The following questions can help determine whether something fits the definition of vice architecture:

1. Does it produce immediate gratification or excitement, often leading to a cycle of repeated use or dependence?
2. Does it entice us to subordinate long-term interests to immediate gratification or excitement?
3. Does it create a cycle of anticipation, reward, and repetition?
4. Does it consume resources—money, time, attention, health, or relationships—with an associated opportunity cost?
5. Does it impose costs on spouses, families, communities, or others?
6. Does it erode personal autonomy—creating a growing dependence on the appetite?

This architecture applies to much more than gambling. The list is a ready-made template for pornography and other illicit sexual behavior, as well as drug and alcohol intoxication. From brain chemistry to consequences, vices can leave a destructive wake that harms individuals and communities. On illicit sex, scholars Will and Ariel Durant wrote:

A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. 

Without much of a stretch, “sex” in the quotation could be replaced by “gambling.” Unlike sex, however, there is no appropriate context in which gambling becomes soul-enhancing.

Dopamine

I have had several bone-breaking mountain bike crashes. As a result, I am occasionally asked, “Why do you keep doing it?” I tell them I can answer in one word: dopamine. The biking-induced chemical surge (which involves more than dopamine) is something I relentlessly seek. After a technical, aerobic ride, I experience a buzz from the brain’s chemical response that lasts about four hours. Some of the chemicals involved may be familiar:

• Dopamine 
• Endogenous opioids
• Endocannabinoids
• Norepinephrine
• Serotonin

Perhaps opioids and endocannabinoids caught your attention. The sequence surrounding a normal, healthy activity such as mountain biking could be described this way:

effort → achievement → arousal → reward → recovery

A drug can produce a different sequence. Drugs like THC, cocaine, and heroin can disrupt the brain’s and body’s natural systems and push the buzz into overdrive. The sequence goes like this:

chemical → receptor/system → unusually powerful signal → repeated exposure

Brain chemistry is also relevant to gambling. Vices like gambling essentially hijack or circumvent natural biological and social processes that ordinarily contribute to personal and social well-being, redirecting them toward destructive ends.

Consider the cycle pornography can exploit:

cue → arousal → novelty → reward → new cue → arousal → novelty → reward → repetition

What happens to a motivational system when an environment supplies unusually intense, novel, immediately available stimuli at a frequency far beyond the conditions under which that system normally operates? Scarce resources can be consumed, resulting in a heavy opportunity cost burden, while consequences can be imposed on spouses, children, employers, communities, and institutions. Self-command can erode, and the individual may become dependent.

Gambling in a Vice Architecture Context

Gambling introduces the following causal chain:

stake → uncertainty → anticipation → outcome → reward/loss → renewed anticipation

The associated brain chemistry begins with the transition from stake to uncertainty. Three chemicals are relevant to this process: dopamine, noradrenaline, and cortisol. From uncertainty to anticipation, dopamine becomes important. Dopaminergic neurons can become active in anticipation of a potential reward. As the brain learns that particular cues predict gambling outcomes, the cue itself can acquire motivational significance. Noradrenaline also increases alertness and attention. This may be subjectively experienced as something like “Come on, come on…”

This transition produces an emotional and physiological arousal response. The neural processes involving dopamine effectively signal, “This matters—pay attention, learn from it, and pursue it.” In gambling, this is usually experienced as a sense of “Come on, come on!”—with each gambler filling in the desired outcome.

After anticipation comes either a win or a loss. If you win, the result elicits emotional arousal, and the brain compares the outcome with its prediction. If the win is substantially better than expected, dopaminergic neurons increase their firing, producing a phasic dopamine signal.

The win also engages other neurotransmitter systems, including the endogenous opioid system, which contributes to the pleasurable experience of reward. The experience can also involve physiological responses, including increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and heightened arousal, with adrenaline and noradrenaline playing a role.

A loss can produce a temporary decrease in dopamine signaling, even as the urge to “try again” persists, leading to what can be described as “I can get it back”—consciously seeking to recover the money and unconsciously seeking another dopamine surge.

The Spiritual Consequence

The chemical and physiological consequences of gambling may pale in comparison with the spiritual consequences. All vices have this in common: beyond the personal and societal damage they cause, they bring spiritual harm that may go unnoticed, partly because spiritual experience—and its loss—cannot easily be measured scientifically. We do know, however, that a loss of the Spirit seems to set off a cascade of effects. Mosiah 2:36–7 and Alma 12:10–11 describe what happens: 

In 2 Nephi 2, Lehi distinguishes between things that act and things that are acted upon. The element that prompts action is enticement. After being enticed, we can choose how we act or simply allow ourselves to be acted upon, “[f]or every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey.” Vice architecture pushes the gambler toward becoming a thing to be acted upon.

If one leans toward obeying the wrong spirit, choice remains, but its significance diminishes. It would be like moving my pawn after my king has been checkmated. Can I do it? Yes. Is there any value in it? No.

Gambling Condemnation from the Restoration Onward

Prophets of the Restoration have long condemned the spiritual dangers of gambling.

Joseph Smith associated gambling with Sabbath breaking and other disorderly practices in Missouri. Brigham Young called for the suppression of “grogshops, gambling houses, and all other disorderly houses or proceedings.”

By the beginning of the 20th century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ objection to gambling had become more explicitly economic and moral. President Joseph F. Smith taught that “the desire to get something of value for little or nothing is pernicious,” and he warned that anything strengthening that desire aided the gambling spirit. He gave an especially simple example: “Risking a dime in the hope of winning a dollar in any game of chance is a species of gambling.”

President Heber J. Grant likewise described the Church as unalterably opposed to gambling in any form, including games of chance and occupations or businesses that took money from someone without giving something of value in return.

President Spencer W. Kimball said, “From the beginning we have been advised against gambling of every sort. The deterioration and damage comes to the person, whether he wins or loses, to get something for nothing, something without effort, something without paying the full price.”

In 1972, Dallin H. Oaks, then president of Brigham Young University, published a detailed treatment of gambling. President Oaks warned that the gambling spirit could characterize some highly speculative investments in stocks and commodities. He also drew on President Joseph F. Smith’s observation that “the spirit in which we do things decides very largely whether we are gambling or are entering into legitimate business enterprises.”

In 1987, Elder Dallin H. Oaks returned to the subject in a major address at Ricks College. He emphasized several harms of gambling: it corrupts participants; it weakens the values of work, industry, thrift, and service; it encourages greed and covetousness; and it takes from another without creating corresponding value.

When gambling becomes compulsive, it can consume time, money, and attention that ought to be directed elsewhere. The harm extends beyond whether someone wins or loses money.

Gambling is not merely an activity involving risk. It can deform one’s relationship to work, wealth, other people, and self-control. Most importantly, it can deaden communion with the Holy Spirit.

President Gordon B. Hinckley returned to the subject in general conference in 2005, simply reaffirming: “We are against it.” He also emphasized the destructive potential of compulsive gambling.

Latter-day Saint teaching has never treated risk itself as the decisive moral category. It has been concerned with what the activity does to the individual and the community and what purpose the economic transaction serves.

After Elder Oaks’s 1987 treatment and President Hinckley’s 2005 general conference address, more than two decades passed without a comparable major apostolic address devoted specifically to gambling.

So why now?

Modern Gambling

Modern gambling has proliferated in new forms, including sports betting and prediction markets.

Utah is involved in a lawsuit against the trading platform Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction market. Kalshi is appealing a federal district court ruling that permits Utah to enforce its anti-gambling laws against the platform. Utah argues that Kalshi transactions constitute gambling. Kalshi argues that its trades are derivatives, financial contracts whose value depends on an underlying asset, benchmark, or event. 

As novel trading platforms emerge, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish what exactly constitutes gambling from the inherent risk of business transactions. Kalshi’s argument that its trades are simply derivatives is one example.

I have some experience with derivative financing. During a 2020 conversation with Marco Midence, then Honduras’s finance minister, he described the economic damage that followed a sharp decline in coffee prices. He told me that Honduras had lost approximately $114 million in coffee revenue, attributing the losses to plummeting Vietnamese coffee prices, which he said caused significant losses for family growers who lacked the necessary sophistication to hedge against price declines through financial transactions.

I proposed a government intermediary that could aggregate the growers’ exposure and arrange a price-floor contract on their behalf. Under this arrangement, growers would pay for protection against catastrophic price declines without becoming sophisticated derivatives traders themselves.

Discussions with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the International Monetary Fund indicated that such a structure could potentially be arranged without Honduras itself becoming the direct hedge counterparty.

Not every such proposal is necessarily wise, nor does every hedge succeed. But financial contracts can be used to transfer and manage risks that arise from real economic activity.

That is fundamentally different from creating a financial position for the purpose of wagering on an uncertain outcome.

But sidestepping the legal question of whether Kalshi trades constitute gambling or derivatives, I want to evaluate the trades through the lens of vice architecture. This is the result:

1. Does it produce immediate gratification or excitement—often leading to a cycle of repeated use or dependence? Yes
2. Does it entice us to subordinate long-term interests to immediate gratification or excitement? Yes
3. Does it create a cycle of anticipation, reward, and repetition? Yes
4. Does it consume resources—money, time, attention, health, or relationships—with an associated opportunity cost? Yes
5. Does it impose costs on spouses, families, communities, or others? Yes
6. Does it erode personal autonomy—creating a growing dependence on the appetite? Yes

What Should Money Be Doing?

Years ago, while I was an intern at The Prudential Insurance Company of America, I worked with a roughly $180 million social investment fund. The fund invested in minority-owned banks, shopping centers, and other for-profit projects in communities that conventional capital often overlooked.

Through that work, I came to know Monsignor William J. Linder, a Catholic priest in Newark, New Jersey. Father Linder was the founder of New Community Corporation, one of the nation’s major community development organizations. I worked closely with him on a neighborhood shopping center project and came to have enormous respect and affection for him.

One day I was volunteering at a soup kitchen in Newark. I was sent into the pantry to get a can of corn. As I looked along the shelves, I noticed that nearly every label said “Deseret.”

I mentioned it to Father Linder.

He explained that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supplied a significant portion of the canned goods used by the kitchen.

I then told him that I was a member of the Church.

That conversation led to an invitation. I invited Father Linder to Salt Lake City to tour the Church’s welfare operations and later to lecture at the Marriott School at BYU as part of its entrepreneurial lecture series.

He accepted, toured the welfare system, and spoke to the students.

I still remember one of the management students’ responses:

“Everyone who has spoken here so far has told us how we can get ahead. This is the first lecturer to tell us how to get others ahead.”

Father Linder understood money and investment. But he also understood that capital could accomplish things that a financial statement might not fully capture. A shopping center could create jobs. A business could anchor a neighborhood. A loan could allow a community to participate in an economy from which it had been excluded.

The counter to vice architecture is virtuous architecture. Father Linder understood the difference. So should we. 

We can recognize virtuous architecture by asking a corresponding set of questions:

1. Does it direct an appetite, resource, or capacity toward a good beyond immediate gratification?
2. Does it entice us to subordinate immediate gratification to something of enduring value?
3. Does its repetition cultivate a virtuous disposition and an increasingly Christlike character?
4. Does it create or preserve real value—economic, relational, physical, intellectual, or spiritual?
5. Does it produce benefits that extend to families, communities, and others?
6. Does it strengthen personal autonomy—our capacity to govern appetites rather than be governed by them?
7. Is there an accompanying manifestation of the Holy Spirit?

Father Linder understood the difference. So should we. 

The post The Price of the Next Bet appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The failed execution of Christa Pike, the ongoing prosecution in the case of Charlie Kirk’s murder, and the impending military execution of Nidal Hasan—along with the short-lived plan to publicly broadcast it—have fueled debate over the death penalty. 

Given the national interest in the topic, I want to add something to the Latter-day Saint discussion. I hope to encourage fellow opponents of capital punishment to engage in the discussion with greater charity and intellectual honesty, while also explaining why I oppose capital punishment as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Pro-Death Penalty Argument

Murder cries out for justice; that is undeniable. As the Lord said to Cain, “the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” I’ll never forget how horrified I was when I saw the sickening video of Charlie Kirk’s murder and knew that there was no way he could have survived. The crimes of Christa Pike and Nidal Hasan were similarly gruesome beyond description. 

The book of Genesis bluntly prescribes a punishment for such acts: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” This is arguably the foundational argument for the death penalty in the West, and it has been accepted by widely varying thinkers as a way of upholding the value of human life, punishing the evil of destroying the image of God in another person, protecting the community, and deterring future violence. 

In our own history, Joseph Smith, who ran for president on a platform of extensive prison reform, still believed that crimes like murder and treason could warrant death. The Constitution, which we believe is inspired, similarly contemplates the lawful use of the death penalty in several provisions, even as it prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. George Washington also authorized public executions as commander of the Continental Army. John Locke, whose writings heavily influenced the Declaration of Independence’s beautiful promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” nevertheless saw no inherent conflict between the death penalty and his ennobling natural rights philosophy.

These are arguments that anti-death penalty advocates should take seriously, and in the current debate I frankly admit that they often do not. Instead, it is common to hear arguments that portray death penalty supporters as defenders of barbaric relics of the past, that downplay or medicalize the evil actions of murderers, or that even generate public sympathy for murderers in the name of preventing execution. 

