The Based Book of Mormon
I am guessing this essay will appeal to nobody. But I still think there’s something pretty cool here. Let’s get to it. There is a whole thread of Book of Mormon criticism that is basically just this:
Unfortunately, the urge of so many modern LDS thinkers is to retreat from the accusation of basedness. However, LDS bros are free to disavow whatever I saw if they find it unsavory, so what if we pull on this thread and be so bold as to attach the gigachad to it, metaphorically speaking? There is something present there that I would contend is quite prophetic and relevant for our guys in our time.
What’s Your Deal?
I am an unironic Joseph Smith respecter. I am content for LDS bros to believe and worship as they do, so nothing I write is with the intent of changing that. It’s really none of my business. So while I do not find the plain message of the Book of Mormon plausible, I do believe it is an esoteric channeled text of value. In fact, I have argued that the “sealed text” that some wait to be prophetically translated is in fact present in the text in the English and can be peeled back if the text is approached as an esoteric message. I’ll save that for another time, as the argument is fairly lengthy. The short of it is that I try to believe things if they are true, even if I don’t believe they ever happened. That’s good enough for me.
What Are We Looking For?
Here’s what I’m going to do. I am going to approach one thread out of many in the Book of Mormon as an esoteric message about race relations in our time. I’ll provide textual support. But we have to entertain the assumption that the text is saying more than it means. At some point, if we push too hard on any metaphor, parable, or allegory, it will slip through our fingers. If we are looking for a perfect 1:1 representation of any message, any kind of literary device would fall apart anyways. Like finding a target through a scope, we need to find the sweet spot; too close or too far, and we’ll lose it, but if we position ourselves well, we can see what we otherwise couldn’t. Yes, there’s a risk we just end up making shit up. That risk is inherent anytime we are asked to engage with the text as a reader. Jesus taught esoterically. He intended for people to fail to grasp the message beneath the words. But He intended for others to grasp it, perhaps some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some one hundred. So why not give it a go and see if it bears fruit?
Basic Narrative For Those Unfamiliar
The Book of Mormon starts with the family of an Israelite named Lehi. He and his sons flee Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian conquest, circa 600BC. They arrive at a largely uninhabited place somewhere in the Western hemisphere. In the meantime, Lehi’s sons have married and bring some others along with them, in particular a man name Zoram and their wives’ family. Some of Lehi’s sons are good dudes. Some of Lehi’s sons are bad dudes. This causes a division among the people. The bad dudes are cursed and given “skins of blackness.” This rift, more or less, lasts for the 1,000 year history of Lehi’s descendants in the new world. Generally, the good people are known as Nephites. The bad people are known as Lamanites. The good people are described as “fair” or “white.” The bad guys are described as dark skinned, among other things that we’ll look at in detail below. Ultimately, this division turns genocidal. The Nephites are hunted down, one by one, and exterminated, with few exceptions. The genocide happens around 1,000 years after Lehi’s family arrived in the new world, around 400AD.
An Esoteric Reading of Lehi
I contend that there is a layer to the description of Lehi where we are to view him as the creator God. This isn’t literal, of course. I think the purpose is to place two groups of people into a contained environment, like this world, to see how things play out. What we know about Lehi comes from a narrative written by his son, Nephi, as something of an autobiography. I contend that Nephi deliberately describes Lehi with language that would be appropriate for Yahweh/El. As you may know, Yahweh and El may or may not be the same deity. I think Yahweh is almost certainly downstream of El. But for our purposes, I do not think that distinction matters.
Old Testament authors would describe God’s place of dwelling as both a mountain and/or a lush garden: Mount Zion and/or an Edenic garden. Michael Heiser put it this way:
“The Tabernacle tent structure and the Tent of Meeting, both of which are mentioned throughout the books of Exodus through Judges, are clear parallels to places where God dwells and hands down his decrees. Yahweh could also be found on mountains (Sinai or Zion). In Psalm 48:1-2, Jerusalem, the city of God, is said to be located in the ‘heights of the north’ (tsaphon in Hebrew). Mount Zion is the ‘mountain of assembly,’ again located in the ‘heights of the north’ (Isaiah 14:13). At Sinai, Moses and others saw the God of Israel, under whose feet was a pavement ‘like the sapphire tile work and like the very heavens for clearness.’ (Exodus 24:9-10).
