Has The Lord’s Church Lost Its Way?

There’s an old saying that goes like this…

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

I’ve never had much reason to think much about that saying until the past several years.

In this article, I am going to address several of the concerns I’ve seen from fellow Latter-day Saints as many of us have experienced an “awakening” that started (for most of us) with the “COVID pandemic.”

My advice to those Mormons (hey, that term was good enough for Joseph Smith, so it’s good enough for me) who are questioning their entire religious foundation is this: Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Stay in the boat!

I was born and raised in a Latter-day Saint family. My parents are converts to the church. My mom was raised in a Baptist family and joined the LDS Church when she was a youth in the 1960s. My dad was raised a Methodist, and joined the church soon after marrying my mom. My parents raised me and my six siblings as Mormons, or more formally, followers of the restored gospel as it exists in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Our membership in the church has been absolutely life-changing for my family in so many positive ways.

Now, several decades after my parents started their family, we are still believers in the message of the Restoration of the Lord’s Church through Joseph Smith, a man whose calling as a modern prophet is validated by many different “fruits”, including making clear the true nature of God after being visited in person by God the Father and Jesus Christ, bringing forth The Book of Mormon as a second witness of the Savior, and teaching many inspired doctrines about the plan of salvation. As far as I know, Joseph Smith was the first man to speak on behalf of God with authority since the Savior set up His church and called His prophets in mortality.

I strongly believe in the mission and role of Joseph Smith in restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth.

But for many Latter-day Saints, including me, something seems to have changed in the Church in the past couple decades, and especially over the past several years.

Something about the Church feels different.

In many ways, the Church has moved away from the tone it had back in the days of Ezra Taft Benson (church president from 1985-1994), who frequently reminded the Church about the warnings found in The Book of Mormon regarding the existence of Satanic conspiracies intended to destroy mankind’s freedom and remove the agency we fought for prior to coming into this life.

From what I remember in my childhood, the LDS Church was strict about moral boundaries. Homosexuality was unequivocally condemned in the days of Spencer W Kimball and President Benson, as were other sexual abominations. We were consistently taught to become committed disciples of Jesus Christ, no matter how difficult, and to condemn evil in all its forms as the scriptures have taught for centuries.

More recently, the church has gone very soft on homosexuality and its related sins, including masturbation and transgenderism. On the political side, we’ve watched the church piggy-back and align with destructive worldly ideas and adopt an affinity for globalist initiatives, even associating itself closely with known evil characters and organizations, like the globalist United Nations and the World Health Organization.

I remember nearly twenty years ago, in the early 2000’s, seeing a billboard posted along the I-15 highway in Utah County that quoted an official statement of the LDS Church in support of rights based upon homosexuality. I remember asking my wife, “What is that all about? Since when did the Church get into the business of politicking for a lifestyle that is wicked?”

In August of 2017, the Church made a statement endorsing the LoveLoud Festival held in Orem, Utah. My wife mentioned to me when she saw the statement, “When did the Church start endorsing rock concerts, especially ones that are promoting sexual perversion?”

Sadly, examples of the Church’s movement from scriptural and doctrinal anchors to gain worldly acceptance recently have been numerous, and they seem to be accelerating. Here are just a few.

• Softening its position on homosexuality and other scripturally condemned sins, even going so far as to allow a man to be baptized as a woman in 2022.
• Closely associating and partnering with organizations that are known to have sinister purposes, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
• Substituting complete and total faith in Jesus Christ and his ability to heal in favor of man-made alternatives.

Do Secret Combinations Influence the Church 

One of my favorite insights from President Benson comes from a general conference talk he gave in 1972 entitled, “Civic Standards for the Faithful Saints”.

Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was the “keystone of our religion” and the “most correct” book on earth. This most correct book on earth states that the downfall of two great American civilizations came as a result of secret conspiracies whose desire was to overthrow the freedom of the people. “And they have caused the destruction of this people of whom I am now speaking,” says Moroni, “and also the destruction of the people of Nephi.” Now undoubtedly Moroni could have pointed out many factors that led to the destruction of the people, but notice how he singled out the secret combinations, just as the Church today could point out many threats to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God’s work, but it has singled out the greatest threat as the godless conspiracy. There is no conspiracy theory in the Book of Mormon—it is a conspiracy fact.

