On February 4, 2002, an interfaith service was held in the University of Utah's Orson Spencer Hall as part of the "March for Our Lives" to raise awareness about poverty during the Olympics. MESJ played a major role in organizing that service. These are the remarks that John-Charles Duffy gave on behalf of MESJ during the interfaith service.

As a Latter-day Saint, I come from a tradition that encourages individuals to speak out of their own experience and understanding when bearing witness of God's word. It is in that spirit that I speak here today. I speak as an individual. I speak out of my own understanding of God's will as it has been communicated to me through the sacred texts of my faith tradition. Those texts enjoin me to "declare the things which [I] have heard, and verily believe, and know to be true" (D&C 80:4), and that is what I hope to do here today through the power of God's Spirit.

The Latter-day Saint movement came into being around 1830 among poor farmers in upstate New York and drew many of its early adherents from Europeans who had been dispossessed by the Industrial Revolution. In other words, my faith tradition came into being among people who struggled to survive. That struggle became even more acute as a result of the religious persecution they encountered. Time and time again, the Saints were driven from their homes by mob violence. They experienced homelessness, hunger, exposure, destitution, injustice. They experienced the indifference of a federal government which professed to be unable to help them, and the open hostility of a state government--Missouri's--which sought to exterminate them.

Given this history, it's not surprising that the Latter-day Saint tradition contains strongly worded teachings about poverty, justice, and equality. Among the documents penned by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter-day Saint movement, we read this brief parable:

[W]hat man among you having twelve sons...saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there--and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just? (D&C 38:26-27).

For hundreds of years, theologians and preachers had proclaimed that social and economic inequality are part of the divine plan. By contrast, Joseph Smith insisted, "[I]t is not given that one [person] should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin" (D&C 49:20). On another occasion, Joseph Smith instructed the Saints, "[I]n your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld" (D&C 70:14).

Consistent with this principle, the Book of Mormon taught the Saints that the ideal society would be one in which its inhabitants "had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but all were made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift" (4 Nephi 1:3).

The Saints responded to this radical call to social and economic equality by launching one of American history's great utopian experiments. They tried to create the communitarian society their sacred texts described, a society in which all properties would be held in common trust and all surpluses held in a community storehouse. The Saints' goal was to model a new kind of social order in which all would be one and there would be no poor (cf. Moses 7:18). Their efforts broke down, as utopian experiments are wont to do. But Latter-day Saint scripture continues to call out for equity and justice.

A passage from Isaiah reproduced in the Book of Mormon declares:

Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn away the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! (2 Nephi 20:1-2)

Also in the Book of Mormon, we find this warning reproduced from Malachi:

I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness...against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts. (3 Nephi 24:5)

Yet again from the Book of Mormon, a injunction to the affluent:

[T]he hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.

And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. (Jacob 2:13-14)

One oft-quoted Book of Mormon passage contains this warning to those who presume to judge between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor:

Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance..., for his punishments are just--

But I say unto you...whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent...

For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have[?]...

And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God. (Mosiah 4:17-19, 22)

Over and over, Latter-day Saint scripture affirms that God wills economic justice. God wills social equality. God wills an end to poverty. And God holds human beings, and their churches, and their governments, accountable for pursuing these ends (cf. Mormon 8:35-39; D&C 134:1-3).

As a Latter-day Saint, I have covenanted to consecrate my life, my time, my talents, my means, and my energies, to proclaiming God's word and carrying out God's work. I am under covenant to "plead the cause of the poor and the needy" (D&C 124:75); to speak out against injustice, inequity, and indifference; to open my mouth in God's cause as the Spirit gives me utterance. So here is what I feel the Spirit inspires me to say on this occasion.

It is a sin that there are workers in this country who do not receive a living wage.

It is a sin that there are people in this country who cannot find affordable housing.

It is a sin that there are people in this country who do not have health insurance.

It is a sin that our country's safety net does not encompass all its citizens.

It is a sin that there are people in this country who make millions while there are millions of people in this country who live in poverty.

This state of affairs must change. My faith tradition teaches me that God wills it to change. God calls me to be "anxiously engaged" (D&C 58:27) in working with like-minded individuals to bring about that change. I find hope in the promise made to the early Latter-day Saints that "[t]he works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught" (D&C 3:1).

I pray for the cause that has brought all of you to Salt Lake City. I pray for the march. I pray that the hearts of the people of this country will be softened to the plight of the poor and the needy. I pray that justice and equity will prevail in this land and throughout the earth. May it be. Amen.