A recently unearthed interview from last election cycle reveals Donald Trump’s new campaign CEO Steve Bannon criticizing Gov. Mitt Romney and his sons for choosing missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instead of military service, according to a BuzzFeed News report.
“This is a guy who avoided military duty in Vietnam; who has five sons who look like movie stars who have not served their country one day,” Bannon said to Christian Family Radio. “Oh, but by the way all of them did their two years of Mormon missionary service — every one of them."
Leaving aside the fact that Bannon is now running the campaign of a candidate who also didn’t serve in Vietnam, this revelation coincides with Desmond Howard’s recent remarks ribbing Brigham Young University for “getting away with this hustle” of having returned missionaries — or, as he put it “grown men” — compete against opponents with younger student-athletes.
Others have pointed out the shaky logic of these remarks. And, in retrospect, I imagine that both men would acknowledge that there are far more pressing injustices at which to wag their fingers. However, given the critiques implicit in their comments, it’s perhaps worth exploring the pro-social value of LDS missionary service.
The ascetic lifestyle of young Mormon missionaries is well-known. Typically around age 18 or 19, Latter-day Saints embark on two-year odysseys during which they focus on both living and teaching their religious tenets.
They swap ear buds for Book of Mormons and give up hanging out for helping complete strangers.
They limit their media consumption to essentially nothing, and, outside of time spent preaching “the word,” they are typically either reading the word or living it by doing service projects or assisting those in need.
Apart from the people they help convert, such service correlates with pro-social behaviors after their missions.
When surveyed, for example, Latter-day Saints who participated in full-time missionary service overwhelmingly say that the “experience was very valuable in helping them prepare for career success (80 percent) and for helping them to grow in their own faith (92 percent).” Latter-day Saints who serve missions are more likely to stay moored to their faith and consequently to engage in volunteerism and charitable giving both in and outside the church.
Researchers at the Pew Forum of Religion and Public Life found that “Mormons who have served a mission are significantly more likely to say it’s essential to provide aid and assistance to the needy.” What’s more is that returned missionaries tend to see their own faith as more similar to the faith of others.
Anecdotes also abound about how the daily missionary grind teaches hard work and perseverance. Mixed with the oft-acquired language and communications skills gained on missions, many say that these two years help prepare young people for success in life. Missions have also been used to explain Mormon business success and the purportedly high number of Latter-day Saints who join the U.S. foreign services.
In 1960, during impromptu remarks that helped spark the modern-day Peace Corps, John F. Kennedy challenged his young listeners “to join in the effort” of serving both at home and abroad. Kennedy queried students at the University of Michigan: “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana?”
In a way unique to their faith, Latter-day Saints strive to answer a religiously inspired call to leave their homes and learn to serve as missionaries.
Full disclosure: I was one of them. I can attest that sharing my faith and helping those in need shaped my soul.
Digging septics for impoverished families in rural Argentina, for instance, changed me in ways that playing video games in a dorm room never would.
Praying with a woman who just lost her toddler in an accident taught me to more fully mourn with those that mourn. Reading scriptures with a fractured family showed me the power of reconciliation.
Refurbishing dilapidated schools in Santa Rosa was a lesson that finely adorned lecture halls could not provide. Laying bricks for a co-religionist’s home laid a foundation of moral character.
I gained far more than I could give on my mission, and I'm certainly not alone in feeling that way.
And, yet, it is all thanks to the brave souls who serve our country and protect the very freedoms that allowed me to serve a mission and teach about my faith.
Our men and women in uniform, including many Latter-day Saints who serve after missions, deserve our highest praise and gratitude for this gift. Perhaps the greatest way Mormons can honor their sacrifice is by exercising the freedom they provide us to live our religion in fruitful ways.
In this light, one’s choice to serve as a missionary should not be seen as a slight to those in military service, but rather as the consummate sign of appreciation for our brave soldiers who are willing to lay down their lives to protect the rights of strangers to answer a religious call to serve.
To borrow the great scriptural phrase, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Hal Boyd is the opinion editor of the Deseret News.