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In this episode of the Proclaim Peace Podcast, hosts Jennifer Thomas and Patrick Mason are joined by Rosalynde Welch to dive into the Book of Ether. They discuss its unique historical context and the challenges it presents, while highlighting its valuable lessons for peacemaking. The conversation centers on the importance of making thoughtful decisions during difficult times, emphasizing how individuals can contribute to a culture of peace amidst societal conflict. Join them as they explore the rich principles found in the Book of Ether that can guide us toward becoming better peacemakers.
Timestamps
[00:01:37] Moments of change and decision.
[00:04:18] Peace as a fruit of the Spirit.
[00:10:59] Theological vs. Doctrinal Reading.
[00:12:36] Theological reading of scriptures.
[00:19:07] Chosen land thesis in history.
[00:22:11] Urgent call to modern readers.
[00:24:56] Jaredite governance and kingship.
[00:28:50] Governance systems and instability.
[00:34:14] Fraternal conflict in governance.
[00:39:06] Political polarization and its consequences.
[00:40:20] The role of civic space.
[00:47:32] Breaking the cycle of violence.
[00:50:48] Wealth and human flourishing.
[00:54:19] Secret combinations and conspiratorial thinking.
[00:57:30] A better way to live.
[01:02:08] Stories of peace and creativity.
[01:05:15] Story of redemption.
Transcript
(00:03-00:05) Jennifer Thomas: Welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast. I'm Jennifer Thomas.(00:06-00:12) Patrick Mason: And I'm Patrick Mason. And this is the podcast where we apply principles of the gospel and read the Book of Mormon to become better peacemakers.
(00:15-00:16) Jennifer Thomas: How are you doing today, Patrick?
(00:16-00:17) Patrick Mason: I'm doing all right. Hey, Jen.
(00:18-00:36) Jennifer Thomas: So we are going to do a very brief introduction so that we can get right to the substance of our guest. Today, we're going to be exploring the Book of Ether, which is a hard book. But we do believe that has some really important messages to tell us about how we can make choices to be better peacemakers.
(00:38-01:26) Patrick Mason: Yeah, I think the Book of Ether is one of those books that sometimes people forget is in the book. Partly because it's such a weird book. It's not even about Nephites and Lamanites. And it's kind of like tucked in there at the very end. like there's all these like weird like tons of Kings and weird history and all this things going on so it's it's a book that's a little bit easy to forget other I think there's a few passages we quote regularly about faith and and so forth but other than that I think it's a kind of undiscovered or under underappreciated book within the Book of Mormon but I think for I'm really looking forward to the conversation because I actually think there's a lot of principles, there's a lot of richness in there that can help us be better peace builders.
(01:26-01:54) Jennifer Thomas: I couldn't agree more. And most importantly, the way we want to frame our conversation today is thinking about when we find ourselves in difficult situations and we find our society moving away from peace, are there moments of change and moments of decision that we as peacemakers can sort of meet with good decisions to move our society away from violence and conflict and towards peace? And we think that the book has a lot of rich text that can help us understand that.
(01:55-02:52) Patrick Mason: Yeah, so with that, let's just dive right in. All right, well, to have this conversation, I'm really excited about our guest today. This is a longtime friend of mine, somebody that I look up to very much and I've learned a ton from over the years. Our guest today is Rosalind Welch. Let me say a few words about her. So Rosalind is a research fellow and is the associate director at the Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University. She holds a Ph.D. in early modern English literature from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. in English from BYU. Her research focuses on Latter-day Saint scripture. She is, I think, really one of our top experts on Latter-day Saint scripture and theology and literature. She does this through publication. She does this through podcasting. She hosts the Maxwell Institute podcast, so some of you may have heard her there. Today we're turning the tables and we're asking the questions and she has to, she's given the answers.
(02:52-02:56) Rosalynde Welch: I think I like it, although we'll see whether I like it or not.
(02:58-03:34) Patrick Mason: little experiment here. She's the author of three books, most recently, Seven Visions, Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants. This is part of a series that she's writing along with Adam Miller. And for our purposes today, we're especially interested in the book that she published a few years ago in the Maxwell Institute's brief theological introductions to the Book of Mormon. She was the author of the book about Ether. And Rosalyn and her husband have four kids. They've lived in Utah for, what, two or three years now?
(03:34-03:35) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, two and a half, yep.
(03:35-03:41) Patrick Mason: Yeah, and so they love exploring around the state. So Rosalyn, welcome to Proclaim Peace.
(03:42-03:54) Rosalynde Welch: I am so excited to be here. I'm a fan of the podcast, and I'm just thrilled to be here to talk about ether and the sobering and also instructive lessons we can take from it.
(03:55-04:07) Patrick Mason: Terrific. Well, as you know, as a fan of the podcast, we always start with the same question. How do you define peace or how do you think about peace?
(04:08-05:00) Rosalynde Welch: I come largely these days from a theological and scriptural background, so I think my first impulse is to think about peace as a fruit of the Spirit, as Paul suggests, right? Along with joy, along with hope, along with faith, peace is the workings of the Spirit within me and within us, right? I think I strive to experience a kind of peace internally through a sort of reconciliation and unity and oneness with the Savior. But I also hope for that better world that the prophet Ether spoke of. And I think that there's a larger realization of peace in community, right? This is the promise of Zion as Latter-day Saints that we work toward. So yeah, I think that's how I tend to think about peace. So I love that.
(05:00-05:24) Jennifer Thomas: I have been thinking a lot recently, particularly given the nature of my work, about what I need to do to reclaim peace. And as I was kind of thinking and praying about that, I felt this very strong impression that it was a fruit of the Spirit, and that the degree to which I was feeling peace was probably a good, accurate representation of what I was doing to be worthy of having the Spirit in my daily life. So I really appreciate you sharing that, because that rings very true to me.
(05:25-05:35) Patrick Mason: So Rosalind, talk to us a little bit about this book, about the Book of Ether. I was about to say the Book of Ether, but you are not the author.
(05:36-05:37) Rosalynde Welch: It's endlessly confusing.
(05:38-05:59) Patrick Mason: Exactly. Tell us, for people maybe who don't know about the series in general, tell us about that, but then also your particular involvement in that volume. I don't think I've ever asked you like whether you chose to write on ether or whether this was, you know, kind of like, uh, handed out.
