{"id":61736,"date":"2018-06-07T13:31:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T19:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=61736"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:53:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:53:35","slug":"drawing-good-out-of-great-evils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/06\/drawing-good-out-of-great-evils.html","title":{"rendered":"Drawing good out of great evils"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"F.<\/a>
\u201cThe Nauvoo Temple in Ruins\u201d (Frederick Piercy, 1853)
Wikimedia Commons public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because I believe that good can come out of horrible evils like slavery, I\u2019ve been accused of defending black servitude and \u2014 this nonsense is still going on; I saw a bit of it just the other day \u2014 of being an \u201capologist for slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also argued that good came out of the persecutions of my Mormon forebears in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and, even, to some extent, out of the incomprehensible and unfathomable horror of the Nazi Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Christensen<\/a>
The massacre at Haun\u2019s Mill, depicted here in a nineteenth-century painting by C. C. A. Christensen, occurred on 30 October 1838, three days after Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued Missouri Executive Order 44, the so-called \u201cExtermination Order,\u201d in which he declared that \u201c\u201dthe Mormons<\/a> must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

While I don\u2019t expect to be accused of being an apologist for the anti-Mormon mobs on the nineteenth-century American frontier \u2014 that wouldn\u2019t be even remotely plausible, since I\u2019m supposed to be an (unscrupulous and mean-spirited) defender<\/i> of Mormonism \u2014 I do await with absolutely serene confidence claims that I\u2019m justifying the Nazi Final Solution of \u201cthe Jewish problem.\u201d\u00a0 I know my critics well.\u00a0 I know their implacable hostility, and the dishonesty of which they\u2019re capable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be bearing false witness, of course.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s new?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although they won\u2019t care, I\u2019ll mention, once again, that my father participated in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria, early in May 1945; that it was a pivotal experience in his life and that, since he regarded it as a moral imperative, I grew up hearing about what happened there; that I\u2019ve made several pilgrimages to that camp in honor of my father and the camp\u2019s victims, going back to 1974; that I\u2019ll actually be leading a tour group there in 2020<\/a>; that I\u2019ve also gone out of my way, specifically, to visit such places as Washington DC\u2019s Holocaust Museum, for the same reasons; and that I\u2019ve visited Jerusalem\u2019s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, annually for years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria, on 6 May 1945, by elements of the Eleventh Armored Division of General George Patton\u2019s Third Army. My father was there that day, though I don\u2019t believe that he\u2019s in this photograph. He raised me with the moral obligation that he himself felt, that the crimes committed at Mauthausen and other such camps must never be forgotten. I HAVEN\u2019T forgotten.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, though, I\u2019m going to supply yet another example of, from the perspective of a faithful believer in God and in the claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, good emerging from evil:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I believe that good came out of the Second World War as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For one thing, it weakened the grip of emperor-worship in Japan and opened that country up to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Japan's<\/a>
President Spencer W. Kimball didicated the Tokyo Japan Temple in 1980. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(LDS Media Library )\u00a0<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Japan's<\/a>
The Fukuoka Japan Temple was dedicated in 2000, by President Gordon B. Hinckley.
(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pres.<\/a>
The Sapporo Japan Temple was dedicated in 2016, by President Russell M. Nelson.
(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, more generally, it created several decades of American ascendancy and of what might be called, on the analogy of the Pax Romana<\/i> or \u201cRoman Peace\u201d that permitted the spread of Christianity along the Roman roads and across the basin of what the Romans sometimes called Mare Nostrum<\/i> (\u201cOur Sea,\u201d the Mediterranean), a Pax Americana<\/i>.\u00a0 Under the exceptionally favorable economic, political, transportation, and other conditions of that era of American dominance, missionaries and members of the US-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were able to share their message in a way not previously open to them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is, from my perspective, a good that emerged out of World War Two.\u00a0 And there were a few others.\u00a0 Could it have emerged in some other way?\u00a0 Possibly.\u00a0 But, owing to human evil, it didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Was the Second World War a horrific thing?\u00a0 Was it, overall, a terrible evil?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 It should not have happened.\u00a0 It brought death and suffering to scores of millions of people, most of them quite innocent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Am I an enthusiastic fan of the fact that there was a World War Two?\u00a0 Am I an apologist for it?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Not even slightly.\u00a0 No more than I\u2019m a defender of slavery or of Hitler\u2019s attempted genocide of the Jews.\u00a0 Will I be accused of being an insensitive and ignorant provincial who imagines that World War Two was a cool blessing from God designed to help the Church grow?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 It\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Richmond, Virginia<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Because I believe that good can come out of horrible evils like slavery, I\u2019ve been accused of defending black servitude and \u2014 this nonsense is still going on; I saw a bit of it just the other day \u2014 of being an \u201capologist for slavery.\u201d \u00a0 I\u2019ve also argued that good came out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDrawing good out of great evils<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Because I believe that good can come out of horrible evils like slavery, I've been accused of defending black servitude and -- this nonsense\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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