Are Children More Likely to Flourish in an Intact, Two-Parent Household?

             Families, communities, and nations are stronger when children grow up in a household with both biological parents. This statement is supported by social scientists who summarized the social science consensus. Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur are sociology professors at Princeton University, and they wrote the following in their book titled Growing Up with A Single Parent [1992].

Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parents’ race or educational background.

            Other social scientists came to similar conclusions, such as Paul Amato (Penn State), Isabel Sawhill (Brookings Institution), and Melanie Wasserman (UCLA). In a brief authored by social scientists Brad Wilcox, Wendy Wang, and Ian Rowe, the authors discussed this consensus as well as a challenge to it. 

The consensus view has been that children are more likely to flourish in an intact, two-parent family, compared to children in single-parent or stepfamilies. But this consensus view is now being challenged by a new generation of scholarship and scholars. For instance, sociologist Christina Cross at Harvard University recently published an op-ed in The New York Times entitled, “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” that contended “living apart from a biological parent does not carry the same cost for black youths as for their white peers.” In The Times and in another op-ed this month in The Harvard Gazette, she draws on her work indicating that black children are less affected by family structure on a number of educational outcomes to make the argument that family structure is less consequential for black children. In recent years, other family scholars … have also called into question the idea that children do better in stable two-parent families.

One practical implication of this revisionist line of research is that children may not benefit from having their father in the household. Another implication is that the value of the two-parent family may be markedly different across racial lines, with black children less likely to benefit from such a family.

The Institute for Families Studies investigated two questions: (1) “Are black children more likely to flourish in an intact, two-parent home compared to black children raised by single-parents or in stepfamilies?” (2) “Is the association between family structure and child outcomes markedly different by race?”

To answer the first question, the researchers focused on two-parent homes, single-parent home, and stepfamily homes “because they are the largest family groups for American children today, including African American children. They looked at three important outcomes to answer the question: child poverty, college graduation, and incarceration.

To answer the second question, the researchers’ focus was “on comparing white and black children in intact, two-parent families to their peers in non-intact families – single-parent families, stepfamilies, and other families.” Their aim was “to determine if the association is different for black children compared to white children on the three outcomes noted above.”

The article gave charts, numbers, and explanations to answer their questions. The following is their conclusion.

Using new Census data and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this brief finds that black and white children from intact homes are significantly more likely to be flourishing economically, educationally, and socially on the three outcomes examined here: child poverty, education, and incarceration.

At the same time, consistent with Cross’ research, we do find that the association between family structure and one major education outcome, college graduation, is weaker for black children than white children. Nevertheless, young black adults are significantly more likely to graduate from college if they grew up in an intact family.

Our results also indicate that a stable, two-parent family is no panacea for African-American children. Black children in stable, two-parent families are more likely to experience poverty and incarceration, and less likely to graduate from college, compared to their white peers from stable, two-parent families. Racial inequality casts a shadow even on black children in intact families.

To be clear, this descriptive brief does not make claims about causality. A number of factors not measured in this brief may confound the associations between family structure and child outcomes documented here. Young adults’ family structure growing up is obviously endogenous to their family income, for instance, given that married parents tend to have a higher income than single parents. Here, progressives tend to minimize the ways that family income is a consequence of family structure (two parents can more easily earn a decent income than one parent) even as conservatives tend to minimize the ways that a stable marriage is a consequence of a decent income (relationships are stronger when they are undergirded by a steady income.)

What we can conclude is, consistent with a longstanding social scientific consensus about family structure, children are significantly more likely to avoid poverty and prison, and to graduate from college, if they are raised in an intact two-parent family. This association remains true for both black and white children. In the vast majority of cases, these homes are headed by their own married mother and father.

In sum, it is no “myth” to point out that boys and girls are more likely to flourish today in America if they are raised in a stable, two-parent home. It is simply the truth that white and black children usually do better when raised by their own mother and father, compared to single-parent and stepfamilies. Our results, then, also suggest the fraying fabric of American family life, where more kids grow up a part from one of their two parents – usually their own father – is an “equal opportunity tsunami,” posing obstacles to the healthy development of children from all backgrounds.

            It makes sense that children do better when they live in a household with their two biological parents. Mothers and fathers serve different roles in a child’s life, and both roles are important for a child to thrive. The authors of this study have shown that families, communities, and nations are stronger when children are reared in a household with both biological parents.

