The Book of Mormon teaches some really mind-blowing theology and it seems like such a waste that Church leaders ignore that to push conservative family values. I know there isn’t any archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon and that it was written by Joseph Smith.
BUT
What if we could discuss some of the Book of Mormon’s stories and ideas, regardless of whether Joseph Smith told the truth [fn 1] about where the book came from? ji’s comment on hawgrrls post yesterday (the Pompey Stone) talked about learning principles from stories, rather than just reading a theological treatise. In my opinion, the Book of Mormon has a good balance of sermons and stories and it would be SO interesting to see how the stories stack up against the sermons. Joseph Smith had some interesting ideas about the nature of God (and then he bypassed everything interesting and preached polygamy; such a waste!).
My favorite bit of theology from the Book of Mormon is the idea that God obeys laws of justice and mercy, and if he gets the balance off by even a little bit, he ceases to be God. This is fundamentally different from how, for example, Evangelicals think of God. According to Christian Beliefs, a book by conservative pastor Wayne Grudem that I read, Christians teach that God can do anything he wants. He doesn’t have to be fair or save anyone, so we should just be grateful he doesn’t send everyone to hell. God doesn’t owe you an explanation and he doesn’t have to be consistent. He’s a very capricious God.
In contrast, the Mormon God is required to be rational in his judgment of sinners and the repentant. Alma’s sermon about the laws God has to obey is in Alma 42. The context is that Alma’s son thinks it’s unfair for God to punish sinners and Alma explains why God must enforce laws and cannot simply brush everything off in a fit of mercy and escort everyone to heaven and eternal happiness.
The whole chapter is worth reading, but verse 13 has the heart of the theology that I want to discuss:
Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
The key to all of this is the Atonement because Christ’s sacrifice allows for repentance – that’s the merciful part. The justice part is that God must punish unrepentant sinners. Let’s see how that applies to the actual stories in the Book of Mormon.
Laman and Lemuel
The first story in the Book of Mormon is about Nephi’s family. Nephi spends years trying to get Laman and Lemuel to stop beating him, verbally abusing him, accusing him of being evil, and basically making his life hell. Nephi forgives them several times. Finally, after their parents die, and Nephi pours out an entire lifetime of pain in prayer (2 Nephi 4), Nephi gets the Lord’s approval to leave (2 Nephi 5:5) because otherwise Laman and Lemuel are going to kill him. Laman has sinned against Nephi and refused to repent. In fact, the first time Nephi prays about his brothers’ wickedness, the Lord tells him that his brethren will be cut off from the presence of the Lord inasmuch as they rebel (1 Nephi 2:18-24). I’ve read their story closely many times, and nowhere does Nephi express any hope that Laman and Lemuel can be saved for their sins after 2 Nephi 4. They wouldn’t repent. Mercy cannot rob justice; God cannot forgive L&L or he will cease to be God.
(I’ve heard a lot of people try to blame L&L’s abuse on Nephi being a self-righteous, annoying, do-gooder, but I like Nephi and think he was doing his best in a terrible situation.)
Alma
Alma the Younger, famously, repented. You recall the story. Alma the Younger and the four sons of King Mosiah were going around raising havoc and persecuting the church established by their religious fathers. An angel appears. The way Alma tells it, he only heard one thing the angel said: “If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God” (Alma 36:9). Alma was so terrified that he passed out and all of his sins and iniquities tormented him. He repented and was saved by Jesus. Repentance means mercy can take effect. God could forgive Alma without breaking the laws of justice and mercy.
Zeezrom
Alma and Amulek met Zeezrom in Ammonihah. Zeezrom starts out wicked, but his heart is touched and he starts asking real questions and listening to the answers (Alma 11-12:8). Zeezrom has a complete change of heart and tries to defend Alma and Amulek when the city leaders come after them. For this, he’s chased out of the land (Alma 14:7). After a serious bout of illness brought on by his guilt, Zeezrom converts and starts preaching (Alma 15:1-14). Repentance leads to mercy. Like Alma, Zeezrom’s repentance allows God to be merciful.