(05:59-10:36) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, this, this series published by the Maxwell Institute in 2020, brief theological introductions to the book of Mormon. is a series of 12 short volumes, each authored by a different scholar. All of them, as suggested by the title of the series, have a sort of theological bent or theological approach, as opposed to, for instance, a primarily historical approach, or a primarily doctrinal approach. So the idea was that this would both introduce Latter-day Saints to a kind of theological way of reading our scripture, and would also model for them a multi-vocal approach, right? We wanted each of the volumes to sound a little different, to have a little bit of a different feel, though be formally cohesive, because that's- Exactly, like the Book of Mormon itself, like the New Testament, right? The idea that we have multiple witnesses and multiple understandings of Christ and that scripture itself can give rise to multiple meanings. That was an important goal of the series. It was the brainchild of Spencer Flumann. And he quickly gathered around him a number of his brightest colleagues here at BYU. At the time, I lived in St. Louis. I wasn't yet employed by the Maxwell Institute. So I think I was probably in their second tier. I can reconstruct that. Well, only because in answer to your question, when they came to me and invited me to contribute a volume to this series, I was all in. And by then there were a number of books within the Book of Mormon left. I can't remember exactly what was on the list. There were a couple that had been claimed right away. But among these was the Book of Ether. And in all candor, at first I was a little put off by the Book of Ether. It is a heavy book. It's a difficult book to get through. It's full of this extremely dense, very difficult to follow Jaredite history. And frankly, it's pretty depressing in a lot of places. I gave it a second look because so many of the people who I respect most were just obsessed with the Book of Ether. I'm thinking here of my friend Jenny Webb who had written on it, our mutual friend Jared Hickman. They really saw something special and interesting happening in the Book of Ether. So that led me to give it a second look and ultimately I decided that that was the one that I wanted to write on. Now, That being said, I don't consider myself an expert in the Book of Ether, particularly in the way that we're going to approach it today. I gave myself permission, since this was a brief theological introduction to the Book of Ether, I gave myself permission to focus really on those chapters that are most theological in character. So these are Ether chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5, and then 12 and 13. This is where Moroni shows up most emphatically. And so a lot of my book focused on Moroni's intentions and Moroni's theology. versus actually kind of the history of the Jaredite people themselves. So what I'm saying, I guess, is don't test me on Jaredite history today, because I will fail that test. It's a very difficult book. It's hard to follow kind of the annals of royal kingship through the Jaredites. Nevertheless, I think even without mastering the specifics of Jaredite history, I think it's really quite It's really quite easy. I think Moroni does a lot to make it easy for us. Just to clarify, the reason why I keep on mentioning Moroni is because Moroni was the translator and redactor and really the person responsible for the final form of the Book of Ether as we have. Those who are familiar with the Book of Mormon will know that his father Mormon had tasked him with preparing this Jaredite text to append to his own record, Mormon's own record. And that's why Moroni is really responsible for that. So Moroni has given us some really important pointers, really important pointers as modern readers to look for what is most important. In particular, what are the lessons for us that we can glean from this difficult Jaredite history?
(10:38-10:50) Jennifer Thomas: So can I ask you to take one step back for our listeners, because I think it will be important for a lot of them. Can you help them understand just super briefly, because I think it is relevant to how we're reading the book today, what is the difference between a theological reading and a doctrinal reading?
(10:51-10:58) Rosalynde Welch: Oh yeah. Okay. You, you didn't know, Jen, that you were just asking me to expand on my very favorite topics.
(10:59-11:11) Jennifer Thomas: Okay. Keep it brief. I think it will be helpful for, I think we are asking people to read the Book of Mormon differently and I think it's helpful to them to understand what that could potentially mean.
(11:11-11:13) Patrick Mason: And a lot of people probably conflate those two terms.
(11:13-11:14) Jennifer Thomas: Exactly. Yeah.
(11:15-14:35) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, I'm using theological in a very particular sense, right? I recognize that there are many ways that that word signifies, and other people may understand theology in a different way. But for me in particular, I think as Latter-day Saints, sort of uniquely among our Christian brothers and sisters maybe, we can draw a distinction between the doctrinal and the theological. So the doctrinal is what is held to be true by the institution. It is maybe something like dogma might be a way that a Catholic might express this. It's the propositions and the set of beliefs that are true for the institutional church. For us as Latter-day Saints, that's a tricky category because we believe in continuing revelation. So that set of propositions can, that our doctrine can and does change over time. That's something beautiful in my view, right? And special about our tradition. But for us, what is doctrinal is determined by the leaders of the Church, by the prophet foremost and his counselors and the Twelve Apostles. They are tasked with the authority to declare what is doctrinal, what is binding for Latter-day Saints. They do that primarily through inspiration, right? Through revelation of the Spirit. Of course, they are informed by Scripture. They know the Scripture as well. They consult them. They strive to be in harmony with the Scripture. But ultimately, they declare doctrine under inspiration by the Spirit. So that means that when we approach the scriptures as Latter-day Saints, we don't have to approach it as a handbook of doctrine, right? As a catalog of doctrine. That's really lucky for us because it's so freeing. The scriptures were not written and not meant to be that, right? For Protestants and some other Christian traditions, it's difficult to find a hermeneutic that can make the scriptures both normative, doctrinally normative, and also be true to the historical character. For Latter-day Saints, the scriptures are freed up to be a source of personal revelation for us, as opposed to institutional revelation, as a source of devotional approach to our Savior, as a kind of spirit-aided group a set of stories that we can liken to our own lives. Um, and so when we read, and that's what I'm talking about when I talk about reading the scripture theologically, what this means is that we don't have to settle in on the one true and eternal meaning of the scriptures. We can recognize that scriptures are susceptible to many different interpretations and we can, um, recognize that richness without feeling like, Oh no, this is going to somehow make our doctrine unstable. So when I talk about a theological reading, I'm talking about a non-normative reading that does not bind the entire church, nevertheless strives to be in harmony with our doctrinal principles, and that ultimately is never definitive. There's always another meaning that can be found, another layer of signification there.
