Between Anger and Complacency: 2 Nephi 28
I know: we're reading the New Testament. I'm such a throwback.
I survived the Isaiah chapters only to run straight into this piece of prophecy about the latter days. I'm struggling as I map our current political schism onto the descriptions I read in this chapter partly because I'm reluctant to reverse my thinking about principles that I value strongly, and partly because I think reading it at too material a level is a trap. The Book of Mormon isn't known for its traps, but human thinking is.
If we saunter quickly past the verses about pandering churches and religious contention, and some really really important points about wealth and pride, we come to verse sixteen:
"Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worth!"
And what I hear is, "wo unto them that get it wrong." There's no overt accusation that people are doing this on purpose - that they (we?) are intentionally rejecting goodness. So if you check yourself and ask, "am I rejecting good fruit that comes of God?" how are you supposed to know the answer? Don't we all believe that we are correct already, embracing what is God's will (assuming we believe in it)? Even if we don't believe in God, and many humans don't, many of us still strive to bring good into the world through ideals like justice and kindness and protecting the weak.
Knowing that these ideals are also secular values does not make them more worldly. As saints, it would not do for us to differentiate ourselves by rejecting the goodness of others. And this verse might be warning against that. We judge a tree by its fruit, not by the land it grows on. And all the vineyard is the LORD's.
I do not know what the "great and abominable church" is, but if we take "whore of the all the earth" possibly a little too far, it is an ideology that sells any virtue it has for temporal increase (money). I know lots of ideologies that succumb to such a universal temptation. Have a glance at Utah's relationship with MLMs and prosperity doctrine. I dare you.
Verses 20 and 21 are the ones that seem to want to map themselves onto the current political morass.
Verse 20 gets interesting (and by "interesting" I mean "ambiguous") again. The devil will "rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good." How can we avoid being the ones who are angry at the wrong things? Merely avoiding anger seems like the golden, Biblical answer (see Matthew 5:22). Although the KJV of Matthew includes the phrase "without a cause" neither the JST nor the 3 Nephi 12:22 version of the Sermon on the Mount includes that phrase. According to modern revelation, then, we are to avoid anger full stop.
But just not feeling anger (if you can manage it) does not guarantee the accuracy of your theological stance. It will make dialogue much more accessible, but it does not make you right. It doesn't make you wrong. It just makes you not angry, which is only half of the warning in 2 Nephi 28:20.
Verse 21 warns against the opposite: "And others [the devil] will pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well." And at those verses, I have a strong mental image of early saints singing "Come, Come Ye Saints" while rejecting petitions for black men and women to receive their temple ordinances.
The ambiguity in verse 21 is whether the threats to Zion come from corruption inside her, or from attacks from outside. Many saints feel the need to circle the wagons against moral erosion that comes from the push for political correctness, inclusivity, or other so-called "secular" values, believing that these are gospel-extra virtues, or that our core doctrines should be heteronormativity, gender discrimination, and moral immobility in the name of "protecting the family." (Which family? I'm just curious.)
But what if that "All is well in Zion" lie that the devil is telling has more to do with complacency at the status quo than the idea that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is under attack from outside influences? Consider a few of the following verses:
27: "Yeah, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more!"
28: "wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, he that is built up on the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall."
29: "We be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more word of God, for we have enough!"
Although throughout my several decades of studying this document it has been much more simple to map these fallacies onto a rejection of the Book of Mormon (again, a book obsessed with itself and its own production) from those who believe the Bible to be sufficient, the scriptures do not seem to allow us ANY stopping point in receiving revelation! Nowhere does it say, "and when you know everything, then you can sigh in relief and be satisfied, for you have become God." It DOES say, "for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have" (30). It does not claim that once you're baptized you can rest. Or once you are bishop. Or once you are prophet. On the contrary, "Wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!" (24).
These verses seem to be telling me that we need to be built on a strong foundation so that we can withstand further revelation - especially further revelation that tells us that we have been wrong. We as individuals and as an institution need to be standing somewhere immobile so that we can look our own fallibility in the eye.
31: "Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost."
How do we discern between precepts of men and doctrines of God?
Not your professors nor your own reason. Not your bishop's solitary word. Not your stake president, a general authority, or the prophet himself, by himself. These are, broadly speaking, solid sources of new thoughts. But they are all fallible. Only The Holy Ghost, which speaks to EVERYONE, can affirm truth. And it gets tricky there, too. It's tricky, and it'll take work to figure out.
I think my conclusions from this reading is a warning against self-righteousness: that anger is a place to rest when we need to borrow power, and complacency is more tempting than my home-made bread, but we must not rest anywhere but in Christ Himself, because we do not yet have all truth. WE do not yet have all truth. Only by such an admission can we open ourselves to further light that can bless the whole world.
