Download Print-Friendly Version</a

Most people instinctively lean on one or two ways of handling conflict: a favorite approach and a fallback when the first doesn’t work. Yet there are five conflict management styles, and all five are necessary in fostering healthy relationships. The challenge is learning to use the right style at the right time. Which styles do you default to? And which should you start implementing?

This article is part of a series pairing short, humorous videos created by TheFamilyProclamation.Org with articles published by Public Square offering deeper explorations of the theory and doctrine of Peacemaking. Each installment pairs academic theory with Christian teachings for resolving everyday disagreements.

Today’s video shows examples of using all five conflict management styles when there are two people, but only one slice of pizza left. 

The five styles introduced here are based on the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument: Oblige, Promote, Collaborate, Compromise, and Avoid. It’s helpful to consider the five styles based on people’s needs: your needs and the needs of others. And, the amount of time and effort each style takes. The consequence of unmet needs either in oneself or others is the strong negative emotion of resentment. No one style is inherently right or wrong. The key lies in discerning which approach fits the situation.

Oblige

Obliging means yielding to another’s needs. When the issue matters more to them than to oneself, in conflict theory, it reflects a low concern for personal needs and a high concern for others’ needs. This style can de-escalate tensions, promote gratitude, and acknowledge the importance of another’s perspective. However, overuse may neglect essential personal needs.

A scriptural example comes from Abraham and Lot in Genesis 13. When their herdsmen quarreled over land, Abraham obliged: “Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee … for we be brethren … If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Lot chose the fertile Jordan Valley, while Abraham accepted the less desirable land. Abraham’s willingness to accommodate preserved peace between their households.

In the 1840s, a devastating blight destroyed Ireland’s potato crops, leading to mass starvation and disease. The U.S. government took direct action. President James K. Polk ordered the naval vessel USS Jamestown to be filled with provisions and sent to Ireland in 1847. This was followed by widespread public fundraising and additional aid from the government. The U.S. decision was driven by empathy for the suffering Irish population, many of whom had emigrated to America. The action was taken with no expectation of political or financial compensation. While it did strengthen the relationship, the United States’ response to the Irish Potato Famine was an obliging act motivated by a sense of goodwill and compassion.

Pros: Defuses tension quickly; communicates care for the other’s perspective; allows movement forward when personal cost is minor.

Cons: Can create resentment if personal needs are repeatedly ignored; risks imbalance in relationships; may enable others’ selfishness.

Iconic statement: “This matters more to you than to me—take it.”

Promote

Promoting involves asserting one’s own needs. When the issue is of high importance personally but less critical for others, in conflict theory, this reflects a high concern for personal self-needs and a lower concern for others’. Used wisely, it preserves integrity, sets boundaries, respect, and prevents neglect of essential personal responsibilities.

Scripture records Esther as a profound example. When the Jews of Persia faced extermination, Esther risked her life by approaching King Ahasuerus unbidden. “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). Her boldness in promoting her people’s survival turned the tide of history.

In modern history, Susan B. Anthony exemplified this style through tireless advocacy for women’s suffrage. Willing to endure arrest and ridicule, she insisted, “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” By promoting her cause with unrelenting persistence, she advanced the rights of countless women.

Pros: Safeguards essential personal needs; establishes clear boundaries; brings neglected issues to light.

Cons: Can appear and even become domineering; risks escalating conflict; may undermine relationships if used unnecessarily.

Iconic statement: “This matters deeply to me—I must stand for it.”

Collaborating

Collaborating seeks solutions that fully meet the needs of all parties. In theory, it reflects a high concern for both self and others. It is the most time-intensive and demanding style, but also the one most likely to generate durable, creative, and mutually satisfying resolutions.

A scriptural example appears in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), where early Christians debated whether Gentile converts must keep the law of Moses. Through deliberation and testimony, leaders forged a collaborative solution: Gentiles would not be required to keep the full law but were asked to respect certain practices for the sake of unity. This preserved inclusion without dissolving moral standards.

In history, Nelson Mandela exemplified collaboration during South Africa’s transition away from apartheid. Instead of seeking revenge, his inclusive multiracial leadership in the African National Congress, personal mentorship of Springbok rugby captain Francois Pienaar, and his willingness to work with political rivals Mandela established a democratic framework, preventing civil war and opening a path toward reconciliation.

Pros: Builds trust; generates creative solutions; addresses the deepest needs of all parties.

Cons: Requires significant time and energy; can stall if parties are unwilling; may be impractical in urgent conflicts.

Iconic statement: “Let’s stay at the table until we find a solution that works for all of us.”

Compromising

Compromising involves each party yielding part of their needs to reach a middle ground. In theory, it balances moderate concern for self and others. It does not produce perfect satisfaction but provides workable solutions when time is short or stakes are moderate.

A scriptural example appears in the division of land among Israel’s tribes. The tribe of Reuben and Gad requested land east of the Jordan, which initially angered Moses. A compromise was reached: they could settle eastward provided their soldiers helped the other tribes secure their inheritance west of the Jordan (Numbers 32).

In history, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 illustrates this principle. Balancing free and slave states preserved the fragile union for a time, though deeper moral questions remained unresolved.

Pros: Creates quick, workable solutions; is often perceived as “fair”; avoids stalemates; spreads sacrifice across parties.

Cons: Often leaves no one fully satisfied; can defer deeper issues; risks fostering half-measures instead of real resolution.

Iconic statement: “I’ll give some, you give some, and we’ll both move forward.”

Avoiding

Avoiding means stepping away from conflict altogether, either by deferring, delaying, or disengaging. In theory, it reflects low concern for the needs of both self and others in the conflict. Avoidance may preserve peace when the issue is trivial, the relationship is distant or unimportant, or when emotions are too high for productive discussion. But, avoidance risks creating resentment if used habitually in close or necessary relationships.

Scripture shows Jesus withdrawing after intense disputes with religious leaders: “And Jesus went about Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him” (John 7:1). His withdrawal shows discernment for choosing the right moment to disengage. But on another occasion, when confronted by opponents trying to trap him with a question about paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus asked to see a coin and noted that it bore Caesar’s image. He then responded, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.” Though He engaged with those promoting a conflict, this encounter is still an example of conflict avoidance because Jesus shifted the conversation to a moral lesson rather than engaging in the political debate his opponents intended.

As president, George Washington witnessed the growing animosity between factions, which he feared would destroy the republic from within. Instead of staying in office to fight the factions, Washington retired, setting a critical precedent for a peaceful transfer of power. By doing so, he removed his unifying but also polarizing presence, forcing the political system to mature on its own. His farewell address served as a final, non-partisan warning. George Washington’s retirement is an example of avoidance, as he intentionally disengaged from political power to prevent the young nation from being torn apart by deepening partisan conflict. By contrast, Mahatma Gandhi continually engaged in politics utilizing strategic avoidance through nonviolent resistance. By refusing to meet violence with violence, he avoided direct clashes while still advancing his cause, exhausting the will of his opponents without reciprocating hostility.

Pros: Allows time for cooling off; prevents escalation over trivial matters; creates space for reflection.

Cons: Can leave problems unresolved; risks long-term resentment; may erode trust if avoidance becomes habitual.

Iconic statement: “This conflict doesn’t need to be fought right now.”

“O Be Wise”

We may be particularly gifted or prone to using one or two of the styles, but no single style is sufficient for every situation. Scripture and history affirm that wisdom lies not in clinging to one or two styles but in discerning which approach serves the moment best. Some say knowledge comes from facts, but wisdom comes from experience. Learn from the experience of others and, in counsel with God, discern which style to resolve every conflict in life. Conflict is inevitable, but considering the full range of conflict styles transforms disagreements into robust opportunities for growth, justice, and deeper connection: don’t just default to one or two styles. So even though we may be “as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10).

The post Why Winning Doesn’t Make You Right: Five Conflict Styles appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

While ours is far from the first generation that has spoken often of revolution, calls for revolution have become part of the casual person-to-person discourse among today’s 20 and 30-somethings. 

What kind of revolution? That depends on who you ask and what their particular cause is. Such grandiose visions of always dramatic, sometimes violent overthrow often center around political complaints that seem so complex and tangled that the normal means or processes of social change are insufficient.

However uncertain those details are, there is one thing that does seem clear to me—a common premise about how to create social change I hear and see over and over. 

My peers often seem to take for granted that what keeps them from happiness is some sort of juggernaut—a great force that requires tremendous effort and coordination to overthrow. By necessity, this calls for a heroic effort—an earth-shaking endeavor required to right the cosmic injustices plaguing so many of us. 

This might not be surprising given this generation’s cultural context. My generation and the one to follow has grown up on fantasy. Which is not a bad thing. I’ve happily consumed all of the same beloved media of the past couple of decades. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and, let’s not forget the unending factory line of superhero movies. 

With this as our constant socialization, is it any wonder that young people are so keen on mighty and elaborate means to achieve their conceptual views on social change, happiness, and problem-solving?

This was my impression as well, as an agnostic turned newly baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ two years ago. In my secular past, I believed happiness came from a life of adventure and triumph. In my early investigative period, I came close to concluding that God’s power blessed us in some magical way with enduring joy. (While yes, God intends for us to find happiness, the path may not be what my generation expects.)

We don’t need to command an army at the head of a revolution, but we can look to the story of an army commander to learn a lesson of incredible value. Naaman, whose story is found in the fifth chapter of 2nd Kings, was a Syrian general noted for his valor—although also suffering from leprosy. 

This vicious disease was his hindrance—the personal obstacle that kept happiness out of reach. Given his station, however, he was in a place to do something about it. With a letter from his king, troves of treasure, and ten changes of raiment, the commander traveled to Israel after a servant of his wife explained that the Prophet could make him whole.

Here, we see Naaman making the same inference as many of my peers. Happiness lies on the other side of a glorious quest. So Naaman came with his horses and chariot and stood mightily outside the door of Elisha’s house. 

What happened next, this great leader of men could not have expected. He was met not by the messenger of God but by a servant of the prophet. Relaying the instructions of his master, the holy man’s aid explained that Naaman must simply wash in the Jordan River seven times to be made clean. 

That was it. One might expect some kind of relief in a man just told a remedy was in reach. But grand Naaman was wroth—this is not how his epic healing adventure was supposed to conclude. Not only had a climatic miracle at the hands of Elisha not been delivered, but he felt insulted that the magnificent waters of Syria were overlooked in favor of some backwater Israeli river. 

This, after traveling all that way, with all that treasure, with all his might. In a rage, as the scripture says, Naaman was ready to dispense of the whole matter and return to his home, the problem unsolved and his misery prolonged.

But his own servants proved to be wise counsel. “My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?” 

Naaman sees truth in these humble words and does as he is advised. His illness is washed away.

Could this advice from the mouth of servants help our own revolutionary tendencies today? If generations Y and Z are so willing to do some great thing to be freed from unhappiness, why not something simple?

Such is our modern-day dip in the Jordan. Not turning aside from the simple lessons emphasized so often over the pulpit. When complaining about repetition, asking for more depth, or seeking more spiritual meat, we must ask ourselves if we are acting as Naaman had. 

Any of us can understand the hesitance to suggestions like this that can seem “beneath” the excited urgency of our day. Like Naaman, our egos may lead us to think, “It can’t be that simple. My problems are greater. I have traveled so far with horses, chariots, gold, and raiment. I require something else, something more.” 

Something more than the living God? Think again. He is enough. Give Him at least a chance. 

Experiment on the word. Consistently apply the advice of the Lord’s servants. As the army commander dipped seven times to cleanse his leprosy, practice repentance, prayer, and scripture study for seven days. You will see a difference; you might even see yourself healed. Your unhappiness will erode, and your entitlement washed down the river until you, too, are clean.

The post Rebel Without a Clue: Modern Rhetoric vs. Current Realities appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In a Public Square interview published earlier this year, Patrick Mason wrote,

When it comes to gender, sexuality, and marriage, I think that over the past two decades, liberals and progressives have done a better job than conservatives of making persuasive arguments for their positions. I think conservatives have often been flat-footed and have resorted to defending their positions based purely on authority or tradition . …

He concludes, “Frankly, liberals and progressives have, in recent decades, won the contest of ideas.” 

There are good reasons to disagree, but before we even get that far: If we’re asking whether progressives have won “the contest of ideas,” what kind of “contest” are we talking about?

What Is the Contest of Ideas?

Is it like the Olympics? Americans are clearly winning the contest of medals: with 4% of the world’s population, we’ve won nearly 15% of all medals awarded. Of course, if you’ve ingested a little critical theory (a useful drug sometimes, but watch the dose), you’ll remember we also have about 25% of the world’s GDP, and the category “things money can buy” absolutely includes Olympic medals.

Money means well-fed kids with time for sports and leagues for them to compete in. It means scholarships and sponsorships, top tech and top coaches. And money doesn’t just mean rich athletic programs; it means rich athletic audiences, with rich advertisers hunting their eyeballs and rich TV contracts for the IOC if it stocks the Olympics with lots of sports they like to watch.

None of this takes away from any individual athlete’s performance. The medalists are all virtuosi of their arts, living images of their particular forms of human excellence. But (and here’s another dose of critical theory) the fairness of individual outcomes does not guarantee the fairness of the system as a whole.

Michael Phelps has 28 medals, and the entire country of Nigeria, home to 200 million people, has 27. From this, we may infer two things: Michael Phelps is a truly phenomenal athlete, and the IOC doesn’t make much money from Nigeria winning medals.

So is the contest of ideas like the Olympics?

Or maybe it’s like baseball. Before the statisticians took over, teams didn’t really understand how to win—their thinking wasn’t much more precise than “hits good, strikeouts bad.”

But they loved baseball, so they chose players who could do the things they loved about baseball—five-tool players, they called them, who could hit for average, hit for power, field the ball, throw the ball, and steal bases. They praised the “sweet swing,” the beautiful game, and the game was beautiful to the fans, too.

Until the statisticians proved that beautiful baseball wasn’t the way to win. They discovered that walks (boring) were often as good as hits (fun), sacrifice bunts (kinda fun) and stealing bases (great fun) were often counterproductive, and a few extra home runs were worth a lot of extra strikeouts (reeeeally boring). The statisticians turned the five tools into something like two and a half, as teams realized running and throwing hardly mattered next to the all-important extra-base hits.

Or next to “pitch-framing,” the dark art of manipulating the umpire’s perception of balls and strikes. Did anyone ever become a baseball fan by watching a catcher subtly slide his glove toward the zone as he caught the pitch? And yet teams began spending millions to sign and train catchers who could do it.