Ammonihah
The people in the city of Ammonihah who chased out Zeezrom and the other believers do not repent. In fact, they burn the family members of the believers who were driven out of the city (Alma 14:8-14). They arrest Alma and Amulek and torment them. The chief judge, while beating them, says that if Alma and Amulek have the power of God, then they should deliver themselves from these bands and “then we (the people of Ammonihah) will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according to your words” (Alma 14:24). Sure enough, Alma and Amulek break the cords which bind them and he prison collapses, killing everyone who “smote upon” Alma and Amulek (Alma 14:27). Pretty dramatic. Alma calls them as a hard-hearted and stiffnecked people who would not repent of their sins (Alma 15:15).
Not long after, the people of Ammonihah are completely destroyed by a rogue Lamanite army (Alma 16:3 and Alma 25:2). The story is consistent with the theology — God cannot show mercy to the unrepentant.
More Stories
I’m not going to summarize every story of the Book of Mormon in a blog post. Lots of individuals, cities, and entire civilizations get destroyed in the Book of Mormon. Lehi leaves Jerusalem before Jerusalem is destroyed. Alma the Elder listened to Abinadi and repented, then led other believers away from King Noah’s wicked society (Alma 18) before King Noah was destroyed and the city was conquered by the Lamanites (Alma 19). Over and over again, the righteous eventually leave the wicked. The only definition of ‘wicked’ that really matters in the Book of Mormon is the refusal to repent.
What other stories in the Book of Mormon do you recall? Do they fit this theology of justice and mercy? The comment section of The Pompey Stone did a deep dive into the story of Korihor last week. Alma the Younger tells the story as if Korihor didn’t sincerely repent, thus he was destroyed (Alma 30). Amulon and the other priests of King Noah escape the fate of the unrepentant for a while, but eventually the Amulonites are completely destroyed (Alma 25). Fourth Nephi and his younger brother Lehi cry repentance with varying success (Helaman 3-16). In 3 Nephi 9, Jesus kills the unrepentant in huge numbers before he appears in the land Bountiful. The Jaredites are wiped out for their wickedness (Ether).
My hypothesis is that the theology in the Book of Mormon is internally consistent.
The Potential of This Theology
Imagine a Church that seeks to understand the balance between justice and mercy that even God must obey. Imagine evaluating all doctrinal decisions against justice and mercy. Does the Church need to repent (apologize) for its history of racism in order to ask for mercy? If a priesthood leader abuses his authority, and someone ‘chooses’ to get offended, how does the Church balance justice and mercy in that situation? How do justice and mercy apply to the relationship between husbands and wives? Is there a just reason to keep women out of leadership roles? What if the Church’s focus was on working out the correct balance of justice and mercy rather than pressuring everyone to get married and have children?
The Book of Mormon doesn’t have sermons about the things the Church leaders are so worried about — there isn’t a word about abortion, or queer issues, or the so-called ‘breakdown’ of the family, or even temple and family history work. The Church is so focused on being accepted by mainstream Christians that it’s lost sight of how unique its theology is and what that could mean. Imagine a Church that offers a place for people who are tired of a capricious God who doesn’t make any sense. Imagine a Church that dares to explore the laws that God follows.
Questions:
- Pick a story from the Book of Mormon or Bible and discuss if it’s consistent with Alma 42’s teachings about justice and mercy (or not).
- What if the Church focused on God’s justice and mercy rather than on his status as a husband and father?
- Can you think of examples in which the Church has let mercy rob justice? Or justice rob mercy?
- What do you think of how the Church teaches repentance? Is it balanced between justice and mercy?
[fn 1] I don’t believe Joseph Smith was a cold-blooded con man. I believe he had some form of mental illness but that he believed everything he taught. People around him enabled him by believing he was a prophet, and that gave him permission to go right off the rails. Nevertheless, he had some interesting ideas that are worth discussing.
Wheat & Tares 
Janey, I loved this post. Thank you! I particularly loved your thoughts on the Justice/Mercy aspect of the Mormon God. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
Alongside theological study, I find literary analysis of the Book of Mormon fascinating. I remember when I realized that Nephi was an unreliable narrator. Not because he was trying to deceive the reader, but because, by his own admission, he was writing the record years, probably decades, after the events happened. Our memories are colored and shifted by our lived experiences, so any record provided after the fact, even witness statements immediately following a car accident, is never going to be 100% accurate.
