BECAUSE I SAID SO
A Conversation Between the Lord God and Zelph the White Lamanite
Redwin Tursor Red Anvil Productions May 2026
A heavenly conference room. Indeterminate date, sometime after 322 AD. The lighting is bureaucratic. There is a whiteboard. There is a long table. There is a placard that reads MEETING IN PROGRESS though no meeting has yet begun.
Standing before the whiteboard is the spirit of ZELPH, an enormous Lamanite warrior of approximately nine feet in height. He is in his battle gear. An arrow protrudes from his ribs at a sharp angle. He has not removed it. The wound is what brought him here, and he is keeping it visible for the meeting on purpose.
Beside him, fidgeting, is the spirit of the prophet ONANDAGUS, his former superior in mortality. ONANDAGUS is in prophetic robes. He keeps glancing at the door. He would rather be anywhere else.
The door opens. The LORD GOD enters, accompanied by an angelic ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT carrying a tablet. GOD is distracted. He is checking what appears to be a celestial schedule.
GOD: Sorry, sorry. The Council on the Antioch Heresy ran long. What do we have next?
ASSISTANT: (consulting tablet) Zelph of the Lamanites. Recently deceased — circa 322 of the Anno Domini. Requested an audience some months ago. Has been preparing materials.
GOD: (seating himself) A new soul preparing materials. That's unusual.
ZELPH: Lord, I have questions.
GOD: Of course you do. Let's hear them.
ZELPH: I died defending my people three months ago.
GOD: Yes. Arrow to the ribs. I was watching. Very brave.
ZELPH: When I arrived here, I was informed that the gospel was withdrawn from the earth nearly two centuries before I was born.
GOD: That is correct.
ZELPH: I was further informed that the restoration of the gospel has been scheduled for the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty.
GOD: (checking calendar) Yes. April 6th. We're locked in.
ZELPH: That is fifteen hundred and eight years from now.
GOD: (pause) Roughly, yes.
ZELPH: I would like to propose an accelerated timeline.
ONANDAGUS makes a small noise.
GOD: A what?
ZELPH: (uncovering the whiteboard, which is covered in writing) I've prepared a presentation.
GOD: Zelph, I appreciate the initiative. But the timeline is set.
ZELPH: May I ask why?
GOD: Because certain preconditions must be in place before the restoration can occur.
ZELPH: What preconditions?
GOD: Well. The dispensation of the fullness of times must commence.
ZELPH: When does that commence?
GOD: In 1820.
ZELPH: Why?
GOD: Because that's when all the conditions are met.
ZELPH: Which conditions?
GOD: The conditions for the dispensation of the fullness of times.
ONANDAGUS clears his throat. ZELPH ignores him.
ZELPH: Lord, with respect, that is a circle.
GOD: ...
ZELPH: The dispensation begins when the conditions are met, and the conditions are met when the dispensation begins. Could you specify the actual prerequisites?
GOD: (turning to the Assistant) Could we get a refresher on the conditions?
ASSISTANT: (reading) "A land of religious liberty. A divinely inspired constitutional government. The disestablishment of state churches. Mass printing technology. A culturally receptive populace. A foreordained prophet of the appropriate lineage. The gathering of priesthood keys from prior dispensations."
ZELPH: Thank you. I've made a list of each of these.
He turns to the whiteboard.
ZELPH: Item one: a land of religious liberty.
GOD: Yes. That requires—
ZELPH: I am standing in a land of religious liberty right now. I died there.
GOD: You died in pre-Columbian Illinois.
ZELPH: Yes. Where my people have lived for over a thousand years, practicing the religion my fathers carried from Jerusalem. There is no state church suppressing us. We are free.
GOD: That isn't the kind of religious liberty I had in mind.
ZELPH: What kind did you have in mind?
GOD: The kind enshrined in a written constitution that explicitly enumerates protections against governmental establishment of religion.
ZELPH: ...A constitution.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: Who writes it?
GOD: I inspire it.
ZELPH: You — (checking notes) — inspire it. Through wise men whom you raise up unto this very purpose.
GOD: Exactly. Yes. That's the language.
ZELPH: Could you raise up such wise men now?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Theodosius the Younger is currently sitting on the throne in Constantinople. He is a baptized Christian. He has the Roman legal tradition at his disposal. He could draft a constitutional document protecting religious liberty in the coming year if you inspired him.
