LDS Freedom Forum

I've never been to Salt Lake City, would like to one day, nearly got there in 2012 but I have never been there and seen what it's like. Heber C Kimball made a statement about Salt Lake city and in part says,

"Our sons and daughters must live pure lives so as to be prepared for what is coming.

After a while the gentiles will gather by the thousands to this place, and Salt Lake City will be classed among the wicked cities of the world. A spirit of speculation and extravagance will take possession of the saints, and the result will be financial bondage.
Persecution will come next and all true latter day saints will be tested to the limit. Many will apostatize and others will be still not knowing what to do.....

Before that day comes, however, the Saints will be put to tests that will try the integrity of the best of them. The pressure will become so great that the more righteous among them will cry unto the Lord day and night until deliverance comes".

(Deseret news, Church Department, p3, May 23 1931)

I don't personally class Salt Lake as amongst the most wicked cities of the world but I don't live anywhere near there. Do you feel this is a current description of Salt lake City and some of the saints or does this refer to a time yet to come?

I think the spirit of speculation and extravagance has come to pass.

I moved to SLC in 1970 after growing up in the South. I was appalled by the crude language I heard in the hallways in the high school I attended in the Holliday area, (pretty upscale neighborhoods), and teen pregnancy was as bad, or worse, than the large school I transferred from in the Bible Belt.

I've also visited many times since moving away 10 years later, and I've seen it deteriorate over time. It's most definitely as much Babylon as any other American city. I think it negatively affects me more, because it should be striving to be so much better.

The use of the term "wicked" is quite appropriate. People who do not know the truth cannot be considered wicked because they never really had the truth to start with. And, since Salt Lake City is where the Saints were driven this is where the epicenter of wickedness will be because it is where there are many people who do know the truth reside. The word wicked comes from the process of making a wick for a candle. They take the fibers and twist them. What this means then, by implications, is that there will be a great extent of the truths of the Gospel being twisted.

Poor language and poor morals are not really wickedness, they are symptoms of wickedness.

The wickedness is, for example, refusing to build up and live according to the Lord's economic system whereby we consecrate our surplus into a common fund so that there is liquidity available to those in need who can draw upon the collective inheritances of the Saints by getting a usury-free loan from the bishop. Instead, we keep our inheritance to our own management and keep it all directed to our own personal aggrandizement. We control our own net-worth and the church no longer has the responsibility to administer our collective inheritances. The unfortunate result of this is the poor and needy remain poor and needy.

It's better than Detroit.

Is Detroit still a city?

Salt Lake City is a wonderful place. I don't think it will ever be wicked. The wickedness production came in a time when fear and lies were used to control people. Like dogs they were beaten into submission by power and money hungry people. Don't follow the heard because they may all go run off a cliff. Think for yourself.

Thomas wrote:I think the spirit of speculation and extravagance has come to pass.

Sadly, my own sister is living proof of this - a few years after she was married, she decided she was entitled to live like a Queen at any expense and so she got herself involved in home speculation and somehow got a loan for a condo in St. George on she and her husband's meager incomes. About a year later after moving down there, she sold their condo for a $60,000 profit (as the housing industry was taking off thanks to the insane conditions in the market that ultimately led to its meltdown in 2007) and they moved back to Utah County where she squandered every penny of that $60,000 buying toys and wants for her husband. She then bought a second home and tried to flip it for a profit, but ended up losing $30,000. All this was going on as she was using troubled teenage foster youth to pay her own mortgage. She then got into a home out in the Ranches (for those who live in Utah/Salt Lake County) and was paying $1,200/mo. until one day when she decided it was time to upsize into a former $500,000 home that had decreased in value to $300,000 in the housing bust.

Her mortgage went from $1,200 to $1,600 and she used every penny in equity from the other house to get into this one. To this day, she still uses troubled teenage foster boys to pay her mortgage as they sleep on a mattress in her basement with none of the money she gets going to them and as of last year was $50,000 underwater now with no hope of getting out of her financial obligations. All of this on her $11/hr. and her husband's $15/hr. It's pretty sad when someone can use troubled teenage foster boys to pay mortgages, build wealth and speculate. And she just bought her 'husband' a $25,000 boat and not only does he not contribute anything to helping her with the family, he has no education and no real career. I've never seen anything like it.

