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Reprinted
from
Interview: Elder Hartman
Rector, Jr.
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Elder and Sister Rector came to Utah in 1968 and live just a few miles from downtown Salt Lake City. Looking around, their home is full of beautiful treasures from their world travels, including four mission presidencies. Looking out, they have a breathtaking view of the entire valley. Next door, just slightly downhill, is the home of Karl Malone, Utah Jazz basketball star. Looking in, Elder Rector is passionate about a number of issues: the Book of Mormon and the Constitution; motherhood and home schooling; and the American Indians. His Emeritus status, which is automatic at age 70 for members of the 1st Quorum of Seventy, allows him to speak for himself rather than for the Church, a freedom he greatly enjoys. "I don’t speak for the church; I speak for myself now." |
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On
the Public Schools And
that’s where we are today. Today
about 3% of the students get PhD’s. Dewey would have wanted a few to get
doctorate degrees, and they would do the thinking for the rest of the
people. Today 17% of our
students are dropping out. Dewey
would have felt they were needed to do the more necessary menial tasks
like pick up the garbage and dig the ditches.
Then he would have wanted the rest of them (80%) to learn how to
follow orders, to follow rules. Dewey
set out to do what we are achieving today. Dewey
set out to implement what Plato taught—the Great Society, completely
planned. Nobody has any way to
get out of the mold they put them in.
That’s what this Goals 2000 education is designed to do.
The Governor of Texas (George Bush) has got it implemented in Texas
already, and he’ll try to do it in every state in the Union if he gets
elected. We haven’t got
anybody to vote for. On
the Constitution (Elder
Rector was equally outspoken about a number of religious/political issues
which, unfortunately, we don’t have space to report in detail.
He said the job of the Supreme Court is to pass on the
Constitutionality of law, not to legislate as they did in Roe vs. Wade
which legalized abortion. He’s
concerned about the use of Executive Orders, designed as an emergency
provision during wartime, by Presidents to legislate.
He’s concerned about our giving up of the Panama Canal which is
soon to fall into the hands of the Chinese.
He minced no words about the taking of Southern Utah land for the
Federal government by President Clinton.
He believes we must stop same-sex marriages at the state level
because a Federal law would be reviewed by the Supreme Court, and that
court cannot be trusted.) (Do
home schoolers have a role in preserving the Constitution? we asked.) No
question about it, I’m convinced! The
Lord gave Mormon the responsibility to write a handbook for us for our
day. It’s getting as bad as
it was before the flood, with men’s thoughts, as Moses wrote, being evil
continually (Moses:22). So
we’d need a handbook, and the Book of Mormon is it.
Mormon said I
didn’t know what to write,
and the Lord said OK
I’ll show it to you,
in so many words.
I speak unto you as though ye were present . . . the Lord Jesus
Christ has shown you unto me .
. . all but a very few do walk in the pride of their hearts (Mormon
8:35-36). The Lord showed him
our day and then he went through and picked out from the mountains of
records—they’d kept records for a thousand years—what we would need
today.
ü Why
do you suppose he put in the story of the 2060 stripling warriors who were
taught by their mothers? They
were home schooled! And
we’re going to have to do the same thing today if we want to know our
Constitution. We have to raise
up a generation that understands
the Constitution and understands that they don’t elect anybody who is
not going to uphold and defend and protect the Constitution.
We will not turn it around until we raise a generation that
understands the Constitution. So
home schooling is vitally important, as far as I’m concerned.
Ether,
of course, was written after
Mormon
died. Moroni wrote it and he
said he only wrote a hundredth part of what was there.
In Chapter 2, verse 7 says this is a land of promise.
This land has been preserved for a righteous people.
After the water receded—that would be after the flood—this land
became choice above all others. It
was pretty choice before, though, because it all started near
Jackson
County Missouri, you know. This
land! Eastward in Eden.
All the land was in one piece at that time.
In the days of Peleg it was divided.
It’s the United States of America, not South America or Mexico or
Canada. (2 Nephi 10:10-11) The
promise is: if
you keep the commandments you will prosper in the land.
