affirmation
combatants for peace
mormon worker.
Joseph Smith, jr., the founder of the LDS movement, 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’.
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Mohandas Gandhi explains the term Satyagraha and the reason for why this term best coined the resistance movement against British rule in India: ‘No one knew what name to give to the movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Shri Maganlal Gandhi [...] suggested the word sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to satyagraha:
Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase passive resistance, in connection with it’ [...].
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In a way, I believe that Joseph Smith Jr. had a real vision of a Kingdom of God rolling on (and eventually filling the whole earth) and that it would be neither by sword nor gun that the Kingdom of God would be established or shared among the children of men. I think it is no coincidence that Satyagraha, as understood by Gandhi, means literally the power of truth.
In Qualifications for Satyagraha (published in Young India on 8 August 1929 – 7 months after the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.), Gandhi lists seven rules as “essential for every Satyagrahi”:
- must have a living faith in God
- must believe in truth and non-violence and have faith in the inherent goodness of human nature which he expects to evoke by suffering in the satyagraha effort
- must be leading a chaste life, and be willing to die or lose all his possessions
- must be a habitual khadi wearer and spinner
- must abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants
- must willingly carry out all the rules of discipline that are issued
- must obey the jail rules unless they are specially devised to hurt his self respect
For those familiar with the LDS faith, the differences between being a Satyagrahi and a Latter Day Saint are not many. It could be argued in fact that the only difference is that the Satyagrahi is committed to non-violence and the Latter Day Saint is not. Because some of us have struggled over the years with the war rhetoric and the military imagery all-too-known and still actively in use in the LDS faith, we have come to wonder what a LATTER DAY SATYAGRAHA would look like.
Gandhi named his auto-biography The Story of my Experiments with Truth. It is in the same spirit that I dedicate this blog! I hope you will enjoy some of the ideas presented here and that the site will spark your interest in the linkages that can be made between the LDS movement and the Peace movement.
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Wherefore, I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ. I judge these things of you because of your peaceable walk with the children of men. For I remember the word of God which saith by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also (Moroni 7:3-5).
If you wish to contact mormongandhi for more information about a latter day satyagraha, please use the contact form below and submit. An email will automatically be sent to my email address.
