Born of God
Prophets of God have many gifts and skills. One of these is to be able to explain or reveal simple truths that when understood can make a great difference in our personal lives and in the lives of our families and our society.
Ezra Taft Benson, Prophet of God
I have taken several sociology and psychology classes during my life and I have read thousand of pages from different authors. But many more have been written by scholars in those disciplines, who tried to find solutions for the problems affecting humanity, at the individual or societal level. Many experiments have been done following those theories and ideas, and some of them were catastrophes (see for example the application of Marx’s theories to build a better society). Others, at best, are limited, too limited to really make a permanent difference in the life of people (for example, the behaviorist ideas in psychology).
My purpose is not to trash all the efforts that have been done by human beings who tried to figure out how to improve our lives. In some ideas and theories there is a lot of good. However, this is the key point: human beings are not able with their limited knowledge and understanding to solve these existential problems in a satisfactory way. They are at best limited and imperfect solutions, when they are not clearly going in the wrong direction and make things even worse.
On the other hand, listen to what an inspired prophet of God said, with simple and clear words, without doing any statistical analysis …
The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature (Ezra Taft Benson, “Born of God,” Ensign, Nov 1985, 5).
It is true that by changing the environment we can affect change in individuals, at least to some degree, but the real change, the change that will last and will produce the desired results of happy individuals and healthy societies can only be reached through Christ and His Gospel.
Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world (Ezra Taft Benson, “Born of God,” Ensign, Nov 1985, 5).