Well, Elder David Bednar was back on his gospel hobbyhorse again last week in Conference. He does not like the phrase “free agency”. I suspect he does not like it because it gives people a “free” choice, and so many members today are making that choice to leave the church. So he is again touting “Moral Agency” as the correct word choice. While there are reports that he has talked about this in smaller settings like regional conferences, this is the first time he has taken it to the big stage with the full explanation. Lets dig into his talk and see what he is up to.
The term “moral agency” is instructive. Synonyms for the word “moral” include “good,” “honest,” and “virtuous.” Synonyms for the word “agency” include “action,” “activity,” and “work.” Hence, “moral agency” can be understood as the ability and privilege to choose and act for ourselves in ways that are good, honest, virtuous, and true.
What I think he is saying, is that moral agency is the privilege to chose, but only if the choice is correct, i.e. “good, honest, virtuous and true”. In other words, moral agency does not let you make the wrong choice. It only allows you to select what the Church says is right. The freedom to chose becomes the freedom to not chose, but to to follow him (Bednar). Wasn’t that Satan’s plan?
He next finds the phrase moral agency in D&C 101:78
78 That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.
This sounds like just another example of free agency, particularly when it says man has this agency is so that man will be accountable for his sins. How can he have sins if he was not free to chose them?
Next he tries to change moral from a adjective to a directive (commandment).
Consider that we are commanded—not merely admonished or counseled but commanded—to use our agency to love one another and choose God. May I suggest that in the scriptures, the modifying word “moral” is not merely an adjective but perhaps also a divine directive about how our agency should be used.
Is the word moral a directive? A commandment?
Joseph Smith said “we teach then correct principles and and let them govern themselves.” Bednar disagrees.
What about all the talks in the past that used free agency? The phrase “free agency” has been used over 700 times in General Conference since 1850. It hit its peak in the 1960s, with 138 uses in that decade. Then it slowing dropped off, then it really took a nose dive, with only 16 uses in 1990s, four in the 2000s, and only one in the 2010s, and none since then.
In 1968, James Cullimore, quoting John Widtsoe said “Coercion, which is in direct opposition to free agency, must not be applied in any form in the Church”. Did Cullimore foresee Bednar trying to coerces us?
The phrase “moral agency” has been used about 120 times over the past 70 years, with the majority in the last 30 years. But almost all of its uses are just interchangeable for “free agency”. They make no distinction like Bednar tries to in his talk.
So what are your thoughts on Bednar’s talk? Is he trying to restrict our “free agency”?
Wheat & Tares 
There was a point earlier in time, maybe when I was a teenager, I don’t recall, when the move was from “free agency” to “agency”, because it wasn’t free, but had an associated cost, or something.
And was it Packer who said we need to give our agency to God, which never made sense to me, what was the point of the war in heaven in that case? It sounds like Bednar is insisting we already did that, however unwittingly. If so, we need to make that very much clearer to anyone deciding to be baptised, and stop baptising new members in such a careless fashion. Provide the small print. Informed consent and all that.
It seems there’s always someone who isn’t comfortable with folks having the freedom to choose.
I’m going to get on my little soapbox here (to briefly address your topic, I think Bednar’s reading is an incoherent exegesis… He wants to do something with the term and I just don’t think “moral agency” is bearing that load), but your breakdown of the term moral agency actually gets at a problem I have with all religious systems of free will.
I think that we can distinguish between having a freedom to choose from several options from (a usually much less free) inclination toward certain options. As a simple controversial example, I prefer vanilla ice cream. I’ll have chocolate if vanilla isn’t available, but it’s not my preference. I will not have pecan ice cream even if the others aren’t available.
I can still choose any of them, but if my own preference leads me to vanilla every time it is available, then is my choice free or not free? (I’m actually very interested in anyone who thinks that this makes a choice not free)
Ice cream is a non-controversial example because there are no value judgments we tie to ice cream flavor preference. It is morally neutral.
And I also think that this highlights that our actions may seem varied because these aren’t the only inclinations or desires that matter even in the ice cream example. For example, perhaps I also have the inclination to try new things, to try to develop a taste for something I don’t already have. Maybe that might cause me to go for the pecan ice cream even with a grimace on my face?
Or maybe I’m inclined to watch my weight, so I decline to vanilla even when it’s available. But even if we may have competing inclinations, is choosing between inclinations free or not free? Is there a difference between choosing from the many inclinations we have vs choosing something we have no inclination for?
