Why is Visions of Glory Killing People?

 

         Visions of Glory is a controversial book that details the near-death experiences of a man named Spencer. The controversy comes from how people like doomsday mommy Lori Vallow Daybell relied, at least in part, on books like this to justify murder. The cousin of Lori Vallow, Megan Conner even said, “my family members are dead because of Visions of Glory, how is that okay?”

        I just happen to specialize in military history and ethics. To answer the question the book contributes to deaths because it provide a blueprint for a community of those who have near death experiences and arrogantly claim they have special spiritual powers, they can see the righteousness of people around them and the demonic forces influencing them, and then the book used opaque language that minimized killing in the name of God. The result is a perversion of spiritual language and ideas to justify murder.

        The general tone of this book reeked of arrogance. This person claimed that he was an elite member of a small group within the church. A member of the 144,000 mentioned in the Book of Revelation, he called himself a first citizen of Zion that received personal missions from the Lord from his office in the temple (194-195). These descriptions refer to a future event after he is translated and before the millennium, but as with everything discussed in this review, if someone believes they are eventually the first citizen of Zion with an office in the temple and ability to see the souls of those around them (161), it’s easy to feel a sense of superiority now. In addition to seeing the souls, he discussed how translated being used the portal that let them travel from Zion, healed the sick, and raised the dead. These gifts only worked according to the faith of those wielding them. Miracles based on faith is a safe Biblical principle, but the way Spencer was better at it, discussing the shortcomings of other translated beings reinforced a feeling of superiority I found emanating from him.

        His visions included seeing dark spirits roaming among the people of the world tempting them (23). The most dramatic moment was watching a young man view pornography and the misshapen minions and spirits working him into a frenzy of desire that Spencer likened to dogs fighting over a carcass (94). This incident left me questions. If he were in the room, and knew the individual was following the suggestion of the minions to look up more and more scintillating material, wouldn’t Spencer have scene pornography as well? Did his vision include special pixelating software? Wouldn’t seeing a man in a sexual act also have been porn? But that’s using critical thinking. I’m supposed to be impressed with his spirituality and anti porn crusade. Most importantly, given the way that convicted child abusers Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt created pornography groups that castigated men, and abused children in the name of fighting demons, this vision of pornography use seems more like an excuse to abuse porn users than a warning against evil spirits. 

        The final ingredient for murder is the casual way he talks about killings. As a translated being fully knowing the will of the Lord he felt “free to deliver men from mortality” (199). He said that “death was a divine blessing” because the wicked men “no longer added iniquity to their divine ledger.” Even though the Book of Mormon directly disagrees when it said that the Nephites were “sorry” top send “so many of their brethren out of this world into an eternal world, unprepared to meet their God” (Alma 48:23). Spencer said “they were rarely consumed by fire” (thanks?), the translated beings simply “started them on their immortal journey”… and they “just fell to the ground and slipped into the eternities.”

        That is an astounding use of language to minimize killing. This is where arrogance becomes important. It’s one thing to meet a Loran Blood type person online who judgmentally lectures you about judgment. Its another when you combine that arrogance, with a sense that you’re already the elect, who also has the (eventual) power to let people “slip into eternity.” Like I said, what originally becomes a promised power is warped into current power by the spiritually arrogant who share the near death experiences of Spencer.

        Lori Vallow had similar near death experiences to the person in this book that convinced her she had a connection to the spirit world, and ability to see spirits.[1] Chad Daybell, whom she married and in whose yard she buried her murdered children, said they were part of the 144,000, just like Spencer. Also like Spencer, Lori claimed she could see dark spirits in her children, and if she was already translated as she claimed, she likely felt enabled to “let the slip into eternity” lest they “add iniquity to their ledger.”

        So you take someone who is spiritually arrogant, claims a special connection to God and power to see the wicked, and then claims a license to KILL the wicked, while minimizing death, and it seems pretty obvious how Visions of Glory kills people. It’s not the book itself. The book was a fairly informative read that read like a mix between an extremely detailed dream and the Mormon version of The Stand. But the creepy deaths come this radical subculture of those who claim near death experiences and then arrogantly assert special powers as they murder those around them.

