The Nephites were certainly not as righteous as they thought themselves to be, but the “God blackened the Lamanites’ skins” doctrine is a direct quote from His White-Hatted Holiness Nephi himself, complete with a “Thus saith the Lord” attached:

And he had caused the acursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be aloathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed of him that amixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.

(2 Nephi 5:21-23.)

Once you start second-guessing Nephi, of all people, and the reliability of his prophetic voice, you pretty much lose the whole authority of the Book of Mormon as a reliable guide to God’s will. In which case the passages that seem to support pacifism are equally questionable.

“Lets assume that Mormon 7 does not apply to the Gentiles, why does that matter in your view? Do you feel that the push towards non-violence shouldnt apply to others? What of the clear non-violent message of the sermon on the mount?”

The push towards non-aggression applies to everyone. In light of other scriptures, I continue to be persuaded that Scripture, taken as a whole, does not teach absolute non-violence, though it certainly does demand the cultivation of a presumption in favor of peace.

Maybe my attitude towards defensive violence comes from my practicing a profession that involves (cloaked) violence: litigation. Ultimately, the law is an exercise of a state’s monopoly on violence. If a court renders a judgment, and you don’t obey, you will be compelled to do so, by force and violence if your resistance makes it necessary. The alternative is that the wrong prevails — that people get away with murder, theft, fraud, etc. Gandhi and King &c can succeed when their tactics of nonviolence are directed against people who cherish a self-image that they are democratic and just, and whose leaders are accountable to their people. Gandhi’s suggestion that satyagraha be used against Hitler was just bone-jarringly naive.

“if the world actually adopted a policy of only defending ones self and family that would be a great progress from where we are.”

But the world isn’t going to do so, and you and I both know that. So what is the point in our adopting a policy of absolute non-violence, when others aren’t even going to adopt a policy of non-aggression? I’m happy to take that first step, and do my best to help my society conform to it. But I’m not going to take the second step until the other guy matches me in taking the first; otherwise, it’s a great big Christmas present to the most ruthless, and I can’t believe that a just God desires that.

you are right. We could take the option that Joseph put himself into the text. As to the racism in the book. There is a perfectly acceptable way of reading the text that can accept that God is not a racist and does not change peoples skin with magic and that any racism is nephite racism. Certainly Samuel the Lamanite’s speech points towards the reality that the Nephite narrative may not have been on the up and up with God.

Lets assume that Mormon 7 does not apply to the Gentiles, why does that matter in your view? Do you feel that the push towards non-violence shouldnt apply to others? What of the clear non-violent message of the sermon on the mount?

I also have no problem accepting Alma 43:47 as authorizing forceful defense of one’s own family, even absent a case-specific revelation while at the same time realizing that Christ had not come yet to explain in person God’s will, nature, and desire for his children. But even leaving that aside, if the world actually adopted a policy of only defending ones self and family that would be a great progress from where we are. There is hardly any conflict in the world that reflects the nephite idea of only defensive wars in your own lands, after you have been attacked multiple times.

Of course, that creates the problem of the “he started it!” nonsense we hear from our kids. But the difficulty in operating a standard is no excuse for not doing our best to follow it, if it can be workable at all.

Or, Joseph bought into the nineteenth-century American thinking of American Indians as bloodthirsty savages (formed, to be fair, by plenty of for-real massacres, including my wife’s ancestors, fortunately after they procreated), and assigned them the same conditions for forgiveness as the Anti-Nephi Lehies had.

“Are you suggesting that somehow this injunction to engage in violence only with God’s command applies narrowly? Narrowly to one group of people? And why might it apply narrowly do you think? After all this is a remnant who wont read it for likely a thousand years plus. Is there something wrong with this group genetically?”

Are you serious? This is the same book that records God cursing the whole race with dark and loathsome skins because Laman and Lemuel didn’t get along with their insufferably righteous little brother. Are you trying to say the Book of Mormon couldn’t possibly apply a different standard to the Lamanite descendants — because that would be racist? Since when does the Book of Mormon give a rip about seeming racist? The word hadn’t even been invented yet.

“Secondly, can someone give me a definition of Lamanites please? Because Im pretty sure that the text tells us the Lamanite/Nephite division post 4 nephi is strictly between those that followed Christ and those that didnt rather than some ethnicity. What does Lamanite even mean at this point in the history?”

