Teflon Continents and The Book of Mormon

North and South America are different in an important way from all other land masses: No one can seem to build a great civilization on them that will also last for millennia. There have been great civilizations, but all we have left are ruins and their scattered descendants. Where are the Maya, the Aztecs, the Olmecs, the Toltecs, the Incas? Their descendants are with us today, but the cultures are extinct. You can see remnants of their mighty cities crumbling in the jungles of Meso-America. I learned that at the height of the Mayan Empire, there were 8 million people living on the Guatemala peninsula. And they just vanished into thin air one day, leaving their homes with the oven still on, so to speak.

Where did they go? Asia, Europe, and Africa all have civilizations that have existed continuously for thousands of years. Worms, Germany, as well as Jerusalem, have held 5000 year anniversary parties. Chinese and Indian cultures argue primacy, with records reaching back into untold eons. Egypt is synonymous with antiquity. Where are North and South Americas' equivalent establishments? Even the American natives took a beating, and were driven and scattered by the dominant culture of North America.

The Book of Mormon is many things, most important of which is another witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ and the accuracy of the Bible. It is also an owner's manual for North and South America. It describes the conditions that must be observed by those who want to live here successfully. It also gives accounts of previous civilizations, and specifically what brought them crashing to a halt. They were eradicated because of "secret combinations," conspiracies within the upper echelons of government. Much has been said recently about the open existence of such forces in our own government. How did a hick farmer in the 1820s know that murderous and corrupt politicians conspiring in dark rooms would be the big problem facing America 200 years later?

President Eisenhower gave this harrowing farewell warning in 1961:

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions...We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Here is a passage from The Book of Mormon:

"Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.

"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" (Ether 8:23-24).

Is there a secret combination, a conspiracy, "above" us? Let's review a few events of the last ten years or so.

9-11 conspiracy theories range from the sensible to bizarre and baroque, but there are some things that everyone can agree on. Larry Silverstein, who owned the Twin Towers, was eligible to collect $4.6 billion insurance money. George Bush derived two terms in office from the wave of popularity 9-11 induced. His oil industry friends raked in record profits as oil prices hit record highs in 2008 (Bush's last year in office). Exxon posted the largest profits of any company in the history of the world that year. Cheney's friends in Halliburton made billions contracting construction in Iraq. Manufacturers of weapons made billions as Iraq became a testing field for new and old technologies.

Who paid for this corporate/political bonanza? Over 100,000 Iraqis and over 5000 American troops have paid with their lives. American tax payers have footed the bill for two wars as trillions of dollars were siphoned off from an already shaky economy. The value of the dollar, tied by transportation of all goods to the price of oil, has fallen to parity with the Canadian dollar. Since every extra penny lining every sofa cushion has been slurped up by the oil industry, people who were once middle class are moving from homes to apartments. At the beginning of 2008, the housing bubble burst, and now you can see empty homes with FOR SALE signs dotting the suburbs of almost every American city. Thanks to the ambiguous and open-ended definition of the war following 9-11 ("War On Terror" makes about as much sense as "War On Left-hand Turns"), many constitutional freedoms have eroded and been assaulted directly. Privacy is nonexistent, and military dictatorship-esque checkpoints are now a prominent feature at airports. America is still relatively prosperous compared to the rest of the world, but we are definitely stifled in our growth. Unemployment in the US is officially about 1 in 10, while underemployment is more rampant, about 1 in 4. Meanwhile, corporations are sitting on $2 trillion. We have been sold to China by corporations (such as Walmart, whose labels used to brag MADE IN THE USA) and their puppet politicians. I saw a picture in Fortune magazine of Chinese oil workers in Iraqi oil fields. Who let them in?

This brief overview of where money went as a result of 9-11 makes the kooky theories seem plausible. There is nothing new here; prospering at the expense of others has been standard procedure from time immemorial. It seems, at least to me, that secret combinations are definitely "above" us.

What shall we do?

Article of Faith 12 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states, "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared this insight: "Our doctrine commits us to work from within. Even an oppressive government is preferable to a state of lawlessness and anarchy in which the only ruling principle is force and every individual has a thousand oppressors."

Hearing a description of power being abused can stir feelings of anger, but would the ultimate outcome of acting on such feelings lead to a correction of the problems of corruption and conspiracy we face now? To put it bluntly, could we assassinate and arrest our way to good government? No. In the first place, if an organization were brought into existence to perform such an exercise, it would simply become the monster it was designed to eradicate. In the second place, even if all corrupt politicians and murderous businessmen were to suddenly cease to exist through some magical means, their empty seats would be filled immediately by their henchmen, and their henchmens' henchmen, etc.

