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Social media has taught Christians a dangerous half-truth: if you are not using your platform to publicly denounce evil, you are complicit in evil.

I understand that instinct. But in many ways the demand for denunciation does more harm than good.

Sometimes disciples must speak, fight, draw boundaries, protect victims, and use lawful power against corruption. And in some cases, it may even be appropriate to do this on social media.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has boundaries, beliefs, and practices. Members must adhere to them in order to remain in full fellowship. For example, when Alma established the Church, he received those who repented and removed those who would not. 

But notice who did the removing.

The Lord gives pruning shears to gardeners, not spectators. The internet is not a bishop’s office. A pile-on is not a membership council. And public humiliation is not church discipline. The loudest person in the room is rarely the person with stewardship.

We see this sometimes when Latter-day Saints confuse the Church’s public communications with the Church itself. Imagine the Church is a house. There is certainly a door, represented by baptismal interview questions. And those inside the house can be escorted out. But digital communications is the porch. Its role is to be inviting and welcoming. That should not be the entire function of the house, but that is the function of the porch. 

And in the ministry of Christ, the function of the porch is clear: to welcome everyone. Yes, He also called people to repentance, and yes, not everyone was fit to be counted among His disciples. But first, everyone was invited. 

So how should we use our voices in social media spaces when we feel like boundaries of faithfulness are being broken? 

The scriptures present two different paths. I discussed this in some detail in a 2022 essay. 

Christ taught the parable of the wheat and tares, teaching that we don’t need to pluck out the tares from the wheat. Rather, we should let them grow together until a final reckoning. This aligns with Paul’s later instructions suggesting that the Lord’s servants should not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. And the faithful in Lehi’s vision did not engage with those in the great and spacious building, but “heeded them not.”

But in another parable, Christ taught that His servants are blessed for remaining watchful at night to stop a potential thief. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ also told His followers to watch for wolves in sheep’s clothing. Paul similarly taught that members of the Church should “mark” those who use “smooth talk” to create division. And the Anti-Nephi-Lehies were praised as “more wise” for expelling Korihor from Jershon.

The distinction appears to be whether the individual is merely present or attempting to influence others. The tares do not directly harm the growth of the wheat when they mingle together in the field. But the thief does harm the home. And the distinction for Paul appears to be whether the individual is harming the body of Christ or not. 

The question, then, is not whether we should fight or be complicit. The better question is: What action is faithful in a given circumstance?

If time and resources were unlimited, fighting every injustice and wrongdoing we come across might have merit. But they’re not. And often, the more fruitful work is disengaging from online controversy and focusing on building our families and our wards.

This calculus can become complicated for people who are themselves building platforms and seeking audience engagement and buy-in. In that space, “stirring up” people is the bread and butter of algorithm bait.

In the Book of Mormon, Satan is forever stirring people up—stirring them up to anger, fear, pride, and resentment. Prophets, on the other hand, spent much less time telling the faithful to panic about enemies and boundaries.

In our social media spaces, we can oppose evil and still become useful to it. We can drive feelings of grievance, division, fear, and anger. Confident disciples can be fierce without being frantic. We can choose our ground where we can make a real difference in the world. We can understand our role and our sphere of influence. And we can refuse to let our enemies dictate the disposition of our spirits.

Roles are important here. The gospel commands mercy and justice, but not always from the same person. When I am insulted, my role is to turn the other cheek, and Christ’s is to provide justice. But when I’m responsible for someone’s safety, my role may require more direct and immediate intervention. Parents, bishops, congregants, social media influencers, apostles, and Church communications specialists each play different roles in the kingdom of God’s larger mission. When we demand that communications specialists act like apostles, or when social media influencers take it upon themselves to act like bishops, we are ultimately making it more difficult for the work of God to move forward.

Paul teaches a similar principle to the Corinthians in his extended metaphor comparing the church to a body. He says that if eyes were trying to be ears the body wouldn’t function. And in his follow-up epistle he explains that we should remain, “within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us.”

Evil, for all its swagger, is parasitic. It creates nothing. It steals, corrupts, and consumes. The Gadianton robbers survived only while there were productive Nephites to steal from. Once good Nephites disappeared, so did the robbers. 

Goodness works differently. It generates. It feeds, heals, teaches, builds, shelters, ministers, and multiplies. Its most important work is quiet. But it produces the kind of durable realities that evil simply cannot manufacture. 

That doesn’t mean evil is bound to disappear any time soon. In fact, we know it will disappear only in the end times. And in the meantime, it crushes people. Protection, law, boundaries, and discipline are necessary. 

But to come back to our initial metaphor, pruning should be done by a gardener. A wise gardener understands the importance of pruning, but also doesn’t overreact and harm the overall integrity of the plant. Most gardening isn’t pruning, after all; it’s watering, feeding, strengthening, and waiting. 

Building the Church is the same. 

The post Stewardship Beyond the Screen appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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I sometimes wonder if some Latter-day Saints—myself included—are a little too casual about the truth of eternal families. Perhaps we are a little too comfortable with this doctrine, taking it for granted and rarely feeling the awe it should inspire. Is it possible that sometimes we are even under condemnation for treating this sacred doctrine too lightly?

“The Family: A Proclamation to the World” boldly articulates the doctrine that the family is an eternal and divine unit originating with a divine heritage:

Each [of us] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. … The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for . . . families to be united eternally.

The fact that our families can be eternal, not just mortal, is one of God’s greatest gifts to those who choose the covenant path. One reason for this is that difficult life circumstances, both historically and in the present, have often made it hard to fully realize our aspirations for our marital and family relationships in this life. Eternity can give us the “time” and “space” we lacked in mortality to build the deep and loving bonds we yearn for. 

When Mortal Life Ends Too Soon

For most of human history, the specter of death haunted family relationships. The very act of bringing life into the world was fraught with mortal danger; the risk of death for women from multiple pregnancies was much higher than it is today. I see this phenomenon reflected in my own genealogical records. I have great-great-grandparents who lost each of their first four children within a few days of birth. The promise of eternal family relationships must be especially sweet to our ancestors who often had precious little time together in this mortal life.

And it’s not just children who leave us early. My ancestor Lydia lost a beloved husband. After Lydia’s conversion in the early days of the restored Church, she met Newel Knight in Kirtland, where he was laboring to build the temple. Lydia married Newel, and their marriage helped to bring her out of a deep depression from the early death of her first child and abandonment by her abusive first husband. Before leaving Nauvoo in that cold winter of 1846, Lydia and Newel were sealed as an eternal family in the half-finished Nauvoo Temple. But a year later, in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, Newel became deathly ill while living in a dugout hillside shelter. Lydia pleaded with the Lord to heal her beloved husband, as He had raised her from her deathbed on two previous occasions. But no miraculous healing was granted, and Newel begged Lydia to let him go. She relented, and Newel soon died, leaving Lydia, who was pregnant with their seventh child, and six children. The hope of an eternal reunion for Newel and Lydia after a mortal marriage cut short is another reason we can appreciate the gift that our families can continue in eternity.

These experiences remind me that I don’t want family relationships to be reduced to memories. Memories are mechanisms to bridge the time until we can experience those relationships again, coupled with eternal glory.

What Eternity Still May Repair

In my studies of the social history of families, the concept of romantic marriage, although present in many cultures throughout history, was not a pervasive cultural expectation until the 19th century, when Lydia and Newel married. The conditions of marriage and family life throughout much of human history gave many couples little chance of becoming one as we understand it today. Will their eternal lives be a continuation of the relational austerity of their mortal circumstances? I don’t think so. I sense that beyond mortality they will enjoy the blessing of building the warmth, affection, and oneness with one another that too often had to remain a distant priority in their mortal lives. As I perform proxy ordinance work on behalf of ancestors, I can better appreciate what this work could mean to them, and how it can facilitate building exalted family relationships.

I remember a comment my father made many years ago upon the death of my grandmother, a few years after my grandfather had passed away. He said he hoped they would now find the intimacy and warmth that eluded them in the difficult circumstances of their mortal life together.

In our modern times, too, life’s circumstances can make it difficult to become fully one in marriage. I have met spouses who, having discovered that they did not marry Prince or Princess Charming, still choose each day to treat each other as a person of divine heritage and destiny. Out of such actions come the blessings of heaven and deeper feelings of love. Mortality for us—and for our ancestors—is fragile and hard. Marriage is hard, too. I believe this is by design. Our greatest growth comes from gaining the Christlike virtues demanded by the intimacy and constancy of living with the imperfect person we are bound to. I am grateful that we, like our ancestors, will have eternity to overcome imperfections and deepen our marital love. With such hope in mind, I don’t want to be casual about my faith in eternal family relationships.

Binding the Generations

A few years ago, my wife, Lisa, and I went to the temple to seal her father to her mother and herself to both parents. Lisa’s parents divorced when she was young, and she had a very strained relationship with her father. But Lisa was elated to do this temple work. She wasn’t focused on her parents, however, who are unlikely to accept the marriage sealing ordinance offered to them. Instead, she was thrilled to complete the links of the chain of her family’s generations, to be linked as an eternal family to her ancestors. As a convert to the faith, Lisa had, from her earliest years as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, faithfully devoted herself to family history research and temple work for as many of her ancestors as she could find. Now, she is connected to them in an eternal family unit. This has brought tangible joy to her soul.