Obrien wrote:Is Detroit still a city?

It's city-ish.

kind of like Mogadishu, without a sea port, IIRC...

FSM wrote:Salt Lake City is a wonderful place. I don't think it will ever be wicked. The wickedness production came in a time when fear and lies were used to control people. Like dogs they were beaten into submission by power and money hungry people. Don't follow the heard because they may all go run off a cliff. Think for yourself.

I live here in SLC and I have to say that you may just be unknowing of a lot of the problems that exist and are rampant in LDS communities. Backbiters, gossipers, judgmental, dissenters, fornicators, liars, adulterers, crooks, thieves (stuff has been stolen from temple locker rooms so many times), prominent pornography usage, drug use and abuse, speaking evils and criticisms against the Lord's anointed servants, and the list goes on.

I'm not a sinless person myself and pray for forgiveness often for my weaknesses, I'm just pointing out that these are existing problems that are not "few and far between" among those calling themselves latter-day saints. It's certainly not a majority issue, but there's quite a bit of it.

Let's call a spade a spade. "Wo unto those that say all is well in Zion"


Then let's point out that gay marriage is legal, there is a larger per capita self-identifying lgbt population here in SLC than any other city in the entire country.

The amount of liberal and damming socialist viewpoints and constructs creeping into the communities here is a poison. President Benson was extremely vocal against this stuff.

There are also many extremely kind, charitable, loving, humble people who you can tell are doing things right the best they can.


The extravagance and financial bondage comment is absolutely spot on, by the way. 100% true.

Thomas wrote:I think the spirit of speculation and extravagance has come to pass.

This may be the first and the last time I agree with you :ymparty:

I would say that as a whole the saints are in bed with Babylon. It's even more apparent when you live in Salt Lake City.

One bishop may allow a family to mooch a couple thousand a month for living expenses, while another bishop won't allow a single working mother a hundred bucks for a car repair. And oh the pride! West Valley City has weed police (compliance officers) that fine homeowners if they wait too long to mow their lawn. And don't plant a garden where the neighbors can see it. The area between the sidewalk and street has to be wood chips and not gravel. And there are specifications about the size of the rocks alongside your garage driveway where you park your boat and motorhome.

light-one wrote:One bishop may allow a family to mooch a couple thousand a month for living expenses, while another bishop won't allow a single working mother a hundred bucks for a car repair. And oh the pride! West Valley City has weed police (compliance officers) that fine homeowners if they wait too long to mow their lawn. And don't plant a garden where the neighbors can see it. The area between the sidewalk and street has to be wood chips and not gravel. And there are specifications about the size of the rocks alongside your garage driveway where you park your boat and motorhome.

Yes, cause Zion wouldn't be without boats and motorhomes :ymdevil:

light-one wrote:One bishop may allow a family to mooch a couple thousand a month for living expenses, while another bishop won't allow a single working mother a hundred bucks for a car repair. And oh the pride! West Valley City has weed police (compliance officers) that fine homeowners if they wait too long to mow their lawn. And don't plant a garden where the neighbors can see it. The area between the sidewalk and street has to be wood chips and not gravel. And there are specifications about the size of the rocks alongside your garage driveway where you park your boat and motorhome.

City ordinance has nothing to do with "wickedness" or pride.

Read up on the city of New Jerusalem, and how specific the Lord will be in instructing us how to build the city.

marktheshark wrote:I live here in SLC and I have to say that you may just be unknowing of a lot of the problems that exist and are rampant in LDS communities. Backbiters, gossipers, judgmental, dissenters, fornicators, liars, adulterers, crooks, thieves (stuff has been stolen from temple locker rooms so many times), prominent pornography usage, drug use and abuse, speaking evils and criticisms against the Lord's anointed servants, and the list goes on.

I'm not a sinless person myself and pray for forgiveness often for my weaknesses, I'm just pointing out that these are existing problems that are not "few and far between" among those calling themselves latter-day saints. It's certainly not a majority issue, but there's quite a bit of it.

