Latter-day Satyagraha

In this first part of the sixth study chapter, we will look at two propositions made by Father Lehi in his final words of admonition to his children:

1. that the American continents – both North and South – are choice lands above all other lands in the world, preserved by God to play a decisive role in the latter days prior to the millennial reign of God. However there are two ways of looking at the Americas today and at their role in modern history, and many are they that chooses the first one: “God bless America”, while the second “This land was made for you and me” is less thought of.

2. Lehi encourages his sons to be men of ZION, “determined in one mind and one heart, and united in all things”. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous speech “the drum major instinct” makes allusion to the same divine principles for the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the latter days.

.

1. This land was made for you and me

We have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. [...] that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. (2 Nephi 1: 5-7)

“This Land Is Your Land” is one of the United States’ most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 based on an existing melody, in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”, which Guthrie considered unrealistic and complacent. Tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, he wrote a response originally called “God Blessed America for Me”. Guthrie varied the lyrics over time, sometimes including more overtly political verses than those that appear in recordings or publications.

The song was sung by Springsteen and Pete Seeger, accompanied by Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger, at We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2009. The song was restored to the original lyrics (including the ‘There was a big high wall there’ and ‘Nobody living can ever stop me’ verses) for this performance (as per Pete Seeger’s request) with the exception of a change in the end of the ‘Relief Office’ verse to “As they stood hungry, I stood there whistling, This land was made for you and me.”

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

Were the African-Americans, brought to the Americas (both South and North) as part of the slave trade, brought to the land of promise by the hand of the Lord? No, on the contrary, the Lord tells us that we are free to choose between good and evil, and if the oppressor choses evil – then the Lord has a duty towards the downtrodden and the captive: to free his chosen people, the slaves of every time, period and place. If so, it is not wrong to say that the Lord was leading the civil rights movement “as a fire by night and as a cloud by day”.

O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe. (2 Nephi 1: 13)

2. Be determined in one mind and one heart, united in all things

And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this world with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity; (2 Nephi 1: 21)

And the Lord called his people ZION; because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them (Moses 7:18).

Douglas Davies in Introduction to Mormonism believes that, ‘it is easy to argue that Mormonism is radically individualistic, given its strong emphasis upon individual responsibility in the process of attaining salvation, but that would be a mistake because, as vital as that personal responsibility is, and as much as it may be advocated by church leaders, it demands a community of endeavour to achieve its goal. On the relational front, it is absolutely fundamental to appreciate that even a person’s ultimate salvation depends upon his or her relationship to someone else. It was common for early Mormon leaders to stress that nobody is ’saved’ alone. Indeed, this is a distinctive feature of LDS theology – for exaltation is a corporate venture’.

Father Lehi presents the ZION formula to Book of Mormon readers in these chapters as an introduction to his words about the Plan of Salvation. I like to believe that the ZION formula in this chapter is describing the changes that must occur in the children of men for them to attain salvation. ZION involves a dynamic change or transformation of heart (A = peaceful Attitudes), mind (C = just conditions) and righteousness (B = nonviolent behavior). ZION may be seen as a context within which certain things can happen in a particular way, as for example the test of the marriage is when the going gets rough; the test of ZION is in the ability to handle conflict nonviolently and transform both conditions and attitudes into something ZION-like.

For conflicts are neither good nor bad. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi once said that “honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress”. It is the way that we handle conflict, violently or nonviolently, that decides whether or not we are acting as a ZION man or as a captive of Babylon. Martin Luther King, Jr. also understood this. In his historic “Drum Major Instinct” speech, he addresses our natural inclination to “to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first” – “let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade [...] this is the dominant impulse”. MLK continues, “you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don’t deserve it and even if they don’t believe it”.

There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality (ATTITUDES) to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn’t harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting.

And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention (BEHAVIOR). Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don’t feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.

And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up (CONDITIONS). And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up. And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.

And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. “I must be first.” “I must be supreme.” “Our nation must rule the world.” And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I’m going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken. God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.

But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. The God that I worship has a way of saying, “Don’t play with me.” He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, “Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.” And that can happen to America. Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.

We have perverted the major drum instinct. If you want to be first, let it be being first in obeying the commandments of Christ. Let it be being first in applying the principles of ZION. Like Martin Luther King concluded:

‘Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice [one mind = conditions]; say that I was a drum major for peace [one heart = attitudes]; I was a drum major for righteousness [good deeds = behavior]. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say’ (Martin Luther King, jr. 1968)

The Lord is mindful of these things, also in the scriptures of the Restoration, he reminds us why things don’t always go our way based on the promises made to Father Lehi and to his people in the latter days.

But behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; and are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom. And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer (Doctrine and Covenants 105:2-4,6).