Mosiah 23

At the same time, God told Alma that King Noah’s armies were onto him and his church. So they, too, evacuated. God blinded Noah’s armies to any trails the church might leave. Eight days on the run and they came across an oasis. They pitched tents, started farming and building as if starting over completely. Almost nonchalant.

But they wanted a king. Alma would do nicely, most of them thought.

But Alma was far too socialistic in his outlook to even consider the thought. He told inquirers, “One man or woman is no better than the rest. Don’t act to the contrary. No kings! Though, to be fair, if you could always get fair men to be your kings it might be okay. But remember that a king’s kids get to continue the dynasty. And they’re always a gamble. I can’t imagine you folks tolerating dynasties. So let’s call off the king idea.”

Besides, he explained, he still had a lot of personal baggage, most of which the people knew nothing about. Still, he explained, God had been very good to him, enlightened him, taught him. So his judgment was by now pretty sound. “Not that I’m bragging,” he said with a smile.

Slavery is a sin, he went on. So in a way we were sin’s handymen and women. Now that we’re free, let’s not head back into monarchy. Let’s celebrate freedom by refusing kingship as a principle. If anyone is in charge, let it be limited in its power, a kind of teacher-shepherd role. That kind of position should go only to just and devout men. I’m not excluding women, but we’re not there yet.

Since Alma was their de facto government leader, and since church and state were still one and he’d founded the church, Alma doled out the authority within the commune. He was good at it. No one complained at his choices, at least not publicly.

So they functioned well, a tight-knit non-monarchial but only quasidemocratic society under a benevolent religious despotic regime. They called that new society “Helam,” though the meaning of the word is now forgotten. The capital of this new society? As usual a no-brainer: “Helam.”

If you’re looking for the moral of the story at this point, it’s a bit circuitous. But predictable, in a good way. God punishes whomever he chooses, tries to perfect them by perfect trials. If you trust him he’ll see you through and teach you what you need to learn from what he dispenses. He’ll make sure enslavement of some kind is always part of the trial—the kind of enslavement you can’t get out of unless he frees you. When he delivers you, you’ll laugh at the divine weirdness of it.

Now, for further contemplation, here’s the story of the moral. As they were farming in their new region of Helam, Lamanites amassed on the borders. Alma’s close friends saw them and fled into Helam City. Alma told them to buck up and have some faith. God would protect them. This was his commune.

They went back to the strategy that had worked before: don’t fortify your armories, but pray that God will soften the hearts of your enemies.

And that’s what they did. Then surrendered.

Meanwhile, the Lamanite armies had found Noah’s priests in a place they’d called Amulon, after the name of their head priest. Amulon (the priest) pled with the Lamanites and even got their Lamanite wives—the former party girls they’d abducted—to plead for mercy as well. That suckered them into relenting. But Amulon, the other priests, and their by now huge families, had to leave their farms and caravan with their Lamanite captors. They were all searching for Nephiland—the Lamanites had not yet discovered the art of mapmaking—when they found Helam.

It was a huge armed group and none too kind to people they bumped into. But they promised Alma they’d move on peaceably if he’d just show them the way to Nephiland.

New moral: Never trust a Lamanite. After Alma divulged the location of Nephiland, guards jumped from the caravan and brandished swords.

A contingent stayed there to guard their new prey. The rest made it to Nephiland.

When some of them returned to Helam, including the guards’ wives and children, the Lamanites installed Amulon as king of Helam, though always subject to the Lamanite king above him, who, as it turned out, really liked Amulon and trusted the fake priest-kidnapper-rapist’s decisions implicitly.