Emily Jensen - 2024

Good morning brothers and sisters.

I am excited for the opportunity to speak to you today. I can think of no time better to deliver this message I have prepared than on this beautiful Earth Day. Aren’t we blessed by this beautiful spring weather outside? It has gladdened my soul to hear bird song and see green grass again. I’m sure each of you has things about the earth that you are grateful for: a beautiful sunset, or a lovely forest trail. For many of us, nature is the place we go to be closest to God.

The earth is a precious gift to us from our Heavenly Father. None of us could have the opportunity to gain a body, be baptized, sealed to a spouse, or ultimately to return to live with Heavenly Father without the gift of this earth to live on, its water to be baptized in, its stone to build temples with, and its ground to be buried in. The very first verse of the Bible reads, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Shouldn’t this indicate that this was the first and most foundational step of God’s plan towards His purpose “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”? (Moses 1:39).

The common saying “your body is a temple” derives from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, which reads, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Under this base doctrine, we follow commandments like the Word of Wisdom to keep our bodies healthy, we keep sexual activity within the bounds that God has set, we dress modestly, and we avoid bodily modifications such as tattoos or excessive piercings. We do these things because we know that we are not our own. Our bodies were created by God, and we are tasked with only using them, decorating them, and putting things in them that glorify God.

Still, although we know that we are not our own because we were created by someone else, somehow we forget that that means that the earth was also created by someone else, and therefore it is not ours either. We are living in a rented house. Why is it that we can understand that it is bad to harm our own bodies, but not the severity of harming a celestial body on which the whole of humankind and God’s plan for us depends? Despite God creating the earth perfectly from the beginning, in the modern day, we have taken it upon ourselves to change the earth as we see fit. We drill oil out of the earth and contaminate the earth’s waters with it. We kill the beautiful animals and plants that God created Himself, hand-picked and hand-designed for the specific purposes they would individually serve in keeping the earth healthy. Of the Creation, Genesis explains that after each part of His creation of the earth, God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25). If we believe in his unfailing wisdom and that He is perfect in all His creations, why do we want to fundamentally change the earth He created for us, as if it was somehow primitive or unfinished before we got our hands on it? How is it that we think we know better than God how we should use this earth?

Unlike God, we do not have the power to create a whole new world teeming with life and natural resources and wonders. Once we use up all we have, we can make no more. Once we kill off a species, we cannot revive them. And we are now realizing that, as God always does, He created them in a wise purpose. They did something that perhaps no other species could do, and we were too ignorant to know all the purposes they served until it was too late to bring them back.

Our Master Landlord provided us with a beautiful house that was not only free to live in, but that maintained itself. We had self-sweeping brooms, self-cooking ovens, self-making beds—all the things we needed for a house to run smoothly. But we, in our mortal wisdom, said, “This house never seems to get dirty anyway; this broom is just wasting space. I think I will break it into pieces so I can sell it for parts.” And so we did for every object we had been given that kept the house running, breaking it down and pawning it off to make a quick profit, and then were surprised as the house begins to fall down around us. One day, perhaps soon, our landlord is going to return to see what we’ve done with the place. As we sit currently, we are at great risk of the Lord coming back and saying to us, as He did in Jeremiah, “I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination” (2:7).

Some of you may be saying, “But God gave all of this to us for us to use! Genesis 1:28 says God gave us dominion over everything that lives on the earth!” I hear you. And I know that culturally, we have taken that to mean that we can do whatever we want to the earth until Christ comes and restores it to perfection. Because if He’s going to do that, what the point of bothering with this “reduce, reuse, and recycle” stuff in the meantime, right?

We also believe in the resurrection and perfection of human bodies. If that is so, why bother with staying healthy? Why can’t we have tattoos and nose rings and do whatever we want to our bodies if they’ll be restored to perfection anyway? Because they are not ours. God knows infinitely better than we do, and He has a reason for everything He asks us to do. We may not understand it, just as we may not understand why some seemingly unimportant species is crucial to the entire natural system of the earth, but we will surely come to understand why we should have obeyed it after we have chosen not to and suffered the consequences.