(14:36-15:18) Jennifer Thomas: And one of the reasons I wanted you to point this out is because I think when we talk about reading the Book of Mormon, having been written for our day, what we're saying is it wasn't just written as a doctrinal, an undergirding of the doctrines, but it was written to be a guide for us as people living in the latter days. And so reading it the way you described it and reading it the way we're asking it to be read for this discussion that's about to follow is The scriptures themselves invite us to do that. Mormon says, please read this to know how to be better, right? And so I wanted our listeners to understand that when we say theological, that's exactly what we're asking you to do.
(15:18-15:26) Rosalynde Welch: Exactly. And nowhere is that more the case than in the book of Ether, where Moroni makes that frame 100% explicit.
(15:29-16:17) Patrick Mason: Yeah, he does not urge us to follow in the admonition of the Jaredites. Quite the opposite, right? I mean, this is a record that actually they didn't share with all of the Nephites for a long time, right? Because it is a hard record, because it is tough. It does contain much evil in it. But I think Moroni is sharing this with us, history. There are some high points, obviously, actually some very, very high points in the Jaredite history, but there are some real low points as well. I think Moroni even says this is a record that maybe we should handle with some care, with some delicacy, but there are real lessons to be learned here.
(16:17-16:22) Jennifer Thomas: Specifically, I would assume lessons for us, right?
(16:22-17:29) Patrick Mason: Well, because he's not writing it for his fellow Nepos, there aren't any more. And so he very much has a future audience in mind as he's putting this record together. So the way we thought about organizing this discussion is to think about the the number of sort of bad decisions that the Jaredites made. And then also some off ramps or ways that some moments in Jaredite history where they could have chosen differently. One of the great doctrines of the Book of Mormon is agency, right? The way that we have moral agency, even in very, or especially in very difficult moments. And so how could the Jaredites have chosen differently? And of course, all of this with an eye towards what does it teach us? not always claiming that there's a one-to-one correlation between their experience and our experience, but obviously there are principles and there are lessons and there are things that we can extract and we can apply, especially under the inspiration of the Spirit. So Rosalind, where do you want to start as we talk about this Jaredite history?
(17:30-22:24) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, well, I really appreciate the way you've set this up. And just to follow on a bit from what we've just been talking about, Moroni comes to this record of this ancient indigenous people, right? The Jaredites were the indigenous people in relation to his own people, the Nephites. And so I think he wrestles a little bit with how to make sense of it and why it should even be included in the Book of Mormon. And I think he finally lands on something that I call the chosen land thesis, his chosen land thesis. And I think what this is for Moroni is the idea that the Jaredite civilization, Nephite and Lamanite civilization, and then modern day Gentile readers, that is modern day readers who are largely from kind of Western culture in whatever way, that they share something essential in common. So he takes these three historical points of reference and looks for any way that he can to bring them into relation with each other. Primarily, of course, is their geographical coincidence here in this chosen land. The Book of Mormon's theology is unique. There's not a chosen people in the Book of Mormon as there is in the Old Testament, right? Instead, there's a chosen land. There's something about this land in the New World that is special and holds a special role in salvation history. And so the people that are brought to this land, then are under a special obligation. That obligation is to serve the Lord. If they cease to do that, they lose any right to the chosen land, right? In fact, they never have any right to the chosen land. In a way it's a kind of anti-manifest destiny document here, that there's no one people who has any God given right to the chosen land. Instead, people can remain there as long as they are serving the Lord's larger purposes in salvation history. And if they are not, they will be swept off. So we see that happen repeatedly with the Jaredites. Mormon has just narrated what happened to the Nephites. And then the implication, of course, for modern day readers is, what will happen with you? wither Gentile civilization, right? This is a great unanswered question in the Book of Mormon. What will happen? Will modern peoples read the Book of Mormon, hear the message, learn from the experience of Jaredites and Nephites, or will they too follow in the footsteps of those lost people? So geographical location, the visitation of Christ, right? This is a really important point of commonality. that the Jaredites, the brother of Jared, Christ came to them. Of course, he came to the Nephites at the Temple on Bountiful, and the Gentiles await the coming of Christ in the second coming. The importance of records, right? In salvation history, the writing of these sacred records, and crucially, the exchanging of sacred records. plays a really important role in the way that God does his work in the world, because we can learn from each other, right? Precisely so we can learn from each other, yeah. So that's a very important point of connection. And then finally, of course, the harder parts, right? The decline of Jaredite and Nephite civilizations, Mormon and Moroni see them happening according to the same historical mechanisms, that is, secret combinations, and cyclical violence that escalates and escalates and finally leads to an irreversible decline and destruction. And the clear implication is this may happen to you, modern readers as well, right? So precisely as you've set up this conversation, it's to us to look for the off-ramps. Not to be overdramatic, but it may well be a matter of an existential matter for Western civilization as we understand it. And so it really matters. Moroni calls on us as modern readers in chapter 8 to wake up. He's like, awake, take a look around, see what's happening, and be persuaded. be persuaded by this book, by the book of Ether, that you need to repent, right? And then finally come to what he calls the fountain of righteousness. We recognize that to be Christ. So he has an urgent clarion call to us modern readers, and you have set us up to read it in precisely the way that Moroni would want us to. looking for lessons, looking for off-ramps, looking for ways to exercise our agency individually and collectively and take a different route than the Jaredites did.
(22:25-22:54) Patrick Mason: I like that framing. It reminds me of Martin Luther King oftentimes talked about, he was talking with the advent of the nuclear age and everything, but he said, for us, it's a choice now of nonviolence or nonexistence. And I think we can use that framing here. I mean, that was quite literally true for the Jaredites, for the Nephites, and Moroni is trying to tell us it's true for us. Like, it's the way of Jesus, or, you know, no way, right?
(22:55-23:42) Jennifer Thomas: Yeah, and I was going to say, I think the message we would want our listeners to take away is not that it's inevitable that we end up like the Jaredites or the Nephites, but that certain acts and ways of behavior inevitably lead to certain conclusions. And so we can't hide from that. I think one of the messages of the evil forces at the end of the Book of Mormon is this constant desire to hide and to pretend like consequences, that they can evade the consequences of their actions. And I think what the Book of Mormon is telling us is you cannot avoid the consequences of your actions. So we have the opportunity to take the off ramps if we want. And that is the message I think we want people to hear today.
