← Church History Matters
Loading summary
Transcript158 lines
- [00:00]
Scott Woodward
Hi, everyone. This is Scott from Church History Matters. Before we jump into today's episode, we're excited to announce that for the entirety of 2025, church history matters is doing a deep dive into the Doctrine and Covenants. That's right. Each week, Casey and I will be digging into those sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that align with the Church's Come follow me curriculum. We're doing this for a couple reasons. I mean, for one, we're big fans of the Revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants. The they play a major foundational role in our church's history, after all. And second, well, the whole church is now shifting their focus to studying this book. So we feel like we want to jump on this moment when our interests are so perfectly aligned. And of course, Cayce and I being who we are, we can't just walk through the Revelations themselves and call it a day. We're going to also explore the important historical context for every section and what impact that Revelation had on the Church's trajectory. And of course, it wouldn't be Church History Matters if we didn't probe into the controversies connected to most of these Revelations.
- [01:01]
Casey Griffiths
Right?
- [01:02]
Scott Woodward
So, of course, we'll do a lot of that, too. Now, our first episode for 2025 actually dropped today, Christmas Eve 2024. And we'll typically drop them early like this in case any teachers out there want to draw from any of the material we cover for their lessons or whatnot. You can continue to listen to the audio version here on this podcast channel. Or if you'd prefer, we're now also offering a video version that you can watch on scripture Cent Central's YouTube channel. So, however you want to join us, we look forward to studying the Doctrine and Covenants with you. All right, now, on to the episode. Throughout this series on peace and violence in Latter Day Saint history, we've looked at how church members have been the victims of violence, how they've engaged in defensive violence, and how they've even been the aggressors and perpetrators of inexcusable violence. In today's episode of Church History Matters, we sit down with our friend Patrick Mason, a Latter Day Saint historian, scholar on peace studies, and author of several books on violence and peace in Latter Day Saint history. And together, we're going to take a step back and try to think deeply about how each of us can more intentionally participate in bringing peace on Earth and goodwill to all. I'm Scott Woodward and my co host is Casey Griffiths. And today, Casey and I dive into our ninth and last episode in this series on peace and violence in Latter Day Saint history. Now let's get into it.
- [02:30]
Patrick Mason
Hello, Scott.
- [02:31]
Casey Griffiths
Hi, Casey.
- [02:32]
Patrick Mason
We're back and it's almost Christmas.
- [02:34]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah. Merry Christmas Eve.
- [02:37]
Patrick Mason
Yeah.
- [02:37]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah. We, we did it. We, we built up. What has this been? Is this episode nine or ten? Anyway, we are, we are wrapping up today's the final episode on our Peace and violence series we've been working on. And what better day than Christmas Eve, Casey, to land the plane on this one?
- [02:56]
Patrick Mason
I did not anticipate that I would spend my holidays talking about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and other things that are decidedly not in the spirit of Christmas.
- [03:06]
Casey Griffiths
But what better day to talk about peace on earth.
- [03:09]
Patrick Mason
True.
- [03:10]
Casey Griffiths
And goodwill toward men.
- [03:11]
Patrick Mason
True, true, true. And I think our guest today is going to help us stick the landing.
- [03:15]
Casey Griffiths
Yes.
- [03:16]
Patrick Mason
Because like we said, it's not the sort of thing that you associate with Christmas. But again, I want to emphasize the title of the series is Peace and Violence, and we want to emphasize peace. That's been the whole purpose of this is to explain that Latter Day Saints don't have a spotless record when it comes to peace and violence, but we do have a great theology that we hope leads people towards peace and helps them understand the importance of being peacemakers in our homes, in our communities and in the wider world.
- [03:45]
Casey Griffiths
Yes. And so we have invited on the show today, let's call them, an early Christmas gift for all of our listeners. Here we have with us Brother Patrick Mason. Patrick, say hi.
- [03:56]
Guest Speaker
Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas.
- [03:58]
Patrick Mason
Yes, Merry Christmas to you too, Patrick. Thanks for joining us. And let me give you a little bit of background on Patrick. So Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. We also want to point out that Patrick is the co host of a great podcast that we really enjoy. He co hosts the Proclaim Peace podcast with Jennifer Thomas. She's the co executive director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Tell us a little bit about your podcast, Patrick, and what the aim is.
- [04:28]
Guest Speaker
Well, it's great to be with you guys. Thanks for the invitation. And yeah, Proclaim Peace. It really, I can't take much credit for it in terms of the genesis of it. Jen and everybody else at Mormon Women for Ethical Government have been doing amazing work for the past few years trying to build peace in the civil sphere, especially around democracy promotion and things like that. And so they do tons of work like in Washington and state capitals and all that. But coming into this year, when we were studying the Book of Mormon as a people in Come Follow Me, they said we really need. And knowing that it would be a contentious election season and everything, they said we really want to do something to highlight the distinctive contributions and messages of the Book of Mormon to what it tells us and teaches us about how to be peacemakers. So Jen approached me, I said yes immediately. And. And so we have sort of semi systematically and a little haphazardly been going through the Book of Mormon, pulling out principles and tools and lessons about what that inspired text, what that Book of Scripture teaches us about how to be better peacemakers. Yeah.
- [05:31]
Patrick Mason
And the podcast is a collaboration between Mormon Women for Ethical Government and Faith Matters, correct?
- [05:37]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Both organizations that I think are doing great work out there.
- [05:41]
Patrick Mason
And we talked about this before we hit record, but it's called Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Patrick, but tell us why you were selected to be there. This is kind of a cool story.
- [05:53]
Guest Speaker
I don't think I want to actually share that because some people might think I'm complicated.
- [06:00]
Patrick Mason
I'll share so you don't come across as, you know, tooting your own horn, which there's plenty there and plenty justification to do. So Mormon Women for Ethical Government approached you and said you were a non problematic male, which. Wow. I mean, yeah.
- [06:20]
Guest Speaker
I mean, obviously they did not talk to my wife or to any number of people who have ever actually spent time with me, but I accepted the compliment. Mostly I was just happy because it is Mormon Women for Ethical Government. I was happy just to be brought in to offer what my Y chromosome could.
- [06:38]
Patrick Mason
I remember when you told that story and I was there thinking, wait a minute, am I problematic? They didn't ask me. But then I realized, yeah, I probably am problem.
- [06:47]
Casey Griffiths
Just go ask Liz and she'll let you know.
- [06:49]
Patrick Mason
Yeah, yeah. My wife could give you a whole dissertation on why I should not host a peacemaking podcast. But that is a major compliment to you and I knew that you wouldn't tell that story yourself. I did want to throw it in here.
- [07:05]
Guest Speaker
Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's a great compliment of my life. I'm just not sure that I actually live up to it, so.
