When I posted the highlight quotes from my study of the Oct. 1969 General Conference a few weeks ago, someone on Facebook asked why I was studying the old conference talks? It is a pretty valid question. The answer is pretty simple: Because I believe these men were prophets. It is the same reason we read other old things like the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Holy Bible. We believe it contains the words of God via the prophets.
Beyond just that, I find that as I study the words of the prophets, my testimony is strengthened. Every single conference I witness the Lord fulfilling Amos 3:7 and Isaiah 21:3. If my study of 6500+ conference talks has taught me anything it is that these men truly are called of God, holy prophets, and that they have thoroughly warned us of every condition and evil we are currently facing in the world today. Every single one. Just this conference alone contains various quotes about the importance of freedom and the encroachment of government on our freedoms, the evils of sex education as employed in our school systems, and the dangers of failing to harken to prophetic counsel leading to a loss of faith.
That is why I study conference talks; they are the words of the prophets and are often just as timely as the counsel given at the conference today. This specific conference is also important as it was a pivot-point in Church History. Prior to this conference, the topics of socialism and communism were continually denounced from the pulpit. From 1930 to 1969, there were over 650 references to these twin evils. But since this conference only 59 in the following 65 years. Why? In the Apr. 1969 Priesthood session of conference, David O. McKay, the prophet, denounced them but then declared, “Ours must be the responsibility to teach our members from all nations the true doctrines of Christ with such power that they be fortified against all false ideas, regardless of the label under which they may be presented.” This talk marked the pivot from denouncing a labeled ideology to instead talking directly about the tenets and the evils of the ideology, so that regardless of what people called themselves if they had the same ideological tenants, then members would be able to detect the evil thereof. I find this extremely important as so many people disregard prior denouncements of socialism/communism and say, “Well, I am a Scandinavian style,” “It was merely Cold War rhetoric,” or “The meaning of the word Socialist has changed.” But when you address the root evils of the ideology and how their very core principles are in fact Satan’s plan in earthly form, then repackaging the ideology with a new name won’t work.
I hope you enjoy this fourth installment of quotes from my studies of the General Conference Archives (If you want to read prior installments click HERE). For the first installment and an explanation of the Conference Archives see “55+ Powerful Quotes From My Study of the Oct. 1970 General Conference” To read this conference report PDF from the Church History Catalog click HERE, for the Archive.org PDF (with speech-to-text, click here). I hope you enjoy these quotes from my studies. But more than enjoy them, I hope they serve as a starting point for your own study of the Apr. 1969 General Conference! Use the page number and the above links to access the full talks. Enjoy!
45+ Timely Quotes From My Study of the Apr. 1969 General Conference
“There are some in our midst who are not so much concerned about taking the gospel into the world as they are about bringing worldliness into the gospel … Through their own reasoning and a few misapplied scriptures, they try to sell us the precepts and philosophies of men. They do not feel the Church is progressive enough — they say that it should embrace the social and socialist gospel of apostate Christendom.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 6
“Keep in mind this eternal truth that chastity is a virtue to be prized as one of life’s noblest achievements. It contributes to the virility of manhood. It is the crowning virtue of womanhood, and every red-blooded man knows that is true. It is a chief factor to a happy home.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 6
“Teach them [the youth] that pure love between the sexes is one of the noblest things on earth, and the bearing and rearing of children the highest of all human duties.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 9
“In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is but one standard of morality.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 9
“Man, not the Lord, has brought deadly conflicts and subsequent misery. Wars spring from wickedness of unrighteous leaders. Not until freedom triumphs and a just peace comes may we hope for the end of wars and for goodwill among men”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 9
“In the teaching of the Church of Christ, the family assumes supreme importance in the development of the individual and of the society.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 9
“The world worships the learning of man. They trust in the arm of flesh. To them, men’s reasoning is greater than God’s revelations. The precepts of man have gone so far in subverting our educational system that in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error.
Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of an indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church educational system, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught. President Joseph F. Smith was right when he said that false educational ideas would be one of the three threats to the Church within. (Gospel Doctrine, pp. 312-13.)”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 12-13
“Another threat, and he said it is the most serious of the three, would be sexual impurity. Today we have both of these threats combined in the growing and increasingly amoral program of sex education in the schools.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 13
“In answer to inquiries that have been received by the First Presidency about sex education in the schools, they have made the following statement: ‘We believe that serious hazards are involved in entrusting to the schools the teaching of this vital and important subject to our children. This responsibility cannot wisely be left to society, nor the schools: nor can the responsibility be shifted to the Church. It is the responsibility of parents to see that they fully perform their duty in this respect.’”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 13
“When General William F. Dean was released from a Korean Communist prison camp, the young Chinese psychologists who had been trying to break him said: ‘General, don’t feel bad about leaving us. You know, we will soon be with you. We are going to capture your country.’ Asked how, they replied: ‘We are going to destroy the moral character of a generation of your young Americans, and when we have finished you will have nothing with which to really defend yourselves against us.’”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 14
“Loyalty to false freedom principles can only bring delusion, a counterfeit happiness, and eventual destruction. False freedom principles include such things as the abuse of one’s body by the use of drugs, liquor, and tobacco, as well as sexual immoralities. False freedom principles likewise include the spread of communistic doctrine and protest by force.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 19
“Loyalty produces power and effectiveness. An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 20
“What does loyalty to God and church imply? Simply stated, it would seem to be doing God’s will without reservations.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 20
“Loyalty produces power and effectiveness. An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. What does loyalty to God and church imply? Simply stated, it would seem to be doing God’s will without reservations.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 20
“An interesting experience is told of Brother J. Golden Kimball in speaking to a meeting of Saints on the subject of tithing. He said, ‘All of you who would be willing to die for the gospel please put up your hands.’ Nearly every hand in the congregation was raised. Then he said, ‘All of you who have been paying an honest tithing please raise your hands.’ It seems that only a few hands were raised. Brother Kimball turned to the bishop and said, ‘See, they would rather die than pay their tithing.’ Tithing, of course, is only one of God’s commandments that tests our loyalty.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 20
“Always remember that what we do, far more than what we say, shows where our loyalties are.”
