you start receiving revelations for anyone else’s jurisdiction, you know immediately that you’re out of order, that they come from the wrong source. You will not receive revelation to counsel your bishop or to correct the leaders of the Church.
        If you become so dependent and insecure about prayer and the answer to prayer that you are hesitant to rely on them, then you are weak.
        If we follow a course where, on one hand, we would carefully scrutinize an order for welfare products and yet, on the other hand, dole out counsel and advice without sending you to your own storehouse of knowledge and inspiration, then we have done you a disservice.
        This Church relies on individual testimony. Each must earn his own testimony. It is then that you can stand and say, as I can say, that I know that God lives, that He is our Father, that we have a child-parent relationship with Him. I know that He is close, that we can go to Him and appeal, and then, if we will be obedient and listen and use every resource, we will have an answer to our prayers.
        This is His church. God lives, Jesus is the Christ. We have a prophet presiding over this Church. Every one of us and every other soul on this Church. Every one of us and every other soul on this earth can know that. I bear witness of that. I know that He lives and affirm this witness to you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE GOSPEL AND THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Council of the Twelve

An address delivered at a Brigham Young University symposium on the behavioral sciences, 26 February 1976. (Published in the Ensign, July 1976, pp. 70-75)

Abstract
        Elder Maxwell challenges all Latter-day Saint behavioral scientists to build a bridge between revealed and secular knowledge. He provides guidelines to help the practitioner recognize the truths that have already been given as well as cautions against becoming overly involved in the ways of the world. Professionals need to present to the world God’s laws governing happiness and misery. The practitioner should place his trust in God and follow revealed truth. As he does so, he may not enjoy the popularity and praise of the world, but he will earn the approval of God and will be a true source of help to those entrusted into his care.

Application to LDS Social Services
        This article is specifically addressed to Latter-day Saint behavioral scientists. It will help inspire each practitioner to rely upon revealed truth while learning from and building upon the best the professional world has to offer.

Learning Activities
        Upon reading this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why should LDS behavioral scientists build bridges between revealed and secular knowledge?
2. Why is it essential to build upon the truths given in the gospel?
3. What are some essential gospel truths that are pertinent to psychotherapy?
4. While the LDS therapist may not enjoy the popularity of those who engage in worldly approaches, what does Elder Maxwell mean when he says that there may be an academic equivalent of Isaiah’s prophecy, "Come ye, let us go up to the Lord’s house of learning to be taught and shown his ways”?
5. What qualities does a therapist need to build the bridges spoken of?
6. Why must the LDS therapist avoid some worldly approaches, even though they may seem to have dramatic results?
7. What effects has relativism had upon society?
8. How can our relationship with the Church help us offset the effects of relativism?

Reading
        I appreciate the chance to be with you, my brothers and sisters. I am always renewed and benefited by coming to this campus. This is the only university in the world that is asked to be both a display university and a real university at the same time. You must not be surprised, therefore, if those of us who are not with you every day draw strength from and are renewed by being with you. Even our nonmember friends usually come away thrilled, and yet somewhat perplexed, by their experiences here.
        I appreciate the invitation that came to me from Allen Bergin to join you. His optimism that I might have some things to say is basically why I am here. I certainly have no research to report as, happily, do others. I have appreciated the chance to react to many of the presentations to be made, and I commend BYU for including in its Centennial celebration a symposium of “The Gospel and the Behavioral Sciences.” Surely, this is an area of special concern for the Church—its people and its scholars. I commend the scholars who are participating and all like them who are striving to join their gospel scholarship and their academic scholarship.
        This leads me to the second reason I am here—to suggest that the LDS behavioral scientists become more of a link and bridge between revealed truth and the world of scholarship. The LDS scholar has his citizenship in the kingdom, but carries his passport into the professional world—not the other way around.
        Of such bridge-building, these caveats need to be issued at the outset:

1. Some such bridges can be built—but not easily. We sometimes know more spiritually than we can tell, simultaneously, in scholarly terms. Sometimes we see the tip of a certain iceberg of insights. Other times we do not even see the tip, but we know it is there.
2. Some such bridges cannot be built for a while. There is much that God will yet reveal to us. Since divine disclosure comes so often by degrees, some of the great insights in the behavioral sciences that might bear on “how-to” skills and approaches may not be divulged for a while.
3. Some foot bridges have already been built which can be widened into thoroughfares. More work can be done in converging scholarship and scriptural truths.
4. While we may not now know fully how to construct all these bridges of which I have been speaking, we know now that some bridges simply cannot be built, however much some secular scholars struggle to do so. For instance, we may not yet know the best form of therapy in every case, but we can know that certain forms of therapy used by the world are clearly inappropriate for us as Latter-day Saints.

        Having said those things by way of caution, my basic assumption is that much more bridge-building can be done than has been done—without compromising the concepts contained in the revelations of God and without being so eager that our scholarship becomes sloppy, for academic advocacy soon strips itself of the sense of science.
        The two responses to be avoided when discussing the challenges of such bridge-building are, first, disinterest in even trying; and second, assuming a posture in which LDS behavioral scientists are, at every point, indistinguishable from those whose approach is purely secular.
        When we start building the proper and needed bridges, God will help us—individually and collectively. It will not surprise me in the least if some of the insights and methodologies of able, orthodox, LDS behavioral scientists will exert an increasing gravitational pull on some of our thoughtful nonmember colleagues in the years ahead. Perhaps there will even be the academic equivalent of what Isaiah foresaw, and thoughtful souls will say in various ways, “Come ye, let us go up” to the Lord’s house of learning to be taught and shown his ways. (See Isa. 2:3.) If we are not ashamed of Jesus Christ and his teachings, he will not be ashamed of us.
        When we seek to communicate, however, with those in the world of scholarship, we must speak to them and communicate with them “after the manner of their language.” (See D&C 1:24.) We can, as many LDS behavioral scientists have done, develop our skills in that “tongue” without coming to prefer it and without losing the mother tongue of faith.
        To build bridges will require both courage and competency. It will require the perspiration and persistence of a Pasteur. It will require the forsaking of the easy praise of the world that comes from following the fashionable. But real esteem is earned, while often authority is conferred.
        We must not be disturbed if we are unfashionable in terms of the trends of the time, for as Paul reminds us, “The fashion of this world passeth away.” (1 Cor. 7:31.)
        It is a great source of satisfaction to me to know in the realm of relationships—of an individual to himself, to God, and to his fellowmen—that the Lord has disclosed the doctrines that are crucial and essential.
        Though we cannot fully fathom all their implications, if we can accept the basic truths, we have already come some distance. Such basic truths include:

1. That man is created in the image of God.
2. That environment and heredity by themselves do not account for all human differences.
3. That free agency is an exceedingly important element in the growth and development of individuals; indeed, as President Marion G. Romney has said, “the preservation of this free agency is more important than the preservation of life itself.”
4. That life’s design is such that God, speaking of us, has said with reference to this mortal estate, “Let us prove them herewith” (see Abr. 3:25), a truth that is rich with implications.
5. That life’s Divine design also involves “an opposition in all things.” (See 2 Ne. 2:11-16.)
6. That this is a world of law, the breaking or keeping of which brings misery or blessings, respectively.
7. That “almost all men” misuse authority and power. (See D&C 121:39.)

        We will find that not only are there strategic signposts of morality, but there are also tactical standards of morality with which we must be concerned if we are to preserve our identity in the way that is most helpful to us and to our fellowmen. We must not unintentionally assume the appearance of evil in its various cultural costumes and dispensational dimensions. The length of Samson’s hair not only gave him strength, it set him apart from the Philistines, whose passion for alcohol Samson did not share either. The prophet will always help us to set the tone of tactical morality when such is needed to set us apart from some contemporaries. Paul did this for female Church members in Corinth, counseling them, I am told, so they would not be confused with prostitutes because of uncovered hair. Thus, the principles do not change, but as Dr. Daniel H. Ludlow has said, the practices may vary. We can always look to the prophet for guidance with regard to these tactical dimensions of morality.
        In these and in many other ways, we have been blessed with decisive insights.
        By contrast, the uncertain relativist is flooded by facts at the same time he is parched by the trickle of theory. But the disciples of Jesus will be able to take hold of the timbers of truth to survive and ultimately use these timbers of truth to build the bridges about which I have been speaking.
        What we do know, therefore, is so very much! We have been given more cosmic clues and cues than we have yet used as Latter-day Saints.
        We know what others only surmise. It was Marcel Proust who wrote insightfully of premortality as follows:

“All that can be said is that everything in our life happens as though we entered upon it with a load of obligations contracted in a previous existence. There is no reason arising from the conditions of our life on this earth for us to consider ourselves obliged to do good, to be tactful, even to be polite. … All these obligations whose sanction is not of this present life, seem to belong to a different world, founded on kindness, scruples, sacrifices, a world entirely different from this one, a world whence we emerge to be born on this earth, before returning thither, perhaps to live under the empire of those unknown laws we have obeyed because we bore their teaching within us without knowing who had taught us.” (Marcel Proust, La Prisonniere, as quoted in Homo Viator by Gabriel Marcel.)

        We know the reality of what men like that may surmise. Could it be that with regard to the behavioral sciences we are in much the same position President Spencer W. Kimball says we are in with regard to missionary work: he reminded us as members of the Church that the Lord won’t open any doors until we are truly ready to enter those doorways.
        I am pleased with the many thoughtful people of the world who share many of our concerns and who are increasingly anxious to address themselves to fundamental issues. Ronald Butt, writing recently in Great Britain, said of pornography:
        “Pornography, like peace, is indivisible. Of course, some pornography is much worse than others; the more it suggests physical cruelty, the worse it usually is. But all pornography, even what is usually called ‘soft,’ which today is harder than most people think, has certain things in common. One of the essential qualities is the exploitation of those who provide the material.”
        Ronald Butt also reminded us that not only is pornography paternalistic—it is devilishly desensitizing. He wrote: “The history of the Roman arena instructs us how the appetite of a people can be created by what is fed to it—the upper classes of Rome were systematically addicted by their rulers to the frenzy and titillation of sadistic violence by a steady progression from less to more until the Roman character itself was conditioned to a coarse insensibility to suffering.”
        Butt concluded his interesting discussion of the challenge of pornography by saying: “It is, in the end, not a matter of quibbling about the words of statutes; it is about priorities and first principles.” (London Times, Feb. 1976.)
        In my view, brothers and sisters, the “first principles” and “priorities” about which Ronald Butt speaks are the very truths and insights that we have in such abundance in the gospel of Jesus Christ!
        For me, another fundamental insight is the reality that our Father in heaven knows us deeply, longitudinally, and individually, and perfectly. Because of his knowing us in these ways, God has sent consistent and repetitive messages concerning human behavior through Jesus Christ, and through prophets, emphasizing again and again certain key principles. The very repetitiveness of those messages lets us know much about man’s nature, especially in view of God’s perfect love for us and his perfect knowledge about us.
        Man has been taught, therefore, concerning the “thou shalt nots,” and we have also been taught the “thou shalts” by the Sermon on the Mount and other eloquent expressions. In so teaching us, God has portrayed the proximate and ultimate consequences of various behavior in terms of the misery that follows sinning, or the happiness that follows righteousness. Thus, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not “data rich and theory poor.” These patches of profundities (some samples of which I have cited) are, of course, interconnected in a spiritual ecology in a system of law which can and must be much better presented to the thoughtful people of the world than we have yet done.
        The reality that there are such guideposts or signposts to mark the way (so that we need not fall off either side of the straight and narrow path) does not make our journey any less a real adventure. In getting from mark A to mark Z, we must walk carefully and watch our footing along the path and help those who struggle less successfully.
        We shall probably learn later on that the number and nature of the markers are such as to maximize our growth in mortality while in this second estate. Too few, and we would be lost. Too many, and we would not stretch our souls. After all, the dispute in the premortal councils focused in large measure on that very issue!
        If we sometimes wonder about the stress the scriptures place on the avoidance of certain evils, as well as the choosing of certain goods, it is because the human development sought for consists of both refusing to do evil and choosing to do good in rejecting some things and affirming others. A commitment to truth requires the rejection of some things as well as the acceptance of others. That is part and parcel of the process of progression. Otherwise, we would be like so many precious souls who are neutralized or stranded in a psychological no-man’s-land in between the behavioral barbarians on one hand and the righteous on the other. The prophet Mormon says that those so stranded experience the “sorrowing of the damned” (Morm. 2:13), a mortal melancholy, a schizoid suffering as did one such sample group because, as the scriptures say: “They did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives.” (Morm. 2: 14.)
        In what we are asked to reject are certain important clues concerning that human behavior which produces lasting growth and happiness and that which produces misery.
        Our conduct—not whether we are Asian or American—finally determines, in fact, whether we are to enjoy a telestial culture, a terrestrial culture, or a celestial culture, for finally, as Paul reminds us: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. “So also is the resurrection of the dead.” (1 Cor. 15:41-42.)
        There are contemporary cultural differences, too, of course, but the sincere seeker after celestial culture must be more concerned with the preparation for that culture than with the preservation of present culture. Such things as how we hold a knife and fork when we eat or how we dance are differences that seldom matter much. There are other current cultural differences that do matter much: a morbid sense of despondency about life itself, a feeling of futility about man’s purpose could depress a people to a point where they do not extract from this second estate those things which really matter and which are intended to happen here. Enough prophets have inveighed against unwise or wicked “traditions of the fathers” for us to know that certain mortal traditions can be devastating and disabling. Cultural differences, however, which are matters of preference and not principle can continue to provide color and variety. God seems to love variety, except in doctrine—because the latter is so crucial.
        The hard sayings of the scriptures are, therefore, in fact just that. They are especially hard to bear if we are guilty. Little wonder that we read on one occasion how, having heard the rigorous requirements of a revealed religion, the disciples of Jesus became anxious. Of them we read: “And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?” (Mark 10:26; italics added.)
        The ways of God are not the ways of the world. Just because sometimes behavior is changed gradually is no reason to obscure the ideal. Since Jesus spoke of the wrongness of mental adultery—are we free to sanction salacious imagery in therapy? There are real risks if we appear to sanction, even tacitly, something less than what is required. There are some ditches we cannot jump in two jumps. We must jump all the way across to the other side or not at all.
        It should not matter to us that we may be misunderstood by the world in this respect. Remember the taunt flung at Jesus as he was on the cross: he could save others, but could he not save himself? Naivete often stares at reality without seeing it! Beneficiaries are often blind to their blessings.
        When others see us enduring to the end, following “first principles,” it may make no sense to them at all. But we must endure anyway. For if the salt, the Saints, were to lose their distinctiveness, then the world would be increasingly tasteless. It was Jesus who said: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” (Matt. 5:13.)
        If all things are a matter of preference and nothing is a matter of principle, why not put Dracula in charge of the blood bank? If we became just like the world, the world would hold us in double contempt; and the Lord would be as displeased as he was when, through his prophet Ezekiel, he said his “priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean.” (Ezek. 22:26; italics added.)
        Thus it must be in the behavioral sciences, as well. Otherwise, we will be victimized by relativism, as most of the world has been already. Paul made a plea for us to see the importance of simplicity and certainty: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.” (1 Cor. 14:8-9.)
        This pattern of doing what is right faithfully and conscientiously may reduce the rewards and plaudits of the world which will usually go to others, for as the Savior said: “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” (1 Jn. 4:5.)
        Chesterton warned about accommodating ourselves “to the trend of the time,” which he said “at its best consists entirely of people who will accommodate themselves to anything,” even “to a trend that isn’t there.” Meanwhile, while there may be much mocking, significant numbers of some sober scholars and thoughtful individuals in the world will notice the glow of the gospel light as it breaks forth in the behavioral sciences, as elsewhere, in preparation for the promised period Isaiah foresaw when “the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” (Isa. 26:9; italics added.) But the spirit by which we proceed is not the spirit of this world. Paul said, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (1 Cor. 2:12; italics added.)
        Many insights have been “freely given to us of God” that remain to be spoken of articulately, humbly, and scholastically—in the classrooms and from the rooftops of our academic enclaves for, as Jesus said: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” (Matt. 5:14.)
        Let us not keep that light hidden under a bushel, especially when others need the truths which we have—for their happiness here and for their salvation in the world to come!
        We will need to be at least as diligent as the children of this world are in pursuing their research and in advancing their values, for the children of light often are lax and slack. It was Jesus himself who, at the end of one parable, observed: “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8; italics added.)
        LDS behavioral scientists must extract both the obvious and hidden wisdom embedded in the value system of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.” (1 Cor. 2:7.)
        We have to avoid doing what the world so often does, missing the simple truths and missing the obvious truths—in Jacob’s diagnostic phrase—because we are forever “looking beyond the mark.” (Jacob 4:14.)
        There are some striking parallels between the mocking of the Saints experienced in Lehi’s vision and what we are warned about. It was the Savior who said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.” (Luke 6:22; italics added.)
        We must also avoid being conformed to the world. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Rom. 12:2; italics added.)
        More than has been the case so far, quality research can prove that which is the good. Conventional wisdom will often not be enough, given our goals and obligations. We must not be surprised, either, if some people on the earth regard Jesus Christ, his gospel and his Church, as either “foolishness” or a “stumblingblock.” It was Paul who said: “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” (1 Cor. 1:23.)
        We must not be perplexed or be taken by surprise either, by the actions of those who are not believers. We read in Acts: “But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.” (Acts 17:5; italics added.)
        Often those who believe not will act with envy concerning those who do believe. What accounts for this envy I cannot fully say, but the envy is often there. There was, in ancient Greece, the tale of Aristides the Just:

