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In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, embodied the danger that can accompany misrepresentation and stereotyping. Reduced by society to “the Jew,” Shylock is seen as less than human, his depiction fraught with inaccuracy and hyperbole. This unjustly skewed representation of the Jewish people has reinforced antisemitic sentiment across the globe, the effects of which have lasted for generations and continue to this day in many parts of the world.

Throughout history, religious minorities have faced significant struggles due to erroneous beliefs perpetuated about them, including by media and popular discourse. While the United States was founded on principles of religious pluralism and equality, our current society yet reflects harmful gaps in religious literacy that fuel a lack of empathy for those who believe differently than most.

The American Families of Faith Project conducted in-depth interviews with 131 families belonging to religious minority communities (e.g., Jewish, Muslim, Latter-day Saint, Jehovah’s Witness, and other minority faith traditions) to identify the most salient struggles being faced by these families on a regular basis. The published study resulting from this work presented five primary themes that reinforce the need for meaningful reform in religious literacy, education, tolerance and interreligious cohesion in the United States.

Theme 1: Struggles Related to Difference and Minority Status

Among the minority families interviewed, over one-third identified their religious distinctiveness, including behaviors, clothing, and practices that diverge from social norms, as a primary source of tension within majority culture. Narratives involving children were described as particularly distressing for parents. Bekah (names changed to protect participants), a Jewish mother, described witnessing her daughters’ religious exclusion:

There have been some difficult times with the girls, every year. “Why are all the decorations for Christmas?” You know, just a lot of questions and irritation, and I understand their irritation and I’ve experienced it in the past, but I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I’m not irritated by it. I keep explaining to the girls that people are not doing this to be mean, people do not mean to be excluding other religions, they’re not trying to hurt you. This is [just] what they do to celebrate.

Although the pain of not belonging was a frequently shared experience, most families were unwilling to compromise their religious convictions, even when this meant becoming accustomed to and even expecting exclusion from social activities. Wafiyah, a Muslim mother, borrowed the words of her daughter:

Because I wear hijab [when I am out] in the community… I have to be different. I cannot be friends with everybody because their reaction to my hijab is different. I can only communicate with the friends that I have from childhood [because] they know me. Making strong relationships is hard in a new community.

These patterns suggest that, especially for children and adolescents, the struggle of being different has the potential to shape their sense of belonging and ability to connect with their community. Many adolescents in mainstream culture are unfamiliar with visible religious identifiers such as hijabs, yarmulkes, or saris, which can exacerbate religious exclusion. Conversely, if young people see positive representation of these religious and cultural identifiers in media, they may experience less fear associated with religious identifiers.

Theme 2: Struggles Related to Other Religious People

While many participants described struggles with those outside their faith, a second prominent theme involved tensions within religious communities. Angie, a convert to Islam from a Christian faith, shared:

When I was in the [X] church, I hit rock bottom when my parents divorced and then the minister was publicly humiliated because he was having affairs on his wife. That was my loss in trust, my trust was totally broken and my family life was shattered all at the same time.

I had no idea where to go. I wondered, how can these people lead others?… At that time I had hit rock bottom. I had God but I didn’t have a faith.

Angie’s recollection highlights a shared struggle among minorities, which is often overlooked: intrafaith relations, or struggles within one’s own faith community. These religious difficulties are complex, but may include feelings of betrayal, mistrust, exclusion, division, or taking offense. 

In a similar vein, Elijah, a Jewish father, explained a conflict he faced at his synagogue:

I profoundly disagree with institutional Judaism. For [my wife and me], Israel/Palestine is important. It’s actually caused friction between us and various Jewish friends of ours … in the synagogue. I will open my mouth and there will be people who are very upset at me. It’s a little interesting that we both feel … that it’s so important to have a synagogue, but in some ways we do not get along with the people in the synagogue.

Taken together, these stories reveal that while faith communities can be a source of great comfort for religious minority families, they can also be a cause of tension and deep divides. For minority families to flourish in the United States, there is progress to be made on an interfaith level as well as an intrafaith level.

Theme 3: Struggles Related to Misunderstanding and Ignorance

Echoing the damaging stereotype of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, many of the religious minority participants revealed that they experienced feelings of frustration due to misunderstanding, ignorance, and being inaccurately portrayed. Notably, many Muslim families alluded to the pain they have experienced due to misconceptions surrounding the events of 9/11 in 2001 and during the subsequent years. Baseema, a Muslim wife said, “After September 11th you [could] feel it … They … question sometime[s], not with words but with their eyes.”

Another Muslim mother, Aisha, explained, “People think that [after 9-11], “Oh, Muslims, they take this lightly.” We were hurt that people were hurt. So, I think we were more offended that … [many] thought [the terrorism] was a form of … Islamic activity … [instead of the acts of terrorists].”

These poignant accounts invite us to examine our own assumptions about others. As the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues, the danger of a single story lies in its reducing people or groups of humanity to one-dimensional stereotypes, rather than seeing them in multi-dimensional living reality.

Theme 4: Struggles Related to the Demands of Faith Community

The fourth theme, also found across participants from various minority faith traditions, centered on religious demands and expectations within one’s faith, many sharing that they often fall short of the high expectations despite their religious devotion. For example, Rose, a Latter-day Saint mother, explained:

Being a main member of the [congregation] carries a lot of responsibility. We are responsible to support everything. If [we] weren’t there [people ask],“Where were you?” There’s so much that I have to [do] and getting the three little girls [ready for church on top of that]. I really, really try. It’s hard, but I want to support everything and sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the responsibilities.

Rose’s reflection highlights a struggle that can be especially pronounced for religious minorities living in parts of the U.S. where few people share their faith or can offer support. Many also described the added pressure of needing to be exemplary representatives of their faith to those outside their community, further complicating this religious stressor.

Theme 5: Struggles Related to Animosity and Rejection

Without even being asked a related question, about one-eighth of the participants in the study spontaneously described being the victim of hatred, hostility, or rejection—experiences that left lasting impressions on those involved. Violent acts such as arson have disproportionately impacted Jewish synagogues, Black churches, and Muslim mosques (masjids) in the United States. Recent acts of hatred, including a 2024 attack on a Latter-day Saint church in Michigan reaffirm the existence of violent religious prejudice. Moreover, many families in the study reported experiencing acts of bigotry in one form or another. Ibrahim and Jala, a Muslim couple, a few months after 9/11, explained how popular media had been a cause of stress for them:

Ibrahim: It’s been really stressful for all Muslims. It’s tough to even watch the news anymore.

Jala: It’s so depressing.

Ibrahim: There is not one day that goes by without something negative about the Muslims. It’s been very stressful for all of us.

Their words reveal the distress felt by religious minorities who have navigated pervasive assumptions that their faith tradition is inherently violent. As a result, there is pressure to try to counteract false narratives. Another aspect of this theme was highlighted by a Christian father named Thomas, who spoke to the complexities that can arise when engaging with someone of another faith:

Our middle son, Jonathan… about five years ago . . . [he was] maybe going on about four [years old]. [Jonathan] was concerned for the salvation of this little neighbor friend… [who is] Hindu. His mother [also is] Hindu . . . but what happened was [Jonathan] tried to share his faith with him and said, “If you do not believe in God, you’re going to go to hell.” … His [friend’s] mother was very offended by that and now they do not—[well], it’s been five years and they do not play together [anymore]. That [has] hurt.

If this exchange and fallout were painful for Thomas and his son Jonathan, how much pain was experienced by the Hindu friend and his parents? There is significant room for additional learning, religious literacy, and neighborly compassion among us all.

Navigating struggles of difference can be painfully divisive for minority families. For many, it can be especially challenging to accept and respect the differing beliefs of others, when one’s own convictions are so deeply held. With greater empathy, our society can increase its capacity for awareness and sensitivity in avoiding damage and offense—and for humble repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation when damage is done, whether intended or not. This is the healing balm that our world is in greater need of now than ever before.

Hath Not a Jew Eyes?

During a pivotal moment in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock makes a powerful appeal to shared humanity while facing those who have wronged him:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?

Diverse religious convictions may lead us to believe that we are too different to cultivate peace and view one another with empathy, but Shylock posits that we each grieve, suffer, love, and hope —things that make us more alike than we might think. We share so much in common—the things that make us human, many things that matter profoundly.

In examining the struggles experienced by religious minority families in the United States, the need for foundational change is undeniable. The question, then, is where do we begin? 

Both the participants and the researchers involved in the American Families of Faith Project suggest starting with small, intentional steps, such as: (1) asking respectful questions about someone’s beliefs or practices with the intent to listen and learn, (2) attending religious services or celebrations outside one’s own tradition to support a friend, or (3) cultivating friendship with someone of a different faith. While interreligious understanding will not occur overnight, small steps have the power to bridge divides.

As we become a society that listens rather than assumes, and reconciles rather than retaliates, we will begin to see religious minority families not as stereotypes but as people—each with a unique story to tell.

 

If the risk of sexual violence accumulates across economic strain, relational conflict, addiction, trauma, isolation, and distorted beliefs, then it makes sense that prevention, would need to be equally layered. Instead of one-dimensional awareness campaigns or interventions, more effective efforts seek to strengthen individuals, marriages, families, and communities at the same time.

If the first article mapped the terrain of vulnerability, the second this part turns to the work of building protection.

What would it look like to respond proportionately to what the evidence actually shows? If certain patterns repeatedly increase vulnerability, then their opposites ought to must become deliberate priorities. In this section, I outline practical steps—grounded in the research reviewed previously above—that families, faith communities, and civic institutions can take to reduce risk and expand real protection for women and children.

The protection of healthy, genuine faith

In part one, I outlined ways that limited religious community and faith commitment can increase the risk of sexual violence against women. The opposite is also true, with religious affiliation, identification and participation often protective against sexual violence according to studies in various countries. For instance:

• A family’s “affiliation with Christian religious denominations” is “associated with lower risk of physical and sexual violence” in India (Kimuna, et al., 2013). 
• Being a Muslim was “protective from any type” of intimate partner violence” including “sexual and emotional” in the Ivory Coast (Peltzer & Pengpid, 2014). 
• The latter finding is mirrored in an earlier study finding Muslim religion protective against intimate partner violence in six African countries (Alio, et al., 2010).

