The personally immoral and publicly corrupt twice-impeached ex-president governed—using the term loosely—for four horrific, nightmarish years even though he never came close to winning the votes of a majority of American voters. Though out of power through a defeat that his fragile ego cannot accept, he continues to take his lead from the playbook of the “mostest wicked” of Book of Mormon evil kings, Noah, by encouraging “his friends in iniquity” (Mos. 29.21) to support and join him in his wickedness.
 
“Fulton County DA Fani Willis has publicy called for more security after Trump told his followers to ‘protest’ on his behalf if ‘these racist and mentally sick’ prosecutors try to put him in jail. He’s calling for more violence and Republicans haven’t said a single word about it. DA Willis is asking the FBI to immediately conduct a risk assessment of the courthouse and government center, and wants intelligence assigned on the threat plus protection from federal agents because she fears another January 6 is going to happen… Since his idiot followers really believe him when he says he’ll pardon them when he becomes president again, they could really do it.
 
“When asked about Trump telling his followers that he would pardon them if they’re convicted for carrying out his orders, Senator Chuck Grassley said, ‘That’s speculation.’ ‘That’s not speculation.’ He said it out loud at a rally with cameras rolling….” (“American Nazis, Spike Dolomite, Medium).
 
“And thus an unrighteous American ex-president doth pervert the ways of all righteousness” (Mos. 29.33). And thus we see “how much iniquity doth one wicked American ex-president cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction! (Mos. 29.17)

The amount of misinformation distributed and the degree to which it is accepted in our present post-truth era age is quite literally Biblical in proportion. The Apostle could have been speaking of times such as ours when he warned,
 
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4.3-4).
 
However, even he seems not to have foreseen the suicidal aspects that much of America’s present society contains within its distain for reality and truth. Take, for example, the following reporting.
 
“Tennessee’s Board of Medical Examiners unanimously adopted in September a statement that said doctors spreading COVID misinformation — such as suggesting that vaccines contain microchips — could jeopardize their license to practice.
 
“‘I’m very glad that we’re taking this step,’ Dr. Stephen Loyd, the panel’s vice president, said at the time. ‘If you’re spreading this willful misinformation, for me it’s going to be really hard to do anything other than put you on probation or take your license for a year. There has to be a message sent for this. It’s not OK’…
 
“But before any physicians could be reprimanded for spreading falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines or treatments, Republican lawmakers threatened to disband the medical board.
 
“The growing tension in Tennessee between conservative lawmakers and the state’s medical board may be the most prominent example in the country. But the Federation of State Medical Boards, which created the language adopted by at least 15 state boards, is tracking legislation introduced by Republicans in at least 14 states that would restrict a medical board’s authority to discipline doctors for their advice on COVID” (“Republicans Are Pressuring Medical Boards to Let COVID Misinformation Slide,” Blake Farmer, Truthout).
 
Yes, this goes beyond Paul. We must really look to the Book of Revelation for anything as insanely anti-truth and anti-Christ as this contempt for truth, for it is truly apocalyptic.

There is so much that is wrong with the conduct reported in the following that one hardly knows where to begin.
 

“Thanks to a tax code that favors corporations and the wealthy, Amazon was able to dodge billions of dollars of federal income taxes in 2021, a new report has found.
 
“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the tech behemoth reported record profits last year, raking in $35 billion – 75 percent more than they made in 2020, which was also a record year for the company.
 
“Despite these record profits, the company paid a federal income tax rate of 6.1 percent, or $2.1 billion, in 2021. If the company hadn’t benefited from tax breaks and had paid the already low statutory corporate tax rate of 21 percent, it would have paid $7.3 billion in federal tax. This means that the company successfully dodged $5.2 billion in corporate taxes last year.
 
“Since 2018, the company has only paid an average effective tax rate of 5.1 percent. In 2018 and 2019, Amazon’s tax dodging was especially egregious; in 2019, the company paid 1.2 percent in federal income taxes. The year before, the company paid a negative 1.2 percent tax rate, meaning that it received more money from the government than it paid in taxes” (Amazon Dodged $5.2 Billion in Taxes Last Year, Report Finds, Sharon Zhang, Truthout).
 
​
We begin our survey of this wickedness with these words of Isiah, now familiar to those who regularly visit this space.
 
“Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,   
   and that write grievousness which they have prescribed… “
 
The wickedness reported above is certainly an example of governments at all levels—local, state, and federal—having “decree[d] unrightous decrees” and “writ[ing] grievousness” so as to make immoral behavior “legal.” “What,” you ask, “is so immoral about laws that allow companies to escape taxes?” “What,” you mean, “is so immoral about companies being freed from contributing meaningfully to society’s welfare?” Let me count the ways. We will return to our now familiar Isaiah passage.
 
“Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,   
   and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; 
to turn aside the needy from judgment,   
   and to take away the right from the poor of my people,  
that widows may be their prey,   
   and that they may rob the fatherless!” (Isaiah 10.1-2)
 
The needy, the poor, the widowed, the fatherless, and all other vulnerable citizens suffer as a consequence of unrighteous decrees and grievousness. That’s one. Such laws put a huge target on the back of the most vulnerable in our society.
 
Decrees of unrighteousness and grievousness endanger not only the vulnerable, they endanger all of us. They endanger democracy. With all their resources, the wealthy gain unequal access to lawmakers. With this access, they influence the legislative process to write and pass ever more unrighteous decrees and grievousness which widen the gap in both resources and influence between the powerful and powerless. As Harold Laski, a British political theorist, observed over a hundred years ago,
 
“A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property.”
 
Though it is worthy of its own treatment in any discussion of America’s mad state of rebellion (something we have done elsewhere), we should mention the evil that economic inequality represents, especially that which is legalized through unrighteous decrees and grievousness. It was none of than God, Himself, who named economic inequality for the sin that it is.
 
“It is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin” (DC 49.20).
 
“Thus we see” that unrighteous decrees and grievousness that make it possible for the wealthy to escape taxes and their responsibilities as less fortunate citizens corrupts the very beneficiaries of those decrees, makes sinners of them, and puts a big target on their backs as well.
 
“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!’” (DC 56.16)
 
How long can a society in which every citizen, poor and rich alike, has a target on their back endure?
 
Those who decree unrighteousness and grievousness along with those who use them to prey upon their less fortunate fellow citizens imagine they can hide from God and the consequences of their wickedness.
 
Haughtily, the wicked vehemently pursues those already down and out.
   The poor are snared by the plans the wicked conceives.
For the wicked finds joy only in satisfying his appetites,
   and calls blessed, one accumulating unjust profits--
      one who holds YHWH in contempt!
 
He says to himself, ‘I cannot be toppled.
   My future holds no misfortune.’
 
He sits in ambush outside villages.
   From concealed places he slays the unsuspecting innocent;
      his eyes peer out at his unfortunate victim.
Like a lion, he lies in wait from a concealed place in the brush.
   He lies in ambush to seize the poor--
He seizes the poor, dragging him into his lair.
   He crouches low, he hunches down
      and falls upon the bones of the vulnerable.
He says to himself, ‘God is oblivious.
   He’s absent. He sees nothing, ever’” (Psalm 10.2-3, 6, 8-11, author’s translation).
 
But He who is holy and lives in heaven observes all, including this preying upon the vulnerable.
 
“I have heard your prayers, and the poor have complained before me…”
 
The day of visitation will come. We have prayed for it before and will again. It has become a common refrain in our prayers.
 
“And what will ye do in the day of visitation,   
   and in the desolation which shall come from far?   
to whom will ye flee for help?  
   and where will ye leave your glory?” (Isaiah 10.3)

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

In our paradigmatic text for this series (Mosiah 29.17, 21-23), the Book of Mormon redactor warns of the evils of a wicked king.
 
“For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!
 
“And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood. For behold, he has his friends in iniquity, and he keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned in righteousness before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God; And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he causeth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them; and thus an unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness”
 
The warning is 100% applicable to the wickedness of America’s latest ex-president, who continues to breath threats and inspire insurrectionists against American democracy. Not a single day, not one, passed during his administration but what witnessed yet another example of his “tear[ing] up the laws of those who… reigned… before him and pervert[ing] the ways of all righteousness [all that is right].” Few days have passed since the defeat he arrogantly refuses to acknowledge but what additional examples of his ripping at the fabric of American society are discovered and published. This example of his wickedness literally involves tearing and ripping.
 
President Donald Trump tore up briefings and schedules, articles and letters, memos both sensitive and mundane.
 
He ripped paper into quarters with two big, clean strokes — or occasionally more vigorously, into smaller scraps.
 
He left the detritus on his desk in the Oval Office, in the trash can of his private West Wing study and on the floor aboard Air Force One, among many other places.
 
And he did it all in violation of the Presidential Records Act, despite being urged by at least two chiefs of staff and the White House counsel to follow the law on preserving documents.
 
“‘It is absolutely a violation of the act,’ said Courtney Chartier, president of the Society of American Archivists. ‘There is no ignorance of these laws. There are White House manuals about the maintenance of these records’” (“‘He never stopped ripping things up’: Inside Trump’s relentless document destruction habits,” Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger and Jacqueline Alemany, Washington Post).
 