Violent means were used to no avail to eradicate secret combinations in the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon was prescient in labeling the problem; maybe it is also prescient in its prescribed solution. The solution it proposes is simple: Repent. If we, as a nation, collectively repent of doing what we know is wrong, and turn to God for forgiveness, God Himself will intervene on our behalf, and raise up leaders who will benefit us as a group, rather than themselves and crooked businessmen. How do we repent? No one can repent for someone else--it is an individual activity. (Searching for solutions that involve forcing others to change their behavior, and scapegoating groups and individuals, are mere inches away from the extreme solution discredited above.) Search your conscience, and locate those behaviors you believe are wrong, but that you still engage in, and commit to stop doing them. Pray for forgiveness for them.

Drink less. Yell less. Be faithful to your spouse mentally as well as physically. Treat you children well. Be honest in all your business dealings. Be patient and forgiving. Set aside time to ponder, pray, and read from sacred books. Appreciate nature on its own merits, rather than looking for ways to exploit it for money. Be grateful for what you have instead of craving more. Stop worshiping the evanescent material possessions and honors of this world.

These things sound like New Year's resolutions, or nondenominational injunctions, but they comprise the essence of the Ten Commandments. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. If America will do these things, then God will actually bless us with more righteous leaders, or at least leaders who serve us instead of under-the-table interests. In Acts 2:37-38, the group of people asks, "...what shall we do?" Peter replies, "Repent." The greatest thing about this solution is that it can be tested empirically. If millions of people repent, and prosperity, peace, and freedom ensue, then it works. Let's be the first great civilization in the history of the Americas to NOT be eradicated.

My Testimony

I want to add my expression of faith to the forest of information that is the internet. If anyone finds it, I'll be surprised.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What an elephantine title for a Church. Why so big? Imagine a parent who wanted to help a child be bold by giving him or her an unusual name. There are at least three main points of doctrine in that name, each one an invitation to missionary work and discussion.

My faith began early, with the gauntlet of Sunday school classes and instruction typical of all Latter-day Saint children. I became more introspective and less prone to accept all things on blind faith. When I was about nine years old, I asked my parents, "Is all this stuff true?" My father's wise response was, "What do YOU think?" I love him for that—putting the burden back on my shoulders. It took a further fifteen years to see what I consider to be a sufficient answer to my urgent question about the Church. Here is a quote from President Taylor that sums up my current feelings about it:

"A good many people, and those professing Christians, will sneer a good deal at the idea of present revelation. Whoever heard of true religion without communication with God? To me the thing is the most absurd that the human mind could conceive. I do not wonder, when the people generally reject the principle of present revelation, that skepticism and infidelity prevail to such an alarming extent. I do not wonder that so many men treat religion with contempt, and regard it as something not worth the attention of intelligent beings, for without revelation religion is a mockery and a farce. If I can not have a religion that will lead me to God, and place me en rapport with him, and unfold to my mind the principles of immortality and eternal life, I want nothing to do with it. The principle of present revelation, then, is the very foundation of our religion" (John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, 35-36).

God still speaks in complete sentences, and I have learned this for myself. I have paid attention to the process, how I got to the point where I can say with a measure of certainty, "I know." The rest of this post will deal with the process, the intervening fifteen years. (It could have taken less time, with proper instruction. As you will see, though, the terrain I traversed to get to that point was the least appealing one could imagine. No one beckoned me thither, because no body wants to stand there.)

Latter-day Saints have their own jargon, and the definitions we give words are often not compatible with the ones we find in our scriptures. "Convert," "Converted," and "Conversion" are all terms suffering from this syndrome. In typical parlance, we say someone is "converted" when they agree with the doctrines and join the Church. But the scriptures use the term differently. In the scriptures, "convert" means to be changed, altered, converted by God. Jesus explains it to Nicodemus in John 3. He tells him that water baptism and spiritual rebirth are necessary to both see and enter the kingdom of God. Because the phrase "born again" has been co-opted by Born-Again Christians, many Latter-day Saints recoil from it. But it is the key to knowing for one's self that God is real, as well as the key to having the ability to live up to that new knowledge.