Regardless of whether the “remnant” consisted of genetic Lamanites or Nephites or a mixture, it’s clear that Mormon 7 is addressed to the remnant of the Hebrew colonists of the Americas — Lehi’s, Ishmael’s, and the Mulekite party’s descendants. I simply see no way by which, in good faith and using rational methods of interpretation, it can be understood as applying to the Gentiles. Expresio unius est exclusio alterius, and all that. Look at verse 8: “Therefore repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and lay hold upon the gospel of Christ, which shall be set before you, not only in this record but also in the record which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews, which record shall come from the Gentiles unto you. The Gentiles are clearly distinguished from the people to whom Mormon 7 is addressed.

In any event, Alma 43:47 appears to be a continuing divine command authorizing forceful defense of one’s own family, even absent a case-specific revelation.

“The work of death. What a descriptive phrase. Only a soldier can fully appreciate the depth and the breadth of meaning in that phrase. Consider for instance this statement found in Alma 43:37 “and the work of death commenced on both sides. But it was more dreadful on the part of the lamanites because their bodies were unprotected”. Only one who knew what he was talking about could write such words. The work of death. Dreadful. Those words were written by someone who has been there. The combat soldier knows exquisitely the awful loathsome nature of the battlefield experience. The fear, the horrors, the bloodshed, the share exhaustion. There is nothing glorious about it. It really is a work, the work of death. A soldier does that work, because he has to, because it is his duty, not because he wants to, or because he derives any satisfaction from the experience.

I disagree with the last sentence, because to me it seems to take away from the individual his personal responsibility for participating in that “work of death” and and therefore strip him or her of their free agency. We stop becoming free agents in a way when we subject ourselves to participation the adversary’s plan. See Moses 6:15 – And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land. And in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts; and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed; and a man’s hand was against his own brother, in administering death, because of secret works, seeking for power.

The reason I do so, is because violence has been so far in many comments understood as “direct violence” or physical violence. I have thought the non-aggression and non-violence part over night and come to the following conclusion:

Violence has many sides: King Benjamin says it nicely, “Finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit [violence]; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts (ATTITUDES – ), and your words (CONDITIONS -), and your deeds (BEHAVIOR -), and observe the commandments of God (BEHAVIOR +), and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord (CONDITIONS +), even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember (ATTITUDES +), and perish not”.

In the above scripture I see King Benjamin making the difference between peaceful Attitudes, Behaviors and Conditions and violent Attitudes, Behaviors and Conditions. This is what we call in Peace Studies a Galtungian definition of violence using the “conflict ABC triangle”. I provide examples of direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence from the Book of Mormon in my follow-up article to “the war in heaven – mormon conflictology”.

Attitudes = cultural violence/peace
Behavior = direct violence/peace
Conditions = structural violence/peace

nonviolence or peace, if you will is therefore the opposite of cultural and structural violence as well as direct violence. Defining violence narrowly as aggression and to say that the plan of Salvation was to do away with aggression “my doctrine is that such things should be done away”, is to not take into account cultural violence (having -ites #22) and structural violence (inequality between men and women for example). Cultural violence makes structural violence and direct violence feel good or right and legitimizes violence in all its divers ways and means.

I would welcome therefore a debate on nonviolence from a wider definition of what violence means and that nonviolence is equated with peace.

mormongandhi

Question: Who is Mormon speaking to in the verse below: the Nephites, Lamanites, or Gentiles?

And Thomas then correctly answered

Mormon 7:1: “And now, behold, I would speak somewhat unto the remnant of this people who are spared, if it so be that God may give unto them my words, that they may know of the things of their fathers; yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel; and these are the words which I speak:”

with the addition of

That “remnant” would be the Lamanites. Who else was left? I don’t see how you can get from viewing Mormon 7 as being addressed to the Lamanites (which it clearly is), to concluding that the Lamanites are “evil.” Mormon 7 is a special instruction to a specific group of people, much like the Word of Wisdom is directed at the Saints and not the world.

There are a few significant issues here. One of course is who the allegation that no one else is left alive but Lamanites. I dont think its that clear at all. Secondly, can someone give me a definition of Lamanites please? Because Im pretty sure that the text tells us the Lamanite/Nephite division post 4 nephi is strictly between those that followed Christ and those that didnt rather than some ethnicity. What does Lamanite even mean at this point in the history? And furthermore, by the time Mormon is writing his epistle its pretty clear no one is really following Christ in either camp. As Mormon says of his own people, You have “departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!”