You’d hear the old-timers grouse, “Nobody knows how to play the game anymore,” and they couldn’t have been more wrong. The problem was the game itself, ostensibly aiming to entertain but rewarding teams for play that wasn’t entertaining.

Or maybe the contest of ideas is a beauty pageant—but not an ordinary beauty pageant, where judges pick the contestants they honestly find most beautiful. No, it’s Keynes’ second-order beauty pageant, in which judges are rewarded if their picks match the picks of the most other judges.

So, examining each new face, the judges do not ask, “Does this person possess true beauty? Does something about her shine through the veil of our flawed reality, giving glimpses of the divine potential of the human form?” Instead, they ask, “Are long noses hot this year? What will the European judges think of thick eyebrows?” Or, more precisely, “What will the European judges think the other judges will think of thick eyebrows,” since the European judges, too, are trying to choose not what is beautiful but what is popular.

And if the pageant winners aren’t what most people would call pretty, if the man in the street squints and frowns and wonders how on earth she could have beaten her and who picks these judges anyway, then that only proves how lost we’d be without the trained experts! Because the contest’s purpose is not, ultimately, to recognize and praise human beauty, which all men and women can do for themselves. It is (critical theory again!) to perpetuate the contest itself and the wealth and privilege of the people running it.

And how could the contest do that if it merely acknowledged the beauty standards that people already have? You could just commission a poll and be done with it, with no need for trained experts, and Beyoncé could win every year. No: if the beauty contest and its experts are going to matter, if they’re going to keep making money, then they have no choice but to invent and promote new standards of beauty—even if it means abandoning beauty for an ever-evolving strain of cultivated ugliness.

This can happen even without anyone involved consciously intending it. The systems of power and prestige are sneaky things, and the people on top of them are often those who fit them best—those who navigate them naturally, without thinking, and thus never have a reason to realize they’re there.

That’s probably enough fun with metaphors.

It turns out, when you get away from the few sentences I quoted above, that Professor Mason says a lot of things about the contest of ideas that I agree with. I agree orthodox Latter-day Saints shouldn’t argue exclusively from authority and tradition. I agree we should do a better job clothing the Gospel spirit in cultural and theological flesh so that the world (and our own youth) can see Christ’s message in our teachings and lives and wards and families.

And I definitely, definitely agree with the professor when he says the people winning the contest of ideas aren’t always right. Because let’s face it: our contest of ideas is a mess.

The Contest of Ideas Is a Mess

Let’s start with the scientists. “Most Published Research Findings Are False,” concluded one famous paper. Last year alone saw 4,600 scientific papers retracted—4,600!—and those are just the ones that got caught; one recent study estimated that, worldwide, about a quarter of published papers—hundreds of thousands annually—are completely fake.

Even non-faked papers often prove nothing but the persistence and ingenuity of publication-hungry scholars: if you run enough studies, then you’re guaranteed to pass the p-test on something, and if it’s taking too long, you can always get creative.

“This is all okay!” science’s cheerleaders shout, “because science corrects itself! Other scientists catch the frauds and false positives, and the quest for knowledge moves on!”

And that happens … sometimes, just like bunting still happens in baseball sometimes. But “science correcting itself” is not what the system rewards. Nobody ever became president of Stanford or a Nobel laureate by double-checking other people’s studies, and as long as your papers are making it through peer review, then why should you care if they rely on someone else’s bogus research? Even fraudulent papers, even after retraction, can go on to be cited hundreds of times.

The upshot: “Progress is slowing down, not just in one or two places, but across many domains of science and technology.”

And if things are that bad in science, where new experiments are always giving reality the chance to nudge or bludgeon erring researchers in truth’s general direction, then why should we put any trust in the less empirical disciplines, the ones where you don’t need to hack your p-tests because there aren’t any?

Without empirical data, the only thing distinguishing a scholarly journal from a blog is the professionalism of the peer reviewers who decide what will and won’t be published—which is fine when the discipline’s standards of professionalism are calibrated to seek the truth.

But why should they be? Doesn’t critical theory teach us that even ostensibly neutral rules usually serve the interests of the rule-makers? Shouldn’t we expect the same thing about scholarly standards of professionalism? And why should we assume it’s in the academic rule-makers’ interest to seek truth any more than it’s in our pageant judges’ interest to seek beauty?

Instead of truth, why wouldn’t the rule-makers chase “relevance,” an aging academic buzzword defined roughly as “a chance of getting you on NPR”? Why wouldn’t they prostitute their professional standards to cultural and political movements that give them praise and money—for example, by publishing complete nonsense when it supports fashionable conclusions? Why wouldn’t they suffocate competing ideas and build incestuous little empires of like-minded scholars, all busy giving each other citations and jobs and grants?

“Peer review”—isn’t that what happens in middle school lunchrooms?

And yet: our peer-reviewed academic system, with all its predictable flaws and biases, can still accomplish amazing things in the pursuit of truth, especially if you compare it to the alternatives—social media, podcasts, cable news, popular nonfiction, and so on. Further, the alternatives to academia are all influenced by academia; their participants are mostly trained by it, and none of them affords the same opportunity as academia for intelligent people to think full-time about difficult questions, critique each other’s ideas, and move, however haltingly, forward towards the truth.

Which is why it still hurts that faithful scholarship is largely shut out.

It doesn’t have to happen on purpose. If you’re a passionate believer in the Family Proclamation, then you’re likely to build your life around it, and that means marriage (if you’re able) and kids (if you’re able) and service at church and (I hope) time devoted to your parents and siblings—all of which puts you at a disadvantage compared to scholars who build their lives around their careers, who can work seven days a week and move cross-country for new fellowships and go get another degree if necessary. The more your kids grow in age and number, the more they have to sacrifice while you’re hunting tenure until you might find yourself asking, “Is this contest of ideas the noble vocation I imagined—or is it a selfish hobby making everyone else in my life suffer?”

Forget defending the Family Proclamation; entering today’s academic profession is already difficult enough if you just have a family.

But let’s be honest here: of course faithful ideas are excluded on purpose. Polls have found large numbers of scholars in various fields admitting their willingness to discriminate against job candidates who are conservative or religious. They’ve found growing numbers of professors self-censoring to protect their careers—and for good reason, with attempts to punish professors’ speech having risen thirtyfold since the year 2000. Even a famous Christian philosopher, speaking by invitation to an explicitly Christian philosophical society, can’t defend orthodox sexual ethics without his hosts apologizing for it afterward.

If you’ve spent much time hanging out with socially conservative aspirants to the professoriate, then you’ve probably heard the question, “What are you going to write about until you get tenure?” In other words, “To what subject, uninteresting to you but inoffensive to politically progressive hiring committees, will you devote the next ten or fifteen years of your life so that in your late thirties (or later!) you can finally start thinking the thoughts and writing the words that made you want to become a scholar in the first place?”

I don’t remember the young conservatives asking the other questions this raises, for example: “Can you really write tenure-quality scholarship on a subject you don’t care about?” or “After you’ve built an entire professional identity as an apolitical scholar or at best a moderate, housebroken conservative; after you’ve closed the door on other careers and come to need every penny of your salary to raise your children and save for retirement; will you really have the courage to risk blowing it all up?”

Or maybe, “If you spend ten or fifteen years hiding your testimony to get tenure, what makes you think you’ll still have one when you’re done?”

Though I do remember seeing young progressive scholars and asking myself a different question: “What must it be like to begin an academic career without the hiring committees abominating your deepest beliefs?”

All of which makes Professor Mason’s words about the contest of ideas sound a bit like an American telling Nigeria, “Just try harder, I’m sure you’ll win the medal count next time.”

So What Should We Do?

In all the Major Leagues’ years of boring baseball (which, in fairness, they’re trying to fix), the game’s true lovers always knew the secret. You could still watch non-boring baseball—you just had to leave the big names and the big games for the youth leagues and the high school teams; in a word, the amateurs.

And so it is with Gospel scholarship. The Charles Anthons of the world will never be satisfied; in academia as elsewhere, the dominions of the faithful will always be small.

Most of them will be “independent scholars,” or professors of other subjects quietly moonlighting, or doctors or lawyers writing in their free time. Their work will often appear in publications that no Serious Scholar reads, and it will often be unprofessional—their pitch-framing will be lousy, and their pageant gowns badly out of date. They will sometimes miss the truth by being faith-affirming, as the secular academy often misses it by faithlessness.

But the Church was not restored for the sake of good scholarship; when the weak things of the world come forth, it will not be to impress the mighty and strong ones with their valuable contributions to the literature.

And the contest of ideas?

Jesus went where the sinners were, and his disciples should do the same when they’re able. In the end, though, they’re not in the contest to win—just to learn, to share what they’ve learned, and to bear witness.

The post Pitch Framing and Pageant Gowns: What is the Contest of Ideas? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

When was the last time you were reading the comments on a major story until you came across That Guy? You know, the unhinged one who unleashes a blistering tirade that includes all sorts of playground insults and things we were told in Kindergarten not to say … so much so that you think, “look how crazy this person is!”

Well, have you ever considered that they weren’t crazy? And that they may even be smarter than you think? 

Hear me out. Imagine you were really mad at some group about some issue (not so hard for Americans to imagine).  Let’s say, for instance, you’re a liberal furious at strong Trump supporters. So, you see an article written about a national political issue, with a lively discussion going on in the comments. And now comes the multiple choice pop quiz:  What would be the most effective way to rally people against the MAGA supporters you so vehemently oppose?   

A — Write an earnest comment outlining your concerns with that group’s perspective — and express another view you think is better?

B — Just write this instead: “Those godless Biden followers are all going to hell.  I, with my buddies, are stocking up weapons for the fight to come. True lovers of Americans will rally to our standard. It’s time for revolution — and so you better watch your back, you gay activists, evil BLM people — because we’re out to take back our country for the White Race.”

Which “rhetorical strategy” would be the most effective in rallying people to oppose Those People?  The answer is pretty obvious, don’t you think? 

Here’s the question that is far less obvious:  How would anyone even know that you were the real author of that comment?   

They mostly wouldn’t. Especially in our hyper-reactive American atmosphere right now, would it surprise anyone if the large majority of left-leaning readers took for granted that this hateful, bigoted (fabricated) comment came from a genuinely hateful, bigoted (conservative) heart? Why would they think otherwise? 

Especially because it’s so confirmatory of what they already believe. Don’t we all love to come across ‘red meat’ evidence of our deepest, most important convictions?  

That’s my own explanation for why the national media seems to love any story that implicates BYU as a bastion of racism … even if the evidence ends up being flimsy and limited.   

All right, so fair enough, we all recognize this tendency in our ready-to-pounce, explosively-angry country.  So then, what about someone truly, honestly wanting to know the truth … and starting to realize something fishy is going on? 

Watching for clues and patterns. In 1888, five women were tragically killed on the east side of London by someone who came to be known in newspapers as “Jack the Ripper” because of the particularly cruel ways in which these women were murdered.

Police couldn’t find him. And no one could figure out what was going on. It created a mass hysteria — with fear spreading more and more amidst the uncertainty. This desperation caused detectives to begin zeroing in on the details of how these murders were happening.

In particular, the brutal way these poor women’s throats were cut, with abdominal mutilations and the removal of internal organs following, led to a narrowed focus on butchers, slaughterers, surgeons, and physicians in the vicinity.  Furthermore, the concentration of the killings around weekends and public holidays, as well as within a short distance of each other, lead some to conclude the killer was locally employed.   

Although the villain’s identity was never fully proven, this became one of the earliest known examples of criminal profiling, wherein this careful attention to detail helped guide the investigation. 

Exactly one year before these murders started, Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world. This now world-famous detective was quoted as saying in one of his cases, “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details” (A Case of Identity, 1891). 

That, I would submit, is a central key in how you — and any of us — can begin to identify truth-tellers from propaganda artists — including and especially those masquerading online as an especially loathsome version of the group they hate the most.  

Spotting propaganda. In 1965, French sociologist Jacques Ellul outlined how to recognize propaganda in the classic text,  “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.” These five qualities of all propaganda are especially helpful in identifying what is known as “gray” propaganda, where you don’t easily recognize the true source:

1. Dominating with pervasive and non-stop messaging

2. Delegitimizing and demonizing any opposition

3. Framing the conversation favorable to (only) one view 

4. Finessing the truth in various other ways

5. Bypassing rational discourse by invoking darker passions (e.g., fear or anger).  

When you hear “dominating with pervasive & non-stop messaging,” what does that bring to mind around us today? Compared with other truth-tellers, who may share their message with equal passion, a propagandist relies on overwhelming people. On that point, Ellul says:

Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal … successful propaganda will occupy every moment of the individual’s life: through posters and loudspeakers when he is out walking, through radio and newspapersat home, through meetings and movies in the evening. The individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period. … It is based on slow, constant impregnation (emphasis my own).

Slow, constant impregnation. Occupy every moment. Not allowed to recover. Sound familiar?

Bypassing rational discourse through fear or anger. None of this is aimed at simply teaching or enlightening people. As Jacques Ellul elaborates:

The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to lead to a choice, but to loosen the reflexes. It is no longer to transform an opinion, but to arouse an active and mythical belief.

Goading people into certain kinds of actions (and inaction) rather than helping them think more clearly, is what a propagandist wants. In fact, you can summarize all five of those characteristics in one way. You will know when you’ve spotted a propagandist masquerading as a truth-teller because the fruit of their sharing will be to silence others and to distort, divert, and deform healthy dialogue in some way. 

Profile of a Propagandist. Let’s break that down more clearly, into a simple profile you can use to discern any online commentary that comes from a legit propaganda artist. Pay attention to when someone is …

 1. Saying SO much that it drowns out other voices

2. Saying things to make others seem illegitimate

3. Saying things to make himself or herself unquestionable

4. Saying things that are demonstrably untrue

5. Saying things to “stir people up” in anger or fear 

In sum, be on the lookout for what we might call pervasive rhetorical aggression — reflecting a concerted campaign to fight honest conversation. As Jacques Ellul underscores, “To be effective, propaganda cannot be concerned with detail. … Propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins … it does not tolerate discussion; by its very nature, it excludes contradiction and discussion.”

Is that clear enough?  To really tighten the picture further, let’s talk about a fair control group — which is key in scientific research to establish the truth further. Many others are also passionate and sharing things — including passionate activists and missionaries for different faiths. 

