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Here is the uncomfortable fact: most Americans now get their news from social and video platforms. More than TV. More than news sites and apps. Our public square has been quietly subcontracted to feeds tuned for time‑on‑platform, not truth‑seeking or neighborliness. We feel the cost in our bones—sharper extremism, thinner civility, cultural tribes that shout past each other, rumors that outrun corrections, and a steady undertow of loneliness. Especially for the young, the scroll isn’t just a pastime; it’s the water they swim in.

And the research is stubborn. When people use less social media, they hurt less. In randomized trials, trimming use to about thirty minutes a day lowers loneliness and depression; a one‑week break nudges anxiety down and well‑being up. The gains are modest, yes—but they’re real. Which means the real question isn’t whether less is better. It’s how to make “less” the easy choice for millions of people at once.

If the system is shaping us, then we have to reshape the incentives, its defaults, its hours, its business model. What follows are a few practical legal and social ideas that may help address the raft of negative consequences of social media. 

Refit Section 230: A safe harbor you keep only if you sail safely

Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act was built to keep platforms from being sued as the publisher for what users post, and to let the platforms moderate in good faith. Over time the shield has stretched to cover not just hosting speech, but how platforms distribute and rank it. That wasn’t carved into the Constitution; Congress wrote 230, and much of the expansion has come at the hands of well-meaning court rulings. But those court interpretations don’t have the broader picture that a legislature can. Congress can and should update Section 230.

The fix isn’t necessarily to blow up 230. That could invite chaos. But we could make the Section 230 shield conditional on predictable, speech-neutral design choices:

• No immunity for paid placement. Ads and paid “boosts” should live under ordinary tort and consumer protection law, not inside 230’s blanket.
• Narrow protection for risky amplification. When a recommender system actively pushes content, immunity shouldn’t apply. That’s an editorial decision, regardless of whether it is made by an algorithm or not. 
• Reasonable design and transparency to keep the shield. Think chronological feeds and overnight quiet hours for minors by default, documented age assurance, and researcher access to basic risk metrics.

Why this matters: today’s largest platforms depend on two things—paid targeting and opaque, engagement‑maximizing ranking. If paid boosts lose 230’s protection, and if default friction becomes the price of immunity, the business math changes. Lawsuits won’t swallow the internet; the First Amendment still limits claims. But the near‑automatic shield over product design would no longer be unconditional.

Section 230 was created specifically to give internet platforms legal protections that don’t apply to other publishers. And without those additional protections, the social media regime that exists today could not survive, all without implicating the First Amendment even a little bit. 

Starve the Surveillance Ad Engine

Engagement‑hungry design exists because surveillance targeting is so profitable. If we limit the precision and persistence of tracking, then time on social media becomes less lucrative, and the perverse incentives drop. 

Europe is already proving the point: the Digital Services Act bans targeted ads to minors and profiling‑based ads that use sensitive data. Enforcement has forced real product changes (LinkedIn has already disabled a targeting tool in Europe). A U.S. version can go further while staying speech‑neutral.

A clean U.S. starting point is already on the books in California. The 2023 Delete Act (SB 362) requires the state to launch a single portal—DROP—by Jan. 1, 2026. Beginning Aug. 1, 2026, data brokers must check the portal at least every 45 days and purge the personal data of anyone who files a deletion request. If we were to adopt that same one-click ease to delete data across US states, we could start to see a big change.

Pairing data deletion with federal bans on both targeted ads to minors and the use of sensitive data for ad targeting, you drain much of the oxygen from engagement‑hungry feeds without restricting anyone’s speech.

When the ROI on hyper‑personalized ads falls, investors and product teams shift: calmer, subscription‑leaning models look better; contextual ads regain ground; feeds lose pressure to maximize time‑on‑platform at all hours. 

It’s not the advertising that is causing social media’s problems; it is the advertising that provides the funding that incentivizes social media platforms to cause problems and drag their consumers back over and over again, profiting off our worst instincts. 

Make Healthy Design the Default

Certain default settings make it extraordinarily easy to draw people back in. And without limiting individuals’ ability to use those settings if they prefer, we can pass simple laws requiring that interface defaults be high friction. For example: 

• Forwarding limits. WhatsApp’s cap on forwarding already‑viral messages to a single chat produced a 70% drop in “highly forwarded” messages. 
• Autoplay off. A randomized study of Netflix users found that disabling autoplay reduced session length and total watching. Autoplay is a sticky design pattern; switching it off by default trims use without banning anything.
• Default chronological feeds and overnight quiet hours for minors. New York’s SAFE for Kids Act now bars algorithmic feeds for minors unless parents opt in, and blocks notifications between midnight and 6 a.m. The proposed rules detail how to verify age and consent. 

States could experiment with these rules, or Congress could nationalize these defaults by giving the FTC clear authority—building on its consumer protection powers—to set baseline attention‑safety standards for large platforms, especially for minors. This is still a far cry from having a large Surgeon General’s Warning each time you log into Instagram that says, “Social Media has been shown to lead to anxiety, depression, and loneliness.” But if we can’t make smaller changes to reverse this trend, that might be precisely what is needed.

These small design decisions bend millions of daily personal choices, without taking the choices away from the consumers. 

Make “Offline” the Default

There’s a fourth way to curb our dependence on social media that doesn’t require a single new statute: change what our institutions expect of us. When schools, workplaces, congregations, and community spaces set better defaults, people spend less time in the feed—because the offline choice becomes the easy choice. It’s culture. And culture often moves faster than law.

Schools can reclaim the school day with phone‑free policies—pouches or lockers, with clear exceptions for emergencies. Pair that with analog alternatives (board‑game tables, open gyms, music rooms, maker spaces) so lunch provides the engagement without the screen time.

What is more durable than individual resolve is rituals. Congregations and faith groups can play a key role in helping de-escalate. For example, in 2018, President Russell M. Nelson invited Latter‑day Saint youth to a seven‑day social‑media fast, and later invited women to try ten days—framing abstention as a joyful reset of attention and purpose. Any congregation, club, or neighborhood can copy the pattern: announce a time‑bound fast, fill the gap with service and fellowship. These groups can also fill in the desire for connection that so often feeds the most unhealthy social media habits. 

“Third places”—places where you are allowed to exist without paying money—have seen a precipitous drop off. Often the easiest and most comfortable of these places are online. Not only can more congregational connection help this, other groups such as libraries and parks can find ways to engage, especially young people. And might I suggest the ancient and still relevant practice of breaking bread with one another face-to-face.

Less social media won’t come from one heroic law. It will come from a hundred ordinary decisions—repeated until they feel like the way things have always been. That’s culture, and ultimately it is what will help us turn around. 

Hard questions, honest answers

Skeptics will argue that these proposals flirt with censorship, invite doomed lawsuits, or amount to cosmetic fixes. It’s true that free speech doctrine sharply limits what states can do, and that even without Section 230, many claims will still fail on First Amendment or causation grounds. It’s also true that warning labels and nudges alone rarely change behavior. Those cautions matter.

But the core of my suggestions are different. It doesn’t tell platforms what they must carry or suppress. It focuses on distribution mechanics, ads, data, and design—areas where Congress clearly has authority to condition immunity or regulate trade practices in content‑neutral ways. And the record shows that friction rules do more than signal: forwarding caps have slashed virality, autoplay‑off trims viewing time, and randomized trials confirm that short breaks improve well‑being. These changes may not solve everything, but they move the needle in measurable, constitutional ways.

If we want less misinformation, fewer extremism incentives, better privacy, and less loneliness, we should stop pretending a perfectly disciplined thumb is the answer. Make healthier design the default. Our social media death spiral was created by our culture. And if we want to address it, we need to find a way to change that culture. Perhaps that will happen through laws to change the incentives. Perhaps it will take going after the culture itself. Now is not the time to wait for perfect answers. It’s time to start trying things. 

The post Less Feed, More Life appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

As Elder Bednar discussed both the possibilities and the perils of modern technology, I was taken aback when he said:

Consider the following perilous possibility. An AI-developed companion, a girlfriend or boyfriend, can be ‘meticulously designed to [offer] engaging and addictive experiences, appealing to a wide range of emotional and social needs.’… The allure is further heightened by their 24/7 availability and the absence of the complexities often found in [authentic] human relationships…Counterfeit emotional intimacy may displace real-life emotional intimacy—the very thing which binds two people together.

My husband had been reading nearby but put his book down when he heard this. We exchanged bewildered looks and questioned if this was really a problem. With a heaviness, my husband said, “It must be if Elder Bednar is talking about it.”

We live in perplexing times, and even though Elder Bednar offered reassurance, his prophetic warning felt serious as a definite theme emerged—we must be on guard so we aren’t “transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon.” He repeated a variation of this phrase nine times, and when specifically discussing AI companionship, he said, “It is a set of computer equations that will treat you as an object to be acted upon, if you let it. Please, do not let this technology entice you to become an object.” 

Elder Bednar then taught something familiar but new in the way he applied it to the challenges of our day. He said, 

The fundamental purposes for the exercise of agency are to love one another and to choose God. Consider that we are commanded—not merely admonished, urged, or counseled—but commanded to use our agency to turn outward, to love one another, and to choose God [Emphasis added]. 

Using our moral agency to choose God and to love others is the purpose of our mortal existence, and we need to turn outward to do those things. This seems obvious, but if we are being warned so strongly by an apostle, it must be that the enticements to turn inward are so pervasive and the counterfeits so deceptive that they are successfully undermining human agency.     

Consider similar warnings against turning inward that were given at our most recent General Conference. Elder José A. Teixeira said:

When our lives are filled with purpose and service, we avoid spiritual apathy; on the other hand, when our lives are deprived of divine purpose, meaningful service to others, and sacred opportunities for pondering and reflection, we gradually become suffocated by our own activity and self-interest …[Emphasis added].

Elder Ulisses Soares taught:

[There is a] current growing trend in the world, adopted by so many, of people becoming consumed with themselves …This way of thinking is often justified as being “authentic” by those who indulge in self-centered pursuits [and] focus on personal preferences … My dear friends, when we choose to let God be the most powerful influence in our life over our self-serving pursuits, we can make progress in our discipleship and increase our capacity to unite our mind and heart with the Savior. [Emphasis added].

And Elder Bednar warned: 

We always must be on guard against a pride-induced and exaggerated sense of self-importance, a misguided evaluation of our own self-sufficiency, and seeking self instead of serving others.

As we pridefully focus upon ourselves, we also are afflicted with spiritual blindness and miss much, most, or perhaps all that is occurring within and around us. We cannot look to and focus upon Jesus Christ as the “mark” if we only see ourselves. [Emphasis added]. 

Using our moral agency to focus outward on God and on others is a protection against suffocating self-regard. 

These warnings of church leaders bring to mind the great Jewish thinker Martin Buber (1878-1965), who voiced similar concerns. Buber cautioned against the objectifying tendencies that have accompanied scientific advancements. While he expressed appreciation for the good that has come with progress, he also warned about the possible negative impacts on relationships. 

