Helaman 8: On Proof and Prophets

Nephi discovers firsthand that there can be negative consequences of self-righteous anti-establishment demagoguery.


Good Guys and Bad Logic
As the evil government officials on Gadianton's payroll try to whip the crowd into a frenzy of hatred toward Nephi, a few of the bystanders speak in his defense (verses 8 and 9):

Yea, behold, all the judgments will come upon us which he has testified unto us; for we know that he has testified aright unto us concerning our iniquities. And behold they are many, and he knoweth as well all things which shall befall us as he knoweth of our iniquities; 

Yea, and behold, if he had not been a prophet he could not have testified concerning those things.

This is a terrible means for determining whether this guy is a prophet.  If they're talking about the iniquities Nephi discussed, all he did was share his observations.  By that metric, Jerry Seinfeld is a prophet.  If the society is as wicked and corrupt as it sounds, the things Nephi condemned everyone for are hardly secrets.  And if they're talking about the judgments Nephi foretold, it seems premature—just because you agree with the guy doesn't mean he's a prophet.

A coworker told me the other day that if Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States, the country is going to fall apart.  If she wins the election, we'll have an opportunity to see if that's true.  But at this point, proclaiming him a prophet just because his prediction supports my political opinions (which, to be clear, it doesn't) would be absurd.  These guys in the crowd who are decent enough to oppose the hatred and the violence are foolish enough to declare someone a prophet merely for speaking prophetically, regardless of whether events have proven anything he's foretold to be accurate.


Bad Prophets and Bad Logic
Nephi's allies keep the crowd from arresting him, and, spurred by his success, he begins to admonish the unfaithful for not believing in prophets.  What examples does he use to demonstrate that God's servants speak truth about the future?

He points out that many prophets have foretold of the coming of Christ, which hasn't happened yet.  Why would anyone be impressed by a prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled?

He explains that many prophets predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened after the founders of this civilization escaped.  There's no evidence or cultural understanding about the matter except for the prophecies themselves (he cites Lehi and Nephi to support his point).  No one in the crowd has visited Jerusalem to confirm that it was ransacked.  Who's going to be swayed by a prophecy whose fulfillment is unverifiable?

But, despite the flimsiness of his arguments, Nephi rips his audience a new one, proclaiming in verse 24 that anyone who rejects these prophecies "not withstanding so many evidences which ye have received," is a liar and has sinned.

That's really not fair.  If you want to make such bold indictments against those who do not share your beliefs, make sure you provide them with unassailable evidence instead of some five-hundred-year-old predictions that can't be fact-checked.


Why Didn't You Lead With That??
Nephi concludes this chapter by actually making a prophecy.  He announces in verse 27 that yet another chief judge has been murdered and that if the multitude goes to the judgment seat they will find the judge laying in a pool of his own blood.

This is exactly what we needed—a verifiable prediction.  At least if Nephi winds up being right, that narrows down the conclusions to be drawn from the situation.  Either he's a prophet, he's somehow involved in the murder as a witness or an accomplice, or he just got insanely lucky.  Before, he could have been delusional or just talking out his ass or any number of other things.  But now, he finally gives his audience something they can use to better gauge his prophetic credentials.

Which begs the question, why the hell wasn't this one of the first things he said?  Why waste all that time bloviating about Jerusalem and the Messiah when he could have simply told them about their latest political assassination and gotten instant attention?  If the people discover their dead chief judge, they might think Nephi is a prophet and immediately approach him for help.

Or maybe they could have even prevented the murder.  Although considering both the victim and the perpetrator are, according to Nephi, members of the Gadianton Robbers, I guess we don't really care about stopping wicked people from killing or being killed.  Philip K. Dick and Tom Cruise are disappointed, I'm sure.

But I guess we can't be sure yet if Nephi's prophecies are the real deal because this chapter ends on a bit of a cliffhanger—we don't know if the judge is actually dead yet.

Dun dun dunnnnn...

Helaman 7: Nephi Works the Crowd

Now we get into the next dude named Nephi, who I'm pretty sure my old seminary teacher had some kind of a crush on.  Some Mormons rave about the original Nephi or Captain Moroni or Ammon, but her favorite Book of Mormon character was hands-down Nephi III.  I can't remember why, but maybe his story will jog my memory.


Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
While admonishing his wicked neighbors, Nephi makes this interesting statement:

O repent ye, repent ye! Why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye unto the Lord your God. Why has he forsaken you?

Here we have a prophet of the Lord admitting that God has actually abandoned some of his children.  That's really not cool.  It also doesn't evoke the benevolent, long-suffering, loving, my-hand-is-stretched-out-still God that we learned about in Sacrament Meeting (although it is pretty consistent with Jacob's Allegory of the Olive Tree).


Nephi Doesn't Follow Current Events
Our current hero demonstrates how out of touch he is in verse 20:

O, how could you have forgotten your God in the very day that he has delivered you?

How is this the very day that God has delivered them?  They haven't been invaded by the Lamanites in a while because the Lamanites are righteous now, and basically their entire society has gone down the tubes over the last few years, what with the murdered judges and the wickedness and the corruption and the Gadianton Robbers running the place like the mafia on steriods.  So why is Nephi referring to the very day that God has delivered the Nephites when he's admonishing them?

Sick Burn, Nephi
This chapter's long-winded divine representative deals the ultimate insult to the Nephite people by explaining how the Lamanites are now actually better than they are (verse 24):

For behold, they are more righteous than you, for they have not sinned against that great knowledge which ye have received; therefore the Lord will be merciful unto them; yea, he will lengthen out their days and increase their seed, even when thou shalt be utterly destroyed except thou shalt repent.

What interests me is that Nephi is implying that the Nephites have received a knowledge that the Lamanites haven't.  He feels the need to specify that he's talking about the knowledge ye—his audience—have received.  If the Lamanites had this knowledge too, there would be no need to clarify.  He could have just said "they have not sinned against that great knowledge" or "they have not sinned against the knowledge of God."  This seems to be something the Nephites have been provided with that the Lamanites haven't.

But the Lamanites have the gospel now and they appear to be living it.  What's this secret bonus doctrine that their sister civilization has yet to share?


Kinda Secret, Only Not Really
Nephi spins more tales of doom and dismay for his people (verse 25):

Yea, wo be unto you because of that great abomination which has come among you; and ye have united yourselves unto it, yea, to that secret band which was established by Gadianton!

Listen, if we know the name of the organization's founder and we're accusing the general population of being in league with said organization, can we really call it secret?

Although, I have to say, a few months ago I spent way too much time watching some so-terrible-they're-magnificent videos from a completely off-the-charts crazy Mormon YouTuber (who in no way exemplifies the average member of the LDS church), and I guess I wouldn't put it past that guy to call, say, the Democratic Party a secret combination.  Somehow in Mormon jargon, secret has inched closer and closer in connotation to the word evil.  Unless, of course, we're talking about the temple, in which case it's become almost synonymous with the word sacred.

There's an interesting dichotomy of cultural vernacular for you.

The Washington Post, 5 Nov 2035

Mormon Church makes doubting couples apostates, excludes children from blessings and baptism

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a new policy in its handbook stating that children living in an skeptical or inactive family may not be blessed as babies or baptized until they are 18.

The policy change, which also states that those in a semi-active household are to be considered apostates, was confirmed Thursday by church spokesman Orson F. Packer.

"Church handbooks are policy and procedural guides for lay leaders who must administer the church in many varied circumstances throughout the world," Packer said in a statement.  "The church has long been on record as opposing non-Mormon lifestyles.  While it respects the law of the land, and acknowledges the right of others to think and act differently, it does not condone or accept doubt or halfheartedness within its membership."

The LDS Church, popularly known as the Mormon Church, teaches that the Church is an institution created by God to facilitate complete and unquestioning devotion.  Before this week's change, the church's policy was that doubt or inactivity may require discipline.  Now that evidence of the Book of Mormon's fraudulent claims is readily available throughout the internet, the church decided to identify those who lend any credence to anti-Mormon criticism as apostates, or people who have renounced their faith.

Mormon children are normally blessed as infants and entered into the LDS Church records.  Most Mormon children are baptized around age 8, an act that Mormons believe is a covenant with God and essential to salvation.

The new policy says that once natural or adopted children living in a skeptical, scholarly, "New Order Mormon," "cafeteria Mormon," or any otherwise incompletely committed household reach 18, they may disavow the practices of anti-Mormonism, non-Mormonism, and casual Mormonism and stop living within the household.  If the individual follows those two rules, they may request approval to be baptized, confirmed, ordained to the church priesthood and recommended for missionary service with the permission of the faith's highest leaders, the First Presidency.