A brief caveat as I conclude: I know that some feel ambivalent about eternal family relationships. Perhaps you have experienced neglect or serious abuse from a spouse, parent, or sibling, and you don’t yearn for an eternal connection. I don’t pretend that I have the perfect helping words to say. But maybe I can just offer this perspective. First, agency is an eternal, overriding doctrine. All family relationships in eternity will be freely chosen. And I also believe that the healing powers of heaven are powerful and can bring sincere understanding, repentance, forgiveness, and healing, leading to an eternal, perfected love that is hard to achieve in our mortal lives.

Eternal family relationships are a beautiful truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Even in a time when fewer children die in infancy, and many married couples enjoy prosperous circumstances that facilitate intimacy, we can all be more grateful for the blessings of eternal family relationships and exalted love.

The post In Awe of Eternal Families appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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When Texas state representative and current U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico said in a 2021 floor speech, “God is nonbinary,” he was certainly trying to be provocative. 

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, was speaking during a heated political debate about transgender athletes. He described God as “both masculine and feminine and everything in between” before summarizing his point in the phrase that has since gone viral: “God is nonbinary.”

The controversy that followed underscores how the truths of the restored gospel speak to the hearts of so many individuals. For many Christians, the phrase sounded downright blasphemous, even though it represents the rather uncontroversial theology of most Christian denominations, including Presbyterianism, Catholicism, and The United Church of Christ.

I should add, as an aside, that Christians in those traditions might well understand that their doctrine is that God transcends sex and still feel upset that Talarico described that understanding as “non-binary” since that description has become a controversial description of human gender identity. But while it may have evoked controversial phrasing, the actual idea, that God is neither male nor female, is both widely accepted and apparently deeply controversial. 

Enter the restored doctrine of Jesus Christ.

Latter-day Saints React Differently

Latter-day Saints have good reason to be uneasy with the phrase “God is nonbinary.”

For us, God is more than a transcendent spirit or an ultimate reality, He is a literal father. We believe God is personal, embodied, parental, and knowable. We don’t pray to Him as a metaphor, but in relationship with Him. And that conviction is not a footnote to our faith; it is foundational to the way we understand and worship God.

In our worldview, embodiment is not a limitation to overcome, but part of becoming more like our Father in Heaven. And when Genesis proclaims that we are created in the image of God, “male and female,” we believe. And we believe that a gendered embodiment is an essential characteristic of eternal identity.

So when Latter-day Saints hear a statement such as “God is nonbinary,” we don’t just feel a generic discomfort. We understand precisely how and why it is inaccurate to our eternal worldview.

Of course, Latter-day Saints can still choose to vote for Talarico, because they prioritize avoiding corruption or policy alignment over doctrinal agreement. But when it comes to the doctrine, it’s clear that we simply don’t agree, and we know why.

Something Deeper

Romans 8:16 teaches that “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” When it comes to our relationship with God, our instincts often go deeper than theological argumentation or doctrinal lists. God’s children understand a relationship with our Creator instinctively. In our most vulnerable moments, we understand that relationship as parental. When we cry, plead, and worship, we feel the kinship of a child to its parent. We call Him Father not because it is merely one more metaphor, but because He is our Father.

A good number of those who have been scandalized by the phrase formally belong to religious traditions that already deny that God the Father is embodied, biologically male, and physically sexed. In my view, this most likely comes because the objection to Talarico’s declaration goes much deeper than mere doctrine to something so many of us feel instinctively. 

A Restored Answer

This controversy is an opportunity for Latter-day Saints to enter a religious conversation to witness, rather than to mock.

The restored gospel offers answers to the questions that undergird this debate. It answers the longing of so many hearts. 

Is God personal or abstract? Is the body temporary or eternal? Do I have a Father in Heaven? Am I made in God’s image? Is God gendered?

Latter-day Saints have unusually powerful answers to these questions. And we have a unique opportunity when the public square offers a forum to provide those answers. But only if we can avoid the temptation to try to score points for whatever side of the political debate we are on.

The controversy over Talarico’s phrase will likely continue in the usual ways. People talking past each other. Lots of political parties shouting, so no one notices their own candidate. Clipped videos, angry posts, defensive interviews.

But behind it are people hungry for a God who is more than an idea. They may not have a theological language for that hunger, but Latter-day Saints do. And we can offer it to them. 

The world is full of abstractions. The restored gospel gives us a Father.

The post Is God Nonbinary? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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“God would cease to be God.” 

This interesting phrase appears multiple times in the Book of Mormon, often in reference to the balance between opposing forces.

Indeed, the gospel of Jesus Christ consists of many ideas that may appear incompatible. Justice and mercy. Grace and works. Love and laws.

With recent messages from leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about becoming peacemakers, it is the balance of love and laws that I suggest requires more of our focus.

Christ’s Pattern of Love and Truth

We live in a world of polarization, in which we are constantly asked to pick sides. However, we have been taught by prophets, apostles, and the scriptures to love God and love our neighbor—a concept described by President Nelson as upholding both the laws and love of God.

Just recently, President Dallin H. Oaks, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,  taught: 

This balancing is not easy. When we seek to keep all the commandments in our personal lives, we are sometimes accused of having no love for those who don’t. When we show personal love and support loving causes, we are sometimes misunderstood as implying support for results that contradict our other religious duties. But as followers of Christ, we should seek to live peaceably and lovingly with other children of God who do not share our values and do not have the covenant obligations we have assumed.

When we over-focus on one side of the equation, we risk both becoming indifferent to people who need our support and connection and failing to be diligent in our discipleship and defense of eternal doctrines. Both of these traps are inconsistent with the love and character of Christ. Throughout His ministry, we see Christ acknowledging sin as wrong, yet choosing to associate with sinners and form connections with those who would otherwise be outcasts.

Learning What We Lack 

It is so easy to notice in hindsight that the treatment of sinners, publicans, and diseased people in the New Testament by the scribes and Pharisees was wrong, but it can be more difficult to recognize that we sometimes still marginalize or “other-ize” friends, families, and communities today. This may include people who choose to participate in elective abortion, those who identify as LGBTQ+, or even just people who subscribe to different religions, some of whose beliefs may contradict or show contempt towards our own. 

Similarly, it is easy to agree with Christ’s support of His Father’s doctrine and His condemnation of false beliefs in His interactions with hypocritical religious figures and sinners alike. Yet it is sometimes difficult to stand up for those same doctrines when they challenge our worldview or appear to cause pain for people we love. 

How do we actually accomplish this feat? 

It starts with prayer, introspection, and personal revelation. I would propose, in accordance with Dr. Ty Mansfield, that we consider, with the Lord’s help, which side of the equation each of us needs to focus on.

When We Need More Love 

You may discover that you need to increase your implementation of the love of God. As you do, you may find that you can be firmly pro-life and yet empathize with single women who may feel terrified and trapped in their unplanned pregnancies. You may find that you can believe in the divine nature of gender, and still choose to connect and associate with members of the LGBTQ+ community or youth struggling with gender dysphoria who feel marginalized or shunned by religion or society. 

If you feel you don’t struggle with these issues, increasing love for others can take smaller forms as well. For example, perhaps you feel a greater drive to take care of the poor and needy, repair family or ward relationships that have previously struggled, pray more intentionally for a spouse, child, or sibling, or avoid angry retaliations to misinformation online.

When We Need More Law

On the other hand, you may discover that you need to become more diligent in upholding God’s laws. Through diligent prayer and study, you may encounter a growing testimony of the family as essential to God’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children. You may feel an increased faith in and appreciation for temple ordinances, even if they still don’t completely make sense to you, or an expanded comprehension of Jesus Christ’s Atonement—what He suffered for you.

You may feel more confident in sharing your beliefs online or grow less concerned about how others will react to your witness of gospel principles. You may even learn to love and stand firmly behind points of doctrine that have been previously difficult to accept because of their implications for friends, family members, or associates.

Through personal revelation, I discovered that I more often struggle to uphold the laws of God in my concern for other people. For example, I had trouble with some of the Church’s policies surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. Luckily, I found myself in classes at BYU that forced me to dive in and truly study “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” from both secular and religious perspectives. Studying these beautiful doctrines gave me an increased understanding of God’s plan and our place in it and allowed me to find peace between the doctrines I have learned to love and the policies and procedures that still affect me and the people I love.

Perhaps (and likely often), we feel that in some cases we need to focus more on love, while simultaneously in others, the laws of God need more of our attention. The Lord wants us to progress, and I believe He will show us which matters need more of our attention.

In this quest to live as true disciples of Jesus Christ, we do not work alone. The enabling power of His Atonement allows us to become more than we ever thought possible. God operates in a space of balance between opposing forces: “If these things are not there is no God.” In our quest to be like Him, let us learn to live within these seeming incompatibilities, building bridges between God, ourselves, and others. This is the work of becoming true peacemakers.

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It matters what kind of God we believe in. Mortality can feel heavy. Bodies hurt, hearts break, and even the most faithful can feel worn down. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worship a God who is not distant, abstract, or unknowable, like in much of creedal Christianity. 

Yet our ability to imagine a God who can literally hug us has become almost common, so ingrained in our imaginations and beliefs, that we may not always notice how deeply it shapes our worship, our understanding of our body, and our sense of divine identity. The truth that God is embodied offers more than a theological quirk to Latter-day Saints and also provides intimacy, dignity, and hope. 

In practice, it may seem as if belief in an embodied God does not make a difference in religious life. The physical act of prayer doesn’t appear to change whether the believer holds an image of God as an embodied being, or as the feeling or presence of love, support, or guidance. Commandments don’t read any differently whether they were spoken by God’s voice or given through inspiration. 

