Moral Discipline

One of my favorite talks from conference (October, 2009) was that by Elder D. Todd Christofferson titled "Moral Discipline." I think his discussion on how society erodes without proper moral discipline (defined by him as self-discipline based on moral standards) is extremely accurate as to how society has progressed the past 200 years. It's not just technology that has progressed, but the fall of religion and the inability of people to maintain the definition of moral right and wrong, true and false, sin and righteousness, and overall good and evil. This progression has made it necessary to try and define laws that will cover every loophole and to protect every member of society. An impossible task, unless everyone lives by the same moral code. The simple battles of defining "freedom of religion" in the courts systems is only one of many examples. We are continuing to see the courts define freedom of religion as "freedom from religion" over and over. The eroding of the moral basis of a society will only serve to bring that society into bondage. Not bondage by bull whip, but volunteered inservitude for the first generation, accepting inservitude by the second generation, and revolutionary outbursts by the third generation.


"Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues" - D. Todd Christofferson