Introduction
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I
have always loved the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. Growing up, when my
family read the Book of Mormon around the dinner table, I listened with
breathless interest to the stories of Captain Moroni, Teancum, and Helaman’s
stripling warriors. I reveled in Captain Moroni’s cleverness, Teancum’s
intrepidity, and the stripling warriors’ sheer heroism and courage. Every
Nephite victory was cause for celebration; every Lamanite victory brought
disappointment.
Multiple reads through the Book of Mormon
embedded these stories of victory and defeat deep in my consciousness, and as I
grew older I started to wonder why Mormon had decided to write in such detail
about the wars when the purpose of the whole book was to testify of Christ’s divinity.
Eventually, I began to understand how the
Lord meant for us to learn from those battles. Just as Captain Moroni thought
it no sin to defend the Nephites by stratagem, the Lord thought it no sin to
use war stories in the scriptures to teach His people strategies to help them
recognize and defend against the ugly temptations and sins of world, especially
during times when temptations would abound in both blatant and subtle ways.
In the Church, we have a lot to say about the
sterling character of Captain Moroni and the stripling warriors, but as a
people, we have not yet collectively discovered the wonderful array of battle
strategies presented throughout the whole Book of Mormon. So why is this?
The Church’s Sunday School curriculum calls
for the Book of Mormon war chapters, Alma 43-62, to be treated in the space of
two lessons. Only 90 minutes every four years is spent to study 19 chapters
spanning 52 pages, giving us less than two minutes per page. There is not
enough time to cover the material in the manuals, and the manuals only cover a
fraction of what could be discussed. The Church focuses on teaching fundamental
gospel principles while trusting and encouraging members to learn more through
focused individual study.
Still, because of the cursory attention of
the church manuals, it is tempting to treat the war stories lightly. Some
members see the derring-do only as thrilling entertainment, while other
particularly peace-loving members are disgusted with all the violence and
struggle to find any redeeming qualities in the chapters beyond the heroes of
Captain Moroni, Teancum, Helaman, and the stripling warriors.
While I know that sooner or later members of
the Church will individually be led to understand the treasures hidden in the
stories of war, I also believe that I can do a service by speeding up the
process. The battle strategies are of key importance; they are a big part of
what made the Book of Mormon heroes the mighty men they were, and unless we can learn to recognize and master
the strategies they used and defend effectively against attacks the way they
did, we can never hope to reach their
stature.
The events of the war chapters in Alma 43-62
are filtered through the eyes of not just one prophet-general, but two—Helaman
and Mormon. In his record, Helaman featured events he found important in his
day, and then centuries later, Mormon made his abridgement from Helaman’s
record. The years between Helaman and Mormon probably gave Mormon valuable
perspective, allowing him to better interpret for our edification the events
Helaman recorded.
Many have observed that we are not in a war
of physical violence; we are in a spiritual war for souls in which no holds are
barred. Satan has had all of human history to learn the most effective ways to
attack. We need to make a tactical science of spiritual survival in these last
days, and there is no better way to do it than to learn from history by
studying the war strategies in the Book of Mormon. Every tactic and strategy of
field warfare has its spiritual equivalent, so we don’t have to be a member of
the military to apply them in life.
In this book, you will learn about tactics
that Satan uses against us. You will learn about tactics you can use to defend
yourself. You also will learn strategies that will allow you to go on the
offensive.
You may begin this book with the notion that
Nephite tactics are always good and Lamanite tactics are always bad. This
notion is comforting, but it effectively halves
the usefulness of the war accounts. We can easily compare how the Nephites
defend themselves to how we should defend ourselves against Satan, but we can
also examine how the Lamanites’ failed
defenses show us where our weak spots are. Also, we are used to comparing
Lamanite attacks to Satan’s attacks, but we also can learn how the Nephites’ successful attacks to regain
cities might be similar to ways Satan attacks us today.
Structure of the book
We
will begin where war starts to appear in the Book of Mormon record—at the Words
of Mormon as Mormon describes some of the struggles of King Benjamin. The
chapters are in the order that the stories and incidents appear in the Book of
Mormon, so if you are fairly familiar with the sequence of events as you read
from front to back in the Book of Mormon, you will be able to follow fairly
well.
This book is broken up into chapters, each of
which talk about important strategies we can learn from war in the Book of
Mormon. Some of them start out by examining features of battles or incidents
that seem a bit puzzling or that don’t seem to make sense. Most of the chapters
are fairly short and can be read quickly. The very last chapter is a longer,
detailed examination of how the war chapters reveal ways we can defend
ourselves against the increasing threat of pornography.
Assumptions and Speculation
There are some
times when I will make assumptions or speculate about how things were in Book
of Mormon times. It is my attempt to “fill in the holes,” so to speak. You will
recognize that I have made some speculative assumptions when I say something
“may have” or “probably” happened a certain way. In each case, I will explain
how I arrived at each conclusion. Caveats and provisos aside, ONWARD, Christian
soldiers! (Author waves sword above head)
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