Many things are moving in the right direction. Since the birth of classical liberalism, global poverty has plummeted from near 80% to under 9%, life expectancy has more than doubled, and violent crime is at historic lows. Religious liberty protections in the United States are stronger than virtually anywhere in human history.

But other things are breaking. Teen depression and anxiety rates have doubled since 2010. Marriage rates have fallen nearly 60% since 1970. Birth rates have cratered below replacement levels. Community bonds are dissolving. Loneliness has become epidemic. Political polarization has intensified to levels not seen since the Civil War era.

The family, the fundamental unit of society, struggles to survive in a culture that treats it as optional at best and oppressive at worst. Meaning structures that sustained civilization for millennia are weakening or disappearing entirely.

Secular liberalism promised neutral public spaces where diverse communities could coexist peacefully, but in practice those “neutral” spaces often became vehicles for harmful ideologies hostile to traditional religion and the virtue that flows from it. Public schools teach gender theory as settled science. Corporate HR departments enforce progressive orthodoxy. Administrative agencies regulate religious institutions. The state did not remain neutral. It just changed which comprehensive vision it enforces.

So the question religious conservatives are asking is reasonable: If secular institutions have failed to form virtue and preserve what matters most, shouldn’t we use government to restore what is being lost?

I understand this impulse. I share the alarm.

But as a Latter-day Saint, I believe we should take a different path. Coercion can never produce true goodness; it can only compel outward behavior. If we want to build a better society and protect our way of life in the long term, a more liberty-centric approach to cultural change is the best path forward.

Liberty as a Familiar Alternative

This does not mean abandoning virtue, family, or community. It means getting government out of domains where it has failed and trusting voluntary institutions to do the work that actually transforms lives. This approach has two complementary commitments:

First, protect liberty fiercely in the public sphere. Limit what government controls. Prevent majorities from using state power to enforce their vision on minorities. Ensure that families, churches, communities, and voluntary associations have the freedom to operate according to their values without government either forcing them to compromise those values or forcing others to adopt them.

Second, fight the battle for virtue in the private sphere. Build families so strong that people want to emulate them. Create churches so compelling that people choose to join them. Demonstrate through your life that virtue produces joy, meaning, and flourishing. Compete and win in a marketplace of free thought and association. We should not use state power to mandate virtue. We should prove through voluntary excellence that our way of life produces human flourishing and invite others to join us freely.

For Latter-day Saints specifically, this should feel natural. We are a tiny religious minority that thrives when government protects our liberty to worship, organize, build institutions, and live according to our values. We suffer when majorities use state power to enforce their vision of righteousness.

The liberty we preserve for others to make decisions we disagree with is the same liberty that protects our ability to live our peculiar religion. Liberty is not just morally right. It is the most durable protection we can give to our way of life. It is also where our theology points.  

Liberty in God’s Plan

The most fundamental question in Latter-day Saint theology is also the most politically relevant: What is the purpose of existence?

We believe humans can become divine beings. If the purpose of existence is transformation into beings with infinite potential, then moral agency is not optional—it is the necessary mechanism by which transformation happens.

The War in Heaven expands our understanding of this. In the premortal council, Lucifer promised to save everyone by eliminating agency entirely. God rejected this plan—not because it would not produce behavioral compliance, but because it would destroy what He is trying to create: beings capable of independent righteousness. God chose agency knowing some would fail because the alternative would destroy the very purpose of existence. 

That answer is not emotionally satisfying. Liberty is costly. But if God chose agency despite its risks, we cannot justify using coercion to produce virtue.

Our scripture shows us how the righteous should tolerate error. Alma 30:7-11 describes Nephite prophets facing false teachers willfully corrupting souls. God’s command? They are explicitly forbidden from using law to control religious belief: “there was no law against a man’s belief.” Here God refused to let even His prophet use state power to create forced virtue.

Doctrine and Covenants 121 makes this structural: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” Notice: “can or ought.” Not just “should not”—cannot. Coercion breaks divine authority. This is not a temporary accommodation for mortality. It reveals something eternal about righteous power.

Living prophets affirm this often. In his October 2025 General Conference address, Elder David A. Bednar taught about the “eternal importance of moral agency” which he defined as “the divinely designed power of independent action that empowers us as God’s children to become agents to act and not simply objects to be acted upon.” 

And in prior times of cultural turmoil, prophets have made it clear this extends to the political. President Ezra Taft Benson warned: “one of Lucifer’s primary strategies has been to restrict our agency through the power of earthly governments.” He did not isolate left-wing tyranny, but any use of state power to coerce private virtue.

Our history teaches the same lesson. For our entire history, we have been a religious minority headquartered in a Christian majority nation. When Christian majorities wielded state power to enforce their vision of virtue, we were often the targets. Missouri’s governor ordered our “extermination.” Joseph and Hyrum were murdered by a mob that believed they were defending Christian civilization. This was state power wielded by Christians convinced their religious vision justified coercion. When we are tempted to use government to restore virtue, we should remember we know exactly what that looks like from the other side.

The Risks of Reaching for State Power

Reaching for state power instead carries serious risks. First, you hand those with views opposed to yours the blueprint. Every tool you build, every precedent you establish, every expansion of government power you create to enforce your values becomes available to your opponents when they win elections. And they will win elections.

You might establish laws promoting traditional marriage. They will use the same state machinery to enforce gender ideology in schools. You might require religious education in public schools. They will mandate intersectional social justice curriculum. The power does not stay in your hands. It transfers. And when it does, you will face the very machinery you have built to advance their values.

Second, you teach the next generation that politics determines virtue. Once you establish that state power is the proper tool for cultural formation, the only question becomes: who has more votes? 

Third, you signal that voluntary persuasion is not sufficient. If Christianity truly produces human flourishing, why do you need state enforcement?

The gospel succeeds through attraction, not compulsion. People become Christians because they encounter Christ and recognize Him as the source of life abundant. They join churches because they see communities living with joy, purpose, and love that they want for themselves.

When you reach for state power to enforce religious values, you are announcing that attraction is not working. You are saying your faith cannot compete on its merits in a free marketplace of ideas. That is spiritually devastating. If we really believed that truth freely chosen would prevail, we would not need state coercion.

All of this is to render unto Caesar what is God’s.

The Path Forward

We are facing real and serious problems. The concerns driving religious conservatives toward government solutions are legitimate and urgent. 

But Latter-day Saints have unique resources to see why that response is both theologically wrong and strategically unwise.

Our theology teaches that transformation requires freely chosen action, not coerced compliance. Our scripture commands tolerance even of false teachers. Our prophets warn against restricting agency through government. Our history shows what happens when Christian majorities wield state power to enforce virtue.

Let’s build the Kingdom of God through persuasion, not coercion. Let the state protect rights while God transforms lives through voluntary institutions. Compete in the marketplace of ideas with confidence that truth, freely chosen, will prevail.

God chose liberty over guaranteed outcomes in the War in Heaven because agency matters more than safety and freedom matters more than forced righteousness. As Latter-day Saints, we should understand why that choice was right and why we must make it in our politics today.

Let’s start rendering unto God what is God’s.

The post Caesar’s Dues appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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In today’s fraught political landscape, it’s hard not to feel like both sides are dominated by extremes. And people are noticing. Registered independents have hit an all-time high and continue to increase. While academic research shows that most independent voters still hold ideological leanings, more people than ever are hesitant to officially align themselves with either political party.

This is problematic. Political parties have served as important organizing institutions in American politics for over two hundred years. Their primary goal is to elect candidates to office. Parties accomplish this by attracting voters and building broad coalitions. With America’s two-party system, as soon as one party knocks the other out of the arena, there is an incentive to broaden political appeal to win back voters. 

The past three presidential elections have been decided on thin margins, and Congress has had the narrowest majorities over the past three cycles than at any point in nearly a century. If large, diverse coalitions are no longer necessary to win elections and mobilized ideologues can instead emerge victorious, then the founding idea of a democratic republic reliant on a pluralistic society is bankrupt. 

The solution? Join a party. The medicine might seem counterintuitive to the diagnosis. How can increased partisanship help a polarized America? Because civic engagement, including partisan activity, allows citizens to steer the course of the political parties and, by extension, the nation.

Too often, people relegate political engagement to Election Day, unaware that half the battle was already fought months earlier in caucus nights and committee meetings. It’s powerful to cast a ballot, but even more powerful to shape the ballot itself. In politically homogeneous states, which are becoming more common, congressional elections are often decided at the primary level, or even earlier through party maneuvering (see both Democrat and Republican examples) that determines who appears on the ballot. Registered independent voters are often left out of these decisions, limiting their ability to select candidates and party platforms they most support.