I lament that I was not truly converted until I was about twenty five years old. All my life, I had assumed that the essence of righteousness was to reject the chocolate cake of sin and temptation, while dutifully gagging down the salubrious broccoli of righteousness. I assumed (because no one had ever indicated otherwise) that my desires, my nature, were fixed. I learned for myself that God can and will change our nature, if we submit our whole selves to Him. If that word "submit" rankles, then you understand why so few people are in direct contact with God, or receiving revelation from Him. Submission, obedience, willingness, humility—you need as much of this attitude as you can muster in order to experience genuine rebirth, "a mighty change of heart."

Yes, faith is necessary, but not complete. "The devils also believe, and tremble" (James 2:19). The amount of faith in the world is a subject of debate. It seems to me to be unlimited. People believe all sorts of things, and some of them are even true. But how much willingness to obey, submission of free will, complete surrender, or humility to you find in the world? These ugly words embody the key to experiencing that mighty change of heart; enormous treasures hide behind them, though they ruffle our peacock feathers. If you find them repulsive, it means you understand in some measure what it is you have to change in order to get in touch with God.

Why does God ask us to surrender our free will to Him as the price of getting to know Him? The first reason I can think of, and one that is totally overlooked in all discussions of faith by believers and non-believers alike, is that God Himself embodies this characteristic. I believe that the essence of humility is absolute deference to truth, whatever it is, however uncomfortable it makes us. God possess this trait, and so He is also perfectly humble. If we need the patience incident to humility to cope with the ordeals God puts us through, does He also need some version of patience and indulgence for our folly, foibles, vices, whining, sniveling, waffling, capriciousness, indecision, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and outright open rebellion? Who is more humble—the one admitting the need for help, or the one who helps?

Beyond adopting humility as a way of imitating our God, there is another, more technical reason. I have learned that God is real, and everything real exists within a framework of laws. God follows certain rules, and one rule He follows is the inviolability of free will, or "agency," as we Latter-day Saints call it. Go through the list of things you own and value, and all but one belong to God already. Free will is the only possession we actually possess. Our minds and hearts are the only real estate we own clear and free. Which means that God will not tamper with it. He will not change our hearts unless they belong to Him. Hence the submission, the grovelling, the humility, the surrender.

I remember the moment when I turned myself over to God. It happened in the Provo Temple. I had been to the Temple many times before, but this time was different—I thought to myself, "I really mean it; I'm going give my whole self, heart, soul, time, checkbook, everything to God." From that moment forward, my life has been different. Video games, movies, fiction, toys, diversions, have all dimmed in their appeal. Reality, truth, facts, and knowledge, on the other hand, have all risen in priority. Relationships are paramount. Attending church on Sunday, once a chore, suddenly became the highlight of my week. Old temptations lost their gravity, and new thoughts and desires came in their place. Revelations, those moments of insight when the still, small voice of the Spirit whispers directions, have become commonplace, rather than exceptional, and I find myself directed to do and say things, or go places that end up helping people in ways I had not planned or expected. Jesus told Nicodemus, "The wind bloweth where it listeth...so is everyone that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). When I am in tune and willing, I get sent to places and people I hadn't expected, and get used by my Father in heaven to do useful things He needed to get done. Righteousness is not broccoli anymore, and sin is not chocolate cake anymore. They have largely traded places in their natural appeal.

Accompanying this change of heart is a witness from the Holy Ghost that God is real. Why does someone need a change of heart before they can shift gears from faith to revealed knowledge? Culpability is proportional to knowledge. Guilt is the difference between what we know and what we do. There is not that strong of a correlation between knowledge and action. Sure, if a bear jumps out of the woods, your body starts moving before you can even say "bear." But photographs of damaged organs (brain, heart, lungs, liver, etc.) are insufficient to deter most addicts from smoking, drinking, or using other harmful drugs. Some of the best evidence of the truthfulness of the scriptures are the recorded reactions of people to miracles. Israel witnesses a host of miracles while being freed from Egypt, and how do they respond? By building a golden calf. Jesus heals all manner of diseases, rebukes devils, walks on water, raises the dead, and how do the people respond? They murder Him. "I know for a fact that these cookies are killing me. I'll take two dozen." Is that human nature, or what?

God is not in the damnation business, and so it is unsafe to give people irrefutable, certain knowledge without also giving them the ability to live up to it. First, we submit our wills to God, including our whole life and time and everything; then, He changes our hearts so that we care less for the evils and sins that used to daunt us; finally, it is safe to also give us a witness by the Holy Spirit that He is real. (That witness transcends emperical evidence; as we've noted, empirical evidence has a spotty reputation as a behavior modifier anyway.)

