Chapter 4—Strange Children
Charles Spurgeon once wrote,
“Consider how precious a soul must be when both God and the devil are after it.”
Every second of every day there is a spiritual war raging for our souls—and that battle has turned its full attention on your children, who are the future of the planet.
Satan works hard to get believers distracted then disinterested enough to ultimately forget the true God. “They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and Asherahs” (Judges 3:7). “Their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal” (Jeremiah 23:27). They “make my people forget My name through their falsehood.” While some physically sacrifice their children through abortion or other means, most are guilty of sacrificing their children spiritually by teaching them sin and error or neglecting to teach them the only true path to salvation.
They have dealt treacherously against the Lord: for they have begotten strange children. (Hosea 5:7)
To deal treacherously applies to the sin of idolatry, wherein we give something or someone else the affection that God is due. Strange children are “trained from their earliest infancy in the habits and principles of idolatry, and growing up [strangers] with respect to God” or “not born in wedlock.” David pled, “Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood” (Psalm 144:11). Children with idolatrous parents will almost always grow up strangers to God, estranging each generation even more.
Schools & Education
Good education is essential. “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). The best learning includes scripture, which should have priority, but also “a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion” (D&C 93:53). The adversary greatly fears that we will learn the truth. He does all in his power to hide, thwart, twist, and block truth and squash our desire to learn things of eternal worth. But if we are determined to find and learn truth no one can stop us, although Satan will try his hardest.
Former President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, “Education, more than any single force, will mold the citizen of the future. That citizen, in turn, will really determine the greatness of our society” or bring its demise. President Richard Nixon warned, “Here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed.” Schools and universities have been targeted and transformed into centers of unrest and brainwashing. Instead of delivering truth and light, schools have become “the most fertile ground for radicalism, confused values, instability, and anarchy . . . Education itself has become a major crisis” through its propaganda and liberal ideologies.
The push toward transhumanism and merging [humans] with computers is becoming especially obvious in the ‘education’ system amid the hysteria surrounding Covid. From moving everything online and sidelining teachers to bringing in Artificial Intelligence and algorithms, the technology is downright creepy . . . as they gather enormous amounts of sensitive data on children and blatantly manipulate the public.
One US Dept of Education head of policy was greatly alarmed at what she saw: “I had access to all the computer printouts of all the grants and contracts . . . all around the world about how to change the education system from academics to a brainwashing.”
It was the same in ancient Rome, where once materialism and prosperity ruled, schools no longer claimed “to build character, to teach religion or patriotism or morality.” Instead the feeling was that teachers “should take the place of a parent, perhaps even supply that moral guidance that some Roman homes conspicuously failed to provide.” It was clear that “the moral, social, and intellectual climate was not healthy.”
Instead of preparing young men, Roman “schools accustomed them to a thoroughly unreal atmosphere and sent them into the world with much to unlearn.” A correlation existed between “find[ing] their ideals in pleasure, the pursuit of gain,” and “creative genius dwind[ling]” in such a way as to only “attract and amuse the mind but incapable of elevating and inspiring it.”
Before Rome fell, their schools “undermined instead of strengthened the children’s morals, they mishandled the children’s bodies instead of developing them, and if they succeeded in furnishing their minds with a certain amount of information, they were not calculated to perform any loftier or nobler task.” Instead, education became so watered down that “in the fourth century Vegetius could not take for granted that new recruits for the army would be literate enough to keep the books of the corps . . . Popular education then in Rome was a failure.”
Today “we have more educators, federal bureaucrats, technocrats, businessmen, educational foundations, 501(c)3 watchdogs, and corporate sponsors focused on revamping our education” than ever before, Dr. Pesta explains, “yet our kids remain ignorant about our history, are far less literate as readers, and become more math deficient with every year that passes. The real problem is that actual education is far down the list of priorities for our government co-opted public schools.”
She’s right, thanks to the disastrous Common Core curriculum and its equally worrisome successors. UNESCO, the UN’s global-indoctrination arm, is behind the heavy push for education standards that achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of their Agenda 2030 plan. Partners include Planned Parenthood (promoting birth control and abortion) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which scores nations according to their promotion of UN ideologies. UNESCO is heavily involved in directing Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) into our schools.
Current curriculum has “been weaponized, acting as a ‘hypodermic needle’ to inject children with Marxist views.” Children “have no choice but to become woke—the only alternative is to be a hated racist, homophobe, or misogynist.” Transformational SEL uses “the underprivileged underachieving child [to] provide justification for dumbing the classrooms down to the level of the lowest common denominator . . . to create an ‘equitable’ education where nobody out-achieves another.” Xi Van Fleet, who left Communist China, recounts that China “used the same critical theory to divide the people. The only difference is that they used class instead of race. During the [Chinese] Cultural Revolution, I witnessed students and teachers turn against each other. We changed school names to be politically correct. We were taught to denounce our heritage . . . Critical Race Theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our schools,” yet it’s extremely prevalent.
Indoctrinating children in the false ‘white privilege’ narrative erodes and divides our nation. Few understand that it isn’t truth—it’s what was declared in 1998 to be “our most important and ambitious program, one that will finally and totally remove from existence the impediments of our absolute control of this earth. I speak of the death of the white race, the complete removal of all means of reproduction of the so-called Aryan race . . . It is now time to make sure the white race becomes extinct through miscegenation and having a virtually zero birth rate . . . We can ruin the pure bloodline of an Aryan child by convincing him or her of the altruism of begetting interracial children.”