Profile of a truth-teller. In contrast to the profile of a propagandist above, here are some characteristics to identify someone telling the truth passionately and honestly: 

1. Saying lots of stuff, but not in an attempt to drown out those who disagree

2. Saying things to promote a message while holding space for questions

3. Not saying things to intentionally delegitimize others 

4. Not saying things that are demonstrably untrue

5. Not saying things to merely “rile people up”

In summary, truth-telling always helps to cultivate a healthy dialogue space, in sharp contrast with those generating propaganda, who have no such interest. 

Telling the difference:  Wildebeest or a Lion? And the cool thing is you can tell the difference between these two. Just like on an African safari, you look out and say, “those are the wildebeests,” and “those are the elephants,” and “those are the lions.” They all eat things and walk on four legs. But they are different beasts. Discernible. Detectable. And differentiable. 

Even if they look mostly the same!  If you see this furry predator with stripes, it’s probably a tiger. But if you spot a predator with a mane and no stripes, it’s probably a lion.

Paying attention to details, these things become predictable. When you spot something fishy online, try honing in on these same five questions — assessing whether this person is … 

1. Trying to drown others out in passionate sharing?

2. Trying to delegitimize those with different views?

3. Trying to close down the space for those raising sincere questions?

4. Trying to stay as accurate and factual as possible?

5. Trying to promote rational, thoughtful exchange?

When you get to this level of granularity, it starts to get pretty black or white. That is, you are either …

1. Drowning others out or making space for them

2.Delegitimizing others … or engaging them

3. Cutting off people with sincere questions … or hearing them out

4. Staying as accurate as possible … or not

5. Promoting thoughtful exchange … or not

You can be one of these or the other — but you can’t really be both!  And by running text through this test, you can tell the difference. As Douglas Adams parodies in his book Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.”

Which brings us back to the example we began with, where someone is pretending to be someone else online — as a way to make them look repulsive and terrible. How much are we being played by propagandists?

Those who study cyberbullying recognize the similarity to a common bullying technique called “frapping,” where the bully impersonates someone else by logging into their social media account, using a screen name similar to the victim’s, and creating a new account pretending to be the victim. The bully then engages in inappropriate behavior to make the other person look bad. One study found that among teens who admitted to cyberbullying,  5% had created a fake profile online and used it to annoy or upset another person.

Being vigilant and courageous.  We’re experiencing a bit of a ‘Knives Out’ moment at our magazine, directed at me in particular. Some are good faith critiques, while others are clearly not — reflecting something else. In addition, there are a growing amount of salacious, outrageous lies being promoted online about us.  

We expect all of this to continue as we wade into some very sensitive and important conversations in the weeks ahead. We’re not doing any of this to be popular — and know well that if we wanted to be liked online, we’d be pursuing a very different strategy. When it comes to followers, our ultimate concern is only with One — the same who once warned his followers, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.”

Our hope is that others looking on will be discerning when they see accusations being made of us as a team. These criteria above may not provide definitive proof that someone is being fake and disingenuous. If someone’s really good at it, they’ll probably be able to fool most people. The ultimate test of lies is a more internal, “embodied” test. As Joseph Smith once put it, “truth tastes good.” Just as we know how rotten food tastes when it first goes into your mouth, we can detect when something rotten comes to our attention. And we can tell when something beautiful does too. “Oh wow, that feels so right … yum!”

Don’t underestimate what this internal confirmation of truth can tell us. As Moroni testifies anciently, “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”

Do you know what this feels like inside? It’s sweet and peaceful — unmistakably so. Different than mere head harmony, this is the kind of gut-deep peace that is impossible to shake.  When you feel that, you can then follow the Buddha’s dictum, to simply “follow the peace.” Along the way, let’s keep our eyes out for these details.  Speaking through Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle writes, “On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences” (“The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” 1892). 

With the help of the Spirit and our own watchful attention to these kinds of details, may we do our best to see everything we need to see — and spot those attempting to make us see things that are false. 

The post Truth teller vs. Propagandist: How to Tell the Difference appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In 1916, Ernest Shackleton and his men accomplished a seemingly impossible feat requiring complete unity. Their once proud ship had been smashed by the ice flows around Antarctica, and the tight-knit crew was stranded for months on the ice and later on Elephant Island with little hope of rescue.

Shackleton resolved to take five men from his crew to risk the 720-nautical-mile journey back to the South Georgia whaling stations, where he knew he could find help. So they set off through the Drake Passage — the roughest patch of water on Earth. And they did so in a 20-foot open boat — sometimes with oars and others times by sail. The adventurers fought through mammoth waves, screaming winds, crushing ice, and powerful currents with a leaky hull, a lost anchor, and foul drinking water.

When the bedraggled sailors finally entered the small South Georgian cove and hauled the boat onto the rocks, they were heavily bearded, their hair was almost to their shoulders, their faces were black with grime, and their clothes were ragged. They were parched, weak, and pained with frozen blisters, but remarkably, they had successfully returned to South Georgia 521 days after their departure from the island — in a miraculous feat of united courage.

Accomplishments like Shackleton’s simply don’t happen without the principles that produce unity, which is a shared perception of “we-ness” — that we are all in this together. This elusive concept is connected with community, sacrifice, and a responsibility we have as humans towards each other, along with a deep-seated need to strive as a group toward a common goal. At a very basic level, we want to harmonize with those around us — and implicitly recognize its benefits. 

Yet unity seems to be increasingly difficult to come by in America today.  In an age where we’re literally forgetting why unity matters, it can be valuable to reflect again on what unity actually means — and what brings it into reality. Below, I take up three foundational underpinnings of unity that Shackleton and his men possessed: a shared vision, strong leadership, and mutual acceptance. As simple as they might seem, these patterns work, whether talking about unity in teams at work or unity in our community or nation. So, why not embrace principles so plain and precious? To close the essay, I’ll dig into why unity seems to be unraveling at accelerating rates and what we can do to preserve it in America.

Crucial Building Blocks for Precious Unity

A shared vision. The word “community” comes from the Latin communis, meaning “shared by all” and “in common.” Through social support and the combination of skills from different members of a community, united teams can create products and services of complexity and scale that a talented individual alone could never achieve. Research unsurprisingly shows that cohesive and united teams outperform non-cohesive ones. And choral singers, rowing crews, and work teams are happier, able to withstand more pain, and push themselves harder for others than those out of sync.

Of course,  if members of a group have no shared purpose, there is little reason to unify. They are like strangers thrown together in an elevator where everyone will soon exit on a different floor because they see little to no reason to stay with the group. 

Drug cartels aside, unity doesn’t require that group members agree on everything — only that they embrace some kind of an overriding vision or underlying commonality. Even with this shared vision, however, unified team members can still have meaningful differences in how to move towards higher aspirations. Other fundamental differences may also remain, including nationality, religion, ideological beliefs, education, and so on. 

But none of this needs to be feared as long as team-members practice respectful contestation — which can prompt everyone to grow.  And since no one person has all the gifts and capacities necessary for success in complex matters, unified teams are benefited by people with diverse skills, perspectives, and interests.

Committed leadership. Effective teams need a unifying vision, but they also require a visionary — someone to clearly articulate why the group matters, convince others to join, actively participate, and not walk away. This includes pointing to past leaders and visions from the past.  A Christian leader, for example, might urge others to adopt Jesus Christ’s vision of goodness in the world and embrace that aspiration in their homes and communities.

As the environment and dynamics of a group evolve, successful leaders will adjust a group’s purpose to meet current needs. Without ongoing leadership, group unity left on its own will decay.

Mutual acceptance. Even with strong leadership and a shared vision, without genuine acceptance at a personal level, unity will be hard to come by.  Instead, we experience the squabbling and contention increasingly common around us.  

Mutual affection and acceptance are conducive to unity because teammates see each other as part of a broader whole — and not just on a conceptual (“vision”) level — at an emotional one.  In groups with this kind of cohesion, when one member of the team takes a step toward the shared objective, the teammates rejoice and view it as a shared victory. 

How to Disrupt Unity

If unity is fostered through devoted leadership, shared purpose, and mutual acceptance, undermining any of these factors will naturally disrupt group cohesion. If someone were purposefully trying to create discord in American society, they would undoubtedly have success doing the following:

Attack the foundational vision. If you can convince individual team members that their shared purpose is unreachable, pointless, or evil, then at that moment, they are arguably severed from the group. Rather than seeing opportunities for worthwhile effort in exploring ways to improve a flawed vision, often individuals conclude that foundational vision is worthless and move on to some new purpose.  

I’ve seen the change in coworkers’ eyes and demeanor when they decide the objective is no longer worth fighting for. It’s a kind of blank aimlessness and the end of unity for them.

The larger consequences for the group are obvious. Regardless of the sport, a team that expects to lose every game will unravel. And if the rising generation never comprehends the vision or never has a chance to accept it, unity will perish as the older generation moves on. 

Undermine the leaders. Our news cycles are filled with stories of current and historical political leaders who are under attack — including both national and state leaders — and those leading individual faith communities and organizations. It’s true that not all leaders are seeking the public good — with some seeking genuine unity and others for political dominance under the guise of political unity. Yet, in an atmosphere where all leaders are constantly under fire, we shouldn’t be surprised to see fewer and fewer people trusting all leaders of any kind.  

Persuade group members to reject each other. Groups can accept or reject members for reasons that have nothing to do with the shared vision. For example, a church congregation could ostracize someone because of their dress, manners, or reputation, and that rejection could occur even if the congregants and the stranger share the same core beliefs. We may unknowingly or even maliciously exclude others from our group, so conscious effort is always needed to ensure we are sending a message of acceptance from others interested or looking on from the outside. 

In sum, if you want to destroy unity, highlight trivial differences between group members and then use those differences as justification to banish everyone associated with the other side. That’s a recipe for unity to collapse and be replaced with nasty, brutish war.

The Urgency of Promoting Unity Today

Like most people in the world, I love my country — my people. I hear the talk of civil war, see the images of discord online or in the news, and feel the loss of those who no longer consider themselves, or me, American. When I look past the inconsequential (and consequential) disagreements constantly encircling us, I still find the core vision that we can strive toward together. The vast majority of US adults (87%) are proud to be American. We still believe the nation should protect our lives, our liberty, and our property from those who would take them away. And the large majority of Americans still support the rule of law and the precepts found in the constitution, the Bill of Rights, and about half of the ten commandments.

To preserve and defend our foundational unity as a country, we must look for additional ways to give our children a chance to learn and internalize a vision of what it means to be an American while supporting leaders who can articulate this for a new generation. And we all need to continue practicing patience with those who share much of this core vision but differ in other insignificant ways.

In doing so, we will be bound in unity and affection and receive the power to accomplish more than a fragmented nation could ever hope to. Much like Ernest Shackleton’s team of adventurers, we can then overcome difficulties and come together to accomplish more than any independent bunch of individuals could ever achieve alone.

The post Unity Under Siege appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In our Introduction to this series, we made the case that Latter-day Saint psychologists should take up Elder Neal Maxwell’s invitation to build bridges between the Restored Gospel and the secular discipline while keeping our citizenship in the kingdom and maintain our loyalty to core truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We suggested what we believe are thirteen non-negotiables, or perhaps thirteen foundations, of a genuinely Latter-day Saint perspective. In the rest of this series, we will endeavor to expound upon each. The first foundation is thus:

Revelation from God is a vital source of wisdom and knowledge.

Revelation from God is a lynchpin of the restored gospel of Christ. The Ninth Article of Faith in the Church of Jesus Christ reads, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” Furthermore, Latter-day Saints believe that ordained servants of God— prophets and apostles, and other assigned leaders—have a divine stewardship to receive spiritual guidance and warn us of spiritual dangers. These ordained leaders have ecclesiastical authority to set forth a vision of the good life and human flourishing, and the sorts of things that we should do to pursue it.

If disciples-scholars seek to be faithful to their covenant to stand as witnesses of Christ and His restored gospel in all they do (Mosiah 18:9), they must be willing to pursue their research in a way that does not foreclose turning to revealed truth for insight. As S.D. Gaede put it: “Christians should allow their Christianity to permeate their entire lives, and not just pre-selected portions of it.” If we quarantine our scholarship from our faith—for fear of our faith “contaminating” our scholarship—we are missing out on a tremendous wealth of possibilities.

At the same time, we should also not engage in sloppy scholarship whose sole intention is to score quick or easy theological points. Many instinctively take the “two hats” approach to faith and scholarship—where they embrace theistic assumptions at church and at home, but secular assumptions when doing research and scholarship—perhaps because they have too frequently seen faith and scholarship blended in problematic ways.

Assumptions to challenge—Scientism. A Latter-day Saint perspective in psychology will challenge the assumptions and excesses of scientism. We should note that science and scientism are not the same thing. Scientists the world over do rigorous science without embracing scientism. In contrast, scientism elevates the norms and presumptions of scientific exploration to the realm of an ideology. It presumes that the methods and approaches that were fruitful in the natural sciences can be employed with similar success when studying human experience. C. Stephen Evans has described scientism as “the belief that all truth is scientific truth and that the sciences give us our best shot for ‘knowing things as they really are,’” including human behavior and the social world.

Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard Middleton explain, “Foundational to the modern world view is the deeply religious belief that human reason, especially in the form of the scientific method, can provide exhaustive knowledge of the world of nature and of mankind.” It is that last part especially—and of mankind—that moves the project from mere science to scientism. An example of scientism can be found in the work of neuroscientist Sam Harris, who wrote, “The moment we admit that questions of right and wrong, and good and evil, are actually questions about human and animal well-being, we see that science can, in principle, answer such questions.”

While Harris’s approach is extreme, others have made more modest claims that nonetheless illustrate scientism at work. For example, the famous philosopher A. J. Ayer, a staunch advocate of scientism, asserted that “there is no field of experience which cannot, in principle, be brought under some form of scientific law, and no type of speculative knowledge about the world which it is, in principle, beyond the power of science to give.” For our purposes here, we can think of scientism in three distinct (but overlapping and complementary) ways:

1. A worldview that treats scientific methods as the only (or most) important source of truth. For example, many assert that—when it comes to understanding human experience and behavior—we should rely solely upon the methods familiar to the natural sciences. From this view, any reference to divine revelation, religious texts, or moral tradition is treated as categorically out-of-bounds for psychological researchers. This is because the scientific method is seen as reliable in precisely the ways that religious beliefs and experiences are not. Scientism hands us a story in which the religious superstitions of yesteryear are rooted out in favor of evidence-based theories and practices of today.

