I have always loved the Doctrine & Covenants and am excited for this year’s focus on that book of scripture in Sunday School.

In anticipation of this new course of study, I have been reflecting on the revelations, doctrines, and covenants recorded in the LDS Doctrine and Covenants and their genesis in the tumultuous early years of the Church. Many of the revelations originated in the first few years after the Church was established in 1830 while the institutions of the Church including the various offices of the priesthood were still developing through the ongoing guidance that Joseph Smith was receiving throughout the process. The result was an organization that developed very organically, step by step.

Along the way, Joseph Smith was receiving revelations that coupled the divine with the mundane — a natural fit for a religion that was so wholly focused on establishing Zion. Historian Richard Bushman aptly describes how the text of many of the revelations reflects this eclectic ensemble:

In December 1832, three months after the priesthood revelation [D&C 84], Joseph received a lengthy, conglomerate revelation that took two days to complete [D&C 88]. Begun during a meeting in the “translation room” above the Whitney store in one of the three rooms where the Smiths were living, it broke off about nine o’clock. The minutes report that “the revelation not being finished the conference adjourned till tomorrow morning 9 oclock AM.” The next day, Joseph “proceeded to receive the residue of the above revelation.” When he mailed it to William Phelps in Missouri, Joseph called it “the Olieve leaf which we have plucked from the tree of Paradise.”

Like other revelations, the “Olive Leaf” [D&C 88] moves from subject to subject. Nothing in nineteenth-century literature resembles it. The writings of Swedenborg come closest, but they were much less concerned with millenarian events. The “Olive Leaf” runs from the cosmological to the practical, from a description of angels blowing their trumpets to instructions for starting a school. Yet the pieces blend together into a cohesive compound of cosmology and eschatology united by the attempt to link the quotidian world of the now to the world beyond. The revelation offers sketches of the order of heaven, reprises the three degrees of glory, delivers a discourse on divine law, offers a summary of the metahistory of the end times, and then brings it all to bear on what the Saints should do now

[. . . .]

A revelation in May 1833 [D&C 93] put Christ, rather than nature, at the center of salvation. The incarnate Christ, the revelation said, received “not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace.” Eventually, “he received all power, both in heaven and on earth; and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him.” The Saints were to follow the same course. “If you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness and be glorified in me as I am in the Father: therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.” The fulness promised to humans, in other words, was the same as the fulness bestowed on Christ: “all power, both in heaven and on earth.” The Saints were to follow the path of Christ toward this fulness, not to search nature for signs of divinity.

[. . . .]

Exaltation also meant intelligence, equated by the revelations with light and truth. In a sense, the central purpose of life was to absorb light and truth, the basis of judgment. Rejecting light was the great error. Living in darkness meant living on the side of evil. “Light and truth forsaketh that evil one.” Since the glory of God was intelligence, growing in intelligence was progress in godliness. Later in Nauvoo, Joseph would use the word “intelligence” as a name for the primal essence of the human spirit, and would elaborate the history of God and the free intelligences.

In a characteristic transition, the concluding verses of the May revelation [D&C 93] descend from the heavens into the everyday concerns of Joseph and his friends. The Lord scolds them for not keeping order in their families. Joseph is told, “You have not kept the commandments, and must needs stand rebuked before the Lord.” Sidney Rigdon and Newel Whitney are admonished for not keeping better track of their children. Ordinary daily concerns mingle with the grand structure of the universe. While taking care of their children, it was implied, the Saints could be growing in glory and intelligence. (Richard Lyman Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling (2005), 205-210.)

Bushman’s description of the nature of these revelations is so effective because it is also descriptive of the larger project of Mormonism. Reading the revelations contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, we begin to realize that our daily lives are indeed part of the very structure of the universe — the experiences that we have and the intelligences unto which we aspire are building blocks of something that stretches into eternity, with an unlimited potential reflecting God’s desire to endow all of his children with the greatest blessings he has to offer.

Kudos to a New York University journalism student in Prague for an interesting story that involves Mormons and religion (ht:T&S).

The story notes the difficulty experienced by Mormon missionaries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in getting people interested in the Church but also touches on religion in these countries more generally. The articles notes as follows:

In a 2007 survey conducted by the STEM polling agency, 48 percent of Czech respondents identified themselves as atheists, making the country home to the highest percentage of atheists in Europe, if not the world.

It is no wonder that the Czech Republic presents a difficult working environment for missionaries such as Trost and Mack.

