The Limits of Peace Building Theory

 

        I’ve been interacting with pacifists for quite a while and noticed several patterns.  Rather than addressing any single author specifically, this post identifies the biggest issues in whether pacifist framework clarifies the text or try to rewrite it.

        While ambitious and addressing an important theme, many contemporary “peacebuilding” readings tend to rely more heavily on modern peace theory than on sustained scriptural exegesis. In many cases, key scriptural figures are interpreted in ways that often contradict their divine role as prophets, including the role of rebuking as well as justified force in establishing or preserving peace.

        The strongest sections of these approaches are those that remain closely grounded in the scriptural text and offer direct analysis rather than extended theoretical scaffolding. However, close scripture readings often end up being only a portion of the argument. When that happens, interpretation begins to derive from modern peace theory, instead of peace theory being derived from scripture.

        One consistent oversight is the role of rebuke in scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the teachings of Christ. Prophets were repeatedly commanded to rebuke:

        Nathan confronting David (“Thou art the man,” 2 Samuel 12:7), Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab (1 Kings 18), Isaiah’s prophetic warnings (Isaiah 6), all fit in a tradition where prophetic calling includes direct confrontation, not only reconciliation.

        Christ himself continued this pattern:

        He rebuked the Pharisees directly (Matthew 23), drove out the money changers with force (Matthew 21:12–13; John 2:15–16), and pronounced both blessings and woes (Luke 6:20–26). Even his language toward Herod (“that fox,” Luke 13:32) was not soft consensus-building.

        And this didn't disappear in the apostolic era. Paul rebuked Peter openly (Galatians 2:11–14). Peter rebuked Simon Magus (Acts 8:20–23). John sharply condemned false teachers in his epistles (1 John 2). The apostles are not portrayed as avoiding conflict—they were commanded to teach, expound, and exhort (D&C 20:42), and historically, most are understood to have died violently because of uncompromising preaching.

        Against that backdrop, criticizing Nephi (or any other prophet) for being harsh, seems a fundamental rejection of Nephi’s mission to call sinners to repentance. Nephi was not operating as a conflict mediator in the modern sense; he operated as a covenant prophet, including rebuke, warning, and at times justified force (1 Nephi 4; 2 Nephi 4-5). Readings that suggest Nephi or other prophetic figures ought to have adopted a more consistently “peacebuilding” posture risk missing the claims of the text itself.

        A similar concern appears in readings of King Benjamin. The text explicitly ties peace to both righteousness and defensive action:

        He “gathered together his armies… and did fight… with the sword of Laban, in the strength of the Lord” (Words of Mormon 1:13–14). Yet peace building interpretations minimize or ignore his use of the sword in favor of peace building interpretations.

        There is also a recurring issue where just war reasoning is treated as if it necessarily implies sanctification through violence. In fact, the only mention of just war is often to dismiss it or, provide a strawman of the theory and then dismiss it.

        But just war never makes the claim it is sanctifying. Classical just war theory, as Augustine frames it in City of God (Book XIX), is not about sanctifying violence but about acknowledging tragic necessity under moral constraint in a fallen world. Treating it otherwise risks making a straw man.

        This becomes relevant in readings of Doctrine and Covenants 98 as well, where the Lord says: “I… would fight their battles” (D&C 98:37). The text shows divine sanction of defense, but it does not clearly construct a category of sanctifying violence. Expanding it in that direction goes beyond what the passage itself states.

        A common argument is that responses to conflict worsen under conditions of fear which leads to an escalating “cycle of violence.” There are many problems with that theory, including ignoring just and frequently repeated reasons for war. The argument also seems to cast Nephi as a hapless figure who couldn’t master his fear when the Lord told him to take the sword and get the plates. (In How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, Dominic Crossan makes a similar claim about God.)

        There are nuances in that story that could support the author’s argument. For example, Lehi may have made a kind of sin offering when Nephi returned (1 Nephi 5:9), but those key scriptures are often neglected in favor of pacifist theory.

        It also ignores other scriptures. Zeniff wasn’t “responding to fear” when he went to the land of Nephi but he was attacked anyway. The record shows someone naively unafraid and dangerously unprepared. He admits he was “overzealous” in seeing good in the Lamanites, failed to make weapons, trusted a “crafty” enemy, and nearly died for it (Mosiah 9:1–17). Only after the first attack did he arm his people (Mosiah 10:1). And the priests' emphasis on scriptural "good tidings" and "joy" when questioning Abanadi seem to indicate the people saw themselves as quit hopeful fullfilment of prophecy (Mosiah 12:21-24).  This example of war being thrust upon non fearful people is aside from clearer passages clearly supporting the just use of force like Alma 43:47; 48:21–23; 61:12–14. Pacifists rarely mention these scriptures, and when they are they are minimized.

