Questions are curious things. They bring us into dialogue with others—this one, with Deity. 

This particular question is still one of the most important. This question is meant to save. Adam and Eve didn’t discover their nakedness on their own. Lucifer told them about it, and he reframed their relationship to their bodies. In that reframing, he also shifted their relationship to God. For the first time, they were ashamed of the very bodies God had given them. Their aprons of fig leaves represented a self-made identity—what Adam and Eve constructed when they accepted someone else’s story about who they were. But for Adam and Eve and for each of us, God’s question is not an accusation. It’s an invitation to examine whose story you are living in.

Someone handed you a story about your body, about what it means. You’ve been living inside that story ever since. You probably didn’t notice. Today, there are three stories about our bodies that tend to be prominent. The first is the oldest and, in many ways, the hardest to shake. It begins not with a question but with a verdict.

Cover Up: Self as Born Evil

Verdict One: You are born evil. What is it like to believe that? It must be exhausting. Every bodily appetite is a threat. Every desire is a battle. It starts with the belief that the physical world, which includes your body, is but a shadow of a truer reality. That better reality is the afterlife. Your body is a shadow that holds you back. This is where we get the idea of “mind over matter”: the mind is pure, but the body is deficient and requires mastery. The logic goes like this: if the body is unholy and you come into this world with a body, you must be born unholy and in sin. This sets the stage for infant baptism; you are born evil and need immediate redemption. (The scripture most often enlisted for this verdict, “the natural man is an enemy to God,” is not a bodily verdict; when read in full, Mosiah 3:19 is a call back to childlike faith, not a condemnation of the flesh.)

This story creates a schism between your mind and your body. You are not to trust your body. You, in fact, live in the enemy. So you are tempted to hate it. You wish it were different, or you wish it away. You certainly don’t trust it. You may start to think your body is “the enemy of God” or “the natural man.” And since your body is drawn physically to other bodies for comfort or connection, you become suspicious of other people, too. 

Viewing the body as the enemy creates an unhealthy relationship with yourself, your body, and others. You feel suspicious and wary of physical connection with others. You start to think of others as temptations. Statements like “She is the great temptress” and “He is just a pig” begin to feel normal. You simply don’t trust yourself or others, and the story gives you reasons for that: many have fallen into the pleasures of the body and found it hard to recover. The verdict hardens into some kind of lived certainty. Your body cannot be anything other than evil.

Your worship becomes marked by discontent with yourself and with others. That discontent creates suspicion in every relationship, including your relationship with God. When God places people in your path to nurture you, you may dismiss them because closeness feels dangerous. This is the path of loneliness. Your orientation toward God comes from a place of necessary shame. You reject the gift of mortality as inherently evil; the very instrument God gave you to experience life becomes, in this story, a weight pulling you under.

In this story, you externalize goodness and internalize evil. The downstream consequence is that you lose confidence in God’s presence. The short message is “Cover up; you’re shameful.”

And here is the thing about serious psychological damage: it also generates its opposite. When a story produces enough casualties—in this case, people who learned to hate their bodies and came to God already ashamed—a counterstory rises to correct it. The second story is that counter-story. For many people, it is the first time they feel free. And that’s exactly why it’s so persuasive and exactly why it’s worth examining carefully.

Nothing to Cover: Self as Born Good

Verdict Two: You are born good. Every person is essentially good and cannot be anything other than good. This is a revolutionary idea. And for people who grew up ashamed of their bodies, that verdict feels like a breath of fresh air. Think about it. Someone finally says, “The problem was never you.” Any guilt you may have felt was handed to you. In fact, you didn’t arrive broken; rather, you were made broken by the system, the institution, or anyone who wanted to make you manageable. Now, however, you stand taller. You stop apologizing for being you. That feeling matters more than anything else you have felt in a long time.

If you’ve ever been labeled “bad,” this story says the badness actually isn’t in you. Whatever “badness” exists comes from the outside, from societal ills imposed on you. What are those societal ills? Whenever groups of people, hierarchies, patriarchies, or institutions want you to act a certain way, this story says they are attempting to control you. Controlled behavior is inauthentic behavior. But because you are born good, whatever you want to do with your body, regardless of external pressures, is also good. As long as you’re free to be yourself, you’ll flourish. 

So who are you, truly? According to this story, you are whoever you choose to be. You are the source of good. Whatever you choose must also be good. That is the essence of the authentic self: the self that fully trusts itself to create its own identity. Because you are the ultimate authority on who you are, no one else will ever fully get you. The absurd end of this line of thinking is for billions of selves, each fundamentally different, to be fundamentally alone. Alone because no one else can ever fully be you. Your self is only truly comprehensible to yourself. This type of expressive individualism is sung from the rooftops with pop lyrics such as “I can buy myself flowers…I can love me better than you can.” But this is not so much a pop lyric as a philosophy of life.

In the 2022 worldwide devotional “Choices for Eternity,” President Russell M. Nelson, then president of The Church of Jesus Christ, addressed these premises directly, teaching that your identity is not whoever you choose to be. He identified three enduring designations—child of God, child of the covenant, disciple of Jesus Christ—and taught “no identifier should displace, replace, or take priority” over them. 

And yet, if you scroll far enough, a counterorthodoxy appears: “No one gets to tell me who I am.” “Cut the toxic people out of your life.” “You are enough, just as you are.” “Your only obligation is to yourself.” These aren’t just slogans. They are popular expressions of a serious philosophical tradition. That’s precisely why they need to be answered seriously, not dismissed.

But this liberation is false, for one simple reason: it is lonely. In your desire to be free, you free yourself from everyone. You internalize goodness and externalize evil. You stop seeking to change. The short message is “There’s nothing to cover.” Notice what both stories share. One says you are broken; the other says you are complete. One says, “Trust nothing in yourself”; the other says, “Trust nothing outside yourself.” They are mirror images. They produce mirror outcomes: isolation dressed in different clothes. Those who hate their bodies and those who worship self-expression can end up in the same place: alone, with an identity that doesn’t quite fit. You wonder why neither shame nor self-worship has made you feel whole. That is the hinge. Both of these stories begin with a verdict. The third, however, begins before the verdict.

Clothed by Another: Self as Born Innocent

The third story is that the verdict is not out yet. The restored gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that you are born innocent. You have the potential to be both good and evil. You are neither fixed as good nor condemned as evil. You are open. That openness is the space where agency lives. This is not a revolutionary idea; it is a restorative one. From this perspective, your body is a gift from God, a temple, and an essential component of the plan of salvation. As with Adam and Eve, you begin making choices between good and evil after a period of innocence. You arrive in this world with no verdict against you, only a readiness to be in relationship. Mormon declared plainly, “Little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin,” condemning the notion that any child comes into the world under condemnation. Doctrine and Covenants 93 further declares, “Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning.” 

Every person in your life shows you part of yourself. But no one shows you all of it. And what lies in the unseen parts is not always comfortable. A man who spent years in a Soviet prison camp put it better than most. In “The Gulag Archipelago,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the line between good and evil passing through every human heart:

Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil. 

Here is why this matters to you right now: good and evil are not relative terms because a power outside you brings knowledge of both. As Mormon taught: 

The Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; … every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ…But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ,…ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil.’

This Light doesn’t just help you choose between good and evil. It also orients you toward the relationships through which your choices help you become most fully yourself. Emmanuel Levinas spent a career arguing that it is the face of another that calls you into responsibility. That call draws forth a self you couldn’t have assembled on your own. He was right about the structure, even if he didn’t have the full theology to complete it. You discover who you truly are in a covenant relationship with God, with a spouse, and with a community. That is your true identity. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught that “the highest and deepest sense of belonging is obtained through keeping covenants with God.” Thus, the self is not found by looking inward but by being drawn outward into relationship.

Think of your best friend. Now imagine that person disappears from your life. You would grieve the loss of that friend, of course, but that’s not all you would lose. You would also lose a particular version of yourself that only that friend could bring out. You may have stood in front of a mirror trying to summon that version and found that it doesn’t work because this person is, in a very real sense, a partial owner of your personality. They have access to dimensions of you that you yourself cannot unlock, and that is precisely why you love your friend. You didn’t just love the person. You loved who you became in their presence. And that loss you just imagined—that’s not just grief for a person. It’s grief for a self.

Different people draw out different parts of you, some of which may genuinely surprise you or even frighten you. This is why surrounding yourself with a diverse group of people is one of the most powerful paths to self-knowledge, not because they tell you who you are but because in their presence, you discover who you are. You discover your possibilities for doing good and evil. But no human relationship, however rich, shows you the whole of what you are.

Consider what it means to be seen completely by Christ. Not just dimensions. All of it. The parts you perform for others, the parts you hide from yourself, the parts that haven’t emerged yet because you haven’t been in the right presence to call them out. If every human relationship reveals you partially, then complete self-knowledge requires a relationship with a being of complete knowledge. No human relationship, however deep, gives you back a complete self. Only one relationship does. That is why the covenant isn’t a transaction. It is the condition of your fullest becoming. And if that is true (if you are only fully yourself in His presence), then the question is no longer whether to surrender. It is only whether you are ready to do so. 

So what does innocence ask of you? It asks you to stop hiding. The fig leaves were never just about nakedness; they were about control—about managing what God and others were allowed to see. To receive the covering He offers, you have to release that control. You have to come out from behind the identity you constructed for yourself and stand where Adam and Eve stood: seen, vulnerable, and waiting. That is the surrender. His purpose has never been to expose or condemn, but, as He declared to Moses, “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

So here is the question He is still asking—not as an accusation or as a test, but as an invitation. Who told you that you were naked? Whose story have you been living in, the one that says you are broken, or the one that says you need no one? Neither story is His. He has a different one. It begins with innocence. It moves through covenant. And it ends with you, clothed by Him. 

The post Who Told You That You Were Naked? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Note: This piece is the third in a three-part series that reviews the best available science on the connections between religiosity and health. Part 1 discusses mental health; Part 2 discusses physical health; and Part 3 discusses social-relational health. 

What does the best science reveal about whether religion helps or harms us? Today, we turn to a focus on religion’s connection to relationships, including marriage and community ties.

Medicine and social science recently reached a landmark with the publication of “The Handbook of Religion and Health,” a Duke and Harvard University collaboration. Described as “stunningly ambitious” by former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, the text included only the most rigorous 5% of studies conducted on religion and health (about 2,800 out of 60,000). 