“I would say that Czechs do not like to talk about religion too much,” said Petr Mucha, a professor of religious studies at New York University in Prague. “A lot of it comes from the education under communism. They were taught that religion was bad and led to bad results.“

These bad results, according to the communist doctrine, included the domination of Habsburg Empire, which backed by the Catholic Church, squelched Czechoslovak aspirations during its rule from the mid-16th century until World War I.

Fifty-five percent of Czechs mistrust all churches and only 28 percent trust them, according to the STEM poll.

Having served a mission in a post-Communist country myself, I can add my own anecdotal support to the assertion that many people’s atheism was a direct result of their education during the Communist regime. After the fall of the various Communist dictatorships the misinformation propagated by the Communist regimes became painfully apparent, but many people did not reevaluate what they had learned in this one aspect.

It would seem logical that if the Communist regimes had been manipulating their citizens with regard to other information concerning political theory, economics, history, and other social sciences (it is beyond argument that the regimes were indeed doing this with their education programs and propaganda), it was also doing so with regard to religion. It would therefore seem prudent to be wary of the former regimes’ viewpoints on religion. That this reevaluation has not been undertaken by many people is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself.

The effect of this decades-long educational program provides a hint as to one of the main reasons why the Communist regimes were so objectionable to Church leaders — the state-sponsored atheism hardened large numbers of people against developing a relationship of whatever nature with their Maker, whether within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or otherwise. This article notes what anyone who has served a mission in Eastern Europe or Russia already knows: that these ffects are still pronounced today, nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet slave empire.

It’s funny but with this new WordPress dashboard all of my drafts appear to have been redated January 1, 1970.

In England they start kids off on an activist career very young, it seems.

By the summer of 2007, my oldest was a six year old tree hugger, as evidenced by this picture. After only half a year at her English primary school, she was regularly lecturing us that driving is bad for the environment (even though we hardly ever drive — we take public transportation to drop her off and pick her up from school).

Occasionally my wife has been known to do the unthinkable for this young activist: she shows up in the car to pick her up from school if it is pouring rain at the time school is ending. The truth is, most of the time she goes on the bus with our two year old to pick up the older girls from school, even when it’s raining. But every once in a while, it just works better to pick her up in the car. On one such occasion, I am told that our little activist disappeared up into her room that afternoon and emerged with this stern reminder for what she apparently considers to be her oafish parents:

I am proud that my daughter is so interested in this, particularly since I am on board with the impulse to drive less. My sense is that Mormons ought to be acutely aware of proper stewardship of and responsibility for the cleanliness and general health and well being of the planet (we need look no further than the Doctrine and Covenants to find encouragement in this regard). Pollution of our environment, whether of the air, land, or water, or the derivative endangerment or extinction of species should concern us greatly and be condemned roundly as very bad things in themselves (i.e., outside of a political context).

At the same time, however, I wonder whether political lessons are appropriate for the very young. As we all know, kids’ minds at this age are very impressionable. In this case, the fact that my daughter has been turned into something of a mini-activist by her school lessons isn’t a big deal because care for the environment is an issue I happen to agree with. (Of course, it appears from the way that my daughter is expressing her concern for the environment that it might be the politicized face of the issue of a clean environment that is being taught at my daughter’s school, which I think is too bad.) The risk, of course, is that at some point the kids might come home as activists for causes that you find morally reprehensible. I would imagine at that point that it transitions from being cute to distressing.

This is all the more reason to make sure that the home is a refuge from the world and a place where values and priorities are discussed openly and early. Perhaps a good start is to teach kids early on to recognize the use of important issues for political means and distinguish that from the issues themselves. Hopefully, we all want our children to be able to decide their own politics for themselves based on issues. A home focused on values and priorities can be a rich foundation for a child’s own exploration of political issues as he or she grows up and begins to become aware of how those issues are used — and whether such uses are effective, divisive, disingenuous or sincere, etc.

The Federal Republic of Germany turns eighteen today — at least in its reunified form. On October 3, 1990 the official Reunification of a country divided for 45 years by what seemed an insurmountable geopolitical estrangement took place in Berlin, the besieged city at the very heart of the Cold War. The scene played out on the steps of the famous Reichstag building upon which the words in the title of this post are inscribed just below the pediment: DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE — “To the German people”.

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers (Isaiah 1:7).

