Latter-day Saint Perspectives

The Interview: For this episode of the Latter-day Saint Perspectives Podcast, Laura Harris Hales interviews BYU–Idaho professor David Pulsipher about some of the subtle but consequential lessons regarding conflict, violence, and peace found in the Book of Mormon. Steeped in a culture of violent films and video games, and surrounded with visual images of muscular Book of Mormon warriors, we can easily miss important patterns of conflict in the scriptural narrative. For example, while the text contains multiple examples of defending faith and family with armies and military strategies, it also contains numerous examples of successful nonviolent strategies that are usually depicted as even more effective than violence. The Nephites, for example, believed that God would protect them from their enemies in at least two ways—he would either “warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger” (Alma 48:15). If we carefully read the text to find examples of either of these warnings, we may be surpri