Let’s ramp up the stakes just a bit to a topic like sexual orientation… Whether you believe same sex relationships are moral, morally neutral, or immoral, the main point I’d want to give here is that someone who isn’t gay or bisexual – even if they have freedom to choose from all options – is not going to be inclined to engage in a same sex relationship.
So the question is: if inclinations nudge choices (but do not make those choice unfree), then would it be a violation of free will for a sovereign deity to make people be inclined only to morally good things?
Mormonism perhaps dodges a bullet here because its deity isn’t fully sovereign, didn’t create the universe ex nihilo, etc.
But for a lot of the other Christian traditions, the question still stands.
Sorry but “Is he trying to restrict our “free agency”?” is a silly question. We either have it our we don’t and Elder Bednar doesn’t have the ability or power to change that.
The better question is what do you think Elder Bednar is trying to do? If he’s saying “don’t leave the church” or “choose the right” then he’s just doing what preachers all over the world have been doing for ages and we’ve known that since we were eight years old.
On the other hand, if he’s entering into a discussion that’s been recorded in Christianity since the fourth century (see Augustine vs Pelagius, for starters) and includes Joseph Smith, the question is whether he added anything useful or novel? I’d suggest the answer is no.
My biggest problem with any of the 15 lds CEOs or 70 acolytes touting moral agency is the blatant hypocrisy of preaching what the corporation they represent (the only true and living corporation on earth), does not practice.
Bednar is weird. He once gave a Conference talk on how the gospel is not a checklist, but he’s also a former president of BYU-Idaho, and I say this as an alumni: if there’s a more checklisty institution in the church today, I don’t wanna meet it. This is a man who thinks wearing shorts on campus is unholy. To paraphrase “Succession,” he is not a serious person.
As for him swapping moral agency for free agency, it’s a distinction without a difference. The relevant passage in these discussions is Moses 4:3, “Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man,” and per the OED, “agency” in 1830 when that text was produced meant “capacity to act” and “ability or capacity to act or exert power.” In fact, the OED cites the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge on religious liberty (of all topics) to demonstrate the meaning of agency: “The State shall leave the largest portion of personal free agency to each of its citizens, that is compatible with the free agency of all.”
Whether preceded by “free” or “moral,” the word “agency” simply means freedom and ability to act for one’s self. If there’s any reasonable objection to the term “free agency,” it’s that it says the same thing twice. Any other explanation of agency is incoherent.
If Bednar had simply restricted himself to saying “You can choose your actions but you can’t choose your consequences,” I think we all would’ve just nodded along and gotten on with our lives. But his weird attempt to redefine “agency” sounds like a chatbot confidently stating pure nonsense as fact.
After so many doubters along the way, David Bednar has found believers…… in the Bronx. ??? You mean the whole world? Oops. Wrong one. David A. Bednar, not David J. Bednar. That is why the GA’s need us to use the middle initial.
Even the TBM’s have some apprehension for him, the “A”one. Point blank, he is not a nice caring guy, and is brash and very controversial. He took Ricks College and turned it into his own vision. Single-handedly, making BYU-Utah into Berkley, compared to BYU-I, with his struct rules and attitude. After this past conference, we can see that the LDS church is led by the philosophies of men, mingled with scriptures.
In his first conference address, Elder Bednar said of Sister Bednar: “My wife, Susan, is a virtuous woman and a righteous mother. You will quickly see that purity and goodness are evident in her countenance. I love her and appreciate her more than words can express.” Look at the order of importance and caveats. I love her is after virtuous and righteous. I interpret that as, I love you, after you are virtuous and righteous. If he is that way with his wife, we see with strangers like us throughout the church. If Bednar would have been a mission president, all missionaries serving under him for 3 years would be Ex-mormon and the local church in that area would be decimated. We need to hear from the members in Fayetteville, AR of their true thoughts and how he treated members there as a Bishop and SP.
In his Book One by One, there is a story about Bednar leaving a stake meeting to watch his son play a basketball game. This should be shared in general conference, in place of the obedience talks. However, the institution wants to show Bednar as “human” but story this is for me and not thee. If any other member followed Bednar’s example, he would take a verbal lashing. Also, if Bednar is so transformative and a “world leader”, his own institution has never recognized him with an alumni award. https://walton.uark.edu/alumni/alumni_awards.php. If the LDS membership, were to give a teaching award, I think Bednar would be at the end of the line. Not sure what Hinckley saw in him.
To review Bednar’s CV. He was director of the Management Decision-Making Lab at the University of Arkansas. The title Decision-Making. I would love to see his staff meetings or professional papers on decision-making. I think there should be more discussion around his educational background vs his conference and fireside talks.
