When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain -Part 2

(For part 1 of "When Mormons Take The Lord's name In Vain", click here.)

Have you ever been engaged in a theological discussion with a fellow Mormon and felt as if the two of you were talking two different religions?

Well, me neither really, until I started these discussions on the LDS view of war.

I thought we were all on the same page here, but no Amish farmer was ever shunned by his brethren like I have been by some of my Mormon amigos.

Though most agree with what I've written here, I have received a few apoplectic responses from a handful of agitated members of the church who are absolutely livid at my assertion that God is not too keen on his children killing each other off, or that he doesn't much care for such goings-on among those who claim to have taken upon themselves His name.

An amazing amount of energy is expended by some good church members in an attempt to sanitize that which cannot be washed clean: wanton killing in the name of God.

Regardless of how necessary and justified one may think of our nation’s wars, it's inappropriate to set aside holidays in which we lustily celebrate the carnage and hold up the perpetrators as heroes.

I’ve discussed elsewhere how I grew up with the bizarre conviction that the goals of the United States government were always in sync with the will of God. After all, America was His Favored Nation. I was foolish enough to think that Vox Populi, Vox Dei was a christian concept rather than the heresy that it is. To me, the American military machine represented the mighty arm of God against the heathen nations of the world.

Then I discovered one day that there was nothing in the revealed word of God that could possibly be construed to validate those beliefs. In fact, everything God did reveal forcefully contradicted what I had once held dear. So I adjusted my beliefs to be more in line with God's will.

I always thought the purpose of the gospel was to help us grow and change, to expand our knowledge outward rather than to remain stagnant in our fixed beliefs. When presented with evidence proving we have been in error, the proper response is to engage in a process of self-correction, is it not?

Instead, some have attempted to persuade me to revert to my parochial errors and rejoin them in ignorance.

Sorry, no can do. As Oliver Wendell Holmes has said, "The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size."


Military Friendliness

One reader who disagreed with what I've shared on this blog invited me to his own Mormon-themed blog which turned out to be a veritable shrine to the American armed forces. As he puts it, “This site is military friendly.”

I should say so. It looks like a tribute site to the priests of Baal. This blogger explains that he is pro military because he comes from a military family. Well, so do I.

I was once acquainted with a wonderfully earthy latter-day saint woman who, it turns out, had once been a former prostitute, or as she put it to me bluntly, she was a whore. Her mother was a whore, her sister was a whore, and her father was a pimp. She came from a whoring and pimping family. But when she accepted the gospel -and this is important now, so pay attention- she turned away from pimping and whoring. She doesn’t wave the flag twice a year in celebration of her former lifestyle.

She is no longer pro-whore.

The Mormon keeper of that pro-military blog writes that “some things are worth fighting for” with which I heartily agree. But he appears incapable of differentiating between national defense, which is justified of God, and empire building, which is prohibited. To bolster his argument of the divine nature inherent in military might, he has put forth examples of historical incidents where early Mormons took up arms in their defense. Although some of those incidents were justified, he included in his list Zion’s Camp and the Missouri-Mormon Wars.

I would not have used those examples.


Maybe Apostles Should Ride In The Back

Zion's camp was a response to some Missourians having driven Mormon settlers off their lands. Joseph Smith called some 200 men into a militia for the purpose of protecting those settlers and getting them back into their homes.

However, to Joseph's alarm many in the party believed that when they arrived they should take Missouri by force and drive all the Missourians out. Many began to murmur against Joseph, so finally God struck the camp with cholera. Several died, and the mission was a failure.

Lesson learned, hopefully. At least by those left alive.

Similarly, the Missouri-Mormon Wars of 1838 do not demonstrate God's approval of aggressive warfare. Organized by Sampson Avard and kept secret from the prophet, a clandestine army of Mormon men set out on a mission of retaliation for wrongs committed against the Saints . This secret band conducted their first raid near the tiny town of Gallatin, near Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

The trouble was, they didn’t discriminate in who they retaliated against. Just as the Missouri Mobs arbitrarily burned out Mormon farms and houses, so did the Mormons burn out innocent Missouri homesteaders who had not always been the same ones who had attacked the Mormons.

These arbitrary attacks culminated in tragedy at the battle of Crooked River, When sixty Mormon men attacked a force of armed Missourians. Apostle David W. Patten drew his sword and led the charge. He was immediately shot from his horse, hit the ground, and died on the spot.

John D. Lee reported that the Mormons were horrified to discover that an apostle of God could be felled by an enemy bullet the same as any man. Lee said until then they had thought that one of them could chase a thousand gentiles and put them to flight.

This was a serious wake-up call.

Had this unauthorized group made known their plans to the prophet Joseph, he might have dissuaded them from their folly by reminding them of the Lord’s instructions in D&C 98 given five years previous. Had they followed the teachings of Christ, this tragedy would not have befallen the saints, and they wouldn’t be staring in astonishment at the ashen face of the first dead apostle of The Restoration.

As the Lord reminds us, He is bound when we keep His commandments, but when we keep not His commandments, we have no promise.


God Won't Always Have Your Back

The thing to bear in mind here is that these men were some of the most faithful members of the early church; they were the most valiant -the absolute cream of the crop. Their mistake was carrying with them the notion that because they were members of the one true church, God would protect them no matter what.

As I’ve noted previously, no matter how righteous a nation may be, no matter how blessed in lands and resources, no matter how right and just you think your cause is, God will not tolerate anyone taking his name in vain. That just really seems to irk Him.


Christianity, War, And Boyd K. Packer

My reason for writing today is to keep a promise I made in November to a reader identified as "DiligentlySeek", whose opinions run contrary to my own. DiligentlySeek sent me an email attachment that he had trouble opening into the comment section under my piece “Should A Mormon Join The Military?”, so he asked me to post it for him and comment on it. You may find it of interest also.

DiligentlySeek’s words are written in bold type below, and my responses are interjected in regular font:

Dear Rock,
I hope you will read the following carefully. I haven’t had time to do research for talks given by church leader on the issues you’ve raised. But I think it is shameful to tell our LDS soldiers that they are murderers in the eyes of the Lord for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some other wars.”

You misconstrue my words, DiligentlySeek. I have never told any LDS soldiers that they are murderers in the eyes of the Lord; I have no way of knowing that. But given the many testimonies and confessions we have received from their fellow soldiers, it would not surprise me to learn that the souls of some of our brothers have been irreparably stained. We do know that Jay Bybee has much to answer for.

It’s clear from the citations I shared previously that there will be some sort of accounting in the next life. I don’t presume to know much about that process, but I did speculate a bit about it here. My words are speculative, but the Lord is clear that some sort of accountability will be required of every man who takes up arms in violation of his commandments.

Dr. Laurence Vance, author of Christianity And War, is not a church member. His statement shouldn’t be included in your post to LDS.

This is an odd position you espouse. I quoted Dr. Vance because his words were consistent with LDS doctrine, and because he is the pre-eminent authority on the history of Christianity and War. Dr Vance is the author of numerous books on New Testament Greek and Hebrew.

More importantly, Vance is a highly recognized expert on the early Christian church, the very church that you and I claim to belong to in its present incarnation. So it would seem to me that anyone with scholarly insight as to how the first century Christians viewed the subject of war might serve to validate our own doctrines as revealed through Joseph Smith.

Do you seriously contend that something written for a Mormon audience is somehow tainted if supported by source material from the sectarian world?

Next to me is a copy of Warfare In The Book Of Mormon, written and compiled by Mormons. The authors rely heavily on research from non-Mormon sources to bolster their positions.

When James Talmage compiled his monumental Jesus The Christ, he borrowed liberally from Frederick Farrar’s masterpiece The Life Of Christ. Should Talmage have ignored the weighty scholarship that came before?

This inclination I see in some people to dismiss anything that isn’t currently stocked through Deseret Book may be what is stunting the intellectual growth of our membership and giving ammunition to those who consider Mormons to be a passel of ignorant yahoos.

You appear to want to dismiss Boyd K Packer’s General Conference address, and yet bring Dr. Vance into it. That is an odd approach for an active Latter day Saint to take. I assume you are an active member of the church.

You refer to a reader who suggested that if I read Packer's talk I might be dissuaded from my position. I am indeed familiar with this talk, but see nothing therein to suggest that that God has reversed himself.

If you are accusing me of being dismissive of Boyd K. Packer, you are correct, as you will see below.

The following two quotes make the point that the Lord is against war: “The church is and must be against war, for war is of Satan and this church is the church of Christ...” (Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Vol 6, pg 170.)

“The divine law on the taking of human life... embraces war.” (Statements of the LDS First Presidency, pg 481.)

The key word in the following quote from the First Presidency is “unrighteously”. War can be waged righteously, or unrighteously. “God will hold subject to the eternal punishments of His will those who wage [war] unrighteously.” (Ibid, pg 481.)

I agree with all of the above.

Because there is opposition in all things we can never read a scripture in isolation, or the words of the apostles and prophets. If we do we will have incomplete information, incomplete doctrine, and err in our judgment.

The following statement addresses when war is justified: “Wars should be avoided whenever possible; however, men have the right to protect themselves from those who unjustly try to take away their freedom and property. (Principles of the Gospel, 1976.)

Again, I agree. All these quotes you list above were provided by me in the blog entry you claim to disagree with. You have cut and pasted them here precisely as I entered them, but to what end I can’t imagine. You appear to be making my case for me.

The quote below was from me, also. DiligentlySeek my friend, I’m getting confused as to what point you’re trying to make.

And this statement makes it clear who is responsible for war. Those who created the contention that cause war: “Since those who battle for a righteous cause will not be held responsible for bloodshed, the responsibility rests upon those leaders who create contention and cause wars.” (Statements of the LDS First Presidency, pg 480.)

So I ask you, DiligentlySeek: What leaders of which country created the contention and caused the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
(Hint: it rhymes with “Shma-merica”.)