The vast majority of people who have ever lived, even those who believe in a corporeal God, have not seen or interacted with Him physically, nor do they expect to, until after their own physical life has ended. That being the case, why is this doctrine of an embodied God so important, and how does it change Latter-day Saint worship and understanding of our own divine physical identities?

What Is Corporeality?

Corporeality, or embodiment, points to the form and physicality we are familiar with in our own bodies and suggests the capability for interaction. Corporeal beings can share a location in space, exert influence on, and be influenced by, physical surroundings, and communicate through sound, touch, and motion.

Though we don’t know exactly what embodiment entails for divine beings, Genesis 6:6 and Moses 7:28 describe God experiencing grief and weeping over the wickedness of His children. Other scriptures describe His anger and jealousy—negative emotions rooted in disappointment towards His children’s rejection of Him. God’s work and glory in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man is not a pain-free experience, even for Him. 

God, of course, is not miserable in His work with His children, and is said to rejoice alongside heaven in many scriptural instances. 

These emotional elements, along with the physical qualities of corporeality, allow for radical closeness and  between humans and divinity through shared form and varying degrees of shared experience. The doctrine of a corporeal God changes the nature of the relationship a human being can have with their creator, lessening the gap between us and the divine.

Our Understanding of God’s Embodiment

However, because we are fallen humans living in a mortal world, this view of God comes with some problems. By relating too closely to Him, we can make “God in our own image,” and assign Him inappropriate expressions we see in our fellow mortal family members, friends, and associates. In this way, the doctrine of corporeality can lead us to lose the sense of wonder, respect, and even fear for the greatness of the Divine that inspired Isaiah to cry “Woe is me,” and Moses to declare “man is nothing,” along with the praise, celebration, and adoration expressed through psalms, poems, and hymns. God may have a physical body, but His glory exceeds our familiar mortal experience. Recognizing this difference inspires the awe and desire necessary to worship Him reverently.

The exact nature of divine embodiment hasn’t been revealed to us, but we see suggestions of its nature in the scriptures. Doctrine and Covenants 93:34 tells us that we are incapable of receiving a fullness of joy unless our spirits and bodies are united. Resurrected bodies will be immortal and perfectly restored, down to the very hairs of our heads.

Despite this, Jesus Christ’s resurrected body retained His scars. Following His resurrection, Christ was also capable of eating food, feeling troubled, and changing his mind. We don’t know exactly what perfection in bodily form looks like, but the Greek word teleios, used in the Bible to convey perfection, can also be translated as complete or mature, suggesting similarity and continuation of experiences in mortality.

Does God Deserve Worship?

God inspires intense respect for His majesty and power. His love and compassion for his children also inspire reverence. These qualities move Latter-day Saints towards the worship of Him. The etymological source of the word “worship” originates in the Old English weorðscipe, from its root weorð, meaning “worthy.” To worship is to give reverence and respect to the being we recognize as worthy of our devotion. The nature of what and who we worship is therefore tied to the nature of that being.

A person could, in theory, worship a god who is cruel, as long as that god was also powerful enough to inspire devotion and respect purely out of fear. However, while this god could reward his followers for their adoration, he would not inspire a genuine relationship, nor would he be likely to inspire the qualities of love and compassion within them. In the case of our God, both expressions of the qualities we already respect, often referred to as spontaneous worship, and commanded worship, directing us towards what we ought to revere, are both possible.

Our rational minds may be imperfect and liable to error, yet we were given the ability to recognize and seek truth by God, for the purpose of understanding Him and His plan. The image of a god completely outside the realm of human understanding is a god that is difficult to relate to, emulate, and even obey.

How Can You Worship an Embodied God?

To worship a corporeal God is to adore, respect, and honor Him in his corporeality, which can be extended to inspire honor and respect of our own corporeality. Through this, we can more actively and intentionally strive to emulate God. Instead of seeing our bodies as a source of separation, we can see them as a source of connection between Him and us. In a sense, we are divine (or like God) because we are embodied. To mutilate, abuse, or mistreat our bodies denigrates an aspect of our inherent divinity.

Beyond our physical bodies, this respect can extend to all aspects of our embodied experience, including our emotions and sensations. We connect with divinity in our ability to feel both joy and sadness, to see beauty and mess, and to hear harmony and discord. In Matthew 5:48 and 3 Nephi 12:48, we are commanded to be perfect like our Father, or if the alternative translation is used, to be complete or mature. The best aspects of being embodied on this earth—sensations, emotional intimacy, our capability to move, create, and work—as well as pain, must also be similar to the completion or maturity that comes with godlike perfection. As Latter-day Saints, our worship includes obedience to a health code, showing respect for sexual intimacy, and providing for the needs of others when we are able to. This lifestyle encourages respect for our bodies and becomes more clearly inspired when our corporeality is viewed as a connection to the divine.

In addition to the unique ways in which we approach the embodied experience, the worship of our corporeal God encourages prioritization of human relationships. To know that God feels with us and works with us to overcome the challenges of mortality on a physical level allows for a closer and more personal relationship with Him. In the best cases, our relationships with other humans can mirror the attributes of a corporeal living God. Through our belief in an embodied God, we are more able to view ourselves, in our own corporeal state, as capable of becoming like Him.

Though imperfect, our attempts to emulate these qualities in our worship lead us to treasure the good and work through the bad in our human relationships, for the “same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there…coupled with eternal glory.”

 The worship of a corporeal God inspires the kind of relationship with Him and with our fellow human beings that can transform both our mortal and eternal corporeal existence.

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About a year ago, I wrote an article titled “Like Eve and Mary: The Story of Motherhood.” It explored the archetypal relationship between mothers and God. The response was generous and encouraging—but one question kept returning: What is the story of fatherhood?

I was determined to discover the answer. Yet it did not come to me as clearly as the Story of Motherhood had. Oddly, I found it difficult to locate direct communication between God and men in the Bible. Much of what we learn is conveyed through narrative rather than dialogue. Even in places where one might expect patriarchal communication—such as the prophetic era of Isaac—scriptures focus more on Rebekah. The Story of Fatherhood did not seem to announce itself as naturally or visibly as the Story of Motherhood.

Then it became obvious to me.

At least for me, one profound way of reading scripture had come into view: The Bible from beginning to end tells the story of fatherhood. 

Strikingly, the defining moments of that relationship are not spoken. They are not marked by what the Father says, but rather by what He does not say.

In fact, the Story of Fatherhood is told, in some of its most piercing moments, through the Father’s silence.

The first such moment unfolds in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before the crucifixion. Christ, crushed beneath the weight of the world’s suffering, cries out: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me…” The second is similar. While on the cross, He gives voice to another agonizing plea: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

In both moments, Heaven is silent.

That silence—that salvific silence—is not abandonment. Our calling is not to withhold ourselves from our children, but to remain present, while accepting the real cost of loving them well. Silence, in these moments, does not equate to absence. It is restraint. It is submission. It is love that refuses the immediate in pursuit of the eternal.

As Christians, we rightly speak often of the sacrifice of the Son. Far less do we dwell on the sacrifice of the Father. What must it have been like for Him to hear the cries of His perfect Son and do nothing? This silence is not evidence of cruelty, distance, or apathy. It is evidence of love: a love so grand and pure, one willing to forgo the rescue of one in order to secure the redemption of many.

The Father certainly desired to let that cup pass—or so I can only imagine—but He chose not to. Why? Because the salvation of His children hung in the balance. Few have captured the cost of that choice more vividly and more strikingly than Elder Melvin J. Ballard, a mid-century apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even He could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room so as not to look upon the last struggles, so He bowed His head and hid in some part of His universe, His great heart almost breaking for the love that He had for His Son. Oh, in that moment when He might have saved His Son, I thank Him and praise Him that He did not fail us, for He had not only the love of His Son in mind, but He also had love for us. I rejoice that He did not interfere, and that His love for us made it possible for Him to endure to look upon the sufferings of His Son and give Him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. Without Him, without His sacrifice, we would have remained, and we would never have come glorified into His presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in Heaven to give the gift of His Son unto men.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son.” We read those words often, yet too rarely with any appreciation for the gravity of what was given—or what it cost the Father to give it.

While this vastly oversimplifies, if the Story of Motherhood is one of celestial submission, then the Story of Fatherhood is one of celestial sacrifice.

What, then, are fathers asked to sacrifice?

The word sacrifice comes from the Latin sacer (sacred) and facere (to make): to make sacred. In its holiest form, sacrifice is the laying down of one’s life for another, as Christ did for us. Few of us will ever be asked to do that. Many of us, I would think, would be willing if we were.

I am a father. I would die for my children and for my wife.

But is that what is being asked of me?

There is a song by The Hunts titled “Please Let It Go,” in which one line confesses, “I was willing to die but I wouldn’t kneel.” Those lyrics haunt me, cut me to my core, each time I hear them. They are painfully true. I am willing to die—but am I willing to surrender my temper when it wounds the ones who matter the absolute most to me? I am willing to die—but am I willing to give up my vices for the sake of my marriage? I am willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, pay the ultimate price, as some would put it. But does that mean anything when I hesitate to make the necessary one today?

I have spent my entire professional career working with men who have been incarcerated. There is one central theme I see repeatedly: father wounds. Again and again, I meet men who grew up without the steady sacrifice children need from their fathers. Luckily, I did not grow up that way. 

I had a father who was willing to sacrifice.

