latter day satyagraha

Chapter 5: 1 Nephi 19-22

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And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning. (1 Nephi 19: 23)

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The Book of Mormon does quote heavily from the Bible, and in particular from the words of Isaiah. Nephi, when reading the words of the Prophet Isaiah, recognizes the prophecies concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and his ministry among the Jews in Palestine. Although Nephi thinks that the Books of Moses have their own value, Isaiah is the one he chooses to recite in his writings to convince his family members to believe in Christ as Lord and Redeemer. What is so special about the writings of Isaiah?

A friend of mine read a few articles published on this site not long ago and commented that the latest study chapters about the Book of Mormon are beautiful poetry, but they are largely irrelevant to the world in which we live today. I have to be more specific, more concrete, if  I am to persuade people in the world today to live according to principles of peace and of nonviolence.

A recent book review of a biography recently published on Gandhi’s life (“Mahatma: or the art of turning the world up side down”) argues that Gandhi has largely become irrelevant to the world today. An Indian nobel prize winner of Litterature (2001), V.S. Naipau, has said that “Gandhi has absolutely no message of relevance in today’s world. I know of no Indian who actually reads Gandhi’s works today”.

Also Salman Rushdie has said that “the brutal truth is that Gandhi is becoming more and more irrelevant to the nation for which he is the Father”. Anti-materialism and contemplation – seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness – are not among the greatest values cultivated in Indian society today – but rather they seek Bollywood-glamour, shopping, expensive cars, computer technology, McDonalds, and more. The middle class has grown exponentially, but many among the poor have become poorer.

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For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet. Yea, even the very God of Israel do men trample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words—they set him at naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels. And behold he cometh, according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem.

And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men. (1 Nephi 19: 7-9)

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In comments I got from publishing the article “zion cannot be built up”, I was frustrated at the suggestion that Jesus was a soldier of God. Even if it is just a ’spiritual soldier’ or a ‘warrior jesus’, I find it very upsetting – just the thought of it makes me very sick. The way I see it is this, that there is  no evidence in the scriptures for the Savior describing himself as a warrior or of teaching his disciples to fight in war. The only link that one can make between Jesus and soldiers is, to be honest, not a pretty one: those who tortured Jesus were soldiers.

The soldiers stripped him naked and put a scarlet robe on him, they platted a crown of thorns on his head; and they bowed their knee before him and mocked him, saying Hail, King of the Jews. They spit on him and hit him in the head. And after they had mocked him, they led him away to crucify him. They parted his garments, and then sat down and watched him die on the cross and set over his head his accusation: This is Jesus the King of the Jews.

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Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do…

Why would Jesus teach his sons and daughters in the last days that we ought to be soldiers, soldiers who, by profession, mocked him, tortured him and crucified him, and for whom he pleaded unto the Father “forgive them, Father – for they are ignorant of their sin”. So I can easily conclude: Jesus was not a soldier. On the contrary, I believe that anyone who wears the uniform of a soldier today and still confesses to have Jesus as a role model is mocking the God of peace.

To come unto Christ does mean to meet him in Gethsemane, where he healed the ear of his aggressor, to take up our cross and to follow him on the road that leads to salvation as we bear each other’s burdens. We cannot stand idle at the side of the road and watch either as silent bystanders or by mocking the God of Peace by not taking a stand. It means to forgive when our love and our kindness are perceived by others as weakness.

For it suits the world to describe God and his message as a mystery, and yet the Lord speaks in plainness and in truth: “But behold, I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness; in the which I know that no man can err; nevertheless, in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfilled: men shall know of a surety, at the times when they shall come to pass”. (2 Nephi 25: 7)

Come ye near unto me. I have not spoken in secret. From the beginning, from the time that it was declared have I spoken; and the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me. And thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I have sent him, the Lord thy God who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way thou shouldst go, hath done it.