What the Best Science Reveals about the Religion-Social Health Connection

Following the lead of the Duke-Harvard team, our BYU-Duke team divided the best studies into four different domain involving the religion-social health connection:

1. Delinquency and Crime
2. Social Support
3. Marital and Family Stability 
4. Substance Abuse and Addiction

A fifth domain, Fertility, is addressed at length in the full-length Religion and Social Health report but is not addressed in the present article. Each scientific study that made the cut for rigor (i.e., the top 5%) was examined by the Duke-Harvard team to see if the core findings indicated:

(1) a positive connection between higher religiosity/religious involvement and improved social health;

(2) a negative connection that showed that higher religiosity/religious involvement was connected with decreased social health; or

(3) findings that were mixed or complex.

Of the studies that met the Handbook authors’ stringent inclusion criteria, 528 high-quality studies reported significant findings regarding religion and social health. Of these, 489 (93%) identified positive associations, 15 (3%) reported negative associations such as unhealthy religious influences, and 24 (about 4%) yielded mixed or complex results. Taken together, the best available evidence indicates that religion is far more often associated with beneficial social and relational outcomes than harmful ones, with positive findings outnumbering negative findings by almost 33:1. Across the four social health domains, here is a visual breakdown of studies: 

We now take a brief but closer look across the domains of social health.

Religion, Delinquency, and Crime: Of the most rigorous studies examining religion in relation to delinquency and crime, 69 found that higher religiosity was associated with lower rates of delinquent and criminal behavior. Only one study reported a negative association, yielding a positive-to-negative ratio of 69:1. Together, these findings suggest that religion is among the most consistently protective factors identified in the social science literature on crime. This is vitally important given that varying estimates for the overall costs of crime in the United States across local, state, and federal levels range from $690 billion to a staggering $3.4 trillion.

Religion and Social Support:  Of the 96 high-quality studies examining the relationship between religion and social support, 88 (approximately 92%) found that religiosity was associated with higher levels of social support and increased prosocial activity, including altruism, generosity, volunteering, and charitable giving. Only four studies (approximately 4%) reported negative associations, yielding a positive-to-negative ratio of approximately 22:1. Further, Gallup World Poll data similarly indicate that religious attenders are nearly twice as likely as nonattenders to volunteer their time in a given month (57% versus 31%). Thus, religious participation is associated not only with greater social support (and mental health and physical health) for religious individuals themselves, but also with increased contributions of time and resources that benefit broader society, including both religious and nonreligious communities.

Religion, Substance Abuse, and Addiction: From the 271 highest-quality studies on the religion and substance abuse connection that reported significant findings, 256 studies (94%) found that religion correlated with lower rates of substance abuse and addiction. Only six studies (2.2%) found religion to be correlated with higher rates of substance abuse, a 43:1 positive-to-negative ratio. Given the extensive and far-reaching harms caused by substance abuse and addiction, a substantial body of research has focused on identifying effective strategies for prevention and rehabilitation. A significant point of consideration is that religion has been repeatedly identified as both a leading preventative force for many, as well as a rehabilitative help for some. Additionally, lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse among the more religious also contribute to lower rates of mental illness as well as several physical health concerns and phenomena, including cigarette smoking, heart disease, and cancer, among many others.

The Threshold Effect: How Much Religion Does It Take?

Higher levels of religious involvement are strongly associated with better mental health, including more robust coping with stress, lower rates of depression and anxiety, fewer personality disorders, and far lower levels of suicide and suicidal ideation. Higher religious involvement is also linked to better physical health, including significantly lower rates of cigarette smoking and cancer; reduced obesity, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and chronic pain; healthier patterns of exercise, physical activity, diet, and immune function; and ultimately longer life. It is vital to note that the best science reveals a threshold effect: the benefits of religion are strongest among those with high and sustained levels of belief and engagement. Specifically, across ages and faith traditions, the greatest benefits are seen among the faithful who attend religious services weekly or more. 

In the domain of social health, the imbalance between positive and negative findings in the most rigorous studies is especially striking. For delinquency and crime, the imbalance is 69 to 1; for marital and family stability, it is 76 to 4 (a 19:1 ratio); for social support, 88 positive studies to 4 negative (a 22:1 ratio); and for substance abuse and addiction, 256 positive studies to 6 negative (a 43:1 ratio). Together, these patterns help explain why a leading sociologist of religion of the past half-century subtitled one of his final books How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists.

 From a health-promotion perspective, this growing body of evidence offers potent, science-based support for active religious involvement, with wide-ranging mental, physical, and social benefits that extend beyond individuals to families, communities, and society at large.

 Our team’s invitation is two-fold: (1) On a personal level, may we each diligently live our faith beyond a “threshold level” where the faith factor thrives; and (2) On a public level, may we support policies and practices that protect religious liberty and encourage people to live their faith in ways that benefit their lives and improve their mental, physical, relational, and social health.

The post The Social Health Case for Religion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Beginning Sept. 6, 2026, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will follow a revised schedule for the Church’s second hour of Sunday meetings. 

The First Presidency announced the change on March 30, stating that the adjustments will “strengthen gospel learning in homes and congregations throughout the world.” President Paul V. Johnson, Sunday School General President, has explained that gathering weekly can “deepen gospel learning by connecting it more closely to personal and family study.” The revised schedule can increase fellowship, belonging, and community at church by allowing groups to meet weekly. 

But the practical challenge is also clear. Online conversations among Latter-day Saints have focused on how to get the most out of the shorter lesson time. Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ have offered several suggestions to make these shorter, more frequent meetings work.

To prepare for this change, this article outlines what’s changing, what’s staying the same, and how to navigate this transition smoothly.

Learn the New Weekly Rhythm

Starting Sept. 6, members will continue to attend sacrament meeting for 60 minutes. Adults and youth will have five-minute transition periods between classes and sacrament meeting. 

Sunday School classes will last 25 minutes. After another five-minute transition period, adults will attend elders quorum and Relief Society meetings, and youth will attend Aaronic Priesthood quorum meetings or Young Women classes. Primary is the only organization without major schedule changes.

Although the individual meetings will be shorter, each class will receive the same total time over a two-week period as it does under the current schedule; the time will simply be distributed differently. 

This observation makes the central practical question less about the amount of time and more about how that time is used. 

Make Every Minute Count

Many leaders have emphasized the increased discipline required to make shorter classes effective. 

In an interview on the Church News Podcast, Elder David P. Homer, a General Authority Seventy, described the goal: “Everyone is mindful of the fact that we want church to be this warm and welcoming and very strong place where people belong.” However, members should defer socializing to before or after church rather than during transition periods. 

Once in class, teachers should ensure that socialization or “icebreakers” are purposeful and related to the lesson. Nonurgent announcements can be moved to newsletters, social media, or other platforms.

The same principle applies across meeting types. Members should be welcomed to class, an opening prayer should be offered, and the lesson should begin immediately. 

Only essential instruction should remain. For example, young women and young men are encouraged to recite their themes at weekly activities, camps, conferences, and FSY, but not during Sunday meetings. 

Come to Class Prepared

Shorter classes also place more emphasis on what happens between Sundays.

Sunday School will continue to follow the weekly Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church lesson schedule. Members will benefit from attending class each week after studying the week’s lesson. 

Brother Gabriel W. Reid, second counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency, suggested this approach for the new format: “Rather than asking class members, ‘What did you learn at church?’ teachers should be asking, ‘What did you learn at home?’” 

President Paul Johnson agreed, saying, “When learning begins at home and is strengthened at church, it blesses individuals, families, and entire wards and branches.”

The same preparation will matter in Relief Society and elders quorum. Lessons will continue to center on messages from the most recent general conference. Relief Society and elders quorum presidencies are encouraged to select talks based on their members’ needs and to share the selections in advance so class members can come prepared to discuss the talks.

The shorter format will leave little time to summarize the talk, so class members should come having read it and prepared to discuss it.

Youth will follow a similar pattern. Weekly lesson plans that focus on principles from the updated For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices booklet will be available in the monthly For the Strength of Youth magazine. Youth have been invited to read the entire booklet before the new curriculum begins. 

Focus on Discussion, Not Coverage

Preparation at home can also improve class discussions. Teachers do not need to compress a 50-minute lesson into 25 minutes. Rather than rush through all the material teacher should prayerfully select a few principles to emphasize. As the implementation material suggests, “meaningful, relevant gospel discussions are more important than covering all the material.”

Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson has offered similar guidance for Relief Society. She said that class time should be thought of “as a council or discussion, rather than as a lesson.” She added that class conversations themselves can “increase fellowship and belonging.” 

Youth meetings will also emphasize discussion. 

The pattern throughout the new schedule is much the same: prepare beforehand, choose what matters most, and use class time to discuss how to apply gospel principles. 

Meetings Can Strengthen Belonging

Leaders have said that one of the change’s primary purposes is to create stronger relationships through weekly meetings. 

President Camille Johnson said class discussions should foster fellowship and a sense of belonging. Elder Homer likewise emphasized the importance of creating “this warm and welcoming and very strong place where people belong.”

Although the recommendation to limit socializing during transitions may seem at first to work against this goal, it’s apparent that the hope is for classes themselves to be an engine of fellowship. By limiting socialization during class transitions, the new schedule makes fellowship part of class time rather than a separate activity. 

Help the Youth

In addition to the schedule change, the Young Men and Young Women organizations will use an updated curriculum. 

Each month, these lessons will appear in the For the Strength of Youth magazine and will correspond to a chapter from the updated For the Strength of Youth guidebook. On the fast Sunday of each month, the lesson will introduce that month’s doctrinal theme. Elder Homer has referred to this lesson as the “anchor” for the month. 

Lessons on the second and third Sundays focus on the doctrine underlying that month’s principle. 

Finally, on the last Sunday of the month, the lesson will focus on what it means to be a covenant son or daughter of God. The young women will discuss a woman in the scriptures that exemplifies the principles studied that month, and the young men will discuss a man from the scriptures who exemplifies those same principles. During this lesson, each group will study an identity statement that corresponds to that month’s topic and the broader Young Women and Aaronic Priesthood quorum themes.

Youth leaders should ensure that both the fast Sunday lesson and last Sunday lesson are always taught, even in months with stake conference, general conference, or other scheduling challenges. In months with fewer meetings, leaders may combine the second and third Sunday lessons or omit one of them.

Rather than presenting a totally separate lesson each Sunday, the new curriculum is designed to give the month a shape and rhythm: introduce a principle, study it deeply, then consider what it looks like to live it.

Use Fast Sundays to Strengthen Primary Foundations

Primary is the only organization that will not undergo weekly class restructuring.

However, beginning in 2027, Primary will have fast Sunday lessons that replace the weekly Come, Follow Me lesson on those Sundays. 

Rather than focusing on a section of scripture, these lessons address topics such as prayer, scripture study, baptism and confirmation, priesthood power, and temple ordinances. 