Targeting the white race has only accelerated. Thousands of schools across America are “force-feeding children the Times’ blatantly false historical narrative about the United States,” called the 1619 Project. “Under the view put forth by the Times and its [1619] project, the only possible conclusion is that America must die so that something new can replace it. That is the objective.” President Donald Trump spoke against “the sort of dangerous propaganda in the 1619 Project [that] is responsible for the ongoing demolition of society.” But damage is already done to many children since truth was never the objective.
None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity and speak lies; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. (Isaiah 59:4)
Our nation's public school system was originally established to teach upcoming generations the word of God, to fulfill His purposes, and to glorify His name. But “for the left, the central purpose of public schools isn't education but indoctrination. Public education has failed miserably at the former but succeeded spectacularly at the latter. The objective is to take children away from parental values . . . The cutting edge is Critical Race Theory and the sexualization of students, seen most recently in the enthusiastic embrace of transgenderism.”
Radical ideas about politics, religion, history, and morality have been forced into our children’s minds by the very schools that were entrusted to teach our children truth. Instead they are being force-fed the orthodoxy of full-on cultural Marxism: Gender is fluid, gender is a spectrum, socialism is good, personal responsibility is evil, police are racist, math is racist, America is racist, law is bad, rebellion is good, sexual perversion is healthy, absolute truth does not exist, and the only thing that is wrong is believing in right and wrong. All these lies are literally in the curriculum, complete with children’s books, colorful illustrations, slideshows, videos, special speakers, demonstrations, homework, testing and punishments for ‘getting it wrong’.
It’s difficult to reverse children’s beliefs and values if they have not been instilled properly at a young age. Parents are commanded “to bring up your children in light and truth” (D&C 93:40) but education systems are overruling and overwriting conservative values, shaping young minds to become strange children.
As if the younger generation hasn’t dealt with enough, ‘mandated’ social and physical isolation and wearing cancer-causing masks every day during the 2020–2022 Covid incident caused psychological and physical damage. A growing number of children are having trouble making social bonds, recognizing people, reading emotions, or learning to talk.
Although some state constitutions rightfully and explicitly give parents the ultimate say in making decisions for their child, the recent explosion of government overreach in response to crisis opportunities left parents with little to no voice. When parents attempted to address this at board meetings, some districts banned them from school property, arrested, evicted, cited, or locked them out. The federal government joined in the silencing, labeling parents who speak up for their children’s rights “domestic terrorists” and encouraged the FBI to investigate them. Accounts exist of children being taken from parents who did not support ‘alternate lifestyles.’ Some argue “that parents should be required to be licensed by the government and be screened for their views on homosexuality and other issues before being allowed to raise their own children.” School children were recently taught to “declare independence from their parents.” How did we stray so far when not so long ago
America was a nation in which even liberal newspapers would publish summations of sermons preached throughout the city the previous Sunday. Its leading magazines could advocate for Christian morality and Christian revival. Its entertainment was expected to uphold biblical and Christian values and to never attack them. And it was not a strange thing for its television stations to sign off at night with a sermonette or prayer. America in the mid-twentieth century was a nation in which children were not only allowed to pray in public schools, but actually [were] led in prayer by their teachers, and where teachers read the Word of God in their classrooms . . . ‘one nation under God.’
The most pivotal events that caused backsliding occurred when the judicial system stripped Christianity from the classroom. In 1962 Engel v Vitale banned prayer from public schools. Just a year later School District of Abington Township v Schempp banned the Bible from schools. In 1980, Stone v Graham struck down a law to post the Ten Commandments in schools. In 2002, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that citing the Pledge of Allegiance violated the Constitution, another victory in the campaign to remove all mention of God and Christianity from this country. In 2005, the Supreme Court removed the Ten Commandments from courthouses. Other government or public buildings followed suit.
This wayward direction is felt even in conservative states. In March 2023, Davis School District in Utah removed the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries citing “concerns over the text’s age appropriateness.” Only after massive backlash was this shocking act reversed. School libraries continue to buy vulgar, graphic, lewd, perverse books for children. If by chance parents are fortunate enough to get these vile books removed, children are next targeted by certain traveling book fairs that actively promote inappropriate books without parental knowledge.
Decay of religion came before Rome’s fall. Rome survived—but “without power” (2 Timothy 3:5). “The spirits of men had fled from the old religion; it still commanded their service but no longer their hearts or their belief . . . it had wholly lost its power over [hard] human hearts.”
God and prayer have been removed from our lives, including our schools, because He has been removed from our hearts.
Many decades ago prominent atheist and socialist educator John Dewey revealed more about their nefarious agenda:
If the public schools can keep children occupied from 7–7:30 in the morning throughout the day, with sports after school, and homework in the evening, the parents will have less than an hour a day with their children, and the family’s and Christian church’s influence over them could be broken in about a generation.
In 1878 there was growing concern that parents would “go and deliberately turn [their] children over to whom? To men who do not believe the Gospel” or live godly laws. Most children are not being taught truths essential for salvation at school or home today. They are not learning truth, faith, sacrifice, worship, scripture, morality, charity, and the laws of God necessary to return to His presence. The same lack of spiritual education was found anciently on this land. After church each week,
they returned to their homes, never speaking of their God again until they had assembled themselves together again to the holy stand . . . his heart grieved; for he saw that they were a wicked and a perverse people. (Alma 31:23)
Eternal consequences come when “not only the churches are dwindling away, but there are no [spiritual] conversions, or but very few.” Given the situation, can we expect anything less than disastrous consequences for ourselves, our children, and our future?