You seem to be ignoring the key words here, “those who battle for a righteous cause." According to the scriptures, the only righteous justification for war is for the protection of one’s own lands and freedoms. I agree that those citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan who are attempting to repel the invaders from their lands are indeed battling for a righteous cause. But where does that leave the poor American soldier? What “righteous cause” is he fighting for? Both sides can’t be on the side of righteousness. It has to be one or the other.

It’s time to face the alarming truth: the American soldier is being played for a sucker by politicians in Washington and many of the folks at home, including you government-worshiping hucksters. You aren't putting yourselves between him and the bullets, and God is required by His word to withhold his protection. So what possible reason would any compassionate latter-day saint have to want to keep even one of God's children out there and in harm's way?

My essay, “Should A Mormon Join The Military?” was a warning aimed at any young LDS men and women who may be currently contemplating joining the military as it is presently constituted, for in so doing they will most certainly be forced to violate their own moral code and act in defiance of the tenets of their religion.

We warn our young people when dating to avoid situations where they might find themselves in danger of losing their chastity. Why don’t we also warn them against getting into situations where they could find themselves in danger of losing their souls?

In my opinion, military recruitment centers should be off limits to all latter-day saint youth.

When two principles of the gospel come into conflict, the higher principle prevails. The apostles and prophets have the responsibility to make the determination which is the higher law.

Boyd K. Packer, in General Conference, during the Viet Nam war said the following:

"But the Church memberships are citizens or subjects of sovereignties over which the Church has no control.

Let me just interject a clarification here. The paragraph above and virtually everything you quote from Packer’s talk below derives from a talk given by Boyd K. Packer in 1968, but the words were not his own. All of these statements are excerpts he was quoting from a talk given by the First Presidency of the church in April conference 1942. Furthermore, Packer was quoting wildly out of context, juxtaposing one statement next to some opinions of his own, to the end that it was possible that a listener could take from that talk an impression contrary to that intended by the original authors.

Further, almost none of the quotes that Packer uses here can correctly be applied to justify our government’s incursions into Iraq or Afghanistan -or even Viet Nam- as the talk delivered in 1942 presupposes the Constitutional mandate ordered by Congress the previous year.

The First Presidency of the church whose words these were consisted of the Prophet Heber J. Grant and his counselors, J. Reuben Clark and David O. McKay. President Grant was in frail health, so the statement was read from the pulpit by Elder Clark. It appears from their separate writings that one or all of these men had been suspicious of the subversive machinations of the Roosevelt administration to maneuver America into the war, and the position toward the war they convey here is a cautious one.

This talk, delivered a mere four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was an attempt to restrain the membership of the church from being caught up in the current mania for war. The talk attempted to persuade the young men of the church to keep their focus on serving missions rather than enlisting in the war, but in the end the leadership’s hope that the membership would step back and take a deep breath was no match for the national frenzy for killing Japs.

The statement you highlighted above describing church memberships as citizens and subjects of sovereignties “over which the Church has no control” referred to members of the church who resided in Europe, particularly German and Italian latter-day saints. Now that America had entered the war, these members faced a very real threat that they could be pressed into service by their governments to fight against Americans. They would understandably have some concerns about the possibility that they may be forced to fight -and possibly even kill- fellow latter-day saints.

The Lord himself has told us to `befriend that law which is the constitutional law of the land': . . .

A reminder to all members to make sure that when they go to war, they are going under a constitutional mandate, and not over a whim.

". . . When, therefore, constitutional law, obedient to these principles,

Again, war must be declared “obedient to these principles”, that is, the principles of the constitution as it was established through God “by the hands of wise men”. I shouldn’t have to mention that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan do not qualify as obedient to these principles.

...calls the manhood of the Church into the armed service of any country to which they owe allegiance, their highest civic duty requires that they meet that call. If, harkening to that call and obeying those in command over them, they shall take the lives of those who fight against them, that will not make of them murderers, nor subject them to the penalty that God has prescribed for those who kill. . . ."

Again, the context of the original makes it clear that the Prophet was making assurances to those European Saints under Nazi and Fascist control. The First Presidency recognized that many of the saints in those European countries had no choice but to obey “those in command over them”, and hastened to reassure these saints that they would not be considered murderers for engaging in a war not of their making.

Surely no individual will be excused for any wanton act of brutality, wickedness, or destruction. Nevertheless, this statement confirms: "...He will not hold the innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms, responsible for the conflict. This is a major crisis in the world-life of man. God is at the helm." CR 1968

“The innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms” was a direct reference to our hapless fellow latter-day saints in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during World War II. Packer’s use of the quote at the time of the Viet Nam war incorrectly conveys the impression that “brethren in arms” refers to an American’s fellow soldiers, when it actually refers to our latter-day saint "brothers" who may be forced to bear arms against us.

Do you think the apostles and prophets would have allowed this statement to be made in General Conference, at a time of when our country was at war, if they didn’t support it?

Why not? A conference talk is not usually a revelation from God, except in the minds of the less intelligent among us.

Brigham Young used to call people up to the stand extemporaneously at conference all the time, never knowing what they might say. Conference talks didn’t begin to be vetted for content and approved in advance until quite recently. Besides, Packer was not a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles at the time he delivered this address, nor was he even a member of the Seventy or any other recognized body of general authorities.

Only the First Presidency of the church is authorized to speak for the corporation, so Packer’s own comments would not have been binding on the membership anyhow. At the time he presented his convoluted talk, Boyd Packer's job was as an Assistant to the Twelve.

I don’t know what that title even means. It doesn’t appear to have existed in Christ’s ancient church (it isn’t listed on the roll call in Ephesians 4:11). Neither does the office seem to have been a part of the Restoration. At any rate, no assistant to any church office has ever been declared spokesman for the Almighty. The tendency some members have toward bestowing demi-god grandee status onto every church bureaucrat in a dark blue suit is something I find a little disconcerting.

Packer’s misapplication in 1968 of inspired counsel that had been directed at a particular people and meant for a specific time left the unfortunate impression with many contemporary members -myself included- that the church had put its stamp of approval on the unconstitutional conflict then going on in Viet Nam. Was Brother Packer being deliberately disingenuous? Well, it wouldn’t be the last time.

Those men and women who have obeyed the laws of their respective governments, and have not been wantonly brutal, wicked, or destructive are innocent in the eyes of the Lord, according the church leaders.

DiligentlySeek, you are stating your conclusion here based on a false assumption. Again, this reference to the “innocent” defined an unwilling enemy populace forced into conscription as "innocent instrumentalities" of ambitious dictators. This mantle cannot be fitted onto Mormons who voluntarily take part in unconstitutional foreign occupations.

For an accurate glimpse into how opposed the church leadership was to America's participation in the approaching world war, take a look at this excerpt from a letter the First Presidency sent to the Secretary of the treasury in October of 1941:

“… we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense.”

“We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put … We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe …”

Read that again, and think carefully about how those words could apply today.

Lastly, in Mormon 3:11 the warrior prophet Mormon says: And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness and abomination. Mormon’s soldiers were wantonly brutal, wicked, and destructive, but more than that they sought revenge and “went up” (Mormon 3:14, 4:4) to fight the Lamanites, something the Lord had forbidden them to do.

Then later, he writes: AND it came to pass that I did go forth among the Nephites, and did repent of the oath which I had made that I would no more assist them; and they gave me command again of their armies, for they looked upon me as though I could deliver them from their afflictions. Mormon 5:1 The Lord’s warrior-prophet returned to lead the unrighteous Nephites. Do you suppose that the Lord held Mormon accountable for murder for leading unrighteous soldiers? Likewise, most soldiers who are fighting to defend freedom do so with noble intent, and as Mormon, are innocent in the eyes of the Lord.

I was scratching my head in bewilderment trying to understand what you were getting at here, when I finally figured it out: You don’t have the slightest grasp of Mormon’s agonizing dilemma, do you?

Mormon didn’t repent for having quit as the leader of the Nephite armies when they went on the offensive; he was right to do that. What he regretted was having been so upset with them that he swore an irreversible oath which would have prevented him from ever assisting them when they needed to be defended.

At that day when the Nephites had gleefully determined to take the fight into the Lamanite lands, Mormon was so appalled at this horror that he resigned on the spot. Everybody knew God forbade anything of the sort. You could drive the enemy out of your lands, but you absolutely weren’t allowed to conduct military incursions inside the other guy’s borders. Mormon rightly would have nothing to do with it, so he turned in his sword and walked away.

But Mormon didn’t just quit. He was so furious that he swore an oath before God and everybody that he would never, ever assist these wicked people again.

Fast forward a bit, and the Nephites are feeling the inevitable effects of that long ago raid into Lamanite territory. The Lamanites had retaliated against the Nephites again and again, and now because of that one display of hubris, the last remnant of a once great nation was on the verge of being snuffed out forever.

The few remaining Nephites no longer harbored dreams of victory, they just wanted to survive. All they wanted now was to defend themselves the best they could. Mormon knew it was a lost cause, but he was also the one they put all their hopes in.

But Mormon had a problem. In his fury he had sworn an oath before God, and no matter how much he may have wanted to help his people, that sticky business about the oath got in the way and prevented him from stepping up to the plate. He absolutely, positively could not violate that oath. To renege on a sacred oath meant taking the name of the Lord in vain. He would be damning himself for all eternity.

People today can’t begin to understand how seriously folks took their oaths in the ancient world. Remember the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s? Their oath to never lift a weapon even in their own defense was about to result in their imminent slaughter, and they knew it. They were going to die, and there was nothing they could do but shrug. A sacred oath could not be nullified. Fortunately for the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s, their teenage kids stepped up and did their fighting for them.

Ultimately, Mormon went before the Lord and humbly repented of his oath, which must have been a very difficult thing to have to do.

You seem to have concluded that Mormon had regretted turning his back on his troops when they were breaking God’s law, and that he overlooked his people's wickedness and came back to lead them into battle once more.

Nope. Mormon wasn’t sorry he had quit, he was just sorry he took an oath about quitting. Because in his anger he hadn’t foreseen that one day he might wish to be found standing tall among his kinsmen the day the mighty Nephite civilization finally passed into oblivion.