In the early 1990s there was a display in the bombed out ruins of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche — a cathedral located on the popular Ku’Damm street in the heart of West Berlin that was destroyed in cataclysmic bombings of the city in 1943 — that conveyed a powerful and sobering message. The verse from Isaiah quoted above was placed in the caption under a panoramic picture of a completely bombed out Berlin. (For comparative translations of this verse, see here.) The picture above looks out from what was left of Dresden’s Frauenkirche over the ruins of Dresden after allied bombing raids at the close of World War II. Many other German cities had experienced similar devastation and destruction.

Berlin, however, had not only been the target of brutal bombing raids. It was also the scene of brutal street to street fighting during Russia’s 1945 Assault on Berlin as the Red Army pounded at the last defenses of Hitler’s crumbled dictatorship. After the boys and old men defending the city surrendered, the Red Army raped tens of thousands of German women trapped in Berlin as the Russians sought to establish their domination through unleashing the brutality of conscripts drafted from Russia’s vast expanse of client nations. The ultimate result of Hitler’s Napoleonic delusions in Europe was the entire destruction of the German economy and many of Germany’s major cities, as well as the death of millions across Europe and particularly in Germany. The stage was also set for 45 years of continued oppression of Germans who had ended up in what became East Germany as families were divided when half the country fell behind the “Iron Curtain”.

In 1948, as the writing on the wall had become clear based on the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the draconian measures adopted in the Russian zone of Berlin, West Berlin’s mayor Ernst Reuter stood at the destroyed Reichstag building and famously declared in biblical overtones, “Ihr Völker der Welt, schaut auf diese Stadt!” (”People of the world, behold this city!”). The world looked, as it had been looking, and saw Soviet intentions unveiled. The Cold War was inevitable as allied forces shored up the line dividing East and West against Stalin’s aggression.

Berlin was still on center stage of the Cold War in 1963 when U.S. President John F. Kennedy, just five months before he was assassinated in Dallas, stood in Berlin and gave a speech in which he made the following rousing statement which he had devised right before delivering the speech:

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’. . . . All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’

As a single city “divided” by an atrocious wall built by the Soviet client-state of East Germany (cynically called the “anti-fascist protective wall” by the East German government that erected it), Berlin was the very symbol of the Cold War. John F. Kennedy had presciently captured the spirit of the age with his impromptu statement. All free peoples had an interest in the well-being of West Berlin. West Berlin was the very symbol of the Cold War because the city itself was located as an island right in the middle of the country of East Germany — West Berliners were essentially in a stockade vigorously defended by American weapons of war against the threat of being subsumed by the hostile state surrounding it. In truth, the Berlin Wall was not an “anti-fascist protective wall” but an act of oppression perpetrated by a government on its own people: the Berlin Wall actually encircled West Berlin to keep East Germans from escaping the totalitarian regime in East Germany through West Berlin.

By the end of the 1980s, the Berlin Wall was as indelibly etched in the mind of millions of people around the West as the massive caption DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE was above the pock-marked facade of West Berlin’s imposing Reichstag building. A few hundred meters away from the Reichstag stands the Brandenburg Gate — one of the most recognizable Cold War symbols of all. In 1987, just two years before the unanticipated “fall” of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg gate and made the following controversial but now famous statement:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Even though the leader of East Germany Erich Honecker stated in January of 1989 that the Wall would stand for another 100 years, events that took place that year (as the culmination of 45 years of repression in East Germany) lead to an occurence that virtually no one had thought was possible — the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, more dramatically known as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Video images of Germans standing on top of the wall and streaming over it and through breaches in it will remain with anyone who has seen them as an outpouring of humanity’s desire for freedom and unity.

* * *

In 1945 a new republic was born on the ruins of Hitler’s Germany. But it would not be until October 3, 1990 (apart from the brief interlude of the Weimar Republic preceding Hitler’s rise to power) that the words inscribed on the Reichstag building in 1916 would finally be realized in a lasting republic: DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE. Though my endorsement means nothing, I salute Germany today on this Day of Reunification.

