Paragraph 8
Warnings and Accountability“We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God.a Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.” b
A CLOSER LOOK
Sentence A
Violating Covenants
See also paragraph 4, sentence C [Sexual relations: Outside of marriage].
The surprisingly large number of Americans reporting one lifetime sex partner have the happiest marriages. … Research indeed suggests a complex story between premarital sex partners and marital quality. Psychologists Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley found that the study respondents who had sex with other people prior to marriage reported lower-quality unions compared to couples who slept just with each other. Multiple sex partners prior to marriage reduced marital quality for women, but not men. Along similar lines, sociologist Jay Teachman showed that premarital sex between future spouses didn’t make divorce more likely, but sex with other people did.
—Rhoades and Stanley offer two explanations for this finding, one empirically demonstrable and one speculative. Their data show that premarital sex sometimes leads to premarital fertility, and women (but not men) who have children from other relationships have lower-quality relationships. On the speculative side is their notion that having multiple partners increases awareness of spousal alternatives. It’s evidence for this proposition that the divorce rate increases in regions with more single people; in other words, we’re always willing to consider alternatives to our current mate. By implication, our marriages suffer when we make more comparisons.
Wolfinger, N. (2018, October 22). Does Sexual History Affect Marital Happiness? Retrieved from https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-sexual-history-affect-marital-happiness
“A very high percentage of people in the U.S. cohabit outside of marriage. It is now normative behavior. Dr. Wendy Manning has estimated that “[t]he percentage of women ages 19-44 who have ever cohabited has increased by 82% over the past 23 years.” For those aged 30-34 in 2009-2010, she has shown that 73% of women had already cohabited with someone. If you combine such numbers with the fact that, as Susan Brown has shown, there is a steady increase in cohabitation among older adults (after the death of a spouse or divorce), it is easy to imagine that the number of people who will eventually cohabit outside of marriage could reach 80% or more.”
See http://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-arts-and-sciences/NCFMR/documents/FP/FP-13-12.pdf
Abuse
Mounting evidence has also demonstrated that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) individuals, particularly young people, are at increased risk for intimate partner violence relative to heterosexuals. … In one of the first empirical studies examining intimate partner violence (IPV) among LGB youth, Freedner, Freed, Yang, and Austin (2002) administered self-report surveys measuring five types of IPV victimization (control, emotional, scared for safety, physical, sexual) to a convenience sample of 521 adolescents and found that, compared with heterosexuals, bisexual male adolescents were more than three times more likely to report any form of IPV victimization and lesbians were twice as likely to report fearing for their safety. …
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Evidence also suggests that severe violence in relationships tends to persist whereas moderate acts of violence tend to remit. … One possibility is evidence demonstrating higher rates of substance use among LGBT youth and young adults compared to their heterosexual counterparts overall (Marshal et al., 2008; Newcomb, Birkett, Corliss, & Mustanski, 2014; Thiede et al., 2003). Studies have referenced the “bar culture” being more common in LGBT populations, with research suggesting sexual minorities may have different drinking patterns, more permissive social norms, and positive expectancies for alcohol use (Hatzenbuehler, Corbin, & Fromme, 2008; Heffernan, 1998).
Reuter, T. R., Newcomb, M. E., Whitton, S. W., & Mustanski, B. (2017). Intimate partner violence victimization in LGBT young adults: Demographic differences and associations with health behaviors. Psychology of Violence, 7(1), 101–109.
“In both males and females, significantly higher rates of homosexuality were found in participants who experienced childhood sexual abuse and in those with a risky childhood family environment. (41% of non-heterosexual males and 42% of non-heterosexual females reported childhood family dysfunction).”
Mayer, L. and McHugh, P. “Executive Summary—Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” The New Atlantis, n. 50 (Fall 2016), p. 7–9.
Couples who share the same religious commitment are less likely to commit acts of domestic violence. Men who attend religious services at least weekly are less than half as likely to commit an act of violence against their partners as their peers who attend once yearly or less. Regular attendance at religious services has a strong and statistically significant inverse association with the incidence of domestic abuse.
Christopher G. Ellison, John P. Bartkowski, and Kristin L. Anderson, “Are There Religious Variations in Domestic Violence?” Journal of Family Issues 20, n. 1 (January 1999): 87–113.
Divorce
See also paragraph 7, sentence C [Marital vow: Lifelong].
Divorced single mothers are not significantly different than their widowed counterparts in child rearing, gender role, and family values and in religiosity, health-related behaviors, and other dimensions of lifestyle.
Timothy J. Biblarz and G. Gottainer, “Family Structure and Children’s Success: A Comparison of Widowed and Divorced Single-Mother families,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62:2 (2000): 533–48.
Accountable before God
See also paragraph 6, sentence C [Accountable before God].
