{"id":96913,"date":"2022-10-04T18:20:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T00:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=96913"},"modified":"2022-10-09T23:03:38","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T05:03:38","slug":"on-brigham-young-and-violence-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/10\/on-brigham-young-and-violence-2.html","title":{"rendered":"On Brigham Young and Violence (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"To<\/a>
The Bush family compound on Walker\u2019s Point, in Kennebunkport, Maine. The property was bought in the late nineteenth century by David Davis Walker and his son, George Herbert Walker \u2014 the latter of whom was the maternal grandfather of George Herbert Walker Bush (the forty-first president of the United States) and the great-grandfather of George Walker Bush (the forty-third president). The home served has served the family as a summer residence for more than a century and, when applicable, as the summer \u201cWhite House.\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I recently read Paul Alan Cox, \u201cThe Orchid and the Missile: Reflections on the MX,\u201d BYU Studies Quarterly<\/em> 61\/2 (2022): 31-50.\u00a0 His entry on my Latter-day Saint Scholars Testify website can be found here, and I append immediately below the relevant portion of the little bio given for him by BYU Studies<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Alan Cox\u00a0was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes known as the Nobel Prize of the Environment, and was named one of TIME magazine\u2019s eleven \u201cHeroes of Medicine.\u201d His conservation foundation, Seacology, has set aside over 1.5\u00a0million acres of rain forest and coral reef in sixty-six countries around the world. After serving as professor and dean at Brigham Young University, he became the first King Carl\u00a0XVI Gustaf Professor of Environmental Science in Sweden. Currently, he serves as director of the Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This article is based on a talk presented at BYU\u2019s David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies on January\u00a018, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Orchid and the Missile\u201d is an interesting, even entertaining, autobiographical account of Professor Cox\u2019s involvement, right out of his doctoral studies at Harvard, with the eventually aborted MX missile proposal, which had been proposed by the Jimmy Carter administration and continued by the early administration of President Ronald Reagan.\u00a0 The MX missile project was a very big deal at one point, and it would have been based in eastern Nevada and western Utah, bringing huge investment and many jobs to an otherwise desolate and sparsely populated region as well as, it was argued, countering a serious Soviet threat.\u00a0 (Vladimir Putin\u2019s recent nuclear rumblings are, sadly, a reminder of that unlamented time.)\u00a0 Many (including myself) were completely surprised, and some were even deeply shocked, when the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> came out on 5 May 1981 in formal \u2014 and perhaps even, as it turned out, lethal \u2014 opposition to the project.\u00a0 (At some point, in a future entry, I\u2019ll briefly relate my exchange with the late William F. Buckley Jr. on that opposition.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My wife took this photograph with her iPhone from a bridge over the Kennebunk River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, here is a passage from Dr. Cox\u2019s article that quite nicely coheres with what I posted yesterday about Brigham Young and violence:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like most Latter-day Saints, I pay close attention to statements from modern-day apostles and prophets of the Church.\u00a0 There seemed to me to be a strong historical sentiment of Church leaders against total warfare in general, especially the use of nuclear weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf one thing I am sure,\u201d the prophet Brigham Young said.\u00a0 \u201cGod never institutes war; God is not the author of confusion or of war; they are the results of the acts of children of men.\u00a0 Confusion and war necessarily come as the results of the foolish acts and policy of men; but they do not come because God desires that they should come.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the nations have for years turned much of their attention to manufacturing instruments of death,\u201d Brigham Young said on another occasion, \u201cthey have sooner or later used those instruments. . . .\u00a0 From the authority of all history, the deadly weapons now stored up and being manufactured will be used.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professor Cox then proceeds to cite two very eloquent similar statements from Presidents Joseph F. Smith and Spencer W. Kimball.\u00a0 But back to Brigham Young:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his book Brother Brigham<\/em>, which I\u2019ve been citing here, Eugene England cites another example \u2014 one of several, actually \u2014 of Brigham\u2019s relenting and charitable nature despite his tough talk.\u00a0 In this one, the decision has just been made to abandon Nauvoo as soon as possible, effectively immediately, in order to escape persecution and violence:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the next day after the February 2 decisions, despite Brigham Young\u2019s announcement that there would be no more administration of the temple ordinances, many gathered at the temple, anxious to receive their individual endowments and marriage sealings.\u00a0 Brigham told the Saints that if they delayed longer their way would be hedged up and their enemies would intercept them, that they would build more temples elsewhere, and that he was going to get his wagons and be off \u2014 and he walked away from the temple.\u00a0 But when he checked later, the temple was still \u201cfilled to overflowing,\u201d and so, \u201clooking upon the multitude and knowing their anxiety . . . we continued at work diligently in the house of the Lord.\u201d\u00a0 That day they performed ordinances for about three hundred people, and then over five hundred on each of the next few days.\u201d\u00a0 (119)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Fall<\/a>
The autumn colors are beginning to appear in Kennebunkport. We walked by this tree and my wife couldn\u2019t resist.\u00a0 A small monument to George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush stands just out of the picture to the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some time ago, my wife and I visited the Kennedy family compound at Hyannisport, on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts \u2014 as much, anyway, as we peasants are permitted<\/em> to \u201cvisit\u201d such places.\u00a0 Truth be told, I wasn\u2019t much impressed.\u00a0 There are other places that I like far, far more.\u00a0 And I can now add the Bush family compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, to that list of places that I prefer.\u00a0 What a wonderful, dramatic location!\u00a0 The house is a lot less grandiose than the mansions in Newport, Rhode Island \u2014 which, frankly, is a plus<\/em> for me.\u00a0 \u00a0It sits surrounded on three sides by the sea, out on the Bush family\u2019s private promontory, which extends into the Atlantic Ocean from a rocky and rather wild stretch of the Maine coast.\u00a0 I can see why they\u2019ve loved the place.\u00a0 Quite frankly, if the Bush family were to offer a straight swap of their summer home for my<\/em> house, I would take it.\u00a0 No questions asked.\u00a0 Should I include my telephone number here, in case they\u2019re reading?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Portland, Maine<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0 \u00a0 I recently read Paul Alan Cox, \u201cThe Orchid and the Missile: Reflections on the MX,\u201d BYU Studies Quarterly 61\/2 (2022): 31-50.\u00a0 His entry on my Latter-day Saint Scholars Testify website can be found here, and I append immediately below the relevant portion of the little bio given for him by BYU Studies: \u00a0 […]<\/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":[292,31735,31747,25565,18449,24574,24577,30406,30412,31753,31750,30409,31756,25042,31762,31741,31738,10972,31744,23578,7587,31732,6189,31726,31729,5286,9273,3358,31759],"class_list":["post-96913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brigham-young","tag-brother-brigham","tag-bush","tag-compound","tag-cox","tag-eugene-england","tag-gene-england","tag-george-bush","tag-george-h-w-bush","tag-george-herbert-walker","tag-george-herbert-walker-bush","tag-george-w-bush","tag-george-walker-bush","tag-hyannis-port","tag-hyannisport","tag-kennebunk","tag-kennebunkport","tag-kennedy","tag-maine","tag-massachusetts","tag-missile","tag-mx","tag-paul","tag-paul-alan-cox","tag-paul-cox","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-violence","tag-walkers-point"],"yoast_head":"\nOn 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