Voices: If Latter-day Saints want to be peacemakers, our church must divest from war

In June 1976, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an article titled “The False Gods We Worship.” Selected for the faith’s members as the primary message in that month’s issue of the Ensign by its highest governing body, and written by the church President Spencer W. Kimball, it would’ve been hard for Latter-day Saints to miss.

Fifty years later, however, you’ll be hard-pressed to hear a Latter-day Saint mention it.

Written on the heels of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam and Cambodia, the article was a stirring condemnation of the U.S. war machine, its involvement in imperialistic conflicts across the globe and uncritical patriotism.

According to the senior apostle, Americans were “on the whole, an idolatrous people … a warlike people, easily distracted.” He went on: “When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel — ships, planes, missiles, fortifications. … 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: ‘Love your enemies.’ … Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.”

Five years later, on May 5, 1981, the First Presidency issued a statement contending that if Latter-day Saints allowed the federal government to base a nuclear missile system in Utah it would be “a denial of the very essence of [the] gospel.”

Today, though the prophetic call for Latter-day Saints to be peacemakers continues, the church’s investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, invests hundreds of millions of dollars to manufacture these kinds of weapons.

As a church, Latter-day Saints are no longer demanding the war machine cease. We instead are helping build the idols we used to decry. How can anyone take seriously our proclamation of peacemaking at the same time we use our millions to make weapons of war?

When Israel’s latest ground invasion into the Gaza Strip began in 2023, the three members of the church’s governing First Presidency put out a statement that said they “pray for a peaceful resolution of all conflicts.” But, throughout this offensive into the Gaza Strip — which many international bodies, experts and scholars have termed a “genocide” — the Israeli state used American weapons manufactured by the very companies in which the church has invested.

In other words, while our leaders said they prayed for a peaceful resolution and encouraged us to do the same, we were funding the construction of the weapons used to do the opposite.

If Latter-day Saints truly believe that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), how can our prayers for peace be anything but meaningless if our actions support war? How can we see ourselves as anything but hypocrites who “heap up empty phrases” to be “seen by others?” (Matthew 6:5, 7.)

Last March, while handing out flyers at City Creek Center for an anti-war protest hosted by Mormons with Hope for a Better World, I talked to Latter-day Saints leaving the church-owned Deseret Book as they walked to an event at Temple Square. The protest called on Latter-day Saints to “renounce war and proclaim peace.” Despite this being a commandment given to us in our scripture (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16), I was met with derision and apathy.

As a man began to raise his voice and question both my church membership and relationship with God, I began to recall warnings given to me about opposition faced by missionaries. In that moment, I realized that none of the negative interactions I had on my mission in the heart of the Bible Belt could even begin to compare to the vitriol I experienced from my own co-religionists while I advocated against war on that street corner.

Mere hours after the United States bombed the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro unprovoked, I saw some Latter-day Saints openly celebrating online and calling for even more violence. The weapons used in Venezuela, like those in Gaza, were made in part due to our investments in weapons manufacturing.

We legitimize war through our works, and our beliefs have followed down that same path.

As a Latter-day Saint, I believe that any reputation Latter-day Saints wish to garner as peacemakers is significantly undermined by our investments in the war-profiteering industry.

Peacemakers simply cannot seek to multiply their stocks through trading in war.

As a faithful Latter-day Saint, I don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t take our claim to peacemaking seriously. If we want them to, we must renounce war and proclaim peace, and this must be evident through our actions and our advocacy.

Nathan McLaughlin is an undergraduate student at the University of Utah studying religion, philosophy and ancient Greek, who will be pursuing a master’s degree in religion this fall. His interests include ethics, postsecular theory, liberation theology, Mormonism, modern American Christianity and issues of gender, race and class. He is a practicing Latter-day Saint, as well as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and Mormons with Hope for a Better World. He enjoys film, music, roller-skating and participating in interreligious dialogue and community events.

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