Others have unjustly criticized pro-life supporters of the death penalty as inconsistent, suggesting moral equivalence between the homicide of the tiniest and most innocent humans and the execution of the worst criminals. Moreover, the actions of the most radicalized opponents of the death penalty sometimes contribute to modern difficulties in carrying out the death penalty, including the failure of more humane methods (as in Christa Pike’s case) and the rising costs of carrying out executions. For example, these groups often lobby against pharmaceutical companies to discourage them from selling drugs needed for lethal injection. Anti-death penalty activists also contribute to seemingly endless legal lobbying and appeals, even in cases of clearly established guilt. This makes carrying out the death penalty immensely costly. The delays it causes also damage the death penalty’s deterrent value. These same opponents then cite the problems they have contributed to creating as evidence that the death penalty doesn’t work and should be abolished. 

In the case of Christa Pike, her guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt. She had even attempted to murder another inmate and escape from prison. Yet some sought to excuse or downplay her actions as merely a result of her childhood trauma. I believe that trauma is real and tragic, but it also doesn’t negate her moral responsibility. Others challenged execution protocols that were part of established Tennessee law and sought multiple stays of execution. Her case underwent multiple rounds of appeal and review over the course of three decades prior to her failed execution. Activists supported these efforts through amicus briefs, petitions, and messaging campaigns. These activists are sincere, but their behavior shows some lack of reflection. They mistake permissiveness and a diminished sense of justice for enlightenment and mercy. 

Why I Oppose

Yet despite all of these arguments and concerns, I remain opposed to the death penalty. I ask myself: Why would a perfect Father, who weeps over the violence His children inflict on one another, not expect those who govern to exercise justice with forbearance, avoiding violence or using only the minimum necessary force when force cannot be avoided? Modern prisons have made it possible to protect society without executing those convicted of murder. A death penalty advocate may reasonably point to Christa Pike’s attempts at murder and escape as evidence of the need for swift execution, but her attempts failed. And these incidents are relatively rare. Concerns about pardons and sentence commutations can likewise be addressed by limiting those powers, where legally possible, or by implementing appropriate safeguards. 

Some Latter-day Saints read Doctrine and Covenants 42:18–19, which says that “he that killeth shall die,” as a modern reaffirmation of the death penalty. I think this misses important context. In verse 18, the Lord states clearly, “I speak unto the Church.” These verses are also surrounded by verses describing immoral actions and their spiritual and ecclesiastical consequences, not civil punishments for committing them. Only later in the section is the law addressed. The Lord commands that murderers be “delivered up and dealt with according to the laws of the land,” but prescribes no specific punishment. These verses seem to me to be teaching that a person who commits murder is killing their own soul, and that full restitution for their act is not possible here on earth—not that divine justice will not be satisfied unless they are executed, or that forgiveness is always impossible for someone who has committed murder. We believe in a Savior who performed an infinite Atonement.

Many who support the death penalty in principle were rightly aghast at the prospect of broadcasting Nidal Hasan’s execution. Many of their objections have merit. They also raise this question: If the death penalty is inherently just, rather than justified only when other means are unavailable or unlikely to prevent further harm to others, why should its public broadcast be something shameful? Wouldn’t the “spectacle” of publicly executing an unrepentant mass murderer and traitor to his country just reinforce deterrence and demonstrate a commitment to seeing justice done? If broadcasting an execution is acknowledged to undermine the death penalty’s legitimacy or desensitize viewers, perhaps that should be taken as evidence against its inherent justness. At an 1858 anti-capital-punishment meeting chaired by the unrelenting advocate of human dignity Frederick Douglass, a resolution argued that “instead of repressing and preventing the horrid crime of murder, [the death penalty] really serves, by shocking and blunting the finer and better feelings of human nature, to undermine respect for human life.” 

Another concern Douglass understood better than most, given the racial climate he lived in, was the risk of human error or partiality in imposing the death penalty. Data on wrongful convictions is heavily debated, and I generally approach it cautiously. Nevertheless, according to the Innocence Project, 21 people who spent time on death row have been exonerated through DNA evidence since 1989, when forensic analysis gained traction. They are a subset of the 130 people during that period who were convicted of murder and eventually exonerated on the basis of DNA.

Usable DNA evidence becomes available in only a fraction of homicide cases, meaning that if you include findings of innocence based on other evidence, DNA-based exonerations offer only a partial estimate of innocent people who may have been convicted. And when you add in convictions that were invalidated because of prosecutorial misconduct, the number of innocent people who were wrongly convicted may be even higher. The point is that even our modern system is vulnerable to errors that risk executing innocent people, and there’s no guarantee we will correct every wrongful conviction. That should at least give us pause. Additionally, if the state executes an innocent person, the finality of that action means the likelihood that the actual perpetrator will be brought to justice is severely reduced.

Regardless of what one makes of these statistics, the death penalty has indisputably been wielded at times throughout history as a tool of dehumanization in the name of justice. It grants the government a power that is ultimate, final, and susceptible to misuse and abuse. Joseph Smith himself would have been a victim of this awful reality in Missouri if not for the courage of General Alexander Doniphan. Why would we want to give the state such power unless it were absolutely necessary? 

Even someone who has committed the vilest sins is still a child of God. Jesus Christ suffered and died for that person, too, regardless of whether that person would accept Him. If we can honor that person’s humanity while protecting other lives, without substantially increasing the risk of shedding innocent blood, why would we not do so? It’s true that leaders of the Church haven’t taken a specific position on the issue, but their neutrality doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility to grapple with the moral consequences of this question. What if “the least of these” includes even those who have committed the worst crimes? I believe we can uphold the image of God in even these individuals and still meet the moral baseline established in Genesis. The death penalty should be opposed.

The post Justice Without Execution appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Yet the Church’s opposition to expanded access to elective abortion has provoked significant backlash, even among its members. What’s going on here?

Idaho

Let’s look at Idaho. Current Idaho law is highly protective of unborn life. Its Defense of Life Act generally prohibits abortion after fertilization, with exceptions in the first trimester for reported rape or incest and for abortions that a physician determines are medically necessary to prevent the woman’s death. Idaho’s fetal heartbeat law separately prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected (around six weeks), with exceptions for medical emergencies involving risk of the mother’s death or a substantial risk of irreversible impairment of a major bodily function. However, the narrower exception under the Defense of Life Act takes precedence. 

Proposition 1 would significantly alter Idaho’s law by establishing a right to abortion before fetal viability and allowing it after viability in cases of medical emergency. Yet many support the measure, despite its expansion of elective abortion, typically citing concern for women’s access to medical care.

We must take seriously our responsibility to protect mothers’ lives and health. As scholars from the Ethics & Public Policy Center have written: 

Just as justice requires us to protect all unborn children, so too does it require us to protect access to life-affirming medical treatment for pregnant women facing grave medical complications. This is part of the pro-life ideal, not an exception to it. Ensuring access to such treatments is morally right and consistent with giving both mothers and unborn children the same protections accorded to others.

But you don’t fix potentially problematic law with worse law. Instead of ensuring the death of more unborn children by expanding abortion rights, Idaho residents should work to better tailor existing legislation to increase protection for the health of women and their babies. Significantly expanding elective abortion access is not the answer to ensuring medical professionals can act competently in cases when the mother’s health is at risk.

As you might expect, Doe’s extremely broad definition of health allows almost any concern to be invoked to justify abortion that is not strictly medically necessary—hence the ubiquitous slogan “abortion is healthcare.” Many critics believe this definition is far too broad and has contributed to a permissive legal framework under which an estimated 65 million abortions have occurred in the United States since 1973. 

In Idaho, a coalition of abortion providers, emergency room physicians, and maternal-fetal medicine specialists are supporting Proposition 1 in order to expand the state’s medical exceptions for abortion. Some emergency room physicians—who often provide initial care for pregnancy health crises—and some maternal-fetal medicine specialists—who provide care for both mother and unborn child, especially in high-risk pregnancies—believe that legislation restricting abortions will inevitably be interpreted in ways that will prevent them from providing the care they believe is best for their patients. They also fear the current law will result in doctors being prosecuted for exercising their best medical judgment in cases involving “serious but non-fatal harm, such as significant organ damage or an infection that has not yet become life-threatening.” 

These are important considerations. The law needs sufficient flexibility for physicians to provide care in cases where the distinction between a significant health concern and a life-threatening condition is unclear. It’s important to note that ordinary treatments for pregnancy complications are already legal in Idaho and are not classified as abortions. These include treatments for ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies, and completed miscarriages. And the law already covers life-saving treatments when the mother’s life is obviously at risk. So the controversy lies in the gap when a woman faces serious bodily injury, but death is not necessarily an imminent certainty.

Nevertheless, physicians in Idaho have transferred patients to out-of-state hospitals rather than risk becoming a test case that could jeopardize their practices or expose them to costly litigation. 

Idaho would likely benefit from amending its existing laws to emphasize that physicians can address serious threats to mothers’ health before their conditions become life-threatening. A proposition that does just that would be reasonable. But Idaho does not need to overhaul its entire legal scheme to provide elective abortions up to viability—a change that goes far beyond tailoring the law to improve care in emergency medical contexts. 

The Secular Case for Restricting Abortion

Beyond improving medical care, some simply want to expand abortion through viability for any reason, which both the Idaho and Nevada initiatives would do. Here’s why this is problematic.

For one, enshrining abortion as an individual woman’s right devalues human life itself, as well as society’s respect for mothers and children. Recognizing the unborn as having important social and moral status also recognizes pregnancy and maternity as important, meaningful, and charitable acts. As Erika Bachiochi has written, “To belittle the moral status of the unborn child is to belittle the state of pregnancy, and so the pregnant woman. Indeed, the sacrifices that pregnant women endure during their pregnancies would be more honored (and perhaps more rewarded) were we as a culture honest about the dignity of the human beings who have been entrusted to their care.” Our Creator endowed us with the unalienable right to life—the minimal prerequisite to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Women are trustees of unborn life and therefore stand in a position of trust relative to their vulnerable unborn children. 

Framing abortion solely as a woman’s private right also devalues fathers and families more generally. It impairs family relationships by elevating parental relationship problems, economic fears, and educational goals over the welfare of unborn children, and thus over human life itself. Being a husband and a father encourages men to develop emotional maturity, patience, and empathy, and fosters deeper personal growth. Currently, fathers have no parental rights relative to their unborn children, but they retain the duty of support. Many fathers of aborted children feel disenfranchised and experience grief over the abortion of their children, and many mothers are also negatively affected by abortion.

Ending the lives of the unborn cannot solve the problems women and their children face.  It appears that most abortions are performed on the poor or working poor, nearly two-thirds of whom are in their 20s. There are pro-life answers to pro-choice questions, and we must provide women better choices than abortion. 

In no other human relationship do we recognize a general right to unilaterally terminate another person’s life. As Lynn D. Wardle queried in “World & I,” “How can any activity that involves the consent of one individual, requires the assistance of a second, and results in the destruction of a third be called a matter of privacy?” In fact, giving a parent the right to end the life of their child, as Mary Parthun has pointed out in the book “Abortion’s Aftermath,” is socially regressive. Some ancient societies exposed unwanted newborns to the elements to end their lives; we’ve legalized ending the lives of unborn children in utero via chemicals or medical procedures and call ourselves morally superior. 

The Case for the Church’s Intervention

These secular arguments are not the only grounds for opposing initiatives that expand abortion rights. Latter-day Saint teachings also provide Church members with spiritual and temporal grounds for restricting elective abortions.

Against the backdrop of abortion ballot measures in Idaho, Nevada, Virginia, and Missouri, the letters from Church leadership discussed earlier provide wise and welcome counsel. New members may be unfamiliar with the Church’s long-held view that human life—including the unborn—is a sacred gift from God, central to His plan for the spiritual progression of His children. And some longtime members, despite knowing the Church’s policy on elective abortion, are nonetheless wary of supporting restrictions on a woman’s agency to choose abortion. 

The Church proclaimed the dignity and value of every human soul more than 30 years ago in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” In order to protect and promote the eternal progression of those souls, the Church counseled that sexual relations should be only between a lawfully wedded man and woman who care for each other, welcome the birth of children, and cooperate as equals in providing for and rearing their children. Those teachings affirm the intrinsic worth of human life and the profound importance of committed, healthy family relationships—both of which elective abortion degrades.

The Church supports individuals’ efforts to establish and maintain strong families through far-reaching educational and humanitarian programs, including self-reliance courses, health initiatives, and mental health services.

The stakes are high—for society and for individual souls. As we continue to address abortion and efforts to restrict or expand it, we should “accept the reality that we are fellow citizens who need each other” and heed President Oaks’ counsel to interact respectfully—a much-needed call for civil discourse in our age of sound-bite rage campaigns, both online and in person. 

Surely we can love our neighbors as ourselves, including women with challenging pregnancies, their irreplaceable unborn children, and the fathers of those children. We must love them enough to find ways to help them establish and maintain healthy family relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even into eternity.

The post Mothers Deserve Better Than This appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

When we use the phrase “mental heuristics,” we are talking about something like a set of software programs in our minds. These programs cause us to process information rapidly in certain ways, usually automatically and without our awareness. For example, sports fans sometimes become excessively caught up in intense rivalries, and when two fans of opposing teams in a rivalry see each other in public, they might go out of their way to avoid each other after their mental heuristics lead them to anticipate an ugly public confrontation.

And their mental heuristics may be completely wrong. It may be true that both of them are very kind and respectful toward opposing fans and would be great friends if they got to know each other.