Cross-posted at BCC

The sons of mothers and fathers who prostrated themselves before a hostile army to be slaughtered at will for their religious beliefs (Alma 24:21) knew that there were worse things in this world than dying firm in their faith — for instance, breaking a solemn covenant to God (Alma 24:16) or, even worse, actually being one of the butchers before being “stung for the murders which they had committed” and joining up with those offering their necks to the sword (Alma 24:24-25; Alma 25:14). The sons and daughters of the latter inherited perhaps an even greater sense of humility from their mothers whose husbands had committed such atrocities and then repented, joining the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in “vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives” (Alma 24:18). This observation was shared by a sister in my wife’s home ward as part of the enriching discussion that I enjoyed as I attended Sunday School in the Edgemont 14th Ward while visiting family on vacation at the end of August. We were blessed by the efforts of a conscientious Sunday School teacher who engaged closely with the text and did not shy away from actually teaching us from the insights, experiences, and knowledge that he has gained from the messages of the Book of Mormon.

Theodicy reared its head during our 45 minute study of Helaman’s army of 2,000 sons of those same Anti-Nephi-Lehis who had made the covenant to bury their weapons of war and “suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them” (Alma 27:29). I came away grateful for the profound homily on deliverance that we find in this episode of the Book of Mormon.

Another class member pointed out that Helaman’s decoy mission with his army of 2,000 Anti-Nephi-Lehis (Alma 56:30) occured during the High Holy Days of the Hebrew liturgical year (the High Holy Days are the first ten days of the seventh month, culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on the tenth day) — Helaman notes that the famous battle in which none of the 2,000 soldiers were killed took place on the third day of the seventh month (Alma 56:42). In fact, this means that the Lamanite army that had been in possession of the city Antiparah, which was the strongest Lamanite army in the occupying force (Alma 56:34), was in hot pursuit of Helaman’s little band (Alma 56:38) on the first day of the seventh month. The first day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:24) is the Biblical “day of blowing the horn” (Numbers 29:1) that is now known as the two-day Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish “Day of Judgment” or “Day of Remembrance”, which is fast approaching at the end of this month (September 29, 2008). As such, it seems appropriate to reflect on the Rosh Hashanah setting of the deliverance of Helaman’s army of 2,000 from their enemies.

Writing as editor of the various records that had come into his possession nearly 500 years after the events he is summarizing relating to this scene from the history of his people, Mormon noted that the Nephites had granted refuge to the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, among whom were the parents of Helaman’s 2,000 soldiers. They had also promised to protect them with Nephite armies in exchange for a tribute to cover the costs of such protection so that the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, whom the Nephites called the people of Ammon, would never find themselves in a situation where they would feel obligated to break their solemn covenant to God to protect their families from Lamanite armies (Alma 27:21-26). Despite this arrangement, about a decade later the people of Ammon began to feel like they should assist in defending against invading Lamanite armies (Alma 53:13). Helaman and the Nephites convinced them not to do so in an effort to assist them in keeping the covenant they had made with God (Alma 53:14-15). Mormon explains, however, that the people of Ammon had many sons “who had not entered into a covenant that they would not take their weapons of war to defend themselves against their enemies; therefore they did assemble themselves together at this time, as many as were able to take up arms, and they called themselves Nephites” (Alma 53:16). Mormon proceeds to give the following well-known description of these sons:

17 And they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives; yea, even they covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage.
18 Now behold, there were two thousand of those young men, who entered into this covenant and took their weapons of war to defend their country.
19 And now behold, as they never had hitherto been a disadvantage to the Nephites, they became now at this period of time also a great support; for they took their weapons of war, and they would that Helaman should be their leader.
20 And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for acourage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all — they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.
21 Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him. (Alma 53:17-21)

Later we find that Mormon’s description here was an accurate summary of Helaman’s own description in his epistle to Captain Moroni, which Mormon chose to include verbatim in the record he was creating on the Golden Plates (Alma 57:20-21; 27).[1]

The righteousness and purity of faith of the 2,000 Ammonites, together with the faith and teachings of their parents, contributed to their famous deliverance. With Helaman the High Priest as their chosen captain (Alma 53:19), the Ammonite soldiers were delivered from the reach of the pursuing Lamanite army on the actual day and night of Rosh Hashanah (Alma 56:38). The Holy Day timeframe of this deliverance is potentially meaningful considering that this Biblical Holy Day became a time to reflect on God’s Judgment and, by rabbinical times, was said to entail the heavenly opening of three books, one for the righteous, one for the wicked, and one for those granted time to repent during the ten High Holy Days preceding Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah, therefore, the names of the righteous are recorded directly in the book of life and the righteous are thereby sealed to life. Helaman’s 2,000 soldiers certainly seemed to have been sealed to life on the first day of the seventh month as they outran the Lamanite army from the city of Antiparah.

