Mormon 7-9

What's going on in these chapters? They represent one of a series of "false ends" to the book (i.e., you get the impression that Mormon and Moroni imagine they're not going to be able write more, but then they can after all). So I'm assuming that these chapters are meant to contain especially weighty exhortations—the author's last words to posterity. With that in mind, what are the major themes here?

First, chapters 8 and 9 contain a number of injunctions not to condemn the Book of Mormon for its imperfections. At one level, I read this as an aggressive expression of Joseph Smith's insecurities about his composition. But I also believe that in these passages, the Spirit is telling me to retain a teachable frame of mind in my engagement with the book, even as I'm alert to its flaws, which I believe are more numerous and grave than its author realizes. Mormon 9:31 captures well, actually, my approach to the book—or one of my approaches, anyway: "Give thanks to God that he has made manifest to you our imperfections, that you may learn to be wiser than we have been."

So with that groundwork laid, back to major themes.

Chapter 7 commands the Lamanites to embrace the Book of Mormon's account of their origins, to renounce war, and to become Christians. I want to be generous in my reading of this. The Book of Mormon is trying to open up terms on which Native Americans can be integrated into Euro-American society. By comparison to alternatives like distributing smallpox-infected blankets or the Trail of Tears, the Book of Mormon's approach is an improvement. In a sense, I think it's an improvement even over the missionary efforts of Puritans like John Eliot, since while the Book of Mormon reflects the usual colonial conception of Indians as savages, it gives them at least a dignified past and presents conversion to Christianity as a return to tradition, not a break with tradition. I hasten to add that the Book of Mormon vision for Native assimilation is still horribly deficient—it's an appropriation of Native identity that denies the value of existing Native cultures. But in the absence of more pluralistic options, this vision represents a better scenario than what actually ended up happening: removal, war, subjugation, compulsory "civilization." Again, I don't want to give Joseph Smith more credit than he deserves, but I also want to point out that he was trying to imagine an alternative to the Indian policies of the day.

A major theme in chapter 8 is latter-day materialism, especially on the part of churches. The Book of Mormon condemns the sale of sacraments (8:32), false assurances to sinners that God will uphold them at the last day (8:31), wearing fine apparel (8:36), internal strife and persecution (8:36), spending money on the adornment of churches instead of on aiding the poor (8:37-39), causing widows and orphans to mourn and the blood of fathers and husbands to cry from the ground (8:40).

The social justice bent to this pleases me, of course, and therefore I'm inclined to say a hearty "Amen!" Then again, I like beautiful churches; I like big cathedrals; I've had some important spiritual experiences in beautifully adorned churches of precisely the kind that I'm pretty sure these words are intended to condemn. There's a hard-core dirt-farmer holiness sensibility to these verses—"We're the true humble followers a' Jeezus, not like them high-falutin' Presbyterians with their fancy downtown church"—that I'm inclined to resist. On the other hand, materialism is bad. People spend money on luxuries they don't need—I spend money on luxuries I don't need—rather than practicing the kind of consecration and stewardship that would move us toward ending poverty. I shouldn't feel good about these verses: "Oh yes, I believe that helping the poor should be our top priority; see what a good person I am!" These verses goad me.

At the risk of seeming (being?) defensive, I want to say something about 8:31. When I read the prophecy that in the last days there will be many who say "Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day," I grimaced as I imagined what Proposition 8 supporters might make of that. "Aha! You see: the Book of Mormon prophesies that there would be liberal churches telling gays that God supports their lifestyle." I read that verse differently, though. I was more inclined to see it as directed to a certain born-again Christian who believes God made him president—"the decider," as he said once, unburdened by the obligation to explain his actions to anyone—and to the millions of other born-again Christians, plus the majority of American Mormons, who assure him that God upholds him as he launches wars that make widows and orphans mourn and the blood of their fathers and husbands cry for vengeance from the ground.

Enough of that. The last theme I want to point to is chapter 9's emphasis on miracles. Again, we see here a holiness sensibility—an incipient Pentecostalism. The age of miracles has not ceased, contrary to some. Christ's disciples will be recognized by the miracles they perform, today as in the apostolic age. I don't share that holiness sensibility, and frankly I'm not so sure Church leaders do anymore, though miracle stories still circulate among the rank-and-file. When it becomes standard to interpret the "gift of tongues" as a reference to missionaries learning foreign languages through coursework—at that point you have to admit that the Church has moved more than a few steps away from the more defiantly supernaturalist position championed in chapter 9.

Mormons have come a long way from the days when consulting a doctor suggested that you lacked the faith to be healed; we've come a long way from people like Brigham Young and Eliza Snow uttering prophecies in unknown tongues. Now the policy is that people shouldn't talk about miracles: they're sacred, keep them private. Why is that? It's partly about power: Dallin H. Oaks's famous address on our strengths becoming our weaknesses reveals his awareness that people who claim to be able to perform miracles have a kind of charisma that can threaten the authority of the hierarchy. I suspect, too, that the desire to keep miracle stories under wraps stems from a certain embarrassment: we don't want people thinking we're like those credulous folks you see going to televangelists for faith healing. Whatever the reasons, exactly, the fact is that twenty-first century Mormons have become more like the "liberal," suspicious-of-miracles Christians that chapter 9 condemns for being "despisers of the works of the Lord" (9:26).

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. On the contrary—I'd like to see us move even farther away from supernaturalism. At the same time, I hear in this chapter a promise and a challenge: To be a Christian is to work wonders, to tackle the seemingly impossible, trusting that the same power which created the world can work through us as we grow in selflessness and commitment to service.