Franklin D. Richards
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 20
“Out of our homes come the future leaders of the government. If our homes were all they should be, the nation would be safe.”
David O. McKay as quoted by Elder Loren C. Dunn
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 22
“Homes are made permanent through love. Oh, then, let love abound. If you feel that you have not the love of those little boys and girls, study to get it. Though you neglect some of the cattle, though you fail to produce good crops, ever study to hold your children’s love.”
David O. McKay as quoted by Elder Loren C. Dunn
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 22
“Love is the most divine attribute of the human soul, and if you accept the immortality of the soul, that is, if you believe that personality persists after death, then you must believe that love also lives.”
David O. McKay as quoted by Elder Henry D. Taylor
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 38
“How should we regard and interpret counsel in the Church? Is there a distinction between the law of the gospel and counsel? Does the counsel of the priesthood differ from that which emanated from secular fields? Do we have a responsibility in following the counsel of the brethren? President Stephen L Richards answers these questions in this manner: ‘… a moment’s reflection will convince you of the rather serious regard in which we hold counsel. While it is true that we characterize infractions of the law as sin and we do not apply quite that drastic a terminology to failure to follow counsel, yet in the Church, under the priesthood, counsel always is given for the primary purpose of having the law observed, so that it does occupy a place of standing and importance, almost comparable to that law of the gospel.’ (Address at Brigham Young University, February 26, 1957, p. 1.)”
James A. Cullimore
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 42
“As we believe, there is at the head of the Church today a living prophet, to whom the Lord reveals his mind and will for the guidance of the Church, and we sustain the Council of Twelve as prophets, seers, and revelators who are also divinely chosen and inspired to watch over the Church and keep it in order and to be special witnesses of Christ; when you sustain your stake president and bishop, your mission president and branch president as God’s divinely appointed representatives to preside over you in your respective area and then fail to obey their counsel, you deny yourself the blessings of the gospel and personal blessings and direction.”
James A. Cullimore
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 42
“The following of [prophetic] counsel can only bring eventual happiness. Disobedience to counsel can only accrue to our detriment. It often leads to fault-finding, lack of activity in the Church, breaking the commandments, and even loss of faith.”
James A. Cullimore
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 43
“I can think of no better counsel for us today than to follow the main channel of the stream, to keep from extremes to the right or the left, through obedience to the continual direction of the Lord for the guidance of the Church.”
James A. Cullimore
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 43
“These deceptive and shadowed objectives of well-propagandized programs are moving at a very rapid clip. The first to which I refer is sex education or family life education, which is placing emphasis on raw sex in the school classroom, creating widespread contention, causing deep concern among parents and leaders. The programmers of this type of sex education, aware of resistance, are fortified with worked-out methods to deal with parental and community opposition. This matter needs the serious concern of an aroused public to deny the use of such materials.”
President Alvin R. Dyer
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 54-55
“We must not be insensible to evil influences that are being thrust upon us by the perverted principles of sex education … We must unite our efforts, by organized parental councils with fathers taking part, through school boards, textbook committees, and proper legislation, to vigorously oppose such programming.”