I saw it most clearly the day my father was going through his deepest, darkest moment. In the midst of awaiting news that would change his life forever, I saw him writing. He was writing letters—to me and my siblings. In the moment his future hung in the balance, he was thinking only of ours. In the letter to me, he wrote:

Son, please don’t let all this mess drag you down… We have the gospel, priesthood, and Spirit in our home. In the big picture of things, we both know this stuff just doesn’t matter. What does matter? Your relationship with your Father in Heaven. Your relationship with Jesus Christ. Your relationship with your family. Does anything else really matter?

I am a father now. I have two wonderful children. I am writing my own Story of Fatherhood, and I can only hope I am doing it well.

About a year ago, my wife, my children, and I were at the lake with some friends. Lost in conversation, my wife and I unfortunately failed to watch our children as closely as we should have. I noticed my six-year-old son drifting farther from shore. He could swim—but not well enough for where he was headed.

Not wanting to overreact, I watched.

Too long.

Then he began to struggle. He went under. When his head broke the surface again, a single word rang across the water—one I will never forget.

“DADA!”

I was far away, but already running. I hit the sand, dove into the murky water, and searched blindly, prayer pounding in my chest. I reached where I had last seen him.

Nothing.

Then I saw small hands grabbing at a nearby paddleboard. I grabbed the hands and pulled with everything I had left. My son was in my arms—but my work was not yet finished. I kicked to shore, lifted him over my arm, and smacked his back until he coughed and was breathing again.

I looked at my son, and he met my gaze with tear-filled eyes. He whispered, “Dada, why did you leave me?”

I could not answer. I just held him.

“I never left,” I finally said through tears. “I was watching the whole time. I am so sorry I could not get there sooner.”

I am not a perfect father. But there is one thing I do know: there is nothing—no, nothing—that would have kept me from reaching my son that day.

And that knowledge always leaves me wondering.

How did the Father—perfect in all His being—show such restraint when His own Son, suffering, cried out, “Abba,” “Papa,” or even, “Dada?”

The post The Story of Fatherhood appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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In 2018, then-President Russell M. Nelson emphasized that church members should use the correct name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since then, the Church has updated its website address and social media account names, and it has encouraged Latter-day Saints everywhere to follow this prophetic direction when speaking with others about the Church. President Nelson’s instruction was accompanied by a promise of blessings:

I promise you that if we will do our best to restore the correct name of the Lord’s Church, He whose Church this is will pour down His power and blessings upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints, the likes of which we have never seen. We will have the knowledge and power of God to help us take the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people and to prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord.

Since President Nelson’s reemphasis, much attention has been devoted to recentering Christ in the name of His Church. These discussions and efforts have sought to realize the promised blessings associated with the prophet’s counsel. Yet an additional, and often overlooked, opportunity remains—more intentionally centering Christ in everyday conversation.

As we begin to make a habit of referring to ourselves as Latter-day Saints rather than simply members of the Church, we can more fully realize the blessings associated with President Nelson’s counsel. This article examines three ways in which the title “Latter-day Saint” can influence personal discipleship, shape relationships, and reflect our devotion to our Savior. 

What Calling Ourselves Latter-day Saints Does for Us

It’s true that the Church-approved term “Latter-day Saint” does not include Christ’s name directly. But the phrase “Latter-day Saints” evokes an aspirational attitude toward following Christ. King Benjamin invites us to become “a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord” (Mosiah 3:19). If we are to be saints in these latter days, we must strive to follow Moroni’s final invitation to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness” (Moroni 10:32).

In other words, “Saint” is a word that directly points to Christ. “Saint” is not a neutral label but a holy and demanding one. In my conversations with close Catholic friends, I’ve been impressed by the view of saints within their tradition. While our understanding of saints differs from that of our Catholic friends, recognizing the goodness and selfless service they honor in the saints can provide a useful point of reflection. We should each strive to be exemplary in the way we follow the Savior. As the Lord said unto Moses on Mount Sinai: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

Each week, as we take the sacrament, we bear witness that we are willing to take Christ’s name upon us. Shouldn’t calling ourselves Latter-day Saints be one way of doing so? Using this title can inspire us to live in a holier way of following Christ.

What Calling Ourselves Latter-day Saints Says to Others

Since the renewed emphasis on using the correct name of the restored Church of Jesus Christ (including approved shorthands on second reference), responses from the broader public have been mixed. Although some news outlets have adopted the Church’s style guide and use its full name on first reference, many do not. And others, unfortunately, continue to refer to members as Mormons. 

Among fellow Latter-day Saints, I most commonly hear references to one another as “members” or “members of the Church.” While understandable within the Latter-day Saint community, these labels lack context when used with those outside our faith. When talking with neighbors and coworkers, a more descriptive identifier is often needed to distinguish The Church of Jesus Christ from other denominations. In these cases, what name should be used to describe members of the Church?

The Church’s style guide lists the following as preferred names:

• “members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
• “Latter-day Saints”
• “members of the Church of Jesus Christ”
• “members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ”

Of these options, “Latter-day Saint” is arguably the most likely to be adopted by our friends and neighbors. Besides its relatively short length, with even fewer syllables than the frequently used “member of the Church,” the “Latter-day Saint” tag comes with an additional benefit. It also works naturally as both a noun and an adjective. Phrases like “I’m a Latter-day Saint” and “Within the Latter-day Saint community” both work, just as one might use the names Lutheran, Catholic, or, previously, Mormon as both a noun and an adjective. Because we want others to adopt the Church’s preferred references, using one that more easily fits familiar speaking patterns, as “Latter-day Saint” does, may encourage broader use.

Using the Latter-day Saint moniker in our daily conversations also strengthens our argument for others to use the Church’s full name in broader contexts. “Latter-day Saints” is a part of the full name of the Church, and by using that identifier, we can draw ourselves and our listeners closer to the centerpiece of our worship, Jesus Christ. President Nelson modeled a simple answer we can use when we are asked whether we are Latter-day Saints: “Yes, I am. I believe in Jesus Christ and am a member of His restored Church.” 

His talk also reinforces the need to use the proper names among ourselves.

The rest of the world may or may not follow our lead in calling us by the correct name. But it is disingenuous for us to be frustrated if most of the world calls the Church and its members by the wrong names if we do the same.

Since President Nelson’s reemphasis, the contrast between those who have updated their terminology and those who continue to use the term Mormon has grown. In news and entertainment media, how the Church is referenced often signals the extent to which a source has carefully engaged with the Church. If blogs, podcasts, or popular TV shows continue using the term Mormon after repeated, clear requests from Church leadership and publications, it is a clue that they have not put effort into accurately portraying the Church. Many of us can likely think of a media outlet that clings to the use of the name Mormon for sensational reasons.

To me, President Nelson’s instruction to recenter Christ’s name well before the recent renewed public attention to Latter-day Saints (much of which still gets basic components of our faith incorrect) signifies his call as a prophet. In a contemporary media environment, where sensitivity to preferred names and self-identification has become increasingly prominent, using the name Mormon as a default descriptor sends a clear signal about a speaker, show, or publication’s attitudes and goals.

I also have several friends who have left the Church. Some still refer to church members as Mormons, even after I have expressed a preference for the term Latter-day Saints. I am not always sure what this decision means, but the terminology my friends choose often reveals how much care and consideration they take in expressing their attitudes towards the Church.

If we truly want others to stop calling us Mormons—and to start using the full name of the Church and preferred shorthands—then consistently calling ourselves Latter-day Saints is a great first step. It subtly reminds us of the other half of the Church’s name, Jesus Christ, and marks us as His followers.

What Calling Ourselves Latter-day Saints Shows the Lord

Calling ourselves Latter-day Saints is not an imperative, and the prophet and apostles use terms like “church members” frequently. I am not advocating that this term become a phylactery, or something we focus on so intently that we miss the mark and lose sight of the end goal.

But I do think that calling ourselves Latter-day Saints, even in casual conversation with other Church members, can do a few more things for us. Our earnest attempts to do so can show the Lord our hearts, our desire to be connected to Him, and our effort to follow President Nelson’s admonition. This small outward expression can suggest our greater inward commitment to follow Jesus Christ. Nephi delighted in plainness and taught that the Lord speaks to us according to our language and understanding, and we can emulate Him as we seek to do the same.

Finally, I want to once again look at the blessing promised by President Nelson: if we do our best to restore the correct name of the Lord’s Church, “He whose Church this is will pour down His power and blessings upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints.”

Notice who those blessings are for: the Latter-day Saints.

As we take upon ourselves the Latter-day Saint title, we can more clearly see ourselves in the Church, become perfected in Christ, and tie ourselves to Him through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By referring to ourselves in this way, we speak with plainness and open the door for others to use the full name of the Church. As we think of ourselves as Latter-day Saints, we take His name upon us and show our desire to follow Him and receive all the blessings prepared for His Saints.

The post Called to Be Saints appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Sometimes a controversy can be smaller than it first appears, but still worth taking seriously. The recent brouhaha over the Pentagon’s religious-affiliation codes fits into that category. 

You may have heard of this controversy from Latter-day Saint lawmakers pushing back against the new categorization. 

The Department of Defense revised an administrative list of religious-affiliation codes. These are codes used in personnel records and to help plan how many chaplains of each type they need. 

The new list went from more than 200 different religions down to 31. Of those 31, many were listed as “Christian – ” with the name of the faith group appended after the title Christian. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed as one of the 31 groups, but it did not have the label “Christian” appended to the front.