“The garden of Eden, of course, is a lush, well-watered habitation (Genesis 2:5-14). Ezekiel 28:13 mentions the garden of Eden (‘garden of God’), but then adds the description that the garden of God is ‘God’s holy mountain’ (Ezekiel 28:14). We naturally think of God’s mountain as Mount Sinai or Mount Zion. When it comes to garden imagery, the latter is spoken of in Edenic terms. Like Eden, Mount Zion is also described as a watery habitation (Isaiah 33:20-22, Ezekiel 47:1-12, Zechariah 14:8, Joel 3:18). Whether Sinai or Zion, the mountain of God is, in effect, his temple.” – The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser, at 46-47.
God’s abode is on a mountaintop in these references. But there’s more. “In Canaanite cosmology the cosmic waters have their confluence at the mountain of El. At the same time they are to be located at the entrance to watery abode of Mot (Death). [Biblical passages] suggest a similar cosmological background for these psalms.” The River Ordeal in Israelite Literature, P. Kyle McCarter, Harvard Theological Review, October 1973, Vol. 66, No. 4, at p. 405.
Here are the parallels I see with Lehi and Yahweh/El.
· Lehi is the patriarch of this entire society. The fact that Lehi is not the father of everyone present in the narrative doesn’t dissuade me from this comparison. In fact, I think it’s intentional and informational. I think it’s suggesting that not everyone here is from the same spiritual tribe.
· When Lehi and his sons first leave Jerusalem, Lehi’s location is described in such a way as to position Lehi as a Yahweh-like figure and Nephi as a Moses-like and Adam-like figure. All citations are to 1 Nephi.
· Like Yahweh/El, Lehi is located at watery habitation, at a mystical river, which Lehi names “Laman,” after his disobedient son. I contend this river is mystical and significant, mostly based on when Nephi is permitted to cross it later in the narrative. Nephi’s crossing of the river Laman is huge esoteric clue in the narrative. I have a couple of draft essays to this effect.
· The river where Lehi is located is within a valley that Lehi names, “Lemuel” after his other disobedient son. While not as explicit, this suggests that the river is located at the base of or near a mountain, like Yahweh/El’s location.
· Even more explicit is Nephi’s short notation: “And my father dwelt in a tent.” 2:15. Who cares? Yahweh most certainly dwelt in a tent in the wilderness. In fact, the word “tabernacle” in the Hebrew can be translated “dwelling” or “dwellingplace.” See Strong’s Hebrew H4908. The tabernacle was Yahweh’s tent dwelling.
· Lehi’s tent is a three days’ journey into the wilderness. 2:6. Consider Exodus 3, where Yahweh has appeared to Moses and instructs Moses to tell the captive Israelites that he will deliver them from captivity into a promised land, but first they must make a “three days’ journey into the wilderness, that [they] may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” Exodus 3:18, 5:3, 8:27.
· Nephi comes back and forth from Jerusalem, making a three days’ journey into the wilderness, to receive instruction from his father, who dwells in a tent at a mystical river in a valley. This strongly suggests that we are to see Lehi in the shoes of Yahweh/El on some level. See chapters 3 and 7.
· The three days’ journey into the wilderness isn’t only to make the Lehi comparison to Yahweh/El. I believe there is at least one other layer present in the significance of the three days’ journey, which is to establish Nephi as an initiate into a mystery school, something at which he hints at the very beginning of his narrative when he outright says he acquired “great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God,” and that he made his “record in the language of [his] father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.” 1:1-2. I intend to visit this in another essay, but there is a long and significant history in mystery schools of entering into a three-day trance and reemerging reborn as a mystery initiate, having the living God alive within the self, like Alma, like Lamoni. This is a major clue that the Book of Mormon is an initiatory mystery text. But I digress.
Why portray Lehi as Yahweh/El? I can think of two reasons. One, not having to do with this essay, is to set Nephi’s journey up as something of the journey of the soul, the nephesh. The other, relevant to this essay, is to begin a prophetic thread about race differences in this world. Lehi has some white children. He has some non children. They are different in significant ways. Those differences are going to play out throughout the narrative, and that narrative is prophetic. I think we are to see the Nephites stand in for the totality of the world’s European peoples, and the Lamanites are everyone else.
Descriptions of Whites and Nons
I know there is a lot of desire and a lot argument among contemporary LDS thinkers to minimize and redefine what a “skin of blackness” is to avoid having to answer charges of racism in the text of the Book of Mormon. First, I’ll just quote what the text says when it describes Nephites and Lamanites.