Buber explored human relations through his theory of dialogue, in which he differentiated I-Thou from I-It relationships. He focused on the way in which each of us, as the “I,” relate and communicate with the other. There is a difference between the “I” who interacts with the other as a Thou in contrast to the “I” who interacts with the other as an It. Buber explained, “The primary word I-Thou can only be spoken with the whole being. The primary word I-It can never be spoken with the whole being.” In I-It relations, the ‘I’ looks to the other as an object, and the interaction takes place within the ‘I.’ In I-Thou relations, the subject-object dichotomy is overcome.

In genuine dialogue, when the other is recognized as a Thou, there is an understanding of the other as an individual while, at the same time, sharing an intimacy with them. In such a relationship, there is genuine effort to balance the contradictory expectation of an individual retaining personal uniqueness with the expectation that there will also be a sharing of each other in dialogue. “The real self appears only when it enters into relation with the Other. Where this relation is rejected, the real self withers away…” 

There is a pessimism in Buber’s writings as he observed that humans often fall short of I-Thou relations:

In our age, the I-It relation, gigantically swollen, has usurped, practically uncontested, the mastery and the rule … this I that is unable to say Thou, unable to meet a being essentially, is the lord of the hour. This selfhood that has become omnipotent, with all the It around it, can naturally acknowledge neither God nor any genuine absolute which manifests itself to men as of non-human origin. It steps in between and shuts off from us the light of heaven. 

In Buberian thought, if we are unable to enter I-Thou relations with one another, we are also unable to enter relations with God. Buber continues, 

Life cannot be divided between a real relation with God and an unreal relation of I and It with the world—you cannot both truly pray to God and profit by the world. He who knows the world as something by which he is to profit knows God also in the same way.” 

Conversely, however, if we seek a renewal of relation between humans, we will also experience relation with God. God transforms human beings “from self-centeredness to relationship-centeredness,” and it changes the obsession with the self into a genuine and renewing relationship with God and others.

Buber’s dialogical theory underscores Elder Bednar’s warnings about being transformed into objects that are acted upon. With the incredible advances in communication technology since Buber’s death, it is fascinating to imagine the heightened cautions he would now give.

It is sobering to think how our relationships can potentially be harmed. AI companions may not be the thing that entices us, but there are many other ways in which real human interactions, with their attendant complexity, can be replaced by simpler imitations. This goes so much deeper than wasting time on our phones to the neglect of family members, replacing in-person interaction with social media, or only seeking affirming voices online. It is those things, but it is also much more fundamental. It strikes at the core of who we are as human beings who need to be in real relation with one another. 

To better understand how objectification hurts individuals and their relationships, we can look at the uniquely powerful example of human sexuality. This most intimate of relations has the potential to profoundly bring a husband and wife together, or conversely, it can alienate men and women from one another. C.S. Lewis masterfully addressed what is lost when sex is used for one’s own use. His description predates the digital age with its easy access to pornography, but it becomes more meaningful, not less, when applied to our day. The temptation to turn inward has always existed, but it is heightened by virtual reality. He said:  

For me, the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.

For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.

Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.

In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself … After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided, which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

Lewis’ description is powerful, and while his focus is the male viewpoint, women are also susceptible to counterfeits which offer to fill needs without the demands of real human interaction. The enticement of fake companionship, whether emotional or physical, is something everyone needs to guard against.  

There is a shared heaviness in these various warnings that I’ve mentioned, and it’s easy to feel discouraged or even alarmed, but Elder Bednar promises that there aren’t just perils but also great possibilities in this “remarkable season of the dispensation of the fulness of times.” As we use our agency to turn outward, we will be able to resist perilous self-focus, but we desperately need one another to do this. In the busyness of life, we may think at times that the toddlers at our feet, the youth we serve, the neighbors we share a fence with, the man full of answers in Sunday School, our co-workers, and our spouses are roadblocks to attaining our personal goals. They aren’t. They are the reason we are here on earth. Amidst the complexities of life, there is great sweetness, meaning, and growth to be found in relation with God and others.

So many voices call to us with the ‘how-to’ of living our best life. The ones to pay attention to are those undergirded by the command to “use our agency to turn outward, to love one another, and to choose God.”  

For “Every particular Thou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou.”

The post Counterfeit Companion: The Dangerous Allure of Digital Companions appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Since Twitter first rose to prominence a decade ago, journalists have over-relied on the site. It’s fair to say this frequent past usage has left many journalists struggling to navigate the name transition for a site that was now properly called X but that was widely known by a different name.

The solution, devised by newsrooms across the country, was to add the phrase “formerly referred to” or “formerly known as Twitter” in their first reference to the social platform.

For Latter-day Saints, this brings to mind the 2018 emphasis by Prophet Russell M. Nelson on using the full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Beginning that year, the Church took major steps to remove the word “Mormon,” even from historic organizations like the Tabernacle Choir. For the first time, there was also encouragement not to use the term “LDS” and instead to use the shortened name, the “Church of Jesus Christ.”

The solution, devised by newsrooms across the country, was to add the phrase “widely known as the Mormon Church” in their first reference to the church. 

There is a subtle difference between these two phrases. For X, its identity as Twitter is accepted to have been in the past, with the “formerly known as” phrase acknowledging that a new name exists now. For the Church of Jesus Christ, the “widely known as” phrase reasserts its identity as the Mormon Church still in the present.

This is not merely a matter of different newsrooms taking different—but internally consistent—approaches. Many prominent newsrooms refer to Twitter in the past tense but Mormon in the present tense. CNN uses the past tense phrase for X and the present tense phrase for the Church of Jesus Christ. This different treatment by the same newsroom is seen in US News & World Report, Slate, and NPR, among many others. Even putatively neutral sources such as the Associated Press use this uneven convention. To find a news source that refers to X in the same “widely known as” manner as the Church of Jesus Christ is referred to, I had to turn to an AM talk radio show from South Africa. 

Why?

Let’s first give these journalists and newsrooms the most possible benefit of the doubt. Time magazine actually did use the past tense phrase “formerly known as the ‘Mormon church.’” 

Yet they later issued a correction about having “mischaracterized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” explaining the Church “is not formerly known as the “Mormon church,” but is instead “commonly referred to as the “Mormon church.”

Perhaps they did this since the Church of Jesus Christ never had officially been called “Mormon.” So, saying it was formerly “known” as Mormon mischaracterized that it has always been a nickname. Nonetheless, rather than simply changing it from “formerly known” to “formerly referred to as,” which would have fixed that problem, the editors changed the language from “formerly known” to “commonly referred to as,” which again asserts its present tense validity. 

I reached out to Time’s editors for clarification on why they made this change, but as of the time of publication, they have not responded. 

Other newsrooms clearly don’t interpret the word “known” to refer to an official name since “widely known as” is the most commonly used variation of the phrase. Others might not want to put the phrase in the past tense for accuracy’s sake because the use of the phrase “Mormon” persists. But this is certainly still true of the name “Twitter” as well, and hasn’t prevented even Time from using the phrase “formerly known as Twitter.” 

What else could be going on here? 

In research I helped conduct in 2019, we looked at how the twenty largest US print news media referred to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a period of six months after the AP changed its style guide. Among other things, we conducted a sentiment analysis on articles that abided by the Church’s requested usage and those that did not. 

Articles that included negative or critical editorializing about the Church used the word “Mormon” 86% of the time, while articles that did not include negative editorializing about the Church used the word “Mormon” only 46% of the time. 

This research, in conjunction with the disparate treatment of the Church and X, suggests that naming conventions used by the media are not merely a matter of editorial choice or convenience but are influenced by the editorial stance toward the entities they are covering—regardless of whether this is a conscious decision or not.

Journalists appear happy to let X define itself. But they will define Latter-day Saints. They will stop calling us Mormon when they decide to stop calling us Mormon. 

The subtle factors that go into the words chosen by newsrooms are certainly difficult to suss out, especially because of the many unconscious biases that may play a role in making those decisions. But something is going on that leads journalists to accept X’s name change as legitimate while refusing to extend that same courtesy to the Latter-day Saints. Why is that? 

Something worth thinking about.

The post A Tale of Two Names: Journalists on X vs. The Church of Jesus Christ appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

One such controversy has resulted in enough requests that I thought it would be wise to address it publicly. Nearly a year ago, the beloved head of Church Communications, Eric Hawkins, suffered a health setback and had to step down. Last week, the Church named his successor, Aaron Sherinian.

Concerns have circulated about Sherinian’s previous employers and his positions on hot-button social issues. Many people want to understand this better, so I hope I can best explain how it’s come to make sense to me in the hope it may be helpful to others.

A Culture of Critique

Latter-day Saints are far from the first religious group to apply this level of scrutiny to hiring decisions. This kind of back-and-forth has long been common among our Catholic friends. I’ve observed the effects of this kind of public focus on internal decisions. Many Catholics actively debate and scrutinize the Vatican’s decisions, often through the lens of political perspectives. One Catholic publication will support, another will critique, and every decision made becomes a proxy war for the direction of their church. This discourse undermines an overarching faith in God’s direction.

Latter-day Saints do believe that God has a destined mission for the Church of Jesus Christ. A culture that begins to focus on this level of detail may erode that faith that has served our community of believers so well.

In a practical sense, if this culture of suspicion takes hold regarding the Church and its decisions, it will take up considerable time and financial resources that the Church could better employ elsewhere.

Public Pressure Pitfalls

The Church’s decision-making process is not impervious to the needs, opinions, or preferences of its members. Indeed, the Church has demonstrated a willingness to adapt and accommodate as cultural attitudes evolve. However, these adaptations arise from internal consultation and revelation, not external pressure.

For Latter-day Saints grappling with concerns, such as those surrounding the appointment of Aaron Sherinian, the scriptures have a clear direction. The Doctrine and Covenants, a canon of scripture in the Church, offers guidance on addressing grievances. In D&C 42:88-89, it advises us to not take our grievances to “the members, but to the elders.” Today, the leader we would speak to is our stake president, who can relay these concerns to senior Church leaders. Latter-day Saints with public platforms who use this or other controversies to generate attention among “the members” rather than taking their concerns to their stake president are violating this scriptural counsel.

The internal channel is not only more effective in conveying information to those who need it, but it allows more effective change because it allows Church leaders to make informed decisions without the complication of responding to public pressure. In contrast, public campaigns often inadvertently complicate decision-making processes, typically to the detriment of those applying the pressure.

While concerns and differing opinions are natural within a diverse faith community, the scriptural and organizational framework of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages addressing these matters through respectful, private channels. The scriptural approach to concerns upholds the dignity of all involved but also aligns with the Church’s foundational principles of revelation, unity, and personal growth.

Realities of the Role

In addressing the concerns about Aaron Sherinian’s appointment as the new Communications Director for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it’s crucial to understand the nature and limitations of this role. This understanding can help alleviate some of the apprehensions members of the Church might have.

First and foremost, the position of Communications Director is that of an employee, not a called leader within the Church hierarchy. This distinction is significant. Unlike called leaders, an employee, regardless of their rank or department, does not have the ability to influence its core theological tenets. Their role is more akin to a professional with a specialized skill set—similar to hiring a plumber for their expertise in plumbing.

Moreover, it’s important to note that the director of the Communications Department does not operate in isolation. The role involves working within large councils, collaborating with both called ecclesiastic leaders and employees from other backgrounds. This collaborative approach ensures that no single individual outside the President of the Church, could dictate the Church’s communications strategy.

