PROVO, Utah — One should devote his or her “highest allegiance” to great ideas, and the “idea of a republic — a democratic form of government — is one of the very best ideas,” said General Young Men President Steven J. Lund.
He spoke Sunday, July 2, at the 2023 Freedom Festival Patriotic Service devotional in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
“The flag is a symbol,” President Lund said. “The Pledge of Allegiance is something of a covenant we make — promising loyalty to the ideas that are wrapped up in the ‘republic for which it stands.’”
The following are ideas that President Lund shared at the Freedom Festival that he urged others to get behind.
Men are created equal
President Lund called the idea that all men are created equal, written by Thomas Jefferson into the Declaration of Independence, “a dream.”
At the time it was written, President Lund said, “There was no place on earth where such an idea was practiced — that every person should be treated with the same dignity and under the same rules.”
Although, at the time, the world had not been living that way, God had intended for people to be treated that way, he said, pointing to Romans 2:10-11: “But glory, honour, and peace, [is owed] to every man that worketh good. ... For there is no respect of persons with God.”
“He loves us equally,” President Lund said. “He commands us to ‘love one another’ equally” (John 15:12).
President Lund said that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution allow people to do just that — to love others and treat them equally and banish the abuse of power from communities. “The Declaration of Independence brought the match. It was the Constitution that brought the boom,” he said.
A country with flaws
Although the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were created, and although the ideas were wonderful and sought for a better future, this did not mean that it was so, President Lund explained.
“How are we flawed? Let us count the ways,” President Lund said.
“We are as mortal as any society. We are driven by all of the unholy motivations of all the cardinal sins,” he said. Having good ideas, including a good Constitution, does not necessarily make everyone better people.
“But it brings our highest and best aspirations forward in ways that allow us to live together with our defects and still look each other in the eye.
“When folks exactly like us — impure and imperfect — committed themselves to the ideas found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they did not create a perfect society,” he said. “They made a wish — and then pledged their allegiance to that wish.”
It was more like a “roadmap of ideas” that would help people “deliver what they described as a more perfect Union,” said President Lund. These ideas were meant to “serve as a compass capable of directing us towards ever increasing blessings of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Because of the imperfections of the United States’ history, one including slavery, President Lund said, “This may be our best example of the thesis that the Constitution is not just a rulebook, but also a strategy. It seems that God used it to move His benighted people out of darkness — line upon line” (2 Nephi 28:30).
He continued, “By establishing the Constitution, He had placed the nation on an inevitable path toward actualizing the dreamlike ideas of the Declaration of Independence. In very fact, it was apparently the very reason God inspired the Constitution into being.”
“He had caused the Constitution to be a growing and even self-healing document,” said President Lund. The failures, mistakes and pain were able to be repaired and changed, allowing a better life and future for the people of this country.
Uniting and fighting for each other
President Lund said that America’s brand is “about coming to the rescue.”
He continued, “The Constitution actually has little to say about war. It is focused on a system where we can live, excel and serve each other — which is the best way for us to honor our national ideals.”
Quoting a movie about the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lund said, “We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground. All of it. … Here, you can be something. Here is the place to build a home. But it’s not the land. … It’s the idea that we all have value — you and me. What we’re fighting for, in the end, we’re fighting for each other.”
President Lund’s hope is that “we may come together as a nation” and “continue to fight and look out for each other.”