When a closed primary system is used, independents lose political influence, especially in homogenous states, because they cannot determine who is selected as the party’s candidate. Take Utah as an example. Only registered Republicans are allowed to vote in the Republican primary, and GOP candidates are almost always elected for federal and statewide office. While we can bemoan party operations, I am personally irked when someone claims, almost righteously, that they registered as an independent voter. To me, it means they have willfully given up political influence. 

Surprised at the significant support I garnered for running on a different agenda than the national fervor at the time, I again offered my vision of a different direction for the party. I called for a broader coalition of support and identified the shortcomings of relying upon divisive figures. After a second round of voting, and with one person shifting support, I was elected as my precinct’s state delegate.

My experience did not teach me to have a holier-than-thou attitude toward people with a differing vision of politics than myself. Instead, it taught me that one vote in a caucus can matter, and that involvement with parties can be effective in changing their direction. 

I urge readers to become more involved in their local parties. We should seek to be more engaged within our communities, especially through civic and partisan means. A political party may not accurately represent all your views; indeed, it probably will not and should not. Dallin H. Oaks, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said as much in 2021, emphasizing that “no party, platform, or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences.”

While I do not place the Republican or Democratic parties on the same pedestal as the American democratic project, I do believe MacIntyre’s point offers a helpful model for the partisan. Being an avid supporter of a political party still allows for healthy disagreement with the party’s platform or structure. 

I leave with this: joining a mainstream political party opens up avenues for political power that are closed to many independent voters, and joining does not mean you agree with every aspect of the party. If anything, the greatest impact you can have is changing the institution itself and moving the party forward in its quest to serve the people. 

In the past, Republicans and Democrats were not so polarized, and I believe more partisan involvement would actually increase mutual understanding and respect if done thoughtfully. So why wait? Join the party.

The post Join the Party appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Dignity. That’s what’s missing from our politics. 

Leadership isn’t just about what you do; it is about how you do it. At the core of our humanity lies a profound longing for our dignity to be recognized—for the inherent worth of each of us to be acknowledged. As scholar Donna Hicks has written in her book Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict, “When we feel worthy, when our value is recognized, we are content. When a mutual sense of worth is recognized and honored in our relationships, we are connected.” Effective leaders facilitate relationships by cultivating recognition and respect for the dignity of others. Unaddressed dignity violations destroy connection, smothering progress and development.

The Constitution of the United States is built for disagreement. It not only expects conflict but channels it: elections instead of coups, courts instead of tyranny, justice over arbitrariness, and persuasion over coercion. But no amount of constitutional design can substitute for a culture where people choose to recognize one another as fully human. Dignity is not the opposite of conviction. It is the opposite of contempt. 

Leaders set in patterns of disparagement and contempt damage this culture. If we want a healthier political culture, we need to name the patterns in political leadership that are harming us and seek leaders who implement principles of dignity in their leadership styles. 

Why Dignity Collapses in Politics

The tendency to aggrandize oneself and demean others is, ironically, rooted in a lack of self-confidence. As Hicks further describes in her book, “The temptation to save face is as powerful as our fight-or-flight instinct … The dread of having our inadequacy, incompetence, or lack of moral integrity made known is enough to … do whatever it takes to protect ourselves.” 

That instinct shows up in politics as a familiar set of moves: avoiding, deflecting, dodging, and attacking instead of taking responsibility. It shows up as blaming rival administrations, condemning entire organizations or groups of people, and ostracizing opponents. It shows up as othering. 

While “othering” enemies is an oft-used war tactic, promoting dignity is a more effective approach to leadership because it harnesses individuals’ excellence. Honoring dignity promotes the self-respect necessary for proactive and practical greatness. You change people by introducing them to their goodness rather than demeaning them. Perceiving and appreciating the dignity of others helps to unlock their creative potential. 

I share five ways that politicians—and anyone, really—can emphasize the dignity of others in their leadership. For additional ideas, check out some of the resources provided by Project UNITE.

Principle 1: Lead by Recognizing Inherent Value, Especially in Your Opponents

If dignity is the acknowledgment and recognition of every individual’s inherent value, then the first test of leadership is simple: Do you talk about political opponents as fellow citizens, or as inferior people who must be shamed, crushed, or erased?

Notice that neither party has a monopoly on contempt or on dignity. It isn’t about ideology; it’s about integrity of character. On the left, dismissive rhetoric tossing entire communities into a moral rubbish heap has become a shorthand example of what it feels like to be written off. On the right, language declaring opponents “enemies,” “traitors,” or “enemy of the people” functions the same way—less as a critique of behavior than as a declaration that the other side is illegitimate. Dignity collapses when leaders use labels that convert people into caricatures, treat disagreement as proof of moral inferiority, and popularize contempt as entertainment.

This matters because contempt is contagious. Once leaders model it, followers feel permission to practice it.

Principle 2: Sidestep Shame and Blame to Get to Problem Solving

The strongest leaders are able to sidestep shame and blame in order to problem-solve. Rather than wasting energy on contempt, the most effective leaders focus on taking responsibility for what they can control and drawing out the goodness of others.

Dignity-honoring leadership, here, looks like owning mistakes without theatrics and naming trade-offs and limitations honestly. It means replacing scapegoats with solutions. Both parties have had their moments of success and failure. 

In the frantic days after Sept. 11, 2001, Republican Rep. John Cooksey of Louisiana suggested pulling over anyone who looked “Middle Eastern,” including anyone with “a diaper on his head” with a “fan belt wrapped around” it.  In 2018, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California urged supporters that if they saw members of the Trump administration “in a restaurant” or “a gasoline station,” they should “create a crowd” and “push back,” telling them they were “not welcome anymore, anywhere.” In both cases, these are politics of humiliation that smother problem solving. 

Dignity-violating leadership like this makes a sport of blaming. It treats every setback as proof that others are incompetent, corrupt, or inferior. It assigns villain status to whichever target is useful that week: the previous administration, the media, the courts, the bureaucracy, immigrants, corporations, extremists, woke elites, or religious fanatics.  The labels change. The psychological pattern does not. Shame and blame feel powerful in the moment, but they suffocate progress and development. The strongest leaders are able to sidestep shame and blame to get to problem-solving rather than wasting energy on contempt.

Principle 3: Resist “othering”—because it builds fear, not strength

Some leaders believe that “othering” rhetoric promotes unity among the in-group. It often does—briefly. But it actually and ultimately engenders fear. And when our psychological safety is at stake, we are, as Hicks describes, thrust into “a frozen state of self-doubt, preventing us from accessing the positive power that is at our disposal once we see and accept our value and worth.”

The fear isn’t limited to outsiders. I’m part of the in-group now, but what if I’m the next one to be cut out? It seems fine until you are the one getting “othered.” 

Consider how President Trump othered his rivals, complaining that he had to fix “disasters” and “failed policies” inherited from a “totally inept group of people.” President Trump went on to say that “President Biden totally lost control of what was going on in our country.” Perhaps his task was difficult, but by claiming it was others who caused or failed to solve problems, he suggested he was somehow above them.

Dignity-violating rhetoric treats entire groups as suspicious, disposable, or beneath respect. It publicly humiliates opponents in an attempt to signal dominance. It turns politics into a permanent purge: who’s in, who’s out. 

Principle 4: Negotiate and Govern by Acknowledging Dignity First

Politics is negotiation—between regions, classes, generations, cultures, and moral codes. An effective negotiator acknowledges the dignity of any leaders’ attempt to protect their people, then moves forward to interest-based solutions.

Honoring human dignity begins with a basic posture: You are a human being with worth; now let’s argue honestly about what is right. In practice, this means starting with shared goods—safety, opportunity, freedom, flourishing—and treating opposing concerns as real, not fake. It means keeping criticism tethered to actions and ideas. It means arguing about ideas instead of attacking people.

Contempt can’t do this work. Emphasizing weakness, antagonizing, and enflaming hatred may feel like strength, but it is often simply avoidance veiled in camouflage. The alternative is the discipline of honoring dignity up front, and then digging into the substantive work of negotiating interest-based solutions. You can see flashes of that discipline when leaders refuse the cheap thrill of televised dunking and instead build coalitions around shared goods like stability, safety, and opportunity. Sometimes that looks like cross-party pairs who learn to argue honestly without degrading—think of bipartisan efforts like McCain–Feingold’s campaign finance work, or the strange-bedfellow coalitions that produced criminal justice reform in the First Step Act. Sometimes it looks like the unglamorous willingness to split credit and share blame, like the 1983 Social Security compromise shaped by Speaker Tip O’Neill and President Reagan’s team.

Both parties have been tempted by the cheap thrill of televised dunking. But doing the substantive work turns the theater of humiliation into governance.

Contempt doesn’t negotiate; it escalates.

Principle 5: Praise The Good In Others More Than Emphasizing the Negative

Honoring dignity will always be more effective than fostering disparagement and contempt. Honoring dignity promotes the self-respect necessary for proactive and practical greatness.

