Today, especially in this land of promise, we seem to have an explosive mix of them all. So as our 2024 Book of Mormon study course winds down, let us review a few insights from Hugh W. Nibley’s Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 4: Transcriptions of Lectures presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University. (All square brackets are in Nibley’s text; bold emphasis is mine.)
... It’s always good guys against bad guys. You’ll always have them and you’ll always have equals against each other and never solve that terrible thing. I’ll give an example of how this works. In the fourth century St. Basil was writing about it. “In the confused political situation everybody wants to give orders, and nobody wants to take them. Men are willing to cooperate on anything only as the most effective means of crippling a common enemy, after which they turn against each other.”So what should we do with all the latest “planned polarization” in our present world? On the same page as the above quote, Nibley references the counsel of the prophet Joseph — that we don’t accuse, aspire, contend, coerce; that we don’t react in kind to polarizing tactics; that we don’t resist evil with evil.1 But how are we to understand this in light of other scriptures, such as
This was in Antioch, too, remember, the city where [men wanted] everybody to be wiped out so they’d be the richest man left. The final survivor and undisputed Number One was Constantine the Great. He interrupted and made them stop fighting. But, to quote our own study on the subject, no sooner had Constantine removed his last civil and military opponents than the issue between the Christians and pagan subjects became acute.2 He had to settle that, so he settled that He put the pagans in their place, and then the churchman started accusing each other of heresy in wild abandon. Then it had to be Arias against Athanasius. The whole Christian world was then split again. Then the emperor took sides, came down with one side, and removed the last heretic, and received the undying thanks from the church. The true believers were at each others’ throats as never before. So this is the way it goes.
Nowhere is this process more sharply brought into focus than with Moroni’s inserts in his father’s book on the supreme results of polarizing. This is a very important principle—that the two poles conceive an ever greater antipathy to each other the more they come to be alike. Everyone knows that like poles repel each other, and only opposite poles attract each other. Now we’re talking about right from the beginning. As soon as Trajan and Hadrian took over and took half of Asia, then the trouble began with the two worlds fighting each other. It’s very old, of course. It goes back much further than that. It goes back to the battle of Thermopylae and much older than that: it’s always been going on. The emperors of East and West were fighting each other, in this case the emperors of Rome and Asia. I have particularly Justinian and Chosroes in mind, both very powerful emperors of a revived empire. The emperors of Rome and Asia describe themselves in absolutely identical terms, while each accuses his rival of being nothing but a base forgery and depraved imitation of himself. This is not a real clash of ideologies at all, but only a rivalry of parties that are [motivated] by identical principles and have the same objectives. What they are both after is the Book of Mormon formula, power and gain. The secret of commanding loyalty on both sides was, of course, to play up the wickedness of the other. The empire of the fourth century, when Rome collapsed, was at its very strongest with the biggest army and everything else. The empire of the fourth century was the world of displaced persons, inevitably drawn toward the big city. ... To take the place of the old lost loyalty to hearth and homeland—the prisca fides, the primitive belief in fate—strong measures had to be taken. New super loyalty was needed to guarantee the permanence of the social order. Men were taught to declare allegiance to a super thing—a noble abstraction loosely designated as Romanitas, the binding cement which was carefully cultivated in hostility to barbarians. “We’re the Romans: they’re the barbarians.” Well it was the same with the Babylonians and the Moslems. It was ager pacatus and ager hosticus with the Romans; Dār al-Islām and Dār al-Harb with the Moslems.
You see, that’s being very strongly emphasized. You’re never going to come to an agreement with the Iranians or the Iraqis as long as they say Dār al-Harb. Islam means “to submit”; it means peace also. All those who have submitted are the real people. All outside are the Dār al-Harb. And they threaten us. They were always being threatened and that’s why the emperor expanded [the empire]. They couldn’t stand anyone beyond their borders threatening them. Remember the last line of the fourth eclogue that got Vergil made a saint: “The emperor must inevitably rule over a pacified earth. All the earth must be pacified under his rule according to the virtues of our virtuous ancestors.” We’re the virtuous people, and we must rule the earth because we’re the good guys (p. 273; Nibley's footnote 2 from The Prophetic Book of Mormon, Vol 8-Collected Works ..., 438).
... [this is quoting J.B. Bury] ...“To command loyalty became part of the public education policy. To the lessons of the schools, carefully supervised by the government was added a more aggressive policy of deliberately widening the gulf between the two worlds [planned polarization]. For centuries, barbarian and Roman east and west had been mingling on terms of the greatest intimacy, producing a borderline culture in which it was quite impossible to draw the line between one culture and the other. Priscus, who was sent back in the sixth century, remembers quite casually the presence of people from the West visiting relatives in the camps of the Asiatics. He notes the busy coming and going of merchants between the two worlds. He describes the kind hospitality shown him, a complete stranger, in the home of the Easterners. But with this he gives us the other side of the picture, the official side—the ubiquitous activity of spies and agents in Roman pay, the infusion into the very court of Attila of large sums of Roman money to corrupt and divide. The insane mounting conviction of the rulers of the two halves of the world, both barbarians, each that his was the divine calling to liberate the human race from the intolerable ambition of the other.” It still is going on today (p. 274).
20 Contend against no church, save it be the church of the deviland the many instances of “speaking truth to power” found and / or counseled in scripture.2 I believe that the prophet Joseph’s counsel is to be understood as: don’t falsely accuse3; don’t aspire to replace God's will with your own4; don’t contend against truth; don’t coerce to your or another’s will or ideas.
(Doctrine and Covenants | Section 18:20);
But what do we do when so much truth seems so elusive? This is the best I can think of in our flawed human condition — propagandized, opinionated, and stiff-necked as we are.
• Pursue truth by prioritizing facts over feelings.
• Live with intent to receive its proofs.5
• Study the repeating patterns of history.
• Speak truth when moved upon by the Spirit.
• Refuse to live by coercion.
• Be awake (as commanded) to our awful situation.6
• Pray as Mormon counseled his son Moroni:
-------------------------------/27 ... Behold, the pride of this nation ... hath proven their destruction except they should repent.• Above all, pray for our own awakening, awareness, repentance, discernment.
28 Pray for them,[7] my son, that repentance may come unto them.
(Book of Mormon | Moroni 8:27–28).
1. New Testament | Romans 12:17 ~ Recompense to no man evil for evil.
New Testament | 1 Thessalonians 5:15 ~ See that none render evil for evil unto any man;
New Testament | 1 Peter 3:9 ~ Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing;
New Testament | Matthew 5:39 ~ But I [Jesus] say unto you, That ye resist not evil [with evil]:
2. https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2022/03/speaking-truth-to-power-new-testament.html
https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2016/01/part-two-evil-speaking-discernment.html
https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2023/10/respecting-obeying-authority-what-did.html
https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2023/10/respecting-obeying-authority-what-of.html
https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2023/10/when-to-disrespect-authority.html
3. (and since much of the time, we don’t have all the facts, we let those who have the facts step forward and if they don’t, we either pursue the facts in a lawful way, or, if necessary, pray for exposure of the facts, and wait on God
4. Old Testament | Isaiah 14:12-14
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Pearl of Great Price | Moses 4:3-4
3 Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;
4 And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.
5. New Testament | 1 Thessalonians 5:21
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
6. Book of Mormon | Ether 8:24-26
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.
26 Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved.
7. (those who accuse, aspire, contend, coerce)
