Young Chief Captain Moroni
Book of Mormon Notes - Sunday, October 15, 2023, Alma 43 (Continued)
Mormon masterfully sets the stage for the great conflict between good and evil, between the Nephites and the Lamanites, and the great conflict between the tyrant Zerahemnah and the hero Moroni. As I read this morning I wondered if Mormon’s son Moroni had already been born - I suppose that he had been born - and if Mormon had already abridged this portion, or at least read this portion of the record - I suppose that he had - when Moroni was a young man. But I suppose that it is also possible that Mormon abridged this portion of the Nephite record and was so impressed with Captain Moroni that he couldn’t help but name his son after him, especially when Mormon, the ecclesiastical, political, and military leader of the Nephites himself, would train up his son to replace him in the same, or similar duties, including the duties of abridgment and record keeping for the benefit of future generations.
As part of setting the stage for the great conflict, Mormon carefully describes the motivations and the preparations of each side of the conflict. Zerahemnah and his more numerous armies were filled with anger, hatred, rage, and thirst for blood. Mormon and his smaller but better prepared soldiers love God, liberty, their country, their wives and children, their homes, their lands, and everything good. The Nephites wanted to be left alone to worship God according to their desires, and to defend and support their lands, and their houses, and their awives, and their children, and preserve their brights and their privileges, and also their cliberty. The Nephites fought for all of these things so that they might worship God according to their desires.
Recently I have been learning about the great Simon Bolivar, the South American general who fought to liberate five countries in South America from Spanish domination. It seems to me that the situation of the South American people under Spanish rule was somewhat akin to the situation of the early American colonists under British rule. It also seems to me that the Book of Mormon conflict, with Moroni leading the charge against Lamanite oppression, foreshadows these later conflicts, with Simon Bolivar at the head in the South and George Washington at the head in North America. But Moroni and the Nephites are archetypes of all great heroes and soldiers in the true cause of liberty, including Lincoln, and later Churchill… and in our time, someone who might have to combine the courage, wisdom, foresight, and godliness of Moroni with the skills and technological wherewithal of someone like Ender in Orson Scott Card’s captivating book Ender’s Game.
But the key to Moroni’s success was not just his courage, manliness, fortitude, strategy, and nobility. He also relied upon revelation and the Spirit of God for victory. I find it significant that Moroni clearly understood the aintention of the Lamanites. Moroni was not naïve or hapless. He knew that the Lamanites, and particularly Zerahemnah and the Amalekites and the Zoramites, were fierce enemies who would do everything in their power to destroy the Nephites or bsubject them and bring them into bondage that they might establish a kingdom unto themselves over all the land. Moroni was not like Neville Chamberlain who practiced appeasement against the tyrant, dictator, and murderous Hitler. Moroni understood the opposition that he and his people faced, and he wasn’t about to face it all on his own.
Thus Mormon paints a portrait of Moroni, not just as a mighty warrior, soldier, and military hero, but as a godly man, a Saint, and a particularly wise and discerning leader. Mormon knew that latter-day boys and men would need a supremely intelligent hero to emulate, not just an athletic, unconquerable, but raging Achilles, or even a shrewd Odysseus. Furthermore, in the last days, we need a portrait of a Christ-like hero who not only developed the kind of moral and intellectual virtues that would impress even the most noble Greeks, but who also turned to the Lord for strength and understood, like Ammon before him, the true source of his strength and the strength of his people.
It is telling that the Lamanite rage was even more pronounced against the most peaceful of the Nephites, namely the Anti-Nephi-Lehites. These Lamanites were perhaps somewhat like Hamas and the indoctrinated Palestinians who have been taught from their youth to despise and to persecute and to kill Jews and Israelis. Lamanite wrath was not just irrational; it was delusional. But irrationality and delusion don’t prevent armies from fighting with incredible strength.
It is also noteworthy that the bdescendants of the priests of Noah figure prominently into this equation, and that these descendants alone were almost as numerous as the Nephites. The Nephites were greatly outnumbered: there were more than double the number of Lamanites. But like the American colonists under Washington, and like the South American patriots under Simon Bolivar, the outnumbered Nephites under Moroni were stronger because God strengthened them in battle. Listen carefully to Mormon’s introduction to Captain Moroni:
Now, the leader of the Nephites, or the man who had been aappointed to be the bchief captain over the Nephites—now the chief captain took the command of all the armies of the Nephites—and his name was Moroni;
And Moroni took all the command, and the government of their wars. And he was only twenty and five years old when he was appointed chief captain over the armies of the Nephites. (Alma 43:16-17)
Mormon was only 16 years old when he became a military commander of a Nephite army:
Therefore it came to pass that in my sixteenth year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites, against the Lamanites; therefore three hundred and twenty and six years had passed away. (Mormon 2:2)
Mormon’s son Moroni also must have been very young when he became a military leader.
For a time in which the most heroic ideals that we set for young men in their twenties might be to wean them off of drugs and video games or to send them to ivy league colleges where they will be indoctrinated in woke ideologies, Mormon must have known that it would be helpful to highlight the work of a 25 year old young man whose greatness was so obvious as to make even the greatest modern aspirations seem like the epitome of mediocrity by comparison. C.S. Lewis was right:
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. - The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
We often refer to Moroni as Captain Moroni. But Mormon records that Moroni was the chief captain over all the Nephite armies. Perhaps we should remember to call him “Chief Captain Moroni”. But Chief Captain Moroni wasn’t interested in titles, or positions, or power: his sole aim was to defend liberty and to glorify God. He prepared his people well for battle, so well in fact that the Lamanite armies under Zerahemnah were exceedingly afraid of the armies of the Nephites because of their armor, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than the Nephites. Thus the Lamanites retreated in the attempt to strike the Nephites in their weakest spots.
Ever alert, Moroni did not become complacent. Moroni exercised both God-given gifts of reason and revelation: he sent spies to watch the Lamanite camps, and he turned to the Lord and His prophets for help:
But it came to pass, as soon as they had departed into the wilderness Moroni sent spies into the wilderness to watch their camp; and Moroni, also, knowing of the prophecies of Alma, sent certain men unto him, desiring him that he should ainquire of the Lord bwhither the armies of the Nephites should go to defend themselves against the Lamanites. (Alma 43:23)
Some might wonder why Moroni didn’t just inquire of the Lord himself. Certainly the Lord could reveal directly to Moroni where the Lamanite armies would go. But Mormon knew of the prophesies of Alma, and He knew that Alma was the Lord’s prophet with the keys and the gift of revelation for the Nephites. Besides being a man of great strength, military might, and intelligence, Moroni was a man of great faith who trusted in the Lord and in His servants the prophets. The Lord had prepared Chief Captain Moroni specifically for this mission, and the Lord caused his greatness to shine forth to the glory of God in the midst of great conflict.
To be continued…