Leaders from both parties have had rare, powerful moments when they described the other side’s voters as understandable—neighbors motivated by real fears and hopes—even while fiercely disagreeing. You can hear it when Joe Biden, in his 2020 victory speech, told Americans to “lower the temperature,” reject the language of “red” and “blue,” and treat one another not as adversaries but as fellow citizens. You can hear it, too, when Republican Gov. of Utah Spencer Cox’s call to “disagree better”  warns Americans not to slip into the habit of treating one another—especially our political opponents—as enemies. 

And leaders from both parties have had destructive moments when they spoke as if the other side’s voters were beneath respect. The difference is not cosmetic. It is structural. Their language either builds trust in institutions and the rule of law, or it erodes it.

The Good News

The good news is that violations of dignity can be named, tamed, and healed; this rebuilds the civic trust on which strong communities are built and unleashes the inherent power of dignity.

Don’t be fooled by righteous indignation masquerading as political victory. Leaders (and each of us) can build this dignity dimension by praising the good in others rather than overemphasizing the negative, accepting responsibility for our actions, and choosing to popularize dignity validation.

Although I have focused on broader principles of dignity, there is no question that there are politicians today who have violated these norms with increasing frequency and severity. The sanctity of holding political office has been tainted by demeaning nicknames, dehumanizing political opponents, and contempt filled with shame and blame, both domestically and internationally. These behaviors are not the sole domain of one party or ideology. But having the most powerful leaders in the world disregard the dignity of others so often and so severely undoubtedly has a coarsening impact on our entire national discourse. 

Elected officials take cues about dignity from those who elect them. It is time for every responsible voter to pause in a moment of deep introspection and ask: Do I really value the inherent dignity of my fellow human beings?

The incentives we create will determine the leaders we get. If we reward humiliation, we will get more humiliation. If we reward dignity, we may yet recover the kind of political discourse where disagreement does not require degradation—and where progress and development are not smothered by contempt.

The post The Dignity Deficit appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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If you were to ask Jesus today, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” He might simply kneel, draw something in the dust, and tell a story instead. It was never His way to choose sides on worldly matters like we do. He saw through every label, every flag, every slogan. To Him, the question was never Who do you support? But rather, whom do you love?

Today, politics has become a new form of faith. It shapes our values, friendships, and even our sense of identity. We divide the world into saints and sinners, heroes and villains, based on who supports our side. We often begin with our political tribe and then justify it with faith.

Christ invites the reverse: start with love, truth, mercy, and justice — then observe what’s left. This book begins with a simple but uncomfortable question: How does your political party stack up against one thing and one thing only? Love.

That’s not a trick question, and it’s not meant to shame anyone. It’s an invitation to hold our politics up to the light of Christ’s teachings — the ones about mercy, humility, forgiveness, and service. To see what survives that light, and what doesn’t.

Does your party honor the dignity of others? Reduce suffering or fear? Does it build reconciliation or division?

Would Jesus recognize love in it?

So if love is the standard by which Christ measured everything, then love must also be the measure by which we examine our own public life: our policies, our priorities, our party platforms.

When Jesus spoke of loving your neighbor as yourself, he wasn’t just suggesting a simple slogan—he was establishing a revolutionary way for people to connect that goes beyond party lines and policy fights. Yet today, we find ourselves more divided than ever, with each side claiming moral superiority while often ignoring the core message of love that Christ emphasized.

Consider the immigration debate. Rather than viewing it through the lens of partisan talking points, what if we examined it through Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan? The story doesn’t ask us to determine the legal status of the injured man or debate border security policies. Instead, it challenges us to see the humanity in those who are different from ourselves and to respond with compassion.

This is not to suggest that complex political issues have simple solutions. They almost never do. Instead, it’s about approaching these challenges with the right heart and perspective. Christ’s emphasis on love wasn’t just about personal relationships—it was about transforming how we approach every aspect of human society, including governance.

What would our political landscape look like if we truly filtered our policy preferences through the lens of Christ’s love? How might our approach to partisan politics shift if we prioritized His teachings over party loyalty?

The Heart Before the Flag: Christ’s Radical Political Vision

Jesus—supporter and champion of good; protector of the weak; defender of life, justice, and liberty; leader of compassion and Savior for all. He is our blueprint.

Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary in the truest sense—not because He sought to overthrow governments, but because He sought to overturn hearts. He confronted hypocrisy with truth, power with humility, and hatred with love. When He entered the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers (Matthew 21:12–13), He was declaring that greed and exploitation have no place in the house of God.

His message was not about allegiance to a nation or party: it was about allegiance to truth, mercy, and the intrinsic worth of every person.

It breaks down divisions, exposes hypocrisy, and reorders our priorities toward justice and mercy. When we apply His radical vision to our politics, we are invited to see opponents not as enemies to be defeated, but as neighbors to be loved. Only then can we begin to heal what power alone cannot fix.

Jesus spoke more about love than any other commandment because love is the engine of transformation. Love can make you think, see, and live differently. It is not abstract sentiment, but the most powerful political and spiritual force on earth.

Love doesn’t just tell you; love shows you. Love breaks down the limits of mind and heart, calling us to see even our enemies as children of God. In that radical reordering of priorities, Christ offered not just salvation for the soul, but a model for how humanity might truly live in justice and peace.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”- 1 John 4:8

A Kingdom Not of This World: Beyond Red and Blue —The Way of the Cross

The Way of the Cross in modern life means carrying the weight of reconciliation. It means standing in places of tension—between rich and poor, conservative and progressive, believer and skeptic—and refusing to walk away.

To bear the cross is to absorb hostility without returning it, and to love without condition, even when that love is mocked as weakness. Public witness no longer looks like shouting from platforms; it looks like quiet courage in workplaces, schools, local communities – and online.

The Quiet Work of Repentance

How can we begin to undue the division that has been manufactured by politicians over not just decades, but hundreds of years? Political idolatry is not undone by argument, but by repentance — a turning of the heart. That repentance might look like listening before judging, or admitting that a policy we once defended actually causes harm. Or refusing to share a post that fuels contempt instead of compassion.

Repentance is not weakness; it’s freedom. And it releases us from the emotional leash of the outrage machine. It lets love, not loyalty, guide our conscience.

The Politics of the Heart

In today’s marketplace of political ideas, where power and influence are traded like precious commodities, Jesus’s revolutionary message of love stands as a stark contradiction to conventional wisdom. His teachings weren’t just spiritual insights but radical political statements that challenged the very foundation of how human beings organize themselves and relate to one another.

Today, this message remains just as disruptive. Imagine if our political conversations started not with who deserves to win, but with who most needs to be heard. Imagine if policy debates were guided by empathy instead of ideology. The teachings of Christ challenge both the left and the right, progressives and conservatives alike, not to adopt “Christian politics,” but to judge every platform and policy by the standard of love. In doing so, we rediscover that politics at its best is not a fight for dominance, but an act of service—a reflection of divine love in the public square.

The Seduction of Certainty

Every party claims moral high ground. Each says it stands for justice, freedom, or compassion. But certainty can become its own idol. When we believe our side is always right, we stop listening, stop learning, and stop loving.

The prophets spoke truth even to their own kings. Nathan confronted David. Amos challenged Israel’s elite. John the Baptist rebuked Herod. Love demands that same courage today: the willingness to hold our own side accountable.

In our age, courage rarely looks like standing before a throne; more often, it looks like standing in a comment section. It’s resisting the easy applause of our tribe and speaking words that make both sides uncomfortable, or refusing to share the meme that distorts the truth, even when it flatters our position. It’s saying, “That’s not right,” when our own side crosses a moral line.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will seeclearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:3–5

This teaching reminds us to examine ourselves before judging others — to practice self-awareness and humility.

Silence in the face of deceit is not peacekeeping; it is complicity. True love tells the truth, even when it costs us our sense of belonging. To love truth more than victory is to worship God more than ideology. 

In the end, Christ will not ask how we voted, but how we loved each other. He will not count our party victories, but our acts of mercy. And if our politics have hardened us to compassion, it may not be our country that needs revival — it may be our hearts.

Ask yourself: Do I equate faithfulness with winning, or with serving? In my community, what would it look like to lead from the cross instead of the throne?

If my party demands allegiance, does it also demand compassion? Do its policies reflect service, humility, and care for the least — or do they mirror Caesar’s hunger for dominance?

Does my loyalty to this party make me more loving toward those who disagree with me? Do I defend truth, even when it costs my side a win? Am I more excited to see mercy triumph than to see my party prevail?

Love has never needed permission to begin. It only needs participants. Every act of kindness is a policy of grace; every word of truth is a campaign for peace.

So go into your world—not to conquer, but to care. Not to shout, but to shine. And remember: the Kingdom is already among us, growing wherever love dares to act.

That is the true revolution.

That is the politics of Christ.

That is the politics of love.

That is how love reigns.

That is how heaven transforms history.