Q – What if the Church focused on God’s justice and mercy rather than on his status as a husband and father?
We are obsessed with the justice/mercy concept because it goes along with the small idea that we can *earn* our way back into heaven. We sin –> repent –> then mercy is activated and we’re back on firm footing with the God. (Whew!) But it’s not the ritual of a repentance prayer that is important, rather it’s the *effect* on us that comes from recognizing our shortcomings/sin/mistake/whatever and that we have a desire to do better. Framed that way, commandments become invitations to enter into a better way of life, not an arbitrary set of rules from a God waiting to drop the hammer on us. Our lives become an ongoing process of mistakes and corrections where we are fueled by the power and mercy of God, not a ledger sheet where our sins are tallied in the “justice” column and repentance prayers go into the “mercy”column and they hopefully cancel each other out. (Yes, I am in the “Givens-camp” on this atonement theology approach)
Q – Can you think of examples in which the Church has let mercy rob justice? Or justice rob mercy?
LDS temple sealing policies are a mess. While I hate to place them in a discussion of justice/mercy, many policies are unnecessarily rigid under the banner of order. To bend rules or extend mercy and understanding in individual cases, the safe fallback for the leadership is to stick to the rules. We have the polar opposite philosophies of Must Have Everything Exact and Precise and…. It Will All Be Worked Out In The Next Life. When extraordinary cases arise, the policies tend to be exclusionary instead “erring” on the side of inviting people into temple rituals and relationships that will benefit them in *this life*.
One last thing – the quote that was shared reads: Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
If our redemption depends on “repentance of men in this probationary state”, this seems to write off 100% of people who did not repent/make covenants/follow commandments during their mortality. We do a lot of temple work for people who have already missed their chance at redemption because they didn’t repent. Just sayin….
As a TBM, I have spent years studying the bom as a literary text, while also trying to make sense of the theology and history. Since I now understand (also thru much study), that it’s a 19th century, often plagiarized, highly imaginative creation, and sometimes contradicts itself, my sense of betrayal and devastation will not allow me to find value in it, whether there is any or not.
I am afraid at this juncture I can’t bring myself to get into the details of stories like this. Once I could have done, but now I just see the incidental nature of women and children, of servants, to the male protagonists. Whether that be Job, or Alma and Amulek, the triumph of these men over adversity is apparently more important than the actual death of wives, children and servants, because they are only so much chattel. That’s neither merciful nor just.
A couple of weeks ago I was in discussion with my siblings. I had declined a sacrament meeting talk assignment back in December. Our ward are using CFM as the subject guide. I said I wasn’t willing to whitewash events surrounding either of the official declarations, and that what I would do with the subjects was probably not suitable for a sacrament meeting. I later mentioned to my siblings that one way of framing the subject would be to quote Gal 3:28 and then say that I viewed these official declarations as a first step along a long road to recognising that women and people of colour are equal, and then I would have gone into background history. But yes, still probably not what they’d have wanted in sacrament meeting.
If we talking about taking lessons from stories, well, we can do that from many stories, not just those found in scripture.
I definitely think there are very inspiration stories, arcs and thoughts in BoM that we should absolutely be thinking about. The one thing you brought up that really scares/irritates/offends mainline Christians about BoM theology is the idea that God has to follow certain laws and loses Godhood if he does not. That then calls into question whether or not God is actually omnipotent and “mighty to save”. And if God isn’t really the one in-charge, how do we commune with the thing in-charge of God–the thing setting the rules even God has to follow? This kind of plays into the biggest differences between how Mormons and mainline Christians view Jesus. Mormons view Jesus as this an entirely separate intermediary between us and God. Mainline Christians view Jesus has God embodied.
I think the church focuses way too much on the justice part because they myopically focused on obedience being the first law of heaven–which means complete fidelity to the church institution. They will even go so far as to tease apart the first and second great commandments just so they can retain their priesthood power and authority. It’s rather silly.
King Noah vs King Benjamin and how Trump measures up (or down) to either of them. For a book that was supposedly written for our day and time, leaders seem to miss many of its lessons. There’s also the discussion of “pride” in the classic sense. How could that be applied to our houses, cars, or even our clothes today, but it’s not. The interesting thing is the families it does talk about are pretty dysfunctional, yet love and mercy are shown to those that may not measure up. Then there’s Mike Lee’s statement about Captain Moroni, which seems to be totally out of context, but that’s another post.