Beyond affiliation alone, regular church attendance was specifically protective against victimization as well (Lown & Vega, 2001; O’Connor, et al., 2023). Respondents with higher levels of religious involvement in different studies were less likely to report intimate partner victimization (Zavala & Muniz, 2020) -with the latter U.S. research team noting this finding was “consistent with prior studies looking at the relationship between religious beliefs and intimate partner violence.” For instance: 

• “Frequent church attendance” is among the factors “associated with decreased risk of violence” in Filipino homes according to Fehringer & Hindin, 2009—who report “less male perpetration if mothers attended church more often”—in line with other findings, as they say “other research supports a protective effect of church attendance on partner violence.” 
• The same research team observed in a second article that “regular church attendance by the wife” and “regular church attendance by the husband” were both associated with lower risk of perpetrating violence in a marriage (Ansara & Hindin, 2009).
• Fergusson, et al., 1986 highlighted “church attendance” as a significant factor in the frequency of “wife assault” in New Zealand—with the religious attendance of both fathers and mothers making the perpetration of victimization within their relationship less likely. They specifically found that men and women least likely to commit domestic violence were those who participate in services once a month or more are least -followed by those who attend less than monthly.
• In an analysis of U.S. couples two decades ago, Ellison, et al., 1999 likewise reported that “regular attendance at religious services” made domestic violence perpetration less likely. “Both men and women who attend religious services regularly are less likely to commit acts of domestic violence than persons who attend rarely or not at all,” they observed—noting that for men, it was only when they participated weekly that this effect showed up, while women also had a protective effect with monthly attendance. 

Overall, “religiosity does decrease (intimate partner) victimization” report Ellison, et al., 2007 based on a U.S. survey—adding that “religious involvement, specifically church attendance, protects against domestic violence”—a “protective effect,” which they note, is “stronger for African American men and women and for Hispanic men, groups that, for a variety of reasons, experience elevated risk for this type of violence.”

As reflected above, studies show repeatedly that faith participation can prevent both perpetration and victimization. This seems, in part, due to pro-social teachings, avoidance of risky behavior and a sense of higher purpose and meaning.

Victims often described in studies how leaders and fellow congregants helped them get away from earlier abuse and begin to find healing. This is not always true, of course—with certain attitudes held by people of faith sometimes functioning as a barrier to healing and safety. Indeed, another set of studies point towards less healthy religious attitudes that leave women at greater risk for different kinds of abuse.

Conflicting evidence

Even so, the influence of religion is not as simple as described above—with more nuance to consider. Psychological, physical and sexual violence had a “significant association” with evangelical faith in a Brazilian study—with the authors reporting a “33% increase in intimate partner sexual abuse in life in evangelical women, compared to those who do not belong to this group” (Santos, et al., 2020). 

A set of other studies in Africa have also found families who were Muslim at greater risk of victimization (in Ethiopia Agumasie & Bezatu, 2015; in Kenya Ward & Harlow, et al., 2021; in Nigeria Bolarinwa, et al., 2022; in Malawi Forty, 2022). 

How exactly to interpret these and other seemingly contradictory findings is a critical point, something I explore in-depth in my full report. In simple form, not all religiosity is the same, with religious faith that allows men to dominate women, or which does not place serious emphasis on avoiding alcohol or casual sex, putting women (and children) at risk. 

“Misinterpretation of religious beliefs” was cited in a Pakistani analysis of influences on sexual and other kinds of violence at home, with the authors advocating for “public policy informed by correct interpretation of religion” which they said could prompt “a change in prevailing societal norms.”

After analyzing data from the Philippines, another research team notes that religious institutions may reduce the risk of violence in a relationship “by promoting messages encouraging a commitment to family life, providing counseling in conflict resolution or alcohol-related problems, providing information about resources in the community …. and providing an opportunity for strengthening social networks.”

In addition, there’s also evidence that sincere, “intrinsic” religious practice and conviction among men and women functions as a more powerful protector against sexual violence and other abuse, while more superficial, “extrinsic” religious conviction simply does not. It seems clear that “weak commitment to religion” could be a factor in victimization within a relationship, Vakili, et al., 2010 notes that a “woman and husband’s weak level of religious commitment” in Iran was “significantly associated with an increase in physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.” 

The authors later said that “strong religious beliefs may be instrumental in reducing the likelihood of intimate partner violence among Iranian families” (Vakili, et al., 2010). In the other direction, deeper and more sincere religious conviction shows promising effects—with “religious intensity” associated in another study with a “lower victimization count” (Sabina, et al., 2013). 

Complex, overlapping patterns of vulnerability

While this broad array of variables involved in increasing (or decreasing) the risk for sexual violence can seem overwhelming, I believe it can be invaluable to know that, broadly speaking, women and men who have experienced significant past abuse, who are under heavy current stress and financial pressures and are experiencing compromised faculties, significant conflict and real isolation, are all at much higher risk of future victimization (and perpetration)—especially if they have little awareness about the extent of the risk. 

By contrast, women and men who have been protected from past abuse, who are not facing current heavy stress or compromised faculties, who don’t have significant conflict or isolation, will all be significantly more protected against future victimization (and perpetration)—especially if they have adequate awareness about the extent of the risk. 

To the degree a woman or man falls on a higher or lower place on any of these spectrums (more past trauma, but lower stress levels today … less conflict, but also greater isolation), their level of risk (and protection) will likewise vary widely. 

In addition, women who are less educated, divorced, addicted (or with partners addicted to alcohol or pornography) are more likely to experience sexual violence—especially if they experience inadequate financial support, limited healthy community commitments, and a dearth of higher meaning and spiritual purpose in life.

Even one risk factor can have rippling effects—with the sheer, cumulative risk of risk factors also corresponding with greater risk. One researcher, for instance, observed “six percent of young white women with no risk factors, nine percent of those with one, 26 percent of those with two, and 68 percent of those with three or more had been sexually abused before or during adolescence” (Moore, et al., 1989). 

Certainly, none of the above factors operates in a vacuum independent of each other—with interlinkages among all ten factors. For instance, people of faith are also more likely to avoid drug/alcohol dependency, experience nurturing social support and be happily married (while also having more children).

But overall, the research makes it clear that perpetrators focus on places where any vulnerability exists. For instance, women of younger age and much older age are both more likely to be victimized, as are those with reduced cognitive or physical capacity due to disability or prior victimization.

Some factors are more changeable than others, obviously. But even those that appear unchangeable (past abuse) have interventions that can prompt healing. On a general level, as reflected above, “a person’s routine and lifestyle influences the level of exposure one has to potential perpetrators and how vulnerable one is as a target,” as Walker, et al., 2020 state. Consequently, “the identification of variables that influence likelihood of (sexual violence) is fundamental for prevention efforts” (Thomas & Kopel, 2023). 

Alignment with other studies

Many of these themes have been identified in other attempts to survey available risk factors, such as a CDC analysis from 2016, which touched on most of the above patterns, but overlooked the potentially protective role of faith and religiosity.

This national and international data also align with demographic data collected locally in Utah, showing higher vulnerability to sexual violence among women who are homeless, with lower socioeconomic status, using drugs or alcohol, in minority groups, younger, or experiencing some kind of physical or mental impairments.

One especially impressive University of Washington literature review from 2017 concluded that the available evidence “reinforces the long-standing notion that sexual aggression is a complex behavior that emerges based on the interplay of multiple risk factors over time.”

“Additionally,” they note “there are likely very different pathways to the development of sexually aggressive behavior. 

As Casey & Masters, 2017 conclude, “This means that preventing sexual aggression before it begins necessitates prioritizing multiple risk factors, and bolstering multiple protective factors across individuals and communities.” 

The only real purpose of such study, of course, is taking better steps to protect women from sexual violence. 

Better data, better prevention

The CDC advocated nearly two decades ago for building a comprehensive ecological model that “offers a framework for understanding the complex interplay of individual, relationship, social, political, cultural, and environmen­tal factors that influence sexual violence” —all of which they note can inform specific intervention and prevention steps.

In an early 2004 exploration of what sexual violence prevention programs should look like, the CDC called for prevention efforts that “work to modify and/or entirely eliminate the events, conditions, situations, or exposure to influences (risk factors) that result in the initiation of sexual violence” and thereby proactively take steps to “prevent sexual violence from initially occurring.” 

Yet a decade later in 2014, CDC researchers admitted (as I cited earlier) “rates of sexual violence remain alarmingly high, and we still know very little about how to prevent it,” going on to describe how most prevention efforts were largely “one dimensional” attempts to change individual attitudes, and little more. 

Kathleen C. Basile, Associate Director for Science in the Division of Violence Prevention, in the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC, told me in an interview with Deseret News, “I would also add that sexual violence, intimate partner violence, all types of violence are preventable, and the way we prevent them, like you alluded to earlier, is to understand the size of the problem and who is impacted, and so the characteristics, like who the perpetrators are, who, what age, it happens, things like that” (italics my own). 

In a 2014 review of strategies to prevent sexual violence perpetration, CDC researchers stated that “the vast majority of preventative interventions evaluated to date have failed to demonstrate sufficient evidence of impact on sexual violence perpetration behaviors.”

They went on to call for “an evidence-based, comprehensive, multi-level strategy to combat sexual violence,” suggesting that “addressing a broader range of risk and protective factors for sexual violence may be more likely to be effective.”

Two years later in 2016, the CDC released a prevention resource prevent sexual violence called “STOP SV”—noting that although the evidence for sexual violence prevention is “less developed” than other areas of prevention, “a comprehensive approach with preventive interventions at multiple levels of the social ecological model (i.e., individual, relationship, community, and societal) is critical to having a population level impact on SV.” But they noted that evidence remained “limited and must continuously be built through rigorous evaluation.” 

As CDC researchers summarized in 2016, “Risk for sexual violence perpetration is influenced by a range of factors, including characteristics of the individual and their social and physical environments. These factors interact with one another to increase or decrease risk for SV over time and within specific contexts.” 

CDC researchers also wrote in 2016 that “prevention strategies that address risk and protective factors for sexual violence at the community level are important components of a comprehensive approach,” before lamenting that “few such strategies have been identified or evaluated.” 