“Free Agency” is not used in the Doctrine and Covenants. “Moral Agency” is.
“Free Agency” is a term that came several hundred years earlier in the 1600’s and 1700’s from Protestant writers.
Bednar’s insistence that we move to “Moral Agency” is probably just another way of making the Saints “peculiar” and also going back to our roots.
I do take issue with defining the term “moral” as good/virtuous, etc. The English word “moral” comes from the Latin word “moralis”, meaning pertaining to manners or proper behavior. Moral Agency doesn’t mean Good Agency or Holy Agency or Virtuous Agency. It means our ability to choose as it relates to matters of behavior.
First off it’s nice to see that even at the highest levels Mormons need to pull out the dictionary and thesaurus to give a talk. Every time I’ve seen someone push back against “free” agency, it’s been stupid. Either “free” is redundant as JB mentioned, or it refers to the fact that we as people do not have to earn our right to make choices. But every discourse against “free” agency seems to be arguing against some invisible strawman. I’ve never seen anyone seriously try to argue that “free” agency means we can do whatever we want and that is somehow ok.
I don’t listen to Bednar talk because I have better things to do with my time, but it seems that he chose to use his semi-annual 15 minute time slot to take the position that we should make choices to do *good* things? I can get such wisdom from 1st graders
Bednar is using sophisticated language to say if you choose anything not endorsed by the church you’ve chosen incorrectly. There’s a better than 50/50 chance he will be prophet for a lengthy period of time and I predict strict obedience will be the theme. He seems to be saying if you even choose something neutral or harmless – like chocolate ice cream instead of the Bednar-endorsed vanilla – you are awaiting God’s judgement. God forbid we use our own brain.
Agency is yet another word that the church has coopted, like testimony and covenant, to manipulate its followers. Pressuring spouses to divorce their partners simply because they leave the church is limiting agency. Exclusion of family from wedding ceremonies is limiting agency. Calling ex-Mormons childish names like “lazy learners” is a form of shaming. The whole concept of the meeting is tithing settlement is a shakedown and limits agency to donate to the church. Individuals should be free to leave the church without shame and blame. The church needs to acknowledge what it is: a voluntary organization that no one should feel obligated to serve or pay.
“Bednar is weird. He once gave a Conference talk on how the gospel is not a checklist, but…”
Bednar regularly engages in Orwellian doublespeak. He once have a talk about heeding the prophet wherein he used as an example a young adult who came to him asking about a girl he was dating wearing more than one pair of earrings (oh the horror). He counseled the man to show her the words of the prophet forbidding that in making his decision. The man later came back to him saying that he broke off the relationship. Bednar then tried to emphasize how the story wasn’t about the earrings, but about following counsel. But the story was focused around the earrings. The earrings were a clear litmus test of righteousness in that case. Complete doublespeak.
Free agency is a real thing, but it is not the same as moral agency. The distinction didn’t really matter until Curt Flood came along and made free agency a topic of conversation among the nonreligious (this was in the early 70s.) Since then, free agency has been associated with those who have not signed on with a team. Some GA (I don’t remember which, but I don’t think it was Packer) noticed that by virtue of their baptisms and confirmation, Mormons have signed on with a “team”, and hence are not free agents in the sense that the phrase had come to be commonly used.
I don’t know the history of confusing “free agency” with “free will,” but such confusion was rampant among my generation. Reminding us of the consequences of our decisions was frequently dismissed as denying us our free agency. That attitude misunderstands both concepts, but we noticed that discussions of free will never mentioned consequences and we didn’t understand why discussions of free agency should be any different.
Switching to “moral agency” solved both problems. Its terminology doesn’t overlap with free will, and it is not associated with signing on with a team. Furthermore, it happens to be the term used in the scriptures. So I think there are good reasons to insist on using “moral agency”. But there is not a good reason to redefine it as “freedom to do what David Bednar thinks what you should do.”
What I find interesting about these kinds of discussions is that Elder Bednar is trying to control the definition. By doing that, he is structuring power and values in his favor. When it means what he says it means, he is in the right and he has the power to pass judgement on others. This is common rhetorical tactic. And I’m sure he’d be the first to agree that this “morality” he speaks of comes from God and is not the ever-changed product of humans learning to live together and get along. What I find most frustrating in these discussions is that his framing agency is not really agency, it is strict obedience to God’s authorized messengers in disguise. In his mind, there really is no choice–only that which God tells you to do. Kind of contradicts the whole premise of God giving us agency. I got to the point where doing what the church asked felt like a hell–like I didn’t have any choice, because the choice (according to the church) was their way or eternal damnation. That is not a choice, that is coercion. Once I took back my own authority, I felt way more free. I could choose to do what the church said or choose something else–that is very freeing.