Are there exceptions to this? Yes, I’m certain there are. I’ve seen soldiers who were blood thirsty and cruel in their conduct.

Me too. Here's just one.

I respectively call upon you to cease preaching the false doctrine that all soldiers who fight in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are guilty of murder. Leave judgment to the Lord.

Again, I’ve never preached that “all soldiers who fight in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are guilty of murder”. But many, many are. It has nothing to do with unrighteous judgment when the soldiers have confessed publicly.

The videos I linked to above are only four of hundreds of confessions available to you with the click of a mouse. For you to imply by your name that you diligently seek while keeping yourself deliberately ignorant is a shame upon you.

Some day you must open your eyes.


_

When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain -Part 2

(For part 1 of "When Mormons Take The Lord's name In Vain", click here.)

Have you ever been engaged in a theological discussion with a fellow Mormon and felt as if the two of you were talking two different religions?

Well, me neither really, until I started these discussions on the LDS view of war.

I thought we were all on the same page here, but no Amish farmer was ever shunned by his brethren like I have been by some of my Mormon amigos.

Though most agree with what I've written here, I have received a few apoplectic responses from a handful of agitated members of the church who are absolutely livid at my assertion that God is not too keen on his children killing each other off, or that he doesn't much care for such goings-on among those who claim to have taken upon themselves His name.

An amazing amount of energy is expended by some good church members in an attempt to sanitize that which cannot be washed clean: wanton killing in the name of God.

Regardless of how necessary and justified one may think of our nation’s wars, it's inappropriate to set aside holidays in which we lustily celebrate the carnage and hold up the perpetrators as heroes.

I’ve discussed elsewhere how I grew up with the bizarre conviction that the goals of the United States government were always in sync with the will of God. After all, America was His Favored Nation. I was foolish enough to think that Vox Populi, Vox Dei was a christian concept rather than the heresy that it is. To me, the American military machine represented the mighty arm of God against the heathen nations of the world.

Then I discovered one day that there was nothing in the revealed word of God that could possibly be construed to validate those beliefs. In fact, everything God did reveal forcefully contradicted what I had once held dear. So I adjusted my beliefs to be more in line with God's will.

I always thought the purpose of the gospel was to help us grow and change, to expand our knowledge outward rather than to remain stagnant in our fixed beliefs. When presented with evidence proving we have been in error, the proper response is to engage in a process of self-correction, is it not?

Instead, some have attempted to persuade me to revert to my parochial errors and rejoin them in ignorance.

Sorry, no can do. As Oliver Wendell Holmes has said, "The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size."


Military Friendliness

One reader who disagreed with what I've shared on this blog invited me to his own Mormon-themed blog which turned out to be a veritable shrine to the American armed forces. As he puts it, “This site is military friendly.”

I should say so. It looks like a tribute site to the priests of Baal. This blogger explains that he is pro military because he comes from a military family. Well, so do I.

I was once acquainted with a wonderfully earthy latter-day saint woman who, it turns out, had once been a former prostitute, or as she put it to me bluntly, she was a whore. Her mother was a whore, her sister was a whore, and her father was a pimp. She came from a whoring and pimping family. But when she accepted the gospel -and this is important now, so pay attention- she turned away from pimping and whoring. She doesn’t wave the flag twice a year in celebration of her former lifestyle.

She is no longer pro-whore.

The Mormon keeper of that pro-military blog writes that “some things are worth fighting for” with which I heartily agree. But he appears incapable of differentiating between national defense, which is justified of God, and empire building, which is prohibited. To bolster his argument of the divine nature inherent in military might, he has put forth examples of historical incidents where early Mormons took up arms in their defense. Although some of those incidents were justified, he included in his list Zion’s Camp and the Missouri-Mormon Wars.

I would not have used those examples.


Maybe Apostles Should Ride In The Back

Zion's camp was a response to some Missourians having driven Mormon settlers off their lands. Joseph Smith called some 200 men into a militia for the purpose of protecting those settlers and getting them back into their homes.

However, to Joseph's alarm many in the party believed that when they arrived they should take Missouri by force and drive all the Missourians out. Many began to murmur against Joseph, so finally God struck the camp with cholera. Several died, and the mission was a failure.

Lesson learned, hopefully. At least by those left alive.

Similarly, the Missouri-Mormon Wars of 1838 do not demonstrate God's approval of aggressive warfare. Organized by Sampson Avard and kept secret from the prophet, a clandestine army of Mormon men set out on a mission of retaliation for wrongs committed against the Saints . This secret band conducted their first raid near the tiny town of Gallatin, near Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

The trouble was, they didn’t discriminate in who they retaliated against. Just as the Missouri Mobs arbitrarily burned out Mormon farms and houses, so did the Mormons burn out innocent Missouri homesteaders who had not always been the same ones who had attacked the Mormons.

These arbitrary attacks culminated in tragedy at the battle of Crooked River, When sixty Mormon men attacked a force of armed Missourians. Apostle David W. Patten drew his sword and led the charge. He was immediately shot from his horse, hit the ground, and died on the spot.

John D. Lee reported that the Mormons were horrified to discover that an apostle of God could be felled by an enemy bullet the same as any man. Lee said until then they had thought that one of them could chase a thousand gentiles and put them to flight.

This was a serious wake-up call.

Had this unauthorized group made known their plans to the prophet Joseph, he might have dissuaded them from their folly by reminding them of the Lord’s instructions in D&C 98 given five years previous. Had they followed the teachings of Christ, this tragedy would not have befallen the saints, and they wouldn’t be staring in astonishment at the ashen face of the first dead apostle of The Restoration.

As the Lord reminds us, He is bound when we keep His commandments, but when we keep not His commandments, we have no promise.


God Won't Always Have Your Back

The thing to bear in mind here is that these men were some of the most faithful members of the early church; they were the most valiant -the absolute cream of the crop. Their mistake was carrying with them the notion that because they were members of the one true church, God would protect them no matter what.

As I’ve noted previously, no matter how righteous a nation may be, no matter how blessed in lands and resources, no matter how right and just you think your cause is, God will not tolerate anyone taking his name in vain. That just really seems to irk Him.


Christianity, War, And Boyd K. Packer

My reason for writing today is to keep a promise I made in November to a reader identified as "DiligentlySeek", whose opinions run contrary to my own. DiligentlySeek sent me an email attachment that he had trouble opening into the comment section under my piece “Should A Mormon Join The Military?”, so he asked me to post it for him and comment on it. You may find it of interest also.

DiligentlySeek’s words are written in bold type below, and my responses are interjected in regular font:

Dear Rock,
I hope you will read the following carefully. I haven’t had time to do research for talks given by church leader on the issues you’ve raised. But I think it is shameful to tell our LDS soldiers that they are murderers in the eyes of the Lord for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some other wars.”

You misconstrue my words, DiligentlySeek. I have never told any LDS soldiers that they are murderers in the eyes of the Lord; I have no way of knowing that. But given the many testimonies and confessions we have received from their fellow soldiers, it would not surprise me to learn that the souls of some of our brothers have been irreparably stained. We do know that Jay Bybee has much to answer for.

It’s clear from the citations I shared previously that there will be some sort of accounting in the next life. I don’t presume to know much about that process, but I did speculate a bit about it here. My words are speculative, but the Lord is clear that some sort of accountability will be required of every man who takes up arms in violation of his commandments.

Dr. Laurence Vance, author of Christianity And War, is not a church member. His statement shouldn’t be included in your post to LDS.

This is an odd position you espouse. I quoted Dr. Vance because his words were consistent with LDS doctrine, and because he is the pre-eminent authority on the history of Christianity and War. Dr Vance is the author of numerous books on New Testament Greek and Hebrew.

More importantly, Vance is a highly recognized expert on the early Christian church, the very church that you and I claim to belong to in its present incarnation. So it would seem to me that anyone with scholarly insight as to how the first century Christians viewed the subject of war might serve to validate our own doctrines as revealed through Joseph Smith.

Do you seriously contend that something written for a Mormon audience is somehow tainted if supported by source material from the sectarian world?

Next to me is a copy of Warfare In The Book Of Mormon, written and compiled by Mormons. The authors rely heavily on research from non-Mormon sources to bolster their positions.

When James Talmage compiled his monumental Jesus The Christ, he borrowed liberally from Frederick Farrar’s masterpiece The Life Of Christ. Should Talmage have ignored the weighty scholarship that came before?

This inclination I see in some people to dismiss anything that isn’t currently stocked through Deseret Book may be what is stunting the intellectual growth of our membership and giving ammunition to those who consider Mormons to be a passel of ignorant yahoos.

You appear to want to dismiss Boyd K Packer’s General Conference address, and yet bring Dr. Vance into it. That is an odd approach for an active Latter day Saint to take. I assume you are an active member of the church.

You refer to a reader who suggested that if I read Packer's talk I might be dissuaded from my position. I am indeed familiar with this talk, but see nothing therein to suggest that that God has reversed himself.

If you are accusing me of being dismissive of Boyd K. Packer, you are correct, as you will see below.

The following two quotes make the point that the Lord is against war: “The church is and must be against war, for war is of Satan and this church is the church of Christ...” (Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Vol 6, pg 170.)

“The divine law on the taking of human life... embraces war.” (Statements of the LDS First Presidency, pg 481.)

The key word in the following quote from the First Presidency is “unrighteously”. War can be waged righteously, or unrighteously. “God will hold subject to the eternal punishments of His will those who wage [war] unrighteously.” (Ibid, pg 481.)

I agree with all of the above.

Because there is opposition in all things we can never read a scripture in isolation, or the words of the apostles and prophets. If we do we will have incomplete information, incomplete doctrine, and err in our judgment.

The following statement addresses when war is justified: “Wars should be avoided whenever possible; however, men have the right to protect themselves from those who unjustly try to take away their freedom and property. (Principles of the Gospel, 1976.)

Again, I agree. All these quotes you list above were provided by me in the blog entry you claim to disagree with. You have cut and pasted them here precisely as I entered them, but to what end I can’t imagine. You appear to be making my case for me.