Is Faith in Jesus Christ Strong Enough to Lead People Out of Homosexuality?

             The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the concept of questioning of sexuality and displacing those questions. There are people who seek to leave the homosexual lifestyle or struggle with same-sex attraction. One of those people is Elizabeth Woning, who discussed her story with Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal. 

            Woning said that she began questioning her sexuality at age 16 and was “stereotypically butch” by her 30s. However, she had an experience at a church that caused her to question what lesbianism meant to her.

I recognized that it gave meaning and purpose to my life…. And so, before the Lord, I began analyzing what that meant and why it was so challenging for me, such a letdown, to be just a woman.

            Trying to understand “the character of God and where I fit in that,” she questioned her lesbianism. “And the Lord was able to displace my sense of belonging as a lesbian with my sense of belonging as a daughter of God.”

            Woning made a change in her life and began working with “people who are seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle or who are struggling with same-sex attraction.” She is the co-founder of a Christian organization, the Changed Movement. She shared her experience of “walking through homosexuality” and coming out.

            As a Christian lesbian with no plans to leave homosexuality, she attended a youth meeting where a 17-year-old boy approached her and said, “I think the Lord is speaking to you.”

I’d never heard of anything like that. And so, I remember thinking in that moment, “I don’t know what this is, but I need to hear.” And so, he proceeded to tell me something that I had been praying about for years.

And that caused me to question whether I believed God knew me, specifically. So, here, I had gone all this way, which seemed to me, great sacrifices for my faith. And I found myself in the position where I was actually questioning what I knew of God. And that caused me to think, “I need to know.”

So, I did the thing that I most relied on. I picked up a new Bible, and I began highlighting in the Bible every place where God describes himself. And it was really that journey over about 18 months of rereading the Bible, looking at the character of God, and then interacting with people who claim that they experienced the love of God and that they could directly interact with that.

It was this experiential Christianity that I had never been a part of before. I’d been a part of a strongly intellectualized, academic Christianity, strongly weighted on the social justice end, but never been exposed to this personal witness.

And that set me on the journey that caused me to begin looking at Scripture and realizing, “OK. I identify as a lesbian, and I’m a woman.” Clearly in Scripture, that isn’t represented. We can go a lot of places in gay theology looking at men, but there aren’t too many places you can go with gay theology looking at women. And I began questioning what lesbianism was to me. And I recognized that it gave meaning and purpose to my life. It gave personal power and authority to my life. It really gave me my voice.

And that caused a bit of an existential crisis for me in the context of my faith. And so, before the Lord, I began analyzing what that meant and why it was so challenging for me, such a letdown to be just a woman.

And analyzing that and prayerfully walking through that with the Lord, learning the Lord’s language for my life, revisiting Scripture, understanding the character of God and where I fit in that.

And the Lord was able to displace my sense of belonging as a lesbian with my sense of belonging as a daughter of God.

And it was that kind of threshold, that crossover moment that really pulled me out of the gay community. That wasn’t a quick journey. Once I started moving in that direction, I began questioning what I had believed and everything that I had believed.

At first, I was in a panic, because I thought, “I have been teaching and preaching and promoting heresy.” That was my first thought. And so, in that panic of fearful, really, before the Lord, I did some hard separation from the gay community and from my community where I had been before.

            Woning said that she “burned a lot of bridges” in separating from the gay community. She began to see that “there was much more” to her life and “so much more to the story.” She spent 15 years analyzing her childhood in the context of her faith, and she began “to understand how lesbianism really entered into [her] life.” She analyzed the roots of her sexual attraction, why she came to believe in lesbianism, and why she needed it.

Then Woning married a man, and they have been married for almost 17 years. She is also a pastor at a large church in Northern California and co-leader in the Changed Movement as well as Equipped to Love. She leads a dialogue about the LGBTQ experience in the context of faith. She also makes a “safe space for people who experienced same-sex attraction or gender confusion to follow their faith.” She said, “that space is getting narrower and narrower.”

There is much more to Woning’s interesting story, including a journey into politics to oppose legislation in California. You can find the entire story at this link. 

Why Are Biden’s Open Border Policies Unfair to All?

            The open-border policies are obviously unfair to Americans. Hordes of people are crossing the border with possibly 2 million arriving before the end of 2021. Americans must have identification to fly on the airlines, while illegal aliens fly from the border to other cities and states without any documentation. Illegal immigrants are treated better in numerous ways than American citizens.

