D&C 121:34-46 is the great instruction on proper priesthood leadership. It is built around deep respect for other people's agency. If we treat others as objects to be acted upon, we lose the Spirit and power of the priesthood. If we treat others as agents who choose and act for themselves, and respect their agency, our souls can expand, and we have the Spirit and power in the priesthood.
Strangely, the main concern here seems to be with the leader’s salvation, rather than the salvation of the one being led. Both are important, but poor shepherding seems to be as dangerous to the shepherd as to the sheep. Bullying has far worse long term psychological effects on the bully than the bullied, according to recent research.
Priesthood authority and power depend upon having the Spirit. When we choose to compel others, coerce, threaten them, or pull rank (“You have to do what I say because I’m in charge...”), the Spirit is grieved, it withdraws, we lose priesthood authority, and we are left to persecute the saints and to fight against God. This all sounds very threatening—that we can become apostates by bullying, abusing authority, or being pushy. Criticizing leaders has been called the high road to apostasy; poor leadership also pushes the leader in that direction. Compel, and lose the Spirit and the priesthood; persuade and love, and gain both eternally.
My first mission president taught me that charity respects agency. The two things are inseparable. If you attempt to coerce, the Spirit withdraws, and so do the gifts of the Spirit, including charity.
Love is magnetic; a leader who loves us and asks us to follow his example is far more effective than a hypocrite who pushes us in a direction without going there himself. Billiard balls may knock each other in any direction beside the one intended. But magnets can attract objects from any direction. Joseph Smith said, “Sectarian priests cry out concerning me, and ask, ‘Why is it this babbler gains so many followers, and retains them?’ I answer, it is because I possess the principle of love” (TPJS, p. 313).
The leadership principles of D&C 121 accommodate the agency of others. Even direct reproof, criticism, is to be checked by the Spirit, and accompanied afterward by love. People can tell whether we are motivated by love for them, or by something else. Is the important thing the project that was messed up or the person working on the project? The way in which we offer reproof is evidence of what has highest priority, the person or the things they are working on.
When love and truth cross paths, truth must ultimately win. But we do not know who will ultimately repent; President Monson has recently admonished us to look at people not as they are, but as they may become. Can we criticize people into heaven? No. If they are obeying because they want to please someone other than God, or if they are motivated by a fear of punishment rather than a love of goodness, then ultimately their good behavior will not avail. Reproof may get us dislodged from a bad behavior pattern, but we cannot expect to ride a wave of guilt through the gates of the celestial kingdom, nor create a tsunami of negative feedback to carry someone else.
God is not ultimately building Temples; he is using Temples, meeting houses, and all the materials connected with them, to create us. We are going to be the finished product when the final judgment is over and all is said and done. Many Temples have been lost or destroyed, but the sanctification, the covenants, and family ties made in them, those things have the capacity to last forever in those who went through those buildings while they stood. So Brigham Young and the saints could abandon the lavish and beautiful Nauvoo Temple to the mob and head into the wilderness because they were taking a bit of the Temple inside themselves.
Temples are like kilns, and eternal families are the bricks baked in them. The worth of one soul is greater than the value of any Temple ever built. If a person defiles a Temple, it is bad; but to defile or drive that person away from repentance through condemning language is worse in the long run. Things, even precious Temples, can be replaced; lost souls cannot. The worth of souls is great in the eyes of God, whether they are repenting or not, and our handling of those under our stewardship should reflect this. People first; projects, tasks, and physical materials second.
Section 121 also indicates that we should have love toward everyone, and to “the household of faith.” Joseph Smith taught that while we should love everyone, there should be something extra in our hearts for the saints, the members of Christ’s Church. "There is a love from God that should be exercised toward those of our faith, who walk uprightly,
which is peculiar to itself, but it is without prejudice; it also gives scope to the mind, which
enables us to conduct ourselves with greater liberality towards all that are not of our faith, than
what they exercise towards one another. These principles approximate nearer to the mind of God,
because it is like God, or Godlike" (TPJS, p.147). This is not an invitation to hate sinners. We are to save them with love.
One institute teacher relabeled “the parable of the prodigal son,” “the parable of the indulgent father.” Both sons had an inflamed sense of entitlement; both sons resented the drudgery of their father’s work; one merely acted out on those feelings, while the other pined for similar partying. It is easy for the “good” son to condemn and accuse his wayward brother, but are they so very different? Both of them had inner changes to be made. Both of them murmured against their father. Their father was kind to both, and gathered them with love and care. When one was penitent, no reproof was needed, and he ran to meet him. The other needed reproof, but it was lovingly extended, with a promise of all that his father possessed. He respected the choice of each, and was there to catch them when they stumbled.
It is worth noting that Section 121 came out of a foul dungeon, devoid of sanitation or sufficient food. It contains prophecies about scientific advances in astronomy that have been fulfilled and sublime doctrines regarding the proper use of priesthood. We have these keys to proper priesthood usage because Joseph Smith was faithful to his calling. He forgave the very men who put him into that prison, and asked the Church to reaccept them to fellowship. He lived the principles in the revelations, including Section 121. Nothing can keep God from pouring out knowledge on the heads of the Latter-day Saints. In the Lord’s hands, even a dark, freezing prison meant to shut out light became a vehicle for transmitting it to the world.
