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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Dignity Collapses in Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Principle 4: Negotiate and Govern by Acknowledging Dignity First

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

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

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

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

Contempt doesn’t negotiate; it escalates.

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

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

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

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

The Good News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Canada just dodged a religious freedom bullet, at least temporarily.

My decision to move to Canada from Brazil to pursue a Master of Laws and continue my legal career was influenced by the fact that Canada both respects individual freedoms and provides a strong social safety net.

But that defining balance was recently challenged by Canada’s Bill C-9, the “Combatting Hate Act.” The proposed federal legislation was presented in response to purported rising intolerance, including a rise in reported hate crimes, ongoing hostility online, and social polarization. 

Bill C-9 was recently put on hold after much public outcry against it. On its face, the bill sounds like a good thing. But its mechanics would have jeopardized freedom of expression and freedom of religion in significant ways.

What Bill C-9 Would Have Done to Religious Expression

Bill C-9 would have altered Canada’s Criminal Code relating to hate-motivated behavior and intimidation, including by adding new criminal offenses. While these measures are presented as protective—aimed at preventing threats before they escalate—the broad scope of the offenses raises concerns that ordinarily lawful speech or protest could unintentionally become unlawful. Some of the most concerning provisions of the bill are as follows.

The law also would have removed the “good faith” religious defense in Section 319 of the Criminal Code, which is particularly concerning. This defense previously allowed individuals to express views based on religious texts without fear of prosecution, provided they acted sincerely. Removing it risks placing the state in the position of judging theology as hateful. This is not about protecting extremists; it is about maintaining constitutional space for conscience and preventing the inadvertent criminalization of sincere belief.

Further, the law would also have enhanced penalties for existing offenses if those offenses were motivated by hatred against protected grounds such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The motivation of the speaker would be determined not by the speaker, but by the listener’s reaction—a switch from an objective legal standard to a subjective one. Fear is personal and variable, so under the new law, the most sensitive observer could determine the legality of speech.

By narrowing what is lawful speech and making a listener’s subjective reaction to speech legally significant, Bill C-9 creates legal uncertainty for individuals expressing sincere beliefs grounded in religious conscience. The law could pressure people to self-censor, not because their actions are harmful, but because their words or presence might be interpreted as intimidating to listeners who disagree with them, subjecting them to the criminal law’s reach. Ordinary expressions of faith, such as reading from scripture or teaching traditional views on sexuality, family, or moral guidance, could potentially be interpreted as hateful under the bill, creating uncertainty for individuals trying to sincerely live according to their religious beliefs. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaching the Family Proclamation could potentially be interpreted as hateful under the proposed law. While such prosecution is unlikely, the mere possibility creates a concerning sense of legal uncertainty for Latter-day Saints and others trying to express their faith.

The consequences extend beyond religious communities. Labor groups have warned that picket lines or protests could be affected if someone claims to feel intimidated. When law measures emotion rather than action, criminal behavior becomes unpredictable. These concerns with Bill C-9 are about protecting sincere expression rather than defending harmful speech.

Context for the Bill

Some context may help explain why Canada would propose Bill C-9. The province of Quebec has a strong secular tradition inherited from France known as laïcité, which prioritizes strict separation between religion and state in public life. This worldview influences Canadian debates on freedom of religion and expression. Although Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and religion, the French–Quebec view holds that these rights should be significantly limited in the public square, allowing secularism to prevail.

While these numbers provide context for why the government frames Bill C-9 as necessary, statistics alone do not determine how the law is debated or applied. The way the bill is named and discussed can influence public perception, shaping the conversation around hate and safety before questions about its scope, limits, and impact on fundamental freedoms are even considered. In this sense, the political framing of the legislation plays a role almost as significant as the underlying data.

When legislation is presented in a way that equates questioning its scope with tolerating hate, it can chill open discussion, debate, and lawful expression. Even the name of the legislation does significant political work. By calling it the Combatting Hate Act, the debate is framed so that raising legitimate concerns about its scope can be interpreted as tolerating hatred. Those questioning the bill’s impact on freedom of expression, religious conscience, or lawful speech risk being seen as opposing justice rather than defending constitutional protections or advocating for careful, balanced lawmaking. This framing risks shutting down meaningful discussion before it can begin.

