The Final Nephite Battle And Your Ethical Duty (As A Nephite)

[Cold Steel]

Dear King Lululaman: It has come to our attention that you have recently been referring to us as "nincompoops." Obviously we cannot let this insult stand. For that reason, my son, Moroni, the entire Nephite nation and I challenge you a war of total annihilation, at a place of your choosing. Naturally this doesn't include the Hill Cumorah, as it is too far north and is all the way over by Niagara Falls. Anywhere else would be fine.

--Mormon, Supreme Commander, Nephite Forces.

 

 

Dear General, I am in receipt of your epistle regarding the final place of battle. Naturally, I had your envoys stripped, decapitated and impaled and am sending you some little packages to remember them by. Yes, we call you nincompoops! What did you expect when you called us a "nation of bloodthirsty barbarians," just because you lost some of those ball games? (I'm certain we informed you the losers would be beheaded. It was in the small print under "Rules." Anyway, you can imagine how thoroughly piqued we were by your impertinence and we will be happy to give you battle. You're quite correct about that little drumlin by Niagara Falls being too far away (the Queen and I spent our honeymoon there and I became most ill after drinking the water). There is a larger, more strategic hill just north of Tehuantepec that's called Ramah. It just happens to be in a land called "Cumorah," which is probably good enough. Great battlefields, too. It's where those Jaredites perished about a thousand years ago. I'm sure our conflict will be but a skirmish and in a few days both of our respective sides will get it all out of our systems and things will go back to normal. So see you there in about...eh...four years, okay? 

--King Lululaman, Lamanite Civilization.

 

 

Okay, I don't know the particulars about what drove the Nephites and the Lamanites to battle to the end, but there's an ethical question I'd like to raise. We know that Mormon and Moroni didn't have to take part in the battle, but did so out of the love for their people.

 

So let's say you're there...a lowly Nephite. You see which way this is shaping up. The people are idiots, Mormon has warned the people that they're toast. You've got a wife and kids and you know this isn't going to end well. You respect Mormon and Moroni, but you're one of the few Christians left and, frankly, you've been thinking about moving north. The Lamanites are bloodthirsty pagans and led by despots, and the Nephites are degenerates who hate God and want no part of religion.

 

What do you feel are your ethical obligations, or duty? Leave your family and fight a war you know you're going to lose, and know your wife and kids will end up as slaves or killed? Or get you and your family out of Dodge?

Edited January 9, 2014 by Cold Steel

[Rivers]

I would probably leave but I would also try to save many of the younger children. I guess that would entail fighting wouldn't it?

[The Nehor]

Whatever you do don't flee south. It doesn't end well for those guys.

 

So I'm going to go with go north and become an eskimo.

[Sevenbak]

I don't think there was much of a choice, as the text says you either fled and fight or die.  And if you were lucky enough to be taken prisoner, you ended up being sacrificed to the Lamanite idol gods.

 

I'd definitely go north with the masses.

[bluebell]

I don't think we ever have an ethical duty to support an evil government.

[cdowis]

I don't think we ever have an ethical duty to support an evil government.

 

You are a citizen in Germany in 1940 and drafted into the army.

 

What would you do?

[bluebell]

You are a citizen in Germany in 1940 and drafted into the army.

 

What would you do?

 

If I believed that what Germany was doing was evil, then i would do my best to leave the country.

[BlueDreams]

I'm not the prophet, I don't have stewardship over these nut-jobs. I am not called to sink with the ship. Heck ya I'd run for it. But I did say I was not sure it's what the Lord would want me to do. God has a way to pull the rug from under your feet. 

 

 

With luv,

BD

[rpn]

I don't know what the Lord would inspire me to do in those circumstances.  I'd for sure be trying to figure that out and asking him to confirm I got it right.   Life or death matters a whole lot less than living consistent with His will for us at all times.

[ERayR]

Whatever you do don't flee south. It doesn't end well for those guys.

 

So I'm going to go with go north and become an eskimo.

 

Or an Amerind and live in movable houses made of animal skins.

[strappinglad]

If one moves North , one had better be very careful because there are Aztecs in the area and the concept of frying pan into fire would be a distinct possibility.

Of course that would only matter if one moved in the 14th century, but there were other groups that were probably just as inhospitable to strangers in a strange land.

Edited January 10, 2014 by strappinglad

[Duncan]

You are a citizen in Germany in 1940 and drafted into the army.