The LDS Church has been vociferously active on issues related to skepticism, secularism and anti-Mormonism.  Earlier this year, Church Apostle Neil L. Andersen even went so far as to proclaim, "Everything you have ever been told by anyone about Joseph Smith that didn't make him sound like he was the greatest man to ever live other than our Savior was an irresponsible and bald-faced lie hissed forth by the amoral, bitter, and loathsome enemies of God's church."  Later, in the same address, he added, "Give the Book of Abraham a rest."

The church, which has expressed fears that cultural secularism could trump traditional brainwashing, received national backlash after it fought to remove courses covering logic, critical thinking, and analytical research from public universities in California in 2028.  Last month, David A. Bednar, the President of the Church, said that "the more we teach our children to weigh so-called evidence and find their own so-called solutions to modern-day issues, the more we teach them to ignore the tried and true methods of living that have satisfied generations of righteous tithe-payers."

Salt Lake City, where the LDS headquarters are based, just elected Ronald Domitrowicz as the city's first openly anti-Mormon mayor this week.  As religious groups, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists and Mormons are the most opposed to different lifestyles.  About 54 percent of Mormons oppose having non-Mormons in their neighborhoods while 16 percent favor it, according to Pew Research's 2034 Landscape Study.

The changes to the LDS handbook were first published online, but Packer reluctantly sent the same changes to the Washington Post.

[The article this post is based on can be found here.]

Helaman 6: Corrupting the Ante

This is a confusing time in Book of Mormon history.  The Gadianton Robbers are gaining power and influence, the Nephites are becoming wicked, the Lamanites are becoming righteous, up is down, black is white, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria.


A Woman's Place is in the Sewing Room
While describing the abundance and prosperity among the Nephites, this chapter makes a point to specifically mention women (verse 13):

Behold their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth, of fine-twined linen and cloth of every kind, to clothe their nakedness.

But that's it.  That's all they did.  They made clothes.


Nephite Security 
In verse 15, poor old Cezoram, the Chief Judge, is murdered "by an unknown hand" while he's sitting on the actual judgment seat, much in the way Pahoran was murdered.

This is the third assassination of a Chief Judge in less than thirty years.  And let's not forget a very notable close call when Kishkumen tried to kill Helaman.  At what point do the Nephites wise up and get some kind of secret service detail going?  Clearly they won't always have that one random servant around to stab would-be assassins in the heart.


The Power of Secrets
As the Gadianton Robbers grow in power and influence, they develop "secret oaths and covenants," whatever that means.  It sounds like they're halfway between a modern-day cult and a group of dirty Gotham City cops.  But what's interesting is this callback to Alma 37 (verse 25):

Now behold, it is these secret oaths and covenants which Alma commanded his son should not go forth unto the world, lest they should be a means of bringing down the people unto destruction.  

Of course, then the chapter explains (with unnecessary dramatic repetition) that the Gadianton Robbers got these oaths and covenants straight from the devil himself, which makes Alma's words of doom all the more pointless.

It's also worth pointing out that this is insanely paranoid.  Why do oaths and covenants have that kind of power?  How can they be so irresistible to the people that, if made public, everyone would become ensorcelled by their allure and eventually the society would be utterly destroyed?  Alma was so terrified by this possibility that he urged his son to only tell the people what their enemies did, and to teach them to abhor those things...but to never divulge "all their signs and their wonders."  (Alma 37:27)

No.  That's just bad.  And it's something that's reflected by the modern church.

How do today's apostles handle ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons?  By telling the church what these people do and teaching them to abhor those things...but never divulging the why.  Without explaining honest reasons people fight against the church, the context is lost.  All people hear is that ex-Mormons are bad and they do bad things, but without understanding the causes of that behavior, all the church membership is hearing is an interpretation of reality—which is not necessarily truth.

If you don't try to understand your enemy, how can you be sure that your enemy's motives aren't valid?  How can you be sure that you're right and he's wrong?  How can you expect to find truth if you're only getting an interpretation and not hearing any solid fact or opposing testimony?

