The Tragedy of the Stripling Warriors

In Helaman 3 we read that there was “a little pride which was in the church, which did cause some little dissensions among the people.”  A few years later the problems escalated and “there was much contention and many dissensions,” and this was followed by the departure of “an exceedingly great many” into the land northward out of Zarahemla.  Mormon didn’t give us any details about what had caused the contention and dissensions, but I have to think that it was at least in part due to the friction between those who had formerly been Lamanites and those who were Nephites by descent.  We read that “there were many of the people of Ammon, who were Lamanites by birth, did also go forth into this land” (Helaman 3:1, 3, 12).  They must not have ever really integrated into the Nephite society—they were likely always labeled as the people of Ammon.  It had been over 10 years since the end of the war and they had lived much longer than that among the Nephites, but they were still known by a name other than Nephites.  Perhaps the Nephites could never really accept these Lamanites as one of them, and that difference in societal status may have been the cause of friction that finally motivated them to take off and leave.  At that point the stripling warriors would have probably been in their early 30s (if they were just younger than 20 when they fought) and so likely many of them were a part of that exodus to the land northward. 

                The saddest part of the story to me is what we read about many years later.  Nephi went up to the land northward where this group composed of many of the people of Ammon had gone.  He came back to the land of Zarahemla from the land northward about 23 years after the exodus north, and this people “did reject all his words, insomuch that he could not stay among them” (Helaman 7:3).  This was the grandson of Helaman who had led the stripling warriors to miraculous success in their battles, and yet he was still rejected.  If we assume that many of them were still alive, that would mean that the original stripling warriors were in their early 50s and no longer accepted the gospel.  What a tragedy that would be!  Or perhaps most of them had died by this point and it was their children and posterity who now rejected the gospel.  Either way, it is certainly heartbreaking that their family would not have continued in the tradition of great faith shown by the original people of Ammon.  Perhaps if the Nephites could have better integrated them in their society and not had so much contention with them they would have stayed in the land of Zarahemla close to the Church.  It reminds of a great man I knew on my mission.  He had been converted to the gospel a couple of years before I arrived when he was a homeless man, and his whole life had been changed for the better because of the gospel.  I came to love him as much as I loved anyone on my mission, and so I was devastated to learn after I left the area that he no longer came to Church and was back on the streets.  I’m sure that decision for him was a complicated one, but my understanding of the story was that his motivation at least in part was the judging he felt from members in the ward who looked down on evidences of his former life still with him such as the tattoos on his hand.  Surely the ultimate responsibility for leaving rested on him, but if only the ward members could have fully embraced him and left his past in the past—he may never have left if that were the case.  We have such a responsibility to love those who join the Church and do everything we can to get rid of anything that might stand to segregate us.  If we cannot learn to be one, we cannot be the people of the Lord (D&C 38:27).