Freedom! Lessons from the ‘war chapters’ for our time

The ‘war chapters’ – not so irrelevant as you might think.

In considering Alma 43-63, I was hit hard with the repeated similarities between the circumstances among the Nephites and those in our societies right now.

There are excellent spiritual-only lessons to learn from these chapters, and we’re pretty well-versed in them, I think. These will always be relevant. I want to talk about the other, very practical, lessons that I believe can be learnt here – and for which I also believe Mormon included them, very deliberately. Or at least, was inspired to, if he wasn’t aware of the reasons. God knew exactly what the problems in our day would be, and what we would need to recognise and combat them.

These chapters delve far more into the details of the times than most other sections of the Book of Mormon – 1st and 2nd Nephi are other examples. Why? Is it only for spiritual counsel? I don’t think so. What we’re given is a very clear picture of the dangers which arose in Nephite society due to dissenters and power-seekers, and how they dealt with them. The great theme that runs through this section is freedom – the dangers to it, the people and causes which tried to overthrow it (over & over), the extreme concern of Nephite leaders regarding those dangers, and the decisive ways in which they dealt with them and defended that freedom. It’s very interesting and directly instructive.

During this time – and in the next generation, covered in Helaman – serious dissenters arose one after the other, gathered people to their cause, and brought down war upon the Nephites. Every instance of battle and destruction, of their enemies gaining ground and taking over more cities, began with a dissenting power-seeker and their followers.

Below, I’ve created a table that shows each of these dissenters/groups, and the similarities between their characters and tactics, and the steps that followed. They follow a remarkably similar pattern. As you look through it, consider the parallels with our time.

Table: Attributes, devices, & similarities between dissenters/would-be usurpers of Nephites during this time (Alma 35, 43-63).

What do you see? Common themes are:

1. Flattery: each of these leaders ‘flattered’ their followers, and this is what decided them to get truly involved in the cause. Flattery seems mainly to have been promising them power once the ‘leader’ was in power themselves (with their help), and probably also included telling them their cause and resentments were just, that they had been cheated of what was rightfully theirs (e.g. the king-men), and that they deserved to have it ‘restored’ to them. Therefore, whatever they had to do to achieve it was just.

2. Anger: it began with anger over the failure of others to act as they thought they should, resentment/anger at their ideas being rejected when put to a democratic vote (as the Nephites had chosen to arrange their society), and anger that they didn’t have what they wanted. Then, they ‘stirred up’ their followers to anger (mixed with the flattery above) – ‘how dare they?!’, etc. Finally, their anger led to further drastic action – going to their own people’s enemies, the Lamanites, and inciting them to anger against the Nephites. If they couldn’t have their way, they’d punish everyone else for it, and force the issue through violence. This is the worst sort of betrayal – seceding from your country, going to its enemies, and convincing them to go to war with your rejected country, so that you can have the power over them that they denied to you. I totally understand the (very different) anger that Moroni felt at these traitors, for the extreme danger and suffering they caused or could cause, and for the betrayal of the principles of freedom upon which their nation was built.
As Yoda said, “… Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering”.

3. They sought to destroy freedom: specifically, the Nephites’ freedom to worship God as they desired, to have a democratic government, to be physically safe, to have families, and to support themselves by their work. The power-seekers always claimed what belonged to either everybody (democracy/the right to choose their own leaders) or another group of people (e.g. the Moriantonites). They wanted what they didn’t have, and were willing to go to arms to enforce it.

What lessons can we learn?

From this portion – the similarities between the people who tried to overthrow Nephite freedom – we learn that the great dangers facing the Nephites were dangers to the freedoms their ancestors had worked so hard to establish. And there were multiple occurrences. Another dissenter always arose – even after this period, when Moroni’s son, Moronihah, was leader of the Nephite armies, dissenters were still arising, leading people away, and going to the Lamanites to stir them up to anger and war against the Nephites. We also have multiple instances of such dangers to the freedoms we have been used to enjoying in our democratic countries.

We learn the specific tools these people used to convince others of the justness of their cause, and incite them to anger and violence against the rest of their society. We learn that anger is very dangerous, and the particular consequences it can lead to, if allowed to grow. It is also a powerful tool in gaining people to a rebellious cause.

I believe we should look carefully within Mormon’s abridgement of Alma’s record here to find exactly what occurred and how, and that doing this will help us to recognise the dangers currently facing us in our free societies, how these might conceivably continue to play out, and what can be done about them. It is also instructive to consider the differences between the power-seekers described here and Moroni, along with the other Nephite leaders of the time (Pahoran, Helaman, Lehi, Teancum…).

Two other aspects of the ’cause of freedom’ are found in these chapters, both as important as this first: (a) the dangers that these dissenters brought to Nephite society (touched upon here, but having more detail to consider), and (b) how Moroni, other Nephite leaders, and the majority of the Nephites together responded to these threats. I’ll share these in another post.