        A general rule to remember is that the scriptures should challenge our beliefs. As I said in the last chapter of my latest book, we might see the principled right of just war but should be wary of certainty and look for ways to avoid asserting the right to use force. The theorist Grotius pointed out that if a person can avail themselves of the legal system, then they still have recourse short of war or violence.[2] In other words, if we can rely on court orders, the legal system, and the police, we can safely abandon the need for force. And while Nephi relied on the word of the Lord to behead Laban. We are not Nephi, we’re unlikely to ever face such an exceptional event, and unlikely to ever hear the word of the Lord that requires us to abandon conventional morality. As a result, beware of those like Lori Vallow Daybell or Spencer form Visions of Glory, who claim such special insight and authority while using minimizing language around killing.

Thanks for reading. If you found value in this work please consider donating using the paypal button below or purchase one of my books linked in the top left. 

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[1] Did the article really have to quote Patrick Mason in four paragraphs? What special qualifications does he have besides being first on the reporter’s rolodex?

[2] if the attackers “formed a plot, prepar[ed] an ambuscade, poisoning, or readied a false accusation [the planner] cannot lawfully be killed either if the danger can in any other way be avoided, or if [the ruler] thought delays could afford remedies.” Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, Stephen Neff trans., (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 83-84.

Podcast

 

        You might have noticed I don’t have a large online presence. I don’t have a podcast. You don’t hear about me. No one makes reaction videos to my material. I’ve simply operated a blog since 2009, which in itself is a bit of a time capsule from the late 2000s.

        With this background you might think I’m simply a dinosaur that can’t adapt to new technology. But I’ve seen the new landscape, and deliberately said no. The current podcast environment is reactive, inferior to writing, and backwards looking. To illustrate those points we might consider the controversy of the day (at least it was when I wrote this). A youtube personality, Jacob Hansen recently discussed Mormonism with a prominent atheist, Alex O’Conner. I didn’t watch the interview, but since then I have encountered half a dozen posts, reaction videos, and memes across the internet that in turn generated hundreds of comments. This includes the Mormon and ex-Mormon reddit, several facebook groups, Mormon Book Review podcast, and the ex-Mormon called Cultch (formerly cultural hall.) I’m sure there are more out there I haven’t seen but I only lurk around a few corners of the internet. (I only like Cultch for example, because he hate watches Jacob Hansen and that’s entertaining.) This controversy of the day crystallizes everything I hate about the podcast and reaction video culture.

        The discussion is incredibly reactive to the point that if I did start a podcast I’d probably call it the reaction, to the reaction, to the reaction video. (Or I’d just call it Podcast.) Jacob’s single conversation video has inspired countless hours of commentary and hundreds of comments. But there is nothing particularly special or noteworthy about the original item to begin with. The major takeaway is that he wasn’t an effective apologist, and he’s an intellectual light weight. That isn’t news. He didn’t make my list of overrated scholars for example, because I’ve never considered him a scholar. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned him on this blog before.

        You take an original copy that isn’t very informative, and every reaction video is simply a copy of a copy with the resulting loss in quality. So the hours of content, especially for the podcasts, seems like little more than a shiny new object to debate and way to vent negative emotions. They react, react to the reaction, and react to the reaction of a reaction, to the point that they it’s the definition of a tempest in a teapot. That is how someone writing a good, but relatively unimportant blog about Heartland theories can be transformed into the definition of Mormon perfidy.  

        In the process of reacting and doing so quickly enough to have their reaction matter, it is often thoughtless. In many cases it takes me longer to read and reflect on a single book about the topic in question than it takes them to make a video. I prefer texts because I can read about 60-100 pages an hour of dense academic text, while I’ve seen podcasts where I can summarize the first 20 minutes with a single sentence. Then I have to consider the question or idea carefully, and then it takes many more hours of writing and revisions, peer revisions, and publication schedule to have the piece published. That’s why I expect the online world to be arguing about something different by the time I publish this piece. I’m not writing this piece to gain clicks by commenting on a hot topic, so I don’t care about its timing.

        Podcasts have the advantage of being faster, but I have yet to see a video that provides the knowledge gained from a thoughtful article or book. Even when they say something approaching academic insight, like a recent podcast from Cultch which discussed divine command theory, they remain relatively superficial in their points and they spent a significant amount of time discussing a particularly petty tweet from Hansen. Their discussion mostly talked in generalities that didn’t include specific verses, philosophers that explained the concept, or careful revisions to hone their points. These are all features of a paper I wrote which addressed how the scriptures seem to have both deontological and utilitarian systems and discussed the safeguards in scripture that restrain divine command theory. The podcast was so long, two hours, that I could rewrite that paper or reread most of the academic sources in the time it took them to make a few hasty generalizations.