“Aristides encountered an illiterate citizen who was struggling to make out his ostrakon [the periodic way in which ancient Greeks could, with sufficient “votes,” exile an offending countryman]. When Aristides inquired as to whether or not he could help this man mark his ostrakon, the man said yes and asked, not knowing who his helper was, to have the name of Aristides put on the ‘ballot’ as deserving of ostracism. Aristides, wisely seeking feedback, still did not identify himself but asked why the man wished this fate upon Aristides. The man said it was because he had grown tired of hearing incessantly how noble and how just Aristides was. There was, apparently, an intrinsic resentment of Aristides’ image of nobility.”

        Indeed, there are and will be those who are stirred up to anger against that which is good! We, likewise, will be confronted with major ironies in which people will turn to teachers of the world and be turned away “from the truth” and “turned into fables.” (See 2 Tim. 4:4.)
        The appetite of man for “fables” and the turning away from truth is not confined to the behavioral sciences, but it is present there also.
        If, as some suggest, unchecked drives for sexual gratification and indulgence are in fact “a sign of regression to primitive and infantile forms of satisfaction and gratification,” and if sex gratification is “usually symptomatic of retardation or regression in personal development” (John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Love? Niles, Ill.: Argus Communications, pp. 93, 94), then little wonder that we must be concerned not only with behavioral chastity, but with chastity of our thoughts. One scholar, Unwin, years ago examined thirty-seven societies and concluded that a society cannot have both sexual permissiveness and significant social energy for more than one generation.
        Will and Ariel Durrant, who studied twenty civilizations, producing ten volumes, warned, among other things, that sex is a river of fire which must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints or it will destroy both the individual and the group.
        John Lukacs warned that sexual immorality is not merely a marginal development but is at the very center of the moral crisis of our time.
        For the unchaste, we can be both truthful and loving in helping them to see sin and to forsake it. Alma did this with warmth and wisdom for his unchaste son. He said: “And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance. O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility.” (Alma 42:29-30.)
        Some significant clues for therapy and counseling are contained in that episode.
        The growing heresy, that disarming fable that there is a private morality, not only turns many away from the truth but also threatens to bury man in an avalanche of appetite.
        Norman Cousins wrote that “People who insist on seeing everything and doing anything run the risk of feeling nothing.” (Saturday Review, Jan. 23, 1971, p. 31.)
        Mormon saw his degraded people finally reach a stage wherein they were “past feeling.” The gospel can guard us against the desensitizing consequences of sin.
        The gospel also reminds us of proximate as well as ultimate accountability. Where there is a wrong, there is always at least one victim. The test for morality is never the visibility of an act, but the rightness of an act. Surely Henry VIII is not the only example of how “private morality” has a way of having public consequences!
        But the fable about private morality would not exist if there were not the preceding and larger heresy of relativism.
        Relativism involves the denial of the existence of absolute truths and, therefore, of an absolute truthgiver, God. Relativism has sometimes been a small, satanic sea breeze, but now the winds of relativism have reached gale proportions. Over a period of several decades relativism has eroded ethics, public and personal, has worn down the will of many, has contributed to a slackening sense of duty, civic and personal. The old mountains of individual morality have been worn down. This erosion has left mankind in a sand-dune society, in a desert of disbelief where there are no landmarks, and no north, no east, no west, and no south! There is only the dust of despair!
        As Shelley said of a fallen statue, “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” (From “Ozymandias,” Family Book of Best Loved Poems, p. 278.)
        So much of today’s literature, art, film, and music mirror the pathos of the inhabitants of this desert of disbelief, needing to be rescued, but sometimes resisting rescue and even making fun of the rescuers. We cannot help those who are lost in the desert of disbelief by joining them, nor can we help them if we are naive about evil. Evil is never tolerant of righteousness, it never has been and never will be, any more than the father of evil, Lucifer, is tolerant. He was, and is, a poor loser!
        Behavioral scientists, perhaps more than anyone, can appreciate the marvelous imagery of La Roche-foucauld who once observed, “There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts.” So many erroneous theories have been advanced about human behavior, only to be murdered by brutal gangs of facts. Latter-day Saints especially have no excuse to be deaf to the lessons of history—for we can listen with both the ears of scholarship and scripture. “True believers,” as Alma used the term, are also true scholars.
        Theories based on relativistic ethics are congenitally and fatally flawed, and these have created the greatest confusion around the very issues that matter most.
        Men who are strangers to God will also be strangers to each other. Men who do not accept God’s plan will never have a lasting sense of purpose about this life. Men who do not have a true perspective about their relationship with God will never achieve identity. Men who navigate by their own light and after their own way will find themselves, in Mormon’s words, “as a vessel … tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her.” (Morm. 5:18.)
        The world’s “solutions” are no solutions at all. The world would merely have us substitute a copulation explosion for a population explosion, as one commentator warned. The world would destroy the family, while urging people to search for their identity and for a sense of belonging. The world promotes sexual freedom even while such promiscuity places many in peer prisons, tightly regimented, whose walls of appetite are higher than any prison wall. The solutions the world offers are cruel, conceptual cul-de-sacs.
        He who often gets mortals to shout shrilly, “Power to the people,” actually has in mind a rather small number of people to be the ultimate power brokers. Would you believe a number as low as “one”? And that “one” desires that all men might be miserable like unto himself!
        Sadly, brothers and sisters, relativism also sires statism, causing man to settle in the slums of security by breaking off his quest for the city of God. In concluding his famous essay, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill warned: “A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.” (Great Books of the Western World, 43:323.)
        In my personal opinion, unlike Lucifer’s way, we will find, as President Joseph F. Smith said, that when we educate our desires, then man can be safely left with his desires. We will find that we not only need to receive the correcting impressions of the Spirit but feedback from our fellowmen and family. Our institutionalized interface with the Church can help us greatly, too, in this same respect
        If we want to bring about improvement, there must be the presence of desire; there must be the presence of feedback. We must avoid compartmentalization, because there is something about the gospel that has a way of breaking down walls and barriers. There must be the presence of challenge and adventure. There must be the presence of models and exemplars.
        Unlike the contempt and condescension with which Satan views us, our Lord and Savior views us with love and with a sense of perfect anticipation about what is possible. He sees us not alone for what we are, but for what we might become. We will find that men and women do best when we appeal to their ideals, to their spirit of sacrifice, to their desire for service, and to their instincts for causality and liberty.
        Thus of these bridges to be built and to be enlarged, it is perhaps not too much to say to you that once built, more individuals will cross them than we know, drawn by the light and warmth of the gospel. Some will come to see and to survey. Happily, many will come to stay!
        The timbers of truth are waiting to be used. You have the professional and spiritual tools as has no preceding generation of LDS scholars. Go to, and build! Be about your Father’s business!
        Thank you for letting me come to be with you. I recognize that I am not a part of the construction crew, but I am happy to be here to cheer you on in this and subsequent enterprises.
        I witness to you again, as I am always delighted to do, that this is the work of our Father in heaven, that this university and LDS scholars here, and others like them elsewhere, have special things to do in a special age in a special time.
        We must not fail, individually, for if we fail, we fail twice—for ourselves and for those who could have been helped, if we had done our duty.
        I witness to you that we are prophet-led and that, in fact, in many ways (more quickly than we know) the light of the gospel is breaking forth. We stand for things others only equivocate about or simply practice in individual isolation. For instance, I would ask any here to name an organization, if you can, that cares so deeply and consistently about the principle of chastity that it regularly interviews its members and leaders to see if they comply therewith?
        As Peter said to us, we must be ready always to speak of the gospel in meekness, giving reasons to others for the faith that is in us. (See 1 Pet. 3:15.) May God bless us so to do, and may I leave this testimony with you about the ultimate nature of the things with which we are concerned and of the kingdom of which we are a part, whose ultimate high priest is the Lord—all of which I do in his name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks delivered at the annual LDS Social Services Seminar 3 August 1978 Logan Utah

Abstract
        We must forgive all men: “He that forgiveth not his brother... standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” (D&C 64:9). By forgiving others, an individual learns compassion and learns not to judge others. Those who are unforgiving never achieve personal fulfillment. Christ’s forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery is an example of how divine forgiveness can create a desire to repent. The offender should be forgiven even though he continually repeats his transgression. Radical unforgiveness is related to the unpardonable sin in that it attempts to render null and void what Christ accomplished through the atonement. As men forgive others, they will be forgiven for their own transgressions. Although all who serve their fellowmen are unworthy representatives of the Lord, as they are forgiving, the Lord will bless their efforts. Clients are more responsive to counselors who have an accepting,
forgiving attitude.

Application to LDS Social 
        Each practitioner of LDS Social Services must have a spirit of forgiveness. Clients of the agency will best respond to those who are able to forgive them of their transgressions and weaknesses. This reading will help inspire each therapist to seek a forgiving and loving attitude toward others.

Learning Activities
        Upon completing this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How did President Heber J. Grant’s initial attitude of unforgiveness affect his spiritual growth and progression?
2. How did he change when he forgave the offender?
3. Why is forgiveness described as “Christlike in the ultimate sense”?
4. How are forgiving and forgiveness inseparably linked?
5. What did Joseph Smith mean when he said self-aggrandizement can only occur as we seek to ennoble others first?
6. What principle did Jesus teach as he forgave the woman taken in adultery? How does the Joseph Smith Translation say this forgiveness affected her?
7. In what way is unforgiveness similar to the unpardonable sin?
8. As we forgive others, what does the Lord promise about our own sins?
9. Why is it essential that the practitioner always forgive others?

