God's plan in Politics- part 3, Foreign affairs

Turning our attention to foreign affairs in our quest to find out how God's plan would work in politics, the biggest issues that tend to loom are war and intervention - mainly when to do them. I tried to remember what policies each end of the political spectrum had but I had trouble so I looked it up. It turns out that it's not that easy to figure out, especially for the right. It seems the parties have changed their stances through recent history so this won't be very helpful in deciding which I prefer at the end of this experiment. But, I can at least work on God's plan as it relates to foreign affairs in general.

Let's start with war because I think that might be easier. It's clear in the scriptures that God dislikes war (Isaiah 2:4, Psalms 46:9) but that He also knows that it is sometimes necessary (Ecclesiastes 3:1,8). The question is when is it right to go to war or start a war and when is it wrong? I believe, from my upbringing in the LDS church and my studies in the scriptures that the only two good reasons to go to war are for self-defense or when God specifically says to. In the Book of Mormon, it is clear that it is ok to go to war in self-defense. The Nephites had to do this a lot because the Lamanites attacked them, their families and their freedom. In one such instance, the Lord tells the Nephites, "Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed." (Alma 43:47).

In the Old Testament, we find an instance of God telling the Israelites to go to war. God gives the land of Israel to the Israelites and they must go to war with Canaan to get it. In the book of Joshua, you can read where God has told him to do this. "now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel." (Joshua 1:2) In this instance, God was explicit that they were not to take of the spoils of the war - everything was to be destroyed.

Other than these reasons, it is hard to justify a war. I think even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are hard to defend because we could reasonably have bolstered our own homeland security, which we did, and gone after terrorist cells using special forces, which we also did. We could reasonably say that it is self-defense to go after these bad guys in this way since they're the ones eager and capable of coming after us. But, to invade a whole country, whose government is not actively attacking us, is not really in the realm of self-defense. You may argue that the government was harboring the terrorist cells but it would be a much more prudent action to impose sanctions, get a coalition together to do the same and pressure the government to assist us in getting the bad guys or allow us to come in and do it ourselves. This would be much more along God's ideas of how we should conduct ourselves than going to an all-out war, which endangers many more innocents.

Another arguable reason to go to war would be humanitarian - a brutal regime oppressing its citizens, such as what we see in Syria or in the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But, I don't believe God's plan would allow for us to do that, either. Again the action to take that would better fit His plan would be sanctions and pressure from other countries and to bolster the security of the people where we can. There is a great example of this in the Book of Mormon. A large group of Lamanites who had at one time attacked and killed Nephites on a regular basis, were converted to the gospel by some of those Nephites and vowed never to take up arms again. They buried all of their weapons of war as a sign of their covenant and called themselves Anti-Nephi-Lehis. When the other Lamanites came to attack them, instead of digging up their weapons, they "prostrated themselves before them to the earth", meaning they literally laid down at the mercy of their attackers' feet. The Nephites never attacked the Lamanites in return, even though this group of people who had just converted, were being slaughtered. When the Lamanites saw that the Anti-Nephi-Lehis were not going to fight or run away, many of them threw down their weapons of war and repented of all the murders they had done before and joined them. The rest of them eventually slinked away after having killed about a thousand people. But, more than twice that joined them. Even though the Nephites did not attack the Lamanites, they did move the Anti-Nephi-Lehis to new land within their borders so that they could protect them. And this they did through several attacks by the Lamanites. This is an amazing testament to the power of righteousness and a perfect example of how to perpetuate God's plan, even in times of war.

Remember that war means loss of life, which is precious and should be preserved as much as possible. Lives are already being lost in some countries because of internal strife, a cruel dictator or other oppression, but those lives that are lost because of the free choice of other human beings stand as witness to the evil that is being perpetrated and God will punish those that commit those crimes. Another story in the BofM is of Alma and Amulek who are imprisoned for preaching and all those who believe are burned. Amulek knows he and Alma could stop them by the power of God and asks Alma to do something to save the people. Alma replies:

"The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord... doth suffer that they may do this thing,... that the judgements which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day." (Alma 14: 11)

So, if you think that drunk driver or that rapist/murderer is getting away with something - he isn't. And neither are the despots that are making their own people suffer.

Also, those that lose their lives will find peace and their eternal reward waiting for them, as illustrated by the Anti-Nephi-Lehis who died. It says in the Book of Mormon "and we know that they are blessed for they have gone to dwell with their God" (Alma 24: 22).

Finally, those who survive will have endured trials that will raise them up in the eyes of God and increase their reward because of those trials. Remember Job and that he was blessed "twice as much as he had before" all of his trials (Job: 42.10). Another scripture that comes to mind here is Doctrine and Covenants 122:7 which says:

"And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee;...and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

I think when considering God's plan for us and the rest of humanity, it is best to take a prime directive approach to war - allow other countries to run themselves, progress or digress, and make their own mistakes on their own. Their people have their own lessons to learn in this life and so unless those people or governments are actively trying to get us, we should allow God's plan to move forward for them without our interference.

When I asked Andy about this, I asked him if he knew for a certainty that his neighbor was right this minute beating his wife, would he go into their home to stop him or would he call the police? He said he'd go into their house to stop him. I think that is a good point, but I think that God's plan would call for us to find a peaceful way to stop that man once we got into the house, and to stop the dictator's evil.

When it comes to non-military intervention, we should take a similar stance, with some differences. A good analogy is that of a community of families or households. We would not intervene in someone else's affairs unless there was a dire need or, if they asked for help in some way. But, otherwise, their lives, decisions, and trials are their own and we would not barge in with our own ideas trying to change things. The same would be true in our community of countries. Live and let live but if there is a humanitarian need, let's get in there and help, where we can. This goes along with several of the principals we've discussed, free agency, self-reliance, the value of service and the idea that each person's/country's lives and paths are their own and their struggles are what God has given them to work through. The bottom line is unless it's a humanitarian need, we shouldn't be interfering to change regimes, drive a country in another direction or even to force Democracy on them. If they want Democracy, they'll get it for themselves.

It was difficult to find scriptures on these specific topics but using what I know and the scriptures we've used before, I think these ideas would be compatible with God's plan. But, I would love to hear your input - less on what you or your political party believes, though - and more on how you think God would expect us to handle these situations.

Thank you for indulging me in my exploration of ideas. I hope it was some sort of help to you or at least entertaining. I was right, though that it didn't help me much to decide on a party or candidate to vote for in this election. I think both parties have some ideas that go along with God's plan for us and each has ideas that are decidedly not along God's path. I am getting closer, though.