Majority Rule and Conscience

Today I went to an excellent performance of the play To Kill a Mockingbird which is of course patterned after famous novel by Harper Lee.  In one of the scenes Atticus, the white man who acts as the lawyer for an accused (and clearly innocent) black man, explained to his children why he had to take the case even though most people in the town were against him for it.  He told them that he had to do it because of his conscience: “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience,” he said.  As I’ve been pondering this scene of the play, I think it is clear that this is a principle of the gospel—we must do what is right no matter many or how few people agree with us.  This is what President Monson taught us so powerfully, “We will all face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us—all of us—have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God’s approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully but also as the determination to live decently.”  We must learn the will of the Lord and then commit to do it—that is the gospel path to peace, even if it the harder path to take in the world. 

            As I think about various accounts in the scriptures, there are so many prophets who stood up for what they knew to be right and true when those around them opposed and persecuted them.  Joseph Smith would not back down from his declaration that he had seen a vision even when so doing would have been so much easier.  He would later reflect, “I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true….   I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it” (JSH 1:25).  So many others likewise stayed true to the knowledge God had given them even at the peril of their own lives.  Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego all risk their lives to stay true to the God of Israel.  Elijah took on the hundreds of priests of Baal who sought to prove him wrong and had to run for his life so he would not be slain by Jezebel.  It was so bad in his day that he literally felt he was the only righteous one left: “I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).  Abinadi stood against Noah and his priests and would not recount what he knew the Lord had told him even when it put his life in danger.  He testified to them, “I will not recall the words which I have spoken unto you concerning this people, for they are true” (Mosiah 17:9).  It didn’t matter how many were against him as long as he was doing what the Lord required of him.  In the New Testament Paul faced countless dangers and opposition in order to bear witness of the Savior.  He recounted his sufferings for the work to the Corinthians: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.  Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren” (2 Corinthians 11:24-26).  But this was no deterrent for him, and he declared “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13).  Mormon and Moroni both stayed true to their testimonies of Christ in the face of overwhelming.  Moroni wrote, “And I, Moroni, will not deny the Christ; wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life” (Moroni 1:3).  Like so many other prophets, he was more concerned about His allegiance to the Lord than about his own welfare and physical life.  These prophets and many others showed us how to have true courage to follow conscience and trust in the Lord.  Like it was for Atticus, they showed that heeding conscience and what one knows to be true may cause external conflict, but it is in the only path for inner peace.