All Episodes
David L. Cook leads us in an inspiring lesson about the inspired Constitution and ways we can learn from it, flaws and all and avoid the temptations of Christian nationalism.
David L. Cook is a retired lawyer of 40 years in the Rochester, NY area. He is married to the ultra-talented Kathleen Cook, who served as a regional LDS public affairs director. He has served in many callings including stake president and area seventy and currently enjoys teaching Sunday School to the 15-year-olds. He loves travel, reading, landscaping, skiing, remodeling, writing and spending time with his family.
Transcript: THE INSPIRED PRINCIPLES OF AN IMPERFECT CONSTITUTION
Faith, Freedom, and the Temptation of Christian Nationalism
Introduction – It is an honor to speak to you today. Dialogue was a fixture in my home growing up. Much of my world view is shaped by parents who were devout LDS, yet encouraged inquiry. Dad was a convert as a teenager and served a mission in the Eastern States Mission. He never planned on serving a mission. His father was Presbyterian and very antagonistic towards the church and did not allow his oldest son to serve. Dad was shocked when the bishop came to the house to inquire about Dad serving, he relented.
Dad was deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement, and it was the first white member of the NAACP in Ogden. He was very involved in Utah Democratic politics and wrote hundreds of letters to church leadership on the issues of the day. Sometimes in his own name and sometimes by pseudonym. Often pushing the envelope on the priesthood restriction. (Some great stores come from that era. If time permits maybe I can share one of those stories at the end. If anyone is interested.) Mom was the granddaughter of Apostle Orson F. Whitney. Her father was an alcoholic who walked out on his family when Mom was 5. She was raised mostly by grandparents in the small town of Monroe, Utah. She became an accomplished poet with 100’s of poems published.
I was a late bloomer. Graduated from OHS with a 1.8 GPA. But in my defense, I skied 50ish times a season. My high school guidance counselor didn’t even bother to talk to me about college. Fortunately, my Mom, who worked at Weber State College registered me for college, without my knowledge and handed me my class schedule. I was the 2nd generation of 18-year-olds to vote in 1976. I voted on my way to Snowbasin. I walked in and said to myself, “Well Mom and Dad are Democrats, so I guess I’m a Democrat.” I then pulled the lever for Jimmy Carter and entire ticket all the way down.
My turning point was a mission in NYC (Spanish) 77-79. Take a white kid from Ogden and drop him in the toughest ghettos of NYC when NYC was at rock bottom. He’ll learn to love or leave it. It was a transformative experience in every way. I learned to see beauty in the barrios. I was loved and cared for by mostly undocumented families.
Post mission, I married (my 1st comps girlfriend) and woke up academically. I went on to BYU for grad school and law school. Despite vowing never to become a “zoobie”, I bleed cougar blue. I have practiced law in New York for 40 years as a litigator. I am not a Constitutional scholar but have handled several cases with Constitutional issues, e.g. religious freedom (representing a large evangelical church; the LDS Church re land use issues with the Palmyra Temple; a prisoner seeking protection for his religious practices), police abuse under the 4th and 14th Amendments; and the oldest case in the WDNY re wheelchair bound individuals in the NY state prison system; election law redistricting battles.
My comments today, should not be viewed as an academic analysis, but rather a culmination of a lifetime of reading history, and work in the trenches where Constitutional rights were litigated in court. To be sure, there is a difference between Constitutional scholarship and Constitutional litigation.
I. A Fragile Experiment
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution emerged not from revelation in the traditional religious sense, but from debate, compromise, fear, ambition, political necessity, and—perhaps—moments of genuine inspiration. It was drafted by brilliant men, flawed men, ambitious men, compromised men. Some opposed slavery. Some profited from it. Some feared centralized power; others feared democratic chaos. None agreed completely with the final document they signed.
And yet many Latter-day Saints, were taught to regard the Constitution with something approaching scriptural reverence. Doctrine & Covenants sec. 101:79-80 declares, “. . . it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. For this purpose I have established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose.” The irony of these verses, I fear is lost on many members. For many the Constitution becomes not merely a political framework but something sacred, almost canonized in Mormon culture.
But what exactly does it mean for the Constitution to be “inspired”?