        Speaking of my academic work, reaction video culture looks backwards. It not only goes back in time to the most recent “event,” like Jacob’s video, a news article, a prominent excommunication, etc. But it argues about the same things over and over again. Various YouTube personalities and podcasters give their zingers and catch phrases. Then the various ex and anti-Mormons give theirs. They go on like this is a perpetually breathless cycle of action and reaction that doesn’t provoke any new, substantive ideas. When not discussing people, the content is only arguing about stale issues like changes to the temple ceremony, the necessity of tithing, or differences in first vision accounts. These are all issues I first encountered decades ago. I remember reading an article about the differing first vision accounts on my mission in 2002. Some people might think those issues are a silver bullet for or against the church, and they might like deeply polemic arguing. But I find it all so pedestrian.

        My favorite part of being a scholar is looking to the future. When I applied to grad school, I had to show schools that I could make the transition from simply being a consumer of knowledge to a producer of knowledge. Reactive culture doesn’t produce anything. I’ve never seen a podcast that approached the quality of an academic text, let alone one that blows my mind. The reaction video crowd simply consume knowledge that already exists, and then like carrion birds they fight over the carcass of that knowledge with other consumers. I’ve never seen anything new or original from them except increasingly click bait worthy hot takes. That is how you get videos with two buffoons discussing how ex Mormons are morons that the church couldn’t work for because they wanted to do drugs and have orgies. That is outrageous enough that it drives clicks, and even I heard about it, yet that doesn’t produce new insights or knowledge. Like an overworked ad executive, they simply came up with a new gimmick to drive engagement.

        At best they have an author on their show that discusses their book. But even then it’s still reactive because the content is being driven by a semi substantive academic work. (Not every book is created equal.) So even at their best and most substantive, they are dependent on the work of academics to generate their content.

        In short, I might be relatively unknown, even after all of these years. I’m not the target of reaction videos. But I’m also not the subject of dramatic personal attacks. I may do some interviews based on my academic expertise and books because I’m happy to talk about my work, even if I don’t like the medium.

        Mostly, I spend my time writing to produce new insights with an eye for the future. I just released a book on Just War in the Book of Mormon that represents the first attempt to systematize Mormon thought on the subject. During that process, I found a master’s thesis from over 100 years ago.[1] I imagine that the author was less popular than the authors of dime novels and the hosts of radio programs. He might have even sighed a few times, sitting alone in the library, sad that his hard work seemed to be ignored. But a century later, his insights aided my analysis, enhanced my thinking, and produced new understanding that I shared to a world that also doesn’t seem to care that much. In as little as a few weeks from now, no one will remember the controversy of the week from a random youtube personality. In contrast, my books will influence writers for years and hopefully like the writer I found during my research, scholars in the centuries to come will find and appreciate mine. When you measure success by insights gained from decades of studying which can then be studied centuries from now, a podcast and podcasters that generates buzz for a few days or weeks just don’t seem attractive.

Thanks for reading. If you found value in this work please consider donating using the paypal button at the bottom of the page or buy one of my books in the top left. 

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[1] Chen Queh King, Doctrine of Military Necessity, master’s Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 1918.

Give War a Chance: Moroni as a Peacemaker

      

        There are several exciting projects on which I'm working. This is the introduction of my piece on Moroni as a peacemaker. I'm not quite sure where to submit it but I think its unique and incisive:  

        One of the major arguments from peace advocates against the use of force concerns the supposed “cycle of violence.” I first heard this sitting next to John Scott Graham who saw Gaza in the Book of Mormon.[1] In their book, Patrick Mason and David Pulsipher discussed how the constant warfare between the Nephites and Lamanites represent a cycle of violence.[2] While not using the exact phrase, Eugune England clearly expressed the idea when he discussed a nonviolent ethic that furthered peace and built trust instead of fueling the threat of war.[3] In one particularly ridiculous case, Connor Boyack conflated two different cliches to say, “cycle of blowback.”[4]

        The theory sounds attractive on its face. It says that in response to encroachment on boundaries, the violated side often responds with fear, anger, and selfishness which is then often expressed in violence. In turn, this leads to what philosopher Terry Warner called “mutually provocative collusion” in which both sides have narratives they tell themselves that justify an increasing cycle of violence against the other.[5] Both sides feel the others are the aggressor and they are the justified defender. Martin Luther King summarized the danger of escalatory violence when he said “the line between defensive violence and aggressive or retaliatory violence is a fine line indeed.”[6] The belief in retaliatory violence forms a core argument for reading of the Book of Mormon as a pacifist text that warns us about the reliance on force, and turns our attention away from the clear support in the text for military leaders like Moroni and instead turns our attention towards Ammon and his brethren that supposedly changed that narrative.

