Religious Education Commons^™

Creating "Good Government", Linda Hoffman Kimball

BYU Studies Quarterly

Creating an image that represents the quest for good government was a meaty challenge. There are so many opinions, so many priorities, so many personalities. How do power, choice, cooperation, force, fear, aspirations, and even geography impact how a society will structure itself and relate to others whose priorities vary?

Good Government Begins With Self-Government, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye

BYU Studies Quarterly

For nearly a thousand years (from around 960 to 1905 CE), becoming a government official in imperial China required passing a battery of multiday, multisubject, anonymously graded written exams requiring decades of intensive preparation. Eighteenth-century European politi- cal thinkers, including Voltaire, admired China’s system for using meritocratic criteria, as opposed to aristocratic birth, to select government officials. The exams tested not only scholars’ abilities in history, philosophy, government, and literature, but also—in theory at least—their personal cultivation of moral virtues such as benevolence and integrity. Good government required goodness.

Rise And Run Latter-Day Saint Women And Good Government, Susan R. Madsen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Thomas Jefferson believed that “the care of human life & happiness, & not their destruction, is the first & only legitimate object of good government.” According to Elder Wilford W. Andersen of the Seventy, one of the ways good government cares for human life and happiness is when it “protects religion and fosters religious freedom. And good religion encourages good citizenship and adherence to the law of the land.” If we are to ensure that human life, happiness, and religious freedom will thrive and be protected in the years ahead, women must be active in government. Women’s participation is essential …

Pursuing Mosiah’S And Madison’S Commonsense Principle In Today’S Divided Politics, Keith Allred

BYU Studies Quarterly

It is hard not to despair over the dysfunction in American politics today. The chaos created by the partisan rancor is continually before us. Angry tweets, bitter protests, and personal attacks are increasingly the norm, while civil discourse about sound policy is rare. No republic ever effectively managed its challenges this way.

“Truth Is The Only Ground” How Journalism Contributes To Good Government, Edward L. Carter

BYU Studies Quarterly

Growing up in the years after Watergate, I became a true believer in the power of the press to make society better by reporting on government’s corruption, lies, ineptitudes, and inefficiencies—as well as genuine public service, improvements, and accomplishments. In junior high school, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper critiquing the city garbage trucks in my neighborhood that left a trail of trash in their wake. In high school, I reported for the school newspaper about events and people as well as things I thought could be improved. I worked as a journalist during and …

The Role Of The Article Iii Judge, Thomas B. Griffith

BYU Studies Quarterly

The Constitution says precious little about the role envisioned for federal judges in the new government that document created: “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.”

"The Least Of These", Tinesha Zandamela

BYU Studies Quarterly

While imprisoned in Birmingham, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote of the struggle for civil rights: “I am cognizant of the interrelated- ness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Women Of Faith Speak Up And Speak Out The Genesis And Philosophical Underpinnings Of Mormon Women For Ethical Government, Sharlee Mullins Glenn

BYU Studies Quarterly

Good government is ethical government. That is the premise upon which the nonprofit organization Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) was founded.

Like millions of people across the United States, I found myself growing increasingly alarmed during the 2016 U.S. election cycle as I watched the great rifts in our political landscape widen and deepen, abetted by the divisive and often vitriolic discourse on all sides. This division, combined with the flagrant flouting of basic human decency by some who were running for public office, awakened many of us to a sense of our duty as citizens.

The Saints And The State: The Mormon Troubles In Illinois, James Simeone, Brent M. Rogers, Reviewer

BYU Studies Quarterly

The history of the Latter-day Saint experience in Nauvoo, Illinois, still has a great deal to teach us. It is not just the simplistic story of religious persecution and expulsion that is often rehearsed. In seven dense chapters, James Simeone, professor of political science at Illinois Wesleyan University, unveils a complex political milieu to explain the tension that led to the 1846 departure of the Saints from Illinois—and ultimately the United States. Relying on political theory and philosophy and his deep knowledge of politics in frontier Illinois, Simeone unpacks the paradox of a developing democracy, which he defines as the …