That question matters, particularly now, as we approach the 250th anniversary of the American founding at a moment when democratic institutions, constitutional norms, and even the meaning of religious liberty are under increasing strain. I would not have been alarmist on this issue previously, because I had faith in the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court.
That faith has been deeply shaken with recent Louisiana v. Callais decision. I consider it to be deeply flawed on many levels. The “originalists” invoking the ghost of Justice Roger Taney in the Dred Scott decision treat racial discrimination as an abstract problem rather than a documented pattern of political engineering. It ignores the very history that led Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act in 1965, a history of districts deliberately drawn to fracture minority voting power. I have litigated redistricting cases and the reality is that legislators do not leave smoking guns. They leave statistical fingerprints. The majority now insists fingerprints are not enough, only confessions will do. That is not jurisprudence. It is willful blindness. But I digress.
I want to suggest that the Constitution itself is not inspired in the same way LDS understand scripture to be inspired. Rather, the Constitution reflects inspired principles expressed through imperfect human beings working within the limitations of history, culture, politics, and moral blindness.
That distinction matters.
Because if we insist the Constitution itself was divinely perfect, we immediately confront unavoidable moral problems.
- An inspired document should not have protected slavery.
- An inspired document should not have counted enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for purposes of political representation while denying them liberty itself.
- An inspired document should not have excluded women from political participation, ignored Native Americans except as obstacles or commodities, and tolerated systems of racial hierarchy that persisted for generations.
These are not minor blemishes on an otherwise pristine text. They are profound moral failures!
My wife and I have visited the colonial homes of many of the founders. It is profoundly sobering to see the conditions under which enslaved people existed. I have read many slave narratives and will never grasp how so many of the Founders participated in and profited from such an evil system. The stories are legion. And largely forgotten!
Thomas Jefferson himself, author of the Declaration’s soaring words wrote about equality while simultaneously owning slaves, once confessed:
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
That may be one of the most honest sentences ever written by a founder. Jefferson recognized the contradiction embedded at the center of the American experiment. And yet acknowledging those failures does not require us to abandon the idea of divine influence altogether.
Perhaps what was inspired was not perfection, but possibility.
Perhaps what was inspired were the principles:
- limits on concentrated power,
- protection of conscience,
- distributed authority,
- checks and balances,
- accountability to law rather than rulers,
- and the radical proposition that legitimate government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.
And perhaps most inspired of all was the amendment process itself. Because embedded within the Constitution is the recognition that future generations would need to correct the failures of the present generation. The Constitution contains within itself, what I would call, the mechanism for repentance.
That, to me, feels deeply consistent with Restoration theology.
- Continuing Revelation and the Constitution
Latter-day Saints do not actually believe in institutional or individual infallibility. We believe in continuing revelation. We believe truth unfolds “line upon line.” We believe human beings, even inspired human beings, “see through a glass darkly.” We believe prophets are mortal, institutions evolve, understanding expands, and societies can improve morally over time.
Why then do some of us insist on constitutional infallibility?
President Oaks himself explicitly rejected that idea in his 2021 conference address “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution.” He stated:
“Our belief that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired does not mean that divine revelation dictated every word and phrase.” Then significantly he noted:
“Inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote.”
That is a remarkably important statement. It means constitutional inspiration did not end in Philadelphia in 1787. Indeed, one could plausibly argue that some of the most inspired constitutional moments in American history came later:
- 13th Amendment abolishing slavery,
- 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection,
- 15th Amendment expanding voting rights,
- 19th Amendment recognizing women’s suffrage,
- and the civil rights movement’s insistence that America finally honor its own stated ideals.
The Constitution was not preserved unchanged through the Civil War. It was transformed by it.
Note: We live in Rochester, NY a hotbed of antislavery and women’s suffrage in the mid-1800s. Many homes still exist that were safe houses on the Underground railroad. For decades I have walked by the corner near the State and Federal courts, where Fredrick Douglass gave his famous speech, “What does the 4th of July mean to an ex-slave like me.” We’ve been to Susan B. Anthony’s home, many times, and seen the black silk dress that was presented to her by the Relief Society suffragettes of Utah on her 80th birthday. Yet even in that hotbed of activism, Harriet Tumbman, when she traveled from Auburn, NY to Rochester for suffrage conventions, had to sleep on a bench in the train station, because not a single hotel in Rochester would admit black guests. When Susan B. learned of this injustice, she made sure a coach was waiting to meet her and transport her to Susan’s home. Yet decades later Redlining was rampant. Learning about Redling in my work with Habitat for Humanity led to an MHA paper on last year on Redlining in Zion. Yes, it existed, and unfortunately, prominent LDS advocated for and participated in its use.