        Yet there is another path that shows how Moroni’s military success in Alma 43 and 44 led to the Lamanite desire for peace in Alma 47:2. It wasn’t the preaching of the word and turning away from the supposed cycle of violence that secured peace. Moroni’s righteous desire to protect his people and inspiration from the Lord led to his decisive victory in battle. That victory was so decisive that he made the murderous dissenters like Zarahemnah depart with an oath of peace (Alma 44:20), and it made many other Lamanites reconsider their murderous ideology to the point that they refused the next call to war (Alma 43:53-54; Alma 47:2). This lesson suggests we should reject interpretations based on theories about the cycle of violence and Ammon’s missionary service and instead give war a chance by considering how Moroni’s battlefield victories created peace.[7]

Thanks for reading! I work as a freelance writer. If you found value in this work please consider donating using the paypal button below, or purchase one of my books linked in the top left. 

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[1] John Stott Graham, “Reading Gaza in the Book of Mormon?”, War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives? Claremont Graduate University March 18-19, 2011.

[2] Patrick Mason and David Pulsipher, Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict, Maxwell Institute, Deseret Book, 2021),74-80.

[3] Eugune England, “A Case For Mormon Christian Pacifism.” In Wielding the Sword While Proclaiming Peace: Views from the LDS Community on Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imperatives of Revealed Truth, Kerry Kartchner and Valerie Hudson eds.,166-167 (163-168).

[4] Connor Boyack, Sunday Musings, October 15^th, 2023, 11:30. https://youtu.be/dXw9KjOpUFI?si=6-NaEwd1meXQeWwh&t=690 at 7:53 it should be noted he also used the anti-Semitic slur, “pound of flesh.”

[5] Terry Warner, “The Path to Peace is a Peaceful Path,’ lecture delivered at “Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Peace is Possible.” 26^th Annual Conference of the LDS International Society, April 6^th, 2015, BYU, Provo, Utah.

[6] Martin Luther King Jr., “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, ed. James Melvin Washington (San Francisco: Harper Press, 1992), 130.

[7] I recognize Ammon travelled with a group of missionaries, but for ease of reference I will only refer to Ammon.

Grotius and the Book of Mormon

 Over at Mormon Dialog and Discussion Board there is a detailed discussion about methodology and if the 17th century philosopher, Hugo Grotius, wrote the Book of Mormon. As someone with a book on the subject and significant knowledge of Grotius I got tagged and felt obligated to respond. I also rarely get a chance to discuss the 17th century thinker Grotius and topics like preemptive war and my book so this was a good opportunity. This is copy and pasted from the board so I apologize for any weird formatting. 

        I appreciate being tagged on this. My newest book on just war in the Book of Mormon discusses Grotius a great deal. Its been well reviewed thus far and you can read those reviews and find a link to the book here: https://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2024/12/reviews-of-my-new-book.html

        I've been working a great deal so I can't go into extensive detail but I've got a few points worth mentioning about the topic.

        The major thrust of my book doesn't simply show congruency. As Ben has explained (many, many times) I think people tend to see what they want to see so the comparisons aren't very useful. What I did was use the keen insights of Grotius to better explain under studied elements in the Book of Mormon, and then in turn use those extra insights from the Book of Mormon to comment on matters of just war. Its a conversation among great thinkers more than finding comparisons. 

        To cite one specific topic with two examples we might look at the concept of preemptive war. I know most people think the Book of Mormon dismisses the concept out of hand. But the most frequently cited verse in Mormon 4, actually condemns the heart that makes the strategy not the strategy. The Nephites lost a great deal on the defensive too. I found 9 other verses that discuss the concept and show its use. I don't want to get too off in the weeds but if you want you can read more about it here: https://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleDeaneKishkumenDagger.html

        Probably the most important scriptures for this discussion are Alma 46:30 when Moroni justifies his capture attempted capture of Amalickiah, and Helaman's servant in Helaman 2 that preemptively kills the assassin before he kills Helaman. 

