TEACH, AND TEACH, AND TEACH THE GOSPEL CULTURE “Culture is defined as the way of life of a people. There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This gospel culture- or the way of life of God’s people- comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of the living prophets. ” Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Establishing the Gospel Culture, Liahona, June 2003
Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things. (D&C 14:6) And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself. (D&C 105:5)
A gospel culture demands a new set of attitudes and habits from the members of the church to replace our old traditions that have become obstacles in establishing the church in the Philippines and achieving our true potential as a nation. There are many practices from the Filipino culture that has turned into common practices as well in the church. We have become “old wines in new bottles.” Such practices have greatly hampered the development of the church and will continue to obstruct our progress unless we “repent” and replace them with the gospel culture. Ever since Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke about establishing a gospel culture, many thoughts raced through my mind when I was a stake president. I thought of all the issues and concerns pertaining to myself, my family, members’ and leaders’ attitudes and behaviors that I have attempted to address. With that in mind, I came up with my own list of those concerns.
In teaching these gospel-oriented attitudes and behaviors to the members, I benefited from a paradox I once learned: “True empowerment requires forceful leadership.” What I mean by forceful leadership is not to exercise unrighteous dominion but it means to teach the gospel culture in painstaking, deliberate, and repeated teaching. We should never tire of teaching. When it does become tiresome and frustrating, it does not justify us to quit. Teaching is the work of the long-suffering. Whenever members have reverted to the old ways, I took it as a sign that it was time to teach the gospel principles all over again. We have to be consistent with our efforts until the gospel culture becomes acts of habit. If the negative cultural traits have prevailed in our wards or stakes, we cannot entirely blame our people. It is only partly their fault. The responsibility to teach is always our job as leaders. That these bad habits have persisted in the Church is perhaps a failure of our leadership. It took someone like Elder Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle of the Lord and a special witness of Christ, to let us have it straight. The only acceptable response is to call ourselves to repentance. We find the antidotes to these so-called cultural weaknesses within the realms of our rich cultural values. For example, a person who takes his callings lightly ‘pakuya kuyakoy’ will only need to be reminded that ‘sipag at tiyaga’ is the solution to such casual attitudes towards one’s calling.