Why I'm Neither a Conservative Nor a Liberal

Because I take my religion seriously, and because it addresses what I believe to be issues of eternal importance, it seems to me that my politics ought to be shaped by my religion, rather than vice versa.  I don't for a minute claim to have harmonized my politics and my religion perfectly, but it does seem to me that when I succeed at letting my religion inform my politics, my politics end up fitting badly into a single, easy category.  As far as I can tell, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, and the guidance offered by modern prophets give very inconsistent comfort either to doctrinaire conservatives or to dogmatic liberals.  What I think this means is that if I follow the scriptures and the prophets, I'm likely to sometimes agree with liberals and sometimes with conservatives and sometimes with neither.  The challenge, then, is to make sure that my political positions are determined by an accurate understanding of eternal truth, rather than by my personal biases and preferences.

I have friends and colleagues who are Mormon and who consistently align themselves with either the Right or the Left.  Am I saying they're wrong?  No, though I may well disagree with them on particular issues.  But it seems to me that all of us have to figure out for ourselves how to reconcile the way we live in the world with our eternal obligations, and I'm not well placed to judge others in that regard.  I will say this, though: I've seen people turn against my religion because they think it's too conservative, and I've seen people do the same because they think it's too liberal.  That doesn't prove anything in and of itself, but I do think it's suggestive about the degree to which Latter-day Saints need to be able to "stand independent" (D/C 78:14) rather than let the world -- whether it's the conservative part of the world or the liberal part -- shape our attitudes and positions for us.