The post A Kingdom Not of This World: Beyond Red and Blue appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Moral responsibility is personal. However useful group categories may be for describing history or power, they cannot do the work of moral judgment. Treating people as guilty because they belong—to a race, class, religion, nation, party, or institution—turns justice into collective punishment, and it makes violence feel permissible against “representatives” rather than against perpetrators.

Why Justified Violence is Spreading

These examples reveal how dangerously blurred the moral line has become between justified violence and terrorism. Increasingly, those who commit crimes are excused, while ordinary law-abiding people, working unglamorous jobs in average towns or simply attending a place or worship are painted as guilty of society’s ills and, in some eyes, worthy of death. Such thinking only makes sense when guilt and innocence are determined not by individual actions but by membership in a group.

Under this logic, violence becomes a kind of moral accounting: if you belong to the wrong class, race, religion, or “side of history,” you are fair game. That logic did not arise in a vacuum. It can be traced through intellectual traditions that assign guilt and innocence categorically rather than personally. 

This essay looks especially at one of the most influential theorists of “liberating” violence, Frantz Fanon, and argues that the Christian Just War tradition provides a much-needed antidote, restoring moral lines and individual responsibility. 

Who is Frantz Fanon? Why He Matters Now

This logic of categorical guilt runs through modern theories that split humanity into two camps: the oppressors versus the oppressed in Marx, or the colonizers versus the colonized in Frantz Fanon.

Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth,” praised by Jean-Paul Sartre and Cornel West as a revolutionary manual, has become particularly influential. Written in the context of anti-colonial struggles, it presents decolonization as a total, existential confrontation in which violence is not merely permitted but celebrated as cleansing and necessary.

Today, its vision of collective struggle and sanctioned violence echoes in the defense of Hamas atrocities, in the celebration of political assassination, and in online rhetoric that treats whole populations as legitimate targets. When activists speak of “decolonization,” some use it as a euphemism for eliminating entire communities. Those who do follow Fanon’s thinking shift moral judgment from individual acts to group identity, whether they knowingly rely on him or not. 

Fanon’s Case for Revolutionary Violence

The “Wretched of the Earth” both justifies and normalizes intense violence. The first line declares, “Decolonization is always a violent event.” A few pages later, Fanon says, “Decolonization reeks of red-hot cannonballs and bloody knives,”  and he warns of a “human tide” that sounds eerily like the French Reign of Terror. 

Fanon says the colonized are filled with “blood feuds” and “fratricidal blood bath(s).” Decolonization “is clearly and plainly an armed struggle.” Violence is not a tragic last resort but the very heart of liberation:  “For the colonized, this violence represents the absolute praxis.” He even concludes that “For the colonized, life can only materialize from the rotting cadaver of the colonialist.”

Fanon makes this explicit:

“If the act for which this man is prosecuted by the colonial authorities is an act exclusively directed against a colonial individual or colonial asset, then the demarcation line [between right and wrong] is clear and manifest.”

The moral line, in other words, is not drawn by what you do, but by whom you do it to.

Fanon Minimizes Religion and Classic Liberal Values 

When Fanon does quote Christian teachings, he typically invalidates or twists them. Teachings of love and harmony, for example, are simply part of the “confusion mongers” that make exploitation easier in Fanon’s view. 

In quoting Christian language about how “The last shall be first,” Fanon insists that “the last can be first only after a murderous and decisive confrontation.” In this view, love and reconciliation are not virtues, but obstacles to the necessary bloodshed.

Fanon also racializes Christianity, calling it the white man’s church. He treats broader values from the Christian moral tradition the same way. Without evidence, he asserts that “government agents use the language of pure violence.” Discussions of Western values supposedly cause the natives to tense their muscles, grab a machete and sharpen their weapons.

In this framing, appeals to rights, due process, mercy, or moral restraint are dismissed as hypocritical covers for domination. What Christians and many classical liberal thinkers defended as moral guardrails become, in Fanon’s hands, part of the enemy’s arsenal.

Where Categorical Guilt Leads

All this matters because the values Fanon ridicules helped establish the guardrails against the kind of bloodbath he justifies. Those same values also offered moral correction for the abuses that are often used to excuse violent outbursts.

When you shift from individual responsibility to collective guilt, those guardrails vanish. We saw this when Hutu extremists in Rwanda called Tutsi neighbors “cockroaches,” and ethnonationalist propagandists in the former Yugoslavia branded entire villages as traitors and thereby legitimate targets. 

Fanon’s own words (that I repeat here for emphasis) make this logic clear:

“If the act for which this man is prosecuted by the colonial authorities is an act exclusively directed against a colonial individual or colonial asset, then the demarcation line is clear and manifest.”

Even when the violence is mass slaughter and rape against innocent families, Fanon’s reasoning can collapse moral distinctions to make all Jews guilty by association, and all terrorists as virtuous by category. It allows ISIS to massacre Yazidis.

That is why Americans witnessed some activist subcultures making gliders their logo. (Gliders are how the terrorists traveled to the massacre at the Nova music festival.) The same moral confusion produced social media posts insisting that the barbaric savagery of Hamas was simply “what decolonization looks like.” 

The same collective guilt theory helps explain why some rationalized away the assassination of a health care executive, and others the assassination of a state House speaker. If “the system” is murderous and anyone associated with it is a “legitimate target,” then the ordinary moral prohibition against murder loses much of its force. 

In short, the problem is the same one I have described elsewhere, writing about ”Visions of Glory”: once people begin labeling themselves as part of a righteous group and their opponents as zombies, it becomes easier to justify killing them. If the world is divided into saints and monsters, why not exterminate the monsters?

When Fanon describes decolonization as naturally violent and the colonized existing in an “atmosphere of violence,” it becomes natural to strike out—not as a tragic last resort, but as an almost automatic cleansing reaction. 

The Just War Antidote

The antidote is not to pretend oppression doesn’t exist, nor to indulge in vague moralizing that condemns all force equally. The antidote is the clarity of Just War principles and the wisdom of earlier thinkers who took both justice and peace seriously.

Within the Christian West, the Just War tradition developed clear questions to distinguish between justified force and murder:

1. Is there a genuinely just cause, not mere revenge or envy?
2. Is force authorized by a legitimate authority?
3. Is it a last resort, after less drastic means have been tried?
4. Is the response proportionate to the wrong suffered?
5. Are we carefully discriminating between combatants and noncombatants? (This is perhaps most crucial for our purposes.)

The Salamanca School was a 16th and 17th-century Iberian intellectual movement that developed ideas such as natural law, international law, human rights, and indigenous rights. 

One scholar from this school, Francisco Suarez, wrote that violent revolt is only justified “if essential for liberty, because if there is any less drastic means of removing him (the tyrant) it is not lawful to kill him … always provided that there is no danger of the same or worse evils falling on [the] community as a result of the tyrant’s death.” Here, violence is only permitted under extreme conditions—and even then, only when it will not unleash still greater horrors. 

Early modern thinker Hugo Grotius wrote about the same right to revolt if the king alienates his people, but also warned potential usurpers that it would lead to gory factionalism and “dangerous, bloody conflict.”

In similar language, the Book of Mormon prophet Mosiah recognized the danger of revolt when he argued for the end of the monarchy: 

“Ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood.”

In contrast to Fanon, Christian thinkers who helped shape classic liberalism acknowledged both the danger in revolution and the rights of the oppressed. They tried to channel righteous anger into morally constrained resistance, not open-ended slaughter.

Fanon dismissed the talk of rights as the “ersatz,” or fake struggle of elites, something he described as ”insipid humanitarianism.” Yet those supposedly insipid beliefs are stronger than any of Fanon’s theories because they clearly address the morality of revolution and darken lines he blurs. 

Historically, those principles often led to reform rather than repression. Salamanca School scholars advocated for the human rights of natives. The Grimké sisters and Christian abolitionist missionaries argued from biblical morality against slavery. Missionaries and reformers exposed the abuses in the Belgian Congo. Despite being minimized by Fanon as mere abstractions, these advances inspired by the Salamanca School (and their religious underpinnings) were often a reforming counteragent to colonialism.

Just War thinking insists that you are not guilty merely for belonging to a category. You are guilty—or innocent—based on what you actually do. 

Applying Just War to Today’s Cases

Once we recover Just War principles, recent cases of violence look very different from the narratives that excuse them.

Consider Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians. No grievance, however real, can justify intentionally targeting families at the Nova music festival or in their homes. A theory that calls this “decolonization” fails the most basic Just War tests of discrimination (you may not deliberately target noncombatants) and proportionality (you may not answer injustice with indiscriminate slaughter).

The same is true of the shooting at the Latter-day Saint chapel in Michigan, the attack on a Catholic church, the Buffalo supermarket mass shooting, and the assassinations of Charlie Kirk, Melissa Hortman, and Brian Thompson. In each case, the victims are treated not as human beings with their own moral status but as stand-ins for an entire allegedly guilty class—Latter-day Saints, Catholics, African Americans, conservatives, liberals, or corporate elites.