Moving Forward

Even in democracies that value freedom, governments may, at times, push the limits of civil liberties in the name of public order. This is not to suggest that overreach is inevitable, but rather that expanded legal powers always carry a risk that warrants careful scrutiny. While these powers are typically subject to judicial review, vigilance is important whenever new laws, like Bill C-9, would grant authorities broader discretion over what constitutes “intimidating” or “hateful” speech. 

Canada’s legal system has long managed to accommodate disagreement while maintaining public order. Bill C-9, as currently drafted, raises serious questions about procedural fairness, clarity in the law, and the protection of fundamental freedoms. From my perspective as an international lawyer, Bill C-9 highlights the fragility of liberty when legal systems evaluate emotions over intentions. True tolerance is not the absence of offense; it is the careful balance of safety, justice, and conscience. Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are cornerstones of Canadian law, enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they protect both offensive and minority viewpoints, provided they do not incite violence. Canada now faces the challenge of preserving that balance while addressing perceived threats of hate and intimidation.

The post How Canada’s Bill C-9 Would Have Reimagined Religious Liberty appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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

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

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

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

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

Would Jesus recognize love in it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Quiet Work of Repentance

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

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

The Politics of the Heart

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

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

The Seduction of Certainty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is the true revolution.

That is the politics of Christ.

That is the politics of love.

That is how love reigns.

That is how heaven transforms history.

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

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Americans have always been divided over politics, but the divide seems to be getting worse.  Members of the two major political parties overwhelmingly see members of the other party as “immoral” and “dishonest,” according to Pew Research. Approximately 11% of Americans are less likely to support a topic if they think there is bipartisan support for it, a YouGov poll found. For at least 11% of the electorate, not letting the other guy win is more important than winning.

But focusing on the statistics of divisiveness too much can obscure a different truth: Americans are not as divided as they seem. In fact, there is near consensus among Americans on a range of important political issues. Americans need to begin to see the political spectrum not as two sides split down the middle, but as a large block of consensus with extreme ideas at the ends of the opinion spectrum. Approaching political controversies from a perspective of unity rather than division is the first step to resolve the urgent political challenges we face today.

Media biases are well documented by groups like Ad Fontes and others that study media biases. Many modern media conglomerates combine incomplete facts with biases to present a cultivated reality, as several organizations have shown. When outlets are so skewed, the citizenry splits. 

President Dallin H. Oaks has also spoken of the dangers of division. In a 2023 address at the University of Virginia, he observed, “Extreme voices influence popular opinion, but they polarize and sow resentment as they seek to dominate their opponents and achieve absolute victory. Such outcomes are rarely sustainable or even attainable, and they are never preferable to living together in mutual understanding and peace.”

The result of this manufactured contention is division among Americans. Pew’s repeated values index shows the share of Americans at the ideological “tails” of the political spectrum roughly doubled from 1994 to the mid-2010s, with shrinking overlap between parties. The public is sorted more by party identity and values than in the 1990s, people feel colder toward the out-party than before, and elected officials vote in more unified, polarized blocs. Not only are politicians unwilling to work to achieve bipartisan successes, but prominent political leaders and media demonize their opponents.

In contrast, President Russell M. Nelson repeatedly called upon us to be peacemakers:

“Too many pundits, politicians, entertainers, and other influencers throw insults constantly. I am greatly concerned that so many people seem to believe that it is completely acceptable to condemn, malign, and vilify anyone who does not agree with them. Many seem eager to damage another’s reputation with pathetic and pithy barbs!  . . . Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.”

Are Americans really as divided on the issues as we are led to believe? No! Though this may come as a surprise, there is unity and consensus in America if we are willing to look for it. Some of the hottest political topics this year enjoy agreement from the overwhelming majority of the country. For example, 91% of Americans agree that protecting the right to vote is “extremely important,” according to a recent YouGov poll. Americans also overwhelmingly agree on establishing terms limits for Congress, capping annual out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs, increasing federal funding to improve cybersecurity, and many other issues.

In spite of broad agreement among the electorate, political topics are often politicized, and the electorate and its representatives become divided. Yet the majority of both major parties agree on at least 109 policy proposals, according to a recent YouGov poll. In many cases the government actively works against the will of the people by neglecting this consensus.