Primary teachers are encouraged to teach these lessons regardless of when a fast Sunday falls in the month. According to the Church announcement, these lessons are intended to help children become lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.

Prepare Youth and Adults Before Sept. 6

To prepare for the changes, the Church has released an implementation guide and designated two Sundays to introduce the new format to members.

On Aug. 30, youth, youth leaders, parents, and Primary children who will turn 12 in 2027 will meet during class time. They will watch an instructional video in which Young Men General President Timothy L. Farnes and Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman explain the new format.

After the video, youth, their leaders, and their parents are encouraged to discuss how the Holy Ghost can guide class discussions in the new format and how the new weekly schedule can help youth build strong relationships.

On Sept. 6, the new schedule will officially begin. During the first 25-minute Sunday School period, youth and adults will watch two instructional videos.

The first video features Elders David A. Bednar and Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles discussing the Sabbath and sacrament meeting. After viewing the first video, members are encouraged to discuss how sacrament meetings can promote spiritual renewal.

The second video features President Paul Johnson explaining the new Sunday School format. Members will then be invited to discuss how Sunday School can strengthen their home-centered, Church-supported gospel learning.

Youth will then attend Young Women classes or Aaronic Priesthood quorum meetings and begin the new curriculum.

Adults will attend Relief Society or elders quorum meetings and watch a discussion featuring President Camille Johnson and Elder Arnulfo Valenzuela, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy. The discussion addresses how members can prepare during the week for Sunday meetings and how weekly meetings can strengthen fellowship in a ward or branch.

Keep the Sacrament at the Center

Most of the changes affect the second hour, but many of the materials accompanying the rollout repeatedly emphasize the importance of the sacrament and sacrament meeting. Although the length of sacrament meeting hasn’t changed, the new materials instruct leaders to limit announcements and invite speakers to give brief, Christ-centered messages. 

Church materials describe sacrament meeting as a time for members to partake of the sacrament, remember Jesus Christ, participate in worship through sacrament talks and music, and testify of the Savior and His gospel. During the Sept. 6 Sunday School instruction, members will be asked to discuss how they can create sacrament meetings that promote spiritual renewal and growth through Jesus Christ. 

That Christ-centered focus has been at the heart of all the videos and additional materials from the Church about the upcoming changes, with leaders testifying that these changes will bring us closer to Christ. 

Speaking of the changes, Elder Kearon expressed joy and excitement: “Let it be wonderful. Let us practice and experience this until it is wonderful and beautiful.” 

Likewise, Elder Bednar testified, “If we come asking, seeking, knocking, we will always find edification in a sacrament meeting.”

If members approach the new schedule with that same spirit of asking, seeking, and knocking, the shorter classes may prove less a limitation than an invitation to make each Sunday more intentional.

The post New Latter-day Saint Sunday Schedule Explained appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Bloomberg’s headline makes its point pretty clearly: “Influencers Are Being Paid to Spread the Mormon Church’s Gospel.”

A typical reader will understand that headline to mean that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is paying popular social media personalities to preach to their followers while presenting those messages as spontaneous expressions of personal belief.

It’s a serious accusation. And one certainly worthy of journalistic coverage.

Latter-day Saints may not fully realize this because they would expect the algorithm to show them influencers of their own faith, but Latter-day Saint influencers have large audiences, and they appear in many news feeds. The desire to understand why that is could certainly motivate an enterprising journalist. 

But Bloomberg misses the mark on this story. 

Bloomberg’s promotional language reinforces the interpretation of its headline, claiming that the Church operates an influencer-marketing apparatus and owns several advertising agencies with influencer operations. And the article describes these Latter-day Saint influencers as increasingly difficult to escape.

The problem is that none of what Bloomberg implies is actually happening. And rather than scrapping the story or shifting it to one supported by the evidence, Bloomberg forges ahead with the story it wanted to exist.

Let me be clear, Bloomberg doesn’t make up facts in the story. More insidiously, it leads its readers to a conclusion that the facts don’t support. There is no system in which the Church purchases personal testimonies from influencers or dictates what content creators post on their personal profiles. Sponsored posts are only on the Church’s official account, making sponsorship questions moot. 

Instead, Bloomberg assembles a collection of substantially different activities and arranges them beneath a headline that doesn’t really apply to any of them, then asks the reader to imagine a conspiracy that doesn’t exist and for which it has found no evidence. 

The McCune Institute contacted Bloomberg repeatedly to address some of these shortcomings, but Bloomberg did not respond.  

What is the Church’s Relationship to Influencers?

Ten years ago, the Church experimented with paying influencers for testimonials, much as other brands do. But in 2018, it decided against the practice, presumably because the nature of religious belief is more personal than how one feels about consumer brands that frequently use influencer marketing.

That is basically the answer to the question that Bloomberg asks. The Church briefly paid influencers who posted to their own accounts but has not done so for eight years.

Instead, the Church uses its own advertising agencies to produce its own social media posts. And it hires those with experience in social media to write, film, perform in, and edit those materials. 

This should surprise no one. And it certainly does not show that the Church is paying for influencers’ testimonials. More than half of Gen Zers want to be content creators or influencers, and many are. Obviously, companies hiring people with experience in social media will be hiring people who already have social followings. 

If Bloomberg wanted the audience to believe that the Church was secretly funneling money to influencers in exchange for content, it would have found an example. It would have found advertising copy that was passed off as personal conviction. But it didn’t.

Instead, Bloomberg used the language of paid endorsement to describe evidence of a commissioned production. Just because a professional videographer, podcaster, musician, writer, or actor already has an audience does not mean every job that professional accepts is payment for an endorsement. 

A fair headline might have said that the Church hires content creators to produce its own social media content. That’s accurate. “Influencers are being paid to spread the gospel” suggests something entirely different: manufactured testimonies portrayed as authentic. And predictably, that is exactly how users on social media understood the article. 

Influencer Events

Many content creators, including Public Square Magazine, regularly discuss The Church of Jesus Christ. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Church sometimes communicates with those content creators, especially when there is something that it hopes to publicize.

For example, two weeks ago, the Young Women General Presidency held a reception for content creators to discuss the upcoming September changes to the Sunday curriculum.

We were previously invited to similar Church Educational System events that provided helpful starting points for researching and writing articles on subjects we already wanted to discuss at Public Square. 

Frankly, I believe we would neglect our duty if we declined opportunities to attend events to build relationships with key Church leaders in order to provide the best information to our readers.

It is best practice for journalists to maintain warm, ongoing relationships with those in their reporting niche. Presumably, this would also extend to content creators, who don’t have all the same kinds of ethical obligations as journalists.

We have an article coming out soon about the changes in September. That article is better because we were able to hear directly from senior Church leaders about their thoughts on the changes. 

The events the Church hosts with content creators are, in essence, press conferences for content creators rather than traditional journalists. 

Bloomberg implies that by keeping contact lists for these creators, the Church has a relationship with them that isn’t editorially independent. Bloomberg should know better. The Church’s PR practice of maintaining the contact information of relevant content creators in its niche is de facto in every reasonably well-organized institution. I have a list of journalists who write about the Church, but it certainly doesn’t mean they are on my payroll or that I have any influence over what they write. 

Compare this to local newspapers. I once spent a day in a newsroom of a large city paper. That morning, it had published an article about the “worst places to work” in the city based on social media comments. 

As you might expect, many of the largest businesses in the city appeared in the article and were also advertisers for the paper. Before restaurants stopped serving breakfast, the article was taken down. 

Whatever tenuous, minor third-party financial arrangements are made for one-off work between the Church and content creators, they pale in comparison to the day-to-day influence money has on journalistic coverage. In fact, the larger question may be why Bloomberg thought there was a story here at all.

Bloomberg Should Know Better

The line of criticism that Bloomberg pursues here is one that requires great care.

A common form of anti-religious propaganda portrays a wealthy religious minority as secretly coordinating with financial institutions, media outlets, charities, public figures, and others to manipulate society. 

For example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains that much antisemitic sentiment comes from a conspiracy theory about a fictitious Jewish body supposedly plotting global control. And the Anti-Defamation League identifies the related trope that wealthy and powerful Jews operate behind the scenes to control countries, media, and public events. 

The lesson from this history is not that journalists should never report on money, actions taken in secret, or religious institutions. The lesson is that this kind of reporting should not be done via insinuation, because religious minorities can be especially susceptible to readers inserting insidious motives into the blanks the author leaves open. 

Imagine an article that opened by saying Jewish influencers were “moving in.” Imagine that it focused on institutional wealth and attempted to tie that wealth to those influencers by deliberately conflating distinct acts.

Editors in such circumstances should ask whether the story had actually demonstrated coordination or instead merely pulled together a list of unconnected things onto a corkboard for conspiracy theorists to have at it. Throwing things at the wall to see what sticks is not the kind of journalism a respectable outlet should be publishing. Bloomberg’s writers might argue that they didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. Sure, but it predictably made people believe things that weren’t true. 

This pattern is how religious bigotry often operates in respectable outlets. It seldom announces itself as hatred. Instead, it implies, suggests, blurs distinctions, and then trusts the audience’s own prejudices to finish the job. 

The post Who Pays Latter-day Saint Influencers? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

But before the demands of the day began, Jesus started His day this way: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” 

Our days may not include healing lepers or casting out devils. But like Jesus, we, as parents, face the challenge of having many people depend on us. Our daily demands may make us feel that our lives are impossibly full. 

Prayer helped the Savior meet the demands of His days. Jesus “went about doing good” because His Father was with Him. This connection helped Jesus with the challenges He faced. Our prayers connect us to God and help us meet our parenting challenges. The Savior’s example of turning to His Father in prayer is a pattern we can follow. 

Here are three things Jesus teaches us about prayer. 

Praying to Align with God’s Will

First, prayer can change us when we stop treating it as a means of controlling outcomes and begin to view it as a way to draw nearer to God.

It is easy to wish that Heavenly Father would grant our wishes for smooth parenting on demand. But while that doesn’t usually happen, He does listen, soften our hearts, ease our burdens, give us comfort, help us learn, and inspire us to find solutions. 

One young mother named Kenna changed her prayers, and her prayers changed her. When Kenna’s third child was suffering from ear infections and allergies, he had difficulty sleeping through the night. On the rare occasions that he would sleep through the night, the older two kids would often awake.

Kenna was totally exhausted. She kept praying desperately for her children to simply sleep through the night. But that never happened. She wrote: 

I would just walk out of the room after rocking the baby back to sleep, lie down, and hear his cries start again. “Heavenly Father,” I cried out in my heart, “I know that you have the power to heal, to raise people from the dead, to cause sleep to come over a person or an entire city of Lamanites. Why can’t you make my one little baby sleep? I am trying to do Thy work, and it’s hard enough with a good night’s rest, let alone without! Can you please help me get some sleep?” 

