“Ozymandias,” written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, is my favorite poem. The inscription on the ruined statue lying in the empty wasteland reads: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” In the long run, empire and all the power in the world meant nothing. The great king was long forgotten, his empire turned out to be an illusion, and the only remaining memory of either was the crumbled remains of a statue said to exist by a mysterious traveler.

Likewise, among my favorite popular songs are those about failure, such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” The latter tells the story of a king suddenly fallen from nearly almighty power who now has to hide out in order to survive. The revolutionaries who’ve taken over aren’t interested in keeping around a relic of the previous government. “Hallelujah” touches on David and Sampson falling from grace, failures in love, and crises of faith, ultimately concluding: “And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Macbeth enjoyed a brief and bloody reign as a tyrant, confident of the security of his station by the witches’ prophecy that “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”  His hubris, as well as he himself, are short-lived, though, as Macduff – “from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d” – gets his revenge for his wife and household who were slain by Macbeth. One might, however, have more sympathy for Hamlet, haunted by the past but reluctant to do his bloody duty. On the other hand, this Shakespearean hero, though fallen in his efforts, is ultimately a success story.

King Priam was compelled to beg Achilles, killer of his son Hector, for the return of the latter’s mutilated body, and this shortly before the fall of his great kingdom. This story, told in the Iliad, is yet another great king brought down to the dust in humility.

Failure is a central theme of the great literature both of the present and of past ages. It is appropriate then, that the story of Jesus is one of failure. Jesus was the God that failed. As the promised Messiah that came to redeem Israel, he ended up killed by his own people. But more than this, as the greatest philosopher of all time, he died an obscure teacher in some barbaric corner of history’s greatest (and in the end, failed) empire.

The story of Jesus is the greatest tragedy I’ve ever been privileged to read. He taught peace, and sought to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to mankind by teaching them nonresistance. Men would give to the poor and refuse to seek revenge for the wrongs committed against them. This was the gospel of love. Unlike other fallen heroes, Jesus both taught a good philosophy and lived it. In fact, living his own philosophy was his fall: His refusal to fight back against his enemies left him easy prey, and they arranged for him to be tortured and killed in one of the cruelest manners imaginable.

His death however, was mere metaphor for the greater failure. The true tragedy has been the perversion of his teachings since his death. A modern Christian would consider ridiculous the idea of taking seriously and literally the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Modern Christianity embodies fanatical soldier worship (the very profession whose practitioners nailed Jesus to the cross), the seeking of wealth, and derision and abuse of the poor. In short, the very things Jesus spent his life preaching against. The horrific irony is that those who call themselves followers of the pacific moral teacher often titled the “prince of peace” sought (and continue to seek) violent revenge for a horrible attack that took place back in 2001 – revenge that involves killing hundreds of innocent civilians for each death in the original attack, and does so in various nations beyond the one accused of being instrumental in the attack.

Despite what Christ taught, Christianity is characterized by a thirst for blood.

Politically, Christians tend to fight against laws limiting the ownership of guns – they love their tools of murder – and against laws protecting the poor. This from the self-proclaimed disciples of one who taught peace and charity. Worship of state and wealth is substituted for worship of God. The gospel of love is now the gospel of guns and money.

This, more than his death in relative obscurity, is what makes Jesus the God that failed.

Yet his philosophy touches the hearts of those who truly understand it, and they can’t help but acknowledge its goodness, even if following it condemns them to failure as well. Two thousand years haven’t been sufficient to change the world into a humane place. How can a philosophy doomed to failure ring so true to the soul?

The only hope lies in the rest of the stories of failure. If the mighty always fall, who but the meek will be left to inherit the earth in the end? If that which starts with success always ends in failure, the failed but persistent philosophy of egalitarian peace must emerge triumphant in the end. Tolstoy taught that this was the natural and inevitable progression of the human race. Indeed, though still not a humane place, much of the world is much more humane than it once was, and this despite the protestations of Christians.

One cannot count on the inevitable fall of the American Empire – whenever that will occur – to bring the long hoped-for peace and end of poverty to the world. In fact, it is likely that it will be replaced by something far worse than what it is now. Nonetheless, humanity marches on, and we hope that despite any stumbling we’re still on the path toward the destination we seek. In the meantime I’ll continue worshipping the God that failed. To follow in his footsteps, to learn to love, to strive for peace and equality among humanity, and to fail alongside him would be a great honor.

One must continue to strive, even without the vision of success that we pretend to foresee.

But I still hope Tolstoy was right.

The young Mormon who, for the first time, undertakes a serious study of the life and teachings of Christ in the New Testament, and especially the Sermon on the Mount, may find it disconcerting. The message of peace strikes a very dissonant chord against the zealous patriotism and near-worship of the military in modern Mormonism. Assuming a commitment to Christ’s example and teachings, I propose here a Mormon theology of peace as an alternative to the predominant militant Mormonism.
 