The quote below was from me, also. DiligentlySeek my friend, I’m getting confused as to what point you’re trying to make.

And this statement makes it clear who is responsible for war. Those who created the contention that cause war: “Since those who battle for a righteous cause will not be held responsible for bloodshed, the responsibility rests upon those leaders who create contention and cause wars.” (Statements of the LDS First Presidency, pg 480.)

So I ask you, DiligentlySeek: What leaders of which country created the contention and caused the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
(Hint: it rhymes with “Shma-merica”.)

You seem to be ignoring the key words here, “those who battle for a righteous cause." According to the scriptures, the only righteous justification for war is for the protection of one’s own lands and freedoms. I agree that those citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan who are attempting to repel the invaders from their lands are indeed battling for a righteous cause. But where does that leave the poor American soldier? What “righteous cause” is he fighting for? Both sides can’t be on the side of righteousness. It has to be one or the other.

It’s time to face the alarming truth: the American soldier is being played for a sucker by politicians in Washington and many of the folks at home, including you government-worshiping hucksters. You aren't putting yourselves between him and the bullets, and God is required by His word to withhold his protection. So what possible reason would any compassionate latter-day saint have to want to keep even one of God's children out there and in harm's way?

My essay, “Should A Mormon Join The Military?” was a warning aimed at any young LDS men and women who may be currently contemplating joining the military as it is presently constituted, for in so doing they will most certainly be forced to violate their own moral code and act in defiance of the tenets of their religion.

We warn our young people when dating to avoid situations where they might find themselves in danger of losing their chastity. Why don’t we also warn them against getting into situations where they could find themselves in danger of losing their souls?

In my opinion, military recruitment centers should be off limits to all latter-day saint youth.

When two principles of the gospel come into conflict, the higher principle prevails. The apostles and prophets have the responsibility to make the determination which is the higher law.

Boyd K. Packer, in General Conference, during the Viet Nam war said the following:

"But the Church memberships are citizens or subjects of sovereignties over which the Church has no control.

Let me just interject a clarification here. The paragraph above and virtually everything you quote from Packer’s talk below derives from a talk given by Boyd K. Packer in 1968, but the words were not his own. All of these statements are excerpts he was quoting from a talk given by the First Presidency of the church in April conference 1942. Furthermore, Packer was quoting wildly out of context, juxtaposing one statement next to some opinions of his own, to the end that it was possible that a listener could take from that talk an impression contrary to that intended by the original authors.

Further, almost none of the quotes that Packer uses here can correctly be applied to justify our government’s incursions into Iraq or Afghanistan -or even Viet Nam- as the talk delivered in 1942 presupposes the Constitutional mandate ordered by Congress the previous year.

The First Presidency of the church whose words these were consisted of the Prophet Heber J. Grant and his counselors, J. Reuben Clark and David O. McKay. President Grant was in frail health, so the statement was read from the pulpit by Elder Clark. It appears from their separate writings that one or all of these men had been suspicious of the subversive machinations of the Roosevelt administration to maneuver America into the war, and the position toward the war they convey here is a cautious one.

This talk, delivered a mere four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was an attempt to restrain the membership of the church from being caught up in the current mania for war. The talk attempted to persuade the young men of the church to keep their focus on serving missions rather than enlisting in the war, but in the end the leadership’s hope that the membership would step back and take a deep breath was no match for the national frenzy for killing Japs.

The statement you highlighted above describing church memberships as citizens and subjects of sovereignties “over which the Church has no control” referred to members of the church who resided in Europe, particularly German and Italian latter-day saints. Now that America had entered the war, these members faced a very real threat that they could be pressed into service by their governments to fight against Americans. They would understandably have some concerns about the possibility that they may be forced to fight -and possibly even kill- fellow latter-day saints.

The Lord himself has told us to `befriend that law which is the constitutional law of the land': . . .

A reminder to all members to make sure that when they go to war, they are going under a constitutional mandate, and not over a whim.

". . . When, therefore, constitutional law, obedient to these principles,

Again, war must be declared “obedient to these principles”, that is, the principles of the constitution as it was established through God “by the hands of wise men”. I shouldn’t have to mention that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan do not qualify as obedient to these principles.

...calls the manhood of the Church into the armed service of any country to which they owe allegiance, their highest civic duty requires that they meet that call. If, harkening to that call and obeying those in command over them, they shall take the lives of those who fight against them, that will not make of them murderers, nor subject them to the penalty that God has prescribed for those who kill. . . ."

Again, the context of the original makes it clear that the Prophet was making assurances to those European Saints under Nazi and Fascist control. The First Presidency recognized that many of the saints in those European countries had no choice but to obey “those in command over them”, and hastened to reassure these saints that they would not be considered murderers for engaging in a war not of their making.

Surely no individual will be excused for any wanton act of brutality, wickedness, or destruction. Nevertheless, this statement confirms: "...He will not hold the innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms, responsible for the conflict. This is a major crisis in the world-life of man. God is at the helm." CR 1968

“The innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms” was a direct reference to our hapless fellow latter-day saints in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during World War II. Packer’s use of the quote at the time of the Viet Nam war incorrectly conveys the impression that “brethren in arms” refers to an American’s fellow soldiers, when it actually refers to our latter-day saint "brothers" who may be forced to bear arms against us.

Do you think the apostles and prophets would have allowed this statement to be made in General Conference, at a time of when our country was at war, if they didn’t support it?

Why not? A conference talk is not usually a revelation from God, except in the minds of the less intelligent among us.

Brigham Young used to call people up to the stand extemporaneously at conference all the time, never knowing what they might say. Conference talks didn’t begin to be vetted for content and approved in advance until quite recently. Besides, Packer was not a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles at the time he delivered this address, nor was he even a member of the Seventy or any other recognized body of general authorities.

Only the First Presidency of the church is authorized to speak for the corporation, so Packer’s own comments would not have been binding on the membership anyhow. At the time he presented his convoluted talk, Boyd Packer's job was as an Assistant to the Twelve.

I don’t know what that title even means. It doesn’t appear to have existed in Christ’s ancient church (it isn’t listed on the roll call in Ephesians 4:11). Neither does the office seem to have been a part of the Restoration. At any rate, no assistant to any church office has ever been declared spokesman for the Almighty. The tendency some members have toward bestowing demi-god grandee status onto every church bureaucrat in a dark blue suit is something I find a little disconcerting.

Packer’s misapplication in 1968 of inspired counsel that had been directed at a particular people and meant for a specific time left the unfortunate impression with many contemporary members -myself included- that the church had put its stamp of approval on the unconstitutional conflict then going on in Viet Nam. Was Brother Packer being deliberately disingenuous? Well, it wouldn’t be the last time.

Those men and women who have obeyed the laws of their respective governments, and have not been wantonly brutal, wicked, or destructive are innocent in the eyes of the Lord, according the church leaders.

DiligentlySeek, you are stating your conclusion here based on a false assumption. Again, this reference to the “innocent” defined an unwilling enemy populace forced into conscription as "innocent instrumentalities" of ambitious dictators. This mantle cannot be fitted onto Mormons who voluntarily take part in unconstitutional foreign occupations.

For an accurate glimpse into how opposed the church leadership was to America's participation in the approaching world war, take a look at this excerpt from a letter the First Presidency sent to the Secretary of the treasury in October of 1941:

“… we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense.”

“We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put … We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe …”

Read that again, and think carefully about how those words could apply today.

Lastly, in Mormon 3:11 the warrior prophet Mormon says: And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness and abomination. Mormon’s soldiers were wantonly brutal, wicked, and destructive, but more than that they sought revenge and “went up” (Mormon 3:14, 4:4) to fight the Lamanites, something the Lord had forbidden them to do.

Then later, he writes: AND it came to pass that I did go forth among the Nephites, and did repent of the oath which I had made that I would no more assist them; and they gave me command again of their armies, for they looked upon me as though I could deliver them from their afflictions. Mormon 5:1 The Lord’s warrior-prophet returned to lead the unrighteous Nephites. Do you suppose that the Lord held Mormon accountable for murder for leading unrighteous soldiers? Likewise, most soldiers who are fighting to defend freedom do so with noble intent, and as Mormon, are innocent in the eyes of the Lord.

I was scratching my head in bewilderment trying to understand what you were getting at here, when I finally figured it out: You don’t have the slightest grasp of Mormon’s agonizing dilemma, do you?

Mormon didn’t repent for having quit as the leader of the Nephite armies when they went on the offensive; he was right to do that. What he regretted was having been so upset with them that he swore an irreversible oath which would have prevented him from ever assisting them when they needed to be defended.

At that day when the Nephites had gleefully determined to take the fight into the Lamanite lands, Mormon was so appalled at this horror that he resigned on the spot. Everybody knew God forbade anything of the sort. You could drive the enemy out of your lands, but you absolutely weren’t allowed to conduct military incursions inside the other guy’s borders. Mormon rightly would have nothing to do with it, so he turned in his sword and walked away.

But Mormon didn’t just quit. He was so furious that he swore an oath before God and everybody that he would never, ever assist these wicked people again.

Fast forward a bit, and the Nephites are feeling the inevitable effects of that long ago raid into Lamanite territory. The Lamanites had retaliated against the Nephites again and again, and now because of that one display of hubris, the last remnant of a once great nation was on the verge of being snuffed out forever.

The few remaining Nephites no longer harbored dreams of victory, they just wanted to survive. All they wanted now was to defend themselves the best they could. Mormon knew it was a lost cause, but he was also the one they put all their hopes in.

But Mormon had a problem. In his fury he had sworn an oath before God, and no matter how much he may have wanted to help his people, that sticky business about the oath got in the way and prevented him from stepping up to the plate. He absolutely, positively could not violate that oath. To renege on a sacred oath meant taking the name of the Lord in vain. He would be damning himself for all eternity.

People today can’t begin to understand how seriously folks took their oaths in the ancient world. Remember the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s? Their oath to never lift a weapon even in their own defense was about to result in their imminent slaughter, and they knew it. They were going to die, and there was nothing they could do but shrug. A sacred oath could not be nullified. Fortunately for the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s, their teenage kids stepped up and did their fighting for them.

