We Believe in Being Honest

In Chapter 18: We Believe in Being Honest, Howard W. Hunter posed this question, “Why is it so many believe in the high and lofty principles of honesty, yet so few are willing to be strictly honest?” I believe it is because there is a lack of integrity in our society. Merriam-Webster defines honesty as “fairness and straightforwardness of conduct; adherence to the facts.” Its definition of integrity is “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; an unimpaired condition; the quality or state of being complete or undivided.” Without moral values, can we ever be strictly honest?

In a CES Devotional for Young Adults five years ago, Dallin H. Oaks warned about declining moral values, citing a study from the Wall Street Journal. He said, “It is well to worry about our moral foundation. We live in a world where more and more persons of influence are teaching and acting out a belief that there is no absolute right and wrong, that all authority and all rules of behavior are man-made choices that can prevail over the commandments of God. Many even question whether there is a God. The philosophy of moral relativism, which holds that each person is free to choose for himself what is right and wrong, is becoming the unofficial creed for many in America. On the foundation belief in right and wrong, there is an alarming contrast between the older and the younger generations. According to survey data of two decades ago, ‘79 percent of American adults [believed] that there are clear guidelines about what’s good and evil that apply to everyone regardless of the situation.’ In contrast, a more recent poll of college seniors suggests that ‘three-quarters of [them] believe that the difference between right and wrong is relative.’”1

A few weeks later in general conference, President Thomas S. Monson shared this:

“I recently read an article in the New York Times concerning a study which took place during the summer of 2008. A distinguished Notre Dame sociologist led a research team in conducting in-depth interviews with 230 young adults across America. I believe we can safely assume that the results would be similar in most parts of the world. I share with you just a portion of this very telling article:

‘The interviewers asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life. In the rambling answers, … you see the young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so. When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot. The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. ‘It’s personal,’ the respondents typically said. ‘It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?’ Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme [saying]: ‘I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.’

“Those who conducted the interviews emphasized that the majority of the young people with whom they spoke had ‘not been given the resources—by schools, institutions [or] families—to cultivate their moral intuitions.’”2

It is imperative that we teach moral values in our families. James E. Faust said, “At home, in the warm security of discipline and love, we learn the values that never change. We learn the differences between right and wrong, as well as self-discipline, self-mastery, personal responsibility, all of the essentials of good character, concern for others, and civil manners.”3

Firm adherence to these values is integrity. President Hunter taught, “This great quality of integrity will solve all of our problems in government, religion, industry, and our individual lives. It would wipe out the awful scourge of crime, divorce, poverty, and misery. It would make us successful here and save our souls hereafter. One of the greatest accomplishments of our lives is to promote an honest, earnest integrity within ourselves. This means that we become spiritually sound, intellectually sincere, morally honest, and always personally responsible to God. Integrity is that golden key which will unlock the door to almost any success.”

Joseph B. Wirthlin described integrity like this. “Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences. It means being righteous from the very depth of our soul, not only in our actions but, more importantly, in our thoughts and in our hearts.”4

Since you cannot have integrity without honesty, maintaining honesty in every aspect of our lives is vital. President Hunter reminds us that honesty is cultivated in the little, ordinary things of life. He said, “If we are sensitive to our relationship with the Savior, we must be honest in the little things as well as the big.” In other words, if we aren’t honest in all aspects of our lives, our relationship with the Savior suffers. And that makes total sense since honesty is one of the laws of God.

As always, the Savior is our ultimate example. There is profound peace and protection in following in His footsteps. President Hunter said, “If we can pattern our life after the Master, and take his teachings and example as the supreme pattern for our own, we will not find it difficult to be consistent and loyal in every walk of life, for we will be committed to a single, sacred standard of conduct and belief. Whether at home or in the marketplace, whether at school or long after school is behind us, whether we are acting totally alone or in concert with a host of other people, our course will be clear and our standards will be obvious.”5