Mental heuristics can be accurate or inaccurate, but they are extremely useful. We cannot constantly investigate our surroundings, interrogate the people around us, and study every issue in depth at every moment. The human mind relies on heuristic shortcuts to keep us safe and help us avoid sensory and information overload.

Indoctrination into belief systems creates mental heuristics. Expressive individualism is the worldview at the heart of movies like “Footloose” and “Frozen,” and a person with an expressive individualist heuristic automatically views all attempts to create community norms and standards as preventing the expression of a person’s “authentic self.” Postmodernism is a worldview that many people adopt in graduate school, and it creates a heuristic that views all human activity and discourse as attempts to structure power. Marxism and Marxist-influenced approaches create mental heuristics in which we divide the world into oppressors and oppressed and see society as “systems of oppression” that maintain various forms of “supremacy.”

I should reiterate that heuristics are not inherently good or bad. As Latter-day Saints, we actively strive to develop good heuristics of charity that lead us to a default processing of the world with love of God and neighbor.

Our political heuristics in particular are powerfully reinforced by brain chemistry. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently wrote an excellent book, “Off Ramp,” in which he explained:

When we feel connected to others, our brains give us a ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling that is caused by the hormone oxytocin. This is a bonding hormone that increases feelings of trust, empathy, and closeness to partners, friends, and family and communities … It also pushes us to defend our in-groups against threats from others. In a 2015 study, participants given oxytocin were more likely to “adopt the erroneous judgments of their in-group members than subjects who did not receive the hormone.” Oxytocin increases in-group favoritism, lying for one’s team, conformity to in-group preferences, and aggressive protection against threatening outsiders. It’s fun to consider when you’re watching the TV show Survivor, but alarming when it suddenly invades every aspect of our lives. That loyalty doesn’t disappear once a person steps outside of the ballot box. It seems to follow us everywhere.

This echoes the observation in psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s landmark book “The Righteous Mind” that the brain chemical dopamine is also directly involved in our political thinking. He described a study in which researcher Drew Westen gave his research participants political messaging they found difficult and then gave them counter-information that “released” them from the mental stress of that initial information:

Once Westen released them from the threat, the ventral striatum started humming—that’s one of the brain’s major reward centers. All animal brains are designed to create flashes of pleasure when the animal does something important for its survival, and small pulses of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the ventral striatum (and a few other places) are where these good feelings are manufactured. Heroin and cocaine are addictive because they artificially trigger this dopamine response … Westen found that partisans escaping from handcuffs (by thinking about the final slide, which restored their confidence in their candidate) got a little hit of that dopamine.

Given the role of these two chemicals in our responses to political information, we benefit from asking: What is really going on in our personal experiences of politics?

Most of us believe our political and other views are correct; otherwise, we would hold different views. But in a TED Talk, Kathryn Schulz asked a question later echoed by Jonathan Haidt: “How does it feel to be wrong?” The answer is the same way it feels to be right. The reassuring, reinforcing sensations of oxytocin and dopamine are experienced by people who are right and also by people who are dangerously wrong.

As specific examples, I think of President Donald Trump and Jon Stewart as the kings of political dopamine on the right and left, respectively. Trump built his political career and Stewart built his career as a commentator in the same way: publicly humiliating people to entertain audiences. Both of them have always offered their audiences some amount of truth, paired with enormous heuristic shortcuts that avoid real truth in opposing views. By sneering and insulting their opponents, they leave their audiences awash in surges of dopamine that reinforce their sense of intellectual and moral superiority.

We sometimes discuss peacemaking in terms of civility, but in reality, civility only reduces conflict, which we might call “détente-making.” This is valuable, to be sure, but peacemaking—the attainment of genuine mutual understanding and respect—requires work that is deeper and more difficult than détente-making. It requires work that breaks us free from the dopamine- and oxytocin-reinforcement loops that keep decent people suspicious and even hateful toward each other.

Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch has recently caused a stir by pointing to the “civic theology” of Latter-day Saints, articulated most strongly by President Dallin H. Oaks. I suggest this notion of our civic theology is essential to understanding President Oaks’ prophetic project. And I suggest the heart of our Latter-day Saint civic theology can be seen in a simple personal exercise: Imagine the political figure you most despise. For American Latter-day Saints on the political left, that figure is likely Donald Trump. For American Latter-day Saints on the political right, that figure might be Kamala Harris or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Understand that this person, who fills your heart with fear and loathing, may well end up in the presence of God for eternity, in what we call the celestial kingdom. And the celestial kingdom is a place where everyone will be fully at peace with one another, without any personal hostility or grievances. Knowing the likelihood that many of your current political adversaries will be there, is the celestial kingdom still a place where you yearn to be?

So many of our discussions of peacemaking focus on the tactical, on things we should or should not do. But as this exercise illustrates, a real theological question in which we name names is a much better exercise for helping Latter-day Saints to understand the stakes involved in peacemaking. If we are mired in political oxytocin that leaves us feeling love and belonging toward our in-group and fear and loathing toward everyone outside our in-group, we would do well to break free of that chemical feedback loop. The work of breaking free is to honestly explore the validity of opposing political views. This involves setting aside heuristics that we formerly relied upon to rapidly make sense of political information. In the process of sincerely looking for validity in opposing political views, we may or may not change our minds. But we will likely lose relationships that depend on the constant chemical reinforcement of political oxytocin. In this, we take up our cross.

In politics and everywhere else, the quest for truth cannot long coexist with other cravings like belonging, comfort, or validation. All of the most important questions of our time are so serious that they sift out people who are willing to patiently see beyond their heuristics and wrestle deeply over what is true, from those who use political and moral discussions merely as a means to oxytocin- and dopamine-driven rewards.

Returning to where we started: In her article on abortion, Meagan Kohler could have done the predictable thing. She could have written a typical article intended to push her readers’ partisan mental buttons and give them another hit of dopamine. Instead, she wrote a serious piece exploring how the assumptions about gestation that we find in the pro-choice movement are regressive for civilization. That is a position that deserves deep reflection, not shallow heuristic dismissal.

But for people who have spent years or even decades cultivating heuristics of intellectual entropy, expressions of moral order and clarity are received as oppressive or even pathological. Social media is a place where intellectually entropic people gather to reassure each other in a hot tub of oxytocin after feeling the sharp discomfort of clarity. On subjects like abortion, there are many voices of entropy both in and out of the Church, so a frenzied response is almost to be expected. But there also may be a few people—perhaps even just one—at a crossroads in their thinking, willing to give their hearts to a real consideration of a thoughtful treatment of the issue.

To reach that small subset of readership is the goal of every converted Latter-day Saint commentator. We should likewise each carry a personal goal of modeling something other than heuristic-driven responses toward people we regard as political or religious opponents. In many cases, even when we disagree, there are things we can learn from them in that disagreement.

The post Could You Share Heaven With Them? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

We sat down with Walker Wright, author of the recently published book “Nourishing the Roots: Seeking the Foundations of Latter-day Testimony,” to discuss this pattern and how someone might work through it. Wright’s book lays out an intellectual case for the plausibility of the “roots” of a testimony: belief in the Godhead, belief in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and belief in the Restoration. In our interview spanning metaphysics, science, history, and epistemology, we explore questions ranging from what the nature and orderliness of the universe might tell us about the plausibility of God to what we should make of the experiences of the Book of Mormon witnesses.

Wright serves as the director of programs for a Yale-based institute and has previously held academic program management roles at public policy organizations in Washington, D.C. His writing spans economics, politics, and religion and has appeared in academic journals and public outlets alike. He holds an MA in government from Johns Hopkins University, as well as an MBA and BBA from the University of North Texas.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length, clarity, and style, and Mr. Wright has approved the edits. 

Anna: Good morning, Walker. Thank you for joining Amanda and me today to talk about your new book, “Nourishing the Roots.” Amanda and I both read it and really enjoyed it. We’re excited to jump into some questions about it today.

Walker: Thanks for having me. Appreciate the invitation.

Amanda: Latter-day Saints, especially those who are experiencing a trial of faith, often hear this domino logic: If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith is a prophet, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really is Christ’s restored church, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and then God is our Heavenly Father. So all we really need to know is if the Book of Mormon is true. But you started from a much simpler and almost opposite route: why anything at all? Why did you think that was the right place to start?

Walker: Great question. I don’t disagree with the logic that having a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon is the major paradigm shift and the way to truly anchor you in the truths of the Restoration. That’s why I make it the last chapter. I think that is the most fundamental and best way to come to know the truth of it. For most Latter-day Saints, that’s usually how they get their testimony and where they begin. 

My approach is to go all the way back to what we can really know about anything, which goes back to the basic fundamentals of reality. When you start to question these experiences, start questioning all experiences. Go all the way back and start to build again. The hope is that once you get through chapters one through seven—starting with reality, the Resurrection, and the Book of Mormon itself—someone questioning those experiences can say, “Maybe that wasn’t self-delusion. Maybe that was genuine. Maybe I should continue to take that seriously.” 

Or if you’ve never had that experience yourself—maybe you’ve always been a non-believer of some sort—maybe you can get over some of these hurdles that might be blocking you from even trying to have a spiritual experience. Eventually, once you’ve thought through it, you might say, “Maybe I should try this. Maybe I should take it a little bit seriously,” and you might be in a place where you could genuinely attempt to have a spiritual experience. I decided to start at the root because the hope is to help people overcome a number of hurdles and create the context for a genuine spiritual experience.

Anna: I was really interested in your discussion of the intelligibility of reality. That chapter blew my mind because we take so much of it for granted. Math works with physics, but it doesn’t have to. Why that chapter? How does that help form a basis to develop some of the most basic and fundamental beliefs?

Walker: I start there because it is one of the most knowable things: existence. We all exist. It’s one of the most familiar experiences that we have: existing and seeing that things around us exist. As you pointed out, we often take that for granted. Understandably so, because it’s natural. We form these beliefs through sensory experience. 

But if you actually stop to think about existence or being, you realize that it’s pretty weird. You start to ask, “Did things have to exist?” And even if they did, they could have existed in a chaotic form where nothing made sense to us, with no meaning, purpose, or pattern that we could derive from anything. Yet, that’s not the kind of reality that we live in. There is an orderliness and a rationale behind these things. There are laws of physics that we discover. We don’t just project those laws onto a nonsensical reality, but they’re actually woven into the fabric of reality. That’s very lucky, and in some sense, somewhat unexpected. 

It could be a happy accident that we exist. It could also be a happy accident that it’s orderly and rational to some degree. But I don’t know if we really should expect that. Once you start to think about that, it puts a crack in the naturalist worldview—the idea that nature is a closed system that is sufficient to account for itself and that you can explain it all from within that system. This worldview generally sees reality as nothing more than physical processes and mechanisms. There’s no ultimate purpose to these processes. It’s just the machinery of the universe.

But I don’t know if that’s tenable anymore once you start talking about things making sense and that there’s actual sense to be made, because that entails meaning in the way things operate. That indicates a logic to the whole structure. And logic isn’t inherent in any mere mechanism. Describing physical laws assumes lawfulness and order. It smuggles in meaning. And I don’t know that meaning has any place in a strictly naturalist view of the universe. It’s not so much that “why is there something rather than nothing” or “why is the world intelligible” automatically means God, the Restoration, or anything like that. But I think it puts a crack in naturalism. Once you start moving away from that worldview, you start asking, “What are the alternatives? What kind of reality do we exist in?” Eventually, hopefully, you get to the point of asking whether it’s the kind of reality that makes more sense with or without God. This is the first step moving towards a reality that contains the divine.

Anna: That’s really interesting. You also talked about consciousness. I had to read that chapter a few times just to wrap my head around it: the fact that we are conscious and can comprehend that we are. Yet as much as we can describe the neurons firing and the chemicals flowing, we cannot actually understand the subjective experience of consciousness merely through its scientific process. How does that connect to a person’s consciousness or mind in seeking truth and developing a testimony of the roots?

Walker: I see the first three chapters as laying the groundwork for moving beyond a naturalist worldview. You have the strangeness of existence and the intelligibility of reality in the first chapter. You have the fine-tuning of the universe that reinforces this intelligibility of reality. 

What makes that difficult for me to agree with is that once you start to go through the machinery of the brain and think through it, if it is all just physical stimuli and physical processes, then we can easily imagine a world in which those physical processes are still going on, but there’s no subjective experience. In the book, I talk about what philosophers of mind call “zombies,” which basically look like us, act like us, and are in every way, shape, and form the same as us, except there’s no light on upstairs. Or maybe the only conscious experience is white noise. It could have been that way if mind were just machinery, but it didn’t end up being that way. 

One of my favorite thought experiments is the “Chinese nation” by the philosopher Ned Block: let’s say you gave everyone in China very specific instructions about when and what to signal to others, along with a cell phone to carry out those signals. The entire nation ends up functioning like neurons in a brain, flipping certain switches at certain times by use of these signals. Now let’s say that you hook the whole system up to a robot. The people of China collectively function as the robot’s “brain,” and the robot begins to act like a conscious human being because of all these switches. Now, ask yourself, “Is that robot conscious? Does that robot have a subjective first-person experience?” Most people would say no. But if we say that the mind is nothing more than this kind of machinery, then we haven’t really explained why we have conscious first-person experience. We all could have ended up like this robot. But we’re not.