When they finally faced the Lamanite army on the third day of the seventh month, it was their affirmative decision to do so and not because they had fallen prey to the Lamanite army:

42 But it came to pass that they did not pursue us far before they halted; and it was in the morning of the third day of the seventh month.
43 And now, whether they were overtaken by Antipus we knew not, but I said unto my men: Behold, we know not but they have halted for the purpose that we should come against them, that they might catch us in their snare;
44 Therefore what say ye, my sons, will ye go against them to battle?
45 And now I say unto you, my beloved brother Moroni, that never had I seen so great courage, nay, not amongst all the Nephites.
46 For as I had ever called them my sons (for they were all of them very young) even so they said unto me: Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth; we would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone; therefore let us go, lest they should overpower the army of Antipus. (Alma 56:42-46)

It was up to Helaman to decide whether to take the young soldiers back to where the Lamanites were presumably confronting the Nephite army of Antipus. Helaman reported to Captain Moroni his reasoning for deciding to do so:

47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.
48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

The outcome is well known among Latter-day Saints, as it is a favorite story of primary children and adults alike. Helaman and his small force discovered that the Lamanites were about to defeat the army of Antipus. “For Antipus had fallen by the sword, and many of his leaders, because of their weariness, which was occasioned by the speed of their march — therefore the men of Antipus, being confused because of the fall of their leaders, began to give way before the Lamanites” (Alma 56:51). Helaman’s army attacked the Lamanites from behind by surprise, halting the Lamanites’ pursuit of Antipus’s army and rousing Antipus’s men to join with Helaman’s soldiers in surrounding and defeating the Lamanites (Alma 56:52-55). Most importantly, however, Helaman reported of his 2,000 soldiers that “there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength; and with such mighty power did they fall upon the Lamanites, that they did frighten them; and for this cause did the Lamanites deliver themselves up as prisoners of war” (Alma 56:56).

In the aftermath of this battle, Nephite reinforcements arrived, including 60 more Ammonite soldiers for Helaman’s army (Alma 57:6). Once again, they faced a larger Lamanite army and were delivered from death at the hands of their enemies:

19 But behold, my little band of two thousand and sixty fought most desperately; yea, they were firm before the Lamanites, and did administer death unto all those who opposed them.
20 And as the remainder of our army were about to give way before the Lamanites, behold, those two thousand and sixty were firm and undaunted.
21 Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.
22 And now behold, it was these my sons, and those men who had been selected to convey the prisoners, to whom we owe this great victory; for it was they who did beat the Lamanites; therefore they were driven back to the city of Manti.
23 And we retained our city Cumeni, and were not all destroyed by the sword; nevertheless, we had suffered great loss.
24 And it came to pass that after the Lamanites had fled, I immediately gave orders that my men who had been wounded should be taken from among the dead, and caused that their wounds should be dressed.
25 And it came to pass that there were two hundred, out of my two thousand and sixty, who had fainted because of the loss of blood; nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonishment, and also the joy of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds.
26 And now, their preservation was astonishing to our whole army, yea, that they should be spared while there was a thousand of our brethren who were slain. And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe — that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power.
27 Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken; they are young, and their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually. (Alma 57:19-27)

In verse 21 Helaman reflects on the fact that the Ammonites’ faith was rooted in what they had said their mothers had taught them. Before Helaman had decided to give the order to rescue the army of Antipus back on the third day of the seventh month, they had told him that “they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them” (Alma 56:47). After telling Helaman what, specifically, their mothers had taught them (which Helaman does not record in detail) they reinforced this salient point by saying to Helaman that “We do not doubt our mothers knew it” (Alma 56:48). Helaman’s reaction was perhaps not too different than my own in reading this assertion: when the children of co-religionists who have delivered themselves up to be slaughtered for their beliefs say that they do not doubt that their parents knew that God would deliver them if they did not doubt, their perspective is worth listening to and learning from. This is true even though it is likely that Helaman was aware that the parents of some of his 2,000 soldiers had probably been butchered as a result of their desire to keep the covenant they had made with God.

Returning to the Sunday School class I attended, the teacher asked what granted these women a sure knowledge of the deliverance of their sons, and why their sons would believe them. I was grateful that he pointed us to what he believed was the answer — 1 Nephi 1:20:

But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

I think he is right.