III. The Price to Amend the Constitution was the Blood of Millions
The Reconstruction Amendments were not betrayals of the Constitution. They were America’s attempt, however incomplete, to bring the Constitution into closer alignment with its own promises. Or if I might say it “inspired” purpose.
Lincoln understood this tension perhaps better than anyone. During the Civil War he described the nation as a “house divided against itself.” But in his Second Inaugural Address he went even deeper, suggesting the war itself might represent divine judgment for slavery:
“Until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”
Lincoln did not treat America as morally innocent. Neither should we.
- The Rise of Christian Nationalism
This brings me to another issue I want to address carefully tonight: Christian nationalism. I want to distinguish very clearly between religious faith influencing public morality, which has always been part of American life, and the much more dangerous idea that America either was or should become fundamentally a Christian nation governed by Christian dominance. Those are not the same thing.
In fact, Latter-day Saints should understand the dangers of religious nationalism better than almost anyone because our own history is filled with examples of what happens when government power merges with dominant religious identity. I find it particularly informative that the LDS Church was not invited to participate in the “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving”. That should send a message to our MAGA co-religionists. But I doubt they will see the nuance.
In 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the infamous extermination order declaring: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.” The Saints were not persecuted despite Christian majoritarianism. They were persecuted partly because of it.
Mormon history should leave us deeply suspicious of any movement seeking to merge state power with religious orthodoxy. And yet in recent years some within American Christianity, including some within Mormonism, have embraced forms of Christian nationalism that portray pluralism itself as weakness, secular constitutional government as illegitimate, and political compromise as moral surrender.
Ironically, many of the founders themselves warned against exactly this danger.
- James Madison wrote: “Ecclesiastical establishments… have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of civil authority.”
- Thomas Jefferson described the First Amendment as building: “a wall of separation between Church & State.”
- George Washington warned against what he called “the horrors of spiritual tyranny.”
The founders were not attempting to create a secular society hostile to religion. Most were religious in some form. But they understood the danger of governments claiming divine authority. That distinction remains critical. They would be horrified at images posted by the current POTUS of Christ standing behind him in support, or even worse POTUS as Jesus blessing the sick, and many more.
A secular constitutional state is not the same thing as secularism.
A secular state protects freedom of conscience for everyone: believers, unbelievers, minorities, dissenters, and religious communities outside the majority tradition. That constitutional neutrality is precisely what allowed Mormonism itself to survive and eventually flourish. Ironically, many Christian nationalists today seek the very fusion of religion and political identity that earlier generations of Latter-day Saints once feared.
Some modern advocates of Christian nationalism openly reject pluralism itself. One recent Christian nationalist writer argued that government should suppress “false religion and heresy” and promote a preferred version of Christianity. Another defended punishing “heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters.” (Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism). Not a minority of Christian Nationalist thought leaders advocate for state preference for orthodox Protestant Christianity and state suppression of rival religious systems. It is not hard to imagine where that leaves us and other minority religions!
That is not constitutional government. That is theocratic impulse. And history repeatedly demonstrates where such impulses lead. The greatest constitutional failures in American history have rarely occurred because liberty had too much protection. They occurred because fear overwhelmed principle.
Consider the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857. The Court declared that Black Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Constitutional interpretation, untethered from moral principle, became an instrument of oppression rather than liberty.
Or consider the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. More than 120,000 persons, most of them American citizens, were stripped of liberty because fear and nationalism overwhelmed constitutional restraint. The Topaz camp in Delta, UT housed thousands. Upon their release some settled in Weber and Box Elder Counties. One of my closest friends growing up, was the grandson of detainees. Or consider the Jehovah’s Witnesses cases during World War II, when children were expelled from school for refusing compulsory flag salutes on religious grounds.
In defending those unpopular minorities, Justice Robert Jackson (a Western NY boy made good and the last S.Ct. justice that “read the law” without attending law school), wrote one of the greatest lines in American constitutional history:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official… can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.”
