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In seminary this morning, we read a quote from Elder Scott’s talk in General Conference in 1998 – a quote that is included in the Institute manual for the Book of Mormon. We then talked about how it applies to our own “Mormon” and “personal” cultures every bit as much as “outside” cultures – since Elder Scott used himself as an example. I want to share excerpts from his quote with all of you: Quote:Your HF assigned you to be born into a specific lineage from which you received your inheritance of race, culture and traditions. That lineage can provide a rich heritage and great reasons to rejoice. Yet you have the responsibility to determine if there is any part of that heritage that must be discarded because it works against the Lord’s plan of happiness.
That is not easily done.
I have found how difficult it is as I work to overcome some of my own incorrect traditions.Customs and traditions become an inherent part of us. They are not easy to evaluate objectively . . .
Seek help from another you respect who has been able to set aside some deeply held convictions or traditions that are not in harmony with the Lord’s plan.Is your a culture where the husband exerts a domineering, authoritarian role, making all of the important decisions . . .?
That breeds conflict with other cultures?
I really appreciated this quote, and I told my daughters (the only students in attendance this morning) that they have the responsibility when they become adults to evaluate what they inherit from us and determine what things they will discard and what things they will keep.
This message is being taught in the Church, but it’s easy to overlook amid the specifics where individuals disagree and have to make personal choices. Let’s not let the difficulty amid the disagreements keep us from embracing the core principle, but let’s embrace it always in a spirit of love – and understanding that we must allow others the same privilege to apply the core principle in ways that lead to different conclusions.
If anyone wants to read a short post about this same general topic, I wrote the following in April: “The Incorrect Traditions of Our Own Faithful Fathers” (
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/incorrect-traditions-of-our-own.html This is important. Thanks Ray! Love it Ray. So true! My mission president was very against incorrect tradition and worked diligently to correct incorrect tradition which had crept into the mission. I was surprised at the things I took for granted which, in his mind, was incorrect tradition. I learned a great deal, and in retrospect, the attitudes of examining tradition and trying to objectively deal with it on my mission opened my eyes a lot. So true! I think that a lot of the issues that come up are really more cultural than doctrinal. For example, The Family: A Proclamation to the World is a little behind the times if you have a very enlightened modern culture like many in the US enjoy. But if you live in a machismo culture (which, BTW, over half of church members of record do) or one in which absent fathers are the norm, it is downright revolutionary.
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