Reading
        It may be best if I begin with an experience which is well known in the Church. I want to share with you a few extra glimpses.
        It has to do with a man I honor because he is in my family. Let me keep his name out of it for a moment. Here is a junior member of the Twelve who sits in a meeting where the President of the Church, John Taylor, asks his brethren for their vote to readmit into the Church a man who had disgraced the Church. It is a complicated story. The man involved was, when he committed this grievous sin, a member of the Twelve. Not only had he committed the sin, but when confronted with it, in the presence of his brethren of the Twelve, he vehemently denied it. The sin he committed had been notorious. When finally he buckled and acknowledged it, he was excommunicated. Years passed. I do not know the length of time. The time came when President Taylor felt this man should have the privilege of beginning over. He asked his brethren. At first there was some sense of “Oh no, is he really ready?”
        But eventually, all except Elder Heber J. Grant said yes. He alone said no. And when President Taylor said in one of the later meetings, “Why, Heber, why?” he replied in effect, “Because he lied!”
        That seemed to him almost more vicious than the sin.
        Then President Taylor said, “But Heber, how will you feel when you confront the Lord Jesus Christ hereafter, and it is clear that you were responsible for holding this man outside the Church?”
        That didn’t slow Elder Grant down at all. He said, “Why, I will look Him in the eye and say, ‘I am responsible for keeping that snake out of the Church!’”
        President Taylor smiled and said, “Well, Heber, stick to your convictions! Stick to them!”
        Heber went home that day, and was waiting for lunch and opened the Doctrine and Covenants. You know the section: “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (D&C 64:10; italics added).
That’s tough enough, all is an inclusive word, isn’t it? There is no exception, but it also says, “He that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” (D&C 64:9; italics added).
        My first question for you today is, “Greater than what?” Are we to say, for example, that a woman who refuses to forgive her husband of adultery has committed a more serious sin than adultery? The sin of this man, who lied about it, was a moral sin; and yet taken at its face value, this verse seems to say it is worse not to forgive.
        Well, one of the great things about President Grant is that when he knew he was wrong he admitted it. He was a practitioner of what Brigham Young called “instant repentance.” He slammed the book (it is so characteristic of him) and said aloud so his wife could hear, “Well, that settles it. If the devil himself repents, I’ll baptize him!”
        Now the sequence. He went right back down to the Church Office Building. He had to see President Taylor. He explained to him that he had changed his mind and wanted this man baptized into the Church. President Taylor was pleased. He laughed his Lancashire British Santa Claus laugh and then said, “Heber, what happened?”
        He told him. He had opened the Doctrine and Covenants accidentally to that passage. Now we are getting to the psychological.
        “Heber, how did you feel this morning when you left the meeting? How did you feel about this brother?”
        Heber said, “I felt like I wanted to go out and knock him down!”
        “That’s right, Heber. How do you feel now?”
        Heber started to weep and said, “To tell the truth ... " I think it was a little bit of a surprise to him, “to tell the truth, President Taylor, I hope the Lord will forgive the man.”
        And President Taylor said, “Heber, I didn’t have to ask the Twelve whether Brother so-and-so can come back into the Church, but I put it to the vote so that you and I think he mentioned one or two others, “might learn what you have here learned today. This morning you did not have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. This afternoon you do. Never forget that, Heber!”
        Now, two sequels that are not public knowledge. He learned to forgive essentially because it was a commandment. It is taught in the scriptures, and he had always sustained the scriptures. They said, “Forgive everyone.” He did it. That’s not quite the same as learning to forgive because you profoundly need it yourself.
        A problem with being as good a man and as righteous a man as Heber J. Grant is that you lack compassion for those who have all kinds of problems doing what for you is easy. But he later learned compassion. He himself condemned one of his own brethren, accused him, and in effect said, “You are not doing what you ought to do in this realm,” and then came to realize that he—not the other man —was the one who wasn’t really doing it. He went in abject humility, threw his arms around the man and pled that he would forgive him, and asked for his encouragement and strength to repent himself. Heber J. Grant was a more compassionate man after that than he was before.
        The other sequel point is already implicit in what I have said. It’s that incredible thing that at the moment—even out of a sense of “I will obey because I am commanded” —in the moment he forgave, it sank deeply into him; it changed him.
        Recently our Commissioner of Education, Jeff Holland, in a Young Special Interest Multiregional Conference, chose, I think with discernment, to talk about forgiveness, quite aware that people in that group carry tremendous burdens of unforgiveness. And he started by saying: “This is the hardest thing there is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But then let us not feel particularly sorry for ourselves that it is hard.”
        He said in a way I cannot duplicate: “At the moment when some Roman or other had driven the spikes, of all the things one could conceive Jesus the Christ might have said, either in prayer or in outreach through others, the least likely from a mortal point of view is that His thought and heart expression would be to plead for forgiveness for them. That is Christlike in the ultimate sense! The miracle is that we have the power, we, mere men, to do that.” This doing isn’t exactly an act—it’s an inward doing that changes everything. It changes everything!
        Now, may I digress for a minute for a few implications and then come back to what is the focus of our whole concern which is: How can we as therapists, so called, helpers, counselors, advice givers, do more to help our loved ones become forgiving, as well as forgiven, in the recognition that somehow they are inseparably linked!
        The first is a philosophical point. Brethren often came to Joseph Smith with questions (and I would that someone had been around with a tape recorder). In the Nauvoo period, some came and asked him hard questions—it is a jargonistic way to say it—but the controversy was between so-called egoism and altruism. In its ultimate form egoism maintains that what we all are doing, when you get down the basics, is seeking our own satisfaction! On this view, psychological egoism holds that no one ever acted in the interest of others. If he seemed to, that was all on the surface; at the root, all motives are self-serving.
The contrary view is altruism, which means that at least some of our acts—and I guess there are those who maintain it is possible that all of them—are not in the end self-serving but other-serving, so that even those things that appear to be the mere gratification of self (i.e., eating, drinking, sleeping, whatever, and all the separate complications of those) even they can turn out in the end to be an effort to help others.
        Now, what these brethren wanted to know from the Prophet was simple. “Is it wrong to seek your own satisfaction?” The way they said it was, “Is the principle of self-aggrandizement wrong?” One of the most illuminating things I have ever read in Mormon literature is the Prophet’s reply, according to Oliver B. Huntington, who was there. It is this, “Some people entirely denounce the principle of self-aggrandizement but it is a true principle! But it that is, our concern that we accomplish something for our own ultimate glory, “but it can only be exercised upon one plan or principle and that is that we seek to elevate and ennoble others first.” That’s one version. Another version, not quite so strong, is “also—seek to elevate and ennoble others “also.” “If a man will seek to ennoble others, the very work itself will tend to ennoble him. Upon no other plan can a man permanently and justly aggrandize himself.” The fact that he uses those two adverbs suggests to me that it is possible temporarily and unjustly to aggrandize yourself; but permanently, no!
        Now, Victor [L. Brown, Jr.] talked about whether there are absolutes. Many of my students think all absolutes are obsolete! Under pressure, I would personally defend as an absolute law what I have just said. You can rephrase it if you wish but it would come down to something like this: It is impossible —worlds without end —to achieve your own fulfillment without the explicit and conscious inclusion of others. If you ignore, reject, trample down others, you will absolutely and always fail. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.
        Now, a religious application of that. Does not the Lord’s prayer say that we are to pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”? Why didn’t he ask us simply to pray to have our own debts forgiven? He asks us to pray, and now let me put it in a negative way, “Father, forgive us to that degree and only to that degree that we forgive others.” That’s a prayer which, if answered, would in some cases not be much of an answer. The positive way, “Father, because I have reached that point in my life where I have a broken heart and a contrite spirit, because I have seen my weakness and my need I yearn to forgive all others! Including my enemies.” You get to a point where it isn’t just including, especially my enemies. Why? Because they are the ones that are bearing the heaviest burdens of unforgiveness.
        Christ did set that pattern. He is our paradigm, and though I don’t want to dwell on this too heavily, it interests me that in the account of the woman taken in adultery in the Joseph Smith Translation, there is an additional phrase. She isn’t stoned, because Jesus appealed to the conscience of those around her.
        “Who of you is really justified?” He says in effect, “Who is without sin?” It interests me psychologically that he didn’t stand up and put his chin out saying, “Which one of you dares to throw a rock?” That’s probably the way some people would do it. He wasn’t even facing them if I remember correctly. He was kneeling down writing in the sand. Some students think he was writing the Ten Commandments and at the same time saying, “Which of these have you really kept?” But their faces and their attitudes were not in his vision. They could slip away one by one and not have to defy his challenge. I think the Master was a master.
        So he was left alone with her. “Woman, where are those thine accusers?” And then, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” The actual sequence of events, I think, is not that she first made radical restitution, demonstrating what we call the “four or five or six R’s of repentance,” and then having paid the full price, was confronted by Jesus who said, “You’re off the hook now. You paid!” No. It’s as if he forgives her first as the foundation of her repenting. The Joseph Smith Translation says, “And the woman glorified God from that hour, and believed on his name” (JST, John 8:10-11). From the moment that she tasted the power of divine forgiveness she repented.
        Now, that may not be quite the way the Lord wants us to understand the sequence. So as far as His forgiveness is concerned, we are taught, He went through it all to earn the right to forgive and to have the power. So far as our forgiveness is concerned, He keeps saying we have to forgive everybody. Everybody, regardless.
        And how much do we have to forgive? Everything.
        And for how long do we have to forgive? All the time.
        The Prophet said once in a sermon, “We have not forgiven some people even once, and yet Jesus said seventy times seven.”
        Now, I turn to the important issue—and I have to bear testimony to its truth—of our own need and of the impact this can have in seeking the health and wholeness of those around us. It is remarkable that we are told that unforgiveness is a serious transgression. It is remarkable further that in a way, sons of perdition, sons of darkness, are those who have deliberately and—the scriptures are clear—knowingly rejected Christ. How much do they really know? The Prophet said the symbol of their condition is standing out in the noonday sun at high noon refusing the light of the sun. He said on another occasion, “You cannot commit the unpardonable sin unless you know absolutely what you are doing.” You not only have to deny the Holy Ghost but you have to deny the Holy Ghost when it is fully upon you. Now, that indeed is a slamming of the door against God with a permanence and depth of understanding that defies our present grasp.
        By the way, I was told once on good authority they receive letters every week at Church headquarters from people who ask that their names be removed on the grounds that they have committed the unpardonable sin. They have a form letter that goes back and says in effect, “No you haven’t, you couldn’t have. Sincerely, your brethren.”
        In section 132, where the question is raised, “What is unpardonable?” the answer is (paraphrased): The unpardonable sin is not murder. We perform temple ordinances for and in behalf of murderers in the hope that they will repent. That would be inappropriate if murder is absolutely unforgivable. But “wherein ye shed innocent blood”; we have a conceptual explanation of what that phrase means. Whose blood? Christ’s! But how could we do that? He has lived and died in this mortal time. You “assent,” says the verse, a-s-s-e-n-t, you agree with, you consent “unto my death.” Elsewhere in the scriptures that is called “crucifying the Son of God afresh.” In this case, it isn’t just killing a body, which is all the Romans saw. It is, in effect wanting to render null and void, so far as you are concerned, what he did in body, spirit, and mind or intelligence. It is, in effect, to say, “I prefer to serve Master Mahan and I refuse to accept you.” Now notice that this is a sin, a most horrifying sin of the mind and heart, not an act. It is something we do inside. My suggestion to you today, my suggestion for your thought and prayers, is: Isn’t radical unforgiveness of others of the same sort?
        Suppose you commit murder in an act of passion. That may take five minutes. But if twenty-four hours a day waking and sleeping you go on holding grudges, hostility, this is a kind of self-contradiction. Over here you may have reached that point of desperation in your own life when you have prayed and yearned for forgiveness of your own guilt and sin. But then you turn and say, “But not him! Don’t you forgive him! I’m not going to, he doesn’t deserve it!”
        You then will to close the channel of love and compassion and revelation from the Lord. You seek to nullify his atonement for others. It is like triple plate steel against water.
        Can you, brethren, say to a patient, “Your unforgiveness is worse than your husband’s or wife’s sin,” or “Your attitudes toward your father built up over thirty years are really more soul-destroying than anything he ever did or didn’t do”?
        That’s strong! But it is true. We alone are responsible for permitting into our hearts the poison of unforgiveness. We have power at any moment, gloriously, to see that this person whom we have thought of as the cause of our sins is himself suffering. We take on the glorious attitude of the Master.
        A simple illustration is Lord Byron’s account. One day he’s walking down the street and here’s a bully, beating until the welts rise, a smaller man. People around are watching, some of them with alarm and some of them with a kind of strange satisfying fascination. And he goes on and on with it.
        Byron comes to the man and says, “How long are you going to go on beating him?”
        And the bully replies, “What’s that to you?”
        Byron says with tears in his eyes, “Because if you will let him go, I will take the rest of it.”
        There isn’t time for Victor to tell you a story that illustrates all that I have been trying to say—of a woman who hated her husband, who by Victor’s counseling was able to come to see what he was going through. Not yet forgiveness, but a concern to somehow relieve him, came to her like a wave. (Jesus said forgive your enemies, and we have been unaware that our enemies are often our loved ones. Lots of categories get mixed and the person we love the most we hate the most). The testimony I bear is that when we profoundly forgive all men, when we throw it all off and say, “No more will I nurse and brood over that poison in me,” the magnificent change in us is that then, and sometimes for the first time, we believe and feel we have been forgiven. We now belong to the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. We take on the same burdens he did. He didn’t deserve it! He didn’t have it coming!
        He had, in effect, every right to say to mankind, “What right have you?"
        Neither in many cases do we deserve what we have in this world of pain and affliction at the hands of others. But that is beside the point. The point is that whatever has happened, we must forgive, and the law is that when we do, we will feel blessed forgiveness for ourselves from the Lord himself.
        There is a line in the New Testament, “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23).
        How dare we presume to tinker with the souls of men when we are shot through with the very sicknesses we allegedly have the power to heal. Indeed, how dare we? We have been called!
        There is a statement in section 50 that says, “He that is ordained of God and sent forth as you all have been; my own faith is that everyone here was foreordained and sent forth, “the same is appointed to be the greatest.” I may be overstressing the words, but it doesn’t say, “the same are the greatest.” It says they are “appointed to be.” Appointed, I take it, to get in touch with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ so that they may become so “notwithstanding,” it goes on to say, “[they are] the least and the servant of all. Wherefore ..." and this is breathtaking language, these who are the greatest and also the least, “[they are] possessors]..." here it doesn’t say they will be, it says they are, possessors of what?
        “Possessor[s] of all things; for all things are subject unto [them] ... the life and the light, the Spirit and the power, sent forth by the will of the Father through Jesus Christ, his Son.” And then there is this categorical added phrase, “But no man is possessor of all things except he be purified and cleansed from all sin” (D&C 50:26-28).
        Can we be that candid with ourselves? No one here is purified and cleansed from all sin. With all due love and respect to the men behind me and those in front of me, no one. No one is worthy to be a counselor and representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, my testimony to you is—some of my brethren know me, some of the personal roots of why I speak with conviction—the Lord will use you anyway if you will be forgiving in your own life. And to the degree that Mormon therapists are, in fact, so forgiving that they can be beaten up daily and go to bed sweet-spirited, they have one hold on perfection in this world; namely, they are perfect in ~ Christ in that respect. They have done one thing that is Christlike. You can do it today and tomorrow and the rest of your lives. And your patients will feel it. They are quickly aware by discernment. (It isn’t true that when they are sick they don’t discern.) The poison of unforgiveness will be gone if you can love them even in the midst of their crimes and sins against you. And that happens. Power will come to you from the Lord. That is my testimony to you. It is worth everything, brothers and sisters, to go on seeking, to cleanse our lives and purify, repent. I submit that the core of that cleansing is the power to forgive, that the core of that cleansing is the power to receive forgiveness. And the proper word for that is grace. Section 93 says, “We will receive grace for grace.” One meaning of that promise is that we will receive as much grace—free, unearned, unmerited blessedness—from the Lord Jesus Christ as we are willing to give to others. Grace for grace. May God help us to catch that vision, to recognize that love day by day cannot endure—I don’t think it can last a day—unless there is forgiveness, reciprocal forgiveness.
        There pops into my mind the punch line from Love Story, which was not a real love story, the film that captivated the nation. Part of the line is “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Perhaps that has an occasional application, but my own conviction, said with all my soul, is that it is precisely the opposite. When you really love, you instantly express sorrow when you sense that you have hurt the beloved.
        Now my final thought. I used to think the atonement was over. Of course, in one important sense it is. It happened, it is locked in the New Testament era. He did say on the cross, “It is finished.” But I am afraid we cannot say that at that moment Jesus ceased to suffer. In one way his suffering has increased since the Garden of Gethsemane. That one way is obvious to any of you. After having paid that price in an agony beyond our power to comprehend, he now must face the burden of having us heartless, cold, calculating, and indifferent. He sees us with His own compassion and knows how desperately we need it, and yet has to bear the burden of knowing that the reason mercy is not operative in our lives is that we ourselves lock it out. “All eternity is pained,” says a modern scripture (D&C 38:12). All eternity is embodied in Jesus Christ and even now he suffers. But I know of no place in scripture where he announces that because of that he is giving up, or that because our sins have become so extreme he will refuse forgiveness to the penitent. He promises that forgiveness is always there. The consequence of that in our lives is that we are not going to stop suffering either, not in this life, and I am afraid — and that may not come as great news — not in the next.
        Ahead of all of us, there will be a measure of pain and sorrow for the sins of the world. It will be part of our destiny even if, like the Three Nephites, we are translated. Remember that one thing they were told was
that they would have to go on suffering “sorrow... for the sins of the f world” (3 Nephi 28:9). But, that very sorrow can lead to mercy and forgiveness and redemptive love. I bear that witness in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE HEARTS OF THE CHILDREN

By Truman G. Madsen

Department of Philosophy and Center for Judeo-Christian Studies Brigham
Young University. A fireside address delivered at Brigham Young University, 5 June 1977

Abstract
        Elijah had a mission which affects the whole world. Elijah brought back the priesthood keys for sealing ordinances that bind families together, and it is this sealing power that will help prepare the earth for the Second Coming. Modern families must accept the spirit of Elijah if they are to remain strong and cope with the problems afflicting families in modern society. Men must not only forgive their enemies, but the members of their family who may have offended them in some way. Each individual has inherited the blood, or tendencies, of this generation and can blame his parents for problems if he wishes. However, if he forgives and stands close to the Lord in the process of purifying his life, it will affect his family in both directions. To accomplish this, he must live close to the Lord, going to the temple to do work for progenitors. One develops the capacity to forgive through loving the Lord, praying for enemies, and offering the sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit. Men must care more about saving their families than about anything else in the world.

Application to LDS Social Services
        Many troubled clients tend to blame parents and others for their problems and thereby feel justified when they fail to make needed changes in their lives. Others recognize personal responsibility to change maladaptive behaviors, but maintain negative feelings toward parents because of unhealthy home environments. This talk will provide the practitioner with insights that he can use to help clients obtain an eternal perspective on parent-child relationships and the need for forgiving, loving attitudes toward parents.

Learning Activities
        Upon completing this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What effect can “having the spirit” have upon the lives of individuals and the structure of society?
2. How is the promise that the prophet Elijah will turn the “hearts of the fathers to the children” being fulfilled among those who live in the spirit world? How are the hearts of the children being turned to their fathers here on earth?
3. What will happen to the human family before the Second Coming if they listen to the spirit of Elijah?
4. Why does the author say it is easier to forgive your enemies than your loved ones? Why is forgiveness so significant in making it possible for
the hearts of children to fully turn to their fathers?
5. What does it mean to be free from the blood of this generation in terms of human behavior and family relationships? What are some ways in which this can be accomplished?
6. How can one become a savior on Mount Zion?
7. How can one develop a loving, forgiving attitude? What sacrifice is required? How does the author relate that sacrifice to the family?