Ten life patterns that increase protection 

Our review of these root contributors paints a picture of what deeper strategies of protection would look like. For instance, men who are less educated, financially struggling, addicted, isolated, emotionally unhealthy, promiscuous and spiritually disengaged, are also more likely to perpetrate sexually on vulnerable women.

There’s also protective power in more fully appreciating that women and men who are better off economically, have good educational experiences, and are embedded within both healthy marriages and supportive communities are less vulnerable to sexual violence. This is doubly true if they also avoid substance abuse and habits of risky, casual sexual relations with multiple people, while nourishing a healthy spiritual foundation.

Here are the ten steps that follow from this research broken down: 

• Helping lift families and communities out of poverty
• Expanding educational opportunities for both women and men

• Helping nurture marriages and families that are healthy and happy

• Providing additional support for younger and larger families

• Helping to prevent compulsivity and support addicts in finding freedom

• Encouraging the value of sexually-exclusive marriages and healthy, non-aggressive masculinity

• Fostering deeper healing for mental health challenges

• Helping those who have experienced earlier abuse to work through post-traumatic symptoms

• Expanding robust community connections and durable social support

• Fostering healthy spirituality and religious connection

To see a broader summary of concrete steps, go here for the Deseret News article.  Some of these ten themes are reflected in a 2016 prevention resource released by the CDC called “STOP SV.” This resource highlighted research-based recommendations that include efforts to “provide opportunities to empower and support girls and women, support victims/survivors to lessen harms, create protective environments, teach skills to prevent sexual violence and promote social norms that protect against violence.”

As reflected above, some of the best ways to ensure women remain safe may be to proactively encourage life and community patterns proven to protect against both victimization and perpetration, including:

• Healthy marriages that are cooperative and satisfying, surrounded by layers of trustworthy community support.
• An atmosphere where education is prioritized and there are adequate resources to provide for the financial needs of the family, while helping both men and women avoid drugs and alcohol, delay sexual behavior until marriage, and learn how to control anger and impulses.
• A hopeful environment that nurtures healing from past trauma and current mental health challenges, while ideally also providing a grounding sense of higher purpose and spiritual meaning.

According to the evidence, women embedded in this kind of a context will be significantly less likely to be sexually victimized (or abused in other ways)—compared with those living within chaotic settings with poor education, financial deficits, fraying marriages, spiritual detachment, few healing resources, rampant substance abuse, sexual promiscuity and out of control anger.

Just as any vulnerability can be exploited by perpetrators, any time a vulnerability is shored up and turned into a strength, there is more protection against multiple kinds of abuse. Therefore, if we want to get at the roots of sexual victimization, more focus needs to go towards these kinds of protective life patterns, and additional ways to encourage and promote them.

Special thanks to Laura Whitney, Odessa Taylor, Jacob Orse, and Brigham Powelson for helping to gather and sift through published studies, and to Diana Gourley for helping edit the review. In addition to recent support from Deseret News, the author expresses thanks to Public Square Magazine for initial funding for the project.

 

 

Many religious conservatives believe the traditional liberal order is failing. And looking at the data, they have a point.

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

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

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

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

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

Many on the right are answering yes. If progressive ideology uses state power to advance its vision, we should use state power to advance ours. If secular institutions fail to form character, religious institutions backed by law should step in. If the family is collapsing, perhaps government should incentivize or even mandate family structures.

I understand this impulse. I share the alarm.

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

Liberty as a Familiar Alternative

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

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

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

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

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

Liberty in God’s Plan

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

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

You cannot force someone to become godly. Coerced compliance does not develop divine capacity. It produces obedience without understanding, behavior without character, conformity without transformation. God is independently good; His holiness flows from what He is, not from rules imposed on Him. If we are supposed to become like that, we must learn to choose righteousness freely, internalizing virtue until it becomes our nature, not just our compliance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Risks of Reaching for State Power

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

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

The authority you claim to enforce your values is the identical authority that will be used to suppress them. The liberty you extend to others to build institutions you disagree with is the same liberty that protects our Church’s freedom to operate. The most durable defense to our LDS community is not winning the culture war through state power. It is ensuring state power cannot be used to settle cultural questions at all.

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

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

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

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

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

The Path Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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What conditions make violence against women more likely?

I first began asking this after an experience as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Northeastern Brazil, when we passed by a home where a woman had just, the night prior, been killed by her husband.

I’ll never forget that day. Neighbors were speaking on the street in hushed tones about how they had heard the screams. Rather than a surprise, this woman’s violent death seemed to have followed years of torment at the hands of her husband—so much so that some who lived close-by admitted they had become used to it.

How was this even possible? How could anything like this take place, I wondered, especially at the hands not of strangers, but of men most responsible to nurture, love and protect?

Women around the world continue to face disheartening levels of violence from husbands, boyfriends, dates, colleagues and sometimes strangers. Perhaps if we understood—truly understood, at a deeper level—why such abuse was taking place, we could do something more about it.

Several years ago, Public Square Magazine generously provided initial funding for me to gather a research team to gather published studies around the world that get at the roots of this question. Our small team reviewed thousands of studies to identify those focused specifically on risk factors for sexual violence. 

Our team paid careful attention to risk factors for both sexual perpetration and victimization. The studies explored span the globe, uniting insights from dedicated research teams doing incredible work in many countries and across a wide variety of settings (campuses, workplaces and homes). We also paid careful attention to general studies of “domestic violence” or “intimate partner violence,” which tend to include some degree of sexual coercion and abuse as well.

Earlier this year, I completed this review of 500 abuse studies (285 adult, 215 youth), publishing a summary version of these results in the Deseret News, and the full-length, 73 page version also posted on my Substack last month. 

In this project, we have hoped to add to the ongoing, international project to “further unravel the complicated … interactions related to victimization,” as European analysts wrote recently—ultimately considering how “specific combinations of characteristics may contribute to an increased likelihood of victimization.”

Clearly, there’s no simple cause of any of this, accurately described by one research team in Kenya recently as a problem that is “complex and multifaceted.” The CDC likewise advocated nearly two decades ago for building a comprehensive ecological model that “offers a framework for understanding the complex interplay of individual, relationship, social, political, cultural and environmen­tal factors that influence sexual violence.”

In 2014, however, other CDC researchers admitted, “Rates of sexual violence remain alarmingly high, and we still know very little about how to prevent it.”

The good news is that if we can capture a clearer picture of what’s really making this kind of tragic violence against women more likely, we can then take more effective steps to eradicate this evil which terrorizes so many women (of all ages and backgrounds) around the world today.

Here, I provide a summary analysis of patterns that make sexual violence against women more likely—with a deeper focus on patterns in relation to faith and religiosity. After reviewing these results, I will touch on practical steps that families and communities can take—each of which follow from these findings. 

10 patterns associated with increased vulnerability

1. Fragile family economic well-being

Women growing up in difficult economic circumstances (insufficient family income, lack of employment, food insecurity) are more vulnerable to being victimized sexually—while men growing up in these same circumstances are more vulnerable to becoming sexually aggressive.

The opposite is also true in homes where economic needs are met (sufficient income, employment and food), consistently showing men and women in these families being protected from being drawn into sexual violence and other kinds of abuse too.

While having paid work outside the home acts as a preventive measure against sexual violence for some women, many studies in developing countries find the opposite—with formal employment sometimes heightening a risk of victimization for women, especially those with isolated jobs or which involve night shifts.

2. Limited educational opportunities

Studies around the world show women to be more vulnerable to sexual violence when they have little to no education. Men are also more likely to be sexually aggressive when they are illiterate, or have a lower level of formal education.

The opposite is again true, with women who have more years of education frequently less likely to be victimized and men with more education are also less likely to perpetrate sexual violence.

There are exceptions to this protective effect from education since some campus environments appear to raise the risk of sexual violence. And there are some parts of the world where a woman with more education than her husband somehow raises her risk of being victimized.

3. Living in an unhealthy, conflicted intimate relationship

Women who are divorced, cohabiting or living alone are all at greater risk for sexual violence, according to different studies. None of this means married women are automatically safer, however, with so much depending on how cooperative and happy a marriage is, along with how much serious conflict is involved.

A number of studies confirm that how well a couple is able to work together in decision-making has an influence on their risk for different kinds of abuse. And unsurprisingly, when higher levels of control exist in a marriage, there is simultaneously a greater likelihood for all types of abuse. Men with less empathy and more hostility generally are also more likely to perpetrate violence of various kinds.

4. Raising young children without adequate support

According to multiple studies, the presence of children in a home increases a mother’s risk level for abuse victimization generally—likely due to the added stress this places upon marriages and families.

Whether due to marital conflict, economic struggles, mental health challenges or additional children, families enduring heightened levels of stress clearly appear more vulnerable to different kinds of abuse.

Even the addition of a single child raises victimization risk, with studies also showing heightened vulnerability to abuse at the hands of an intimate partner during pregnancy. Sadly, women unable to have children face additional victimization risk. And in some parts of the world, having a daughter instead of a son likewise increases the risk of victimization.

The quality of parenting clearly makes a difference for what a child’s future safety will be as adults. A home life that is chaotic, disrupted, impoverished, with parents who are uneducated, addicted or divorced, raises the risk of eventual victimization for that child as they become an adult.

5. Drug and alcohol abuse

Few factors have received more consistent empirical verification than the impact of alcohol and drugs—not only on men who are significantly more likely to perpetrate sexually under the influence of substances, but also on women who are more likely to be sexually victimized under the influence.

As Italian researchers summarize, “alcohol can impair cognition, distort reality, increase aggression, and ease drug-facilitated sexual assault.”

Drug use can also “render a victim incapable of defending themselves or unable to avoid dangerous situations where victimization may occur” according to U.S. researchers.

This is especially true with heavy, regular substance use, which U.S. researchers in one campus study called “one factor that has been found in most studies to be associated with higher risk for sexual aggression.”

There appears to be even higher vulnerability when both a man and woman are under the influence, with one U.S. research team concluding, “the amount of alcohol consumed by both perpetrators and victims also predicted the amount of aggression and type of sexual assault.”

If you grew up in a home with alcohol or were exposed to alcohol and other substances at an early age, there’s also evidence of increased risk for sexual violence as an adult. Alcohol is also one major reason sexual violence is often higher in college, especially campuses with a cultural acceptance of heavy drinking as a social norm.