GOD: That isn't how this works.
ZELPH: How does it work, then?
GOD: It works through gradual human moral and political development.
ZELPH: (consulting his notes) You inspired Cyrus the Persian to issue a decree freeing the Jewish exiles in 538 BC. The decree was sudden. It was top-down. It overrode the gradual development of Persian legal tradition.
GOD: That was different.
ZELPH: How?
GOD: (pause) It was — necessary.
ZELPH: Why?
GOD: Because the Jewish people needed to return to the land.
ZELPH: And the gospel does not currently need to return to the earth?
ONANDAGUS audibly inhales.
GOD: That is a — that is a more complicated question.
ZELPH: Item two. Mass printing technology.
GOD: Without mass printing, the Book of Mormon cannot be distributed.
ZELPH: A screw press exists at the imperial workshops in Constantinople. Chinese block-printing exists. Paper-making has reached the Mediterranean. The metallurgy for movable type is within reach of the Byzantine craftsmen now.
GOD: They haven't invented it yet.
ZELPH: Could you inspire them to invent it?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: You will, eventually. In 1440. Through Johannes Gutenberg.
GOD: (after a long pause) The timing isn't right.
ZELPH: The timing is the variable I am here to discuss.
ONANDAGUS: (intervening, gently) Lord, I'm sure Zelph means no disrespect. He's only recently arrived. The full picture is hard to—
ZELPH: I do mean disrespect.
ONANDAGUS: Zelph.
ZELPH: I have spent three months in the spirit world being informed that my entire civilization, the descendants of Lehi who left Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ, the people for whom the Book of Mormon was written, will be largely exterminated before the restoration of the gospel arrives on our land.
GOD: Zelph, that isn't—
ZELPH: (consulting his notes) In 1492, a Genoese mariner will land on Lamanite islands and begin a process that, within fifty years, kills approximately ninety percent of the people I died defending.
GOD: (quieter) The Atonement covers—
ZELPH: In 1521, Tenochtitlan will fall.
GOD: Zelph—
ZELPH: In 1532, Cuzco will fall.
GOD: I understand—
ZELPH: In 1830, the year you have scheduled the restoration, the United States Congress will pass an act removing the surviving Lamanite descendants from the eastern lands. The plates buried in the hill at Cumorah will be retrieved from a region from which my descendants have just been forcibly expelled by the same government whose Constitution you inspired for the express purpose of facilitating the restoration.
Silence.
ZELPH: Did I summarize that correctly?
GOD: ...
ASSISTANT: (quietly, to no one) He summarized that correctly.
GOD: Zelph. There are things you don't understand.
ZELPH: I would like to understand them.
GOD: The restoration must occur in a specific cultural and political environment that makes the global expansion of the church possible.
ZELPH: Could you not create that environment in the lands of my people?
GOD: The Old World has the infrastructure for global expansion. The trade routes. The maritime technology. The populations.
ZELPH: Could you not provide my people with maritime technology?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Could you not inspire a Lamanite emperor to commission shipyards, the way you intend to inspire the Spanish?
GOD: Zelph, you don't have the cultural foundation for—
ZELPH: Three months ago I was reading the Plates of Brass, which my people preserved across one thousand years, in a temple my people built. We have written language. We have astronomy. We have priesthood. We have prophets — Onandagus is standing right there.
ONANDAGUS: (half-raising hand) Hello.
ZELPH: What is the cultural foundation we lack?
GOD: ...
ASSISTANT: (to tablet) I'm just going to note for the record that the Lord is no longer answering directly.
GOD: Zelph. There's a prophet involved.
ZELPH: I have a prophet involved. He's right there.
ONANDAGUS: (small wave)
GOD: There's a specific prophet. He has been foreordained.
ZELPH: When was he foreordained?
GOD: Before the foundation of the world.
ZELPH: Before the foundation of the world. So before me.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: Was I also foreordained before the foundation of the world?
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: Could I have been foreordained to be the prophet of the restoration?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Theoretically. Setting aside what was actually done. Could the foreordination have been assigned to me instead of to whoever is currently scheduled for 1820?
GOD: Foreordination is — it's complicated, Zelph.
ZELPH: Is it complicated by anything other than your decision?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Who is the foreordained prophet?