Let's call a spade a spade. "Wo unto those that say all is well in Zion"


Then let's point out that gay marriage is legal, there is a larger per capita self-identifying lgbt population here in SLC than any other city in the entire country.

The amount of liberal and damming socialist viewpoints and constructs creeping into the communities here is a poison. President Benson was extremely vocal against this stuff.

There are also many extremely kind, charitable, loving, humble people who you can tell are doing things right the best they can.


The extravagance and financial bondage comment is absolutely spot on, by the way. 100% true.

marktheshark wrote:

City ordinance has nothing to do with "wickedness" or pride.

Read up on the city of New Jerusalem, and how specific the Lord will be in instructing us how to build the city.

Not too concerned about consistency, are we?

jbalm wrote:

marktheshark wrote:I live here in SLC and I have to say that you may just be unknowing of a lot of the problems that exist and are rampant in LDS communities. Backbiters, gossipers, judgmental, dissenters, fornicators, liars, adulterers, crooks, thieves (stuff has been stolen from temple locker rooms so many times), prominent pornography usage, drug use and abuse, speaking evils and criticisms against the Lord's anointed servants, and the list goes on.

I'm not a sinless person myself and pray for forgiveness often for my weaknesses, I'm just pointing out that these are existing problems that are not "few and far between" among those calling themselves latter-day saints. It's certainly not a majority issue, but there's quite a bit of it.

Let's call a spade a spade. "Wo unto those that say all is well in Zion"


Then let's point out that gay marriage is legal, there is a larger per capita self-identifying lgbt population here in SLC than any other city in the entire country.

The amount of liberal and damming socialist viewpoints and constructs creeping into the communities here is a poison. President Benson was extremely vocal against this stuff.

There are also many extremely kind, charitable, loving, humble people who you can tell are doing things right the best they can.


The extravagance and financial bondage comment is absolutely spot on, by the way. 100% true.

marktheshark wrote:

City ordinance has nothing to do with "wickedness" or pride.

Read up on the city of New Jerusalem, and how specific the Lord will be in instructing us how to build the city.

Not too concerned about consistency, are we?

Not too concerned about context, are we?

So, local laws are not wicked, but state laws are?

jbalm wrote:So, local laws are not wicked, but state laws are?

Strike 2.


Shall I put in on a tee for you?

marktheshark wrote:
City ordinance has nothing to do with "wickedness" or pride.

Read up on the city of New Jerusalem, and how specific the Lord will be in instructing us how to build the city.

The pride was my neighbor whose wife won West Valley City's most "Beautiful Yard"
The city would have not bothered me if my LDS neighbor did not report me as being non compliant because all of the cars lined up to look at his well manicured lawn and mine looked far less pretty because I was recovering from double hip replacement surgery and was less active in keeping the yard up. What he should have done is offered to help me instead of calling the weed police. It cost $1600 to have the gravel replaced with wood chips and the driveway's rocks exchanged for ones the right size. And it was a new neighborhood and many of the homes did not even have grass yet, but he had to be a weenie.

marktheshark wrote:

jbalm wrote:So, local laws are not wicked, but state laws are?

Strike 2.


Shall I put in on a tee for you?

Maybe the problem lies with you.

But yeah, humor me.

I always thought Clinton was the worst Utah city.

jbalm wrote:I always thought Clinton was the worst Utah city.

If only they had a replica of the Washington Monument.

jbalm wrote:

marktheshark wrote:

jbalm wrote:So, local laws are not wicked, but state laws are?

Strike 2.


Shall I put in on a tee for you?

Maybe the problem lies with you.

But yeah, humor me.

Or maybe it doesn't.


You are the one that wanted to fabricate an argument for the sake of arguing. I will humor you.

In the context of having someone's yard having to meet a certain standard in a neighborhood, there's nothing inherently wicked about that at all, so having a city ordinance being put in place in this situation isn't "wicked" by context. (Unintentional Chiasm)

In the context of talking about gay marriage, it absolutely is inherently wicked.

They are two different topics and contexts completely unrelated to each other.

So, you saying I was inconsistent is completely unfounded because the context of the two comments were completely unrelated.


How many different ways do I have to structure the sentence?