What are we waiting for?

I posted recently a few of the many verses of the Book of Mormon that teach that liberty is God's way, and that overthrowing liberty is Satan's plan. Have you considered what it means that, over a thousand years ago, the Lord saw to it that a significant portion of the Book of Mormon would be devoted to Nephite politics? Have you considered why the Lord would include so many warnings of conspiracies to destroy their liberty, and include the direct and forcefully worded warning to us that "the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation"?

I posted a few verses from the Doctrine and Covenants. In the earliest years of the restored Church, the Lord saw fit to reveal to His followers that the Constitution was His doing, and that He expected His followers to uphold it.

We've been taught the doctrine. Modern prophets have repeated that teaching many times. We've quoted a small percentage of what's been said on the matter on this blog. So why are so many church members still on the sidelines when it comes to liberty? I don't know about your experience, but too many of my active-member peers can rattle off every top-10 member of every season of American Idol, but don't even know what socialism and communism are, let alone what the Church's position on them is.

Will it take an organized program in the Church to get everyone involved? I hope not...President Benson declared in the April 1964 General Conference:
"Maybe the Lord will never set up a specific Church program for the purpose of saving the Constitution. Perhaps if he set up one at this time it might split the Church asunder, and perhaps he does not want that to happen yet, for not all the wheat and tares are fully ripe. The Prophet Joseph Smith declared it will be the elders of Israel who will step forward to help save the Constitution, NOT THE CHURCH!"
(Thanks to True Politics USA for the quote)

We cannot wait for the Church to tell us to act. We have been taught correct principles, it is now our duty to "govern ourselves" and ACT on those principles. It is not enough to vote every four years...we have been commanded to "seek diligently to uphold" officials who support the Constitution. That is a full-time job, not a periodic one.

I realize most of the people who are reading this have already gotten themselves involved, and I'm grateful to know that there's that many people who have. But, it seems it's still a small percentage of the active church membership. We cannot wait for the Church to tell our fellow brothers and sisters to act; that responsibility falls on us. After all, "it becometh every man who has been warned to warn his neighbor."

The warnings of modern prophets

First, the words of an Apostle, spoken in General Conference, which we are taught means this is the word of the Lord:
"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.

Since 1917 this godless counterfeit to the gospel has made tremendous progress toward its objective of world domination.

Today, we are in a battle for the bodies and souls of man. It is a battle between two opposing systems: freedom and slavery, Christ and anti-Christ. The struggle is more momentous than a decade ago, yet today the conventional wisdom says, “You must learn to live with Communism and to give up your ideas about national sovereignty.” Tell that to the millions—yes, the scores of millions—who have met death or imprisonment under the tyranny of Communism! Such would be the death knell of freedom and all we hold dear. God must ever have a free people to prosper His work and bring about Zion." - President Ezra Taft Benson, October 1979 General Conference

Second, an official statement by the First Presidency:
"We call upon all Church members completely to eschew Communism. The safety of our divinely inspired Constitutional government and the welfare of our Church imperatively demand that Communism shall have no place in America."

Third, the words of President David O McKay in the April 1966 General Conference:
"The position of this Church on the subject of Communism has never changed. We consider it the greatest satanical threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God's work among men that exists on the face of the earth."

Last (for now), a statement from Elder Dallin H. Oaks, just last month:
"Unpopular minority religions are especially dependent upon a constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion. We are fortunate to have such a guarantee in the United States, but many nations do not. The importance of that guarantee in the United States should make us ever diligent to defend it. And it is in need of being defended."