Last week in gov we discussed an article by Richard Bushman about the book of mormon and its opposition to the political environment in which it was brought forward. (i.e. , deliverance as opposed to resistance). I started to wonder what the implications of that paradigm shift are - does the book of mormon suggest that a deliverance oriented perspective is closer to God? I have a deeply (culturally) rooted impulse for a more defiant, independent, resistance perspective. But on the other hand, I don't know if that's always a bad thing. Even in the book of mormon, Captain Moroni and others fight for their lives, liberties and families. So I guess the question is how you define resistance as opposed to deliverance, and wether you think one must aggressive and the other passive. I suppose all of this comes back to a Calvin and Hobbes strip (like most weighty dilemmas.) Calvin asks Hobbes what he thinks about wether it's better to stand up and fight or to always turn the other cheek. Hobbes replies that probably the mature thing to do is to go on a case by case basis - to look at the actual situation and decide on the best course of action (Calvin says that requires too much maturity and does something violent). I believe that we do need to make situational choices, but I would like to think that I could find some sort of guiding principles with which to make those decisions. I don't know what those are, but I guess I have some ideas. First of all, I don't think I should ever decide wether to resist or deal with a problem through fear. Second, I think that all of these decisions should include me asking what the Christlike, or loving, thing to do would be. Beyond that, I'm not really sure. (again - I guess I'm not very good at conclusions).