But the much larger issue is why people insist that the only remnant is Lamanites and that this summary of what Mormon thought was the purpose of the entire book (Moroni tells us his father wrote the intent of the book) only applies to Lamanites. When you say that Mormon 7 only applies to a specific group like the WoW you only have a small number of options really. Either the Lamanites are more righteous and only they can live this higher law or the rest of us are so much better that we dont need it.

And since you asked jared, I think the verse below might give us at least one example of when the Nephites delighted in murder. Are you suggesting that somehow this injunction to engage in violence only with God’s command applies narrowly? Narrowly to one group of people? And why might it apply narrowly do you think? After all this is a remnant who wont read it for likely a thousand years plus. Is there something wrong with this group genetically?

Then again, if we want to get textual we could parse 7:1 and ask what the word “this” refers to as in this people, the previous people being discussed was the Nephites. Then of course we could examine the word remnant, meaning a small left over, used biblically to describe what is left of a community following a catastrophe (e.g., Noah’s family after the flood, Gen 6:5-8:22 ; Lot’s family after the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. 19 those who remained in the land after the deportations of 597 b.c., Ezra 9:8 ; Jer 24:8 ; 52:15 ; those left behind under Gedaliah, Jeremiah 40:6 Jeremiah 40:11 Jeremiah 40:15). On second thought, I think the textual evidence may even be pointing to the small number of survivors who were part of the Nephite political affiliation, Mormon 6 does say there were a few. read remnant, that survived.

Mormon 3:14-15

And when they had sworn by all that had been forbidden them by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that they would go up unto their enemies to battle, and avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren, behold the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying:Vengeance is mine, and I will repay; and because this people repented not after I had delivered them, behold, they shall be cut off from the face of the earth.

I do note that if you read the actual statement the president of the church made, rather than read into it, you will find that it is not as narrow in meaning as many think.

I think this post developed nicely, especially in your comments, I look forward to your next post.

That “remnant” would be the Lamanites. Who else was left?

I don’t see how you can get from viewing Mormon 7 as being addressed to the Lamanites (which it clearly is), to concluding that the Lamanites are “evil.” Mormon 7 is a special instruction to a specific group of people, much like the Word of Wisdom is directed at the Saints and not the world.

“And btw, D&C 134 us not revelation, just Oliver Cowdery’s musing on govt that were sustained while Joseph was away in Canada.”

Of course if we’re going to sift through Scripture and throw out the “epistles of straw” that don’t support our positions, that pretty much annihilates the whole point of looking to scripture for authority, as opposed to just making the best logical argument we can from the basic premise of a just and merciful God. Which isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but of course that will lead to all kind of disagreements.

By “zero-tolerance pacifism,” I mean absolute pacifism — the refusal to resort to force under any circumstances, even in response to force initiated by aggressors. Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

Question: Who is Mormon speaking to in the verse below: the Nephites, Lamanites, or Gentiles?

“Know ye that ye must lay down your weapons of war, and delight no more in the shedding of blood, and take them not again, save it be that God shall command you.” Mormon 7:4

When did the Nephites’ violate the ideal expressed in this verse?

Im glad you brought up Girard since I think he is very helpful in understanding the atonement and Christ’s character. As to zero-tolerance pacifism, what do you mean by that?

Im going to have to disagree on Mormon 7. The Lamanite part is just a nice chapter heading that is not scripture and was one man’s interpretation. The text says this is a warning to the remnant of his seed that are spared. By this time, lamanites and nephites have intermarried extensively and they are largely political terms which is why Mormon goes out of his way to state he is an actual descendant of Nephi as opposed to others. When you say it is for the lamanites, you are engaging in the same rhetoric that got them into the whole mess to begin with, having -ites. I can only assume that you are doing what a Nephite might do in the war chapters by suggesting mormon 7 only applies to the more loathsome lamanites and not us chosen nephites. That is part of the whole problem and why Samuel the Lamanite comes along to deconstruct that whole fallen narrative.

Its the same nonsense that occurred in 1st century palestine. If you are in the covenant you are called to be a light unto the world, not to reflect that light back on yourself all the while proclaiming yourself good and wholesome while the other guy, the lamanite, roman, sinner, etc is evil.