            Another group of people are being treated unfairly. This group comprises the people who come to America legally. They wait in line for years and pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of immigrating to America. Brigitta Borinstein described their immigration as being “painstaking and purposeful journey toward legally earned citizenship.” Yet, illegal immigrants are allowed to walk across the border without meeting any requirements. 

            Still another group of people are being cheated by illegal immigration. This is the illegal immigrants themselves. By entering the nation illegally, they do not have the opportunity to feel “the most deeply ingrained sentiments of gratitude and patriotism.”

            Borinstein wrote of the experience of her mother, Dominique, who immigrated from Belgium at age 9. She was not allowed to bring much when she left her home in Belgium. She left behind her Lego collection, her beloved grandmother, and friends. She did carry on the trip her red patent leather Barbie doll case. Borinstein wrote:

Dominque attended the local elementary school, where she learned her first words of English by listening to her classmates. Her green card hung dutifully around her neck, even at the risk of her classmates calling her an “alien.”

“I got that taste of freedom right away,” she said.

She was in awe of the playgrounds and remembers feeling surprised that students could wear any color of clothing to school instead of the plain gray frocks she and her classmates wore at her public school in Belgium.

She spent almost every day after school with the family’s neighbor, Bill, so both of her parents could work. They worked not just to make ends meet, but to establish themselves within the American system.

When Dominique finally reached an important milestone – applying for citizenship – she did not hesitate to renounce her Belgian citizenship and become fully American.

Although my mother was born elsewhere and learned English as her fourth language, she said the United States gave her limitless opportunities and the freedom to pursue them. Because she believed in American values, she was welcomed into American culture irrespective of her foreign roots.

            When Borinstein asked Dominique about the current crisis at the southern border, her mother explained why the illegal immigration is a slap in the faces of those who come legally and hurtful to the illegal immigrants themselves.

It’s like a violation has happened because we were doing the right thing and working so hard to pay all this money. And now we’re just opening the door and letting people in who are getting all the same benefits.

Yes, we are a country made mostly of immigrants. But they came in a certain way and for a certain purpose. What is happening right now is undermining truly the pureness of what America stands for. If there is ever an unfairness, that’s it.

            Dominque is now 58, and she is still proud to be a citizen of the United States. “Illegal immigrants simply are robbed of the ability to be proud of coming to this country, working hard and earning their American citizenship.” Illegal immigrants must remain “in the shadows” of the nation and never fully reap the many blessings that America can offer. This is why the policies of the Biden administration are unfair to illegal immigrants.

            Dominque is only one person among millions who have followed the rules and entered America legally. Her perspective is different from those Americans who were born in the United States and have known freedom all their lives. Her outsider’s perspective is an important one to remember. Her experience reminds us that “the world views America as a place of endless opportunity” and “the American beacon of hope still outshines other countries around the globe.”

                       

What Will Quotas Based on Race and Gender Do to America?

             America is now “woke.” President Joe Biden declared that America’s long tradition of equality was not good enough for the new America. Then he signed executive orders that would expand racial equity “across the Federal Government.

            Equality means that everyone is given the same opportunities to be successful. Equity means that success is guaranteed to everyone. There is a big difference. People are usually more successful because they work harder or work smarter. However, this standard has been replaced with success guaranteed to everyone – no matter their intelligence, their work ethic, or their capabilities.

            Schools, corporations, and governments have declared that they will make decisions based on quotas for race and gender. Who are some of the schools and corporations making such drastic promises? Richard Bernstein named names and described some of the problems. 

Over the last few months, many Ivy League and flagship state universities have moved away from a seemingly neutral measure long used to assess applicants – standardized test scores – to give minorities a better shot at admissions.

In May, Hewlett-Packard, the technology company with 50,000 employees worldwide, decreed that by 2030 half of its leadership positions and more than 30% of its technicians and engineers have to be women and that the number of minorities should “meet or exceed” their representation in the tech industry workforce.

That same month, United Airlines announced that half of the 5,000 pilots it would train at its proprietary flight school between now and 2030 will be women or people of color, with scholarships provided by United and JPMorgan Chase helping with tuition.

There was nothing in the United announcement showing that there were enough qualified blacks and women in the pipeline so that a black/female quota of 2,500 new pilots could be filled, and nothing about what the company would do if there weren’t enough qualified candidates.

Delta Air Lines, Ralph Lauren, and Wells Fargo are among other major American companies to announce hiring quotas recently as a way to redress imbalances, according to Bloomberg News.

