Some of the oldest and most affirmed truths in all of Christendom are that Jesus Christ commands us to love our enemies, to renounce violence, and to reject all other worldly loyalties – be they nation, empire, or people – for the Church, the Gospel, and Jesus Christ Himself. These truths can been in the writings of the earliest surviving Christian leaders and writers. What follows below is the first part in an effort to share a small sampling of these statements which I have tried to place within a rough chronological order. Hopefully they will help the reader, whether Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Pentecostal, Christian Scientist, Latter-day Saint, etc. to understand the role of what we now call nonviolence, civil disobedience, rejection of world powers -what we today call the State – and loving and serving your enemy as central beliefs in the long history of true Christianity, ancient and modern.
Category: Religion
Confronting and Correcting Word of Wisdom Myths
Lately, I have been thinking more often about the Word of Wisdom and common errors we Latter-day Saints make in our understanding of it. Too often I’ve heard people call it the “Lord’s Law of Health,” express distress that people can drink coffee but not soda, and suggest it is about not becoming addicted to stuff like caffeine or tobacco. While all of these have some kernel of truth to them, they are all fundamental misunderstandings of what the Word of Wisdom is and what its function in Latter-day Saint lives and society is supposed to be. And because we misunderstand the Word of Wisdom it often leads us to incorrect conclusions about how we should live it, mistakes which can even degrade our faith. Here I address these issues and seek to explain why thinking of the Word of Wisdom as a Law of Health is to misunderstand what it is, the blessings promised by it, and its role in Latter-day Saint lives and community. Once properly understood common misunderstandings of it, such as it forbids caffeine, and seeming contradictions, such as not drinking coffee because it is unhealthy but being fine with drinking energy drinks, are cleared up. Hopefully this helps Latter-day Saints better understand the Word of Wisdom, live it as God has commanded, and enjoy the blessing from doing so in their lives.
The Christian Case For Nonviolence
The following address, “A Case for Christocentric Nonviolence”, is a copy of a presentation made by New Testament scholar Dr. Preston Sprinkle. It is merely the tip of the iceberg of the evidence and arguments from Christian scripture, history, and theology he uses in his book “Fight” to demonstrate that Christianity is rooted in an absolute ethic of God-like love for all and the commandment to renounce all violence for all causes as Christians are ordered by Christ’s word, deeds, and example to save our enemies, not destroy them. In it he discusses four basic theses, statements of fact that will be proven, which demonstrate the nonviolent nature of Christ and Christian teaching. Then he deals with four arguments commonly made by people trying to justify Christian violence – Romans 13, the cleansing of the temple by Jesus, Jesus telling the Apostles to go buy sword, and the Second Coming – and after demonstrating the errors in them and answering those concerns he concludes by suggesting but a few ways of how this should effect the way we think and act as Christians today in both terms of violent personal self-defense and in war.
How To Obey The Word of Wisdom: Alcoholic Drinks
The Word of Wisdom is a modern commandment that the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith designed to bless the physical, emotional, and spiritual lives of the Saints in the modern days. It is a topic which many members know about but the history of which very few seem to understand. As a result many members come to erroneous conclusions about its purpose, place, and enforcement in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This in turn leads them to false conclusions about how it should be interpreted and enforced today. One of the most common errors is the belief that beer and perhaps other weak alcoholic drinks were acceptable as “mild drinks” and were only forbidden in the early 20th century by LDS leaders who were supportive of American Prohibition. To find out the truth of this I will be evaluating the history of the Word of Wisdom in the 19th century as well as placing it in the larger context of common ideas of medicine and health common in the era. This will give us a great basis then to address and confirm or dispel some of the most common misconceptions surrounding the Word of Wisdom.
