Transcripts, mp3 audio, and video of the World Wide Leadership Training Meeting originally held on February 9th, 2008 by the LDS Church on the topic of “Building Up a Righteous Posterity” are now available online at the official church website:

Building Up a Righteous Posterity

All adult members of the church were encouraged to attend. If you weren’t able to do so, find some time to watch it online, or download the mp3 audio to listen to at your leisure on your iPod or other portable mp3 player.

In my previous post I discussed briefly the theory that Europe is less religious than the U.S. because of a stifled market of religious competition. While I think that religious freedom has certainly played a part, I would like to discuss another contributing factor.

Some years ago I speculated upon the role of the family in propagating traditional values and religion. I wrote:

...if religion is the opiate of the masses, the traditional family is the pusher.

Relativism is perhaps easy to espouse intellectually. However, it is completely impracticable in the day to day interactions between father, mother, and children. A great deal of familial interaction represents an ongoing negotiation with an innate sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, “fair” and “unfair.”

My uncle, Brent Brown, who owns several car dealerships throughout Utah, is an amazing guitarist. I always enjoyed gawking at his guitar signed by Van Halen when we would visit him as kids. Every once in a while he would pull out his own guitar and play a song or two, but I never remember getting the chance to hear him play with a full band.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I went to check out a news story on Governor Huntsman playing rock music in the basement of the governor’s mansion and found my uncle Brent wailing on his guitar and singing with the governor accompanying on piano.