- [07:11]
Patrick Mason
Hey. Hey. Well, I mean, if you were there for 30 seconds, that's better than most of us. So that's pretty good.
- [07:17]
Casey Griffiths
You've arrived.
- [07:17]
Patrick Mason
I also want to add, too, that you have a book coming out with a couple of our dear friends from the podcast. Andrew Bolton and Tonalin Ford are your co authors, co editors on a book called the Radical the History and Potential of Latter Day Saints, which is coming out next year. Tell us a little bit about that, too.
- [07:35]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. It's an amazing group of authors. I'm just grateful for the collaboration. It's a lot of both Latter Day Saint and Community of Christ scholars, and I think at least one scholar who's neither. We're really looking at what are some really maybe surprising ways that the Latter Day Saint tradition kind of shows up in ways that are kind of countercultural and that speak prophetically to major issues, whether it be around economic justice. I have an essay on nonviolence, whether it be around gender and the role of women. We have great essays on the Relief Society and just what a remarkable organization it has been throughout its history on climate change. And so it's mostly a historical take, but we're also looking at what resources are there within our own tradition, within the Latter Day Saint tradition, to address both the way that it has addressed and to continue to address some of the most important issues of our time.
- [08:28]
Patrick Mason
I'm looking forward to that, and not just because Andrew Bolton is my dear friend and so is Tonal and Ford. I just love the idea that we're rediscovering all the time these radical ideas in the early restoration that still are resonant in the 21st century. We're coming up on two centuries.
- [08:46]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. And if I can put it in a plug, I mean, I think that's part of the ongoing restoration is actually rediscovering our own history. Right. Rediscovering our own resources, sources that we have all of this amazing scripture. We have this amazing history. We have lots of things where we sort of tried things for a while, and for various reasons, it didn't work out at the time. But I think we can go back to those things and always be plumbing the depths of our own tradition to see are there things that we used to do or tried to do that maybe with a little bit of juice, a little bit of reimagining we can bring into the 21st century. I think it's a pretty good project, and at least I think it's a good model for us to be thinking broadly about how do we apply this 200-year-old tradition to the most current issues in front of us?
- [09:30]
Casey Griffiths
I love it. I love how bold and exploratory it is. Look forward to the book. This is exciting.
- [09:36]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. I will say there's a line in there that we have a great essay in there about socialism. Actually. Some of the earliest church leaders in Europe were socialists. Karl Marx thought that we, like, were too Religious. We were too pious. So he wasn't guilty as charged. Exactly. So, yeah, so. So maybe Karl Marx's critique, it becomes one of the great letters of recommendation for the Latter Day Saint tradition.
- [09:58]
Patrick Mason
Yeah. Because I can't decide if you're a socialist, but Karl Marx hates you. Does that make you problematic or.
- [10:04]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, right, right. Maybe you can make everybody mad.
- [10:09]
Patrick Mason
Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, that definitely sounds intriguing. So you're here with us on our Christmas Eve episode because we want to talk about peace on Earth. The field that you're leading light in is called peace studies. But I don't know if a lot of people understand what that means and what it's meant to do. So could we just start maybe by doing a broad overview of what is meant by peace studies and what you do and what the aims are there?
- [10:32]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm a leading light in peace studies, but maybe in terms of trying to apply some of those, some of that knowledge to the Latter Day Saint tradition, to the Restoration tradition, and see where, where we fit into it. Yeah. I didn't know there was a thing called peace studies either until I encountered it in graduate school. But I'd been prepared before that in a couple of different ways. So when I was an undergraduate at byu, got my bachelor's in history there, at least at the time, everybody had to take kind of a world history, or they called it history of civilization class. And I just happened to sort of stumble into one. It was an honor section that was being taught by a pair of professors, Alan Keel and Wilford Griggs. And some of the listeners may know one or both of those names and the whole theme of it. And you know, they went. We literally started with the pre existence and the Garden of Eden and came all the way up to the present over the space of two semesters. But their whole theme was around war and peace. They actually called it the pen and the sword. And they said, basically the question is how is it that all human beings in every culture have always said they want peace, they love peace, but they always end up, you know, fighting each other and end up in war and destruction and horrible things. And so we looked at that throughout all of history and it was really inspiring. And I read a lot of things that I'd never thought about and thought about a lot of things that were new to me as an 18 year old freshman at BYU. But then kind of fast forward a few years, I went to the University of Notre Dame for graduate school and again I went to do history but the very last class I ever took as a doctoral student, it was a kind of a comparative religion class. It was on comparative religious fundamentalisms. And I went into the class, and almost everybody in the class, almost all the students were in this program in International Peace studies. And again, I didn't know there was such a thing as peace studies, but it turns out that Notre Dame has one of the oldest and most prestigious institutes for peace studies in all of North America. And these students were incredible. They were from all over the world, from all different religions. And these were people who had dedicated their lives to. To peace. There was an imam, a Muslim imam from South Africa who had marched with Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
- [12:48]
Casey Griffiths
Oh, wow.
- [12:49]
Guest Speaker
He was basically like the Muslim Mandela or Tutu. There was a husband and wife team who were part of an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams that they would literally go into sites of active violence, of active conflict, and put their bodies in between warring parties, literally risking their lives to stand in between and protect innocent victims. And just on and on and on. People like this. And I said, like, that's. Those are my people. Like, that's. I want to be like that when I grow up. And so I learned more about this peace studies thing and realized that actually you could get a master's degree in it. So I actually took a leave of absence from my doctoral program, applied to the university again, got into this peace studies program and spent time getting a master's degree in peace studies. It was one of the most transformative years of my life, learning all about this, learning about peace in a really rigorous way, you know, at a graduate school level. So I've spent the rest of my life, the past 20, 25 years, trying to apply all those things. And the kind of insight that I had while I was doing all of that work is that we have all these principles in the restoration. I learned all these basic principles. Maybe not all the technical terms, maybe not all the applications and all those kinds of things, but the basic principles I knew because I had read the scriptures. I knew this stuff because I'd read the Book of Mormon, I'd read the New Testament. And so peace studies kind of crystallized it. It gave me language, it gave me applications, but the basic principles I had because I'm a Christian.
- [14:16]
Casey Griffiths
Wow. Wow. That's incredible, man. That's how you got into and interested in peace studies. You almost stumbled into it and yeah. Turned out to be a life changer.