There’s also a curse attached to it and here’s the curse:
the
people should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept
off when they are ripened in iniquity.
Then the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.
(verse 8) So
what happens to us if we don’t keep the commandments?
We get swept off. Here’s
verse 9: ...should
serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the
fulness of his wrath should come upon them.
It doesn’t say what you have to do to be ripened in iniquity, but
I wonder if 33 million abortions in the past 26 years wouldn’t ripen us
considerably. And
here’s verse 10: ....shall
serve God or shall be swept off. Have
you heard that before? Here’s
verse 11: ...repent...that
ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as
the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done!! This
is the book written to us, our handbook for today.
The inhabitants of this land have always brought down the wrath of
God. Who was the first group
that brought down the wrath of God? Noah’s
group. That started right here
(Jackson County). Then
the Jaredites. Then the
Nephites. Now we’re number
four. Congratulations!
If we get swept off what do you suppose they’ll call us?
Clintonites? He
has destroyed all these kids (as a result of his veto of partial-birth
abortion legislation passed by Congress) They’re the Lord’s children,
not his. That is the reason
people think they can have abortions, because the child is theirs.
It is not theirs; it is the Lord’s.
We are begotten sons and daughters unto God (D&C 76:24). Ether
2, verses 8, 9 , 10, 11, 12 says the same thing in every verse.
Do you suppose the Lord forgot what he said?
No, he’s trying to impress upon us something that we obviously do
not know, so he says that we’ll be free from bondage here if we obey the
God of the land. Our
Constitution is precisely what the Lord wants on this land; and not just
this land, he wants it in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
So he set up a land where he could send his kids and they could
learn liberty and freedom and then carry that message to every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people. That’s
what the United States was set up to do. If
you were God and you set up a nation where you could send your children
and they could learn the message and carry it to every nation, kindred,
tongue, and people; and then you were not permitted to send your kids to
this land—that’s what they’re doing with abortions—what would you
do, if you were God? Would you
wipe the leadership and those who follow them off the face of the land?
So we have to carry the message. On
mother’s and father’s role in home schooling There’s
no question in my mind that about 14 minutes with mother is equal to all
day in the public school. That’s
what they determined when William Bennett was director of the Department
of Education under President Reagan. He
tried to determine how much time it would take with private tutoring for a
child who had been injured and couldn‘t attend school.
All it takes is 1 1/2 hours a week to keep a child up with his
class. That’s about 20
minutes per day! Brethren
need to have a good education because they have to provide for the family.
They have to have a good job, be willing to work hard, bring in
everything they make and give it to their wives, and she’ll raise the
kids. The primary reason
we’re here is to raise the Lord’s children anyway.
We accepted that responsibility when we agreed to mortality.
I don't know all the reasons why a third of the Host of Heaven will
never have a body of flesh and bone in this eternity, but I know one
reason—they were unwilling to bear children.
We are here is to raise the Lord’s children, to teach them to
love him keep his commandments, to walk uprightly before him.
Isn’t that what he said to Adam and Eve right at the start:
be
fruitful and replenish the earth that you may have joy and rejoicing in
your posterity because you’re just here to raise my children. Now
we have a first lady who wrote a book—she didn’t write it but she put
her name on it— It
Takes a Village to Raise a Child.
No! it takes a family to raise a child.
It takes a mother and father who love each other and are willing to
make whatever sacrifices are necessary to raise the Lord’s children.
And look at the divorce rate today; look at the single families
we’ve got today. Dr.
Laura’s on target in most of the things she says.
She really hits them right between the eyes about living together
out of wedlock or selfishly breaking up their marriages.. The
fathers have got to provide for the family; if they don’t do that
they’re worse than an infidel and have denied the faith.
Those are not my words, they’re Paul’s.
And President Benson added to that.
He said if you do not provide for your family you have aborted your
greatest opportunity and your first responsibility.
Providing for your family comes first, even before being the
spiritual head of the family. That’s
what he said and I believe it. (Is
that because its so important to keep the mothers home?) Yes.