(23:43-28:48) Rosalynde Welch: Absolutely, absolutely. What I call the great unanswered question at the heart of the Book of Mormon, which is whither the Gentile reads the Book of Mormon, it really is unanswered, and it really does lie with us to act for ourselves. So maybe, what's interesting about, once we get through the kind of early material, let's say, Ether chapters one through five or so, right? One through six, and then they're established in the chosen land. Here in chapters six and seven, we see a really foundational and formative period in Jaredite history. during which certain patterns of governance and culture are established. And these patterns prove to be extremely difficult to break out of. Once again, there's always a choice, right? But in Jaredite experience, at least, these foundational patterns proved extremely formative. So let's maybe talk for just a minute about how the Jaredite polity is established first. Um, so early on when they, when they have arrived at the, at the, at, in the chosen land and they've sort of, um, initially taken care of their immediate survival needs, the brother of Jared and Jared, um, grow old and, um, they go to their people and say, you know, this first generation is about to pass away. What do you want from us? What the people want is a king. This is a little bit of a puzzle. I'm not entirely sure why they would want a king. The Old Testament and the Book of Mormon both are full of warnings about the perils and the downfalls of a monarchical system of government. And it's not even clear how the Jaredite people would have gotten the idea for a king. Maybe they looked around at some other indigenous peoples who were living in the chosen land and envied the kings that they had, right? This is what the Old Testament suggests motivated the Israelites to want a king. But in any case, they want a king. Now, when you have a good King, good things can happen, right? And there were some good Jaredite Kings in Jaredite history. We think about Shul and Omer and Emer. These were some of the good Kings of Jaredite history. They walked humbly. They remembered the great things that the Lord had done for them. They taught their people. They protected the prophetic voices in their midst. So you can have a good King. But there's certain things about the institution of Jaredite kingship that prove to be an extremely unstable institution. One of these is very early on in this first generation, we see a kind of dynamic of separatism and captivity. So an ambitious man will rise up, typically from the ruling house, so either the brother of the current king or the son of the current king. will desire ambition and so will split off into and form a separate colony, right? So there's a cultural habit of fragmentation that's formed, right? When we have differences, we don't try to work them out, we don't try to negotiate, but we separate. And then when you have rival power centers established, then the separatist colony comes back, violently retakes the original throne. So this is a pattern we see repeated over and over and over again throughout Jaredite history dozens of times. But something very curious happens. Typically, the conqueror does not assassinate or execute the previous king. I don't exactly know why. There must have been some sort of political legitimacy that the conqueror gleaned from keeping the previous king alive. But the previous king is typically kept alive and kept in what's called captivity, right? So he's alive, but he's in captivity, sometimes for many generations. And so this creates, again, this instability. because there's always another rival power center that can be mobilized by ambitious men to retake power from the sort of center of power there. What this says to me is that the Jaredites did not have a well-codified system of law. I actually did a search in the book of Ether to see when the word law comes up. It only comes up once, right? And that's when one of the kings makes a law to protect the prophets. But other than that, they don't seem to have a system of law. And this really differentiates them from the Nephites, of course, who under King Mosiah had an extremely codified system of law that with more and less success, kind of governed and regularized the transfer of power.
(28:48-28:50) Jennifer Thomas: The degree to which it was honored, right? Yeah.
(28:50-31:54) Rosalynde Welch: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But the Jaredites appear not even to have in name a system of law that they can turn to. So instead, it just kind of becomes personal authority and a contest of great men and charismatic men and powerful men and violent men. Rule by personality rather than rule by principle. And what this means is that there's really no normalized or regular way to transfer power in the Jaredite monarchy, it appears. It kind of happens personally. It happens idiosyncratically. And there is no way to assure legitimacy among the people. So every king is vulnerable because he cannot claim the legitimacy of law for his rule. And the people just seem to gradually accept these destabilizing patterns as time goes on, even though you would think that they could look around and see the bad fruits that it's bearing in their society. It becomes normal to them, right? It becomes normalized, and it just seems like the way things happen, and they don't seem to be able to imagine any other way. So these are some of the interesting and idiosyncratic features of the Jaredite polity that I think contribute to the violence and the instability that marks its history. It's interesting to think about here, is this an off-ramp? if they had chosen a different governance system. In this founding moment when the Jaredite king monarchy is established, it's a moment much like the end of the book of Mosiah in Nephite history, where all of the sons of the brother of Jared actually reject and will not accept the kingship. And so do all of the sons of Jared except for one, fatefully. And it reminds us of the moment in Nephite history where the sons of Mosiah would not accept the kingship wisely. And so at that point in time, the Nephites made a turn. they turned to a different form of governance, a governance by judges. In some ways, we don't totally understand how, but the voice of the people had a role in selecting these judges and they were governed by law. And however, That was a turn, a political turn in the Nephites. In the end, neither system of government was able to save their people, right? So I don't know that it's a slam dunk, or I don't know that Moroni wants us to think it's a slam dunk, that had they chosen a different system of government, they would have avoided the violence that plagued their society. I think instead the message is any system of government can be hijacked for evil purposes, right? If the people, if the governed people as a body reject God, right? And reject the principles of righteousness. I think that's the political theology here, but I don't know, I could be wrong. What do you think Patrick and Jen?
(31:56-32:37) Jennifer Thomas: So I completely agree with the premise of your argument that there is no political system that is foolproof, right? Because you have to have people of integrity at their heart. But I do think that there are some that are more productive of stability and long periods of peace than others. And I think one of the things that's interesting is that we do have records of that, of ways the Nephites were productively dealt with their enemies, the way they resolved political conflicts. We've got a lot of examples of when they didn't. But I think it's helpful to note that that is there, right? That there are some systems that, while not perfect, are more productive of peace.