Socialism comes by infiltrating churches, schools, and the media. In spite of lofty promises, socialism has no concern for people. In 1906, founder of sociology Edward Ross announced, “Plans are underway to replace family, church, and community with propaganda, education, and mass media. People are only little plastic lumps of dough.” Teachers are often required to have children take lengthy surveys to quietly measure their attitudes, beliefs, political ideologies, gender identity, psychological states—often without parental consent.
If it were possible, an authoritarian regime would covet the ability to exert control on each individual’s decision-making, track each individual’s beliefs and state of mind, and nudge them back on the government-approved track when needed. It appears this level of control actually is possible through SEL curricula.
Alex Newman warns, “From biometric data and private health care information to academic records, online browsing habits, and mental-health data, government schools and technocratic policymakers across the United States want it all—from ‘cradle to career’ and beyond . . . Many times, the children do not even realize they’re giving their private data to Big Brother—forever.”
It’s not just the plan of the left, liberals, socialists, or communists. It’s Satan’s plan. “So subtle was the attack that many unsuspecting people would be shocked to learn they actually have become sympathetic to communist ideologies. Yet we have rejected God, minimized the family, disregarded marriage, removed the bounds of sexuality, embraced atheism, worshipped science, and compromised the values that just decades ago were abhorrent.” In 1956 “an entirely new kind of warfare” emerged that “uses every diabolical means to weaken us from within, sapping our strength, perverting our morals, sabotaging our educational system, wrecking our social structure, destroying our spiritual and religious life” and demoralizing the people. “All this, cleverly disguised as a harmless political party. Communism is worldwide psychological warfare!”
“Sexualized childhood is the next frontier for the sexual revolution,” admits one author. Even more alarming is this admission of the plan to recruit your child: “We’re not gonna make kids learn about homosexuality, we swear! It’s not like we’re trying to recruit your children or anything. But let’s face it—that’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it . . . Recruiting children? You bet we are!”
Education is a critical component of both God’s plan and Satan’s, so the battle for your children’s minds is real. Stalin admitted, “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” The United Nations continues pushing children to be better ‘global citizens’ in after-school programs. They have made it clear: they hold the power over public schools and aim for your children.
Satan’s victory of removing prayer and God’s word from schools breeds faithless generations of children who see God’s way as strange. At its core are apathy, atheism, and lawlessness. “No religion” is the second largest religious group in North America and most of Europe, making up a quarter of the US population—and growing.
The America where prayer and God’s Word were imparted to its children, where scripture was revered in its media and culture, and where the ways and precepts of God informed its laws and national policies and were proclaimed in the public square was no more . . . [It was] ‘the end of Christian America’.
Destroying the Family
Rome’s special power was “its ability to convince the people it conquered that they were Romans,” getting them to adopt their ways. Rome excelled at military strategy, cultural reformation, higher education, financial skill, and innovation so much that in 270 a.d. the Senate titled emperor Aurelian ‘Restorer of the World. Rome was the epitome of progress. Its citizens “basked in affluence, in the glitter of the empire. [Rome] enjoyed an explosive frenzy of building—huge cities, bejeweled with rising marble columns, paved, pleasant tree-lined avenues, and rushing foundations . . . Rome was the world—and the world was Rome . . . To speculate for one brief moment that glorious Rome would collapse was unthinkable.” How did Rome survive many obstacles but fail in the end?
In a.d. 313, Constantine the Great “introduced a vision of conquest without bounds . . . Christians began to believe this empire was the kingdom of God on earth.” But it was not God’s kingdom. Rome openly sinned and hid dark secrets “almost unparalleled in history.” Christianity “demanded a higher standard of morality than ancient paganism, but it had no profound effect on the Roman citizen. For the vast majority of ordinary men, Christianity caused no fundamental change of attitude.”
The nation’s strength was the strength of the family, which was weakening from within. The historical philosopher Seneca, whose warning of Rome’s pending destruction fell on deaf ears, wisely taught that a stable family unit was indispensable to a strong society. But thanks to increasing riches and the pursuit of wealth, Rome’s family unit was dissolving: by first century b.c., Carcopino said, “We witness[ed] an epidemic of divorces.” Seneca saw the same problem in his day: “They divorce in order to remarry. They marry in order to divorce.” Today is no different.
Happy and stable home life is being torn apart. Adultery, pre-marital sex, wife-swapping, a growing acceptance of homosexuality and perverted sex are some of the causes. Home is the foundation of any society! It is the most influential element in national greatness or decadence. It is the groundwork of individual character, values, goals, morality, self-control, and loyalty to causes.
We must not underestimate the importance of the family unit to God’s plan and the survival of a nation. “‘It was the cradle of at least some of those splendid virtues of the early Romans that contributed so much to the strength and greatness of Rome, and that helped to give her dominion of the world.’ This same strong family structure—with father in loving command—was a foundation stone supporting the national power of the British Empire and the United States in their zeniths of greatness.”
Tacitus the historian described that when Rome achieved greatness, a child was “born in wedlock” and raised “in his mother’s lap,” not by hired help or others. Things changed as prosperity and “personal aggrandizement was too eagerly sought and too readily achieved.”
Men were away from their homes on business trips to some remote corner of the empire. Children and wives were left alone. Then a shocking thing occurred: the Romans began to practice ‘a new morality.’