Reading
        There is something in the scriptures about an offering to be offered up one day by some specific persons, namely the sons of Levi. Puzzlement: Who are they? What is the offering?
        Let me begin with a glimpse of our history. In 1846 Brigham Young was ill at a place called Winter Quarters. In the midst of that illness, he had been prayerful and his feelings were mixed. He still was deeply grieved at the loss of his closest   earthly friend and burdened heavily with the Kingdom and his leadership. He was puzzled over the question of adoption. It had already become a motivation of some of our people whose own literal forebears were indifferent or even hostile to the Church, to wish they could somehow be grafted into a faithful family, and some such ordinances were performed. Now Brother Brigham was praying about it. He had a dream in which he saw the Prophet Joseph Smith. There are some beautiful passages, as he recounts it, which demonstrate that Brother Brigham wanted to join the Prophet, and if you think that wasn’t sincere and lasting, you should know that his last words were one word three times repeated, “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph.” But that was many decades later. After this interchange and the assurance the Prophet gave him that he must live on, Brigham inquired about adoption. The Prophet replied, and in the account there are seven different ways he says in effect, “Tell the people to get and keep the Spirit of the Lord.”
        There is a marvelous statement about how we know that Spirit is the Lord’s Spirit. For he says at one point, “They can tell the Spirit of the Lord from all other spirits; it will whisper peace and joy to their souls, take malice, strife, and all evil from their hearts, and their whole desire will be to do good, bring forth righteousness, and build up the Kingdom of God.” Then the interesting conclusion: “If the people will seek for the spirit of God, they will find themselves just as they were organized by our Father in Heaven, before they came into the world. Our Father organized the human family. But an interesting line, “but they are all disorganized and in great confusion.” So much for Brigham Young’s glimpse of how crucial the Spirit is in finding ourselves united in a family relationship.
        But now to the scriptures for a moment. The earliest and latest revelations, it could be said, in the Doctrine and Covenants touch on this theme. The first is section 2; it was actually given before Section 1. That is the revelation or statement of Moroni to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1823. It says something about Elijah. It says that he will be sent. And what for? To “plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to the fathers” (D&C 2:2). The last published revelation (it’s called the Appendix), section 133, to the Prophet Joseph deals with the same subject in a different way. It promises that Elijah will be among those who participate in the most glorious family reunion in all history—it could be called a sacramental wedding breakfast—to be held on the morning of the first resurrection.
Elijah did come. He came to the Kirtland Temple on April 3,1836. You may know that Jewish literature is replete with the promise and expectation of Elijah. That’s the last promise of the Old Testament, the last verses of Malachi. And it is Jewish tradition that on the second night of Passover, they must leave open the door and place at the table head an empty chair and a goblet full of wine in the expectation that Elijah may come. It is interesting, especially to our Jewish friends, that April 3,1836 happened to be the second day of Passover. The symbolism is beautiful. Elijah comes, as they expect, to a home. He comes to a goblet of wine, the sacramental wine. He comes to turn hearts—which is more, I suggest to you, than minds—hearts to hearts. He somehow bridges some gap, some alienation, some separation that has occurred in the human family.
        No subject preoccupied the Prophet Joseph Smith more than this. In his late years he spoke at least eight times pleading with the Saints to ponder and pray over this principle. And, as an example, he gave us some insight. We ordinarily say, “Well, Elijah did something pertaining to the dead or work for the dead.” A half truth. In the first place, no one is really dead. Those who are in the spirit world are, we are taught by the prophets, more alive than some of us. Elder Melvin J. Ballard used to say that they have “every feeling intensified” spiritually. And as for their being dead and gone, they are not gone either. For the prophets teach us that the spirit world is not in some remote galaxy; it is here, it is near. And as the Prophet put it, speaking of their feelings for us, those who are bound to us somehow by the anxieties of their forebearing, “Their bowels yearn over us.” He said, “They are not merely idle spectators” in the last days. He said, “Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us. They know our thoughts, motions,...” one account says emotions, “and feelings, and are often pained therewith.” And he could have added, “rejoiced therewith.” When the scriptures say, “All eternity is pained,” that is, I take it, a metaphor for their pain. And when it says, “The heavens weep for joy,” that is a metaphor for their joy.
        So Elijah does have something to do with them. But the Prophet taught that he also has something to do with us. The strange phrase is that had he not come, then the whole earth would be cursed, or in another version, the earth would be utterly wasted at Christ’s coming. “Wasted,” I take it, means at least two things. It would indeed be a waste if this earth, created by our Father and his Son as the dwelling place of their family, turned out to be a house barren. Not a home. Not a place of genuine familial love. In that sense it would have been a waste to have created it. But secondly, were there not a family welded and united and full of love for Christ, all mankind would be laid waste at Christ’s coming, unable to endure his presence. But thank God for the restoration of the power to prepare such a family. And that conferral came through Elijah. The Prophet said, speaking of this, “How will God come to the rescue of this generation?” And answers, He will send Elijah.”
        Well, that generation may have been a difficult one; this generation in which you and I live is in some ways a worse one. Constantly students ask me around the country,” Do you think the world is getting better or worse?” And I always answer, “Yes.” The wheat is getting wheatier and the fares are getting tarier. And rapidly.
        Well, how can a mere prophet change a whole generation? And an ancient prophet at that? Well, know a few things about him. Know that his name is interesting—”El-i-yah,” literally in Hebrew, “My God is Jehovah.” More than that, he symbolizes the sealing or the union of father and son, Elohim and Jehovah. Know that he conferred keys, and we understand, if only dimly, that means authority, priesthood authority. There are men alive on the earth today, the chief one being President Spencer W. Kimball, who hold by direct line of ordination those keys. Every marriage that is represented in this group tonight, that is binding, has been performed under those keys and their delegated authorities. Secondly, Elijah had a revelatory function. A spirit somehow emanates through him and his work and ministry which has reached out far beyond the pales of this Church turning hearts and not just heads. And one account says that it was his function to reveal to us the covenants made by our fathers and the covenants made by us with our fathers, again pointing to something that happened prior to mortality.
        Know that Elijah also is an exemplar of his own mission. It is not yet finished. He had the unique privilege as a translated being—one not yet subject to death, not yet privileged, perhaps by his own request like John or the Three Nephites, to return to the Father’s presence — instead to labor and tarry. He had the privilege of ministering to the Master on the Mount of Transfiguration in an experience which we are told we cannot yet fully understand (and the fullness of the account has been reserved to the future), some week or two or three before Christ went to Gethsemane and Golgotha. And the Jewish apocalyptic tradition is that those two prophets — who are to one day testify in the streets of Jerusalem to prepare the hearts of the Jews to be turned to the prophets (which, by the way, section 98 says is another facet of Elijah’s mission), who are to then literally be killed, and who will lie in the streets martyrs just prior to the return of Christ—those two prophets according to Jewish literature are Elijah and Enoch. That is compatible with the Prophet Joseph Smith’s teachings on Elijah. Elijah has been patient through millennia to bring earth and heaven back together, to tie together the old and the new worlds, to take the estranged and the alienated and the embittered and somehow transform their hearts and to prepare all of the family, who will to be a family, to be welded indissolubly in order to greet the Christ.
        Now, brothers and sisters, if you will permit, I would like to draw a few personal and emotional implications from this. Feeling, after all, centers in the hearts and the role here is not one of mere intellect. It’s a matter of feeling, something inside. We as a Church are constantly pushing for behavioral change and our manuals are filled with behavioral objectives. My ambition tonight is in some ways humbler and in some ways far more aspiring, to somehow reach your feelings, your hearts. The Prophet said on an occasion to the Relief Society that he grieved that there was so little union of feeling among them. And they were marvelous. He went on to say, “By union of feeling we obtain power with the heavens.” When he introduced the ordinance of the washing of feet in Kirtland among the brethren, he taught them that this ordinance, a sacred one, was essential to the “union of feeling and affection among them, that their faith might be strong.” And repeatedly the Lord has said in modern revelation that he reveals himself by his Spirit to our minds and our hearts. “Behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart” (D&C 8:2), a magnificient
blending of the intellect and the sentiment.
        Now we needn’t dwell on the point that the family in our culture is coming unglued. There are those who hold that the great wave of the future, a better future, is to totally abandon the notion of unit families. One can call attention to devastating statistics outside the Church. But I want to talk strictly from within. One of our statistics, and I am only approximating, is that there are a half million children in this church who are being raised by a single parent. It is a fact that the so-called Special Interest members of the Church, and all of you will sooner or later belong to that organization (you think about it) are approaching a million. There are delinquent fathers. There are delinquent children. Just from conversation in my own office over the years on this campus I have heard sentences that tell it all. For example, “My mother gave me five hundred dollars and told me to go away.” Or again, “I couldn’t possibly tell my father. He would kill me.” Or again, “My mother has been three times divorced.” Or again, “No one in my family cares anything for the Church.” Or again, “Just before I left for my mission, my father threatened to take my life.” Or again, “I don’t dare go home.”
        Even Robert Frost saw the home clearly. He said, “Home is where when you go there they have to take you in.” Would that it were so! Many who are joining the Church in your generation are joining at the cost of never being permitted through that door again. My own forebear wrote a letter from Nauvoo. He was a squire, which was another name for an amateur attorney, who had loved the Mormon people but had never joined them. His motivation was elementary. He had a wife and a son. Both of them said if he ever became a Mormon that would be the end. They would never speak to him again. The letter to Brigham Young says, “Is this what the Lord requires of me?” And Brigham Young’s answer in one word is “Yes.” My great-grandfather joined the Church. And they kept their word.
        Yes, brothers and sisters, we are in a real world; we’re in a real world. And the alienation, the pain, the hostility, the torment, the trauma, even of Latter-day Saint homes, is a long distance from Elijah who said he would turn the hearts toward and not away. Is there hope? I am here to testify there is.
        May I talk now about two things that are not in the nature of what you must do but in the nature of what you must feel. First there is forgiveness. We are glib, I think, in quoting the passages that talk about our needing to forgive, and even to forgive all men. They are there. One of the strongest passages is in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, naming his own weaknesses, but pleading with his brethren to forgive him. It goes on to say that if they don’t, there remains in them the greater sin. Strong language. In effect, one’s refusal to forgive a sinner is a worse sin than whatever sin the sinner has committed. Well, forgiveness is the very nature of Christ’s way. And I suggest that if it is difficult to forgive your enemies, it is even more so to forgive your loved ones who have sometimes manifested hate, as have you in response. It is harder to forgive your loved ones because you care about them and you have to go on living with them or struggling to, and they can go on hurting you over the years and the decades. But your hearts will never turn to your fathers in the way this Spirit of which we have been testifying motivates you to do unless you forgive.
        You see, you have inherited all kinds of things. There is a standard procedure for students with bad report cards. They can go home and say, “Look, Mom,” or “Look, Dad. Which do you think it is, heredity or environment?” And your parents can say, “Neither of the above.” The fact is that you willingly chose to come into the world, likely in this time and circumstance. And you may have had (I do not say I know you did), you may have had some choice as to your parentage and as to your posterity. And when you say in your deepest animosity to your folks, “I didn’t ask to be born,” if they give you the proper, prophetic answer they will say, “Oh yes you did. You not only asked for it, you prepared for it, trained for it, were reserved for it.” If you want a put-down, you can say, “If you had, the answer would have been ‘No.’” I am saying that both you and they are mutually involved. And by the way, that’s a snarl word in our generation. Involved? No one wants to get involved, in anything. “Do your own thing. Be yourself.” But you’re involved in your family. It was collusion. Therefore, as you look back at the seventy men—and that’s what it would take, fifty years each, only seventy men to get you back to Abraham—you might recognize that you have inherited the blood of generations. Blood may not be a correct word scientifically, but it stands in the scriptures for seed, which is specifically the heredity, the inheritance of tendencies. All of you have them. You have the blood of this generation, which section 88 says you must become clean from. That’s a strong prepositional ending. “Clean from the blood of this generation” (D&C 88:85). If you do so, you will be clean from the blood of every generation because it is compounded and accumulated into now. That includes the blood of some degeneration. You do have problems that you can blame on them, and if you forgive that and choose to stand close to the Lord in the process of purifying your life, that will affect your whole family in both directions. You are not alone. There is no way you can regain solitary and neutral ground. You are in it.
        This, I believe, is one of the profound meanings of that long, laborious allegory in the Book of Mormon, Jacob’s allegory of the tame and wild olive tree. If you take a wild branch and graft it into a tame tree, if it is strong enough it will eventually corrupt and spoil the tree all the way to the roots. But if you take a tame branch and graft it into a wild tree, in due time, if it is strong enough, it will heal and regenerate to the very roots. You will then have been an instrument in the sanctification even of your forebears.
        Do you believe it? Does that ever sober you in moments when you suppose either that no one cares for you or that whether they care or not, your life makes no difference? To be that kind of branch and achieve that kind of transformation backward and forward is the greatest achievement of this world. But to do it one must be great, one must be linked, bound to the Lord Jesus Christ. One must be mighty. Why, one must be something like a savior. And that is exactly what the Prophet Joseph Smith said you are, “Saviors on Mount Zion.” And how are you to be saviors on Mount Zion, he asked once in a discourse, and he answered—I’m paraphrasing—by going (first building) then going into the temples of the Lord. And in your propria persona, in your own first person presence, to go through for and in behalf of loved ones; perform all of the ordinances, and he names them all. And he says that Elijah’s keys apply to all ordinances, not just the final one, sealing all of them, culminating in that final linkage that binds for time and for all eternity. Saviors, redeemers for your families.
        We have so many cases in our history I can’t dwell on them. But here is one, which I choose not because it’s exceptional, but because it isn’t. Erastus Snow, given a blessing by the Prophet Joseph Smith, is told, in effect, “Brother Erastus, your father knows nothing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the Lord God will be your Father and He will watch over you. And if you will walk in the full path of righteousness, the time will come when you will save all of your kindred flesh. And in due time, if you are worthy, these blessings which I pronounce upon you will be confirmed upon you by your own father. And then your joy will be full.”
        I repeat, the capacity to forgive comes only through the capacity for loving the Lord Jesus Christ. He taught us how. He said. “Pray for your enemies.” That’s different, I remind you, than praying against your enemies. If you want to know how you can turn feelings of hostility into feelings of forgiveness and love, that’s how: you pray for your enemies. You may choke in the effort, but as you keep going, the time comes when you mean it. And then you not only mean that you want to forgive, and feel it, but you even find yourself praying that He will. And you look with compassion instead of spite at the whole traditional mix that has made you what you are and to some degree what you aren’t. So much for forgiveness.
        Now, the other is even harder. The word is sacrifice. And we know that the family of man were taught, from Adam down, to make external sacrifice with the firstlings or the first born. These were consumed, burned on an altar, all to typify and prepare for the coming of the living sacrifice, who was Christ himself. We now know that when the Lord appeared to the Nephites he said, “No longer will I accept burnt offerings. From now on I will only accept your hearts. You must bring to me the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” We use the word “broken heart” to mean radically frustrated in a romance. It may very well mean that, but in the scriptural usage a broken heart is a malleable, meltable, moveable heart; and a contrite spirit is an honest, acknowledging spirit that says, “I am, in fact, dependent on what I am in fact dependent on.” There is no self-depreciation here, only honesty. “I need help.” And when that is fully acknowledged, it comes.
        The sacrifice, I suggest, that the sons of Levi and the daughters of Levi are to offer in the end is the willingness to give themselves in the cause of saviorhood and to care more about family and the preservation and intensification of family than about anything else in this world. That has costs. Some things have to be given up. Some things have to be postponed. And the focus is sacrifice. I believe it is often painful. I believe there are many among us who are easily pulled in other directions. I consider that tragedy. Occasionally mothers say that they are “mere housewives.” “What have you done in the last twenty years?” “Oh, nothing. Just fed my family three meals a day and more or less kept them together.” Is that all? President Lorenzo Snow said on an inspired occasion if a woman did nothing more than that that she should be exalted in the celestial kingdom. If she didn’t do one other thing! Our generation is making attractive every other thing but. And that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. I plead with you, be forgiving and be sacrificial.
        May I now pull all this together with an incident, bear my personal witness, and be done. Flying in from the Far East a time ago I met on the plane a young man obviously a Mormon elder. (You probably wonder how I knew. It was the flip chart.) We chatted. I didn’t at first tell him who I was. But I soon learned that there were three things unusual about him. His father had died. While I was myself a mission president I prayed every night and every morning for two things. One, that I would not have to send any missionary, male or female, home in disgrace. And secondly, that I would not have to send an elder or sister home dead. In a way that’s an unfair prayer, because there is no way with 25,000 missionaries out in the real world, I suspect, in the long run not to see some lapses. But I so prayed. I had not foreseen another difficulty, and that was to have to call in a missionary and tell him that one or the other of his parents, or in one case, both, were gone. Well, this elder had lost his father. His father had not been particularly faithful in church. His mother had taken up the burden and, of course, as is required, had sent the monthly check.
        The second thing was that he had let his mother know he was coming home, but he hadn’t told her when. And the third thing was that he hoped to come to BYU. I told him he’d be in good company. I was first off the plane and I saw a face. Something told me that this was his mother. I restrained myself from telling her that her son was on the plane. I went to a position where I could see both her face and his. He got off and walked along a bit casually carrying cameras and brief case. And then he saw her. Recognition, gratitude, forgiveness for whatever may have been amiss in the past, and a total, royal embrace. That’s it. That’s everything. It is precisely that embrace and reunion which you and I were sent into the world to make possible. It will not be possible except we have faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ sufficient to enable us to forgive and to sacrifice. And, brothers and sisters, that is our mission and our commission.
        Occasionally on the five different times I have been in Jerusalem, I have tried to picture in my weakness what He promises us will happen there one day. Mount Olivet, or the Mount of Olives, is the place from which He ascended. It is the place of His greatest suffering. It is the place where there was a garden, Gatshemen, in Hebrew, Garden of Oil, where He trod, as it were, the olive press, the oil of healing, to bring us the balm, the peace. And that place today, if you study it carefully, is a place of everything except reunion; it is a place of destruction—graves everywhere, shattered things everywhere, barbed wire, glass, the droppings of animals, everything you can name. And hostility and bitterness is symbolized on that very mount in the fact that different churches, each with its own claim, build their spires, and then refuse to acknowledge the existence of the others. There are machine gun remnants. There is a monument on a place where paratroopers in the Six-day War were gunned down by the dozens. War is what is symbolized there. And yet, the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ in section 45 of our Doctrine and Covenants is that He will descend to that mount. His foot will touch it, and when it does it will cleave in twain and there will be an earthquake. Dramatic, but true. An earthquake covering the whole earth. And there will be a transformation of the earth preparing it for its terrestrial condition. But as He descends with His worthy hosts, the privilege will also be given to those who remain here to be caught up together to meet Him. We will not have simply to remain and wait, but as in every genuine effect of true love, we will want to take our own steps toward the full embrace. The music you are going to hear in closing tonight is in part a testament from Handel’s pen of that glory, the supreme glory of the Lord, that will bring us again to reunion.
        I bear my testimony, brothers and sisters, that these are truths. It is our privilege and calling to become in our own limited way redemptors, not just of the human race but the human family, ours and His. It is impossible to love Him truly and not love what is His. And the Lord God assigned Him all of us. It is not possible for you to really love yourself unless you love what is truly you, and that is the whole house of Israel in which you belong. If you will reread your patriarchal blessings, you will find that that exactly is what is forecast for all of you. I bear my witness that this is true in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND RELIGIOUS VALUES

