Thanksgiving food for thought

The Mormon Media Observer picks recent speeches and columns about

faith, politics and forgiveness as some Thanksgiving selections.

Offerings include Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, LDS church spokesman Michael Otterson, First Amendment scholar Charles Haynes, and newspaper columnists Rosalynde Welch and Roy Exum.

Engaging in the public sphere

Speaking at BYU, Noah Feldman said that Latter-day Saints shouldn't wait for others to start talking about their faith and politics.

\"[We] need a broad and diverse community of other believers,\" The Daily Universe reported, \"to speak openly, to speak freely, to speak regularly, to speak unabashedly and to speak in an engaged way with others in the public sphere about religion, about comparative religion and about the ideas thereof.\"

The MMO has been a fan of Feldman since he wrote the New York Times magazine piece \"What is it about Mormonism?\" during the Romney campaign. Download a free MP3 of the speech here.

Constitutional rights

As an example of becoming part of the national conversation, LDS church spokesman Michael Otterson writes in the Newsweek-Washington Post \"On Faith\" column.

\"Every individual and group has a stake in the direction of government. When values collide, as they do in every society, a healthy democracy requires active engagement from all who seek its prosperity, including religions.Attempts to deny or suppress participation from religious leaders tread on our nation's constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. A senior leader of my faith (Elder Dallin H. Oaks), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, articulated that concern in an address last month... Meetings in which legislators confer and consult with religious leaders do not constitute an 'establishment of religion' as stated in the First Amendment. A church can voice its opinion only for consideration, not as a mandate. Like other constituents, churches and their leaders are simply exercising their constitutional right to weigh in on public policy. They cannot impose their will or doctrine on a lawmaking body.\"

Do we need each other?