2. The assumption that the scientific method allows social science research to achieve objective, value-neutral results. Many further assume that, unlike philosophy or religion, the scientific method allows people to arrive at conclusions that are not filtered through or influenced by ideological, political, or moral worldviews. “It is often pointed out,” S. D. Gaede explains, “that although scientists come from a wide variety of backgrounds, holding different values, beliefs, and attitudes, they nevertheless reach remarkably similar conclusions when they enter their scientific laboratories.” In short, the methods and conclusions of the social sciences are often assumed to be value-free, occupying a privileged space where the superstitions and biases of religion, tradition, and culture can be bracketed and set aside in favor of systematic analysis of raw, empirical evidence. Alister McGrath put it this way:

One of the most influential myths of the modern period has been the belief that it is possible to locate and occupy a non-ideological vantage point, from which reality may be surveyed and interpreted. The social sciences have been among the chief and most strident claimants to such space, arguing that they offer a neutral and objective reading of reality.

3. A worldview that treats scientific and technological advancement as the primary way to address human suffering. Many assume that social scientists can and should become the pre-eminent voice of authority when it comes to improving the human condition. As Steve Wilkins and Mark Sanford put it, “[T]he therapist has replaced the pastor or priest as the professional person to look to for relational or behavioral assistance.” Psychologists are increasingly seen not only as the primary experts on how we can address human suffering but as engineers of human happiness and well-being. As Walsh and Middleton explain:

Science becomes the source of revelation. Instead of the priest of the medieval period, the scientist clad in authoritative white dispenses “knowledge unto salvation.” The original sin is no longer disobedience to God; it is ignorance, irrationality, or misinformation.

Our deference to the social sciences for answering questions about the good life and human flourishing becomes scientism when we do so to the exclusion of divine and revelatory sources.

All three of these assumptions—(1) that scientific methods should be privileged as the primary source of truth in the social world, (2) that properly-conducted scientific investigations are unbiased and value-free, and (3) that through the application of these methods, the social sciences will unlock the keys to human flourishing—are simultaneously features and examples of scientism. We argue that none of these assumptions are essential to engaging in a rigorous, scholarly (and even scientific) study of human experience and behavior.

One example of scientism is the presumption that if a researcher draws on religious conviction for insight while conducting scholarly research, he undermines his credibility as a researcher. Scientism can prime us to see religious conviction as a “contamination” of our scholarship in a way that introduces bias into the research process. Some even cite a long-standing narrative that religion has historically been an anchor that has curtailed scientific progress, and that the history of science is one in which the triumphs of scientists help overcome the superstitions of religion. The narrative is greatly exaggerated—scientists throughout history have made valuable scientific discoveries that were facilitated by deeply held religious convictions.

Social science research is a value-laden process.

Those who embrace scientism presume that there is a privileged philosophical worldview that does not introduce bias. They assume that the scientific method allows researchers to pursue value-neutral results. This is what BYU researchers Brent D. Slife, Jeffrey S. Reber, and G. Tyler Lefevor have termed “the myth of neutrality.” Many researchers, they note, tend to “think of this [scientific] neutrality as if their methods are transparent and unbiased windows to the real objective world.” Unfortunately, as they also note, this represents “naïve views of science and the scientific method, views that must ignore a large philosophy of science literature to maintain their naivete.”

Contrary to the claims of scientism, by rejecting religious influences on our worldviews, we are not occupying a privileged, value-free territory. Rather, we are simply supplanting theistic assumptions with naturalistic assumptions (or expressive individualism, and so on). None of these presumptions can be verified by empirical evidence since they are philosophical frameworks that are pre-empirical. As Slife, Reber, and Lefevor further point out, our research methods are “not revealers of an uninterpreted or assumption-less world; all methods, and thus all findings, are informed and shaped by assumptions that interpret the world.”

The term pre-empirical assumptions refers to philosophical perspectives and value systems that precede scientific investigation and which cannot themselves be empirically verified. However, these assumptions inform the questions we ask, the methods we use, and how we interpret our findings. They include worldviews like naturalism (the assumption that only the natural world exists or can be known), determinism (the assumption that there is no such thing as freedom because everything that happens is caused), and expressive individualism (the assumption that self-expression is a paramount human virtue). Daniel Dennett observed:

Scientists sometimes deceive themselves into thinking that philosophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard objective triumphs of science, and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on without examination.

Brigham Young University (BYU) professors Brent D. Slife and Richard N. Williams explained, “All theories in the behavioral sciences make assumptions about people, and those assumptions are most often not explicit.” Walsh and Middleton put it this way: “All theoretical analysis, whether in the natural sciences, humanities or social sciences, occurs within the context of a philosophical framework or paradigm.” Many other thinkers have made similar arguments. In this regard, Paul Moes and Donald Tellinghuisen claim;

Most psychologists rarely raise deep questions about human nature in their research or practice, but typically have unspoken assumptions about our ‘essence’ and how this influences the way we act. In fact, psychologist Noel Smith suggested that ‘psychology may be the sorriest of all disciplines from the point of view of hidden biases,’ because psychologists rarely state or even acknowledge their presuppositions.

In short, research in the social sciences is not value-free or value-neutral. It is saturated with these sorts of pre-empirical worldviews and assumptions. For just one example, determinism is a philosophical assumption that assumes that all human behavior can be explained in terms of cause and effect—and this assumption informs the questions we ask, how we define the variables of our study, the methods we use to find the answers, and the conclusions we draw from the data. However, determinism is (and always will be) a philosophical assumption that cannot itself be verified empirically. (More on this, and many other examples, in future chapters.)

If social science research is shot through and through with pre-empirical moral and philosophical presumptions, we can see why Neil Postman stated that the “social sciences are merely subdivisions of moral theology.” Postman’s rhetoric might seem like hyperbole, but his point was simple: social scientists are first and foremost storytellers, weaving compelling narratives about human experience that are often replete with moral and religious consequence. In fact, as sociologist Jason Blakely has compellingly shown, “social science rarely simply neutrally describes the world, but rather plays a role in constructing and shaping it.”

Even though social scientists make use of many methods that are employed in the natural sciences, the social sciences have not achieved the same sort of consensus we often find in the natural sciences. Rather than a monolithic discipline, psychology is full of different franchises (behaviorism, psychodynamics, humanistic psychology, neuropsych-ology, and cognitive psychology, to name a few). These franchises all make fundamentally different assumptions about the kind of universe we live in (metaphysics), how to best study the universe (epistemology), who we are as people (anthropology), and what constitutes the flourishing life (ethics). And within each franchise are many competing perspectives and voices, with diverging views on each of the above questions.

Each of these competing franchises tells fundamentally different stories about human experience. Behaviorists describe human experience in terms of environmental stimulus and response. Cognitivists describe human experience in terms of innate categories and processes of the mind. Humanistic psychologists describe human experience in terms of aspirations, goals, needs, and identity. Neuropsychologists describe human experience in terms of brain chemistry and neuroanatomy. All of these perspectives complement their stories with empirical analyses. All of these perspectives make diverging assumptions about the sorts of questions that are interesting, the best approaches for rigorously studying human experience (quantitative vs. qualitative, for example), and the sorts of answers that are admissible. 

Certainly, in this buzzing, vibrant disciplinary discourse there is room for storytelling that centers on (or at the very least includes) agency, moral accountability, compassion, and divine engagement with mankind. To argue that a wide array of pre-empirical worldviews are permissible in the discipline—ranging from behaviorist to humanistic, from cognitivist to neuroscientific—while singling out theistic perspectives as uniquely and categorically impermissible, is to nurture a secular disciplinary dogma and ideology that has no foundation in empirical evidence.

We can evaluate pre-empirical assumptions in light of revealed truth.

Our philosophical, moral, and cultural worldviews can be compared to flashlights of varying color that illuminate our investigations, or lenses through which we view the world. Lighting a room with a colored flashlight—or wearing a colored lens—reveals the room in a way that is inflected by the color of the light (or the lens). In the same way, our worldviews inevitably create, shape, inform, and otherwise provide substance and texture to what we observe. This is inescapable and universal. As Moes and Tellinghuisen explain, “Worldviews inform morality by shaping what will be studied, how people will interpret the findings, and even how they will implement the findings.”

Given that all research endeavors are embarked from the perspective of pre-empirical worldviews and philosophical assumptions, it is perfectly legitimate to engage in scholarly pursuits using different assumptions as a starting point. Gaede explains it this way:

[A Christian perspective in the social sciences] is proper because assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality are unavoidable. They must be made, and are made, in the social sciences just as elsewhere. Like the naturalist, the Christian has the legitimate right to approach science from the vantage point of a specific world-and-life view.

President Dallin H. Oaks, speaking to Church Education System instructors and leaders, taught that a religion that claims to be grounded in revealed truth may very well find itself at significant odds with the prevailing teachings of the world—and not just in terms of its conclusions, but also in terms of its premises. Elder Oaks noted that “on many important subjects involving religion, Latter-day Saints think differently than many others.”  He continued:

When I say that Latter-day Saints “think differently,” I do not suggest that we have a different way of reasoning in the sense of how we think.  I am referring to the fact that on many important subjects our assumptions—our starting points or major premises—are different from many of our friends and associates.

It is because of this tendency to “think differently” that we believe Latter-day Saints need to learn how to think more critically about the precepts that are taught and accepted in modern psychology. Thinking critically, in this context, does not merely mean thinking skeptically or even rigorously (though rigorous thinking is important). Rather, it means identifying basic philosophical assumptions, and carefully comparing and contrasting those assumptions with their alternatives. It means taking those assumptions seriously by exploring their logical and practical implications. An Evangelical colleague of ours, David N. Entwistle, persuasively argues:

 Because all observation is affected by ideology, integration [of scholarship and divine truth] must begin with the construction of a Christian worldview … As a corollary, this necessitates that Christians not merely compare the results of psychology and theology, but that they also explore the underlying influence of assumptions and worldviews on our reasoning and conclusions.

In a similar way, BYU professor Stephen Yanchar argues that, from a Latter-day Saint perspective, “the revealed truth can provide a comparative basis for evaluating the veracity and utility of various assumptions and values that inform research and theorizing in the scholarly disciplines.” Elder Merrill J. Bateman, a former president of BYU, once promised, “We will be more productive and enjoy more freedom if we examine and test secular assumptions under the lamp of gospel truth.” In short, Christianity can become the framework by which we evaluate our other worldview assumptions. We are reminded of C.S. Lewis’s pronouncement when he said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 

We are not inviting Latter-day Saint social scientists to engage in sloppy or ideologically driven research, in order to shore up particular theological claims, moral worldviews, or religious beliefs. As disciple-scholars, we can engage in rigorous theorizing and empirical investigation even as we evaluate our philosophical presumptions in the light of revealed truth. In fact, our research and theorizing can be even more careful and rigorous because of our willingness to articulate and investigate our pre-empirical assumptions. Walsh and Middleton explain:

Indeed, the fact that many (if not most) scholars are actually unaware of their point of view is one of the main causes of academic superficiality. With this superficiality (“I just look at the facts”) comes the inability to be self-critical (“This is just the way things are”) because such scholars never explicitly consider their starting points.

In other words, we can reduce the superficialness of our research and theorizing by considering our philosophical starting points. When researchers uncritically default to secular or naturalistic worldviews, their research and theorizing are not inherently more rigorous simply because they resort to unexamined, disciplinary defaults. Another way to put it is that there is nothing unempirical about interrogating our pre-empirical worldviews, nor is there anything less rigorous about being more articulate about our foundational assumptions.

By contrast, when we can articulate the philosophical premises of a Latter-day Saint perspective in psychology, we can begin to see the social sciences anew. Our point here is not that we should blithely reject anything and everything we disagree with. Our point is simply that there is room enough in the discourse for more competitors in the marketplace of perspectives within psychology. We can and should carve out a corner in the discipline for stories about ourselves told from within a universe that assumes that we are moral agents, that we live and act in a morally-inflected world, and that human flourishing centers on repentance, forgiveness, compassion, and participating in covenant communities. Gaede continues further:

For the Christian … such a perspective is not only legitimate, it is also necessary. It is necessary, first, because integrity demands it. To call oneself Christian is to affirm that Jesus Christ is Lord. And from His Lordship no area of life can be safely excluded. It is necessary, second, because the social sciences are in need of Christian thinking. Without it, these disciplines will be less than they should be and the world will be deprived of a source of understanding it both needs and deserves.

We echo Elder Maxwell’s statement: “[Latter-day Saint] behavioral scientists must extract both the obvious and hidden wisdom embedded in the value system of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” He stated further that within prophetic teachings “are certain important clues concerning that human behavior which produces lasting growth and happiness and that which produces misery.” Even more powerfully, Elder Maxwell also taught, “the deep problems individuals have can only be solved by learning about ‘the deep things of God,’ by confronting the reality of ‘things as they really are and things as they really will be.’”

For example, ancient scripture and modern prophets might have nothing to say about what specific therapeutic intervention increases desired patient outcomes. But it can help inform whether determinism should be our primary framework for theorizing about human action, or the extent to which expressive individualism should be our primary paradigm for understanding human nature and flourishing. The Gospel of Jesus Christ may have little to offer on which functions of the brain are most closely connected with the amygdala, but it can help inform whether radical materialism should be the exclusive or primary lens for understanding human experience. (More on each of these philosophical perspectives in later chapters.)

And as we will explore throughout the rest of this book, the teachings of ancient scripture and modern prophets can serve as a foundation for a set of values that influences the sorts of questions we ask. Moes and Tellinghuisen explain, “Scientists’ interests and research agendas flow from what they value, and values arise from many sources, including … religious worldview.” We will suggest at various points throughout this book that our interests as Latter-day Saints—that is, the sorts of questions we find pressing and important—may at times be different from those of our secular counterparts. In these ways, revelatory sources can play a vital role in keeping our research and theorizing anchored in divine truth.

Pitfalls to avoid—Fundamentalism. While scientism forecloses revelation as an important approach to truth, fundamentalism forecloses on scholarship (and science) as an important approach to truth. We are invited not merely to be disciples, but to be disciple-scholars. This means we can and should take high-quality research seriously (even as we interrogate the assumptions of the research through the lens of the Restored Gospel). Indeed, as Elder Maxwell also taught, “For a disciple of Jesus Christ, academic scholarship is a form of worship … another dimension of consecration.”