Here is the moment when the Lamanites are cursed. It’s in 2 Nephi, chapter 5:20-25:
Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me (Nephi), saying that: Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they (the Lamanites) were cut off from his presence. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done. And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey. And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction.
Later, Nephi’s brother, Jacob, tells the Nephites “[b]ehold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; . . . . O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.” Jacob 3:5, 8.
Some six hundred years after the Lamanites are cursed, their descendants change their ways and align themselves with God, and the following is noted: “those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites; And their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites.” 3 Nephi 2:14-16.
Shortly after the period mentioned just previously, things get a little more complicated for this analysis when there is severe cataclysm in this place. The vast majority of people are killed by natural disasters. Those that are left are met by the resurrected Jesus Christ, and they unite in a period essentially perfect harmony for several generations. We don’t have much info on the racial aspect of this. But the text notes that the people didn’t have any distinguishing cultures or sub-cultures for quite a while and practiced communal living. 4 Nephi:17. The categories of Nephite and Lamanite disappeared for a while. However, that didn’t last, and their communal living was undone first, followed by a schism into various churches, which ultimately blossomed into “a great division among the people.” 4 Nephi:35. After that, there were Nephites, “true believers in Christ,” and then “they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites.” The description of them is curious,
they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did willfully rebel against the gospel of Christ; and they did teach their children that they should not believe, even as their fathers, from the beginning, did dwindle. And it was because of the wickedness and abomination of their fathers, even as it was in the beginning. And they were taught to hate the children of God, even as the Lamanites were taught to hate the children of Nephi from the beginning. 4 Nephi:38-39.
Let’s take a slight detour to explore the issue of hatred among the Nephites and Lamanites. The Lamanites were taught to hate the Nephites “from the beginning.” These passages are essential, I argue, for seeing the way Lamanites stand in for nons in our time.
Sometime before Jesus appears personally in the narrative, there is a great war between the Nephites and the Lamanites. The narrative is clear that the war is one of aggression of the Lamanites against the Nephites. In fact, the Nephites seemed extremely careful to not allow their armies to venture out of their own territory. The Nephite armies are led by a man named Captain Moroni. The Lamanite armies are led by a man named Ammoron. At one point they exchange letters as part of a prisoner exchange negotiation. Ammoron levies various charges against not only Moroni individually, but against Nephites going all the way back to Nephi. If you view them in light of the narrative in the Book of Mormon, the claims made by Ammoron are indisputably false. This is in Alma chapter 54. They are worth looking at. I put my commentary in parentheses.
· “I am Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites; I am the brother of Amalickiah whom ye have murdered. Behold, I will avenge his blood upon you, yea, and I will come upon you with my armies for I fear not your threatenings.” (Amalickiah was killed in his sleep in Nephite territory, after Amalickiah had cursed God and sworn an oath to kill Moroni and drink his blood. Amalickiah invaded aggressively and caused vast death and destruction for his people and the Nephites. You might say that Amalickiah was a good boy; he dindu nuffin.)
· “For behold, your fathers did wrong their brethren, insomuch that they did rob them of their right to the government when it rightly belonged unto them.” (Again, false. The Nephite nation began when they fled from the Lamanites to avoid being murdered from the getgo. The only sense in which this could be true is if the Nephites had a duty to actively submit themselves to Lamanite aggression and abuse. You might say that Ammoron believes the Lamanites have a right to access white people.)
· “And now behold, if ye will lay down your arms, and subject yourselves to be governed by those to whom the government doth rightly belong, then will I cause that my people shall lay down their weapons and shall be at war no more.” (Yep, there it is. The fact that the Nephites want to govern themselves and not be governed by Lamanites is viewed as a crime so great it’s worthy of total destruction. This is all starting to sound familiar. Keep in mind that Ammoron was already the king of his independent people. The Nephites scrupulously avoided meddling in Lamanite governance.)
· “And as concerning that God whom ye say we have rejected, behold, we know not such a being; neither do ye; but if it so be that there is such a being, we know not but that he hath made us as well as you.” (You think you’re better than me? You think your religion is better than mine?)
· “And if it so be that there is a devil and a hell, behold will he not send you there to dwell with my brother whom ye have murdered, whom ye have hinted that he hath gone to such a place? But behold these things matter not.” (I don’t believe in hell, but you’re going there.)