Over time, Kenna’s prayers shifted from a “grant me my wish” kind of prayer to one of acceptance of God’s will. She shared:

After some time of these increasingly frantic and repetitive pleas, I realized that I needed to change my prayer. “Please help him sleep, but if not, help me figure out what he needs. Help me get a nap tomorrow, or help me have enough energy to take care of the kids and get my things done at work.”

Once I changed my prayers, I was certainly less disappointed. I could also see that the Lord was helping me with all the other things I was praying for. I learned that He doesn’t always take our trials away. But He will help us through them when we change our request from “please take this away” to “but if not, help me handle it.”               

How many of us have had desperate, agonizing, long nights like those she described? Kenna felt less disappointed with the outcome of her prayers when she recognized that her sleep challenge would likely continue, but God would help her in other ways. 

Kenna also demonstrated the importance of learning to pray “but if not.” Using this phrase—and meaning it—in our own prayers to Heavenly Father shows our willingness to submit to Him. Although He may not remove our parenting trials, He will help us through them in His wisdom. He looks at the potential for our overall growth, not just our short-term comfort. We can still ask for what we desire, but if He has something else in mind for us, we can humbly accept it and know that He hears and loves us still. Kenna’s prayers changed her, and our prayers can change us when we are humble enough to align our will to His. 

Praying for Children by Name

Jesus prayed often throughout His mortal ministry. The way He prayed can help us more effectively pray for help as parents.

We see glimpses of Jesus’ prayers in the scriptures. Jesus prayed for comfort and to give comfort to others. He prayed when He blessed and healed others. He expressed gratitude to His Father when His heart was full of joy and turned to Him when His heart was full of sorrow. We, too, can turn our hearts to God through prayer throughout our day, following Christ’s pattern.

A few years back, I relied on prayer to get over a hurt caused by my daughter. She said something unkind, and though I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, it hurt. It wasn’t until I took this hurt to the Lord in prayer that my feelings began to change. 

As I said her name while praying, I could feel my heart softening toward her. Involving God helped me see her efforts and stay kind. The Book of Mormon prophet Alma taught that we should “cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.” Elder David A. Bednar has taught that when we have a prayer always in our hearts, we can experience the following: 

We notice during this particular day that there are occasions where normally we would have a tendency to speak harshly, and we do not; or we might be inclined to anger, but we are not. We discern heavenly help and strength and humbly recognize answers to our prayers. Even in that moment of recognition, we offer a silent prayer of gratitude. 

Praying Between a Stimulus and a Response 

Prayer can also help us respond better to the stressors of our day by creating space between when something happens and when we respond. Children fight over toys and cry when they don’t get their way, toast burns, socks are lost, and all before eight o’clock in the morning! With so many stimuli coming at us so fast, noticing the space between a trigger and our response can make a significant difference. 

A stimulus is what psychologists such as B. F. Skinner call an object or event that elicits a response. The scriptures might refer to these objects or events as “enticements,” and today, we often call them “triggers.” To me, a trigger is anything that irritates me and could cause me to respond in an angry, combative, or harsh way. Our reactions to triggers may feel instantaneous and out of our control, but in reality, we choose how we respond.

In his foreword to the book Prisoners of Our Thoughts by Alex Pattakos, Stephen R. Covey quotes an unidentified author: “Between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” Prayer can be a part of that pause between stimulus and response. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, and usually it won’t be. But the act of calling upon God for aid or picturing the Savior in that space can help us slow down to avoid reacting to stimuli without thought.

This can be hard! It is often more natural to react without thinking. Someone says or does something to us, and we reflexively respond. But we are still responsible for our actions, even if we don’t put thought into them. As Elder Lynn G. Robbins taught, Satan would like us to “believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control.” When we say something like “You make me so mad,” it can sound as if we are not responsible for our actions. Our kids may make a huge mess, and our conditioned response may be to yell. But our children didn’t “make” us yell at them, and the mess didn’t “make” us yell about it. We chose to yell. This power to choose allows us to take control of our responses and find freedom from both external and internal forces that try to rob us of our agency. 

When the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery to Jesus, He remained calm despite the harsh words they hurled. Jesus didn’t answer them right away. He wrote in the dirt and waited until they were quiet before He responded. 

The scriptures don’t tell us why Jesus wrote on the ground, but His pause before responding stands out. It may have been to give Him time to think about how He wanted to act. Jesus lengthened His response time. When He did respond, He was in control of His emotions. 

We can also lengthen our response time. When children are upset, and the tension in the air makes us feel like our response needs to be immediate, we can slow it down by taking a deep breath, saying a quick prayer, and then trusting that the Lord will help us respond in a calm, positive way. 

We can practice lengthening our response time in simple moments. A while back, I asked my teen daughter to wash the dishes. She was not happy and exclaimed, “I’m not washing the dishes!” 

I could have responded immediately with, “Oh, yes, you are!” Instead, I took a breath, prayed for patience, and said, “I’m glad you know what your job is.” 

She reminded me how busy she was and that she didn’t have time, and I said, “I know you’re busy. Thanks for washing the dishes.” 

She huffed, and I ignored it. I simply put rubber gloves by the sink and smiled sympathetically as I walked out. I could hear her noisily getting ready to wash the dishes, but she was washing the dishes. 

Later that night, I thanked her for getting the job done, and she said, “Sorry, I overreacted. It didn’t take me that long.” I smiled and hugged her. It felt good to lengthen the space before I responded by letting Jesus in with a quick prayer. 

Through simple experiences like these with my children, I have learned that it feels good to lengthen the space before responding by letting Jesus in with a quick prayer. It may take time for this to feel natural, but by being patient and prayerful, Christ will help us lengthen the time between a trigger and our response, so we respond as He would. 

Making Prayer Part of Our Parenting Solution

Jesus often took time to pray, reflect, and center Himself. He didn’t wait for a problem to arise before He decided to be calm. He had likely made that decision during the time He spent with His Father. He acted rather than reacted to His challenges. His example can help us change our response to difficult situations. 

I still make mistakes and occasionally yell when things catch me off guard, but I know that through Christ I am more in control of my emotions than I used to be. When we make prayer a bigger part of our parenting, we can receive help with our responses, feel peace, and align our will with the Father’s. Jesus loves us, knows our hearts, and wants us to counsel with our Heavenly Father about creating space to act. And perhaps, as we follow the Savior’s example, our typical days can become something extraordinary, filled with His peace and joy.

This article is adapted from the author’s book Christ-Centered, Intentional Parenting, published by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media.

The post Parenting with Prayer appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Note: This piece is the second in a three-part series that reviews the best available science on the connections between religiosity and health. Part 1 discusses mental health; Part 2 discusses physical health; and Part 3 discusses social-relational health. 

There is a resource, strongly tied to a longer and healthier life, that our health system rarely acknowledges. 

The United States spends more per person on health care than any other nation, yet Americans live shorter lives than people in nearly every other developed nation. A 2025 Lancet analysis found the United States has made unusually poor progress against chronic disease, with mortality rising among adults ages 20 through 45—the same generations now least connected to religious communities. These data should make us curious. Are there “model” groups or best practices that yield significantly better health results that we should consider? 

A UCLA study that followed nearly 10,000 devout members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California found that the men’s death rate was roughly half that of comparable Americans. These men also lived 8 to 11 years longer than average. The pattern, however, was not unique to one faith. In another study of religion and health in Loma Linda, California—the only “Blue Zone” of exceptional longevity in the United States—Seventh-day Adventists outlive their countrymen by close to a decade, with markedly lower rates of heart disease and cancer. Additional research, however, has shown that the Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventists do not have the religion and health market cornered. Later studies have revealed striking benefits, ranging from markedly lower cancer rates to additional years of life expectancy, among faithful weekly attenders across religions, races, and regions. 

What else does the best available science tell us about the religion and physical health connection?

Medicine and social science recently reached a milestone with the publication of “The Handbook of Religion and Health,” a multidisciplinary collaboration between Duke and Harvard University. Described as “stunningly ambitious” by former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, the text included only the most rigorous 5% of studies conducted on religion and health (about 2,800 out of 60,000). A second multidisciplinary team from BYU and Duke University recently completed three condensed reports on “Religion and Mental Health,” “Religion and Physical Health,” and “Religion and Social Health.” 

In this Public Square Magazine series, we offer highly compressed highlights of all three reports so that you can see the grand scope of the 1,100-page volume and decades of effort with just three long glances. 

What the Best Science Reveals about the Religion-Physical Health Connection

Following the lead of the Duke–Harvard team, our BYU–Duke team divided the best studies into 15 different physical health foci:

1. Disease Prevention, Detection, and Compliance
2. Exercise and Physical Activity
3. Diet and Weight
4. Heart Disease
5. Hypertension/Blood Pressure
6. Cerebrovascular Disease (Stroke)
7. Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias
8. Immune Function
9. Stress Hormones
10. Cigarette Smoking
11. Cancer
12. Basic Physical Functioning
13. Chronic Pain
14. Substance Abuse and Addiction
15. Mortality and Longevity

When we examined 1,069 high-quality studies across 15 physical health domains, we found that 876 studies found positive associations between religious involvement and physical health, and only 124 found negative ones: a ratio of roughly seven to one. The strongest signals come from the precise areas where American medicine spends the most time and money. Among high-quality studies of cigarette smoking, the ratios of favorable to unfavorable findings were 90-to-1 for cigarette smoking, 43-to-1 for substance abuse and addiction, and 15-to-1 for mortality and longevity.

Why Might Religious Involvement Be Associated with Significant Health Benefits?

A look at Figure 4 reveals that for all 15 physical health outcomes studied, the ratios of positive over negative (healthy over unhealthy) correlates of religious involvement are pronounced. The ratios range from about 2-to-1 for disease prevention, detection, and compliance to 90-to-1 for cigarette smoking.

We walk through the likely reasons one by one in our Religion and Physical Health report for readers who want the details. Here, however, we offer three broad strokes that help explain the “faith factor.”

