So, What About Captain Moroni?

As a Latter-day Saint, when you start talking about the Gospel imperatives of nonviolence and being opposed to killing, even in warfare, and therefore of avoiding the military, the response you get is almost always the same. “But, what about Captain Moroni?” There are slight variations sometimes (Captain Moroni being substituted for Nephi the son of Lehi or Helaman, for example) but the logic is always the same, and goes something like this:

• Captain Moroni was a righteous man
• Captain Moroni was in the military
• Captain Moroni killed people while in the military
• Therefore it is okay for us today to join the military and kill people

Now that logic sounds good, but there is a serious flaw here that undermines the whole argument. Said bluntly, it is that Captain Moroni was not a Christian and therefore they cannot serve as an example of how a Christian is meant to act in regards to the issue of violence or war.

Captain Moroni Wasn’t A Christian

This assertion always gets a strong response with an inevitable quoting of Alma 46:13, which says Captain Moroni:

fastened on his headplate, and his  breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of  Christians remain to possess the land

It says right there (in the part I italicized) that Captain Moroni was a Christian, so that means he was a Christian and Christians can kill in war for their countries, right? Well, not so fast. First of all we have to ask, what does the Book of Mormon mean when it says they were Christians? It explains it two verses later when it says the Nephite believers were called Christians “because of their belief in Christ who should come.” So they were called Christians because they believed that the future Messiah would be a man who would ultimately be known as Jesus Christ. This is not what I mean when I say they were not Christian.

When I say they were not Christian, what I mean is that they were not covenantal Christians, they were not living the Law of the Gospel/New Covenant that Jesus Christ gave as part of His fulfilling of the Law of Moses. They were not living what we today would call the Gospel of Jesus Christ nor the commandments He gave for those living the Gospel lifestyle. Captain Moroni and all Nephites before 3 Nephi 11 were still living the Law of Moses. This is repeatedly stated in the Book of Mormon:

In fact, when they tried to stop living the Law of Moses because they believed in Christ, the Nephites are specifically rebuked for doing so:

And there were no contentions, save it were a few that began to preach, endeavoring to prove by the  scriptures that it was no more expedient to observe the law of Moses. Now in this thing they did err, having not understood the scriptures.

But it came to pass that they soon became converted, and were convinced of the error which they were in, for it was made known unto them that the law was not yet  fulfilled, and that it must be fulfilled in every whit; yea, the word came unto them that it must be fulfilled; yea, that one jot or tittle should not pass away till it should all be fulfilled; therefore in this same year were they brought to a knowledge of their error and did  confess their faults. (3 Nephi 1: 24-25)

[Reader’s note: 3 Nephi 1 takes place nearly 600 years after 2 Nephi]

Taken together, these verses tell us something very important to understand. The Nephites, pre-Christ’s visitation in 3 Nephi 11, did not live the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we understand it today. They believed in Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah but they lived the Law of Moses, and they lived it strictly and completely. As the Bible Dictionary points out, there is “no evidence that the law of Moses had become as altered among the Nephites” in any way. The commandment and covenant they lived under was the Law of Moses and it is by its strictures that the people pre-3 Nephi 11 are evaluated as being righteous or wicked.

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The Law vs The Gospel

So, why does the fact that the Nephites lived the Law of Moses matter? It matters because the Law of Moses had a completely different law regarding violence than the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. In modern revelation, the Lord has summarized the Gospel injunction against killing people clearly and forcefully:

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it. (D&C 59:6)

There are no footnote exceptions, no asterisks, no alternate transitions. It is there clear as day in plain English.  Killing and anything like killing are forbidden. That is the Gospel commandment that we covenant to obey when we become followers of Jesus Christ and enter His church, becoming Christians through the covenant of baptism. But this was neither the commandment nor expectation under the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was designed for a more violent and brutal era when even an accidental death could possibly set off a blood feud between different tribes that potentially only ended when one side or the other was completely exterminated. As the Bible Dictionary notes, the Law of Moses “was a good law, although adapted to a lower spiritual capacity than is required for obedience to the gospel in its fullness.” The way the Lord adapted His law for the lower spiritual capacity of the people of the time was by giving them a law lesser than the full Gospel law (as reiterated today in D&C 59:6) which allowed for violence but that still required His people to reach above and beyond the levels of violence acceptable in their age. The ways the Law of Moses did this were complex, but the essence of those regulations can be found in Exodus 21:23-25, which reads:

[T]hou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

From our modern perspective this probably seems barbaric, but for the age it was given in it was quite limiting. Instead of a killing initiating a blood feud that could lead to total extermination, instead the most the family of the murdered could demand in return was the life of the murderer- life for a life, only. And if you were harmed you could not escalate the level of violence, such as killing someone who broke your foot. The most you could demand was that they suffer the same injury they inflicted.

This was the law that the Nephites followed. It was a law that allowed retaliatory violence and the law which Captain Moroni followed. And by that law, Captain Moroni was a very righteous man. He did not delight in killing, he often let enemy soldiers go free solely on their word that they wouldn’t engage in war anymore, and he never amped up the violence done to the Nephites. He fought a strictly defensive war that saw his people retaliating only directly against enemy soldiers. He never invaded Lamanite lands to attack Lamanite cities or to murder Lamanite women and children. By any standard, ancient and modern, he was a just man, even in war. I mean imagine the media and political meltdown that would occur if one of our modern day generals acted like Captain Moroni did and let thousands of ISIS or al-Qaeda fighters go solely on their word that they would surrender their weapons, go home, and never take part in another war against America. That general would be crucified. So, perhaps even by the standards of our modern world, Captain Moroni would be a much greater figure. But that doesn’t change the essential reality that his righteousness was being measured by the Law of Moses, not the Gospel, and that the Gospel Law commands something very different and much more powerful than the Law of Moses.

In fact, it is important to note that when Jesus announced the Gospel Law during the Sermon on the Mount, He specifically quotes the above “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” passage from Exodus that justified Nephite and Israelite warfare and then overrules it by announcing the Higher Law that forbids us from reacting to violence with violence saying:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (Matthew 5:38-42)

Notice, Christ replaced the justification for reacting to violence -“eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”- with the command for His followers to “resist not evil” and to react to violence done to us by literally turning our cheek so that they can hit us on the other side as well. Where the Law allowed a blow for a blow, a tooth for a tooth, the Gospel commands us to respond to those who punch us in the face by turning our other cheek to them to be struck as well. We are to react to violence not with more violence, but with love. Christ goes on to specifically connect the rejection of retaliatory violence with how a Christian should live, saying:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

How is a Christian supposed to react to people who hurt us, persecute us, who hatefully use us, and even kill us? Are we to respond to their violence with our own? Christ says that if we only love those who love us and respond to our enemies with the same violence they treat us with then we are just as bad as they are and under just as much condemnation- no better than the generally hated publicans (Roman tax collectors). If we are to become the Children of our Father in Heaven though, we must respond to those who hate us and persecute us by doing good to them, praying for them, and loving them. That rejection of “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” the rejection of violence even in self-defense -as when being struck and beaten by our enemies, and actively engaging in doing good services to and for those who hate and persecute us is the way of Christ and the path He commands we follow.

Conclusions

Captain Moroni was a good man, even a righteous man according to the law he was given to live. But he was not a Christian as we mean it today and the law that he was commanded to live was not the same as the Gospel Law given by Jesus Christ which He commands His disciples to live now. Captain Moroni lived the Law of Moses, a lesser law that was fulfilled, done away with, and replaced by the higher law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a result, Captain Moroni cannot serve as an example of how we are expected to live today. We are commanded to live a greater law with greater expectations than the law he was called to live, the Law of Moses, which was far more permissive on the subject of violence than the Gospel Law. As a result Captain Moroni (or Nephi, Helaman, et al.) is not an example of how a Christian should live in regards to violence. His example as a soldier does not translate as an example for us to follow and if we do so we are living down to a lesser law instead of reaching upwards to follow the higher law given by Jesus Christ. In trying to use Captain Moroni as an example to justify violence or waging war we actually commit a grave and serious error, we abandon the Gospel for the Law and reject Christ for Moses, going in reverse of the way that Christ wants us to go.