That’s certainly reasonable. And the new list should include broad enough categories that almost every service member should find something that suits them.

But it’s that “Christian” label that has caused some of the frustration. Latter-day Saints do not believe that the question of our Christianity is a secondary concern. We view our entire faith as centered on the life, ministry, and divinity of Jesus Christ. 

And this is not merely a bureaucratic question for Latter-day Saints.

Latter-day Saints affirm the Christianity articulated in the New Testament by Christ Himself and His apostles. They reject the later creedal formulations. But in those traditions, it was those creeds that helped define their faith and allowed it to survive. The majority of Christian faiths have grown out of the movements of the leaders who formed those creeds.

The Church of Jesus Christ, however, is a restorationist faith. Meaning it attempts to go around the creedal Christianity and back to a more original form. 

That’s a real religious difference, and not one that we should easily pass over. Most people who are acting in good faith describe it as either creedal Christianity or other/non-creedal Christianity. But many attempt to say that anyone who does not conform to the creeds is not a Christian. This is obviously a spurious argument. By this definition, early Church fathers such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Origen of Alexandria, not to mention Jesus and His apostles, would all be excluded as Christians. But it is also a real issue that Latter-day Saints continue to face in their day-to-day life as they are excluded from schools, service organizations, and interfaith groups while being told they are not Christian. So it is natural that these new Department of Defense religious-affiliation codes would evoke strong feelings.

Here is what is important to note about these codes. They are not a theological determination. There are other non-creedal Christian groups that have been listed with the “Christian” label, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists. 

One of the functions of chaplains in the U.S. Military is to provide religious rites and ordinances for members as needed. For Latter-day Saints, these ordinances require priesthood authority that, according to the teachings of the Church, chaplains of other faiths would not have. So, distinguishing between Latter-day Saints and other Christians was already happening. Of course, it also happened between Protestants and Catholics, but that did not appear on the list. 

But it was also a good reminder for Latter-day Saints that there remain certain fundamentalist and Christian nationalist voices that exclude Latter-day Saints. And we would do well to continue to heed the advice of Church leaders in pursuing religious freedom, rather than aligning ourselves with Christian nationalist causes that, among other shortcomings, would likely exclude us from their definitions.

And it’s in that light that we should probably best respond to the Pentagon controversy. The issue for Latter-day Saints was largely symbolic. But for many faiths, including Rosicrucianism, Wicca, and Unitarian Universalism, recognition has gone away altogether by being omitted from the list. 

A Wiccan sailor may have ritual needs, seasonal observance, or community ties that are not obvious to a generic chaplain in “other.” Unitarian Universalists have very distinct beliefs that can be complicated for even well-meaning individuals to understand. A small tradition can still hold existential importance to the person who belongs to it.

This list does not remove the religious freedom rights of these service members. Religious accommodations are still protected by law and policy. This list cannot change that. This does not change the religion that can appear on a dog tag, or the practices that must be allowed. But for people who are often away from home for the first time, this change can mean they may be left adrift without important spiritual support. In my opinion, properly responding to the spiritual needs of our troops should be a high priority, and perhaps even worth a bit of bureaucratic confusion. 

The post Christianity by Administrative Code appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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God does not leave His children to navigate mortality without help.

This idea practically screams from the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

We are given commandments. We are given the gift of the Holy Ghost. We are given scripture. We are given prophets and covenants and ordinances. We are given bishops and other leaders. 

There are also the gifts of the Spirit. In particular helping with this task is the gift of discernment. Discernment can loom large in Latter-day Saint culture. 

Discernment is a gift that helps us perceive reality in the light of the Spirit. Jesus demonstrated it frequently when he was able to perceive the true thoughts of those he came in contact with. 

It helps those it is given to distinguish truth from error, sincerity from performance, wisdom from impulse, and spiritual influence from counterfeit. It is not simply a gift for detecting danger; it can help us minister better, helping us perceive burdens, possibilities, and hidden goodness. 

Spiritual Gifts Are for the Body of Christ

Doctrine and Covenants 46 places discernment within a broader theology of spiritual gifts. The Lord teaches that gifts come from God “for the benefit of the children of God.” It is listed broadly among the gifts that can be given.

The same section also specifically includes that this gift is given to bishops so the Saints are not misled by false claims of spiritual gifts. 

Discernment is not introduced as a private superpower. It is part of the Lord’s effort to bless, order, protect, and edify the Church.

Paul teaches a similar principle in 1 Corinthians 12. Spiritual gifts are distributed across the body of Christ. No single member possesses the whole body’s wisdom, and no single gift exhausts the Spirit’s work. That means discernment is best understood not as an isolated talent possessed by a few, but as one part of a larger divine economy in which God blesses His people through many members, many gifts, and many forms of inspired service.

Discernment is framed to be about service in building the kingdom of God. It is given so the body of Christ can be protected, guided, humbled, and healed.

Discernment Is Broader Than Detecting Evil

Elder David A. Bednar, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has offered one of the most helpful modern explanations of the gift. Drawing on earlier teachings, he describes discernment as operating in four major ways. 1) It can help us detect hidden error or evil in others. 2) More importantly, it can help us detect hidden error or evil in ourselves. 3) It can help us find concealed good in others. 4) And it can help us find concealed good in ourselves.

That four-part framework is crucial.

Many cultural conversations about discernment focus almost entirely on the first function: detecting what is wrong with someone else. But Elder Bednar’s description gives us a much richer and more Christian account.

Discernment may help a parent sense that a child’s anger is really fear. It may help a Relief Society president recognize that a sister’s distance is not indifference but exhaustion. It may help a bishop perceive that a confession needs less interrogation and more mercy. It may help a missionary see spiritual hunger beneath defensiveness. It may help a disciple recognize that his own “righteous concern” is actually pride.

The highest form of discernment may not be the ability to expose people. It may be the ability to see them truthfully enough to call forth their better selves.

That is a profoundly Christlike gift.

Christ saw hypocrisy, but He also saw faith. He saw sin, but He also saw repentance. He saw Peter’s denial, but He also saw Peter’s future. He saw Zacchaeus in a tree and called him into a transformed life. He saw the woman taken in adultery as a soul to be rescued.

Discernment, in this sense, is not merely suspicion sharpened by religion. It is perception purified by charity.

Discernment and Judgment

The classic biblical image of discernment may be Solomon’s prayer for “an understanding heart.” Solomon did not ask to become omniscient. He asked for wisdom to judge rightly between good and bad. Discernment is tied to judgment, humility, and stewardship.

The Church’s current Handbook uses similar language when speaking of bishops and stake presidents. It says that, in their role helping members repent, these leaders are blessed with the spiritual gift of discernment, which helps them “discern truth, understand a member’s heart, and identify his or her needs.”

That is a meaningful promise. Bishops and stake presidents are not merely administrators. They are called and set apart to serve as judges in Israel. In that role, they may receive spiritual help beyond their own natural insight.

A bishop who discerns well may be better able to answer the question “What does this child of God need to come closer to Christ?”

Discernment Can Grow

Discernment is a spiritual gift, but like most spiritual gifts, that does not mean it bypasses ordinary faithful effort.

Bednar connects discernment with being “quick to observe”—the capacity to notice and obey. In another teaching on revelation, he explains that some revelation comes suddenly, like light filling a dark room, while the more common pattern is gradual, like the slow increase of light at sunrise.

In my experience, that is often how discernment works in real life. 

Sometimes a bishop, parent, missionary, or friend may receive a sudden prompting. A question comes to mind. A name appears in prayer. A warning feeling interrupts an ordinary moment. These experiences of direct and sudden discernment are real, but are not universal or to be expected at every moment. 

Discernment often develops more quietly. It comes through listening over time. It comes through knowing the scriptures, asking better questions, noticing patterns, and learning from prior mistakes. For leaders, it can grow through studying the Handbook or honoring confidences.

A leader who listens carefully is not relying less on revelation than one who waits for an unexpected impression. A ward council that gathers information, counsels together, and prays over real people is not replacing revelation with process. It may be creating the conditions in which revelation, or spiritual discernment, can be recognized.

Discernment Belongs to Councils

One of the most important correctives to an overly narrow view of discernment is the doctrine of councils.

In a worldwide leadership training discussion, fellow apostle Elder M. Russell Ballard taught that no one person knows all the answers to every question and that councils allow leaders to draw on inspiration from various members. Bednar added that it is a mistaken notion that every element of ward revelation must come through the bishop. By virtue of his keys, the bishop directs and affirms, but he does not need to receive “every jot and tittle” of revelation himself. He also observed that discernment operates more effectively when a presiding officer listens rather than dominates.

The doctrine of discernment taught by these leaders is a mature and deeply grounded one. The gift of discernment works best when joined to humility, councils, and the gifts of others.

The Myth of the Magical Bishop

In some Latter-day Saint conversations, discernment has been imagined in a way that is much narrower, more automatic, and more dramatic than the scriptures require or even imply. This expectation shows up both among some believing members and among some critics of the Church.

The assumption goes like this: if bishops and other leaders have the gift of discernment, then they should be able to detect hidden sin, deception, danger, or unworthiness with perfect reliability. Under that assumption, every missed warning sign becomes evidence that the gift is not real.

There is an assumption that the only way for the Church to be true is for no bishop to ever miss anything. This is not a straw man. It is a recognizable criticism that proliferates in spaces where people have become disillusioned with the Church, perhaps in part because they expected something more like the magic of Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth or Professor X’s telepathy than the spiritual gifts of the New Testament. 