1. Religious communities shape behavior and accountability. They discourage the habits that fill cardiology wards (smoking, heavy drinking, sedentary living, social isolation) and reinforce habits that keep hearts and bodies healthy. They build networks of care that last for decades—far longer than an annual physical—and give people reasons to get up, get out, and look after a neighbor. Tellingly, the longevity advantage persists in major studies even after researchers account for health behaviors and social ties; it is not merely that the faithful smoke less. Secular communities can strengthen health, too, especially through service. But few institutions bundle all these supports in one place over a lifetime as effectively as a religious community does.
2. Religious practices involve both action and abstinence. In terms of action, world religions promote prayer, ritual, worship, and the study of sacred texts in daily life and as core coping practices. In terms of abstinence, most world religions tend to promote avoidance or minimal use of addictive and damaging substances, as well as fasting and discipline in diet and avoidance of premarital and extramarital sex. Simply put, religious practice tends to encourage healthy behaviors and discourage unhealthy ones.
3. Religious beliefs can shape attitudes about the body. Most world religions emphasize the importance of caring for the body, often teaching that it is a sacred vessel or temple for the spirit. Many also hold that the condition of the body can either strengthen or hinder one’s spiritual life. When these beliefs are understood and applied, they can serve as powerful motivators for physical activity, exercise, and self-care grounded in faith.

A Note on the “Threshold Effect”

A close look at the best science on the religion–health connection suggests a “threshold effect.” In other words, the benefits of religion appear to be concentrated among those with sustained, high engagement. Hundreds of studies link religious involvement to better mental health, elevated physical health (including lower cancer rates), and significantly longer lifespan. Family-level gains have also been documented, including greater marital stability, higher marital quality and satisfaction, and stronger parent-child relationships. 

However, only individuals with “significant commitment to their faith” seem to attain the threshold “where measurable benefits are discernible and often substantive.” Occasional attendees do not enjoy the same benefits. In practice, the threshold is at least weekly service attendance, with associated health benefits observed from adolescence into older adulthood and across racial and ethnic groups and faith traditions.

Across the strongest studies on physical health, consistent weekly religious involvement is powerfully associated with significantly lower rates of cigarette smoking, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, physical disability, chronic pain, and markedly lower rates of substance abuse and addiction. The strongest studies also associate religious involvement with more exercise, healthier diets, better immune function, and longer, healthier lives. In addition to the quest for deeper spirituality, there are many bodily reasons to take faith community life seriously and to be actively involved in a sacred caravan of care.

There is a policy lesson here, too. We routinely assess patients’ dietary habits, exercise levels, and tobacco use, yet we almost never ask a patient whether they belong to a faith community, even though the evidence places weekly religious involvement in the same league as those better-known health behaviors. Health systems, researchers, and lawmakers would do well to treat religious participation as the health asset the data show it to be.

Our team’s invitation is two-fold: First, on a personal level, we can strive to live our faith beyond a “threshold level” where the faith factor thrives; and second, on a public level, we can support policies and practices that protect religious liberty and encourage people to live their faith in ways that bless their lives and improve their health.

The post The Physical Health Case for Religion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The best family films are more than merely “clean.” They actively form the character of the people who watch them. 

Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taught, “Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; … and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life.”

In that spirit, I am always searching for great films that can help my children grow in virtue while they are being entertained. There are a great number of films that accomplish this from all over the world, and through the power of streaming, including in many cases on free apps or websites, these films are more available today than ever before.

So here are some of the best films for children that most families have probably never heard of:

‘The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales’

After learning he’s not as intimidating as a big bad wolf, a fox steals three eggs, intending to raise the chicks and then eat them. But when they hatch, they call the fox mommy, and everything changes.

It’s a Belgian film and is animated in bucolic watercolors. 

The film is about turning from a consumption mindset to a stewardship mindset. It is about sacrificing for those we love. The fox becomes something better, not through removing barriers to allow his “true self” to shine through, but by repeatedly choosing to protect someone weaker than himself.

Content Guide: frequent slapstick cartoon violence and peril, including characters being hit, chased, dropped, caught in crashes, and threatened with being eaten; occasional mild insults and name-calling; no human nudity, alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.

“The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales” can be viewed on Kanopy, Hoopla, and YouTube.

‘Children of Heaven’

If viewers are willing to read captions, there are hundreds of beautiful family films from around the world to watch. But for many children, the captions themselves are a significant barrier to entry. So I’ve only included this one subtitled film. It is the perfect children’s movie.

A brother loses his sister’s shoes. His family can’t afford another pair, so they have to share. The brother wears the shoes to school in the morning, then races home so his sister can go to school in the afternoon. 

The children are good, but not perfect. But their selfishness is answered with mercy, and their pettiness with compassion. 

The characters grow and change as they focus on being there for their family members. And the climax is really unforgettable. 

While it was nominated for an Oscar, most parents aren’t looking in the Foreign Language Film category for inspiration. This one is definitely worth it.

Content Guide: mild realistic violence and peril, including a bicycle crash that leaves a father visibly injured, brief blood, and children repeatedly being jostled or falling during a footrace; stern scolding but no profanity; no nudity, alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.

“Children of Heaven” can be viewed on Kanopy, Hoopla, and YouTube.

‘Ernest & Celestine’

The premise of “Ernest & Celestine” is that bears and mice fear each other. But a bear and a mouse become friends anyway.

It’s a film about navigating prejudice, but in a way that encourages an internal locus of control, within a story that is pitched in a way that is appropriately gentle for kids.

The film is charming and cozy. It spawned a handful of sequels that are all also worthy films in their own right. So if families love the characters as much as I do, they can spend plenty of time with them.

Content Guide: mild cartoon violence and peril, including threats that bears will eat mice, police chases, falls, property destruction, arrests, and a building fire; occasional mild insults and name-calling; no human nudity, alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.

“Ernest & Celestine” can be viewed on Kanopy and Tubi.

‘Kirikou and the Sorceress’

This French-made Senegalese film tells the story of a baby, Kirikou, who is born into war and drought caused by an evil sorceress, Karaba. Kirikou goes with his uncle to confront Karaba, whose hatred comes from a thorn in her back. But she doesn’t want to remove it because it has become deeply a part of who she is.

The animation is striking and unlike anything American animation has produced. The tale teaches a deeply important principle about how to make real change in the world.

It is also an opportunity to talk about culture. The film can feel very strange to American audiences because of its pacing, forthright narration, and the fact that the baby Kirikou is naked throughout the film. The film contains frequent nonsexual nudity in its African setting. It does not align with American modesty norms, and it may not be a good fit for families who prefer to avoid all nudity. 

Content Guide: frequent nonsexual cultural nudity, with Kirikou fully nude for most of the film, including stylized frontal and rear views, and village women frequently bare-breasted; occasional insults but no conventional profanity; fantasy violence and peril involving claims that a sorceress has eaten men, children being carried off, animal attacks, fires, a creature’s death, and a woman recounting that men forcibly drove a thorn into her back before it is painfully removed; no substance use.

“Kirikou and the Sorceress” can be viewed on Prime Video.

‘A Letter to Momo’

Momo and her father get into a big fight right before he dies. Her internal demons come to life as three demons in her attic. 

By turning the real moral weight of her words into physical avatars, the film makes its rather weighty themes comprehensible to children. The demons are also hilarious. 

The film is not only about learning to forgive yourself, it’s also about letting our feelings of guilt motivate us to become better people. The film undersells just how powerful repentance and forgiveness can be. So I might want to open that up for a conversation with my kids after the film. But it is fairly minor.

Content Guide: brief nonsexual creature nudity and bare-bottom humor but no sexual or human nudity; occasional mild insults and exclamations; brief social alcohol use by adults but no tobacco or drug use; supernatural scares and comic roughhousing, along with references to a father’s death, a severe asthma attack, and a child facing danger during a violent storm.

“A Letter to Momo” can be viewed on YouTube.

‘Long Way North’

A Danish film set in Russia, “Long Way North” tells the story of Sasha vindicating her grandfather by going on a grand (sometimes scary) adventure.

The film fits firmly into the modern heroine empowerment template. But rather than it being about discovering herself or proving others wrong, the film is about Sasha being empowered as she becomes useful. She has to work in sometimes humiliating circumstances. She studies a lot. And slowly she begins to gain the confidence of those around her, whom she needs to accomplish her goals.

Sasha is a fantastic example to children of what success often actually takes. Sasha makes some reckless decisions, and while the film usually contains consequences for them, those consequences are rarely clear. This could open up conversations with kids. The movie also includes characters smoking, drinking, and using (non-profanity) name-calling. 

Content Guide: sustained survival violence and peril, including fistfights, a ship being crushed by ice, falls, near-drowning and freezing, a polar-bear attack, gunfire, and the discovery of a frozen body without graphic gore; occasional mild language and insults; sailors drinking alcohol in a tavern and briefly smoking; no nudity or drug use.

“Long Way North” can be viewed on Prime Video and Roku Channel.

‘Millions’

In this delightful movie from Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, 9-year-old Damian finds a bag of money right before the UK is set to move to the Euro. He and his 12-year-old brother Anthony wrestle with what to do with the cash. 

The film is mostly about generosity. But it avoids making answers simple. After all, the money was never really his. And the film manages to bring the ethics of a question like “What is money for?” to a level that children can engage in it.

The film is also colorful, funny, and imaginative. Among the many sources of Damian’s charity are also a pair of missionaries, providing one of the better depictions of Latter-day Saints on screen.

The ending is suspenseful, and there is smoking and drinking, so this is better for older kids, eight and up, but it is certainly enjoyable for the whole family.

Content Guide: brief kissing and a child visiting a lingerie website, a man and woman lie in bed together his chest is exposed and her shoulders are; several mild British profanities and insults; adults briefly drinking alcohol and smoking, with no drug use; mild violence and peril involving a train robbery, a criminal threatening a child, a hideout being set on fire, chases, struggling, and references to death and martyrdom.

“Millions” can be viewed on Prime Video and Disney+.

‘Okko’s Inn’

This 2018 anime film is a rather straightforward story about grief. Okko loses her parents in a car accident, so she moves into her grandmother’s inn. And there she begins serving the guests and the burdens they carry.

The film teaches that dealing with our emotions is not only about inward processing, but also about turning outward and serving the people around us. She learns to deal with her own wounds while helping others heal theirs. 

This is a very Japanese movie. It is steeped in the culture and traditions of Japanese life, and many supernatural elements come from Japanese folklore. It may require a good conversation with kids to detangle the ideas in the film from doctrine about the afterlife.

Content Guide: brief nonsexual hot-spring and bathing partial nudity, with children and adults shown with bare shoulders and backs while their bodies are obscured by water or towels; occasional mild insults and name-calling; adults briefly drinking alcohol with meals but no tobacco or drug use; an emotionally intense but bloodless fatal car crash that kills Okko’s parents, later crash flashbacks, mild ghostly scares, falls, and slapstick.

“Okko’s Inn” can be viewed on Hoopla.

‘The Painting’

Containing one of the more whimsical premises for a film, the story is set in an unfinished painting. The figures in the painting are all at various degrees of completion, which causes conflict among them. When a completely finished figure falls in love with a half-finished figure, several characters leave the painting in search of the artist who created them to ask him to finish.