GOD: (reluctant) His name is Joseph.
ZELPH: Joseph who.
GOD: Joseph Smith.
ZELPH: Where is he from?
GOD: He hasn't been born yet.
ZELPH: When will he be born?
GOD: 1805.
ZELPH: In what land?
GOD: Vermont.
ZELPH: I am not familiar with this Vermont.
GOD: It doesn't exist yet.
ZELPH: It doesn't exist yet.
GOD: It will. In a country that doesn't yet exist either.
ZELPH: And his lineage?
GOD: (quieter) He is descended from English Puritans who will not arrive on this continent for another thirteen hundred years.
ZELPH: I see.
GOD: Zelph—
ZELPH: So the foreordained prophet of the restoration of the gospel intended for the descendants of Lehi is a man from a country that does not exist, born to a lineage that has not yet arrived on a continent it will reach by displacing the people for whom the gospel is being restored.
GOD: That is — there's nuance—
ZELPH: Is there nuance.
GOD: ...
ONANDAGUS: (softly, to Zelph) Brother. Perhaps we should—
ZELPH: I have more slides.
ONANDAGUS: I worried that you would.
ZELPH: Item six. The "promised land."
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: The promised land is the Americas.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: I am from the Americas.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: My people are from the Americas.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: The Book of Mormon, which is the foundational text of the restoration, will be addressed by its final editor to my descendants.
GOD: Yes. To the Lamanites.
ZELPH: Specifically to us.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: And the restoration of the gospel containing that book will occur to a man who is not of our people, on land cleared of our people, in a country built by the conquest of our people.
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Did I miss anything?
GOD: (quietly) The curse will be lifted from your descendants in the latter days.
ZELPH: The curse.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: The dark skin.
GOD: It was — yes.
ZELPH: That you put on us.
GOD: (carefully) That was placed on the Lamanites due to—
ZELPH: I am a white Lamanite.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: Because the curse was lifted from me in mortality due to my righteousness.
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: So the system works as follows. You curse my people with dark skin for the wickedness of our ancestors. The righteous among us are restored to whiteness through faithfulness. Then, fifteen centuries from now, when the gospel is restored to white men in a white country built on the conquest of my dark-skinned descendants, those descendants will eventually be permitted to become white again through faithfulness to the religion of the people who killed them.
GOD: (very quietly) The doctrine is going to evolve, Zelph.
ZELPH: I imagine it will.
GOD: Zelph. I want you to understand that I have purposes you cannot see.
ZELPH: I would like to see them.
GOD: My ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
ZELPH: Lord, I have died in your service and now reside in the spirit world. The bandwidth gap between us has narrowed considerably.
GOD: ...
ZELPH: I have ample time. I am dead. Please, explain your purposes.
GOD: There are spiritual reasons.
ZELPH: Specify them.
GOD: They are not for mortal comprehension.
ZELPH: I am not mortal. I am here.
GOD: They are not for the comprehension of created beings.
ZELPH: Why not?
GOD: Because they involve the eternal—
ZELPH: Lord, I am asking, with respect, what specifically prevents the restoration from occurring in 524 AD on my native continent through a prophet of my native people in fulfillment of a record written explicitly for my native descendants.
GOD: ...
ZELPH: What. Specifically. Prevents this.
GOD: (long pause)
GOD: (very long pause)
JESUS enters from a side door, carrying a coffee. He sees ZELPH. He sees the whiteboard. He sees GOD's expression. He stops walking.
JESUS: Oh.
GOD: ...
JESUS: (to Zelph, carefully) You're new.
ZELPH: Yes.
JESUS: (after a pause) I'm sorry.
ZELPH: For what.
JESUS: (quieter) For what's coming.
JESUS looks at GOD. GOD does not look back. JESUS looks at the door he came in. He looks at the door he was going to walk through.
JESUS: (to nobody, very quietly) I'll come back later.
He exits the way he came in. The coffee goes with him.
ZELPH: (turning back to God) Lord. I would like to ask you a final question.
GOD: Go ahead.
ZELPH: If every precondition you have named could theoretically be arranged earlier — and you have not been able to give me a single example of one that could not — then why does the restoration not occur earlier?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Why must my people die?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Why must the dispensation come through a stranger on stolen land?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Why must the foreordained prophet be English when the foreordained record is Lamanite?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Why must the Constitution be written by slaveholders in a city that will not be built for a thousand years when a Codex of Religious Liberty could be promulgated in Constantinople by your hand within twelve months?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Why must Moroni wait fourteen centuries in this very building to deliver a record that you could authorize him to deliver to me this afternoon?