(32:38-34:05) Patrick Mason: Yeah, and I think – yeah, maybe one of the lessons of course – and this is a classic lesson that lots of people who have thought about the theory of republics and democracies and the rule of law have thought all the way back to the classical and ancient period to the world to today is to think about – the kinds of guardrails that we put on society and on individual ambition and capriciousness and on violence that, yeah, so is there, can we come up with a perfect system of government? Maybe not unless, you know, I mean, there've been lots of utopian endeavors that have tried and have always gone awry. But are there kind of wise and prudential things that we can use as guardrails to keep us sort of in the lane, so to speak, and hedge off the worst of our individual and collective kind of bad characteristics. I think so, and this is I think all those who have written over the many centuries about the rule of law. including in the Book of Mormon. That seems to be what's going on at the end of Mosiah and so forth, is this sense of like, to prevent another King Noah. Or what could we imagine a way in the Jaredite record to prevent some of the excesses and abuses of these wicked kings? So maybe that's the way to think about it rather than in utopian terms.
(34:06-34:13) Jennifer Thomas: And I think it's clear that they didn't have a lot of guardrails. Like you talked about, the guardrails were just sort of whether the kings observed them or not, you know?
(34:14-35:59) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, exactly. There was no law to restrain the ambitious. So maybe now we can turn to some of the ways in which this foundational system of government and the core patterns that it put in place, how these play out then through Jaredite history. And maybe here we can start talking about particular patterns of violence and possible off-ramps for modern day readers. And it seems to me that the first one of them is simply the reality that human nature will always yield some people who are power hungry and ambitious, right? We see that all the time, including to the present day. In the Jaredite case, it takes this very particular form, which is fraternal conflict. This, of course, was at the foundation of Nephite culture as well, with the Nephites and the Lamanites. It plays out a little differently. The Nephites and the Lamanites seem to separate into different ethnic nations, right? They viewed each other as really very different peoples, even if united ancestrally. That never seems to happen among the Jaredites. They don't seem to separate into two separate ethnic groups. But this pattern of fraternal rivalry, right? Rivalry between brothers and fracturing between brothers plays out again and again. And there's something especially brutal about fraternal or intra ethnic violence that we see in civil anyone who's ever had multiple children knows.
(35:59-36:08) Jennifer Thomas: Yes. Well, and just to your point, civil wars take a toll that other wars do not, right?
(36:08-37:50) Rosalynde Welch: Yes, they do. They do. And I think the Book of Ether is an especially sobering illustration of that. Maybe one of the reasons why fraternal or intra-ethnic violence is so devastating is because it's often a war between more or less equal rivals, right? Maybe there's an older brother and a younger brother and somebody's a little stronger, but when you have two rivals who are more or less equal, what that means is that there can be no final resolution and that it is protracted and that you stay locked in this war of diminishing returns because there's no clear winner. This continues all the way through Jaredite history to the very last chapter, right? Chapter 15. It is a war of total extermination because neither faction can gain the advantage over the other. So I think that's a very cautionary warning for those of us who may be part of political bodies that are deeply divided and deeply polarized, especially maybe polarized 49% to 51%, right? This is the political situation that Americans have found themselves in for about several decades now, where there is no clear consensus. no widespread general political settlement and consensus. And instead, we're locked in these 49%, 51% formations that increasingly polarize us and that lead to kind of increasingly mimetic violence between the two factions.
(37:50-39:06) Jennifer Thomas: And both, because it is a civil sort of a fraternal conflict, both are using the same justifications for power. So it's really hard to have conversations, because both say they are defending the Constitution. Both give their reason for being. They're the same reasons. And it also, I would agree, makes them particularly vicious towards one another, because the only way then you can differentiate If it's a fraternal conflict, the only way you can sort of differentiate is by dehumanizing the other side and saying that they don't have a legitimate reason to exist. It escalates quite quickly, right? You try to lock them out of power. And I always tell this to my kids who are young and in their late teens and early 20s, that there really was a time when winning an election, all that meant in America was that you had the right to set the agenda. It didn't mean that you had the right to control everyone or control all the outcomes. And that's a really different political conversation. When you say, oh, I won the House or I won the Senate, that just means I have the right to set the agenda and to try to bring people on to compromise around that agenda. It doesn't mean that I have the right to force my will on other people.
(39:06-40:02) Rosalynde Welch: Yes, 100%. And you have to ask yourself, what would have happened if somehow in Jaredite society, there had been other means for ambitious men and women to exercise their gifts and talents, right? I like human beings and I think our ambition and our big dreams are a good thing, right? I don't wanna quash that. I don't want us to become a bunch of sheep, right? But we need channels where ambitious individuals can pursue excellence, can pursue authority and power, but in ways that are productive. That means in part, and constructive, yeah. That means in part, The losers in a political contest need to see a way forward, right? They need to see a way to be able to continue to participate in the political project. And if we deny them that, we are guaranteeing that the polarization will continue.
(40:03-40:05) Patrick Mason: Because otherwise they're just chasing the same prize.
(40:05-40:48) Jennifer Thomas: Exactly. There's only one prize. And I will say that that is also one of the things that traditionally has made America so healthy is a rich civic sphere, a rich civil space in which there were all sorts of vehicles for people to pursue ambition and influence. Say it was through higher education and a higher education system or through politics or through economic means. There are lots of different ways that you could contribute. And those were all seen as parts of the common good. And as we tear down civil space and tear down the spaces in which people can rise to authority and exercise independence, that actually brings us more and more into conflict because there's only one place that holds power, and that's politics. And that's deeply problematic.
(40:49-42:18) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, very much so. And there in particular, there's a kind of gendered case study here in the book of ether, right with the daughter of Jared. So she's this, as readers may know, she's the there's a very complex story of intrigue. And but she is an important player right at the first emergence of secret combinations and conspiracies among among the Jaredites. Um, and, and so in a story that's reminiscent of, um, the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod for the, um, in order to get, uh, John the Baptist, um, executed, um, in a similar way, the daughter of Jared dances before a friend of the King, um, to try to seduce him in order to motivate this friend of the King to assassinate the King. Right? So we see the daughter of Jared is described as exceedingly expert. She has read the Jaredite's ancient records. She is educated. She's ambitious. She's highly capable. She's intelligent. But she has no way to exercise those gifts except for through conspiracy and sexualization. Yeah, right? And so we can see when there aren't constructive channels for gifted individuals, right, to express themselves and to explore and to succeed and to achieve. It's guaranteed to kind of end up locking us in a sort of zero-sum fight for one single prize.