Man in the Image of God
 
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”¹ Thus reads the story of the creation of man, which forms the basis for divine law regarding his interactions with his fellow beings. Our relationship to God is so fundamental to the divine plan that Joseph Smith taught: “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.”²
 
Building on the concept of man in the image of God, Mormonism teaches that a human being is made up of two principle parts: the tangible, physical body, and the intangible, spirit body. The spirit body, could it be seen, would appear in the same form as the physical body. This spirit body is the literal offspring of God, and has its origin in heaven, long before the birth of the physical body.³ “And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth”.⁴
 
President George Albert Smith taught: “It is regrettable that in the world today in many cases men do not appreciate that this temple of the body is sacred and should be so held, that this body of ours was given to us as a tabernacle for the spirit while we are here in mortality, but that the spirit that is in this tabernacle came from God. He is the Father of it. If men realized that, how much more careful they would be to protect this tabernacle and keep it wholesome and delightful.”⁵ Thus the relationship of man to God is the basis for his duty to respect his body. By the same reasoning, the bodies of others receive equal respect, since they are also in the image of God and house other children of His.
 
Thou Shalt Not Kill
 
The divine law against killing is so important that murder is the first sin mentioned after the scene for humanity is set by the Adam’s fall. “Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.... And [the Lord] said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”⁶ Yet if killing out of jealousy was wrong, so was killing for the sake of so-called justice. The Lord responded to the first murder by saying of the perpetrator, “whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.”⁷ The law given in Adam’s day, then, was not only against murder, but also against revenge killings or the death penalty. The death penalty appeared after the world had proven wicked enough to warrant its destruction by flood,⁸ and was only given to Israel as part of the “law of carnal commandments”⁹ given in “wrath” (or as a punishment) and oriented toward a wicked people. Despite the existence of a death penalty, one of the central points of even the lesser law was: “Thou shalt not kill.”¹⁰
 
The aforementioned postdiluvian proscription of bloodshed is a particularly important variant of the commandment not to kill, since it links it back to man’s relationship to God. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”¹¹ Since man is in the image of God, killing is a form of sacrilege: It is a simulation of violence against God. For similar reasons, humane treatment of convicts was required even in the lesser law given to Israel, “lest... thy brother should seem vile unto thee.”¹² Additionally, as man is a child of God, murder of a child is particularly offensive to his parent. Mormons in particular have a point of view that allows us to look upon humanity as members of a single family, a perspective which leaves little room for justifying violence.
 
Joseph Smith taught that: “A murderer, … one that sheds innocent blood, cannot have forgiveness.”¹³ Joseph Smith’s definition of a murderer as someone who sheds innocent blood will indeed come as an uncomfortable one in a military-oriented religion, considering that, especially in modern warfare, innocent blood is frequently shed on the battlefield in the form of collateral damage. The commandment against bloodshed was the basis of the First Presidency’s statement on December 14, 1945, against universal compulsory military training, in which they stated, “We shall give opportunity to teach our sons not only the way to kill but also, in too many cases, the desire to kill, thereby increasing lawlessness and disorder to the consequent upsetting of the stability of our national society. God said at Sinai, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”¹⁴ The fact that this statement was given in connection with the topic of the military indicates that war is not always an exception to the commandment not to kill.
 
Note that in Mormonism the commandment against killing is extended even to animal life as part of God’s creation. After the flood, the Lord instructed Noah that “blood shall not be shed, only for meat, to save your lives; and the blood of every beast will I require at your hands.”¹⁵ The same permission to eat meat, with the restriction that it be done sparingly and only as necessary to preserve life, was repeated to the Saints through Joseph Smith.¹⁶
 
Jesus on Rhetoric
 
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”¹⁷ The second great commandment flows naturally from the first in the context of man being in the image and family of God.
 
This love for our fellow human beings is the basis of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus taught us to “resist not evil”,¹⁸ “Love your enemies”,¹⁹ and “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”²⁰ This discourse is likely the basis for the reader’s interest in pacifism. The principles taught flow naturally from the creation story and additional theological structure built around it in Mormonism. If man is in God’s image, man must be respected so as not to offend God. Furthermore, since man is a spirit who lived as the offspring of God before the world’s creation, and came down to be housed in a body of flesh in the appearance of his Eternal Father, he is to be loved not only as one who appears like God, but also as one’s literal brother. One who loves his brother does not kill him, no matter what evil he may have committed, and one definitely does not kill the child of the deity one worships.
 