Just War criteria force us to ask simple but powerful questions:

• Are these particular people directly responsible for grave injustices?
• Is the danger that supposedly requires violence clear, immediate and grave? Can that danger or injustice be remedied using non violent, legal or civil means?
• Has every less drastic means of redress been exhausted?
• Will killing them likely avert greater evils, or will it unleash still more chaos and retaliation?
• Are we distinguishing between those actually doing harm and those who merely belong to the same profession, religion, racial, or social group?

In these modern cases, the answer to those questions is obviously no. They can only be justified inside a framework, like Fanon’s, that treats entire classes of people as guilty and their deaths as morally clarifying.

Recovering Individual Responsibility

The antidote to the recent uptick of violence is not to invent new theories or to indulge in vague moralizing, but to return to the clarity of Just War principles and the wisdom of earlier thinkers. As both Christian tradition and the Book of Mormon warn, revolution comes only “through much contention, and the shedding of much blood.” That is not a license to glorify violence, but a sober caution to resist collective guilt and hold fast to individual responsibility.

We are judged by our own sins, not by the accidents of class, race, or category. If we truly wish to resist the age of blurred lines and confused morality, we must recover the values of love, harmony, and conciliation that Fanon dismissed—and recognize that peace is found not in collective vengeance or random shootings, but in clear moral standards rooted in justice.

Collective punishment erases the very accountability that justice requires. To draw the line between justified defense and terror, we must recover the conviction that every human being is a moral agent, answerable for his or her own actions before God and neighbor. 

The post Collective Punishment Erases Individual Responsibility appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

This is not a metaphor.

This is the lived reality for millions of Iranians during periods of nationwide internet shutdowns. These blackouts are not technical failures or temporary security measures. They are deliberate instruments of control, designed to suppress coordination, erase evidence, and delay international response. Repression combined with enforced invisibility has become a defining feature of modern authoritarian governance.

Confronted with this reality, many observers turn instinctively to international law. Surely there must be institutions, treaties, or legal mechanisms capable of protecting civilians when their own government becomes the threat. The post–World War II order was built precisely to prevent such abuses.

Yet that expectation misunderstands how international law actually functions.

International law is largely declarative rather than coercive. Its enforcement depends on state consent, diplomatic pressure, reputational costs, and political will. These mechanisms fail precisely when a regime is willing to use violence against its own population and absorb international condemnation. This is not an anomaly in the system; it is the system.

The UN Security Council institutionalized this contradiction. Designed to preserve stability among major powers, it granted veto authority to states whose cooperation was deemed essential, even when those states later became enablers or perpetrators of repression. Today, Russia and China routinely block meaningful action against internal atrocities. Their support for regimes such as Iran’s is not ideological sympathy alone; it is strategic. Iran provides energy access, sanctions-evasion networks, regional leverage, and a partner in balancing U.S. influence. Venezuela plays a comparable role in the Western Hemisphere.

These cases illustrate a broader reality: the rules-based order has limited capacity to act against well-protected sovereign violators.

This raises a question that policymakers often avoid confronting directly. In a system where rules lack enforcement, and where power is frequently the only effective constraint on actors who violate those rules, how should the use of power itself be evaluated?

Debates about foreign intervention are often framed through the lens of Iraq or Afghanistan, as though the primary lesson of the past two decades was that intervention is inherently illegitimate. That framing obscures a more uncomfortable truth. Intervention is often not the cause of systemic failure, it is the consequence of it.

Power restrains power. When enforcement collapses, restraint does not emerge organically; it is imposed, or it does not exist at all. The relevant question, therefore, is not whether foreign intervention is dangerous—it always is—but why the international system repeatedly produces conditions in which intervention becomes the only remaining option.

From this perspective, U.S. efforts to limit Nicolás Maduro’s hold on power or to support the Iranian people’s aspirations for transition reflect a tacit recognition that vacuums are not filled by law, but by rival powers. We must be intellectually honest about the nature of these rivals. While no global power is beyond reproach, there is a fundamental difference in the architecture of influence. The Western model, led by the United States, operates within a framework—however flawed—that views the state as a servant to the people. In contrast, the strategic partnership between Russia, China, and Iran views the people as a resource to be managed, silenced, or erased to ensure the survival of the state.

As an Iranian, I see the support for a peaceful political transition not as an “infringement” on a nation, but as the enforcement of a higher law: the right to exist visibly and safely. If the 20th-century order was built to protect states from one another, the 21st-century order must be built to protect people from the state when that state turns predator. Accepting this is not cynicism; it is realism. The question is no longer whether the rules-based order will be tested—but how many times it must fail before we realize that a law that cannot be enforced is not a law at all, but a license for the powerful to be cruel.

The post When Law Lacks Teeth: The Question of Foreign Intervention appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The religious right is in a crisis of discernment.

Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, many religious conservatives began to ask “What now?” Kirk had been a unifying voice and a coalition builder. With his Turning Point USA organization, Kirk brought together diverse voices to advance Christian conservatism. An evangelical Christian himself, Kirk assembled a team of Catholics, Jews, Latter-day Saints, and others to promote the cause. He reached and mentored racial and sexual minorities who might otherwise avoid the conservative movement, as Amir Odom explained in a viral video after Kirk’s death.

But lacking Kirk’s unifying force, the conservative movement has fractured along political fault lines that were already emerging. Now, the fault lines have become much deeper and more public, particularly between conservatives who believe in the U.S. constitution versus Christian Nationalists who seek an authoritarian Christian ruler instead of our often-contentious pluralistic political system.

Commentator Tucker Carlson has also cultivated disillusionment with the Constitution and free society. In a recent commentary on Venezuela prior to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, Carlson followed a similar pattern he has in the past: he identifies a country under an authoritarian regime, then suggests to his viewers that everything you have been told is wrong.

Carlson said of Venezuela: “Nicolás Maduro and his government are very left wing on economics, not on social policy, by the way, which is kind of interesting. In Venezuela, gay marriage is banned. Abortion is banned. Sex changes for transgenderism are banned.”

“And by the way, the U.S. backed opposition leader who would take Maduro’s place if he were taken out is, of course, pretty eager to get gay marriage in Venezuela,” he adds.

Again, the pattern is to look at a regime that is oppressive, illiberal, and in conflict with the United States. Then, make the case to Americans that we have been deceived about that country: Show viewers that in that authoritarian-ruled country, good things are happening that are not happening in free Western societies.

In the case of Venezuela, Carlson’s hinting that authoritarian socialism has enabled the implementation of conservative social policies around marriage and gender that should be the envy of the American right.

The effect of this commentary is to leave viewers thinking “I’ve been deceived by elites. People and governments I’ve been told are bad, are in fact benign or even good. Up is down, and down is up.”

The unstated message is “trust me to be your new guide to reality.”

I recently saw the outcome of this commentary in a response to one of my social media posts on Tucker Carlson, as a commenter admitted Carlson was “the only journalist I trust to do real journalism.”

Tucker Carlson’s message appeals, in part, because he is often correct in cases where prominent people and institutions are wrong. After Carlson was accused of promoting a “great replacement conspiracy theory” in 2023, the Biden administration allowed a massive influx of immigration and resettlement using federal dollars, under an expansion of the notion of “humanitarian parole”.

Around that same time, Carlson began warning that Joe Biden was in cognitive decline and the executive branch was being run by staffers and presidential advisors — predating revelations near the end of Biden’s term about the full extent of decline that had been covered up.

A good lesson for critics is this: if you think it is important to limit the influence of a commentator like Tucker Carlson, the worst thing you can do is give people legitimate reasons to believe he is right and he is presenting a more accurate picture of reality than you are.

Anytime a commentator is spending most of their time negating, disrupting, deconstructing, and telling you “everything you’ve been told is wrong,” they are destabilizing.

Of course, there are times and situations where that mental toolset is appropriate. But when it becomes compulsive, when it becomes a person’s constant default approach to the world, that person is showing you that something awful is going on inside.

When asked more about KGB strategies of subversion, Bezmenov described being instructed to “try to get into large circulation, established conservative media, reach filthy rich movie makers, intellectuals, so-called academic circles. Cynical, egocentric people who can look into your eyes with angelic expression and tell you a lie.”

“These are the most recruitable people: people who lack moral principles, who are either too greedy or suffer from self-importance. They feel that they matter a lot.”

None of this is to suggest that Tucker Carlson and other right-leaning influencers are somehow doing the bidding of Russia. What I am highlighting, however, is that our adversaries have been very open about their intentions to destabilize our society, and whether consciously or not, many of our influencers follow the patterns that these open enemies employ to undermine our social fabric and our institutions.

