FAIR's Rising Generation

Author Archive

A key point in defending your faith is choosing your battles. It is surprising to some that certain philosophies, although held by many, or even the majority of, church members need not be defended at all. No one is under any obligation to defend the Church’s stance in a case in which the Church has no stance. It may seem obvious, but many people feel that certain ideas are fundamentally in opposition to their beliefs, when in fact, they are irrelevant. Evolution is one such issue.

Many church members are quite disturbed by the idea of organic evolution. They may take exception to the idea that man evolved from lower life forms, or that that there was death before the Fall. Perhaps they don’t think the Earth is older than 6,000 years, that humans have existed equally as long as the Earth, or that the Earth was created in exactly seven days.

Then again, there are and have been faithful LDS members (including apostles, BYU faculty members, and LDS scientists) who do believe that the Earth came into existence eons ago, that there was animal and plant death before the Fall, or even that man’s physical body (although the spirit is of divine heritage) was created over millions of years through the process of evolution.

The great part is that you can believe whatever you want and not worry about your testimony! As David O McKay once wrote in a letter to the Geology Department at BYU, “the Church has officially taken no position [on evolution].”

The scriptures tell us why the Lord created us, not how. They are designed to teach us of salvation, the atonement, and the eternal nature of our spirits, not the natural history of the Earth. I encourage anyone who reads this to come to their own conclusions and not feel pressured by the (sometimes adamant or misinformed) views of others, be they in or outside of the Church. Whatever your opinion, it has nothing to do with your standing in the Church or your salvation.

In response to a dispute between Joseph Fielding Smith, James Talmage, and B.H. Roberts on the issue of “pre-Adamites”, President Heber J Grant and the current first presidency made this statement:

Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. Leave Geology, Biology, Archaeology, and Anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research.

For a more in-depth examination of views on evolution throughout Church history, take a look at this article on the FAIR wiki. The evolution debate dates back to Joseph Fielding Smith, who was opposed to evolution, and James Talmage and B.H. Roberts, who were much more open to the idea. All were prominent members of the Church, so it’s interesting to see their take, and their ultimate decision to leave science to the scientists.

I’m pretty excited about today’s Awesome Person, because for the first time, I’m actually highlighting a Mormon teen. An anti-Nazi Mormon teen.

While I was at the FAIR conference a couple weeks ago, I saw a book called Hübener vs Hitler, and was really interested by it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough American cash with me to buy it and they weren’t taking debit or Canadian money, so I bought the less expensive documentary on DVD, called Truth & Conviction. I am ordering the book from the FAIR bookstore soon, because the documentary was so interesting, I just have to know more about Helmuth Hübener!

As I said, Helmuth Hübener was a nazi resistance fighter during the Third Reich. Using a borrowed typewriter and armed with outside information from (then banned) BBC German-language broadcasts, he and two friends produced and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. Over six months, he compiled more than 20 intelligently-written, informative leaflets, revealing the truth about Hitler’s regime.

Unfortunately, the Gestapo (“Geheime Staatpolizei” or “Secret State Police”) was informed of his activities when he tried to have a friend translate the leaflets into French. He was imprisoned for 9 months before being sentenced to death by guillotine.

I was moved by Helmuth’s motives; he felt it was his Christian obligation to defend the rights of others. He also recognized that while following the laws of the land is important, truth and righteousness do come before loyalty to any political leader. There were members of the Church who were members of the Nazi party, including Helmuth’s branch president. There was a strong pressure to appear as a “good German citizen”, and with religious prejudice abounding, members of the LDS community were definitely afraid for their safety. We can’t judge them, as we don’t know what it was like for them, or how much they were actually aware of (as all legally-available media was Nazi propaganda). What I do know is that Helmuth felt morally compelled to empower his fellow citizens with truthful information. His work was relatively short-lived, but has had a huge impact. He’s truly an inspiration to people all over the world, of any age, living in any time period.

Another interesting thing I found out is that there’s currently a major motion picture in production about the story. It’s called Truth and Treason. Something to watch out for!

Seal Island Lighthouse Museum in Barrington, Nova Scotia

Today, I’m going to write about one of my ancestors, as I happen to come from a long line of humanitarians. I also have saltwater in my veins, in that I come from a long line of Bluenosers (a Bluenoser is someone from Nova Scotia, in case you didn’t know).