(42:20-42:43) Jennifer Thomas: So we'll say that the productive off-ramp is for all of us to contribute to healthy civic space, to all of us find ways that we can build up institutions and organizations that act as counters to political power and supplements to social power, right? Ways that we can all make our voices heard and contribute to our society instead of letting that collapse into just one locus of power.
(42:43-42:48) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah, and not letting politics colonize all of our discourse and energies.
(42:48-43:06) Jennifer Thomas: All of our conversations, all of our institutions, and not letting it be the one point of conflict around literally everything we do evolves, from medicine to everything. Things that shouldn't have anything to do with politics suddenly that becomes the locus of energy. I really appreciate you pointing that out.
(43:07-43:42) Rosalynde Welch: Thinking a little more about this theme of kind of imitative violence and fraternal rivalry, some listeners may recognize that I'm being guided here by the work of a philosopher named Rene Girard, who has thought a lot about fraternal rivalries, mimetic desire. What that means is that mostly what we want, we want it because somebody else wants it, right? And talking about our children, Patrick, we've seen this play out among our children millions of times, right? Somebody's got a toy, the other kid wants it, not because he or she really wants it, but just because their sibling has it, right?
(43:42-43:45) Patrick Mason: And that generates- Nobody wanted the toy until somebody picked it up.
(43:46-44:20) Rosalynde Welch: Now everybody wants it. Now everybody wants it, right. So Gerard has a set of very powerful kind of ideas about how mimetic desire and imitative violence, escalating violence, can develop among a people. When one faction uses violence to gain power, then the other faction adopts the same methods, right? Equal and opposite, but not equal. Opposite and a little more, right? Similar. You have to always escalate a little. And a little more. So escalating cycle.
(44:20-44:25) Patrick Mason: Because you don't want to show weakness or you don't want to lose, right?
(44:25-44:32) Jennifer Thomas: Well, you want to win, right? And if power is concentrating, then it starts to be a zero-sum game, right?
(44:32-47:32) Rosalynde Welch: Exactly. And so it's this kind of, you start the escalating process and it's very difficult to figure out how to get off of it. For me, the sword, especially the steel sword, kind of functions as a very sobering symbol of this dynamic in the Book of Mormon, both in Nephite experience and in Jaredite experience. You may remember in 2 Nephi 5, one of the saddest and most tragic chapters in the whole Book of Mormon, Um, Nephi has sort of been pressured, it seems by his people to become a king, right? He, he also didn't really want this, but again, the people seem to have demanded it. And, um, the violent, the, the sort of, um, rivalrous violence with the, with the Lamanites is escalating. And so Nephi makes copies of the sword of Laban, right? That the sort of Laban kind of, It's this very equivocal symbol from the very beginning, right, from first Nephi. But in a way, you can see how it might have been used to kind of represent their stewardship of the covenant, right, their stewardship of the sacred records. But it also has this other meaning of violence and bloodshed. And Nephi replicates the pattern of the steel sword of Laban to create swords for his people. And this is kind of the inauguration of entrenched national warfare between Nephites and Lamanites. And it's horrible to see. And in a very similar moment in Ether 7, we see Shul. who is in many ways a good king, right? But he comes and he fabricates steel swords for his people. And I think Moroni, whether or not the word steel was in the Jaredite record, I don't know. Moroni may be the one who puts it in there because he wants us to recognize that parallel with the Nephite people. So this idea of swords being replicated and based on the pattern that came before, right? You can sort of picture it's like the sorcerer's apprentice, where there's a kind of unchecked proliferation of armaments and weapons. precisely because of this rivalrous dynamic between brothers. And there's just, there seems no way to get off the train except for Jesus's way, right? Jesus's way. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. This is what Jesus tells Peter, right? At the moment where Peter draws his own sword. Yes, that's right. So, The off-ramp here is easy to state and incredibly difficult to implement, but it is to return good for evil, to break the cycle by turning the other cheek and to forswear retaliation.
(47:32-47:47) Jennifer Thomas: And that we have a beautiful record in the Book of Mormon of people who buried their weapons of war. who did the exact opposite. They took what had been replicated and amassed, and they literally pushed them away and said, no, we're going to put them out of our reach.
(47:48-48:26) Patrick Mason: And even if that's too hard to imagine in a contemporary politics, I think part of the warning here, at the very least, maybe a terrestrial level, is beware those who want to multiply weapons. Beware those whose solution to the problem of conflict is more weapons that I can use against my enemies. Maybe verbal weapons, maybe political weapons, maybe actual weapons of violence. But if that's your solution, is more weapons, then that's maybe something to think about.
(48:28-51:31) Rosalynde Welch: There's an interesting variation on this thesis of he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. And that is he who lives for wealth dies for wealth. Right. The Jaredites are not quite as caught up in this cycle of, of kind of the pride cycle as we understand it. Right. But it is still there. At least Moroni doesn't choose to foreground it to the extent that Mormon did. Nevertheless, it is still there. And there's this very, very interesting moment where, um, there's a character named Shez and he's kind of a minor character. He just shows up for a moment, but, um, he is a, is a prince. He's the son of a King. Um, and he's, and he's murdered, but he, surprisingly, is not murdered in order to take political power. He is murdered by a robber for his wealth, right? So yeah, so Schez and Heth lived during a time, one of these periodic times of great material prosperity. And he was rich, right? And he was murdered for his wealth. So I think that that's a kind of interesting variation that you know, where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. And this idea of wealth and equality and resource competition does show up in an interesting way in the character, in the King Ripleykish, who in many ways parallels King Noah from the book of Mosiah, right? He's a very Noah-like character. He imposes this extremely oppressive regime of extraction from his people. He keeps wives and concubines. He embarks on this program of conspicuous consumption by building extremely opulent palaces. And in the case of the Jaredite Replikish, this actually sparks a popular revolt, right? The people revolt against him, revolt against the economic inequality and their resentments of his conspicuous wealth. And so this relates to another question, I think, that's very pertinent to us, which is how should a society relate to its own wealth? You know, it's tricky. We want human beings to flourish and a certain degree of material prosperity is necessary for that, right? So we want societies and individuals to flourish and to have enough for their needs and to be able to build beautiful communities and enjoy the fruits of leisure like culture, like the arts, right? Like literature. But how do we relate to our wealth? Is it our goal? Or is it just a consequence of pursuing practices of human flourishing? And I think that makes a difference. If our society exists for the purpose of amassing wealth solely, I think the Book of Mormon says that's not going to end well. That is what is going to get us locked in this pride cycle, right? And where we reject God.