- [14:26]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, it was. Whether you want to call it an accident or serendipity or Providence. I'll take any of those. You know, I've done other things too, you know. So actually, while I was in that program, I wrote an article kind of exploring. It was called the Possibilities of Mormon Peace Building, and it was one of the first articles. A few people had done some earlier work. Hugh Nibley had written about this a little bit. Eugene England had written about this some. He actually has a beautiful book called Making Peace. But in terms of trying again, Graduate school gave me the kind of rigorous that I needed to think, you know, not just in kind of naive, idealistic terms, but actually, what does this look like in the 21st century? So I wrote an article again as a grad student, and it got published and it kind of made the rounds and helped inspire some conversations. And so for the past 20 years, I've really been thinking and collaborating with other people and writing and teaching. What is the Restoration's contribution to this broader conversation about peace? Every religion is doing this, right? There are Muslim peacebuilders and Jewish peacebuilders and Hindu peacebuilders and Catholic peacebuilders and of course, you know, secular peacebuilders. But what is it the Latter Day Saints have to offer? How can we join the conversation? And what do we have to add to the conversation?
- [15:47]
Patrick Mason
One of the things that compelled us to do this series was the charges made by John Krakauer and a few others that the faith of the Latter Day Saints is just inherently violent. It sounds like you would argue, no, that it's not. But what are the principles within our Latter Day Saints faith that you think kind of lead us towards peace, that help us to construct this theology?
- [16:10]
Guest Speaker
So when I came here to Utah State University, I came here a little over five years ago and I created a course called Religion, Violence and Peace. It's kind of my version of a world religions class. We march through all the big world religions. So we do Hinduism and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity, Islam. Then I add the Latter Day Saint tradition, and we do indigenous traditions. We do these seven traditions throughout the course of the semester. And we do it. You know, I introduce students to the basic principles and concepts and language of each of these traditions. But then we really focus on this question of violence and peace. And for me, it's not about that question, are these religions inherently violent or inherently peaceful? Because the answer to both of those questions is yes and no at the same time.
- [16:58]
Casey Griffiths
What do you mean?
- [16:59]
Guest Speaker
Well, what I mean is that every single religion, I really don't know of one that would be an exception. Every Religion has resources that can lead a person or a group to practice and exercise violence. And they also have tremendous resources that can lead people and inspire them to be peacemakers. We go through each of these traditions and we look at sacred texts, we look at history, we look at teachings of leaders, we look at other kinds of things. And in every single one of these cases, and this would include secular traditions as well, there have been horrific examples of violence in the name of that religion. So not just conducted by members of that religion. Right. We can always say, oh, there's like a few bad apples in every bushel, but conducted in the name of, you know, justified by the scriptures of. Justified by the teachings of a prophet, a guru, you know, whatever the leader of that religion is. But there's also. It's precisely that religion, its scriptures, its history, its tradition, its leadership that has inspired some of the greatest acts of peacemaking in world history. And so for me, it's always a both. And the lesson I want students to learn is that you get to choose, right? And the practitioners of every religion, they do have both things laid out in front of them. That's true for Latter Day Saints. It's true for every other religion. If you want to find justifications for violence in your scriptures and in your history, you can find it. But it's your choice. If you want to find the resources to become a powerful force for peace, for justice, for solidarity, for reconciliation in the world, you can find that too. In some ways, that's a harder answer, right? Because it's an answer about complexity. It's an answer that requires people to lean in when people ask the question, is Islam inherently violent? Is Mormonism inherently violent? That's kind of a lazy question because it's ignoring the complexity that's at the heart of every single religious and philosophical tradition.
- [19:00]
Patrick Mason
Yeah, I've had great discussions with some of my students here at the university who are Muslim to basically say, you know what, you've been characterized as being violent. So have we. How do you find peace within your own faith? And like you said, it's more complicated than just saying, hey, all people from this faith are violent. But there is, like you said, the tools and the resources there to construct some beautiful things, some ways to resolve conflict that have existed for a really long time.
- [19:28]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of Islam, it's funny, one of the class sessions I do or one of the exercises we do, I have a bunch of quotes from the Bible and from the Quran, and I pull them straight out, just put them on a PowerPoint slide without the reference. And we go through a series. I don't have like 10 or 12 of these. And the students have to guess, is that from the Bible or from the Quran? Right. And these are like very violent verses. They're like calling for genocide or for killing unbelievers or, you know, other kinds of things. And the students can't tell the difference between the two. So sometimes there is. It's easier to point the finger at a different tradition. Right. And I think those of us, especially who live through 9, 11, you know, we remember all of that discourse about violent Islam and so forth.
- [20:08]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [20:09]
Guest Speaker
But it's much easier to point the finger at somebody else than to look deep into your own tradition and say, are there verses, Are there passages? Are there problematic things that we have to wrestle with in my tradition before I start pointing the finger at somebody else's.
- [20:23]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah. And I guess I have questions about all of that.
- [20:25]
Guest Speaker
Like, I come take the class, Scott.
- [20:31]
Casey Griffiths
I teach a world religion course here as well, and I don't do that angle. But, like, I'm thinking of the Bhagavad Gita. Like, the whole.
- [20:37]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [20:38]
Casey Griffiths
Context is war between these two groups that are. Arjuna is thinking about whether or not this would be ethical to kill his cousins, and Krishna is there trying to walk him through the. The thinking through it. And. Yeah, the Bible. I'm thinking of verses that can easily be used to justify that. I'm thinking Old Testament with book of Joshua is horrific when it comes to this.
- [20:58]
Guest Speaker
Yep.
- [20:58]
Casey Griffiths
Is that truly divinely commanded genocide or is there some human in there? Is there problems with the text? Is that literally what he said and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? So I guess I'm just asking, why do you think each sacred tradition actually has in their text justifications for violence? Is this God meeting us where we're at? Is this human putting that in there? Is there other options? Like, I'm sure you've thought about this way more than me. What are your thoughts about why. Why that's in the sacred text?
- [21:25]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. We could easily spend an hour just on that question. My short answer is that it's all of the above. Everything you mentioned, I personally believe. Yeah. That scripture of all types, it's human authors working under divine inspiration. It's people working in their own cultural contexts with their own understanding of things. I also think that one of the reasons why these scriptures, again, whether it's ours or other religious traditions, that they've stuck around for so long and are read by so many people, is because they actually speak in real ways to the human condition. Right. If these were totally scrubbed, sanitized texts that seemed like that, they just operated like, on a different plane of reality where everybody's perfect and there's never any arguments or blemishes or let alone war or anything like that, we would say, like, that text has nothing to do with me and the world I live in.
- [22:17]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [22:17]
Guest Speaker
So I think it's precisely because, I mean, for us as Christians, of course, we believe that Jesus enters history in order to redeem history. And so we're not afraid of history. We're not afraid of a fallen world. And in showing, I always say, like, don't hand the Old Testament to, like, anybody under 18. Like, I mean, it. It should have, like, some kind of rating system on there. It is. It is a. It's a tough book, but that is what's been handed down.
- [22:43]
Casey Griffiths
And you don't need to go very far in the Book of Mormon to across the justified murder. Right. With Laban.
- [22:48]
Guest Speaker
Yep.
