Vitality of Ideas

As I have explained, there is no need to organize a formal church. We can believe without compulsion, and regard one another as brother and sister, father and mother, people of one heart, without a Pope or president. Below is a quote from Preserving the Restoration, based on a talk I gave years ago:

 

If Mormonism is to achieve its prophesied success, that future must come through a return to pure ideals. Holy people must practice the religion. To practice within a hostile legal, cultural and social environment requires the religion to assume a non-corporate form. It must become only a shared idea, privately practiced. Ideas cannot be taxed, controlled, organized or compromised by changing leadership. Ideas can stand apart from all commerce and law. The only thing an idea requires for vitality is for someone to give it a voice. Governments and business interests are powerless to seize an idea and corrupt it. Ideas can be opposed, denounced and argued, but ideas remain free from all control. All that is needed for an idea to live is for it to be remembered.