Immediately after pointing out that the greatest threat to the spread of God’s work is the “godless conspiracy”, then-Elder Benson says this in his address to the members of the Church, “I would highly recommend to you a new book entitled ‘None Dare Call it Conspiracy’ by Gary Allen.” (The comment is at 12:37 of the video version of the talk. The comment has been deleted from the printed version of the talk on the Church’s website.)

None Dare Call It Conspiracy

After hearing Ezra Taft Benson’s strong suggestion to read the book, “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” as a way to understand the modern version of what is warned about in The Book of Mormon, I decided to read it. I have now read that book twice. Here is a summary of the modern conspiracies the book claims are affecting our society.

• Control of the Federal Reserve: The Federal Reserve System is controlled by a group of elite bankers who use it to manipulate the U.S. economy for their own benefit.
• Influence of Secret Societies: The book discusses the role of organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Bilderberg Group, suggesting they are instrumental in orchestrating global events and policies.
• Communism and Capitalism as Tools: Both communism and capitalism are being manipulated by the same elite forces. These elites use ideological conflicts to further their own agenda.
• One-World Government Goal: The book proposes that these elites are working towards creating a one-world government, eroding national sovereignties and individual freedoms in the process.
• Manipulation of Major Historical Events: Major historical events, including wars and economic crises, are not random but rather orchestrated by this powerful elite.
• Media Control: The book also touches upon the idea that the media is controlled and used by these elites to shape public opinion and maintain their power.
• Infiltration in Politics: It’s proposed that these elites infiltrate political systems, influencing policies and decisions to serve their interests.

The LDS Perspective on Conspiracies

It is clear from President Benson’s words in the talk that I just referenced as well as from countless messages in The Book of Mormon itself and from other modern prophets that one of the most significant challenges facing modern society would be the upholding of secret combinations. 

Outside of testifying of Jesus Christ’s mission and divinity, it could be said that identifying and combating secret combinations is a major secondary theme of The Book of Mormon. Anyone who has read the book seriously knows how prominent this theme is, including some of the following warnings.

2 Nephi 9:9

Jacob warns that the devil “stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.”

2 Nephi 10:15

After describing America as “a land of liberty” that would have “no kings” and that would be “[fortified] against all other nations”, the Lord (through the prophet Jacob) explains that “I must needs destroy the secret works of darkness, and of murders, and of abominations.”

Helaman 6:37-38

Mormon explains that the Lamanites (traditionally the less spiritual, more wicked society) and the Nephites (typically the more righteous of the two) took two different approaches to dealing with the “robbers of Gadianton”, the group notorious for using secret combinations to gain power.

After explaining that “this band of robbers was utterly destroyed from among the Lamanites,” Mormon tells us that “the Nephites did build them up and support them, beginning at the more wicked part of them, until they had overspread all the land of the Nephites, and had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations.”

3 Nephi 7:6

During the time after the Savior’s coming among the ancient Americans, Mormon points out,

“And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets.”

Ether 8:18-25

While describing a specific overthrow of the Jaredite government through a process that used secret oaths and covenants, Moroni issues the most direct warning to modern Christians against secret combinations. He says (verse 24), “Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.”

COVID-19 and The Awakening

To say that 2020 was a unique year for the entire world is a tremendous understatement. The clearly orchestrated worldwide fearmongering and other happenings associated with the COVID-19 narrative set off a sort of awakening that has affected most aspects of society.

In January of 2020, I was preparing for a trip to visit friends in China, where my wife and I had lived in 2004. My oldest daughter and son were planning to go with me. Just prior to our scheduled trip, we were notified by one of the Chinese friends we were going to visit that we should probably cancel the trip because “some stupid person in Wuhan ate a bat and started spreading some new kind of sickness to humans.”

The story he told and that I later saw more and more commonly discussed in the news sounded very fishy. As more information came out over the following weeks and months, it became obvious that this COVID-19 situation was much more about dismantling personal freedoms throughout the world and instilling fear than it was at all about anyone’s health or safety.

The discerning contingent (probably 25% or less, the ones who haven’t done things like attending a Taylor Swift concert) of Latter-day Saints watched in dismay as we were kicked out of our churches, then later told we had to wear cloth masks and have our temperatures checked before we could enter the building. We were then required to sit every other row and distance ourselves from other families. Only after church was officially over, during a ward lunch meet-and-greet took place outside right after sacrament meeting, were we allowed to remove our masks and intermingle.

The whole thing was a laughable circus, except for the severe physical, mental, and financial damage caused by a world hyperventilating with uncalled for fear.