Ultimately, Mormon went before the Lord and humbly repented of his oath, which must have been a very difficult thing to have to do.

You seem to have concluded that Mormon had regretted turning his back on his troops when they were breaking God’s law, and that he overlooked his people's wickedness and came back to lead them into battle once more.

Nope. Mormon wasn’t sorry he had quit, he was just sorry he took an oath about quitting. Because in his anger he hadn’t foreseen that one day he might wish to be found standing tall among his kinsmen the day the mighty Nephite civilization finally passed into oblivion.

Are there exceptions to this? Yes, I’m certain there are. I’ve seen soldiers who were blood thirsty and cruel in their conduct.

Me too. Here's just one.

I respectively call upon you to cease preaching the false doctrine that all soldiers who fight in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are guilty of murder. Leave judgment to the Lord.

Again, I’ve never preached that “all soldiers who fight in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are guilty of murder”. But many, many are. It has nothing to do with unrighteous judgment when the soldiers have confessed publicly.

The videos I linked to above are only four of hundreds of confessions available to you with the click of a mouse. For you to imply by your name that you diligently seek while keeping yourself deliberately ignorant is a shame upon you.

Some day you must open your eyes.


_

When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain -Part 1

Most of us Latter-day Saints have a rather skewed view of what it means to take the name of the Lord in vain. We’re in good company, though; most of Christendom shares the same misunderstanding.

The widely-held view of the third great commandment is that it prohibits calling on deity in a vain or exclamatory manner, or as an epithet in partner with other vulgarities. But that is what the ancient Israelites understood was meant by profaning God’s name. Though offensive, it's not the same as taking His name in vain.

“Taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain”, as the commandment is rendered in Hebrew, means the invoking of God’s name to justify doing something that God clearly did not ask you to do. A classic example in European history would be the Crusades, that two hundred year debacle in which all of Christendom was convinced they were doing God’s will by invading the middle east and killing the people who were living there under the guise of “rescuing” the Holy Land from the infidels.

Never mind that most of those “infidels” worshiped the same God of Abraham as the Europeans did (Allah is merely an alternate pronunciation of El, after all), or that God’s word (which nobody read) declaimed against taking up the sword except in direct defense of one’s own lands. The crusaders justified the killing of foreigners because they killed in the name of Jehovah. They were taking the name of the Lord in vain.

Every one of the crusades failed spectacularly, resulting in catastrophic death and destruction among the “Christians” participating. So you’d think that by the time the ninth major expedition set out in A.D. 1271, losing most of its members to death and disease on the way as had the others before it -well, you’d think someone with half a brain might have begun to suspect that just maybe God wasn’t on their side in this thing after all.

But crusaders both ancient and modern are slow learners. As the fools rush headlong to their own slaughter, God withdraws his spirit and leaves them to their own destruction.

Here in the new world, the founders set in place a government designed to leave behind the royal institutions that tended to promote war. The new Americans rejected titles of nobility, class distinctions, and old world concepts of war as a means of bringing glory to a nation.

But no good thing lasts for long, and in no time many inhabitants of our young nation were in thrall of the romance of what they thought of as the Age of Chivalry, where knights rode to the rescue of maidens fair, and life was leisurely and gallant. The middle ages were actually far from chivalrous; they were a time of raw brutality and desperation.

But reality rarely intrudes on a mass fantasy. The man we can probably blame for our corrupted view of medieval history was the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, a man who Mark twain said single-handedly did “more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote.”

Twain often exaggerated, but this wasn't one of those times. When it comes to creating damaging historical myth, Sir Walter Scott created the template.

At first glance, it's hard to fault Scott himself for capturing the public imagination. Scott’s romantic adventures portrayed an age where every knight was a gentleman and every lady was a delicate flower under the protection of his sword, as were the serfs contentedly toiling in his fields and the children at his knee. Scott’s historical novels were ubiquitous in every houselhold of the country, but particularly popular among the antebellum Southern gentry, with the result that much of that high-tone Southern society gradually came to mirror the fictional pattern and manners of the eras described in Scott's novels.

Southern society was soon filled with men who bestowed honorifics upon themselves and each other until it seemed almost every other Southern male insisted on being addressed as "Colonel" or "Captain" or "Major" or "Judge".

As in those so-called Days of Yore, no true Southern gentleman would tolerate a personal slight, so satisfaction was frequently demanded for the pettiest affronts. "Satisfaction", of course, usually meant the opportunity to kill or be killed in a duel to defend one’s honor. Pride in place and family -and especially country- was blurred with the Christian religion until almost any reason for killing -or getting yourself killed- was considered honorable before God. And that was the driving tenet of this religion: Personal Honor, whatever that meant. Indeed, it's been said that the many generational feuds between families on the Kentucky-Tennessee border were the religion.

Sir Walter Scott’s influence both in the North and the South resulted in what one historian called "a military fever”. Scott's novels glorified the crusades, and if it had been practical for men to walk about in suits of armor, they probably would have. They took to decorating their coats with ribbons, medals, epaulets, and brass buttons, and adding stripes down the sides of their pants.

Like everybody else at the time, the latter-day saints were not immune to this military fever. The uniforms of the Nauvoo Legion were among the spiffiest around. And the Mormons came up with the highest rank they could think of for their commanding officer: not just General, but Lieutenant-General. Top that, Carthage Greys.

By the time of the outbreak of the war between the states, America’s young on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line were itching for the chance to prove their mettle. Raised on the books of Walter Scott like their fathers and grandfathers before them, they had a romanticized view of battle. War was something you returned from as a hero, trailing honor and glory in your wake. It was a fantasy no young man could resist, and the call to arms was answered lustily from both North and South.

The horrors of war were unknown to these innocent adventurers. They embraced the opportunity to go to war without ever thinking it through. Had you asked a young recruit in 1861 what he was joining up for, he would likely have answered, “for honor and glory”.

But what does that mean, actually? Nothing; it's an empty phrase. Such is the power of myth.

According to numerous journals from that time, nearly every soldier on both sides of the Civil War believed with all his heart that he was acting as God's agent and with His blessings in that war. And some actually were, at least those who were truly defending their own lands. God does justify those who fight in defense of their own lands and freedoms.

Everybody else was taking God's name in vain.

As recently as the 1930's, the novels of Sir Walter Scott were still being passed down to the younger generation. But today they are largely forgotten, gathering dust in antiquarian book stores. Still, Scott’s legacy lives on in books and motion pictures to this day. Every movie of the twentieth century that featured knights and fair ladies, dueling with swords, and jousting on horseback owed its mythology to the historical novels of Sir Scott.

His legacy lives on also in the traditions of a nation quick to take offense and eager for satisfaction over every imagined insult from any country not blessed as we are to be God's Chosen Ones. Many Americans today are not all that different from the idealistic knights of the Crusades, nor from those in Joseph Smith’s day who ached to play dress up and go forth to redeem the land in the name of God.

Young men today are still easily persuaded that wearing a costume provided by the United States Government will somehow transform them into noble knights in shining armor, protectors of the realm.

You can call it a uniform if you want, but it’s really only a costume, designed to convey the impression that the wearer is something he is not: a hero.

Putting on a costume does not imbue one with godly character. It does not magically transform a mortal into an agent of the Almighty. I personally look forward to the day when we recognize that a man looks as ridiculous covered in ribbons and medals as he would in a suit of armor. Either way, it's mere costuming.

I have been vocal in my assertion that any young person who enlists in the United States military as it is presently constituted does so in direct defiance of the stated word of God, and may very well find himself without excuse at the bar of judgment. In this age of instant information it is easy to document how our military has been compromised, corrupted, and cut from its constitutional moorings. There is simply no plausible way for a new recruit to feign ignorance.

Yet I’ve been told by members of my own church -people who should know better- that I should fall on my knees and thank God for those soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; for because of them I have the freedom to sit here and critique those soldiers as they defend my rights.

I disagree.

The last American soldier who died to secure the freedom I have to speak my mind shed his lifeblood for me at Yorktown in 1781. To that nameless hero and all his compatriots I am, and will always be, humbly, humbly grateful. Their sacrifices were directly responsible for securing the freedoms I have today and I say it is an insult to the memory of those true patriots to have them equated with today’s mercenaries who are effectively undoing all that those gallant men fought and died for.

If I were to fall to my knees and thank God for the modern soldier who has traveled into the borders of another man’s country to kill him in open defiance of the wishes of God, I would be taking the name of the Lord my God in vain.


Click here for For Part 2 of "When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain".

_

When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain -Part 1

Most of us Latter-day Saints have a rather skewed view of what it means to take the name of the Lord in vain. We’re in good company, though; most of Christendom shares the same misunderstanding.

The widely-held view of the third great commandment is that it prohibits calling on deity in a vain or exclamatory manner, or as an epithet in partner with other vulgarities. But that is what the ancient Israelites understood was meant by profaning God’s name. Though offensive, it's not the same as taking His name in vain.

“Taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain”, as the commandment is rendered in Hebrew, means the invoking of God’s name to justify doing something that God clearly did not ask you to do. A classic example in European history would be the Crusades, that two hundred year debacle in which all of Christendom was convinced they were doing God’s will by invading the middle east and killing the people who were living there under the guise of “rescuing” the Holy Land from the infidels.

Never mind that most of those “infidels” worshiped the same God of Abraham as the Europeans did (Allah is merely an alternate pronunciation of El, after all), or that God’s word (which nobody read) declaimed against taking up the sword except in direct defense of one’s own lands. The crusaders justified the killing of foreigners because they killed in the name of Jehovah. They were taking the name of the Lord in vain.

Every one of the crusades failed spectacularly, resulting in catastrophic death and destruction among the “Christians” participating. So you’d think that by the time the ninth major expedition set out in A.D. 1271, losing most of its members to death and disease on the way as had the others before it -well, you’d think someone with half a brain might have begun to suspect that just maybe God wasn’t on their side in this thing after all.