Added to this initial cause of family disruption was the consequent easy attitude to the marriage tie, the increasing frequency of divorce, and the growing freedom and laxity in women’s morals, all of which ended in a loosening of the old family unit. Roman men began to ‘play around’ on business trips, in their offices—with neighbors’ wives. It was now considered naive to be honest in business. The old virtues of ‘God, country, home’ were [hardly] considered.
Confusion came not only with gender, but also with proper roles and relationships of family. Just like today’s world, decadence and distraction resulted in spoiled children. By second century a.d., “Roman fathers let the children govern them, and took pleasure in bleeding themselves white to gratify the expensive whims of their offspring. The result was that they were succeeded by a generation of idlers and wastrels . . . The fine edge of character had been blunted . . . The stern face of the traditional [father of the family] had faded out; instead we see on every hand the flabby face of the son of the house, the eternal spoiled child of society, who has grown accustomed to luxury and lost all sense of discipline.”
Joseph Kennick, past president of the National Conference of Juvenile Authorities, says, “Somewhere along the way, as parents and as a nation, we went wrong in the rearing of our children. We are now paying for having produced a generation heavily populated with hostile, rebellious, and lawless youths who have no respect for themselves or for us . . . We went wrong in many ways—in the laxity of our discipline . . . in indulging and pampering our children, by lifting from their shoulders the burdens they should rightly carry.”
Strong pushes for women’s liberation from home and motherhood, two-income families to support materialistic desires, and abortion on demand to absolve oneself of parental responsibilities are part of “the assault not only on God-given roles for men and women, fathers and mothers, but even on the very creation of male and female. We are sacrificing children to radicalism and pitching modern society into utter confusion and conflict.” Daycares are readily available to raise children for those who desire a career more. Stay-at-home mothers, once a gift to the family, are becoming obsolete as the number of ‘latch-key’ children rises.
Today’s ‘Feminist Movement’ is not a new thing in history. Women in imperial Rome ‘did their own thing’ and the results were wretched marriages, divorce, growing juvenile delinquency. They had ‘come a long way’ indeed! But where they went—the result—is not a very happy thought to contemplate.Upperclass Roman society witnessed a growing force of wives who wanted to be ‘emancipated’ from home life. Some wives wanted ‘careers’ of their own. Others didn’t want to have children for fear of ‘losing their figure.’ Wrote historian Carcopino: “Some evaded the duties of maternity for fear of losing their good looks . . . Some were not content to live their lives by their husband’s side, but carried on another life without him . . . ‘To live your own life’ was a formula which women had already brought into fashion in the second century . . . It is obvious that unhappy marriages must have been innumerable.The same happened since the close of World War II in America— ‘the land of working wives.’ The working wife has been singled out by many juvenile authorities as a major contributor to the mushrooming incidence of childhood crime. Today over 40% of US workers are women. Almost 60% of the female labor force are married women whose husbands are present in the home. And of married working women, over half of them have children under 18 years of age. Working for what?
How foolish we are to so closely follow in the footsteps of fallen civilizations! These things are seen as progress but children pay the price. Disintegration of family is a gradual but calculated evil plan.
For Marxists, killing the family is the key to everything. The war on the family isn’t peripheral; it’s central to the revolution.
By pushing promiscuous or liberal sexuality, the importance of marriage is destroyed. Many popular TV shows and movies show fatherless families, while those showing parents often depict them as aloof or incompetent. Another crucial element of Marxism is to destroy the family unit to encourage dependence on the state, which further empowers it. Karl Marx abhorred the idea that God created family and called for “the abolition of the family” to further Communist goals. It’s a “Marxist imperative—to decouple children from their parents and absorb them into the collective.” In 1847 Engels promoted [public] school systems because it “removes the two bases of traditional marriage—the dependence . . . of the woman on the man, and of the children on the parents.”
Undercutting parental authority while severing the respect for, and dependence on, parents is necessary to get government control of our children. University of Virginia professor Richard Rorty believes, “Students are fortunate to . . . have escaped the grip of frightening, vicious, dangerous parents. We are going to go right on trying to discredit [parents] in the eyes of your children . . . trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.” Adolf Hitler said,
Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state . . . The state will take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing . . . Your child belongs to us already.
Many states quietly support disintegration of family and traditional marriage by their laws. Anciently children were burned to Molech, Tanit, Baal, and other gods by parents who sought to gain from it. “Whenever they seek to obtain some great favor, [they] vow one of their children, burning it as a sacrifice to the deity, if they are especially eager to gain success.” “They worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons,” an act worthy of death (Leviticus 20).
“They had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice.” Plutarch said “those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people in order to sacrifice them and cut their throats . . . meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan.” Over 63 million babies were legally aborted in the US between 1975–2012. For every 1000 live births there are 195 abortions. These numbers significantly increase with unreported abortions. Child sacrifice and trafficking affects every country, pleasing strange gods but Christ “advocateth the cause of the children” (Moroni 7:28). Today our children are sacrificed spiritually to many false gods, provoking God.
They claim to follow the Lord but then they worship Molech too. And I will destroy those who used to worship me but now no longer do. They no longer ask for the Lord’s guidance or seek my blessings. (Zephaniah 1:5–6, NLT)
Juvenile delinquency and suicides are rising. CDC reported “1 in 3 high school girls admit to considering suicide in the last year. 57% of high school girls and 29% of high school boys say they experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Almost half of LGBTQ+ students have considered suicide and 37 percent of them have formed a suicide plan.” Such tragedies result when children are estranged from God. Is force-fed liberalism really making children happy?
