Just and Holy Principles

Founders:

Brethren:

Gordon B. Hinckley: In 1933 there was a movement in the United States to overturn the law which prohibited commerce in alcoholic beverages. When it came to a vote, Utah was the deciding state.

I was on a mission, working in London, England, when I read the newspaper headlines that screamed, “Utah Kills Prohibition.”

President Heber J. Grant, then President of this Church, had pleaded with our people against voting to nullify Prohibition. It broke his heart when so many members of the Church in this state disregarded his counsel. On this occasion I am not going to talk about the good or bad of Prohibition but rather of uncompromising loyalty to the Church. (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Loyalty,” Ensign, May 2003, 58 )

William G. Hartley: By the time Elder Heber J. Grant became Church President in 1918, America was in a reform crusade called Prohibition. One year earlier, in December 1917, the U.S. Congress had approved an amendment to the Constitution making the production and sale of alcohol illegal; the states ratified the amendment in January 1919. President Grant, a Word of Wisdom advocate, called Prohibition “the greatest financial and moral blessing that has ever come to humanity.” 10 But Prohibition failed to end the alcohol trade, driving it underground instead. (William G. Hartley, “The Church Grows in Strength,” Ensign, Sept. 1999, 32)

Russell M. Nelson: We reach out in love to family, friends, and neighbors, regardless of nationality or creed, who suffer addiction [of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs]. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to help relieve this international plague.

The solution to this problem ultimately is neither governmental nor institutional. Nor is it a question of legality. It is a matter of individual choice and commitment. Agency must be understood. The importance of the will in making crucial choices must be known. Then steps toward relief can follow. (Russell M. Nelson, “Addiction or Freedom,” Ensign, Nov. 1988, 6 )

Ezra Taft Benson: “The world is already beginning to reap the consequences of their abandonment of any standards of morality. As just one example, recently the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States warned that if a cure for AIDS is not quickly found, it could become a worldwide epidemic that “will dwarf such earlier medical disasters as the Black Plague, smallpox and typhoid” (Salt Lake Tribune, 30 Jan. 1987, p. A-1).

As the world seeks solutions for this disease, which began primarily through widespread homosexuality, they look everywhere but to the law of the Lord. There are numerous agencies, both public and private, trying to combat AIDS. They seek increased funding for research. They sponsor programs of education and information. They write bills aimed at protecting the innocent from infection. They set up treatment programs for those who have already become infected. These are important and necessary programs, and we commend those efforts. But why is it we rarely hear anyone calling for a return to chastity, for a commitment to virtue and fidelity?” (Ezra Taft Benson, "The Message: The Law of Chastity, Oct. 13, 1987)

Ezra Taft Benson: The precepts of men would have you believe that by limiting the population of the world, we can have peace and plenty. That is the doctrine of the devil. Small numbers do not insure peace; only righteousness does. After all, there were only a handful of men on the earth when Cain interrupted the peace of Adam’s household by slaying Abel. On the other hand, the whole city of Enoch was peaceful; and it was taken into heaven because it was made up on righteous people.

And so far as limiting the population in order to provide plenty is concerned, the Lord answered that falsehood in the Doctrine and Covenants when he said: “For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.” (D&C 104:17.) A major reason why there is famine in some parts of the world is because evil men have used the vehicle of government to abridge the freedom that men need to produce abundantly. True to form, many of the people who desire to frustrate, through worldwide birth control, God’s purposes of giving mortal tabernacles to his spirit children are the very same people who support the kinds of government that perpetuate famine. They advocate an evil to cure the results of the wickedness they support.” (Ezra Taft Benson, "God, Family, Country," p. 257-8)

References:

→  Russell M. Nelson, “Addiction or Freedom,” Ensign, Nov. 1988, 6