But crusaders both ancient and modern are slow learners. As the fools rush headlong to their own slaughter, God withdraws his spirit and leaves them to their own destruction.

Here in the new world, the founders set in place a government designed to leave behind the royal institutions that tended to promote war. The new Americans rejected titles of nobility, class distinctions, and old world concepts of war as a means of bringing glory to a nation.

But no good thing lasts for long, and in no time many inhabitants of our young nation were in thrall of the romance of what they thought of as the Age of Chivalry, where knights rode to the rescue of maidens fair, and life was leisurely and gallant. The middle ages were actually far from chivalrous; they were a time of raw brutality and desperation.

But reality rarely intrudes on a mass fantasy. The man we can probably blame for our corrupted view of medieval history was the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, a man who Mark twain said single-handedly did “more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote.”

Twain often exaggerated, but this wasn't one of those times. When it comes to creating damaging historical myth, Sir Walter Scott created the template.

At first glance, it's hard to fault Scott himself for capturing the public imagination. Scott’s romantic adventures portrayed an age where every knight was a gentleman and every lady was a delicate flower under the protection of his sword, as were the serfs contentedly toiling in his fields and the children at his knee. Scott’s historical novels were ubiquitous in every houselhold of the country, but particularly popular among the antebellum Southern gentry, with the result that much of that high-tone Southern society gradually came to mirror the fictional pattern and manners of the eras described in Scott's novels.

Southern society was soon filled with men who bestowed honorifics upon themselves and each other until it seemed almost every other Southern male insisted on being addressed as "Colonel" or "Captain" or "Major" or "Judge".

As in those so-called Days of Yore, no true Southern gentleman would tolerate a personal slight, so satisfaction was frequently demanded for the pettiest affronts. "Satisfaction", of course, usually meant the opportunity to kill or be killed in a duel to defend one’s honor. Pride in place and family -and especially country- was blurred with the Christian religion until almost any reason for killing -or getting yourself killed- was considered honorable before God. And that was the driving tenet of this religion: Personal Honor, whatever that meant. Indeed, it's been said that the many generational feuds between families on the Kentucky-Tennessee border were the religion.

Sir Walter Scott’s influence both in the North and the South resulted in what one historian called "a military fever”. Scott's novels glorified the crusades, and if it had been practical for men to walk about in suits of armor, they probably would have. They took to decorating their coats with ribbons, medals, epaulets, and brass buttons, and adding stripes down the sides of their pants.

Like everybody else at the time, the latter-day saints were not immune to this military fever. The uniforms of the Nauvoo Legion were among the spiffiest around. And the Mormons came up with the highest rank they could think of for their commanding officer: not just General, but Lieutenant-General. Top that, Carthage Greys.

By the time of the outbreak of the war between the states, America’s young on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line were itching for the chance to prove their mettle. Raised on the books of Walter Scott like their fathers and grandfathers before them, they had a romanticized view of battle. War was something you returned from as a hero, trailing honor and glory in your wake. It was a fantasy no young man could resist, and the call to arms was answered lustily from both North and South.

The horrors of war were unknown to these innocent adventurers. They embraced the opportunity to go to war without ever thinking it through. Had you asked a young recruit in 1861 what he was joining up for, he would likely have answered, “for honor and glory”.

But what does that mean, actually? Nothing; it's an empty phrase. Such is the power of myth.

According to numerous journals from that time, nearly every soldier on both sides of the Civil War believed with all his heart that he was acting as God's agent and with His blessings in that war. And some actually were, at least those who were truly defending their own lands. God does justify those who fight in defense of their own lands and freedoms.

Everybody else was taking God's name in vain.

As recently as the 1930's, the novels of Sir Walter Scott were still being passed down to the younger generation. But today they are largely forgotten, gathering dust in antiquarian book stores. Still, Scott’s legacy lives on in books and motion pictures to this day. Every movie of the twentieth century that featured knights and fair ladies, dueling with swords, and jousting on horseback owed its mythology to the historical novels of Sir Scott.

His legacy lives on also in the traditions of a nation quick to take offense and eager for satisfaction over every imagined insult from any country not blessed as we are to be God's Chosen Ones. Many Americans today are not all that different from the idealistic knights of the Crusades, nor from those in Joseph Smith’s day who ached to play dress up and go forth to redeem the land in the name of God.

Young men today are still easily persuaded that wearing a costume provided by the United States Government will somehow transform them into noble knights in shining armor, protectors of the realm.

You can call it a uniform if you want, but it’s really only a costume, designed to convey the impression that the wearer is something he is not: a hero.

Putting on a costume does not imbue one with godly character. It does not magically transform a mortal into an agent of the Almighty. I personally look forward to the day when we recognize that a man looks as ridiculous covered in ribbons and medals as he would in a suit of armor. Either way, it's mere costuming.

I have been vocal in my assertion that any young person who enlists in the United States military as it is presently constituted does so in direct defiance of the stated word of God, and may very well find himself without excuse at the bar of judgment. In this age of instant information it is easy to document how our military has been compromised, corrupted, and cut from its constitutional moorings. There is simply no plausible way for a new recruit to feign ignorance.

Yet I’ve been told by members of my own church -people who should know better- that I should fall on my knees and thank God for those soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; for because of them I have the freedom to sit here and critique those soldiers as they defend my rights.

I disagree.

The last American soldier who died to secure the freedom I have to speak my mind shed his lifeblood for me at Yorktown in 1781. To that nameless hero and all his compatriots I am, and will always be, humbly, humbly grateful. Their sacrifices were directly responsible for securing the freedoms I have today and I say it is an insult to the memory of those true patriots to have them equated with today’s mercenaries who are effectively undoing all that those gallant men fought and died for.

If I were to fall to my knees and thank God for the modern soldier who has traveled into the borders of another man’s country to kill him in open defiance of the wishes of God, I would be taking the name of the Lord my God in vain.


Click here for For Part 2 of "When Mormons Take The Lord's Name In Vain".

_

What Is The Age Of Accountability For A Latter-Day Saint Serviceman?

All those in favor of clarification, please make manifest; all those opposed, by the same sign.

I seem to have engendered some controversy in my entry here of November 12th regarding what I meant when I warned potential military recruits that God would hold them accountable for every last person they killed, regardless of whether they were wearing a government issued uniform at the time or not.

A handful of readers accused me of judging all soldiers to be murderers and condemning them all to hell.

Which I did not do. They might want to read that piece again. And it's companion piece.

It may also be helpful to review what I meant by my use of the word “Accountable”. But first let me remind those readers that my words were given as a warning to any young person today who might have been contemplating signing up with a branch of the military in hopes of jumping into the fray over in Afghanistan or Iraq. My warning was that the military as presently constituted could not be trusted to respect the moral imperatives of Christ or of His followers.

The qualifier was "as presently constituted”. Surely anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear is aware that for at least the past six years our government has made a serious departure from its founding principles. Leaders of both major parties have shifted their focus from a Constitutional Republic to a global empire. I don’t see how any young follower of Christ would want to consciously participate in that palpable derailment.

So I maintain my position that anyone foolish enough to ignore reality when the truth of the fraud perpetrated on his country is so readily available will most likely find himself without excuse at the bar of judgment.

Nevertheless, there are certainly those prior to this time who, whether through misguided patriotic fervor or merely a desire to obtain a free college education, have found themselves at the butt end of a rifle and forced to kill someone he was taught was his mortal enemy.

Is not such a person still accountable? That is, is he never to be required to face up to his actions and “account” for whether what he did was right or wrong, avoidable or not avoidable, accidental or deliberate?

I would suggest that even an American engaged in our long ago secession from England, a war that was unquestionably justified as defensive, would still be held to account for his actions, if only to himself. Because to “account” for one’s actions means to be answerable for them. Accountability means facing up to yourself. It does not necessarily imply guilt. It means to explain, to justify, to take stock of the thing from every angle.

All of us will have the opportunity -and I do mean opportunity- to face up to the things we did here on earth. Were our actions defensible? Were they avoidable? Did we have a choice? Could we have known better? Did we have the opportunity to educate ourselves into knowing better?

We Latter-day Saints declare an eight year old child capable of knowing right from wrong, but many in the church would hold our soldiers somehow excused from introspection.


The Mechanics of Accountability

I don’t claim to understand precisely the process God uses in bringing us to account, or if he even involves himself in it. It would appear from many of the accounts I've read of near death experiences that perhaps God leaves this confrontation to the individuals involved.

Some who have experienced death and returned report coming face to face with the very people they had killed in war on earth, and being forced to account for the harm they had done, whether justly or unjustly.

Invariably they recall it to be a remarkably cathartic experience which afforded an opportunity for reconciliation in an atmosphere of perfect love.

As a teenager I read a science fiction novella by Damon Knight entitled Rule Golden wherein suddenly everyone on earth at the same time immediately experienced the consequences of their actions. If you punched someone hard in the face, you would instantly feel as if someone had punched you hard in the face. If you stabbed someone in the stomach, you yourself would double up in excruciating pain and even possibly bleed to death on the spot. That story illustrated immediate accountability, which of course rarely occurs during our lifetime.

I’ve seen countless videos on YouTube featuring veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who have faced accountability already in this life. They acknowledge they had been duped and had caused needless harm to people they later learned were no threat to America.

It seems to me that facing accountability like that during this lifetime may be the better way to go. Although painful to endure in the short term, one can get through the anguish and then move on, finding peace and knowing the joy God wants us to experience while here.

I have followed these links for hours at a time and been brought to tears by the stories of these good men. But it is the beginning of a future life of joy for them, so their accountability is certainly worth it. You can see some of these confessions and admissions by clicking here, here, here, and here.

And Please. Don't embarrass yourself by writing in insisting that God honors the modern soldier until you've watched at least some of these honorable testimonies. There are thousands of them out there, and they are heartbreaking.


Becoming Accountable

Although we don’t know the particulars, my personal feeling is that accountability is reached by not only confronting one’s self, but also by confronting those we have sinned against.

By way of illustration, I’ve spun a little tale about a soldier brought to the reality of his actions. It’s a bit derivative of Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet In Heaven, but it expresses my feelings and presents our theology in a way that I might have failed to convey previously. Here it is:

The time is some sixty years in the future.

