Genre: Nonfiction—Religion, Philosophy, & Politics
Completed: 4 February 2016
Summary & Review:
Former member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, H. Verlan Andersen explores the proper role of government and the responsibilities members of the church have in it. Governments were established to secure freedom, something that is made up of five components: life, liberty, property, knowledge, and enticement. When such freedom exists humans experience maximum joy and satisfaction. Unfortunately, governments often overreach their proper role and encroach on individual freedom. Andersen warns of the tendencies in modern governments to move toward socialistic practices and exhorts church members to stand for freedom.
This book was recommended to me by an old friend from my mission I served in the Philippines. He knows that we share similar libertarian or classical liberal leanings so I knew his suggestion would be a good one and it definitely was. I was unfamiliar with Elder Andersen before reading this, but have since learned that not only was he a General Authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under President Benson, but he was also a Stanford and Harvard trained lawyer. He brought a thorough and scholarly approach to the topic and I sped through the pages.
When the book was written, the primary threat, and one that was an existential threat to freedom, was that of Soviet backed communism. While that system has thankfully collapsed and been tossed on the “ash heap of history,” the allure of Marxism remains, usually under the name of socialism. Current candidate for the Democrat party presidential nomination Sen. Bernie Sanders is an avowed socialist and it blows me away how many Americans, particularly young Americans, are supportive of his message and Scandinavian-style socialism in general. Freedom is the greatest blessing anyone could be given, but so many are seemingly ready and willing to throw it away for goodies and handouts from the all encompassing State.
I’ll post an “Arguments Summed Up” post on this book in a couple weeks which will flesh out more completely why Andersen warned so strongly against Marxism in all its expressions.
Rating: 8.0
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