A fundamentalist approach, however, might lead us to adopt a stridently adversarial approach to secular theories in psychology, in a way that alienates rather than builds bridges. Elder Maxwell argues that it is possible to build bridges between the social sciences and revealed truth “without compromising the concepts contained in the revelations of God and without being so eager that our scholarship becomes sloppy.” He further asserts that we should become bilingual, proficient in the language of research and scholarship as well as the language of faith.

With respect to the social sciences, fundamentalism is sometimes manifested as an un-nuanced, absolutist understanding of human experience. An example of this sort of thinking is related by Entwistle:

I once met a pastor who was amused to find that I taught psychology at a Christian college. His eyes twinkled as he said, “I’ve heard it said that psychology is just sinful human beings sinfully thinking about sinful human beings.” His comment seemed to imply the belief that he had just tumbled the house of cards on which my profession was built.

Similarly, some have come to believe—perhaps because they are sensitive to the dangers of scientism—that biology and physiology play no role in our emotional lives. They regard all forms of depression, anxiety, and other emotional disorders as spiritual matters to be resolved entirely through prayer, and righteous living. In so doing, however, they ignore very persuasive scholarship that demonstrates that our physiology can play a significant role in our emotional experiences. Denying important insights and understandings just because they happen to come from secular sources is an example of fundamentalism in action. 

Another example might include those who believe that therapists and counselors should play no role in helping struggling individuals and that the problems that normally lead people to seek help from therapists should instead be addressed solely by ecclesiastical mentors and leaders. When we do this, we make the error of scientism in precisely the other direction: rather than assuming that scientific and technological advancement in the social sciences are the primary way to address human suffering (scientism), we assume they play no appropriate role whatsoever (fundamentalism).

Furthermore, a fundamentalist approach rejects the importance of good scholarship and might instinctively object to the findings of good researchers whenever those findings contradict their assumptions. Moes and Tellinghuisen ask, “What is a Christian to do if a research finding goes against her Christian beliefs?” They continue: 

Christian research psychologist Scott VanderStoep writes that the first, gut response that you might have—to simply reject it, saying ‘I don’t believe it’—is unacceptable if we are to take any psychological research seriously. Research needs to be critiqued on its scientific merit. … First, this means that when Christians are evaluating research, we must do so respecting science’s rules. Assessing research quality begins with examining whether the research methodology in the study allows for the conclusions that were made by the experimenters.

In other words, we can and must take research seriously, and if and when we critique it, we should not do so solely on the grounds that the conclusions of the research contradict our religious dogmas or assumptions. “All people,” Moes and Tellinghuisen continue, “scientists, Christians, and Christians who are scientists, are living in a broken world. This means that humans can make errors in doing and interpreting science, as well as in their interpretations of scriptures.” When faced with apparent contradictions, in addition to examining the research methods and assumptions of the offending research, we should also explore whether our religious assumptions should be re-examined.

Intellectual humility is the antidote to both scientism and fundamentalism.

Intellectual humility entails a third path between (and apart from) the extremes of both scientism and fundamentalism, and it is key to becoming a disciple-scholar. With respect to scientism, intellectual humility involves recognizing the limits of rational and empirical methods, avoiding excesses and dogmas of scientism, and acknowledging our dependence on God for divine wisdom. With respect to fundamentalism, intellectual humility involves recognizing that (by divine design) all revelation entails human actors who bring their own personalities and biases to the table—and that high-quality empirical research can be a vital resource. In this way, intellectual humility is a contrast to the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) arrogance undergirding both scientism and fundamentalism.

Let us look at an example: If scientists claim that the earth appears to be billions of years old, fundamentalists will reject this because they (mistakenly) believe that a literal interpretation of the Bible requires us to believe that the earth is much younger than that. However, faithful Latter-day Saint scholars have argued that the Old Testament was never intended to be a science textbook—its purpose is to teach us about our relationship with God as our Creator. It doesn’t require us to believe anything in particular about how God created the earth, or even how long it took. As Galileo once quipped: “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

By contrast, if prophets teach that God was involved in the creation of the earth, those who embrace scientism might reject this because it cannot be empirically verified by the naturalistic methods of science. Indeed, they might argue that science has definitively demonstrated that life arose through spontaneous and unguided processes, without the involvement of any Divine Being. However, this goes far beyond what science can actually claim or prove. Scientific methods can help us detect patterns in the natural world (and in human experience), but they cannot tell us anything about whether there is or is not a Divine Being who is responsible for creation and to whom we are accountable. Both groups are making assumptions they do not recognize as assumptions.

Let’s look at an additional example from psychology to demonstrate further. In 2014, John Dehlin and his colleagues published a study on the experiences and outcomes of 1,612 same-sex attracted former and current members of the Church. One of the questions asked in the study was, “What are the mental health implications of both religious disaffiliation and entering into committed same-sex relationships for LGBT+ individuals?” In the study, they conclude that affiliating with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led to poorer mental health outcomes for LGBT+ populations (note, this conclusion is contested in other research). In their conclusion, they state:

Those who are in a position to provide counseling to conservatively religious LGBT+ individuals … should consider … disaffiliation from non-LGBT+-affirming churches, and legal, same-sex committed relationships for LGBT+ religious individuals.

This conclusion is a fundamentally moral assertion, and yet it is presented as if it were the only and obvious implication of the empirical evidence. By not articulating or examining their assumptions, the authors imply that their conclusions are simply the products of a strictly empirical examination (“just the facts”). This is why we argue that their article is a great example of scientism in action. The authors leave unstated and unexamined a host of philosophical assumptions and moral worldviews that influence the questions they investigated, the methods they used, and their interpretations of the results. 

For example, their research questions were not asked in a vacuum, but in the context of ongoing ideological and philosophical tensions between religious and secular views of same-sex attraction and behavior. The singular look at the mental health outcomes of LGBT+ individuals —rather than including spiritual outcomes in their array of measures of personal well-being— reveals hidden assumptions about the nature of human flourishing. It was neither interesting nor important to the authors that LGBT+ individuals who disaffiliated with the Church continued in spiritual devotion or still found themselves believing in or connected to God —which is an expression of values and priorities that are fundamentally pre-empirical.

In short, their research questions—what they looked at (and thus, what they saw)—were influenced by their prior moral and philosophical biases (such as expressive individualism, which we will explore more later in this book). And the way they interpreted the evidence was informed by the same worldviews. From the exact same empirical evidence (but from a different starting point), they could have just as easily suggested the need for more institutional support from the Church for single and celibate members, or better mental health resources and more spiritual help for those striving to live the law of chastity under unique circumstances.

While the pre-empirical assumptions of the above study are easy to identify (this was an egregious example), the assumptions of other psychological research are often more subtle and harder to detect—but they nonetheless always exist. Of course, the answer is not to lean more towards a fundamentalist approach. A fundamentalist approach might reject the need for any social scientific research into this topic at all, or rely solely upon tradition to understand the needs of LGBT+ individuals within the Church. In contrast, we suggest that a better path forward is to embrace intellectual humility.

Intellectual humility involves a willingness to articulate and interrogate the otherwise hidden assumptions behind both our religious  traditions and our scientific explorations—and to do so using the light of both revealed truth and careful research. This helps us thread the needle between fundamentalism and scientism, and we think it is one of the paramount virtues of being a disciple-scholar. Intellectual humility (within the context of a Latter-day Saint perspective) involves respecting both the ecclesiastical authority of prophets and apostles and the epistemological authority of scholars and scientists (in the right contexts).

Note: intellectual humility does not in any way foreclose conviction. Some writers describe intellectual humility as a lingering “tentativeness” in all of our perspectives, but that is not how we use the term. As psychologist Justin L. Barrett puts it, intellectual humility reflects “a tendency to accurately track whether or not one should hold certain beliefs to be knowledge: not overconfident in one’s beliefs, but also not holding them too loosely when one should hold them firmly.”

In short, intellectual humility means that we acknowledge our assumptions as assumptions. Gaede argues that a genuinely Christian approach to the social sciences will eschew all forms of dogmatism. He explains:

[A Christian social science] assumes that science will best be served by a genuine pluralism that allows all scientists to build freely upon their chosen assumptions. Unlike [scientistic approaches], which argue that every scientist must conform to its assumptions to assure impartiality, a Christian social science assumes that scientific integrity will be best served by philosophical candor and a clear explanation of assumptions.

We, for example, have a deep and unmoving conviction that human beings are moral agents (this is not something we take as tentative or provisional), and in subsequent chapters, we will assert that this should be a guiding assumption of all of our research. Intellectual humility does not require us to constantly question that assumption—it simply requires that we acknowledge this as a pre-empirical assumption and a philosophical commitment, and thus open to critical analysis and reflection, rather than an indubitable fact handed to us by empirical evidence. Further, as Gaede explains, this “philosophical candor” means that “authors should not play cat and mouse games with their readers, disguising presuppositions in the vain hope of producing value-free science.” 

And lastly, intellectual humility means (for Christians and Latter-day Saints) recognizing the inherent incompleteness of any mortal attempt to get at the fundamental truths of the universe. It involves recognizing, as Gaede explains, “that we are not God and we will not, as finite beings, ever attain an understanding as complete or total as His”—at least, in this life. This is where we depart from Gaede, as unique Latter-day Saint doctrines do not posit the same unbridgeable, metaphysical gulf between God and man. Unlike Gaede, we believe that this metaphysical and epistemological gulf can and will be bridged as we eventually step into the full stature of our station as joint-heirs with Christ. These differences do not affect Gaede’s ultimate point, however—a point on which we strongly agree. Gaede continues: 

In a sense, while we are to pursue truth with all our strength, we are never to forget that God is the author of truth and that we are dependent upon Him for our understanding and knowledge. Once again, this beckons the scientist to a posture of humility regarding any truth claims made on the basis of scientific research. I might add parenthetically that it calls the theologian and all other human sojourners to precisely the same position.

Intellectual humility helps protect us from the pride that so often accompanies scholarly pursuits. The prophet Jacob warned, “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves … But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.” With the sort of humility that places God’s wisdom before our own, we can pursue discipleship in a way that avoids the pitfalls described by Jacob. Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote, “Though I have spoken of the disciple-scholar, in the end, all the hyphenated words come off. We are finally disciples—men and women of Christ.” 

______________________________________________________________

The purpose of this project is not to set forth a definitive or authoritative Latter-day Saint perspective in psychology. Instead, we would argue that there are many different perspectives and directions to go, even while taking seriously the thirteen “foundations” we set forth in this project. With each chapter, we will identify what we consider to be the minimal and maximal approaches to embracing these foundations.

The post Encouraging Disciple-Scholars in the Social Sciences appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Adding more fodder to the partisan fire has never been our intent.  Public Square Magazine was launched three years ago, this fall, with an inaugural essay entitled, “Interrupting the Rhythm of Negativity” which acknowledged the serious challenges facing our public discourse, but affirmed, “We believe in the public square. And we believe it’s worth preserving,” adding, “rather than sit back aghast as the storm clouds of cultural hostility collide, we feel an urgency to build more robust civic shelters.”

Over these many months of political tension, pandemic struggle, and now international war, our larger message has been consistent: thoughtful, good-hearted people can not only see the world differently, but they can also learn to live in peace together. 

But how?  Not simply by avoiding offense and not saying anything that will “ruffle feathers.” That’s one of the misconceptions of civility—that if only we were more willing to be polite and even more delicate in our ever-more-cushioned wording choices, maybe then we’d foster communities where everyone feels like they belong.  

We don’t believe that. While certainly, sensitivity in our language plays a part in building a society of peace, in all the recorded instances of a successful “Zion society,” there was quite a bit more involved—namely, conversion to a Prince of Peace whose words effectively persuaded hearts and minds across all divisions to “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.”

Imagine what it could mean for our bleeding, terrified world today if entire nations could be persuaded to “not lift up sword against nation” or “learn war any more”?

That’s what we believe. And that’s where our hope is centered, as reflected in this most recent conference weekend of the Church of Jesus Christ. God really has what we need. And He really can free us from all this! As the Book of Mormon record attests, “there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.”

That’s precisely why our efforts to “lift the contemporary discourse” have centered around “amplify[ing] thoughtful voices of faith”—whom author C.S. Lewis once characterized as a rebel force living in “enemy-occupied territory” and animated by their conviction that “the rightful king has landed … in disguise.” 

Little wonder, then, that other powerful voices have increasingly painted these Christ-following renegades to the established order as incomprehensible, or even threatening. And little wonder as well, that some believers have retreated from any such public engagement, disinclined to face the “prospect of capricious kinds of public backlash.” As we said years back, “we can understand why so many across the political spectrum feel exhausted, checked out, and dejected”—and why so many of us long for a season of safety and retreat.  

That will come one day in its fullness, even as we build small patches of safety in our congregations and individual homes. In the meanwhile—and until He “bare(s) his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations” to bring this lasting peace to pass—we need to continue raising our voices to “publish peace” and say unto our neighbors “Thy God reigneth.” 

Yes, there are times, as Elder Neil Anderson cautioned in April 2022 General Conference that any peacemaker needs to “resist the impulse to respond and instead, with dignity, remain quiet”—much like Jesus Christ himself did, of whom Isaiah prophesied, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth.” 

That’s an important example to follow.  And we are witnessing another kind of “silencing of the lambs”—where Christians are being pressured everywhere to say less and less. That’s why it feels so important to emphasize, as we said in that first manifesto, that “you can never have enough tolerant and reasoned voices sharing what they believe to be true and beautiful.” It was theologian Stanley Hauerwas who once suggested that Christians lost the 1970s debate around abortion because they didn’t participate sufficiently in the larger public conversation about sex and related topics, and thus, “by ceding the terms of the debate, the debate got framed in ways that made the failure of conservative Christianity a foregone conclusion.” 

That’s why we’ve sought to amplify so many voices—180+ courageous souls across 632 public messages—speaking to some of the hardest questions people are grappling with today. In consideration of that and  underscoring the need to magnify more positive voices back in 2017, Elder Quentin L. Cook, a member of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, described how adding a new perspective to the conversation “creates a pause in the discourse and allows people to evaluate where they stand on a particular matter.” By contrast, “Silence allows the rhythm of negativity to continue uninterrupted and unchallenged.”

That’s why we speak—and will continue to speak out … seeing all of this, no more and no less, as  part of the “great commission” of our Lord and Master, to “teach … all nations” how and why to follow His ways and embrace His truth—ultimately reaching after unity in what Paul called the “mind of Christ.”   