Additionally, the Communications Director is not typically a public-facing figure. The most visible church employee, the spokesperson, is a separate role currently held by Doug Andersen.

This context is vital in understanding the appointment of Aaron Sherinian. The Church will naturally hire employees with diverse thoughts and backgrounds for many under-the-radar roles without raising any concerns. Suggesting that the Communications Director role is so pivotal that it cannot similarly tolerate varying personal views or complex past employment decisions may be an overestimation of the position’s individual influence.

Delving into the Decision

So far, I have largely avoided the specific question that many people are asking. Why was he hired? While Sherinian himself is not in a called role, he was hired by someone who was. It’s a question that, candidly, neither I nor you know the answer to. However, there are several considerations that might shed light on this decision.

In March 2015, D. Todd Christofferson, an apostle for the Church, said in an interview that Latter-day Saints were free to share different opinions about same-sex marriage on social media. He went on to say, “In our view, it doesn’t really become a problem unless someone is out attacking the Church and its leaders.” While considerations on how to do this are certainly complicated and can be informed by other apostolic direction, it’s perhaps notable that Sherinian’s first controversial social media post came three months after this statement and the last several years before he began working for the Church.

This has been particularly influential on my own thinking. Sherinian only shared his personal views after an apostle explicitly said members were free to do so. This reflects a level of faithfulness that I find reassuring. And the last message that has concerned others was more than six years ago.

Another important consideration is that Sherinian’s professional competence is undisputed. His status as one of the world’s leading communication experts, combined with his faith as a temple recommend-holding member of the Church, presents a unique alignment of skill and belief. In a time when the Church faces significant challenges in media representation, his expertise could be seen as providential. Like many figures in scriptural narratives, God often uses imperfect individuals for His purposes. Could Sherinian have been prepared “for such a time as this”? It’s certainly one explanation.

Those who know Sherinian paint a picture of a man deeply loyal to the Church and its leaders. Despite differing views on certain issues, his overall life trajectory and public persona—as evidenced by his active and faith-promoting social media presence—suggest a profound commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This aspect of his character is critical to consider, especially in a role that requires a blend of professional skill and personal conviction.

The role of a Communications Director, in many respects, is akin to that of a diplomat. The Church, often perceived publicly as opposed to LGBT+ issues, has, in reality, been proactive in seeking fair and compassionate solutions that seek to meet the needs of everyone in the country—an approach they’ve called “Fairness for All.” Having a director who is committed to the Church yet has a personal understanding of communities the Church seeks to engage with could be strategically advantageous.

Similarly, it’s worth noting that his role at Phillip Morris aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of smoking. While the effectiveness of these efforts is debatable, they reflect a lifelong willingness to try to make positive differences, even among those with very different purposes or worldviews.

Embracing Grace in the Lesser Controversies

Do we want to create a community of believers characterized by suspicion, second-guessing, and accusation? The kind of diving for content that has sprung this story will lead to that kind of atmosphere. We have seen that result among other religious communities and, more generally, in our “cancel culture.”

In a recent Public Square Magazine article, Jeff Thayne spoke about greater and lesser controversies. He draws on the Apostle Paul’s teachings about eating meat sacrificed to idols, a topic that, in its time, was fraught with moral complexity. The lesson here is that in certain ‘lesser controversies,’ there are valid arguments on both sides, and different individuals may arrive at different conclusions based on their circumstances and understanding. And both answers may be the right one at certain times. This concept applies aptly to the current discussion.

Debating and deliberating over these lesser controversies helps us develop our moral reasoning. However, it’s equally important to maintain humility. If our concerns remain, there are helpful, scripturally dictated avenues to bring them forward.

The post Holy Hiring Hullabaloo: How It Makes Sense to Me appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

This concerned me. While I greatly admired this writer’s sharp analysis and detached method of delivery, I didn’t get the sense that this person was, well, happy. And I noticed that as I consistently consumed their writing, I was not just learning their opinions, I was also adopting their values and attitudes.

When I consciously tuned into how this writing made me feel, I realized it communicated much more than the explicit meaning.  Lurking below the genuinely useful insights, there was also a great deal of cynicism, skepticism, contempt, and anger, and this was starting to influence how I saw the world and the people around me.

Of course, we can’t eliminate the implicit transmission of a writer’s values and attitudes, but it’s worth noting how that transmission has changed in both extent and frequency. There has never been a time when so many people with no real relationship to us can reach so deeply into our personal lives and shape our internal landscapes.

This not only produces a cacophony of shallow, narrow takes that are too simplistic to resolve real-life challenges. It also trains those who regularly consume this kind of thinking to ruminate over a limited number of problems from a limited perspective.  Among other things, this has the effect of heightening moral outrage while at the same time reducing our ability to cope and problem-solve. 

A world that was once complex, beautiful, and interesting becomes gloomy, predictable, and small. Everything is bad, and it all boils down to liberalism or religion or racism or sexism or progressivism or fascism, etc. Chesterton put it this way in Orthodoxy: 

A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large … I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours …?

Peacemaking as protection. Some of the resolutions of this angst may be simpler than we realize. In April, President Russell M. Nelson called on Latter-day Saints and others to be peacemakers. A year earlier, Elder Neil A. Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “The Lord taught how to live, then and now, in a contemptuous world”—citing the famous teaching, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

“By the shield of our faith in Jesus Christ,” Elder Anderson added, “we become peacemakers, quenching—meaning to calm, cool, or extinguish—all the fiery darts of the adversary.”

Notice that peacemaking here is not simply forbearing for the sake of others. It’s also a protection for us from a contemptuous world and fiery darts. 

Some chafe at calls for civility because they believe it excuses errors, makes way for those with bad intentions, or distracts from the substance of an argument. In this view, peacemaking is an observance of niceties—a generous but fundamentally unnecessary act of self-restraint or tolerance. 

Yet to actually be a peacemaker and to engage with real civility are not just matters of decorum that can be separated from the substance. How we treat others reveals what we consider to be of real substance. It also makes us less susceptible to unwanted influence. 

One of my friends in college was a rower. She had incredible posture, and the muscles in her upper arms and shoulders were very defined. Our bodies respond to the work that we habitually ask them to do, and over time, they change in ways that make that work easier.

Whatever it is you are arguing or defending, if you do it with mockery, criticism, and contempt, then you still become someone who is critical and habituated to hurting other people. Using truth to justify contention or cruelty doesn’t make one a warrior for good; it makes them a clown in Satan’s outrage circus. The heart attenuated by cruelty is more susceptible to falsehood, not less.

On the other hand, heeding the prophetic call to “build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire—no matter how difficult the situation” is to believe that there is real good in other people and the world and that it’s worth saving.  In this way, peacemaking becomes a bulwark against the nihilism of the opinion pageant, where truth is a means to status and power. 

Instead of only asking ourselves about the beliefs of media voices we consume, we should also ask ourselves what mental and emotional habits they ask us to practice. Does interacting with this person’s ideas strengthen my fault-finding? To see flaws in others and their words? Do I find myself habitually aggrieved or outraged? Do they invite me to take pleasure in someone else’s failings or to delight in tragedies that confirm my prejudices? Am I developing a greater capacity for defensiveness and suspicion? To demand others capitulate to my wants and needs?

Alternatively, which voices encourage me to practice lifting and building? To laugh with genuine mirth or to feel wonder and awe? To be merciful, warm, and delighted by beauty? To relish the truth and have the courage to reconcile myself to it? To be humble and grateful and, thereby, discover a world filled with love and grace.

Being a peacemaker is more than something we do, though it certainly requires doing. Engaging in peacemaking is also teaching ourselves to see, love, and nurture the things we want to endure forever.

The post Why Tone Still Matters appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In the face of opposition and antagonism, it can be easy to feel alone. We want Latter-day Saint creators around the world to know that you are not alone. We are here, and we invite you to join us in advancing the cause of Zion by striving to create content guided by the following ideals: 

• Love. The Savior Jesus Christ outlined in no uncertain terms what it means to be one of his disciples: “By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” We echo President Russell M. Nelson’s counsel that “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions. … [Christ’s] true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire—no matter how difficult the situation.” We strive to meet opposition with patience and respect instead of disdain and mockery. We recognize that discipleship is contingent, first and foremost, on loving others as Jesus loves us.
• Truth. We strive to create content that is accurate, honest, and in alignment with the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ. We feel not only a desire but also a responsibility to share accurate information about our religion while also challenging misinformation in kind and productive ways. We believe in seeking knowledge and guidance through a range of epistemological tools, including academic scholarship and also divine revelation (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:118, Matthew 16:17).
• Unity. We seek conversations that foster mutual understanding and edification. Where disagreement arises, we aim to disagree well without seeking to compromise the dignity of those we disagree with. When we perceive we’ve been mistreated by others, we strive to respond with patience and with an attitude of reconciliation (see Matthew 18:15). This applies to interactions with nonmembers, former members, and our fellow members of the Church. We stand for the ethical treatment of all of God’s children and recognize that our wrestle is not against flesh and blood, “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. …” 
• Boldness. We strive to create content that lives up to the advice found in Alma 38:11-12, “See that ye are not lifted up unto pride; yea, see that ye do not boast in your own wisdom, nor of your much strength. Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love. …” We do not believe that peacemaking and boldly standing up for what we believe to be right are mutually exclusive ideals. We strive to embody both.
• Faithfulness. We believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. We strive to create content that reflects faith in, and faithfulness to, Jesus Christ. We strive to follow His example and keep His commandments because we love Him (see John 14:15). We also believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ’s restored church in these latter days. We believe in the foundational truth claims of the Church. Our highest priority is to seek after and follow Jesus Christ, and we believe that the Church of Jesus Christ helps us to accomplish that.

This is not a list of attributes we pretend to have already mastered but rather a view of what we each aspire to work towards and become. We do not expect perfection of ourselves in this endeavor, but we do pledge sincere, repeated, and concerted effort until we might be made perfect in Christ. We are not official representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ, but we have covenanted at baptism to take upon ourselves the name of Christ. Thus, we will strive to humbly and confidently share the good news of the gospel far and wide, waiting for that fateful day when we hope to hear our Savior say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

If you are a Latter-day Saint content creator and wish to add your name to this document, please visit this link.