We cannot overlook the fact that the mothers of other Nephite soldiers, for instance those in Antipus’s army, were also likely praying for the deliverance of their sons, and yet many of them died. The 2,060 Ammonites, however, represented an exceptional case of unwavering faith and, notably, exact obedience to the commandments of the Lord and the words of Helaman, the prophet/High Priest. They also had come to know that their mothers knew that God would deliver them if they had faith and did not doubt that they would be delivered. It is reasonable to conclude that Helaman reports the remarkable experience and deliverance of his 2,060 soldiers — and Mormon includes it in such detail in the Book of Mormon — as a realized ideal that has the potential of teaching all people that which the Ammonites had learned from their exceptional parents.

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*Book of Mormon Blogging

[1] It also seems reasonable to guess that Mormon’s description of Helaman’s 2,000 soldiers is not without a trace of envy considering Mormon’s own position as the general of an army that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the righteousness, faith, and courage of the 2,000 Ammonites. Would the Nephite civilization have collapsed in Mormon’s time if the people and their soldiers had shared the characteristics of the 2,000 Ammonites? Earlier, in his parting prophecy an aged Alma the Younger implied that it would not but that such an outcome would be the result of their having become the opposite of what the Ammonites represented:

Behold, I perceive that this very people, the Nephites, according to the spirit of revelation which is in me, in four hundred years from the time that Jesus Christ shall manifest himself unto them, shall dwindle in unbelief.
11 Yea, and then shall they see wars and pestilences, yea, famines and bloodshed, even until the people of Nephi shall become extinct –
12 Yea, and this because they shall dwindle in unbelief and fall into the works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of iniquities; yea, I say unto you, that because they shall sin against so great light and knowledge, yea, I say unto you, that from that day, even the fourth generation shall not all pass away before this great iniquity shall come.
13 And when that great day cometh, behold, the time very soon cometh that those who are now, or the seed of those who are now numbered among the people of Nephi, shall no more be numbered among the people of Nephi.
14 But whosoever remaineth, and is not destroyed in that great and dreadful day, shall be numbered among the Lamanites, and shall become like unto them, all, save it be a few who shall be called the disciples of the Lord; and them shall the Lamanites pursue even until they shall become extinct. And now, because of iniquity, this prophecy shall be fulfilled. (Alma 45:10-14)

Compiling the records 400 years after Christ’s visit to his people, Mormon was certainly aware that Alma’s prophecy was fulfilled and realized that his own son Moroni, a disciple of Christ, would be pursued by the Lamanites as part of their (Nehor-inspired?) campaign to kill all disciples of Christ. Although Alma’s prophecy has been fulfilled with regard to the Nephites, there is reason to believe that the curse that he communicated on behalf of the Lord remains in full effect: “Thus saith the Lord God—Cursed shall be the land, yea, this land, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, unto destruction, which do wickedly, when they are fully ripe; and as I have said so shall it be; for this is the cursing and the blessing of God upon the land, for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (Alma 45:16). Whether this curse pertains only to the lands of Central America that were inhabited by the descendants of Lehi or to the entire Western Hemisphere is perhaps somewhat unclear, but it is worth noting the content of this warning nonetheless.

Bookslinger is still on the Lord’s errand, slinging his books and other Gospel materials.

He puts every single one of us Latter-day Saints with a desire to bring all of God’s children to a knowledge of restored religious truth and priesthood authority seriously to shame. Thank you for doing so Bookslinger.

His latest experience with bookslinging is a prime example:

08/20/2008. 1057. I stopped for supper at a Chinese restaurant on my way to an appointment with a client. I don’t remember eating here before, but if I did, it’s been a long time. I ordered, paid, sat down, and put some material on the table. When the cashier/waitress/owner brought my food, she didn’t seem to notice the material.

When I finished eating, I was the only customer in the restaurant, so I stopped by the cashier counter and struck up a converstation with her. She accepted a Chinese and English Liahona, a Simplified Chinese copy and an English copy of the Book of Mormon, and the “Finding Happiness” DVD, which is only about 5 minutes long, and has a Chinese Audio and Video track. Their small children immediately started flipping through pictures in the magazines and in the book of Mormon.

Your dedication exposes many of us Latter-day Saints for the hypocrites that we often are, claiming as we do the privilege of identitying ourselves as children of Christ, having been “spiritually begotten” of Him through the covenants we have entered into (Mosiah 5:7), beginning with baptism, and yet often shrinking from such opportunities to share our testimonies and Gospel materials with those around us. You are setting an excellent example for us all. Keep up the good work.