Along the pathway to greater unity, we can’t expect to all be “thinking the same.”  Referring again to a time when people achieved that Zion unity anciently, Elder Dale Renlund asked in the fall 2021 conference:

Do you think that the people were unified because they were all the same, or because they had no differences of opinion? I doubt it. Instead, contention and enmity disappeared because they placed their discipleship of the Savior above all else. Their differences paled in comparison to their shared love of the Savior, and they were united as “heirs to the kingdom of God.” 

Even when placing a common faith above other differences—“united by our common, primary identity as children of God and our commitment to the truths of the restored gospel”— meaningful differences may still remain, which we can sometimes mistake for reasons to fight and turn on each other.  

This brings us back to the interview we published last week. While standing behind the decision to prioritize that conversation—especially as a way to counterbalance the larger media atmosphere heavily skewed towards vilifying the majority of Utahns sharing Rep Birkeland’s views—we recognize more can be done, especially in connecting with other thoughtful and good-hearted people who might be seeing other parts of the picture worth considering. 

When an issue arises where people of faith, in particular, are divided in meaningful ways—we will convene a representative group of them to really go deep in grappling over what is going on.  Rather than simply working to advance one particular socio-political narrative, the aim here will be to reach together for the whole truth, in the spirit of our friend Arthur Peña’s “whole truth-seeking” he’s advocated in the pages of this magazine. 

Rather than creating something easily inhaled to reinforce our various tribal trances, we envision this process generating texts difficult to weaponize and impossible to metabolize as yet more perfect validation of the sure rightness of our own position. 

Where there are blind spots in our own views, we anticipate this as a way to actively and intentionally interrogate those possibilities. Where we stumble upon an area of unexpected common ground, we will celebrate—and underscore the point. Where this doesn’t seem possible, we will seek to elucidate the true difference of perspective, and thereby “achieve disagreement” as David Blankenhorn once aptly put it. 

Imagine, for a moment, if more journalism reflected this kind of dogged commitment to full truth (beyond all of us, to some degree), no matter what?  Despite the disappointing media landscape around us, there are some good examples of this aspiration. For instance, the New York Times regularly brings together Michelle Goldberg with David Brooks and others into what they call a “roundtable” where someone has an opportunity to say, “Can I disagree a little bit with David? I agreed with everything he said, with one exception …”

That’s what we are envisioning doing more of on the pages of our own magazine—bringing together our own writers, friends, and colleagues we know and respect. Because of our mission as a magazine, these conversations will be generally bounded by prophetic priorities outlined in The Living Christ, The Restoration of the Fullness of the Gospel of Christ, and The Family: A Proclamation to the World—with our commitment to discipleship superseding all other commitments, as Elder Dale Renlund movingly encouraged last fall.  On this foundation, we will seek to bring in other inspired voices to expand the ideological diversity of the conversation in a way that deepens our understanding of truth. 

That complete truth is ultimately what we want to be aimed at as a magazine. Not only tightly advancing a particular socio-political narrative of the truth—but reaching for the full picture of reality over time, no matter what it is and no matter where it comes from. Doesn’t that sound just a little bit fun? Actually, learning something new—rather than just constantly generating more fodder to confirm our own sense of rightness and righteousness?   

Ultimately, we believe that seeking after the full truth will get us closer to Truth, embodied—who we believe to be Jesus Christ. This man, Paul testifies “is our peace” and has received power sufficient to break down “the dividing wall of hostility between us” by his own sacrifice which “abolished … the enmity.” 

Heaven knows we need that kind of help. And the best news of all—is he’s got all the help we need. 

We conclude where we did our very first essay, channeling William Buckley’s famous statement launching National Review to say: 

The body of believers must now more than ever put pen to paper; click conviction into every keystroke; stand athwart history and belt “come, come, ye saints” until, in fact, all is well. Restoring faith in the public square requires nothing less.

The post Reaching for a Zion Beyond Partisan Warfare appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Last week, Public Square Magazine published an in-depth interview with Rep. Kera Birkeland, the sponsor of House Bill 11.  HB 11 drew national media attention after Governor Cox vetoed it on the grounds that it contained last-minute changes which compromised the wishes of the transgender community in Utah. While local and national media outlets hailed him as a model of compassion and reflective political leadership, the public was served up a far less savory picture of Utah’s legislators, who have been accused of engaging in shallow, punitive politics at the expense of vulnerable youth, and a tribalistic refusal to compromise.

What Birkeland’s interview reveals is something strikingly different from this widely accepted and outrage-inducing national narrative. Had this account been figured into media reporting, people might have been left with more trust, hope, and goodwill on both sides of this divisive issue—leaving us in a much better position to resolve the inherent tensions of our cultural moment. Towards that end, it might be helpful to understand some of the context for the failure of the commission compromise before looking at how a real compromise might be achieved going forward. 

Context On Removing the Commission Provision in HB 11

For example, Cox’s stated reason for vetoing HB 11 was that legislators removed the provision for establishing a commission to evaluate transgender athletes for participation, instead implementing an “outright ban.” Understandably, many Utahns were irked that a seemingly sensible step toward mutual appeasement was tossed out in clear preference of one side’s  interests. Most criticisms about this change to the bill were not focused on the merits of a commission or whether it could adequately address the concerns surrounding transgender athletes competing in their chosen gender. Rather, the outrage appeared to stem from the feeling that those on one side of the issue seemed so unwilling to meet in the middle. 

This is a legitimate concern. As Governor Cox has pointed out, processes matter, and valuable goodwill is lost when that’s not taken seriously. However, Birkeland’s account provides some context to the removal of the commission provision that evidences far more good faith than media reporting has hitherto allowed. According to Birkeland, who helped create and champion the idea of the commission, LGBT+ advocates simply did not support the commission. Since it was also unpopular among some lawmakers and constituents (as revealed by polling), Birkeland felt it was better to remove the commission provision than to risk the bill failing altogether. Moreover, she explains that she really believes this was clear to Governor Cox:

Maybe Governor Cox really didn’t realize that the commission version wasn’t going to pass, but that’s not from a lack of us communicating that. We did our best to clearly communicate with his team and others all along, conveying the reality that a lot of people on both sides had strong objections to the commission, and we weren’t actually getting closer to a compromise. I understand that people make accusations a lot in politics, but I am confident that I acted in full faith and in transparency. The commission had pushback from the LGBT+ community, the commission had pushback from the Republicans in our state, and Governor Cox wanted it to include provisions that were not going to pass.

Simply put, HB 11 had no chance of passing with the commission provision, which had already been rejected by LGBT+ advocates as well. Demanding this provision be included was, according to Birkeland, a de facto way of ensuring no bill be passed at all. 

The fact of the matter is, a bill with the commission alone could never have passed. It was not going to be heard on the Senate floor. It didn’t have any support. It had zero support from the LGBT+ community so far as I could tell from my extensive discussions with them. And it had no support, essentially, from those on the right who were concerned about the unfair advantages. It really had no support. … Many of those who objected to the change on the last day were also opposed to the commission all along the way. The process of debating and considering the bill wasn’t the problem—they simply didn’t want any law passed on this issue.

Birkeland also reveals in her explanatory piece in the Deseret News that she held over 100 meetings with various stakeholders in the community, including LGBT+ advocates. She also refutes the idea that the final changes to the bill were the result of an opaque, backdoor political move. Instead, she claims that efforts to reach a compromise were continued until the last minute, when it was clear that keeping the commission provision in the bill would result in no bill passing at all. While this might have satisfied certain advocacy groups, Birkeland says repeatedly that polling revealed that over 80 percent of Utahns wanted this legislation passed. To pass no bill at all, she claims, would have ignored the wishes of the vast majority of Utah residents, who wanted something passed that would guarantee certain protections for female athletes.

Despite what some prominent journals have depicted, Utah lawmakers are not simply looking to score political points without consideration of transgender kids. Part of the difficulty stems from the nature of the issue itself, which is discussed below. It also appears, however, that the need for a villain has outstripped attempts to provide a more accurate, balanced representation of the complexities surrounding this controversial bill. Birkeland’s account of having spent hundreds of hours meeting with parents, advocates, and other members of the community throughout the process of creating this bill simply doesn’t square with the idea of indifferent ideological zealotry. That simplistic accounting also fails to accurately characterize the viewpoint of LGBT+ advocates who opposed the commission. How is public rhetoric aided by emotive demands for compromises which none of the interested parties actually want? Or by insisting that failures to achieve consensus on an unpopular compromise can only mean bad faith motives on one side?

The Nature of Good Compromise

At least part of the denunciation of the Utah legislature seems to center on an understanding of compromise where good policy is only achieved when lawmakers go halfsies on every question. It’s worth asking whether it’s either possible or ideal to meet in the middle on every issue, or whether a better goal might be striving to create an overall environment of fairness that honors a variety of beliefs. For example, in 2015 the Church of Jesus Christ supported legislation in Utah that, among many things, extended discrimination protections in housing and employment to LGBT+ persons while also protecting the rights of religious organizations and religious individuals to express opposition to gay marriage, for example. The 2015 policy is balanced and lives up to Cox’s spirit of compromise, even though it does not grant an equal say on all questions to every group involved.

The Church has also recently encouraged the Fairness For All Act, which embodies some principles for a better approach to HB 11. For example, an FFA-type approach takes more of a bird’s eye view of transgender policy, securing non-discrimination rights for transgender citizens in housing, employment, public accommodations, and other arenas of the public square except where doing so will bump up against competing rights and priorities, such as (again) religious liberty and, in this case, the safety and privacy of women—and their ability to compete in interscholastic sports without fear that the competition will be preempted by biological males.

Governor Cox is therefore correct that HB 11 fails to achieve similar forms of compromise as other similar types of legislation among Utahns (and the Church). However, the problem is not that legislators failed to compromise on the particular question of athletic participation; rather, the problem is arguably that HB 11 wasn’t wide enough in scope to secure rights or extend other protections in areas where competing priorities could have favored the transgender community. Had it done so, the sole focus of the bill would not have centered around this single area and the overall nature of the legislation would have been one of compromise and goodwill for Utahns on both sides of these competing interests.

That would be a great outcome to aspire for in the future. In the meanwhile, it seems simplistic, and possibly irresponsible, to suggest that allowing biological males to compete with females clearly lends itself to an obvious compromise somewhere, if only legislators were more compassionate and less ideologically driven. The truth is that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports calls into question the biological foundations upon which women’s sports were created in the first place. To expect large swaths of the population to willingly compromise on those foundations without any scientific evidence and under the duress of “suicide statistics” is not, exactly, a good faith spirit of compromise. 

While Governor Cox asserts that the commission provision was “fairly simple” and protects both trans athletes and women’s competition, the commission actually poses far more questions than it resolves. What are the parameters within which it’s fair for a male to compete against a female? Can the physical advantages of male physiognomy be reduced to strength tests and hormone levels? Where is the science to support such an idea? What are the ethical considerations of having a committee “evaluate” a child’s body for athletic participation as a specific sex? What about the ethics of encouraging a trans girl to compete as a female until their body matures and it’s no longer possible to do so fairly? How do committee proponents propose to keep trans girls from feeling pressured to chemically transition before puberty in order to “pass” their evaluations? 

In light of all this, it appears that quite a few voters are not yet convinced that an unspecified committee is a fair trade for effectively erasing the biological barriers that have defined women’s sports. For all this, their lawmakers are accused of ignoring the principles of good governance when the problem is actually more complicated. A better tack might simply be to acknowledge that not everyone can win on every question, and look for other ways to show the trans community that they are seen and important to lawmakers. 

This doesn’t mean that we can’t find workable solutions and, more importantly, a galvanized sense that everyone’s needs are important. Instead, it might be our larger expectations that need to be revisited. As Rep. Birkeland points out, this is not merely an infrastructure bill—we are visiting here some of our most fundamental assumptions as a society and it may not be the work of a year or even two. 

Perhaps we can offer lawmakers some grace without assuming that taking concerns about biology and fairness seriously—or even prioritizing them—is evidence that they don’t care about trans kids. If we could believe that, public discussion could find fresh grounding around something more than decontextualized suicide statistics and accusations. Furthermore, by stepping back from this single, heated question and working on a larger strategy, real compromise becomes much more manageable. All along the way, of course, better media accounts will go a long way toward relieving some of the tensions between involved communities.

The post A Better Conversation about HB 11 appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Yet their “it’s not me, it’s you” stories don’t quite add up. Church messaging has, if anything, become more accommodating and less hard-edged over the last few decades. Church leaders from apostles down to bishops are pouring enormous amounts of energy into listening, talking, praying, and planning, trying somehow to help. There have never been more resources available to those struggling with their faith. But these outpourings are often met with indifference and grimacing glances in the other direction. “It got to the point that we felt we should set up an evening class for those struggling with these issues in our ward,” one bishop told me recently, in a story that felt very familiar. “We got a couple of excellent and knowledgeable facilitators who were prepared to dig into all the thorniest issues. There were a lot of struggling members who had told us they wanted answers. But then the day of the class came and nobody showed up. I don’t get it.”

The strange disaffection continues. I recently put my finger on what the feel of it was. Namely, the feeling is that of a marriage in which one spouse gradually-then-suddenly loses interest in the marriage, to the confusion of their partner. The faithful spouse, terrified, searches desperately for the faults of their own which must have caused the rift, redoubles their efforts to work on the marriage, begs their partner to stay, assumes their spouse’s complaints are in good faith, forgives increasingly hostile behavior … but the overtures, if anything, seem to make things worse. The wayward spouse is contemptuous and indifferent and continues drifting and turning away until the marriage suddenly ends. Some weeks later the faithful spouse discovers their beloved had simply fallen in love with someone else, become unfaithful, and left. 

This comparison captures an important dimension, I think, of the relationship between the Church and its disaffected members. But if the Church is the faithful spouse and disaffected members the delinquent beloved, where is the other lover? Who is the homewrecker? This is, if you ask me, the most underrated question in the discourse. “Leaving the Church” is only half the story. When it comes to educated white members in North America drifting into dissent and disaffection, there is indeed another lover—another religion—in the picture. It’s just hard to see at first.

Almost immediately after writing the paragraphs above, a recent article of Dan Ellsworth’s popped up in my feed. In the article (which you should read if you haven’t), Dan makes the same comparison I make to marital disintegration, toward a slightly different point. “Just like ancient Israel,” he says, “I believe we are facing as a people an epidemic of emotional affairs with a variety of extra-covenantal influences that are poisoning our vertical and horizontal covenant faith commitments, leading many church members to adopt the compare-and-criticize behaviors that are fatal to covenant joy.” Dan recommends “pruning our social media consumption” and unfollowing influencers who might be leading us astray in whatever direction.