(51:31-51:34) Patrick Mason: You can never grasp it. It's never enough, right? It's slippery.
(51:35-51:35) Rosalynde Welch: It's slippery.
(51:35-52:26) Jennifer Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. And I also think that it can If wealth is what you value, if wealth is at the center point of your life and your heart, then you will act in ways to defend that that are sometimes indefensible. And so I think that's one of the questions that the off-ramps is not, is it a problem to have wealth or is it a problem to you know, have luxury and have the things that you would do that, like you said, allow you to live this robust, healthy, rich life. But the question is, who would you hurt to maintain it? And what laws would you allow to be broken in order for you to have more of it or to retain it? Those are, I think, questions we have to ask ourselves. Because if wealth is at your heart, then you will let a lot of things happen that you wouldn't otherwise let happen simply because you want to retain it.
(52:28-54:01) Rosalynde Welch: I think this is where our teachings on consecration are so powerful. And although that word consecration never appears in the book of Ether, I think really what it describes sort of in the negative, right, by showing us what not to do, but I think it describes something like a system of consecration where We are the stewards over many good and beautiful things, right? Over all the good things that the earth can give us and all the good things that we together as a people can create. But we are stewards over that. We are not sort of owners, right? In our own mind, we are accountable to God for the material abundance that we enjoy. This is a part, I think, of Moroni's chosen land thesis, right? That the people who live in this land can and should enjoy its abundance and its beauty, but they possess it unto the Lord, is how Moroni puts it. Not for yourselves, but you possess it unto the Lord. You're not accountable only to yourself. It's not private property in the sense that I have the right to do whatever I want with it. It's all the Lord's, and we are accountable to Him for the way that we use it. Um, that to me describes the posture of consecration in relationship to the things that we, that we possess. Um, and I think sort of, again, um, by a process of showing how we shouldn't do it, um, that's what the, the, the book of ether points us toward.
(54:01-54:08) Patrick Mason: Okay, so that's fantastic. What else does the Book of Ether teach us? Are there any other principles, Rosalind?
(54:08-54:53) Rosalynde Welch: Yeah. Well, we can't talk about the Book of Ether without talking about secret combinations. Right. Right. This is one of Moroni's most… We wish we could. I know, right? This is one of Moroni's main points, and he sees it as one of the major dangers for his modern readers, right? He takes, on several occasions, he takes great pains to point this out. Root out secret combinations if you see them growing among you. And the secret combination isn't just a conspiracy, but I think in particular, it's a conspiracy based on the doctrine of Cain, right? That I can murder and get gain, that human lives can be commodified and can be kind of horribly transfigured into wealth.
(54:53-54:55) Patrick Mason: They're expendable for my gain.
(54:56-55:56) Rosalynde Welch: Yes, yes, very much so. So we have to be on our guard to see those, to root it out, especially in our own hearts, right? Especially in our own hearts. I think we learned that from the Nephite experience. If we get too obsessed with pointing out in our enemies, we turn a blind eye. For the Nephites, they thought the problem was out there. Guess what? The secret combinations were in the heart of their own government. And so we need to turn inward to look for the ways that the doctrine of Cain might be taking root in ourselves. It's not only the danger of conspiracies, but I think also the dangers of conspiratorial thinking. We see in the character of Achish, he is the one who initiates the original secret combination. And in the end, he's destroyed because he suspects his own son will turn on him. So he who lives by conspiracy will oftentimes die by conspiracy, right? Conspiratorial thinking.
(55:57-56:36) Jennifer Thomas: Well, and I think, again, I think part of the off-ramp of that is to live transparently and live hopefully, right? If you continue, even if conspiracies are happening or secret combinations are happening, to choose to live in a way that doesn't mimic that and is open-hearted and open-handed is a way that we as individuals can push our society in a very different direction. Instead of just mimicking it, instead of just saying, oh, I got to get mine and getting part of the arms race. I've got to keep my secrets because people are keeping theirs. I've got to use my power. The off ramp to me is to behave in a radically different direction. Yeah. Go ahead, Pat.
(56:36-56:58) Patrick Mason: I was going to say, and I think foundationally that there is nothing more sacred or more valuable than other human beings. not political power, not economic power, not anything else, that we cannot sacrifice our brothers and sisters on the altar of gain, whatever that looks like.
(56:59-58:51) Rosalynde Welch: I think, Jen, to your point, this was the message of the prophet Ether. This book is named after Ether. He doesn't get to say very much in his own book. We mostly hear Moroni's prophetic voice. But at the very beginning of chapter 12, and then in chapter 13, we get to hear Ether's prophetic message. And it is precisely that. It is a message about a better world. Right? This is the new Jerusalem that in chapter 13 we see him prophesy about. And why was his message rejected? It was because the people couldn't believe what they couldn't see. They didn't believe that a better way of life was possible. They had lived with these entrenched patterns that we've been discussing for generations, for centuries, and they just didn't believe that there was a better way to live. But Ether came among them. Ether really is a hero, to me, how he was able to maintain his faith, his hope, his yearning for the new Jerusalem, even in the midst of what he was seeing around him. But he offered them this vision. There is a better way. What would have happened if the Jaredites could have believed him? What if they could have overcome their fatalism and their pessimism, their cynicism that said, violence is inevitable. We're locked in this escalating cycle. We'll never get out of it. What if they believed Ether? What if they believed Jesus? What if they believed that you could turn the other cheek? So there is a message of hope and optimism at the heart of the Book of Ether, despite its very sobering content as well.
(58:52-59:31) Patrick Mason: One of my favorite books about peace building is by one of my former professors, John Paul Lederach, who was a great peace builder, and it's called The Moral Imagination. And he talks about this really, the subtitle is The Art and Soul of Building Peace. But I think really it's the moral imagination is at the heart of peace building. It is this hope, this faith that a better world is possible, and also the creativity to bring it about. This is one of, and I love that you've pointed this out, Rosamund, like the Book of Ether is this book of like cul-de-sacs, right? Or just roundabouts.
(59:31-59:35) Jennifer Thomas: People in a maze, they cannot get out of the maze, right?