Our nation’s birthrate is down significantly, birth control is freely given, and transgender hormone therapy is administered to some children without parental consent. “From 2015 to 2020, there was a 10,000-fold increase in the number of minor girls starting the process to transition to male in the state of Utah” alone. This may help explain why Utah “is in the top 10 for the fastest decline” of birthrates nationally. One group celebrated the decline, claiming it will bring “richer lives for all.”
An unfortunate new milestone in the US depopulation plan was achieved as “more women swap kids for careers” since “kids are expensive and sticky.” How quickly we forget that marriage is ordained by God, not man. Avoiding marriage is part of the 1969 ‘Jaffe Memo,’ a depopulation plan that was put into practice by Frederick Jaffe, an economist and vice president of Planned Parenthood of America. Founded by John D. Rockefeller III, the Population Council requested a plan to “stem birth rates in the United States” through “researching contraception and other ways to prevent births.” Other suggestions adopted by the UN and WEF “postpone or avoid marriage” and “drive women into higher education and to convince more women to join the workforce.” It happened anciently to women “whom Ishtar deprived of husbands.”
Jaffe’s Memo also sought to “encourage increased homosexuality,” “make contraception truly available and accessible,” provide “abortion and sterilization on demand,” and “compulsory education for children and government incentives for lower birth rates.” Placing “fertility control agents in the water supply” and “vaccination is also included in [the] mass birth prevention strategy.” Scripture warns against this attitude:
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead. They will say it is wrong to be married. (1 Timothy 4:1–3, NLT)
Some marital experts predict that marriage will soon be obsolete. By the time the Roman Empire realized that their decline in population was harmful, it was too late. “People were too attached to their hedonistic lifestyles to want children getting in their way. Thus, Tacitus writes in his Annals, ‘childlessness prevailed’.” No amount of penalty or reward could shift their attitudes. “All was in vain. The marriage state continued to be held in great disesteem.” This apathy and attitude exists today.
Marriage, to many, means little or nothing. And in any society where marriage means nothing, where a solid family relationship is no longer desired—that society is threatened with extinction. Rome traveled this road. It perished. America and Britain are speeding along the same roadway to oblivion.
When the Soviets experimented with doing away with families and marriage by raising children away from parents (while encouraging sexual freedom with no repercussion or responsibility), it was “so disastrous that they ended [the experiments] after a few years.”
The strange goddess Ishtar (Ashtoreth) was a seductress who fought against marriage and promoted unconstrained sexual immorality as something holy and sanctified. Her followers were easily consumed with the instant gratification offered. “When Israel turned away from God,” sex became their god. “Ishtar’s realm was most critical. It was from sexuality that came marriage, family, society, civilization, and life.” While the 1960s sexual revolution targeted young adults, this time strange gods are after our children. Not only would sexualization of our nation bring rampant immorality, it became a commodity that generated billions of dollars through pornography, prostitution, and trafficking. Studies show “about 80% of men and 45% of women watch pornography weekly.” These once-forbidden and abhorred acts are now easily available on the streets, in the schools, on our phones, and in our homes. “Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). While created to “serve the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ” (Ether 2:12), instead the United States has become the leading exporter and producer of this vile, destructive filth.
Strange Things in Generation Z
Their relentless lies, propaganda, and indoctrination have been successful. A 2023 Gallup poll shows the 7.2% of US adults identifying as “something other than straight or homosexual has doubled since 2012.” CNN writes, “The rise can be attributed to Gen Z, according to Gallup—about 21% of adults born between 1997 and 2013 identify as LGBTQ. Meanwhile, 10.5% of millennials, the generation that includes adults born between 1981 and 1996, identify as LGBTQ, per the poll, and the percentages dwindle among the preceding generations.” This means the youth they target are embracing this ‘new morality.’
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Peer pressure has become ‘queer pressure’ to defy biology. Teachers no longer can say ‘boys’ and ‘girls,’ only ‘assigned female (or male) at birth.’
Human nature, or human biology, doesn’t change in any such dramatic way by natural means. What it means is that the increasing onslaught of indoctrination that bombards each new generation is working. It’s affecting, changing, and transforming the beliefs, values, behavior, identities, and sexuality of our children and thus of each generation. It is no accident that the increase in LGBT identification parallels the increase in LGBT indoctrination.
Many retailers “market ‘pride’ merchandise—for babies. Target sold T-shirts featuring naked adults and pro-homosexual merchandise designed by a literal satanist.” By 2021, most TV shows and movies had openly gay characters. Drag queen story hour for children is a regular program in many libraries. “Men (several of whom are convicted child sex offenders) cavorting around in caked-on makeup and mascara, leather-&-lace bodices, fishnet stockings, sequined bikinis—and worse,” reading questionable books and singing questionable songs “to toddlers in public libraries and public schools” has not only been applauded but “the forces of political correctness that run many of our cities are demanding these burlesque shows” continue in spite of protests. One drag queen admits, “This is going to be the grooming of the next generation,” and it appears to be working as “more than a quarter of California’s children ages 12–17 now identify as ‘gender non-conforming’.” Family Research Institute explains, “Clearly, the more the notion is fertilized, the more likely an LGBT outcome becomes . . . With repetition and fertilization, ‘a few here and a few there’ starts a process that partially explains the tripling of homosexuality in high school youth over the past three decades.”
