One of the primary purposes of the Book of Mormon is to draw all men nearer to God.  Yet skeptics of the book’s origins get caught up in the peripheral and miss out.  One of these topics is the treatment of the American Revolution which they suppose to be the product of Joseph Smith’s absorption of 19^th Century ideas in New York.  From Richard Bushman’s analysis of this topic the actual views in the Book of Mormon differ from what Joseph Smith would have been expected to write in each of three fundamental ways.  These are “first, the depiction of the American Revolution as heroic resistance against tyranny; second, the belief that people overthrow their kings under the stimulus of enlightened ideas of human rights; and third, the conviction that constitutional arrangements such as frequent elections, separation of powers, and popularly elected assemblies were necessary to control power.” 

    So what then is the view of the American Revolution in the Book of Mormon?  It is one of deliverance.  Nephi relates in his great vision that the Spirit of the Lord “was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper [. . .] and did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them [. . .] and also that the wrath of God was upon all those who were gathered against them to battle [and they] were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations” (1 Nephi 13:15-19).  The point is that this is not dramatized from an American perspective.  The important points were simply that it was the will of the Lord that America was established, perhaps to give context and understanding to the topic which occupies the next two pages of the vision which is the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. 

    For the remainder of this blog I will focus on a slightly different aspect of revolution which I personally find interesting in the Book of Mormon.  If anything the kind attitude towards revolutions in general is one of chronicled stages.  There appears to be a theme of cycles because there is a tendency for the group to fall because of pride for instance.  Within a relatively short time period another problem will have sprung from within the societies themselves, like a re-emerging cancer which was believed to have been eliminated.  I will briefly examine the way which the church was regulated and draw upon parallels to the government in order to show there is a connection.  By my accounts the first regulation corresponds to the time when Alma the Younger was going around inciting the people against the church around 100 B.C.  As they are struggling with disciplining an unrepentant segment of the church “Alma did regulate all the affairs of the church; and they began again to have peace” (Mosiah 26:37).  Next was in 83 B.C. as Alma restructures the church in Zarahemla (Alma 6).  Then in 73 B.C. Heleman makes another regulation or reassessment of the church, and this “because of their wars with the Lamanites and the many little dissensions and disturbances which had been among the people” (Alma 45:21).  After a while, in 57 B.C. “because of so many wars and contentions it had become expedient that a regulation should be made again in the church. [. . .] Yea, and regulations were made concerning the law” (Alma 62:44,47).  One final instance states simply that because of the great wickedness of the people, “the regulations of the government were destroyed” (3 Nephi 7:6).  The revolutions occurring in the church and in the government correspond with each other throughout the Book of Mormon. 

Tags: Revolution The Book Of Mormon

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