I survived the Isaiah chapters only to run straight into this piece of prophecy about the latter days. I'm struggling as I map our current political schism onto the descriptions I read in this chapter partly because I'm reluctant to reverse my thinking about principles that I value strongly, and partly because I think reading it at too material a level is a trap. The Book of Mormon isn't known for its traps, but human thinking is.
If we saunter quickly past the verses about pandering churches and religious contention, and some really really important points about wealth and pride, we come to verse sixteen:
"Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worth!"
And what I hear is, "wo unto them that get it wrong." There's no overt accusation that people are doing this on purpose - that they (we?) are intentionally rejecting goodness. So if you check yourself and ask, "am I rejecting good fruit that comes of God?" how are you supposed to know the answer? Don't we all believe that we are correct already, embracing what is God's will (assuming we believe in it)? Even if we don't believe in God, and many humans don't, many of us still strive to bring good into the world through ideals like justice and kindness and protecting the weak.
Knowing that these ideals are also secular values does not make them more worldly. As saints, it would not do for us to differentiate ourselves by rejecting the goodness of others. And this verse might be warning against that. We judge a tree by its fruit, not by the land it grows on. And all the vineyard is the LORD's.
I do not know what the "great and abominable church" is, but if we take "whore of the all the earth" possibly a little too far, it is an ideology that sells any virtue it has for temporal increase (money). I know lots of ideologies that succumb to such a universal temptation. Have a glance at Utah's relationship with MLMs and prosperity doctrine. I dare you.
Verses 20 and 21 are the ones that seem to want to map themselves onto the current political morass.
Verse 20 gets interesting (and by "interesting" I mean "ambiguous") again. The devil will "rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good." How can we avoid being the ones who are angry at the wrong things? Merely avoiding anger seems like the golden, Biblical answer (see Matthew 5:22). Although the KJV of Matthew includes the phrase "without a cause" neither the JST nor the 3 Nephi 12:22 version of the Sermon on the Mount includes that phrase. According to modern revelation, then, we are to avoid anger full stop.
But just not feeling anger (if you can manage it) does not guarantee the accuracy of your theological stance. It will make dialogue much more accessible, but it does not make you right. It doesn't make you wrong. It just makes you not angry, which is only half of the warning in 2 Nephi 28:20.
Verse 21 warns against the opposite: "And others [the devil] will pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well." And at those verses, I have a strong mental image of early saints singing "Come, Come Ye Saints" while rejecting petitions for black men and women to receive their temple ordinances.
The ambiguity in verse 21 is whether the threats to Zion come from corruption inside her, or from attacks from outside. Many saints feel the need to circle the wagons against moral erosion that comes from the push for political correctness, inclusivity, or other so-called "secular" values, believing that these are gospel-extra virtues, or that our core doctrines should be heteronormativity, gender discrimination, and moral immobility in the name of "protecting the family." (Which family? I'm just curious.)
But what if that "All is well in Zion" lie that the devil is telling has more to do with complacency at the status quo than the idea that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is under attack from outside influences? Consider a few of the following verses:
27: "Yeah, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more!"
28: "wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, he that is built up on the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall."
29: "We be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more word of God, for we have enough!"
Although throughout my several decades of studying this document it has been much more simple to map these fallacies onto a rejection of the Book of Mormon (again, a book obsessed with itself and its own production) from those who believe the Bible to be sufficient, the scriptures do not seem to allow us ANY stopping point in receiving revelation! Nowhere does it say, "and when you know everything, then you can sigh in relief and be satisfied, for you have become God." It DOES say, "for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have" (30). It does not claim that once you're baptized you can rest. Or once you are bishop. Or once you are prophet. On the contrary, "Wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!" (24).
These verses seem to be telling me that we need to be built on a strong foundation so that we can withstand further revelation - especially further revelation that tells us that we have been wrong. We as individuals and as an institution need to be standing somewhere immobile so that we can look our own fallibility in the eye.
31: "Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost."
How do we discern between precepts of men and doctrines of God?
Not your professors nor your own reason. Not your bishop's solitary word. Not your stake president, a general authority, or the prophet himself, by himself. These are, broadly speaking, solid sources of new thoughts. But they are all fallible. Only The Holy Ghost, which speaks to EVERYONE, can affirm truth. And it gets tricky there, too. It's tricky, and it'll take work to figure out.
I think my conclusions from this reading is a warning against self-righteousness: that anger is a place to rest when we need to borrow power, and complacency is more tempting than my home-made bread, but we must not rest anywhere but in Christ Himself, because we do not yet have all truth. WE do not yet have all truth. Only by such an admission can we open ourselves to further light that can bless the whole world.
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| A jester looking at himself in a cracked mirror: the prideful humility of Thackeray. |
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