This man must be stopped from ripping America further apart. His wickedness must be exposed on national TV. It must be broadcast to every rooftop satellite, through every fiber optic cable, upon the pages of every print publication, and via every social media outlet. And his “friends in iniquity” must be made to publicly confess and repent of their sedition in supporting him, or lose all position and honor and, perhaps, freedom in society. How’s that for a Captain Moroni imitation?

In exploring homelessness and the state of housing in America, the author of a recent piece made the following observations:
 
“… in the 1950s the median price of a single-family house was around 2.2 times the median American family income. Today, the Fed says, the median house sells for $374,900 while the median American income is $35,805 — a ratio of more than ten-to-one…
 
“… what’s taken over and is really driving home prices today are massive, multi-billion-dollar funds that sweep into neighborhoods and buy everything available, bidding against families and driving up housing prices…
 
“After stripping neighborhoods of homes families can buy, they then begin raising rents as far as the market will bear” (“Wall Street’s Barons Are Causing Homelessness for Profit,” Thom Hartmann, Truthout).
 
The piece goes on to report that it is not unusual for these rents to be up to 1/3 of annual income for working class families—as opposed to the investor class, who do no work, notwithstanding the popular myth of the “American work ethic.”
 
Now, we must not and will not let such investors hide behind the fact that what they do is “legal.” While their culpability may be slightly less than that of the black-hearted legislators who enact unjust laws and make such banditry possible and legal, there is nothing that demands that the investor class act upon policies and laws that are corrupt from the legislators’ signing pens. Investors are free to choose. They can act morally, though those who govern do not. And because they are free to choose, they are accountable for their choices. I, for one, look forward to the day when accounts will be settled and payment made for the injustices perpetrated in the name of “its legal.”
 
It is certain that the American economic system is utterly different than that of Biblical Israel. As opposed to some ill-informed “Christians,” we would not and do advocate for the institution of “Biblical Law” in America. Nevertheless, there are Biblical principles that can be applied to our system and the ways in which we conduct our business. There are legitimate comparisons that can be made between economic practices and policies of the Biblical world and our world today. Here is one. When we read of the immoral real estate practices that our legal system allows and the hardships they impose on working people, we think of one of Isaiah criticisms of “real estate” practices in his day.
 
Isaiah 5 begins with a parable, or song of lamentation, in which Israel is likened to a vineyard. This song explores Yahweh’s sadness in witnessing the social injustices that are allowed to proliferate in Israel—a nation that had been called for the express purpose of being an ensign to the world by, among other things, being exemplary in governing itself according to ethical and just principles. Likening the vineyard’s sweet grapes to Israel’s social justice and the vineyard’s sour grapes to Israel’s social injustice, Isaiah ends with this tragic observation.
 
“Understand: the vineyard of Yahweh Ṣebā’ôt is the house of Yiśrā’el.
   and the men of Yehûdâ, a planting in which he delighted.
He watched anxiously for justice.
   But, look! Violence!
He watched anxiously for equity. 
   But, look! Cries of distress! (author’s translation)
 
With the conclusion of this tragic song, Isaiah launches into a series of six “woes” or expressions of pain, each of varying length. This series of “woes” catalogues some of the specific injustices only alluded to in the song but prevalent in Israelite society. Today, and in light of what is happening to housing in America, we are particularly interested in the first woe which alludes to one of the injustices among the many committed in ancient Israel.
 
“Oh, the pain caused by you who expand, house by house, field by field,
   hoarding until there’s nothing left
      and you dwell all alone in the midst” (Isaiah 5.8, author’s translation).
 
We do not know all the ways in which ancient Israelite greedy and lustful hoarders managed to pull off this property coup. We can be sure, though, that the writing of grievous laws and making of unrighteous decrees played a role (See Is. 10.1). We can also be sure that the individual hoarders that brought pain to less advantaged citizens were accountable for their actions and have been held accountable for their wicked deeds.
 
We can also say that Isaiah’s “woe” reminds us that people never change. We can say that the same type of hurtful behavior—behavior hurtful to individuals and hurtful to society as a whole—of which Isaiah complains is alive and well today. We can say the America’s investor class has preyed upon the poor, widows, orphans, children, and every other vulnerable class of citizen (See Is. 10.2). We can confidently warn America’s investor class to repent. We can confidently predict that God has heard the cries of America’s poor as he heard the cries of Israelite slaves in Egypt, and that he will act. He will recompense the pain that those vulnerable to the investor oppressors have suffered and will visit oppression upon the oppressor. We wish this day of recompense and visitation had already arrived. But let it be sooner or later, we will rejoice in that day when “a feast of fat things [is] prepared for the poor; yea, a feast of fat things of wine on the lees well refined” (DC 58.8).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

​
 
 
For this post, we return to one of our paradigmatic texts.
 