The commandments of Jesus, then, go beyond physical actions against others and into control of our thoughts and passions. We are not only prohibited from killing our enemies, we are to love them. Our inward sins of hatred or contempt for others is betrayed by our speech: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”²¹ Evil speech necessarily corrupts a person, according to Jesus: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.”²² Even the rhetoric put out in support of wars, which necessarily dehumanizes the enemy and engenders hatred toward our fellow man, is considered evil and defiling. One must recall that our enemy is also in the image of God, and of his household, and therefore evil speech toward him would naturally be an offense against God.
 
Speech, then, according to Jesus, does more than simply “describe reality … it participates in reality independent of human intentionality.”²³ Because of this, “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.”²⁴ Mormonism gives some credence to this understanding of speech, and thus the saints are counseled to avoid “excess of laughter”²⁵ and “evil speaking”.²⁶ In the school of the elders it was taught that: “It is by words, instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith.”²⁷
 
Joseph Smith taught the same principle against violent rhetoric: “When you find a spirit that wants bloodshed,—murder, the same is not of God, but is of the devil. Out of the abundance of the heart of man the mouth speaketh.”²⁸ Indeed, to the degree that reality is created by words, much of the evil in this world origins in rhetoric, especially the rhetoric in favor of war.
 
Idolatry
 
The first commandment prohibits idolatry: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”²⁹ This naturally follows from the first great commandment cited to love God with all our hearts; we are not to divide our love between Him and other gods. Mormonism has an expansive definition of idolatry: “Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn’t also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry.”³⁰
 
President Kimball specifically expanded this line of thinking to include war: “We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching”.³¹
 
This form of idolatry demonstrates a lack of faith in the God we are supposed to love with all our hearts: “We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us—and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Ne. 1:7)—or he will fight our battles for us (Ex. 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many).”³²
 
Pacifist Christology
 
Much has already been written on Christ as the prototypical pacifist, but a brief summary is in order. We have already mentioned that Jesus taught a pacifist philosophy of loving one’s enemies—“Blessed are the peacemakers”³³—in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout His life. Noting that creative exegesis has been used to turn Jesus’ message into the opposite of its apparent meaning, and therefore justify war and other forms of violence, it is of great benefit to us that he put his pacific teachings in practice so clearly at the end of his life that we are left with no excuse for such misunderstandings.
 
After Jesus’ intense suffering in Gethsemane, Judas arrived with armed men to arrest his master. Elder Talmage told the story thus: “When the officers approached and seized Jesus, some of the apostles, ready to fight and die for their beloved Master, asked, ‘Lord, shall we smite with the sword?’ Peter, waiting not for a reply, drew his sword and delivered a poorly aimed stroke at the head of one of the nearest of the crowd, whose ear was severed by the blade. The man thus wounded was Malchus, a servant of the high priest. Jesus, asking liberty of His captors by the simple request, ‘Suffer ye thus far,’ stepped forward and healed the injured man by a touch.”³⁴ Jesus at this point chastised Peter for his violence, saying: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”³⁵ It is noteworthy that He not only refused to engage in violence in defense of this “illegal night seizure”³⁶ which would ultimately result in His execution, but He additionally healed the wounded ear of one of His kidnappers.
 
Jesus, while being crucified, pleaded for the soldiers engaged in this act of murder to be forgiven.³⁷ Rather than to commit violence against another human being, or even call down the powers of heaven to do so, He willingly gave up His life and so effected the atonement, amidst an exemplary display of the pacifism He had spent the previous years teaching. Christ thus broke the chain of evil that plagued the earth since the fall of man (and particularly the murder committed by Cain), allowing us a way out if we follow Him. Symbolically, Jesus’ sacrifice ended the requirement for the ritual shedding of blood,³⁸ thus indicating that although death had been brought into the world through the fall, life was to be the new rule.
 
Conclusion
 
We’ve started, appropriately enough, in the beginning. The creation of man and his relationship to God, and therefore to his fellow man, is the basis for loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This love of God, in turn, is the basis for the prohibition of idolatry, not to mention obedience of all the commandments. At every step of the way, we see the impropriety of killing our fellow man, whether because he’s in the image of our deity, because he’s literally a family member, or because it would be antithetical to love.
 
It is interesting to note that although the fall of Adam ostensibly brought death into the world, the first physical death recorded is the result of the murder of Abel by his brother, Cain. God warned about continuing the cycle of violence in his instruction that Cain was not to be executed for the murder of his brother. Revenge, whether we term it “justice” or refer to it by any other name, continues the work of evil, staining the world with blood. This cycle of evil could only be broken by a Savior who refused to return evil for evil and instead willingly gave up His life in the ultimate pacifist act. We’ve been instructed to flee from Babylon,³⁹ but we’ll only escape when we begin to follow His example.