That is constitutional liberty at its best. And importantly, constitutional freedoms are often clarified not when majorities a
re protected, but when minorities are.
Again, Latter-day Saints should understand that.
President Oaks has repeatedly emphasized not dominance, but coexistence. In a 2021 lecture at the University of Virginia, he stated:
“We should not seek total dominance for our own position; we should seek fairness for all.” (Maybe consider a comment about the Utah Compact? David French’s experience with Oaks)
That is not the language of Christian nationalism. That is the language of constitutional pluralism. And perhaps that is one of the deepest constitutional principles of all. The Constitution does not require agreement. It requires peaceful disagreement.
It does not require religious uniformity. It requires equal citizenship.
It does not demand ideological victory. It demands constitutional restraint.
President Oaks also warned: “Our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to any office holder.”
That statement feels particularly important today. Because constitutional government survives only when citizens place processes above personality, law above tribe, and principles above partisan victory. And facts above all else. Sadly, too many of our people seem prone to political tribes over truth and all too willing to overlook blatant constitutional violations of the law. The 2020 election was not stolen, there were not 2000 mules, and Jan. 6 was not a normal tourist visit.
- Amity and the Obligation to Resist
At this point, some may ask whether emphasizing constitutional pluralism, civic friendship, and what the founders called “amity” risks becoming an excuse for passivity. If we are always seeking understanding, compromise, and coexistence, what happens when we encounter genuine injustice? What happens when constitutional norms are violated, when minorities are targeted, when truth itself is manipulated, or when political leaders demand loyalty at the expense of principle?
This is a real tension. The founders frequently spoke of civic friendship as essential to republican government. John Adams warned that the Constitution depended upon a moral and virtuous people. Washington cautioned against the spirit of faction. Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” None of them imagined a constitutional republic could survive if citizens viewed one another as enemies.
Yet history also teaches that friendship alone is insufficient. There are moments when silence becomes complicity. The abolitionists were not always polite. Frederick Douglass was not moderate in his condemnation of slavery. The women’s suffrage movement disrupted comfortable assumptions. Martin Luther King Jr. was repeatedly criticized by religious leaders who urged patience, civility, and gradualism. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King responded that justice too long delayed is justice denied. He distinguished between a negative peace, which is merely the absence of tension, and a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.
That distinction remains important today. Amity does not require moral neutrality. Civic friendship does not require us to pretend that all ideas are equally true, that all policies are equally just, or that all exercises of power are equally legitimate. It does not require silence in the face of corruption, cruelty, dishonesty, discrimination, or authoritarianism.
What it does require is that we resist the temptation to dehumanize those with whom we disagree. We can condemn conduct without denying the humanity of the person engaging in it. We can oppose dangerous ideas without treating our opponents as enemies. We can challenge abuses of power without abandoning constitutional principles ourselves.
I can’t help but think of my Dad on this issue. He argued forcefully in the 60’s over bigotry, the John Birch Society, Civil Rights, not infrequently with members of the ward. When he was called as Stake Clerk, I remember the only time, in my life when someone voted opposed in a sustaining. Yet many times I would come home at night and he’d be sitting in the living room with a member of our ward discussing politics, the Civil Rights Act, Viet Nam. Sometimes, when I was in high school I was invited to sit and listen. When he worked in Washington, DC he often told the story of attending High Priest Group meetings with Frank Moss and Wallace Bennet. He would read in the Washington Post, during the week, about them debating each other. Yet on Sunday, they embraced each other and sat next to each other in Priesthood meeting.
Perhaps the deeper constitutional challenge, is mot merely speaking truth to power, but speaking truth without becoming captive to the same spirit we oppose.
The Restoration offers a useful model. Prophets repeatedly confronted kings, priests, judges, and majorities. Abinadi stood before Noah. Samuel the Lamanite confronted a society intoxicated by wealth and power. Joseph Smith denounced injustice even while pleading for constitutional protection. None were silent. Yet their ultimate loyalty was not to political tribes but to eternal principles.
A healthy constitutional culture requires both courage and restraint. Courage without restraint becomes fanaticism. Restraint without courage becomes surrender.
The goal is not civility for its own sake. The goal is a society in which truth can be spoken, injustice challenged, and power held accountable without destroying the bonds of citizenship that make self-government possible.