Our Magical Mythical Mother

I'm not exactly an on-the-scene reporter, here, so I'm a few days behind the curve on this.  But the church has recently released two additional gospel topics essays—one about women's standing in the church and the other about our fabled Heavenly Mother.  Women and their arguable lack of equality in Mormonism has been a hotly debated issue lately (Ordain Women, Kate Kelly, et cetera), and the essay about women (which, in my opinion, didn't do much to establish that women are indeed equal in the church beyond trying to insist that they are) has had a lot of attention, so I'm going to focus more on the one entitled Mother in Heaven...especially since I'm pretty sure these new essays are intended to be supplementary to each other.

This unsigned, unattributed article begins by explaining that we are all children of two heavenly parents and that "the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is a distinctive and cherished belief among Latter-Day Saints."  What cracks me up is that the next thing the essay says is that there was no formal revelation given to Joseph Smith concerning the subject.  Heavenly Mother, it seems, is such a cherished woman that even Joseph Smith, the restorer of the fullness of the gospel in the final dispensation of times, couldn't be bothered to go on the record about her.  And you have to wonder about God, too, and why that guy seems intent on shrouding his wife in mystery instead of letting his children interact with their mother the way they supposedly get to interact with their father.

The essay also mentions the fact that Mormons are taught to pray to God the Father in Jesus's name, with no mention whatsoever of the woman who birthed our spirits and is supposed to have raised us in the premortal existence.  "The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven," the unnamed ghostwriter explains, "in no way belittles or denigrates her."

I can assure you that if I directed all my communication to my parents through my father and siblings without ever bothering to contact my mother directly, she would feel both belittled and denigrated. I think most mothers would.

Former Apostle Rudger Clawson is quoted as saying "We honor woman when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal Prototype."  This, to me, is honoring Heavenly Mother (and, by extension, earthly women) for her contribution to our spiritual DNA, perhaps, but it's hardly honoring her as an individual.  I could talk all day long about how I inherited my hair color and my stubbornness from my mother, but if I'm not willing to discuss the things she personally taught me and the specific characteristics I admire about her, how much can I really be said to revere her?  Perhaps I can honor her when I acknowledge my adulthood in her physical prototype.  But that's really all it is.
Something else relevant about Clawson's quote is the apparent context.  I tried to see if I could find a scan or complete transcript of the Millennial Star article from which his quote is lifted, but all I could discover with my limited powers of Google-Fu was a slightly longer excerpt [one place I found it].  Preceding the above quote in the article is this:

It doesn’t take from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal Mother, any more than it diminishes the love we bear our earthly fathers, to include our earthly mothers in our affections.

To be fair, without finding the complete article, I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that the quote in the LDS.org essay was, originally, used in an effort to persuade members of the church that it's okay to love our Heavenly Mother.  If this is indeed the case, I have two problems with this.

First, if the church teaches that Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father are interdependent equal partners (because the other new essay insists that men and women are), then this kind of thing should have never needed to be said.  How many people wonder if it's okay for them to love their biological mothers?

And second, Clawson's comparison begs a glaring question:  If we should love both our spiritual parents the same way we love both our physical parents, why should we worship one spiritual parent and not the other?  Isn't the whole point that they are equally deserving?

After all those Sunday School discussions about the characteristics of God and after all the scriptural stories of the Father's interactions with his people even down to the specific words that he's spoken, what do we know about our Heavenly Mother?  Not much.  We know that she's God's wife and she is the mother of our spirits.  We don't get to talk to her and she doesn't even get to talk to us.  Hell, we don't even know her name.

I'm failing to understand how this is supposed to make the church look like it sees women in the eternal scope as anything other than wives and spirit mothers.  These essays make a big deal about the interdependence of man and woman—that one cannot get to heaven without the other.  But it seems like, other than that, there isn't much in the way of equality.  Heavenly Father is the Creator, he's the Man With the Plan (of Salvation), he's the one we worship, the one we pray to, the one we read numerous scriptural accounts of, and the one whose name we actually know.

Who is our Heavenly Mother?

To us, she's basically nobody.  A spiritual egg donor.  She exudes no sense of individuality, she provides no interaction and exhibits no characteristics beyond motherhood.  Perhaps Mormons revere her and shroud her in secrecy because of her sacredness, but I don't think it's fair to say that men and women are equal in the Kingdom of God when Heavenly Father runs everything and forces us to be completely estranged from our mother.