David Snell                           C. D. Cunningham                        Ryan Robb

Dan Ellsworth                      BJ Spurlock                                   Bekka McLawhorn

Bridger Coburn                   Jennifer Roach                              Michael Bendall

Nathaniel Givens                 Ryan Sorensen                              Shima Baughman

Mimi Bascom                       Becky Squire                                  Christian McOmber

Kurt Francom                      Jeffrey Thayne                               Sara Phelps

Kyle Smith                           Michael Peterson                           Lynnette Sheppard

Kempe Nicoll                       Ashly Stone                                     Rachel Rhien Tucker

Carol Rice                            Daniel Smith                                  Ashley Getz

Pam Peebles                        Jasmin Rappleye                           Rachel Cushing

Kai Elkins                            Brian Arnett                                   Skyler Sorensen

Guy Johnson        *             Fred Zundel                                    Jennie Moss

Ari Coleman                        Jeff Roundy                                   Shannon Jones

Jacob Ryder                        Greg Matsen                                   Beth Martineau

Evan D. Wirig                     Sonrisa Hasselbach                       Lydia J. Wadsworth

Beth Martineau                  Greg Matsen                                    Kamden Hainsworth

Jeff Roundy                         Jennie Moss                                    Fred Zundel

Jessica Spackman               Derek Crimin                                 Matthew Sailors

Elissa Nysetvold                 Daniel Sorensen                            Priscilla Davis

Dawn Anderson                  Jenny Panemeno                          Rachel Snider

Shelbi Stanfill                      Todd Bruce                                    Megan Dahl

Nate Russell                         Mandy Davis                                 Austin Smoot

Kjersti Christensen             Jacob Roundy                              Jacob Crapo

Benjamin Pacini                  Christie Hurst                              Amanda Anderson

Amber Pearce                      Tyler Mercer                                 Kaari Lines

Tyler Mercer                        Abby Watson                                 Madison C. Packer

Samuel Serrano                  Linsie Draper                                 Joey Vogl

Bryan Dorman                    Eliza Sewell                                    Richard  Durrant

Sean & M’Shelle Dixon       Kyle Jacobs                                    Jackson Howell

Ryan Mercer                        Mike D. House                              Jeffrey Law

Dustin Moore                      Kary Ann Hoopes                         Marianne Pierce

Charles Neal                       Lauren Draney                             Shima B. Baughman

Ashli Carnicelli                   Sarah Cook                                    Sonrisa Hasselbach

Jerald Simon                       Carrie Yost                                     Dawn Anderson

Brandon Brooks                 Crystal Minnick                             Shannon Andrews

Elisabeth Child                  Mandy Davis                                  Alysha Collier

Erin Guy                              Charles Stanford                          Melissa Draper

Leticia Dada                      Lynnette Sheppard                        Lita Merrill

Arianna Mortensen          Rhonda Steed                                Javier P. Potzsch

The post A Clarion Call For Cyber-Disciples appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Last week, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy caught the attention of conscientious parents and created a buzz online with statements about youth and social media. He warned of the dangers of social media platforms and the web at large as “harmful” for teens and their “developing sense of identity.”  

“I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early … It’s a time where it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often do a disservice to many of those children.” He suggested a united front by concerned parents as a solution for overcoming the pressure teens feel to participate, “If parents can band together and say, you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early.” 

Among the harms, Dr. Murthy suggests that youth are out-gunned and pitted against addictive algorithms. He explained, “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers.”

Seattle Public School District, parent’s groups, and states like Indiana, Utah, and Texas agree, and they are taking measures to protect young people from what they consider an “existential threat.” Citing concerns similar to the Surgeon General’s, the Governor of Utah, Spencer J. Cox, says, “It’s very telling when the very people building these apps refuse to let their kids have them.”

With research showing adverse effects from social media use that include loneliness, depression, bullying, poor physical health, sleep disorders, and privacy concerns, it can feel daunting to face the potentially precarious outcomes for the rising generation—especially for those who are called to minister, mentor, and parent them.

A week before Dr. Murthy’s comments, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church Educational System put on a training for the leaders of their Seminary and Institute programs. These programs are targeted at teenagers and young adults—precisely the age range at most risk of the dangers of social media and who need to learn how to effectively navigate these spaces. 

The presentation reflects the forward-looking view of leaders of the Church Educational System in addressing these pressing concerns.

Belonging. Well before these national public warnings, church leaders have been making plans to counter these social pressures. As an antidote to loneliness and feelings of depression, “belonging includes loving and respecting one another,” explained Chad H. Webb, Church administrator of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. “It also includes principles that bring us to the Savior. … The blessings of true gospel-centered belonging also include covenant connections. Belonging as defined through the lens of the restored gospel helps us to know our true identity and our eternal relationship with our Father in Heaven.” 

Webb’s model of belonging is well supported by research that suggests that belonging happens when uniting around common goals and identities. Education professor and popular civility commentator Benjamin Pacini tells a story of two schools, one that focused on belonging as a primary goal and achieved nothing but discord. And another school that focused on working to fix the educational problems students faced. With that goal at the forefront, interpersonal problems faded away, with unity developing naturally.

Identity. While Dr. Murthy recognized the negative effects of social media on self-worth, he presented no alternative ways of developing the same. Young Men General President Steven J. Lund described changes to the new For the Strength of Youth guide as a way to help improve self-efficacy and decision-making in a way that assists young people to approach life with spiritual rather than just cultural sensitivities. “It’s a reset of the way they approach their lives,” he said. “Our youth are already being confronted with moral questions that were not even questions a decade or three ago. If they’re going to be thrown off balance today deciding about tattoos, well, just wait to see what else the world is coming hammer and tong at them with.” He suggested that increasing one’s sense of self can come from the practice of making good choices. 

Expanding on the importance of understanding identity, Church Commissioner of Education Elder Clark G. Gilbert said, “Many young adults today are struggling because they do not understand their true identity.” He then cited President Russel M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ, who “teaches with empathy and love, but he still teaches the central truth about divine identity.”

Lund and Gilbert’s transcendent approach to self-worth comes as a refreshing antidote to the secular and self-focused approach that has led this generation into a worsening mental health epidemic. 

Civility. Of course, in navigating a social media environment, we must have the skills necessary to speak effectively and civilly. Gilbert went on to analyze a frequent mode that President Russel M. Nelson uses in his public discourse:

[He] has been using a phrased couplet, where on the left side of each statement, he talks about the difficulty, peril, anxiety, and commotion of the latter days. On the right side of the couplet, he declares with confidence and hope that through Jesus Christ and keeping our covenants in Him, we can overcome these challenges. I count no less than seven of these couplets in President Nelson’s general conference messages from the time he became the prophet.

Two examples: 

Without creating a panic over social media directly, leaders in the Church Educational System are providing proactive and creative guidance for how to navigate some of the most pressing of problems facing youth and young adults today.

To that end, before a Surgeon General’s warnings and protective bills were drafted, and before the latest Seminary and Institute broadcast, President Nelson—himself also a former physician—presented a prophetic invitation to a worldwide audience of youth regarding their social media use. In June 2018, to 22,000 youth in attendance at the conference center and many more thousands through the devotional broadcast, he offered a challenge to disengage from social media with a week-long “fast.” He said, “if you are paying more attention to feeds from social media than you are to the whisperings of the Spirit, then you are putting yourself at spiritual risk, as well as the risk of experiencing intense loneliness and depression.” He then warned that “much of what appears in your various social media feeds is distorted, if not fake …  give yourself a seven-day break from fake.”

A break from the fake; indeed, just what the doctor ordered.

The post The CES Solution to the Surgeon General’s Warning appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

It’s also a terrible idea. 

I worry that social media policy-making is not good therapy—and not good policy either.

I’ve tried to come up with a little how-to guide of what to do when tragedy strikes—some mix of policy lessons and emotional self-help that, with any luck, could help me (and maybe others) to navigate things a little more productively the next time something terrible happens.

Pay respects to the horror

In times past, we would experience only the tragedies of our community. Now, we hear of all of them from everywhere. 

In the face of such tragedy, I’m not sure hiding works. I don’t want to become so cold that it doesn’t affect me—and yet, I can’t possibly bear the weight of the tragedies of all of civilization. I’m not wired for it. I don’t think any of us are. 

I have a friend who heard of a school shooting and wept. Then he prayed. He asked what he could do. He knew it was not enough. It was all he could afford. I’ve done the same. When I heard of a recent horror, I sat with it. I thought about it. I paid my respects, so to speak. I gave myself a little time to simply experience it.

I was grateful to have a commute that gave me time to simply sit with the horror before seeing my young children and wife. It gave me time to pay my respects.

Facts first

When the emotional processing is done—or, at least, when it is far enough along to let me think clearly—it’s time to focus on the facts.

Some branches of the military have an interesting practice. When there is a critical failure of some kind, all involved come together for a “hotwash,” an after-action report that is meant to focus on what happened. The only goal is to meet together and get the facts straight. The key to a good hotwash is to pause feelings of accountability—not because they aren’t important but because it’s not the right time. The goal of the hotwash is to ensure you have the story right, that you’ve learned everything you can, and to focus on preventing a future similar incident.

No shopping hungry

“Making policy after a tragedy is how you get the Iraq war.”

If the tragedy is recent enough to make you lose your cool on Facebook, then it’s probably an indicator that you’re not rational enough to make thoughtful policies about it. One should avoid policy-making-while-emotional for much the same reason they should avoid grocery-shopping-while-hungry—you’ll have a cart filled with things you didn’t actually need.

There is an important place for fury. (Go ahead. Click it.) What the little cartoon says jokingly, I say seriously. But the time and place for fury are different than the time and place for solutions. 

Here are some other rules of thumb on how to check your own emotions—from my own hard experience: 

• If you look at your “shopping cart” of policy ideas and your overwhelming preference is simply to add more, you may not be ready to go shopping. 
• Do people who take a different position from you on a policy matter come off to you as uncaring? Or are they just good people with a different take?
• If someone is in a different emotional state from you, does your brain label them as an opponent? If someone is emotional, do you write them off as irrational? If someone is rational, do they come off to you as minimizing or calloused?
• Is your first instinct in a tragedy to blame the tribe you love the least?

These are only rules of thumb, but they are worth considering.

No perfect worlds

I learned an important policy maxim from my father when I was young: “even a town of 100 people has a jail.” I once thought it was a cynical way to think about humanity. Now I think it’s a crucial lesson about confronting the hard realities of life.

There are two lessons here.

First, beware of the just-world fallacy. Nirvana is not for this world. We should do everything we can to improve things. Adjust your expectations: no town, no matter how good, no matter how effective the sheriff, no matter how close-knit, can get by without a jail. There is no country on earth that has ended homicide, theft, or poverty. The best we’ve done is reduce such things. The lasting changes tend to be marginal and incremental, and those wins are worth embracing.

Second, even if you get every policy right, you’ll still need people to do the right thing to make real progress. Any policy that treats people as mere objects—rather than humans endowed with free will—is ignoring reality. 

No silver bullets

I remember walking into economics class in college; on the board was the question, “what is the socially optimal homicide rate?” 

We should reduce homicides. It’s important. It’s also important to realize that eliminating all homicides would be too costly—in resources, in civil liberties, and in collateral damage—for us to possibly get to the number zero. I have no interest in engaging in fatalism here—we can make a difference. But that difference will be marginal, incremental, and deliberate. Have the fortitude to meet the catastrophe of civilization with courage. It does not require you to lower your expectations for a better world. It only asks that you confront hard realities with clear eyes.

I saw a T-shirt once that read: “No solutions, only trade-offs.

We should seek to eliminate evil, but utopianism is a cheap anesthetic to the harsh realities of the world. It also distorts our policies to be more poison than cure. We should be passionate in our determination to end all societal ills. We should be equally humble about what policy—even very good policy—can accomplish.

Outcomes, not intentions

Too many, as Thomas Sowell wisely observed, measure a policy by its intent rather than by its outcome. Consider the temptation to ban AR-15s to fight gun homicides—despite there being relatively few gun deaths involving them. Consider the desire to mandate more reporting in child abuse cases, despite strong evidence that it makes the problem worse. 

In 2017 nearly 20,000 people died in car accidents while wearing a seatbelt. But there is an important reason that we aren’t discussing banning seat belts—they save lives. It is imperative to talk about what is going right in addition to what is going wrong. Our impulse to throw out a system because of a tragic case needs to be checked—even if the case really is tragic, and even if we really do need to find every possible way to improve. 

