God and Guns

Why are God and violence so easily mixed?

Let me explain my question a little more. I took in a small town parade a few weeks ago. I was there in the capacity of my job as a journalist taking pictures and notes for an upcoming article. I watched high school football players and little Cub Scouts toss jawbreakers and Tootsie Rolls to the crowd lined up along the road.

Living where I do, there was no shock seeing several church sponsored floats file past along with the fire trucks and riders from the local saddle club. All were Christian, mostly Baptist or some other evangelical denomination. Cheerful floats decorated flowers and littered with smiling children filed past, pulled slowly along by pick-up trucks decorated in a similar manner.

Adjusting the zoom for another shot, I caught a glimpse of a man standing on a short trailer while several small children sat on hay bales below a beautifully carved wooden cross. The man standing at the head of the display caused me to put down my camera and look with my own eyes. Could I be seeing this right? He was dressed in battle fatigues, holding a black semi-automatic rifle. A banner on the side of the float said “Going to Battle for what is Right”.

I held my breath and took the shot, thinking that this was the strangest paradox I had seen in a long time. At one end of the small float were small children at the feet of a cross draped in a deep purple cloth. Just a few feet away stood this G.I. Joe for Jesus.

After the parade I walked through the small fair and watched costumed battle re-enactors lay wreaths on memorial tombstones to honor the soldiers that had fallen in a long ago battle that played out on the very grass where we stood. One soldier stepped forward, recounting the battlefield history, lending due attention casualties suffered by both sides. He spoke articulately about the horrors of war and the need to remember the past in the hopes of letting it die in the history books. He said we remember the fallen and the realities of war in the hope for peace. I closed my eyes in reverence as he asked for moment of silence..

With my eyes closed I thought again of the soldier for God. Why is there such a close kinship between religion and war? The first scene of note in the Book of Mormon involves the violent beheading of a drunken man. The scriptures claim that it is better for one man to fall than for nations to descend into unbelief.

I want to know why. Why is killing and maiming superior to the possibility that an ideology might evolve over time?

Why does one part of the Bible read like a volume of the history of war on the earth, but another extols peace and love, the Golden Rule and turning the other cheek?

How can anyone who was ever touched by The Sermon on the Mount not recoil at the thought of harming another soul in the name of God?

Reflecting on the killing in the world in the name of God in just my own lifetime makes my head spin. Why is it so easy for people to take up arms in the name of the divine, feeling fully justified committing murder in the name of God? If this made sense to me once, it certainly does not now. It doesn’t even come close.

I read Under the Banner of Heaven a few years back. I was completely floored by the easy leap between the Church I loved and lived and the mentality of the Lafferty brothers that gave them enough reason to slit the throat of their tiny infant niece. The scripture they read that gave them the justification for two chilling murders is right there in black and white in the same triple combination that sits on my bookshelf. The same section of the Doctrine and Covenants has inspired many cut throat dissenters from the Church, down to the man who took Elizabeth Smart from her home.

Last week we published a fictional account inspired by the life of a participant of Mountain Meadows Massacre. Thinking of the justifications I have heard from apologists and true believers for the killings sends the same cold shivers down my spine that I felt seeing a man with an AK-47 so close to small children on that parade float.

Reason seems to demand that the more devoted one is to a religion, the more guns, death, war, and killing should repulse them. But the opposite seems to be true. Many of the wars in the history of this planet have begun in the name of religion. Maybe this is one of the reasons why organized religion has ceased to have a place in my life.

The God I believe in is not a sponsor of wars in his name. The God I know is about peace and love for all of mankind. Maybe I am missing something. Maybe the gospel really is violent and my peace loving heart is wicked and black and hard. I guess that’s a chance I am willing to take.

Never again will I march under a banner that so easily mixes a loving God with the sharp point of a sword.

Great Quote

Sundance GT shared this quote on New Order Mormon. I thought it was so good I wanted to re-post it here.

"I fear dictatorial dogmatism, rigidity of procedure and intolerance even more than I fear cigarettes, cards, and other devices the adversary may use to nullify faith and kill religion. Fanaticism and bigotry have been the deadly enemies of true religion in the long past. They have made it forbidding, shut it up in cold grey walls of monastery and nunnery, out of sunlight and fragrance of the growing world. They have garbed it in black and then in white, when in truth it is neither black nor white, any more than life is black or white, for religion is life abundant, glowing life, with all its shades, colors and hues, as the children of men reflect in the patterns of their lives the radiance of the Holy Spirit in varying degrees. "--Apostle Stephen L. Richards

It's too bad that "the enemies of true religion" seem to be the way of religion now.

