Ezra Taft Benson

Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the book [of Mormon] to expose and combat the falsehoods in socialism, organic evolution, rationalism, humanism, and so forth.

In addition to this, and to co‑operate with it, it has been made known by revelation, that it will be pleasing to the Lord, should they form a matrimonial alliance with the Natives; and by this means the Elders, who comply with the thing so pleasing to the Lord, and for which the Lord has promised to bless those who do it abundantly, gain a residence in the Indian territory, independent of the agent. It has been made known to one, who has left his wife in the state of N.Y. that he is entirely free from his wife, and he is at liberty to take him a wife from among the Lamanites. It was easily perceived that his permission was perfectly suited to his desires. I have frequently heard him state, that the Lord had made it known to him, that he is as free from his wife as from any other woman; and the only crime that I have ever heard alleged against her is, she is violently opposed to Mormonism.

I think it would be very hard [for a Mormon to be a Democrat] if he was living the gospel and understood it.

The world teaches birth control. Tragically, many of our sisters subscribe to its pills and practices when they could easily provide earthly tabernacles for more of our Father's children. We know that every spirit assigned to this earth will come, whether through us or someone else. There are couples in the Church who think they are getting along just fine with their limited families but who will someday suffer the pains of remorse when they meet the spirits that might have been part of their posterity.

True to form, many of the people who desire to frustrate God's purposes of giving mortal tabernacles to His spirit children through worldwide birth control are the very same people who support the kinds of government that perpetuate famine. They advocate an evil to cure the results of the wickedness they support.

What are we doing to fight it? Before I left for Europe I warned how the communists were using the civil rights movement to promote revolution and eventual takeover of this country.

What do you know about the dangerous civil rights agitation in Mississippi! do you fear the destruction of all vestiges of state government?

The industrial achievements of the U. S. are the result of an economic system which is the antithesis of socialism. Our economic system is called 'capitalism' or 'private enterprise' and is based on private property rights, the profit motive and competition.

It is impossible to establish communism as the immediate successor to capitalism. It is accordingly proposed to establish socialism as something which we can put in the place of our present decaying capitalism. Hence, communists work for the establishment of socialism as a necessary transition stage on the road to communism.

Communism introduced into the world a substitute for true religion. It is a counterfeit of the gospel plan. The false prophets of Communism predict a utopian society. This, they proclaim, will only be brought about as capitalism and free enterprise are overthrown, private property abolished, the family as a social unit eliminated, all classes abolished, all governments overthrown, and a communal ownership of property in a classless, stateless society established.

We must ever keep in mind that collectivized socialism is part of the communist strategy.

Communism is fundamentally socialism.

We will never win our fight against communism by making concessions to socialism.

Communism and socialism, closely related, must be defeated on principle.

Both communism and socialism seek to destroy our economic system and replace it with socialism; and their success, whether through revolution by socialism or through revolution by communism or a combination, will destroy not only our economic system, but our liberty, including the 'civil' aspects as well.

The 'common ground' of socialism and communism is a factor to which the American people should be alerted. Without a clear understanding that communism is socialism, the total threat and menace of the cold war can never be comprehended and fought to victory.

When socialism is understood, we will realize that many of the programs advocated, and some of those already adopted in the United States, fall clearly within the category of socialism.

The paramount issue today is liberty against creeping socialism.

During the first half of the twentieth century we have traveled far into the soul‑destroying land of socialism and made strange alliances through which we have become involved in almost continuous hot and cold wars over the whole of the earth.

It is significant that 118 years ago this month the Prophet Joseph Smith, after attending lectures on socialism, made this official entry in church history: "I said I did not believe the doctrine" (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 33).

Judging by its demoralized works, atheism has now quit advancing in this country simply because it has arrived. Not just rhetorically but actually—our country is in an ungodly mess. City streets are terrorized by crime; our biggest and most expensive campuses are paralyzed by nihilism and anarchy; with special license from the Supreme Court, theaters are boldly featuring sex perversion and the newsstands are loaded with hard‑core pornography. Big‑name investigating commissions have told us all about riots, crime, progress, and poverty, but always in materialistic terms of money, housing, social service jobs, and birth control—without a word about the possibilities for personal moral self‑restraint.

But if atheism has taken over, then who and where are the atheists? It was sheer coincidence, of course, that the day after the 1968 astronauts gave us their inspiring prayer from the moon, the Gallup Poll reported that 98 percent of the American people believe in God. Fantastic? Not at all. How many avowed atheists do you know personally? Gallup also found that 65 percent of us believe in hell and 60 percent of all Americans believe in the devil. Now just a word to this big majority who believe in the devil. Who, in your opinion, has masterminded this tragic transformation of the official, controlling American mind? The devil? Through Satan's communistic counterfeit to the gospel? Then, why don't we all say so?