Similar questions arise in pastoral and abuse contexts. If God can provide discernment in some cases, why doesn’t he provide it every time it could help alleviate pain or prevent deception?

These concerns deserve empathy. They often come from pain. But they also reveal a misunderstanding of the gift.

A grounded Christian understanding of discernment does not require bishops to be miraculously perfect. It does not treat a calling as a guarantee of constant supernatural detection. It does not make revelation a substitute for confession, evidence, councils, law, policy, or the moral responsibility to speak and act.

The magical version says, “If God is involved, the bishop should just know.”

The Christian version says, “Because God is involved, the bishop should pray, listen, counsel, study, ask, follow the Handbook, protect the vulnerable, receive correction, and seek the Spirit.”

Those are very different models.

A Better Practice

A better doctrine of discernment leads to better practice.

For members, it means we should not outsource honesty to a leader’s supposed ability to detect truth. A person confessing sin should tell the truth because discipleship requires truthfulness, not because the bishop might catch him. A person who needs help should not assume, “If God wanted the bishop to know, he would know.” Sometimes the Spirit prompts a leader. Sometimes the Lord expects us to speak.

For bishops and stake presidents, it means spiritual impressions should be received humbly. The Handbook itself makes this clear. In matters involving serious sin, a bishop or stake president may receive promptings, but if a member denies an accusation, “a spiritual impression alone is not sufficient” to hold a membership council. Leaders are instructed to gather appropriate information and avoid unlawful or inappropriate methods.

That is not a lack of faith in discernment. It is disciplined faith in discernment. It is realizing that when you learned in third grade that multiplication makes numbers bigger, and then learned in fifth grade that you can multiply by fractions, no one was lying to you; the full reality is just more nuanced than you learned on the first pass. 

If there was an example where you wish the gift of discernment had been present, but it wasn’t, that does disprove a simplistic version of the gift of discernment, but it can help you move to a more mature, fuller understanding of how gifts of the Spirit work. 

Seeing as Christ Sees

The gift of discernment is one of the great gifts of the Spirit because discipleship requires more than eyesight.

We need to distinguish spiritual light from counterfeit light. We need to recognize our own self-deception. We need to see hidden goodness in people we are tempted to dismiss. We need to understand when correction is needed and when mercy is needed. We need to know when to speak, when to listen, when to wait, and when to act.

Bishops need that gift. So do parents. So do all of us. But we need discernment not because leaders are flawless, but because none of us are. Discernment is not merely the power to see what is wrong. It is the grace to see more nearly as Christ sees.

The post The Discipline of Spiritual Sight appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints find themselves in a most unusual position. We believe in God, the Eternal Father. We believe in Jesus Christ, accept his gospel, acknowledge him as Savior, Lord, God, and King. We look to him for forgiveness of our sins and declare that salvation comes in and through his name and in no other way (Philippians 2:9-11). We strive to live our lives according to his example and teachings and are committed to the fact that the depth of our Christianity is most evident, not in theological gymnastics, nor in a received vocabulary, but rather in the way we treat other men and women. We exercise hope in the immortality of the soul, a belief that we will live again after death, because Jesus himself rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). And yet, interestingly, many in Christendom declare that the Latter-day Saints are not Christian.

Reasons for Exclusion

Non-acceptance of the Doctrine of the Trinity

Perhaps more than any other reason, Latter-day Saints aren’t considered to be Christian because of our non-acceptance of the post-New Testament creeds and theological formulations concerning Christ and the Godhead, beginning with the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Latter-day Saints do believe there are three members of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that each of the members of the Godhead possesses all of the attributes of Godliness in perfection; and that the love and unity that exist among these three Persons is of such magnitude that they constitute a divine community that is often referred to in the Book of Mormon as “one eternal God” (see 2 Nephi 31:21; Alma 11:44; 3 Nephi 11:27, 36; 28:10; Mormon 7:7). 

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland stated: 

We believe these three divine persons constituting a single Godhead are united in purpose, in manner, in testimony, in mission. We believe Them to be filled with the same godly sense of mercy and love, justice and grace, patience, forgiveness, and redemption. I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true …

It is not our purpose to demean any person’s belief,” Elder Holland affirmed, “nor the doctrine of any religion. We extend to all the same respect to their doctrine that we are asking for ours. (That, too, is an article of our faith.) But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?

Were they not Christians?

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pray to God the Eternal Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost; we acknowledge the Father as the ultimate object of our worship (John 5:19, 26; 7:16; 14:28; D&C 20:19) and confess the Son of God as our Lord and Redeemer, our one and only hope for deliverance from sin and death in this world, as well as our glorious hope for  eternal life in the world to come. We teach of the Holy Spirit as the Messenger of the Father and the Son, the Revealer of the mind and will of God, and the Sanctifier, the means by which filth and dross are burned out of the human soul as though by fire. We are encouraged and charged by our leaders to seek the constant companionship of the Spirit, to attend to its promptings, to follow its lead.

We baptize people “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 11:23-26; D&C 20:73-74). And, for that matter, the highest ordinance or sacrament within our Church, eternal marriage, received only in the temple, is performed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In short, the Latter-day Saints live and move and have their being by and through the members of the Godhead; ours is a lived rather than a spoken or creedal connection to these holy beings. 

Scripture Beyond the Bible

Another reason for the exclusion of Latter-day Saints from the category of Christian is because we do not believe in the sufficiency of the Bible. In point of fact, to state that the Bible is the final word of God—more specifically, the final written word of God—is to claim more for the Bible than it claims for itself. We are nowhere given to understand that after the ascension of Jesus and the ministry and writings of those first century apostles, that revelations from God that would eventually take the form of written scripture and thus be added to the canon, would cease. As Joseph Smith taught, one would need to have received a modern revelation in order to know for certain that there will be no more revelation beyond the Bible.

So why was the canon of scripture closed? Emeritus Professor Lee M. McDonald, an Evangelical Christian scholar, posed some fascinating questions relative to the present closed canon of scripture. “The first question,” he writes, “and the most important one, is whether the church was right in perceiving the need for a closed canon of scriptures.” McDonald also asks: 

Did such a move toward a closed canon of scriptures ultimately (and unconsciously) limit the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the church? More precisely, does the recognition of absoluteness of the biblical canon minimize the presence and activity of God in the church today? … On what biblical or historical grounds has the inspiration of God been limited to the written documents that the church now calls its Bible?

While McDonald poses other issues, let me refer to his final question: “If the Spirit inspired only the written documents of the first century, does that mean that the same Spirit does not speak today in the church about matters that are of significant concern?”

Indeed, we might ask: Who authorized the canon to be closed? Who decided that the Bible was and forevermore would be the final written word of God?  Why would one suppose that the closing words of the Apocalypse represented the “end of the prophets”? Latter-day Saints find themselves today in a hauntingly reminiscent position relative to the continuing and ongoing mind and will of God. Is ours not the same basic message that Jesus and Peter and Paul and John delivered to the unbelieving Jews of their day—that the heavens had once again been opened, that new light and knowledge had burst upon the earth, and that God had chosen to reveal himself through the ministry of his Beloved Son and his ordained apostles?

Let’s be clear on this matter: no branch of Christianity limits itself entirely to the biblical text in making doctrinal decisions and in applying biblical principles. Roman Catholics turn to scripture, to church tradition, and to the magisterium or teaching office in the church for answers. Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, turn to linguists and scripture scholars for their answers, as well as to post-New Testament church councils and creeds. This seems, at least in my view, to be in violation of Sola Scriptura, the clarion call of the Reformation to rely solely upon scripture itself. In fact, there is no final authority on scriptural interpretation when differences arise, which of course they do regularly.

 “When [traditional Christians] accuse Mormons of not believing the Bible,” Professor Stephen Robinson has written, “they usually mean that we do not believe interpretations formulated by postbiblical councils. If [traditional Christians] are going to insist on the doctrine of sola scriptura [scripture alone] … then they ought to stop ascribing scriptural authority to postbiblical traditions.”

Would the early Christians who had for decades had access only to the Gospel of Mark (considered by most Biblical scholars to be the first Gospel written) have considered the deeper spiritual realities set forth later in the Gospel of John to be a portrait of “a different Jesus”?  Hardly. Thus the current mantra of “Latter-day Saints worship a different Jesus” is a sad, misguided, and too often malicious misrepresentation of the way things really are. Latter-day Saints clearly worship the historical Jesus, the Christ of the New Testament—the man who was born in Bethlehem, lived and ministered during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, functioned under the oversight of Caiaphas (Jews) and Pilate (Romans), gave his life as a sacrificial offering to atone for the sins of humankind, and rose from the grave in glorious resurrected immortality. That there may be differences on certain points of theology is not unimportant, but it does not merit the misleading concept that Latter-day Saints somehow worship a “different Jesus.” Supplementation of the Bible is clearly not the same as contradiction of the Bible.

One wonders whether modern conservative Christianity may unwittingly have created a type of double standard in terms of (a) what is required to be saved, and (b) what it takes to be a Christian. 

In the New Testament and at the time of Paul’s and Silas’s miraculous release from prison, the Philippian jailer asked the question of questions: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And [the apostles] said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Paul wrote to the Roman Saints that “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation … For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 

Could it be, then, that a Latter-day Saint who professes total faith in and reliance upon Jesus Christ and who seeks in gratitude to keep his commandments, can be saved but at the same time not qualify to be called a Christian? That seems strange at best.

What Kind of a Christian?