- [22:48]
Casey Griffiths
What are we, Chapter four in the book. And.
- [22:51]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, that's. And, and we tell that story and we. Because it's so early and we've read it to our kids since the time that they were, you know, three years old or whatever, there's a way in which you can tell stories so many times that you don't even notice the story anymore. Right. Yeah, that should. Every time we read that story or tell that story, like, it should bring us up short. Like, I mean, here is the Spirit inspiring Nephi to cut a guy's head off. Right. And. And offering justifications and rationales, but we just breeze through it because it's so familiar to us at this point. Yeah, Yeah. I think. Why is it in there? For me, the bottom line is it's God revealing us to us. It's God revealing ourselves to us and then inviting us into something better. For me, it's Moroni in Mormon Chapter 9, saying, I've shown you all of our imperfections so that you can be better. I think that's kind of the way that I read Scripture, especially along these lines.
- [23:45]
Casey Griffiths
And tell me about the mechanism of salvation itself. You mentioned that Jesus entered into history in order to redeem it. And at the beating heart of that redemption story is a violent murder of Jesus Christ.
- [23:57]
Guest Speaker
That's right.
- [23:58]
Casey Griffiths
Is that the revelation of mankind to itself?
- [24:02]
Guest Speaker
You put your finger on it. I think that's exactly right. I think lots of things are going on with the Atonement and in Gethsemane and Golgotha But I think one of the crucial things that is going on is that Jesus, the ultimate innocent victim, allows himself to be lifted up on the cross, and he invites us. In fact, for those of us who believe in him, he compels us to gaze on his bloodied, broken, tortured body on the cross. And that should force us to say, is this the world that I want to live in? Do I want to live in a world where we crucify either literally or metaphorically innocent victims? And so Jesus on the cross, we can talk about him atoning for our sins in a kind of abstract way, but actually, that is a very literal culmination of all of the hate and violence and exclusion and all of the barbarity that we've developed since Cain and have multiplied a billion times over that all of that gets absorbed by Jesus hanging on the cross.
- [25:05]
Patrick Mason
See, and as you guys were talking, I'm sitting here, I guess I'm kind of a sunny optimist, but I'm thinking, you know, the central story of Christianity and the faith of the Latter Day Saints is the death of this innocent person. Compare the power of that story to something like the Iliad or the Song of Roland, where Achilles kills hundreds of people and that makes him awesome. Christ comes and gives up his life, and that makes him more than just awesome. It makes him transcendent. It makes him infinite. I do believe, you know, again, maybe I'm a sunny optimist, that we've made progress, at least that the stories that hold our societies together are based around considering the power of a single death, as opposed to those stories told where, you know, being a great person meant that you were a great warrior, which meant you could take life and take it in graphic means on a grand scale. And that's what made you great. I mean, there's a nice inversion there that I really appreciate in Christianity.
- [26:06]
Guest Speaker
Totally. It's a complete inversion. And that's what makes it. I mean, I'd say this is why Jesus is God, right? Is that if this were a kind of Homeric tale, right, that at the moment in the garden when the temple guards come, right, and he's confronted, that's the moment where he goes all Marvel superhero. Yeah, right. And he even says, like, I could command all these legions to come down, right?
- [26:32]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [26:32]
Guest Speaker
So we know how that story goes. We've read that story. We've seen that movie a hundred times, a thousand times, right? And Jesus does something totally different. He confounds all of our expectations. And what makes Jesus God is that he Chooses to suffer and die rather than to kill and to inflict pain. That didn't make him God. He was God. Right. I mean, he didn't become God in that moment. So, you know, he's.
- [26:56]
Casey Griffiths
He's revealing his divinity, his. His clear transcendence above the common human tropes of violence and retaliation. And he does the counterintuitive thing, which, yeah, was even more superheroic or superhuman than to retaliate and beat the whole band barehanded or whatever?
- [27:11]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly.
- [27:24]
Casey Griffiths
How would you respond to people who say that peaceful means are not a realistic way of existing in the world and on a religious basis? Like, it's not a realistic way to, like, defend your beliefs? I mean, you got to stand up for what you believe. Right. So how would you push back against that kind of thinking? Like, that's not realistic. That's kind of idealistic gas. But in real life, you kind of have to fight for what you want.
- [27:47]
Guest Speaker
I'll answer this in a couple different ways. So this semester, I've been teaching a course on African American history, and we recently covered the civil rights movement. I think one of the great insights that Martin Luther King made, especially after the Montgomery boycott, you know, he wrote about the power of nonviolence, and he says nonviolence resistance is not the same as passive non. Resistance to evil. The nonviolence resistance is resistance to evil. It's active resistance to evil. It just refuses to enter into the logic and the cycle of violence. It chooses a different way. But do not confuse it for just passively rolling over and accepting injustice and accepting evil in the world. I think that's one of the key insights. There's excellent scholarly research that actually shows the supremacy of nonviolence and peaceful ways. So there was a book published a few years ago that did a really rigorous, detailed study of every social movement around the world from 1900 to 2006. This is a book called why Civil Resistance Works. And they showed statistically that groups that remained peaceful and nonviolence were twice as likely to succeed in their goals than movements that resorted to violence. So it's not just that it's some kind of moral idealism or it's not just some kind of pie in the sky. It actually is more effective. And we say sometimes, oh, well, you know, people get beat up and people get killed and so forth. Well, that happens in war, too. We have whole cemeteries for veterans and those who did make that ultimate sacrifice, you know, while fighting for their country. And in nonviolent movements, they do ask for sacrifice. And people do get beat up, and sometimes in some movements they get killed, but actually casualty rates are much lower. Think about even about the Book of Mormon, right, with the anti nephi Lehis, who are like the ultimate example of the way that nonviolence works. So a thousand of them die, right? It's tragic. But compare that to the body counts in all of Captain Moroni's battles or Tiankum's battles or others. So even though there's a body count, it's much lower. And the fact of the matter is, it works. They defended their families. These nonviolent social movements actually work. The entire country of India was liberated nonviolently. The civil rights movement was done nonviolently. So these things actually work. I think there is a kind of hard, practical answer to that question, right?
- [30:12]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [30:13]
Guest Speaker
But I also think as Christians, I think we want to avoid living only in a world of kind of moral realism or utilitarianism, where we measure the value of an idea simply on its utility, its immediate utility. Again, we worship a God who chose to die. Now, he rose three days later, but at the time, nobody knew that that was going to happen, right? He had prophesied it. But Martin Luther King says the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. As Christians, we believe in hope, right? And we went forward. But we know that sometimes these things take a very long time to work themselves out. But I think as Christians, we have to ask ourselves, do we actually believe Jesus when he calls himself the Prince of peace? When he tells Peter to put away the sword and those who live by the sword will die by the sword, when he says, blessed are the peacemakers, you know, all those things, do we actually believe him or do we think that he was a naive idealist or not actually talking about politics like, oh, well, I'll be Christian and church on Sundays. But that doesn't apply to the world of politics. That doesn't apply to other things. Like, do we think actually that Jesus is lord over all the areas of our life or only some of the areas of our life? So I think that's what we have to ask ourselves and then work out what that looks like. I mean, we've spent billions, trillions of dollars learning the art of war. Have we exercised the same? Have we dedicated the same amount of research, of time and energy and creativity to learning the art of peace?