Mothers, they’re going to bear the children and for the most part
care for them through childhood—which doesn’t mean you can’t ask for
help from your husband. Get
all that you can, but don’t expect too much because he has a different
responsibility. That’s why
14 minutes with a mother is worth more than a day in school.
Because of the love and relationship that exists between a mother
and her children, she is the best teacher of children.
When the children get hurt they don’t run to father, do they?
They run to their mother, of course, because they were nourished by
their mother, nurtured by their mother, and nursed by their mother.
The
Lord is very partial to his daughters, and I would be too.
They’re going to bear his children.
The sisters were willing to be mothers.
You were willing to bear the Lord’s children.
That’s the reason you’re a woman.
I didn’t want to do that. I
said No, I’ll support my wife and the children.
That’s how important mothers are.
Mothers in the home are absolutely vital.
Without mothers you don’t have anything, so they deserve all of
the plaudits that you can heap upon them.
Those who are willing to raise a family—that’s better than
being able to paint a picture, write a book, or anything else.
That’s President Kimball’s statement.
The
Lord never demeaned womanhood. Never!
He did his greatest miracle before two women, Mary and Martha.
He raised their brother from the dead.
The first one to see Him after He was resurrected was not Peter,
the First Apostle; it was Mary Magdalene.
She was probably his wife. We
don’t know that for sure. Brigham
said it, though its not in that book that we’re studying.
I’m sure Mary ran and threw her arms around him.
And He says Touch
me not.
There’s a different translation of that in several other
scriptures:
Do not clasp me so close.
You’re squeezing me to death! The
Lord never demeans womanhood; He glorifies womanhood.
Why shouldn’t he; they bear his children.
You can’t do better than that, if you raise them and teach them
to love him and keep his commandments and walk uprightly before him.
What would you do if somebody would take care of your kids like
that? You’d figure out some
way to reward them, probably. So
when you do that you make the Lord happy, and that means you’ve made
somebody happy who owns everything! Those
are the best people to make happy! (What
about mother burn-out?) That
happens because they try to put on a public school in their home.
They even use public school materials.
That doesn’t work. You’ve
got to adapt to what will work. I’m
convinced that Glenn Kimber’s gone a long way down the road to getting
past this burnout problem. He
suggests teaching three days a week, four hours a day, and no homework.
Homework was devised by Dewey to make kids hate school.
He didn’t want students to love learning.
Don’t
teach on Monday. You need
Monday to get over Sunday. That’s
when you do your housework, learn about “Tide in, dirt out“ and “if
you put yeast in, bread rises.” Then
when you go on a mission you’re not helpless.
I’ve been a mission president four times, and the kids who came
out knowing how to cook and mend were better qualified to survive well in
their mission. The
afternoon is open for students to play in the band or sports with local
high school, if they want to. Friday
is field day; you’ve got to know how the fire department and the police
department work. I’m
convinced this is a great system. On
Opposition from Ward Leaders President
Hinckley can’t get up and tell all the families to home school their
kids. He can’t do that.
Use the letter the Brethren sent out not long ago (quoting from the
First Presidency letter of Feb 11): “We
call upon parents to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing
of their children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the
Church. The home is the basis
of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or
fulfill its essential functions in carrying forward this God- given
responsibility. “We
counsel parents and children to give highest priority to family prayer,
family home evening, gospel study and instruction, and wholesome family
activities. However worthy and
appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted
to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families
can adequately perform.” Now
that sounds like an endorsement for home schooling to me!
It’s from the First Presidency! (Won’t
some say it
pertains
to religious teaching?) And
instruction.
It’s not just gospel! As
Brigham told George Maseur when they sent
him down to set up the Brigham Young
Academy, Now
don’t even teach the multiplication tables without the gospel. (Elder
Rector also offered to take phone calls from any local leaders who are
concerned about home schooling.) On
BYU’s Distance Learning (BYU
courses are pretty much the same as the rest of the world’s.)
