(From Boyd K. Packer's April 1992 General Conference Address):
Moral Environment
Today I speak to members of the Church as
an environmentalist. My message is not on the physical but on the
moral and spiritual environment in which we must raise our families.
As we test the
moral environment, we find the pollution index is spiraling upward.
The Book of Mormon depicts humanity struggling
through a "mist of darkness" and defines the darkness as the "temptations
of the devil." (1 Ne. 8:23; 12:17.) So dense
was that moral pollution that
many followed "strange roads" and "fell away into forbidden paths
and were lost." (See 1 Ne. 8:23-32.)
The deliberate pollution of the fountain of life now clouds our moral environment. The gift of mortal life and the capacity to kindle other lives is a supernal blessing. Its worth is incalculable!
The Spiritual Environment
The rapid, sweeping deterioration of values
is characterized by a preoccupation--even an obsession--with the procreative
act. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity within it are openly
scoffed at--marriage and parenthood ridiculed as burdensome, unnecessary.
Modesty, a virtue of a refined individual or society, is all but gone.
The Tempter
The adversary is jealous toward all who have the power to beget life. He cannot beget life; he is impotent. He and those who followed him were cast out and forfeited the right to a mortal body. His angels even begged to inhabit the bodies of swine. (See Matt. 8:31.) And the revelations tell us that "he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." (2 Ne. 2:27.)
With ever fewer exceptions, what we see and read and hear have the mating act as a central theme. Censorship is forced offstage as a violation of individual freedom.
That which should be absolutely private
is disrobed and acted out center stage. In the shadows backstage
are addiction, pornography, perversion, infidelity, abortion, and--the
saddest of
them all--incest and molestation. In company with them now is a
plague of biblical proportion. And all of them are on the increase.
Society excuses itself from responsibility except for teaching the physical process of reproduction to children in school to prevent pregnancy and disease and providing teenagers with devices which are supposed to protect them from both.
When any effort is made to include values in these courses, basic universal values, not just values of the Church, but of civilization, of society itself, the protest arises, "You are imposing religion upon us, infringing upon our freedom."
Freedom to Choose
While we pass laws to reduce pollution of the earth, any proposal to protect the moral and spiritual environment is shouted down and marched against as infringing upon liberty, agency, freedom, the right to choose.
Interesting how one virtue, when given
exaggerated or fanatical emphasis, can be used to batter down another,
with freedom, a virtue, invoked to protect vice. Those determined
to
transgress see any regulation of their life-style as interfering
with their agency and seek to have their actions condoned by making them
legal.
People who are otherwise sensible say, "I do not intend to indulge, but I vote for freedom of choice for those who do."
Flawed Argument
Regardless of how lofty and moral the "pro-choice" argument sounds, it is badly flawed. With that same logic one could argue that all traffic signs and barriers which keep the careless from danger should be pulled down on the theory that each individual must be free to choose how close to the edge he will go.
No Free Agency
The phrase "free agency" does not
appear in scripture. The only agency spoken of there is moral agency,
"which," the Lord said, "I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable
for
his own sins in the day of judgment." (D&C 101:78.)
Heeding the Warning
And the Lord warned members of his
church, "Let not that which I have appointed be polluted by mine enemies,
by the consent of those who call themselves after my name: For this is
a very sore
and grievous sin against me, and against my people."
(D&C 101:97-98.)
Because the laws of man, by and large, do not raise moral issues, we are taught to honor, sustain, and obey the law (see A of F 1:12), and that "he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land" (D&C 58:21.)
The Right to Speak Out
When a moral issue does arise, it is the responsibility of the leaders of the Church to speak out. Gambling, for instance, certainly is a moral issue. Life is a moral issue. When morality is involved, we have both the right and the obligation to raise a warning voice. We do not as a church speak on political issues unless morality is involved. In thirty years and thousands of interviews, I have never once asked a member of the Church what political party they belonged to.
Physical and Moral Laws
There are both moral and physical laws "irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world" (D&C 130:20) which man cannot overrule.
For instance, do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?
Unenforceable
Suppose a law decreed that all children would be taken from their parents and raised by the state. Such a law would be wicked but probably could be enforced. Such things have been done before.
But suppose an article of that law stated, "Within fifteen days the mother will cease all emotional ties to her child."
That provision is absolutely unenforceable. No matter how severe the penalty or the number of enforcers, it is absolutely unenforceable because it contravenes both natural and moral law.
No matter if fifteen weeks or months
or fifteen years were allowed, it cannot be enforced! It may work
with animals, but "all flesh," the scriptures teach, "is not the same flesh:
but there is
one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts." (1
Cor. 15:39.) It cannot be made to work with human mothers.
Never!
A man-made law against nature would be as impossible to defend as a law annulling love between mother and child would be impossible to enforce!
Children of God
No greater ideal has been revealed than the supernal truth that we are the children of God, and we differ, by virtue of our creation, from all other living things. (See Moses 6:8-10, 22, 59.) The Evil Idea
No idea has been more destructive
of happiness, no philosophy has produced more sorrow, more heartbreak and
mischief; no idea has done more to destroy the family than the idea that
we are not the
offspring of God, only advanced animals, compelled to yield to every
carnal urge.
Animals are not subject to moral law. Nevertheless, while by and large they are promiscuous in responding to their mating instincts, their mating rituals have set patterns and have rigid limitations. For instance, animals do not pair up with their own gender to satisfy their mating instincts. Nor are these instincts expressed in the molestation of their offspring.
The source of life is now relegated to the level of unwed pleasure, bought and sold and even defiled in satanic rituals. Children of God can willfully surrender to their carnal nature and, without remorse, defy the laws of morality and degrade themselves even below the beasts.
Most Abominable
If we pollute our fountains of life, there will be penalties "exquisite" and "hard to bear" (see D&C 19:15), more than all of the physical pleasure ever could be worth. Alma told his son Corianton, "Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?" (Alma 39:5.)
The code for moral law is found in
the scriptures, stated as simply as, "Wickedness never was happiness."
(Alma
41:10.) The scriptures speak in general terms, leaving us
free to apply the
principles of the gospel to meet the infinite variety of life.
But when they say "thou shalt not," we had better pay attention.
The only legitimate employment of
the power of procreation is between husband and wife, man and woman, who
have been legally and lawfully married. Anything else violates the
commandments of God.
From Alma, "If ye speak against it, it matters not, for the word
of God must be fulfilled." (Alma 5:58.)
....Civilizations, like
Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed themselves by disobedience to the laws of
morality. "For the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with
man. And when the Spirit ceaseth
to strive with man then cometh speedy destruction." (2
Ne. 26:11; see also Gen. 6:3; Ether 2:15; D&C 1:33; Moses 8:17.)
God grant that we will come to our
senses and protect our moral environment from this mist of darkness which
deepens day by day. The fate of all humanity hangs precariously in
the balance.