And btw, D&C 134 us not revelation, just Oliver Cowdery’s musing on govt that were sustained while Joseph was away in Canada.

One could take your statement

The point is that you can be a pacifist Mormon, but you need to be a cafeteria Mormon to do so. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, mind you.

and write it just as easily

The point is that you can be a non pacifist Christian, but you need to be a cafeteria Christian to do so. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, mind you.

2. I would agree with the “divine purpose” for gyms in churches… If we are the body of Christ, we might as well build it to perfection – physically, spiritually and mentally.

3. Non-aggression vs. nonviolence – (hmm..) I will have to dwell on that idea for a few days and let it sink in. I like where it is taking me… Nonetheless, I think that that is what I mean by nonviolence – but I will do the mental exercise of uncovering the difference. If you could expand a bit more on that to help me on the way, Thomas, it would be much appreciated.

mormongandhi

By all means, kill off the natural (simian) man’s tendency to seek dominance and practice aggression. No more alpha-male status seeking and cutthroat competition. (N.B., this is food for thought in a hierarchical, authoritarian Church.)

“In fact, the majority of men are nonviolent – but our earthly understanding of what it means to be a man needs in many contexts a re-interpretation.”

I would argue that what is required is less a wholesale reinterpretation of what manhood needs, but rather the persuasion of the violent minority of men to get with the program and adopt the majority view. I see no connection whatsoever between the predictably savage behavior of savages, and the restrained resort to defensive force, whether in war, law enforcement, or litigation (which is basically warfare without actually letting off the guns that ultimately rest in the background).

God or evolution created in the male of the species an instinct for confrontation and competition. We can either try to eliminate it (good luck with that!) or channel it into honorable defense and football. I have far less of a problem with “muscular Christianity,” even unto (defensive) conflict, than I do with even apparently nonviolent aggression. Aggression is the problem, not violence per se. And I do absolutely believe that it was aggression,, in all of its guises, that Christ came to put under his feet.

Your error is in calling it “aggression” when I defend myself against someone who has initiated aggression against me.

I’ve been intrigued by Rene Girard’s interpretation of the Atonement as breaking the cycle of mimetic desire and scapegoating “founding murder.” I don’t think that requires zero-tolerance pacifism, any more than imitating Christ requires celibacy. The Atonement was a specific act, which was the perfect righteous course in one specific circumstance. You can argue for extrapolating that example in that circumstance to all circumstances — but if you do so, you have to explain away quite a bit of Scripture, both OT, NT, and Restoration, that justifies defensive force.

Mormon 7, btw, is addressed to the Lamanites. It is they who are specifically told not to go on the warpath unless God specifically commands it. Compare D&C 134:11 — “We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.”

Nothing in that last bit about waiting for a case-specific, explicit divine Authorization to Use Military Force. And anyway, the “except they be commanded” part is satisfied by the general commandment of Alma 43:47: “And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed.” (Emphasis added.)

The point is that you can be a pacifist Mormon, but you need to be a cafeteria Mormon to do so. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, mind you.

BRJones, you wrote

“Are we talking about the same jesus who not only condoned, but commanded “wholesale murder” and slavery of women and children as the god of the Old Testament? Isn’t this the same jesus who’s angel commanded nephi to murder laban in order to obtain a book that he wanted? Isn’t this the same jesus who either commanded or turned a blind eye to, depending on how you look at it, his early American prophets to lie en masse to the world, including their families and the church, about their polygamous activities? Is this the same jesus whose prophet brigham young stated that anything that god commands is righteous, even if it is a sin in any other context?”

FYI, maybe its not the same Jesus, maybe it was that jesus people only invoke when they want to cover up the crimes they commit with appeals to God.

Thomas

you wrote

“In the specific circumstance of Christ’s life, a nonviolent submission to the aggression of the violence of the Jewish authorities (under color of willfully abused law) must have been obedience to some principle of celestial law, since it was necessary for the Atonement to occur. But the imitation of Christ to which the faithful are called is not necessarily an imitation of the particulars of his life, but rather of his character. We don’t all have to take up carpentry, celibacy (at least as far as can be discerned from the scriptural record; I suppose Jesus could have married and been widowed before age 30), or mendicant preaching in order to imitate Christ.”