To Andrew S’s comment, for the higher stakes “moral” choices, I wonder how many people choose against their inclinations because they don’t feel like they have a real choice in the matter. For example, a homosexual person marrying a person of the opposite sex because that’s the only choice they feel they have (because other choices mean eternal damnation). But, yet, they live in a personal hell because that choice does not align with who they are.
Free agency has nothing to do with joining a church or not because we do not live in a world where everyone lives only for their favorite sports team and only ever speaks in sports metaphors. No, free agency had a meaning before sports teams started using it as a free agent has not signed up yet. So, unless the church is willing to pay me millions to join their team, I do not think I am giving up any free agency. Let’s stop changing the meaning of words to fit our favorite world view, whether it is sports teams or a church. I get frustrated that Mormons think preside means equal and that free agency is not free.
As to limited choices changing things, no, you still can choose. Maybe you don’t get unlimited choice, but you do have unfettered agency. And about multiple choices being necessary, nope, even if it is choosing between vanilla ice cream or no ice cream, you are still free to chose. Nobody is going to force feed vanilla ice cream to you is you chose no. As my grandma said about the tiny store in her tiny town, you have your choice, you can take it or leave it. That is still a choice even if someone is holding a gun to your head saying you will take the vanilla ice cream or die. You still have a free choice to die or eat the nasty ice cream.
So many, even here do not get that free agency is only about the choice. “Free” doesn’t mean unlimited, or no consequences and “agency” doesn’t mean that you have or have not agreed to it in the past. Like for so many years, rape didn’t matter if the female had *ever* agreed to have sex with the dude. But forced sex is still forced even if it isn’t a first time thing or even if the couple are married. It is the taking away choice now that makes it a crime. So, in exactly the same way, each and every time I decide what to do about tithing, I am free to make that choice, no matter if I got baptized. And this stupid idea that kids at eight make a binding choice to go on a mission, that is a denial of free agency. You can be “on the team” and still have free agency to choose, no matter what idiots like Bednar tell you.
Viktor Frankl said that even in the concentration camps, people had the free agency to choose how they reacted and if it made them bitter and hateful or more kind and giving. He did say that the ones who were kind and shared food tended to die and not live to tell about it, but again, they had the choice.
Free agency does not promise that you will like your choices and it doesn’t say there are no consequence or anything else those who want to twist it into getting you to make the choice they want say it does.
In general terms I’d say that agency is the power to make choices and to act–irrespective of good and evil. Whereas moral agency is more focused on the power to knowingly decide between good and evil and to act accordingly.
I’m also in the camp that there’s nothing new to see here with Bednar’s “moral agency” terminology. I grew up in the Church learning that we were free to make our own choices, but we needed to be careful to always choose what our Church leaders, eh, scratch that, Jesus Christ wants us to do. We were free to choose our actions, but not the “eternal consequences” of those actions. I could be wrong, but I think this is the same thing Bednar is talking about when he speaks of “moral agency”. I am baffled about why he is insisting on using the “moral agency” term instead of “free agency” while making it sound like this is something new and amazing. It would be nice if he would clarify this.
Bednar does seem to think he has a special way of conveying the word of God that, in practice, sometimes doesn’t seem so special. A couple of examples come to mind:
1. Bednar has stated that subtle differences in talks/teachings that he gives over and over again represent inspiration from God (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pw_uEj_4ko): “In the last almost 14 years, I don’t know how many times I have recited the Joseph Smith story. I bet it is close to 28 million. Now, my wife is not here. … But if my wife were here and if she were sitting right there you would see her with a little red journal in which she would be writing … She is listening for what I teach in the Joseph Smith story that I haven’t ever taught before… Do you know what my wife asked? She has almost 14 years worth of notes about line upon line, precept upon precept revelations she has heard come through her husband when he teaches the same thing over and over and over again.” The man definitely thinks his words are inspired by God on a very regular basis. I’m not convinced.
