Repenting of Oaths

Earlier this month, I had a conversation about the Rockettes, at least some of whom don't want to perform at Trumps inauguration. The problem is that they may have a contractual obligation to perform at the inauguration, since their producer (or whomever their boss is) signed them up. If they do have such an arrangement where they are legally bound to perform wherever their producer (or whomever) decides, they may have effectively made an oath to do something that they now feel would be morally wrong to do. Speaking about this reminded me of a question I had while reading the scriptures: Can a person "repent of an oath" and remain in good standing with the Lord?

As Latter-Day Saints, we tend to take promises fairly seriously. If someone makes a promise, they have a moral (and sometimes a legal) obligation to keep it. In fact, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies demonstrated that a belief that it's better to die than to break a promise. However, there is one upstanding Book of Mormon hero who did break an oath without losing his place as a Book of Mormon hero. In fact, the book is literally named after him.

Mormon 5:1, Mormon records that he "did repent of [an] oath which [he] had made." Upon further review, I learned just now that the "oath" of which Mormon was repenting wasn't really a oath, per se, but still, it was enough to make me ask the question and now I think I have an answer to it. I think that there are cases when a person can go back on their word and remain in good standing with the Lord. To illustrate this opinion, I'll use an extreme example, also from the Book of Mormon.

Amalickiah, the king of the Lamanites, had once sworn that he would drink the blood of Captain Moroni, one of the best of the heroes of the Book of Mormon; however, I don't think God considered him morally bound to that oath. If Amalickiah had defeated Captain Moroni and had an opportunity to kill him and drink his blood, I think God would have considered it far more evil for him to keep his oath by killing Captain Moroni than to break his oath by letting Captain Moroni live. Similarly, I don't think God would consider any of us morally bound to keep an oath if we foolishly promised to do something evil. In other words, I think that it's less evil to break a promise than to keep a promise to do something morally wrong.

It is important to keep our word, but it's more important to obey God's words. If He commands us to do something, we should do it, even if we promised not to. If He commands us not to do something, we shouldn't do it, even if we promised to. Though our oaths do and should hold a considerable amount of weight, we can and should "repent" of them when we have a moral obligation to do so, and we should neither make nor keep an oath to do anything that's morally wrong.

Personally, I don't know what the Rockettes should do, and I don't care much what they decide to do, but I wouldn't want to force them to do anything they consider morally wrong. They may or may not have a legal right to refuse to perform the inauguration (I haven't really looked into it much), but I'd say that if they truly feel that strongly about not performing at the inauguration, they may well have a moral right, and perhaps even a moral obligation, to break the oath they may have made.