The Muddy Water of the Mukuntuweap

Guest contributor Scott writes about the ancestor that inspired this fictional short story about Mountain Meadows Massacre. If you have spent much time around Mormon history, then you know that the Mountain Meadows Massacre is one of the singular events in Church history that has caused the most damage to testimonies, even some one hundred fifty-four years after the event. Many Latter-day Saints report either complete ignorance of the events until they began investigating the history on their own, or being given the idea that it was the Mormons who were the victims.

Few of us really grasped the unmitigated horror of the events. Few of us are able to buy the apologist explanations for the premeditated murder of 120 defenseless men, women, and children.

Read on and enjoy Scott's historical fiction piece.

One of my Mormon ancestors was Nephi Johnson, perhaps most famous for his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I've often thought about the pain he suffered at the end of his life (he died in 1919), when he cried out the words "blood! blood! blood!" (as accounted by witnesses and Juanita Brooks) on his deathbed. I wrote this short story as a fictional account of a reporter attempting to interview him towards the end of his life about his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. To me, the ultimate message of the story, is that there is always hope. There is hope in disillusion and there is hope when we have lost faith. Most important, it shows how important the events of our life (especially the trying ones) are in shaping who God wants us to become.

The Muddy Water of the Mukuntuweap

On the last leg of a journey from Denver, David Gilbride had travelled along the Virgin River to Bunkerville, Nevada. The trip had been hot and dry, but the interview at hand was worth the trip. David hoped to deliver a powerful story for his editor at The Denver Post.

“You know why they call her the ‘dirty Virgin’ River don’t you?” rasped the bedridden man.

“No, why?” replied David.

A corner of the mouth beneath the old man’s white beard curled in a half smile. Sadness showed in his deep, gray eyes.

“Well, they call her the ‘dirty Virgin’ River because no one has ever seen her bottom.”

The old man managed a weak laugh, followed by an ugly coughing fit. David gave the man a reassuring smile, and then continued his quest to put the man at ease.

“That’s a very funny joke, Mr. Johnson. Do you remember the first time that you saw the Virgin River?”

A haze came over the old man’s eyes. Despite the empty look, David knew that the man was thinking back to another time. Mr. Johnson paused in a daze for a few moments before shaking his head at the interviewer.

“I . . . I don’t know that I can recall an event as specific as that. I’m very old, young man. I’m afraid my memory isn’t as sharp as it once was.”

He did remember the first time that he saw the Virgin River. Only she wasn’t dirty then. The sediment that comes during the spring and summer run-off had passed through months before. The river was smaller, but it was clearer—cleaner. He remembered the small desert trees that lined the bank of the river, and was surprised by how green the trees were. Surely the dry desert heat would have yellowed them by September. It was 1848; he was 15.

Before accepting the assignment to interview Mr. Johnson, David’s editor had warned that the man may be senile; however, despite this potential senility, David could not reject the assignment. It held too much promise.

“Of course, please forgive me, Mr. Johnson” replied the interviewer. “Let me start with some basic questions.”

“Can you please state your full name?”

The old man sat up straight. Rays of sunlight from a lone window highlighted the desert dust that flittered in the air.

“My name is Nephi Johnson.”

“Mr. Johnson, can you please tell me the year that you were born and where you were born?”

“I was born in 1833, in Kirtland, Ohio.” This reply was quicker than the others. The haze was gone. The interviewer began to feel more confident in the lucidity of his subject.

“Can you tell me the names of your father and mother?”

“My father’s name is Joel Hills Johnson and my . . . mother is . . .” His voice trailed off into a mumble. The haze was back.

When he was seven, his mother, Annie, was struck down with a horrible fever. It was malaria. She died in September of 1840. He always remembered that day and always remembered her. The morning that she died, his father was receiving counsel from Brother Joseph in Nauvoo. They were separated by the waters of the Mississippi. He remembered watching the rushing water for hours after she had passed. The sounds of the water were soothing to the innocent boy. When his father returned in the evening, they both wept by the bank of the wide, dark river.

Despite the distraction that he saw in his interviewee, David Gilbride pressed forward. With a better feel for the fragility of the man, he started into the most important questions of the interview.

“Mr. Johnson, this summer President Taft is scheduled to dedicate Mukuntuweap Canyon as a national park. I understand that you were the first white man to explore Mukuntuweap, specifically The Narrows of the Mukuntuweap. Is that correct?”

