Helaman 4

Year 54: Brutal God-talk broke out everywhere. Talk turned to beatings. Beatings turned to knifings. The instigators got … executed. Or scared out of town.

They headed for the Lamanite king’s court, where they became lobbyists for new wars against the Nephites, whom they considered not worth religious persuasion anymore. But it wasn’t really worth it to the Lamanites—why go to war to settle someone else’s sectarian beef?

But by Year 56, they’d made the case. Plans were getting rolled out on the floors and banquet tables. It took all year but by …

Year 57 the Lamanites attacked. It took all year, but by …

Year 58 they’d slammed the Nephite armies into the dust and occupied not only Zarahemla but the surrounding communities to the borders of Bountiful. That’s where Moronihah and his troops hunkered down and cleaned up their wounds. They tried to wall up their defenses. That was all they could do through …

Year 59.

Year 60: Some blowback by Moronihah’s armies. A few victories. No one really knew what the war was, though. Endgame? Undefined on both sides. Just the old blood feud. It was Cain and Abel on steroids.

Year 61: The Nephites had about half of their land back.

Okay, let me sermonize about this. Because without some kind of lesson, why drivel on about these military tides?

The Nephites earned this. Not by incompetence in killing. Try pride. The holier-than-thou pride of which Christians, even this far before Jesus comes, have become so talented. And the holier-than-thou-therefore-I’m-richer-than-thou nonsense the Nephites slurped up like soda.

I could make a list of grievances against them:

—snubbing anyone who lacks

—hoarding food from starving people

—stuffing their closets while people go naked

—assaulting non-aggressors for sport

—spitting on sacral things

—outthinking inspiration

—skipping town for exotic tingles

And the usual assortment of Decalogue-breaking sins (lying, stealing, murder).

Add to these a systemic, relentless braggadocio and you have the roots of Nephite collapse.

Moronihah, despite his flaws, did try to scrub out this decay. Helaman’s sons Nephi and Lehi rhetorically wrangled with endemic transgression. They warned. But other voices—interior and exterior—squeezed the messages out of people’s hearts. On the whole, people’s consciences turned to mud.

Anyone who did change, though, got a second chance, one in which God dumped prosperity all over their lives. And when Moronihah saw that, he got bolder and seized back half of everything the people had lost. On that note, as I said, Year 61 ended.

But in Year 62 they got stymied. They couldn’t grab any more stuff back from the Lamanites. So they gave up. The opposing forces had gotten so massive and intrepid that Moronihah shrugged and said he’d resort to doing all he could just to keep what they’d regained. Even so, they continually shuddered at the sight of their enemies massed on the horizon—real or imaginary. Nephite army morale could not be worse.

Especially when people began to mull over old predictions. The “I told you so” of dead prophets and potentates started to drown out everyday conversation. Maybe the fathers were right. Societal neck sprain from facing against the wind.

Mosiah had gotten it straight. He lived it well-honed. The law worked. Nostalgia always kicks in, of course, in drab times. But you could read the records of the time. You could scan the implicit beauty of that early socially graced civilization. And you’d see.

People began to ask themselves: Who are the bad guys now? Skin has two sides. It can be dark on either, neither, or both, I suppose. But ultimately, what does it matter? Character trumps melanin all the way.

Justifiably, the church proper shrank. Alleged “saints” looked themselves in the mirror and blanched. The old warnings were staring back. The soul’s muscles were sagging. Lineage meant nothing. Genealogy meant nothing. God had other ideas about how to judge people. And he had moved on, hunting for new prospects for righteousness.

What was the point of fighting Lamanites? Nephites couldn’t win with their passion for stolidity sucked dry. And that sucking had only taken a few years. Not even double digits.