There were two times, actually, but only one was in General Conference.
In his April 2026 conference address “Alive in Christ,” Dallin H. Oaks acknowledged what an ugly mess this country is in politically, thanks in no small part to people who claim to be Christians.
Many current writers characterize the time in which we live as toxic, a time of contempt or hostility toward adversaries. This hostility affects many different relationships in society, involving many whose Christian beliefs should orient them otherwise.
As President Oaks pointed out, hostility and contempt for adversaries are incompatible with the basic teachings of Jesus Christ.
In the Sermon on the Mount, He declared: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” […] Today we might say that we are commanded to love our adversaries.
Instead of mutual hatred, President Oaks gave us a reminder of how our politics are supposed to work.
When we seek to keep all the commandments in our personal lives, we are sometimes accused of having no love for those who don’t. When we show personal love and support loving causes, we are sometimes misunderstood as implying support for results that contradict our other religious duties. But as followers of Christ, we should seek to live peaceably and lovingly with other children of God who do not share our values and do not have the covenant obligations we have assumed. In a democratic government we should seek fairness for all.
I repeat: “In a democratic government we should seek fairness for all,” even when that means supporting people or cooperating with movements we do not fully agree with.
President Oaks returned to the same themes just a month ago in a speech at the National Cathedral in which he rejected the currently popular theories of the case for voting Republican. He began by dismissing the claim that there is anything special about Christians with European ancestors:
What became the United States was founded and built by people of different nationalities, ethnicities, and beliefs. Its unifying purpose was not to establish a particular religion or to perpetuate any of the diverse cultures or tribal loyalties of the old countries.
If the United States is a country rooted in a particular shared history, as J. D. Vance and others have argued, then we as church members have a claim on citizenship as precarious as any immigrant or child of immigrants. President Oaks pointedly mentioned
our early history as refugees—surviving expulsion from Missouri in the 1830s by a unique “extermination” order, and in the 1840s forced to flee the borders of the United States to try to establish a separate society in a land then claimed but not settled by Mexico.
Instead of a citizenship based in a heritage and history we do not fully share – in blood we may not have and soil that we left – as church members in the United States, we base our American citizenship on belief in the Constitution.
Speaking for my own Church, the U.S. Constitution is of special importance to our members. We have a revelation that identifies the Constitution as divinely inspired. This does not mean that every word is inspired, but that it is based on inspired principles.
Rather than seeing limitations on the executive branch as a nefarious thwarting of the popular will, President Oaks explicitly identified checks on presidential power as one of the Constitution’s five inspired principles.
A third inspired principle is the separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
He also seemed unlikely to support the Republican Party’s current mutation into the personal party of Donald Trump.
Fifth, we see divine inspiration in the vital purpose of the entire Constitution, which is that we are to be governed by law and not by individuals. Our loyalty is based on the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to particular office-holders.
President Oaks referred several times to the “common good,” including in the title of his speech, not in the sense of a state-imposed moral framework, but the common good of a liberal society where citizens disagree on basic values.
As a practical basis for unity, all of us should accept the reality that we are fellow citizens who need each other. This requires all of us to obey some laws we dislike and to live peacefully with some persons whose values differ from our own. We should make every effort to understand the experiences and concerns of others, especially when they differ from our own.
He also did not seem inclined to support any form of Christian Nationalism.
We should be especially careful not to seek total dominance for all our own positions. Even though the First Amendment obviously guarantees the right to exercise or practice religious beliefs, that vital right is not absolute. Advocates for absolute religious freedom should yield to the reality that in a nation with citizens of many different religious beliefs or disbeliefs, the government must sometimes limit the right of some to act upon some of their beliefs when it is necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of all.
So get your kids vaccinated for the good of the rest of the school, no matter what you claim to read into the Book of Alma.
And on a national stage, President Oaks again repeated the line, “We should seek fairness for all.”
What should we learn from this speech?
I do not think you can claim to love your adversaries one moment, and vote for an avenging angel who will make them suffer the next. In the last election, one candidate promised to be the president of all Americans and to include a Republican in her cabinet; the other promised the thrill of seeing your political enemies face persecution. It was one of the easiest tests of moral judgment you will ever face, but a lot of you failed it.
Often people have said they just can’t vote for a Democrat because they disagree with the Democratic Party on abortion or gay rights. Now the prophet has told you, twice, from the most prominent pulpits in the Church and in the country: That’s not how this works. Our goal should be “fairness for all” and building coalitions – the Constitution “compels a divided people to build coalitions that allow them to act together for the common good” – with people who don’t share all your values.
We all make mistakes. There’s another election coming up soon. This time, try harder to follow the prophet.
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