        This neglect and radical reinterpretation of scriprures are major reasons why peace theory is rarely convincing to those outside of a small group of pacifists. The framework feels strained, even insulting, toward prophets,[1] suggesting those who take up the sword are merely reacting in fear, rather than acting as righteous, even brave leaders with scriptural support, defending their families.

        The claim that peacemaking is currently absent from LDS discourse is overstated and a result of poor, existing pacifist scholarship. If pacifists wish to frame the topic as understudied, it will help to acknowledge possible reasons for hesitation, including concerns that contemporary peace rhetoric often appear politically inflected or insufficiently attentive (or just dismissive) of scriptural passages that affirm justified defense. They often offer strained alternative readings that are unconvincing. Recognizing these tensions would strengthen their analysis.

        The strongest direction forward is not replacing scriptural categories with contemporary peace frameworks, but letting scripture set the terms, including prophetic rebuke, covenant judgment, repentance, and justified defense. Any model that cannot hold those together risks rebuking the text it claims to interpret.

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[1] Speaking of insulting, pacifists often use the phrase, “moral imagination” when discussing peace theory. As though traditional prophetic voices lack sufficient moral vision for peacemaking. The phrase seems to imply implying that the pacifist author’s theoretical commitments place them as a stronger moral arbiter than the prophets themselves, which is not an argument most readers will find persuasive. John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), ix.

America Has Lost the War with Iran! A Case Study in Bad Analysis

 

        Every crisis produces a bevy of speculative analysis that is often untethered from facts on the ground and good reasoning.

        The popular claims from “Astrado” at LDS Freedom forum provide an excellent example. He claimed the United States and Israel are on the verge of running out of defensive missiles, Iran is unleashing thousands more with escalating capability, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, information is being censored, and unless there’s a ceasefire within days, we face total collapse—military defeat, economic ruin, or nuclear war.

        That sounds incredible dramatic. Material like this is very popular, often repeated, the center of attention, and it’s also wrong.

        The author started his click bait fear mongering with only partially true points about missiles. “They’ve fired thousands, they have tens of thousands more, therefore we’re about to be overwhelmed.” Yet that’s an example of straight line projections, one of the most common mistakes. When I was in grade school back in the 80s, my teachers warned that Japan and Germany had strong economies that would quickly overtake us. But both countries stagnated and struggled since then, with Japan experiencing “lost decades.” In the 90s I remember Time’s Magazine showing pictures of a Red China and warning of their ascendence. But among other factors, they had a real estate bubble and population collapse that suggest they won’t. (Note how Japan’s lost decades also started with a real estate bubble.) And every politician assumes the good times will always continue and they spend money instead of saving for disaster.

        Additionally, you might add a dose of common sense to the straight-line problem. Early in conflicts, you often see spikes in activity. Generally, a country doesn’t get stronger as a war continues, so they send large salvos to probe defenses, saturate systems, or create psychological shock. (As you’ll see below, Iran also had a use or it or lose it incentive.) Treating those spikes as a sustainable baseline is how you end up predicting collapse that never comes.

        More importantly, it ignores how missile capabilities can be degraded. While defending against launched missiles, the U.S. and Israel aggressively targeted the systems that launch them. Launchers, stockpiles, factories, and command-and-control nodes are all part of the battlefield. The US doesn’t have to worry about dwindling stockpiles of counter missiles when they actively and dramatically reduced Iran’s ability to launch them.

        There’s a historical analogy here. Alexander the Great didn’t defeat the Persian fleet in a decisive naval battle. He marched along the coast and captured the ports that sustained it. Without docking, resupply and repair the fleet quickly became a non-factor in the war.

        Once you account for straight line projections, initial burst, and America’s degradation strategy, you find the author’s confidently asserted claims of solid analysis are both shaky and paltry.  Their analysis is based on incomplete information, incorrect assumptions, and ignores dynamic interaction between offense and defense.

        Second, the supporting claims—like the Strait of Hormuz being closed or widespread censorship—are asserted but not meaningfully developed. Even if we take them seriously, they’re not one-directional in their effects. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own economic lifelines as much as anyone else’s. That doesn’t make it impossible, but it does make it far more complicated than a simple “checkmate” move. Except for higher gas prices, there doesn’t seem to be much impact from restricted traffic through the strait.

        At the lowest point, the author parenthetically claims AI agrees with him. But AI relies on a people pleasing and sycophantic design. Combined with bad inputs outlined above, AI becomes little more than a yes man for analysis no matter how incredulous it becomes.

        Speaking of incredulous, the author claimed that the lack of missiles would result in the use of the nuclear, or Samson Option. This is the classic fear escalator. When conventional arguments feel shaky analysts jump to the worst-case scenario. They expect the emotionally charged language and general unease to bypass arguments while commanding attention.