Relatedly, be wary of the temptation to at least do something. 

Policy is not therapy. Its goal should not be to help me feel better about the problems in the world. Policy is hard and complicated, and the more simplistic my thinking is, the less likely it will work out as expected.

We are in a great project to build Zion. That potential should inspire and motivate us. We shouldn’t be complacent in the face of great evil. And we should work to improve the world around us. But policy is complicated, and improving the world is more difficult than making big changes because you wish it was better. Working toward that Zion future requires thoughtful, sober-minded people to grapple with difficult questions and competing tradeoffs in moving us one step at a time toward that future.

The post Grief and Policy: Navigating Tragedy in the Social Media Age appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

A recent piece in The Atlantic discusses the costs of our increasing use of the label “toxic.” The author argues that we’ve expanded the scope of behaviors we consider intolerable in order to rid ourselves of any people or groups that cause us even mild discomfort. I think she’s right. I would add that demands for autonomy that erode a sense of duty toward others, abundant virtual communities, and technological advances designed to reduce human interaction are resulting in crippling levels of loneliness, isolation, and unhappiness. We can no longer distinguish between conflict and abuse, and we are “self-caring” ourselves out of the difficult interpersonal skills necessary for emotional intimacy.

There was, however, one contention raised by the author with which I disagreed. She writes, 

One of the easiest explanations for the “toxic” trend is clearly false: Young people aren’t misanthropes. In the past few years, Millennials and Gen Zers have helped rejuvenate the concept of mutual aid, participated in some of the country’s largest-ever demonstrations in favor of racial justice, and expressed a renewed interest in organizing labor. Many of us are thinking hard about our interconnectedness and sometimes tying ourselves in knots trying to do the right thing.

I definitely don’t think that young people are misanthropes, either. And their sensitivity to societal sources of suffering is not an impulse anyone should want to quell. But the idea that social justice or political activism makes one a loving person—and that participation in such is essentially synonymous with loving humanity—is, I think, a misconception that actually exacerbates our interpersonal problems and isolation. 

Dostoevsky expresses this well in The Brothers Karamazov. A wealthy woman admits to an Orthodox elder how she’s sometimes ready to leave her handicapped daughter and devote herself to monastic service. She realizes, however, that her zeal might not survive the demands of such a life. The elder recounts to her the following: 

It’s just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder. “He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary.”

The doctor values general human welfare the way the author of the Atlantic article expansively suggests that the activism of young people is evidence that they are not misanthropes. But he goes on:

Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self‐complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty‐four hours, I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

The elder’s point is clearly not to speak against serving humanity in general since, as a monk, he had aimed himself at just such a life. His point was that it’s easier to devote oneself to an abstract idea of human beings than it is to love individuals. The abstraction called Humanity makes few real demands of us; individual human beings, by contrast, will try our patience relentlessly.

The danger in using one’s commitment to social or political causes as a barometer for tolerance, love, mercy, or justness is that such commitments rarely require the selflessness that defines these virtues. This is especially true in the age of social media. As a friend has written, grandstanding on social media does not make you a good person, but there’s a real risk it can make you uncivil, intransigent, and insincere. When every post or exchange takes place before an audience, there are strong incentives to perform. The nature of online activism makes it easy to lose track of whether you are serving a cause or it’s serving your ego. 

Without a great deal of restraint and character, “fighting” for a cause generally devolves into just fighting; for one’s team or even just one’s sense of self-importance. When the good of Humanity is at stake, indignation and anger become virtues. Whether Evil manifests itself on Twitter or at the Thanksgiving table, it must be shouted down and humiliated for good measure.

But Evil cannot be shouted down or humiliated—only people can. What evil can do is obscure the humanity of the people right in front of us and develop a disposition to hurt and punish. When loving humanity becomes a pretense for dehumanizing individuals, we are no longer fighting Evil; we are becoming it. Dostoevsky’s point in The Brothers Karamazov is not only about the difference between loving men and loving Mankind; it’s also about the way the latter makes it easy to deceive ourselves about the former. He is pointing to the irony in believing we can be indifferent, or even cruel, to individuals but still believe ourselves capable of bringing about their good at a collective level. 

The truth is that real people—individuals, not Humanity—will almost always stand between us and our vision of the good. That’s where the real tests of tolerance, love, mercy, and justness begin. This doesn’t mean we wait until we are perfect before seeking out worthy social or political causes. It’s often through our anxious engagement in good causes that we encounter individuals needing our time and “enemies” on whom we can bestow unexpected understanding. 

But if we find ourselves constantly at odds with those in our immediate proximity, we should be honest with ourselves. Which is it that really requires more self-sacrifice and compassion: deep connections to family, friends, colleagues, and fellow worshippers, or political and social allegiances? We don’t have to abandon social or political causes to placate our nearest and dearest, but neither should we allow all-or-nothing ideologies to hold our relationships hostage. Learning to navigate the tensions between our own ideals and the needs of others is more than just rewarding; it’s the catalyst for the spiritual and emotional growth we ought to require of those who want to impact human affairs at scale.

The post When Misanthropes Love Humanity appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

One of Jesus’ most striking parables concerns a farmer who sowed a field of wheat. That night, an enemy came and threw weeds into the field. When the weeds were discovered, the farmer didn’t tell his servants to uproot every weed but rather instructed that they should grow together until the last days (Matthew 13:24-30). 

The parable is an important instruction that the kingdom of God will include both good and evil and that it will be up to God to determine which is which at the judgment.

How do we apply this parable to our contemporary Latter-day Saint setting? In many ways. We limit who judges personal worthiness to bishops and stake presidents. We seek to be as inviting as possible to all. And we recognize the limitations in our ability to judge one another.

Social media’s unique impact on faith. In an essay analyzing the religious shifts of the 2010s, I argued three years ago that social media has changed the experience of faith more than any other trend that decade. 

I went on to say, “Social media has provided a venue to channel religious fervor without institutional oversight. The effect has been a kind of democratization of religion. This approach takes the church out of religion, undercutting churches’ authority (and ability) to control a narrative or maintain doctrinal boundaries.”

In the three years since writing this, this trend has continued but shifted in significant ways, and trends that had just begun are now flourishing. Perhaps most significant among these shifts is the rise of influencer culture. The COVID-19 shutdown and pandemic led to a significant rise in popular influencers and the audience for them. While the internet of five to ten years ago may have been a free-for-all, today—with a push from the shutdowns—we are coalescing around charismatic figures and voices.

This is happening in all kinds of communities. In religious spaces, these voices tend not to be institutionally linked but rather individual and personality-driven. On some level, people of faith are no longer tasked merely with finding a pastor at a church to direct them spiritually but rather with finding dozens of pastors that touch on a myriad of aspects of their spirituality. And there is no shortage of individuals volunteering to be those pastor stand-ins—each of whom will impact our moral intuitions if we allow their content into our lives, whether we consciously choose to or not. 

The evolving Latter-day Saint diaspora online. This may be a helpful point to explain how these larger trends have influenced Latter-day Saints specifically. For Latter-day Saints, this arguably represents a more significant shift than for people in more mainline American faiths. Latter-day Saints have previously not been in a position to choose their own pastors.

Historically, this has had many positive effects, helping Latter-day Saints remain insulated from the celebrity culture that negatively impacts much of American Evangelicalism, as Jana Riess recently argued.

But in looking at the intersection of celebrity culture and the Church, Riess largely ignored the bubbling celebrity influencer culture growing in our faith on social media.

The Latter-day Saint space online is an interesting one. The Church of Jesus Christ is hierarchical, and so the draw to a space with less institutional oversight was strong for those whose beliefs and behaviors put them on the fringes or outside of Latter-day Saint life, while those who felt well integrated felt no similar push to find emotional and religious validation in online communities. As a result, for nearly twenty years, the most prominent Latter-day Saint spaces online were in tension with the beliefs and practices of the church they sprung from. Those who bucked this trend were either pigeonholed (“TBM” or “true believing Mormon”) or radicalized out of the mainstream (“DezNat”) in response.

The pandemic changed that dynamic by giving many more Latter-day Saints who felt fully resonant with and aligned with their religious tradition a motivation to seek religious community online. But many of those more established communities presenting themselves as Latter-day Saints (but not representing the beliefs and practices taught by The Church of Jesus Christ) were naturally in stark tension with these newly online Latter-day Saints. 

How were the newcomers to react within an online environment that often advertised itself as being for them but which fundamentally still felt foreign, if not outright antagonistic to their faith?

In all too many cases, these brothers and sisters adopted these newfound online communities uncritically at a great consequence for their faith. Those who recognized the danger of these communities, and the influencers leading them, began to note the incongruence between the way these influencers advertised themselves and their public statements and advocacy. 

But those on the receiving end of these commentaries felt attacked. They had nearly complete reign over this alternate Latter-day Saint space for nearly a generation and felt put off by once again being recognized as distinct outsiders to the Church’s beliefs and teachings. Paradoxically they had been during all this time both extraordinarily influential while still identifying as being disempowered outsiders.

Consequently, the conversation has begun to turn to the appropriate way to navigate these community boundaries, especially in an environment where influencers may not appreciate the reality of their public influence and the role of their public advocacy. 

Making sense of our new “influencer class.” In a world where anyone is potentially a religious influencer, the parable of the wheat and the tares becomes less straightforward to apply. The parable, after all, has more figures than just the wheat and tares.

Once the wheat and tares step out of the role of merely being tended in the field, but active participants in shaping the direction of the field, the lens that we use to understand the parable and how we apply it to our current social-media influencer culture should change.

Today 50 million people consider themselves influencers. As a result, many can feel like being an influencer does not itself distinguish someone from the rest of the field or flock—and that they should be just as immune from criticism and analysis as anyone else in the pews. 

For example, Calvin Burke, a frequent critic of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a popular social media influencer who is often cited by major national publications. He is extraordinarily influential. Yet when some of his public commentary was critiqued publicly, he recently said, “It remains quite flummoxing to find people this fixated upon me. Like … why me?”

That appears to be a sincere question. This suggests that many in our influencer culture haven’t fully come to terms with the degree to which influencers really do influence. Similarly, Julie Hanks, one of the most dominant figures in Latter-day Saint online influencer culture, made a similar remark in October of this year, dismissing critiques of her work not on their merits but merely because “I’m not that powerful.”

No one would seriously suggest that those seeking a pastor (even an Instagram pastor) should not be able to do due diligence about the public faith positions of their pastors. Yet, because of this rapid transition to influencer culture, many on both sides of the influencer screen have not yet realized that finding a pastor is precisely what is happening. 

Since these influential public figures don’t fit neatly into the parable of the wheat and tares, for Latter-day Saints determining how to interact, I would argue we must look for scriptural guidance elsewhere. 

Other applicable scriptural teachings. Another parable of Jesus might help illuminate how He would approach this question. In Luke 12, Christ tells a story not about a field and an enemy but about a house and a thief. He teaches that His servants are blessed if they remain watchful throughout the night to stop a potential thief while their master is gone. 