2. In the Q & A session of a fireside, where Bednar was fed questions that he almost certainly screened and could prepare a response to in advance, when asked about homosexual members of the Church, he decided to say (again, with time to prepare a response), “There are no homosexual members of the Church” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4_wTGv8Ao). Before making that statement through a Spanish translator, he specifically told the translator that the Spanish translation needed to be perfect, implying that his wording was prepared and was going to be something special. “There are no homosexual members of the Church.” is certainly special, but not in a good way. If you listen to the whole talk, you will find that he is trying to make the case that we shouldn’t label members as homosexuals–homosexual members of the Church should be simply called “members of the Church”. OK, I get what he was trying to say. It’s just a terrible way to convey this message, though, because, well, everyone knows that there really are plenty of homosexual members of the Church (99% of whom will eventually leave the Church because of the poor treatment they receive from the Church, but new ones are born every day).
Bednar seems to think that his words are (frequently? usually? always?) inspired. My guess is that he thinks his usage of “moral agency” is also inspired. I’m not so sure that he receives nearly as much inspiration as he thinks he does. In any case, it sure would be nice if he’d get some inspiration telling him that people are perplexed about his insistence on using the term “moral agency” and to clearly explain what, if any, differences there are between the two concepts in his mind.
Discussions about agency are really an extension of the age old philosophical arguments re: Free Will vs. Determinism.
I agree with the wise writings of Erasmus who, in his discussions in favor of free will, encouraged Christians to know and understand their faith for themselves rather than simply following the clergy’s commands blindly.
Contrast that with Martin Luther’s argument that human will is not free and, by its own power, is incapable of choosing God.
Bednar’s top down rhetoric follows the Lutheran (and Calvinistic) biases towards determinism. It insults the thought that, as members, we are responsible to think for ourselves and exercise our own free will.
Use of the term moral agency is simply a disingenuous linguistic device to demand obedience without exercising our own free will.
Elder Bednar’s use of the phrase “moral agency” is rhetorically clever but conceptually slippery. Traditionally, agency in both philosophy and scripture implies the capacity and right to act freely—to choose between alternatives, to respond creatively and responsibly to life. In other words, it’s descriptive of human freedom. But when he qualifies it as moral agency, he subtly shifts the emphasis from capacity to obligation. “Moral” no longer functions as an adjective describing the context of choice (“we make moral choices”), but as a prescriptive term—a divine mandate (which he specifically states in his talk). It transforms agency from the freedom to choose good into the duty to choose good. That move reinterprets “agency” as something to be exercised correctly rather than something that inherently exists. In that framing, a person is “truly” an agent only insofar as they choose in harmony with divine will. The paradox, of course, is that this turns freedom into a test of obedience—a moralized compliance mechanism—rather than a process of becoming through authentic discernment and risk.
I think a debate between Lehi and Elder Bednar could be entertaining. The Book of Mormon’s language around agency (particularly in 2 Nephi 2) frames it as a necessary tension: “It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things… to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man.” Lehi’s vision of agency insists that discernment—the capacity to know good from evil—requires exposure to both. Eve’s words in our own expanded version of the garden story (said in the temple), are “we must experience the bitter that we may know to prize the sweet”, and “if not for our transgression, we would never know the joy of our redemption”. This is the texture of human awakening. It’s not a flaw in the system; it is the system.
Elder Bednar’s reinterpretation, however, attempts to moralize the very condition that makes morality possible. If “agency” is only valid when one chooses the good, then agency ceases to be agency—it becomes determinism with a theological gloss. The human story of growth, error, and discovery becomes a story of compliance and correctness instead. In this light, the story of the Garden collapses under his definition. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents the birth of consciousness itself—the awakening of moral awareness. Eve’s act was not disobedience as much as it was participation in divine creativity. To remove the possibility of “wrong” choice is to remove the very conditions under which knowing, compassion, and redemption can emerge.
When Elder Bednar (and others in similar frameworks) describe moral agency as the means by which we appease or please God, the emphasis moves from communion to appeasement, from participation in divine life to appeasing divine demand. It subtly replaces love with transaction. This is a central error caused by replacing “human development” as the plot, with appeasement being the primary goal.
Moreover, in keeping with the concept… “there must needs be opposition in ALL things”, “Agency” serves as a kind of verification mechanism. Where “obedience” is seen as participation in the “wisdom of the ages”. We learn (develop) or gain the capacity to act more skillfully in two complementary but often opposing ways.
• AGENCY – By personal experience — through our own mistakes, risks, and awakenings.
• Obedience – By others’ experience — through community, history, scripture, and mentorship.
Both are forms of grace. One teaches us empathy; the other, humility. Together they create what might be called relational obedience — a way of listening that keeps us connected to both God and neighbor. If we call agency a verification principle, then faith is not blind assent but the ongoing process of testing, discerning, and confirming what is good, true, and trustworthy. In that light, agency becomes the divine gift that allows truth to be experienced personally, not merely inherited institutionally. The act of verifying is sacred because it honors both God and conscience. It’s how love and truth become real rather than theoretical.
toddsmithson,
Thank you! I loved your explanation.