1. Genesis 1:27
2. Roberts, B.H., ed. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Vol. VI (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1980) 303.
3. Hinckley, Gordon B. What of the Mormons? (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1947) 21-22.
4. Moses 3:5
5. Smith, George Albert. Teachings of George Albert Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1996) 13.
6. Genesis 4:8,10.
7. Genesis 4:15.
8. Genesis 9:6.
9. D&C 84:27.
10. Exodus 20:13.
11. Genesis 9:6.
12. Deuteronomy 25:3.
13. Roberts, History of the Church, Vol. VI 253.
14. Clark, James R., ed. Messages of the First Presidency, Vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975) 240.
15. JST Genesis 9:11.
16. D&C 49:18,21; D&C 89:12-13.
17. Matthew 22:37-40.
18. Matthew 5:39.
19. Matthew 5:44.
20. Matthew 7:1.
21. Luke 6:45.
22. Matthew 15:18.
23. Brant, Jo-Ann A. “Jesus' Prohibition Against Swearing and his Philosophy of Language”, GC publications on the Web, 1997.
24. Matthew 12:36.
25. D&C 88:69.
26. D&C 20:54.
27. Lectures on Faith 7:3.
28. Roberts, History of the Church, Vol. VI 315.
29. Exodus 20:3.
30. Kimball, Spencer W. “The False Gods We Worship”, Ensign June 1976: 3-6.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Matthew 5:9.
34. Talmage, James E. Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1915) 571.
35. Matthew 26:52.
36. Talmage, James E. Jesus the Christ 571.
37. Luke 23:34.
38. See 3 Nephi 9:19.
39. See D&C 133:5,7,14.

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 11:7-9)

I've been reading Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You." Although taken as a whole his teachings are opposed to the Church (whether by that word one refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church, or one of the various Protestant churches), his main thesis of pacifism is quite compelling. Ironically, a notable portion of mainstream Christianity has adopted the anti-church portion of his philosophy while rejecting the aforementioned main thesis of his work. Indeed we should freely take what is true from anyone's teachings while discarding the false (and holding no malice toward anyone for simply being mistaken), but I find the rejection of an organized church -- while appealing to the antiauthoritarian mind -- to be untenable, while some degree of nonviolence was an obvious part of Christ's teachings. Nonviolence combined with the other aspects of charity taught in the Sermon on the Mount are so important, in fact, that were followers of the anti-church philosophies to accept and live according to them, I would be inclined to believe that they were more likely candidates of salvation than the member of the Church who rejected said teachings (though it is my fervent hope that God will somehow be able to provide salvation for most, if not all, of humanity).

That a church, in the sense of there being at least some recognized authorities, was left behind by Christ seems clear both historically and scripturally. Christ's statement to Peter about the rock may not alone be sufficient to prove that the Church as we know it was divinely established, but the fact that apostolic epistles containing both doctrinal instructions and specific commandments were sent out to various congregations of believers seems to imply a general recognition of certain authorities within the faith. Tolstoy seems to reject the equivalency of Acts and the epistles to the gospels -- as well he should: are not the words of God Himself greater than those even of his spokesmen the prophets and apostles? -- but at the very least they give us a clue into the understanding of those who were closest to the Savior, including his witnesses and those who knew those witnesses personally. Without an additional revelation from heaven these men are our best sources for knowledge of what Christ taught, for surely not every act of His is recorded in the gospels. We know from the first chapter of Acts that from the beginning they called new men to the apostleship. We know from Paul's writings to Timothy that there were bishops, and from his writings to the Corinthians that there were a variety of vocations, presumably in some sort of hierarchy.

We cannot get much further from reason alone. One may come to a knowledge of Christ and believe in his heart the teachings of the Son of God, but when he looks around there is a myriad of organizations professing to be Christ's. He may see that the Roman Catholic Church appears to be the oldest, and decide that it must be the one telling the truth. He may sympathize with the protestants that the Catholic Church fell away from the true principles, or with the Latter-day Saints that if the Catholic Church fell, we are not permitted to rebuild ourselves without a revelation from God. Even were I convinced that my reasoning thus far were entirely accurate, I must be obliged to admit that reasoning alone could carry me no further. Perhaps God chose not to provide proofs to demonstrate which Church, if any, is the true one, because now that reason has taught us about faith, we should no longer rely on reason alone. It is therefore up to the conscience of the individual seeker of truth to learn what he can, and then turn to God in hopes of receiving an answer from Him.

However, assuming we have rejected the anti-church stance, and perhaps other Tolstoyan doctrines such as complete non-participation in government, must we completely reject his philosophy? The answer is a resounding no: As I previously stated, we should welcome all that is good from any source it may come. Which of his teachings and to what degree one accepts them is up to individual conscience. I will speak from my point of view, since I am not qualified to speak for anyone else's, which will be a discussion of nonviolence from a Latter-day Saint perspective. Writers from other Christian faiths may, or may have already, expressed similar ideas from a perspective corresponding to their own Church's teachings.