- [31:45]
Patrick Mason
And when you were bringing that up, I mean, the example that came to my mind was Edward Partridge in Jackson county, where he was tarred and feathered and publicly humiliated. But he said, I bore my sufferings with such resignation and meekness and then told them that they were doing what had been done to Christ, that the mob just kind of wandered away versus 1838, when the Danites say it's going to be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And there's no doubt that just escalates it, doesn't it? It just escalates it that it just got worse and worse. In fact, Patrick, I want to give you a story problem from church history.
- [32:19]
Guest Speaker
Okay.
- [32:20]
Patrick Mason
Scott and I went over Zion's camp.
- [32:22]
Guest Speaker
All right.
- [32:23]
Patrick Mason
I know you've presented on that before and so you know a little bit about it, but we kept going back and forth between is this violent or is this supposed to be a peace movement and what was the message and what was the purpose of Zion's camp? I know you've done some deep thinking about that, but could you use that as kind of a story problem to explain Latter Day Saint approaches to resolving conflict?
- [32:44]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. It is such an interesting case study, isn't it? Because it. That there aren't shots fired, right? I mean, there's the terrible, you know, there's all the storms, and they find out that the governor actually isn't going to support their cause, so. So they end up turning back. I do think all indications are that they were willing to fight, or at least a significant number of. Of men in Zion's camp were willing to fight.
- [33:07]
Casey Griffiths
And the rhetoric of the Revelation seems to condone that. Right?
- [33:10]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I'm actually not so sure.
- [33:12]
Casey Griffiths
Ah, okay, good. This is good. We want to hear. We want to hear you push back.
- [33:16]
Guest Speaker
I think that's the way we've read the Revelations. Yeah, I think that might have even been the way that at the time they read and understood the Revelations. But if you read them very carefully, and this is like section 98, section 101, section 103, if I'm getting my numbers right, that the Lord does command them to go and redeem the land of Zion, and he does authorize them to put together this group to do so.
- [33:41]
Casey Griffiths
Like, I'm thinking of like verse 25 of section 103 where he says, whoever you curse, I will curse, and ye shall avenge me of mine enemies. My presence shall be with you, even in avenging me of mine enemies unto the third and fourth generation. And let no man be afraid to lay down his life for my sake. Etc. Right. And Casey and I. Casey and I already sparred on this a little bit, so I Want to hear your thoughts? Yeah.
- [34:02]
Guest Speaker
Okay. That last phrase is really key.
- [34:04]
Casey Griffiths
Oh, okay.
- [34:05]
Guest Speaker
What does it say? Let no man be afraid to lay down his life.
- [34:08]
Casey Griffiths
Yes. It sounds like he might fight and then die in this cause.
- [34:11]
Guest Speaker
Right, Exactly. It does not say, let no man be afraid of killing somebody else. Right. That's what Jesus says. This is invoking John. Right. Greater love is no man than he lays down his life for his friend. This is the ethic of nonviolence. This is the anti nephi lehis. Right. Are they willing to fight for their friends? Yes. Are they willing to resist evil? Yes. But they'll fight with the weapons of love. They'll fight with the weapons of nonviolent resistance to evil. And so I think if you read those sections carefully, I don't see any verse where the Lord authorizes his servants to inflict violence on others.
- [34:52]
Casey Griffiths
What do you think he means by avenge me of mine enemies?
- [34:55]
Guest Speaker
I think there's an alternative world, Right. Not the world we live in, but there's an alternate universe where they could have gone in nonviolently through moral suasion and through a kind of Gandhian set of techniques, they could have redeemed and reclaimed the land of Zion and therefore avenged in that sense. I don't think, you know, we normally associate vengeance or avenging with violence.
- [35:17]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
- [35:18]
Guest Speaker
But there's a way in which they could have avenged or gotten back what they had lost, sort of gotten justice against those who had persecuted the saints in a way that you could say that Gandhi avenged all those Indians who had suffered at the hands of British colonialism, but he did so nonviolently. And so there's a way that Zion's camp might have non violently avenged and therefore redeemed the land of Zion.
- [35:43]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah, that's an interesting thought. Yeah.
- [35:44]
Patrick Mason
See, there's this great quote from Amasa Lyman that was shared in the wake of mountain meadows where he was rebuking them. And he said this. The best way to avenge the blood of the prophets was to take a course to diminish the power of the devil. And I think that even language that uses words like avenge or vengeance doesn't necessarily have to condone violence. The Lord's interested in, like Amasa Lyman said, lessening the power of the adversary and violence increases his power.
- [36:14]
Casey Griffiths
That seems to be like the Christ way. Right. Christ was actively defeating the powers of darkness by the techniques that he employed of submitting and dying. That actually breaks the powers of darkness, as Jacob would say in The Book of Mormon overcomes the powers of death, hell and the devil. And that's so non intuitive. But what a great way to take vengeance on evil.
- [36:36]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [36:37]
Casey Griffiths
To diminish its power. I'm getting there. I'm trying to catch up with you guys. I'm getting into this headspace of like, the way that you avenge evil is by bringing more light and more. More peace. Is that what you're saying? Am I?
- [36:51]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, Martin Luther King has this great quote, darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.
- [36:56]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [36:57]
Guest Speaker
Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. So what Jesus does is he breaks this cycle of violence, right, that began with Cain. He says, this is the way that it's typically been done. And he does this in the temptations, in the wilderness. Right. He refuses the logic of the devil. He refuses it when the crowd offers him the kingship, because that's not the way the kingdom will actually be won through force. You know, he says the kingdom of God will not be gained by force. Right. He tells James and John that their leadership will adopt a different kind of way. It'll be servant leadership. And so at every point, he actually rejects essentially the logic of Caesar. He rejects the logic of Cain. That goes all the way back. And he's not rejecting the world, he's redeeming the world. Right. That the world is something that God loves, the people of the world, even those who have done evil, which is all of us. He wants to come in and redeem us. And so he shows us a different way. I love third Nephi 27, when he comes and he interprets the cross to the Nephites in a way we don't even have in the New Testament. And he says, the Father lifted me up on a cross so then all men could be drawn to me and be lifted up. That wasn't an exact quote.
- [38:09]
Casey Griffiths
That can draw all men unto me.