· “I am Ammoron, and a descendant of Zoram, whom your fathers pressed and brought out of Jerusalem.” (There is some ambiguity in the story of Zoram joining Lehi’s family in their trip to the new world. However, ultimately the narrative concludes that Zoram voluntarily agreed to join them, and that he was treated well, as an equal. 1 Nephi 4:30-35. Either way, Zoram and his family were infinitely better off by joining Lehi’s family in the new world. The alternative was to be either killed by the Babylonians or taken captive. You have to be trying hard to conclude that Zoram was “pressed” to go with Lehi. We are getting strong clues about the mindset we are dealing with here.)
· “And behold now, I am a bold Lamanite; behold, this war hath been waged to avenge their wrongs, and to maintain and to obtain their rights to the government.” (Again, pure fantasy. The “wrongs” committed by the Nephites are to live peaceably and prosperously, but independently, from the Lamanites. Ammoron’s position is that the Lamanites have been deeply wronged by the Nephites’ independence from them.)
· The next thing we read: “Now it came to pass that when Moroni had received this epistle he was more angry, because he knew that Ammoron had a perfect knowledge of his fraud; yea, he knew that Ammoron knew that it was not a just cause that had caused him to wage a war against the people of Nephi.”
We see some of where Ammoron acquired his generational hatred of the Nephites in earlier passages, long before Ammoron was born. For example, Mosiah 10:12-17:
the Lamanites knew nothing concerning the Lord, nor the strength of the Lord, therefore they depended upon their own strength. Yet they were a strong people, as to the strength of men. They were a wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, believing in the tradition of their fathers, which is this—Believing that they were driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the iniquities of their fathers, and that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren, and they were also wronged while crossing the sea; And again, that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance, after they had crossed the sea, and all this because that Nephi was more faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord—therefore he was favored of the Lord, for the Lord heard his prayers and answered them, and he took the lead of their journey in the wilderness. And his brethren were wroth with him because they understood not the dealings of the Lord; they were also wroth with him upon the waters because they hardened their hearts against the Lord. And again, they were wroth with him when they had arrived in the promised land, because they said that he had taken the ruling of the people out of their hands; and they sought to kill him. And again, they were wroth with him because he departed into the wilderness as the Lord had commanded him, and took the records which were engraven on the plates of brass, for they said that he robbed them. And thus they have taught their children that they should hate them, and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them, and do all they could to destroy them; therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi.
Elsewhere, it was said of the same people: “were a lazy and an idolatrous people; therefore they were desirous to bring us into bondage, that they might glut themselves with the labors of our hands; yea, that they might feast themselves upon the flocks of our fields.” Mosiah 9:12.
This should all sound very familiar to modern readers. The Lamanites are completely delusional. Nephite prosperity is viewed as a personal attack against the Lamanites. They can only make sense of it as robbery against them. At the same time, their one goal is to be lazy and to live off of the work of greater people. Damn, where have I seen that before?
Perhaps you are an LDS bro, and you believe that this is simply an accurate description of an actual historical people; any similarities to modern populations is merely incidental. Perhaps you are a Book of Mormon skeptic, and you think this is all made up. I am not the former, and I am not really the latter. Either way, this is a description of the structural belief system of the civil rights regime told with preternatural insight. To my knowledge, there was nothing in Joseph Smith’s milieu or history that would serve as an inspiration for this. I suspect perhaps the Haitian revolution may have crept into the back of his mind as the Book of Mormon came to be. But I do not believe it could have provided the underpinnings for commentary on our conditions this insightful. Joseph Smith has no business touching on these topics this well. You gotta hand it to him.
Other Clues of a Hidden Message
The relative population imbalance between Nephites and Lamanites suggests we may be looking at something pointed to a later time in history. When the two cultures split, way back in Nephi’s day, circa 600BC, there is nothing to suggest that the Nephites should have been outnumbered. I don’t see anywhere that explicitly states that the Lamanites started with more women. In fact, it was the Nephites who were explicitly bolstered by an outside population, when they combine themselves with a third group of Israelites who emigrated to the new world, a people called the Mulekites. I don’t see anywhere in the text where it states the Lamanite population was added to by the addition of other peoples. Perhaps someone can correct me there. So it is peculiar that the Lamanites are consistently mentioned as outnumbering the Nephites, as noted in the link above.