Regarding Elder Bednar and definitions, I note that he has parsed and stretched definitions before. To wit., remember how he tried to re-define doctrine and policy? His definitions didn’t work, but he tried, and I really don’t understand what his point was. Is he “trying to control the definition . . . structuring power and values in his favor, [so that] when it means what he says it means, he is in the right and he has the power to pass judgement on others,” as chrisdrobison posited?
While I agree that mortality places us in a context where “time and chance happen to them all” I think it’s also important to recognize that as we draw nearer to the Savior we become increasingly aware of his influence. And the consequence of our increased awareness is that our sense of right and wrong becomes intrinsically tied to our love for the Savior. If we’re moving towards him we’ll feel right about it. If we’re moving away from him we’ll feel wrong about it. That’s moral agency, IMO. And the reason it works according to God’s plan is because as we freely choose to move towards him–he doesn’t force us–over time we will gain enough knowledge through his influence to be apprised by our *own* moral sensibilities vis-a-vis good and evil as it relates to our movement towards the Savior.
You mention that “free agency” as a term in conference talks peaked in the mid 20th century. If you look at who was saying it, the biggest users of the term were David O. McKay and Ezra Taft Benson. Benson of course was known for giving notably political talks during that period, and McKay didn’t do a lot of rein him in because McKay himself was a strong believer in the anti-communism cause. That period is very much an artifact of the Cold War, in which the word “free” is serving the purpose of differentiating the freedom-loving God-fearing West from their common enemy at the time.
While not the first ever reference, the first speaker to explicitly suggest that “moral agency” was a superior term was Boyd K. Packer in the early 1990s. He didn’t like the term “free” because it conveyed to him a lack of regard for consequences. I don’t think that has to be the case, but I those hippies and their “free love” kind of ruined the word “free” for some. I think Bednar is similar, but it sounds like he’s trying to go even further and make the word “moral” imply something about our duties, as toddsmithson points out above. I don’t have a problem with talking about duties and obligations for those who have committed themselves to participation in church, but using “moral agency” as the phrase to teach that is not particularly effective rhetorically in my opinion. If you have to write a couple of paragraphs about what you think the phrase means, you’re doing the work and not the phrase. I also don’t like that it’s trying to marry two concepts (duties vs. free will) that are somewhat separate and deserve separate treatments.
It should be noted that while “free agency” in general conference talks has largely fallen out of use, by far the most common usage nowadays is just “agency” without modifiers. It’s possible if Bednar keeps beating this drum long enough and ascends to the presidency in a few years, “moral agency” eventually wins out, but it is far from doing so at this time.
If we’re going to talk about concepts related to agency, I personally liked that early in his general conference speaking career, Bednar several times made reference to the Book of Mormon phrase “act and not be acted upon”. I find that a much more interesting idea than trying to convince members that “moral agency” means a lot more than it appears to. Learning not to be passive but to actively consider the choices we are making is a good message for nearly everyone.
Jack, Thank you for your testimony. However, I cannot see a connection to the discussion thread, which is wondering if Elder Bednar is using a different definition of agency than other church leaders. What are your thoughts on that question?
My favorite fact about Bednar and this topic in particular is that he doesn’t write his own speeches. One of my childhood friends – let’s call her Bree was a student working at BYUI in his office. She wrote most of his devotional speeches when he was a president and continued writing for him when he became an apostle. She wrote most of his early conference talks and devotionals as well as talks he could use while travelling to stakes and leadership training. She quit after her family responsibilities made it hard to work full time for him. She said his approach was to give her a rough outline and maybe a story from his life to incorporate and she would fill in the rest.
This redefinition approach is one of Bednars favorite ways to answer questions. Ask him about homosexual members of the church and he has responded that there aren’t any. It allows him to reframe the question and put the questioner into a defensive position. It shows his authority since he controlls the conversation. Jordan Peterson does this as well. It is also a suggestion from Boyd K Peterson in his book Teach ye diligently for redirecting questions and answering them not the question someone asked but the one you wish they asked. You can search on YouTube and find question answer sessions with Bednar and often he uses this technique. It was a common way he would prompt Bree to write a talk for him. Take a word with the definition and work how the new definition differs from the common one. Throw in some scriptures and boom. The world defines x as x but with the gospel we see x = y. Devotional topic complete.
Boyd K Packer. Autocorrect or my brain messed up that one.