First, since the at-one-ment is more than some magic act that required Jesus check off boxes so he could be sufficiently pure for God to inflict pain, suffering, and death in some substitutionary manner but part of reconciling and bringing all of God’s children into oneness, you may want to consider that a lack of aggression is part of that healing as well as part of the command for all of us to participate in the atonement daily in healing our own fragmented relationships even with enemies.

Secondly, While I agree carpentry, celibacy, etc have nothing to do with imitating Christ, you cant fool us with your rhetorical slight of hand in conveniently dismissing the fact that jesus defined the character of a son of God as one who turn the other cheek, loves their enemies and blesses everyone, the just and unjust. Therefore, be ye perfect. Perfection in that he did ask for. So yeah lets follow his character. He repeatedly told us, take up your cross, love your enemies, those you use the sword will perish by it, my kingdom is not after the manner of this world because if it was we would use weapons, etc and then he went out and actually lived it. It was his character. He lived that sermon right to the end.

And jared, you wrote

“Over 1/3 of the Book of Mormon (177 pages) is about war. There are 54 chapter of wars; 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters of visions and prophecies; 71 chapters of doctrine and exhortation; 21 chapters of Christ ministry.” Information Pages by Bruce Barton, IP-26.

I don’t find much to respect when it comes to abridging the Book of Mormon (if indeed this is what your group is doing). If a church member believes in the divine origin of the Book of Mormon why would they edit out approximately a 1/3 of it to suit their worldly views?”

Newsflash, maybe they left in there so you could learn from it, not emulate it. The Book is a warning you know. Mormon did end his portion, Mormon 7, by saying, hey idiots, dont do what we did, actually follow Christ, and lay down your weapons of war unless God commands it.

I also served two years in the military, and would protest at the idea that I was ungodly or immoral. But are we not all sinners? I think that, with hindsight, that I was conditioned my whole life to believe that the military was an honorable and even a moral place to be – and the LDS church has some part to play in this. To my horror, however, I did realize that not all soldiers had a reflected reasoning for being there, and I make the assumption that this tension between being raised to “be like Jesus” and to “be like Captain Moroni” and a serviceman in a modern army is a fruitful tension, which tends to make for good people in general.

I mention mormon liberation theology in an earlier comment: I think that recent development in mormonism are showing a sign of the LDS church moving towards liberation theology, i.e. GBH’s conference address on war and peace in 2003. “Sometimes nations have an obligation to fight oppression, tyranny and for freedom” (or something like that). This is not a new principle, it is just a new emphasis in a new international context.

Now that being said, this post was about violent masculinities vs. nonviolent alternatives – and not about blaming the military for all the ills in the world (I have done so in other articles on my site and would welcome some of the above comments there instead). However, there were a couple of points I wanted to make:

1. Jesus demonstrated feminine traits: see description above, and seemed to encourage other men to follow suit.

2. In that sense, he challenged men everywhere to live according according to a concept I would call “redemptive masculinity”. This latter concept was developed by a group of churches in Eastern Africa to provide a counter-culture to sexual violence against women, which in the case of DRC rises to unbelievable proportions: 250’000 women are believed raped or have suffered from sexual violent abuse over the last few years in that region alone. Some stories are perhaps too graphic and horrible to render here, but there are realities nonetheless for hundreds of thousands of women in areas of conflict.

3. Most governments around the world have agreed on several UN Security Resolutions to combat the systematic use of sexual violence as a tool of war.

4. For that reason, churches – who tend to define the relations of power between men and women – must also take responsibility, both in those countries and also where ever sexual violence is an issue, to create alternative nonviolent masculinities for men.

5. Men should stop their insecurity lead to the lack of security for women.

6. All of you, stop being so US-centric and even mormon-centric! The world is vast and the problems many. It’s not all about US soldiers or about Afghanistan or Iraq. Violence is unfortunately a reality all over the world, both in organized forms through navies and armies fighting for gold and silver, and in non-organized forms like domestic violence, gender-based violence, urban violence, gun violence, criminal violence, etc. Men are again most often the perpetrators, but not all men are. In fact, the majority of men are nonviolent – but our earthly understanding of what it means to be a man needs in many contexts a re-interpretation. Perhaps not a new church, but rather a new vision/outlook.

in peace,

mormongandhi