A UK study found the number of children advised to medically transition from 2009–2019 increased 1000% for males, 4400% for females. Around 30% who surgically transition already regret it. Chris Beck describes his transition as “liv[ing] in hell for the past 10 years.” Now detransitioning, “I look back and see how I destroyed everything in my life that was holy, the temple of God, our bodies, what we have here. I wish I’d had someone that would have helped me.” A 20-year-old says within a year of transition, she was “curled in my bed, clutching my double-mastectomy scars, and sobbing with regret” because what she thought was gender dysphoria “turned out to stem from other mental health issues.”
Some schools and universities use Planned Parenthood-sponsored “Genderbread Person” curriculum that showcases an array of genders including “genderqueer, non-binary, pangender, androgyne, neutrons, gender-variant, AG, cyborg, two-spirit, glitterbutch, genderfluid, tri-gender, stud, agender, and genderless, to name a few.” The 2024 gospel doctrine manual “Come Follow Me” features a rainbow-colored tree of life on its cover. At BYU and other universities, genderless Jesus propaganda has emerged alongside doctrine to ‘be like Jesus’. To those who embrace such foolishness we ask, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” (Matthew 19:4).
They don’t care. “From teaching children that there are infinite genders, to how-to-manuals on sexual perversions so dangerous and obscene they cannot be described here, there seem to be no moral boundaries or taboos that are not being deliberately broken. Nothing is beyond the pale” as “indoctrination of transgenderism begins in kindergarten.”
The point is to obliterate childhood innocence. But within Queer Theory it goes even further because [it’s] Marxist grooming ideology . . . to destabilize individuals as children to make them susceptible to politically-actionable points of view.
Indoctrination is also seen outside the classroom. A North Carolina high school suspended a girl for reporting that she had been sexually abused in the bathroom by a male who claimed to identify as a female. In Kansas, students were required to label where they are on the spectrum of “gender identity,” while a Florida teacher took students to a homosexual bar for a field trip. A Michigan middle school took children pole dancing, a New Jersey high school allowed students to perform a secret drag show for select staff, and countless homework assignments have prodded children to describe their comfort levels with unusual sexual acts. There's no resistance from the top. “To celebrate pride month in June, Joe Biden invited thousands of homosexual activists to the White House” where transgenders “stripped off to pose topless in front of children while the rainbow flag displaced the American flag in the center.” GLSEN organization sent 46,000 LGBTQ+ affirming K–12 books to 4,600 public schools “that show Boy Scouts watching men having sex, books that detail sexual intercourse between first-graders, books that encourage children to meet men at gay bars.”
So common is the confusion that Utah’s Gov. Cox uses pronouns on social media and when speaking to children, some of whom no longer are sure if they are a boy or girl, neither or both. Cox attempted (then vetoed) to allow confused males to play in female sports but “the obvious truth is that these biological discrepancies” between males and females “remain even if a man decides in his mind that he is actually a woman.” And so it is said: “Confusion is what thou dost put throughout the land . . . People transgress what [God] hath commanded.” God “never commanded—nor did it enter my mind” to sacrifice children spiritually or physically (Jeremiah 32:35).
Disney CEO Michael Eisner admitted back in 1998 that about 40% of their employees were queer. Disney (which owns ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Pixar, LucasFilm, Fox Entertainment, National Geographic, Touchstone Pictures, and dozens more companies) is actively “‘adding queerness’ to children’s programming wherever they can.” An executive producer admitted they’re implementing a ‘not-at-all-secret-gay agenda [to bring] many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” but they want more—“at least 50% of its onscreen characters are sexual deviants or racial minorities.” Disney is pushing to “make it legal for teachers to give lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sex instruction in the classroom—to third graders, second graders, first graders, and kindergartners.” An animation strategy called ‘queer coding’ intentionally desensitizes viewers to transgender/homosexual themes. Beyond its characters, there is no shortage of dark occult and demonic symbolism in Disney’s productions and the broadcast industries.
This has been the plan for decades. Nearly 40 years ago, a 1987 article in Guide explained, “The first order of business is desensitization of the American public concerning gay and gay rights . . . At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more.” But if “you can get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.” A “large scale media campaign” could finish the job to “persuade the masses that homosexuality is a good thing.” But “suspected child molesters” and the North American Man-Boy Love Association were specifically not to be included in the campaign only because they “never look like victims.” Another horrific side effect is pedophilia becomes more normalized which increases demand for child pornography. Some apologists claim that “sexual relations between adults and children can be healthy. To avoid stigma, terms like ‘adult-child relationships’ and ‘minor attracted persons’ are coming into use.” We must recognize that
influencing, desensitizing, grooming, programming, removing the inhibitions of, and destroying the purity and innocence of children is a horrendous crime. Nothing about it is for children’s benefit.
We are warned: “In the last days perilous times shall come” and “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:1, 13). They “trade boys for prostitutes” and sell “girls for wine” (Joel 3:3, NIV). These damning sins would reoccur in the last days: “Men will put on adornments as women and fair colors . . . because they have no knowledge or understanding” (1 Enoch 98:2–3).
“More and more, transgenderism is reshaping society . . . [Climate change and transgender] are two aspects of the same story. The truth is, this is not the age of rationality. This is an age of astonishing irrationality! Society today is openly assaulting the truth.” We must never forget:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee . . . Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6)
Media, Music, & More
Diversions and distractions are plentiful for youth. Endless options compete for their time and attention, the majority of which take their minds off God and spirituality. Distraction is Satan’s most effective weapon.