They’ll
get better; they’re gonna get a lot better. President
Bateman intends to have 500 courses available on the internet.
That’s going to be home schooling of the highest order, and the
Church is going to be sponsoring the whole thing.
Five hundred courses! Unbelievable!
And President Hinckley wants 1 million students enrolled in it,
primarily members of the church . On
helping the American Indians We
were in Peru when the country had no money left.
The man who had been in office for the last six years had stolen
it. Presidents of South
American countries only have one term because they steal everything they
can get their hands on; they figure that’s what they’re supposed to do
because that’s what the Spanish did to them.
The Spanish would come over and try to steal enough money to take
care of themselves the rest of their life—and they did.
In
Peru the government couldn’t even pick up the garbage.
People piled garbage in the medians out on the highways and on the
riverbanks until it ran into the river and then into the ocean.
It polluted the ocean, and 180 thousand people died of cholera
because of the pollution—because they didn’t have any money to pick up
the garbage! The guy who went
out of office had three big Riviera houses and was worth probably $65
million. Then the
international bank people loaned the government $80 billion dollars,
knowing that they could not pay it back.
They have paid back, on the interest, $415 billion dollars and they
haven’t reduced the principle at all.
They hate us, believe me. They
see us as the ones who did it. They
march in the streets and shout anti-American slogans. So
all you’ve got to do is take down our border patrol and they’ll
overrun us. If we should have
some kind of disaster, a plague or any other thing the Lord can bring on
us that will take the border patrol down, the Lamanites—probably
non-members!—could overrun us. They’ve
already overrun California. So,
that’s what the Book of Mormon says is going to happen to us and I
believe it. My
Father commanded me to give you—talking
to the Lamanites and Nephites that were left after the destruction at his
crucifixion—my
Father commanded me to give you this land for your inheritance.
This land belonged to the Indians, and our forefathers came and
took it away from them because they thought it was free and the Indians
were savages, not really people. They
thought, Let’s
kill them all! Let’s get rid
of all the Indians! If
you want to be safe when the Lord comes, you’d better be helping
Indians. That’s what the
Book of Mormon says and it doesn’t lie.
Mormon will tell you want’s going to happen.
Mormon saw it. The Lord showed it to him and he wrote it in the
book, and there it is (Mor 5:24). (What
can be done do to help the American Indians?) Not
much. They want their land
back, and we can’t give them their land back, but we can help them get
an education, and once they get educated they can compete with anybody
anywhere. They’re smart.
So
we put on golf tournaments. We
encourage “golfers” to pay us $500 to play in the tournaments, and all
of that goes for scholarships for Lamanites.
That’s a scholarship for a year because we only give them half;
they must earn half of their money. American
Indian Services gave 800 scholarships last year.
Most
of the Indians that are in scholarships today are Navajo and Hopi girls
who have been on the placement program and have gone back to the
reservation, have gotten married and have two or three kids and their
husbands deserted them. They’ve
got to get educated so they can provide for their kids. On
The Church I
don’t speak for the church; I speak for myself now.
Congress passed a prohibition against partial-birth abortions.
President Clinton vetoed it, and when he did he took the life of
2.5 million unborn babies. Do
you see any similarity between a man who would kill 6 million Jews because
they were unwanted and one who would kill 2.5 million unborn babies
because they were unwanted? He
and Hitler are in the same bed.
We’re not going to have anybody to vote for (for U.S. President) until the Lord cleanses this nation—and he’s going to. We’re not too far away. How do you live through that? Keep the commandments. Look to the Lord in every thought. Doubt not; fear not. Just keep the commandments. Go where you should be when you should be there. That’s what we’ve got to do; that’s what we’ve got to teach the kids to do. ~~~~~~~~~~ At our recent Stake Conference our visiting authority said Brother Rector told a group of missionaries: I know why you’re all here. Your girlfriends said they would marry nothing but a returned missionary. And while you’re here, they’ll do that.
(c) Joyce Kinmont, LDS Home Educators Assn. November 1999 |
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