The Book of Mormon and Terrorism

Any active member of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be familiar with the story arc of The Book of Mormon. It tells the story of a people who were led to the American continent by the Lord in about 600 b.c.e. how they flourished and were destroyed by warfare and wickedness, leaving only a remnant behind who no longer remembers its origins. There were three states in this society: righteous prosperity, warfare, threat of destruction by "secret combinations." Shortly after their arrival the descendents of the original leaders, a prophet named Lehi and another man named Ishmael, divided into those who were led by the oldest of Lehi's sons, Laman, and those led by his younger brother, Nephi. The Nephites kept the records of their people, while the Lamanites "dwindled in unbelief" and became warlike and lost their civilized roots. When the Nephite people obeyed their religion, which was Christian, they were blessed and prospered, but they were continually being attacked and warred against by the Lamanites who served as a kind of scourge to keep them in remembrance of their duty toward God. At a certain stage, these people became so wicked that the threat changed from an identified body or national enemy, to organized crime, a secret society which lived among them and attacked them from within.

The Book of Mormon was hidden and was brought forth by a young man of 20 years, who was called as a prophet and given the gift to translate it. It says that it was kept over a period of about 1000 years to come forth in our time as a testimony of Christ and a warning about the path to destruction. The parallel between our own history, first our Cold War with the Soviets which has now been replaced with secret group of enemies seeking to kill us, is hard to miss. The secret society in the Book of Mormon was a type of organized crime called the Gadianton Robbers, whose goal was to rob, steal and murder for gain, and it became so powerful, like the drug cartels in Columbia, that it threatened the government itself. But terrorism is worse because the goal is different, murder for ideological or religious reasons. If the pattern holds, the "advanced nations" of the world are going to be tested severely. I'm not sanguine that we will prevail against terrorism. Neither, apparently, is Victor Davis Hanson, who probably knows nothing about the Book of Mormon.