Yes, we have to use the resources of the earth to be able to eat, drink, and have shelter. But we also have an obligation to use these things wisely. The Lord said, “And it pleaseth God that he hath given [all things which come of the earth] unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion” (Doctrine & Covenants 59:20). Using the things of this earth with judgement and not to excess is where we are falling short.

Since 1950, we have been living in a time popularly referred to as the Anthropocene. This is the age in which humankind has a greater impact on the planet than any other single force. In my research for this talk, I was struck by how much of the counsel God has given us on how to treat our home planet has come in the Doctrine & Covenants or through the mouths of prophets in the time since. In Biblical times, we were not so much at risk of destroying the earth in the way we are now. But since we have gained this power, God has been increasingly warning us to exercise righteous dominion with it. Joseph Smith explained, “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion” (Doctrine & Covenants 121:39).

God is not only concerned with the damage we are doing to our earth with these actions. He is also fearful for our hearts being lifted up in pride as we take from the poor to build up the rich. God made enough for everyone, but He did not make enough for a small percentage of people to hoard what was meant for the many. The Lord put it most clearly when He said,

A person does not have to believe in a literal hell for that scripture to come true. If we continue to attack our earth, we will reach a tipping point. There are certain invisible boundaries that once we cross, the earth will take matters into her own hands to stabilize herself. The natural disasters we suffer constantly are signs that we are rapidly approaching those boundaries. If we continue to take more than we need, we will lose all that we have. The earth will destroy the systems and supply chains that we built in pursuit of gluttony so that we will again live sustainably, but by force—and living sustainably by force is much less pleasant than living sustainably by choice

In closing, lest you think this talk is all doom and gloom, I want to remind you of the promised blessings of following God’s commandment to be good stewards. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus explains that to the profitable servant, “His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (23). When the Lord returns and sees what we have done with the house he gave us, if we have taken good care of it, he will give us many houses—enough for a whole kingdom of our own. The Lord has given us an opportunity to exercise righteous rule over this earth, to till and take care of it. This is not only for our own learning and experience, but for our own good and happiness. Doctrine & Covenants 59:18 says, “all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart.” Our Heavenly Father wants us to do this because it makes us happy, it serves our fellow man (Matthew 22:39), it keeps us from vanity (Jacob 2:13) and it fulfills the Lord’s promise that in Zion, “there was no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). Everything the Lord asks us to do serves us in more ways than we can imagine, and I am certain that there are more blessings that will come of following this law than I could ever know or list here. But in short, when it comes to deciding if we will do what God asks of us, we will usually only know what will come of it when we are looking back in hindsight. We can learn why God asked this of us from the other side of having broken all of our planetary boundaries and while suffering the consequences, or we can appreciate His wisdom on the other side from a sustainable, just, and vibrant community. I personally would rather do the latter.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

Artist's Statement

While there are no laws of physics preventing us from minimizing our consumption, sometimes breaking the soft barriers (e.g. consumption culture) around these issues can seem almost as impossible as breaking the laws of physics. The best way to promote change in these areas is to appeal to a group with the values they already hold. Tight-knit groups are excellent candidates for introducing the change in thinking we need to complete in order to transition into a degrowth society. The benefit of appealing to a tight-knit group is that they tend to move as a unit; a paradigm shift for one often functions as a paradigm shift for all, making the rapid change required to save our planet all the easier. The trouble with tight-knit groups is that they can be so tight that they are difficult to get into, and often will not listen to voices from the outside, as they assume that they do not share the same values

Under this basic premise, I saw an opportunity to use my background as a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to appeal to a majority of Utahns (as well as many other millions around the world) by presenting the case for environmental protection using LDS scripture and doctrine. I posit that there are some misconceptions about doctrine within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that lead many members to believe that sustainable practices are irrelevant. However, a look into the doctrine reveals that LDS scripture has actually encouraged practices akin to degrowth since the 1800s. I share these points, and others, in the format most familiar to members of the church: the sacrament meeting talk