Becoming Babyon

There is talk that the LDS Church will have to make some adjustments in the near future to accommodate the national legitimization of sexual freedom and equality, that is, in order to remain a going concern, just as it had to make adjustments in 1890 (move current polygamists out of the country, give up the practice of polygamy) in order to remain a going concern.

One may have to read that sentence again. And again. Not because it's a confusing too-long sentence but because so much is wrong about how people think these days that we hardly know where to start. We'll try, in no particular order of importance, to sort it out.

What first comes to mind is C. S. Lewis's astute statement: Wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position. This is exactly what happened with the Supreme Court case ruling on "gay marriage." In reality what the issue came down to was God's boundary for sexual morality having to defend itself. How did people get so far off track? Bit by bit. Here a concession, there a distraction. Here a watering-down, there an easing up. Here a compromise, there a rationalization. Instead of proclaiming homosexuality the sin it is people went on the defense for traditional marriage. We wonder if well-intentioned people can finally see that this was the wrong position. Of course it failed.

Correct us if we're wrong. Any real church of Jesus Christ should never make adjustments to accommodate current societal wickedness, i.e. homosexuality. If a church makes adjustments to accommodate wickedness so it can remain intact, it will have truly sold its soul. Zion cannot be built using the methods of Babylon. In other words, if a church embraces Babylon, it becomes Babylon. If you want a real Christian church, you have to retain the essentials, one of these being God's rules for sexual purity. Otherwise you aren't a church anymore, at least not the same one and certainly not a Christian one.

There should be no concessions, no equivocations, no compromises with evil, come what may. Come unpopularity, come loss of membership, come financial losses, come persecution, come punishments and fines, and yes, come getting closed down. We thought it was great when Pope Benedict said that if some Catholics didn't like the church's stand against homosexuality then, fine, they'd have a smaller church. This life is not a business deal. It's not about temporal successes. It's not about amassing worldly wealth or popularity or numbers. It's not about ends justifying the means. We can't take any of what's here with us; what we take with us is the kind of person we have become. This life is a test for each individual immortal soul, about choosing the world or choosing God. Churches are supposed to exist to help us do that.

Have we forgotten that the early apostles were martyred? Christians today in the Middle East are being slaughtered. None of these remade their faith in order to get along with the world or even survive.True followers of Christ don't give in and get used to evil. That's what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot's wife actually hesitated to leave the wickedest of all places, and we know what happened to her. No, true Christians keep the faith and take what comes. Sometimes they have to take up arms and fight. In the Book of Mormon, Christians sometimes surrendered to martyrdom, and sometimes fought back. It's difficult to know which of these we must do. But we can know what not to do: take the wrong position, and adjust to accommodate evil. The dire consequences of embracing evil to any degree have been shown to be predictable and certain.
 
But for the sake of argument, what precisely would these adjustments be? Some suggest that churches will have to desist from performing marriages at all. So couples will get married outside the church. In this way, churches cannot be forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. Okay, but no more church weddings? Really? Let's not forget that this "adjustment" would be a gross forfeiture of religious freedom. And for the Mormon Church all this would really do is perhaps stall the inevitable. The gay/secular/feminist/progressive movement isn't really about marriage. It's about thumbing its nose at God, Creation, Righteousness, and Order. It's about Godlessness and power over the mind of man. One way they are accomplishing this is by insisting on gender equality, genderlessness, or what they call nondiscrimination (which means that no distinction and no different treatment according to a person's self-determined "sexual orientation" is to be allowed). In that case, Mormon gay activists (yes, they exist and are allowed a voice within the church) won't put up with allowing temple sealings either unless all manner of same-sex couples can participate in that ceremony also. All it takes is the threat of one law suit.

We at Standard of Liberty have been told that the Church will never put up with homosexual behavior, which of course must include never putting up with gay marriage since gay marriage indicates homosexual behavior. So what can it do to keep its temples? We had an idea that the Church could sell for a token amount, or give, all its properties to well-off private persons. Then when the government said you have to perform same-sex temple weddings/sealings or we'll take away your tax-exempt status and/or your temples, the Church could say, what temples? The private owners could maintain the temples until we voted better leaders in and the government changed its tune and we got our religious freedom back, or until the Lord comes. Just an idea, and it wouldn't hold out for long either seeing as how private individuals are now being targeted too.

Too bad that's not all. This women-holding-the-priesthood thing isn't going away, and neither is a lot of other nonsense most have not even imagined that is on the horizon. We don't think it will stop until mankind has eaten itself up, as C. S. Lewis warned in The Abolition of Man. One quick way to abolish man is to prohibit procreation, which is naturally prohibitive in homosexualism. Look at California always working at prohibiting the words mother and father, male and female, husband and wife, from the public arena. These words, which are indicative of the procreative act essential to reproduction, are being proclaimed outdated and biased. Talk about abolishing mankind!

So what shall we do?When is truth, righteousness, our posterity, our God, and our religious freedom worth fighting for? Where is our Captain Moroni? Where is our title of liberty (also called the standard of liberty)?

Alas, we don't see any of that coming from powers that be. So what if we give in? What's a church like that isn't free to practice and express its tenets, that has to take its orders from the outside, that is governed with an iron hand by the changing whims and philosophies of Godless men whom Lewis called the Conditioners and Huxley called the Controllers? I don't know about leaders, but for those of us in the trenches, this would translate into parents who are true followers of Christ coming home from "church" and having to unteach what their children learned there, instead supplying true and unchanging principles and doctrines. Such a church might remain an institution; it might prosper financially; it might have a rich sociological culture; it might keep itself busy; it might perform its rituals, it might take care of its own and even serve mankind in temporal ways, yes, it may continue to be a going concern in a temporal sense, but it won't be religious or moral or Christian or Godly or holy. Therefore it will be Babylon. Is this what we want? Can we live with it? Should we?Some people think we must. But where will that lead?

If things continue in the direction they are now going, and churches and groups and individuals do not have the awareness and will to turn it around, all truly religious speech and practice will eventually be prohibited, if it hasn't already been forfeited voluntarily. Isn't that what will happen in every congregation when a gay married couple with children moves in? Nobody will want to talk about sexual morality or repentance or sin, or otherwise say anything against this arrangement for fear of being labeled homophobic, bigoted, unwelcoming, unChristlike, and nobody would want to break up what is functioning as a family. With zero resistance to arrest it (the last holdouts were church and family), an uninformed, foundationless, and arbitrary morality will be adopted worldwide and enforced most likely by nonbenevolent totalitarian powers. No, this is not science fiction; it has occurred over and over again throughout human history; it's just that we pampered Americans don't realize it can happen to us.

And let's not forget that churches don't usually survive Godless totalitarian regimes. Church buildings get closed down, boarded up, recycled for other uses. For the few humble followers of Christ left, things may reach the point where we'll have to be like the Nephites that time, and pray and teach and practice our moral and religious beliefs only in the humble privacy of our homes and hearts, which we should primarily be doing anyway. How would that be? No church to go to, no group of people to meet with, no praying as a body, no serving together, no church callings, no administrations, no outward performances, no temple work --- that would be an adjustment. But hey, on the bright side, apparently there will be a whole millennium to make it up, and lo and behold we might learn something in the meantime. Stripped of all our golden calves, souls might actually come to Christ. In all of this mess, isn't that the going concern that should matter most?