After a long and happy life, an old man, a former sergeant in the marine corps, finally died and went to heaven.

To his surprise and delight, he found his body completely restored to the way it had been when he was in his twenties, fit and strong. And he was wearing, of all things, his dress blue uniform, the one from his days in the corps. It was sharply creased and starched with a perfection he had never seen before. He had never before given those shoes a spit-shine that glistened the way they did now. As he looked down at the hard-earned bars and medals pinned to his chest, he felt again that glow he once knew when he proudly wore that uniform those many years ago.

To the soldier’s further surprise, he wasn’t immediately met by the Lord or even greeted by any long lost relatives as he had expected.

In fact, the first person he came across was a girl with straight black hair and pure brown eyes sitting alone in a large, palatial room. She was on the floor on what looked to be a large round pillow or cushion of some kind. It appeared to the soldier that she sat with her legs tucked under her, as they weren’t visible beneath the long white robe that settled around her and draped over the sides of the cushion.

When the soldier came near, the girl smiled a friendly greeting. The soldier sensed there was something familiar about her, and suddenly it came to him.

“Hey, I know you! I remember you from the pre-existence!”

“That’s right,” she replied., “You and I were friends back then. We fought together during the war in heaven.”

“Yeah, now I remember! How’s it going?”

The girl smiled, just a little. “Did you have a nice life?” she asked.

“Amazing life. 87 years! Wonderful wife, five kids, so many grandkids and great-grandkids I couldn’t remember who belonged to who. Take it all around, I’d have to say it was a great time.”

He looked at the girl, this old friend of his. “How about you?”

“Me?” She shook her head. “I never married. I do kind of wish I could have known what it was like, though, waking up in the morning next to a loving husband, stuff like that. I don’t mind admitting I would have liked to have known what it felt like to make love. Wish I knew what it was like to have a baby, too.” She shrugged. “But I missed all that”.

“Gee, that’s too bad. What happened?”

“I died.”

“You died? How?”

“Iraq.”

“You were in Iraq? I was in Iraq! When were you deployed?”

“I wasn’t deployed. I lived there with my family. They all died too.”

“Oh, I get it, you were an Iraqi! I helped liberate you guys!”

“She smiled sweetly. “Can’t tell you how much we appreciated that.”

“No sweat. Just glad I could be a part of the mission. So, how old are you, anyway?”

“I was fifteen when I died.”

“Gee, that’s tough. Anything I can do?”

“Well, you could apologize.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“You killed me.”

She said it so simply and in such a matter-of-fact way that it took him aback.

“Get outta here! I never killed any girl! I can promise you I’d remember that.”

“Well, you did. You killed my whole family. You and your friends opened fire on our car.”

“I would remember that,” he shook his head. “Wait a minute, were you in that car at the checkpoint in Baghdad that tried to plow past us?”

“We weren’t trying to plow past you,” she explained quietly. “It was noisy and chaotic at that checkpoint. My father couldn’t understand what you people wanted. He got flustered and thought he was putting his foot on the brake when he accidentally hit the accelerator instead. The car lurched forward for an instant. Just an instant, but that was all it took. You guys panicked and tore the car apart with your automatic gunfire”.

“Yeah, I remember. A guy, his wife, and a couple of kids in the backseat. A real mess. I felt terrible about that.”

“Me too.”

“Well anyway, it was an accident. Those things happen in war. Your family was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“My family was in the right place. Baghdad was where we lived. We drove down that street all the time before you came and put your roadblocks up. You were the ones who didn’t belong there. You were the one in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She spoke calmly, without any anger in her voice. Still, something about her words made the soldier feel uneasy.

“Geez, back off a little, will ya? Sometimes stuff like that can’t be helped. It’s called collateral damage.”

“I never heard God saying he justifies collateral damage.”

“Look, I’m sorry you got in the way, okay?”

The girl smiled politely and changed the subject. “I see they let you bring your medals. What’s that, a Purple Heart?”

“Yeah, weird, huh? I guess some things you can take with you.”

“A Purple Heart. That’s what they give soldiers when they’ve been injured in the line of duty, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I lost a foot when an I.E.D. went off while I was on patrol.”

“I feel for you. That was a long life you lived with only one foot.”

“Well, I got by. They gave me a Prosthetic.”

“I lost both my legs in that accident you caused”, the girl said simply. "You and your friends just kept shooting through the car door until my legs were sheared off at the hips”

“I said I was sorry.”

“You said you were sorry I got in the way”, she reminded him gently, “I see you have your missing foot back now, though.”

“Yeah. I feel great!” He was hoping to change the subject. “Everything’s completely restored and back the way it was. Like they say, ‘every hair of the head’, and all that.”

The girl reached down and pulled her gown up part way, to show him her own resurrected legs, he thought. But he was surprised. Where her legs should have been there was... well, there was nothing.

“I still haven’t got my own legs back,” she said a bit wistfully, “I’ll get them eventually, but I had to wait until you got here first.”

“What are you talking about? That makes no sense. Why would you have to wait for me?”

“Because you deserve the chance to account for your actions during the war. I’m here to assist you so that you can be at peace.”

The soldier was beginning to feel annoyed. “I am at peace!” he insisted, almost angrily. “Whatever it was that happened to you, also happened to a lot of other people. That’s just war. It shouldn’t matter now. What about the atonement? The blood of Christ? What about forgiveness?”

“Relax, you’re going to be fine. God forgave you decades ago. The atonement of Christ has complete application. And you’re right, what happened to me happened to a lot of people. My death was not unique."

“So what are you pushing my buttons for?”

“Because in addition to the forgiveness you automatically receive through Christ, you deserve the chance to obtain forgiveness from me personally.”

“Really.” He shifted his weight awkwardly. “Okay, fine. What do I need to do?”

“Well, during your time on earth you didn’t fully accept responsibility for your part in the war. I’m here to help you claim accountability.”

“What are you talking about? I hated that war! I got out of the marine corps just as soon as I could. And I hated being in Iraq; that place was a garbage dump and a hell hole.”

“That ‘hell hole’ was my home. And it wasn’t a garbage dump until your people bombed our water and sewage systems and turned it into one.”

“Geez, why do you keep going on about something I can’t do anything about? That was a lifetime ago.”

“Not for me.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to understand. You’ve read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, haven’t you?”

“I’ve seen the movies.”

“Those ghosts didn’t appear to Scrooge just to torment him, they were there to teach him. Do you believe in eternal progression?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me, how do we progress?”

“Through learning, right?”

“Then let me help you learn about consequences. Do you want to see my purple heart?”

The girl pulled down the center of her robe a little, exposing a huge hole in the middle of her chest. The soldier could see right through her body and out her back. The sight of it caught him up short.

“There’s no heart there!”

“That’s right. You shot my heart clean out of me. I still don’t know where it went, but wherever it is, I’m sure it’s purple like yours,” she smiled.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

“Then pay attention, please. You deserve to face something that you avoided facing during your life on earth. This hole in my chest was put there by you. You did this to me. It was caused by a fifty caliber bullet that you fired from your gun from atop your armored vehicle.”

Her words were making him uncomfortable, but she didn’t appear to be angry at all. There was absolutely no malice in her words; she was simply and calmly relating the truth. “Because of something you did to me, I experienced none of the sweetness of a full life as you did.”

She may not have been angry, but she was getting him upset. “I don’t have to take this from you!” he found himself shouting, “Where’s Jesus? Where’s Jesus Christ? I should have been met here by my Lord and Savior!”

“You will meet him shortly, and it will be the most sweet embrace. He loves you more than you have ever loved yourself.”

“Then what’s the hold up?” He tried to calm himself down.

“You first get to admit what you were afraid to admit to during your entire time on earth -something many people told you that you didn’t have to worry about. You get to acknowledge that right or wrong, you took innocent people off the earth before their time. No matter how it was rationalized - your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault- your actions resulted in the taking of human life. That is the truth, and it can’t be forgotten, dismissed, or wished away.”

“What are you getting at, that I did it on purpose? I didn’t start that stinking war. I was only in Iraq because it was my duty.”

“Your duty?”

“Yes, duty. I made sacrifices. I was a soldier in the service of my country.

“Sacrifice," she mused, “Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that you forced me to make a sacrifice? But never mind that. Tell me, did they pay you to be a Marine?”

“Of course.”

“Then what did you sacrifice?”

“My time. Six years of my life.”

“But you got paid for all that time, didn’t you?”

“I said I did.”

“And you also got paid for your service? And you had a lifetime of benefits, didn't you?”

“Why are you even asking me this?”

“So essentially you had a job.”

“It’s not that simple. The job I had was dangerous.”

“It certainly was dangerous to me”.

“What I did was not just any stupid little job! I wore the uniform of a United States Marine!”

“So you had a job and you got to wear a costume. Good for you.”

“Gee whiz, are you ever going to let up?”

“Just trying to help you see reality. This is heaven. We don’t deal in illusion here. I’ll tell you what you were. You were an unwitting pawn of a governmental entity that had lost sight of its true mission.”

“Then why blame me? Doesn’t the fault lie with those who sent me to war?”

“They are being held to answer, don’t worry about that. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. Now, do you remember the Marine Corps Code of Conduct?”

“I know it by heart.”

“Then recite article six for me, please.”

“Easy. ‘I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.’”

“ ‘Responsible for my actions,’” the girl repeated, “Do you really feel that you were responsible for your actions?”

“To the extent I could be, yes. I had no choice about where I was ordered to fight.”

“But you didn’t object to the fighting. You swore dedication to the principles which made your country free, did you not?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Where would you say those principles are embodied?”

“In the Constitution, I suppose.”

“And in fact, didn’t you also swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution? Did you not take that oath seriously?”

“I took it very seriously.”

“What does the Constitution say about war?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Not sure? Why not?”

“Look, I didn’t memorize the Constitution, okay?”

“Have you ever even read it?”

“I might have once or twice.”

“Remember, you’re in heaven now. No fudging.”