        But deterrence doctrines exist precisely to prevent their use. Israel has faced existential threats for decades, including from Iran and its proxies, and has not used nuclear weapons. That track record matters and it suggests the doctrine functions as intended. Nuclear weapons remain a last-resort deterrent, not a trigger waiting to be pulled because of an initial flurry of missiles.

        The final mistake is the cascading collapse scenario. The author claims “all U.S. bases will be destroyed, carriers sunk, the petrodollar gone, global economic ruin.” This is where the analysis fully detaches from reality. Iranian missile forces have demonstrated they can inflict some damage, but not at the scale required to produce that kind of systemic collapse. After the initial flurry Iran’s ability to damage their enemies has collapsed.

        As I’ve written in my book on modern Chinese strategy, missiles today are simply the newest version of technology that has been around since World War II. Regardless of the number of missiles or improvements fielded, counter defenses have also improved. AEGIS Destroyers have better radar, carriers increasingly employ rail guns and missiles, F35’s can actively seek out and destroy launchers from longer distances than ever before. That is why I wasn’t surprised when more reputable analysts concluded that the Iran showed us the threat of missile swarms are overblown.

        You didn’t have to be an analyst to see through most of the smoke and fear mongering. A simple browsing of recent history in the area shows we’ve seen versions of this before. During the Gulf War, there were similar fears about regional escalation and economic shock. Oil prices spiked but then they stabilized. Markets adjusted. The war was disruptive, but only for a short period of time and not automatically apocalyptic.

        To summarize, the bad analysis does the following things:

        They extrapolate linearly from peak data. Ignore counter reactions and adaption. They assert instead of demonstrating key claims. (This is frequently accompanied with various insults and posturing.) They lean on worst case scenarios and present them as likely outcomes.

        Good analysis is uncomfortable because it requires vast amounts of study along with uncertainty, tradeoffs, and competing variables. This makes it seem dry and is often lost in the noise. Bad analysis is confident, simple, and catastrophic which makes it as loud and popular as it is wrong. This example falls squarely into the second category.

Prooftexting War: Even the Pope Gets It Wrong

        

        Recently, Pope Leo XIV weighed in on the Iran war and declared that God cannot be used to justify war. Quoting Isaiah 1:15, "He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: 'Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

        Calls for peace are understandable. War is ugly, costly, and often tragic and we all want peace. But it’s discouraging to see the Pope of all people prooftext a single verse and present it as if it settles the entire moral question of warfare.

        That kind of selective reading sounds nice, but it doesn’t hold up. The Babylon Bee joked that "God Does Not Listen To People Who Wage War So Long As You Don’t Count Moses, David, Joshua, Elijah, Saul, Gideon, Samson, Or Anyone Else In The Bible."

        I could stop there as the Bee presents the fundamental problem with the Pope's words in that the Bible and LDS scripture are not so easily presented as anti war. If anything, they reflect a strong just war sensibility. 

        That's because I can name Christian fathers like Cyprian, Tertullian, and Origen,[1] who prayed for the success of the emperor and his armies, and many scriptures, such as D&C 98:37, say the Lord will join His people in battle.

        This sentiment is frequently repeated in scripture, including many Biblical verses the Pope didn't include: 

“And I the Lord would fight their battles” (D&C 98:37).

“As I said in a former commandment, even so will I fulfill- I will fight your battles” (D&C 105:14).

“Thou will fight for thy people as thou didst in the day of battle, that they may be delivered from the hands of all their enemies” (D&C 109:28).

“The Lord your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you” (Deut 1:30).

“The Lord fought for Israel” (Joshua 10:14).

“The battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chron. 20:1-29).

        So it seems odd to say that the Lord doesn't hear the prayers of those who make war and whose hands are covered in blood, while the Lord Himself says so many times he'll fight our battles. The answer in the supposed contradiction is that the verse cited by the Pope, (Isaiah 1:15) described a wicked Israel, condemned not simply for violence, but for hypocrisy, injustice, and unrepentant sin. It is not a blanket condemnation of all warfare in every context.

        Unfortunately, a random scripture taken out of context and used as a sanctiminous bumper sticker is quite common. See, for example, how many pacifists invent a new category of "sanctified" behavior in D&C 98, or how often someone quotes only the first half of Mormon 7:4.[2] 

        But with a full framework that doesn't pick and choose which scriptures to turn into bumper stickers, one that accepts both the pro- and anti-war passages, the real question becomes motives, what is being defended, methods, and the justice of the cause. In that light, it’s not hard to conclude that God hears prayers of those who wage war. His record throughout scripture is one of justified warfare and strengthening his people in battle. The apostle Paul himself describes rulers as “agents of God’s wrath” (Romans 13:4), tasked with punishing evil.

        In short, the quote is nice, and it's ironic to see how many unbelievers suddenly like the Pope because he provided a quote that can bash Trump and their political opponents. But even the strongest sentiment backed by a single scripture, even when delivered from the Pope himself, isn't enough to settle a question as complex as war.