It is essentially a Romeo & Juliet tale about love overcoming prejudice, but with a much more accessible back half for children.

The film’s central metaphor also opens up interesting questions about the nature of the relationship between the figures and their creator. Most of the insights about taking accountability for ourselves and those around us are fantastic. But there are certainly takeaways that could feel atheistic. It’s certainly worth asking kids, “What is the difference between our Creator and the painter of the paintings? 

Content Guide: brief stylized, nonsexual artistic nudity, including painted bare breasts and buttocks; repeated class-based slurs and mild insults but little conventional profanity; brief wine drinking at a celebration but no tobacco or drug use; and cartoon fantasy violence involving bullying, imprisonment, threats of death, falls, weapons, and a painted battlefield with gunfire, explosions, and apparent casualties.

“The Painting” can be viewed on Hoopla and Tubi.”

‘Paper Planes’

A young boy has a talent for building paper airplanes and advances through competitions while his father remains emotionally distant.

It sounds like a setup for a conventional sports underdog movie. It is not. It is borrowing from the trappings of that type of film to ask bigger, more interesting questions, such as, Does winning matter if it’s detached from generosity, family, and friendship? 

The characters often act badly in the pursuit of victory, but the film often recognizes that this is not virtuous and can diminish our ability to be there for the people around us. 

It can become a little bit over the top at times in its discussion of death and depression, so it’s certainly not one for a cheery movie night. But this is the sports movie that provides the moral context for all of the other great sports movies. 

Content Guide: mild bullying, shoving, and scuffling, deliberate destruction of a child’s paper plane, and discussion of the mother’s fatal car crash without graphic images; occasional mild Australian profanity and insults; adults briefly drinking beer or wine, including the grieving father, but no tobacco or drug use; no nudity.

“Paper Planes” can be viewed on Starz, YouTube, and Tubi.

The post The Moral Power of Children’s Films appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Employees typically feel comfortable discussing fitness routines, cultural heritage, family traditions, or even political causes, but conversations about faith often carry a unique tension. Consequently, workers who wear visible religious clothing, request schedule adjustments for holy days, pray during breaks, or decline to participate in certain activities for reasons of conscience can feel isolated or misunderstood.

Employers, meanwhile, often avoid engaging with religion altogether for fear that any discussion will produce conflict.

That instinct is understandable. Religion touches deep convictions, and Americans disagree profoundly about theology, morality, and political applications of religion. In recent years, many corporate leaders have concluded that the safest approach is to privatize religious identity entirely.

Yet this strategy frequently backfires.

When workplaces treat religion as unwelcome or invisible, employees do not become less religious. Instead, many simply feel pressured to compartmentalize core aspects of themselves. That pressure can produce resentment, disengagement, and mistrust. Increasingly, large American corporations are discovering a different path: rather than suppressing religious identity, they are building structures that allow people of faith—and people of no faith—to work together respectfully.

One of the most important developments in this movement has been the rise of faith-oriented employee resource groups, commonly known as ERGs.

These groups are quietly reshaping workplace culture in some of America’s largest companies.

Why Religion At Work Matters Again

For years, diversity initiatives in corporate America focused primarily on race, gender, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation. Religion was often missing from the conversation.

But the workforce itself has changed.

Employees increasingly expect to bring their “whole selves” to work, including their moral and spiritual commitments. Younger workers especially want employers to recognize identity in holistic ways—rather than asking employees to fragment themselves into separate public and private personas.

At the same time, globalization has transformed and diversified the religious makeup of many corporations. Teams now regularly include Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, atheists, agnostics, and others working side by side across national and cultural boundaries.

As a result, religion has reemerged as a significant workplace issue.

Religious discrimination complaints remain a recurring feature of American employment law. Questions surrounding Sabbath observance, prayer breaks, religious clothing, dietary requirements, and conscience protections continue to appear in litigation and public controversy.

Recent legal developments have reinforced employers’ obligations. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Groff v. DeJoy, which strengthened protections for religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Court clarified that to establish “undue hardship,” an employer must show that a proposed accommodation would impose substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business—not merely an inconvenience.In practical terms, this means employers must take religious needs more seriously than many employers previously did.

Yet legal compliance alone cannot create a healthy workplace culture. A company may technically satisfy laws against discrimination while still fostering an environment in which religious employees feel unwelcome, stereotyped, or silenced.

This gap between formal legal protections and lived experience is precisely why faith-oriented ERGs have become so influential.

What Faith-Oriented ERGs Actually Do

Employee resource groups are voluntary, employee-led organizations formally recognized by companies. Most corporations already host ERGs built around shared identities or experiences, including groups for women, veterans, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ employees, or workers with disabilities.

Faith-oriented ERGs apply the same model to religion.

Some are centered on a single tradition, such as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu employee groups. Others are intentionally interfaith, bringing together employees from multiple traditions alongside secular allies.

Critics sometimes assume these groups encourage proselytizing or create ideological division. In practice, successful faith-oriented ERGs usually operate according to very different principles.

Most such groups prohibit coercive proselytizing. Participation is voluntary, and the emphasis is typically on inclusion, education, dialogue, and accommodation rather than theological debate.

The work of these ERGs tends to be remarkably practical. Some help human resources departments understand religious accommodation needs before conflicts arise. Others organize educational events explaining major religious holidays or traditions. Some advocate for prayer or meditation spaces, flexible scheduling during holy days, or dietary accommodations at corporate events.

Perhaps most importantly, these groups create relationships.

Religious misunderstanding often flourishes in environments where employees rarely interact meaningfully across lines of difference. Faith-oriented ERGs reduce that distance. A Muslim employee explaining Ramadan to coworkers, a Jewish employee discussing Passover traditions, or a Christian employee describing Sabbath observance can humanize practices that might otherwise seem unfamiliar or threatening.

This matters more than many executives initially realize. Research suggests that religious literacy reduces prejudice and workplace tension. Employees who understand one another’s beliefs are less likely to interpret religious behavior as strange, hostile, or exclusionary. Simple familiarity can lower social friction.

In this sense, faith-oriented ERGs function less like advocacy groups and more like cultural translators.

The Corporate Shift Toward Faith-Friendly Workplaces

The growth of faith-oriented ERGs inside major corporations has been significant. Recent reporting and research by the World Economic Forum and the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation show that although only a small percentage of Fortune 100 companies had faith-oriented ERGs a decade ago, religion is far more likely to be included in corporate diversity strategies today.

Major companies, including Salesforce, Texas Instruments, American Airlines, and Dell, have publicly embraced faith-friendly initiatives.

Salesforce offers one of the clearest examples.

This collaboration challenged the assumption that religious inclusion would conflict with other inclusion goals. Instead of treating differing convictions as irreconcilable, the company encouraged dialogue rooted in mutual respect, and employees learned how to navigate disagreement without demanding ideological uniformity.

Texas Instruments, which has supported faith-oriented employee groups for more than two decades, provides another notable example.

Christian, Jewish, and Muslim ERGs all operate alongside other affinity groups within the organization. And rather than producing fragmentation, these networks have largely strengthened cohesion. Employees report feeling more respected when their beliefs are acknowledged rather than ignored. Managers gain a better understanding of accommodation needs. Conflicts are often resolved informally before escalating into formal complaints.

Importantly, these companies are not adopting faith-oriented ERGs merely out of altruism but because they increasingly view religious inclusion as strategically beneficial.

Retention improves when employees feel respected; recruitment from diverse talent pools becomes easier; and global business operations benefit from stronger cultural literacy. Companies serving international markets recognize that understanding religious diversity is valuable not only psychologically but also commercially. In other words, making workplaces faith-friendly is not just a moral project but also a good organizational strategy.

The Deeper Cultural Question

The rise of faith-oriented ERGs reflects a broader cultural debate unfolding far beyond corporate America.

Can institutions sustain genuine pluralism in an era of deep moral disagreement?

Modern workplaces bring together people who hold profoundly different views about truth, identity, sexuality, politics, and human purpose. Many organizations struggle to determine whether peaceful coexistence requires suppressing these differences or learning to navigate them openly.

Faith-oriented ERGs represent one answer to that challenge.

At their best, they reject two extremes simultaneously.

On one side lies aggressive secularism, which treats religion as inherently divisive and therefore inappropriate in public institutional life. On the other side lies sectarianism, which seeks dominance rather than coexistence. Healthy faith-oriented ERGs instead operate on a pluralistic model: employees may disagree deeply while still working together respectfully.

This principle sounds simple. In practice, however, it requires institutional habits that many Americans have lost.

Pluralism is not relativism, and employees do not abandon their convictions to participate. Nor does pluralism require pretending that moral disagreements are unimportant. Rather, pluralism requires learning how to live and work alongside people whose convictions differ from our own without treating disagreement itself as hostility.

That is increasingly difficult in American society.

Public discourse often rewards outrage, ideological sorting, and suspicion. Social media amplifies conflict. Many institutions have become uncomfortable with substantive moral disagreement.

Against that backdrop, faith-friendly workplaces may provide an unexpected civic benefit. They create environments where individuals practice the ordinary disciplines of democratic coexistence: listening, accommodation, restraint, compromise, and mutual respect. Employees who learn to navigate religious diversity constructively at work may carry those habits into families, congregations, neighborhoods, and civic life.

In this sense, corporate culture can influence broader social culture.

Legitimate Concerns—and Necessary Safeguards

None of this means faith-oriented ERGs are without risks.

Poorly managed groups can become exclusionary, politically polarized, or dominated by a single ideological perspective. Religious employees may sometimes fear that participation could affect their professional advancement. Others worry that companies could privilege certain beliefs over others. These concerns are real.

Companies must maintain strong nondiscrimination protections for all employees, and participation in religious groups should remain voluntary. No employee should feel pressured to engage in religious activity—or pressured to hide sincere beliefs.

Leadership also matters. The healthiest faith-oriented ERGs tend to emphasize humility, service, and relationship-building rather than activism or culture-war confrontation. Many deliberately include interfaith dialogue and collaboration with secular colleagues.

Importantly, protecting religious freedom in the workplace must also protect employees who are not religious. A genuinely pluralistic workplace recognizes conscience broadly. The goal is not religious dominance but institutional fairness.

That balance can be difficult. But it is achievable.

Why This Matters For Religious Freedom

Americans often think about religious liberty primarily in constitutional or political terms. We debate Supreme Court decisions, public-school controversies, and government regulation.

But most people experience religious freedom daily in ordinary institutions such as schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces.