Terms like "Zion" and "the United Order" clearly don't refer to any of the present governments in the world, yet Latter-day Saints are instructed to participate in government. Government belongs to God, yet because we have rejected God's government, in His mercy He has allowed us to establish our own less than perfect governments so that we would not suffer complete lawlessness. See John Taylor's "Government of God" for a more thorough treatment of this. In this sense we owe our allegiance to worldly government in a similar sense that the children of Israel owed obedience to the Law of Moses: as a second best to us who are unworthy of all God has to offer. However, our allegiance is owed only to the degree that government doesn't require us to break our obligations to God's law, as was demonstrated by the story of Daniel. In this sense we agree with Tolstoy that human government is not God's ultimate will, but we diverge from his doctrine in admitting that we the wicked must first obey the schoolmaster before the Kingdom of God can be established in its political as well as spiritual entirety. Hence the teachings that we are to thoughtfully and prayerfully participate in elections and general civic involvement. I personally vote as long as there's someone worth voting for, but I entirely refuse to vote for the "lesser of two evils" as that dichotomy leaves us choosing evil in some form or another.

Government and civic involvement is a side issue, however. If we are to talk of government, we must attend to the aspect most closely related to Tolstoy's main thesis: military service. The history of the one time state military service was explicity requested of the saints provides an interesting case study. Five hundred men at Brigham Young's request took part in the Mormon Battalion. This service was considered a practical necessity for the church, but the key in this case was that upon being asked to serve they were promised "that their only fighting would be with wild beasts." It is interesting that when the saints were asked to perform military service, they were promised that they would not have to engage in violence.

The Church is necessarily vague on its teachings of nonviolence with respect to the military. It's not necessary to speak out in a detailed message, because the teachings of Christ as recorded in the gospels are clear. Indeed, it is better to be welcoming to all, even those in the military, that salvation might be provided to all. It is better that they accept as much of Christ's law as they can in their current condition, and build on it "precept upon precept; line upon line" than not accept any of it at all. Additionally, the Church has repeatedly expressed, as in a First Presidency Statement in 1942, that those who take the lives of others in combat under the direction of those in command will not be subject to the penalty God has disposed for those who kill. However, we must remember that not being subject to a penalty is not the same as receiving the blessing corresponding to keeping a commandment. There are, and always have been, degrees of expectations corresponding to particular abilities, such as the Law of Moses versus the higher expectations in the Sermon on the Mount. Likewise we are blessed for keeping the law of tithing, but we don't expect the same blessings as we would receive if we kept the law of consecration in its fullness. That to kill for the military may be justifiable in some cases doesn't mean that it's not better not to kill at all. Indeed, the same First Presidency Statement cited Doctrine and Covenants 98:16 -- "Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace" -- saying:

"Thus the Church is and must be against war. The Church itself cannot wage war, unless and until the Lord shall issue new commands. It cannot regard war as a righteous means of settling international disputes; these should and could be settled -- the nations agreeing -- by peaceful negotiation and adjustment."

In a 1945 statement against universal military service, the First Presidency stated many potential ill effects of military service, including: "We shall give opportunity to teach our sons not only the way to kill but also, in too many cases, the desire to kill, thereby increasing lawlessness and disorder to the consequent upsetting of the stability of our national society. God said at Sinai, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" The same message protested strongly against the creation of a large standing military as a threat to our liberties, a temptation to wage war, an obstacle to peace, and a heavy tax burden on the people. I would venture to say that we have seen this come true in its entirety with our present military establishment. The message concluded saying, "Should it be urged that our complete armament is necessary for our safety, it may be confidently replied that a proper foreign policy, implemented by an effective diplomacy, can avert the dangers that are feared. What this country needs and what the world needs, is a will for peace, not war. God will help our efforts to bring this about."

The Book of Mormon also spends a lot of discussion on the topic of war. The Nephites, contrary to Tolstoy's teachings, believed that war in self defense is justified. They did not, however, believe in revenge or "pre-emptive war." Indeed, they only defended themselves from Lamanite attackers on their own lands, and when those attackers withdrew or surrendered, they were allowed to leave without any sort of penalty or show trials for war crimes. At the point when they finally engaged in "preventive war" in chapter three of Mormon -- "the Nephites ... began to swear before the heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren who had been slain by their enemies. And ... that they would go up to battle against their enemies and would cut them off from the face of the land." -- the Lord withdrew from them and by the following generation they had been completely destroyed. Hopefully our reaction to the events of September 2001 are not an accurate parallel.

Interestingly, the group of pacifists mentioned in the Book of Mormon -- the "Ammonites" -- are thought of as being especially righteous. When converted to the gospel, they lived an even higher law than the Nephites, preferring to be killed rather than engage in violence. Even they were not Tolstoyan in their beliefs, however, being willing to pay taxes for the support of a defensive military that would protect them.

