Antidote for the Perfect Storm

Several years ago, I actively wrote in this blog. I used it to grapple with the fallout of a massive crisis of faith which engulfed my life. That period of time is now passed and I haven’t touched this blog for years.

My faith is fine. But I am, dismayed, angry and dumbfounded at the events which are unfolding across our country. We are living through a perfect storm of political unrest:

• An unprecedented illness has engulfed the world. 

• Civil unrest wracks our country more than anytime since the Civil War. 

• I watch journalistic malpractice, in the name of political agendas no less, so damnable Joseph Goebbels would be proud. 

• We have a president who is so hated by state and local leaders, they feel justified in trampling on the rule of law to score political points against him. 

• Political correctness and accusations of "racism" are now bludgeons used to silence different points of view.

I often ask myself, "What are we to do in the face of all this?" For I see it consuming, even destroying, the social fabric of my country.

To the depths of my soul, I believe the Book of Mormon can help us through this period of unrest as it helped me through my faith crisis. So, here I am, writing in my blog, again. My hope is that my efforts to come to terms with what's happening will help you in some ways do the same.

Alma 59-61 - Capt. Moroni and Pahoran

There is not a better example in scripture of statesmanship than that of Pahoran’s response to a Capt. Moroni’s scathing letter. I’ve mentioned in a previous post where Moroni’s temper gets the better of him. Here it shines. Yet, it’s hard for me to fault him when you think of the context in which he wrote the letter.

It was a difficult time, and that’s a huge understatement. While there was some good news from Helaman about the war, there was considerable cause for concern too. Helaman’s small force had recaptured all the Nephite cities in that part of their nation. Yet his undermanned forces, were hurting for supplies, and ill fed. They held on through sheer faith.

Moroni just heard of the loss of the City of Nephihah. Additionally, his forces were understrength and underfed too. Without food and supplies, you don’t have an effective fighting force. Such were the conditions of Moroni’s army.

When you combine their dire straits with the shocking news of the Nephihah, you can begin to understand how concerned and fearful Moroni was. He knew from first hand experience, the government could send more men and supplies. That it wasn’t told him things were not well at home. Like us, Moroni knew the greatest threat to the Nephite society came from inside. Rot from inside would destroy them faster than an invading army could.

With these things weighing on his mind, he penned a letter to Pahoran excoriating him for betrayal and dereliction of duty. When I think of the craven, self-righteous and self-serving politicians we have today, there’s no way Moroni would survive writing such a letter to our current leaders. Not so with Pahoran. To his everlasting credit, he didn't take offense but saw the anxiety and fears in the letter and answered those.

I can’t help but think that in a quiet, personal place, Moroni’s prayer of thanksgiving to God for Pahoran’s reply was more than a little emotional. Such is the patriotism and faithfulness of Moroni to the cause of liberty and his people. Such was Pahoran's statesmanship. Would that we had such men as these in our military and government today.

Alma 49-55 - The War Years of Moroni

Most of the rest of the Book of Alma deals with a series of wars between the Lamanites and the Nephites. These aren’t the only wars between the two peoples. In fact, their history is filled with them. So why did Mormon spend so much time on these wars if he wanted to deal with war and its effect on a society? He was involved in a lot of wars himself so he could have spoken with greater effect had he used his own stories. So, again, why?

I think it’s because they are more like us than any other culture in the Book of Mormon. They had “elected” judges and we have democratically elected politicians. They had a society where religion and politics were separated some what, while ours is much more so. Their biggest down falling was pride, so is ours. In their day, the religious were in the minority as it is today. The threats to their religious liberty and lifestyle were closest to the ones we face. And so he wrote about their wars for our benefit.

I also think this section of the book has more to say about our role as religious citizens of a country than any other in the Book of Mormon. We read about the terrible threat of internal dissension. The invading Lamanites weren’t as dangerous as were the Kingmen and Amalikiah or his brother Ammoron. They were such a great risk, Moroni gets special dispensation from the people to take draconian steps to crush the dissent. (Support us or die!) It was blunt and brutal and effective. It gives a clear lesson that the greatest enemies are the ones from within.

It also talks about keeping covenants in the face of great adversity. The Ammonites were about to renounce their covenant of peace to help the Nephites fight. It took a lot of persuading by Helaman and others to get them to change their minds. But it also led to the advent of the stripling warriors. These two thousand young men became the lynchpin of the Nephite defenses on a different front. I’ll write about them in more detail later.

The bottom line is, this is what God thinks your involvement in civic affairs and politics should be. He covers the spectrum from civic involvement all the way to direct combat with enemy forces.

Mosiah 28-29 - The New Order

These two chapters bring us to the end of not only the Book of Mosiah, but to the end of an order, the end of the Nephite kings. Sobered by the account of the People of Limhi and by the wickedness of his own sons, Mosiah feared for the people if kings continued to rule. Not only that, he’d let his sons go on a mission to the Lamanites, so no one remained to take the kingdom from him. What to do?

With all these forces acting on him, he comes up with, for him I think, a radical idea: no more kings. When you keep in mind the Lord works with us where we’re at, this step away from rule by kings, was a big one. Even though by our standards, it's not that much of a change. Never the less, Mosiah introduces a democratic component to their society. I think it’s why Mormon made mention of it. It was closer to our day than any other form of government he could write about.

On the surface, it may seem similar, but beyond the elections to choose leaders, there’s little in common. Their first chief judge, Alma the Younger is not only the political leader, he’s also the religious leader. The people voted him into office! Can you imagine that happening today? Or even in 1830? This is a different culture.

As Mosiah argues for this move towards a democratic process, he makes an observation, prophetic in nature even which I feel holds true today. He said it is common for the voice of the people, expressed in their votes, to choose what is right. In other words, the opinion and desires of the majority of a righteous people will be the right thing to do. When this voice of the people choose what is not right, then that society is ripening in iniquity and will soon receive the judgements of God if they don’t repent and change.

We read about this in the Book of Mormon and yet it is playing out in real time before us today. The voice of the American people is preparing to make an awful choice for their political leader. Think of it. The democrats offer a flaming socialist and a brazen lying, hypocrite for their standard bearers. The republicans are not much better. They prefer a swaggering, lying, rich bully over the one candidate who offers any hope of redeeming America. Yet most regard him as a nut case who is out of touch with reality though all he is talking about are conservative constitutional principles.

Mosiah got it exactly right. We're in trouble.