Janey, Let me share a thought with you about the truth you shared from Alma 42. Is it really God’s truth? Or is it a man’s (a good man’s) explanation to his son in the context of encouraging his repentance? I think it is the latter, a good man’s explanation to his son in the context of encouraging his repentance. In other words, it is Alma’s words and Alma’s truth shared in a particular context, and might reasonably be seen as a shadow-on-the-cave-wall reflection of God’s truth (maybe even a very accurate reflection, but still a reflection).
Please note that I am not saying it is untrue – there is a passage and many people extract theological doctrine from the passage. I am merely commenting on the provenance of the passage and saying is from Alma (a good man), and not directly from God. It represents Alma’s best understanding in the context of trying to encourage his son’s repentance. It was not a detached, stand-alone, dispassionate theological treatise.
So it is with many of the stories in the scriptures – they are stories, with contexts, and not theological treatises. I believe the scriptures become very powerful and full of life when we read them as they are, which is as stories of people in their own contexts. When we read the scriptures as theological treatises, the result is dogmatism and legalism, both of which God abhors. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life, right?
All that said, I am not one who will insist (quoting Alma) that God must obey this law or that law. I don’t think Alma was quoting revelation on this particular matter, but he was teaching his son, and he painted a picture and used those words in a pastoral (not theological) attempt to help his son. At least, that is how I read the story. And that story and others teach me that pastoral mercy might sometimes, on occasion, be more important in the moment than enforcing one’s conception of dogmatic truth.
Mormons view Jesus as this an entirely separate intermediary between us and God.
Maybe some Mormons, but not all. At least, not me. How many times in our scriptures, indeed in our own Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, does Jesus in the first person declare that He is our God? (just one example, D&C 132:12) I take Jesus at his word, and I cringe sometimes when some Latter-day Saints speak of Jesus as something lesser (still great, but lesser).
But yes, I acknowledge (and regret) the apparently prevailing sentiment among us.
The church errs on the side of mercy for the sinner when they allow child sexual abuse to continue because the sinner confessed. They need to report it to the legal authorities and let the sinner face the consequences.
I mean, they preach to us girls about how breaking the law of chastity has CONSEQUENCES that mere repentance will not fix. We are FOREVER damaged by any violation of that law of chastity. Like the licked cupcake cannot be unlicked by repentance.
But for adult men raping their six year old daughter, they let it continue as they “work” with that confessed guy as if he is really repenting and yet he hasn’t STOPPED.
Wow is that letting mercy rob justice. The guy deserves to face the consequences, even if he does stop. Even if he is really repentant. Like they tell the girls, there are consequences and the consequences are separate from repentance.
Oh, but they *mean* girls can get pregnant and repentance doesn’t erase that baby. But since the guy can’t get pregnant, he should never face consequences like going to prison? The church actively protects the men from consequences because, “oh, they repented”
Real repentance takes facing the consequences and undoing the damage. Repentance is not just confessing. It is changing, facing consequences, and undoing damage to the best of one’s ability. The person is not really changing if they refuse to face the consequences. So, the sexual offender should be willing to go to prison as part of repentance. The church should not protect and cover up and allow abuse to continue.
And what about justice for the victim? The church only ever talks about the debt owed to God. The atonement restores the relationship with God. But what about that victim of sin? Who restores their damaged trust in the world? Who convinces that sexually abused child that God loves them?
Well, there are hints in the Bible that restoring the victim of sin is also part of the atonement. But the church has zero interest in that. Help the battered woman escape her abusive husband by providing her the financial help she needs to get her and her children out. No way in h**l. They emotionally support the poor poor husband who has been left. They pretend like being beaten black and blue is no problem at all. I witnessed one women whose husband kept beating her and she kept talking to the bishop, but her abuser is up there blessing a baby, administering the sacrament, while she sits sadly in the congregation with horrible bruises, visible to the whole ward. Of course the gossip was running amuck. The whole ward knew. I point blank asked the bishop why he allowed the display of “priesthood” when he should have disfellowshipped the jerk. “Oh, I didn’t want to embarrass him.” What about the fact the the bishop publicly said, “no big deal that he beats his wife.” So, the bishop clearly tells the battered wife that God doesn’t give a shit if her husband beats her up. Preventing the (male) abuser some embarrassment is more important that protecting a (female) victim from abuse.