These are just some of the many “woke” initiatives embraced by many of the pillars of American society in the year since social justice protests erupted across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

            Bernstein explained that some people believe that “racial preferences and quotas are necessary to end deeply entrenched disparities.” At the same time, other people believe that it is simply “a new form of discrimination.” He continued by reminding his readers that “the stated goal of affirmative action was to simply eliminate unfair discrimination.” However, the equity movement is based on the idea that America is “irredeemably white supremacist, a view meant to continually challenge American institutions and values.”

            Bernstein noted that “one of the basic post-civil rights principles of American life” is that “the same standards should be applied to all people. Transitioning from “equality of treatment to equality of outcomes” does away with this basic principle.

Once a measure is applied, not to the unique individual but to that individual’s group identity, the idea that there are neutral, common, universally applicable standards gives way to something else, something subjective and political, with different measures applied to different people, depending on their sex, race, or other characteristics.

The issue of standards, moreover, is not just a matter of values or fairness. With the United States falling behind other countries in math and science, most notably China, standards are matters of competitiveness and national security – even as the military, CIA, and other federal agencies embrace equity.

            The movement to reject meritocracy and old standards will weaken our nation in many ways. This is not just a call to open the field and identify qualified candidates. This is a call to “reject and redefine those standards” that prepare the most qualified and capable doctors, engineers, pilots, etc.

            When I enter an airplane, I do not care one little bit about the sex or color of the pilot of that airplane. I want a pilot who knows how to fly the airplane and has the skills to safely take me to my destination. When I need surgery, I do not look at the sex or race of the surgeon. I want a surgeon who is qualified to do the surgery.

When my car needs to be fixed, I take it to a black mechanic because he has proven to be a good mechanic. When I want good barbeque, I go to a black-owned business because I like their product. When my daughter-in-law needed brain surgery, she trusted her health and life to a highly recommended doctor of color – maybe from India.

Our nation is in for a world of hurt if/when we do away with the old standard of equality of opportunity and bring in a new standard of equity of outcome. We will be dumbing down our schools, universities, corporations, and military. We should always strive for the best qualified person and stop judging qualifications on sex and race.

I believe that there are highly qualified people of both sexes and all races who should be encouraged to strive for the best. I also believe that there are people of both sexes and all races who do not have the capabilities to be top heart or brain surgeons, airline pilots, and CEOs of corporations. The same opportunities should be available to everyone. However, equity of outcome will not work.

Who Is Yeonmi Park?

             My VIP for this week is Yeonmi Park, a defector from North Korea. Park was only 13 years old when she and her family fled North Korea in 2007. They went to China and South Korea before she enrolled at Columbia University in New York in 2016. Now 27-years old, Park is talking about the lack of freedom that she found in America. “I literally crossed the Gobi Desert to be free and I realized I’m not free, America’s not free.” 

            Park was shocked when she realized the amount of anti-Western sentiment in the classroom as well as the focus on political correctness. Her immediate thought was “even North Korea isn’t this nuts.”

I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think…. I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Kore that I started worrying.

            In an interview with the New York Post, Park admitted that she was surprised that she was asked to do “this much censoring of myself” at a university in the United States. Students at Columbia were so sensitive that professors gave “trigger warnings” – sharing the possibly offensive words from the readings in advance – to help students decide if it was safe for them to do the reading or even be in class during the discussions about it.

Going to Columbia, the first thing I learned was “safe space.” Every problem, they explained [to] us, is because of white men.

            The discussions about white privilege reminded her of the caste system in North Korea, which categorized people according to their ancestors. A teacher discussing Western Civilization asked if the students were sensitive to the topic, and most of the students raised their hands. Some were offended by the “colonial” slant in the discussion. Even though Park speaks at least three languages, the idea of preferred pronouns caused her to panic. Park was even chided for her enjoyment of the writings of Jane Austen.

I said, “I love those books.” I thought it was a good thing. Then she said, “Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you.

            Park thought that “North Koreans were the only people who hated Americans, but turns out there are a lot of people hating this country in this country.” She likens cancel culture and shouting down opposing voices to self-censorship. In 2015, Park wrote a book about her life in North Korea and her escape from her native country – In Order to Live. She said that Americans are giving up their rights without realizing that they may never get them back. “Voluntarily, these people are censoring each other, silencing each other, no force behind it.”