The Trump Riots And The American State
On January 6, 2021 a group of thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in order to disrupt the Senate’s official confirmation of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States of America. These events have set off a firestorm of protests and denunciations across the planet, with many people expressing open dismay that “such an attack on democracy” could happen in America. Here I explore how these reactions prove that those who talk about democracy the most often understand it the least, as a group of the demos – the common people – assaulting the halls of power in order to prevent what they saw as corrupt political actions is the most democratic that has happened in America in the last fifty years. I further explore how the celebration by many on the political Left of the shooting of one of the protestors shows what their true political motives are, and they aren’t to end police brutality. Finally, I look at what the problems are which have given rise to this political divisiveness and what the real solutions are to it, both from a secular perspective and from a fuller religious perspective.
The Psychological Origins of The State
Typically when discussing politics and the origins of political movements, countries, and ideas one defaults to history as a way to explain and understand what has happened in society. This obviously makes a great deal of sense as it helps us to see where some movement or idea has come from, how it has functioned in the past, how it is effecting the world today, and to theorize about what most likely will happen in the future due to its influence. But, as a means of actually understanding the whys and wherefores of these issues the historical method can only produce half answers. History cannot tell us what it is about the human condition that leads us to making the choices we do, it cannot explain what about the human mind leads us to doing the things that we do. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do so. In fact, I recently completed a series of articles looking at the origins of the State that does just that – it examines the psychological origins of the State, what about the human mind leads people towards Statism. This is a collection of those articles in a single place.
Why You Shouldn’t Vote
During the 2020 American Presidential Election I authored or shared three articles that explained why people in general, and Latter-day Saints specifically, should never vote, at least not in a statist political system where the victor will be able to use the violence of the government to force his ideas upon the masses. In these articles I address the unethical nature of voting, the effectivity of voting as a means to bring about real change in the world, and the ways that taking part in the system legitimizes and empowers it to do evil and immoral things in your name, encouraging and commanding people obey politicians violates the laws of God as a matter of the government’s standard operation procedure. This page acts as a place where I have collected those articles in one easily accessed source for future reference.
Rejoice That God Is With Us Now And Forever
It being Christmas I wanted to share something short but beautiful. My favorite Christmas hymn is Veni, Veni Emmanuel, or in English, O’ Come, O’ Come, Emmanuel. The song is both a prayer that accurately captures the hopes, if not the actual words, of those who looked forward to the Messiah’s first coming and those of us now who anticipate His Second Coming. But it also testifies to us that we need not wait for Christ to come again to experience the power and peace He promises to bring because God is with us even now in Presence, Person, and Spirit. He is our Emmanuel, our ever present God if we but open our eyes, minds, ears, and hearts to Him.
The Eternal Victory of Christmas
I recently wrote that without a proper understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ that one cannot fully comprehend the meaning of Christmas. Christ was born to Resurrect, defeat Death and Hell, and open to path of salvation and eternal life to all. This is absolutely true, but since I wrote that article I have had my vision widened to see that the scope of the Atonement, and therefore the Nativity, is much wider, much deeper, and much greater than I had before understood.
Here I try and share that vision with you through the writings of Apostle Orson Pratt. Herein he discusses the Plan of Salvation and its unending and self-perpetuating nature. The cycle of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Exaltation, and Creation are explored here in Elder Pratt’s writings. Then I briefly connect these truths back to the Nativity and how understanding them will deepen our comprehension of the richness and eternal ramifications of that first Christmas.
The Origins of The God-State
There are many historical works on the rise of the modern State and the origins of its power. Many of them trace the development of the modern state from the end of the Medieval all the way up through the present day, drawing attention to how particular national and global crises – mostly wars and economic collapses – have resulted in the growth of the power of the centralized state as a solution to these problems.
As with all history, understanding these facts is very important to understanding how we got to where we are today. But in answering how they all too often neglect the why things are the way they are today.
Why is it that people have turned to the State for temporal and material salvation?
Why is it that men and women lavish religious levels of adoration and faith upon the State and its operatives?
Why is it that people have given it so much power?
What about humans and the way we think has convinced us, seemingly en masse, to turn to the State for salvation?
Using the writings of eminent psychologist Dr. Carl Jung, I try here to answer these questions; I answer not how the God-State came to be, but why humans have created the God-State in the first place.