PBS Interview with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, question on chastity
PBS Interviewer: Another anguishing issue that faces you and every church: homosexuality. On a personal level, how do you counsel people dealing with that?
Elder Holland: “The emotion and the pain and the challenge of [dealing with homosexuality] has to rank among the most taxing, most visceral of any of the issues that any religious group wrestles with. As others of my colleagues and brethren have, I have counseled hundreds — I don’t know how many hundreds — of these young people. I say young people because often that’s the group that come to us most, but there are people of every age struggling. … The counsel I have given is that God loves them every bit as much as he loves me; the church loves them. We do have doctrine; we do have borders; we do have foundational pieces on which we stand. And moral chastity — heterosexual … and homosexual — are areas where God has spoken and where the church has a position. …
I spoke earlier about the price everyone has to pay for the blessing of the covenant, to be counted within the institutional circle of the blessings of the church. … I have spent a significant portion of the last few years of my ministry pleading to give help to those who don’t practice [homosexuality] but who are struggling with the impressions and the feelings and the attractions and the gender confusion. Or if they do practice or are trying to deal with it, that group I have spent scores of hours with, if nothing else, just saying: “Hang on, hope on, try on. … Get through the night; get to the light.” …
I believe in that light, and I believe in that hope, and I believe in that peace. So I offer it without apology, but I know sometimes that’s thin to people who would want more. Any more than I can see it compromising on its heterosexual position of chastity before marriage and fidelity afterward, I don’t anticipate it that [the church] would change on homosexual behavior. But none of that has anything to do with my belief in the value of that soul and the love that God has for that person.
But it’s just that … there is a quid pro quo in terms of wanting the church’s blessing on our lives. If someone chooses behavior that goes in a different direction, people choose that every day. And while that may make me weep, … people are free to do that. …
I believe with all my heart that it’s divine language; it’s a divine commandment. There really are “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” in life. And in this world, in some contemporary life, thou shalts and thou shalt nots are not popular on the face of it; it wouldn’t matter what subject. But we’ll always have some, and we’ll try to help each other master that and embrace it and see it through and be exalted on the other end.”
Source: https://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html
Sentence B
Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.
Societal Breakdown
British ethnologist and social anthropologist at Oxford University and Cambridge University, Joseph Daniel Unwin conducted a landmark study of 6 major civilizations and 80 lesser societies covering 5,000 years of history. In his exhaustive examination of sexual behavior and their affect upon society, Unwin observed that monogamous cultures prosper and those disinclined to restrain sex to monogamous marriage remain primitive or, if once successful, they decline.
—-“Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous…”
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“The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.”
Unwin, J. D. (1927). “Monogamy as a Condition of Social Energy,” The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXV, p. 662. See also J. D. Unwin, Sex and Culture (London: Oxford University Press, 1934).
“Civilization requires the regulation of human sexuality and relationships. No society–ancient or modern–has survived by advocating a laissez faire approach to sex and sexual relationships. Every society, no matter how liberal, sanctions some sexual behaviors and proscribes others. Every society establishes some form of sexual norm.
Pitirim Sorokin, the founder of sociology at Harvard University, pointed to the regulation of sexuality as the essential first mark of civilization. According to Sorokin, civilization is possible only when marriage is normative and sexual conduct is censured outside of the marital relationship. Furthermore, Sorokin traced the rise and fall of civilizations and concluded that the weakening of marriage was a first sign of civilizational collapse.”
Albert J. Mohler
Natural Disasters
Intense climate-related natural disasters—floods, storms as well as droughts and heat waves have been on the rise worldwide. Is there an ominous link between the global increase of these hydrometeorological and climatological events on the one side and anthropogenic climate change on the other? [There are] … three main disaster risk factors— rising population exposure, greater population vulnerability, and increasing climate-related hazards—behind the increased frequency of intense climate-related natural disasters. All are positively linked—with precipitation positively associated with hydrometeorological events and negatively associated with climatological events. Global climate change indicators also show positive and highly significant effects. …
—–Nevertheless, scientists are cautious about linking any particular disaster to climate change, whether it is Typhoon Bopha in Mindanao, the Philippines, or Hurricane Sandy on the US East Coast. In the same way, economists are reluctant to pin higher inflation in any given month on rising money supply. But, as with inflation, the broader associations are unmistakable.
Thomas, Vinod and López, Ramón, Global Increase in Climate-Related Disasters (November 2015). Asian Development Bank Economics Working Paper Series No. 466.