A lot of water passed under the bridge between Alma the Younger’s dramatic conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a young man and his exclamation of desire to speak with the same voice of an angel that had shaken him to his very core those decades earlier.

After the horrors of Ammonihah and other missionary tribulations, Alma declared his desire to speak with the voice of an angel:

1 O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!
2 Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth. Alma 29:1-2

This would be merely poetic from most writers but opens an extra dimension of meaning coming from Alma who speaks from experience when invoking the power of the voice of an angel to shake the earth in declaring repentance. His own conversion stems from being party to such a powerful message. Alma’s experience is recorded in detail twice in the Book of Mormon, once in Mosiah 27 by Mormon as the compiler and editor of the plates and then again in Alma 36 by Alma himself in a letter to his son. Each retelling offers insight into this particular aspect of the angel declaring repentance with a “voice of thunder” to “shake the earth”.

In Mosiah 27:8-18 Mormon describes the experience as follows, apparently quoting from a primary source in some instances, e.g. for the words of the angel:

8 Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father; nevertheless, he became a very wicked and an idolatrous man. And he was a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.
9 And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them.
10 And now it came to pass that while he was going about to destroy the church of God, for he did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandments of God, or even the king—
11 And as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood;
12 And so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the earth, and understood not the words which he spake unto them.
13 Nevertheless he cried again, saying: Alma, arise and stand forth, for why persecutest thou the church of God? For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people.
14 And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith.
15 And now behold, can ye dispute the power of God? For behold, doth not my voice shake the earth? And can ye not also behold me before you? And I am sent from God.
16 Now I say unto thee: Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam, and in the land of Nephi; and remember how great things he has done for them; for they were in bondage, and he has delivered them. And now I say unto thee, Alma, go thy way, and seek to destroy the church no more, that their prayers may be answered, and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.
17 And now it came to pass that these were the last words which the angel spake unto Alma, and he departed.
18 And now Alma and those that were with him fell again to the earth, for great was their astonishment; for with their own eyes they had beheld an angel of the Lord; and his voice was as thunder, which shook the earth; and they knew that there was nothing save the power of God that could shake the earth and cause it to tremble as though it would part asunder.

In verse 15 we find the salient point, expressed by the angel himself, that Mormon likely hoped to express by emphasizing that the angel spoke with a voice of thunder that shook the earth: “And now behold, can ye dispute the power of God? For behold, doth not my voice shake the earth? And can ye not also behold me before you? And I am sent from God.” A powerful testimony of repentance indeed.

Later Mormon saw fit to include Alma’s own first-hand account of the encounter with the angel by copying the entire text of Alma’s letter to his son Helaman in Alma 36 and 37:

6 For I went about with the sons of Mosiah, seeking to adestroy the church of God; but behold, God sent his holy angel to stop us by the way.
7 And behold, he spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder, and the whole earth did tremble beneath our feet; and we all fell to the earth, for the fear of the Lord came upon us.
8 But behold, the voice said unto me: Arise. And I arose and stood up, and beheld the angel.
9 And he said unto me: If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.
10 And it came to pass that I fell to the earth; and it was for the space of three days and three nights that I could not open my mouth, neither had I the use of my limbs.
11 And the angel spake more things unto me, which were heard by my brethren, but I did not hear them; for when I heard the words—If thou wilt be destroyed of thyself, seek no more to destroy the church of God—I was struck with such great fear and amazement lest perhaps I should be destroyed, that I fell to the earth and I did hear no more. (Alma 36:6-11)

It is no wonder that, after so many difficulties in preaching the Gospel over the decades between his conversion at the thunderous voice of the angel and his musings in Alma 29, Alma wished that he too could speak with that angel’s voice.

But Alma does not stop his contemplations with such a wish to shock his hearers as with the thunderous voice of an angel. Rather, he explains what the angel’s voice meant to him substantively once the shock and awe had gotten his attention: it rescued him from the spiritual bondage of his old ways. This liberation was so much on his mind after his experience with the angel that he included it in many of his sermons thereafter as a major theme of his ministry. Mormon points it out in Mosiah 27, quoting Alma the Younger there as follows:

29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.
30 I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come, and that he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. (Mosiah 27:29-30)

Alma’s meditation on speaking with the voice of an angel in Alma 29 also leads to this theme of remembering his liberation from spiritual bondage — and God’s liberation of his fathers from physical bondage:

10 And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.
11 Yea, and I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I surely do know that the Lord did deliver them out of bondage, and by this did establish his church; yea, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did deliver them out of bondage.
12 Yea, I have always remembered the captivity of my fathers; and that same God who delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians did deliver them out of bondage. (Alma 29:10-12

And, after retelling his experience with the thunderous voice of the angel and pointing out the importance of remembering the hand of the Lord in freeing those who follow him from captivity in his later letter to his son Helaman, Alma the Younger brings it down to a very practical level in words that explain the mechanics of preaching with the voice of an angel:

26 For because of the word which he has imparted unto me, behold, many have been born of God, and have tasted as I have tasted, and have seen eye to eye as I have seen; therefore they do know of these things of which I have spoken, as I do know; and the knowledge which I have is of God.
27 And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me.
28 And I know that he will raise me up at the last day, to dwell with him in glory; yea, and I will praise him forever, for he has brought our fathers out of Egypt, and he has swallowed up the Egyptians in the Red Sea; and he led them by his power into the promised land; yea, and he has delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time.
29 Yea, and he has also brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem; and he has also, by his everlasting power, delivered them out of bondage and captivity, from time to time even down to the present day; and I have always retained in remembrance their captivity; yea, and ye also ought to retain in remembrance, as I have done, their captivity.
30 But behold, my son, this is not all; for ye ought to know as I do know, that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land; and ye ought to know also, that inasmuch as ye will not keep the commandments of God ye shall be cut off from his presence. Now this is according to his word. (Alma 36:26-30)

Conveniently for Mormon as an editor of a book of scripture, Alma rounds out his account of his conversion at the voice of an angel with what is effectively the thesis statement of the Book of Mormon: inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land; and ye ought to know also, that inasmuch as ye will not keep the commandments of God ye shall be cut off from his presence.
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*Book of Mormon Blogging

A new post at the LDS Newsroom strays from being a news story or a commentary on some inaccuracy in the media about the Church or our beliefs as Latter-day Saints and more closely resembles a blog post.

It’s a great little essay with the form and tone of a regular blog post (no author given, unfortunately), titled “The Grand Enterprise of Mormonism”. The post concludes with a reference to the substance of this “Grand Enterprise”:

As temples continue to be built around the world, barriers between generations fall. All mankind is interconnected and responsible toward one another. The separations and deprivations that time and place have imposed on humanity will ultimately be erased, allowing those who never heard of Jesus Christ an equal opportunity for salvation as those who did. Thus, in the words of Joseph Smith, “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us, is to seek after our dead.” Moreover, “It is necessary that those who are gone before, and those who come after us should have salvation in common with us” (Times and Seasons 5:616).

Amen is what I say to this while applauding the Church’s experiment with blogging in the Commentary section of the LDS Newsroom. We are indeed engaged in a truly grand enterprise. May the Lord progress the work exponentially.

As in the past three years, we took the opportunity this year to celebrate Memorial Day (albeit a week late due to workload at the office on the actual holiday) by visiting the resting place of our dead. I described our previous excursions in the following posts: Our Dead, Our Dead II, and Convert Ancestor.

This year we visited the resting place of some of my wife’s ancestors. Before her Sutton ancestors became Mormons, they were Anglican vicars. She is the great(n)-granddaughter of the Vicars of Leire, a village of Leicestershire. As such, their tombstones have the honor of being prominently displayed in the village churchyard of St. Peter’s of Leire.

Leire is a pretty remote village despite being in the center of the country but the trip out there was very pleasant.

(View Larger Map)

Our girls were impressed with all the gravestones, both of their ancestors and otherwise. They were able to find tombstones in the small cemetery of people who had shared all of our first names except Allison’s.

We took a few moments to soak in the quiet atmosphere of the tiny village and to contemplate the generations of service that Sutton/Seagrave vicars had consecrated to their flocks here in the heart of England.

Standing in front of the 14th century tower of the church looking across at the equestrian village with its horses leisurely jaunting up the street, their young riders amused at the strange photo opportunity, we caught a glimpse into the tight life that had been enjoyed here through the ages, since 20 families were counted in Leire on Domesday, to the 90 or so families living there under the pastoral care of Sutton/Seagrave vicars in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the present day, with a booming population of about 500 souls. (As witness to the quiet life of the village, the pub across the street from the church — The Queen’s Arms — was still closed by the time we were ready to leave around 5:00 p.m. so we resorted to a favorite Malaysian-Japanese fusion restaurant for a late dinner just outside the Epping Forest on our return home.)