Yes, Tolstoy's doctrine conflicts with the Church. This does not, however, mean that it should be rejected wholesale. Those aspects of it not in direct conflict with the Church merit further examination, and upon detailed study show themselves to reflect a higher law whose application has not often been expected of the general body of self-proclaimed Christians, but which has always been followed by a more faithful minority. There are indeed degrees of righteousness: The rich young man that asked Jesus what he lacked had kept all of the commandments, but still fell short of Christ's ideal of perfection. "All men cannot receive this saying," said Jesus, reminding us that humanity naturally falls short of his commandments. For this reason we need to forgive others. The truly charitable Christian will apply the commandments to himself as strictly as they are written (and, of course, be willing to explain his behavior so that others may learn as well), but be willing to accept, without condemning, a much broader range of behaviors from his neighbors.

ABSTRACT: Many self-professed Christians define the term "Christian" as someone who accepts the doctrine of the Trinity, a sensible definition based on mainstream Christian beliefs, while others (especially those outside the mainstream) prefer the more inclusive definition of one who believes Jesus is the Son of God who came to Earth as the promised Messiah to save humanity from their sins. Such definitions require one to believe in Christian metaphysics while disregarding axiology, despite the fact that the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament focus almost exclusively on the latter. I propose a definition of "Christian" based on acceptance of the values taught in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 as more in keeping with the true message of Christ.

The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, if New Testament accounts of his life are to be believed, are primarily ethical in nature. After his death, his followers and their converts created a more complete philosophy and eventually hijacked the term to refer to followers of their own particular metaphysical interpretation of Christianity. In fact, this is taken so far that in Latin America the term "cristiano" is used by evangelicals to explicitly exclude Catholics, members of the oldest surviving Christian faith¹. This fervent animosity is ironic from a faith centered around one who taught men to "Love [their] enemies"². The sad result is that the term "Christian" can be, and frequently is, applied to those who believe in the godhood of Jesus while at the same time rejecting his teachings.

A definition of "Christianity" that would bring more respect to the term would be centered primarily in the teachings of Jesus and only secondarily in the teachings about him. This would ironically have the potential to include some atheists and agnostics under the umbrella of Christianity while excluding most self-proclaimed Christians. Irony notwithstanding, the definition would be appropriate considering it centers particularly in the teachings of the one whose given surname it utilizes. I would particularly propose that "Christian" be defined to refer to someone who accepts the ethical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as expounded in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, arguably a thorough summary of his philosophy and the most transcendental ethical teachings of all time, and "Christianity" should be defined as the whole of those who accept those ethical teachings.

Admittedly this definition will be controversial, since it doesn't require belief in the central doctrine of mainstream contemporary Christianity: that one must accept Christ in order to be saved. Yet that doctrine was not taught by Jesus, but his followers³. Jesus, on the other hand, taught that "if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you"⁴. Likewise those that don't forgive won't be forgiven. No exception is made for the one who vocally accepted Christ as his personal savior. Where popular exegesis of apostolic works contradicts the plain teachings of Christ, I, for one, would consider it wise to allow the words of the latter to take precedence, seeing as the former originates with mere followers of our eponymous leader. Furthermore: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" and "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" indicate that the zealous believer who puts Paul's teachings above those of Jesus may be in for an unpleasant surprise at judgment day while another kind soul who didn't believe the former's insistence that there would be a judgement may find himself in much better fortunes.

The practical result of this redefinition would be that we accept as our Christian brethren any who put forth a good faith effort to follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, regardless of their belief or lack of belief in other, secondary aspects of Christianity such as the divinity of Christ or his role as savior of mankind. We may regard those secondary aspects as a source of our faith, but we are forced acknowledge that the fundamental principles of Christianity must be those taught by Jesus himself. This additionally means that we must reject the efforts of modern day scribes and pharisees to limit the term "Christian" to believers in the secondary aspects, particularly in light of the fact that the vast majority of them do not deserve to bear the title in the first place⁵.

This definition also draws attention to the fact that our first priority must be to follow the ethical teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. This would quickly propel Christianity into a much more respectable light, as it leaves no room for animosity towards Muslims, atheists, or any other group. Indeed contemporary self-professed Christians give no shortage of lip service to the term agape⁶, but are loath to confess that its practical application is precisely the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

The appropriate meaning of "Christian" then is one who follows Christ. And to follow Christ we must first base our lives around his teachings, including (I would say particularly) the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount as found in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. We can believe whatever else we want about Christ, but it is only secondary to the heart of the matter. It may be extremely unpleasant to have to loosen slightly our grasp on the doctrine of the atonement, the trinity or godhead, or any other of our pet beliefs, but if we are to believe the man who actually went up on the cross, it's not a necessary prerequisite to inheriting the kingdom of heaven. As for me, I don't believe Jesus was a liar, and so from now on I will use the term "Christian" in the context it should have had all along.