The other related topic that Bednar likes to use is being a moral agent. Something that can act or be acted upon. This is addressed by Bentham, Kant and other philosophers as its own area of philosophy. Bree was a big fan of Bentham as a conservative philosopher. And much of Bednars rhetoric is a modification of this philosophy of men mingled with scripture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency
Christiankimball is correct. What Bednar is trying to do is neither coherent, interesting, or clever. He makes no sense and I want the 5 minutes back that I spent trying to make it make sense.
According to the definitions used at the time of the revelations:
1) “Agency” is primarily the ability or capacity to act;
2) “Free Agency” is the ability to act voluntarily according to one’s own free will; and
3) “Moral Agency” is the ability to act in matters pertaining to good and evil.
The scriptures use the terms “Agent,” “Agency,” and “Moral Agency” (only once), but the definition that the Church has used for much of its history comes from the original idea of “free agency,” a specific type of agency not directly mentioned in LDS scripture (although the concept is correct).
I’ve looked into the LDS concept of Agency for many years, and I wrote a book titled “The Agency Discussions” (Amazon) based on what I learned and the implications of those things. Some additional information about that can be found at https://matthewandreasen.blogspot.com. The book looks at the meaning of agency, the way it has been used historically, and where the traditional LDS definition comes from. It then looks at the scriptural concept of agency using a different perspective.
The definition of agency that I find most intriguing (and most fitting for the way the idea is presented in LDS scripture) is the relationship that exists between an agent and a principal. The agent acts according to the will of the principal. The principal directs, and the agent acts in the principal’s best interests.
Every place where the scriptures say that men are agents says that they are “agents unto themselves”; therefore, each individual is both the agent and the principal. We act for ourselves, following our own will and bound by and accountable for our actions.
In my book, “The Agency Discussions,” I also discuss several “alternative” ideas about agency. While these ideas may contain some good points, they can also lead to huge problems. These include using the analogy of “free agency” from the world of sports, misinterpreting the word “moral” in “moral agency,” using the sociological meaning of “agency,” and comparing agency to a stewardship. Elder Bednar has used some of these alternative ideas, and we can see the problems that arise therefrom.
Thanks to Brian for correcting his flub. But to set the record straight, my friend Boyd Peterson’s middle initial is J.
The thing is, Elder Bednar lives in a moral universe of privilege where poor choices are papered over and the most basic good choices (such as desiring to get an education) yield outsized results because you have a lot of people opening doors for you. It’s fairly easy to “act and not be acted upon,” when you have a golden ticket in your pocket. Meanwhile, the majority of the people listening to that talk (members of the church in the global south) are “acted upon” on a daily basis by socioeconomic factors over which they have no control.
I remember Elder Bednar giving a variation of this same talk many times when he was President Bednar of Ricks/BYU-Idaho. It always came off as a little too Steven R. Covey/ corporate / prosperity gospel to me. “Act,” meaning follow the draconian honor code with exactness, and you will be “blessed” (meaning economic success). Fail to do so, and you will become one of the miserable hoard who are “acted upon.” Moral agency and free thinking or self-expression do not go together in Bednar’s mind. A few of us could see this, but most of my cohort became Bednar devotees, hanging on his every word. The most devoted students would follow him in his daily 5 am run up and down the steps of Viking stadium. Yes, this happened.
Do moral agency and privilege get in the way of each other? You can get a lot of things with privilege, but do you get anything with moral agency? You can get the nice job, house, wife/husband, and family with privilege and feel you are moral because you are blessed, but when “not in my neighborhood” becomes a part of your vocabulary, you haven’t really used moral agency to get the good things for someone else. People can talk about moral agency, but when money is what is used to judge success, privilege is what’s being measured as much as anything. There is also a tendency to judge those without money (privilege) as not being moral. They surely made a mistake somewhere. They should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Lending a hand is many times is not always an option because they haven’t used their agency wisely, like we should know. Moral agency is independent of privilege and is for anyone to use wherever they happen to be born into life.
Fantastic post and many insightful comments. I agree that Bednar likes to strain at linguistical gnats. This teaching method can be instructional but when done to excess it becomes a distraction.
Agency, has has been explained in the comments, is that a person stands accountable before God for his / her choices and actions – we are “agents” or representatives of ourselves. And while the phrase “moral agency” appears in the Doctrine & Covenants, the principle of Agency and of our Freedom to Choose is taught in the Doctrine & Covenants as well as the Book of Mormon without the “moral” label.