Mercy for that man who beat his wife was far more important than any justice. Justice for the wife would be protection, help, caring. But that was missing. All there was evident before the whole ward was mercy for the unrepentant abuser. Justice before God would be “amen to the priesthood of that man.” Nope, he is before the whole ward blessing their sacrament. I just could not take any sacrament blessed by that guy. Rather than blessing it, he was cursing it with the hypocrisy.
Another example. There was this guy, my home teacher as a matter of fact. He had been married 4 times. With one child or maybe two per wife. He had this pattern of getting married, then the wife gets pregnant. He starts an affair. Gets excommunicated. Divorces his wife. Waits his year. Marries the affair in the temple. She gets pregnant, and he has an affair. Maybe the affair gets pregnant. So, he gets excommunicated, divorces his wife who just had a baby, marries his affair, waits his year, gets married in the temple. She gets pregnant with her second and he has another affair. All 4 marriages were sealed in the temple and he had an affair and divorces and gets excommunicated and waits his one token year of pretend repentance and does it all over again. I moved away and heard from friends that he did it twice more. So, the church allowed him to get married in the temple some six times, then have an affair and pretend repent and do it over and over and over. He was unfaithful to some six wives and the church just kept on letting him marry and divorce and leave one or two more kids in a single parent home. And I promise he could not afford to be paying child support for his 8 or so kids. But no problem. He was excommunicated a year, rebaptised, and that is ALL repentance is, after all. Saying your sorry, while leaving the woman broken hearted and stuck supporting herself and the kid, and then doing your token Hail Mary prayers and paying money to the church to make the church happy and repentance complete. With no justice for those women and children. But the guy could be charming, so he got “forgiven”. But not by the women he screwed and I am pretty sure not by God. But the *church* forgave him over and over.
So, if anyone ever asks why I am out of the church, it is because they allow, encourage, love robbing justice in order to hand unearned mercy to men. It seems to ONLY happen with men abusing women/girls. And it robs justice for the women/girls who have been hurt. It tells those female step children of God that God does not care one bit if his precious sons hurt the step daughters.
When the movie “Chirdren of a Lesser God” came out, I so identified with the idea that some humans are just not children that the Christian God cares about. Women, LGBT, deaf or otherwise disabled, racial minorities, we are children of lesser Gods. Or maybe like Joseph in the Bible whose favoritism from his father made his brothers want to kill him, we are the children of unfavorite wives. God has this one wife that is white, able bodied, and only produces sons, white, cis, straight, healthy, sons. And they are the only ones God loves. Or maybe my church is just misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and loves its members only on the condition that we are perfect and obedient to it and have priesthood.
I wish we allowed for upwards communication so that Anna’s observations could be addressed (and maybe even redressed).
I think the aim of this post is praiseworthy and hope to see more attempts to extract good theology from the Book of Mormon. I disagree, however, with some of the particulars. My strongest disagreement is with the statement that [t]he justice part is that God must punish unrepentant sinners.” I think that the justice part is that God must ensure that all victims are made whole. That’s it. Punishment may serve as a way to protect the innocent from further victimization, or it may serve as a deterrent to further sin. But that is only justice in a fallen world, in which making victims whole is generally not an option. In the eternal scheme, however, it is very much an option (thanks to Jesus) and punishment becomes merely a tool–not an end in itself. I see the “punishments” you cite in the Book of Mormon not as types of eternal justice, but as tools to protect the innocent and deter sin.
Mormon scholars and their detractors have actually paid a lot of attention to this BoM chapter (Alma 42) and the ideas you raise. I’m no expert, but I’ll try to provide a brief summary the best I can.
I completely agree that a comparison of a rational God subject to laws versus a capricious God who can do anything He wants–and how this applies to the salvation of man–is an interesting theological topic. I like how you contrast Alma 42’s description of God with that of Grudem. I think you are correct in your characterization of much of modern Evangelicalism. However, I’m interested in addressing how Protestants viewed God in Joseph’s time. I think there is a lot of evidence to support the idea that in Joseph Smith’s own time and place, a God who could not pardon sin without satisfying justice was close to the orthodox mainstream. From this perspective, Alma 42 reads less like a theological innovation and more like a restatement of what was being preached all over the Burned-Over District in the 1820s.