Allen E. Bergin

Values and Human Behavior Institute Brigham Young University

(Printed in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Volume 48, Number 1, February, 1980.
Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission.)

Abstract
        The alienation of therapeutic psychology from religious values is described and contrasted with a growing professional and public interest in religious experience and commitment. Six theses that have the purpose of broadening clinical psychology’s scope to include religion more systematically in theories, research, and techniques, especially as they bear on personality and psychotherapy, are presented and documented. The theses include a contrast between dominant mental health ideologies, defined as clinical pragmatism and humanistic idealism, and theistic realism, which is a proposed alternative viewpoint. The values of clinicians are identified and shown to be discrepant from those of many clients. Greater openness is encouraged. It is argued that until the theistic belief systems of a large percentage of the population are sincerely considered and conceptually integrated into our work, we are unlikely to be fully effective professionals. (Abstract printed with article in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, p. 95.)

Application to LDS Social Services
        Through reading this presentation, the Latter-day Saint practitioner can strengthen his belief that the truths of the gospel, as applied to behavior change, account for the major benefits provided through therapy.

Learning Activities
        Upon completing this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What trends in the fields of science, religion, and psychology have stimulated a rekindling of hope in spiritual phenomena?
2. How have these trends affected the thinking of many behavioral scientists?
3. Why are values an inherent part of therapy? What three value systems are found among therapists?
4. What danger exists when therapy is provided without acknowledging the reality of a value orientation? I
5. What does the author say about therapy outcome based upon therapy technique as opposed to nontechnical or personal variables? What does this have to do with values?
6. What values seem to be associated with clinical pragmatism? What values with humanistic idealism?
7. Why do these two systems seem limited in their ability to assist many individuals?
8. What positive elements could be added to clinical thinking through recognition of theistic realism? How might this affect therapy outcome?
9. What differences may be seen between theistic and clinical humanistic values as they apply to personality and change?
10. Why should the profession be more explicit about what it believes, while respecting the value systems of others?
11. What positive changes in society could be hypothesized in a return to, and recognition of, religious values?

Reading
        The importance of values, particularly religious ones, has recently become a more salient issue in psychology. The pendulum is swinging away from the naturalism, agnosticism, and humanism that have dominated the field for most of this century. There are more reasons for this than can be documented here, but a sampling illustrates the point:
        1. Science has lost its authority as the dominating source of truth it once was. This change is both reflected in and stimulated by analyses that reveal science to be an intuitive and value-laden cultural form (Kuhn, 1970; Polanyi, 1962). The ecological, social and political consequences of science and technology are no longer necessarily viewed as progress. Although a belief in the value of the scientific method appropriately persists, there is widespread disillusionment with the way it has been used and a loss of faith in it as the cure for human ills.
        2. Psychology in particular has been dealt blows to its status as a source of authority for human action because of its obsession with "methodolatry” (Bakan, 1972), its limited effectiveness in producing practical results, its conceptual incoherence, and its alienation from the mainstreams of the culture (Campbell, 1975; Hogan, 1979). During a long period of religious indifference in Western civilization, the behavioral sciences rose to a crest of prominence as a potential alternative source of answers to basic life questions (London, 1964). Enrollments in psychology classes reached an unparalleled peak, but our promises were defeated by our premises. A psychology dominated by mechanistic thought and ethical naturalism has proved insufficient, and interest is declining. A corollary of this trend is the series of searing professional critiques of the assumptions on which the field rests (Braginsky & Braginsky, 1974; Collins, 1977; Kitchener, 1980; Myers, 1978).
        3. Modern times have spawned anxiety, alienation, violence, selfishness (Kanfer, 1979), and depression (Klerman, 1979); but the human spirit appears irrepressible. People want something more. The spiritual and social failures of many organized religious systems have been followed by the failures of nonreligious approaches. This seems to have stimulated renewed hope in spiritual phenomena. Some of this, as manifested in the proliferation of cults, magic, superstitions, coercive practices, and emotionalism, indicates the negative possibilities in the trend; but the rising prominence of thoughtful and rigorous attempts to restore a spiritual perspective to analyses of personality, the human condition, and even science itself represent the positive possibilities (Collins, 1977; Myers, 1978; Tart, 1977).
        4. Psychologists are being influenced by the forces of this developing zeitgeist and are part of it. The emergence of studies of consciousness and cognition, which grew out of disillusionment with mechanistic behaviorism and the growth of humanistic psychology have set the stage for a new examination of the possibility that presently unobservable realities—namely, spiritual forces—are at work in human behavior.
        Rogers (1973) posed this radical development as follows:

There may be a few who will dare to investigate the possibility that there is a lawful reality which is not open to our five senses; a reality in which present, past, and future are intermingled, in which space is not a barrier and time has disappeared. ... It is one of the most exciting challenges posed to psychology. (p. 386)

        Although there has always been a keen interest in such matters among a minority of thinkers and practitioners (Allport, 1950; James, 1902; Jung, 1958; the pastoral counseling field, etc.), they have not substantially influenced mainstream psychology. But the present phenomenon has all the aspects of a broad-based movement with a building momentum. This is indicated by an explosion of rigorous transcendental meditation research, the organization and rapid growth of the American Psychological Association’s Division 36 (Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, which sponsored nearly 70 papers at the 1979 national convention), the publication of new journals with overtly spiritual contents, such as the journal of Judaism and Psychology and the Journal of Theology and Psychology, and the emergence of new specialized, religious professional foci, such as the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, and so on.
        These developments build in part on the long-standing but insufficiently recognized work in the psychology of religion represented by various organizations (e.g., Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, American Catholic Psychological Association), journals (e.g., Review of Religious Research), and individuals like Clark, Dittes, Spilka, Strunk, and others (cf. Feifel, 1958; Malony, 1977; Strommen, 1971); however, the newer positions are more explicitly proreligious and not deferent to mainstream psychology.
        The trend is therefore also manifested by the publication of straightforward religious psychologies by academicians such as Jeeves (1976), Collins (1977), Peck (1978), Vitz (1977), and Myers (1978) and by more wide-open values analyses (Feinstein, 1979; Frank, 1977). Even textbooks are slowly beginning to introduce these formerly taboo considerations. In previous years basic psychology texts rarely mentioned religious phenomena, as though the psychology and sociology of religion literature did not exist. But the new edition of the leading introductory text (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1979) contains a small section called ‘The Miraculous.” Although the subject is still interpreted naturalistically, its inclusion does mark a change in response to changing views.

Values and Psychotherapy
        These shifting conceptual orientations are especially manifest in the field of psychotherapy, in which the value of therapy and the values that pervade its processes have become topics of scrutiny by both professionals (Lowe, 1976; Smith, Glass, & Miller, in press; Szasz, 1978) and the public (Gross, 1978).
        In what follows, these issues are analyzed, as they pertain to spiritual values, in terms of six theses.
        Thesis 1: Values are an inevitable and pervasive part of psychotherapy. As an applied field, psychotherapy is directed toward practical goals that are selected in value terms. It is even necessary when establishing criteria for measuring therapeutic change to decide, on a value basis, what changes are desirable. This necessarily requires a philosophy of human nature that guides the selection of measurements and the setting of priorities regarding change. Strupp, Hadley, and Gomes-Schwartz (1977) argued that there are at least three possibly divergent value systems at play in such decisions—those of the client, the clinician, and the community at large. They stated that though there is no consensus regarding conceptions of mental health, a judgment must always be made in relation to some implicit or explicit standard, which presupposes a definition of what is better or worse. They asked that we consider the following:

If, following psychotherapy, a patient manifests increased self-assertion coupled with abrasiveness, is this good or a poor therapy outcome?. . . If, ... a patient obtains a divorce, is this to be regarded as a desirable or an undesirable change? A patient may turn from homosexuality to heterosexuality or he may become more accepting of either; an ambitious, striving person may abandon previously valued goals and become more placid (e.g., in primal therapy). How are such changes to be evaluated? (Strupp et aI., 1977, pp. 92-93)

Equally important is the fact that

in increasing number, patients enter psychotherapy not for the cure of traditional “symptoms” but (at least ostensibly) for the purpose of finding meaning in their lives, for actualizing themselves, or for maximizing their potential. (Strupp et al., 1977, p. 93)

        Consequently, “every aspect of psychotherapy presupposes some implicit moral doctrine” (London, 1964, p. 6). Lowe’s (1976) treatise on value orientations in counseling and psychotherapy reveals with painstaking clarity the philosophical choices on which the widely divergent approaches to intervention hinge. He argued cogently that everything from behavioral technology to community consultation is intricately interwoven with secularized moral systems, and he supported London’s (1964) thesis that psychotherapists constitute a secular priesthood that purports to establish standards of good living.
        Techniques are thus a means for mediating the value influence intended by the therapist. It is inevitable that the therapist be such a moral agent. The danger is in ignoring the reality that we do this, for then patient, therapist, and community neither agree on goals nor efficiently work toward them. A correlated danger is that therapists, as secular moralists, may promote changes not valued by the clients or the community, and in this sense, if there is not some consensus and openness about what is being done, the therapists may be unethical or subversive.
        The impossibility of a value-free therapy is demonstrated by certain data. I allude to just one of many illustrations that might be cited. Carl Rogers personally values the freedom of the individual and attempts to promote the free expression of each client. However, two independent studies done a decade apart (Murray, 1956; Truax, 1966) showed that Carl Rogers systematically rewarded and punished expressions that he liked and did not like in the verbal behavior of clients. His values significantly regulated the structure and content of therapeutic sessions as well as their outcomes (cf. Bergin, 1971). If a man who intends to be nondirective cannot be, then it is likely that the rest of us cannot either.
        Similarly, when we do research with so-called objective criteria, we select them in terms of subjective value judgments, which is one reason we have so much difficulty in agreeing on the results of psychotherapy outcome studies. If neither practitioners nor researchers can be nondirective, then they must accept certain realities about the influence they have. A value-free approach is impossible.
        Thesis 2: Not only do theories, techniques, and criteria reveal pervasive value judgments, but outcome data comparing the effects of diverse techniques show that nontechnical, value-laden factors pervade professional change processes. Comparative studies reveal few differences across techniques, thus suggesting that nontechnical or personal variables account for much of the change. Smith et al. (in press), in analyzing 475 outcome studies, were able to attribute only a small percentage of outcome variance to technique factors. Among th~se 475 studies were many that included supposedly technical behavior therapy procedures. The lack of technique differences thrusts value questions upon us because change appears to be a function of common human interactions, including personal and belief factors — the so-called nonspecific or common ingredients that cut across therapies and that may be the core of therapeutic change (Bergin and Lambert, 1978; Frank, 1961,1973).
        Thesis 3: Two broad classes of values are dominant in the mental health professions. Both exclude religious values, and both establish goals for change that frequently clash with theistic systems of belief. The first of these can be called clinical pragmatism. Clinical pragmatism is espoused particularly by psychiatrists, nurses, behavior therapists, and public agencies. It consists of straightforward implementation of the values of the dominant social system. In other words, the clinical operation functions within the system. It does not ordinarily question the system but tries to make the system work. It is centered, then, on diminishing pathologies or disturbances, as defined by the clinician as an agent of the culture. This means adherence to such objectives as reducing anxiety, relieving depression, resolving guilt, suppressing deviation, controlling bizarreness, smoothing conflict, diluting obsessiveness, and so forth. The medical origins of this system are clear. It is pathology oriented. Health is defined as the absence of pathology. Pathology is that which disturbs the person or those in the environment. The clinician then forms an alliance with the person and society to eliminate the disturbing behavior.
        The second major value system can be called humanistic idealism. It is espoused particularly by clinicians with interests in philosophy and social reform such as Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and various group and community interventionists. Vaughan’s study of this approach (1971) identified quantifiable themes that define the goals of positive change within this frame of reference. They are flexibility and self-exploration; independence; active goal orientation with self-actualization as a core goal; human dignity and self-worth; interpersonal involvement; truth and honesty; happiness; and a frame of orientation or philosophy by which one guides one’s life. This is different from clinical pragmatism in that it appeals to idealists, reformers, creative persons, and sophisticated clients who have significant ego strength. It is less practical, less conforming, and harder to measure than clinical pathology themes because it addresses more directly broad issues such as what is good and how life should be lived. It embraces a social value agenda and is often critical of traditional systems of religious values that influence child rearing, social standards, and ultimately, criteria of positive therapeutic change. Its influence is more prevalent in private therapy, universities, and independent clinical centers or research institutes, and among theologians and clinicians who espouse spiritual humanism (Fromm, 1950).
        Though clinical pragmatism and humanistic idealism have appropriate places as guiding structures for clinical intervention and though I personally endorse much of their content, they are not sufficient to cover the spectrum of values pertinent to human beings and the framework within which they function. Noticeably absent are theistically based values.
Pragmatic and humanistic views manifest a relative indifference to God, the relationship of human beings to God, and the possibility that spiritual factors influence behavior. A survey of the leading reference sources in the clinical field reveals little literature on such subjects, except for naturalistic accounts. An examination of 30 introductory psychology texts turned up no references to the possible reality of spiritual factors. Most did not have the words God or religion in their indexes.
        Psychological writers have a tendency to censor or taboo in a casual and sometimes arrogant way something that is sensitive and precious to most human beings (Campbell, 1975).
        As Robert Hogan, new section editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, stated in a recent APA Monitor interview,

Religion is the most important social force in the history of man. ... But in psychology, anyone who gets involved in or tries to talk in an analytic, careful way about religion is immediately branded a meat-head; a mystic; an intuitive, touchy-feely sort of moron. (Hogan, 1979, p. 4).