Employment is especially significant because work occupies such a large portion of adult life. When employees feel forced to suppress their religious identities in professional settings, religious freedom can become an abstract concept rather than a lived reality.

Faith-oriented ERGs help bridge that gap. They translate legal protections into everyday organizational practice. They create channels for accommodation before conflict escalates. They normalize respectful discussion of religion within institutions that shape millions of lives.

And most importantly, faith-oriented ERGs remind corporations that human beings are not merely economic units.

People bring moral convictions, spiritual commitments, rituals, traditions, and community ties to work, and attempts to erase those realities rarely produce neutrality. More often, such attempts create environments in which only people with certain identities feel safe expressing themselves openly.

The ideal solution is not religious uniformity but principled pluralism. American corporations and society more broadly are still learning what that looks like in practice. Some efforts will fail, and others will become politicized or superficial. But the broader movement toward faith-friendly workplaces reflects an important insight: durable institutions cannot be built by demanding that employees abandon core dimensions of identity at the office door.

Healthy workplaces do not require employees to become less religious—or less secular—to cooperate. They require learning how to disagree without exclusion.

At a moment when American society often seems unable to sustain that balance, the quiet rise of faith-oriented ERGs inside major corporations offers a surprisingly hopeful model.

The post The Faith-Friendly Workplace appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Note: This piece is the first in a three-part series that reviews the best available science on the connections between religiosity and health. Part 1 discusses mental health; Part 2 discusses physical health; and Part 3 discusses social-relational health.

Memes like “God is dead” and “Science is real” have become T-shirt banners of contemporary secularism. These statements make an implicit claim: the more seriously we take science, the less seriously we should take religion. But when the bantering subsides, one serious empirical question remains:  What does the best science reveal about whether religion helps or harms us as individuals and as a nation?

Medicine and social science recently reached a landmark with the publication of “The Handbook of Religion and Health,” a Duke and Harvard University collaboration. Described as “stunningly ambitious” by former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, the text included only the most rigorous 5% of studies conducted on religion and health (about 2,800 out of 60,000). 

The bad news is that the volume contains 1,100 oversized pages with small font. The good news is that our multidisciplinary team from BYU and Duke University recently mined these pages and completed three condensed reports on “Religion and Mental Health,” “Religion and Physical Health,” and “Religion and Social Health,” so that you can see the grand scope of the 1,100-page volume without requiring an optometrist visit. 

Our Research Team

Our team brought together four disciplinary vantage points. These were medicine, where mental illness bleeds into physical illness; the criminal justice system, where untreated depression, addiction, and isolation harden into costly incarceration; family and human development, where anxiety and trauma reverberate across families long before clinicians intervene; and the workplace, where poorly handled stress and isolation diminish productivity. Each of us wanted to know what the best science revealed about whether religious involvement helped or harmed mental health—or both.

What the Science Reveals

Following the lead of the Duke–Harvard team, our BYU–Duke team divided the best studies into nine mental health foci:

1. Bipolar Disorder
2. Schizophrenia (and other psychoses)
3. Coping with stress
4. Depression
5. Anxiety
6. Personality Traits & Disorders
7. Positive Emotion
8. Suicide
9. Addiction & Substance Abuse

Each scientific study that made the cut for rigor (the top 5%) was examined by the Duke-Harvard team to see if the core findings indicated:

(1) a positive association between higher religiosity/religious involvement and improved mental health;

(2) a negative association that showed that higher religiosity/religious involvement was connected with decreased mental health; or

(3) mixed or complex findings.

Our team revisited these same studies, using the Duke-Harvard system to categorize the core findings. We then tallied the studies by whether the study showed a positive, negative, or mixed relationship between the aspect of mental health and religious involvement. Across the nine mental health phenomena, here is the breakdown of studies:

Our report indicates that the limited findings on religiosity and bipolar disorder is mixed, with a slight tilt toward negative findings. Research on schizophrenia and other psychoses shows a similar pattern. Religion may not be helpful with more severe, biologically-based psychoses, although the number of studies is small and inconclusive.

By contrast, the high-quality studies consistently suggest a link between religious involvement and better mental health across seven mental health phenomena. The positive-to-negative study ratios were approximately 7:1 for depression and anxiety, 4:1 for personality traits and disorders, 11:1 for suicide, 12:1 for coping with stress, 26:1 for positive emotion, and 43:1 for substance abuse and addiction. 

It is important to clarify that correlation is not causation. However, the handbook authors note that “there is now relatively strong evidence for at least some of the association between religious service attendance and lower suicide rates being causal.”

Indeed, research conducted at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has used advanced statistical methods to analyze longitudinal data in ways that strengthen causal inference. Although randomized controlled trials remain the gold standard for identifying causal effects, these newer methods can, under appropriate assumptions, provide evidence that approaches the strength of causal conclusions.

Taken together, the best available evidence indicates that religious beliefs, practices, and participation in faith communities are linked to improved mental health outcomes far more often than to adverse outcomes.

Across the mental health domains summarized above, 961 empirical studies found beneficial associations between religious involvement and mental health. Only 101 studies found adverse associations—an overall positive-to-negative ratio of nearly 10:1. In many of the studies reporting adverse associations, the key finding involved what a leading psychologist of religion Kenneth Pargament has called “negative religious coping,” for example, framing stressors as punishments from God.

Except in the cases of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia—where findings are mixed—religiosity in the best studies to date tends to be significantly correlated with positive outcomes across most mental and psychological health phenomena. In the case of some phenomena—including suicide, coping with stress, substance abuse and addiction, and positive emotion—the scientific case for religion as a correlate of health is overwhelming. As we will see in two subsequent reports in this three-part series, religiosity not only correlates with desirable mental and psychological health outcomes; it has also been repeatedly correlated with significant positive outcomes in physical health and social-relational health domains.

The Threshold Effect: How Much Religion Does It Take?

A close look at the best science on the religion–health connection suggests a “threshold effect.” In other words, the benefits of religion appear to be concentrated among those with sustained, high engagement. Hundreds of studies link religious involvement to better mental health, elevated physical health (including lower cancer rates), and significantly longer lifespan. Family-level gains have also been documented, including greater marital stability, higher marital quality and satisfaction, and stronger parent-child relationships. 

However, only individuals with “significant commitment to their faith” seem to attain the threshold “where measurable benefits are discernible and often substantive.” Occasional attendees do not enjoy the same benefits. In practice, the threshold is at least weekly service attendance, with associated health benefits observed from adolescence into older adulthood and across racial and ethnic groups and faith traditions.

Across the strongest studies on mental health, religious involvement is most powerfully associated with healthier coping with stress, lower rates of depression and anxiety, markedly lower rates of substance abuse, and substantially reduced suicidality.

To restate, addiction and suicide—two of the most devastating drivers of family breakdown and criminal justice involvement—are domains where the positive influence of religion is strongest. Of the 271 of the best studies on the connection between religion and substance abuse, 256 (94%) found a correlation between religion and significantly reduced substance abuse. Regarding rising suicide rates in the U.S., Harvard’s Tyler VanderWeele has linked 40% of this tragic increase to declining church attendance.

Our team’s hope is fourfold. First, we hope that some who are currently below the threshold of religious participation will consider becoming more involved in their faith communities. Greater involvement may increase their likelihood of receiving significant benefits and contributing to the well-being of others

Second, we hope that persons of “threshold-level” faith will find increased reason for devotion to their sacred communities of care. We hope that these foundational members of diverse faith communities will continue to contribute their time, money, energy, and selves with a heightened awareness of the associated benefits and blessings.  

Third, we hope that people will recognize the tremendous public and personal good that religion offers. We hope they will foster enlightened pluralism in which religious individuals and groups can both produce and receive many established benefits.

Fourth—and perhaps most of all—we hope that those who are already deeply aware of the benefits and blessings of lasting fellowship in a religious community will seek to extend that warm and welcoming concern to all—including those with differing beliefs. May we remember the two-fold wisdom of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who observed, “Religion is at its best when it relies on the strength of…example. It is at its worst when it seeks to impose truth by force.”

The post The Mental Health Case for Religion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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In a recent letter to The Salt Lake Tribune, Latter-day Saint writer David Ostler argues that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supports religious liberty only halfheartedly. According to Ostler, the Church supports its own priorities and those of other Christians but is “far less willing to defend the religious rights of people outside the LDS faith when those rights conflict with church policies or values.” 

We strongly agree with Ostler “that religious freedom is strongest when it protects people of every faith—including those with no faith at all.” But we disagree with his assessment of the Church’s record on religious liberty. 

Setting the Record Straight

To begin, Ostler makes misleading statements about the Church’s efforts to protect religious liberty. He says that the Church did not “intervene” in the case of Damon Landor, a Rastafarian whose case recently came before the Supreme Court. But while the Church could not legally intervene as a party, it did become involved. It filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Landor, clearly and publicly supporting Mr. Landor’s case through the only legal avenue it had.

Ostler also argues that the Church should have “filed opposition” to the Texas abortion ban to protect its members’ religious freedom. But this conflates an allowance with an obligation. Just because the Church allows abortion in exceptional cases does not mean members have a religious obligation to obtain abortions, nor that getting an abortion is an exercise of religious belief. 

The case involving Hoosier Jews for Choice, in which several plaintiffs in Indiana claim a right to abortion under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) law, is more complex. However, it’s also not as simple as “you supported religious liberty in other cases, so you have to support it here.” RFRA laws have several standards that must be met, and there are good reasons to believe that those standards have not been met in this case. 

Promoting Religious Freedom Through Legal Action

Beyond these cases, Ostler raises an important question that he never really answers: What does it mean to consistently support religious liberty as a universal principle? If, as he seems to suggest, it means supporting religious groups and beliefs other than one’s own, the Church clearly does. 

There are many, many cases in which the Church has filed briefs in support of religious communities and individuals with significantly different beliefs. Most religious freedom cases to reach the Supreme Court in recent decades have involved Christian litigants. However, the Church has also supported non-Christian groups and individuals. In recent years, it has filed in support of the Rastafarian prisoner previously mentioned; Muslim, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Catholic parents; Catholic entities; Lutheran churches; nondenominational Christians; and an evangelical Christian, among several others. 

What’s more, the Church frequently joins religiously diverse coalitions to file these amicus briefs. This practice indicates its interest in securing religious freedom for all, not only for itself. 

The Church also has a longstanding relationship with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Becket Fund is the leading national law firm that defends the religious freedom of people of all faiths, not just Christians. It has represented Sikhs, Native Americans, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and members of other minority faiths.