But in more direct language, Jesus approaches this question in the Sermon on the Mount, where he implores us to be watchful for false prophets “who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” 

The words of Christ illuminate several important truths. There will be people who claim to be positive influences on faith but who are not, in fact. And that we are not to wait until the end time for a third party to judge them alone but are to proactively watch for them ourselves. And that we should judge them based on their fruits.

Those who apply the parable of the wheat and the tares to suggest we should not judge religious social media influencers appear to be missing Jesus’ forthright instruction to do exactly that.

Paul is similarly clear. In Romans 16, he urges the saints to find unity. But significantly, he does not suggest that this unity should be found by allowing every kind of “smooth talk.” Rather he implores the church members to “mark” those who create divisions contrary to the doctrine and who, through their “smooth talk and flattery, deceive the hearts of the naive.”

These instructions are clearly not intended to make us wary of every person in the pews, but should instead be reserved for those trying to influence our religious lives and religious communities. When someone publishes on matters that touch on our religious lives, especially if they do so frequently, we should judge them—“keep an eye on” them as Paul says (Romans 16:17-18 KJV & NRSV)—and so yes, they should expect to be judged, and as Christians, we are obligated to do so. 

To emphasize, we can follow James’ instruction to not “judge [our] neighbor” while recognizing that social media influencers put themselves in a public position that demands that we, as Christians, discern (or judge) the work they do and the way they influence the Church and its members.

This is arguably true of everyone publishing online, by the way. Public writing invites public scrutiny and deliberation, as it should. This collective conversation creates something social scientists describe as a reputation market. Reputation markets can serve as important indicators of who to trust. And so they can be effective in helping those wary of false pastors and prophets on social media be directed to trustworthy voices. But that reputation market can’t effectively function when we inaccurately claim we must opt out for religious reasons. 

In addition, Jesus’ injunction to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing lets us know that not everyone who will seek to mislead us along religious lines will do so while acting in good faith. So while we should give the benefit of the doubt to every individual influencer, we should realize that there will exist influencers who will seek to exploit their connection to the Church specifically to try and undermine the faith of those who still believe. And we would expect people in this position to be the most vocal in demanding we not judge whether influencers are good or bad. 

Now to be clear, the instruction to judge those who would seek to influence us spiritually is important; it can also clearly go awry. Overzealous judgments can destroy the unity we are commanded to seek.  It is no surprise that Jesus explained how to appropriately judge in this same sermon when he said, “Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” It should also be no surprise that Paul lists discernment as a spiritual gift, not a spiritual burden. And the Psalmist tells us to “judge righteously” to protect the עָנִי or humble and lowly.

I expect that I should be held to this same standard. As the managing editor of an influential publication that often touches on religious issues, I hope that readers will judge me, compare what I say to the living prophets and the scriptures, and then draw conclusions as to whether or not they want my influence in their life. The reputation market, and the third parties who contribute to it, cannot replace our own individual discernment, but it can be a helpful tool. So when I say that we should be using righteous judgment about influencers, I am explicitly asking others to use that same judgment on me and my work.

The hard work of discernment. While the imperative to discern between faith-building and faith-damaging influencers is crucial, that doesn’t necessarily give us the answer to how to make this judgment.

One complicating factor for Latter-day Saints is that we formally have a mechanism for the judgment of the faithfulness of others in place. Bishops and stake presidents are called as “the Lord’s judges in Israel.” Consequently, it can be easy to conceptualize any attempt at public discernment as a misguided effort to take on the role of a bishop. But the reality is that almost everyone in the reputation market won’t have the ecclesiastical role to judge others’ worthiness.

Yes, those who limit their religious influence to their ward and personal network should be able to expect that only their bishop and stake president will judge them. Their judgment is an ecclesiastical one almost entirely since the scope of their work is bounded to a particular congregation. These local leaders judge an individual’s worthiness, readiness to take on covenants, and progression in the repentance process. 

Yet when Christ commands us each to discern for wolves in sheep’s clothing, or Paul asks us to keep an eye on those who teach in opposition to the doctrine, they are not speaking only to ecclesiastical leaders. So these scriptural precedents must be signaling a different kind of judgment than formal leadership is involved in. 

Significantly, notice that in this case, Christ instructs us not to judge the individual but to judge their fruits: What are their public statements? What is the effect of their public influence on others?

It would be inappropriate to claim that a social media influencer is not temple-worthy. But identifying whether someone’s comments accurately represent Church doctrine, critique the Church in unfair ways, or reflect beliefs that are incompatible with the questions for baptism or temple recommends is a different matter—reflecting sensible evaluations of “fruits.” And it would likewise be fair to characterize those public personas as “unorthodox,” “unfaithful,” “disaffected,” or “outside the mainstream.”

But on what measurements should we make these important determinations? Sam Brunson, a popular influencer and blogger at By Common Consent, recently suggested that many would determine who is and isn’t an appropriate influence on the Church based on their gender, race, and pioneer heritage. To the extent this is true, it would be a sad indictment. God is no respecter of persons, and neither should we be. But this can work as a distraction. Pointing to those who do the work of discernment poorly is not a rationale to stop doing it entirely. This type of rhetoric can also work to unfairly impugn those speaking out for boundaries by implying they are, in fact, engaging in sexism or racism—as though there are no appropriate standards on which to judge. But the fact that some may fail to judge righteously doesn’t divest us of our responsibility to do so. 

Others argue that what defines faithfulness among Latter-day Saints is broad and impossible to define. They deconstruct faithfulness to the point that the phrase can effectively apply to anyone who wants it regardless of their religious beliefs and practices. And I understand this impulse. Latter-day Saints don’t adhere to formal creeds, and with the goal of gathering Israel, the tent of Zion should be as wide as possible. 

And yet, we should resist this temptation to deconstruct the meaning of a faithful Latter-day Saint into meaninglessness. This is not some obscure difficult-to-define concept. Millions of people intuitively know what it means. Yes, there will be questions around those definitions on the edges, and we should be sensitive to those. True, we don’t subscribe to traditional creeds, but when asked what the symbol of our faith was, then President of the Church Gordon B. Hinkley said, “the lives of our people.” The lack of creeds does not erase boundaries. Rather, it raises the boundaries to a level higher than mere assent to beliefs. 

And those standards are not difficult to find. Baptismal and temple recommend questions are published and widely available. The three contemporary proclamations describing the Church’s position on the most important issues of the day are easy to access. Even the temple covenants are published by the Church. The consequence of this is that when I represent myself as a baptized, faithful, believing, or active Latter-day Saint, I am also representing myself as someone who believes in God or has agreed to live the law of tithing, to use two examples from those lists. And if, as an influencer, we are, in fact, influencing people away from those ideas, those who are choosing which influencer-pastors they want in their lives should know that there is a discrepancy—that their public identity is not in line with how they’ve presented themselves.

In like manner, when someone presents themselves as a faithful Latter-day Saint, many may opt to allow their influence in their life because they believe this phrase means that they have covenanted to, for example, the law of consecration. Knowing that they’ve made and intend to keep that covenant can be a great comfort to those choosing who they should allow to influence them. If in the future, they decide that they are no longer particularly active, that information is important so that people can make informed choices about whether or not they want to be influenced by someone on religious matters who no longer feels constrained by that covenant. Similar kinds of informed consent can and should take place in ethical mental health counseling and therapy. 

“Latter-day Saint” is not an ethnic, social, or cultural category. It represents beliefs and actions that spring from covenantal commitment. Those beliefs, actions, and covenants are not a secret but widely distributed and have specific meanings. And while we are not in a place to judge if someone is keeping their covenants, personally, we are clearly in a place, and under ancient injunction from both Paul and Jesus Christ, to discern the public personas who seek to influence us religiously. 

This can be a difficult path to tread. The instinct to not judge others is both religiously and culturally powerful. And the nature of influencers is that they feel personal rather than influential. But we must find ways to judge the influence without judging the individual. Anything short of this—or stepping well beyond it—may well prove destructive to the Church and Kingdom of God.

The post The Wheat and Tares Parable in the Social Media Age appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

A Pew study five years ago found a majority (59%) of teens in the U.S. had experienced cyberbullying in some form. Reasons for bullying vary widely according to a 2020 Annual Bullying Survey—targeting aspects of appearance and mannerisms to clothing and disabilities. If you study cyberbullying messages, you’ll see a pattern of words like “pathetic,” “weak,” “fat,” and “worthless” weaponized repeatedly. Comments aim especially at specific parts of the body or someone’s appearance … basically, anything that makes the other person feel worse about themselves. Hundreds of girls surveyed in 2016 reported that online sexual abuse and harassment were becoming a normal part of their everyday interactions—with upwards of 80% of college-aged young women in other surveys reporting sexual harassment. 

All this is a sad reminder of what so many young people are facing. As many of us already know well from years of public schooling, it’s especially common for bullies (online or off) to target those perceived as being at the extremes of some characteristic. For example,

• 20% of teenage victims reported they were targeted for their “high grades,” while 15% said they were targeted for their “low grades.” 
• 9% of victims said they were targeted for their “low household income” and 8% for their “high household income.” 
• Children who are overweight or underweight, who are less popular or don’t get along well with others, who are seen as annoying by their peers, or who seem depressed or anxious are all at greater risk of being targeted by a bully. 
• Sadly, 5% of cyberbullying victims say they were targeted for their stated “gender identity” and 10% for their “sexuality”—with 8% of teens saying they were targeted for their “religion” and 9% for their “race.” 

Clearly, this is an awful trend that has well-known and tragic effects on teen mental health. But thankfully, there is some really wonderful work being done about it, especially for young people (see this research center, this app for parents, and this resource list).  

But that’s usually where we leave it—as something that teens are facing in our unruly digitized society today. That perception changes immediately, though, once you see it happen to an adult that you love.  

Friends being targeted. It started for me after witnessing several friends and close colleagues getting targeted in various ways for their efforts to raise awareness about the potential harms of modern digital pornography. I had no idea this type of repeated online aggression against thoughtful adults was even a thing—and for the first year or so, I mostly stood back a little gobsmacked that this was even happening. 

After a while, my research instincts kicked in, and I started gathering examples of the attacks that were coming their way. For those unfamiliar with this sordid genre, you might be surprised to find how wide and diverse the rhetorical assaults can be. Moving from the most common to the most creative, these include: 

•  Posting rumors, lies, embarrassing information, or threats on social media generally or more specifically to specific individuals who may know or be aware of the person being targeted.
• “Outing” sensitive information that can potentially be used to harass a victim—including “doxing” someone by publishing private information online with malicious intent.
• “Trolling” is a deliberate act of provoking an individual through bad language or insults on social media or online forums—with an aim of making the other person angry enough to act in a similar manner.
• In our age of heightened sensitivity, “warning wars” have also become common. This is when services for reporting inappropriate content get taken advantage of by falsely reporting a victim to get them in trouble or kicked off a platform.
• “Frapping” involves impersonation by using a screen name similar to the victim’s or creating a new account pretending to be the victim. The bully then carries out inappropriate behavior to make the other person look bad. This can ruin someone’s reputation, especially because it’s hard to deny or correct.

These kinds of things, of course, happen to many people these days across many issues. From choosing to support a socio-political position far out of favor to holding a view on the wrong side of modern medical orthodoxy, you can prepare to be blasted online (and worse). It’s a harsh digital landscape we’re inhabiting, far from the utopian of free association and expression it was originally imagined to be. Since penning this, people on our own team have shared with me stories of vicious trolling they have endured.   