It’s missing the big story, if you ask me, to think of this strange disaffection as an epidemic of individual affairs as if church members are spontaneously becoming less virtuous and more prone to unfaithfulness. Rather, it’s more like one collective love affair whose proximate cause is, simply, the appearance (circa 2013) of an appealing new lover. There have always been seductive influences on the fringes of our faith, but, at least among educated white North American members, there is only one competing religion that has left the fringes and begun exerting its influence on almost everyone. It’s the official religion of our social class, the one with influence in practically every institution, and the one that does not regard itself as a religion because it does not have to.

It doesn’t even have a name (its adherents refuse to acknowledge it exists, let alone to name it), and I hesitate to identify it because it gets circumscribed into “politics.” It’s wokeism, or social justice, or critical theory, or baizuo-ism, or the successor ideology, or contemporary American progressivism. It’s the religion whose taboos you and all your peers know implicitly and must observe if you would like to get or keep a white-collar job. It’s the reason you can’t watch a movie from ten years ago without having alarm bells go off subconsciously—because even if you don’t accept the critiques you can make them as well as anyone because you hear them constantly.

I mean it literally when I say it is a religion. It’s a comprehensive worldview with taboos, authority, myths, sacred objects, a moral framework, and unfalsifiable beliefs. And I don’t mean “religion” as an insult: contemporary American progressivism isn’t bad because it’s a religion, rather, it’s bad because it’s a false religion. But even more, it is dangerous because most people, inside or out, don’t recognize it as a religion.

I’m clearly not the first to make this observation. In 2018, John McWhorter, a writer and professor of linguistics at Columbia University, observed that in the previous few years, “social justice warrior ideology” among his students had started to look more like religion. “And I must make it clear that when I use the word religion, I don’t mean it as a battering ram. I don’t mean it to be funny. I mean that there actually is something that has settled in, in our campus discussions now, that an anthropologist from Mars would recognize as no different from, for example, strong Christian fundamentalism.”

But he noted that adherents do not see it this way:

In 1500, nobody in Europe considered themselves religious. It was just in the water. If there was such a thing as an atheist, they kept that to themselves … that’s where we are now. And so many of the people now who are religious would resist the label because especially a modern, secular, educated person often won’t like the idea of being told that they have a religion. But that doesn’t mean that the analysis isn’t accurate. There’s a religion.

In this important sense, contemporary American progressive religion, the theological water in which educated people in our society swim, is postmodern to the point of being … premodern. In most cases, believers simply do not know they are a part of it. Even most non-believers don’t see the religion for what it is.

For a recent illustration of the strange encounters this dynamic gives rise to, consider US Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s recent question to Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson: “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” In an important sense, the question was deeply inappropriate. It tried to force someone to confront a paradox at the heart of their religious worldview. In contemporary American progressive theology, maleness and femaleness are categories of gender identity, a gnostic sense of one’s identity that is perfectly knowable by the individual but not verifiable or falsifiable by others, even in principle. The paradox is that this concept has no meaning apart from a common, pre-woke understanding of male and female—but that basic biologic understanding is itself anathematized in the faith. Even if Jackson didn’t believe the dogma herself, she could not deny it and remain in good standing in her faith. To ask her what a woman was is sort of like asking a Catholic judge a tricky question about transubstantiation.

But there is a key difference, at least in modern times: virtually no one intends that the law will ever require non-Catholics to live as if the doctrine of transubstantiation is true. This is because Catholicism is contextualized in our society as a religion, and people are thus entitled not to believe in it. On the other hand, contemporary American progressivism is not contextualized as a religion, or even as a worldview—to believers, it’s understood as “literally just being a decent person.” Accordingly, they expect everyone to live as if their beliefs are true.

In this way, contemporary American progressivism wants to have it both ways: it wants the privileges rightly claimed by believers against intrusive questions about one’s deepest spiritual beliefs, but also wants its dogmas to be made normative for everyone. It should be one or the other: if you want a belief of yours to be binding on others, you should defend and answer questions about it (think of Catholics on abortion). If, on the other hand, you want to shield a belief from criticism or even inquiry, you should avoid arrogantly expecting nonbelievers to live as if it is true (think of Catholics on transubstantiation).

And maybe there is something hopeful in this possibility. After all, sometimes a spouse committing an emotional affair doesn’t fully realize what they are doing—the faithful spouse needs to realize he or she is being cheated on and be willing to talk about the homewrecker if there is some hope of interrupting the process of abandonment. In this case, sparking reconciliation may need to begin with contextualizing the other religion as a religion and helping the disaffected awake to the fact that their church has not somehow left them, they have just joined another one.

Too often we don’t do that. Like the blindsided faithful spouse, we take criticisms from disaffected members at face value, laboriously producing responses that in most cases are ignored or simply further picked apart. The faithful spouse could be a saint, and the Church could be spotless, and the wayward partner would remain contemptuous and aloof because the fact is they are in love with someone else. 

Instead of becoming defensive or apologetic, we should treat the other religion as a peer, not as a superior who is above criticism nor an inferior too fragile for it. Disaffected members critiquing our faith from within the framework of their new faith can be asked to show their cards, explain their own beliefs, and make an affirmative case for them if they want us to agree. We should stop accepting terms of debate where church members are required to justify their beliefs from within the framework of the contemporary progressive worldview, while those of the other faith can perpetually disclaim any burden of proof for theirs.

This change in approach is hard. We have been playing defensively not because we don’t want to win but because the deck is stacked against us. But it’s possible: people can be—and have been—woken up to the fact of their unintended conversion. They must be if there is to be any reasonable hope that they will return.

The post The Other Religion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Scriptures warn followers of Christ that evil uses good to deceive us. A devil who only ever said “come be evil!” wouldn’t get far. A devil who makes a persuasive case that evil is actually good is far more dangerous. Even when we know the difference between eternal truth and the philosophies of men, a dash of flattery, a threat to our social status, an accusation that we’re harming others can persuade us to reevaluate.  What used to seem clear-cut can become murky when the lines are deliberately blurred.

The motte and the bailey. One common line-blurring tactic is the “motte and bailey” fallacy. Imagine a medieval fortress (the motte), surrounded by acres of fruitful fields (the bailey). The motte is easy to defend, so when attackers invade, the owner retreats into the stone fortress and stays safe. But no one wants to stay cooped up in a castle for long. They’d rather be out in the bailey, growing crops. The motte is a secure fortress. The bailey is insecure but offers much greater opportunity.

In a debate, the motte is an easily defended position—say, “cruelty to animals is wrong.” Few would disagree. But wide agreement about cruelty to animals being wrong isn’t very useful to those who want to make big changes to law or policy.

The bailey is a related, more expansive, less defensible position. For instance, a debater might say “because cruelty to animals is wrong, the law should force everyone to be vegan.” Mandatory veganism, not opposition to animal cruelty, is the debater’s real goal. But there are a lot of good-faith objections to mandatory veganism, so it’s much harder to defend than the motte. An opponent might respond: “It is possible to raise animals for food in an ethical way, and there are economic and medical reasons why mandatory veganism isn’t a good policy.”

Instead of defending the bailey—that is, having a difficult discussion about the pros and cons of mandatory veganism—the first debater might instead retreat to the motte: “You’re just promoting cruelty to animals!”

This is illogical and even silly: the motte and the bailey are very different arguments. You can’t just swap out one argument for another and expect people not to notice! That’s the fallacy. But when the topic is emotionally charged, it can be surprisingly effective.

The debater pretended to have won the argument on the strength of the motte, despite not even trying to defend the bailey. Moreover, the debater turned the discussion into a personal attack on the opponent. Suddenly, the discussion was no longer about food policy, but about the opponent’s personal guilt for being cruel to animals. If this discussion happened in public, like on social media, it could easily turn into a pile-on about the opponent’s cruelty. Many opponents would quickly give up, despite having the logically stronger position.

Eventually, a culture could develop wherein everyone accepts mandatory veganism as obviously correct, simply because no one is willing to attack the bailey, because they don’t want to be accused of animal cruelty. And others would be drawn into that culture and its activism in support of veganism because they want to feel courageous and righteous against the awful promoters of animal cruelty. Attacks push out opponents on one side, and flattery draws in new followers on the other.

The Gospel of Instagram. Much of today’s Latter-day Saint-themed social media is one big motte: God is love. I think of it as the Gospel of Instagram: I’ll Walk With You, Jesus Said Love Everyone, Love One Another. All this might have been lovely and a force for good, because it is absolutely true so far as it goes. But because it’s incomplete, it is too often being used to advance evil and deceive us. Channeling G. K. Chesterton, Elder Neal Maxwell once cautioned, “The doctrines of Jesus Christ are so powerful that any one of these doctrines, having been broken away from the rest, goes wild and mad. … The doctrines of the kingdom need each other just as the people of the kingdom need each other.”

The bailey is the concerted effort by many Latter-day Saint influencers and activists to undermine the doctrines of marriage and chastity. It’s a ubiquitous tactic: imply the church must change its doctrine, and instead of seriously considering the overwhelming theological, intellectual, and ministerial weakness of their position, retreat to the motte of “God is love.” Even more subtly, they might be wily about stepping out into the bailey of “church doctrine and leaders are wrong,” claiming they’ve never even left the motte of “we just need to listen to, learn from, and love our LGBT+ members.”

But they have.

Listening, learning, and loving are necessary. I seek to better understand how difficult it is to struggle with sexuality or identity, so I can better love and help. But when influencers imply we must listen in order to accept that gay sex is not sinful, that God condones gay relationships because of love, that God values romantic love and sexual attraction over chastity, that the celestial ideal of fruitful man-woman marriage is not the foundation of eternal life, that God gives individuals revelations contradicting church teachings—they have left the motte. Listening, learning, and loving does not mean accepting falsehood. Making others more likely to commit sins, break their covenants, and estrange themselves from God is the opposite of love.

Consider a recent Instagram post geared toward a faithful LDS audience: “The Savior is trying to teach us. Bigotry is the opposite of unity. Jesus spent his entire ministry healing those who were subjected to bigotry. Loving those deemed unloveable, touching those called unclean … The Savior gave the parable of the father who clothes one son in robes and another son in rags. And the Lord asks what kind of man would look at the two and say, ‘I am just?’… We cannot clothe some in lovely robes of righteousness and others in rags of shame and say we are acting justly, on behalf of the Savior.”

This post appeals to good people trying to be loving and helpful. It’s important to understand how the author uses that goodwill to promote falsehoods

The motte: the Savior teaches us and reveals truth to us.

The bailey: the Savior is revealing contradictions of scriptural and prophetic teaching.

The motte: Bigotry is the opposite of unity.

The bailey: Unity means having positive and non-judgmental feelings toward everyone who claims their beliefs, behavior, and identity are approved by God, instead of lovingly inviting everyone to believe and embrace eternal truths. If you promote church teachings on chastity and marriage, you are guilty of bigotry and of fomenting disunity.

The motte: The Savior loved those deemed unloveable and touched those called unclean.

The bailey: Choosing to break the law of chastity is the same as being a leper anciently—a morally neutral condition that requires only compassion, never correction.

The motte: In the parable of the two sons, the Lord taught us to treat everyone with respect and not to favor some over others.

The bailey: Treating everyone fairly means no longer teaching that gay sex is sinful, and changing the law of chastity and the doctrine of marriage.

How many can bear the social and emotional cost of pushing back against this from a faithful position? Those who might try have already been called bigots in the post, accused of fomenting disunity in the Church, accused of violating a scriptural command to treat others fairly, and accused of thwarting Jesus’ healing mission. Many have learned from experience that raising concerns about the bailey (Jesus commands us to treat gay sexuality as morally equal to man-woman marriages) will only provoke a retreat to the motte (Jesus commands us to love everyone and treat them fairly)—from which they’ll be attacked even more directly, called hateful and un-Christlike.

We certainly can’t want or expect to correct every bad argument on the internet, and I’m not encouraging anyone to go argue on any post or page. But it’s crucial to understand that the ideas and tactics don’t stay on that page. The example I raise here is from a page with more than 17,000 followers—ever increasing as more people discover they enjoy the flattery of being told they’re promoting love and fighting bigotry. Many of those followers will replicate both the assertions and the attacks on their own social media, in their own conversations, in their own classes and congregations, and families. What starts on Instagram soon arrives in Sunday services, and many church leaders fail to push back as their faithful members are attacked for their faithfulness and tricked into rejecting true doctrine.

Accelerating activism and deeper deception. To be clear, it is absolutely true that those who suffer the temptation to break the law of chastity, but who believe and desire to obey God’s word, are worthy disciples who must be unequivocally loved and admired for their devotion. Church leaders have been very clear that feeling attraction is not a sin. But this can be used as another motte; activists will say they’re only advocating for those who are treated badly at church merely for having, but not acting on, same-sex attraction.

We must condemn all unkindness and help others learn to welcome and include gay members and friends. But beware the bailey. Most activists aren’t encouraging LGBT+ members to stay chaste, keep their covenants, and understand and accept church teachings. Instead, they’re encouraging everyone to forget the distinction between attraction and action and to pretend God has forgotten it, too. This is cruel to gay members who deserve to know the truth about eternal law and deceitful to everyone else trying to support them.

Another Instagram account proclaims its goal to “create safe spaces for LGBT+ students at BYU” and “amplify queer and other marginalized voices on and off campus to increase understanding and help create a kinder BYU”—a fairly unobjectionable motte. Many of the posts are painful personal stories, rainbow- and Jesus-themed artwork, and offers of help and support for LBGT+ students.

But they’re more daring in venturing out into the bailey. They helped organize a “family-friendly drag show” (as though a demeaning caricature of womanhood could ever be family-friendly). They recommended a list of gay, lesbian, and bisexual romance novels for Valentine’s Day. And they promoted a Teen Vogue article on “How to Have Queer Sex.” If you think directing BYU students to explicit advice about queer sex is an objectively bad thing to do, you stand accused of opposing “safe spaces,” “understanding,” and a “kinder BYU.” Most painfully, you stand accused of opposing the Savior’s love for those who need it most.