 

What would you do?

 

 

or an American during the whole Iraq situation-sometimes people don't have a whole lot of choices or means to flee. A German citizen in 1940 wasn't necessarily an evil person, like my uncle Johann who joined the German Navy and made his through, all because it was a job which not many people had during the depression and I don't think there is anything sinister about sending home money to the family

[cdowis]

Don't have the reference, but I believe that it was Joseph F. Smith that said we have an obligation to serve our country and that the consequences of participating in an unjust war would fall upon the leaders of the country.  I don't think members can use the church to claim consciencious objector status.

Edited January 10, 2014 by cdowis

[Freedom]

You are a citizen in Germany in 1940 and drafted into the army.

 

What would you do?

I think this is a false comparison. Rather, it should be:

 

You are a citizen in German in March 1945 and drafted into the army. 

 

What would you do?

 

I would do what the majority of people did, hid as best I could or flee west to surrender to the allied forces before my army formed me at gun point to die in vain. 

[CV75]

I don’t think I would have had an ethical obligation to be among the remainder that gathered unto the land of Cumorah (Mormon 6:5).

I’m not sure Mormon’s choice to lead a losing battle was an expression of his covenantal Christian ethic to have charity toward the wicked, which he expresses in 6:16-22. My take is that his love and compassion in regard to retracting the oath to not lead them (3:11; 5:1) was more personal and entwined with his long history of military and religious service for the people (as he alludes to in Mormon 5:1), “as the Lord had commanded [him]” not to lead them against their enemies (Mormon 3:16).

It seems that he distinguished between these two kinds of love. In 3:12, he describes the covenantal love (“according to the love of God which was in me,” the expression of which through military duty is rescinded in 3:14-16). In 5:1 he describes a more personal or communal love: “for they looked upon me as though I could deliver them.” The sins of the people (forbidden oaths and oaths to avenge) separated these two kinds of love and the associated ethics under which he could serve them in military terms.

His ethical duty to God was to keep the commandment to “stand as an idle witness” (3:16) as well as to love them as brothers, and while he could have justifiably expressed his Christian ethic as an idle witness (as commanded), he was also free to express it as a more active witness until that final moment of idle witness was accomplished and recorded. His time as an active witness seems to be more a function of his military ethic than his Christian ethic, but the two sets of ethics seemed to have peacefully co-existed for him (Mormon Chapter 7).

 

So he was free to leave and didn't; I'd feel free to leave and would do so!

[Sevenbak]

I don't believe that's the only reason he stayed.

He broke his vow to not lead the armies just one verse after he acquired all the records from the hill Shim, as the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land.

I believe part of why he led the armies again was so that he could use his position and his army's help for the protection and transportation of all the Nephite records and relics held sacred, perhaps the vast library that ended up in Cumorah's cave.

[Ahab]

I'd run like Forrest Gump with my magic shoes on, far far away, up north, and toward the right. And then the next day I'd run some more until I found a place with a lot of water and good land to settle in, with lots of deer, and horses, and stuff. But not too popular because I wouldn't want to make it easy for somebody to find me and wipe me out. But somebody probably would anyway, because, well, I just think someone would. And then Id go to paradise and live with my family who had died years earlier before I started running.

[Calm]

I think this is a false comparison. Rather, it should be:

 

You are a citizen in German in March 1945 and drafted into the army. 

 

What would you do?

 

I would do what the majority of people did, hid as best I could or flee west to surrender to the allied forces before my army formed me at gun point to die in vain.

Unless the Allies were as wicked as the Lamanites, the comparison doesn't work. It was a war between two immoral nations, one was worse than the other but apparently not that much worse. It would have been immoral to support either side based on ideology, Lamanites were the aggressors though. Nephites returned the favor when they could...I think it would depend a great deal on how the little guy behaved whether one had any responsibility to one's neighbour or extended family for having raised you, provided you with help, etc. and why they did so.

[thatjimguy]

Don't have the reference, but I believe that it was Joseph F. Smith that said we have an obligation to serve our country and that the consequences of participating in an unjust war would fall upon the leaders of the country.  I don't think members can use the church to claim consciencious objector status.

 

 

It comes down to knowing that once you sign the dotted line, you are pretty much saying you are giving up your right to discern for yourself the situation of why you are being sent where you are being sent and do what you are told do to.

