Seeking the Spirit’s Guidance On Whether To Ruin Brother Garcia’s Life

[MsJack]

[Gadianton]

great point.

[Chap]

- Scripture says we are obligated to obey the laws of the land

What if the laws of the land are not just?

Human laws are a more or less makeshift attempt to create guard-rails to stop bad things happening. But they can end up doing things that are plainly not what any benevolent deity would want.

For instance: a woman and her children are confined to their house by a man who amuses himself for several years by beating and abusing them. Finally, having seen that the man is looking at their pubescent daughter with a new kind of gaze, the woman manages to get hold of a sharp object, and looks out carefully for an opportunity when the man's vigilance is lowered by drink or drugs. And she cuts his throat. The law in many countries is likely to find her guilty of murder in some degree for doing that, in part because of the premeditation and planning involved.

Is a law that does that a just law? Should the woman have obeyed that law and let her husband have his way with their daughter?

Or to choose a historical example: in several southern states before the civil war, it was a crime to help a slave escape from his or her owner. That was the law of the land. Did 'scripture' oblige Christians living in those lands to obey the law and refrain from helping an escaped slave?

[Gadianton]

Chap, if the law mattered to those who wave their fists in righteous support of the law under the current administration, they wouldn't support the current administration, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'm sure a Jew in a concentration camp would have been uplifted by a nice lady bringing soup to ease their suffering even if she fully agreed the detainee was rightfully there, as the law so decreed it. Perhaps some Christians ought to be reminded just how amazingly Mormonism prospered under Hitler, and perhaps think twice as they support "the law" as they have voted for it, while also claiming to support traditional teachings of Jesus. But, at the same time, the bowl of soup is better than nothing, so I'll leave this comment and drop the matter from here.

[Chap]

I'm sure a Jew in a concentration camp would have been uplifted by a nice lady bringing soup to ease their suffering even if she fully agreed the detainee was rightfully there, as the law so decreed it.

Interesting example - but as you know, the lady would not have been allowed to bring soup to anyone in the camp, and to have attempted to do so would itself have been to break the law.