A central theme of Nietzsche's philosophy is whether or not something is generative or degenerative. As he puts it in his Nietzche contra Wagner, "Every art, every philosophy, may be considered a remedy and aid in the service of either growing or declining life ..." I think this is something that Nietzscheanism and Mormonism have in common. What I attempted to demonstrate in my blog post series Sex, God's and Mormonism, is that Joseph Smith's abrahamic expansionism is a generative theo-philosophy. Unlike the anti-earthly and anti-body aspects of Platonism in Protestant Christianity, and the martyr-centric emphasis of some of the first century Pauline church-groups, Joseph Smith's athletic body, jovial personality, and generative spirit manifested a more pro-earthly and embodied philosophy.
I read the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith's unconscious vitality breaking out of the concrete puritan surface of Protestantism within the text. It's as if Joseph Smith was a lifeward plant body breaking out of the concrete repressiveness of Puritanical Protestantism:
So that even though Joseph Smith is seeking to unite his family by producing new scripture through a kind of midrash -- and is doing so by retelling the Protestant sermons he had heard in a new way, and even though Protestant theology and philosophy enters into the Book of Mormon -- there is still a great deal of Joseph Smith's own bodily vitality, athleticism, and masculine spirit: which manifests within the characters and storyline of the text.
Smith’s masculine Christian characters in the Book of Mormon do not allow themselves to be oppressed but fight back and seek to win and grow and expand their clan. Nephi shocks his wayward brothers. Ammon takes up arms, removes arms, when fighting against his enemies, etc. etc. As other scholars have noted, Joseph Smith integrated the Old Testament Jehovahian (God of War) energy with the egalitarian (God is Love) energy of the New Testament.
As Cardon Ellis on Midnight Mormons podcast (31:50 timestamp) puts it:
We also saw what happened when the Anti-Nephi-Lehies tried to play nice and say, "Oh, we're going to be the peaceful ones in this argument'' and "kneel before our oppressors"; and get our freaking heads lopped off!
Carden is echoing the will to power energy in the Book of Mormon. In this sense, the Book of Mormon is an improvement on the non-generative apocalyptic Pauline mentality. In a first century context, Paul's ideas reveal that he had no interest in generative life on earth because he saw Life as cursed by Sin and Death; and all mortal life would be annihilated soon; and so he encouraged his followers to become ascetic and/or celibate and seek low-status, be passive, and eventually willfully die a passive martyr.
As many scholars have pointed out, the characters in much of the New Testament are passive, willful victims, in the role of martyrs in imitation of a Suffering Messiah; for example, the martyrdom of Stephen follows the same patterns of Christ. In short, "Paul claims he shares in Christ's sufferings, and in turn calls Christians to imitate him (1 Thess 1:6; 1 Cor 11:1; 2 Cor 1:6; Gal 4:12; cf 2 Thess 3:7, 9)" (Source).
The New Testament encouraged embracing persecution and basically being bullied and persecuted but not fighting back, so that the Hebrew God would exact vengeance in the afterlife or during the arriving-any-minute apocalypse. Paul's proclamation of a quickly returning Messiah never happened. Augustine departed from this mentality with the philosophy of Just War. And today most American Christians do not really follow the actual preachments of the New Testament when it comes to fighting back and war. Meanwhile, most American Christians do not want to actually imitate Paul and his Messiah by suffering into degeneration and weakness, low status, and eventually death but have invented the Prosperity Gospel which is antithetical to the actual New Testament teachings.
Similarly, Joseph Smith departed from the Pauline passive martyrdom agenda with his abrahamic expansionism and a proactive American warrior mentality: for example, firing back at his oppressors with a gun before he was assassinated by an unruly mob; and encouraged his followers to seek peace first but when "push came to shove" to eventually fight back and not be taken advantage of. After experiencing persecution and violent attacks from those who were anti-Mormon, he became the General of his own Army. Thus, his goal was to grow and thrive not deplete and decline.
In other words, Nauvoo Mormonism was masculine and generative, not sexuallly repressive and acetically degenerative. Paul’s non-generative first century philosophy under Roman oppression was essentially an evacuation plan with the expected imminent return of the Messiah (who would kick the crap out of the Romans and destroy all mortal life). Paul's philosophy of life was understandable in the context of being thoroughly oppressed by larger Government System, with a strategy of fighting back against a larger Force by exercising a form of psychological warfare which is what Mark's gospel was, a form of nonviolent resistance. Paul did not emphasize fighting Rome and its military but instead directed his energies at the Unseen Forces guiding oppressive Rome. He saw life as corrupted by an evil space alien called Sin which was infecting the human body (that is based on an actual Evangelical Christian essay I read).
With the body being cursed and implanted with a corrupting space alien (Sin), and the apocalypse arriving any minute, there was no reason to seek generative becoming in this life: no reason for offspring, growth and expansion, nor vitality, retirement planning, the joys of sex, play, or laughter. Yet at the same time, who can deny Paul's powerful culture shifting social philosophy of emphasizing compassion and the virtues of peace-seeking and patience; and his poetic endorsement of love in 1 Corinthians 13. But the fact remains that Paul was dealing with a particular cultural and political situation that no longer exists today.
Joseph Smith essentially reformed Paul's first century mindset by first declaring that all earthly matter is actually composed of spirit matter and the body was not depraved but in fact God himself has a body of tangible flesh; and rather than promoting celibacy, Smith declared that the Gods become divine through sexual intercourse within marital unions; and that we will be punished for our own sins and not for Adam's transgression (in other words we did not inherit a space alien called Sin infecting our ability to Choose the Right).
From these core theological innovations, Smith presented a life philosophy of mankind growing upward and over obstacles and being a generative life force: with happiness as the object and design of our existence through the joys of sex in producing the continuation of (or ongoing growth of) lives via man's spreading of his seed and women forming a Relief Society and one day becoming a god themselves as divine mothers or feminine creators; and Mormons exercising their will to power to reform America in the pursuit of building Zion.