6. Early, risky, casual sexual behavior

When women have sexual experiences earlier in life, they are at greater risk of sexual violence—especially when that involves casual “hook-ups” with multiple people. One research team called this “simple probability,” in that “multiplying partners would increase the chances of being involved with a violent partner.”

Repeatedly, studies also confirm that higher numbers of sexual partners increase the likelihood of men perpetrating sexual violence.

Cohabitation and extramarital affairs likewise raise the risk of sexual violence, as does overall impulsivity. For example, gambling is associated with increased risk of both perpetration and victimization.

In the other direction, stronger impulse control and overall self-control unsurprisingly protect against sexual violence.

Relatedly, over 100 studies have linked compulsive pornography use to sexual aggression, coercion and violence against women and children. For instance, one 2015 analysis examining 22 studies from 7 different countries concluded that pornography consumption was “associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females, and in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.”

7. Ongoing, significant mental health challenges

It’s expected that victims would experience depression and anxiety in the difficult aftermath of abuse. There’s also evidence that women who experience mental health problems are at greater, additional risk of being victimized sexually—as are those who endure traumatic effects from any previous abuse.

Studies also find that men with different mental health challenges, including depression and bipolar disorder, can sometimes be at greater risk of perpetration. And there are cases in which medical treatments appear to have prompted sexual aggression among male patients that was “wholly alien to their character and antithetical to their prior behavior,” in the words of one psychiatrist.

In terms of victimization, Canadian researchers also note several studies confirming that “psychotropic drug abuse” can sometimes alter women’s judgment and “keep them from recognizing and avoiding dangerous situations and defending themselves against an attack.”

8. Adverse childhood experiences and young adult aggression

The atmosphere of one’s family upbringing can influence risk for sexual victimization and perpetration as an adult. Studies highlight lower levels of earlier “family cohesion” and “emotional expressiveness in the family” as predicting later abuse.

Witnessing significant fighting between a mother and father as a child also raises later victimization risk—especially if that conflict is unresolved and leads to separation and divorce. Any type of family disruption and residential displacement increases the risk of sexual victimization and exploitation. This risk rises to an entirely new level, however, for children who have witnessed parents hurting each other physically, emotionally or sexually.

When those children get hurt emotionally or physically, they experience even more risk for victimization or perpetration when they grow up. This is especially true when children are sexually victimized, with German researchers observing that “sexual abuse in childhood increases the odds of experiencing and engaging in sexual aggression in adolescence and young adulthood.”

This has been known for decades now, with U.S. researchers stating back in 1998, “childhood sexual abuse consistently predicted sexual re-victimization in adulthood.”

That risk rises even more when multiple kinds of early abuse are involved, with Swedish researchers reporting that exposure to different kinds of abuse in childhood was “found to be the most potent risk factor for sexual violence in adulthood among adult women.”

When women experience sexual violence as a young adult—be that from a boyfriend or stranger—they are also more likely to be victimized again (even repeatedly).

9. Limited social support and expanding isolation

One pattern that seems especially clear empirically is that anytime a woman is isolated she is more at risk. This includes women who: (1) communicate less with their own family of origin, (2) live at a residence with no other adults, (3) have only a transient place of residence, (4) live in a rented house (especially by themselves), (5) work a night shift, and (6) experience barriers to healthcare access.

Women who are refugees or immigrants also experience elevated risk of victimization, especially when a language barrier exists or when they are undocumented. And ethnic and gender minorities often experience heightened risk, likely due to associated social isolation or economic disadvantage.

This may also explain why women (and children) living in a “post-conflict” zone or areas that have recently endured natural disasters experience heightened risk for sexual victimization.

In the other direction, those women who report experiencing the support of friends, family and surrounding community are less likely to be victimized sexually. 

But a lot depends on the attitudes of surrounding relationships. It’s clearly no great protection to be surrounded by in-laws or other neighbors who see violence in a marriage as “sometimes justified.” And being around friends who also experience sexual violence or normalize any kind of abuse also measurably raises the risk of victimization for women.

Clearly, not all communities have equal levels of awareness of this problem. That is even more apparent when we look back through different time periods in history when global awareness of this danger was far less.

10. Limited religious community and faith commitment

Religious faith plays an important role in the risk for sexual violence. For instance, one set of studies finds a lack of religious affiliation to be associated with more likelihood of sexual perpetration among men and sexual victimization among women. For instance: 

• “Low religious involvement” in the family raises risk for abuse among immigrant women in Spain (Vives-Cases, et al., 2014). 
• Women “lacking religious commitment” are at greater risk of victimization in Mozambique (Maguele, et al., 2020).  
• “Lack of faith and lower attendance at religious services correlated with higher levels of abuse” according to U.S. researchers—sharing their findings that women abused during pregnancy “professed less religious faith and religious service attendance” (Dunn & Oths, 2004). 
• “Being less involved in religious activities” is among the “risk factors for dating victimization” (Vézina & Hébert, 2007). 
• “Non-Christians were at increased risk for clinically significant intimate partner violence victimization” in a study of U.S. Air Force personnel (Foran, et al., 2011).
• There is higher risk of intimate partner violence among women who “practiced no religion” in a Kenyan study (Memiah, et al., 2021). 
• “Being without religion” is “associated with increased chances of rape” in a Brazilian study (Diehl, et al., 2022). 
• Citing “lack of church attendance” as one of the characteristics that are “common risk factors for abuse,” Lown & Vega, 2001 found additional evidence that “no or infrequent church attendance” among women was among a set of factors associated with more intimate partner violence. “No church attendance or infrequent church attendance significantly increased the odds of intimate partner violence” among women, they stated—adding that “religious involvement has been shown to be protective in previous studies as it was in our sample.”
• After summarizing Fergusson, et al., 1986’s finding that couples attending church most often in New Zealand were also least likely to report violence in their relationship, Ellison & Anderson, 2001 continued to describe the “graded pattern” this earlier research team found: “On the other hand, men and women who never attend religious services are much more likely than their more religious counterparts to engage in domestic violence.” This research team goes on to report their own research that “shows that religious communities can provide a haven and resource for the victims of abuse, particularly through the informal support networks of church women.”

These effects of low faith show up with male partners as well: 

• “Men with no religious affiliation” are among the “significant predictors” of intimate partner violence in another Brazilian study (Zaleski, et al., 2010). 
• Intimate partner violence is is more common among women whose husbands “attend church less frequently” according to Hindin & Adair, 2002. These researchers report in the Philippines that intimate partner violence (IPV) is “less likely with more household assets, and more frequent church attendance by the husband.” They go on to emphasize the value of “finding additional activities, like attending church, where men might be receptive to messages that discourage IPV or that promote the value of communication.” 

The patterns reviewed above make one thing unmistakably clear: sexual violence does not emerge from nowhere. It grows in environments of accumulated strain—economic fragility, relational conflict, addiction, isolation, untreated trauma, and, often, spiritual disengagement. No single factor guarantees harm. But when vulnerabilities stack, risk rises.

Understanding these patterns is not about assigning blame; it is about identifying leverage points for more effective protection. If certain life conditions consistently increase danger, then strengthening their opposites—education, stability, supportive community, emotional health, and genuine, healthy faith—becomes a meaningful path toward prevention.

In Part II, I will move from patterns of vulnerability to practical application—examining what families, congregations, and communities can proactively and specifically do to interrupt these cycles and build stronger layers of safety around women and children.

Special thanks to Laura Whitney, Odessa Taylor, Jacob Orse, and Brigham Powelson for helping to gather and sift through published studies, and to Diana Gourley for helping edit the review. In addition to recent support from Deseret News, the author expresses thanks to Public Square Magazine for initial funding for the project.

 

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

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

But the surge of voters registering as independent shows that neither party is following that incentive, at least not officially. In recent decades, electoral wins have not come from large coalitions but increasingly energized base supporters. Parties aren’t courting average Americans but rather their most engaged believers. From Rah-Rah Republicans to Die-Hard Democrats, we see this playing out in real time.

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

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

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

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

I learned the importance of partisan civic engagement through my own experience. In 2024, I attended my local Republican caucus night. After discussion with the people in my precinct, it became clear that none of the likely state delegate candidates for our precinct matched my views of the party. I then decided to run as a delegate to the state convention. The small gathering quickly became divided and resulted in a tied vote between another candidate and me. 

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

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

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

This is just more reason to be involved. Who do you think decides a party platform? Too often, we forget that parties are beholden to the people and not the other way around. Criticizing your own party in pursuit of its overall improvement can even be considered patriotic. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre theorized that patriotism should mean holding the nation as the primary object of regard. However, he asserted that while the nation as an ideal and project should be exempt from criticism, the makeup of its government and policies should never be exempt from critiques.

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

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

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

 

I used to think “spiritual” was the grown-man upgrade to “religious.”

Like—spiritual felt clean. No committees. No awkward handshakes. No side-eyes. No church drama. Just me, God, a little sunrise, maybe some music that makes your chest feel bigger than your problems. And if I’m being honest, that idea appealed to me for a reason: I learned early how to survive people, not trust them. I learned the value of a guarded heart. I could talk smooth, move careful, keep my circle tight. And when you’ve been burned enough times, anything that says “you don’t need anybody” starts sounding like freedom.

So yeah. Spirituality can seem better because it doesn’t require anyone but yourself.

It’s you and your thoughts. You and your intentions. You and your version of God—custom fit, no annoying humans included. Nothing messy. Nothing disappointing. Nothing to suggest anything is short of perfect. No one to hurt you. No one to do the unforgivable. 

But let me say this plain: religion is people. 

The difference between organized religion and spirituality is people. 

That’s what makes religion, religion—the existence of other human beings in the room, breathing, bringing their baggage, their wounds, their opinions, their insecurities, their goofy laugh, their bad timing, their power trips, their trauma responses, their whole unhealed history… and then we all try to reach for God together. That’s not a bug in the system. That’s the system.

Saying we don’t agree with organized religion, but believe in a higher power, feels safe because it can never disappoint us. It suggests that our standards are too good, too pure to associate with the disaster of other people trying to connect with God. 

