“Many Do Stumble”: Not Embracing Our Fuller Truth

Stephen Fleming

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Recent events have looked rather apocalyptic to me, both Israel’s wars and the US’s treatment of Latinos. Huge events seem to happen so quickly that I worry any attempt to blog about them will be old news by the time this post goes up.

Trump has quite staunch support among conservative evangelicals, and I’ve seen lots of quotes, pictures, and art portraying Trump as some kind of divine tool to work for evangelicals’ agendas. Mike Huckbee’s recent text strikes me as particularly extreme.

Religious support for Trump is no doubt a very big topic with all different kinds of views, and I’m happy that the polls generally show Mormon support for Trump being lower than evangelicals. Prominent Mormon politicians like Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake were some of the leading Republicans against Trump, and Mike Lee even did some of that in 2016.

Yet Mormon support for Trump still strikes me as problematically too high, and evoking Mormon tropes for Trump like Lee calling him like Captain Moroni really hits me as a kind of fundamental misunderstanding of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon clearly warns against people like Trump with figures like Amalikiah, and I see pretty much no significant similarities between Trump and Moroni.

Indeed, I worry that as Mormons merge politically with the American religious right, they take on the religious politics of that movement in ways that overlook important warnings in Mormon scripture. Warnings of Amalickiah’s behavior is one of them, but as I noted in my last post that the Book of Mormon has some pretty dire warning about how white people treat Americans with Native ancestry.

Considering that Trump’s campaign and policies were highly anti-immigrant with a focus on Latinos suggests to me that Mormon support for Trump is really overlooking quite a bit of the Book of Mormon.

1 Nephi 13:26 declares, “Because of these things [the plain and precious truth removed from the Bible] which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, an exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them.”

No doubt that scripture can refer to a lot of things, but I can’t help but view Trump’s very strong support among evangelicals as “stumbl[ing].” The same chapter says that the Book of Mormon (and other forthcoming scriptures) will restore that lost truth, but I worry that as Mormons unite with the American religious right, they take on “that awful state of blindness, which [Nephi saw the Gentiles were] in, because of the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back” (32).

I really see the Book of Mormon warning against Trump, both his demagoguery and his attacks on those with Native ancestry. This John Stewart clip on Lee (minute 25) has Lee complaining about the Latino “invasion,” and Lee’s unhinged tweets about the Minnesota killings have looked particularly extreme. Considering that Lee made a bit of a principled stand against Trump in 2016, I can’t help but view Lee’s decent into this “awful state of blindness” as what can happen when one makes political compromises against the fundamentals of the Book of Mormon’s teachings.

Comments

2 responses to ““Many Do Stumble”: Not Embracing Our Fuller Truth”

  1. RL

    It seems pretty scriptural to see worshipers of Gods biggest stumbling block and issue to be their own poor compliance with the ethics of their own teachings. This past week Mike Lee was the most prominent anti-Mormon by his behavior. With Israel as a concept for believers we do respect a Latter day gathering but it’s supposed to be under Gods terms which is righteousness. I understand reasons for war aren’t black or white but the “collateral damage” in Gaza is extreme and feels like a Mountain Meadows every day. When cruelty becomes a sub goal of a country, that people is on a path to degradation if it can’t break the cycle. Moroni saw this as the reason for a peoples downfall: “And if they perish it will be… because of the wilfulness of their hearts, seeking for blood and revenge.”

    Iran I’m not sure my take on this conflict from a religious perspective. It is partial self defense but it’s their doing for escalation. War can improve enemies in the long run but can also end up harming both countries in the short and long term.

  2. RLD

    The Book of Mormon warns repeatedly against leaders who stir up their people to anger and describes it as a way to gain power. Amalickiah is the archetype, but this description is about Zerahemnah:

    “For behold, his designs were to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites; this he did that he might usurp great power over them [the Lamanites], and also that he might gain power over the Nephites by bringing them into bondage.” (Alma 43:7)

    Trump has no monopoly on anger-based politics, but he’s taken it further than anyone else.

    While the Book of Mormon certainly condemns sexual impurity and doctrinal heresy, the sign that a people has ripened in iniquity is always that they intentionally and proactively harm others. Often they form an in-group based on religion or ethnicity and then harm those outside it. The MAGA movement’s embrace of cruelty should be disturbing to anyone who takes the Book of Mormon seriously.

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