The dominant atonement framework in New England and upstate New York was the “governmental” or moral-government theory. Jonathan Edwards Jr., an important New England theologian in the 1780s, argued that God cannot simply forgive, because doing so would destroy the authority of his law and government. Punishment exists “to satisfy justice, and support the authority and dignity of the divine law and government.” And: “God must be just as well as merciful. He can never exercise one of his attributes so as to clash or interfere with another.” Compare Alma 42:15, where the atonement appeases “the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.” Edwards even uses the probation language: “this life is the only state of probation.” This theology poured into western New York via numerous ministers and widely circulated texts.
The “cease to be God” idea was also a long-established Protestant belief by Joseph Smith’s time. For example: “If any perfection of his nature could be separated from him, he would cease to be God.” (Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God, 1682).
Alma 39-42 is unmistakably addressing the Universalist controversy of Joseph’s day. Corianton’s worry–that “it is injustice that the sinner should be consigned to a state of misery” (Alma 42:1)–is a reproduction of the Universalist argument of the era. Alma’s reply is the standard orthodox rebuttal–the same rebuttal that was repeated over and over in the Universalist versus orthodox debates, and one Joseph was constantly exposed to. Dan Vogel’s “Anti-Universalist Rhetoric in the Book of Mormon” discusses this. Many others, besides Vogel, point to the BoM’s anti-Universalist stance as important evidence that the BoM is a work of the 1800s instead of the ancient Americas, with the expected–and for me, anyway–not very convincing apologetic rebuttals.
It’s very interesting where Protestants/Evangelicals have moved since Joseph’s time. I would argue that in 1829, Alma 42 wasn’t exotic–it was roughly what an orthodox Presbyterian in Palmyra would have said to a Universalist. What has changed since 1829 is the Protestant baseline: they moved on to a heavy emphasis on grace (and de-emphasis on justice) and the idea that we’re lucky God chooses to be merciful at all, while Mormonism froze the moral-government framework into scripture. Later in his life (after the BoM was published), Joseph pushed things even further in this direction (D&C 88, D&C 130, the King Follett Discourse). He formulated a God who didn’t merely choose to honor law, but was literally embedded in law. That is almost certainly taking things further than the Protestants of his day, but it didn’t come until after the BoM stuff we’re addressing in the OP.
“The only definition of ‘wicked’ that really matters in the Book of Mormon is the refusal to repent.” Amen.
If there is a god, he will have to beg for my forgiveness.
Interesting ideas here.
Whether or not Alma was making a theological treatise or just trying fatherly persuasion for his son to repent, his argument about God adhering to eternal law is all through Joseph Smith’s theology. God saw the intelligences and taught them how to progress through knowledge and obedience to these laws as he had done.
BOM theology is unique because at least in the summary text we have from Mormon, there’s no repenting or forgiveness after mortal life, no baptism for the dead, no three kingdoms, etc.
In our current LDS family sealing theology, does mercy seem to rob justice? Possibly. If a son or daughter refuses to repent in their lifetime and by the BOM definition is in sin or wickedness, does the sealing covenant, or the faithfulness of the parents, through Christ’s atonement override the justice that would otherwise be meted out on the son or daughter? Do all children of parents receive the same mercy override of justice through a universal sealing of the whole human race as Joseph implied? Does that make us essentially universalists?
Last Lemming, thank you for saying that justice is that all victims be made whole.
