Alma 24

The unconverted Amalekites, Amulonites, and Lamanites who were in Amulon, Helam and Jerusalem started to plot against the Anti-Nephi-Lehites. Bows, arrows, clubs, slings, you name it. They were armed for bear and ready to cut down their king to boot.

What did the king do? Right before dying, he crowned his son the new king and called him Anti-Nephi-Lehi. In your face, heathen.

Ammon and his colleagues got a whiff of the new uprising and called a defense summit in Ishmael with Lamoni and Anti-Nephi-Lehi. Not much to talk about, though: every one of them was a complete pacifist, would not arm himself, not even make battle plans.

Here’s what the king said to the assembly:

I thank God for sending Nephites to teach us. I thank him for massaging our hearts into diplomacy with them. I thank him for using the resulting discussions to convince us, who’ve been addicted to murder, of the futility and shame of it. I thank him that he gives us a second chance and even forgives us, pries the guilt from our hearts, with his dear Son as the divine crowbar.

We’ve done everything we could to do a 180 with our lives, individually and collectively. Our premise: no one could have been worse than us. We’ve worked ourselves to the spiritual bone to whiten our metaphorical garments.

Or let me put it this way: our blood-drenched swords are now like fresh stainless steel. Why on earth would we stain them with violence again? Let’s keep them in our scabbards. Because if we bloody them again, Jesus’ blood won’t be able to save us.

God has shown us his truths. He must love us. He’s sent angels. He must forgive us. He wants the war to end and truth to shine brighter than swords into the future.

I said let’s keep our swords in our scabbards. But let’s go further. Let’s hide them, keep them bright as proof of our commitment. When he summons us to judgment, then we’ll pull them out and show him: we’ve been faithful to the everlasting pact of non-violence that comes with this covenant we’ve made. The clean swords will argue for our own cleanness.

If we’re assaulted, we’ll bury our swords deep in the ground like ancient bones of the beasts who once walked the earth. And if our enemies swing their unsheathed swords at us, drop us to the bloody ground, we’ll ascend to God, who can’t resist our sacrifice.

When he finished speaking, everyone dug deep holes and dropped their swords, knives, anything that would draw blood, into them. Then they backfilled the hole. This was their way of affirming they would never use weapons. They’d rather die than kill—or even maim or wound. They added this covenant to two more they’d made: give rather than take, work rather than laze.

It was obvious. These Lamanites got it. They were as solid in their resolve as the steel they’d buried. Arms, once buried, became peace symbols.

Their unconverted relatives planned an attack. Kill the peace-king and his weak-minded pacifists.

When they hit town ready to slaughter, the Anti-Nephi-Lehites ran up to them, laid their bodies flat on the ground and prayed loudly. The unconverted began to stab them in the back, slice and impale a thousand and five. But as the unarmed dying praised God, some of their Lamanite foes felt tinges of sympathy, even regret, and stopped swinging their swords. Some even set down their swords for good, inspired and vexed by the grateful dead.

A weird battlefield revival set in and more soldiers joined the church than they’d killed that day.

Not one who’d been murdered in battle was a bad man. And many bad men turned to good when they thought of what they’d just done. More proof that God takes what he can get.

To be fair, none of the newly converted were Amalekites, Amulonites, or Nehorites. They were all actual descendants of Laman and Lemuel. The suggestion is that neutral parentage leads to better converts than good parentage gone sour. Genes are destiny. But not always in the ways you’d think. Those who sever ties with goodness stiffen against change. Those who never knew goodness often find it as interesting and appealing as white fruit. People born on a plateau have a better chance than backsliders.