“For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!
 
“And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood. For behold, he has his friends in iniquity, and he keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned in righteousness before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God; And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he causeth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them; and thus an unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness” ((Mosiah 29.17, 21-23).
 
We would not be under necessity of returning to it so often, if the former president had disappeared into the sunset and stopped being a threat to all that is holy and good. But, alas, he continues to poison his acolytes with lies and deceptions, and to instigate them to violence and lawlessness with his own unholy madness. As the latest example of his treasonous behavior against not only America but against righteousness, we offer the following reporting.
 

“Donald Trump considered issuing a blanket pardon to participants in the January 6 insurrection before he left office, two former advisers have said.
 
“The news, from Politico, landed after Trump told an audience in Texas on Saturday he would issue pardons to rioters if elected president again in 2024.
 
“‘If I run and if I win,’ Trump said in Conro, Texas, ‘we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.’
 
“That prompted a storm of protest also fueled by Trump urging followers to protest against prosecutors in New York and Georgia investigating his business affairs and attempted election subversion” (“Trump considered blanket pardon for Capitol insurrectionists,” Martin Pengelly, The Guardian). 
 
​
Here, we witness the same iniquity and the same wickedness and the same perversion about which the Book of Mormon redactor warned. We witness the same tearing up of laws and the same trampling under feet the commandments of God. We see his attempt to protect and promote his “friends in iniquity.”
 
Because we witness this despicable conduct, we are under necessity of issuing warnings about them. We cannot be complacent. “The enemy is combined [united]” (DC 38.12). We speak anew this warning from long ago. It is
 
“a mystery, a thing which is had in secret chambers, to bring to pass even your destruction in process of time, and ye knew it not… And again, I say unto you that the enemy in the secret chambers seeketh your lives. Ye hear of wars in far countries, and you say that there will soon be great wars in far countries, but ye know not the hearts of men in your own land” (DC 38.13, 28-29).
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

“When I look at the States today, versus its peers in the rich world, an observation leaps out at me. America’s built a society on a kind of furious, single-minded dedication to one idea: Social Darwinism, or the survival of the ‘fittest.’
 
“Let’s begin with the obvious. Its economy is modern history’s greatest machine for survival of the ‘fittest.’ The ‘winners’ deserve extreme fame, fortune, and power — like the billionaires who gained $3.9 trillion during the pandemic while workers lost $3.7 trillion— but the losers don’t even deserve to live. Can’t afford insulin? That’s your fault. You don’t deserve to be alive. Immunocompromised? Not my problem if you get Covid and die because I refuse to wear a mask” (“How Social Darwinism Destroyed America From the Inside,” Umair Haque, Medium).
​
 
Undoubtedly, there are any number of other explanations for the moral bankruptcy of America’s present economic attitudes, policies, and activities. Ditto for the pathetic and sociopathic response of tens of millions of Americans to COVID 19, 20, 21, and now 22—a pathology that has led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. On the day of judgement, we will all see the phlegm, and spittle and blood that defiles the filthy garments and unrepentant souls of those guilty of both sins.
                                                               
As one explanation, selfishness, is the first to come to mind. But such behaviors as those mentioned above, along with whatever vile character traits that produce them in the first place, require justification on the part of the participants. They require a doctrine. Mr. Haque’s identification of “Social Darwinism” with its accompanying “survival of the fittest” is as good a suggested doctrine as any. Perhaps he has been reading the Book of Mormon. Before turning to that great Book, though, I would like to share a couple of thoughts.
 
First, “the survival of the fittest” is a phenomenon of the natural world. It is a phenomenon that acts upon all earth life. But men were created to act rather than to be acted upon. Therefore, “social Darwinism” is a choice. The adoption, justification, and perpetuation of the unholy doctrine that only the “fittest” deserve to succeed and survive while “the least fit” deserve to suffer, fail, and, finally, die are choices.
Secondly, while Darwin gets the credit for identifying a force that is so clearly at work in the natural world, he wasn’t the first. While most members of homo-sapiens, if not all, unconsciously acted upon the doctrine for millions of years in their social relationships with others, one man who lived over two thousand years before Darwin articulated it and commended it as a “righteous” doctrine by which humankind should consciously live. His name is well known in Mormondom: Korihor. This brings us to the Book of Mormon and one of Korihor’s many “innovative” doctrines.
 