Nothing’s nicer than the crisp, salty, Atlantic ocean. Unless you’re drowning in it, which many sailors have done over the years. The southern tip of Nova Scotia had a cluster of small, rocky islands near the “Devil’s Current”, which trapped and sunk many ships. The largest of the islands was called Seal Island, and sailors visiting in the spring invariably found dead bodies washed ashore. It was often clear that the men were alive upon reaching the shore only to starve or freeze to death because the island was uninhabited.

Mary Hichens Crowell, my eigthth great grandmother, was greatly troubled by this. It took her a while, but she talked her husband into moving out to Seal Island for the winter to save shipwrecked sailors. He had tried to talk her out of it on numerous occassions, but she reminded him that he had once been shipwrecked himself, although luckily, it was on the mainland so he was rescued. So they braved the first winter in an old fishing shanty, and next year built permanent homes.

Some of Mary’s relatives also moved out to help, forming two small hamlets on the island. Eventually, a lighthouse and foghorn were built, and a flock of sheep kept to provide ample food should a crew of sailors need feeding. Seal Island was granted to the Hichens and Crowells by the King of England, and was passed down through the generations.

Fortunately, technology today prevents shipwrecks from occurring and enables easier rescue by crews on the mainland, although my great aunt still lives there much of the time.

The neat thing about learning one’s family history is that you find out about all the neat people you’re connected to. For me, I found a legacy of humanitarianism, and I hope I’m able to carry on the tradition in whatever way I can, although I haven’t saved any sailors to date.

If you know of anyone, personally or not, living or dead, from near or abroad, let me know about them! I’ll add them to my list of awesome people who I will be highlighting weekly.

___

FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.

The idea behind Free the Children is that of “children helping children”, which was inspired by the age of its founder. Craig Kielburger was only 12 when he decided that less fortunate children needed help. Some critics said he was too young to tackle such “adult” issues such as poverty and exploitation. His attitude, however, was that if children in other parts of the world are facing these issues personally, then more fortunate young people should be able to help them.

Since then, the organisation has provided education for children, taught sustainable income methods to countless families, and empowered youth in North America to help others.

The attitude Craig was up against was that people, especially youth, are powerless to change the world for the better. However, he started the organisation when he was only 12 and over half of the come through youth! Craig has even been named a member of the prestigious Order of Canada, the high civilian honour for Canadian humanitarians.

___

FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.

The person who inspired me to do the awesome people profiles in the first place was Paulin Ngobobo. I had read an article about him and the mountain gorillas of Virunga Park in National Geographic and was really touched by his bravery.

To set the scene a bit, Virunga Park is in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were currently two guerrilla armies and the Congolese army fighting with each other, displacing thousands of people. Tourism drawn by the gorillas used to be a major source of income for the region, Virunga Park being the most geographically and biologically diverse park in Africa, but with so much turmoil, tourists were reluctant to go. With a relatively heavy population nearby, many people turned to burning the old hardwood trees of Virunga park, making them into coal in mud ovens, and using them for fuel. Paulin began to work for Virunga park, and soon found that almost everyone he worked with was corrupt, stealing wages from those beneath them, taking bribes to not report poaching, pocketing tourism money that was not rightfully theirs, or cutting down acres of trees to turn into coal. Paulin took measures to get the park rangers their full and rightful wages, and to stop the illegal coal trade that was destroying the park. He soon found that his superior, Honore Mashagiro was the kingpin behind the coal trade, using his position as park director to smuggle coal out of the forest and pocket a pretty penny for himself. When Paulin started to investigate too deeply into matters, Mashagiro had him imprisoned and beaten.

Then, six mountain gorillas were shot execution style. It wasn’t the work of poachers, because none of their body parts were harvested. Paulin was accused of killing them and it became clear that he was being framed for the murder of six mountain gorillas in an attempt to make him stay out of the way of the illegal coal trade. That, in a nutshell, is what happened.

All I can say is that it takes a lot of courage to maintain integrity when the people around you are corrupt, when times are harsh, and your life could very well be at stake if you try to be honest.

—–

FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.