This is not a way in which I, at least, want to help fulfill prophecy

I’ve begun to read Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow, Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010).  On pages 11-12, they quote an observation from Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism:

Three generations ago, most people inherited rather than chose their religious faith.  The great majority of people belonged to one of the historic mainline Protestant churches or the Roman Catholic Church.  Today, however, the now dubbed “old-line” Protestant churches of cultural, inherited faith are aging and losing members rapidly.  People are opting instead for a non-religious life, for non-institutional personally constructed spirituality, or for orthodox, high-commitment religious groups that expect members to have a conversion experience.  Therefore the population is paradoxically growing both more religious and less religious at once.

Here, from page 12, is the comment of McDowell and Morrow on their quotation from Rev. Dr. Keller:

Behold the fruit of pluralism and secularization.  It seems a growing number of people — on both sides of the God question — are no longer content to “play church.”  Either what people believe is true and they are going to attempt to live out their faith in all areas of life, or it’s false and people shouldn’t waste their time going through the motions of their childhood faith if it really doesn’t make any difference.

Incidentally, Timothy Keller is, to me, an intriguing figure in his own right — a highly successful Christian advocate and pastor in the challenging religious market of New York City — who is well worth more systematic reflection than I have given him thus far.  I think that we can learn from him.  I was pleased to see an interesting article about him (Kevin DeYoung, “An American Evangelist”) in the May 2023 issue of First Things, a magazine to which I’ve subscribed since its inception.

American Latter-day Saints, at least, and also, I think, those in Europe, are facing the same societal trends that western Christendom is more generally.  In that light, the comments of Tim Keller, Sean McDowell, and Jonathan Morrow powerfully remind me of a famous prophecy about Zion, the Saints’ refuge in the Great Basin West:

In  August 16, 1857, Heber C. Kimball stated:

There will also be a day when you will be brought to the test — when your very hearts and your inmost souls will melt within you because of the scenes that many of you will witness. Yes, you will be brought to that test, when you will feel as if every thing within you would dissolve. Then will be the time you will be tried whether you will stand the test or fall away. (Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, 16 August 1857)

In May of 1868 Heber C. Kimball said:

An army of Elders will be sent to the four quarters of the earth to search out the righteous and warn the wicked of what is coming. All kinds of religions will be started and miracles performed that will deceive the very elect if that were possible. 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 results will be financial bondage.

Persecution comes 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. Darkness will cover the earth and gross darkness the minds of the people. The judgments of God will be poured out on the wicked to the extent that our Elders from far and near will be called home, or in other words the gospel will be taken from the Gentiles and later on carried to the Jews. . . .

[T]he Saints will be put to a test 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.

Yes, we think we are secure here in the chambers of these everlasting hills, where we can close the doors of the canyons against mobs and persecutors, the wicked and the vile, who have always beset us with violence and robbery, but I want to say to you, my brethren, that the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy against the people of God.

Then is the time to look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great shifting time, and many will fall. For I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming.

This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with glory. The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess a personal knowledge or witness will fall. If you have not got this testimony, you must live right and call upon the Lord, and cease not until you obtain it.

Remember these sayings: The time will come when no man or woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within themselves. If you do not have the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, how can you stand? (Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor in the First Presidency, May 1868, in Deseret News, 23 May 1931; see also Conference Report, October 1930, pages 58-59)

In his talk “Be Not Deceived,” given in the October 1963 General Conference, Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Twelve stated:

Those of us who think “. . . all is well in Zion . . .” (2 Nephi 28:21) in spite of Book of Mormon warning might ponder the words of Heber C. Kimball when he said, “Yes, we think we are secure here in the chambers of these everlasting hills . . . but I want to say to you, my brethren, the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy against the people of God. Then is the time to look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall. For I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming.” (Heber C. Kimball, 1856. Quoted by J. Golden Kimball, Conference Report, October 1930, pp. 59-60.)

Speaking during the October 1974 General Conference, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley said the following, and then repeated it verbatim in a July 1990 message of the First Presidency:

In 1856, when the Latter-day Saints were largely alone in the Western valleys, some people thought we were safe from the ways of the world. To such talk, President Heber C. Kimball of the First Presidency responded: “I want to say to you, my brethren, the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God. Then, brethren,” he went on, “look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall; for I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming, and who will be able to stand?” (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1945, p. 446.)

I do not know precisely the nature of that test. But I am inclined to think the time is here and that the test lies in our capacity to live the gospel rather than adopt the ways of the world.”

We have no reason to be surprised.  We’ve been told, over and over and over again.