A few examples of the 109 areas of agreement include:

• Increasing federal funding for public school accommodations for students with disabilities. Approximately 86% of respondents agreed federal funding should be increased for schools to support students with disabilities. This is a consensus opinion. Those who disagree are on the fringe on the topic.
• Requiring presidential candidates to take cognitive exams and disclose the results. 80% of all respondents think there should be a cognitive exam given to presidential candidates and those results be published before a candidate can be elected. That is a massive consensus.
• Increasing funding for the maintenance of national parks. 80% of respondents agreed that the federal government should spend more on national parks. The value of such parks is recognized globally and Americans overwhelmingly want their parks protected.

Areas of agreement exist for even the most controversial topics, such as abortion. For example, ninety-two percent of Americans agree that abortions should be legal in at least some cases. On the other side, seventy percent agree that elective abortions should not be legal in the third trimester. This consensus could be the beginning point of more productive discussions about preventing and regulating abortion. 

If there is common ground on abortion, there is common ground everywhere. On nearly every political issue, points of common acceptance and understanding can instigate paths to consensus solutions.

To be sure, we will not be able to resolve all political challenges in ways that make everyone happy. But that does not absolve us of our obligation to make a good-faith effort to find inspired solutions. President Oaks said, “As a practical basis for co-existence, we should accept the reality that we are fellow citizens who need each other. This requires us to accept some laws we dislike, and to live peacefully with some persons whose values differ from our own. Amid such inevitable differences, we should make every effort to understand the experiences and concerns of others, especially when they differ from our own.”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we can follow the counsel of our modern prophets as well as the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We start by respecting those around us and seeing them as our fellow brothers and sisters, in spite of their political positions. Satan seeks to divide us using geographical, societal, and political divisions to inspire disharmony. Rejecting labels placed on others for political reasons helps us to see situations—and others—more clearly.

True study of the issues, challenges, and potential solutions will drive us to open our minds and recognize what we have in common both as citizens and as children of God. The General Handbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints  teaches us to “seek out and share only credible, reliable, and factual sources of information.” Following this counsel will naturally drive us to limit polarized sources and seek out real truth, which likely requires engaging multiple perspectives and opening our minds to accept truth when we see it. When we start from the assumption that there is common ground, we can break free from the bifurcated political landscape in which we live.

“We urge you to spend the time needed to become informed about the issues and candidates you will be considering. Some principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties, and members should seek candidates who best embody those principles. Members should also study candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation. Merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on “tradition” without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards (see Doctrine and Covenants 98:10). Information on candidates is available through the internet, debates, and other sources.”

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ have delivered repeated prophetic counsel. Our duty as followers of Jesus Christ is to actively fulfill it by becoming peacemakers. So the next time you find yourself feeling outrage or contempt for what “they” think or do, remember: you probably agree with them on a lot of issues. The divide may not be as wide as you imagine. If we’re willing to look, perhaps we’ll find that “they” are standing right next to “us” on some important political topics. Peacemaking starts by rejecting the voices that look to divide us, recognizing what we already have in common, and building from there.

The post We’re Not All That Divided: The Myth of a Nation Split in Half appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Seeing Critics of the Church with a Pure Love

Outside the theater after a performance of the musical “The Book of Mormon,” two young women serving as missionaries laugh with a line of theatergoers who had just spent two hours chuckling at their faith. One man teased them, using a phone recording, fishing for a cringeworthy sound bite. Instead of debating, one sister offered him a copy of the book with a smile: “If you liked the parody, you might like the source.” He took it, still smirking. A week later, he messaged them to say he had read a few chapters and—more surprisingly—he apologized for trying to embarrass them. “I didn’t expect you to be kind,” he wrote. Kindness didn’t convert him (conversion comes by the Spirit), but it converted the moment. That impulse—answer a jab with generosity—has quietly become one of our most reliable instincts.

Our critics (and even our enemies) can refine our courage, our clarity, and our hospitality—charity without capitulation.

We do not concede doctrine, outsource discernment, or grant a heckler’s veto to critics. We listen because people are precious, not because scorn is persuasive, and we keep the “pure love of Christ” as both our motive and method. Learning from our enemies, in this sense, means learning how to love them better. Yes, as necessary, we must answer with facts, with consistency and safeguards; those looking for Jesus Christ and His Church deserve that from us. And when waves of attention build, the posture still holds.

