Parenting

This article first appeared in Daniel C. Peterson’s blog on Patheos called Sic et Non.

During the April 1929 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Orson F. Whitney, an exceptionally talented writer and speaker and a senior member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, delivered an address that has been quoted frequently in recent decades by other leaders of the Church and by many other Latter-day Saints.  It has given comfort to many, for obvious reasons.  Consider, for example, the three following passages from his remarks:

The Youth of Zion

I have faith in the young people of this Church—not because I believe them without fault, nor because I think all are walking in the ways of wisdom and shunning the downward road. I have faith in them because of the character of their parents, because of the ancestry from which they have sprung, and because of the promise made by the God of Heaven, that “this Kingdom shall never be thrown down nor given to another people.”

A Word for the Wayward

You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don’t give them up. Don’t cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours—long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.

A Precious Promise

The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.

Who are these straying sheep—these wayward sons and daughters? They are children of the Covenant, heirs to the promises, and have received, if baptized, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which makes manifest the things of God. Could all that go for naught?

(Orson F. Whitney, in Ninety-Ninth Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1929], 110-111)

During the flight from Salt Lake City over to Portland today, I read ““The Youth of Zion,” “A Word for the Wayward,” and “A Precious Promise”: Elder Orson F. Whitney’s April 1929 General Conference Sermon on Righteous Parents, Wayward Children, and Priesthood Sealings,” a substantial piece by Reid L. Neilson that appears as the lead article in the newest issue of BYU Studies.

It’s a very helpful study.  Although Elder Whitney’s words in April 1929 can certainly be comforting, many of us (including myself) have wondered how, as they stand, they can be reconciled with the fundamental Restoration emphasis on human agency.

Elder David A. Bednar, a current member of the Council of the Twelve, has noted the perplexity or the difficulty, commenting that:

One of the greatest heartaches a valiant parent in Zion can suffer is a child who strays from the gospel path. Questions of “Why?” or “What did I do wrong?” and “How can this child now be helped?” are pondered without ceasing in the minds and hearts of such parents. These men and women pray earnestly, search the scriptures diligently, and listen intently to the counsel of priesthood and auxiliary leaders as they turn to the gospel of Jesus Christ for guidance, strength, and solace.

Statements by General Authorities of the Church describing the influence of faithful parents on wayward children have been and continue to be a source of great familial comfort. The consolation arises from the hope these messages seem to proffer that parents who honor gospel covenants, obey the Lord’s commandments, and serve faithfully can influence the salvation of their sons and daughters who go astray. However, the interpretation of these statements by some members of the Church has contributed to a measure of doctrinal misunderstanding. The confusion derives from the apparent inconsistency of these interpretations with the doctrine of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the principles of moral agency and individual accountability for sins and transgressions.

(David A. Bednar, “Faithful Parents and Wayward Children,” Ensign, March 2014, 28; unfortunately, this passage is truncated in the online version, though not the printed version, of Dr. Neilson’s article.)

It seems that Orson F. Whitney himself must have felt that his remarks of April 1929, which may have been delivered extemporaneously (as conference addresses tended to be, in the era prior to television), required clarification, since, as Dr. Neilson observes,

Joseph Smith and Elder Whitney consistently taught the doctrinal pairings of agency and accountability, as well as mercy and justice. Or, as Amulek taught Zeezrom in Ammonihah, “that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins” (Hel. 5:10, emphasis added; see also Alma 11:37; 2 Ne. 30:2).

The article examines Orson F. Whitney’s exceptional personal and family history to elucidate his views on the subject of faithful parents and wayward children and to account, perhaps, for why it mattered so deeply to him. , Moreover, it draws upon sources that have not previously been employed for such a purpose, demonstrating that Elder Whitney himself recognized that mercy cannot rob justice, and said so. Right up to the time of his death in May 1931, slightly more than two years after that April 1929 statement.

I commend Dr. Neilson’s article to you. He closes on a bright and hopeful note:

In a Nauvoo newspaper editorial on baptism for the dead, Joseph Smith cautioned his fellow mortals to leave judgement of this world’s children to their loving Heavenly Father:

“But while one portion of the human race are judging and condemning the other without mercy, the great parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care, and paternal regard; he views them as his offspring; and without any of those contracted feelings that influence the children of men, causes ‘his sun to rise on the evil and the good; and send his rain on the just and unjust.’ He holds the reins of judgment in his hands; he is a wise lawgiver, and will judge all men, [not according to the narrow contracted notions of men, but] ‘according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil;’ or whether these deeds were done in England, America, Spain, Turkey[, or] India.”

(Ed. [Joseph Smith], “Baptism for the Dead,” Times and Seasons, 3 no. 12 [April 15, 1842]: 759. Unfortunately, here too, this passage is truncated in the online version, although not in the printed version, of Dr. Neilson’s article.  I’ve written to the editor of BYU Studies about this.)