I actually agree with the essence of Bednar’s talk. Agency is the defining attribute of intelligent beings. Agency gives us the power to exercise faith, to be righteous, to do good in this world and to approach God with confidence about the choices we have made.
I think Bednar emphasizes “moral agency” because he wants to emphasize that church membership and leadership involves moral responsibilities. This is a sticky point – a persistent theme – the leadership makes each and every conference and I read Bednar as holding the line. And, as has been commented, Bednar is well experienced in teaching those beneath him the “morality” they are expected to demonstrate in order to receive the privileges of the institution he represents.
Lot’s of good thoughts.
ji,
I don’t know if I have a good answer to your question. I think there are different ways of approaching the topic of agency–and that’s OK, IMO. A good example of different approach is Neal A. Maxwell’s talk on our “allotments.” It’s not the size or shape of our allotment that matters. What’s important is what we do within the scope of our allotment. One could be a stake president with a fairly wide field of responsibility and influence or a bedridden recluse with a very narrow circle of interaction with family and friends–and it doesn’t matter so far as living the gospel is concerned.
I think Elder Maxwell’s ideas blend nicely with Elder Bednar’s because insofar as we are striving to follow the Savior we will find ourselves exercising our moral agency by doing the good that we can within our respective allotments. And that’s why (IMO) the gospel is really a “one size fits all” sort of thing. It doesn’t matter if we’re kings or paupers–in the end everyone will have had enough opportunity to receive Christ’s invitation or reject it. And how we respond to that invitation is–or will be in the long run–the clearest measure of how we have exercised our own moral agency.
When I read that 2/3 of Mormons voted for Trump, I wondered whether there was a moral problem/vacume in the church. In the light of this talk I wonder if he is defining agency with regard to moral things as more important than lesser things.
For example republicans make abortion illegal is more important than destroying America’s reputation, crashing the economy, or destroying democracy, because its the moral thing. The fact that there are less abortions under democrats?
So you might justify voting for trump as MORAL agency, whereas those worried about the poor, the immigrants, the economy etc. have to explain the morality of their values.
I agree with most of the comments above, just trying to understand his motivation.
My wife says she follows me around because at any moment I might come out with a revelation worthy of recording. No. Hat size?
Jack,
Thank you for your testimony, I guess. But I wish you had answered the question I asked.
I’m happy to bear testimony–but I really thought I was talking shop, so to speak. IMO, we can’t make sense of moral agency–in the way that Elder Bednar speaks of it–without framing it within a gospel context. To speak of agency in terms of an abstract concept can be useful to a point. But we’ve got to bring our relationship with God into the picture in order to understand what the scriptures–and Elder Bednar–really mean when they speak of agency.
That said, sorry I don’t have a good answer to your question. What I was really trying to say is that I’m OK with varied opinions among church leaders on the meaning of agency. I’m of the opinion that even the scriptures are a bit uneven in their usage of the word–and that it can mean different things depending on the context. Ans so while I agree 100% with Elder Bednar’s talk on moral agency I can also see how the term “agency” might be interpreted to mean anything from personality to political freedom and everything in between–and I mean within the scope of Latter-day Saint theology.
Jack,
I’m going to try to take a different approach at what ji has been gently suggesting:
This entire post and discussion is a brief overview of how the term “agency” has been used throughout the church — showing that the preferred terms used have changed, and how the definitions have also appeared to change.
So, when you say:
The problem is that many people see the way Elder Bednar speaks of it as contradicting the gospel context — because the gospel context that they were taught, that they grew up with, that leaders taught for years and years, was different than what Bednar presents.
Since the terms used and what they mean have changed *within the scope of Latter-day Saint theology*, the discussion is about people’s thoughts on how they have changed within the scope of Latter-day Saint theology and what the implications of those changes are.
Andrew S.
Thank you for your kind comment. And, yes, ji is a gentle soul.
Looking back I see how my comment is a bit convoluted. When I mentioned that moral agency needs to be understood within a gospel context what I was really addressing is ji’s inference that I was bearing my testimony. While I’m always happy to bear my testimony–I was suggesting that that’s why my comment may have sounded more like a testimony than an explanation of the dry “mechanics” involved.
Re: Elder Bednar contradicting what other leaders have taught: the best answer I was able to come up with is that I think it’s OK for there to be different takes on the principle of agency. I don’t have a problem with the seeming contradictions because even the scriptures seem to be a bit uneven (to me) in the way they use the term. And frankly, after listening to Elder Bednar’s talk again last night, I don’t think his approach is really that different when we consider agency within the framework of our relationship with God.