We touch our phones 2,617 times every day on average. An estimated 6.6 billion of earth’s 8 billion people use smartphones. “Americans spend an average of seven hours each day behind screens, excluding time spent at school or work.” On average teenagers spend over 70 hours a week on electronic media, less than 16 hours with their parents, less than 10 hours in physical activity, and 5 hours on homework. This means 13-17 year old teens send one text message on average every 6 minutes—and that was over a decade ago. Children today are even more connected.
Not only is productivity and creativity suffering, but our language is changing rapidly because of technology. “Generation after generation, mankind corrupted languages more, bringing us to the present with each one filled with perversions, vagaries, and impurities.” Many parents can’t decode their child’s text messages. Language used in scripture and other good books is hard for new generations to understand, which loses valuable knowledge. When Babylon’s wickedness ruled, the Lord “confounded their language” so they could not “understand one another’s speech” (Genesis 11:7). Today technology has become the universal language and it has more in common with the Tower of Babel than that.
Believing that information and technology comes without a cost “is a delusion,” writes Johann Hari in Stolen Focus. “It becomes exhausting. More importantly, [Prof. Sune Lehmann] said, ‘What we are sacrificing is depth in all sorts of dimensions,” including in relationships, work, reflection, relaxation, and attention spans. “Hari’s book identifies 12 causes for society’s attention crisis: technology, the volume of information coming at us, constant switching and continuous distractions, sleep deprivation, bad food, pollutants, drugs and more. Our society is largely designed to steal our attention, decimating our focus” and costing us our capacity to concentrate, contemplate, and reflect—all of which are required to connect with God. “The modern mind is devoid of nooks, places to go for prolonged, single-focused, undistracted thought. The nature of our lives has been fundamentally altered.” He quotes iPhone co-inventor Tony Fadell saying, “I wake up in cold sweats every so often thinking, What did we bring to the world?” He worried that he had helped create ‘a nuclear bomb’ that can ‘blow up people’s brains and reprogram them’.”
We must not be ignorant of Satan’s “devices” or he will “get an advantage [over] us” (2 Corinthians 2:11). In Greek ‘devices’ refers to designs or schemes. Is it a coincidence that ‘devices’ are what we call our smartphones, iPads, tablets, and laptops?
Video games, social media, internet surfing, and video streaming provide virtual escapes as the highly-stimulated brain releases the addictive but pleasure-producing dopamine. “Screen activities have been designed to capture our attention by feeding us regular doses of dopamine . . . hooking people into continuous” activity mode. This has ultimately led to large spikes in anxiety, depression, irritability, ADHD, and isolation. When 200 students were asked in a study to refrain from using their electronics and media for just one day, a participant said it brought an “almost unbearable” sense of feeling “quite alone and secluded from my life.” In other words, “screen addiction grooms us to fear solitude, to fear being alone with our own thoughts!” Having a society that does not think or have time to think is essential to Satan’s plan to suppress truth and gain control of the masses.
Hundreds of millions are addicted to these meaningless things. That is the express intent of so many of these devices! Engineers are literally hacking our brains and using our own weaknesses against us to waste our time for their own profit. Addiction is a form of slavery. And the one who is ultimately behind it is the devil. He is using every flaw in human nature against us to waste our time and waste our life.
Time is a precious gift. Satan knows he has only “a short time” (Revelation 12:12) so he wastes none of it while getting people to waste theirs. “Satan has increased the pace of the society and has ‘jammed the frequency’ with materialistic distractions. He has littered the world with every conceivable gadget, activity, pleasure and late-night entertainment to keep mankind ‘active’ and ‘busy’ from the time he wakes up in the morning to the time he falls into bed exhausted late at night. There is simply no time to stop and ponder the purpose of human existence and where all this is leading.” When we aren’t on our phones, odds are high that we are listening to music in our cars or watching TV. “The images our eyes see, we store permanently in our minds. There they mingle with images of the real world, confusing our perception of reality and affecting behavior.”
The Super Bowl is the most-watched TV program ever. Its 120+ million person captive audience has been shown satanic commercials and performances, “followed up by ‘Satan shoes’—a collaboration with Nike that allowed people to buy the trainers Satan was shown wearing, which contain actual human blood.”
Satan and his worshippers are getting bolder. “Summoning demons has never been so fun!” is a blurb from A Children’s Book of Demons which glorifies the dark side to make it appear cool and appealing. After-school Satan clubs are popping up in some elementary schools with a catchy theme song, “Satan’s not an evil guy, he wants you to learn and question why.” Unfortunately, “the number of public schools in America hosting ‘Satan clubs’ is increasing.” This is not good education, for demons and evil will be of no help to them in the end. They “worship phantoms and demons and abominations and evil spirits and all errors, not according to knowledge; no help will you find from them” (1 Enoch 99:7).
A 2023 Pfizer-sponsored Grammy Award performance of “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras shocked many when he dressed up as Satan while “dancers performed a devil-worshipping ritual around him [that made] a mockery of the political beliefs of the 210 million Christians in the US.” Other musicians admit to colluding with evil. The Beatles featured Aleister Crowley, a famous occultist, on their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. AC/DC’s Highway to Hell featured devil horns, a forked tail, and an inverted pentagram necklace. Marilyn Manson was ordained an honorary priest by the Church of Satan’s Unholy Pope. Mötley Crüe released a pentagram cover for Shout at the Devil. Crüe’s lead singer admits, “Some people said we were Satanic and angry . . . We were like, ‘Hey, if it gets us attention let’s go with that.’ We were so starved for stardom that we were willing to do whatever it took.”