Tucker Carlson’s efforts to upend conventional wisdom have led him to moral inversion, where he condemns Israel for its campaign against Hamas, but is only able to muster morally ambiguous commentary about Russia’s rampage in Ukraine.

Recently, his criticisms of Israel have turned into something resembling obsession, and in a recent episode of his show, he and a guest suggested that the COVID virus was engineered to have a lower impact upon Jews.

This downward spiral of antisemitism on his show was on full display with the recent guest appearance of Nick Fuentes, a commentator distinguished by his open admiration of Hitler (and Stalin), as well as countless examples of vile remarks toward women and minorities.

And here we find the crisis of discernment on the right, particularly among the religious right. In the coalition that Charlie Kirk formed, there are people who hold conservative and even extreme-right positions on issues like immigration or foreign policy. Not all of these people have a Christian worldview, including a Christian understanding of Israel and its biblically-described role in the world.

Many people on the right feel deeply disillusioned by the failures of our institutions, even ones that are trusted to promote a conservative vision for America. Figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens step in and validate people’s sense of disillusionment. They throw gasoline on the fire by leading their viewers into some mixture of true narratives intermixed with cynical conspiracy mongering.

In this way, they offer a constant stream of destabilizing commentary, steadily removing the mental guardrails of their audiences and cultivating a new receptivity toward extreme and morally-inverted viewpoints.

Standing against this process are Christian commentators like Catholic professor Robert George and the evangelical leadership of the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee, as well as other commentators like Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish.

In my view, only a genuinely religious understanding of the world can guard against the pull of authoritarianism that finds so much appeal in a destabilized soul. A believer can see that destabilizing a mind with constant narratives of “everything they tell you is wrong” is the exact process employed in graduate schools to indoctrinate postmodernism and modern flavors of Marxism.

Whereas Christ fasted and prayed in the wilderness and ended up spiritually grounded enough to reject the temptation to power, destabilization is the exact opposite process, preparing souls to accept the lie that power is the only pursuit of real value.

The electoral success of Charlie Kirk’s coalition has been remarkable, and a cause for celebration on the right. But now there is a harder process ahead. The problems facing America’s religious right are spiritual in nature, and they require the teaching and practice of humble and searching discernment.

The post The Most Corrosive Claim in American Politics: “Everything You’ve Been Told Is Wrong” appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The world feels unsettled. Each day, the news reminds us how quickly suspicion, anger, and hatred can erupt into violence. The American public square, once envisioned as a marketplace of ideas, now often resembles a gladiator arena where shouting replaces persuasion and outrage buys more attention than reason. The Savior’s counsel is unambiguous: “He that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another” (3 Nephi 11:29). That warning could have been written for our very day.

Contention has become an industry. Politicians fundraise on it, as congressional scholars note that fundraising has become central to power and influence in Washington, rewarding those who stir the loudest reactions. Commentators monetize outrage culture, and platforms profit from it. Research on social media use has shown that when users are rewarded with likes and shares for outrage, they are more likely to increase their expressions of outrage in future posts. Another audit of Twitter’s ranking system concluded that engagement-based algorithms “amplify emotionally charged and out-group hostile content” far more than neutral material. The result is a culture that demands instant reaction and punishes reflection. Yet disciples of Jesus Christ are not licensed to live that way.

The Lord revealed the manner of that power: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (D&C 121:41). By the world’s definition, those are fragile words. But in God’s economy, they are disciplined strength. They mark the difference between true influence and the counterfeit of domination.

American history offers its own reminder of this truth. At the height of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Adress could have been a moment for triumphalism or recrimination. Instead, he spoke with a spirit of restraint and humility, describing the conflict as judgment upon both North and South and closing with the plea to act “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Lincoln understood that real power would not come through vengeance but through a disciplined appeal to mercy. His words remain one of the clearest civic echoes of Christ’s way.

Other moments of civic restraint echo this pattern. George Washington’s decision to surrender command rather than cling to power set a precedent of humility that defined the nation’s character. Decades later, Dwight Eisenhower’s calm leadership through the Little Rock civil rights crisis modeled steadiness when passion ran high. In Europe, Margaret Thatcher’s early dialogue with Mikhail Gorbachev showed that firmness and civility could coexist. Pope John Paul II’s public forgiveness of his attacker revealed that moral clarity and mercy can walk hand in hand. Such examples remind us that peacemaking is not a sign of weakness, but rather a disciplined strength exercised in public life.

Latter-day Saint history supplies another example. In March 1839, from Liberty Jail, the Prophet Joseph Smith urged the Saints to respond differently from the world around them. “We ought always to be aware of those prejudices which sometimes so strangely present themselves, and are so congenial to human nature, against our friends, neighbors, and brethren of the world who choose to differ from us in opinion and in matters of faith.” At a time when mob violence was common, Joseph called his followers to extend generosity and peace, not retaliation.

The Book of Mormon adds an instructive contrast. Captain Moroni, believing himself betrayed, wrote Pahoran in anger (Alma 60). Pahoran answered without offense: “I do not joy in your afflictions, yea, it grieves my soul” (Alma 61:2). His meek reply preserved unity that anger might have destroyed. Abigail’s quiet intervention with David in the Old Testament did the same (1 Samuel 25:23–35). Across scripture, God’s chosen people learn that restraint saves lives.

The contrast could hardly be sharper. America’s politics rewards spectacle. The kingdom of God rewards persuasion and meekness. While anger drives the news cycle, Christ calls His disciples to patience. The culture insists that peace is weakness. The gospel insists that peace is power.

Jesus Himself showed us how to live in a fractured public square. He was surrounded by Roman occupation, religious factions, and constant agitation for revolt. Yet His pattern never shifted. He taught truth (John 8:31–32), extended compassion (Mark 1:40–41), and invited repentance (Luke 5:32). When He called out hypocrisy, it was never to score a point or win a debate but always to redeem (Matthew 23:23–24). His power was never reduced to noise.

This is the model for our own civic and spiritual engagement in an age of outrage culture. The influence of Latter-day Saints will not be measured by how cleverly we spar online or how fiercely we denounce our political opponents. It will be measured by how faithfully we embody Christ’s way of peace. When Relief Societies practice love unfeigned, when quorums cultivate meekness instead of rivalry, when our families learn persuasion instead of shouting, then we are exercising priesthood power in the way the Lord intends.

That also means disciples must resist the temptation to baptize outrage in religious language. Too often, the tones of the culture bleed into our pulpits, our classrooms, and even our family conversations. If our words add heat without light, we should choose silence or seek a holier way of speaking. If our online presence looks indistinguishable from the cycle of grievance and anger that dominates American discourse, then we are not offering the world an alternative worth choosing.

The Lord has promised that Zion will be “a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God” (D&C 45:66). That safety does not come by withdrawing from public life. Nor by pretending the world is less divided than it is. It comes when covenant disciples carry the Spirit of Christ into their conversations, their councils, their neighborhoods, and their politics.

Outrage comes cheap in today’s America. Peace feels costly. Yet the disciples of Christ are called to pay that cost. It may mean pausing before we respond, remembering who we represent, and speaking only when the Spirit can remain. It may mean choosing to see the person rather than the position. It may be as ordinary as keeping a thought unspoken or giving another person space to finish theirs. The quieter word often carries the greater power. Such habits of restraint are not weakness but power, the kind that builds Zion in a fractured world. The steadiness of our hearts, the discipline of our words, and the meekness of our influence are what set us apart.

The post When Outrage Sells, Disciples Choose Peace appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The idea that religion is essential to the American experiment in self-government has carried significant weight since the Founding era. For example, in his final address, George Washington declared that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to the new country. Many others throughout American history have made similar arguments. I lead America’s Quilt of Faith, an organization committed to this idea in today’s modern and turbulent public square.

While it is true that many religions and traditions draw upon forceful, even militant language to describe the spiritual quest to enact God’s will on the earth, these movements are different.

They are rooted in dominion theology and a vision of enacting Christian political and cultural dominance over every sector of society. Several are influential within conservative politics, and a majority of their proponents are also fervent supporters of the current president. The original articulator and foremost proponent of one of these movements is among the most influential MAGA Christian activists today.

This particular belief was central to the spiritual warfare theology and political propaganda that drove many Christians to participate in the January 6 insurrection. Some are part of a broader movement of the Christian right in the United States to more fully embrace (what they perceive as) the workings of the Holy Spirit, which has brought a more assertive, militaristic rhetoric and sensibility to the values and policy agenda of the old Christian right.

America’s Quilt of Faith celebrates the freedom that allows for all religious beliefs, including those described above. Yet we are concerned that these particular religious movements undermine American constitutional democracy.

The founders of the United States held that religion was essential because religions have a unique capacity to build virtue in citizens. We applaud all religions and beliefs in this indispensable work, which brings peace and stability to communities and the nation. However, we believe the founders of the United States of America did not intend for religion, let alone one sect or belief system, to “take over” any sector of society, most especially the government they had just created.