That part used to offend me, because I wanted my faith to feel pristine. I wanted God without the mess. I wanted the mountaintop without the climb. I wanted “the Spirit” without Sister So-and-So being petty, without Brother What’s-His-Name talking like he’s the CEO of righteousness, without somebody acting like their calling gives them the right to treat people like furniture. And I don’t want to undersell the problems of people. They aren’t just delightfully messy in a cute way you could still show on your Insta. This is pride, racism, abuse. Being around these people caused me real wounds. 

I wanted a relationship with God that didn’t come with… humans and the pain they cause.

But spirituality without others—if we’re keeping it all the way real—can turn kind of pointless.

Not because your inner life doesn’t matter. It matters. Deeply. Your private prayers, your healing, your introspection, the quiet work nobody claps for—that’s sacred.

But there’s a trap: when it’s only you, you can stay “holy” inside your own head forever. You can feel enlightened without ever being inconvenienced. You can feel loving without ever having to love somebody who’s hard to love. You can feel patient without anybody testing your patience. You can feel forgiving without anybody actually wronging you. It’s easy to be spiritually rich in a world where nobody is ever taxing you.

Who cares if something feels pristine and perfect in your own brain if it never becomes love in the real world?

Because God—at least the God I’m trying to know—doesn’t just show up in the perfect parts of me. He pulls up in the spaces between people. In the friction. In the gap between your intentions and somebody else’s misunderstanding. In the moment you want to clap back but you choose peace. In the moment you could hate somebody, but you don’t. In the moment you could walk away, but you stay and you try again.

God often appears in the spaces made between people’s imperfections.

That’s why that scripture hits so hard. It’s basically a spiritual gut-check: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

People quote that like it’s a description—like, “Oh, if you don’t love everybody perfectly, you must not love God.” And that’s not how I hear it anymore. I hear it as a challenge. A mirror. A direction.

Because it’s so easy to love abstractions.

I can love “humanity.” I can love “the world.” I can love “people” in general. I can love “community” as a concept. I can love “God” in a poetic way—big, cosmic, clean, untouchable.

But loving real, flawed people? 

People who are rude. People who ignore you and judge you. People who switch up when they get a little authority. People who act holy but move sweaty. People who talk about grace and show none. People who are needy. People who are loud. People who are insecure and make you pay for it. People who remind you of the stuff you’re trying to outgrow. 

That’s where the work is.

So what the verse is saying—at least how it lands in me—is this: you can’t really claim love for God while refusing love for God’s kids. Not because God needs you to be fake-nice, but because love has to become practical or it’s just poetry.

If your love never leaves your mouth or your journal and touches another person’s life, it’s not love yet. It’s rehearsal.

And that’s why I respect the bluntness of Mosiah 2:17. It doesn’t romanticize it. It doesn’t leave it vague. It just puts it on the ground where we actually live: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

That’s the whole thing. You want to love God? Love the people around you. It’s easy to love the thing you can’t see. But it’s not real, it’s not authentic, until you’re doing the work of loving the people you can.

And yes, it’s hard.

Not “hard” like a puzzle. Hard like weights. Hard like rehab. Hard like unlearning. Hard like swallowing your pride. Hard like choosing not to become the same kind of person who hurt you. Hard like doing kindness while your feelings are still catching up.

Because community will show you who you are.

Spirituality alone can let you curate yourself. Religion—with actual people—will expose you. It will bring out your impatience. Your need to be right. Your craving for recognition. Your tendency to withdraw. Your tendency to control. Your fear of being seen. Your old temper that’s “under control” until somebody disrespects you in a meeting. Your old mouth that’s “sanctified” until someone says something absolutely out of line. 

I’m saying this as someone who’s cleaned up a lot of my worst tendencies, but I still know exactly where they live. I know what version of me shows up when I feel dismissed. I know what version of me shows up when somebody tries to son me. I know what version of me shows up when I’m tired, underappreciated, and surrounded by people acting like their imperfections don’t stink.

And here’s the thing: the goal of religion was never to provide me a perfect experience.

Religion is not a luxury spa for the soul.

It’s a workshop.

It’s a space where God takes a bunch of broken, brilliant, annoying, beautiful humans and says, “Okay. Now learn to be family.”

That’s why the vision of “Zion” matters so much. Zion isn’t just a vibe. It’s not just “good energy.” Zion is a community reality—people becoming one, not by pretending they’re perfect, but by practicing love until it’s real. It’s the long, stubborn project of building a place where God can dwell because the people are learning to dwell together.

And you can’t build Zion alone.

Even if you’re the most spiritually advanced person on your block, you can’t build a community by yourself. You can’t practice “one another” in a mirror. You can’t “bear burdens” when you refuse to be burdened with people. You can’t learn forgiveness without somebody needing it from you. You can’t become gentle without having to handle sharp edges—yours and theirs.

So yeah, I get why folks bounce from religion to spirituality. I get why they say, “It’s just me and God.” I get why you think you’re too good, too pure, too smart for “organized religion.” Because people are exhausting. Church hurt is real. Hypocrisy is loud. Control shows up wearing a tie. Judgment can hide behind scripture. 

But I am here to say: don’t confuse the mess of people with the absence of God.

Sometimes, the mess is exactly where God is working.

Sometimes the whole point is that you learn to find Him there—inside the awkward conversations, the forgiveness you didn’t want to offer, the apology you didn’t want to make, the patience you didn’t think you had, the service you did quietly, the love you gave when you didn’t get love back.

Because anybody can love God when God stays an idea.

The question is: can you love God when God shows up as the person who annoys you? Or who disrespects the culture? Or who doesn’t know the norms? Or who wants you to stay in your place? 

That’s the challenge. Not a condemnation—an invitation.

And let me be clear: the point isn’t that all that wrong being done to you is okay. It’s not. It’s that working together to grow is the journey God asks us to go on. Accountability and correction and reminders can be holy just like patience and forgiveness. You can love somebody and still say, “Nah, you can’t talk to me like that.” Love isn’t weakness. Love is strength, but love is humility too. 

And love does require contact with reality.

It requires other faces, other stories, other tempers, other needs.

It requires a “we.”

That’s what religion gives you—when it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. Not perfection. Practice. Not a flawless room. A refining fire.

And I’m starting to believe this: God doesn’t just save individuals. He builds a people.

So when I’m tempted to choose the clean version of faith—the version where it’s just me, my thoughts, my private peace—I try to remember: that’s not the whole assignment.

The whole assignment is to pursue God in the middle of the trouble.

In the middle of the awkward small talk.
In the middle of the misunderstood moments.
In the middle of the personalities.
In the middle of the inconvenient needs.
In the middle of my own ego getting exposed.

Because that’s where love becomes more than a concept.

That’s where spirituality becomes flesh and bone.

That’s where God—often quiet, often humble—shows up in the space between our imperfections and teaches us to call it holy.

 

This article is part of a four‑part series that draws from insights in our forthcoming book, Exemplary, Strong Black Marriages & Families (Routledge, in press).

About 25 years ago, an LSU graduate class read Family Life in Black America, a nearly 400-page volume written by leading social scientists. Near the end of a class discussion, a Black student named Katrina Hopkins raised her hand and posed a piercing question: “Why is there not a single chapter in this book that talks about strong, marriage-based Black families like mine?” Katrina found no adequate response.

It has taken nearly 25 years, but the high-profile journal Marriage & Family Review recently dedicated an entire special issue to that topic. Nearly half of the pieces in this special issue are based on BYU’s American Families of Faith project, a 25-year study of the strengths and characteristics of a diverse group of highly religious spouses, with which the authors of this article are affiliated. Of the roughly 300 families in the American Families of Faith Project, 46 were Black. An emerging insight from the research was this: strong Black families were built on serving others. In this article, we share three insights on the service that contributes to strong Black marriages and families. 

Meeting Others’ Physical Needs

For the exemplary Black families we interviewed, service through physical care of others was central to the life and marriages these women and men had built together. 

Caring for the sick was one way of serving the physical needs of others. Jacquie, a Christian wife, described her husband’s physical care for her in reverent tones:

The most difficult thing was having my cancer diagnosis. And my husband … stepped up to the plate and took charge of me as I was going through my treatments and things—just made sure that my different needs were met… . [H]e took really good care of me.

Similarly, a mother named Keisha explained what her husband Wes’ care meant to her:

[Our] second child … was very difficult. I didn’t get any sleep, and she didn’t sleep through the night until she was one year old. And I wouldn’t have made it if it had not been for Wes, because he would get up in the middle of the night, he’d put her to sleep on his chest, and he’d bring her to me so I could nurse… . [He] was incredible. That was … one of the most difficult things I’ve ever been through … and he was right there.

Interestingly, virtually every exemplary Black family we interviewed had housed at least one non-biological child for weeks, months, or years—providing for them out of their own resources. This was so common that we dubbed these welcomed youth temporary children. When asked how many children each family had housed over the years, one family said the number was so high that they did not know. 

Serving the physical needs of in-laws was another way Black families served. A Christian wife named Jada shared the following:

I brought [my husband] Jacob to my mother. She, my mother, loved him like he was her own son. [Years later] my mother ended up in a nursing home. We ended up taking care of my mother for some years, and he helped me to take care of my mother—just like she was his mother… . There was one night we had to put my mother in the bed between us, [to keep her safe]. She had Alzheimer’s [so bad at the end and would wander off]. Now what husband does that? (laughter) … He really stuck by me in every way. 

Later in their interview, Jada said of Jacob, “If you get a husband that’s like that, then I think you … you did good.” Jada and Jacob were both entering a second marriage when they were wed, and they each brought their own children with them. Of this challenge, Jada said:

Jacob treats my children just like they’re his, and I do the same… . [Then] my sister died some years later, and … we raised her three children. She had a set of twins, a girl and a boy; they [were only] three years old [at the time].

Jada and Jacob ultimately raised six children together. At one point, the time came when the children were the ones serving the parents. Jada explained:

I think we had a lovely life … until these days came here recently where Jacob was paralyzed for … about three months from the waist down… . But through all that … all those six children that we raised, those children came to pay bills, [took care of the] grass to be cut. They did [all of it], they … took care of us. 

Indeed, our participants repeatedly conveyed that service to one person often perpetuates additional acts of service. 