Elder Neal A. Maxwell summed up what I'm trying to convey with his usual eloquence:

"I am going to preach a hard doctrine to you now. The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. It is a hard doctrine, but it is true. The many other things we give to God, however nice that may be of us, are actually things He has already given us, and He has loaned them to us. But when we begin to submit ourselves by letting our wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him. And that hard doctrine lies at the center of discipleship. There is a part of us that is ultimately sovereign, the mind and heart, where we really do decide which way to go and what to do. And when we submit to His will, then we've really given Him the one thing He asks of us. And the other things are not very, very important. It is the only possession we have that we can give, and there is no resulting shortage in our agency as a result. Instead, what we see is a flowering of our talents and more and more surges of joy. Submission to Him is the only form of submission that is completely safe.

"Please, submit your will to God. It is the only gift you've got to give. And the sooner it is placed on the altar, the better it will be for all" (Sharing Insights from My Life, delivered at BYU on 12 January 1999).

After reviewing what I have written, I want to dispel the stink of self-righteousness. Yes, I have experienced a change of nature, but no, I am not flawless. There are "depths of humility," as the scriptures say, and I have only begun to plumb them. Jesus told the rich young ruler to keep the ten commandments, and he claimed he was doing it. But Jesus knew better. If you look at the story of their encounter in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you find that Jesus does not ask him about commandments 1, 2, or 10. The rich young man had another god; his riches were an idol to him; and he coveted what he owned. Jesus proved this to him by telling him to give it all up. He couldn't do it, and went away sorrowing. Peter's response ("...we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?") was full of the same self-congratulatory pride that the rich young man brought to Jesus, and Jesus gently rebuked Peter ("many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first") (Matt. 19:27, 30). Peter had cleared one hurdle that the rich young man could not, but he also stumbled over a much bigger one later on when he denied knowing the Lord to save his own life. Abraham was more humble than either of them, willing to sacrifice his own son. And so the limit of our willingness to part with certain things also limits the ability of God to change our hearts. I'm also somewhere on that sliding scale between rebellion and perfect humility. At least I know the direction I need to move in order to enjoy more of the blessings, more of the change of heart.

Only one mortal has ever exemplified that perfect humility, and that was Jesus Christ. Matt. 26:39 "And he went a little further and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." All punishments for every sin from Adam to our day and beyond were converging on Jesus at that one place, at one time. His body was on earth, but hell was brought to Him. And He stood His ground and drank the bitter cup.

God is patient with us in our shifting and waffling and indecisiveness. He knows our limits, and He will not give us anything beyond what we can handle. And so it is a little like a trust-fall. We offer total submission to Him, with the understanding that He will only let us fall as far as we can stand it. The rich young ruler was asked to go to his limit by giving up his wealth; Peter was asked to give his life, and failed the first time, but succeeded the second; Abraham was asked to go to his personal limit, which exceeds my comprehension. Jesus went to His limit in Gethsemane and on the cross, and Father in heaven also went to His limit to put His perfect, beloved Son through all of that. As the Lord told Joseph Smith in Liberty jail: "The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (D&C122:8).

The scary thing is, as we progress and our personal limit grows, it is continuously tested. If you are looking to make a one-time convenient deposit and walk away absolved, you've come looking for a God that doesn't exist. God is not content to let us rest on our laurels. Problems and difficulties arise in everyone's life, because God is trying to make us like Him. That is the difference between being a Born-Again, and actually being born again—birth is followed by childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. There is no reprieve or sabbatical; "The men and women...who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find they must battle the enemy of righteousness every day" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 11:14). And strange as it may seem, humility is a great shield from Satan. When we adopt pride, we court Satan, because Satan is proud. When we adopt humility, we court Jesus, because Jesus is perfectly humble.

I know that The Book of Mormon is true, by the power of the Holy Ghost. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. The further I get into the wilderness of spiritual growth, the more I recognize from his teachings that Joseph Smith has already been there, and is familiar enough with the territory to answer questions about what comes next. The Spirit also bears witness to me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is led today by a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson. God lives, Jesus is is Son, the Savior of the world. I have learned these truths through revelation of the Spirit, and personal experience. They are non-transferable, personal truths, but anyone can pay the price to know them. Far from being cold or distant, God is patient, forgiving, and kind, literally our Father in heaven. And He still speaks in complete sentences. This is my witness, my testimony, and I offer it in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.