Consider: the industrious, wealthy, white, Christian Nephites find themselves greatly outnumbered by the lazy, idolatrous, ferocious, fecund Lamanites. It really doesn’t make much sense. How did the hunter gatherers in loin cloths out breed the agrarian society, even accounting for what must have been a disparity in infant mortality, given the difference in lifestyles? I believe the standard response from the LDS is that the Lamanites must have merged with outside populations, but the fact that this is not stated in the text makes that assertion desperate and highly implausible. I suggest this is a clue we are not dealing with historical fact, but we are looking at prophetic myth.
The Nephites are also described as being more technologically advanced than the Lamanites. They possess greater armor and weaponry. Consider this description of when Captain Moroni’s army meets a Lamanite army in the field of battle:
And it came to pass that he met the Lamanites in the borders of Jershon, and his people were armed with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war. And when the armies of the Lamanites saw that the people of Nephi, or that Moroni, had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing—Now the army of [the Lamanites] was not prepared with any such thing; they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins; yea, all were naked, save it were the Zoramites and the Amalekites (Nephite dissenters, more below); But they were not armed with breastplates, nor shields—therefore, they were exceedingly afraid of the armies of the Nephites because of their armor, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than the Nephites. Alma 43:18-21.
Nephite engineering versus Lamanite biomass. The outcome of the battle was the typical massively imbalanced Nephite k/d ratio and route of the Lamanite armies. The same thing that plays out time and again when organized white armies contend with nons. In fact, there is an oft-repeated story later in the war of an army of young men, the “stripling warriors” who fight against grown ass man Lamanite armies and emerge relatively unscathed.
In addition to military technologies, Nephite cities are fortified and more architecturally complex than Lamanite cities. Nephites have advanced agriculture and animal husbandry techniques that the Lamanites supposedly lack. Nephites have advanced tailoring, while the Lamanites, left their own devices, run around in animal skins. Based, unfathomably based. Is there any doubt that we are talking about something much more than just a schism in a single bloodline brought on by some generational naughtiness?
Nephite Dissenters
This is perhaps where this narrative thread crosses from good to great. The Nephites had a major problem with dissenters. Their story begins, more or less, with a certain King Noah and his band of sycophantic, corrupt priests. These priests had a practice of quoting Old Testaments scripture to confound Christian prophets while missing the substance of the text, murdering Christian prophets after taking their statements out of context, living parasitically off of the labor of the people, abducting child brides, treachery, deceit, etc. See Mosiah chapters 11-20. Not sure if they ever poisoned any wells, but none of us would be surprised.
Things go poorly for the priests of Noah and a bit down the road, their descendants are at it again. We meet a group of Nephite dissenters called the Amalekites. They are descended from Noah’s priests. What do we know about them? They created a kind of conspiratorial priesthood called The Order of Nehors. They live in a city called Jerusalem. They worship in synagogues. Their hearts are harder than the Lamanites’. They preach evil doctrines to the Lamanites to stir them up to hatred against the Nephites, whom they particularly hate. They do not believe in the “foolish traditions” of the Christian Nephites. Alma 21. They reject the gospel of Christ when it is preached to them. They didn’t only harden their own hearts, but also the hearts of the Lamanites. Alma 23. They got themselves and the Lamanites so worked up in hatred to the Christian Nephites that it caused a rebellion against their king so they could wage an aggressive war against the Nephites. Mormon says about these people: “[a]nd thus we can plainly discern, that after a people have been once enlightened by the Spirit of God, and have had great knowledge of things pertaining to righteousness, and then have fallen away into sin and transgression, they become more hardened, and thus their state becomes worse than though they had never known these things. Alma 24:30. Dang Mormon, cool it with the antisemitic remarks bro.
The antichrist doctrines of the Order of Nehors spread, especially through a charismatic preacher named Korihor, who was miraculously struck by the Lord and sought refuge among another group of Nephite dissenters called the Zoramites. These Zoramites were bad dudes. The narrative notes the exact danger that these types posed to the Nephites: “the Nephites greatly feared that the Zoramites would enter into a correspondence with the Lamanites, and that it would be the means of great loss on the part of the Nephites.” Alma 31:4. They knew the tendency of the antichrists to use their ability to get the Lamanites worked into a froth so that they use them as biological weapons against the white people they truly despised. Huh. The Zoramites had this peculiar religious ritual where they would ascend some kind of platform and offer the following prayer:
Holy, holy God; we believe that thou art God, and we believe that thou art holy, and that thou wast a spirit, and that thou art a spirit, and that thou wilt be a spirit forever. Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from our brethren; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren, which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children; and also thou hast made it known unto us that there shall be no Christ. But thou art the same yesterday, today, and forever; and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren, which doth bind them down to a belief of Christ, which doth lead their hearts to wander far from thee, our God. And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people. Amen. Alma 31:15-18.