(59:35-01:00:07) Patrick Mason: And they can't figure out how to, because this is just the way we've always done it. And peace, because human beings have been in negative patterns for much of our history, most of our history, the challenge of peace is the creativity, the innovation, even the entrepreneurial spirit of finding a new way to do things, of not just being stuck in the same old pattern. But that requires moral imagination. And I love that you call that out at the heart of the Prophet Ethers.
(01:00:08-01:01:48) Jennifer Thomas: Well, and this is exactly what I wanted to say. I think sometimes as human beings, we are trapped, just like you said, Rosalind. No one has shown us a better way, and so we can't conceptualize it. But I would just like to argue that this is exactly what discipleship and exactly what the fruits of the Spirit can do for us. I love that you start the conversation with this, and I'd like to end it with that, because I really do believe that we don't have to be completely dependent on our society and the people around us to teach us that. If we are truly willing to have disciple hearts, to turn to Christ, to say, I am going to trust you, even though I'm not seeing any evidence in my peer group, that the way you have promised will work. I'm going to trust you that it will. And I'm going to ask the Spirit to teach me the way that I can make changes and decisions that will sort of enlighten my mind. And I think history is full of, just like you said, Patrick, these visionary peacemakers were able, I really do believe, by divine inspiration to be able to see something and lead other people towards something that the world around them couldn't conceptualize because they were looking to a higher divine light to get them there. And so to me, there are two off-ramps here. One off-ramp for a society that's struggling with this, or certainly to look around in your society and say, we are lucky in our own society to have plenty of historical examples of people who have taken good off-ramps. But if you feel like you're just in a quagmire and you can't figure that out, turn to inspiration and pray. Like, what is my role here? How am I to act differently and help me to see something beyond myself so that I have the courage to act differently?
(01:01:50-01:01:52) Patrick Mason: Did you have one last principle you wanted to get to?
(01:01:52-01:01:53) Rosalynde Welch: Do we have time?
(01:01:54-01:01:55) Patrick Mason: Let's do it.
(01:01:57-01:04:01) Rosalynde Welch: I so appreciate both of those comments about the moral imagination and the role of creativity in peace building and peacemaking. And I think that would point me towards my last point, and that is precisely the role of stories, of folklore, of representation, of these deep cultural stories in shaping how we act and how we behave. I think there's good evidence to believe that, for instance, the daughter of Jared, when she dances before the assassin, she's acting out a deeply negative but a deeply ingrained cultural story about female power and sexuality. Over and over again, we see how the foundational narratives of that first generation of Jaredite kings get replayed over and over and over again. So we are all creatures of story. We look towards representations around us to understand how we are and to pattern our behaviors. But we don't have to be, and we can change our stories. In a way, Jesus Christ was the prime example of somebody who came and who changed the story, who revised the story, and who showed us with great moral creativity with the parables, right? Is there ever a greater example of moral imagination? who gave us a new set of stories to pattern who we are and how we behave. So I would just call on all the amazing storytellers out there to turn your mind towards the stories of peace. Now, it's tricky, right? It can't be didactic. It can't be simplistic. It has to be real, and it has to respond realistically to human nature and to the complexities of life. So it's really hard to do that kind of deep, moral storytelling. But there are those who are gifted in those ways. And they, I think, are especially positioned to lead us as a people to that better world and that better way.
(01:04:02-01:05:14) Patrick Mason: That's amazing. Yeah, and I absolutely believe that. And that is, you know, I often say that a big part of what compels me as a Christian is that I think the story of Jesus It not only captures me, but it's the story I want to be a part of. It's the story that I want to live. And I don't mean story in a kind of bedtime story, but rather the ways, the narratives that we tell. the, yeah, just the story that I want to be a part of. And that's an act of will, right? The stories we tell, the stories, the way we frame who I am in relationship to other people, who other people are in relationship to the broader society, who God is and how we relate to God. Those are, as humans, we are storytelling beings. And Jesus was the greatest storyteller of all. And And so it's, I think, the whole Book of Mormon and the prophet Ether, their invitations to live into that story. Because there are other stories available to us, but we see where those stories lead us.
(01:05:15-01:05:33) Jennifer Thomas: Yeah. And ultimately, the story of Christ is the story of redemption. And the, you know, the supernal act of the Atonement is an invitation of all of us to not get stuck in a bad narrative, but to always rewrite the story towards a redemptive end. And that, to me, is the biggest off-ramp, right?
(01:05:34-01:05:55) Patrick Mason: Yeah. Well, Rosalind, thank you so much for this. This is so incredibly rich. I can't wait to listen to this one again and pull out all the lessons again. Take notes. But before we let you go, we always ask our guests to share with us, where is it or how is it that you find peace in this world?
(01:05:57-01:07:10) Rosalynde Welch: At the beginning of our chat, you told me that you were going to ask me this at the end, and had I been smart, I would have been pondering it. I find peace as a fruit of the Spirit in community. And I guess what that means is that I don't find peace as an absence of effort. I don't find peace as restfulness. I don't find peace as an absence of difference or an absence of conflict. I find peace, I think, in the challenge of in the challenge of making something beautiful out of the differences that are woven into the character of the world as we know it, right? For me, I think that is what peace is, not an elimination of friction, but a way of drawing it into a larger and beautiful whole. So that's how I find peace and community with my family, with my saints, with my neighbors, with the plants and animals that also populate this world of ours. It's being together that brings me peace.
(01:07:12-01:07:15) Jennifer Thomas: Well, thank you so much for joining us. It was just a delight to have you.
(01:07:16-01:07:18) Rosalynde Welch: My joy and pleasure. Thank you both.
(01:07:22-01:07:41) Patrick Mason: Thanks everybody for listening today. We really appreciate it. We just want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast and also to rate and review it. We love hearing feedback from listeners, so please email us at podcast at mweg.org. We also want to invite you to think about ways that you can make peace in your life this week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
(01:07:46-01:08:02) Jennifer Thomas: Thank you for listening to Proclaim Peace, a proud member of the Faith Matters Podcast Network. Faith Matters holds expansive conversations about the restored gospel to accompany individuals on their journey of faith. You can learn more about Faith Matters and check out our other shows at faithmatters.org.