With the New Year upon us, let us further dedicate ourselves to following the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, building the Kingdom of God, establishing Zion, and being disciples in word and deed. Let us dedicate ourselves to becoming peacemakers in every sense of the term.
Tag: proclaim peace
What Mormon Teaches Us About War And Loving Our Enemies
Whenever I point out that Captain Moroni’s example doesn’t justify modern Saints going to war because he lived the Law of Moses and we live the Law of Christ and that modern revelation commands us to renounce war completely the response is inevitable. I always get some version of, “What about Mormon and his son, Moroni? They were baptized Christians who fought in wars. If they can do it, why can’t we?” By looking at what the scriptures, I answer this question and show why Mormon and Moroni do not justify us joining modern day wars.
What To The Latter-day Saint is the Fourth of July?
I find nothing to celebrate on the Fourth of July. It, like all nationalist holidays, is nothing more than the largest, loudest, and obnoxious propaganda program that has ever existed. Through all the parades, fireworks, and barbeques, people rarely ask what exactly are they so effulgently praising and whether or not the should be doing it. As a result, they reaffirm their loyalty to and love for one of the most violent, bloody, and dangerous regimes in the world, one responsible for murdering over 6 million civilians in the last 20 years. The great William Lloyd Garrison called such devotion, “the latest and the most terrible form of idolatry,” and he was correct. As this article explains, it is in direct opposition to the commandments of God and the direction of His prophets.
Nonviolence in Early Christianity, Part 2
This is the second part in a series tracing the teaching of what we today call nonviolence in ancient Christianity after the end of the biblical era. I pick up where I left off in Part 1, in the mid-Second Century AD/CE and go all the way through the Third Century AD/CE. In the process I cover such topics as tribalism, nationalism, abortion, violence, the role of government, a Christian’s place in government, whether a Christian can hold political office or not, the military – both from the perspective of a soldier who converts to Christianity and a Christian who is thinking about joining the military, justice, political idolatry, the Second Amendment, gun ownership, natural rights, the universal nature of the Church and Christianity, and the hypocrisy of the world’s ideologies. The teaching of these ancient Christians carrying forth the ideals of Christ confront, counter, and dismantle the cunning craftiness of the world’s doctrines through the application of the truths of the Gospel.
Public Education Conditions Us For War
The purpose of education has been warped. Education used to be about more than educating people in the kind of math and technological skills that make them good cogs in the machinery of the State. It used to be about expanding and liberating the minds and spirits of people by exposing them to the greatest thinkers and ideas that human history has to offer so that they learn the ideas that will make them better people, so that they will be better humans. But since the government has assumed control over the education systems in every nation this purpose has been falling ever more steadily by the wayside. Instead, today people are educated and miseducated into the ideologies, moralities, and values that justify the ever-expanding power of the police state and the unceasing waging of wars abroad. As this article argues, this condition is not some perverse accident caused by state mishandling of education. Rather, educating us into the beliefs and ideas that convince us to remain subservient and obedient to the State is the very point of public education, a cause that finds its ultimate expression in war.
The Global War on Terror is a War of Terror
The violent history of the US government’s military actions in the Middle East is one of the bloodiest eras in human history- leading to the annihilation of civilizations millennia old and the butchering of literally millions of civilians beneath the brutal hooves of Famine, War, Pestilence, and Death. Here I trace part of that history from the 1980s through the modern day, explore their ramifications in the form of international terrorism, and explain how what has been sold to Americans as a “War on Terror” is in reality a War *of* Terror in the eyes of the tens of millions of people living at the bayonet point of the American military. Instead of creating peace and making America or the world safer, the actions of the US government and its allies in the Middle East have only generated extermination, destruction, hatred, retaliation, and violence, making the entire world a more hazardous and unstable place for all. The West’s Wars of Terror have only led to skyrocketing rates of terrorism and placed us all in greater danger than ever before.