I ran across a speech given by Elder Hugh B. Brown to a group of BYU students entitled "An Eternal Quest- Freedom of the Mind" recently and I wish to share it and discuss its message. Elder Brown at the time was the First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and had served several years as an Apostle in the Quorum of the Twelve. He was an extraordinary man with a deep conviction in his religion and in, as the speech suggests, the power of the human mind. This belief in the mind is perhaps one of the reasons he went against the stereotypical Mormon grain of his day in several ways, the most prominent of which was him being a member of the Democratic party. He was a man, obviously, not content with just blindly doing what he was told.
The subtitled quote by Elder Brown describes his own and my conviction very well. It is truly a God-given right and honor to be able to think and to reason, and his warnings about blind following and non-thinking throughout the rest of his speech ring especially true in this day and age. Lawlessness and impulsiveness has in many ways swept the country and many areas of the "civilized" world. Whatever your views on morality or other sensitive issues, it can be easily concurred that the youth and sadly adults of the modern world act without the aid of their brains. This is evident in all areas, from relationships to addictions to political philosophies. If the world is to become a better place for us and our children we must regain the ability to think.
In other words, nothing should be just taken for granted or assumed that because our parents or friends or even, as Elder Brown wrote (see the final chapter of his famous biography An Abundant Life- The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown), our most cherished leaders have supported or declared them as true. Now before I go any further, I want to assure you that I am not talking about abandoning faith or hope or trust in these men and women. No, what I am saying is that our minds must be anxiously engaged in reasoning and thinking and deciding. As my Father once told me: "Everything that you hear must not only go through the heart, but through both the heart and the mind." It is through the mind that we can discern dis-truth and then create conviction in our deepest beliefs. To lean upon the ideas and values of a loved or respected one is good while we are still forming and thinking, but to blindly support without any thought say a political party or a company or, as much as Elder Brown and I hate to say it, a religion just because our parents and communities do is destructive to unity, creates hateful divisions, and leads to the lack of conviction that permeates our society today. Even scripture says that before we even pray to God about the truthfulness of the most basic of doctrines we must "study it out in our minds."
However, in the quotation above, Elder Brown did offer one warning to those who wish to use the invaluable gift of the mind. He calls it dangerous to think in some ways, because to think runs the inherent risk of thinking wrong, which can be very destructive. However, he offers a solution to wrong thinking: MORE thinking. Many people try and solve their problems by shutting off their brains, and, again, being mindless followers. However, when we stray down a bad path, it is this principle of more thinking that we must strictly adhere to. It is also here, interestingly, where the heart can help a great deal, for often as we train ourselves to think we also train our hearts to recognize truth, and both should be referenced often.
Now, to close, the mind is a wonderful tool. We should use it to its fullest, constantly tackling tough questions and not avoiding tangled controversy. Don't forget to combine it successfully with the heart and spirit, as there is much beyond human comprehension in all aspects of life from science to religion. It was this formula of a strong moral and emotional compass mixed with a strong reasoning brain that formed a man as compassionate and faithful as Elder Hugh B. Brown. It is the same formula that was found in Abraham Lincoln, who faced a country in shambles over a moral depravity and used it to create a better place for all Americans. It has been a formula used by some of the world's greatest leaders and philosophers, though they typically have been long dead before we discover their brilliant minds and hearts. Sadly it is a formula fast disappearing today. However, we can have hope in the fact that humanity is changeable, and that God is always watching over us. Think hard.
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