        These are important for how they interact with Grotius. Most justifications for preemptive war, outside of some more extreme views like Vattel, Gentili, or the Chinese Shizi, focus on the present. According to these theorists, if a nation focused on the past to justify preemptive war leaders would claim that they are reacting to the nefarious nature of the opposing regimes that are warlike and bloodthirsty and thus must be attacked first before they attack again (see Epaminondas for example). A focus on the future would be similar to the Thucydides trap, where Athens, WW1 Britain, WW2 Germany are respectively worried about a rising Sparta, Germany, and Russia. They have to attack now to prevent some greater calamity in the future. But the present is the more accepted position. You can read this from Walzer or in the Caroline Standard, but Grotius' criteria is still the most useful when he said that an enemy must have intent, means  and the defending nation must face an imminent attack. Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, Stephen Neff trans., (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 83-84.

        This is where both examples from the Book of Mormon matter. If you read Alma 46:30, you see that all of Moroni's concern's are in the future. Amalickiah has been defeated and is running away, there is no imminent attack, only future problems:

        Now Moroni thought it was not expedient that the Lamanites should have any more strength; therefore he thought to cut off the people of Amalickiah, or to take them and bring them back, and put Amalickiah to death; yea, for he knew that he would stir up the Lamanites to anger against them, and cause them to come to battle against them; and this he knew that Amalickiah would do that he might obtain his purposes.

        This might seem like really obscure theory, but if Grotius wrote the Book of Mormon he wouldn't include details and narratives that contradicted his ideas of imminency. In fact,  many people dissented from the Lamanite king and then seized the "place of arms" (Alma 47:2; 5). So you could argue Amalickiah didn't have means either and many Lamanites didn't have the intent. So Grotius wrote a narrative that contradicts his theory of preemption, and then provided narrative details where Amalickiah fulfilled every worry that Moroni had, thus undermining his own theories even more.      

        The second verse regards Helaman's servant who preemptively killed Kishkumen during his assassination attempt on Helaman. This one is even more clear because Grotius wrote about robbers as a reason for law enforcement and not deadly preemption: if the conspirators “formed a plot, prepar[ed] an ambuscade, poisoning, or readied a false accusation [the planner] cannot lawfully be killed either if the danger can in any other way be avoided, or if [the ruler] thought delays could afford remedies.” (Ibid.) In other words, if the plot can be neutralized by the defenders using other remedies, then they likely haven't gathered the means, shown intent, and attack it isn't imminent enough to warrant deadly force. 

        Yet the servant of Helaman didn't take any other remedies. He was "out by night" and seemingly had plenty of advanced notice (Helaman 2:6). Kishkumen let his guard down and there was time as they "were going forth" to the judgement seat (2:9). A chapter before Nephite leaders seized incipient rebels like Paanchi  and killed them (Helaman 1:8; notice the preemption of the Nephites leaders as they seized him when he was "about" to flatter). Yet the narrative says Helaman's servant killed Kishkumen. We don't exactly know why he didn't call for the guards instead of killing them. But if Grotius wrote the narrative, we would assume that he would clearly articulate his previously stated beliefs that there was enough time to "use other remedies." Some might argue that the narrative doesn't clearly endorse this story as righteous so why bother. But a recent Interpreter article suggests that Moroni's dramatic use of omission about Helaman's servant, while simultaneously detailing the nefarious Gadianton plot, highlights the righteousness of Helaman's servant: https://interpreterfoundation.org/nameless-mormons-dramatic-use-of-omission-in-helaman-2/ 

        Here are a couple examples where extremely specific details from Grotius are entirely contradicted by the Book of Mormon text. I don't like simply showing congruency, or authorship based on poorly thought out similarities. As you can see just from two small examples, a careful study of scriptures, and using those scriptures to have a conversation with the best philosophers, brings new insights and deepens faith. I know I'm biased, but given the positive reactions to my book, and how I've independently published or presented 7 different times based on material from the book, I think its incredibly fruitful. 

Thanks for reading. I work as a free lance author. If you found value in my work please consider donating using the paypal button at the bottom of the page. Or consider buying one of my books linked in the top left.