- [38:11]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And so there's an attractive quality. The cross kind of works like a magnet. We should both be repelled by the violence of it, but attracted by the infinite love that Jesus displays in that moment. And when he says, this should be the great and last sacrifice, I think he's talking not just about ritual sacrifice, like, we're going to stop sacrificing each other on the altar of violence. Right. This is where we get. This is the world you get. And so like, stop it. Just stop it. Right. I'm showing you a different way. And instead follow the Prince of Peace.
- [38:44]
Patrick Mason
Yeah. He just refuses to play the game. Yeah, that people play.
- [38:48]
Guest Speaker
He does that with, with Caiaphas. He does that with Pilate. He refuses to play their game.
- [38:53]
Casey Griffiths
And you see that in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, Right? He's saying that this is going to be the kingdom of God. But we're doing things a very different way here. This is inverting the kingdom of God's like a mustard seed. And mustard seeds do eventually, like, take over everything. Like they grow like a nasty weed that like chokes everything out. But we're not doing this with hand grenades. We're not doing this with police brutality. This is not how the kingdom of God will be conducted. It's by people turning the other cheek. It's by people who are loving their neighbors, people who are being peacemakers, even being persecuted. Right.
- [39:23]
Guest Speaker
Can I read a quote from President Kimball?
- [39:25]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [39:26]
Guest Speaker
And this is one that latter day saint peacebuilders love. But it's amazing. It's from 1976 in the Ensign. He says, we are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel, ships, planes, missiles, fortifications, and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti enemy instead of pro kingdom of God. We train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot. Thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching to love your enemies, bless them, to curse you, do good to hate them and pray for them, which despitefully use you and persecute you. So I mean, that is just so prophetic, right? That we become anti enemy instead of pro kingdom of God and that we forget that that prayer of love your enemies is not to reinforce the fact that they're your enemies, but is actually to change your heart so that you no longer see them as enemies. Because they're not. They're sisters and brothers. Praying for them may not do very much to change their hearts. It might. But as much as anything, it'll change your heart and change the dynamics of the conflict. Yeah.
- [40:42]
Patrick Mason
Going back to Zion's camp, Scott and I went three or four rounds. Is this violent language? And then there was a passage in section 105, which is the last revelation given to them that I think just struck us both like lightning, where the last thing he says to them. This is verse 38 of section 105. Again I say unto you, sue for peace, not only to the people that have smitten you, but also to all people. And lift up an ensign of peace and make a proclamation of peace unto the ends of the earth, and make proposals for peace unto those who have smitten you according to the voice of the Spirit which is in you, and all things shall work together for your good. It's clear that what he was aiming for there wasn't violent retribution. It was a peaceful resolution that everybody could feel good about. That like the Anti Nephi Lehis may have resulted in some people losing their lives, but far more if both sides were trying to kill each other.
- [41:38]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, and I look at verse 14 of section 105, for behold, and again, this is the Lord's, as you said, it's the Lord's final word to these folks. And he says, for behold, I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion, for as I said in a former commandment, even so will I fulfill. I will fight your battles. I think he's going Back to Section 98. Renounce warrant, proclaim peace, and so forth. And again, he's not asking for passive non resistance to evil. Renounce warrant, proclaim peace. Proclaim peace is a proactive, active, anxiously engaged type things. And of all of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, most of them talk about the condition of your heart, the condition of your soul. The one that directly calls on us to do action in the world is blessed are the peacemakers. So that's the active thing we do in the world.
- [42:27]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah. So I'm still chewing on verse 14. At the very end he says, I will fight your battles. We talk about, just for a second, Jesus as a punisher of the wicked. I don't want to get too far off into the weeds here, but it seems like he takes that upon himself to decide whether or not violence should be done. I mean, section 133, it's hard to get around when he says, my garments will be red when I come because of the blood of my enemies that will be, you know, destroyed. Or think about third Nephi, when the voice in the darkness in chapter 8, 9 of third Nephi, where he says, I did that. I am the one who sunk that city into the sea, and I'm the one who brought the whirlwind, and I'm the one who brought the fire because of the blood of the prophets that was spilled. And it seems like there is a some times in which Jesus literally does fight and actually does like there is some killing. And again, maybe I'm reading this at a certain superficial level here. And you can take me deeper and say, actually that's not true. Or maybe you'll agree, I don't know. I'm curious your thoughts on Jesus as an active fighter of the wicked here.
- [43:29]
Guest Speaker
I think that's such a good question, Scott. I think it's such an important question. In the book that I wrote with David Pulsifer called Proclaimed Peace, we have a whole chapter that wrestles with that question of basically, is God violent? And I think you just pointed out probably the most difficult passage. There's a lot of passages in the Bible that point to this, but I think they can be, especially in the Old Testament. There's ways that you can kind of get around them because of authorship, because of, you know, various kinds of things. I think 1358 and 9 just absolutely put a point on this, that. That make it really hard for us to wriggle out of in any kind of fancy, you know, academic ways that we might want to. Because you're exactly right. It's the voice of Jesus that we'll hear like two chapters later, you know, when he comes down to visit the people. It's the voice of Jesus saying, I did that. I did that. I did that, I did that. The best explanation that I can. Now, some people, and I appreciate the sentiment, they just want to completely rule out of hand any possibility that God could ever be violent, because how can a loving God be violent? And I appreciate the sentiment behind that, but it's simply not with the scriptural record points to. And maybe I'm not smart enough to find some other way out of this, but the way that David Pulsifer and I thought about this, especially with third Nephi 8 and 9, is that God's different than you and me, okay? And even if he's not ontologically different, he's perfected in a way that you and I are not. He has perspective that you and I don't. He also has power that you and I don't. The one of the reasons why thou shall not kill is so important because you and I don't have any power to take that back. I have no ability to take back. If I do violence to other people, especially lethal violence, God does. He can make that wrong, right? And he offers that universally through the resurrection. The other thing is that when Jesus comes, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as a Christian, I am bound and covenanted to follow Jesus. When he comes to the people, he says, do the works that you've seen me do.
- [45:30]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [45:31]
Guest Speaker
So maybe. I don't know if this is going to be satisfactory to everybody, but I'm not commanded to do all the things that Jesus does in heaven. I don't have the power to do all the things that Jesus does in heaven as a glorified, perfected God. But he says, do the works which you've seen me do. I think it's the kinds of works that he did here on earth as a mortal in the same state that you and I are in right now. Sinless, but in the same state that you and I are in. So those are the works that I'm commanded to do. Right. Whatever happens with exaltation and all those kinds of things, I just think that's like so far removed from my experience right now. That's not my pattern right now. My pattern is the mortal Jesus who came and lived in a sinful, violent world and encountered it as the Prince of Peace. That's what I'm commanded to follow. So is God violent Sometimes? Maybe, yes. The scriptures seem to point that way. But does God want me to be violent? I don't think so. I think he wants me to follow the mortal Jesus who was perfectly nonviolent. Yeah.