Theme 2: Service through Emotional Support

Our research showed that Black families also offered service through emotional service. A Baptist husband named Anthony said: 

When I shake your hand—and we are talkin’ [especially about] young Black men [and] men in general—I shake your hand and I look you dead in the eye and I … say, ‘How you doin’?’ … Sometimes it don’t even get to that point, … [I] get there and [they] say, ‘Ah man, can I give you a hug? … I needed what you said.’ … Anytime you [have] got a man cryin’, they [are] not cryin’ out of weakness, they [are] cryin’ cause the enemy has pulled them from where they are supposed to be at and … [they’re] like, ‘I need help.’

Anthony later explained, “It’s just that sometimes when you say stuff to people and you really mean it—consistently, it makes a difference in people’s lives.” Anthony’s approach applied to his local and faith communities, but the importance of emotional service was frequently focused on family. 

Phil, an African Methodist father, was effusive and passionate when he said,

When you see your kids, hug ’em. … One time in the course of every [single] day, I tell my kids, ‘I love you,’ give ‘em a big hug … hold ‘em, let them know I care. I let them know, ‘I love you not because it’s just the thing to say, but because I DO; and … God loves you too.’ So even when we do go through little life struggles, it’s okay, because someone who loves them is going to be there through the good and the bad. 

Gwen, a Christian wife, also had someone to love and serve her during her struggles. Years after the event, Gwen vividly recalled how her husband Kordell helped her through a difficult pregnancy and delivery:

Kordell was so attentive and … caring about how I felt. [And then] while I was in labor, which was about 26 hours … [He’d say,] ‘I’m concerned about you. How are you feeling? How’s it going?’ … and he’d hold my hand for contractions and stuff, and I’m squeezing his hand [so hard that] he never thought he’d play the piano again! (laughter) … I really saw his real love for me, for who I was—his wife, not just the producer of his kids—which really strengthened our marriage a lot, ‘cause I thought, ‘He really cares.’ Well, this man really does love me, oh my gosh! (laughter)

Serving and caring, however, do not originate in a vacuum. At a different point in their interview, Kordell spontaneously reflected on the power of Gwen’s example of service. 

One thing about her is she’s very much into … sowing into other people’s lives anonymously. ‘Cause, often times, she will buy things for people, know what they really like, send it to them anonymously, and they’ll never know it was her. She’s just totally into that… She’s very consistently [serving others in] that way. 

We see that emotional care was an elevating experience not only when done for a spouse, but when such service was lovingly (and perhaps anonymously) done for someone else. 

Even so, service is often costly and rarely convenient. This begs the question: Why give so much? 

Our third and final theme sheds light on this question.

Theme 3: Service to Others is “Living Faith”

The most prominent theme relating to serving others in the data was the influence of faith on service. A husband named Leonard explained: 

If I go out there and see a poor man down, [I shouldn’t] look down on him—[instead, I must] pick him up. I don’t [care] how he stink[s]—God said, ‘I love them all, they all are my children.’ So, I can’t pass nobody; [the] Savior don’t pass me by. When I pass by somebody that needs help, I’m passing God.

Another couple, DeShaun and Jamilla, shared how their beliefs affected their view of service:

Jamilla: We should be good stewards of our time and our finances, that we give back [because of] what He has given and done for us. It’s good stewardship. Some people call it a sacrifice to give your time and your money, but … that’s part of being a believer.

DeShaun: All those things are His, anyway… . The time is His. The money is His. We’re just stewards… . I think that’s what helps us through hard times—because no matter what we lose … it’s not ours. 

The concept of divine stewardship—similar to what some faith traditions call consecration—was echoed by Candice and Shandrel, a Baptist couple, who said of their time and money:

Candice: I give time, but I don’t think [it’s] really mine; I think it’s …

Shandrel: It’s not actually our time.

Candice: It’s not our time… . You need to give … time so that you can be a contributor, and in giving your time, you learn that … you [also] give your finances. 

Shandrel: And then you [come] to love what you do.

Candice: You love what you do, you become a good steward.

Like Jamilla and DeShaun, Candice and Shandrel referenced sacred religious beliefs that influenced how they served, gave, and viewed resources. In addition to sacred beliefs, participation with a religious congregation was frequently mentioned as participants described how their faith informed their service to others. For many, participating in the faith community reportedly provided both individual and collective experiences that centered around serving others. A non-denominational Christian wife named Briana said:

The congregation is very important, and [they]’re my spiritual family… . When you hurt, I hurt. … We are [our] brother’s keeper—servants to one another. And that’s what the Lord says: We are servants to one another.

Looking Outward Together

In a passage from the Holy Bible—a book that the faithful Black women and men we interviewed cherished and frequently quoted in their interviews—King David’s final recorded question to his people was this: “Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?” (1 Chronicles 29:5). 

We learn from these remarkable women and men that perhaps the deepest marital love does not consist of merely gazing at each other, but, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry observed, “in looking outward together in the same direction” with eyes fixed on lifting sisters and brothers in the broader human family. The exemplary Black families that opened their homes to us and taught us revealed that consecrated service is one of the key ingredients of the secret sauce of a championship-level marriage. May we all benefit from this revelation.

 

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When did parenthood become just one lifestyle option among many—and what gets lost when it’s framed that way?

Such a shift certainly has its positives—allowing people to choose is not in itself a bad thing—but current narratives discourage having and raising children. Media and public discussions often emphasize the burdens of parenthood. For just one prominent example, in 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a warning that parenting can present a “public health concern” because of the stress and mental health challenges associated with it. 

Other commentators have pointed out that a generation learned to “dread motherhood.” These trials are very real. We bear broad responsibilities in our communities to help reduce the loneliness and stressors of parenting. 

But if we discuss only the problems, we are not creating a more accurate picture than if we only rhapsodize sentimentally about the pitter-patter of little feet. We shouldn’t ignore the deeper reality: parenting is both struggle and joy, and part of our covenantal relationship with God. Couples who are trying to decide whether or not to have children need an honest, balanced look at parenting that examines both its challenges and its abundant blessings, as well as God’s wishes for His children about their children. 

Achieving such a balanced look at parenting, however, requires more than an exhaustive list of pros and cons. It requires a reframing of the discussion that allows us to see all aspects of parenthood accurately. Fortunately, there are revealed truths that help us to see parenting from an eternal perspective. One of the most important sources of revealed truth on parenting is The Family: A Proclamation to the World, an inspired declaration by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1995. 

Parenthood as Burden vs. Parenthood as Commandment

The Family: A Proclamation to the World is unambiguous: God commands us to choose to bring children into the world in the proper order. The Proclamation affirms that the commandment “to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.” If we are tempted to consider such teachings outdated or superseded by new conditions, recent prophetic teachings have also reinforced the doctrine. In October, President Dallin H. Oaks, then the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught, “The national declines in marriage and childbearing are understandable for historic reasons, but Latter-day Saint values and practices should improve—not follow—those trends.” The commandment remains relevant, and seeing the obligation to bear children as a commandment represents a fundamental reframing. 

A commandment is different from a social mandate or a biological imperative since commandments include personal accountability before God. Scripture teaches us that when God gives us commandments, He also makes it possible for us to obey them (see 1 Nephi 3:7). Therefore, parents do not face the challenges of bearing and rearing children alone. They are promised the assistance of the Almighty. Furthermore, commandments require honest effort rather than absolute success (see, for instance, Doctrine and Covenants 124:49). Those who for one reason or another are unable to have children in this life but who have tried can be comforted that they are under no condemnation. 

Choosing to have children is only the first step. Parents then have responsibilities throughout their children’s lives. These responsibilities can seem daunting, and some potential parents may feel reluctant to assume such a level of responsibility. However, The Proclamation, even while impressing on readers the seriousness of these responsibilities, also presents them as manageable tasks. A fascinating passage lays out basic parental responsibilities:”Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”

The word “entitled” is typically used negatively. This is particularly the case in the public language of the Church. For example, Oaks has taught, “Entitlement is generally selfish. It demands much, and it gives little or nothing. Its very concept causes us to seek to elevate ourselves above those around us.”

The Family: A Proclamation to the World is an unusual case in which “entitled” is used not to criticize an attitude, but to instill one. While we should not generally feel a right to special privileges, an exception is made for children. They have a divinely appointed right to be born into a family welded together through mutual commitment between husband and wife. 

The word “entitled,” therefore, shows that perhaps the most important thing parents can provide their children is the security that comes from faithfulness to each other. It is easy to overemphasize many aspects of parenting, such as responsibilities to provide children with financial resources and with their initial education and socialization. While important, these duties are not the first identified. The foundational priority for couples is building a loving relationship founded on mutual fidelity to each other and obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ. The fact that fidelity is the first responsibility of parenthood in the Proclamation should inspire confidence in couples considering whether or not to have children. Can you love each other and be true to each other? If so, then you are well on your way to being a great parent in the eyes of God!  

The stance on marital fidelity in The Family: A Proclamation to the World represents another important reframing of our perspectives. Marital fidelity is actually as much about children as it is about husband and wife. Therefore, personal fulfillment is not the foundation for a happy family. Rather, the foundation is the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

Such a view of the family implies the sacrifice of some personal desires, perhaps even needs. But the message of Christ’s Gospel is that sacrifice proves eternally more satisfying than seeking our own fulfillment, as Jesus taught:

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross⁠, and follow me⁠. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24–25). 

Choosing Parenthood with an Eternal Lens

The sacrifices necessary to have and raise children, therefore, are not merely rewarding. They can be sanctifying. They bind husband and wife together in shared commitments. They help tie them to Christ as they join Him in His redemptive mission. The blessings that families receive for such sacrifices overflow and pour into communities. Oaks taught, “Following Christ and giving ourselves in service to one another is the best remedy for the selfishness and individualism that now seem to be so common.” As the home becomes a laboratory for developing Christlike service, sacrifice, and love, family members are better prepared to bring these attributes into the public square. Complete fidelity between couples is the beginning of developing Christlike character as a family and can lead to other virtues, including more public ones. The Proclamation, therefore, helps us to see that creating a loving family is part of our Christian calling to love and serve our neighbors. Love cultivated in the home radiates outward to bless others.

While the demands of parenting can seem daunting and even all-consuming, the Proclamation helps us to see them as manageable. Its call for community support and individual adaptation provides the practical tools necessary for implementing its teachings in the life of every family. 

It presents mutual fidelity as the baseline for creating a happy family. We can start there knowing that God will help us accomplish the other responsibilities He has given us and that He will be merciful to us as we give our honest effort. Such a view of parenting can help us to see that it is not only possible, but also rewarding.

