The changes could be attributed to natural cultural dynamics, but such a view conflicts with Restoration teachings.  The central purpose of the latter-day work is to build up the kingdom of God.  It is commissioned to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in agreement with the scriptures.  As it does, it gathers out from the world faithful people who are remade by the gospel ordinances into sons and daughters of God.  The family of God lives in the world, among the irreverent and unbelieving and testifying by word and deed to the veracity of the gospel that remade them and awaits the appearance of the holy city to which Jesus can descend and begin His millennial reign.

When divinely commissioned servants invite people to believe and obey the Savior's gospel, they offer enlightenment that comes through the Holy Spirit.  Those that accept the invitation accept the light of God.  They grow and flourish under its illuminating rays.  Those who reject the invitation, reject the Holy Spirit and the accompanying light.  The rejection of any divine light leaves those who refuse the illumination worse than before.  From the Restoration point of view, our diversified, even our polarized situation and out hectic, stressful lives are the direct result of the rejection of the latter-day gospel that invited people to build up the kingdom of God on earth.

During his first advent Jesus told his disciples that His kingdom was about to go to the Gentiles.  He said, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from them, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof; (meaning the Gentiles)" (Mat 21:53).  Paul describes the fall of the Jews and the salvation of the Gentiles (Rom 11:11) through their acceptance of the gospel, and goes on to predict a time when "the fullness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom 11:25).  The gospel went from the Jews to the Gentiles shortly after Jesus' ascension and the Gentiles gradually grew in influence, approaching a time of Gentile fullness.  Western Civilization reached its zenith through the industrial age.  Historians generally mark the development of the Watts steam engine in 1776 as the enabler of the industrial age.  The second, more powerful phase began in the 1820s.

Latter-day revelation discloses, "When the time of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fullness of my gospel" (Dec 45:4b).  We testify that the Lord brought his church out of the wilderness to which the Gentile apostasy had driven it, at the dawn of the Gentiles' zenith. Its restoration gave the nations of Western Civilization the resources to build up the kingdom of God throughout the earth.

Jesus said, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required" (Lu 12:57).  The restoration of the Savior's church among the Gentiles gave added responsibility to those nations.  When they refused the gospel fullness, they lost the privilege their zenith afforded.  Divine judgment has became their deserved consequence.  That divine judgment is a characteristic of the end of Gentile dominion.  Jesus prophesied, "In the generation in which the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled . . . upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, like the sea and the waves roaring.  The earth also shall be troubled, and the waters of the great deep; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth" (Luke 21:25-26).  The nations of Western Civilizations are bewildered today and struggling with the problems that they face.

Meanwhile, third world countries, once wallowing in illiteracy and superstition, are growing in enlightened education and economic might.  Many western companies have exported their labor to third-world nations, while some competing companies are being formed in them.  Some of those nations harbor extreme enemies to Western Culture.  Unrest and confrontation is increasing and terrorism is becoming a way of life throughout the world.

Today's complex perplexities will culminate in the establishment of kingdom of God and the descent of Jesus in clouds of glory at the beginning of his second advent.  How that happens for the church, our nation and the world is further investigated on their respective pages.