Nephi Johnson’s eyes grew wide at the question. A spark crossed his eye, and he thought about the question for a few moments before replying.

“The Mukun’tuweap . . . I haven’t heard that name in years. Yes, I scouted the Mukun’tuweap many, many years ago.”

The red rock walls of the Mukun’tuweap act as sentinels for the precious waters of the Virgin. The river’s water flows straight through the infinite caverns of the canyon. He was the first white man to see The Narrows of the Mukun’tuweap, though it was through no exploratory efforts of his own. For hundreds of years, only the Paiutes knew of the Narrows’ existence. Many explorers wandered through the plateau of the Markagunt, but they never found The Narrows. The Narrows are sacred to the Paiutes. They represent the temple of the Nuwuvi, the people. It is their Zion. He was led there by a Pah Vant chieftain to take part in their rite of passage. When a Paiute boy comes of age, he must travel alone into The Narrows to enter into manhood. This rite of passage is done in the spring when flashfloods are a constant danger. Wading through the waters of the Virgin, the boy must grasp to the gritty rock walls or risk falling into the fast moving water. To fall into the water shows only weakness, but grasping the sandy walls bloodies the hands. A young Paiute must make a choice: fall into innocence, weakness to his people, or bare the sting of raw hands on roughened rock.

“You were also an amazing Indian interpreter. They say that you spoke the Paiute language better than anyone, Mr. Johnson, better than Jacob Hamblin even.” At this, Mr. Gilbride began to sense more discomfort in the old man. Nephi Johnson became more agitated, he spoke words that David had never heard, and then he began to repeat the same word over and over.

“Mukun’tuweap, Mukun’tuweap, Mukun’tuweap . . .” The old man again fell into mumbles and began to sway back in forth in his bed. The accent of the mumbles reminded David of an old Indian mourning the loss of a loved one.

David Gilbride realized that Nephi Johnson knew where the interview was headed. Surely there had been others who had probed before. He thought about waiting to ask the question, but instead chose to ask before the man completely withdrew.

“Mr. Johnson . . . I wondered if you could tell me about the massacre at Mountain Meadows. I don’t know if you are aware, but you are the last living settler who has a recollection of that day. Can you recall any memories from the massacre?”

The swaying stopped. The sadness in Aaron Johnson’s eyes was replaced by flinches of something worse—pain.

“If you want memories, you can read the court testimony that I gave 40 years ago. There’s nothing more to recall” came the reply.

But he did recall. For over 60 years he had tried to shake the memories of that day. Over time, he was able to blank out the unimportant memories, but others were forever etched in his mind. Contrasts of colors, sounds, and smells swirled through his head: a white flag, the galloping horses, the smell of sage, the screams of the Paiutes—no not just Paiutes . . . the screams of children. He heard the screams of the virgin and saw the muddy water of the virgin—no, not muddy water . . . blood.

“Mukun’tuweap, Mukun’tuweap, Mukun’tuweap . . .” the mumbling and swaying returned. A fear gripped the old man, and he clung to his grimy handkerchief. After what seemed like an eternity, Nephi Johnson again sat up straight again. He was still once more.

“Mr. Gilbride, I will always cherish my memories of the Mukun’tuweap. I’m sure it will make a wonderful national park for the country.”

Had he seen The Narrows of the Mukun’tuweap before the massacre, they would have held no meaning. In fact, he would not have been led into The Narrows. He would not have understood. The bloodied hands of his soul gave him understanding—painful understanding. Although the innocent water that he waded through tried in vain to cleanse, his worn and bloody hands grasped continually to the rock until he reached the darkness of the deep canyon. In the darkness of the canyon came a waterfall. He removed his bloody hands from the walls of the canyon and allowed the rushing water to pull him into the shadowy waters below.

David Gilbride tried every way possible to get more information from Nephi Johnson. He spent nearly two hours with the man in the warn Nevada afternoon. At the end of their meeting together, both men were exhausted. David Gilbride returned to Denver with a heavy heart. Although he had enough material for a story, his interview with Nephi Johnson had not provided the groundbreaking revelations that he had hoped to hear.

He saw the Virgin River once more in the spring of 1918. It was a month after his interview with David Gilbride and two months before his own death. It would be the last time he passed by her. The clear water that he first saw as a boy was no more. The water was muddied, and the river was faster—furious. He realized that the clear waters he first saw in his youth were only temporary. Upstream the filth would come. The old man took some solace in his pain though. Something still remained the same: desert trees still grew at the banks of the river. They were green even. The small trees thrived from the virtue of the Virgin. However dirty she was, she still provided nourishment.