Government, Liberty, and the “Moroni Moment.”
To my fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
Captain Moroni in the book of Mormon is not just the best of the best, but was well known for forcefully rooting out and putting down evil influences that threatened the liberty of his people. During the events of January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol there was a man dressed like Captain Moroni waving a banner replica of the title of liberty (search YouTube for “Mormon prophet Moroni speaks at StoptheSteal”). Initially I thought he was misguided and a bit of an embarrassment, but then I began to wonder if January 6th was a “Moroni Moment;” meaning, should we have all armed ourselves and rallied to that title of liberty to disrupt what some claimed were evil people trying to steal our liberty? To answer that question, I need to dig into the details of the times that Moroni acted with force to preserve liberty; specifically, to see what are the conditions under which it is time to have a “Moroni moment.”
The story of Captain Moroni, the title (or standard) of liberty, and its use as a rallying cry to fight for liberty is based on three stories in Alma chapters 46, 51 and 62 in the Book of Mormon. I’ll first provide some summary highlights of the three events and then dig into the key, specific details of each.
Chapter Highlights
Chapter 46
· The society in which Moroni lives is a type of democracy in which the people choose judges of various types as rulers.
· Amalickiah is a rebel who desires to be king and convinces a bunch of people (mostly “lower judges of the land”) to rise up against the church and the government and establish a monarchy (thus destroying their liberty) by murdering those who stood against them (v. 1–7)
· Moroni is the leader of the armies. On seeing the rebellion he rends his coat and writes on it “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children.” He turns this into a flag and calls it the “title of liberty” and uses it as his rallying cry to gather large numbers of people to gather, arm themselves, and put down the rebellion. (v. 11–30)
· Moroni takes his new army and gathers up all the rebels they can find (Amalickiah cuts and runs over to the enemy nation). Moroni commits the rebels to support their government and liberty and those who won’t are executed. The title of liberty becomes the de facto state flag throughout their society. (v. 31–36)
Chapter 51
· There is a group of people who wanted “…a few particular points of the law [to be] altered;” specifically, they wanted to destroy the democracy they had and establish a monarchy with people of “high birth” as the leadership. The people take sides into “freemen” and “king-men.”(v. 2–6, 9)
· The government rejects their petitions. The king-men get angry and advocate their position more strongly, leading to an election in which their desire to change the government is rejected by the voice of the people. (v. 7)
· Their nation’s enemies send an invading army led by Amalickiah himself (remember him? It’s a long story, but he now leads the enemy nation). Moroni’s country is weakened by their recent disputes with the king-men, but they gather an army to fight back. The king-men refuse to fight and are, in fact, happy about the invading army because they were so upset about having lost the recent elections. [Author’s note: I suspect they see opportunity in chaos, or they just want to watch the world burn, either way they are betraying their country]. (v. 12–13)
· Moroni is seriously angry and he sends a petition to the chief judge requesting the authority to move against the seditious king-men and put down their rebellion. They have a quick election (or somehow determine the “voice of the people”) and Moroni is given the requested powers of martial law. He fights and kills many of the king-men and throws their surviving leaders in prison to be tried later because right now they have to fight a war. The remaining king-men swear an oath to be faithful to and fight in support of their country. That’s supposedly the “end” of the king-men (v. 14–21)
Chapter 62
· Moroni has spent years leading the fight in a war for the very existence of his people and country. They have had success but recently supplies and replacement soldiers from the capitol have dried up. He discovers that the democratically elected chief judge (effectively, “president”) of the country has been deposed and driven out of the Capitol by the king-men who were supposedly wiped out back in chapter 51. (v.1)
· At the agreement and urging of the legitimate leader of the country, Moroni once again raises the standard — or “title” — of liberty, rallies people to his cause, joins the supporters of the legitimate chief judge, marches on the capitol and puts down the rebellion. The rebels are tried, found guilty and executed according to the law. Peace, liberty, and the rightfully elected leaders are restored. (v. 1–11)
Action and Authority
Each story is slightly different in details, but the same in result. For each story I’m going to consider two things — the actions of the antagonists and the authority by which Moroni acted.