        If we’re going to take scripture seriously, we have to take all of it seriously, not just the verses that fit the mood of the moment and are useful for bashing our opponents. 

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1. Tertullian, Apologia 32, 33. Gordon Heath, "The Church Fathers and the Roman Empire," in Empire in the New Testament, Stanley Porter ed., (Pickwick Publications, 2011,) 267 (259-282). David Corey, J. Daryl Charles, Just War Tradition: An Introduction (ISI Institute, 2012), chapter 1. (Page number forthcoming. I packed all my notes for an upcoming move.) 

2. See also, Patrick Mason, David Pulsipher, Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict, (Deseret Book, 2021), preface. (Page number forthcoming. I packed my library too.) 

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The Restoration Shouldn’t Need Inquisitors

 

        Elder Clark Gilbert was recently appointed as the newest apostle. Around the same time, I was an invited guest of the Interpreter: A Journal of LDS Scripture, to speak at their conference on the small plates. But someone at BYU’s “clearing office,” which is a new creation from Gilbert, decided I was unfit to present. Maybe it was my lack of temple recommend, maybe it was my exit from BYU-Idaho, maybe they didn’t like my reliance on Confucian thought to engage the Book of Mormon, or maybe I dumped his daughter. I don’t know, and that black box is part of the problem.

         But I do know that my research supports the divine Book of Mormon and enhances readers appreciation of it. And some bureaucracy blocked me. (Don’t worry, it’s a modified version of chapter two from my latest book, so you can still read it.)

        That experience made a recent categorization Gilbert reportedly used at BYU feel less theoretical and more dogmatic than free. As summarized by the Salt Lake Tribune, when assessing professors at BYU he described a group just short of “secular foes,” worse than the “faithful core” and “supportive center,” called “secular first” — individuals who put “truth” from any source on equal footing with the LDS gospel. 

        That category is astonishing because Brigham Young explicitly taught that we should seek truth from any source, even from the “infidel”:

“Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to ‘Mormonism.’ The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this Church.

        The Church’s own statement, Treasuring All Truth, affirms that Mohammed, Confucius, the Reformers, Socrates, Plato, and others received a portion of God’s light. If that is our doctrine, then placing truth from any source on “equal footing” with the gospel is confidence in the restoration, not secularism.

        As I studied for my PhD in Chinese history, I’ve come to appreciate Confucianism deeply and have found real wisdom there. In researching my recent book on just war thought and the Book of Mormon, I was struck by how much more developed the broader Christian tradition’s discourse on war and peace has been.

        My book was a small attempt to strengthen LDS discourse on war and peace using both of those traditions. In fact, it’s my study of the Book of Mormon, delighting in its complexities and engagements it has with critical questions, that has kept me in the Church. This pursuit of understanding is not an attack on the church or a danger for faithful members, but my attempt to magnify my God given talents and let my light shine (Matthew 25:14-30; 5:16).

        Leaders who block or discourage my academic study risk stifling the very faith they claim to protect. If serious engagement with non-LDS thinkers places someone one step below a “secular foe,” that signals a disturbing shift into orthodoxy policing.

        Perhaps the Tribune mischaracterized his remarks.  If he meant those who subordinate revealed doctrine to fashionable ideology, that is a legitimate concern. But if the category includes those who refuse to dismiss or minimize truth simply because it originates outside our institutional boundaries, it restricts the pursuit of light and truth.

        I’m reminded of Galileo because the broad arguments he made in his defense against heresy are often repeated by modern scholars. And his expulsion is an easy cultural touchstone that everyone knows: institutional anxiety about and reactive defense against external truth have never aged well. The restored gospel should not reflexively align itself with inquisitors against inquiry. It should be the most confident intellectual tradition in the room.

        Only time will tell if these fears are unfounded. But my personal experience — and the cancellation of things like the Mormon Theology Seminar — already represents a disturbing shift. The restored gospel claims continuing revelation and the fullness of truth. As a scholar on a fearless quest to study the Book of Mormon and the truths it contains, I shouldn’t have to wonder if I’m “cleared” to share it. If the gospel is confident in light, it should be confident in all who seek it — no matter where that truth shines.

Update: Cheryl Bruno, along with a wide range of scholars researching polygamy—many of them faithful and trained at BYU—were recently denied access to tour BYU’s Special Collections library. These are precisely the kinds of scholars institutions should want to engage: people committed enough to attend conferences, seek out specialized training, and work directly with primary sources.

Of course, we can’t know every detail behind the decision. But taken alongside similar incidents, it begins to look less like an isolated case and more like a troubling pattern—one where dogma crowds out genuine inquiry. It’s one thing when that happens to me. It’s another when an entire community of serious scholars finds the door closed.

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