There seems to be a qualitative difference and gap between the physical nature of the brain and the experience of consciousness. Mind is more than machine. I sum it up by borrowing from a philosopher who says it’s a construction error to think mindless particles suddenly become mind: Just like white marble tiles do not suddenly add up to a black, non-marble floor, mindless, impersonal matter does not suddenly add up to a personal, subjective mind. The implication seems to be that the mind must be in the ingredients from the get-go, that it must have always been there. It’s not a latecomer to the universe. It seems to be at the foundation of existence, the ultimate foundation of all things. So now you not only have the strangeness of existence, the intelligibility of reality, and the fine-tuning of the universe, but a mind-like reality where mind is eternal, has always been around, and was there from the get-go. That fits very well with the Latter-day Saint perspective that intelligence is not created or made, and that mind was in the beginning with God, premortality, all that type of stuff. Now you have this strange mind-like reality. Is it the kind of reality that makes more sense with God or without? That’s the groundwork that leads up to God, Christ, and the Restoration.

Amanda: I want to take us back to the Book of Mormon now. You make an interesting comparison between the historical evidence for the Resurrection and for the Book of Mormon witnesses. What do you think a Christian who accepts the Resurrection but quickly dismisses the evidence for the Book of Mormon witnesses actually has to grapple with when it comes to the witnesses? 

Walker: What I’ve noticed a lot of the time in people who have rejected the Book of Mormon witnesses but accept the Resurrection—especially if they’re leaning hard on the eyewitnesses of the Resurrection or the New Testament witnesses—is that I don’t think they’re familiar with the documented evidence. I don’t think they’re familiar with how much we have from these witnesses, how consistent they are, and how early they are in terms of proximity to the actual event. Some are much later, but we have plenty from within a month or so where you have actual signed statements and so forth. 

Many Christians who reject it make elementary mistakes. I’ve heard people in some debates say, “Joseph was the only one who saw them.” That seems to be completely ignorant of the witnesses themselves. Or they’ll say, “It was just a fraud.” What’s your evidence that it’s fraud? That’s the question, isn’t it? Or they’ll say something like, “The witnesses went back on their testimonies,” which they never did. 

What they’re missing is how closely they parallel the ancient witnesses of the Resurrection, meaning that they had plenty of incentives to deny their testimony. They had reputational damage. It cost money in the case of Martin Harris. The witnesses faced persecution, they faced death threats, some were beaten, and some were actually killed. Some left the Church. Some came back, but some didn’t. That is really interesting, because the claim was not, “Joseph was never a prophet,” but for those who left, they said he became a fallen prophet. That is a very important distinction, because ultimately it’s saying, “Angels, God, the Restoration—that happened. I just think it may have gone off the rails later on down the line.” The Book of Mormon witnesses are something a lot of Christians are missing. They’re between a rock and a hard place: they’ll rely heavily on the eyewitnesses of the Resurrection, but then if they take that eyewitness argument seriously, they either have to deal with these Book of Mormon witnesses and take them seriously as well, or they have to undermine their own argument in favor of the Resurrection. 

These critics are missing many of the same incentives the early Christians faced, and they’re overlooking the fact that we have far more documentation from these particular witnesses describing their experiences, and that it wasn’t just one kind of experience. You had the Eight with a very tangible, physical, natural experience, and the Three with the angel. The two of those together, reinforcing each other, make it pretty hard to come up with an overarching explanation to dismiss them.

Amanda: At the beginning of our discussion, you mentioned how people going through a faith crisis are reevaluating their previous experiences and looking for things like how much of this was confirmation bias, how much was emotional manipulation, or a draw from culture. Book of Mormon antiquity is always a big question for people who are struggling. How do you distinguish a good case for Book of Mormon antiquity from confirmation bias, where you’re counting all of the hits while you sort of dismiss what doesn’t work?

Walker: Great question. The biggest thing—and I say this in a footnote, not in the main body of the book—is that critics will ask, “Is there any non-Latter-day Saint archaeologist, Mesoamericanist, or anthropologist who takes the Book of Mormon seriously?” The answer is pretty clearly no. Nobody looks at it who isn’t a Latter-day Saint. I point out that if they did take it seriously, they would probably become a Latter-day Saint, and then they would remove themselves from the critics’ preferred category that was created. 

Second, it’s not just being an expert in a particular geography or field; you also have to be an expert in the text itself. What does the text itself actually claim? That was something that John Sorenson was doing when he created the limited geography model: piecing together what the text itself says about its own geography. That’s just one example. To me, the bad arguments for supposed antiquity usually rest on a whole bunch of assumptions about the ancient world or about the text itself, and sometimes both, instead of what the actual text says and what we actually know about the ancient world. When those two things converge, that’s when it becomes—not a knockdown argument by any means—but definitely one that should raise eyebrows where you say, “That’s interesting.” 

The best ones for me are the most subtle, where the text itself actually makes more sense when you take that ancient evidence into consideration. If you read the Bible straight through, KJV style, you can get a lot out of it, but you can also be confused. Using a commentary that has cultural context can make the text come alive so that you understand why they acted that way and what was going on, because it doesn’t always give you that information. It assumes the audience already knows. Same thing with the Book of Mormon. Anytime I’ve incorporated ancient evidence to give cultural context to the text, it starts to make more sense, come alive, and I understand the text better. It has no business doing that if it’s strictly a 19th-century text, because it should have no coherence with the ancient world. That’s a personal thing for me, where the text begins to actually make more sense when you take into consideration this evidence for antiquity. That’s one of the biggest flags for me.

Amanda: People who are struggling through a crisis of faith often describe feeling dismissed when people offer advice focused on getting back to the basics: read your scriptures, say your prayers, go to church, take the sacrament, fast. When we are supporting those who are struggling, how do we keep this roots-and-branches framework from becoming a way to dismiss real, heartfelt, good-faith questions about issues that may be branch issues?

Walker: Great question. I’ve already seen some responses to my book where I’ve been accused of being dismissive just by promoting the idea that there are roots (primary, fundamental beliefs) and branches (secondary beliefs that are outgrowths of the roots)—just the sheer model of it is offensive in some way. Most of the time, the answer’s not going to be, “You have a concern about Church history. That doesn’t matter. Here’s a book by Walker Wright, go read that.” That’s not the best way to do it. 

A lot of the time, I’ve found that you’ll reach a certain assumption that might not be necessary or justified, or it’s a paradigm about prophets. It’s a gangly branch that could be cut off; it’s not something you have to preserve. You don’t have to believe or think that; you can think about it another way, and that fits just fine in the Church’s teachings. By asking questions and being genuinely interested, you go through these and figure out where they’re coming from. That helps people feel heard, and it helps you both understand where the issue is. It may not resolve it right then and there, but it helps you better connect on where you both are coming from. I have had experiences where I’ve pointed out that they don’t have to hold a certain assumption, and that helped them move on from there. My experience with people has been to always try to figure out how what they’re struggling with connects to these roots and whether there actually is a through line between what they’re struggling with and the major claims of the gospel.

Amanda: That connects a lot with my own personal experience, where I thought the issue was polygamy, and the more I questioned it, the more I got down to: maybe the reason why polygamy led to me thinking I might be an atheist is because I’m struggling with the nature of God, what God might think, and how my assumptions about the world might be different than the way God views the world.

Walker: Absolutely.

Amanda: After spending most of the book constructing an intellectual case, you ultimately end with personal revelation. Does that suggest that apologetics don’t actually produce faith, or perhaps they can clear intellectual obstacles so that people become more willing to encounter God?

Walker: I think it can be both. Elder (Neal A.) Maxwell (of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), quoting Anglican philosopher Austin Farrer, said that arguments and reasons don’t produce faith, but they create a context in which faith can thrive. It’s few and far between, but I think there are some people out there where the sheer intellectual argument can do something for them. That really does it for them. But that’s not most people. Most people take reason and their own experience into account. 

I see the book as casting a wide net to those people who might be 95% intellectual, hoping to offer good arguments, reflection, and reasons to take it seriously. None of it is absolute proof; none of these are knockdown arguments that you can’t explain in other ways, but I think someone can walk away saying, “I may not believe it, but it’s not unreasonable.” That’s a move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. 

For most people, apologetics helps clear hurdles. I hope my book causes people to reflect on how they know things, how their experiences are wrapped up in how they know things, and gets them to think about the world around them, how they make sense of the world, why they should make sense of the world, and if there is sense to be made. To really drill down deep into these existential questions. I jokingly say that if you’re going to have a faith crisis, have an existential one, because an existential crisis makes you ask deep questions about what anything means, what your life means, whether there is anything after death, or if it all just ends there. Those types of questions are the kinds of cracks that God can get into and reach you in different ways. 

Spiritual experiences aren’t just an emotional high. Sometimes it can be enlightenment, where an idea clicks, a worldview makes sense, or you feel pulled toward meaning. There are a variety of experiences that people have. I hope apologetics can reach those few who are intellectually minded, while clearing hurdles and creating a context for others to feel it’s reasonable to rely on these spiritual experiences and safe to attempt to have them.

Walker: For me, it was definitely an afterward thing. I had a spiritual experience in the MTC related to the plan of salvation and the death of my sister from years earlier, but soon after, I was introduced to the work of Truman G. Madsen, to whom the book is dedicated, who taught me that the intellectual pursuit of the spiritual was something that could be done. He made me want to learn and know more. He provided a model of asking questions, seeking answers, learning more, and growing in my faith. Through that, I would come into contact with things that were more difficult than expected: weird history, policies, or people behaving badly. But because I had been anchored by the spiritual experience, I still felt strongly that this was right. 

I would ask how I could make sense of a particular issue and if there was an answer to be found. Some people say, “I put it on the shelf.” Well, at some point you have to take it off the shelf and read it. Work through it, but don’t be so hasty in your judgments and conclusions. That doesn’t mean you can’t come up with a framework that works, but a lot of times people are too quick to pull the trigger: “I Googled over the weekend, and my faith fell apart.” Would you do that with any other academic or intellectual pursuit? If someone Googled a different subject over the weekend and changed their mind overnight, would you take that seriously? Probably not. Then why do that with ultimate questions that people have been wrestling with for thousands of years in philosophy and theology? Take a breath and take time to think through it. 

When it came to the intellectual stuff, especially when I got home from my mission, I found myself struggling with constructing a coherent theological worldview and working through classic arguments about God and religion that didn’t always overlap neatly onto Latter-day Saint theology. Trying to think through these philosophical questions was an intellectual and spiritual struggle, but it anchored me in these big questions. That’s what an intellectual pursuit can do. Some people say that you can or should come to a spiritual conclusion only after you understand everything. I don’t think that’s the case. You can have a spiritual experience, recognize that it seems genuine, and then want to better understand it. That’s what we do with lots of things: we have an experience or observe something, recognize that it happened even if we don’t fully understand it, and then try to better understand it through thought, study, or experimentation. That’s how we learn things. The fact that an experience can give you a reason to believe something doesn’t mean you have finished thinking about it. But it also means that you don’t have to act like that experience didn’t give you legitimate knowledge that you can act on.

Anna: Thank you. I’m excited to share this with our readers. 

The post Nourishing the Roots: An Interview with Walker Wright appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

The term “pro-choice,” the chosen moniker for what appears to be the most sacred cow of mainstream contemporary feminism, exemplifies that the ability to choose is more important than whether that choice is good. Unfortunately, much feminist discourse focuses on defending women’s right to choose, but is increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of helping women make good choices. 

This seems to me to be at odds with what a movement for women ought to do, and what I think early first-wave feminists were trying to achieve—encouraging the conditions that make women’s thriving possible. In our current climate, women’s autonomy is celebrated, even at the expense of community; their professional success is lauded, even at the expense of family; their sexual freedom is praised, even at the expense of intimacy. 

Reality television offers a revealing example of this contradiction. Cast members submit themselves to cosmetic procedures, expose their most intimate relationships to public scrutiny, sacrifice their children’s privacy, and allow their painful personal experiences to be sold as commercial entertainment. Media outlets and fans celebrate these decisions as feminist and empowering and continue to tune in, even when it is obvious to anyone that these shows are tearing the cast members’ lives apart. Meanwhile, the disturbing allegations surrounding the Cornell 7 case have renewed questions about consent, vulnerability, and the limits of sexual freedom.

Both cases reveal the limitations of a culture that treats individual choice as the ultimate measure of empowerment. Perhaps our cultural understanding of agency has become so impoverished that we have confused the freedom to choose with the wisdom to choose well. 

The Limits of Consent

In October 2024, a young woman at Cornell University attended a party at the Chi Phi fraternity house, and what followed has become the subject of a distressing legal and cultural controversy. The woman, who has been identified publicly as Jane Doe, alleges that, while intoxicated, she consented to a sexual encounter with two men, but these men invited others to participate without her consent. She says they pressured her to take the dissociative anesthetic ketamine, which she consented to, but which left her “completely incapacitated,” and she later described the sexual encounter that followed, which she alleges involved seven men, as “traumatic” and “gang rape.” Cornell investigated and handed down expulsions, suspensions, and other sanctions to the men involved, but the local district attorney initially declined to pursue criminal charges due to the standard of consent under New York law, though a special prosecutor has since been appointed.

