“But this new class seeks to reduce the American working class to the levels of this global serfdom. After all, anything that drains corporate coffers is a loss of freedom--the God-given American freedom to exploit other human beings to make money. The marriage of this gospel of prosperity with raw, global capitalism, and the flaunting of the wealth and privilege it brings, are supposedly blessed and championed by Jesus Christ. Compassion is regulated to private, individual acts of charity or left to the churches. The callousness of the ideology, the notion that it in any way reflects the message of the gospels, which were preoccupied with the poor and the outcasts, illustrates how the new class has twisted Christian scripture to serve America's god of capitalism and discredited the Enlightenment values we once prized.”
“It is the witness given by the Holy Ghost to the individual members of the Church that God lives; that Jesus Christ his son, is our Savior and Redeemer; that his gospel is the plan of salvation and the way to eternal life; and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is his church, possessing authority to preach the gospel and administer the saving ordinances thereof, which give vitality, strength, and power to the Church.”
“In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to KNOW something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to BECOME something...The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan by which we can become what children of god are supposed to become...Charity is something one becomes. ”
“The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.”
“Our vocation and professional work is not a second class activity, something we do just to put food on the table. It is the high calling for which we were originally created. The way we serve a Creator God is by being creative with the talents and gifts He has given us.”
“Christianity has from its beginning portrayed itself as a gospel of peace, a way of reconciliation (with God, with other creatures), and a new model of human community, offering the 'peace which passes understanding' to a world enmeshed in sin and violence. (1)”