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Pilgrims Invited

Pilgrims Invited

Last updated on: November 20, 2025 at 1:41 pm by Dan Peterson

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Pilgrims Invited 2025-11-20T13:41:24-07:00 Dan Peterson

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One of Professor Hancock’s books, from a number of years ago (Amazon.com)

This article went up online yesterday, on the never-changing and totally dead website of the Interpreter Foundation: Steadfast in Defense of Faith: “The Restored Gospel and the New Liberalism: The Inescapability of Political Apologetics,” written by Ralph C. Hancock

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Steadfast in Defense of Faith: Essays in Honor of Daniel C. Peterson, edited by Shirley Ricks, Stephen D. Ricks, and Louis Midgley. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/steadfast-in-defense-of-faith/.

“We normally like to keep religion and politics separate, and this is understandable.

“The separation makes sense for political reasons since it is often best to limit political debate to negotiable stakes, to values that can be quantified and compromised. This strategy of lowering the aims of politics to reduce conflict is a fundamental strategy of modern liberalism, and it has very often served us well.

“We also have properly religious reasons for maintaining the separation between religion and politics: our highest hopes and strongest duties refer to our eternal salvation, and we would not want these to be compromised or corrupted by entanglement with political interests and ambitions.”

The Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion at Arizona State University in Tempe
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Since I expressed reservations here the other day about a declaration by Texas Governor Greg Abbott that the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an international terrorist organization, I received this from a reader:

“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Nov. 18 that he was designating the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Abbott said in a statement released by his office.

“The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.”

I haven’t followed CAIR particularly over the years, and I’m open to evidence. I don’t view the contemporary Muslim scene through rose-colored glasses; I’m well aware of the threat of extremist Islamism, both internationally and domestically. But I would feel more confident with the above if (a) there were a clear recognition of the fact that CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood are two distinct organizations, one based in the United States and the other based in Egypt, and if, (b) instead of Governor Abbott’s words about CAIR’s supposedly clear goals to take over the world and forcibly impose shari‘a upon everybody and about their alleged plan for world domination, we had actual words from CAIR itself to that effect.

In the meanwhile, we do have these words from the organization:

“CAIR: Who We Are: The Council on American-Islamic Relations as Defined by Its Actions and Statements over 15 Years of Community Service (June 2010)”

Under “Supporting the Islamic Middle Way,” that document says that

CAIR’s work is an example to all Muslims that the democratic system of governance in the United States of America affords all people the opportunity to successfully redress their grievances in a non-violent, lawful manner.

And here, from the same document, is CAIR’s statement about ““America’s Founding Principles.”

Relevant to this issue, I had a brief telephone conversation with my friend Salam al-Marayati yesterday. We’re collaborating on a short little book for Muslims and Latter-day Saints, and he was very recently involved (along with former Senator Jeff Flake [R-AZ], who served as Ambassador of the United States to Türkiye for several years after leaving the Senate) in an event at the Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion on the campus of Arizona State University. He said that part of his message there was that the vast majority of American Muslims are good Americans, and that the best place in the world for Muslims to practice their faith is in the United States. He also sees this as an important part of his message in our little book. I agree with him. Happily, he tells me that he was well-received by his mostly Latter-day Saint audience in Tempe.

In the Bunhill Fields graveyard (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

One of the places that we will visit briefly during the Interpreter Foundation’s tour of England this coming May is Bunhill Field Burial Ground, in London. (You can readily see that this will not be the typical standard-issue England tour, although — of course — we will still see places like Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and other important locations.) Bunhill Field is where Isaac Watts (1674-1748) is buried. Sometimes called “the father of English hymnody,” he is the author of, among many other things, the lyrics to “Joy to the World” and “Sweet is the Work,” both of which I love (and I hope that you do, as well).

Isaac Watts is also the author of the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” which is very popular among many Protestants and which has been performed by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. And his beautiful “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” will appear in the new Latter-day Saint hymnbook.

I thought of Isaac Watts today while watching the impressive funeral service for former Vice President Dick Cheney at the National Cathedral this morning, when the choir and the congregation sang his “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” — to me, a very stirring hymn — which is Number 31 in our current hymnal.

William Blake (1757-1827), “The Ancient of Days” (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Very near to Isaac Watts are buried John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the great mystical poet and painter William Blake, who is the author of (again, among many other things) the lyrics to the popular unofficial national anthem of Great Britain, Jerusalem, which you may recognize from the wonderful 1981 film — note the title! — Chariots of Fire:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

I’m not sure exactly why, but hearing Jerusalem always brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps because I think there’s inspired truth in it. Please watch this video of the choir and orchestra and audience performing the song at the last night of the BBC Proms 1998 in (and around) London’s Royal Albert Hall, led by the late, great Sir Andrew Davis. See the audience rise to its feet and note its enthusiastic singing and flag-waving, but try to ignore one man’s long, embarrassing yawn, captured forever on video for posterity.

Also contained within the Bunhill cemetery, which is not huge, are the graves of Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, and Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley (the founder of Methodism) — who is himself buried just across the street — and Charles Wesley (“Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,”and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”), and the Rev. Thomas Bayes, the clergyman and statistician who created the famous (and very important) “Bayes’ theorem” that is at the foundation of all “Bayesian inference.”

While at Bunhill, we’ll also visit the last resting place of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends (aka the Quakers), which is located in a small specifically Quaker cemetery that is directly adjacent to the main burial ground. And, in the course of our tour, we will be discussing all of these figures — and their role in preserving a vigorous Christian tradition in England and in preparing the ground for the advent of the modern apostles and missionaries of the Restoration.

I haven’t recently checked to see how how many people have signed up for the England tour, nor how many spaces remain. But we would love to have you along. I think that you’ll enjoy the trip, and that you will deepen your appreciation of our religious heritage. See here for details: “Church History and Great Britain with the Interpreter Foundation.”

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