Alma 48

No surprise: as soon as Amalickiah got to be king, he ramped up the propaganda war against the Nephites, even hiring men to bark out anti-Nephitism from the towers. He wanted, of course, to be king over the Nephites too. And lust for power never checks itself.

He molded his subjects’ hearts like oily clay. Soon they, to a man, not only hated the Nephites, but wanted to go to war again. An all-volunteer army can be the most terrifying of all. And he now had that. He got Zoramites to be captains, since they knew Nephites best— their strategies, sure, but also their hangouts and security gaps.

Little did his advancing troops know, though, Moroni had been propagandizing for God. Lots of God-talk, the old Nephite tradition. But that wasn’t enough, he knew. He got the troops to dig trenches and build walls. If you’re determined to hunker down and defend the blessed status quo, you spare no expense or muscle.

Don’t get me wrong. Moroni hated war. He hated so-called “casualties,” a term only a fool would use. These “skirmishes” left nothing but bloody, stench-laden mounds of severed flesh. He could only see going that far if everyone clamped their minds on divinity, as he did, praying for safety, thanking God for whatever would remain, and quietly chanting in their minds, “freedom, freedom, freedom,” no matter the psychological cost and lifelong woundings left in its wake. Every good man is soaked in paradox.

On that note, let me sermonize a little (as if I don’t do that all the time) (sorry). Never start a war. That’s what Moroni taught and I believe it.

Don’t pull swords on people unless they pull them on you. Self-defense, personal or communal, but no provocation. That’s what we’ve always thought and how we’ve tried to live (i.e., not die). We just don’t accept a God that would accept otherwise. If you remain a little passive, God is obliged to warn you, help you escape, or arm you if, God forbid (sorry), you have to fight. He even has to tell you whether defense or running away is the better option.

This was Moroni’s war policy, his philosophy, if you can call it that, of enemy relations. He never thought first of war, as some politicians do. Real soldiers are like that. They hate war because they know war. If everyone were like that, hell itself would go to hell. The war-devil would dry up like an old sponge.

I need to put him in context, though: he was in the same vein of the constant righteous-seekers Mosiah’s sons. (I suspect his daughters too, though I’m frankly not trained to think that inclusively.) Ammon, Helaman, the rest, they all hunted converts like trappers hunt game. They taught goodness, got people to climb down from their personal pedestals, and that makes a society settle down. Peace, brother—it’s a slogan but you’ve got to have the right ingredients.

In this case, they did, and warfare evaporated. Four years of that.

But as I said before, toward the end of the nineteenth year, they had to get defensive. A few years without being attacked. That was all we ever got. If you’ve got a heart you believe it’s for keeping the blood inside you. If you’ve got a soul, you believe this world is where it belongs—till it’s learned all its lessons. We didn’t hate Lamanites. At least not enough to want to siphon their blood onto the ground and their souls to the sky.

But it’s the oldest story: something in a man that won’t give up women, won’t throw children to the wolves, won’t lie down and wait for the blade to hit the bone. And there is something in a good man that he can’t be happy to kill his brother, no matter how many generations removed or cultural ties cut. One more thing: he can’t kill hope either.