Presented to: Gordon B. Hinckley
For: Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
Once in a great while, a book comes along that makes such a significant contribution to our culture that it really needs to be recognized in a significant way. This past year, Latter-day Saints witnessed an unimagined phenomenon as the president of the Church wrote a book that ended up on the New York Times bestseller list. That book, Standing for Something, is a forthright, unflinching call for society to return to its moral moorings.
In a day of rationalizations and redefinitions regarding family and morality, here is a book that says, without apology, that married couples ought to stay married, that parents have actual responsibilities to teach their children, and that the way to find happiness and personal freedom is to embrace such values as integrity, civility, and hard work.
That President Gordon B. Hinckley would say such things is no surprise to anyone in our culture. That a national publisher would produce his book, that Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes would write a foreword for it, and that hundreds of thousands of people across the country would buy copies of it-those are unforeseen and unprecedented events.
President Hinckley has always been an opener of doors, and Standing for Something has opened new doors for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in ways that will affect the world's view of us for years to come. It has built a bridge between Zion and New York, demonstrating that Mormon views and Mormon writings are welcome in the national culture.