        Clinical pragmatism and humanistic idealism thus exclude what is one of the largest sub-ideologies, namely, religious or theistic approaches espoused by people who believe in God and try to guide their behavior in terms of their perception of his will.
        Other alternatives are thus needed. Just as psychotherapy has been enhanced by the adoption of multiple techniques, so also in the values realm, our frameworks can be improved by the use of additional perspectives.
The alternative I wish to put forward is a spiritual one. It might be called theistic realism. I propose to show that this alternative is necessary for ethical and effective help among religious people, who constitute 30% to 90% of the U.S. population (more than 90% expressed belief, while about 30% expressed strong conviction about their belief; American Institute of Public Opinion, 1978). I also argue that the values on which this alternative is based are important ingredients in reforming and rejuvenating our society. Pragmatic and humanistic values alone, although they have substantial virtues, are often part of the problem of our deteriorating society.
        What are the alternative values? The first and most important axiom is that God exists, that human beings are the creations of God, and that there are unseen spiritual processes by which the link between God and humanity is maintained. As stated in the book of Job (32:8),

There is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.

        This approach, beginning with faith in God, assumes that spiritual conviction gives values an added power to influence life.
        With respect to such belief, Max Born, the physicist, said: “There are two objectionable kinds of believers. Those who believe the incredible and those who believe that belief must be discarded in favor of the scientific method” (cited in Menninger, 1963, p. 374). I stand in opposition to placing the scientific method in the place of God, an attitude akin to Bakan’s (1972) notion of “methodolatry” that has become common in our culture.
        Abraham Maslow, though viewed as a humanist, expressed concepts in harmony with the views presented here. He said, “It looks as if there is a single, ultimate value for mankind —a far goal toward which men strive” (cited in Goble, 1971, p. 92). He believed that to study human behavior means never to ignore concepts of right and wrong:

If behavioral scientists are to solve human problems, the question of right and wrong behavior is essential. It is the very essence of behavioral science. Psychologists who advocate moral and cultural relativism are not coming to grips with the real problem. Too many behavioral scientists have rejected not only the methods of religion but the values as well. (Maslow, cited in Goble, 1971, p. 92)

To quote further, “Instead of cultural relativity, I am implying that there are basic underlying human standards that are cross cultural” (Maslow, cited in Goble, 1971, p. 92). Maslow advocated the notion of a synergistic culture in which the values of the group make demands on the individual that are self-fulfilling. The values of such a culture are considered transcendent and not relative.
        Maslow’s views are consistent with the notion that there are laws of human behavior. If such laws exist, they do not sustain notions of ethical relativism. Kitchener (1980) has shown, for example, that behavioristic, evolutionary, and naturalistic ethical concepts are not relativistic (cf. Bergin, 1980). He makes the important point that ethical relativism is not a logical derivative of cultural relativism. Such views are consistent with the axiom of theistic systems that human growth is regulated by moral principles comparable in exactness with physical laws. The possible lawfulness of these moral traditions has been argued persuasively by Campbell (1975). Some comparative religionists (Palmer, Note 1) and anthropologists (Gusdorf, 1976) also recognize common religious value themes across dominant world cultures. Palmer in particular has stated that 80% of the world population adhere to common value themes consistent with the theses argued here (cf. Bergin, in press). Conceivably, these moral themes reflect something lawful in human behavior.
        In light of the foregoing, it is possible to draw contrasts between theistic and clinical humanistic values as they pertain to personality and change. These are my own constructions based on clinical and religious experience and are not intended to support organized religion in general. History demonstrates that religions and religious values can be destructive, just as psychotherapy can be if not properly practiced. I therefore am not endorsing all religion. I am simply extracting from religious traditions prominent themes I hypothesize may be positive additions to clinical thinking. These are depicted in Table 1 alongside the contrasting views.
 

        It should be noted that the theistic values do not come ex nihilo, but are consistent with a substantial psychological literature concerning responsibility (Glasser, 1965; Menninger, 1973), moral agency (Rychlak, 1979), guilt (Mowrer, 1961,1967) and self-transcendence (Frankl, Note 2).
        The comparisons outlined in the table highlight differences for the sake of making the point. It is taken for granted, however, that there are also domains of significant agreement, such as many of the humanistic values outlined by Vaughan (1971) that are fundamental to personal growth. Fromm’s brilliant essays on love (1956) and independence (1947), for example, illustrate value themes that must be given prominence in any comprehensive system. The point of difference is their relative position or emphasis in the values hierarchy. Mutual commitment to fundamental human rights is also assumed, for example, to those rights pertaining to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness specified in the Declaration of Independence. Both theistic and atheistic totalitarianism deprive people of the basic freedoms necessary to fully implement any of the value systems outlined here; therefore, clinical humanists, pragmatists, and theists all reject coercion and value freedom of choice. This basic common premise is a uniting thesis. Without it, theories of mental health would have little meaning.
        Substantial harmony can thus be achieved among the views outlined, but there is a tendency for clinical pragmatism and humanistic idealism to exclude the theistic position. On the other hand, religionists have tended to be unempirical and need to adopt the value of rigorous empiricism advocated by humanists and pragmatists. My view then would be to posit what each tradition can learn from the other rather than to create an artificial battle in which one side purports to win and the other to lose. Thus, the religion-based hypotheses stated later in Thesis 6 are an open invitation to think about and test these ideas.
        Thesis 4: There is a significant contrast between the values of mental health professionals and those of a large proportion of clients. Whether or not one agrees with the values I have described above, one must admit that they are commonplace. Therapists therefore need to take into account possible discrepancies between their values and those of the average client. Four studies document this point. Lilienfeld (1966) found at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York City large discrepancies between the values of the mental health staff members and their clients, who were largely of Puerto Rican, Catholic background. With respect to topics like sex, aggression, and authority, the differences were dramatic. For example, in reply to one statement, “Some sex before marriage is good,” all 19 mental health professionals agreed but only half of the patients agreed. Vaughan (1971), in his study of various samples of patients, students, and professionals in the Philadelphia area, found discrepancies similar to those Lilienfeld obtained. Henry, Sims, and Spray (1971), in their study of several thousand psychotherapists in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, found the values of therapists to be religiously liberal relative to those of the population at large. Ragan, Malony, and Beit-Hallahmi (Note 3) reported that of a random sample of psychologists from the American Psychological Association, 50% believed in God. This is about 40% lower than the population at large, though higher than one would expect on the basis of the impression created in the literature and at convention presentations. This study also indicated that 10% of the psychologists held positions in their various congregations, which also indicates more involvement than is predictable from the public statements of psychologists. Nevertheless, the main findings show that the beliefs of mental health professionals are not very harmonious with those of the subcultures with which they deal, especially as they pertain to definitions of moral behavior and the relevance of moral behavior to societal integration, familial’ functioning, prevention of pathology, and development of the self.
        Thesis 5: In light of the foregoing, it would be honest and ethical to acknowledge that we are implementing our own value systems via our professional work, and to be more explicit about what we believe while also respecting the value systems of others. If values are pervasive, if our values tend to be on the whole discrepant from those of the community or the client population, it would be ethical to publicize where we stand. Then people would have a better choice of what they want to get into, and we would avoid deception.
        Hans Strupp and I (Bergin & Strupp, 1972) had an interesting conversation with Carl Rogers on this subject in La Jolla a few years ago, in which Carl said, “Yes, it is true, psychotherapy is subversive. I don’t really mean it to be, but some people get involved with me who don’t know what they are getting into. Therapy theories and techniques promote a new model of man contrary to that which has been traditionally acceptable.” (Paraphrase cited in Bergin & Strupp, 1972, pp. 318-319.)
        Sometimes, as professionals, we follow the leaders of our profession or our graduate professors in assuming that what we are doing is professional without recognizing that we are purveying under the guise of professionalism and science our own personal value systems (Smith, 1961), whether the system be psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, or whatever.
        During my graduate and postdoctoral training, I had the fortunate experience of working with several leaders in psychology, such as Albert Bandura, Carl Rogers, and Robert Sears. (Later, I had opportunities for substantial discussions with Joseph Wolpe, B. F. Skinner, and many others). These were good experiences with great men for whom I continue to have deep respect and warmth; but I gradually found our views on values issues to be quite different. I had expected their work to be “objective” science, but it became clear that these leaders’ research, theories, and techniques were implicit expressions of humanistic and naturalistic belief systems that dominated both psychology and American universities generally. Since their professional work was an expression of such views, I felt constrained from full expression of my values by their assumptions or faiths and the prevailing, sometimes coercive, ideologies of secular universities,
        Like others, I too have not always overtly harmonized my values and professional work. By now exercising the right to integrate religious themes into mainstream clinical theory, research, and practice, I hope to achieve this. By being explicit about what I value and how it articulates with a professional role, I hope to avoid unknowingly drawing clients or students into my system. I hope that, together, many of us will succeed in demonstrating how this can be healthy and fruitful.
        If we are unable to face our own values openly, it means we are unable to face ourselves, which violates a primary principle of professional conduct in our field. Since we expect our clients to examine their perceptions and value constructs, we ought to do likewise. The result will be improved capacity to understand and help people, because self-deceptions and role playing will decrease and personal congruence will increase.
        Thesis 6: It is our obligation as professionals to translate what we perceive and value intuitively into something that can be openly tested and evaluated. I do not expect anyone to accept my values simply because I have asserted them. I only ask that we accept the notion that our values arise out of a personal milieu of experience and private intuition or inspiration. Since they are personal and subjective and are shaped by the culture with which we are most familiar, they should influence professional work only to the extent that we can openly justify them. As a general standard, I would advocate that we (a) examine our values within our idiosyncratic personal milieus; (b) acknowledge that our value
commitments are subjective; (c) be clear; (d) be open; (e) state the values in a professional context without fear, as hypotheses for testing and common consideration by the pluralistic groups with which we work; and (f) subject them to test, criticism, and verification.
        On this basis, I would like to offer a few testable hypotheses. [Hypotheses like these have been tested, with ambiguous results (Argyle & Beit-Hailahmi, 1975).] The reasons for the ambiguous results are analyzed in a forthcoming paper by our research group.) These are some of the possibilities that derive from my personal experience.
        1. Religious communities that provide the combination of a viable belief structure and a network of loving, emotional support should manifest lower rates of emotional and social pathology and physical disease. To some extent this can already be documented (cf. Lynch, 1977).
        2. Those who endorse high standards of impulse control (or strict moral standards) have lower than average rates of alcoholism, addiction, divorce, emotional instability, and associated interpersonal difficulties. For example, Masters and Johnson (1975, p. 185) found that “swingers” at a 1-year follow-up had reduced their sexual activity and had stopped swinging. They apparently found that low impulse control increased the subjects’ problems and all but one couple said they were looking for an improved sense of social and personal security.
        3. Disturbances in clinical cases will diminish as these individuals are encouraged to adopt forgiving attitudes toward parents and others who may have had a part in the development of their symptoms.
        4. Infidelity or disloyalty to any interpersonal commitment, especially marriage, leads to harmful consequences—both interpersonally and intrapsychically.
        5. Teaching clients love, commitment, service, and sacrifice for others will help heal interpersonal difficulties and reduce intrapsychic distress.
        6. Improving male commitment, caring, and responsibility in families will reduce marital and familial conflict and associated psychological disorders. A correlated hypothesis is that father and husband absence, aloofness, disinterest, rejection, and abuse are major facto’s and possibly the major factors in familial and interpersonal disorganization. This is based on the assumption that the divine laws of love, nurturance, and self-sacrifice apply as much to men as to women but that men have traditionally ignored them more than women.
        7. A good marriage and family life constitute a psychologically and socially benevolent state. As the percentage of persons in a community who live in such circumstances increases, social pathologies will decrease and vice versa.
        8. Properly understood, personal suffering can increase one s compassion and potential for helping others.
        9. The kinds of values described herein have social consequences. There is a social ecology, and the viability of this social ecology varies as a function of personal conviction, morality, and the quality of the social support network in which we exist. If one considers the 50 billion dollars a year we spend on social disorders like venereal disease, alcoholism, drug abuse, and so on, these are major symptoms or social problems. Their roots, I assume, lie in values, personal conduct, morality, and social philosophy. There are some eloquent spokesmen in favor of this point (Campbell, 1975; Lasch, 1978; and others). I quote only one, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who said:

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger. How did the West decline?... I am referring to the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious, humanistic consciousness. It has made man the measure of all things on earth.... Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no superior spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life. . . should be ruled by material expansion above all?.., the world ... has reached a major watershed in history.... It will demand from us a spiritual blaze, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision. where.., our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern Era. (Solzhenitsyn, 1978, pp. 681-684)

Conclusion
        Although numerous points of practical contact can be made between religious and other value approaches, it is my view that the religious ones offer a distinctive challenge to our theories, inquiries, and clinical methods. This challenge has not fully been understood or dealt with.
        Religion is at the fringe of clinical psychology when it should be at the center. Value questions pervade the field, but discussion of them is dominated by viewpoints that are alien to the religious subcultures of most of the people whose behavior we try to explain and influence. Basic conflicts between value systems of clinical professionals, clients, and the public are dealt with unsystematically or not at all. Too often, we opt for the comforting role of experts applying technologies and obscure our role as moral agents, yet our code of ethics declares that we should show a “sensible regard for the social codes and moral expectations of the community” (American Psychological Association, 1972, p. 2).
        I realize that there are difficulties in applying the notion of a particular spiritual value perspective in a pluralistic and secular society. I think it should be done on the basis of some evidence that supports doing it as opposed to the basis of the current format, which is to implement one’s values without the benefit of either a public declaration or an effort to gather data on the consequences of doing so.
        It is my hope that the theses I have proposed will be contemplated with deliberation and not emotional dismissal. They have been presented in sincerity, with passion tempered by reason, and with a hope that our profession will become more comprehensive and effective in its capacity to help all of the human family.

Reference Notes
1. Palmer, S. Personal Communication, April, 1977.
2. Frankl, V. Honors seminar lecture, Brigham Young University, November 3,1978.
3. Ragan, C. P., Maiony, H. N., and Beit-Hallahmi, B. Psychologists and religion: Professional factors related to personal religiosity. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association, washington, D.C., September, 1976.