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“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes the week’s sermons foreshadow a struggle that will soon knock at your door.

My wife, Missy, and I learned this recently in a peacemaking crisis with a neighbor, which came less than 24 hours after we heard two sermons on peacemaking. I’ll call our neighbor Alice (not her real name). She’s a short, stocky, 50-something woman who walks with a waddle. She loves animals. Between November and March, Alice feeds the crows pounds of peanuts. The result is a noisy murder of birds and a roof and yard (ours) littered with shells that clog our gutters.

This past spring, as Missy cleaned leaves and peanut shells from our curb, she encountered Alice. It was a beautiful sunny day after another grueling winter. At one point, the conversation turned to what Missy was doing. My wife kindly and calmly asked Alice if she would consider feeding the crows something else because of the mess from the peanut shells. No promise was made, and life went on.

Then, about six months later, on the Monday morning before Thanksgiving, Alice knocked on our door as we were busy preparing to leave for the airport.

“Did you put this on my door?” she asked. 

She showed us a piece of light blue paper with these words: “PLEASE STOP FEEDING PEANUTS TO THE CROWS!!!!!”

“No,” I responded.

“Did someone else in your house put it out? I know you don’t like the peanuts,” Alice said, her face and voice making clear she was not convinced by my denial.

“No, we didn’t put that sign out,” Missy said.

“Are you lying to me?” Alice asked.

“No,” I said.

I was terse because there was no time to talk. Like those birds, we had to catch a flight.

And with that, Alice shrugged her shoulders in frustration, turned around, and stomped down our steps. In her mind, we were guilty.

The next Monday morning, we were back home. A crow was on our skylight, pecking away at something. I worried the bird might chip the window. As I often do, I opened our front door to raise my hands and shew away the murder congregating on the street.

Alice saw this through her window and was steamed. She stormed over, knocked on the door, and asked to speak with me.

“I was on the phone with my daughter just a minute ago when I saw you open your door and wave the crows away,” Alice said, her voice on edge and full of spite. “I know it was you who put the sign on my door. You are sign people. You have a no soliciting sign and that other one asking people to not leave dog poop on their lawn. Why can’t we just talk about this and not behave like we’re in middle school? What is your problem with the crows?”

This was quickly turning into a Shakespearean tragedy, with Alice misinterpreting our every word and move.

I explained calmly that the crows’ pecking wakes us up and clogs our gutters. I could have added that their repeated noises bothers one of our daughters, who has sensory issues. And there’s also the potential for their pecking to ruin our roof.

Alice then accused Missy of yelling at her last spring when she asked her to consider feeding the crows something else. This is where things went off the rails. Missy never yells at anything. The accusation blindsided both of us. From there, voices grew louder, Missy was in tears, and a primal instinct drove me to tell Alice she needed to leave. I grabbed her by the arm and led her out the door. I pushed her past the threshold because she would not go willingly.

As I closed the door, she lobbed one last verbal grenade.

“The crows are the nicest neighbors I have,” Alice said. “You are so mean!”

I immediately wondered—was I too forceful, too rash? The exchange rocked us and turned the day to ash.

The next afternoon, we composed a note of apology for misunderstanding her and regret for the scene that marred our Monday. Missy left it on Alice’s porch with a loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

Alice responded a week later with a brief note, sent via snail mail. She thanked us for the bread but did not apologize. Her words felt like a backhanded way of saying we are to blame.

With the wound still fresh and our minds in disbelief at her callousness, we tossed her note in our recycle bin. We wanted to be right. We wanted her to see the logic of our clogged gutters and our daughter’s sensory needs. But the ensuing silence was heavy. The poison of strife was setting in, that physical tightening of the chest that happens when a neighbor becomes an adversary.

It was here that the sermons from that Sunday began to sink in. The peacemaking process can be chaotic and confusing. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously noted, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

Love and forgiveness are the only way forward. Thus our quick offering of peace. This Dr. King also knew. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that,” he said. “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Alas, progress toward peace feels less like a victory march and more like the slow process of clearing a blocked gutter—one handful of debris at a time. But we will try. And we will keep trying.

We want to be peacemakers. But peacemaking is a long dance, a communal project that must be engaged in by both sides. Whether it is building muscle, better habits, stronger relationships, or a neighborhood and society where we simply respect and love each other, nothing comes to pass without Dr. King’s idea of “continuous struggle.”

Moses knew this. The Hebrew prophet had a classic mountaintop experience where God spoke to him from a high place and showed him a vision of all of this world and its inhabitants. Then God’s presence withdrew and Moses was “left unto himself” and he fell to the earth, learning a lesson he’d never forget about his own limited abilities and God’s infinite powers.

In Moses’ reflection of the wonder of his theophany, we find a powerful phrase: “I beheld [God’s] face.”

Though this painful experience with Alice remains unresolved, it was an opportunity to behold her face up close—not merely as the “crow lady” or a source of drama, but as someone created in the image of God. We are commanded to love her who, at the moment, feels like an enemy. As the musical Les Miserables concludes, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

The continuous struggle to find that divine face in the neighbor is the path toward the light of God. It is not paved with grand gestures or born of sudden, mountain top epiphanies, but is carved out of daily rhythms of relation where we smile at others, say hello, step into shared spaces, and listen. The struggle isn’t heroic—it’s habitual.

 

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Ward and stake choirs do far more than make music; they help shape a healthy Latter‑day Saint culture.

Of course, when it comes to choir, we immediately think of the tremendous impact of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. But members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have also created the powerhouse 5,000-strong Millennial Choirs and Orchestras across the Western U.S., and there are regional choirs in places like the Washington, D.C. Temple Visitors’ Center. However, at the level of local wards (congregations) and stakes (local congregation groups), choirs serve unique functions that go beyond the public performance of music. They contribute to an ideal church culture by building unity and social capital, modeling male-female harmony, opening opportunities for outreach, and teaching skills of belonging. 

How Choirs Help Build Culture

In every Latter-day Saint congregation, culture is a two-part challenge. The first part tends to get the most focus with the question: “How do we distinguish between the gospel and church culture?” The concern is that some members may get caught up in cultural expectations—such as the style of our church activities, dress standards, and more—to a degree that those expectations are seen to have the same authority and seriousness as divine commandments.

With the other challenge, we ask a different question: “How can we create a healthy ward culture?” In a healthy ward culture, church members feel loved and valued. They feel unity even amid their diverse life experiences. They feel supported in difficult situations. All of that is made possible as, together, they feel connected to God.

Unity & Social Capital. The ideal ward culture does not just happen on its own, however. It takes members who are willing to get out of their comfort zones and do difficult things. It requires patience and a willingness to let things go, as we experience interpersonal “fenderbenders” in our callings and activities. It requires constant attention to what is most important in our church experience, and constant discipline in managing lesser priorities. In wards that feel “ideal,” we typically find some number of devout, converted members who are relentless about teaching and modeling a healthy church culture. In moments when we glimpse that ideal, it really is a glimpse of heaven on earth.

It is a surprising experience because it is not natural. Our normal human tendencies are toward comparison, competition, and conflict. We default to those tendencies unless we develop the ability to transcend them. Much of the conflict we see around us in society comes from a lack of experiences of transcendence, and this can sometimes extend to the Church.

Within the context of church, our activities—and especially our service—lead us to develop social capital, a shared sense that we contribute to each other’s well-being. Service projects are notably effective for developing unity and social capital, and this is also true of choir activities. Choirs are contexts for personal development, joy, fun, and transcendence.

Male-Female Harmony. Choirs also serve another important purpose. Throughout history, one of the most persistent sources of frustration has been the ongoing tension between men and women. In recent decades, the feminist movement has been met with the emergence of the “manosphere,” a collection of online spaces and content creators that claim to promote and defend male perspectives. Together, these two movements often diminish and denigrate one another. The conflict between these ideological online extremes is often presented as the only possible reality for men and women.

Choirs present a different and more hopeful view of reality, where male and female exist in harmony and produce a combination of beauty, strength, and transcendence. In the work of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, the world sees hundreds of men and women joining together in an ideal ordering and blending of male and female strengths. My personal favorite of their performances is of Carl Nygard’s piece, “God So Loved the World,” based on John chapter 3:16-17. In the chorus, the women’s voices soar in a way that men’s voices cannot, creating the sense of astonishment that should be our response to the power of that passage of scripture.

Likewise, in The Tabernacle Choir’s arrangement of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” The men’s voices begin the second verse a cappella, highlighting the unique character of the male voice to convey the poetry of commitment and devotion. Whenever I sing in church in a men’s ensemble, we hear expressions of gratitude from women in the ward. I suspect this gratitude reflects the experience of seeing male energy channeled into something good and noble, in contrast with so much of the negative male behavior we often witness in the world. Choirs allow for clear public demonstrations of Christlike manhood. 

The Tabernacle Choir is one of the world’s greatest models of how feminine and masculine gifts and voices work together to produce experiences where the harmonious sum is far greater than the individual parts. The musical value of the choir is extraordinary, but there is also profound symbolic value in what the choir does, modeling for the world the power of complementarity. The Tabernacle Choir is uniquely great, but there are also smaller, more local examples of what is possible to experience.

Outreach & Community Bridges. When I was called as a ward choir director earlier this year, the outreach potential immediately came to mind. In my calling, I hope to see struggling youth and other ward members find strength and renewal in choir. I hope to see all Latter-day Saints participate in choir. I would love to see members of our community, people not of our faith, sing with our ward choir. I would love for our community to feel comfortable asking our ward or stake choirs to serve by joining in community events or funerals, beyond the doors of our church buildings. Many people who participate in high school and college choirs leave their choir experiences behind as they move through life, and, similar to how Latter-day Saints are viewed with family history, I would love for members of our community with past experiences in choirs to see Latter-day Saint buildings as centers of excellence offering opportunities to once again experience the joy of singing in a choir.

Belonging and Connection. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote a book called Together, where he explained that a lack of human connection has become in our time a pervasive public health crisis. With technology allowing us to narrow our interpersonal interactions to people who are just like us, many of us are missing out on the benefits of regular interaction with people who experience the world differently than we do. This can happen even among people sitting together in church meetings. To a great extent, connection and belonging require skills that can be taught and practiced. Participation in a choir is an ideal context for the development of those skills.

