A new book will soon be in bookstores nationwide and, in some cases, internationally. That, in itself, is not news. But this book is significantly different from any other: President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote it for a national audience, not for just members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Standing for Something — 10 Neglected Virtues that Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, published by Times Books, New York, N.Y., &#copy;Random House Inc., is filled with wisdom and insight for which President Hinckley is known and loved by Latter-day Saints. Now his insightful observations are available to readers of various religious convictions.
President Hinckley expresses concern that many people have abandoned time-honored and proven virtues, namely: Love, honesty, morality, civility, learning, forgiveness and mercy, thrift and industry, gratitude, optimism and faith.
President Hinckley notes that he is not one to believe that all was good in the long ago and that all is bad today. "For many reasons, I proclaim that this is the greatest age the world has known. But there is trouble in the land," he writes.
". . . . We spend billions of our resources in litigation one against another. Our spiritual power is sapped by a floodtide of pornography, by a debilitating epidemic of the use of narcotics and drugs that destroy both body and mind, and by a declining moral standard that is alarming and devastating to relationships, families, and the integrity of our nation as a whole.
"We are forgetting God, whose commandments we have neglected and in some cases forgotten, and which we seem reluctant — or too undisciplined — to obey. In too many ways, we have substituted human sophistry for the wisdom of the Almighty. . . .
"There is a serious unsteadiness in our country's stance in terms of morality, ethics, principles, and behavior."
President Hinckley writes of what he calls "the secularization of America," and observes: "The single most substantial factor in the degeneration of the values and morals of our society is that we as a nation are forsaking the Almighty, and I fear that He will begin to forsake us. We are shutting the door against the God whose sons and daughters we are."
He notes that what was once so commonly spoken of as sin is now referred to as "nothing more than poor judgment." Blatant dishonesty, he writes, is openly referred to and excused as "misleading others." He adds: "Virtue is too often neglected, if not scorned or ridiculed as old-fashioned, confining, unenlightened."
Further, he notes: "In earlier days, children and families were regarded as gifts from God; parents acknowledged and accepted their responsibility to nurture their children and bring them up in understanding, light, and truth. Work was a virtue to be enthroned as the enhancement of human dignity."
President Hinckley observes that where marriage was once generally regarded as a sacred sacrament it now, for the populace as a whole, is becoming a secular ceremony. An "epidemic of divorce rages," he writes.
"We need to be acutely aware of and concerned about our children, speaking of them as a whole," he adds. "I worry about the millions who come into the world with handicaps, seemingly impossible to overcome — children whose lives are blighted by neglect and abuse, children who have limitless capacity but almost no opportunity. In the long term, this may well be the most serious problem facing our nation because its consequences multiply and reach forward through generations.
"Can there be any doubt that a great sickness has invaded our land, and that healing is desperately needed in our hearts and in our homes?" President Hinckley asks. "Our value system is deteriorating and crumbling before our eyes. Secular self-sufficiency has replaced worship in the lives of many.
"This is the bad news. As we enumerate all our ills, the situation may appear hopeless. But there is a great reason to have hope, for there is a remedy. Our sickness is not difficult to diagnose, nor is the remedy complicated to prescribe. Healing in our hearts and in our homes, and subsequently throughout society, will begin to occur when we individually and collectively return to the code of ethics and the canons of divine truth that our honored forefathers lived by.
"We can treat and even cure the sickness that afflicts us by re-enthroning the moral and spiritual elements that have disappeared in recent decades."
President Hinckley calls for a "return to God," declaring a need to worship Him in spirit and in truth, to acknowledge His all-powerful hand and to seek His guidance.
"If we would individually and collectively resolve to stand for something, to lift our voices for truth and goodness and offer our supplications to our Eternal Father, those supplications would be heard, and the result would be remarkable," he writes.
"Here is the answer to the conflicts that beset us. Here is the answer to the evils of pornography, abortion, drugs and the squandering of our resources on evil pursuits. Here is the answer to the great epidemic of litigation that consumes time, saps our financial strength, and shackles our entrepreneurial spirit. Here is the answer to tawdry politics that place selfish interests and pursuits above the common good.
"Let all houses of worship ring with righteousness. Let people everywhere bow in reverence before the Almighty who is our one true source of strength."
