Dear Gramps,

I hope you can answer a question that has always elicited a horrified expression from others before, but no one has ever been able to answer it in the 36 years that I have been an active member of the Church. Why, in particular, are we cautioned against the use of face cards? It just can’t be that it wastes time, because we have had church game nights, where other card games like PIT have been played. I know that some have said that it leads to gambling, but when I was little I quite enjoyed my great-grandmother playing cards with me, and never was gambling part of it. If there is something really evil about the face cards, especially, I would surely like to know. Thank you for any enlightenment that you can shed on this subject.

Sheila, from Alabama

Dear Sheila,

By face cards, I assume you mean the regular deck that is commonly used for gambling. President Joseph F. Smith recorded the following counsel in 1903.

While a simple game of cards in itself may be harmless, it is a fact that by immoderate repetition it ends in an infatuation for chance schemes, in habits of excess, in waste of precious time, in dulling and stupor of the mind, and in the complete destruction of religious feeling. These are serious results, evils that should and must be avoided by the Latter-day Saints. Then again, there is the grave danger that lurks in persistent card playing, which begets the spirit of gambling, of speculation and that awakens the dangerous desire to get something for nothing (Improvement Era, Vol. 6, August, 1903, p. 779).

My assumption is that there has been no change in the position of the Brethren with respect to card playing from that time to this.

Gramps