 

Of course, if people actually had this in mind, I wonder how many people would really join the military.

Edited January 11, 2014 by thatjimguy

[Sevenbak]

Perhaps the fact that Samuel the Lamanite had told them previously that none shall escape, they knew it was pointless to try.

 

That, and as they were fleeing, anyone that didn't stay with the group was destroyed.

[Cold Steel]

Don't have the reference, but I believe that it was Joseph F. Smith that said we have an obligation to serve our country and that the consequences of participating in an unjust war would fall upon the leaders of the country.  I don't think members can use the church to claim conscientious objector status.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

I remember the Vietnam conflict very well. Many Mormons didn't quite know what to do. My own dad was a military officer and a staunch conservative, yet I later learned he had created a slush fund in the event my number was called (it wasn't). He later told me he had looked into the easiest ways to get me out of the country and into Canada. He reasoned that the Executive Branch was created to execute the laws passed by Congress, not create them. Starting a war without it being declared was, to him, was even more illegal than fleeing to avoid it, and after the war he told me that with the fall of South Vietnam meant that every man who died in battle died in a vain cause and for nothing.

 

Douglas MacArthur was fired for reporting what was going on in Korea to Congress, who he saw as the ones who must ultimately be in charge of war. But Truman had gone off on his own, committed our men to a horrible war he had no intent of winning. Then, keeping everything from Congress, he acted as though he were the king of America. And though he accused MacArthur of insubordination, when Gen. Marshall was later asked under oath if MacArthur had been insubordinate, Marshall answered, "No."

 

So if the Constitution stipulates that Congress only will have the power to declare war, is it morally binding on one if a president, in effect, seizes power and executes it himself to start an undeclared war?

 

Had I been in Germany, I couldn't have supported the Nazis. Hitler illegally seized total power due to an emergency he created himself, had his enemies murdered and led the country into immediate war and destruction. In a single day the Germans went from a free people with constitutionally guaranteed rights into bondage and despotism. So as I read the Book of Mormon, I wondered what kept Mormon loyal to his people. He had warned them. The prophecy of complete destruction had hung over the Nephites from the time Lehi's foot had touched the New World's shores. Who could have faulted him for fleeing, taking his family and friends with him?

 

Still, it would have been fascinating to find out why Christ was the determining factor. The Lamanites, like the Romans, would not suffer anyone to live who believed in Christ. There were Christian soldiers who fought for Rome until they were detected, and then they were killed. One of the cruelest stories was the forty martyrs of Sebaste in 320 A.D.: 

 

 

In 320, near the end of the Great Persecution, the emperor Licinius ordered all Christians to renounce their faith on pain of death. Forty soldiers of the Twelfth Legion, stationed at Sebaste in Armenia, refused. They were stripped naked, forced out onto a frozen lake, and left to die from exposure. Fires were built on the bank, however, and warm baths were prepared for anyone who would recant. Only one gave in. Yet when he did, another soldier, moved by the example of the suffering Christians, declared himself a Christian and took the apostate’s place.

 

 

The Nephites who fled south were killed unless they denied the Christ; otherwise, I suppose they could have melded into Lamanite society. The Lord put the people into a position of choosing. Had he and some followers gone north, he might have made it to other cultures outside of the Lamanites' reach. But it's only speculation.

[CV75]

Still, it would have been fascinating to find out why Christ was the determining factor.

I think Christ ws the determining factor in Mormon remaining with his people in that He had commanded Mormon to serve as a witness of their destruction, and to record it (Mormon 3:16-22; 5:12-13; 1:1; and Chapter 6). It was Mormon's Christian ethic to remain where he could accomplish that. However, his sense of obligation to additionally lead them in battle, I think, arose from his military ethic.

[CV75]

Had he and some followers gone north, he might have made it to other cultures outside of the Lamanites' reach. But it's only speculation.

And, he would not have fulfilled the Lord's commandment to stand as a witness of the completion of the destruction.

[CV75]

So if the Constitution stipulates that Congress only will have the power to declare war, is it morally binding on one if a president, in effect, seizes power and executes it himself to start an undeclared war?

In Mormon's case, he clearly saw the war/battles as immoral, yet he chose to remain with and even lead his people--perhaps he had militarily calculated that it was the best way for him to fulfill the Lord's command to stand as a witness. Or, as I indicated earlier, the best way to honor both sets of ethics he worked under (Christian and military).