Much recent research suggests that participation in community choirs uniquely accelerates social bonding and reduces loneliness.

A Case Study

In my stake in Virginia, we do a community Christmas choir event every year that brings together our stake choir with members of our community for a beautiful experience of worship. In 2025, we decided to do a similar kind of program for Easter, and a member of our stake offered for the event an original a capella choir composition called “Intercessor,” based on the text of Isaiah 53.

I immediately jumped at the opportunity to participate, as Isaiah 53 is my favorite chapter in all of scripture. The composer, Savannah Turk, assembled sixteen people to learn and perform the piece, and it was the hardest vocal part I have ever learned. The piece includes a number of dissonant chords, which can be difficult for most amateur choirs, but because Isaiah 53 is written with the intent to convey painful irony in the suffering of the innocent Messiah, I could see how dissonance is a good approach for expressing that irony in music. All of the effort was worth it, as “Intercessor” provided a transcendent musical experience that became central to our Easter event. “Intercessor” was so spiritually rich for those of us who participated that I helped to create a separate recording of our amateur choir performing it, in the hopes that other choirs will become familiar with its powerfully unique approach.

When it comes to sacred music, we are spoiled with an abundance of music for Christmas, and much less for Easter. I hope to see Latter-day Saint composers rise to the challenge like Savannah Turk did with “Intercessor,” and create new compositions that can become sacred Easter standards like “This is the Christ” and our more recent “Gethsemane.”

I observed another valuable lesson with our Easter program that helps illustrate the power of our choirs. Among our performers were Latter-day Saints, including those who were less active, and singers from our community who are not of our faith. All joined together and contributed to one of the most spiritually rich expressions of worship I have ever experienced. Ward and stake choirs can be outward-facing means to develop wonderful community relationships beyond our normal Latter-day Saint circles.

In closing, I recall Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, the president of the Church’s second presiding body, speaking in April 2017 General Conference talk “Songs Sung and Unsung.” There, to teach foundational principles of diversity and belonging in the Church, Elder Holland used the metaphor of a choir:

… remember it is by divine design that not all the voices in God’s choir are the same. It takes variety—sopranos and altos, baritones and basses—to make rich music. To borrow a line quoted in the cheery correspondence of two remarkable Latter-day Saint women, “All God’s critters got a place in the choir.” When we disparage our uniqueness … we lose the richness of tone and timbre that God intended when He created a world of diversity.

Now, this is not to say that everyone in this divine chorus can simply start shouting his or her own personal oratorio! Diversity is not cacophony, and choirs do require discipline … but once we have accepted divinely revealed lyrics and harmonious orchestration composed before the world was, then our Heavenly Father delights to have us sing in our own voice, not someone else’s …

Don’t demean your worth or denigrate your contribution. Above all, don’t abandon your role in the chorus. Why? Because you are unique; you are irreplaceable. The loss of even one voice diminishes every other singer in this great mortal choir of ours, including the loss of those who feel they are on the margins of society or the margins of the Church.

While Elder Holland was using choir as a metaphor, he was also teaching some valuable principles that go beyond metaphor into our experience of the Church. In that spirit, I invite ward and stake choir leaders to raise our sights. Choir is not about doing something musically dazzling, or reliving the glory days of our musical-performer past. In choir, we have the opportunity to do things that are much more significant—to teach gospel doctrines, develop interpersonal skills, cultivate unity amid diversity, build bridges, and heal cynicism in the hearts of our choir members and our congregations. In allowing others to participate in the leadership of our choirs—even in the selection and conducting of music—we help to infuse their experience of the gospel with growth and joy. We teach them that they are empowered to elevate their church experience.

Finally, if you are a member of the Church and can participate in a choir, hopefully, this essay has opened your mind to the benefits of doing so. From my personal experience, I wholeheartedly invite you to make that commitment.

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This is the 9th article in our Peacemaking Series. To read the previous article: You Don’t Need to Feel Forgiving to Forgive

Even small disputes can feel like an attack on the heart of a relationship. Words are twisted, intentions misread, trust frays, and bonds weaken under the weight of tension. Yet through gospel principles, even the most serious conflicts can be healed by separating the conflict from the person, practicing repair attempts, and addressing the deeper needs that fuel disagreement. 

This article accompanies a short animated video from the Peacemaking series created by the Skyline Research Institute. In partnership with Public Square Magazine, each installment in the series pairs one of the short, playful videos with a companion essay, bringing together conflict resolution theory, research, and scriptural principles to provide practical tools for building stronger families, communities, and societies.  None of this is to suggest that abusive cycles of domestic violence need to or should be repaired.

The accompanying video for this article portrays a symbolic “relationship heart” under attack by a crocodile, requiring expert conservation efforts to prevent its destruction. The image captures a simple truth: conflicts, if mishandled, threaten the very life of a relationship. Yet with deliberate and principled intervention, even serious disagreements can be transformed into opportunities for healing.

Conflict as a Multidimensional Phenomenon

Conflict does not emerge solely from sin. Competing desires, misunderstandings, cultural pressures, resource constraints, stress, and personality differences all play roles in producing tension. While the spirit of contention is not of Christ, contention is an attitude toward conflict, not the conflict itself. So while sin may intensify these pressures, it does not account for their entirety. This recognition matters because it opens space for understanding conflict as a natural, even necessary, dimension of human relationships, rather than an aberration to be eliminated altogether.

Scholars distinguish between task conflict and relationship conflict. Learning to distinguish the two can help people in a conflict find the appropriate resolution. Task conflict refers to disagreements about ideas, procedures, or goals, while relationship conflict involves perceived incompatibilities in values, personalities, or status. Too often, task conflict is mistaken for a relationship conflict. Task conflict requires situational creative problem-solving. Relationship conflict requires significant effort and attention. Task conflict has sometimes been considered useful for stimulating innovation, but in practice, its benefits depend heavily on trust, communication, and context. When handled poorly, even task conflict can grow into a relationship conflict.

Repair Attempts as Relational Lifelines

The research of John Gottman underscores why some relationships survive conflict (task or relationship) while others disintegrate. According to Gottman, repair attempts consist of “any statement or action … that prevents negativity from escalating out of control.” These may include humor, affection, a soft word, or an acknowledgment of responsibility. Crucially, repair attempts are less about eliminating conflict than about ensuring that conflict does not overwhelm the bond itself.

Gottman’s longitudinal studies reveal that successful relationships maintain an approximate 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. This balance enables trust and affection to cushion moments of disagreement. Where positive expressions abound, repair attempts gain traction; where negativity dominates, repair attempts fail to take hold.

From this perspective, repairing a relationship requires deliberate cultivation of gratitude, appreciation, and forgiveness, ensuring that conflict remains a temporary disruption rather than a permanent rupture.

Separating the Person from the Problem

Theologically, separating the individual from the conflict echoes one popular translation of St. Augustine’s appeal to “separate the sin from the sinner.” But remember, conflict does not emerge solely from sin. This distinction affirms that identity transcends wrongdoing, allowing space for compassion alongside accountability.

President Spencer W. Kimball further suggested that sinful behavior springs from deeper “unmet needs.” Recognizing this perspective reframes conflict: even destructive words or actions may signal pain, fear, or longing that deserve attention rather than dismissal.

President Russell M. Nelson has similarly urged believers “to end conflicts in their lives,” pointing toward deliberate choices to interrupt cycles of contention. The Family: A Proclamation to the World reinforces this ethic by affirming that “successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” Faith and repentance thus become relational as well as personal spiritual practices, enabling bonds to endure through moments of strain.

Scripture amplifies these teachings. “A soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1) highlights the power of repair attempts. Christ’s counsel to “agree with thine adversary quickly” (Matthew 5:25) affirms the urgency of reconciliation. And the Lord’s commandment, “be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27), emphasizes the divine importance of unity.

Three Conservation Steps

The metaphor of “relationship conservation” highlights the need for careful, intentional action when bonds come under threat. These three steps help provide a structured approach.

Step One: Separate the Relationship from the Conflict

When disagreements emerge, the first task is to distinguish the conflict from the relationship itself. Emotions associated with the issue must not be allowed to contaminate perceptions of the person. In academic terms, task disagreement should not become relationship conflict. In theological terms, sin should not obscure divine worth.

Illustration: A sharp dispute over household chores does not mean affection has diminished; the issue is the task, not the person. “Sorry, I don’t mean to attack you—I’m just talking about the dishes.”

Step Two: Resuscitate the Relationship

Before addressing the substance of the disagreement, the bond itself requires renewal. Expressions of gratitude, acknowledgment of shared values, or gestures of affection resuscitate the relationship and create space for constructive dialogue. Gottman’s framework identifies such repair attempts as the decisive factor in whether conflict erodes or strengthens the bond. Within Christian practice, such moments parallel repentance and forgiveness, where humility and grace interrupt cycles of accusation.

Illustration: In the middle of an argument, a sincere “thank you for how much you do” can revive goodwill and open the way for resolution. “I know we’re both frustrated right now, but seriously, thank you for everything you’re doing—I feel grateful for you. You’re such a hard worker.”

Step Three: Address the Deeper Need

Finally, conflict resolution requires attention to underlying needs. A sharp exchange over scheduling may conceal a longing for recognition; frustration about money may mask deeper fear or insecurity. Kimball’s insight that sin reflects unmet need underscores this principle: resolution demands not only solving the surface issue but also addressing the emotional or spiritual heart.

Illustration: Anger over finances may reflect a deeper desire for security; meeting that need restores peace beyond the numbers. “I hear you about the finances. I can see why you feel that way. What can we do to help you feel more secure?”

Conserving the Heart of Relationships

Conflict in relationships is inevitable; destruction is not. When conflict emerges, whether from sin, misunderstanding, or competing needs, deliberate conservation measures can preserve the relational heart. Separating the relationship from the conflict prevents task conflicts from turning into relationship conflicts. Resuscitating the relationship through repair attempts interrupts cycles of negativity and reinforces the relational bond. Addressing deeper needs transforms conflict into an avenue for growth and intimacy.

The crocodile may attack, but the heart can be saved; relationships need not fall victim to disagreement. Instead, they may emerge stronger—evidence that even in the face of contention, peace remains possible.