It is true that many Christians believe Jesus will one day return and rule on earth during a time of worldwide peace. It’s hard to imagine even in this scenario that such a global reign would be enacted through aggression that somehow forces a belief in Him, and without an allowance of continued free expression and peaceful pluralism.

Latter-day Saints join many other believers in insisting on an unpressured conversion experience—respecting other faiths to walk their paths even as they seek to “build the Kingdom” by influencing and persuading through love and the Holy Ghost’s workings. As Princeton’s Robert P. George argues, “Any attempt by the state to coerce religious faith and practice, even true faith and practice, will at best be futile and would likely damage people’s authentic participation in the good of religion.” A true relationship with God “cannot, by its very nature, be established by coercion.”

We urge all religious Americans who, as part of their faith, believe that God had some role in establishing the United States Constitution and see it still relevant today to be wary about supporting the aggressive goals and methods of these movements and instead participate in the public square in ways that support, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitutional order.

The post Perspective: Religion Can Support the Constitution. A Religious ‘Takeover’ Does Not appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The rule of law consists of a body of procedural standards. It requires those holding and exercising the authority to make, interpret, apply, and enforce laws to operate in accord with legal requirements. 

As a body of procedural standards, the rule of law is not romantic. It doesn’t turn out crowds in the street. And abiding by its requirements can be tedious—even frustrating. The demand to adhere strictly to legal principles sometimes stands in the way of achieving what we regard—perhaps entirely rightly—as important substantive goals. After all, substance is what ultimately matters, right?

Now, to be clear, the rule of law is not the rule of lawyers. It is not the rule of judges. It is not the rule of any particular government official. Whether someone is an executive officer, a legislator, or a judge, respecting the rule of law means staying properly within one’s constitutional lane even where one disagrees with the substance of what a coordinate branch of government is doing. It means respecting the lawfulness of decisions and actions one thinks are misguided or impede the achievement of what one regards—again, perhaps rightly—as extremely important objectives.

Judges, no less than other officials, are morally obligated to observe the rule of law, and history (including our own) is replete with cases of lawless judges imposing their will under the pretext of applying constitutional or other legal norms. Some notorious examples are Dred Scott v. Sanford, the pro-slavery decision that set the stage for the Civil War, and Roe v. Wade, striking down our nation’s laws protecting unborn children from abortion. So, respect for the rule of law does not mean that judges are entitled to do whatever they want. Nor does it mean that judges are always right. Nor does it mean that they always get the final say. But executive and legislative respect for the lawful rulings of courts validly exercising jurisdiction is a key component of the rule of law in systems like ours—just as judicial respect for lawful exercises of executive and legislative authority is such a component.

President Trump, like all modern presidents, is testing the limits of executive power under Article 2 of the Constitution. Sometimes he, like those other presidents, will be within those limits, even if he is getting near the edge; other times, he will cross the line. When he crosses the line, it is the duty of judges, whether they are Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush, or Clinton nominees, to rule against him. It is not the duty of judges nominated by a president to rule in favor of that president or his position in litigation in which the president is a party or has an interest. It is their duty—the duty of all judges in all cases—faithfully to apply the relevant common law norm, statute, or constitutional provision to the facts of the case. When the president is operating within the scope of his powers, it is the duty of judges to rule that his actions are constitutionally permissible, whether or not the judge happens to agree with those actions.

One of the achievements of President Trump’s first term, of which he should be proudest, is the appointment of excellent judges at all levels of the federal courts. Those judges, like other human beings—and (let us not forget) like presidents—are fallible and will not always get things right. But the vast majority of Trump nominees, their critics’ objections notwithstanding, are faithful constitutionalists. The President’s personally attacking them when they rule against him or his administration (and his utterly absurd defaming of Leonard Leo as someone who “probably hates America”) is worse than unseemly.

Every president, including the current one, will sometimes be wrong on questions of the scope and limits of his authority. In those cases, it will be the duty of the courts to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law by deciding the case against the president—ruling that he has exceeded his constitutional powers.

In doing that, you will show the public that your loyalty, too, is first and above all else to the Constitution and laws of our nation. That will only enhance your stature and credibility. For any president, it is the path to greatness.

The post Constitutional Fidelity in an Age of Personality Politics appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Approximately one hundred people in California are alleging sexual abuse or misconduct linked to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California courts. If these claims all turn out to be true, that would represent one hundred individual tragedies—one hundred instances of innocence lost and one hundred relationships with God potentially complicated by the grievous actions (or inactions) of leaders. It would reflect one hundred stories of emotional and psychological pain.

Even if some of the cases do not hold up in court or are found to be inaccurate, it is heartbreaking to think that someone might feel so angry or disaffected as to make a false or exaggerated claim against the Church. Whether a claim is true or false, it indicates deep pain for those individuals and potentially serious consequences for the faith community they are accusing.

Responding with Care

As Latter-day Saints who have covenanted to mourn with those who mourn, we have an obligation to respond as best we can to these developments. Responding effectively to disclosures of sexual abuse requires empathy, active listening, and clear, survivor-centered steps. First and foremost, start by believing the survivor—thank them for trusting you and reaffirm that what happened was not their fault. As emphasized by RAINN and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, a supportive response prevents secondary victimization, where a survivor is retraumatized by disbelief or judgment.

There is a role for recognizing that false accusations exist. But that role is in broader policy conversations and in specific accusations where the legal system is equipped to provide the accused with the presumption of innocence.

Next, listen without pressing for details the survivor is not ready to share. Calmly acknowledge their pain: “I’m so sorry this happened to you. You’re not alone, and I’m here to help.” Validate their feelings of anger, sorrow, or confusion. According to the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, avoiding “why” questions and blame is crucial for building trust.

Above all, do not underestimate the healing power of compassion and genuine support. A caring, nonjudgmental environment helps survivors feel safe enough to begin rebuilding their lives. As followers of Jesus Christ this may be our best way to help as the Savior’s hands in moving healing forward. By following these best practices—believing, validating, providing options, and ensuring accountability—you can be a steady source of hope and healing for those who have experienced sexual abuse.

What the Church Already Does

There are established mechanisms within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to handle and prevent abuse. 

Their processes start with following best practices in training and policies that prevent abuse. The Church was a leader in abuse prevention, starting regular public sermons on the subject in the 1970s.

The Church’s sexual abuse prevention training is required for everyone who works with youth. Outside groups such as The National Children’s Alliance have recognized the Church’s efforts in this area. 

The Church’s policies, including its geographical boundaries and its calling system, also have the effect of dissuading predators. 

When abuse has occurred, the Church utilizes a helpline staffed by mental health and legal professionals. These are the kinds of professionals that the best research suggests are in the best position to report abuse and result in lower abuse rates. When it is legal, the Church then passes on reports to local authorities. Regardless of the legal situation, the Church then begins to help the victims. 

Statements from the Church indicate that their first priority is providing healing for victims. This often starts with professional mental health counseling. Bishops across the United States have access to networks of therapists that they can utilize, including trauma-informed therapy for abuse survivors. 

Records leaked from church offices several years ago showed that the most frequent first step when victims were identified was to connect them with therapists.

Additionally, the Church has stated that where it or its representatives are directly at fault, it has provided substantial funds for victims’ medical and mental health care. Bishops have access to resources for professional counseling for members who need it, including specialized therapy for survivors. In cases where church leaders are at fault, the Church will work to compensate the victims to the best of their abilities. 

In addition to directed funds, for which the Church’s leaders are responsible, the Church provides financial compensation to help the healing process. Financial payouts can never really repair the damage, but they can help by providing time and resources to help recover. By all accounts, the Church’s offers are generous and well above what would normally be expected.

The Church often utilizes non-disclosure agreements in cases like this. This part of their procedure is controversial. Some see the NDAs as following the Savior’s example of asking those He healed not to broadcast it. Others see these NDAs as cynical attempts to protect the Church’s PR. 

Does the Church Make Abuse Worse?

While the Church’s policies certainly are intended to prevent abuse, do they work, or are there cultural or implementation factors that result in higher rates of abuse among Latter-day Saints?

To the contrary, the best evidence suggests that Latter-day Saints commit sexual abuse at lower rates than the population in general. 

For example, Latter-day Saint troops within the Boy Scouts of America historically had lower rates of documented abuse compared to national Boy Scout averages. While no reliable system can ever guarantee zero incidents of wrongdoing, a review of Boy Scouts’ so-called “perversion files” showed that LDS-sponsored troops constituted roughly 20–30% of overall Scout membership but only around 5% of documented historical abuse cases in that organization. This discrepancy suggests that whatever measures were put in place—such as two-deep leadership or vigilant local oversight—may have contributed to a statistically lower rate of reported abuse.

Recent research suggests that these trends may begin in adolescence when Latter-day Saint teens are less likely to participate in violent behaviors. 