Organized atheism, representing just two percent of our population, has contaminated ‑‑ is still contaminating ‑‑ the whole course of American life, of Christian life everywhere. In this country today a two percent tail is wagging the big 98 percent dog. Never in all history have so many been hornswoggled by so few.

As Americans ‑‑ as members of the worldwide Christian community ‑‑ we can defeat the godless, atheistic forces that threaten us. Yes, with the help of Almighty God we can ‑‑ we must ‑‑ win the war against the evil forces which seem almost to overwhelm us. The eternal verities revealed from God, through his inspired prophets, have not and will not change.

Those professed atheists, who have confidently relied upon science to dethrone and eclipse Almighty God, are already doing their manful best, of course, to rub out all reference to the prayer in their recapitulation and evaluation of Apollo 8.

It was boldly begun here in 1933 (November 16), when the United States announced our diplomatic recognition of atheistic Soviet Russia. For 15 years the United States had refused to recognize the godless Moscow Communists, for the reasons published at length in 1920 by Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. In concluding his long letter of documentation and explanation, Colby had said this: "There cannot be any common ground upon which the Government of the United States can stand with a power whose conceptions are so entirely alien to our own, so utterly repugnant to our moral sense."

This recognition, together with the abandonment of the inspired Monroe Doctrine, gave the Red atheists a big diplomatic sanctuary for the coordination and direction of their propagandist spies and saboteurs. These promptly infiltrated every branch of our federal government and later every segment of our economy, and more recently have established a godless base 90 miles from our shores. Our recognition broke the ice of American resistance to the acceptance of the Kremlin gangsters into the international community as a legitimate government and so strengthened their iron grip upon the tortured people of Russia and her satellites.

The tenth plank in Karl Marx's Manifesto for destroying our kind of civilization advocated the establishment of "free education for all children in public schools." There were several reasons why Marx wanted government to run the schools. Dr. A. A. Hodge pointed out one of them when he said, "It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or agnostics may be. It is self‑evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and widespread instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen."

Now what of the entertainment that is available to our young people today? Are you being undermined right in your home through your TV, radio, slick magazines, rock records? Much of the rock music is purposely designed to push immorality, narcotics, revolution, atheism, and nihilism, through language that often has a double meaning and with which many parents are not familiar.

President Joseph Fielding Smith has stated that in public schools you cannot get a textbook, anywhere that he knows of, on the "ologies" that doesn't contain nonsense. (Take Heed to Yourselves, p. 32.)

I know one noble father who reviews with his children regularly what they have been taught; and if they have been taught any falsehoods, then the children and the father together research out the truth. If your children are required to put down on exams the falsehoods that have been taught, then perhaps they can follow President Joseph Fielding Smith's counsel of prefacing their answer with the words "teacher says," or they might say "you taught" or "the textbook states."

If your children are taught untruths on evolution in the public schools or even in our Church schools, provide them with a copy of President Joseph Fielding Smith's excellent rebuttal in his book Man, His Origin and Destiny.

Recently some parents paid for space in a newspaper to run an open letter to the school principal of their son. The letter in part stated: "You are hereby notified that our son, [insert name], is not allowed by his undersigned parents to participate in, or be subject to instruction in, any training or education in sex, human biological development, attitude development, self‑understanding, personal and family life, or group therapy, or sensitivity training, or self‑criticism, or any combination or degree thereof, without the consent of the undersigned by express written permission . . . "

We oppose and abhor the damnable practice of wholesale abortion and every other unholy and impure act which strikes at the very foundation of the home and family, our most basic institutions.

You who submit yourselves to an abortion or to an operation that precludes you from safely having additional healthy children are jeopardizing your exaltation and your future membership in the kingdom of God.

This predicted gathering has three phases: the gathering of Israel to the land of Zion, the American hemisphere; the return of the Ten Tribes from the north countries; and the re‑establishment of the Jews in Palestine which has been long ago predicted by the prophets.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that some Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost.

Mothers, this kind of heavenly, motherly teaching takes time--lots of time. It cannot be done effectively part time. It must be done all the time in order to save and exalt your children. This is your divine calling.

Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance, until their husbands are taken (D&C 83:2). This is the divine right of a wife and mother. She cares for and nourishes her children at home. Her husband earns the living for the family, which makes this nourishing possible. With that claim on their husbands for their financial support, the counsel of the Church has always been for mothers to spend their full time in the home in rearing and caring for their children.

Sometimes we hear of husbands who, because of economic conditions, have lost their jobs and expect their wives to go out of the home and work even though the husband is still capable of providing for his family. In these cases, we urge the husband to do all in his power to allow his wife to remain in the home caring for the children while he continues to provide for his family the best he can, even though the job be is able secure may not be ideal and family budgeting will have to be tighter.

We realize that some women, through no fault of their own, are not able to bear children. To these lovely sisters, every prophet of God has promised that they will be blessed with children in the eternities and that posterity will not be denied them.