Establishing consent in this case has been tricky. Jane Doe admits that she arrived at the party having drunk vodka at her sorority house and other drinks at nearby bars. She says she consented to a sexual encounter with the first two men but not with the others later. According to messages described in the investigative record, in the days following the party, one of the men apologized to her about the encounter, to which she replied, that “non[e] of …[it] was illegal,”  “honestly I really liked being with you [and another defendant],” “everyone needs to grow up because…sexuality is changing,” and “I’m really open-minded.” According to accounts of the investigation, she also visited the campus health center that week for treatment of a urinary tract infection, which she reportedly told healthcare providers she had developed in a “traumatic way.”  One of the accused men alleges that Jane Doe initiated sexual contact with him without consent. 

Consent is more than a technicality; it is an important baseline for the legality of sexual behavior. But as many have pointed out in recent years, consent does not establish whether an encounter was ethical or good for the people involved. Even when consent is freely given, people cannot always anticipate how a sexual experience will affect them. They may underestimate the emotional toll it will have on them. They may not understand the expectations of other participants, or they may discover afterward that something they believed they wanted was, in fact, deeply humiliating, degrading, or violating. 

Women are not responsible for the misconduct of men, including predatory sexual behavior. But regret alone is not evidence of a lack of consent. And women may not always have a sense that they are going to regret a particular sexual experience in a culture where they are encouraged to “own their sexuality” and discouraged from judging any sexual interactions between consenting adults.  

Consider how we teach children about physical danger. A child can learn to be careful with knives by cutting themselves or around the stove by burning themselves. But most of us would prefer a less injurious approach to teaching kitchen safety. There is little advantage in these kinds of painful lessons when a parent can instead help children anticipate the danger and avoid the injury altogether. And a parent teaching a child to hold a knife correctly would hardly be considered a restriction on the child’s freedom, but rather a necessary precursor to it. 

And yet for very weighty matters such as sexuality that involve both our bodily safety and emotional well-being, we are generally reluctant to give young women explicit guidance on safety for fear that it will be received as “victim blaming.” 

Different Bodies, Different Personalities, Different Stakes

These conversations often assume that men and women are basically the same, making choices on an equal playing field. But women are not just smaller men. Our bodies and our personalities have important differences, and women do not respond in situations of danger in exactly the way men do. 

As Louise Perry argues in “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” the sexual revolution has treated biological differences between men and women as inconvenient obstacles rather than realities to which we should give moral consideration. But our differences do matter.

In the case of sexual relationships and sexual assault, differences in average size and strength between the sexes make women more vulnerable to physical harm. High-profile cases of sexual assault often lead to questions such as “Why didn’t she fight back?” 

Dr. Jim Hopper, a course director in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has written extensively on the effect of sexual assault on the brain. Drawing on his research into the brain’s response to trauma, he explains that women who are sexual assault victims often experience involuntary immobility during the assault due to prefrontal cortex impairment:

For those who assume a functional prefrontal cortex—including many victims as they look back on what happened—passive habit responses can be baffling. They seem exactly the opposite of how they surely would—or should—have responded. And if the fear circuitry perceives escape as impossible and resistance as futile, then not fight or flight, but extreme survival reflexes (which scientists call “animal defense responses”) will take over. These can activate automatically when the body is in a predator’s grip—and when, as half of rape victims report, we fear death or serious injury.

But women’s vulnerabilities extend beyond physical size and strength. Among women, personalities vary greatly, but on average, women tend to be more agreeable and less physically aggressive. They value politeness more, and they are also less open to new experiences, which correlates with lower sociosexuality, or the desire to participate in novel or noncommitted sexual encounters. 

Thus, a woman may agree to, or at least not reject, sexual contact she does not want for fear that she will disappoint a partner or appear impolite. Saying no to an unwanted sexual advance or act seems the obvious answer, but many young women Perry interviewed for her book reported going along with unwanted sex to avoid confrontation, perceived impoliteness, or disappointing their partners.

Unfortunately, it’s not unusual to hear stories about women who consented to sex that they found uncaring, degrading, or upsetting. Women are far more likely to regret casual sex than men, and their reasons include feeling pressured, experiencing disgust, and general worries about the encounter. When our culture says good sex is the kind that is consented to, and bad sex is the kind not consented to (i.e. rape), women lack the language to describe sexual experiences that are clearly lacking in moral quality, but not forced, which means it is harder for them to insist on sex that is responsive to their wants and respectful of their human dignity. 

These differences between men and women do not negate women’s agency, but they complicate the circumstances under which it is exercised. And men can also experience social pressure, emotional dependence, and the consequences of poor judgment. But we do need to take seriously the distinctive circumstances of women’s lives that put them at increased risk for regrettable and demeaning sexual encounters. 

The Illusion of Empowerment

In 2004, Fox premiered “The Swan,” a reality television series in which women underwent dramatic makeovers that included extensive cosmetic and dental procedures, intense weight-loss regimens, and drastic style changes in pursuit of becoming more beautiful versions of themselves. 

More than two decades later, the documentary “The Swan: Behind the Mirror” revisits the experience through interviews with former contestants and their loved ones. Some describe genuine benefits from their transformations, while others report a significant emotional and psychological cost.

Contemporary reality programs operate according to similar incentives.

On shows like “The Bachelor,” “Love is Blind,” and “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” cast members expose their intimate family and romantic relationships, as well as their personal vulnerabilities, to millions of viewers. Being involved in these shows can bring financial success, fame, and professional opportunities. But that involvement also comes with heartbreak, humiliation, and family conflict packaged into televised entertainment. 

The cast members have agency. They choose to be on these series, sometimes enthusiastically, and some benefit professionally from those choices. And yet the reality television industry can profit from women’s decisions without always serving their interests. 

The women of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” for example, have become highly visible figures in a reality series that has brought them fame, opportunities, and relentless public scrutiny. These women are certainly responsible for their own conduct, but they are responding to incentives, egged on by the entertainment industry and calls of “You go girl!” from their fans. And their participation in these shows is voluntary—they can walk away from the show at any time (several have).

But voluntary participation is not sufficient to establish whether such participation is healthy, ethical, or empowering. A cultural framework is deeply broken when any voluntary act is celebrated as liberation, especially when that act violates traditional moral or ethical norms and even when the people making those choices will almost certainly suffer. Surely we can do better than this.

Choice Is Not The Same As Agency

Contemporary discussion about choice so often treats agency as the absence of restraint. We see this play out repeatedly in criticisms of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Is tithing really optional if you cannot attend the temple unless you pay it? How can the Church oppose liberal abortion laws when agency is such an important teaching in the gospel? 

But within Latter-day Saint doctrine, there is a distinction between choosing and choosing well. Agency is foundational to our understanding of life and the plan of salvation. We believe that we are all God’s children, all moral agents capable of choosing good, and all accountable for those choices. But this agency does not mean all choices are equally good or that respecting someone’s freedom means moral neutrality about their choices. 

The entire plan of salvation is predicated on God’s children learning how to use their freedom wisely. God’s commandments do not exist to get in the way of our independence. They are guidance for how to use our divinely given agency in a way that leads to happiness, fulfillment, and communion with Him.

In fact, obeying God’s law tends to lead us away from the kinds of decisions that diminish our freedom, including addiction, destructive relationships, financial irresponsibility, and other forms of self-defeating behavior. Avoiding these choices expands our future opportunities rather than diminishing them. 

The same principle applies to intimate relationships. Sometimes exercising agency requires restraint. Sometimes it means refusing something attractive in the present because we know it threatens our future opportunities. Sometimes it means rejecting popular philosophies such as “sex positivity.” Sometimes it means sacrificing a potential romantic relationship with someone who wishes to push a sexual encounter beyond what is good or healthy. And sometimes it requires accepting moral guidance from those with more wisdom, even when that guidance is limiting to our social and romantic opportunities. 

This does not diminish our moral agency; rather, it acknowledges that moral agency is a gift that we must learn to use well. 

Freedom Requires Moral Foundation

In a recent essay responding to the Cornell controversy, Catholic legal scholar Erika Bachiochi argues for better moral formation among young men. She draws on the history of the Virginia Military Institute and its traditional gentleman’s code to make the case that moral principles must be cultivated deliberately, through education and example. Simply having a code of conduct or a list of rules or commandments is not enough. 

If we are concerned about the sexual abuse and exploitation of women, we cannot simply teach them to avoid what is illegal. We should cultivate men who genuinely respect women, who value exercising self-restraint, and who recognize that they have an obligation to behave in a way that is good for others.

I want my own daughters to be confident and independent, but I also want them to have courage and self-respect and to exercise prudence and sound judgment. I want them to know how to recognize unhealthy relationships, resist social pressure, and understand that there are consequences to their decisions. I want this for all young women. 

This is not the same as expecting women to prevent men from mistreating them. The accountability for mistreatment lies completely on the one doing it. Men can be honorable even when women have made imprudent decisions. 

But likewise, women’s particular vulnerabilities, as well as their value as human beings and daughters of God, should drive us to help make wise and protective decisions. And I am not just talking about within religious communities. Moral lines may differ between people of different faiths and secular people, but we can and should agree that having some lines is an objective good. 

In so many other consequential areas of life, such as education and professional development, we encourage young people to think carefully and consider the risks and implications of their decisions. This counsel is not an affront to their autonomy. Surely romantic and sexual relationships deserve this same care.

It’s true that guidance is sometimes delivered poorly. But the potential to give guidance badly is not a sufficient reason not to give it at all. Abandoning moral instruction does not leave women free from influence. Rather, the guidance will come from other sources: peers, social media, pornography, entertainment, and commercial industries. Rarely do these sources have the best interests of young women at heart. The question is not whether young women will be influenced, but by whom, to what end, and for whose benefit. 

Taking Women’s Agency Seriously

So do women have agency? Of course we do. And because we do, we should take very seriously our responsibility and capacity to use it well and our obligation to guide young women to do the same. 

Women deserve protection from coercion and exploitation, and they should be able to make meaningful decisions about their lives. But they also deserve a culture that is willing to tell them the truth about the risks associated with some decisions, understands the vulnerabilities women experience, and helps them develop the wisdom to choose flourishing lives. 

We don’t need to treat women as helpless victims or pretend every choice is equally liberating. Autonomy and moral guidance need not be at odds with one another.

A culture that values women’s agency should not just be interested in whether a woman can make a particular choice, but also in whether she has the knowledge and judgment to recognize what choices have the potential to actually be good for her. The freedom to choose is a gift, and helping women learn to choose well is one of the most important ways to honor that gift. 

The post Do Women Have Agency? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

I attempted to establish a baseline for what he would do for his gang, but it became obvious he would do anything. 

I asked about killing and human trafficking. “Would you be willing to engage in these, even if it meant murder or kidnapping a girl and taking her from her family?” 

He tightened his jaw, looked down, and responded while staring at the ground. “You said, ‘Keep it real.’ I will. I’d do it if that was the order.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I managed two words in my reply: “Really? Why?” 

He raised his head defiantly and pointed toward me. “Nothing is off limits. Someone should have been looking out for who got killed or kidnapped. That’s on them, not me.” 

Years later, he was arrested for second-degree murder. 

How does a child come to see the world this way? He was selected and indoctrinated through what I’ve come to call a predatory child onboarding network, or PCON. We must understand how these networks operate to counter them and protect children.

The Predation Vulnerability Pathway

The term PCON describes networks that target vulnerable children, onboard them into the group, exploit their vulnerabilities, and exercise control through various forms of fear, extortion, abuse, and isolation.

Examples of organizations and networks that may function as PCONs include gangs, human traffickers, fraud crews, extremists, terrorists, leaderless resistance hubs, organized crime groups, online grooming communities, and, more recently, 764 and related Nihilistic Violent Extremists.

My view does not claim that children who do illegal things are not responsible. Instead, it focuses on how and why they take the journey. It names the corrupting influences and influencers that shape them. I see a contest between positive mentoring and criminal or extremist mentoring. The reach of these PCON groups is global, and the number of participants in these types of illicit activities continues to grow. Wherever a child is dehumanized and viewed as an opportunity for the group, our communities will remain vulnerable.

Often, exploitation is not a single event, ideology, or moment in time. It’s a pathway. It draws a child into a dark world where curiosity, alienation, affinity, and purpose are used to ensnare. The pathway offers certainty and identity in a world that can feel increasingly anarchic and arbitrary. PCON groups see the opportunity to capture the minds and hearts of children in an effort to further their criminal, extremist, commercial, and other illicit interests. 

I see the work of countering these predatory groups as part of the message of Proverbs 24:11-12: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” The challenge for our villages is this: how do we enhance value by creating a place for all of us? 

Recognizing the Pathway in a Child’s Life

Years ago, I worked with a team helping a 16-year-old girl who was abusing methamphetamine. Problems persisted at home, and both her mother and father were incarcerated. She began to run away from her grandmother’s place and developed an affinity for a group of young men. When we began to ask questions, she remained highly secretive about where she went, what she was doing, and who she was with. 

She felt an obligation to protect them. With time and patience, our suspicions turned to evidence. We uncovered her communication with the group and the name of the ringleader. The messages exchanged revealed that they offered her escapism through drug use. Soon, the men began to exploit her through trafficking.

The pathway was clear in this case. She was alienated from healthy support. We invited her to receive help and let her know it was always available. We responded to her alienation by asking open-ended questions, building rapport, and assessing how deeply she had become involved with the group. She concluded she needed help. Initially, she refused to describe the parties. But during her time in detention, as she reflected on her experiences and became sober, she eventually mentioned a nickname of a party that we recognized. Over time, as we discussed our concerns and the opportunity for her to regain control of her own life, she told us what we needed to know and exposed how she had been used. 