“We document an increasing trend in extreme damages from natural disasters, which is consistent with a climate-change signal. Increases in aggregated or mean damages have been modest, but evidence for a rightward skewing and tail fattening of the distributions is statistically significant and robust—with most pronounced increases in the largest percentiles (e.g., 95% and 99%), i.e., the catastrophic events. This pattern is strongest in temperate regions, suggesting that the prevalence of devastating natural disasters has broadened beyond tropical regions and that adaptation measures in the latter have had some mitigating effects on damages.”
Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters, by Matteo Coronese, Francesco Lamperti, Klaus Keller, Francesca Chiaromonte, and Andrea Roventini, PNAS October 22, 2019 116 (43) 21450-21455; first published October 7, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1907826116.
According to the EM-DAT, the total natural disasters reported each year has been steadily increasing in recent decades, from 78 in 1970 to 348 in 2004. A portion of that increase is artificial, due in part to better media reports and advances in communications. Another reason is that beginning in the 1980s, agencies like CRED and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) began actively looking for natural disasters. … However, about two-thirds of the increase is real and the result of rises in so-called hydro-meteorological disasters, Guha-Sapir said. These disasters include droughts, tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons and floods and have been increasing over the past 25 years. In 1980, there were only about 100 such disasters reported per year but that number has risen to over 300 a year since 2000.
——–In contrast, natural geologic disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides and avalanches have remained steady in recent decades.
See Than, K. (2005, October 17). Scientists: Natural Disasters Becoming More Common. Retrieved September 06, 2020, from https://www.livescience.com/414-scientists-natural-disasters-common.html
Throughout history, nations have been able to survive a multiplicity of disasters— invasions, famines, earthquakes, epidemics, depressions—but they have never been able to survive the disintegration of the family.
Michael Novak, “The Family out of Favor,” Harper’s Magazine, April 1, 1976, p. 42.
The survival of society depends on the positive outcomes derived from the natural union of a man and a woman.
Richard G. Wilkins in A. Scott Loveless and Thomas B. Holman, eds., The Family in the New Millennium: World Voices Supporting the Natural Clan, vol. 1: The Place of Family in Human Society (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2007), xiv.
Today, marriage and the family are in crisis. … This revolution in manners and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings.”
Pope Francis’s address to the interfaith colloquium “The Complementarity of Man and Woman,” Humanum Conference, Rome, November 17, 2017.
Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity… passes through the family. So protect your families!
Pope Francis’s address in the Philippines, January 16, 2015, Retrieved from https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/01/16/every-threat-to-the-family-is-a-threat-to-society-itself-francis-address-to-families-in-the-philippines-full-text.
Calamities and the Family Proclamation
See the full post here
We live in “perilous times” (2 Tim. 3:1), in which “all things” are undeniably “in commotion” (D&C 88:91). After a year of calamities in the form of natural disasters, a pandemic, civil unrest, and deep societal division, many wonder what the world and our way of life will look like in one year or ten years from now. Looking forward, what do we see?
That depends heavily on the status of the family. In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” prophets and apostles declare: “We warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets” (see Paragraph 8). Why did prophets, seers and revelators connect the disintegration of the family to calamities in a document addressed to the world?
In 2009, Elder Russell M. Nelson stated, “If there is any hope for the future of nations, that hope resides in the family. Our children are our wealth; our children are our strength; our children are indeed our future!” Looking to the history of the world, we see that the most successful and flourishing societies are those which practice the values taught in the family proclamation. Looking to the scriptures, those civilizations which survived are those which heeded the teachings of the prophets. The pattern is clear: strong families = strong societies; weak families = weak societies.
A study by Joseph Daniel Unwin of major civilizations and smaller societies spanning a 5,000-year period showed that completely monogamous civilizations are not only consistently the strongest and most enduring, but also “display great [cultural] energy. … The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.”
In addition, Pitirim Sorokin, sociologist at Harvard University, found that “civilization is possible only when marriage is normative and sexual conduct is censured outside of the marital relationship.” Furthermore, Sorokin traced the rise and fall of civilizations and concluded that the weakening of marriage was a first sign of civilizational collapse. Elder Robert D. Hales pointed to this same concept when he taught:
“So fundamental is the family unit to the plan of salvation that God has declared a warning that … the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
Elder Robert D. Hales
In our civilization, each day seems to bring less respect for the sanctity of life and the divinely appointed means by which mortal life is created. There is justified concern that our society is headed in the direction of so many others whose disregard for sacred things became their downfall. But as calamities increase, there is still hope to be found in the family. Additional studies show that those who have a strong connection to their family roots through family history will be the most well-equipped to face hard times with resilience. For instance, in the report “Knowledge of family history as a clinically useful index of psychological well-being and prognosis: A brief report” researchers found:
Knowledge of family history as an index of well-being and potential for resilience and/or positive change … is related strongly to so many well-established psychometric indicators of psychological well-being and good clinical outcome, attest to the potential of family knowledge as a clinically useful marker. (Link)
Perhaps a knowledge of where we came from can have a greater impact on society than we may ever realize. This positive family history link is fascinating, especially knowing what we know about the Abrahamic covenant and the family history work we do in temples around the world. Of this, Elder Bruce D. Porter testified of the blessings that will be given to faithful parents in the last days:
“Regardless of what the future may hold, God has ordained that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the parents of the Church will be given power to help save their children from the darkness around them. As the hearts of fathers and mothers turn to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents, we eventually will witness the rise of a generation refined and prepared to meet the Savior at His coming. The triumph of God’s kingdom in the latter days will be a triumph not only of the Church as an organization but of tens of thousands of individual families who by faith have overcome the world.”