Meanwhile, there was never any specific virus isolated. There was no test that could actually tell you if you had this “sickness” any more than it could predict what’s going to be said during a fast and testimony meeting in the South. In fact, the inventor of the PCR test, which was used to identify whether a person did or did not have “COVID-19”, publicly stated that the test was not capable of determining whether anyone had any specific virus.

It was under these circumstances the bomb was dropped. On August 12, 2021, the following statement was released by the First Presidency of the Church:

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

We find ourselves fighting a war against the ravages of COVID-19 and its variants, an unrelenting pandemic. We want to do all we can to limit the spread of these viruses. We know that protection from the diseases they cause can only be achieved by immunizing a very high percentage of the population.

To limit exposure to these viruses, we urge the use of face masks in public meetings whenever social distancing is not possible. To provide personal protection from such severe infections, we urge individuals to be vaccinated. Available vaccines have proven to be both safe and effective.

We can win this war if everyone will follow the wise and thoughtful recommendations of medical experts and government leaders. Please know of our sincere love and great concern for all of God’s children.

The First Presidency

Russell M. Nelson
Dallin H. Oaks
Henry B. Eyring

Like many people in my LDS circles, from Tennessee where I live to Utah where I moved from and in lots of other places in the United States and elsewhere, I was stunned at this statement’s complicity with a global initiative built by a Satanic secret society specifically to undermine freedom and instill fear.

“Someone in Church leadership is compromised!”, was the first thought I had after reading that statement. Within days after the statement was released, I had several LDS friends reach out to me to get my take on whether the statement was real or a parody, whether it was indeed written by the men (Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, and Henry B. Eyring) whose names were apparently attached to it.

For all I could tell, the statement was real. “Go get your shots if you want to be spared!” was indeed the Church’s official sentiment. 

Never mind the advice of Joseph Smith, who wanted “to persuade the Saints to trust in God when sick, and not in an arm of flesh, and live by faith and not by medicine, or poison.”

Forget about The Book of Mormon’s description of “the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases”.

Nope. This time the protocol was for Latter-day Saints to trust in the arm of flesh, to hustle to their local doctor or pharmacy to get their very own dose of “safe and effective” at the hands of “wise and thoughtful..medical experts and government leaders.”

That statement, followed by heavy-handed, agency-revoking enforcement by mission presidents, ward and stake leaders, and others who abused their authority and position in the Church to coerce people into injecting into their bodies something that the Holy Ghost clearly told them “No!” about has been a camel’s back-breaking straw for tens of thousands of formerly highly-committed Latter-day Saints. Many of them I know personally. Others I’ve seen share their stories and questions in social media groups that have popped up since 2021, specifically to address the healthcare and freedom of choice concerns brought up by the Church’s undermining of their personal religious convictions.

One such group that my wife and I belong to has nearly 6,000 members, actively asking and answering health and doctrinal questions after being marginalized by the fever pitch vaccine worship that has happened in the Church since 2021.

Now, in late 2024, everyone knows that the First Presidency statement and the coercion that followed, were simply lies and manipulation.

Likely every person reading this article knows of a friend or relative who has been seriously injured or killed by following the First Presidency’s advice to get a shot they were warned by the Spirit not to get. I know personally at least several dozen who regret ignoring their conscience in favor of “following the prophet.”

So What’s Going On in the Church?

It was shortly after the 2021 vaccine statement was made that I started digging into what might have caused the change in the Church’s approach, from faithful to faithless, specifically when dealing with either government tyranny or with a potential health crisis.

I’ll share with you what I’ve found, but first of all, I want to make this clear: I believe in the message of the Restored Gospel through Joseph Smith. I believe that the priesthood was restored, and that it currently exists in the Church. I’m confident that, especially for those whose doubts, eventually we will see the fulfillment of the promise made by the Savior that “there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” I’m equally confident that the Lord was serious when he said through Joseph Smith in D&C 112:23-26 (emphasis added).

23Verily, verily, I say unto you, darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face.

24 Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord.

25 And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord;

26 First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord.

I believe that whoever is found guilty of turning the faith of Latter-day Saints upside down, regardless of the position he holds in the Church, will stand accountable to the Savior himself for harming and driving away his flock.