Footnotes

1. See "Percepciones de Católicos y Evangélicos" in Masferrer Kan, Elio, ed. "Sectas o Iglesias: Viejas o nuevas religiones" Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2000, p.219 for a description of the relationship between Catholics and Evangelicals in Mexico. A quick Google search for "Cristianos y Católicos" will bring up many examples of the former term being used explicitly to exclude the latter, including at the time of this writing "Diferencia entre Cristianos y Católicos? - Yahoo! Respuestas" <http://espanol.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100718060838AAbciG1> and "¿Son Cristianos Los Catolicos?" <http://www.chick.com/es/reading/tracts/0506/0506_01.asp>.

2. Matthew 5:44. Citations from the King James version of the Holy Bible.

3. Romans 10:9 is probably the most oft-repeated exposition of this doctrine, published in countless tracts spread around at countless events and non-events. The point, however, is that the Epistle to the Romans was written by Paul, not by Jesus. Whether or not Paul was inspired by God in his writings, it still makes sense to hold the teachings that purportedly came directly out of Jesus' mouth as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and accept Paul's teachings at best as an exposition of secondary aspects of Christian faith.

4. Matthew 6:14.

5. The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5 through 7, are incredibly strict, thus excluding the vast majority of professed "Christians" from the title if we use them as a definition.

6. I find it particularly comical that the domain name agape.com at the time of this writing quotes from the New Testament, yet focuses entirely on making money, much of it through arguably dishonest means (such as multi-level marketing). In their own words, "our mission is to honor God, develop people, pursue excellence and generate profits." Never mind "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth" and "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon" (Matthew 6:19 and 6:24 respectively).

The author has a copy of a fascinating philosophical novel, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", in his library, which he has read with delight on more than one occasion. Rand describes a utopia, called "Galt's Gulch," which is unique among utopian literature in that it is not a socialist society. Indeed, Ms. Rand is bold enough to suggest capitalism as a basis for a utopian society, something revolutionary enough to upset and offend the intellectual community. Despite being the polar opposite of the traditional perfect society, however, Ayn Rand's community suffers from the same fatal problem as every other proposed utopia since Plato's Republic: it assumes that members of the society, at least the majority of them, will both believe in (or be convinced of) the ideology behind the community and act accordingly.

Plato's Republic is particularly honest among utopian literature in that it admits the existence of a ruling class. Plato naturally thought that the intellectuals were best suited to rule, a view still popular among academics who to this day suffer from superiority complexes that sometimes overwhelm their reasoning. Other authors, such as Bellamy¹ and Marx² try to convince their readers that a truly classless society can be created, implying or stating explicitly (as in the case of Bellamy) that a society can be set up where corruption cannot occur among those who administer the government. Bellamy replaces class with national honor (which could be argued to be a class system of its own), under the assumption that the members of society will be satisfied with this form of distinction. Rand's "Galt's Gulch" is comparable to Bellamy's society in this aspect of being classless yet having classes per Rand's "aristocracy of money." Ayn Rand's pseudo-classes are more believable than Edward Bellamy's, in that a sort of wealth-based aristocracy does indeed exist in capitalist societies. Inheritance may be a flaw in Rand's ideology, as old money means that wealth is not necessarily owned by the capable or productive, though she seems to think that this will be a self-correcting problem in the long run, as in the case of James Taggart's mismanagement of the railroad or implied in Francisco D'Anconia's statement: "Why should I wish to make money? I have enough to permit three generations of descendants to have as good a time as I'm having."

Ms. Rand is more realistic than the proponents of classlessness in the understanding that there will always be a social distinction between the great industrialists (her upper class) and the dedicated though less capable employee as represented by Eddie Willers. Her problem is the assumption that in the laissez-faire capitalist society, a reason-based ethics will somehow prevail upon employers to pay a fair wage, and employees to provide a just amount of quality work in exchange. Indeed, if employers were willing to pay well and employees were willing to work well, it would make little difference whether a society was structured as capitalist or socialist. Class mobility is also a key element in Rand's utopia: the incompetent among the upper class need to fall, while the shining stars of the lower class need to rise to prominence. Ayn Rand believes this will naturally happen in a capitalist society, where the capable will provide themselves an education and push their way up the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, recent research suggests that class mobility, even intergenerationally, is much more a fantasy than a reality in the United States³ and Europe.⁴ Followers of Ayn Rand might argue that this is due to the fact that modern capitalist economies are highly regulated in a manner that decreases the mobility of the lower classes in an unnatural manner. This is true to some extent, but would be offset by other government programs that provide loan guarantees and grants to allow members of the lower class to acquire the same University education offered to members of the higher classes.