Her experience illustrates the pathway: isolated from healthy supports, she bonded with the group, felt obligated to protect them, and suffered exploitation on their behalf.

The table below illustrates the pattern.

Predation Vulnerability Pathway Stages

Developing a Samaritan Response

Knowing how the predatory pathway works, what can an ordinary person do to help? The parable of the Good Samaritan provides a helpful framework.

In the parable, the Good Samaritan approaches a wounded man, tends his injuries, and then arranges for ongoing care. That combination of assuming responsibility, providing immediate help, and then creating sustained improvement is the kind of Samaritan response we should pursue.

A Samaritan response begins when ordinary people recognize warning signs and share them with those in a position to provide sustained help. It’s care and caution in action. A Samaritan response is not passive. It means offering availability to listen and help. Wisdom and courage are required, and Proverbs 11:14 tells us there is safety when groups of wise people come together. 

We can avoid taking this task on alone. Each network has pressure points that can be found, exposed, and rationally discussed with the youth and others. We can disrupt these networks by targeting the pressure points. 

Help in Action

What might a Samaritan response look like in practice?

Suppose that Tom notices the young man who has been mowing his lawn no longer pays attention to detail and is distracted and distant. He seems uninterested in conversation before receiving his pay and is wearing long-sleeved clothing in extreme heat. When the young man reaches for his money, Tom sees initials cut into his arm. 

Tom shows concern and asks questions, but the young man is dismissive. Tom lets him know that he is available to help and that, because he is concerned about the injuries, he will pass the information along to his mother and school officials. Tom asks, “Whose initials are those?” The child is silent. 

Tom suspects self-harm. He has heard about dangerous groups, like 764, that actively exploit young people online and drive them toward this type of behavior and other acts that make them feel shame and isolation. Keeping the door of communication open, Tom tells him, “See you next week.” This models the steady relationship that is needed in the young man’s life. When the youth appears next week, Tom invites him and his mother to a barbecue and offers to take a more active role in Tom’s life. These steps are important because Tom has countered three pressure points the predatory group has: exposure, relationship exploitation, and the mentoring battlefield. At the barbecue, Tom models protection as someone the youth can turn to. He shows a sincere interest in creating opportunities for the youth and can help connect Tom to other resources and trusted adults, thereby countering PCON aims.

PCON is not only a proposed framework that helps people identify and intervene; it is a call to action. Everywhere we turn, we see youth anger, angst, aimlessness, and confusion channeled to nefarious ends. The networks behind them have accepted the mentoring challenge of adding them to their ranks. A Samaritan response calls us to shake off our slumber and apathy. A child in danger is never someone else’s problem. It’s ours.

The post Severing the Predatory Pathway appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Tithing was also notably present at this most recent General Conference. Elder Patricio M. Giuffra spoke about it in “Trusting the Lord Through Tithes and Offerings,” and Elder Moisés Villanueva addressed it in “Prove Me Now Herewith.”

So, in trying to both answer some of the questions I’ve received and engage with the messages shared in Conference, I thought I would compile my thoughts into a kind of self-Q&A, in the hope that it may be useful to others who have similar questions.

Why should I pay tithing if I need the money more than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Taking care of our families financially is a core religious responsibility. That responsibility does not disappear when we talk about tithing.

Paul organized a collection in the early Church, explaining that people give according to what they have. Although he was discussing a relief collection rather than the modern Latter-day Saint practice of tithing, I see a related principle in proportional giving.

The word tithe means “a tenth.” There is no fixed dollar amount that everyone must pay; the amount varies with income. That allows participation across income levels.

The tension between religious giving and material need appeared in Jesus’ teaching. While at the temple, He warned about scribes who exploited widows. He then watched a widow give two mites and emphasized that, unlike the wealthy donors, she had given all she had to live on.

Paul, in that same letter, explains that our present abundance can meet others’ needs and that their abundance can, in turn, meet our needs when the time comes. 

Instead of seeing paying tithing and supporting our families as competing obligations, we can recognize that as we contribute, we are joining a supportive community that can, at times, provide financial support to help cover our own shortfalls.

God has promised significant blessings to those who have the faith to tithe. So I believe in inviting everyone to seek those blessings while also helping people meet their basic needs.

If paying tithing means I’ll need help buying groceries or paying bills, why wouldn’t I simply keep the money?

In Malachi, God invites His people to tithe and promises to open the windows of heaven. I understand that as a promise of God’s spiritual and physical blessings, though not a guarantee of a particular financial outcome.

I have seen research summaries linking tithing with well-being. Paying tithing requires people to look at how much they make and consider how they are spending it. Those who pay tithing, on average, have lower debt, lower stress levels, better health, and longer lives. They feel more grateful, have greater self-worth, and are happier.

This does not mean God is a vending machine. But biblical prophets have promised that tithing brings blessings. I believe it does, and the data seems to suggest the same.

When people pay tithing while receiving Church assistance, that contribution can still have spiritual meaning. It can preserve a sense of participation and allow people to see themselves as contributors, even during a season when they need more help than they can provide to others.

Because I believe tithing has spiritual value, I would not want to withhold that invitation from people who are struggling financially. Teaching people not to pay tithing when they are currently struggling financially would ultimately be a great disservice to them.

Does that mean you expect paying tithing to bring financial rewards?

I know people who have had miraculous experiences with tithing. I haven’t. And that’s okay.

Some people preach what is sometimes called a prosperity gospel, teaching that giving to a church will result in direct financial rewards.

That’s not what I believe. I do believe God blesses His people, and I do believe He asks us to pay tithing. But the purpose of this life is not the acquisition of material wealth, so we shouldn’t see tithing as a magic dollar-multiplication machine.

Why couldn’t I fulfill the same spiritual purpose of tithing by helping a neighbor or donating to another charity?

Giving to trusted nonprofits that relieve suffering is an excellent practice. In addition to its own programs, the Church often carries out humanitarian work through partnerships with other organizations.

Each year, I choose one local and one international organization for charitable giving. But that is in addition to tithing.

Tithing is part of my relationship with God. The Church does humanitarian work, but it is also God’s organization on earth. It has a strictly religious mission. Latter-day Saints believe that this mission must be carried out under the appropriate priesthood authority restored to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Tithing helps support missionary work and the places and programs needed for worship, religious education, and ordinances. Other organizations can do tremendous good, but, in Latter-day Saint belief, they cannot take the Church’s place in carrying out that particular religious mission.

That mission has practical costs: chapels and temples, curriculum, seminaries and institutes, utilities, and many other expenses.

To me, the distinction is a little like the difference between paying a water bill and donating to a well-building project.

Building wells in Mozambique is important work. Please, when you can, support projects like that. But even though both expenses involve water, they serve different purposes.

They are two worthwhile uses of money, but they are not necessarily interchangeable.

Does the Church pressure people to give or encourage them to make a show of their donations?

The Church’s formal tithing practices avoid high-pressure fundraising tactics. We don’t pass around a collection plate. When I was a kid, we handed in tithing envelopes privately. Today, many members donate online.

Jesus criticized those who made a show of religious giving and taught His followers to give in secret. Private giving is consistent with that teaching. It can reduce the social incentives that turn giving into a performance.

But doesn’t tithing declaration itself create pressure?

Each year, Latter-day Saints are invited to meet with their bishops for tithing declaration and state whether they are full-tithe payers. In 2022, the Church changed the name of the annual meeting from “tithing settlement” to “tithing declaration”.

An annual meeting can serve practical purposes: reviewing donation records, correcting discrepancies, and discussing questions about income and giving. For people whose income fluctuates or is realized mainly at certain times of the year, an annual review may be particularly useful.

It can also provide an opportunity for individuals and families to talk with their bishops about their spiritual lives and their circumstances. I know people who have had such a good visit that they remembered to mention tithing only as they were leaving.

For me, there is spiritual significance in meeting with my bishop each year. I would hope that the meeting offers others an opportunity for encouragement, honest conversation, and support—not embarrassment or humiliation.

Does connecting tithing to temple attendance amount to paying for access to sacred ordinances?

I understand why someone might see it that way, since full-tithe status is part of the temple recommend process. But I do not understand tithing as purchasing an ordinance. I see it as a spiritual commitment expressed through financial choices.

The amount depends on income rather than a set price for admission. Still, calling tithing a spiritual commandment does not remove its financial consequences, and the possibility of receiving assistance does not make those consequences unreal.

People can choose not to pay tithing, but in Latter-day Saint practice that choice has religious meaning; it is not treated merely as a financial decision.

The commitments made in the temple involve aligning our goals and actions with God’s. Because temple covenants include the principle of consecration, I understand tithing as part of preparing for those commitments.

At the same time, financial difficulty does not, by itself, tell us how much faith someone has or how willing they are to make temple covenants.

I see the requirement much as I see other temple requirements: not as a purchase price, but as part of spiritual preparation for temple worship.

What would you say to people who ask why the Church spends money on beautiful temples when it could help people who are suffering?

I would begin with Jesus’ words at Bethany, where He defended an act of costly devotion: “For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.”

I do not read that as permission to neglect people in need. In Mark’s account, Jesus also says, “and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.”

We are Christians. We are called to love and care for the poor. But I do not believe that obligation displaces every other religious responsibility.

I believe there is real value in devoting material resources to worship and religious life. Places of worship can help form communities whose commitments include caring for others. That does not mean every building expense is automatically justified; stewardship still requires careful choices.

Matthew 23:23 helps explain how I understand this balance. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for tithing on their herbs while neglecting the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy, and faith. He did not tell them to abandon tithing. He taught them to do both.

That passage challenges the idea that devotion and care for the poor must be competing obligations, only one of which deserves resources.

Making long-term progress against poverty does not end the obligation to relieve immediate suffering. We need to respond to immediate suffering and cultivate communities committed to addressing it over the long term.

For me, caring for the poor and providing places for worship are both parts of the Church’s mission. The difficult question is how to fulfill both responsibly.

Why accumulate substantial investments instead of spending more now?

If you believed you were responsible for preparing a worldwide church to endure severe future disruption, building reserves would not be hard to understand.

I have heard the joke that the Church doesn’t have a “rainy day” fund; it has a “hurricane” fund. I have read the scriptures, and I understand the impulse to prepare for more than an ordinary downturn.

If prophets and apostles believe that building reserves is what the Church needs at this point in its mission, I support that vision. But explaining why reserves are useful is not the same as establishing exactly how large they should be.

An organization that intends to operate indefinitely has reasons to preserve resources for future needs rather than spend every dollar it receives. The appropriate reserve depends on its obligations, expected income, investment risks, and the disruptions it is preparing to withstand.

For illustration only, if an organization wanted a fund capable of supporting $9 billion in annual withdrawals at an assumed spending rate of 4–5 percent, that would correspond to roughly $180 billion to $225 billion in assets.

That is an arithmetic illustration of the Church’s hypothetical required reserve. A spending percentage is not a guarantee of sustainability. Investment returns, inflation, and changing needs can all affect what is needed. 

If ongoing tithing covers the Church’s expenses, why also maintain reserves large enough to support its operations?

Growth is one possible reason. A growing church may need new buildings, educational programs, and continuing support for congregations whose local contributions do not cover their expenses.

The Church developed in the United States, and its worldwide mission extends to places with very different economic circumstances. I do not believe the ability to sustain religious life in a community should depend entirely on the wealth of its local members.

Perhaps the Lord is preparing His Church to support that work over the long term. Reserves can help make such support possible, especially when needs and contributions do not rise at the same pace.

They can also provide a buffer against interruptions in donations or unexpected expenses.

Those considerations help explain why ongoing tithing and financial reserves are not necessarily redundant. 

How does owning commercial real estate and profit-making businesses fit with the Church’s religious mission?

If the Church maintains reserves, those resources need to be managed responsibly. Commercial real estate can be part of an investment strategy when it offers appropriate returns and diversification.

Diversification also gives an organization a reason to hold investments across different industries rather than concentrate all its holdings in a single asset class.

I would not say that commercial real estate is, in and of itself, part of the Church’s religious mission. I believe it can support that mission.

For example, I can see how a development such as City Creek Center, near Temple Square, might serve commercial purposes as part of the Church’s investment stewardship while also helping the surrounding community. That potential helps me understand why an investment near Church Headquarters could have strategic value beyond its financial return.

Whether a particular investment accomplishes those goals should be evaluated rather than assumed. But pursuing more than one worthwhile objective with an investment makes sense to me.

Is it appropriate for Church leaders to receive financial support, and where is the line between supporting their service and using religion for personal gain?

Many people have used religion to benefit themselves, so this is a fair question.

People who leave careers for full-time Church service still have living expenses. I do not object in principle to providing a living allowance for that service.

To me, the important distinction is between support that enables someone to serve and arrangements that turn religious authority into an opportunity for personal enrichment. The amount, purpose, incentives, and oversight matter.

The Book of Mormon condemns priestcraft as preaching to obtain gain and worldly praise rather than seeking the welfare of Zion. I understand that warning as a serious caution against making religious teaching serve the teacher’s ambitions.

Financial incentives can encourage religious teachers to tell audiences what they want to hear, as pleasing them may increase their income or influence.

A fixed living allowance for full-time service is not, by itself, evidence of that kind of enrichment. But financial support should still be reasonable and accountable.

