WHY ARE THE CHURCHES SILENT?

As American society is awash in new morality, as ageless conventions are toppled and condemned, as the teachings of millennia are dismissed and the very definitions of humanity are changed, where are the shepherds of the Savior’s flock, and what guidance do they give?

For the most part, they are passive and silent. Or worse, they have gone over to the side of confusion. But seldom are they heard, and seldom do they lead, and seldom do they seem to be a light of the world.

Nowhere do you find the courage and clarity of Isaiah, who foresaw this technique of the adversary and warned those who might be deceived by it. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil,” he wrote, “that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

“Woe” means great sorrow and discouragement, a fundamental unhappiness. And that is where an increasing percentage of Americans are, lost and confused, just as an Old Testament prophet foresaw they would be. Yet Americans navigate these perilous times with the guideposts of biblical truth obscured and forgotten, their watchmen upon the walls silent and blind.

While the world shouts that good is evil and evil is good, that men are women and women are men, that right is wrong and wrong is right. The absolute and eternal truths of humankind’s Creator are seldom heard, including across the pulpit.

Religion, which in most cultures and in most eras shapes social attitudes and practices, has been silenced or co-opted in modern America. We have redefined marriage and gender, issues addressed in scripture, and the preachers of the gospel have looked the other way. We have rejected law, devalued work, preached entitlement, suppressed speech, and burdened portions of our society with ever heavier taxes – contrary to cultural practices rooted in traditional Christianity – and the Christian ministers have been silent.

We have replaced love of neighbor with tribal hatred, and the structures of power in our society seem intent on pitting us against one another to the point of violence and social dissolution. Those institutions of power – the government, the school and university, the entertainment and news media – all preach a strange gospel, focused in large part on children, that confuses the mind and obscures the truth.

Religion declares that truth is absolute and eternal, that it is not subject to the opinion of man but is established by God. Situations may change, but truth never does, and the role of the religious has always been to proclaim the truth, to humbly seek to learn it from God and to share it with the world. Christians, Muslims and Jews have done that, and so have most believers of other faiths.

Certainly, there are disagreements, and a free and tolerant society like the United States recognizes and accommodates that. But the overlap of common belief among the faithful is broad, and the divine principles valued in a Muslim home are often the same as those cherished in a Christian home, and the Catholic is not that much different from the Baptist. And the cause of all believers is largely the same – freedom and decency, the right to believe and live as you wish, and the common embrace of right over wrong.

But American society has veered from that. There is no more right and there is no more wrong, and the immorality of yesterday is the morality of today. Good is called evil and evil is called good. There is no God and those who worship him are marginalized and ridiculed in society, the freedom of religion restricted to an hour a week behind closed doors.

And those shepherds and pastors called to guard the flock are silent as it wanders into forbidden and dangerous paths. The ecumenical groups and councils of churches, having long since sold their souls for a mess of progressive pottage, are useless to the task. Some religious bodies seek accommodation with the social masters, ignoring the reality that those who try to appease the lion end up in its stomach. Individual ministers and congregations, perhaps fearful of public ridicule or a loss of non-profit status, are silent, like lambs to the slaughter.

All while our children and society stumble through the fog of demonic deception, straying into the bondage and sorrow of those who do not know the truth and cannot be set free by its tenets.

The war between evil and good rages on, and good is not fighting back. Its institutions have largely abandoned the field. And when the wicked rule, in government or in the pulpit, the people mourn.

The battle for souls and safety is raging all around, and you wonder where the churches are.

Lonsberry is a Mormon.

Let me help the Mormons...

What is your church doing to help the male to stay true?

"All of this should be conveyed without having priesthood leaders focus upon intimate matters which are a part of husband and wife relationships. Skillful interviewing and counseling can occur without discussion of clinical details by placing firm responsibility on individual members of the Church to put their lives in order before exercising the privilege of entering a house of the Lord. The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it."
- Official Declaration of the First Presidency of the Church, January 5th, 1982


Spencer W. Kimball	Boyd K. Packer	N. Eldon Tanner	Marion G. Romney

"Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation-practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality...."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Pages 77-79, 81-82

"Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, [unwed] pregnancy, and abortions - all ugly sins - but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. They awaken lust and stir evil thoughts and sex desires. They are but parts of the whole family of related sins and indiscretions. Almost like twins, 'petting' and fornication are alike."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 65

"Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 196

"And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth." (Genesis 4:9-14.) That was true of murder. It is also true of illicit sex, which, of course, includes all petting, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and all other perversions. The Lord may say to offenders, as He did to Cain, "What hast thou done?" The children thus conceived make damning charges against you; the companions who have been frustrated and violated condemn you; the body that has been defiled cries out against you; the spirit which has been dwarfed convicts you. You will have difficulty throughout the ages in totally forgiving yourself."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965. Often-used quote still used today in LDS seminary classes.

"I do not find in the Bible the modern terms "petting" nor "homosexuality," yet I found numerous scriptures which forbade such acts under by whatever names they might be called. I could not find the term "homosexuality," but I did find numerous places where the Lord condemned such a practice with such vigor that even the death penalty was assessed."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965

"If adultery or fornication justified the death penalty in the old days, and still in Christ's day, is the sin any less today because the laws of the land do not assess the death penalty for it? Is the act less grievous? There must be a washing, a purging, a changing of attitudes, a correcting of appraisals, a strengthening toward self-mastery. There must be many prayers, and volumes of tears. There must be an inner conviction giving to the sin its full diabolical weight. There must be increased devotion and much thought and study. And this takes energy and time and often is accompanied with sore embarrassment, heavy deprivations and deep trials, even if indeed one is not excommunicated from the Church, losing all spiritual blessings."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Page 155

"How like the mistletoe is immorality. The killer plant starts with a sticky sweet berry. Little indiscretions are the berries -- indiscretions like sex thoughts sex discussions, passionate kissing, pornography. The leaves and little twigs are masturbation and necking and such, growing with every exercise. The full-grown plant is petting and sex looseness. It confounds, frustrates, and destroys like the parasite if it is not cut out and destroyed, for, in time it robs the tree, bleeds its life, and leaves it barren and dry; and, strangely enough, the parasite dies with its host."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference Address, April 1, 1967.

https://exploringmormonism.com/boyd-k-packer-and-a-whole-new-sin/

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