Editing Book of Mormon (section)

==== Apocalyptic reversal and Indigenous or nonwhite liberation ====
The Book of Mormon's "eschatological content" lends to a "theology of Native and/or nonwhite liberation", in the words of American studies scholar Jared Hickman.<ref name="Hickman-2014">{{Cite journal |last=Hickman |first=Jared |date=September 2014 |title=The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse |url=https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2717371 |journal=[[American Literature (journal)|American Literature]] |volume=86 |issue=3 |pages=429–461 |doi=10.1215/00029831-2717371}}</ref> The Book of Mormon's narrative content includes prophecies describing how although Gentiles (generally interpreted as being whites of European descent) would conquer the Indigenous residents of the Americas (imagined in the Book of Mormon as being a remnant of descendants of the Lamanites), this conquest would only precede the Native Americans' revival and resurgence as a God-empowered people. The Book of Mormon narrative's prophecies envision a Christian eschaton in which Indigenous people are destined to rise up as the true leaders of the continent, manifesting in a new utopia to be called "Zion".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ashurst-McGee |first=Mark |date=Summer 2012 |title=Zion ''in'' America: The Origins of Mormon Constitutionalism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23291618 |journal=[[Journal of Mormon History]] |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=90–101 |doi=10.2307/23291618 |jstor=23291618 |s2cid=254490392 }}</ref> White Gentiles would have an opportunity to repent of their sins and join themselves to the Indigenous remnant,{{Sfn|Underwood|1993|p=79}} but if white Gentile society fails to do so, the Book of Mormon's content foretells a future "apocalyptic reversal" in which Native Americans will destroy white American society and replace it with a godly, Zionic society.{{Sfn|Underwood|1993|p=80}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=G |first=David |date=October 11, 2010 |title=Columbus, the European Conquest, and the Radical Message of the Book of Mormon |url=https://juvenileinstructor.org/columbus-the-european-conquest-and-the-radical-message-of-the-book-of-mormon/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101013110313/https://juvenileinstructor.org/columbus-the-european-conquest-and-the-radical-message-of-the-book-of-mormon/ |archive-date=October 13, 2010 |access-date=October 5, 2022 |website=Juvenile Instructor}}</ref> This prophecy commanding whites to repent and become supporters of American Indians even bears "special authority as an utterance of Jesus" Christ himself during a messianic appearance at the book's climax.<ref name="Hickman-2014" />

Furthermore, the Book of Mormon's "formal logic" criticizes the theological supports for racism and white supremacy prevalent in the antebellum United States by enacting a textual apocalypse.<ref name="Hickman-2014" /> The book's apparently white Nephite narrators fail to recognize and repent of their own sinful, hubristic prejudices against the seemingly darker-skinned Lamanites in the narrative. In their pride, the Nephites repeatedly backslide into producing oppressive social orders, such that the book's narrative performs a sustained critique of colonialist racism.{{Sfn|Coviello|2019|pp=140–146}} The book concludes with its own narrative implosion in which Lamanites suddenly succeed over and destroy Nephites in a literary turn seemingly designed to jar the average antebellum white American reader into recognizing the "utter inadequacy of his or her rac(ial)ist common sense".<ref name="Hickman-2014" />