Over recent years, all these forms of cyberbullying have happened to my colleagues in the pornography addiction field, not just a few times—but repeatedly and relentlessly. The longer it happened, it became increasingly horrifying to watch from the sidelines. I was so appalled at what I was seeing that I decided to begin summarizing patterns in what I was observing. 

The personal toll I witnessed was real. I heard colleagues report sleepless nights and worsening symptoms of trauma, serious depression, anxiety, and even physical illness prompted by the relentless barrage. Describing the personal impact, one of them told me that being targeted was “nightmarish”—as well as surprisingly isolating since so many people you love end up confused or cowering, worried about being attacked themselves. It can all be incredibly stressful and “mess with your head.”   

This also takes a toll on relationships—eroding time with family, distracting individuals from the tender care relationships need, and distancing them from needed connection. Many chose to seek outside support like therapy or peer support groups to deal with their chronic grief. 

While most of them tried to weather past the challenges, others decided to confront it directly through cease and desist letters or even defamation lawsuits.  

As my own small part in trying to push back on this campaign of attrition, I eventually decided to publish my report anonymously—not directly and formally, but instead embedded in another essay I had written. I opted to proceed this way so as to stay out of the firing line myself as long as possible. I hosted the review on my own Google Drive account—aware that my anonymity there was limited and only likely to buy me a little time. 

This experience opened my eyes to the reality of adult-on-adult cyberbullying. But it wasn’t until the target came to me that I learned on a more personal level how awful it could be.  

An eye-opening couple of months. Like most writers today, I’ve faced plenty of vitriol in article comments. And every once in awhile, I’ve received harassing texts and mean-spirited emails. But what has happened lately has been of a whole different caliber.

Earlier this year, I decided to write a review article about the life work of my friend Gary Wilson on the anniversary of his death. It was published in early August in the Deseret News, entitled “The Atheist Who Warned the World About Porn Addiction.” Over the week that followed, I was targeted on Twitter around 90+ times in a variety of different places—including every place I write and on the social media pages of various Public Square authors. In addition to inserting incendiary commentary anytime my name comes up on social media, this person has also reached out to venues where I was speaking and other places that have supported my work—trying to discredit and de-platform me through various slanders. Simultaneously, she has reported me for egregious offenses on LinkedIn and other social media platforms (which, although baseless, require me to go through various appeals to defend myself). 

I am choosing not to name the individual behind these attacks—or provide any other identifying information—because my purpose here is to provide appropriate context to my own friends and readers, nothing more. The accusations made about me were wide and varied—including being homophobic and bigoted[ref num=”1″], being one of those dangerous “anti-vaccine[ref num=”2″]” persons, and even claiming that I am “in the middle of groups that appear to be extremely violent.” (This person presents herself as an expert in various things—including brain science and “online extremism.”) There was an insistence that great harm was happening within groups like I’ve been a part of that help people find freedom from pornography, including what she claimed were serious threats on her own life.  

All of this is plain nonsense—based on subtle deceptions woven together with outright fabrications and a few grains of truth. Those who have witnessed this for almost a decade know all this well. But here’s the real point: that doesn’t really matter—because the nonsense often works.   

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” ~ Joseph Goebbels

The power of claiming victimhood. This is especially true when a lie centers on your own status as a victim. New research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reports “converging evidence that the virtuous victimhood signal is an effective mechanism for persuading others … in a way that benefits the signaler.” And in a fascinating piece by New York Times journalist Thomas Edsall, he quotes Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at Brookings, as detailing how activists “have figured out that they can have disproportionate influence by claiming to be physically endangered and psychologically traumatized” by the work or public commentary of others they disagree with. In the same article, Randall Kennedy, a law professor at Harvard summarizes how these activists have learned to “deploy skillfully the language of ‘hurt’” to advance their aims. 

Dr. Kennedy goes on to encourage leaders to “become much more skeptical and tough-minded when encountering the language of ‘hurt’”—so as to avoid incentivizing “those who deploy the specters of bigotry, privilege, and trauma to further diminish vital academic, intellectual and aesthetic freedoms.”

In my judgment, that’s essentially what’s happening here. In the case of this individual, the primary line of attack has ironically been claiming to be a victim of the very people being relentlessly attacked. 

More specifically, this individual portrays herself as “hated,” presumably because her research is bravely uncovering varied “harms” caused by those helping others find freedom from pornography addiction.

The accountability document. In my case, this individual has repeatedly mentioned a “27-page, single-spaced personal attack” against her that she has variously called “abusive,” “threatening,” and “filled with defamation.”

It is none of those things.  Rather, it’s the research summary I mentioned earlier, which I compiled over the years as I watched the aggression from the sidelines. Although it’s now outdated by a few years, everything in it, to the best of my knowledge, is true. 

Even so, I haven’t yet circulated it widely. And I am choosing not to share it again here precisely because that document has been portrayed as some kind of a weapon.

It’s not. It’s an act of accountability. And I stand behind all of it. I mention it here in case you’ve heard these accusations. If, for whatever reason, you want to review it yourself, I’d be happy to share it privately.  

But let me reiterate something very clearly: I am ready and willing to not only publish an updated version under my name but also make sure it gets in front of the managing editors of every major news media organization and relevant academic journal if I am forced to do so.

As a full-time writer working 60+ hours a week, there is so much more I could and will say about this if I’m pushed far enough. But for now, I’m writing this today simply for our own readers at Public Square. I want to at least make sure my friends and colleagues know enough context about what’s happening—so you can say “oh look, there’s Jacob’s special cyberbully friend!” 

I’ve covered my bases to the best of my ability, sharing further background with all the people who employ me. But I don’t know how many others have seen or received these unsettling messages—let alone my critics, who would presumably love to hear some “dirt” confirming their own bias about me. 

If you want to help, get in the habit of asking the targets of such smears for their side of the story rather than casually retweeting shocking claims of victimhood. To his credit, one of my more public critics was contacted by this same individual. When I spoke with him, though, rather than just running with something that fit his feelings towards me, he told me, “I looked a little into [her] accusations, and it looks like she’s been embroiled in controversy and rancor with a lot of different people.”

Anyone willing to dig deeper for the full truth—especially in our world today—has my respect. 

The broader landscape.  As a final note, please know this isn’t happening randomly. So much of the cyberbullying you hear about among teens can feel juvenile, random, and even silly—the social equivalent of kids getting too rowdy (even if the reality for young people is also often more sinister). But among adults, there is undeniably something far more calculated and strategic going on. 

In our hyperconnected, digital world, I’ve been learning to what extent such conduct is often an attempt to silence certain people who are perceived as threats to an ideology or lucrative business. This often works because most victims just don’t want to deal with the attacks anymore. And defamation suits are prohibitively expensive and grueling. If you somehow are able to make your way through the legal process, nothing stops the defamer from declaring bankruptcy to obstruct your collecting damages. It’s certainly easier to let the cyberbully silence you or perhaps stay away from activity that could potentially lead to further targeting of such online aggression.  

To be clear, I’ve only had a nasty taste of what cyberbullying is all about. By contrast, some of my friends have experienced years of it. Broader theology, economics, and sociology aside, I still don’t really understand on a deeper level why this ugliness has to take place.  None of these friends were seeking to be smeared.  It came to them. One of them described it as contracting an incurable infection. Even if they completely ignore it, the attacks just keep coming. Over the years, dozens of individuals I respect have been targeted. So I’m in good company. 

In my view, every one of them is heroic for not only continuing to share the truth about pornography—but for enduring the withering opposition and personal attacks that have ensued. 

Despite all this, I remain optimistic.  Why? Because I know who wins in the end.  

And what will win:  Truth.  The full truth. 

That will be a great day.  

Until then, I’m proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with others doing what they can to raise awareness about reality in our delusion-loving society today—however hated and despised that may make them.    

I seem to recall someone warning long ago that truth-tellers would be hated … alongside a plea for us nonetheless to pray for even those doing the hating.     

That’s what I will keep doing—praying for her and anyone else caught up in the snares of the Sexual Industrial Complex.  

People are hungry for the truth. And it will always be sweet to share it—whatever the cost.  

That is the truth.

Notes:

[footnote num=”1″]It’s true I have written a great deal over the years about identity and sexuality—initially, as an attempt to facilitate dialogue between religious conservatives and the gay community, and more recently, as an attempt to push back on the corrosive impact of popular sexuality ideology on faith.[/footnote]

[footnote num=”2″]It’s also true that like many millions of others in this nation, I’ve had questions about the prevailing response to COVID-19. But it’s not true—and a serious misrepresentation of my public work and writing—to suggest I’ve been a part of directly undermining and fighting the prevailing public health response. That never felt right to me, and I consistently felt like my focus should be pandemic dialogue and peace-making.  And a closer review of my writing in the Deseret News, Public Square Magazine, Meridian Magazine, and Millennial Star will confirm that—demonstrating that virtually everything I’ve written these last two years on the subject centers around either peace-making between various perspectives on health and healing and preserving space for people to think for themselves and make their own choices, hardly radical notions.[/footnote]

The post What It’s Like to Be Cyberbullied appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

That’s never a fun experience—and raises lots of questions worth exploring. But one interesting one that we neglect too often is this: how does that frustrated person explain their hurt or anger? Did they say, “Ouch—you know, those questions you raised really challenged some ways of thinking I’ve embraced about difficult questions I don’t typically like to explore. As painful as it was to hear another perspective, I’m grateful you’re willing to stretch my thinking—and not let the likely ferocious blowback, attacks on your character, and other enormous social disincentives to saying anything at all stop you from raising these insights.” 

Probably not, right? 

Take your pick. Every week at Public Square Magazine, someone else is mad at us. It’s never fun —and always unpleasant on some level.  

But we’re honestly used to it … well, most days. It’s something we’ve had to accept as part of our publishing in this world today. That’s not unique to our work or even to journalism alone (check out this poignant and telling account of the mounting hostility endured right now by public transit drivers in Denver). But faith-oriented media platforms may take a special kind of fire these days.

What’s your pick?  

None of that, of course, is an excuse for overwrought language or sloppy writing. Neither should this forced choice cause us to overlook areas of improvement in not only what is being said but how. As one of our friends likes to remind us, simply “sharing truth” is not enough. In text Latter-day Saints embrace as scripture, the Lord asks a profound question of any seeking to speak in a more godly way: “he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?” Then he says, “And if it be by some other way it is not of God” (emphasis my own).

Are we sharing the truth in the spirit of truth? That’s the question any flame-throwing, bomb-tossing ideologue can’t be asking when he or she spouts truth in a derisive, accusing, hostile manner—so often implicating those who disagree in malevolent motives.  

None of that is what we want to be doing. And all of it is what we work to stay far away from, including and especially on sensitive topics, which we regularly take up here, or when we scrutinize an established pattern.  As we do so, this “spirit of truth” standard is a central question we use.  Here are three other criteria we prioritize in writing difficult pieces:

• Are we writing from an angry “heart at war” or from an imploring, inviting heart at peace? (See Matthew 5:22.)
• Is our language exclusively oriented towards resisting or opposing something, or are we also advancing a positive vision and a better way?
• Is this really a moment to say something or be silent? (Elder Neil Anderson’s recent comments are especially helpful.) If it’s time to speak, are there any ways we are inadvertently provoking offense in a way that is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive? (See Alma 48:14.)