What financial information should members reasonably expect the Church to share?

I think members can reasonably ask how their contributions support the Church’s mission, how funds are safeguarded, and how significant financial failures are corrected. That is different from expecting every financial detail to be public.

Scripture contains examples of discretion serving legitimate purposes. Esther did not initially reveal her Jewish identity, and Jesus sometimes instructed those He healed not to publicize what had happened.

For me, those passages show that discretion can be consistent with discipleship. They do not, by themselves, settle what financial information a religious institution should disclose.

But the possibility of criticism does not eliminate the importance of accurate reporting or make members’ sincere questions unreasonable.

I support appropriate discretion while also believing that questions about stewardship deserve serious, respectful answers. Privacy and accountability are not necessarily opposites.

Ultimately, Jesus teaches that “nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest.” I take that as a reminder of ultimate accountability, not as a reason to set aside present responsibilities.

How do you understand the mistakes acknowledged in the Securities and Exchange Commission episode?

I hold the Church to a very high standard. I also believe that well-meaning people and institutions can make serious mistakes. But describing something as a mistake should not obscure what happened.

According to the SEC’s February 21, 2023 announcement, Ensign Peak used shell companies to file disclosures that obscured the Church’s investment portfolio and misstated Ensign Peak’s control over investment decisions. The SEC also found that Church leadership approved the approach.

Ensign Peak and the Church agreed to pay penalties of $4 million and $1 million, respectively, to settle the charges without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.

The complexity of securities reporting is significant and likely plays a major role in what occurred, but it does not, by itself, answer the concerns raised by those findings.

The episode remains significant because members reasonably expect the Church to meet a high standard. I do not think defending my faith requires minimizing that expectation.

What matters to me is that failures be acknowledged accurately, corrected, and prevented from recurring. Paying penalties and changing procedures matter, but so does understanding what went wrong.

I can continue to believe in the Church while also expecting its financial administration to meet legal requirements and high ethical standards.

What would you want someone who remains uneasy about Church finances to understand about why you keep paying tithing?

For those who struggle with tithing, I get it. Money is deeply personal. It can represent our time, our labor, and the value the world assigns to them, all put into a tangible form. It is also one of the clearest ways we influence the world.

For me, that is exactly why I choose to pay tithing. It is a way of putting God first and expressing my testimony of the Church’s unique role in fulfilling His plan.

That choice does not require me to pretend that every financial question has an easy answer. It reflects the faith and commitments that guide my life.

Being part of that work fills my heart. Paying tithing gives me a sense that I am contributing to the work of the Church that has shaped my entire life.

The post Answering Tough Questions About Tithing appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

I feel these changes almost every day of my life. As the daughter of two Hungarian-born Holocaust survivors, I have long been aware of the evils of antisemitism. Yet the reality of that time of horror seemed like a nightmare from a world which, thankfully, no longer existed. Many thoughtful people believed that the deadly poison of Jew hatred had at long last been expunged from society following the Holocaust—that the sheer magnitude of the evil perpetrated against the Jewish people during World War II had somehow purged this cursed toxin from our body politic.

Furthermore, as my mother often reminded me in my youth, after 2,000 years of persecution in the diaspora, there was once again a Jewish home in the ancient land of Israel. She would say with sorrow, “If only Israel had existed during the Second World War, there would have been no Holocaust because there would have been a safe haven that those of us threatened by the Nazi death machine could have fled to.” It was a comforting thought that such vicious hatred could never again be unleashed on the Jewish people, but, in retrospect, it was naïve and simply wrong. October 7 exposed just how naïve and wrong such thinking was.

If you had told me the day after the attack that the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust would unleash an unprecedented tidal wave of global antisemitism, I would have dismissed it as absurd. Yet that is precisely what happened, and it continues as I write these words three years later.

The Warning Signs Were Already There

Looking back, the signs of danger were all around. Let me explain with a bit of history. In 1947, the United Nations adopted a partition plan for the territory of the former British Mandate for Palestine in the Middle East. It called for two independent states: one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem as part of a special international zone that would have been administered by the U.N.

Israel accepted the partition plan, while all the Arab nations rejected it. Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq launched a war against the newborn nation of Israel. The secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, declared that this would be “a war of extermination” and promised “a momentous massacre.” He advised a British official that “It does not matter how many Jews there are. We will sweep them into the sea.” He was not alone in announcing the Arab armies’ genocidal intentions vis-à-vis the Jewish state.

Thankfully, they failed in their efforts to “drive the Jews into the sea,” and in 1949 Israel became the 59th member of the U.N. by a vote of 37 to 12 with 9 abstentions.

A more recent example of the U.N.’s moral corruption as it relates to the Jewish homeland is one that hits close to home. The U.N. held a World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, 25 years ago, which was originally meant to combat global discrimination and slavery. Instead, it devolved into a festival of hate that demonized Israel and engaged in sickening antisemitism. My father, Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the U.S. Congress, led the congressional component of the American delegation to this shameful conference. As participants distributed blatant Nazi-style caricatures of hook-nosed Jews and thousands marched in the streets with signs reading “Hitler should have finished the job,” individual Jewish participants faced nonstop harassment and intimidation. At the direction of Secretary of State Colin Powell, my father spearheaded the walkout of the entire U.S. delegation and subsequently denounced the conference as “the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews” that he had witnessed since the Nazi era.

Just as with the October 7 attacks, a rational person would expect that this “Durban debacle” would have led to profound regret and introspection on the part of the global diplomatic and human rights communities, along with a sincere attempt to right a ship that had so clearly foundered on the rocks of moral confusion and hatred. That did not happen. On the contrary, many historians mark this terrible episode as the start of a dark new era in which the language of human rights was laundered and hijacked to denigrate, slander, and isolate the Jewish homeland.

Criticism and Antisemitism

Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and current chairman of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, has suggested a simple framework to help any fair-minded, nonracist person spot the difference between legitimate and hateful censure. Sometimes called the “Three Ds” test, it is an effective tool that, like the sword spoken of in Hebrews 4:12, is “quick, and powerful … a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The three questions posed by the test are as follows:

1. Is the intent of the criticism to demonize?
2. Is the intent of the criticism to delegitimize?
3. Does the criticism apply a double standard to the actions of the state of Israel that no other nation is subjected to?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then disagreement has devolved into something darker, and it has lost its legitimacy.

What Antisemitism Looks Like Now

I wrote at the beginning of this article that, as a person of proud Jewish heritage, I live every day in this new world of pervasive antisemitism. This takes many forms, from people looking at me askance or making comments under their breath when they see my Star of David necklace, to the fear and worry I feel when I see a young Jewish boy wearing a kippah in public and wonder if and when he might be attacked, to watching the fear of so many Jewish students who face a climate of suspicion and exclusion on college campuses while so many university administrators remain indifferent to this reality. It also takes the form of my 95-year-old mother pleading with me not to publish this article because she fears that in this new climate of Jew hatred, it could bring me to harm.

Still, I am fortunate to continue to live in relative peace and safety. The same, sadly, cannot be said for many Jewish individuals and communities throughout the world. Antisemitism may begin as muttered comments and stereotypes, shifting to slurs and chants, but it always moves with alarming speed to violence. The examples are manifold and heartbreaking: An angry mob storming a Russian airport in search of Jewish passengers; two young Israeli embassy employees gunned down on the streets of Washington, DC, after attending an event focused on interfaith bridge-building; a fatal attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England, on Yom Kippur, with another suspected plot only recently foiled by the British police; an elderly Jewish woman killed by a violent flamethrower attack in Boulder, Colorado, during a peaceful march in support of the October 7 hostages; an armed driver plowing into a Michigan synagogue that also housed a preschool for more than 100 Jewish children; a modern-day pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam targeting supporters of an Israeli football club; and, most devastatingly, a Jewish community joyfully celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach gunned down in broad daylight.

Choosing Light

Despite all these tragedies, and others too numerous to list, the darkness of this present moment cannot compare to the shadows that covered the earth during my parents’ childhood. Yet even then, when “evils were most free,” as the Jewish-Hungarian writer George Gabori put it, the light found a way to shine in the darkness and not be overcome by it.

I think of Denmark. My family lived there for three years while my husband served as the American ambassador to that country. We never tired of hearing or retelling the story of how the Danes rescued virtually their entire Jewish population from deportation, literally under the noses of their Nazi occupiers. For this national act of courage, Denmark has been uniquely recognized at Yad Vashem for its valor and humanity, with a special tree dedicated in its honor in the Avenue of the Righteous.

I think of the noble defiance of Moroccan Sultan Mohammed V, who refused the demands of the Nazi-collaborating Vichy government to turn over a census of Jewish Moroccans, instead reportedly stating, “There are no Jews in Morocco. There are only Moroccan subjects.”

I think of Albania, the only occupied European nation where the Jewish population was larger at the end of World War II than at the beginning. Following its noble code of “Besa,” which means “to keep the promise,” it extended protection to nearly 2,000 fleeing Jews, often at the peril of its citizens’ lives.

These heroic examples of light shining in the darkness give me more than hope; they give me courage to face the evils of my day. I was recently reminded in an article by Daniella Greenbaum Davis about God’s very first act, as recounted in the book of Genesis. She writes, “The first thing God does in the Torah—before light, before land, before people—is draw a line. He separates light from darkness … day from night. Creation itself begins as an act of distinction … Right from wrong. Truth from fiction. Order from chaos.”

I sometimes despair that there are far too few people today who are willing to choose light over darkness. Then I think of Ahmed Al Ahmed, a Muslim father of two, who bravely charged the attackers at Bondi Beach and likely saved dozens of Jewish lives by doing so. When confronted by evil, he did not hesitate, and he put his life on the line to stop it. Most will not be called upon to show such courage in defense of their Jewish brothers and sisters, but I hope more will see his example and have the decency to at least speak out against the tidal wave of antisemitism that was unleashed on October 7.

As I reflect on that fateful day, three years on, I am grateful for those in history and today who have chosen light over darkness. I pray, and I must believe, that this will always be the choice that ultimately prevails in our world.

The post Choosing Light After October 7 appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

While we should always be careful to avoid saying “all is well in Zion,” the newest report shows a church whose members are becoming increasingly diverse, living happy lives, increasing their educational attainment, and contributing to their communities.

I wanted to highlight six of the big takeaways I had from the report, supplemented by some of the other recent news around the health of the Church. 

Latter-day Saints are Distinguished by Their Service

Nearly three in four Latter-day Saints surveyed (72%) said that they volunteered in the previous year. This compares to 41% of Americans overall. 

In my own analysis of Pew’s public data, 42% of former members reported volunteering in the previous year, in line with national averages. This seems to suggest that there may be something about the practice of the religion itself that is inspiring these volunteerism rates.

This comes as little surprise, as the Church recently reported reaching 90,000 currently serving full-time missionaries, an all-time high. The willingness to make substantial volunteer commitments appears to me to be something that is inculcated in our religious beliefs and practices.

Faith is Associated with Happiness and Gratitude

The survey distinguished those who were raised as Latter-day Saints and continue to affiliate with the Church from those who were raised as Latter-day Saints but no longer do. This led to some interesting observations. 

Among the American adult population at large, 28% report being very happy. That number rises to 37% among Latter-day Saints. Among those who have left the faith, meanwhile, 21% report being very happy. This means that, among those raised as Latter-day Saints, those who stay in the faith are 76% more likely to report being very happy than those who leave. 

This pattern is especially pronounced among women. Thirty-eight percent of women who were raised in the Church and still identify as Latter-day Saints are very happy, compared with 27.5% of the total U.S. adult population and 17.1% of those raised in the Church who have since left.

This is also true at the bottom of the rankings. Fourteen percent of U.S. women say they’re not at all happy, compared with only 9.4% of women in the Church, and 27% of women who were raised Latter-day Saint but have since left the Church. 

A similar pattern shows up for gratitude. Seventy-eight percent of Latter-day Saints report having a strong sense of gratitude or thankfulness at least weekly compared to 62% of U.S. adults and 55% of former Latter-day Saints. 

As Latter-day Saints, we understand that the Lord’s blessings come in His own time and way, but there does seem to be a real association between keeping the commandments and recognizing the blessings that come as a result.

Family Life is Very Good

The public perception of Latter-day Saints is that they tend to have strong families, and the Pew data continues to back up this impression. Thirty-one percent of Latter-day Saints describe their family lives as excellent, and only 1% say they are poor. This compares with 23% of the U.S. population who rate their family life as excellent and 3% as poor. And among those raised as Latter-day Saints who have since left, 19% rate their family life as excellent, and 6% rate it as poor. 

As with the happiness numbers, Latter-day Saint women fare much better in comparison. But even Latter-day Saint women rate family life as very good at lower rates than Latter-day Saint men. 

And religion seems to be a core component of what bonds these marriages. Thirty-seven percent of married Latter-day Saints discuss religion with their spouse every day, more than twice the rate among married U.S. adults overall. 

It seems to me that The Church of Jesus Christ’s emphasis on eternal relationships gives a larger purpose to what can be the sometimes dull work of marriage and parenting, which helps Latter-day Saints find greater satisfaction in those activities. Regardless of the reasoning behind the data, it is encouraging to find that the family life of so many Latter-day Saints is going well.  