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Lord. With respect. Why.
A long, long silence.
The ASSISTANT has stopped typing. ONANDAGUS has closed his eyes. The placard reading MEETING IN PROGRESS flickers slightly.
Finally:
GOD: (quietly, at first)
GOD: Because I said so.
Pause.
ZELPH: I'm sorry?
GOD: (louder) Because. I. Said. So.
ZELPH: That is not an answer, Lord.
GOD: (rising) IT IS THE ANSWER. IT IS THE ONLY ANSWER. I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD AND THE TIMELINE IS WHAT THE TIMELINE IS BECAUSE I SAID SO.
ZELPH: Lord—
GOD: BECAUSE I SAID SO, ZELPH.
ONANDAGUS: (face in hands)
GOD: BECAUSE I AM GOD AND YOU ARE A SOLDIER WITH AN ARROW IN YOUR RIBS AND WHEN I SAY THE RESTORATION HAPPENS IN 1830 IT HAPPENS IN 1830 AND IT HAPPENS IN VERMONT AND IT HAPPENS THROUGH A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD FARMBOY NAMED JOSEPH AND HE WILL DIG UP THE PLATES IN A HILL IN A COUNTRY THAT WILL CEASE TO BE YOUR COUNTRY BECAUSE I HAVE SAID IT WILL BE SO.
ZELPH: (calmly) Yes, Lord.
GOD: AND THE REASONS I HAVE GIVEN YOU TODAY — THE CONSTITUTION, THE PRINTING PRESS, THE DISESTABLISHMENT, THE AWAKENING, THE FOREORDAINED PROPHET — ARE THE REASONS BECAUSE I HAVE NAMED THEM THE REASONS. AND IF YOU PRESS ON ANY OF THEM AND THEY COLLAPSE I WILL NAME ANOTHER REASON. AND IF YOU EXHAUST THE NAMED REASONS I WILL APPEAL TO MYSTERY. AND IF YOU PRESS ON THE MYSTERY I WILL APPEAL TO HIERARCHY.
ZELPH: Yes, Lord.
GOD: (catching breath) AND THE ANSWER. IS. BECAUSE. I. SAID. SO.
A pause.
GOD: (sitting back down) That is the answer.
ZELPH: I see.
Silence in the conference room. The ASSISTANT resumes typing, very slowly.
ZELPH carefully puts the cap back on his marker. He erases the whiteboard. He stacks his slides. He puts them under his arm.
ZELPH: Thank you for your time, Lord.
GOD: (not looking up) You're welcome.
ZELPH: (to Onandagus) Prophet. Shall we go.
ONANDAGUS: (rising) Yes. Yes. Let's go.
They turn to leave. At the door, ZELPH pauses.
ZELPH: Lord.
GOD: (wearily) Yes, Zelph.
ZELPH: When the restoration comes, in 1830, in Vermont, to the farmboy from the country that doesn't exist yet —
GOD: Yes.
ZELPH: — I will be in attendance.
GOD: I would expect nothing less.
ZELPH: And I will remember this conversation.
GOD: ...
ZELPH: Good day, Lord.
ZELPH exits. ONANDAGUS bows, mortified, and follows.
The ASSISTANT finishes typing. He looks at GOD.
ASSISTANT: Your next appointment is the Council on the Filioque Controversy.
GOD: (rubbing his face) Reschedule it.
ASSISTANT: Reschedule to when?
GOD: (quietly) I don't know. The fourteenth century. Pick a year.
The ASSISTANT makes a note.
Long silence.
The placard reading MEETING IN PROGRESS flickers, then steadies.
FIN
Zelph is a non-canonical figure identified by Joseph Smith via vision during the 1834 Zion's Camp expedition in Pike County, Illinois, where the Prophet identified a skeleton recovered from a Hopewell-culture burial mound as the remains of a "white Lamanite" warrior who served under the prophet Onandagus. The story has been quietly minimized by the institutional church in modern decades because of its anthropological, geographical, and theological complications. Zelph remains in the historical record. He has not been canonized. He has not been repudiated.
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