I see only two things that matter in the whole of the atonement. 1, that sinners learn from their mistakes. I don’t care if it is through repentance, or getting smacked up the side of the head or eternally burning in hell, just that they learn the damage they did to another human. And 2, that the victim of sin be healed from all the damage done to them. You cannot have real justice without totally fixing things for the victims. Whether it is human governmental justice or God’s eternal justice. In our human “justice” system we worry about punishing the criminal/sinner and quite frankly don’t much care what happens to the victim as long as the criminal “pays his debt to society” but what about the much more specific debt to his victim? We are all too willing to forget the victim of crime as collateral damage and only worry that the criminal pay his “debt to society”. Well that is like if I steal from John and then give the money to charity when I repent. John is out his money because I paid a “debt to society” instead of a debt to John. That isn’t justice to John. And most of Christianity sees the sinner’s debt as a debt owed to God and forget there is a specific victim with a specific debt owed to them. In Utah when I worked at a rape crisis center, there was what was called “victim’s reparations” and it was at least a minimal attempt to restore the victim’s property and well being. But for example, if you got mugged and beaten and had a broken leg and busted glasses and ripped clothing, well victim’s reparations could get you about 60 bucks to replace your glasses. But the main thrust of the whole “justice system” was just to throw your mugger in the clink. You got maybe 60 bucks to replace your glasses, nothing for the ripped clothing that the cops kept as evidence, and nothing for the emergency room or ambulance for your medical. You get several thousand in medical bills, and have to replace your clothing, and “justice” is to give you a pittance to replace the possessions you cannot live without, such as your eye glasses and not cover any medical bills, let alone get anything for time off work to recover or pain and suffering. Since I was working with rape victims, victim’s reparations did pay for a few counseling sessions. Not near as many as my clients needed, but it did pay for a bit. But the police kept their clothing and they never got them back. The victim had to pay for the emergency room treatment and collection of the rape kit. Let me repeat that bit of unfair stupidity. The victim had to pay to have evidence collected because the evidence happened to be on her body. No other crime did the victim have to pay an emergency room fee to have evidence collected for police. The rape kit was not for the well being of the victim at all, it was just to collect evidence off her body. The police would take rape kits more seriously if they were paying for them rather than seeing it as just to make the victim feel like something might be done with that evidence. But 90% of those rape kits sat in boxes for years and were not even processed to see if DNA matched other rape victims.
Anyway, so my point is that there is zero victim justice in our criminal justice system. And most Christians see the atonement the same as criminal justice. It is all about justice and mercy for the sinner and they totally do not care about any justice for the victim.
Imagine what our religion would be like if we all believed that God’s justice was for the victims of sin, instead of just for repentance or punishment. There would be immediate reporting of any child abuse that was confessed, because the priority would be the well being and healing of the victim instead of only being about the repentance of the sinner. And victims heal much better if society punishes the abuser as a way to tell the victim, “what he did was wrong and not your fault.” But our church doesn’t care about telling the victim that it wasn’t their fault by holding the perpetrator accountable.
But as it is, only caring about the repentance of the sinner, we have a system that ignores the battered wife, the betrayed spouse, the person whose money was stolen and their trust violated. We tell the sinner that complete restitution is impossible so don’t worry about it. Pay back what is easy to pay back and say you are sorry, and poof, if the victim doesn’t forgive, then they are the evil sinner and they deserved what was done to them. Doesn’t matter if their life is totally screwed up, if they can’t forgive after you say “sorry” then you are off the hook for any restitution. And of course their life being screwed up is PROOF that they are refusing to forgive. Not proof how how much damage the sin did to them, but proof they are evil and refusing to forgive. It is all to make “repentance” easy and quick and not have to take any responsibility to undo the damage. It is just too hard to regain your wife’s trust after you sleep with her sister. So, don’t bother, just tell her “sorry” and repent to the church and the church will forgive you. But it is a huge lie that the sinner can repent and not do everything in their power to fix the damage. But by making “forgiveness” between the sinner and the church, instead of the sinner and the sinned against the church tells the huge lie that the sinner can repent without restitution.
I am afraid lots of “repentant” Mormons are going to come before God and find out they are not forgiven by God any more than they were forgiven by the person they hurt. They restored their relationship with the church, but not their relationship with their victim. Well, unless your victim was the church, confessing and getting into the good graces of the church does nothing. The sinner needs to restore their relationship with the person they hurt. Anything less is not repentance. It isn’t forgiveness from God, but absolution from the church. No better than the sale of indulgences.
Bro. B’s comment is compelling. Throw the recent reemphasis on Grace and I’d add that since LDS teachings claim that every non-LDS soul will (eventually) have proxy temple work completed for them, then it is possible in LDS theology to believe that only the most rebellious and evil souls will fail to make the “celestial” grade. That is pretty potent universalism.