Engaging with or selling out to the devil in exchange for fame, fortune, or power is the story of history. Bob Dylan, Nicki Minaj, Lil Uzi, Damson Idris, Ozzy Osbourne and others “claim to have sold their souls to the devil” in return for worldly riches and fame. Beyonce, the most awarded singer in Grammy history, and her husband Jay Z launched many hit songs and a satanic clothing line. Both admit to frequent possession by dark spirits (Beyonce’s is named ‘Sasha Fierce’), and video actually shows her becoming possessed during her concert. These are the people we idolize while Satan laughs and rejoices.
Music is a powerful medium that can bring us nearer to, or farther from, God. Throughout the ages, music has had a profound influence on cultures and community, for better or worse.
In Mesopotamia anciently, taverns were inhabited by the spirit of Ishtar. It was there that those affected by her allurements were surrounded by three elements: sexuality, intoxicating substances, and music . . . [Each] would epitomize the decade that began the transformation of American culture. In 1969, a LIFE magazine article identified the three elements as the counterculture’s new sacraments—‘sex, drugs, and rock’ music.
At the end of 2022, in a very calculated way, former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg shared his top 12 albums. “A theme of demonism and of hatred for America emerged. One of [his] favorite albums is named Lucifer on the Sofa” and another is Ethel Cain, a 24-year-old homosexual who renounced church and tattooed the king of demons’ name on his forehead. Cain’s music is all about “shattered faith, family dysfunction, demons, and death.” Former President Barack Obama tweeted his 26 favorite songs too, many the same as Guttenberg’s. His suspiciously youthful playlist “lyrics, in almost every instance, contain profanity, are heavy on slang, and largely unintelligible if not literal gibberish. The parts you can understand glorify pride, lust, flamboyant materialism, perverse sexuality, drug use, racial hatred, violence, blasphemy against God, and demonism. The music videos . . . heavily feature partying, drugs, firearm violence, brazen sexual imagery, and demon influence.”
Music with profanity or suggestive messaging influences us. Less than 0.1% of music in the 1950s had explicit lyrics. By the 1980s, it grew to 2.9%. Now ~9% of songs across genres have them. Over half of the top songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 have explicit lyrics. Satan is an expert in creating appealing music that is powerful enough to arouse emotion and invoke feelings of rebellion, lust, anger, sadness, or euphoria. A fascinating extra-biblical account tells of Satan’s trap to lead the righteous astray—through music.
As to Genun [son of Lamech who slew Cain], Satan came into him in his childhood; and he made sundry [instruments] . . . and he played on them at all times and at every hour. And when he played on them, Satan came into them, so that from among them were heard beautiful and sweet sounds that ravished the heart.
Then he gathered companies upon companies to play on them; and when they played it pleased well the children of Cain, who inflamed themselves with sin among themselves, and burnt as with fire; while Satan inflamed their hearts, one with another, and increased lust among them . . . [Satan] rejoiced greatly . . . [for] sin increased among them greatly. (Book of Adam and Eve 20:1–4, 7, 10)
Ruining Cain’s posterity was not Satan’s only goal—his real target was the holy children of Seth. Genun and his musicians played “at the foot of the Holy Mountain” so the children of Seth would hear it. When they heard, “they wondered and came by companies and stood on the top of the mountain to look at those below” for an entire year (20:5–6, 11–12).
[When] Genun saw that they were being won over to him little by little, Satan entered into him, and taught him to make dyeing stuffs for garments of divers patterns . . . and the sons of Cain . . . gathered at the foot of the mountain in splendor, with horns and gorgeous dresses, and horse races, committing all manner of abominations. The children of Seth, who were on the Holy Mountain, prayed and praised God, in the place of the hosts of angels who had fallen . . . But after this, they no longer kept His commandment, nor held by the promise He had made to their fathers; but they relaxed from their fasting and praying, and from the counsel of Jared their father. And they kept on gathering together on the top of the mountain to look upon the children of Cain, from morning until evening. (Book of Adam and Eve 20:13–17)
Jared warned his descendants to not transgress God’s laws and mix with the children of Cain, because if they left the mountain, “God will not allow you to return again to it . . . You shall no longer be called ‘children of God,’ but ‘children of the devil.’ But they would not harken to his words” and descended “until only a few of them were left” (20:18–28, 21:1). The apocrypha describes that “they departed from the teaching of the Lord, from the covenant of heaven. And behold they did commit sin and reject the proper way . . . and beget children not like spiritual, but like carnal offspring.”
Many claim Abraham as their father, but instead of doing “the works of Abraham” (John 8:39), they choose to serve strange gods. Jesus said, “You belong to your father, the devil and you want to carry out his desires” (John 8:44). It is a trap because once people “pervert the ways of the Lord . . . the devil will not support his children” in the end but “doth speedily drag them down to hell” (Alma 30:60).
Do not risk one more offense against your God . . . Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness. (Alma 41:9–10)
The devil tells us otherwise, having masterfully infiltrated all aspects of society until we no longer recognize he is the author. Satan won't “be happy until [he] seized the ripest apple on the tree—thee.”
Our world is full of “inherited lies” that “filled the world with confusion” and is “the mainspring of all corruption.” Exposing evil and darkness “is an imperative duty that we owe to God,” ourselves, our wives and children, for the world has upheld “the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity” (D&C 123:7). Should we fail to fulfill this sacred duty,
[when] they shall go . . . to seek the Lord, they shall not find him. He hath withdrawn himself from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have begotten strange children. (Hosea 5:6–7, 9–10)
Footnotes and sources can be found HERE.