Chapter 46 — In this case, the rebels armed themselves with the intent to murder those who opposed them and to put down the existing democratically established government. They were working outside the bounds and processes of their society, their intent was purely murderous and seditious.
In contrast, Moroni had authority via appointment by the chief judges and the voice of the people (verse 34). We don’t know by what exact mechanism that combination of selection worked, but it establishes that Moroni had the support of both the political leaders and the people in general to act with force.
In this case, the rebels were murderous and lawless while Moroni was authorized to act in his appointed position from their nation’s leaders and the voice of the people.
Chapter 51 — For this set of events, the rebels sought to make changes to the laws to favor them not through rebellion, initially, but via political process. They submitted petitions to the chief judge and when those were rejected, they continued advocating and precipitated an election for the general populace to weigh in. After they lost at the ballot box, they stopped trying to change the society’s laws; as verse seven says, they were “silenced” and “obliged” to maintain the status quo of freedom. That appears to be the end of it and, importantly, Moroni takes no action. The problem occurs when the enemy nation invades. The king-men are so upset about their loss at the polls that they refuse to support the armies in fighting. The description is of a passive resistance — they simply won’t support the war — rather than any direct action against the government.
Moroni is authorized to go against the intransigent king-men via democratically determined methods. He sends a petition to the chief judge asking for authority to compel the king-men in verse 15. In verse 16 it notes that his petition is granted “according to the voice of the people.” It is worth noting here that the petition is granted according to the voice of the people, not just the chief judge saying “ok.” Again, we don’t know the exact mechanism for determining the voice of the people (ballot boxes? Community caucuses?) but the emphasis is on the support of the society in general for Moroni to go and put down the passive rebels.
In this case, society was disrupted by people refusing to uphold their laws and system during a time of war, while Moroni acted within the system via authority of the voice of the people and the chief judge.
Chapter 62 — While Moroni and the armies are off battling for their country, the king-men reconstitute themselves, take up weapons and drive the elected leader out of the Capitol. Their insurrection leaves them in control — an illegitimate and rebel government — and they proceed to cut off resupply to the military. The rebels also open negotiations with the enemy nation to surrender everything but the Capitol city in exchange for letting them rule that city; an act of bald treason.
Moroni communicates with the rightfully elected leader — who is in exile — and they agree that action is justified. They gather together those who oppose the king-men and want to restore the legitimate government, march on the capitol city, drive out the usurpers, and restore order.
In this case the insurgents actually staged a violent coup and were in the process of committing treason while Moroni acted in concert with the legitimate leader and in his legal position.
In all three cases the antagonists took extralegal and, in two of the cases, violent action; they operated outside the society’s laws and governance to try to force their desires on others with violence. The one time they did operate within the bounds of the law with petitions and elections the dispute ended with their loss in the canvass. There was no action by Moroni or anyone else against them, no matter how distasteful their views were. This example makes it clear to me that having the political desire to get rid of liberty is not enough to justify a Moroni moment.
In all three cases Moroni took action with authority derived from his position and with express authorization of the nation’s legally established political leaders. In two of the cases he also had express authorization of the “voice of the people.” The people that rose up — in order to put down those who threatened their liberty — were doing so by following their legally appointed leader. Their action to remove those who opposed liberty was within the framework of the nation’s laws, systems, and leadership.
Conclusion
In sum, the “correct” way to follow the example of Moroni is as follows: Rally to a legally established leader with authority to take action through correct channels to remove those who have employed illegal, often murderous, means of disrupting the nation’s order and government.
On January 6th the democratic process was playing out as it was designed and there was not anyone violently usurping rule; there was no match to the conditions in the Book of Mormon that spurred Moroni to act. Ironically, those who advocated for decertifying the election and then those who broke into the Capitol building in order to disrupt the legal process of certifying the election could not be considered to be acting as Moroni did — quite the opposite. Instead of acting legally to put down an illegal, violent uprising, they employed violence and illegal action to attempt to derail a legal process that was operating within the bounds of the constitution. So, was January 6th a “Moroni moment?” In short, the answer is categorically and emphatically, “no.”
Unaltered Image of Captain Moroni statue by Josh Cotton, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