Crime is another issue that must be dealt with by any utopia. Many utopias fail to live up to modern society's ideals in their dealings with crime. For example, Thomas More solved this in his Utopia by the institution of slavery for convicts.⁵ Bellamy considered that the abolition of money would do away with almost all crime, and most of the remaining would be corrected by a higher standard of education among all members of society. Whether anger can be almost entirely suppressed by education is debatable, but Ayn Rand offers neither the abolition of money nor a universal education in order to combat crime. She seems to think that a certain portion of crime is the result of desperation among the masses, who are unable to take care of themselves in a highly regulated society. Police and military are also proper functions of government, according to her philosophy. This is sort of a compromise between More's imposition of slavery, and Bellamy's fantasizing away of crime. Rand lives up to the reality that crime will exist, though she doesn't speak much of it, implying that it will somehow be under control, or rare enough as not to merit mention.

Crime is merely one aspect of a larger problem facing any utopia: the assumption that the vast majority of its members will believe in and follow the values of their society. That assumption is already at work in any society that isn't a police state, and can be readily seen to be less than adequate for transforming those societies into utopias. Ambition is not to be underestimated as a threat to any utopia. Bellamy assumes he can get around it by offering honor to the best and brightest. More assumes ambition will be done away by the uselessness of money internally in his imagined society. It is doubtful that doing away with money and the offering of honor in its place will provide sufficient satisfaction to the ambition of man. Zimbardo's famous prison study shows the tendency of man to not only seek power, but to seek more of it once it is granted, to the degree of abusing his authority.⁶ Rand doesn't even do away with money, but somehow believes that the honest pursuit of it will satisfy ambition in her ideal society. Where there is a government, however, there are government officials willing and ready to extend their power, and even anarchy doesn't last long until a government is instituted by those who seek power.

It should be noted that even those who believe in a particular ideal don't necessarily follow it themselves. One popular recurrent theme in the media, for example, is that of the politician who breaks whatever ideal he wants to impose on the public.⁷ The concept of confession in Christianity is based on the fact that people don't live up to their own values. Nor should we forget the lazy, who will seek, if in a less than honest manner, survival at the expense of society, that is, wealth without productivity on their own part. Ayn Rand's idea of a perfect society is nice, but unless everyone cooperates it just won't live up to the hype. An employer who wants to extract a little extra profit will pay his employees less than the true value of their work; it would be naive to assume that competition alone could correct this. Accordingly, the employees will, on the one hand, give less than their best in labor, and, on the other hand, seek redress from the government. The latter will result in regulation, and eventually we're back in the same society from which Rand's industrial geniuses wanted to escape. Man's self-interest, tempered with his reason, won't save him from destruction, because there will always be another whose self-interest won't be combined with the same ethics.

One recurrent theme in Bellamy's novel was his insistence that his utopia was possible without changing the fundamental character of people. For a Christian, this is particularly naive, considering the Christian belief that man is in a fallen state. Likewise, as already briefly observed in the present work, this assertion on the part of Bellamy holds up neither to reason nor to empiricism. More used severe punishments, such as slavery and death, in order to keep his people in line. Rand recognizes the existence of people of a character antithetical to her ideals, the "moochers." Oddly, she has no suggestion for dealing with them on a long-term basis. The most brilliant mind in Atlas Shrugged, that of John Galt, proposes the merely temporary solution of going on strike while the moochers destroy society, then raising it up again out of the ashes. What is to be done when the looters return to the newly rebuilt society? It doesn't matter if it takes a day or a generation, Ms. Rand's utopia is only a temporary respite from the society that precedes it. Just like any other utopia, the society idealized in Galt's Gulch needs a change in the fundamental character of humanity in order to succeed. In over 2300 years since the birth of Aristotle, philosophy alone hasn't been able to do the job. Followers of Ayn Rand, as well as the other utopists, need to look beyond philosophy to search for more effective ways to market their ideals.

Notes

1. Bellamy, Edward, "Looking Backward: 2000-1887" (New York: Signet Classics, 2000).
2. Engels, Friedrich and Karl Marx, "The Communist Manifesto".
3. Perruci and Wysong note that "the popular image of class differences is that they are temporary and constantly changing. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the new class system in the United States." Perruci, Robert and Earl Wysong, "The New Class Society" (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.: 1999), p.29.
4. Blanden, Jo, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin, "Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America" (2005). <http://cep.lse.ac.uk/about/news/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf>.
5. More, Sir Thomas, "Utopia" (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1912), p.155.
6. Haney, C., et al., "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison," International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1973):69-97.
7. Popular recent themes include Larry Craig, the U.S. Senator who strongly supported traditional family values, and was caught soliciting sex from another man in a public restroom, and the criticism of environmentalist Al Gore's energy consumption.