And while religious liberty is a fundamental right, it’s not an unlimited right. The state can restrict religious liberty for legitimate reasons, and the Church understands this. For instance, the state’s interest in promoting health and safety led to restrictions on houses of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the proportionality of these restrictions compared to those imposed on other institutions has been debated, the Church willingly complied to promote health and safety, despite the way these restrictions limited religious exercise. Further, President Oaks has said that religious government officials cannot use religious liberty as a justification to avoid fulfilling their duties under the law, such as providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples when the law recognizes these marriages. 

Promoting Religious Freedom Through Dialogue

We also think it’s important to look at global religious liberty. After all, the focus of the Church’s recent fast for religious liberty was specifically to promote this freedom worldwide.

The Church has also financially supported the annual International Religious Freedom Summit, which brings together key religious freedom organizations to champion religious freedom worldwide. Summit participants come from diverse faith backgrounds and from around the world to work together to improve religious freedom for all people everywhere, especially for the world’s most persecuted groups.

The Church’s flagship legal institution, BYU Law School, also hosts an annual International Law and Religion Symposium that convenes people of different faith backgrounds (or none) to discuss challenges to religious freedom and learn about best-practice solutions. And BYU Law School also boasts some of the world’s leading scholars of law and religion, who travel the globe teaching the principle of religious freedom for everyone, everywhere.

None of this captures the Church’s extensive humanitarian efforts, many of which help people persecuted for their beliefs. Consider, for example, the Church’s assistance to the Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq who faced genocide at the hands of ISIS, or the Church’s efforts to help refugees, including many who are fleeing religious persecution. Countless other examples exist.

It’s true that the Church does not get involved in every single case or with every bill with religious liberty implications. The Church has consistently emphasized that certain core spheres of religious freedom are most important to protect, and it prioritizes them. As critics of the Church would agree, not every purported exercise of religious belief can or should be accommodated. But within appropriate limits, religious belief deserves special recognition and support. The Church has long supported religious liberty as a broad principle, one that applies to religious believers and nonbelievers alike. 

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For many religious individuals, faith plays a central role in their lives. In many faith traditions, members are required or encouraged to freely contribute their time, effort, and money, a concept known as religious giving.

But how do individuals actually feel about religious giving? How does religious giving affect their marriages and families? An in-depth qualitative study from the American Families of Faith Project addressed that question by interviewing 184 highly religious families about their beliefs. We will review four insights that emerged. 

Reframing Sacrifice as Giving

Financial contributions to religion are not a sacrifice, but a gift. This is what many participants in the study said about their giving.

Participants tended to reframe sacrifice as giving or charity. They saw their giving as deeply and inherently relational, strengthening their connection with God and with their sisters and brothers in the human family. 

Building Faith Community Bonds

Giving also increased many participants’ sense of meaning. They felt better about life for having given. 

But the benefits didn’t stop there. The act of giving also tended to form a stronger bond between givers and their faith communities, leading them to feel more fully supported by their faith communities. A Christian woman named Joyce, said, “When I was going through a really—I mean a really, really—bad financial time, I never ever had to want for anything, because someone from my church family was always there helping out, giving me something.” A father from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added another story of profound help. He explained,

There was a time in the 1970s when we had three kids in cloth diapers that had to be washed daily and our washing machine gave out … and I didn’t even have money to have the thing fixed, and I certainly didn’t have money for a new one… My wife came home from running the errands… and there was a washing machine sitting on the porch with a hundred dollar bill in an envelope taped to the lid, and boxes of laundry detergent from church…. Somebody obviously understood the principle of charity where you don’t let the right hand know what the left hand is doing…. God bless them!

Adjusting for inflation, that $100 in the mid-1970s would be the equivalent of more than $600 today. The experience left this couple with a burning desire to give in similar ways to others, and they have done so across the decades since as they try to “pay it forward.” 

Many participants shared similar feelings and stories about the financial support they received from their faith communities. Sarah, a Jewish mother of two, is a great example of being a support to others. She shared, “It’s a real comfort to feel like you’ve provided a meal for someone or given money for a good cause. You walk away from that feeling that all is right with your little part of the world, that you did your piece. It may be stressful, but the majority of the time you walk away feeling comforted.” 

Effects on the Marital Relationship

Many participants reported that their marriages also benefited from their financial giving, but others emphasized that religious (and other) giving can strain the marital relationship if it is not a shared financial goal. A Latter-day Saint father named Todd said, “Sometimes money can be divisive but through our religious faith we know that the money’s not ours and we know that it’s a tool.” When couples share this vision, they do well. This concept was explained thoroughly by Doug, a Christian husband and marriage counselor, who reported, 

I think the number one reason we have a strong marriage is God. The number two reason is the ability to agree financially on issues, because finances are the number one killer of relationships. Many married people disagree about money…. The fact is, we have the same financial goals and priorities. Money is the number one fight—money—and if you can navigate that particular obstacle, you will do well in marriage. 

For couples like Doug and his wife, shared commitments to giving and serving can become a strength for the marriage. However, the ideal of selflessness is difficult to attain, and many participant couples admitted to arguing about money. 

Religious Giving and Children

Takeaways 

As believers, these findings can help us navigate the blessings and challenges of religious giving in our own financial situations. Key insights include:

Reframe sacrifice as giving. Highly religious individuals viewed their financial contributions not as sacrifices but as gifts and priorities rooted in faith, which reinforced their sense of purpose and moral identity. As believers, we can also strive to elevate our perspective and reframe faith-based financial sacrifices as opportunities to put God and others first.

Avoid letting money become divisive. We can be aware of how money can potentially divide relationships and cause stress, and ultimately remember that money may not be what matters most. When we focus on our connection with the divine and serving others, financial giving can be a source of relational strengthening for all involved, instead of a source of division. This awareness can remind us of what truly lasts.

Grow in service and faith. We can consider how we might invite more faith, unity, and purpose into our financial decisions. Whether we are giving time, money, or support, we can try to view these acts not as burdens but rather as sacred opportunities to grow closer to God, strengthen our relationships, and to serve others with love.

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Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is about a warrior trying to leave war behind. And perhaps the movie’s reception suggests that many of us are ready to do the same. 

When the movie opens, the Trojan War is already over. Odysseus remains a warrior, and much of his survival depends on his warrior instincts. But despite the monsters, storms, and stratagems he faces, the central question of the tale is not whether he can win another battle. It’s whether he can make it home. 

One of the major thematic differences between Nolan’s new treatment of the story and the tale it is based on is how Odysseus feels about war. In the original, Odysseus leaves the war as a braggadocious victor. 

In Nolan’s adaptation, the background to Odysseus’ travels is his desire to distance himself from the war, reckon with the choices he made, and prepare to return home—a place where he will be asked to be a husband, father, king, and community member. At home he will not only need his warrior virtues but also tenderness, patience, fidelity, and mercy. 

In this telling, “The Odyssey” is not just the continuing adventures of Odysseus; it is a metaphor for his struggle to leave war and return home psychologically and emotionally. For all its spectacle, the film is preoccupied with the aftermath of war. Reviewers have recognized this antiwar current and its interest in postwar trauma, guilt, and moral transformation.

That theme may also explain why the public response to “The Odyssey” feels more significant than that of a mere commercially successful summer blockbuster. Before the movie was ever released, it had been drafted into another war, a cultural war. And then, much to the surprise of the people who live and breathe that war, the public largely declined the fight.

A Movie and a Battlefield

Long before anyone had seen “The Odyssey,” the culture warriors were dissecting it. Some commentators complained about the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Others complained about Elliot Page’s casting. Some critics complained that the film was ignoring historical coherence in exchange for progressive signaling. Others sought to boycott the film because it was not sufficiently deferential to the concerns of Morocco, Western Sahara, and Dakhla—a conflict described, depending on whom you ask, as either an occupation or a border dispute. 

Then audiences saw it. 

“The Odyssey” earned $264.1 million worldwide during its opening weekend. It’s the largest live-action opening of the year, the largest nominal-dollar opening of Christopher Nolan’s career, and a break in what had seemed like a very down summer for the movie industry.

Audiences gave the film an A CinemaScore, and its Rotten Tomatoes audience score stood at 97 percent at the time of writing. Demand was so strong that some theaters added overnight and early-morning screenings.

Obviously, there were still dissenters. Many of the people who profit from our continued outrage doubled down. But most of the actual audience just watched a movie. The controversy stopped being the main story, and the movie started to be. 

The Culture War

This is not to say that culture-war issues are unimportant. Many of the disputes involve issues of real importance. 

And maybe it’s OK that Christopher Nolan asked his old friend to be in his movie, regardless of whether we agree with the decisions that friend has made. 

Maybe we can feel real concern for the current situation of the Sahrawi people without making this film bear the weight of the entire controversy just because of its filming locations.

These concerns, along with the hundreds of others, should not simply be wished away. And I’m certainly not calling for us to surrender on them in the hope that doing so will create peace. The tragedy was that the method of war began to consume the very things we were trying to protect. The conflict stopped being about whether ideas were right or wrong and became about whether people were good or bad. Every casting choice was framed as existential. It divided families, friendships, congregations, communities, and nations. Having the wrong opinion was not a conflict to work through, but a danger to be squashed. Our ideological opponents were reduced to avatars to humiliate.

And because war needs soldiers, first our news media and then our social media began using propaganda to enlist us. And many of us have. We’ve fought about Dr. Seuss, gas stoves, Mr. Potato Head, the OK symbol, the green M&M, the Cracker Barrel menu, the Little Mermaid’s hair, elves’ skin tone, Gillette razors, Looney Tunes, Keurig coffee makers, the Chinese word for “that,” the police dog in “PAW Patrol,” and dozens and dozens more. 

“The Odyssey” was shaping up to be the next battlefield. The battle lines had been drawn. And then we just didn’t. We let it go. We went and watched a fun movie. And we probably watched it while sitting in a theater with someone who believed some of the wrong things. 

Toward Ithaca

But it’s not nothing. 

Maybe it’s just a temporary “Christmas Day truce” because the movie really is that good. Or maybe “The Odyssey” is revealing a change in appetite, a change of heart.

Perhaps we are tired of being told what we are allowed to enjoy. Perhaps we are sick of so many of the things that make life worth living becoming another test of tribal allegiance. And maybe we’re tired of living in a world where nothing can simply be. 

Our culture did not resolve the disputes surrounding the movie. One side did not emerge victorious. It did something smaller. It didn’t give the final word to the culture war. 

Odysseus’ journey reminds us that wars end before warriors learn how to live in peace. Coming home is its own discipline. It requires us to lay aside identities formed entirely through opposition and recover the relationships that conflict pushed to the margins.

We have not reached Ithaca. Our disagreements remain. Many of them matter, some deeply.

But perhaps we are beginning to understand that a meaningful life cannot be built entirely around fighting them.

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