Religion is under threat, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland says at BYU devotional

Religion is under attack, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland asserted during an address Tuesday morning at Brigham Young University.

“If that is true — and we surely we feel it is — then we should be genuinely concerned over the assertion that the single most distinguishing feature of modern life is the rise of secularism with its attendant dismissal of, cynicism toward, or marked disenchantment with religion,” Holland said.

Holland, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave the university’s weekly devotional Tuesday in a packed Marriott Center as part of BYU Education Week.

In the devotional, “Religion: ‘Bound by Loving Ties,’” he said he referred to religion as “that which unites what was separated or holds together that which might be torn apart, an obvious need for us, individually and collectively, given trials and tribulations we all experience here in mortality.”

With frequent citations, at least 25, in addition to mentions of multiple books, both religious and classics, Holland said there aren’t examples of societies maintaining moral life without religion. He also directly mentioned and broadly critiqued atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.

“We are grateful that a large segment of the human population does have some form of religious belief, and in that sense we have not yet seen a ‘polar night of icy darkness’ envelope us,” Holland said. “But no one can say we are not seeing some glaciers on the move.”

He said religion is the principle influence that has kept Western life moral and paid tribute to art, music and literature that can be considered to have religious themes, such as “Moby Dick” or “The Scarlet Letter.”

Holland concluded with urging participants to live the religious principles they want to preserve.

“Only in the living of our religion will the preservation of it have true meaning,” Holland said.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/education/college/byu/religion-is-under-threat-elder-jeffrey-r-holland-says-at/article_3ed90186-5c71-5932-abd6-5e70695e432e.html




So, the complaint is that more people in society are becoming secular, and are disenchanted with organized religion.

How is that an attack?
Maybe it's simply a failure of Churches  to serve both God and man.
Maybe it's an inevitable, and regrettable trend.
But absent some activities that prevent the faithful from believing or worshipping as they please, it cannot accurately be portrayed as an attack.

On the contrary, perhaps Mr Holland's statement that societies cannot live a moral life without religion, is an attack on the atheists and agnostic.
Just a thought.

Last edited by Goose (8/17/2016 7:29 am)