Excerpt from a June 11, 2019 BYU Hawaii Devotional by Dallin H. Oaks: ¹

We live in stressful times.  For some young people the stresses are financial:  loss of employment or home or financial security.  For others, the stresses are associated with painful separations from those we love, such as caused by divorce of parents or other threats to personal security.  We also have the challenge of living in a godless and increasingly amoral generation.  More and more publicized voices deny or doubt the existence of God.  More and more support the idea that all authority and all rules of behavior are man-made and can be accepted or rejected as one chooses, each person being free to decide for himself or herself what is right and wrong.

Along with these challenges—and caused by them—we are confronted by a culture of evil and personal wickedness in the world.  This includes:

Dishonesty

Pornography

Perversions

The diminishing of marriage and childbearing

The increasing frequency and power of the culture and phenomenon of lesbian, gay, and transgender lifestyles and values

Finally, you live in a culture that focuses on individual rights and desires rather than the responsibilities and cooperative efforts that have built our societies.