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        This article is an abridged synthesis of several lectures I delivered in symposia on the Outcome of Psychotherapy sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, the University of Southern California College of Continuing Education and Psychology Department, the Albert Einstein Medical College, and the European Conference of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (delivered in San Francisco, LDS Angeles, New York, and Oxford, England, in January, February, April, and July 1979, respectively).
        I am grateful to Victor Brown, Truman Madsen, Spencer Palmer, Jeff Bradshow, and Karl White for their helpful suggestions.
        Requests for reprints should be sent to Allen E. Bergin, Lindley House, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602.

   Allen E. Bergin

Values and Human Behavior Institute Brigham Young University

   An LDS Commissioner’s Education Series Lecture, December 1972 (Reprinted in the New Era, July 1973, and in Brigham Young University Studies, 1975, 16, 165-183)

Abstract
        This lecture looks at criteria affecting self-control. In the author’s view, human agency has limitations and all human acts are determined by multiple influences. Instances of absolute self-control and of complete absence of self-control are rare. loss of control has become a pervasive problem in the modern world. Mechanisms leading to loss of control include conditioning, repression, and transgression. That God himself recognizes and will account for loss of control is alluded to through quotations from General Authorities. The author outlines a method for training clients in how to regain control over their impulses. The practitioner helps the client recognize in detail the events leading to loss of control. The client is encouraged to interrupt the chain of events as soon as he becomes aware it is taking place. A theory of self-control is set forth along with a description of self-control characteristics. A list of factors influencing degree of control is given. The author argues against theories that try to explain behavior in terms of physicalistic natural law or statistical law.
Application to LDS Social Services
The author points out that the professional world often teaches that
“everything controls our behavior except the self or the conscious will,” while some in the Church incorrectly assume that people are always responsible for their own acts. This essay should help practitioners better understand the factors affecting human agency so that they can help their clients to accept responsibility for things they can change. Practitioners should not condemn clients when actions may lie outside the client’s control.

Learning Activities
        After reading this article, the practitioner should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Name the six broad classes of influence upon human behavior.
2. The author describes absence of control as the pervasive problem of the modern world. In what forms is this problem manifested?
3. What three mechanisms diminish self-control in a person’s life? How do these mechanisms reduce agency?
4. How does the Lord react to loss of agency in man?
5. What does the Lord mean when he says that he visits “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me’’?
6. Outline the method presented in the essay for training clients how to regain control over their lives. To what kinds of problems would this approach apply?
7. At what point in the chain of behavior can the client most successfully exert effort and overcome an impulse disorder?
8. What factors influence the degree of self-control which an individual enjoys?

Reading
        It would be pretentious to attempt a definitive analysis of human agency in a single lecture, for the topic touches every aspect of human experience and, in addition to its breadth, does not lend itself to simple
interpretations. The concept of agency may be sub-divided into dimensions such as:
        1. The initiation of behavior or the origination of ideas. This may be termed the domain of creation.
        2. The processes of decision-making or choosing, that is, the domain of reason.
        3. The processes of self-regulation or the domain of will.
        Self-control would not be a matter of scrutiny if it were not for the pervasiveness of its opposite, namely, a lack or loss of self-control. Today, we are often taught and we too often act as though everything controls our behavior except the self or the conscious will. Within the LDS Church this is less often so, but then we are often guilty of assuming that people are always 100 percent responsible for their own acts. This can cause erroneous judgments in severely pathological cases.
        I thus find myself the man in the middle, trying to persuade my professional colleagues that there is such a thing as self-control while at the same time attempting to convince my fellow Saints that human agency sometimes has limitations.
All human acts are determined by multiple influences. We may identify six broad classes of influence as: (1) cultural, social or environmental controls; (2) biological factors; (3) habits of response that have been conditioned, especially by childhood experiences; (4) feelings or emotions; (5) thoughts, ideas, or beliefs; and (6) spiritual inspiration.
        It would be preferable if human beings acted upon the latter three factors primarily, but unfortunately their behavior is too often dominated by influences outside of themselves. If we are to be wise, receive the truth, and take the Holy Spirit for our guide as suggested in D&C 45:57, we must learn to optimize the influence of higher processes in our actions. Otherwise, we lose our power of independent action and are “encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell” (Alma 5:7), and then “are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction” (Alma 12:11). We shall deal first with the latter state—a loss of power to act independently.
        As we consider the absence of control, it must be noted that this is a relative statement. Rarely does self-control descend to a zero point. Our degree of control varies between 0 and 100 percent. Some people have much more control than others. Within the same person, the degree of control also varies in different situations. In one area, say eating, one may have low control while in another, say anger, he may, have high control.
        Loss of control has become a pervasive problem of the modern world. It may be observed in violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual excesses and deviations, obesity, indolence, crime, neuroses, insanity, and myriads of other manifestations, most of which have been clearly described or condemned and foretold in the scriptures. (2 Timothy 3:1-7.) Each of these excesses has its more moderate forms, and they are common among us—surprising as this may seem.
Inhabitants of nineteenth-century western culture were dominated by the problem of overcontrol, as Sigmund Freud so brilliantly perceived; whereas modern culture is plagued by undercontrol, as we see every day in our prisons, hospitals, clinics, and streets.
        Undercontrol may follow from cultural norms such as are found in some tribal customs and in the codes of slum street gangs. It may arise from biological defects such as brain damage or hormonal disorders; it may emerge from a particularly traumatic childhood; or it may derive from the consistently bad choices made by otherwise normal individuals. The degree of personal responsibility for actions thus varies in terms of internal and external conditions impinging upon the person.
        The most obvious cases of loss of control are found among psychologically disturbed persons. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of psychopathology is that the person reports being out of control. This may take several forms, and I shall describe two of the most common types. One consists of impulse disorders, of which excessive or deviant sexual behavior would be an example. This behavior is often propelled by strong internal experiences such as the need for affection, a feeling of dependency, or biological arousal. This is an instance of internal stimulation overwhelming the person’s conscious controls or values and dominating his behavior. Some homosexuals, for example, seem to be compulsively driven to frequent and sometimes bizarre sexual acts which they report as occurring “against their will.” As the acts are repeated, the habit can become so powerful that one is literally in bondage to the demands of biological sensations and emotional needs. The “chains of hell” is an apt metaphor for such cases. In the beginning, the behavior is usually the product of both pathological forces and deliberate choices, but as the homosexual “gives in” more and more to the behavior, the ability to choose deteriorates.
        Another cause of loss of control involves the influence of external stimuli. A phobia is a good example. Persons with classical phobias experience from specific sources a degree of dread and an anticipation of harm that are incomprehensible to normal individuals. Such avoidance reactions may occur in response to stimuli as simple as the sight of a spider or as complex as proximity to members of the opposite sex. In these cases, external stimuli have gained control over behavior and evoke automatic fear and avoidance reactions. In such cases there is a good deal of control over behavior, but it is external control; the person feels “out of control” in the sense that withdrawal occurs whether he prefers it or not. This is a classic illustration of how psychopathology reduces freedom by eliminating the possibility of alternative courses of action; in other words, choice is absent. If you have extreme claustrophobia, you have no choice. A closet is such a threatening stimulus that you cannot enter. If you do not have claustrophobia, you may choose to enter or not, as reason and circumstances require. Your range of available alternatives at a choice point is greater, and in that sense you are freer; you have more self-control, or a greater degree of agency.
        When self-control is diminished in some measure or in some areas of one’s life, one of several specific mechanisms may be the cause. I will mention only three of many, and I will merely name them, since the limitation of time will not permit ample definitions. They are: (1) Conditioning. This occurs most often in childhood when traumatic experiences become paired with certain people, places, or things. Phobias are often products of traumatic emotional conditioning. Conditioned responses are largely automatic and outside of one’s control even though perceptions and cognitions, in addition to motor and affective responses, may be involved. (2) Repression. This is a sister mechanism to conditioning and involves diverting from awareness threatening thoughts, impulses, and feelings, which, however, persist in influencing behavior. Responses stimulated by unconscious motives thus often seem to occur autonomously and seem to be irrational even though there is a reason behind them. Unconscious forces are some of the greatest challenges to man’s rationality and self-control. (3) Transgression. Willful or conscious disobedience to moral laws is a misuse of agency; for each such act a measure of agency is lost, and one gradually succumbs to the power of habitual sin. “Being in the bondage of Satan,” might be appropriately applied to all three of these conditions.
        It may seem heretical to propose that for some of mankind agency may be limited, but I submit that the processes and examples I have given are based upon valid observations of a worsening human condition and that they are scripturally confirmed as well. I have already cited several scriptural references to this effect and add here the following supportive views:
        Brigham Young asserted his views on willful disobedience to God’s laws: “A man can dispose of his agency or of his birthright, as did Esau of old, but when disposed of he cannot again obtain it—those who despise the proffered mercies of the Lord. . . have their agency abridged immediately and bounds and limits are set upon their operations... Evil, when listened to, begins to rule and overrule the spirit God has placed within man.” (Cited in Widtsoe, 1954, pp. 63, 65.)
        Talmage noted that in the Judgment, the various forces that can limit agency will be taken into account in evaluating one’s life on earth, “The inborn tendencies due to heredity, the effect of environment whether conducive to good or evil, the wholesome teaching of youth, or the absence of good instruction — these and all other contributory elements must be taken into account in the rendering of a just verdict as to the soul’s guilt or innocence” (Talmage, 1915, p. 29).
        In reply to the question of why God has caused civilizations to be destroyed, it may be asserted that the Lord’s actions were acts of mercy in that these nations or peoples had become so wicked that the children growing up among them had no possibility of developing true agency. Their only opportunity was to choose evil and perpetuate it; therefore, they were destroyed. In support of this, Joseph Fielding Smith (1960, p. 55) cites the following comment by John Taylor in his book, The Government of God (p. 53): “Hence it was better to destroy a few individuals, than to entail misery on many. And hence the inhabitants of the old world and of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, because it was better for them to die, and thus be deprived of their agency, which they abused, than entail so much misery on their posterity, and bring ruin upon millions of unborn persons.”
        Further evidence that agency can be lost is that Satan’s plan was a real possibility. This must mean that under the right conditions, it is possible to totally control human behavior. We know that men can come under the bondage of sin if they choose evil. To the extent that they do they are under Satan’s power. It should be noted here that when we speak of Satan’s control, we do not necessarily mean that he or his assistants are always personally present or directly involved, for he must operate through lawful processes just as the Lord himself does. The loss of one’s agency may thus mean that Satan has obtained control over a person by the management of natural processes which the person willfully permitted himself to get involved in, or which he was conditioned into during childhood.
        A final evidence that agency can be severely limited and that this can occur without the person himself making wrong choices is indicated by our knowledge that child-rearing events can shape future responses so powerfully as to reduce personal responsibility. This is supported by scriptures which declare that small children are not responsible for their acts and cannot be held accountable for them and that if parents do not properly teach them, the eventual sin is put upon the heads of the parents. If the parents are responsible, they must have instituted negative control over the child’s behavior—control with long-lasting effects. It is interesting that no such parental control is implied in relation to positive behavior. This is logical in that positive child rearing induces agency, that is, self-control in the child; whereas negative child rearing induces the bondage of Satan which eliminates choice unless there is outside intervention. There are numerous scriptures supporting this view. (D&C 29:47; D&C 68:25; D&C 74:4; D&C 93:39.) One of the more interesting is Deuteronomy 5:9, .... . for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Joseph Fielding Smith interpreted this as follows: “The real meaning of this visiting of the iniquity is that when a man transgresses he teaches his children to transgress, and they follow his teachings. It is natural for children to follow in the practices of their fathers and by doing so suffer from the parents’ iniquity (1957, p. 83.) The term natural in the foregoing sentence probably can be interpreted as natural psychological processes, such as imitative learning, conditioning, and repression.
        The existence of such losses of control or agency has been brought forcefully to my awareness during long hours of counseling as a psychotherapist and as a bishop. I have been convinced by many years of experience that many human beings suffer defects of agency and control to some degree, and that in a minority of cases, such as in some psychoses, the level of control has been so seriously reduced by biological defects or malignant childhood training that they are, in effect, not responsible for their behavior. I am not speaking here of the normal cross-section of human weaknesses, even though they limit agency to some degree; because if we had perfect agency, it is doubtful that this life would be a test for us. Certainly, no one should be encouraged by these remarks to justify misdeeds on the grounds that he is not responsible for his behavior. People who know right from wrong are responsible, and the more light they have the more responsible they are, despite the presence of a pathological environment. Our goal should be to resist the history of evil in individuals’ lives, to reverse the sins of the fathers, and to initiate a benign cycle that will traverse the generations and help people establish new levels of self-regulation.
        There is nothing more pitiful than the person who wants to control his behavior but is unable to do so. Such individuals are buffeted by their own fears and impulses; their behavior is dominated by Satan. In such instances self-effort alone will not suffice.
        I would like to share with you two examples from my own experience. In both cases the presenting problem was compulsive or uncontrollable homosexuality.
        I found that a complex set of factors was operating in each of these cases. Not only was there a compulsive symptom but there were common underlying predispositions. Of great importance was the fact that each suffered from a phobia—an intense fear of the opposite sex. As personal involvement with a member of the opposite sex increased, anxiety increased until feelings of panic ensued and the relationship was disrupted. In addition, each of these persons lacked an adequate repertoire of social skills appropriate for engaging in normal male-female contacts and for deepening such relationships. And finally, each person had made the error of seeking warmth, security, and intimacy with members of the same sex and had permitted this pattern to develop into a powerfully reinforcing biological relationship. In doing so, their behavior became dominated by the immediacy of needs for affection and bodily satisfaction to the point that the ability to consciously choose was virtually obliterated. We thus had three factors contributing to a serious diminution of agency: a phobia, a deficient social repertoire, and weakened impulse control due to wrong choices.
        Our treatment of these cases cannot be documented in detail here, but it consisted first of reducing fears of the opposite sex by means of systematic desensitization. This consists of reversing the conditioned avoidance responses to heterosexual stimuli by manipulating the client’s feeling states so that positive responses are repeatedly paired with and associated with the feared object. This gradually increases control, in that panic is no longer the invariable and automatic response to the formerly phobic stimuli. Secondly, we trained these persons by means of role playing or behavioral rehearsal in appropriate social skills because we soon learned that the removal of the phobic symptoms merely brought about the possibility of heterosexual adequacy. That is, systematic desensitization reduced an inhibition but did not provide a program of positive approach behavior to the opposite sex. Once the new skills were learned, a third problem remained, namely, that there was still a compelling sexual impulse that persisted due to a lack of self-control and the strong biological reinforcement inherent in the act that made the arousal of control difficult. We therefore instituted a self-control training procedure to assist in the agonizing struggle with the impulses which these clients had determined to overcome. Everything we had done up to this point prepared the way by gradually developing new controls and effectiveness in previously weak areas, but the critical difficulty still lay before us.
        Before proceeding, I should parenthetically point out that if attempts at self-control of impulses had been initiated without these other changes, they might have failed; failure is often the result when self-effort responses alone are implemented. Self-effort is admirable but ineffective in severe cases where so much control has been lost. In these instances it is essential to reduce the strength of factors maintaining the undesirable behavior while also proceeding directly to enhance will power. This includes modifying cognitions, self-concepts and values, in harmony with gospel teachings concerning identity, loving relationships, and physical intimacy. This usually requires the assistance of others who temporarily aid the person in establishing new levels of control that could not be achieved by self-effort alone. At the same time, it is equally important to build up positive behaviors that can provide prosocial satisfactions as alternatives to the negative behavior that is being inhibited. Simply telling such a person to “go control himself” will not do.
        We next proceeded to develop and apply a method of direct training in control (Bergin, 1969). This technique involved, first, a careful assessment of the events immediately preceding the arousal and consummation of a sexual impulse. This detailed, point-by-point analysis revealed that a consistent pattern of events led to each occasion where impulse control had been lost. The sequence of behaviors thus identified was initially unnoticed and unattended to by the client. Persistent focusing upon this preimpulsive time period was necessary before these events became clear and a logical interpretation of the disturbing behavior became possible.
        This diagnostic analysis of impulse-related events yielded a striking view of what was happening during these periods of compulsive, unwanted consummation. Clearly evident was a spiraling sequence of stimuli and reactions which, as they mounted in intensity, became impossible to control. I have described this phenomenon as an impulse-response chain.
        An illustration of how the chain proceeded is given as follows in terms of Stimuli (5) and Responses (R):