Sadly enough, the one feature and facet of Christianity with which too few seem to concern themselves is what might be called orthopraxy—how we act, how we live out our Christian faith. Jesus charged his disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” In assessing whether a man or woman is a true follower of the Savior, a Christian, we might ask: How does this person treat others, especially those who believe or act differently? Is the manner in which a person presents the gospel message such that the gospel may be perceived as “good news”?

Is this person’s speech and interpersonal relations such that people feel welcomed and appreciated, rather than spurned and rejected? To what extent does this person’s faith community feed the hungry, care for the poor, respond swiftly to natural disaster, or otherwise involve itself and its members in extending and disbursing Christian charity? This is how the first century saints were known and identified, and it is today a pretty persuasive evidence of the depth of one’s Christianity. The age-old question is still poignant and haunting: “If you were arrested and were to be tried for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

The fact is, no mortal man or woman is in a position to judge, to discern and perceive the depths of another human soul. No one of us has within his or her grasp the data, the delicate details, to so determine. C. S. Lewis, the beloved Christian writer and defender of the faith, a man whose focus on “mere Christianity” has made him a favorite of millions, declared: “It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into men’s hearts. We cannot judge, and indeed are forbidden to judge. It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that any man is, or is not, a Christian in this refined sense … When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.” 

What Exactly is a Christian?

A Christian is one who is a follower of Jesus. No one of us has the power or right to look into the hearts of men and women and discern the reality of their Christianity or the depths of their commitment to the Son of God. Faith is a personal matter and is really between that person and God. What then are some standard definitions of a Christian, put forward by more traditional Christians?

From the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary: “A believer in the religion of Christ; professor of his belief in the religion of Christ; one who … studies to follow the example, and obey the precepts, of Christ.”

From The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: “A member of a particular sect using this name”; a civilized human being; a decent, respectable person.”

From the Harper’s Bible Dictionary: “Christian’ is the term that was increasingly applied to Jesus’s followers in the late first and early second centuries.”

From the Holman Bible Dictionary: “an adherent of Christ; one committed to Christ; a follower of Christ.”

In the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms: “a name applied originally in Antioch to followers of Jesus Christ (Acts 11:26) and now used to designate those who believe in Jesus Christ and seek to live in the ways he taught.”

From The Amsterdam Declaration (2000): “The word Christian should not be equated with any particular cultural, ethnic, political, or ideological tradition or group. Those who know and love Jesus are also called Christ-followers, believers and disciples.”

Some friends of other faiths have suggested to me that it appears that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is seeking to move into “the mainstream of Christianity.” To be sure, Latter-day Saint leaders have encouraged members of the Church to get to know their neighbors better; to be more involved in community, civic, and political affairs; to show greater love, acceptance, and tolerance for those of other faiths; and, in general, help the world to better understand us. In addition, our Church is seeking to be better understood, to teach our doctrine in a manner that would (a) allow others to see clearly where we stand on important issues, and (b) eliminate misperceptions and avoid misrepresentations.

To be honest, it would be foolish for Latter-day Saints to stray from their moorings and seek to blend in with everyone else in the Christian world. People are joining our Church in ever-increasing numbers, not because we are just like the Roman Catholics or the Greek Orthodox or the Baptists or the Methodists or the Presbyterians or the Anglicans down the street. These people choose to leave their former faith and be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of our distinctives; our strength lies in our distinctive teachings and lifestyle. In that spirit, President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

 Those who observe us say that we are moving into the mainstream of religion. We are not changing. The world’s perception of us is changing. We teach the same doctrine. We have the same organization. We labor to perform the same good works … They are coming to realize what we stand for and what we do.

Joseph Smith once observed: 

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

 There is too much at stake in the world today for God-fearing people to spend their time and energies attacking, belittling, or misrepresenting those who choose to believe differently. Jesus certainly called us all to a higher standard than that. What was his plea in prayer for his followers only hours before his sufferings and death? “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”  

The post Latter-day Saints and the Christian World appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Dear Mayor Hubbard,

We write to you not as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor on behalf of it, but as members of that church scattered across the country who have watched the Fairview temple controversy with growing concern. We know municipal leadership is hard. We know neighbors can disagree in good faith. We have often worked with our neighbors to get temples approved in our communities. We know growth can bring friction, and that public officials often inherit tensions they did not create. We also know that the language leaders use can either heal a community or quietly inflame it.

That is why your renewed request that the Church voluntarily lower the Fairview Texas Temple steeple deserves a candid response, not from the Church, but from its people. The town approved a 120-foot steeple more than a year ago; construction is now underway; and your latest appeal asks the Church to reopen what had already been mediated, compromised, approved, and begun.

The Church could have made this a courtroom fight from the beginning. It could have pressed for the original plan, with a steeple reported at roughly 174 feet—nearly 50% taller than the design now approved. Instead, after mediation, it reduced the project to the 120-foot steeple now under construction. The Church also accepted a slew of other concessions as part of a “neighborly” agreement. The concessions were not trivial. They were attempts to recognize your priorities and work with you. 

So when, after all that, you suggest that the “neighborly” thing would be still another reduction, many of us hear something more troubling than a plea for harmony. We hear a public official redefining neighborliness as surrender. We hear an approved agreement treated as merely the latest opening bid. We hear a handshake being turned into a pressure campaign.

That is not a compromise. It is a way of poisoning the well. It says to the public: if the Church builds what your town approved, then the Church has chosen legalism over love, rights over respect, height over harmony. But the Church already compromised. Fairview already approved. Construction already began. At some point, “please compromise” stops sounding like reconciliation and starts sounding like bad faith.

Nor is it serious to argue that because the Church has built smaller temples or steeples elsewhere, it must therefore build this temple smaller too. A smaller building in one city is not a perpetual promise never to build a larger one. Fairview’s own records show that religious-facility heights have historically been handled case by case, including approval of a 154-foot bell tower for Creekwood United Methodist Church. We noticed that distinct treatment. 

We understand that change is hard. Fairview sits in a region that is changing quickly. The Census Bureau reports that Dallas-Fort Worth grew 11% since 2020, with especially significant growth on the metro’s outer edges. Four of the country’s five fastest-growing cities are small cities in the DFW area. Latter-day Saints are part of that growth, too. The Church has tens of thousands of members in North Texas, and we need temples to serve them. Perhaps the character of Fairview that needs to be preserved is how you treat everyone in your city. Perhaps treating your neighbors of different faiths like they belong is the character that should be preserved. We’re not intruders. We’re neighbors. 

You can still be the neighborly one here. You can say, “We disagreed. We debated. We mediated. We both gave a little. We approved. And now we will honor what was approved.” That’s the neighborly thing to do. And mayor, if you don’t stop this passive-aggressive campaign, perhaps it’s you who’s chosen not to be neighborly. 

The Church is building the temple Fairview approved. It is not unneighborly for us to ask you to honor that.

Respectfully,

C.D. Cunningham

The post An Open Letter to the Mayor of Fairview, Texas appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

But today it has taken on a more bureaucratic feel. The old “UFO” has become the “UAP,” an unidentified anomalous phenomenon. The phrase feels less theatrical, but the fascination is the same. Americans still want to know whether the strange lights in the sky are drones, balloons, sensor errors, secret aircraft, or something stranger.

But while these conversations have historically been sidelined as conspiracy theories that serious people don’t engage in, that has changed. Former President Barack Obama recently made headlines for saying he believes aliens are real. Congress held public hearings on UAPs, including a 2024 hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” followed by continued congressional requests for records and video files in 2026. NASA convened an independent UAP study team and concluded that the subject deserves a rigorous, evidence-based scientific approach. Since 2010, up to 70 planets have been discovered that are in the “habitable zones” of their star systems. The 2025 documentary “The Age of Disclosure” included interviews from military pilots, Department of Defense officials, Congressional Representatives and Senators, a Former Director of National Intelligence, and the Secretary of State. And the Pentagon began its release of UFO files. 

The sudden official sheen to this conversation has intensified the cultural imagination. While there have been no likely or definitive conclusions that extra-terrestrials have visited Earth, the question is being taken seriously in a way it never has before.

Aliens and Religion

A 2021 Pew survey found that just over half of Americans said military reports of UFOs were probably or definitely evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. Religious Americans were somewhat less likely than the unaffiliated to say intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. 

For many, the religious question is obvious: What would happen to faith if we discovered we are not alone?

At the same time, the most careful surveys complicate the popular assumption that religion would collapse under the weight of alien life. Ted Peters’ “ETI Religious Crisis Survey” tested the idea that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence would produce a religious crisis, and found that most religious respondents did not expect their own tradition to collapse. Interestingly, religious people were often less worried about their own faith than secular respondents were about religion in general. In other words, the people most confident that aliens would destroy religion were often people outside religion looking in.

But if intelligent life exists elsewhere, how could aliens and religion fit together? How would faith survive this change to our paradigm of life and creation?

I want to explore that question within the context of my own tradition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In my view, Latter-day Saints are unusually well-suited to think about the possibility of alien life. That does not mean we should credulously accept every sensational claim or canonize every blurry Pentagon video. Our faith does not depend on crashed saucers, whistleblower testimony, or the latest congressional hearing. But, if extraterrestrial life were discovered—microbial, animal, or intelligent—it would not require Latter-day Saints to rebuild their theology from the foundation up. In many ways, the foundation is already there.

Latter-day Saint scripture has never pictured creation as a small, sealed human stage with Earth alone under the eye of God. It teaches “worlds without number,” heavenly parents, faraway stars, and an infinite atonement. The Restoration certainly did not shrink the Christian cosmos. 