Perhaps it seems unfair or alarmist to tie the tamer advocates to the bolder ones. A former Bishop running a podcast urging love and understanding (and constantly implying the Church will change its doctrine, and that the Proclamation on the Family already allows for same-sex temple marriage), or a group of moms urging kindness and understanding toward their gay children (and promoting “revelation” that gay sex is approved by God), seem to be on a different level than offensive stunts like drag shows. But they all mingle on social media—the more tame and the more extreme leave supportive comments for each other and introduce their audiences to each other. Their non-threatening persona serves as a gateway to direct their followers to more extreme positions.

Most worrying of all, the people advocating these harmful ideas are presenting themselves to unwary Bishops and Stake Presidents as “experts” on LGBT+ issues, asking to be called as “specialists,” “support group leaders,” or similar roles, or to bring in activist fireside speakers, so they can “train” members and leaders to adopt their views. That training will, of course, start from the motte of love and acceptance, then carefully step into the bailey of questioning or opposing true doctrine. In this way, more and more people will be deceived by falsehoods they are being taught at church, in settings authorized by priesthood leaders.

Love and law in the kingdom of God. In a scripture held as sacred by Latter-day Saints, the Lord commands his people to prepare for Zion by treating one another fairly: “let every man esteem his brother as himself.” In the very same verse, the Lord gives another crucial command, every bit as important in preparing for Zion: “practice virtue and holiness before me.” This is a perfect example of the balanced focus on love and law that prophets have been emphasizing in recent years—and which Ty Mansfield recently explored in depth.

By quoting only half of the verse, however, activists use scriptures like this as a motte. The bailey depends on the deliberately omitted context in order to undermine truth. In the Gospel of Instagram, “virtue and holiness” mean little more than “be nice,” where niceness indulges disobedience—an insipid misinterpretation of the covenants and ordinances that are the only way to become like God. God sets bounds we are powerless to redefine. God commands love, not niceness. This may mean teaching unpopular truth and doing the hard work of helping others keep the commandments when it’s lonely and difficult. God prescribes spiritual discipline to prepare us for the Celestial Kingdom, not shallow slogans that idolize a false version of love at the expense of chastity.

The Lord hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Don’t be afraid of accusations. Take comfort that others have successfully withstood them, and are staying strong now. Don’t be afraid of losing friends and social status; you’ve covenanted to sacrifice far more than that for the Lord and His kingdom. He will bless you with power and love, and the wisdom to know how and when to effectively stand as a witness of God.

And may He bless us all with sound minds, impervious to accusations, flattery, and fallacy.

The post The Motte, the Bailey, and Gospel of Instagram appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Questions of Authority

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast offers a large case study in questions of authority, showing how groups and individuals respond to authority figures. Much of the success of the podcast lies in the fact that the questions of authority laid bare in Mars Hill Church were common ones that are being asked in faith communities everywhere.

Authority is one of the most important questions for a faith community: which individuals carry authority to determine doctrine; whether important community norms are derived from legitimate authority; whether texts and other sources are authoritative, and why; and so forth. Then there is the question of authority for each individual, of how much to rely upon external sources of authority versus internal sources like intuition.

 In general, conservative-leaning people appreciate strong sources of external authority, and for churchgoers, these sources of authority are usually a combination of strong leaders; authoritative texts like scripture and manuals; and the authority of tradition—along with their own personal experience of God. Liberal-leaning churchgoers tend to be skeptical of these sources, or at least more keenly aware of their limitations.

 Liberal sources of authority tend to be more internal, and centered on the individual’s own intuition and lived experiences. However, academia is a major source of external authority for liberal-leaning churchgoers, which often brings them into conflict with conservative sources of authority that see academia as only one of many sources, not to be given priority over personal and institutional revelation or the shared witness testimony of believers.

 It is possible to synthesize these sources of authority, which is why I recommend thinking of this process in terms of a discussion table. Each one of us invites to the discussion table sources of authority, like:

• The united voice of current church leadership
• Personal revelation
• Witness testimony of believers
• Scripture
• Logic and reason
• Scholarship
• Intuition

 … and others. Which sources we invite to the discussion table at any given time depends upon the kind of question we are considering. And it’s okay that not all of these voices are in harmony on every question. When we sometimes see a healthy tension among our sources of authority, that is a normal part of a life of faith.

Social Dynamics and Belonging

As mentioned previously, conservative tendencies are helpful for the building of cohesive communities, and cohesion is an area where liberal communities often struggle. Conservative communities frequently operate with clarity of belief and purpose in ways that allow them to mobilize and engage in shared sacrifices that bind the community together. Where conservative communities often struggle is in efforts to maintain an outward focus, to be a light to the world.

In the case of Latter-day Saints, surveys have shown that we are likely to spend time “primarily with our own.” Some of this is in response to persecution we have endured over the years, but regardless of the cause, our influence in the world is diminished when we are perceived (or live) as insular and inward-focused. A conservative community’s engagement with the world can sometimes look like lobbing grenades from behind the high walls of a defensive fortress. To the degree that mindset is true, conservatives can spend more time than liberals on questions of boundaries, and insider/outsider status. These are essential questions for any community seeking cohesion, but like many other things, they can be taken to excess. When our stance toward the world is all threat mitigation, we become prone to the error of calling good evil: we can attribute evil motives to people who are simply confused, misguided, or misinformed. We become limited in our ability to reach people who God desires to reach.

Some of these dynamics are illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the banquet, documented in Luke 14. In that parable, a man invites prominent guests—people he knows well—to a banquet feast, and they refuse the invitation, explaining that they don’t consider the banquet to be more important than their other priorities. The parable then takes an interesting turn:

Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” And the slave said, “Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.” And the master said to the slave, “Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.”

Here Jesus teaches a very challenging principle, that some of the people around us share our social status, politics, interests, and other factors that might lead us to regard them as “banquet-worthy.” But many of these people whom we regard as a “good fit” in our social circles are not actually interested in the banquet of Christian discipleship, with all of its intensive demands on our souls. Many of the people who are a good fit for the feast table are ones we would not normally think to invite: outsiders who are not in our social circles, and people who lack resources to repay our generosity. The head of the household (God) is best able to discern who belongs at the feast table, as He is not limited by our fears and our narrow self-interest. His comfort zone with human diversity is more expansive than ours. 

Yes, some of the responsibility in belonging rests upon the individual. But the community shares in this responsibility as well, and the community’s role is to embrace God’s perceptions of belonging and stretch our reach to include and embrace people outside our comfort zone. As Jesus taught His followers, “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?”

In his April 2017 General Conference talk, “The Voice of Warning,” Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke of the contrast between healthy gospel culture based on principles, versus the turmoil of honor/shame culture. He quoted New York Times columnist David Brooks:

In a guilt culture, you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture, you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. … [In the shame culture,] moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong; it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion … Everybody is perpetually insecure in a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no permanent standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity, overreaction, and frequent moral panics, during which everybody feels compelled to go along.

Liberal engagement with the world is more informed by the tendency to neophilia (the openness to new things). Liberal churchgoers tend to value engagement with the world outside of the faith community, with less of a tendency than conservatives to view the world as threatening (including, of course, “those liberals”). Yet think of how this very liberal tendency could be seen as a tremendous asset to a faith community in many ways: whereas conservative insularity can lead to stagnant and rigid patterns in congregations, liberal tendencies to engage with the outside world and develop relationships with other communities can infuse a congregation with joyful energy.

Yes, like every other good thing, this tendency toward openness can become a liability, if it is not accompanied by other virtues like discernment and good judgment. So, maybe liberals need conservatives, just as much as conservatives need liberals?  The world really does contain threats to our spiritual life and other dimensions of our well-being, and a challenging part of Christian discipleship is severing those influences from our lives, and limiting their ability to harm the community of believers.

In this way, we can start to see a synergy between liberal and conservative elements that can be easy to miss in the warring world around us. As Phil Neisser and Jacob Hess argue in their book, “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong),” most healthy individuals have both conservative and liberal-leaning elements—with certain things we hope to see changed, and other things we really hope stay the same. (Very few want everything to change or everything to stay the same). Maybe the same can be said of a healthy community?

Rather than being at war with each other over these identifiers, imagine if we could be in dialogue with each other over the different answers each side brings to the conversation? Thus, rather than being in endless conflict over whether to “change” or “stay the same,” an open-hearted conversation could seriously consider “what exactly should be preserved from our tradition, and what should stay the same?”  And instead of constantly battling over merely whether to be tolerant or not, we might spend more time exploring “what does it mean to be open, tolerant, and accepting.” 

Compared to the conservative focus on individual responsibility for belonging, liberals tend to view belonging as being primarily the responsibility of the community; individuals bring their diversity of thought and behavior, and the community is responsible for accommodating that diversity and embracing the uniqueness of each individual. The worldview that supports this perspective is called expressive individualism, wherein our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences reign supreme in convictions about reality and what is the right thing to do. An important presentation to understand some of the limitations of this approach and its inadvertent consequences in real life is Jeffrey Thayne’s recent Worldview Apologetics. In profound ways, the worldview of expressive individualism shapes our views on identity, what constitutes happiness, and what we should expect from the people around us. It’s hard to overstate how important these things are to appreciate, and yet sadly, few churchgoers are aware of them.

Why again does any of this matter? When people of faith make identities out of politics, culture, ethnicity, or other life experiences, this choice holds consequences for their sense of belonging with their faith community. Any experience in the community that feels invalidating to this separate identity will feel like oppression or even emotional abuse. Expressive individualism is a worldview that creates emotional fragility in its adherents and turns communities into minefields of interpersonal conflict. And increasingly in recent years, this way of thinking has become increasingly common and even taken for granted among both conservatives and liberals, leading to and explaining, in my view, so much of the increasing conflict with the church.

In summary, belonging is a dance. Liberals bring to the dance a distinctive focus on the steps that a community needs to perform, while conservatives tend to bring a focus on the key steps of the individual. Both sets of steps are essential in order for a faith community to understand and perform the dance of belonging to the best degree possible.

If this is true, it might encourage us all to open to our political opposites within our own faith communities in new ways – moving together in the direction of what Glenn Tinder calls “the attentive society,” meaning a place where “people listen seriously to those with whom they fundamentally disagree” and possess a “widespread willingness to give and receive assistance on the road to truth.”

 In my final installment in this series, I will explore conservative and liberal approaches to the social gospel and some concluding thoughts.

The post Belonging and Believing in Conservative and Liberal Religion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

At first, the lenses in the goggles are opaque. But as the villagers grow, parents and teachers help them see the world more like everyone else, thus removing one opaque portion at a time and replacing it with a portion that looks like their own lenses. 

In the end, everyone’s lens ends up being largely similar to the goggles of those around them. And while everyone does their best to ensure that the lenses are clear and accurate, no one could ever know with certainty if what they are seeing is true, because everyone has similar kinds of goggles on.

This village worships a green cube. The cube represents all that is good about life and the people in the village. If you want to help the individuals in the village, or the community at large, everyone knows that the best thing you can do is worship the green cube.

Now imagine a visitor from a different village arrives. This person is also wearing goggles. The villagers are thrilled to have a unique visitor until they visit the town center. Upon seeing the object at the town center, the visitor proclaims, “Why do you have a red missile with a ticking time bomb in your village?”

The villagers are scandalized. How dare this visitor insult their green cube! And since the green cube is the core of who they are as a village, how could he harm them by attacking the core of their identity as a people?

At first, the visitor felt confused. Why were so many upset with him? He didn’t intend to hurt anyone; he merely observed what he had seen. He tried to explain that to the villagers, “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have warned you about the missile. Why do you think I’m trying to hurt you?”

But the villagers had a ready answer, “Because you are attacking who we are as a people. That green cube is central to who we are as a people.  And you can’t possibly think you’re helping us if you are invalidating who we are.”

The visitor tried to understand, but having a missile in the middle of town wasn’t safe. So he tried to broach the point again to help the villagers. But they were incensed. 

“His insistence at calling it a red missile has hurt us. And yet rather than mourning with us, he just doubles down on his hateful rhetoric.” The villagers wondered,  “Why does he refuse to see it from our point of view?” When tempers would flare they would say, “How dare he red-splain our cube? Sometimes the right thing to do is just say nothing at all. If you’re not a green-cuber, you clearly can’t understand this. If you’re as backward as the visitor is, the best thing you can do is say nothing at all.”

As the visitor spent more time in the village, however, he began to notice that the lenses in his goggles started to change. As he spent more time with the villagers and began to understand their culture, he started to develop bifocals. 

There was still no way for him to tell for certain if either lens was clear or accurate, but when he looked at the sculpture in the middle of town he could view it both as a green cube and a red missile depending on which side of his lens he saw it through.

The visitor was ecstatic, and couldn’t wait to tell the villagers. If they realized it was just a matter of different lenses, he thought, and that he wasn’t trying to hurt them, maybe they would take the danger more seriously.

But when he did tell them, that’s not how the villagers responded. When he could finally see the sculpture their way, they saw it as validation that their way of seeing it was the right way. After all, they still couldn’t see it the way the visitor did. So they said things like, “Finally, way to catch up to the 21st century,” or “Ugh, you want applause just for basic civility.”

“But,” the visitor objects, “I didn’t say it was, in fact, a green cube. I said that I discovered that the only reason we saw things differently was because of the different lenses we had. Now I understand how you see it as a green cube.”

But the people continued to insist that because calling it a red missile offended their sense of dignity as a people, there was no excuse for calling it that. All this talk about lenses, they concluded, was merely a pretense for the visitor’s deep hatred for the town and their green cube. “If you truly care about this town, you will agree it’s a green cube.”

But the visitor still didn’t see why he should abandon his lens. “I understand the goggles that show it as a green cube work for you. But just as I was eventually able to understand how you saw it as a green cube, perhaps you could understand how I view it as a red missile. The lens that makes me see it as a red missile worked my entire life and has for the history of the village I come from. In fact, we were able to save ourselves from several missiles, because we knew what they were. I don’t know why I should abandon my lens for yours.”

But the villagers had an obvious answer: The green cube was important to them, so it hurt them to think anyone saw their green cube in a different way. And it’s wrong to hurt people.

The visitor loved his new town and didn’t want to hurt the people. So he agreed to call it a green cube. And if ever he happened to catch a glimpse of the red missile through the wrong side of his bifocals, he would immediately apologize. And over time the red missile side of his goggles slowly got smaller and smaller.

And with the visitor finally overcoming his bias and treating the villagers with love, they lived together in peace. Until the missile exploded and destroyed the village.

The post The Parable of the Lenses appeared first on Public Square Magazine.