“Every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.”
 
Tell me how this is not an articulation of “social Darwinism” and “survival of the fittest.” Fortunately, with this doctrine of Korihor, we are permitted to see its inspiration. It is obvious that this doctinre was intended as direct opposition and challenge to the doctrine of atonement. This doctrine advocated for an interconnected existence in which all acknowledged their inability to individually and adequately “manage” their lives in an enduring way and, at the same time, acknowledged a dependance upon others, not least of which was a dependance upon God. Only by acknowledging and living according to this doctrine of atonement and connectedness is it possible to live a meaningful, happy, and enduring life.
 
So, the Book of Mormon reader has been warned. “Social Darwinism” is anti-Christ. Acceptance of it and living based upon it is a rejection of Christ. It is a rejection of the kind of enduring life that he offers through the doctrine that he lives and teaches: the doctrine of atonement. No reader of the Book of Mormon can act upon the principles of “social Darwinism.” Every reader of the Book of Mormon knows and acts upon the truth that in God’s economy both the “fit” (if such actually exists) and the “unfit” can live a happy, successful, and enduring life through their connectedness with Christ—the only truly fit man to ever walk planet earth. Happy is he or she who find their “fitness” in him.

​“… pharmaceutical companies hiked prices on hundreds of medications to start the year. A recent report from the patient advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs found that drug companies have increased prices on more than 550 drugs, including 183 drugs whose prices were raised by $100 or more, and 118 drugs that now cost more than $5,000. Pfizer alone raised prices on 125 drugs, more than any company, even as it shattered profit records thanks to $36 billion in sales from its widely-used COVID vaccine.
 
“‘Even as we enter the third year of a pandemic, Big Pharma continues its practice of targeting American patients and consumers with price increases, completely undeterred by the financial and health challenges facing American families,’ David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in a statement.
 
“‘Drug corporations can do this because we let them — unlike other nations that use their purchasing power to get a better deal…’”
 
Companies and their CEOs are, or course, free to choose good over evil, people over profit. But in the present moment dominated in America by capitalism’s false doctrines, they will not; for profit is viewed as the greatest good and justification for any evil. This, in itself, is an indication of America’s mad state of rebellion and is worthy of its own brand of condemnation. But this madness is multiplied many times over by an American ruling elite that has, through its writing of grievousness and unrighteous decrees, abandoned its citizens to become prey to the insatiable avarice of the masters of mammon and mayhem and death. Isaiah would speak no differently to today’s America than he did over two thousand years ago to ancient Israel. Some things simply never change, no matter the form of government—monarchy or “democracy.”
 
“Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,   
   and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; 
to turn aside the needy from judgment,   
   and to take away the right from the poor of my people,  
that widows may be their prey,   
   and that they may rob the fatherless! 
And what will ye do in the day of visitation,   
   and in the desolation which shall come from far?   
to whom will ye flee for help?  
   and where will ye leave your glory?” (Isaiah 10.1-3)
 
I, for one, anxiously await the “day of visitation.”
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

​“… the CEO of Raytheon, Greg Hayes, was discussing the escalation of the war in Yemen and Ukraine when he said, ‘I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.’
 
“The Biden administration, ignoring its promises about Yemen from a year ago, is embracing the escalation of the war as they refuse to suspend any support to Saudi Arabia. Raytheon, a company that sees profits from the war in Yemen, gave President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign over half a million dollars in 2020.
 
“In early November of 2021, the Biden administration announced a massive arms sale of $650 million worth of medium-range missiles and missile rail launchers to Saudi Arabia. The primary contractor for these weapons is Raytheon” (“Biden’s Campaign Donors Don’t Want Him to End US Support for the Yemen War,” by Danaka Katovich, Truthout).
 
Knowing God’s plan to populate the earth with his children in hopes of advancing their character and intelligence sufficient to abide his presence eternally, Satan belligerently announced his own intentions to undermine and attack God’s plans by corrupting earth’s mortal inhabitants. One of the principle means by which he would corrupt the embryonic children of God and thus thwart their advancement would be as follows:   
 
“I will buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on the earth” (Satan, LDS temple endowment).
 
This is one of what I call the dark teachings of the endowment; one of its many warnings concerning the nature of mortality.
 
Satan has been true to his word. While the technology used to shed blood and spread horror on the earth has changed and “evolved” over time, nations have consistently done Satan’s bidding. Unfortunately, the United States has been and is no exception. This recent report illustrates but one of the many examples of America’s contract with Satan as it assists him in undermining God’s work.
 
Upon Satan’s issuance of his threat, God cast him out of his presence. Would to God that America was so wise.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!