In that sense, amity is not the alternative to resistance. It is the discipline that allows resistance to remain principled rather than vindictive. It is how free people oppose injustice while preserving the constitutional order that makes reform possible.
- The Role Church
I find it very curious, perhaps providential, that Dallin Oaks is the President of the Church at a time of significant political division and the total disregard of Constitutional norms by POTUS. Maybe, I can provide a little insight. Before I was called as an Area 70, my only contact with Pres. Oaks was an occasional nod in the law library during my 1L year at BYU. All 1Ls were relegated to the basement for our study carrels. It was kind of like eternal progression from the telestial kingdom 1L year to the celestial kingdom 3L year on the 2nd floor with windows. But I digress.
Then Justice Oaks often did research at a table near my carrel. I never spoke to him but occasionally when he left the library and I was still plugging away he would give a smile or a nod, and occasionally a word of encouragement. Later as an A70 I was assigned to be his “junior companion” on several occasions.
I was stunned during those experiences at how open he was. Without revealing confidences, let me say that Pres. Oaks is not the raging ultra-conservative cultural warrior that some assume. Granted I understand the frustration, and I share that frustration, on LGBTQ issues. But even there I have seen a softening.
My point is that most progressive members have no idea of some of the things he has done and the principled positions he has taken. Just one story to illustrate. When BYU was considering a law school, some in leadership wanted it to be a school to train cultural warriors with Cleon Skousen as the dean and professor of Constitutional law. Oaks stood his ground, he also recognized that, with the priesthood restriction, the law school would never receive accreditation and lobbied for the change. In short Oaks stood up to some powerful voices and privately advocated for an end to the priesthood restriction. He neutered Wilkinson, Skousen and others at a time when few would challenge them.
Jonathan Rauch in his book Cross Purposes describes his interaction with Elder Oaks. Rauch does not shy away from the theological or moral differences that divide them. But he expresses admiration for Oaks’s measured, principled approach to religious freedom, and for the Church’s overall commitment to dialogue and civic peace. Rauch writes: “My meeting with President Oaks was not one of agreement, but of grace. We spoke across real differences—with clarity, dignity, and a shared concern for the future of a society that protects both conscience and dissent.”
Rauch’s praise for the Church is not incidental; it is central to his thesis. He lauds the Church’s internal discipline, political restraint, and long-term vision. In a moment when many Christian communities are drawn toward culture wars and ideological polarization, Rauch sees in the Church as a kind of institutional maturity that serves the common good. “If every church in America behaved with the institutional responsibility and democratic restraint of the Latter-day Saints, our democracy would be in far less danger.”
The challenge for us today is to be peacemakers, even with our MAGA co-religionists. I admit that at times, is hard for me. Just an example. I have a friend in our stake that is about as MAGA as one can be. I’ve known him for years. I called his as an EQ Pres. when I was Stake President. That was before Trump. We’ve argued a fair amount. About a year ago his oldest son was murdered. I reached out to him as soon as I heard. Our political differences have melted away. We break bread together every few months. And we always end with “I love you” and a hug. The bottom line is our human interaction is more important, and it will help heal the political divide. We still don’t agree politically, but we don’t go there. That is what Pres. Nelson and now Pres. Oaks are asking us to do!
Conclusion
The Constitution is not self-executing.
Institutions do not defend themselves.
Liberty is not self-sustaining.
Ultimately, constitutional government depends on citizens willing to subordinate tribal triumph to constitutional principle.
Perhaps that is what it really means to “save the Constitution.”
- Not to impose religious rule.
- Not to sacralize political leaders.
- Not to confuse partisan identity with discipleship.
But to preserve:
- pluralism,
- rule of law,
- equal citizenship,
- freedom of conscience,
- peaceful transfers of power,
- and the dignity of those with whom we disagree.
The Constitution is not scripture. It is not inerrant. It is not morally complete. But it may still be one of the most remarkable political frameworks ever devised for preserving human liberty in a fallen world. And perhaps the most inspired thing about it is that it allows each generation the opportunity, and the responsibility, to become better than the generation that came before.
As Lincoln pleaded at another moment of national fracture:
“We are not enemies, but friends.”
Or, in his more famous phrase, perhaps the Constitution survives only when we choose to listen to “the better angels of our nature.”