Other times (in history) there’s a military coup d’etat, like a force comes in taking your rights away and silencing you. But this country is choosing to be silenced, choosing to give their rights away….

This [is] completely nuts, this is unbelievable. I don’t know why people are collectively going crazy like this or together at the same time.

            Park has a difficult time understanding how people can give up their rights when they have so much information available to them. It is different in North Korea because the people do not have access to the internet and limited exposure to the world. “In some ways they (in the US) are brainwashed. Even though there’s evidence so clearly in front of their eyes they can’t see it.”

What Happens If the Wrong Family Is Living in the White House?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is a question: What happens if the wrong person was inaugurated as the President of the United States on January 20, 2021? The question about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election continues to grow louder and stronger, and the reasons to doubt the results strengthen.

            As I have said before, there were strange doings across the nation on Election Night 2020. Election fraud is nothing new and most likely takes place in every election. However, the amount of documented fraud that took place in 2020 surpasses that of any other year.

            Jeff Lukens posted an article that collected the evidence of fraud from several different directions. He mentioned the full forensic audit taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona, which is nearing completion. Democrats are panicky about the audit and have tried several different ways to stop it. The latest attempt to stop it was made by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland who addressed the right to vote last Friday. 

Garland called voting “a fundamental element to our democracy” while testifying before Congress. “We know that expanding the ability of all eligible citizens to vote is the central pillar.” He claimed that it is the “duty” of his agency to protect the voting rights of all Americans. He said that the Department of Justice will continue to “protect the democracy to which all Americans are entitled.”

So far this year at least 14 states have passed new laws that make it harder to vote…. Some jurisdictions, based on disinformation, have utilized abnormal post-election audit methodologies that may put the integrity of the voting process at risk and undermine public confidence in our democracy.

            It sounds like Garland will attempt to shut down all audits, but he may have a difficult time with the one in Arizona. The Arizona Senate already went to court about the audit several times and are operating under the approval of the court.

            Lukens next mentioned a report published by Peter Navarro that claims to have evidence of “widespread fraud, ballot-stuffing, and other election irregularities” in the presidential election. The apparent goal of liberals and progressives was to flood the election with illegal votes. Molly Ball confirmed the strategy in her TIME Magazine article. 

Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.”

In a way, Trump was right.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain – inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests – in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election – an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and cross ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.

            The above statements are almost ludicrous, and the “loosely organized coalition of operatives” working in the shadows of the campaign sound a whole lot like secret combinations. Ball’s words sound like she is fulfilling scripture where she calls black white, and white black, evil good and good evil. Her article continues by explaining how the secretive work was accomplished.

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears….

            What the secretive correlation accomplished is shown is the following chart published by Peter Navarro. The small print says that the checkmarks indicate “Wide-Spread Evidence,” while the asterisks indicate “Some Evidence.”

 

 

Lukens’s article continued by stating some facts. (1) “Trump received millions more votes in 2020 than in 2016, and Republicans swept most congressional and down-ballot offices.”

(2) “Trump won bellwether Ohio, which no winning president has failed to carry in that state's history, by a more considerable margin than he did in 2016.  Pennsylvania was trending the same on Election Night until they mysteriously stopped counting votes late in the evening.” (3) Republican poll watchers were denied access in several cities, including Philadelphia. (4) “Similar fraudulent actions occurred in Maricopa County, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Detroit, and Milwaukee.”

            Lukens then addressed the cyber-fraud, which is being exposed by Mike Lindell, the owner of MyPillow. Numerous stores have refused to sell his products, and he was forced to create a new social media site that Big Tech cannot de-platform. However, he continues his quest to expose election fraud. Lukens wrote:

Lindell estimates that close to 3,000 cyber-attacks occurred from around the world on Nov. 3-4. He has identified 20 attacks alone where Trump votes were flipped for Biden votes and were enough to change the election outcome. Notice the timestamp, source, and target I.P. address, and the number of Trump votes flipped to Biden. This evidence demonstrates irrefutable foreign interference in our election. The evidence is hard proof that cannot be changed or altered or explained away.

            There are some court cases that have been filed. At least one was filed by Lindell, which he claims that he will win with a 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court. The information compiled by Lindell, which I am assuming is factual, is actually scary. Lindell claimed that these are only 20 of the known attacks, and there are many additional ones.      