- [46:33]
Casey Griffiths
I think that's a fair reconciling of the differences we see in the text. Right. As mortals. He's modeling how mortals ought to do the mortal condition.
- [46:43]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [46:44]
Casey Griffiths
Now, given, you know, Patrick Mason 2.0. Resurrected, exalted.
- [46:48]
Guest Speaker
Patrick Mason 2 billion.0. Right.
- [46:53]
Casey Griffiths
Well, that's. That's a different playbook. Right. There's a different playbook for those in that echelon. But I think that's a really profound thought that you just shared, that we are commanded to follow the mortal Jesus in which he interacted with evil and violence. It's. I'm going to be thinking about that for a few days.
- [47:19]
Patrick Mason
Patrick, let me bring up something else. It seems like there's been a lot of emphasis from leaders of the church in recent years asking us to be peacemakers, sometimes in specific ways. President Nelson asks us to root out racism among ourselves. But even more recently, it feels like every time there's a general conference and I ask my students what was the theme, it comes back to making peace and reducing contention. Why do you think that is? What's going on right now that's causing the leaders of the church to be led by the Spirit in that direction?
- [47:53]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. I think it's because they're prophets. I think it's because the role of the prophet, one of the roles of the Prophet, there are many. But one of the worlds of the prophet is to see the present condition that we find ourselves in as humanity, the holes that we've dug ourselves in, and to point us to a better way, to give us a rope ladder to help us come out of those holes. And my sense is that as they look around, not just the United States, but around the world, we live in an incredibly contentious and fractious time. Now, you could say there have always been wars. There have always been, and that's absolutely true. But I don't live in some past age. I live now. And right now I live in an era of fracture, of contention, where family members can't even talk to each other because of politics, where there are wars and rumors of wars in every corner of the world. I see it as nothing less than prophetic for apostles of the Prince of Peace to point us to a better way and to say that if we're going to be followers of the Prince of Peace, then that's what it should look like. I can point to statements from church leaders throughout church history where they've talked about peace. Incredible, powerful statements. I would agree with you and with your students that there does seem to be a kind of concentration of messages that we've heard in these recent years. I think President Nelson, when we look back on his presidency 100 years from now, 200 years from now, one of the things we're going to, we'll remember him for temples, but I think we're also going to remember him as a prophet of peacemaking. That I think one of the signal messages that he's given us both as an apostle, this predates he gave some very powerful talks about this before he became president of the church. I think he sees the world that we live in, all of the contention inside the church, outside the church, in families, in politics, between nations, and he says, no, followers of Jesus should follow a different way.
- [49:50]
Casey Griffiths
I'm curious. You're a student of history, you're a professor. I'm wondering what grade you would give Latter Day Saints right now as a whole, as you step back, like, how are we doing at peacemaking? In church history, there's some spots you might flunk us, like mountain meadows. That's an F. The Missouri War, 1838. You know, we're kind of hitting back to, I don't know what grade we are there. How are we doing now? The arc of history, the arc of church history in this present moment. Like, what do you see that encourages you? What do you see that could, you know, maybe some room for improvement?
- [50:21]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we're like a solid, like B minus, Like a student who really cares and is trying, but maybe doesn't quite yet have the tools of how to do it right. So that's where I would assess where we're at as a people right now. Collectively. I genuinely see among Latter Day Saints in lots of places, in every corner that I talk to, a genuine desire to be peacemakers. I think, though, most people don't know how, and that's maybe what's lacking. So, again, a lot of desire, sincere desire. But we haven't yet developed the tools, the systems, the programs to implement what that looks like as a church and as a people and as individuals. I don't know. Maybe B minus is a little too harsh, but we're not at a level yet. We have other sisters and brothers in other Christian churches and in other religions who are ahead of us, actually have some things to teach us. They've been at this longer than us, so I think we can learn some things from them. But again, we have so many resources in our own scriptures and in our own tradition, and I think we just haven't spent the time and energy really plumbing those. I'm confident we can get there and we will get there, but we need a few extra study sessions and lab sessions to get there.
- [51:39]
Casey Griffiths
So for Latter Day Saints who want to go to lab, how would you encourage them to get involved in learning the tools, getting involved in peace movements? Like, where would you point them? They're that hungry student who just wants to learn. It just doesn't have the tools. Where do they go?
- [51:53]
Guest Speaker
I think a few different places. So first of all, I would say study the Scriptures with an eye towards peace. Read them this way. What do the Scriptures, whatever you're reading, Book of Mormon, New Testament, Doctrine and Covenants, whatever. What does this sacred scripture have to teach me about how to be a better peacemaker? I promise you, because I've done it this year with the Book of Mormon. If you read the Scriptures with that question in mind, they will come alive in ways that you've just never expected or ever seen. So I think they are our main handbook and playbook.
- [52:24]
Patrick Mason
I had the same experience with the Doctrine and Covenants, had to read through it intensely and write a commentary during the pandemic. And I was so impressed at how many times the Lord said, zion can't be built on a foundation of violence, that you should purchase these lands, not redeem them by blood. Raise up the Banner of Peace, that I think that the themes in the Book of Mormon continue on in the Doctrine and Covenants and are maybe even more powerful. So this year, as we go in to study the Doctrine and Covenants, use that lens. What is the Lord telling us about peacemaking in the revelations that are found in the Doctrine and covenants?
- [52:58]
Guest Speaker
I agree 100%. There's so much powerful stuff in there. So I think that's the main thing. And then I think there are some great organizations that the Latter Day Saints are running. We mentioned earlier Mormon Women for Ethical Government. I think that's a really powerful organization. And if you look on their website, they actually have six principles of peacemaking. I think if you want, like a basic primer on peacemaking, that is a fantastic place to go just to learn some of those basic principles. And they're all scripturally grounded.
- [53:26]
Casey Griffiths
And that organization is pretty well split. Democrat, Republican.
- [53:30]
Guest Speaker
Yes.
- [53:31]
Casey Griffiths
This is not Mormon women for one party or the other. This is a pretty cool model of people from both political parties coming together based on these scriptural principles and actually making it work.