The Zoramites were “a wicked and a perverse people; . . . their hearts were set upon gold, and upon silver, and upon all manner of fine goods. . . . [T]heir hearts were also lifted up unto great boasting, in their pride.” Alma 31:24-25.
What becomes of these Zoramites? A certain prophet, Alma, preaches the gospel of Christ in their city, and it makes quite a few converts, which creates a problem for the lucrative doctrines of the Zoramites. When the Nephites provide shelter to the Christian converts the Zoramites desire to murder, the Zoramites begin to lay the foundation for the war of aggression against the Nephites involving Moroni, mentioned above. Alma chapter 35. Ultimately, the Zoramites become Lamanites themselves and commence a war of annihilation against the Nephites. Alma 43.
Here is what the narrative says about the nature of Nephite dissenters:
as the Amalekites were of a more wicked and murderous disposition than the Lamanites were, in and of themselves, therefore, Zerahemnah appointed chief captains over the Lamanites, and they were all Amalekites and Zoramites. Now this he did that he might preserve their hatred towards the Nephites, that he might bring them into subjection to the accomplishment of his designs. For behold, his designs were to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites; this he did that he might usurp great power over them, and also that he might gain power over the Nephites by bringing them into bondage. Alma 43:6-8.
Bitter angry, not quite white, people, who foment violence against white Christians among nons in order to use them as bioweapons against them to satisfy their irrational, profound hatred “[f]or they knew that if they should fall into the hands of the Lamanites, that whosoever should worship God in spirit and in truth, the true and the living God, the Lamanites would destroy.” Alma 43:10.
Has anything ever been a more apt description of where we find ourselves right now? Do I need to spell it out any further?
Genocide, The Message
All of this comes to a head after the period of unity when the resurrected Christ departs the people. An existential war breaks out between the Nephites and the Lamanites. Except, this time the Nephites are not able to fight in the name of the Lord, and they have lost that extreme k/d advantage they historically enjoyed. Interestingly, and tellingly, the text implies that, once again, the Lamanites are more numerous than the Nephites. This is around the year 326AD, according to the text. Mormon 2:2. In fact, the Nephites are so badly outnumbered that they decide to repeat an old tactic that worked generations earlier, and “gather in [their] people as fast as it were possible, that [they] might get them together in one body.” Mormon 2:7. Once again, this seems telling. Just one or two hundred years earlier, the people were unified such that the categories of Nephite and Lamanite didn’t exist. Now the Nephites are this badly outnumbered? “The land was filled with robbers and with Lamanites.” 2:8. This is highly implausible. How did the parasite population grow so vast without a host to sustain it? I think the reader should be looking for deeper meaning.
Ultimately, the Nephites lose this war. They are successfully genocided by the Lamanites. Sorry for the spoilers. I think there are a few key takeaways here to bring this thread full circle into a prophetic warning to white people in our day.
First, the Nephites lost because they abandoned what made them distinctly Nephites. In the narrative, it was their fidelity to Christ. The exact way this manifested itself in their behavior and institutions is fairly vague in the text. The narrative makes reference to “wickedness and abominations,” but we lack specifics. What is seems to me, reviewing the relevant chapters in Mormon, is that the Nephites seemed to have adopted the attitudes and behaviors of Lamanites generally. Their hearts were turned toward hatred of the other, instead of embracing a positive vision of their faith and society. This drove them to acts of barbarity and bloodlust, gradually making them more beast than angel. This is also manifested in the Nephite desire to take war to the Lamanites, as opposed to growing within their own lands and defending those lands from Lamanites. See Mormon 3:10, for example.
I contend we are to contrast the behavior of the failed Nephites with the narrative of Captain Moroni, the guy about whom it was said, “if all men and been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very power of hell would have been shaken forever.” Alma 48:17. Interestingly, Moroni was extremely illiberal to anyone who posed a threat to his people. He summarily executed powerful dissenters during war. Alma 51. He moved to overthrow his own government when it appeared it had abandoned its people during this time of war. Alma 60. He killed a lot of people. He was very good at killing people, but it was always a means to an end. And the end to which every means was applied was Moroni’s people.