Education is Associated with Religious Conviction

Among Latter-day Saints, higher levels of educational attainment are associated with greater levels of religious conviction. Eighty-five percent of Latter-day Saints with a bachelor’s degree say that religion is very important to them, compared with 65% of those without a bachelor’s degree. Among those who stay in the Church, 41% of lifelong Latter-day Saint adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 28% of former Latter-day Saints. 

Women have seen particularly large increases in their levels of educational attainment. In 2007, 25% of Latter-day Saint women had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 40% in the most recent survey. 

We also see this desire for education reflected in the Church’s seminary and institute enrollment figures. In March 2026, Church seminary and institute enrollment surpassed 1 million students for the first time. 

It is largely a good sign that higher education among Latter-day Saints is associated with stronger religious commitment. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is not reserved for those who attain higher education. And clearly there is something that is not quite connecting as consistently or as effectively with those who have not pursued higher education. It is certainly a trend to keep an eye on. 

Faith Leaves Room for Trust and Diversity

Latter-day Saints stand out in the recent survey data for their trust in others. Forty-eight percent say most people can be trusted, compared with 34% of Americans. That places Latter-day Saints among the most trusting religious groups surveyed. 

Latter-day Saints also believe that diversity strengthens American society. While 71% of U.S. adults agree that racial diversity strengthens the United States and 52% say the same about religious diversity, 76% and 65% of Latter-day Saints, respectively, believe the same. These attitudes are also found among those who were raised in the Church but have since left. 

For members of a minority faith, it is natural that there would be a connection between cherishing our own religion and appreciating a country where others can do the same, but that often comes with an insular attitude. But the high rates of generalized trust among Latter-day Saints complicate that stereotype. 

The American Church is Becoming More Diverse

Worldwide, The Church of Jesus Christ is becoming much more diverse. But Pew’s survey included only Americans. Within that group, we see that those who were born in the faith are less likely to remain in it than they were twenty years ago, while at the same time, a racially and ethnically diverse group of converts is also joining the ranks of the Church. Since the 2007 survey, the share of Hispanic Latter-day Saints in the U.S. has increased from 6% to 12%, and the share of Black Latter-day Saints has tripled from 2% to 6%. About 26% of Latter-day Saints were raised in another faith or with no faith. 

I am no social scientist. I’m a writer who read a report. I’m sure there are lots of complications surrounding questions of causation. And certainly there are real concerns here to examine and areas in which we can improve, especially in helping to reverse broader secularization patterns and engaging those without a bachelor’s degree.

But Pew’s methodology tends to be among the best in the business. And the takeaways, at least for a layperson, seem to be that for those who commit themselves to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the plan is working. Latter-day Saints are happy, trusting, community-oriented, and have good family lives. 

The post Pew’s Surprising Portrait of Latter-day Saints appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Trusting God with the Story You Didn’t Choose

Anna Bryner

When we face problems we cannot fix and changes to our life plans we never could have anticipated, how do we trust Christ? This theme emerged again and again in conference. 

From Sister Tamara W. Runia:

“But what if you had a beautiful story you thought your life was going to tell and instead you’ve had to surrender that story? That sting is real and that wound is wide. It will take your finest faith in Christ to keep putting together the pieces, the ones that make sense, but also the ones that don’t.” 

From Elder Kevin J. Hathaway:

“The Lord is not delayed, distracted, or derelict in His deliverance. He has not forgotten you. He does not take joy in your suffering. However, He knows that lessons learned while waiting can bring converting growth that an earlier rescue might not produce.”

From Elder Matthew J. Eyring:

“It is important to not allow our challenges to negatively impact our faith. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered for us. He knows exactly how we feel, especially in our darkest and most trying times. … Someday we will more fully realize how generous and kind the Lord has been to each of us. We will better understand and appreciate the depth of the Savior’s sacrifice and the reality that he and the Father are truly givers of good gifts.”

Finding God in the Silence

CD Cunningham

Elder Neil L. Andersen quoted from David O. McKay’s 1967 General Conference talk: “The greatest battle of life is fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.”

Elder Andersen began his remarks by talking about his early life on a dairy farm in Idaho. He would travel with the cows to the fields and wait with them there all day. He had no music, no cell phone, nothing but himself and his own thoughts—and the cows.

I have found in my own life just how easy it is to use the ever-present distractions to avoid ever listening to the “silent chamber” of my soul. 

Much of what we find on our phones these days has been specifically designed to distract and upset us. What am I doing to overcome those powers and find the silence that Elder Andersen taught is needed to build our faith in Jesus Christ?

God Knows Where You Are

Amanda Freebairn

Often, the General Conference talks that speak to me most are the ones that offer concrete invitations and challenges I can begin applying in the coming months. In that vein, I saw a thread through the talks given by President Chibota, Sister Spannaus, and Sister Runia. 

President Rosemary K. Chibota of the Primary General Presidency spoke of the importance of remembering our identity as children of God and viewing others through that same lens. She said:

“Your Heavenly Father sees you. Your Savior Jesus Christ sees you. They know your name, your circumstances, your gifts, and your divine potential. As we learn to see ourselves and one another as They do, our homes, wards, schools, and communities will become places of belonging, healing, and love.”

Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus, second counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, laid out a path for young women, but one that is really applicable to men and women of every age, for how to make life decisions and plans while trusting in God and being prepared to follow the Spirit. She said:

“The Lord knows where you are. He has your exact location and can guide you. He knows your dreams and your gifts. He knows when you feel alone and what your questions are. He knows your challenges and how to turn your weaknesses into strengths. He knows everything, and knowing everything about you does not make Him love you less.”

Sister Tamara W. Runia, first counselor in the Young Women’s General Presidency, spoke about what to do when the inevitable trials of life throw wrenches into those plans. She said:

“It is precisely because He loves us that we’re having these tempering, refining experiences. God knows, and we are here to learn, that we must become like Him so we can live with Him. And a godlike life is carved from the very things that make it hard—the gut-wrenching things that happen and the righteous desires that haven’t.”

Taking Our Discipleship Seriously

Marilia Gabriela

Across the sessions, I noticed a common invitation: to take our discipleship seriously while also remembering that God knows us individually. We are still learning. We do not always understand. We face weaknesses and difficult circumstances. But the answer is not to give up. The answer is and always will be Jesus Christ. 

He taught about how our discipleship is connected to the temple’s sacred ordinances and covenants. He taught: “For disciples of Jesus Christ, receiving priesthood ordinances and entering into sacred covenants are essential steps in the ‘quest of a lifetime’ to align our hearts, minds, and lives with God’s will.” 

I hope his message inspires all of us to do better and to remember the promises we made in the temple.

And to those who are suffering because of their spouse’s choices, Elder Bednar made it crystal clear that “unrighteousness by one person cannot hinder or thwart the flow of God’s love, strength, and blessing to another person.” Let yourself find peace in Christ, because “the power of the Lord’s infinite and eternal Atonement can overcome all things, all the time, everywhere, for every person who holds fast to their covenants with Him.”

I also loved President Dallin H. Oaks’ talk. He said: “This is the Church of Jesus Christ, so named because it is His Church with the restored fulness of His doctrine and authority in these latter days.” To me, this perspective explained why this conference felt so centered on Jesus Christ and His doctrine. Whenever we talk about the gospel, we should have Jesus’ name and life in mind. He guides His Church, and to me, listening to General Conference talks that address current issues is evidence of that.

The post The Answer Is Jesus Christ: October 2026 Conference Roundup appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

At least, that’s what I’ve increasingly heard from people discussing LGBTQ+ issues in a faith context. But is it actually true?

With the Salt Lake City Temple open house coming up, the temple is on the collective minds of Latter-day Saints. Within the LGBTQ+ conversation, some have asked how Latter-day Saints who have an experience under that label connect to the temple. Given that same-sex sexual behavior doesn’t meet the standards of chastity required for temple attendance, are Latter-day Saints who experience same-sex attraction being offered the same blessings as everyone else? Does everyone have the same access to temple blessings, and if not, does that need to change?

The Question of Fairness

I remember first going through the temple and experiencing mixed emotions. There was the culture shock of a religious ritual I hadn’t prepared for, paired with a profoundly spiritual witness of its veracity and importance. I looked around at the family members who attended my endowment with me and had a distinct impression that within these walls was the closest we could get to heaven. I saw the divine potential in each of my family members as they stood in the temple’s halls in pure white clothing. My understanding was relatively immature; there were certain aspects I found uncomfortable, but I knew it was something I wanted to experience more.

What the Temple Is For

The temple is a sacred place with a very specific purpose. Its purpose isn’t to reward people whose lives fit a certain mold. Instead, it brings us into covenant with God, shows us our divine potential, and points us toward Christ.

We’re required to live specific standards to be worthy to enter the temple, but those standards are more about preparing us for the highly spiritual temple experience than about a religion controlling our choices. The less we live by the commandments, the further removed we are from the Spirit. The less of the Spirit we have in our lives, the less prepared we will be for the spiritual experience the temple offers through religious ritual. Not to mention, the temple adds more responsibility to our eternal progression. If we aren’t willing or able to keep the standards required to enter the temple, how can we be expected to keep our covenants?

The temple’s belief- and conduct-based standards are the same for everyone. It’s this equal application of the standards and the promised blessings of the temple that makes it a fair system, if still painful at times in practice.

Equal Standards, Unequal Difficulty

This doesn’t mean we should dismiss the real pain of Latter-day Saints who feel like the temple isn’t for them. Whether it’s the complexity of same-sex attraction, the deep wounds of abuse, or the loneliness of single life, their pain is real, and it shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s easy for those of us who find joy in the temple to dismiss the painful realities faced by some of our brothers and sisters. We should look for those whose heads hang a little lower than ours on this topic. We can listen to their pain. And while we don’t have to validate every belief they might have, we can certainly validate the feelings those experiences bring up.

Fairness Depends on What We Believe

In mortality, we often think of fairness as an equal distribution of hardship. That tendency sometimes bleeds over into temple worthiness requirements. If a standard is more complicated for one group to abide by, we may assume it is an unfair standard. And to be fair, that claim might be true if we were only talking about the temple ceremony as a religious rite put on by a religious institution. But that’s not all it is. As the name suggests, it’s an endowment of power and knowledge that puts us in a covenant relationship with God. One of the temple ceremony’s primary functions is to remind us to keep an eternal perspective. It’s this perspective that doesn’t take away the pain but contextualizes any perceived injustices as what they are: temporary. 

It all comes back to belief as the foundation. Do we believe this is God’s church? Do we believe prophets are His spokesmen—men who have the sacred calling of speaking on His behalf, not perfectly, but in a way that will never lead us astray if we follow their counsel? Do we believe temples are God’s house, where we are endowed with power with eternal significance? 

If not, that is our right. But we may need to evaluate what we believe and why the temple is our goal. If we believe this is God’s kingdom on earth, the temple and all we receive as patrons and eventual heirs of God’s kingdom are worth any sacrifice or complexity. We believe in a God who will eventually right every wrong and rectify every injustice. As we read in Revelation, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Costs or Blessings?

Growing up, I always imagined a wife and family. Later, I was told that being authentic meant pursuing a same-sex relationship, or at least accepting that temple marriage was not for me. But that wasn’t what I wanted, and my experiences with God kept pulling me toward the covenant path. Eventually, I met my wife, Amanda. My story is not a prescription for everyone, but it shaped how I see this question.

In my case, I was fortunate to find a life-giving, fulfilling marriage with a woman I love. 

Dean began with an important note about worthiness. 

“There’s nothing about my gayness that says ‘you can’t go to the temple’ or ‘you’re lesser when you’re in the temple.” Then he added, “My being attracted to guys has zero impact on my worthiness to attend the temple. And so if I am willing to live the commandments, then I get to have everything that any other member could have there.” 

He then repeated that idea with this line, which struck me: “There’s nothing within the temple that I can’t do.” Before I could ask him to clarify, he added, “I can do all of the ordinances of the temple. There’s actually only one ordinance that you get to do for others before you do it for yourself, and that’s the sealing. And so even though I’m not sealed to a woman—I’m not married—I can still participate in that ordinance for others.” 

This is what inspired me most about my interview with him. Even though he recognized the difficulty of not having a temple sealing for himself, he also recognized how certain blessings of the temple can extend to those who participate in proxy ordinances. In his mind, the temple is worth any sacrifice:

As good as a relationship with another man could be, I got to choose that or this. And if that’s the case, I’m choosing this … I will eventually have everything that Heavenly Father has. Because eternally, He will not let me miss out.

He concluded with this:

The temple is super important. I know that this is God’s church, and I know that’s a really important part of what we do in our eternal progression: the ordinances that we receive and then do for others in the temple, and also the peace and the love and the revelation that we can receive there.

The policies around what I can do there don’t marginalize me. So I don’t let anybody else marginalize me or marginalize myself by stepping aside.

The temple is the ideal. The city on the hill. The mountain of the Lord. When we talk about the temple or the standards required for entering its doors as unfair, we degrade its power in our lives and the lives of others. We demean its sacredness in an effort to make it more equitable. We bring it down to a terrestrial glory in an effort to fit our mortal standards in a God-shaped hole.

We all wear white in the temple for a reason. Not to say we’re all the same in a worldly sense of equity. But to remind us of our equal value before God, our inner commitment to be holy, and the equal application of blessings available to us.

Our timeline for the blessings promised in the temple may differ for each of us, but the promises aren’t different—that is, as long as we are willing to live the standards and, like Dean so wisely observed, “not marginalize ourselves.”

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