Who Is Captain Moroni?

[_Runtu]

New blog post.

https://runtu.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/ ... in-moroni/

[_Quasimodo]

Excellent blog post, Runtu (as always). I'm continually impressed with your writings! We, at the trailer park, are lucky to have you.

[_Res Ipsa]

Yeah, what the hunchback said.

[_Quasimodo]

Yeah, what the hunchback said.

What hunch?

[_Blixa]

Nice work, runtu. I'm pleased by the statement from church headquarters.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

Nice work, runtu. I'm pleased by the statement from church headquarters.

Of course they did.

Next likely PR step would be excommunication of the Bundy family.

[_DrW]

Hey Runtu,

Very well done.

From the East Coast, I can offer the West Coast NPR listeners a bit of a heads-up on this.

There was a fairly long segment on this story on the NPR national network this evening. For a short time, I thought they may have been taking the content straight from your blog. (Yep, it was that well written.)

Alas, it turns out that the content was from an Oregon Public Radio reporter who had actually interviewed Cliven Bundy and knew a lot about Mormonism. And so it came to pass that the whole sordid history these so called Patriots (Mormon fundamentalists) and their claims that their acts were justified by Mormon scripture, came tumbling out right there on the NPR for the entire country to hear.

For balance, the written statement from the Mormon Church was referred to. You know, the one that assured non-members that these acts had no basis in Mormon scripture. I found this denial of some interest because it was basically a renunciation of Mormon scripture. After all, as you pointed out, the story of Captain Moroni is right there in the Book of Mormon - chapter and verse.

[Guest]

From the East Coast, I can offer the West Coast NPR listeners a bit of a heads-up on this.

There was a fairly long segment on this story on the NPR national network this evening.

Alas, it turns out that the content was from an Oregon Public Radio reporter who had actually interviewed Cliven Bundy and knew a lot about Mormonism. And so it came to pass that the whole sordid history these so called Patriots (Mormon fundamentalists) and their claims that their acts were justified by Mormon scripture, came tumbling out right there on the NPR for the entire country to hear....

http://www.opb.org/news/article/explain ... Mormonism/

Great article. Here is an excerpt.

During an April 2014 standoff with federal officials, supporters and members of the Bundy militia cited Book of Mormon passages centering on Captain Moroni. There were also several flags quoting Captain Moroni’s own writing on his “title of liberty.” Often next to American flags, these banners read “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”

Cliven Bundy - the Nevada Rancher who called on militia and anti-government forces to help him in the showdown with the Bureau of Land Management – cited his own Mormon faith as a reason for what he viewed as a favorable outcome. As quoted by the Salt Lake City Tribune:

“If the standoff with the Bundys was wrong, would the Lord have been with us?” he asked, noting no one was killed as tensions escalated. “Could those people that stood (with me) without fear and went through that spiritual experience … have done that without the Lord being there? No, they couldn’t.”


Those remarks represent the deep commitment to the Bundy brand of faith. Abraham Bundy – Cliven’s great-grandfather – was a deeply religious man who was driven from prior homes first by flood, and then by revolution. He settled what would become Bundyville, home to a one-room schoolhouse and a scattering of homesteads in a harsh stretch of desert.

Ultimately, the small town Abraham Bundy founded would be abandoned, after the Bundy family could not secure water and grazing rights from the federal government.

Bundy has previously said in interviews that relocation played a significant role in shaping his family’s outlook toward the federal government.

Those views are intertwined with Bundy’s faith. Speaking in St. George, Utah, after the standoff with the Bureau of Land Management, Bundy posed these questions to a crowd of mostly conservative Mormons, as reported by the Spectrum of St. George:

“If our (U.S.) Constitution is an inspired document by our Lord Jesus Christ, then isn’t it scripture?” Bundy asked.

“Yes,” a chorus of voices replied.

“Isn’t it the same as the Book of Mormon and the Bible?” Bundy asked.

“Absolutely,” the audience answered.

And another one.

David Ammon Bundy – Cliven’s father – relocated the family to Nevada in the 1940s. Cliven named his third son, Ammon, after his father. Ammon is also a figure in the Mormon faith, described as a “great servant” in LDS scripture.

Ammon Bundy is a self-described devout Mormon, with strong anti-federal feelings. He praises his father’s actions against the federal government, and once accused the Bureau of Land Management as using the Endangered Species Act as a type of eminent domain.

“They have this quota that they meet,” Bundy told the Cultural Hall podcast. “What we start to see is them using the resources and selling the land for their own benefit!”

Ammon Bundy uses much of the same language as his father, mixing Mormon religious symbolism with a disgust of the federal government.

Speaking to Harney County residents last December, Ammon Bundy explained why he became involved in the Dwight and Steven Hammond case that sparked this takeover of federal property.

“I got this urge that I needed write something,” Bundy said. “I asked the good Lord…I need some help. And he gave me that help. The Lord is not pleased what has happened with the Hammonds.”

The man identifying as Captain Moroni said he was inspired by the call, and that the inspiration was validated by God in the form of a flock of geese he saw flying.

“I just knew it was the right thing [to come to Oregon],” Captain Moroni said. “I’m willing to die here.”

[_Dr Exiled]

It's there in chapter and verse but a misreading of the Book of Mormon myth. Captain Moroni was trying to stop a revolution with his title of liberty and these persons are seemingly trying to create one.

[_SuperDell]

One and all would be better served by referring to this nutcase as Captain MORON. He has earned it.