Overall, the best evidence seems to suggest that while Latter-day Saints are certainly not immune from violent or abusive behaviors among their number, there is something about our culture, norms, and policies that make Latter-day Saints an outlier in preventing abuse.

Does This New Lawsuit Mean We Must Reevaluate Our Effectiveness?

While past evidence might suggest that Latter-day Saints are doing well in this space, this newest lawsuit in California might suggest that we need to reevaluate these beliefs. One hundred is an awful lot of sexual abuse cases and may suggest that the problem is considerably more prevalent than previously believed.

And to the extent these revelations prompt self-reflection on how to continue to improve, that would be a welcome result.  

To understand the extent this should revise our understanding, we must understand the context.

The most important context here is that California passed a law allowing victims to file lawsuits within three years, which would otherwise have been too late. So, we would expect a bunch of lawsuits to come forward. 

For example, the Los Angeles Diocese of the Catholic Church faced a similar lawsuit. There, approximately 1900 victims filed suit, at a rate of approximately 43/100,000 Catholics within the diocese.

While cases against school districts are still accumulating, there are some rough numbers. Reports suggest there are a few thousand lawsuits; if that ends up being about 3,000 victims, it would equate to a rate of 50/100,000 students. Many districts are concerned the cases could bankrupt them. 

The 91 suits across California for Latter-day Saints represented 12/100,000 Latter-day Saints within the state—a little less than a third as often. This is about the same comparative rate as seen in the BSA case. 

Essentially, no institution has been spared. Sexual abuse, as disgusting as it is, exists. The fact that it exists among Latter-day Saints should certainly humble us and cause us to continue to seek the best ways to eradicate it. But the fact is that even in this case, the numbers suggest that Latter-day Saints are effective in reducing sexual abuse numbers.

The sad truth is that approximately 1 in 10 adults in the US have experienced sexual abuse in their lifetime. Even if Latter-day Saints were successful in eradicating 99% of abuse compared to other groups, there would still be thousands and thousands of victims. 

What Can We Hope For?

The proper response to these allegations, first and foremost, is mourning. Even if one single Latter-day Saint was abused by someone in the Church, that is a tragedy that demands our empathy and our resolve to do better. The stark reality that an abuser could be a friend, neighbor, or even a trusted spiritual leader is painful. It reminds us that no institution is immune to predatory behavior.

We also hope that justice is served through the legal process, whether that means validating the claims of those who were truly harmed or filtering out any disingenuous lawsuits. The Church has a longstanding track record of responding responsibly in these cases.

None of these points justify complacency. What is needed is sensitivity and support for those who have gone through trauma and vigilance in preventing future abuse. As Latter-day Saints, we also understand that whenever a non-mainstream or “out-group” religion faces such allegations, the public commentary can be harsh. People who already dislike or mistrust the Church may seize upon these scandals as evidence of broader failings. It’s possible we will see sensational coverage or commentary that fails to address how the Church responds or how it compares statistically to other organizations.

In such an environment, we pray that sober, thoughtful journalism will prevail. We also recognize our responsibility as members to do all we can to protect children and vulnerable adults, ensuring no policy or practice inadvertently shelters abusers. That means continuing to refine our safeguarding measures, increasing transparency wherever possible, and emphasizing personal accountability among leaders at every level.

The post Understanding the California Sex Abuse Lawsuit: The LDS Church’s Response in Context appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

When you mention conversion therapy, most people think of antiquated, barbaric, and discredited therapeutic techniques like aversion (shock) therapy or the coercive, repressive, and shaming techniques that are still happening in some unlicensed “Christian” residential programs. If the law banned obviously harmful and dangerous practices like these, no one would object. Because today, as even proponents of conversion therapy bans admit, such practices either died out long ago or are not regulated by mental health licensing laws in the first place. Very few therapists, even Christian therapists, seek to change sexual orientation anymore. 

The problem is that the law is vague and overbroad, causing it to infringe not only on client self-determination but also on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and America’s broad tradition of religious liberty. The next sentence in the Washington law is especially problematic, which states that the definition of ‘conversion therapy’ includes “efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex” (emphasis added). The Washington law effectively states that therapists must affirm whatever behaviors or gender expressions the client currently engages in, even if the client themselves may want to stop. If the therapist helps the client stop a behavior or reduce the intensity of their conflicted feelings, they will face discipline. Twenty other states have enacted similar bans on “conversion therapy,” defined in an overbroad way.

The Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Most bans on “conversion therapy” violate the freedom of speech by defining conversion therapy so broadly. In another Supreme Court case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), a website designer did not want to be forced to design websites for gay weddings. The Supreme Court ruled that the creation of websites is “pure speech” (communication through written or spoken words), and forcing her to say something she did not believe in violated the core of freedom of speech. Because almost all therapy is done through verbal dialogue, not allowing a therapist to speak with a client about homosexuality in a non-affirming way is also a direct violation of free speech.

The opposing argument was that the bans do not violate free speech because they prohibit “conduct,” and the kind of speech therapists engage in is a form of conduct that can be regulated by the state. However, in NIFLA v. Becerra, decided in 2018, the Supreme Court said that “this Court has not recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech. Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals.’” And as Justice Thomas stated, quoting a similar case out of Florida, “If speaking to clients is not speech, the world is truly upside down.”

The Tingley case also undermines our country’s history of protecting freedom of conscience and religious pluralism. Though America has often fallen short of our ideals, our history includes a robust tradition of accommodating religious differences. During the Revolutionary War, the Quakers, for religious reasons, did not want to fight, and they were granted religious exemptions in many colonies. This exception survives today under the rubric of “conscientious objectors.” Our tradition of allowing religious liberty for all permits a variety of beliefs to coexist without requiring conformity to any specific religious belief. Courts and legislators should protect religiously motivated counselors and their beliefs from being trampled under the excuse of ridding the country of homophobia.

Washington argued that the government has a compelling interest in protecting homosexual minors from harm by clearly dangerous practices. If this was their real motivation, they could easily have defined conversion therapy more narrowly and more specifically. By upholding such a broad definition, the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court are penalizing religious beliefs held by professional therapists who do not want to affirm homosexual behavior. This is the opposite of religious freedom in which such differences are allowed, and matters of belief and conscience may not be compelled.

The fundamental disagreement is over what constitutes “harm” in this context. It is argued that therapists occupy a position of power relative to their clients, many of whom are in an emotionally vulnerable state. Many therapists believe that anything less than full acceptance of LGBT+ identities and behaviors is harmful, even if the clients themselves do not want affirmation. Within this perspective, the person is defined (in significant part) by their experienced sexual desires and gender identity. Any accommodation of traditional views about sexuality or gender is harmful because it could prevent people from living authentically according to their “true selves.” 

But as Carl Trueman and others have shown, this understanding of the “true self” is a relatively recent invention. It is not obviously true, as many of its supporters suggest. Reasonable people of good will can disagree about the extent to which certain desires or experiences should inform our understanding of who we are and how we should live.

Even recent legislation and court decisions by Democrats and Democratic-appointed judges clearly show that traditional views about sexuality and marriage need not be based in ignorance or bigotry. In Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the case that required all states to recognize same-sex marriages, the Court stated that “many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.” Further, Congress recently passed the Respect for Marriage Act. This law provided federal recognition of state-sanctioned same-sex marriage while also recognizing that “diverse beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises.” This clearly includes believers in traditional marriage. Professional counselors who do not abuse their clients physically or psychologically and instead help them reconcile their religious and moral values with their sexuality should be allowed to help such individuals, even if they are minors. It should not be criminal to disagree with LGBTQ-affirming beliefs or for clients to seek therapeutic support in reconciling their faith with their attractions. LGBTQ individuals who want therapy that affirms their identity and behavior should be able to find it. 

Too often, we make this more complicated than it needs to be. LGBT+ individuals who want therapy that affirms their identity and behavior should be able to find it. LGBT+ individuals who want therapy that affirms other aspects of their identity, such as their religious faith, should also be able to find it. Instead, the course chosen by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holds, in the words of Justice Thomas, that “expressing any other message [besides LGBT+ affirmation] is forbidden—even if the counselor’s clients ask for help to accept their biological sex.” Why should individuals not be able to access the therapy they actually want?

Though the Supreme Court declined to hear Tingley v. Ferguson, the Court should take the next available opportunity to rule on this important issue. Therapists and clients should be free to discuss issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation without fearing punishment from the state. Whereas it was once the case that homosexuals were treated as sick and subjected to dubious “treatments,” the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Those who wish to live a traditional moral code have largely been abandoned by therapists, legislatures, and now even the Supreme Court of the United States. Freedom to explore these issues should not mean the empty freedom to agree with the government. For years, gay activists demanded that the government “get out of our bedroom.” Government should also get out of the therapy room.

The post Disciplined For Disagreeing appeared first on Public Square Magazine.