O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments—then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thy seed also had been as the sand; the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter to the end of the earth; say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And notwithstanding he hath done all this, and greater also, there is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked. (1 Nephi 20: 16-22)

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the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles

Nephi again makes a point of repeating the prophecies in Isaiah that point towards the great and marvelous work that is “about to come forth among the children of men”. Most of us, Latter day Saints, associate the great and marvelous work with the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ on earth and the preaching of the restored gospel to “all nations, tongues, kindreds and peoples”. Joseph Smith once said: “‘I calculate to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom [foreseen by] Daniel, and I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. It will not be by sword or gun that this kingdom will roll on: the power of truth is such that all nations will be under the necessity of obeying the Gospel”.

The transformative power of the gospel of peace would indicate that peace is understood in mormonism as being more than just the absence of war. Dallin H. Oaks actually said: “Each of us should pursue the occupation of “peace.” But what is peace, and how do we seek it? Many think of peace as the absence of war. Everyone wants that kind of peace. Songs celebrate it, and bumper stickers proclaim it. Many good people promote peace by opposing war. They advocate laws or treaties to abolish war, to require disarmament, or to reduce armed forces. Those methods may reduce the likelihood or the costs of war. But opposition to war cannot ensure peace, because peace is more than the absence of war.

For over fifty years, I have heard the leaders of this Church preach that peace can only come through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am coming to understand why. The peace the gospel brings is not just the absence of war. It is the opposite of war. Gospel peace is the opposite of any conflict, armed or unarmed. It is the opposite of national or ethnic hostilities, of civil or family strife” (World Peace, Conference Address April 1990).

Johan Galtung, the founder of Peace studies, takes it one step further: “How narrow it is to see peace as the opposite of war, and limit peace studies to war avoidance studies, and more particularly avoidance of big wars or super-wars (defined as wars between big powers or superpowers), and even more particularly to the limitation, abolition or control of super-weapons”. Galtung sees violence as the opposite of peace and has a wider definition of violence that includes structural violence (built into social structures) and cultural violence:

“If the opposite of violence is peace, it being the subject matter of peace research/peace studies, then the opposite of cultural violence would be ‘cultural peace’, meaning aspects of a culture that serve to justify and legitimize direct peace and structural peace. If many and diverse aspects of that kind are found in a culture, we can refer to it as a peace culture”. Now, is mormonism a peace culture? Is the gospel of peace, as Dallin H. Oaks refers to it, void of cultural violence: aspects of culture that serve to justify and legitimize direct violence and structural violence?

Galtung continue: “A major task of peace research, and the peace movement in general, is that never-ending search for a peace culture – problematic, because of the temptation to institutionalize that culture, making it obligatory with the hope of internalizing it everywhere. And to impose a culture (or religion) would already be directly violent. Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right – or at least not wrong”.

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I will set up my standard to the people

Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. (1 Nephi 21: 22-23)

Nephi takes the time, again, to explain to his brothers the deliverance – the great and marvelous work that will come forth among the children of men and explains to us the meaning of the words of Isaiah with regards to the Gentiles:

And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered. And after our seed is scattered the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed;

wherefore, it is likened unto their being nourished by the Gentiles and being carried in their arms and upon their shoulders. And it shall also be of worth unto the Gentiles; and not only unto the Gentiles but unto all the house of Israel, unto the making known of the covenants of the Father of heaven unto Abraham, saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. (1 Nephi 22: 7-9)

Now think of it, in a comparative article on this site I looked at the parallels between the peace movement and the restoration movement. For me, they go together – hand in hand – one cannot and should not exist without the other. Not as two opposing forces, but rather as one unified vision of a greater and better future. One movement without the other would be, I don’t know, like the sun without its warmth, or like the sea without the salt.

Is it not wonderful, marvelous to think that latter day saints, if they were to espouse the principles of nonviolence as taught by Jesus, the Book of Mormon, by Martin Luther King, Jr. and by Mahatma Gandhi and by many other enlightened men and women, could potentially fulfill Joseph Smith’s vision of “revolutionizing the world”? It may sound a bit millenial-like, but what is more important in the world today than to “usher in his millennial reign”?

And the Lord will surely prepare a way for his people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people.

And now I, Nephi, declare unto you, that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgment in righteousness. And the righteous need not fear, for they are those who shall not be confounded. But it is the kingdom of the devil, which shall be built up among the children of men, which kingdom is established among them which are in the flesh—

And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One of Israel reigneth.

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