Moroni was quite liberal, magnanimous, and restrained to anyone who was not a threat to his people. He was Our Guy, for us, always for us, and only in the name of Jesus Christ. Moroni famously wrote a kind of oath on his torn coat, what is called the Title of Liberty. The text supports my point: “[i]n memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” Moroni was a blood and soil Christian nationalist. His people and his faith were above his government, and he would do anything to defend their continual existence in the land that God gave to them. This is what made Nephites Nephites, the positive vision they had for themselves as a Christian people. When they abandoned that, they lost everything.
Another point I believe is an esoteric clue about how we are to see the text is that in the end, when the Nephites were being snuffed out of existence, they were led by an inspired general, Mormon, and his son, Moroni. We have no reason to believe that Mormon and Moroni were not up to the task or miraculously delivering their people. However, it was the people who had changed such that the Lord could not work through them. Moroni could be viewed as a divine offering from God to a people, a chance for success to whoever will have it. I believe people could pray for a Moroni to champion their cause. But a Moroni is not sufficient, and he would be powerless without a people who subscribed the kind of creed that Captain Moroni wrote on his coat.
Next point: the people who turn against their people are the worst of the worst. They are openly using nons as a bioweapon in a war of genocidal aggression. Their hatred is pure, irrational, and insatiable. There is no liberal solution to the problem they pose. They are worse than the Lamanites. They are more dangerous. The Lamanites lap up their doctrines of hatred and annihilation and act accordingly.
Final point, and this is an important one: at no point, not even a little, did the Lamanites have any inclination to reconsider their desire for genocide against the Nephites. This desire was always there. It was baked into who they were. They could never muster the kind of positive vision for their people that the Nephites enjoyed. Lamanites, according to their own terms, were always just the people who had it bad because the Nephites screwed them so hard five hundred years ago. It didn’t matter what kindness they were shown. It didn’t matter what evidence material and spiritual circumstances demonstrated. It didn’t matter how many deaths they suffered at the hands of a much smaller Nephite army. They hated the white men. They hated the white women. They hated each and every white baby. They hated them because they were more attractive. They hated them because they were more prosperous. They hated them, and this is stated explicitly, because they were “favored of the Lord.” At no point did the Lamanites stop and consider that the Nephites may actually provide some benefit to the Lamanites by their continued existence. After all, the host was feeding the parasite. Not only did it not matter, the clues we have suggest that it was part of the problem. The Nephites were an ideal that the Lamanites could never equal, and for that reason the Nephites needed to be destroyed. It was the Lamanites one hope that they could perhaps live with themselves without shame, if only their betters could be eradicated.
This is the message I take from this narrative thread in the Book of Mormon. Nons you always have with you, to apply pressure for your growth, to loom constantly over you as a threat to remind you to be what makes you who you are. And if you give them the opportunity, they will eat each and every last one of you, and they will do it because that is who they are, and that is who they always have been. They will do it because seeing you is proof positive they are lesser. The fate of the Nephites was always in the hands of the Nephites. That’s the lesson that Captain Moroni taught them. But the Nephites had to be who God created them to be.
Frankly, I do not think that who we are, as a people, is any particular brand of Christianity. I don’t think the answer to our problems is to be better Mormons or better Catholics or better sola scriptura Christians, etc. I do not believe in a one true church. Nons have never had the strength to conquer unified whites. They couldn’t do it to pagans. They couldn’t do it to Christians. Before pagans Christianized, they built beautiful, orderly cities; they expounded philosophy; they wrote laws. When nons become Christian nations, they still live in squalor. They still thrive on envy of the white man. They still seek to be indolent and live at the expense of their European neighbors, hating them and their children for existing. We have seen Christianity as a sociological variable enough times to know that the gospel of Christ absolutely does not make Lamanites into Nephites, not metaphorically and not literally. Both Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States are roughly 62% Christian. So what is it that made America America when she was a vital, unstoppable force for her people? I think the answer is in the last three words of the question: she, like Captain Moroni, was for her people.
In summary, as it pertains to the Book of Mormon, we have to seriously consider the possibility that an angel in fact came to Jospeh Smith and dictated a text via a seer stone containing a message to warn the white man of the coming existential battle with nons, to warn him of the nature of nons and what he stands to lose if he ever ceases to be a force for his people. That would, indeed, be the most based thing ever.