A Cosmos That is Already Full

The first reason Latter-day Saints need not panic over the possibility of extraterrestrial life is simple: our scriptures already teach that God’s creations extend far beyond this earth.

In the Book of Moses, Moses is shown a vision of the earth and its inhabitants and then learns that God has created “worlds without number” through the Only Begotten. The scripture does not explicitly state, but heavily implies, that many of these worlds were inhabited by children of God (and the chapter summary states that). It implies that these many worlds are part of God’s plan to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children.

Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) section 76 is even more direct. In Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon’s vision of the degrees of glory, they testify that by Jesus Christ “the worlds are and were created,” and that “the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” This is the most direct reference in Latter-day Saint scripture to inhabitants of multiple worlds. It does not merely say that God made stars, planets, or matter. He made inhabitants. And it places those inhabitants in a familial relationship to God. D&C 93 similarly teaches that worlds were made by Christ. 

D&C 88 describes that Christ is the light that is the sun, moon, stars, and earth, and the light that “fills the immensity of space.” Scripture then teaches that God created other worlds, they have inhabitants, those inhabitants are children of God, and it is Christ’s light that is on all of them.

It doesn’t say what our relationship is or will be with those inhabitants of other worlds. 

Modern Church leaders have repeatedly returned to this theme. Late Church President Russell M. Nelson taught that the earth is only one of many creations over which God presides, and he cautioned that our knowledge of the Creation is limited and will be augmented in the future. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has used the vastness of the universe to emphasize not human insignificance, but divine love; the God who created worlds without number still knows and values His children.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, who also served in the Quorum of the Twelve, made the same point. He taught that the Restoration explicitly affirms a plurality of worlds and that God’s universal majesty does not make Him less personally involved in our individual lives. He said, “How many planets are there with people on them? We don’t know. There appears to be none in our own solar system, but we are not alone in the universe. … God is not the God of only one planet!”

These scriptural statements, and the interpretation from Church leaders, establish a basic theological posture. Latter-day Saints do not approach the universe assuming that human beings on Earth are the only rational creatures God has ever loved.

Creation is Not Random 

Latter-day Saint theology does not treat these worlds as mere divine trophies. The God of Moses creating these many worlds does not do so merely to display his power. He creates because He is a Father. This is the center of Moses 1. The scale of creation makes divine parenthood feel inexhaustible.

This is crucial for thinking about alien life. If there are living organisms elsewhere, they are not theological clutter. They are part of creation. If there are intelligent, morally accountable beings elsewhere, they are not an embarrassment to Christian doctrine. They would be evidence that God’s family is as large as we imagined.

Abraham 3 gives Latter-day Saints a distinctive vocabulary for this question. It speaks of intelligences, of differing degrees of intelligence, and of God as greater than them all. Whatever else this passage means, it resists the idea that human life is a late accidental spark in a meaningless universe. Intelligence, agency, hierarchy, progression, and divine governance are built into reality. 

But none of these possibilities would make God smaller. 

Are They Children of God?

The hard theological question is not whether extraterrestrial life could exist. In Latter-day Saint thought, it clearly can. The harder question is what kind of life it would be. 

Latter-day Saint theology distinguishes between different forms of life. Plants, animals, mortals, and resurrected beings do not occupy the same moral or salvific category. So if life exists elsewhere, the first theological question would not be “Are they aliens?” It would be, “Are they God’s spirit children?”

D&C 76 provides the strongest reason to believe that at least some inhabitants of other worlds are indeed sons and daughters of God. President Joseph Fielding Smith, a former prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ, similarly taught that the Father, through His Only Begotten, created worlds without number and that these worlds are peopled by His spirit children. 

That does not require us to assume that every organism in the cosmos is spiritually equivalent to human beings, but it implies we should be open to the idea that some are. It also doesn’t answer whether other worlds are populated now, were populated in the past, or will be populated in the future. But it does mean that Latter-day Saints already have a category for non-earthly persons who belong to the family of God. 

This is where Latter-day Saint theology differs from a thin human exceptionalism. We do believe human beings are made in the image of God. We do believe this earth has sacred significance. We do believe Jesus Christ was born, died, and rose here. But we do not believe God’s love is provincial. The fact that He is our Father does not prevent Him from being Fathers to others. 

As anyone who is not an only child knows, a sibling does not reduce the love you receive from a parent. 

One Savior, Many Sheep

One of the more difficult questions about extra-terrestrials and traditional Christianity has often been the Incarnation. If Christ was born on this Earth, does that make Earth cosmically unique? Would He need to be incarnate, suffer, die, and rise again on every inhabited world? Are there multiple falls, multiple redemptions, multiple atonements? 

Latter-day Saint leaders have generally answered by affirming both the local reality of Christ’s mortal ministry and the cosmic scope of His redeeming work. 

Nelson taught that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is infinite, not merely in duration, but in scope, extending to all humankind and to the infinite number of worlds created by Him. This gives Latter-day Saints a powerful doctrinal framework. We do not need to imagine a weak, local Christ whose saving power stops at the atmosphere. Nor do we need to multiply incarnations beyond what has been revealed. We can affirm what scripture and prophetic teaching affirm: Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh, the Creator of worlds, the Redeemer, and the Lord of the universe.

That does not resolve every mechanics-of-salvation question. But questions remain even without the addition of extraterrestrial life. If intelligent beings on other worlds fall, how is Christ revealed to them? What ordinances do they receive? Do they have prophets? Do they have scriptures? We don’t know.

The Book of Mormon prepares Latter-day Saints for the idea that God’s dealings with one people are never the whole story.

In 3 Nephi, Jesus tells the Nephites that He has “other sheep” who are not of Jerusalem and not of the Nephite land, and that He must go show Himself to them. I’m not suggesting Jesus was implying he was visiting other worlds, but underlining the idea that there are always more children of God for Christ to minister to. 

Christ’s self-disclosure is not limited to the records we presently possess. There are divine visits not recorded in our canon. Latter-day Saints have an open canon. If God has had dealings with other worlds, that would not offend the structure of our faith. 

Do we know? No, but not being told is not the same as being trapped. Latter-day Saints are comfortable with revealed patterns and unrevealed details. We know enough.

What If They Are More Righteous Than We Are?

Latter-day Saints should be cautious about imagining ourselves as cosmic tourists or missionaries. We have been given commandments, covenants, priesthood keys, and missionary obligations for this world. We do not possess a revealed commission to carry ordinances to hypothetical civilizations in another solar system. If God has children elsewhere, He is capable of revealing Himself to them, calling prophets among them, appointing ordinances suited to His law, and gathering them in His own order.

The aliens say that they love Jesus, and that He comes to visit every few years.

The pope is shocked. “Every few years, but He hasn’t even come a second time yet?”

The aliens feel bad, and try to help, “Maybe He doesn’t like your chocolate.”

The pope confused asks, “Chocolate? What does chocolate have to do with anything?”

“Well,” the aliens explain, “every time he comes we give him a big basket of chocolate. Why, what did you give to Him?”

Jokes aside, another possibility is exactly what the joke posits, that intelligent extraterrestrial beings do exist, and they are not invaders or monsters or lost pagans waiting for us to teach them about God. They might be more obedient, unified, humble or righteous than we are. 

Again, Latter-day Saint scripture leaves room for such a possibility. Abraham 3 teaches that intelligence differ and that God is greater than them all. This should help discipline our imaginations. Much of our alien fiction is really human self-projection. Sometimes aliens are our fears, sometimes our aspirations. Latter-day Saint theology gives as a less sentimental and more serious possibility. Other beings could simply be God’s children. Some wicked, some innocent, some righteous. 

What if There is No Alien Life?

A sound theology must also account for the other possibility: that we may never discover intelligent extraterrestrial life. The current evidence certainly does not prove alien existence, let alone alien visitation. Serious Latter-day Saint thinking should not build spiritual excitement around speculation that may collapse under scrutiny.

If no alien civilization is ever found, however, Latter-day Saint theology remains untouched. “Worlds without number” does not need to mean that human scientists in 2026 can identify, contact, or verify those worlds. God’s creations may be distant in space, separated by time, hidden by limits of observation, or simply beyond our stewardship. 

This helps protect us from two opposite errors. If the skeptic says, “If aliens exist, religion is false,” and enthusiasts say “If UAPs are real, my religion is confirmed,” Latter-day Saints should reject both. Our faith is grounded in Jesus Christ, his covenants, and the witness of the Holy Ghost—not in the newest unidentified object.  

The Restoration gives us a capacious cosmos, but it does not require gullibility. 

A Theology Big Enough for Discovery

So where does that leave us?

No matter what we discover, or don’t discover, the theological center holds. The Latter-day Saint doctrine of creation is already cosmic. The doctrine of God is already parental. The atonement of Christ is already infinite. And our understanding of revelation is already open. 

Not every speculation has, or even needs, an answer. We do not know whether any UAP represents extraterrestrial intelligence. We do not know what they look like, we do not know what their history is, or what their relationship is like to Christ. 

But we know enough that we do not need to fear that a discovery of aliens will upend our theology or understanding of the cosmos. We already know our Earth is small, but important eternally.

The discovery of alien life would not make the gospel any less true. It might just remind us that God’s household is larger than we suppose. That wouldn’t upend our beliefs. In fact, it sounds quite familiar. 

The post Aliens and Latter-day Saint Theology appeared first on Public Square Magazine.