At the same time, I believe that God allows men, whether designated as prophets or just common lay members, to exercise their agency, to make mistakes in judgment or even to intentionally mislead. It appears as if the Lord is very careful not to infringe on the agency of almost anyone among mankind, even in situations where they can wreak havoc, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

The Parable of the Servants of the Lord of the Vineyard

There is a parable in Doctrine and Covenants 101:43-62 that I think is relevant to what has happened in the past few years. In the parable, the nobleman gives instructions to his servants to plant olive trees in his vineyard and then set watchmen to protect the vineyard from enemies. The Lord included specific instructions to build a tower and install a watchman upon it to give a warning in the event his enemy came to destroy the vineyard.

The servants of the nobleman planted the trees, built hedges, and enlisted watchmen in the vineyard, but then used their own logic and reasoning to determine that a tower with a watchman in it wasn’t necessary during a time of peace.

This parable seems to be what has happened over the past few years, as the Lord’s enemies have been allowed inside the vineyard to have access to those faithful saints who should have instead been warned about what was happening.

I’ll share with you some of the questions I’ve seen being asked for which it would be very useful to have answers to clarify. Again, what most of these people are looking for (similar to why I’ve been digging) are reasons why the Church would 

Persistent Questions About President Nelson

The most obvious place to look when looking for COVID answers would be at the president of the Church, the one whose voice has historically been assumed to be the voice of the Lord. The Church’s sudden alignment with global overlords (the ones warned about by previous prophets), including vehemently pushing the clear falsehood that any vaccine to fight COVID is “safe and effective” or that the tyrannical medical experts and government leaders are in any way “wise” or “thoughtful” begs the question as to whether President Nelson or someone else in the Church’s top leadership is beholden to a person or entity that would taint their advice.

Several LDS forums, including LDSFreedomForum and others, stirred with research from active Latter-day Saints wondering, “Where did this all come from?” have presented some common threads.

Russell Nelson’s Involvement with Skull & Bones Secret Society

One theory of a potential compromise comes from President Nelson’s own autobiography, published in 1979, entitled “From Heart to Heart”. The book is out of print now, but is still available to read on Archive.org. In that book, he mentions that he joined the Skull and Bones Society as well as the Owl and Key Society while attending the University of Utah.

Research published by the Tree of Liberty Society of Utah details the involvement of President Nelson and other Church leaders as well as Utah politicians in these secret societies, which seem very similar to the secret combinations warned about specifically in The Book of Mormon.

Members of the Church have wondered if there is some commitment that was made to a secret society that could affect his loyalty to Jesus Christ and His Church, or that could place a priority on an agenda that is in direct contradiction to his role as a prophet.

Cover-up of Sexual Abuse by Richard and Brenda Miles

Another point of potential compromise is a situation that happened with President Nelson’s daughter and son-in-law, Brenda and Richard Miles, in the 1980s. The Miles were accused of sexually abusing (including filming child pornography) several young children in their ward in Bountiful, Utah. In a document entitled A Blip Here available from the University of Utah library system, the accusation is made the then Elder Nelson heard of the accusation against his daughter and used his position to quash the police investigation, sweeping what happened under the rug. In fact, an attempt was made as recently as 2018 to have President Nelson deposed.

Clearly, if there is more to this situation than what has been brought to light in the past, there could be a clear conflict of interest at hand.

Stay In The Boat

Whether these accusations or any others against the leadership of the Church are true or have impact on the strange behavior that has been observed over the past several years or even the past several decades is not clear. We may not know any time soon why a significant percentage of the Church (including my family) has been surprised by the direction taken by Church leadership. Having answers to those questions would certainly be helpful.

However, as I’ve told friends who have distanced themselves from church, from the believe in the Restoration, including the priesthood, covenants, and other critical aspects of being a believer, now seems to not be a good time to jump out of the boat while searching for answers.

As I wrote in a previous article, the signs are becoming clear that the Savior’s coming is near. Our duty seems to be to pursue light, truth, and inspiration to a higher degree. It may be that our collective pursuit of those ideals end up rooting out any secret combinations that exist in the Church.

If God exhibits the perfect justice that we believe he does, we can also be confident that any prophet or other religious leader who intentionally leads people astray will receive their reward as described in a similar situation documented in Jeremiah 23 in the Old Testament, wherein those prophets who led the Lord’s people astray were promised “an everlasting reproach” and “a perpetual shame”.

For now, it is sufficient to ensure that the promptings of the Holy Ghost trump anything that comes from a mortal person. Being worthy of that inspiration is absolutely critical in the days to come.