President Alvin R. Dyer
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 57
“Humanity will rise or fall through its attitude toward the law of chastity. If the world will honor virtue, it can expect to receive God’s blessings; but if it persists in the practice of sodomy, adultery, and other perversions, it can expect only destruction, for the wage of sin is death.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 62
“I would like to say, with all the emphasis at my command, that the proper teaching of sex requires also the teaching of complete chastity, whether that instruction is given in the home, the school, or the church. To do otherwise is nothing less than suicidal.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 63
“The whole point of sex education will be missed unless we teach chastity as a major part of it.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 63
“God made sex, but not for entertainment. It was provided for a divinely appointed act of creation in which we, to this extent, become co-creators with him. If we fail to teach this, we defeat the whole purpose of sex education. When schools are prevented from teaching anything of a spiritual nature, they are thereby disqualified from teaching sex at all, for in its very nature, sex is spiritual and inseparably connected with the creative work of God.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 63-64
“Sex education belongs in the home, where parents can teach chastity in a spiritual environment as they reveal the facts of life to their children. There, in all plainness, the youngsters can be taught that procreation is part of the creative work of God and that, therefore, the act of replenishing the earth must be kept on the high plane of personal purity that God provides, free from all forms of perversion. “
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 64
“Unskilled parents can learn to teach their children properly. In fact, God commands it, and who are we to disobey? Why do some attempt to supersede the parents instead of teaching them how to fulfill their responsibility?”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 64
“This nation was built upon a foundation of morality and spirituality. It is just possible that a rejection of these basic factors may bring about its fall. It was so with Greece and Rome. It can happen to us unless we repent.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 65
“Every right-thinking person should be willing even to die if necessary in defense of virtue, whether that death be physical or social.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 65
“This generation may rationalize itself into complete intoxication with sin and proclaim to high heaven that it is old-fashioned to be clean, but it will yet wake up to the stern reality that God does not change and that the moral laws are his and not man’s to shift with every whim.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 65
“No amount of rationalizing can change God’s laws. No amount of fashion designing can turn immodesty into virtue, and no amount of popularity can change sin into righteousness.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 65
“Children in their innocence have a right to be protected from exploitation and from evil influence.”
Richard L. Evans
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 74
“As a people, as parents, as citizens of a great, beloved land, we ought to be committed to the principle of not making evil profitable. The more profitable it is, the more evil will be offered.”
Richard L. Evans
CR, Apr. 1969 P. 74
“One does not need to look at the stars with mathematical mind to become a son of God and to participate in these great creations; he needs to be kind to his neighbor. He does not need to visit the moon; he needs to tell the truth, be honest, and be honorable. He does not need to fly to Venus in a spacecraft; he needs to visit the widow and orphan in their affliction (as James pointed out). He does not need to count the rings of Saturn; he needs to honor his father and his mother, render them obedience in his youth, and respect and succor in their old age. He does not need to plumb the milky way; he needs to support the organized Church and its priesthood. He does not need to analyze an island universe; he needs to love the Lord his God with all his might, mind, and strength, and seek to learn his ways. In a word, he needs to repent of his sins, his evil acts, and live as a son of God would live, putting first in his life the first and second commandments, which have to do with loving one’s fellows, and especially the Lord.”
Elder S. Dilworth Young
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 78
“I know a host of others that time will not permit us to discuss, wonderful people of the kingdom who ventured too close to the edge, all the time saying to themselves, “I know what I am doing. I can turn back the second I choose.” Then all of a sudden it happens. The riptide loosens the last foothold, the quicksand starts to sink, the thin ice suddenly cracks, the precipice abruptly gives way. There are physical laws that govern the riptide, the cracking ice, the unstable ground; and there are moral and spiritual laws that are just as real, whose safe boundary is just as clearly defined, but as we take one fatal step, just one step too far, the laws of the universe take over — the consequence is inevitable.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 78
“It is the right and obligation of every citizen, and therefore every member of the Church, to be alert and to be informed about social, educational, communistic, and other political influences that would tend to undermine our free society. But it would defeat its own purposes if it were done in a manner that would tend toward division in our own membership.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 96
“It must never be forgotten that converts to the Church come from all nations, representing diverse views on controversial issues. Ours must be the responsibility to teach our members from all nations the true doctrines of Christ with such power that they be fortified against all false ideas, regardless of the label under which they may be presented.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 96
**NOTE It was after this talk/quote that the Church started to pivot away from talking directly against communism and socialism and started talking more about the evils of the principles behind them instead, so that ‘regardless of the label‘ we would be able to detect and reject evil.
“Satan is still determined to have his way, and his emissaries have power given them today as they have not had throughout the centuries. Be prepared to meet conditions that may be severe, ideological conditions that may seem reasonable but are evil. In order to meet these forces, we must depend upon the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, to which you are entitled. They are real.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 97
“God is guiding this church. Be true to it; be loyal to it. Be true to your families, loyal to them. Protect your children. Guide them, not arbitrarily, but through the kind example of a father, and so contribute to the strength of the Church by exercising your priesthood in your home and in your lives.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 97
“If our children are to be sufficiently strengthened to stand against this satanic onslaught, they must be taught and trained in the home, as the Lord has directed.”
Marion G. Romney
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 110
“The failure of parents to teach their children affects not only them and their children but whole civilizations.”
Marion G. Romney
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 108
“At the bar the Judge will not look us over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. Let us resolve that there will be no stains. Let every young man who holds the priesthood stand himself up against the wall and look himself over and ask himself to reply honestly, “What kind of a man are you really? You make a pretty good showing at times, but what is in your heart?” Talk to yourself along that line, brethren, and then put your lives in order.”
President Hugh B. Brown
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 113
“There is not a principle that is taught by the Savior of men that is not also applicable to the growth, development, and happiness of mankind. Every one of his teachings touches the true philosophy of living.”
David O. McKay
CR, Apr. 1969, pp. 152
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