S (male person in public place)
R (glance toward person)
S (return of glance)
R (mild emotion and fantasy plus additional glance)
S (establishment of visual contact)
R (intensified emotion and fantasy plus movement toward person)
S (physical proximity)
R (heightened desire)
S (heightened desire)
R (verbal exchange)
S (verbal exchange)
R (interpersonal engagement)
S (interpersonal engagement)
R (intense feelings, memories, and fantasies)
S (feelings, memories, and fantasies)
R (physical involvement)
S (body contact)
R (consummatory behavior)

        After laborious efforts had identified a number of sequences of this type, the client was encouraged to interrupt any impulse-response chain as soon as he became conscious of its presence. It was explained that failures in self-control often occurred because the effort to control was applied late in the sequence when the impulsive pattern had already reached a high level of intensity. Thus, the unexercised and undeveloped control ability was weak compared to the strength of the impulse, and it had to be applied early in the sequence to insure success.
        The client was then instructed to pay close attention to environmental situations and to personal reactions that might set off the undesired chain of events. It was evident that in the past he had not been aware of these events until they had reached an intermediate or high intensity; therefore two or three therapy sessions were devoted to repeatedly going over the chains and making them as explicit as possible.
        Techniques for interrupting responses to stimuli early in the chains were discussed and, in imagination, practiced during the sessions. These included methods such as immediately switching to thoughts or activities unrelated to the chain, but it was always emphasized that this be done promptly so as to apply the greatest strength of control to the weakest strength of impulse. This procedure of shutting off impulse-related reactions and immediately engaging in another activity (reading, walking, thinking) was very much a simple act of will motivated by the client’s desire for change and by the hope and compliance engendered by the therapist’s instructions.
        Following this procedure was difficult for the client at first, presumably because it totally reversed a strongly reinforced habit, but by persistence and encouragement he was soon able to practice it regularly. The client reported his experience in much the same terms in which addicts do. He described it as a feeling of climbing a very steep hill with a large pack on his back. Each effort at control was like another step up this impossible incline; but almost unexpectedly he seemed to reach a crest and the effort was then downhill and easy the rest of the way.
        The potency of this technique seems to lie in applying it to a specific problem which arises from an inadequately developed self-regulatory system. The emphasis here is on the assumption that there are such things as primary developmental defects in self-control which are responsive chiefly to techniques that emphasize the self in self-control, namely that the defect lies in the unpracticed will, in the self that does not consciously and vigorously regulate.
        Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these cases is the phenomenon of impulse weakening as a direct result of consistent exercise in self-regulation. The result of this effort was that the clients soon gained control of their behavior in the presence of formerly compelling stimuli.
        It appears that active resistance to the undesirable response to a stimulus tends to break the stimulus-response chain and the stimuli lose their power to compel or control the individual’s behavior. It also appears that the feelings and fantasies formerly associated with this range of stimuli actually disappeared as responses to them.
        Another way to describe the results of the self-control method is nicely exemplified by President McKay’s advice: “Resist temptation and Satan will flee from you:” He declared that this is exactly what happened during the Savior’s three great temptations. According to President McKay, because of the Savior’s resistance, Satan’s power had been broken by the time of the final temptation, and he was merely pleading. Then the Savior turned his back on Satan with finality and commanded him to get hence.
        Such insight led the prophet to declare eloquently: “The greatest battles of life are fought within the silent chambers of our own souls.” This is the battle for self-control, and there is nothing more majestic than the quiet confidence of one who has achieved it.
        The management of self-effort responses has been applied in a number of additional cases, both normal and pathological, with relative success. The process seems to follow a regular pattern which permits theoretical interpretation, although the notions I will now offer should not be dignified by the term theory. Minitheory will suffice.
        Our thesis is that when a person consciously selects a behavioral goal and then finds his pathway to that goal obstructed by habits, impulses, or feelings over which he has little control, he can overcome these obstacles by the exercise of self-effort. Technically it may be stated thus: The power of a consciously perceived stimulus to evoke an undesired response is directly proportional to the frequency with which the undesired response occurs. Decline in the power of such a stimulus complex is a direct function of the frequency with which the individual consciously and effectively resists acting out the usual response. A corollary hypothesis is that stimuli early in the chain of behavior will evoke a weaker response and that responses of that order will be more readily inhibited than those of a higher order. If inhibition occurs more frequently at that level, breaking of the main, over-arching stimulus-response connection will be more frequent and more successful.
        A number of experimental designs follow naturally from the statement of the preceding views. Here are two of the more central ones:

1. Given a group of persons attempting to overcome a habit, those who exercise maximal effort early in the response chain will be more successful than those who do not. Two or more experimental groups could be set up, each of them being instructed to exercise effort at different points in the response sequence. A good example would be a weight-watchers group, some of whom would be counseled to inhibit at the first thought of food, others after a snack was spread, and still others after having ingested the first morsel of some delicacy such as the first piece in a box of chocolates.
2. Groups might be compared which differ not in the timing of inhibition in the response chain but in the proportion of times resistance is exercised in relation to the number of occasions on which the stimulus appears. The hypothesis would be that success would be a direct function of the size of this proportion and that as the proportion of resistances rose, the strength of the evoking stimulus would decline.

        It is of special importance to emphasize that the self-effort or self-control responses alluded to here must occur in a context that optimizes the probabilities for success. This is based on the previous assumption that behaviors at a choice are multiply determined. If the theorized effects are to occur, other factors must be controlled or minimized, such as biological defects, environmental pathology, conditioned anxiety responses, rewards for undesirable behavior, and incorrect beliefs. There are a number of therapeutic techniques available for achieving such behavioral management, although we cannot discuss them today.
        A growing substantive literature provides us with an increasingly useful picture of what it means to possess and maintain positive self-control within the context of an effective life-style. This moves us beyond the specific details of clinical pathology into the broad sweep of everyday life where control responses are harmoniously blended with expressive behavior into a balanced, self-regulated life.
        The first quality of self-control is that it consists of voluntary action, and voluntary behavior requires a choice situation in which at least two incompatible acts are possible. The scriptures tell us that if there were no opposition, no law of opposites, there could be no agency. “And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could
not be agents unto themselves” (D&C 29:39).
        A second quality is the prominence of awareness or consciousness in self-control and the mediation of this control by language or other symbolic processes. “An action is truly voluntary only when it can be begun or can be checked by verbal cues.” (Guthrie, 1938, p. 174.) A person is responsible when his behavior can thus be guided by symbols. Children, for example, acquire responsibility as they acquire control of action through language. A similar process occurs in all forms of psychotherapy. Freud stated this succinctly in his epigram, “Where Id is, there shall Ego be.” In other words, in the course of therapy, the ego gains control over the passions of the id by making the unconscious conscious.
        The aspect of self-control next in importance is the role of beliefs or convictions. Terry has said that “character is the ability to inhibit instinctive impulses in accordance with a regulative principle.” That is, there is a time and place for expressiveness, but it must be regulated in terms of internal guides such as goals and ideals. Convictions imply a concept of something beyond self, beyond individual need which regulates the processes of goal direction, achievement, and management of a positive life-style. Convictions differentiate those who will behave in the “natural” way from those who aspire to the higher planes of civilization and righteousness.
        A large number of research studies permit us to outline additional specific dimensions of self-control and self-regulation. These include—
        (1) The ability to delay gratification, to resist the temptation of immediate rewards or pleasures in favor of more distant and often higher satisfactions, in accordance with abstract principles of right and wrong. This includes the ability to tolerate tension, discomfort, and frustration.
        (2) The ability to discern clearly the connections between means and ends, between behaviors and their immediate and ultimate consequences. It is the inability to maintain awareness of means-ends sequences, that is, to anticipate consequences, that commonly characterizes the impulsive behavior of delinquents and criminals.
        (3) The ability to frame one’s life and behavior within a future time perspective. The briefer one’s time span, the greater is the difficulty with self-control. The more one is capable of long-range planning, the better is his control.
        (4) An internal locus of control. Self-regulatory deficiencies often arise in persons who feel that they are the passive subjects of the forces of fate surrounding them. Their external locus of control leads them to behave in ways that only reinforce their belief in fate.
        (5) A sensitive guilt response. Guilt is a signal to us that something is wrong and, in that sense, it is friendly. Guilt aids us in preserving the integrity of our controls just as pain assists us in preserving the integrity of our bodies. If pain did not alert us to physical dangers and diseases, we would soon die. If our guilt mechanisms are not alert to moral dangers, we die just as certainly in a spiritual sense. While it is possible to overdo guilt and become neurotically obsessed with seeming misdeeds, this is not usually the case. Cultivating a positive guilt response is therefore adaptively in the service of effective self-regulation.
        To summarize the characteristics, we may phrase self-control as the ability to direct one’s behavior toward general, satisfying goals rather than to be pushed by needs (Murry, Freud, Hull) or pulled by stimuli. One may define self-regulation by stating what it is not. It is not a push-pull theory. One regulates his own behavior; his behavior is not regulated for him by social reinforcement, parental conditioning, authoritarian power, libidinal instincts, or hormonal cycles.
        It is the ability, first, to make a choice, to evaluate the consequences of that chosen course of action, and to prize the outcomes, and then it is the capacity to marshal one’s energy in effective pursuit of the consequences or goals subtended by the choice.
        It is the ability to reflect when the impulse is to act, especially when the impulse to act runs counter to valued habits or when it presents a new course of behavior. It is the ability to act effectively when the course is clear, the ability to force upon oneself consciousness of consequences and the facing of reality when the inclination is to submerge awareness
and give the self immediate gratification, that is, the ability to widen perception when the tendency is to narrow it. It is to resist persuasion and to judge for oneself in the sense of Emerson’s “Self Reliance.”
        It is the ability to modulate, to rule feeling, passion, habit, and inclination, not with an iron hand, but rather with a sense of timing and regulation which maximizes outcomes for oneself and others. It is the ability to submerge oneself in feeling when it is useful, appropriate, or right, thus to enrich one’s existence. It is thus the ability to delay gratification, but not to avoid it entirely. Like the steam regulator, it permits expression, but only in useful or safe channels.
        In general, it is the ability to increase one’s freedom in terms of the valued alternatives available, and it merges into the subjective experiences of feeling free and self-determined.
        Today’s most prominent academic psychologist, B. F. Skinner of Harvard, has declared that “behavior is determined not from within but from without.” He argues that all human behavior is controlled by external contingencies of reward and punishment, and that the goals of psychology are (a) to understand how the mechanisms of external control operate and (b) to manage these mechanisms so as to obtain maximum control over human behavior in the service of creating a benign society. While much of Skinner’s experimental work must be considered of great value, his philosophical pronouncements regarding the nature of man are incorrect and unsubstantiated.
        Unfortunately, his views epitomize a dominant theme of twentieth-century psychology, which is the embracing of psychological phenomena within a schema of laws, having the purpose of achieving the goal of controlling and predicting human behavior. The primary scientific paradigm for psychology has thus been that of the biological and physical sciences.
        My own counterthesis is that human behavior cannot be accounted for within the framework of physicalistic natural laws, even statistical ones, and that the main premises upon which these views are based are false.
        It is my thesis that human behavior may be and often is controlled by the individual himself and that any hypothetical “mechanisms” that enter into this behavior process are self-regulatory mechanisms.
        The idea of self-regulation necessarily carries with it a rejection of the usual psychological theorizing as to the “lawful determination” of behavior. It does not, however, preclude the possibility of establishing verbal or mathematical descriptions of behavioral regularities. It only assumes that the individual’s habitual manner of making choices and of regulating his behavior must be a crucial ingredient of these formulae. This commitment to the notion of self-generated behavior means that while understanding and prediction may be possible, control of behavior is not possible except in extreme cases of pathology, such as those described, or in unusual instances of environmental control, such as concentration camps or prisons. Thus, while the individual may assist the scientist’s theorizing by reporting his style of choosing and self-regulating, this does not give the scientist control of that style.
        None of the foregoing should be construed as a repudiation of the field of psychology; many of its observations and techniques are of great value, and I personally make my living promoting and implementing them. I am instead calling for a radical reform of the ideological assumptions that lie behind much of this work. I hope that I and many of you will be allied with all of those who are calling for the infusion of a new spirit into this field and for the formulation of new theories that square more precisely with our perceptions of human nature as distinct from physical and animal nature. This paper is one step in that direction, and hopefully it is consonant with the following, slightly paraphrased, revelation: “Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All [intelligence] is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself... otherwise, there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man.” (D&C 93:29-31.)
        In conclusion, I have three brief messages. First, let me say that while I do not look to psychology for my salvation or that of mankind, I do view it (together with the related behavioral sciences) as one of the most exciting and potentially useful fields of inquiry that exists. While some of its practitioners promote bizarre theories and engage in unethical behavior, the major thrust of the field is a positive and progressive one. I suggest in all candor and sincerity that psychology is as fundamental to the implementation of the principles of gospel living (the Christian life-style) as medical science is to the implementation of the Word of Wisdom. Just as biomedical research reveals to us the mechanisms underlying the principles of the Lord’s code of physical health and thereby provides us with a more positive control over the health of our bodies, so also, behavioral science informs us of the processes underlying revealed principles of living and provides us with improved power to promote the health of mind and spirit. Psychology is thus as basic to the study of living as biochemistry is to the study of life.
        Second, some personal advice. The ideal of self-control is supreme. This life is a test—is a test—is a test. You have not passed until you have endured to the end and are dead. You will be tried every day of your life, whether you know it or not. Today we are all bombarded by stimuli toward the loosening of moral controls. The provocation is enormous. You must practice self-control and have a strong repertoire of such abilities so that when stress comes, you can cope. Mercifully, the Lord permits us small doses of evil to practice our controls on before we are hit with real temptation, but then it comes. We must all be tried, and let me assure you that means a real trial, before we are fit for his Kingdom. If you are to err, do it on the side of overcontrol — that can be redeemed — but the excesses of undercontrol can have fatal, irredeemable consequences. Therefore, stay close to the Church, follow its leaders, and seek the guidance of the Spirit.
        Third, as for me, you may wish to know where I stand with respect to the gospel. I am a thoroughly converted, 100-percent supporter of the doctrines and principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe completely in the spiritual realities and divine manifestations that undergird and reinforce the sweeping fabric of Mormon culture and commitment. I have experienced the indescribable, witnessing communication of divine knowledge, and it has transformed me from humanist to disciple. I do not apologize for nor equivocate in my conviction that the God of heaven is a living, personal reality and that I have an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ upon whom I am dependent for salvation and exaltation. I know that he lives, and I declare in all solemnity as a witness to all men that I know he walked and talked with the Prophet Joseph Smith, that through the Prophet he reestablished the Kingdom of God on earth, and he presides today over this great Church, inspiring our modern prophet and all associated with him. All this I declare in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

References
Bergin, A. E. “A Self-regulation Technique for Impulse-Control Disorders.” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 6 (1969): 113-18.
Guthrie, E. R. The Psychology of Human Conflict. New York: Harper, 1938.
Smith, Joseph Fielding. Answers to Gospel Questions. Vols. 1, 3. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1957, 1960.
Talmage, J. E. Jesus the Christ. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1915.
Widtsoe, J. A., ed. Discourses of Brigham Young. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954.