- [53:41]
Patrick Mason
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:41]
Guest Speaker
They're incredible. If you. Their color scheme is purple, Right. So it's not red or blue, it's both. And they really try hard to be nonpartisan, which means that people on either side sometimes get mad at them. Right. Because they're not sufficiently partisan. Only women can join, but men can go to the website and learn a lot from the resources that they have there. I also think there's just so much going on. Peacemaking is really big and capacious. It's not just going in and like solving the Israel Palestinian conflict, it's not creating peace in Ukraine. It can start in your family, it can start in your community. Like, join the pta. Right. Get involved in local politics and be a peacemaker there. Work with local refugees. Right. Oftentimes people who are victims of violence. Right. So welcoming them into our communities, into our homes, healing trauma that they have. Work with a local homeless population. Work with victims of trauma and violence in your community, whether from domestic abuse, sexual abuse, whatever that might be. So sometimes we think of peacemaking just as, like, that's what people do who sign peace treaties. No, the vast majority of peacemaking is going to happen in your immediate context. I think, frankly, the Latter Day Saint Ward becomes one of the great laboratories for being peacemakers because we're thrown in with a bunch of people that we disagree with, that we might not choose to associate with. Otherwise. There are arguments. I do think Latter Day Saints are oftentimes like A plus conflict avoiders, which.
- [55:06]
Casey Griffiths
Is not the same thing as peacemaking. Right? That's not the same thing.
- [55:09]
Guest Speaker
It's not the same thing. Right. So learning how to engage a conflict more constructively. But the ward is a great site not only to learn those skills, but then to apply those skills into the community. Can you imagine what it would be like to mobilize a ward wherever you live around bringing greater peace to your community, whatever that looks like? Again, working with refugees, working with victims of violence? I think the ward is just an absolutely inspired laboratory where we can actually get to work.
- [55:37]
Patrick Mason
So maybe. Patrick, one more question. You've tried to serve as a peacemaker, and I've heard you share some powerful experiences where you've seen peacemaking happen or participated in it. Could you maybe share one or two experiences where you saw this kind of peace and reconciliation happen?
- [55:54]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, well, maybe I'll share one. Recently that I witnessed, it was less that I was a participant and more that I was a witness. And it just affected me so deeply. So this past summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Rwanda, which is a country in Central Africa, kind of Central East Africa. Thirty years ago, there was a horrific genocide there by one group called the Hutus against another group called the Tutsis. A million people were killed in the space of 100 days.
- [56:21]
Casey Griffiths
Oh, my word.
- [56:23]
Guest Speaker
It's unimaginable, right, in terms of the pace of killing, the scope of killing in this really small, little African country. So I went with a group of students and faculty, and we went to go and learn about this, and we visited a lot of the sites of the genocide. It was some of the hardest things I've ever seen. I'm just openly weeping, visiting with a lot of survivors of the genocide, visiting actually with perpetrators as well. And one of the most powerful places we went was a community. So afterwards, the government recognized, like, hey, we're a small little country. We can't separate all the perpetrators on one side and the victims and survivors on the other side, right? Like, we have to learn to live together. And so they've. The government and other groups have sponsored tons of forgiveness and reconciliation efforts over the past 30 years. And one of the things they did was create these communities, these villages, because a lot of the survivors that our homes had been burned or destroyed, a lot of the perpetrators who were thrown in prison or other thing that they came out and now they needed a place to live. So the government, with some international funding, they've created these new villages, they call them reconciliation villages. Where survivors and former perpetrators live side by side. They get housing and other things with the promise that basically they'll try to learn to get along and live next to each other.
- [57:40]
Casey Griffiths
Wow.
- [57:41]
Guest Speaker
And so when we went and visited one of these villages, we heard a presentation from this man who was a former perpetrator. He didn't tell us exactly what he did, but based on his prison sentence and some other kind of clues that we heard, he killed a lot of people. A lot of people. And then we had a woman who was there, whose entire family, husband and children, had been killed in the genocide, lost her house, lost everything. They lived in this community. They were both placed in this reconciliation village. And you could tell they are genuine friends. And they had learned over the space of many, many years the art of forgiveness, the art of reconciliation. And she said, like, it wasn't immediate. Like, when the government offered to put her here, she wasn't sure if she could live alongside former perpetrators. He wasn't sure when he came out of prison that he could ever be forgiven. But to see these two people and this entire community that is literally based on the principle of reconciliation, it's actually working. It's real. It's not easy. It's not that there's not ongoing trauma, but, like, forgiveness is real, reconciliation is real. It's possible. I came away from that, of course. Now I hope to never witness anything like what the rwandans experienced in 1994. But we have our own serious contentions here at home in the United States. Sometimes it can seem like the forces of division are so overwhelming that they can't be countered, that we can't do anything about it. I'll just never forget what I saw in Rwanda. In the face of unspeakable genocide and horror and trauma, the reconciliation is happening. I think that has to be our hope as Christians. You talked about the mustard seed. Jesus talks about the leaven in the loaf. Right? Salt and light, these are all tiny little things that are transformative in their effect. And I think our hope as Christians has to be that God will multiply our peacemaking efforts, that whatever small things we do for peace and reconciliation in our families, in our communities, in our wards, in our country, that God will magnify those things like the loaves and the fishes, and he'll make more of our efforts than we can make of him ourselves. Boy.
- [59:47]
Patrick Mason
And it feels like if they can get past genocide, our problems seem small in comparison. We can overcome the issues that we have, and we can heal the divides that we've experienced. And there is a way for us to come together, especially with the grace of Christ.
- [60:03]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Amen.
- [60:05]
Casey Griffiths
Wow. Well, thank you so much, Patrick. It's been wonderful to have you on the show today. And what a fitting conclusion to this series on peace and violence. Emphasis on the peace, please.
- [60:17]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Remember, peace on earth. Right? That's what the angel said.
- [60:22]
Patrick Mason
That's right. And I couldn't think of a better way for us to give you a Christmas present than to have this discussion and hopefully over the holidays you think a little bit about that. It's a new year and what things you can do differently to bring peace. So thanks, Patrick. You set a great tone for us and I think you helped us stick the length on a difficult topic to cover.
- [60:42]
Guest Speaker
Thanks guys. Really appreciate it.
- [60:43]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah, 100%.
- [60:48]
Scott Woodward
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. We'd like to again thank Dr. Patrick Mason for joining us today and for his remarkable scholarship on peace and violence and maybe more importantly, for his active personal engagement in helping there be just a little more peace on earth and good will toward all. We again invite you to roll up your sleeves and continue with us as we now mentally shift gears toward dissecting the context, content, controversies and consequences of each section of the Doctrine and covenants throughout 2025. If you're enjoying or gaining value from Church History Matters, we would love it if you could pay it forward by telling your friends about it or by taking a moment to subscribe, rate, review, review and comment on the podcast that makes us easier to find. Today's episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galetti, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter Day Saints Scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your Gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Again, all of our content is free because people like you donate to make it possible. So if you're in a position where you're both willing and able to make a one time or ongoing donation, be assured that your contribution will help us here at Scripture Central to produce and disseminate more quality content to combat faults and faith over eroding material out there in the digital marketplace of ideas. And while Casey and I try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us and Merry Christmas.