
There’s something memorable about the phrase, “wars and rumors of wars.” It certainly occurs in the scriptures often enough. Two prominent examples are in Nephi’s vision of the future of his people (and his brothers’) on the American continents (1 Nephi 12:21, 1 Nephi 14:16) and the Savior’s own discussion of the end (Mark 13:7 and Mattew 24:6). The latter usage–echoed as well by Moroni (Mormon 8:30)–always struck me as anachronistic. These were opinions I formed as a kid, back when we all watched the First Gulf War on television. War was a different thing, then. The whole world was on our side, we were rescuing a small country from a larger one led by an evil dictator, and of course nobody could mount a credible resistance to the military might of the United States. Most importantly, however, we could watch the war on our televisions, as reported by correspondents on the ground who were connected almost in real time via satellite communications. In a world like this, how could there be rumors of war? Surely we’d know, wouldn’t we? As the years rolled by, this ability to know seemed more and more self-evident, to the point where the inability to hide seemed like the real issue. From spy satellites to computer viruses, lack of information seemed like a remnant of a past already fading into dim memories. This was, after all, the Information Age. Knowing is kind of what we do. Isn’t it? The…