“Okay, so I never read the entire Constitution.”

“Did you ever read any of it?”

“So I never read any of it. So sue me.”

“I don’t wish to sue you, but I would like to understand how you can defend a document when you don’t even know what’s in it.”

“I’m sure the president read it and knew what he was doing when he ordered America into war.”

“Well that’s just it. Under your Constitution, the president does not have authority to order America into war. He can only direct the war after the people have made known to congress their desire for war, and the congress has officially declared war. The decision is not the president’s to make.

“ Well, none of that really matters. The reality is, somebody else sent me to Iraq and I had to go to war whether I agreed with it or not.”

“That’s why I’ve met you here today. Throughout your long life you never held yourself accountable for being where you were that day.”

“What day?”

“The day you took my life.”

“I had no say in the matter!”

“Did you not swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?”

“I did.”

“Do you agree that the founders of your country placed that limitation on the president because they didn’t want any one person in government acting like a king, deciding to send the nation to war at whim?”

“I guess so.”

“And wouldn’t you say that when the president defies the Constitution and behaves like a king, that he has become a domestic enemy?”

“That’s putting it pretty harshly.”

Well, let me put it this way: did you not have an obligation, under your oath of office and under the Marine Corps Code, to defend the Constitution from usurpation?”

“I guess you could look at it that way.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t know that was in the Constitution.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I told you, I hadn’t read it.”

“Then why did you swear to defend it?”

“Alright! I should have read it, and I should have objected to unconstitutional orders. Is that what you want me to say?”

“See? Now you’re beginning to take accountability.”

“Good. Are we done here?”

“Not quite. You’ve admitted you were lax in your duty to your country, now let’s see how accountable you were to God. You were, what on earth they called a “Mormon,” am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”

“All my life”

“The true church.”

“‘The only true church on the face of the earth.’”

“And what makes that church unique is its claim to latter-day revelation, am I right?”

“Yes it does. I can bear you my testimony right now if you want.”

“I have no doubt as to your sincerity. What I want to know is why, during your time on earth, did you take so lightly those revelations?”

“I didn’t take anything lightly! I was active in the church all my life; I was a temple goer, Gospel Doctrine teacher, Elder’s Quorum President -I was even in the bishopric and stake presidencies. I’m sure you’ll find my name in the Book of Life, so why don’t you just look it up and let’s get this over with. I was completely obedient to my priesthood leaders.”

“I’m not interested in your obedience to your leaders. I’m concerned with your fealty to God.”

“Okay, test me. I followed all of the commandments.”

“Did you take seriously the Lord’s charge in Doctrine and Covenants chapter 98?”

“Jog my memory.”

“I’ll just quote a portion of verse 33: ‘This is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them.’ A few verses down the Lord makes clear that this law applies to your day, and particularly to America.”

“Well, how do you know God didn’t command the president to send us to war against Iraq?”

“Well, first of all, God doesn’t reveal his will to rulers, he reveals it to prophets. And second, do you think the same God who, in verse 7, declared that anything more or less than the Constitution is evil, would then command the president to violate his oath and usurp the warmaking powers from Congress?”

“I guess it depends on the urgency of the situation.”

“Then let’s suppose God actually had commanded your country to go to war against mine. Wouldn’t you have heard about this new commandment?”

“Not if the command was classified.”

“So you were willing to violate your oath of office and your duty to God without even knowing whether or not the Lord had ordered war in accordance with D&C 98:33?

“Look, I didn’t know about that scripture, okay?”

“I thought you said you followed all of God’s commandments.”

“That one must have gotten past me.”

“Let’s move on. You lived 87 years on the earth. You must have read the Book of Mormon many times during your lifetime.”

“Many times. I love the Book of Mormon.”

“How many times did you actually read it all the way through?”

“Many times.”

“How many?

“I don’t know, maybe two or three times.”

“This is heaven, remember.”

“Okay, okay! I’m sure we read it in seminary. I know we studied it every four years in Sunday school.”

“You studied parts of it in Sunday school. Those Sunday school lessons were abridged. They skipped entire sections that would have been important for you as a soldier to know about. Some of those tedious war chapters, for instance.

“There were a lot of wars in the Book of Mormon, that’s for sure.”

“What do you think was the reason the prophet Mormon saw fit to include all those chapters on war?”

“I don’t know. Filler?”

“Have you ever heard the statement that the Book of Mormon is both a witness and a warning?”

“Sure I have.”

“So what is the witness?’

“It witnesses of Jesus Christ.”

“And what do you think is the warning?”

“I get the feeling you’re going to tell me it’s something about war.”

“War and deception in the last days, yes. Mormon wanted you to understand that there are sometimes legitimate reasons for going to war, and at those times the people have a sacred duty to take up arms and defend their lands and freedoms even unto the shedding of blood.”

“That’s what I’m saying! That’s why we were in Iraq and Afghanistan; we were defending America from the terrorists!”

“The Book of Mormon also demonstrates that people can be deceived into believing they are under threat when they really are not. They can even be tricked into retaliating against the wrong enemy. God used the Book of Mormon to warn you that corrupt leaders would come among your people willing to exploit their fears, and to convince you that you were engaged in a great battle for righteousness. In reality, the opposite was true.”

“Well, I didn’t know about any of that.”

“I know you didn’t. And that’s a shame because Mormon’s son Moroni was adamant in his warnings that the record his father passed to him was of the utmost importance to the people in your day, and to your country in particular. He foresaw the danger Americans would put themselves in by making war in defiance of God’s commandments. Saddest of all, he prophesied that many members of your church, those same people who would receive the record, would reject the warnings. Your own actions have assisted in bringing some of those prophecies to pass.”

“You’re killing me here. Okay, maybe I wasn’t being fully accountable. Listen, I'll admit something. In the beginning I did have some doubts about what we were doing in Iraq. But then everybody back home just kept telling us that our sacrifices were noble and necessary. We got care packages from school children and letters from strangers thanking us for being their heroes. They had us believing the whole country depended upon us for its very survival.”

“Flattery is one of the most effective tools of the Evil One, isn’t it?”

“Well, I sure I bought into all of it. I tried to think of myself as a simple soldier just doing my duty, but all that encouragement was pretty heady stuff. It got me believing I was engaged in some great battle between good and evil.”

“Those citizens who allowed the Evil One to use them in cheering you on will be held individually accountable for their part, but you yourself are accountable for not seeing through it.

“You know, I have to admit that I think I may be almost ready to accept that accountability.”

“That makes me very happy. Do you remember what the war in heaven was about?”

“Of course, that’s where you and I met. I always figured that the war I was fighting on earth was a continuation of the war in heaven; you know, fighting for freedom and all. We just couldn’t get over the fact that you people didn’t appreciate that we were there to help you get your freedom back. I lost a foot from a bomb set by some of the very people I was there to liberate.”

“And still you didn’t take the hint. Did you not learn anything from our victory in the war in heaven? The issue was self-determination. Nations as well as individuals deserve to be left to themselves to sort out their problems. We did not ask for your help. You imposed your will on us, just as Lucifer tried to impose his will on all the denizens of heaven.”

“You’re wrong about that. We liberated you from a dictator."

“And who asked you to do so? Your leaders were successful in convincing you that first we were an imminent threat to you. Then you were told that we needed rescuing from our own government. Then you were told we couldn’t manage without your help. Then you were told that you were needed against the terrorists. It was always some new excuse so you wouldn’t leave. Your government always had a reason to deny us our free agency. You helped me fight a war of liberty in heaven, then went to earth and became my oppressor.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. “But our intentions were noble.”

“What’s that proverb about the road to hell? Why didn’t you turn your noble intentions on yourselves? Your country had its own problems. When America was hit with floods and fires, your people learned to their dismay that most of your National Guard were stuck in my country and unavailable. God commands all nations to respect the sovereignty of each other. You should have been home where you were needed.”

“Well, some of us in the church hoped that by fighting to free the middle east, we could open up the area some day for the spreading of the gospel.”

“And who would listen to you then?”

“Everybody. We’d flood the area with missionaries.”

“Did you ever know anyone who served a mission in Germany?” She asked.

“Yeah, I heard that lots of guys would spend their whole two years there and never get one baptism.”

“And that was half a century after the United States defeated those people for a second time. How is the missionary work going in Vietnam and Cambodia? How about Thailand? Laos? You can’t spread the gospel of the Prince of Peace using a flamethrower. If you wanted to convert us, why did you think sending your armies in first was the way to do it? We weren’t infidels, you know. Before the Americans came to Iraq there were two million Christians openly living there unmolested by Saddam Hussein’s government, and free of persecution. There was mutual respect between the Christians and their Muslim neighbors. Within four years of your occupation we were all displaced or dead. It was a most unproductive method of proselyting.”

“Well, the war might have been wrong, but I know God was with me while I was in Iraq.”

“God did not abandon you, but that didn’t mean he approved what you were doing. All that praying you did, and not once did you ask the right questions or listen for answers. God wanted you to simply live your religion. He stood at the door and knocked, but his knocking was drowned out by the sound of your machine gun fire.”

The soldier could not think of anything more to say to the girl. He was suddenly overcome by sadness and regret. He had been standing the entire time; now his newfound strength went out of him and he simply sank to his knees before her.

“I’m sorry”, he cried, “I really am! I’m sorry I deprived you of a full life. I should not have been in your home, and I’m sorry. You tell me I have the Lord’s forgiveness, but I’m asking you now for yours. Please. I take accountability for what I did to you and your family. I am accountable for it. Can you ever forgive me?”

The girl grasped her robe near the neck and folded it closed as she slowly raised herself up. The soldier looked up in astonishment to see that she was now standing on two perfect, beautiful legs where a moment before there had been nothing.

A look of peace crossed her face. She closed her eyes in a moment of sweet contentment as she brought her right hand up and held it against her breast. It was as if she hadn’t felt the sensation of a heartbeat in a long, long time, and now it was there again. The girl looked down at the now sobbing soldier and smiled tenderly. She gently touched her hand to his head. Finally she spoke.

“I forgave you before you got here.”


_