I share these back-end criteria today for a reason—so in our transparency, you can see what we’re really up to at Public Square Magazine. We’re serious about these aspirations. And we’re not playing games. We recognize that many of the things we believe as Christians and more so as Latter-day Saints are increasingly unpopular—which makes all the foregoing especially important: Not just to share truth, but to do so in a way that makes it most likely people can receive it. 

How easy it is for any of us to fall into the angry and fearful spirit of the age. By contrast, in moments when we feel the love of God and the influence of the Holy Spirit, the intensity of joy and peace and hope is stunning—leaving us different than before. That’s also what we often experience in the presence of living prophets and other inspired leaders, especially President Russell Nelson. These men and women provide models for how to speak and engage difficult questions in our day—a striking contrast to the fearful, angry, despairing pundits all around us.  

That doesn’t mean sorrow or fear or frustration should never be a part of our communications. Since indignation, sadness and other heavy emotions are evident in God’s interactions with humankind, there surely are godly ways to express our own grief, anxieties, and deep concerns.

While anyone, then, can spout their thoughts about what is true. But to do so—or attempt to do so—in a higher, holier, more godly way is another story. As Paul himself knew personally, to “speak the truth in love” is stretching for anyone.   

And we don’t always get it exactly right. Just the other day, a colleague reached out and highlighted some ways the ending of our Under the Banner of Heaven piece was falling short (he was right, and updates were made). And several months back, another friend who teaches at the university down the street highlighted an oversight in an editorial I had published. We published his critique. The same friend recently told me that conservatives seem too prone to fear and anger (and he’s right about that too).  Speaking for our entire PSM team, I can’t tell you how grateful we are as a magazine for constructive input that helps us learn how to improve.  

In our view, that’s really the only way to make genuine progress:  do your best at something, and then stay open to input on how to do better. That’s the way of Jesus and His gospel of repentance. And despite abundant commentary pretending to virtues of condemning-and-coercive cancel culture, there really isn’t another, better way.  

How dare you. Even with sincere desires to keep learning, even with good feedback from good people, and even with our best efforts to aspire for language that is as sensitive and empathetic—all while doing our best to articulate positive visions from a heart of peace that channel “the spirit of truth”—the condemnation always comes.  

I’ll never forget the first time I wrote something publicly about an especially sensitive topic.  A group of mothers had banded together to “fight for their gay kids” in a way that pointedly, increasingly portrayed the Church of Jesus Christ as a haven of brutality and oppression. Without their realizing it (or so it seemed to me), their language seemed to be leading other parents and their vulnerable kids to a place of estrangement from the very gospel message that could have brought such peace and hope. Unintended “iatrogenic” (harmful) effects of antidepressants were one of my areas of research, and I knew that possibility was always enormously tricky to take up—especially since those involved were virtually always trying to help. How do you help raise awareness of a helper who seems to be doing harm?  

Carefully. Without questioning intent. Taking 70 pages of these mothers’ own published words, I tried to show in painstaking detail how and why I believed this group’s approach was “Ultimately Hurting Teens & Families (Despite Earnest Intentions Otherwise).” In doing so, I repeatedly underscored my awareness of their positive desires—and tried to write with as much sensitivity as possible. 

When one of the husbands of a founding member found out about the essay, he announced indignantly to the whole group, “One day Jacob is going to realize what an [expletive] he is for writing this.” He proceeded to dress down in a few Facebook paragraphs the entire 50-page analysis as reflecting nothing but bigotry and lack of compassion for marginalized people.

As sad as it might be, that’s a pretty good representation of how a surprisingly large amount of public exchange has gone—and continues to go today—perhaps, especially about the most sensitive and important questions we’re facing as a society:  Sexuality and gender. Family and marriage. Climate and environment. Mental health and public health.  Guns, policing, and public safety. Race and ethnicity.  

And, of course, religion and faith. The year prior, I had written a similarly detailed analysis of Dr. John Dehlin’s widely-hailed research on faith and sexuality. I made the case that, despite intentions I acknowledged were positive, the uniformity of opinion among their research team led them to make some methodological and analytical decisions that generated certain kinds of data and favored especially accusing conclusions (again about the Church of Jesus Christ).  Once again, in the resulting essay—“How scientific research can become weaponized (despite intentions otherwise)”—I took pains to acknowledge better intentions— sending the essay beforehand (as I did with my parenting piece) to their research team in advance of publication.

To John’s credit, his response was to invite me to breakfast.  The conversation was direct but overall productive. I’ve had many similar experiences of honest engagement across differences over the years—including hours of enriching back-and-forth with Kendall Wilcox at Whole Foods, equally enjoyable experiences going deeper with Tom Christofferson, and intensive discussions with an ideologically diverse group of people we dubbed the “Sextet” who grappled for years with questions of sexuality and gender across our many philosophical and religious differences (Evangelical, Episcopalian, Atheist, Marxist, Conservative, Gay, Lesbian). 

For Christmas one year, I sent members of that group a little plaque:

To this day, I still disagree profoundly with so many conversation partners on all sorts of things —from God to identity. And we still adore each other too. Across nearly two decades, I’ve spent hundreds of hours not only learning to help facilitate more and better conversation—but engaging in it myself. 

And you know what I’ve found in doing so?  Delight. And profound learning. And life-long friendships. And personal transformation myself.  

Why, in heaven’s name, I often wonder, wouldn’t we grasp hold of this rich form of communication rather than the accusing, suspicion-laden shadow-boxing that inevitably skims the surface of all questions and leaves us all inescapably more entrenched in the perspective we had before (with little to no insight or expanded complexity in our thinking).  

I can’t for the life of me say that I’ve got a good answer to that question. But Jonathan Haidt’s recent American diagnosis of structural “stupidity” gets close to the mark (“stupid” in reference to something making us involved literally less intelligent). The bulk of his own analysis focuses on how social media predisposes this mutual reactivity by giving us all “dart guns” to shoot at each other. With Randy Paul and Arthur Pena, I’ve also highlighted ways in which the prevailing terms of our many ongoing public conversations may be “pre-loading us for failure.” (For instance, are you loving … or not? Bigoted … or not? Let’s try talking about that!)

Pretty hard to have a rich conversation when both the tech infrastructure and the philosophical backdrop of the conversation are both so well designed to aggravate wedges already framed as impassable. But still, why does it have to be this way? Why couldn’t we say instead, “people have disagreed about the nature of love for many centuries? Let’s talk about our different perspectives on what it means to be loving. (And oh, and by the way, each time you show generosity and respond with thoughtfulness, we’ll be sure to boost your comment on the platform so others can see it more.)” 

Would that kind of conversation make as much money for tech companies?  No.  Would it be as effective in advancing certain socio-political causes? Definitely not. 

But there is more.  Despite Marxist contentions otherwise, money and power are never the whole story.  

The offense of the cross.  What is it that’s being advanced right now in America most powerfully and in a way that’s making the most money? Surely not the message of Jesus Christ.  

I’ve seen this up close, spending the last five years in the tech industry myself—following five years in the mental health and addiction nonprofit world. For more than ten years, I’ve been collaborating with others in trying to advance a public health message (and now a digital health product) that is up against some difficult odds.  Why is that?  

Because when you approach someone who is hurting with mental and emotional problems, and you say, “Hey, I’ve got something you can take that will—with no other changes at all—make this pain go away,” there’s something about the message that sells itself.    

By contrast, our message—as confirmed by literally tens of thousands of studies—is that small, iterative lifestyle adjustments can lead you to a place of deeper emotional healing. That’s a true message (far truer, empirically speaking, than our dominant mental health paradigms)—and also an approach reflective of Jesus’ hopeful message centered on hope for a new day and the ongoing repentant changes that would require.  

In the eternal scheme of things, that message is a winner.  But in the American marketplace of ideas and actions today, it’s up against some stiff competition. Not only does this kind of inquiry into our own lifestyles feel—on its face—onerous and burdensome to consider, but it can also feel downright offensive—even “shaming.”   

You’re saying there’s something I’ve been doing that has worsened this? Are you blaming me as a parent for what my child’s going through? How dare you!  

 Jesus warned his apostles that their message of repentance would not be well received—and that they would be hated as he himself would be. Explaining this hatred directed at himself by the world around him, Jesus said it was “because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” And in his more extensive explanation to Nicodemus, he said, “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” before adding, “every one that doeth evil hateth the light.”

As Isaiah anciently predicted, this remarkable man from Nazareth subsequently became “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense … a trap and a snare” (language repeated by Peter as applying “to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient”).

This is the “offense of the cross” Paul described. It’s the reason why when disciples preached the Lord’s message in the early church, the people were “cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (“angry and furious”). It’s also why the prophet Nephi plainly lamented, “the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.” Even the brightest and most glorious truths become “hard things” against those embracing deceptive fairy tales and living in betrayal of God’s will. As the author of Proverbs likewise summarizes, “Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way.”

Like all things, of course, this too can be overdone—for instance, blaming any blowback or anger on people’s own “heart of darkness” (and consequently not taking seriously any raised concerns). We will continue to remain grateful for constructive feedback—and I personally see a willingness to share frustration on a personal level as a sign of healthy trust in a relationship.  

It’s precisely because our culture has become so angry—including about really good things—that these scriptural teachings are important to keep in mind. Without them, it’s way too easy to let the faith-directed fury and incessant accusations of secular society get in our heads and shut us all up.

But make no mistake, these verses above apply to all of us. When we as believing writers get overly frustrated at the feedback we’re hearing from people, maybe it’s time we look at our own hearts too.    

For all of us, this uncomfortable question should probably linger in the air a bit more:  Is it possible that the feelings of hurt, offense, and anger point not simply towards the giver of the message—but also to the receiver? And especially if we have built our life on assumptions, ideas, and values that are not in alignment with God (which also applies to all of us on some level), wouldn’t we expect that a message pointing that out would sting a bit?   

If so, admitting as much would be hard as well. Far easier, instead, to just point the finger of blame at the person who has made us uncomfortable. If I’m uncomfortable, that means you’ve done something really bad.

Once again, that’s a temptation for all of us. But facing up to this—and reaching beyond it—is  not an optional activity for disciples. It’s what prophets have repeatedly been teaching too. We either speak the truth in love—and by the spirit—or we don’t.  And to the degree we fail to do so, we must all take some responsibility for the reactions.   

For times we have fallen short in any of the high aspirations of discipleship, we take responsibility and resolve to do better. When new conflict emerges, we will seek to learn more from it. And when constructive feedback comes, we commit to “sitting with our discomfort” and not dismissing it—while encouraging all our authors to reach for the ideals and aspirations identified above.

In the meanwhile, if something we publish or say ends up riling you up and making you uncomfortable, we encourage you to do the same. That way, we can keep learning and moving forward together—as believers, as Americans, and ultimately as a human family. As messy as that process may seem (requiring patience, grace, forgiveness, listening, and ongoing change), it reflects the only sustainable way out of this larger cultural mess we’re in. 

We can’t wait to get there.

The post What You Said Makes Me Uncomfortable. Why Are You So Mean? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.