There are some GREAT comments about how the focus of justice should not be on the sinner’s punishment but on making the victim whole again. As I was writing the post, I also started thinking about how punishment for wrongdoing is a very Calvinist notion. The “punishment” that Alma the Younger and Zeezrom endured was feeling terrible about what they’d done and then they dedicated their lives to reversing the damage. The need to fix what you broke is vitally important. And if the sinner can’t fix it, society’s focus should be on healing the victim first and foremost. Anna provides very vivid examples. The Church is awful at providing justice for abuse victims. And secular society doesn’t help out sexual assault survivors nearly as much as it should.
AuntPolly and lastlemming made good comments on this topic as well. And what if the Church did that? What if the Church focused on making the victim whole and healed instead of just worrying about the sinner getting right with God again? Alma the Younger’s sermon doesn’t put the focus on that, but I agree that it should be the focus when wrong has been done.
ji – I agree with you. Alma’s sermon is his effort to explain his beliefs to his son, not the words of God. Nearly everything in scripture is just people writing down what they think God would say. Even the Gospels weren’t written by Jesus – they were written by men, years later, with all the inaccuracies that entails. But since the Church has canonized the Book of Mormon as scripture, the Church should take its teachings seriously. I think discussing justice and mercy is a lot more interesting than trying to say that the Book of Mormon is all about how important families are. (hat tip to Instereo for pointing out that the few families in the Book of Mormon are dysfunctional) (and AdamL for bringing up scripture authors as unreliable narrators)
mountainclimber — thanks for that context! I haven’t done a deep dive into comparing the Book of Mormon to the beliefs of other churches in the early 1800s and I really appreciate your addition to the discussion. your comment also addresses what chrisdrobison said about other churches worrying that laws limit God’s power.
Bro B – yeah, the Book of Mormon doesn’t encompass the doctrines of the temple ordinances very well at all. It’s like the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually contain the fullness of the Gospel! (If we define the gospel to include redeeming the dead.)
hedgehog and loudlysublime — it’s totally valid to not want to engage with the Book of Mormon at all.
the Book of Mormon doesn’t encompass the doctrines of the temple ordinances very well at all. It’s like the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually contain the fullness of the Gospel! (If we define the gospel to include redeeming the dead.)
This is kind of a threadjack, and I would probably refrain from responding to it if it did not come from the original poster.
In the temple ordinances themselves, the Law of the Gospel comes before the Law of Consecration, which implies that the gospel does not encompass everything. If it did, the endowment would be distinctly shorter. I’m not going to try to enumerate the excluded principles here, but placing the redemption of the dead in that category strikes me as entirely reasonable. And that implies that there is no contradiction in claiming that the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the (Law of the) Gospel.
About the idea that BoM does not teach many of the things that are important church doctrine, it is almost like Joseph Smith wrote it before he let his horny desires override his common sense and decided polygamy was a good cover for having relations with other women. Then polygamy led to sealings, the endowment, garments, then the sealing idea led to God has a wife and Mother in Heaven. And since Joseph found that brilliant idea in the Bible, he started studying the Bible and found that idea about baptizing for the dead, which met another of his longings for his brother who died young and unbaptized.
One of the things I admire about Joseph Smith was his ability to collect ideas from multiple sources and implement them in new ways and combine them into a coherent doctrine. He was actually brilliant at collecting ideas and using them, but it left the church with doctrine that evolved and changed rather quickly and dramatically. So, when he wrote the BoM, he was against polygamy and that went into the BoM. Then just a few years later, he was practicing a kind of hidden and illegal polygamy and so that went into D&C. Thus we have two books of scripture that say opposite things. And he said things about the BoM soon after it was published that later were false, like it contained the “fullness of the gospel”. And yes, I read Last Lemmings comment and that is one way of looking at it. But I see that “the gospel according to Joseph” changed and evolved at a rapid pace, so it ended up full of contradictions and things that were very unclear and confusing, and that Joseph did not take things like WoW and garments near as serious as one would expect if he believed the ideas were really from God, seeing as he was both sans garments and drinking wine just before his death.
I am especially intrigued about his seeming so casual about living what he preached, and what that means, but that is taking the tangent and running with it. So, I won’t go further that direction.