            Lukens concluded, “Both Navarro’s ground fraud and Lindell’s cyber-fraud were enough to swing the election independently. Together, there is overwhelming evidence that the election was stolen.” Be sure to check Lukens’ article because the charts may not be allowed on my blog. 

 

Where Is Zion, and When Will Jesus Christ Return?

             My Come, Follow Me lesson took me to Doctrine and Covenants 63 this week. When the Prophet Joseph Smith and other Church leaders returned to Ohio from Missouri on August 27, 1831, they told the waiting Church members that the Lord had identified Jackson County, Missouri, as the location for the city of Zion.

The revelation contained in Doctrine and Covenants 63 was given through the Prophet Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio, on August 30, 1831. When Joseph returned to Kirtland from his visit to Missouri, he discovered that dissension and apostasy had entered the Church in his absence. This was the setting for the revelation now contained in Doctrine and Covenants 63.

The section heading quotes from Joseph Smith’s history this description of this revelation:

In these infant days of the Church, there was a great anxiety to obtain the word of the Lord upon every subject that in any way concerned our salvation; and as the land of Zion was now the most important temporal object in view, I enquired of the Lord for further information upon the gathering of the Saint, and the purchase of the land, and other matters (in Manuscript History of the Church, vol. A-1, page 146, josephsmithpapers.org).

            The Prophet received an answer to his inquiry on August 30. He recorded the information, and it later became Doctrine and Covenants 63. The “other matters” that the Prophet took to the Lord may have been concern for several members of the Church who had committed serious sins and fallen away while he was in Missouri.

            The site for the city of Zion had been selected, and it had been dedicated as a place of gathering for the Saints when Church leaders visited Missouri. However, members of the Church of Jesus Christ had mixed views on Zion. Many of the Saints were eager to start gathering in Missouri, while others – such as Ezra Booth – were disappointed with the land of Zion.

            The Lord addressed the purchase of lands in Missouri and gave counsel of how to move the Saints to Zion. However, He also gave this timely reminder: “I, the Lord, utter my voice, and it shall be obeyed” (verse 5). His voice, His will, His command all “[come] from above,” and they should be treated as sacred information. In fact, the Lord said that it “is sacred, and must be spoken with care” (verse 64). The revelation declared that only those who were faithful followers of Jesus Christ were to go and help establish Zion in Missouri.

            The revelation contains information on many topics, and one of those topics is the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said in verse 53 that the events of the Second Coming are “nigh at hand.” While no one but Heavenly Father knows the hour of the Second Coming, the Lord gave valuable information to help us prepare when He taught the parable of the foolish and wise virgins (see Matthew 25:1-13).

            If the Second Coming was “nigh at hand” in 1831, it is much closer now. We should view it as imminent and prepare according. The Lord clarified in Doctrine and Covenants 63 what He meant in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. This clarification is found in verse 54: “until that hour there will be foolish virgins among the wise.”

Even among the Latter-day Saints, there will be those who will be found wicked and who will be separated and cast out from among the righteous, as in the parable of the wheat and tares (see Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). This is the reason why the Lord commanded the Saints to repent of their sins and to prepare for His coming. Then-Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained this need for Church members to repent.

While we are powerless to alter the fact of the Second Coming and unable to know its exact time, we can accelerate our own preparation and try to influence the preparation of those around us.

A parable that contains an important and challenging teaching on this subject is the parable of the ten virgins. Of this parable, the Lord said, “And at that day, when I shall come in my glory, shall the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:56).

Given in the 25 chapter of Matthew, this parable contrasts the circumstances of the five foolish and the five wise virgins. All ten were invited to the wedding feast, but only half of them were prepared with oil in their lamps when the bridegroom came. The five who were prepared went into the marriage feast, and the door was shut. The five who had delayed their preparations came later. The door had been closed, and the Lord denied them entrance, saying, “I know you not” (v. 12). “Watch therefore,” the Savior concluded, “for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (v. 13).

The arithmetic of this parable is chilling. The ten virgins obviously represent members of Christ’s Church, for all were invited to the wedding feast and all knew what was required to be admitted when the bridegroom came. But only half were ready when he came” (“Preparation for the Second Coming,” Ensign, May 2004, 8).

            We do not know when the Savior will come, but we have been commanded to prepare for His Second Coming. We can prepare for that sacred experience by bringing to pass Zion in our individual lives, in our homes, and in our communities. Anyone who is capable of living in a Zion-like atmosphere will be prepared to meet the Savior.