Elder Bruce D. Porter
While we may not know for sure what our world will look like in one year or ten, we can find assurance in knowing that “that God promises hope and ultimate joy and blessings for all who keep His commandments” as presented by His prophets. As we seek to strengthen our families, past, present, and future, we will be able to “abide the day.” (D&C 35:21)
How a Rare ‘Christmas Star’ on Dec. 21 Relates to the Family Proclamation
This week, Forbes published an article titled “A Spectacularly Rare ‘Christmas Star’ Is Coming In December As Two Worlds Align After Sunset.” Here, Patrick Hartigan, astronomer at Rice University, explains that on December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will align for the first time since the Middle Ages to become one super-bright point of light:
You’d have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky. … On December 21, 2020 when the two planets will be separated by less than the apparent diameter of a full Moon. Jupiter and Saturn’s orbital resonance is such that they [will] align in a “great conjunction.”
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A conjunction is when two objects line up in the sky.
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It’s thought by some—including legendary German astronomer Johannes Kepler—that the “star of Bethlehem” in the story of the Magi or “three wise men” could have been a rare triple conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. …
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The rare celestial event will be observable anywhere on Earth where skies are clear. The planets will appear low in the western sky for about an hour after sunset as viewed from the northern hemisphere, and though they’ll be closest on December 21, 2020, you can look each evening that week.
In Luke Chapter 21, we read about the signs preceding the Second Coming of the Savior. I thought of it immediately when I saw this news story about the ‘Christmas star’ coming on December 21. I also thought about all that has happened around the world this year. Believers have always been told to watch earnestly for signs and in these verses, the Savior tells us what to watch for prior to His coming:
7 And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?
8 And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.
9 But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.
10 Then said he unto them, nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
12 But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake.
13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony.
Do Christ’s words here sound anything like 2020? Apostasy, wars (Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Libya), commotions (riots in the streets and looting in the stores since June are still occurring), nation rising against nation, earthquakes in diverse places (see this report), pestilences (locust infestations in Africa and the worldwide pandemic), fearful sights (violent protests and civil unrest) and great signs from heaven (the ‘Christmas star’ on December 21).
Jesus gave His followers signs that would signify when His coming is near. In context of these passages, He is talking about the time when Jerusalem and the temple were about to destroyed. Yet, despite this particular context and others like it (Samuel the Lamanite’s remarkable prophesies), they don’t negate patterns and prophesies for our day. In the 2016 General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson said:
These are the latter days, so none of us should be surprised when we see prophecy fulfilled. A host of prophets, including Isaiah, Paul, Nephi, and Mormon, foresaw that perilous times would come, that in our day the whole world would be in commotion, that men would “be lovers of their own selves, … without natural affection, … lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God,” and that many would become servants of Satan who uphold the adversary’s work. Indeed, you and I “wrestle … against the rulers of the darkness of this world, [and] against spiritual wickedness in high places. (link)
These sentiments are echoed in the eighth paragraph of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”:
Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.
Despite all that is happening around us, President Nelson says that our “brightest days are yet ahead” and “the Lord will perform some of His greatest miracles. And some of those miracles will be in your lives. If you wonder if happy days will ever return, I assure you that they will. Your children will yet have many opportunities to grow and progress, and your families may enjoy a promising future.” (link)
So, what is the beautiful sign from Heavenly Father at the end of an incredibly tough year? He is sending the world a ‘Christmas star’. This event hasn’t happened since the Middle Ages. I feel this is symbolic of the hope and light that is yet to come, despite so many of us having deep concerns about what has happened and what may happen in the coming years. It’s going to be okay because Jesus Christ is our Sovereign. He is our King of Kings. Our true ruler over heaven and earth.
This Christmas, let us seek the One who shines most brightly when we allow Him to guide us. Let us seek after Christ as earnestly as the Wise Men did when they followed the star so long ago. And, as we look to the heavens for the ‘Christmas star’ on December 21, let us remember to give thanks to God for sending His Beloved Son, the Light and Life of the world.