#SurvivingMormonism

The upcoming documentary series “Surviving Mormonism” is generating a fresh crest of negative attention toward The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another entry in the well-worn exposé genre of Latter-day Saints, the show purports to reveal the “dark history” of the Church through interviews with “abuse survivors, ex-Mormons and former LDS church leaders.” The show will be hosted by reality TV star Heather Gay, whose exodus story from the Church has been published as a New York Times best-seller.

And, if that guess turns out to be true, then part of an appropriate response to such scornful content is to “heed not.” However, engaging in loving and productive ways can also be appropriate, and may provide different benefits.

Many Latter-day Saints online modeled this in a viral response to the show’s title. In a short period of time, many Latter-day Saint creators have used the hashtag #SurvivingMormonism to poke fun at themselves for the often mild annoyances and idiosyncrasies of church members and culture. Examples included: “Surviving Mormonism, but it’s just me carrying a bunch of chairs to impress girls at my ward,” “Surviving Mormonism and it’s just me having to play basketball on carpet,” or “Surviving Mormonism and its High Council Sunday.”

These examples come in the same spirit as the outreach after the offensive Broadway play, which mocked Latter-day Saints and their faith: disarm hostility with humor, neighborliness, and confidence in the gospel rather than defensiveness.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of response softens hearts and builds goodwill. But because Latter-day Saints remain an out-group in many attention markets, these are not normal circumstances, and goodwill is not always reciprocated. The duty remains the same either way: meet caricature with Christlike love without ceding truth.

In the same spirit of not reacting defensively, we can go even further to recognize that every incoming volley is being fired by a human being—a fellow brother or sister in the family of God. The Savior’s example and modern apostolic counsel make clear that accusations and sensationalized personal apostasies sometimes merit our response as directed by the promptings of the Holy Ghost. But when we are called to defend truth, virtue, and the Kingdom of God, we should ensure that we are defending it in the Savior’s way, which means that our responses should always be motivated and shaped by what the Book of Mormon calls “the pure love of Christ.”

Old Bigotries, New Veneers

To understand why this pattern keeps resurfacing, zoom out from one show to the longer storyline. Across two centuries, Americans have recycled the same basic image of Latter‑day Saints with different lighting. In the 19th century, the Saints were cast as a wicked cult—socially alien, politically suspect, theologically off. That caricature licensed extraordinary measures and mob violence. From the mid‑20th century through the early 2010s, the image softened to false religion; good neighbors: Scout troops and service projects, civic leadership, and the 2002 Olympics—the so‑called “Mormon Moment.” For many, the Church read as rigorous but ordinary.

Over roughly the last decade, the mood darkened again—not because the Church pivoted into menace, but because the storytellers and their incentives changed. Prestige docudramas and true‑crime packaging blurred a fundamentalist offshoot into the main body; algorithms prized moral threat; headlines chased sharper edges. The label did the work that the evidence did not. Put simply: the attention markets transformed; the Church didn’t.

That is why yesterday’s bigotries can return in new veneers. Where 19th‑century broadsheets warned of polygamy and “secret oaths,” today’s packages spotlight weird underwear, money, and abuse. The old charge was alien. The contemporary brand is algorithmic alien. And conflation does the rest.

Meanwhile, what actually changed inside the Church in the last twenty years? Not a lurch into danger, but a remarkably steady picture: mission service and global humanitarian work; lay leadership; a plea for accurate naming; a familiar drumbeat on family, chastity, and service. 

So why did the temperature rise now? Several gears meshed at once. From 2012 to 2016, social feeds became the front page; the content that thrived honed villain arcs and moral bite with faster payoff loops. 

Streaming fought for differentiation with “based on a true story” limited series that collapsed an offshoot into the whole or an era into the present because simplicity binge‑watches better than footnotes. Investigations—sometimes vital—fed advocacy appeals, which seeded more coverage, which kept the story hot. 

And as national institutions lost trust, local communities with strong norms looked suspect by contrast; what used to read as civic virtue now reads as control to audiences trained to equate restraint with repression.

Put bluntly: the villain economy found a familiar mask. 

Ministering to Deep and Unmet Needs

That context can help us be less defensive. The people sharing their stories are not attacking Latter-day Saints or their way of life; they are being used by entertainment producers to maximize attention by exploiting their stories to fit into the package that sells today. If attention markets reward heat over light, disciples must choose the Savior’s incentives instead. 

In his 1977 talk, “Jesus: The Perfect Leader,” President Spencer W. Kimball taught that “Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner … We need to be able to look deeply enough into the lives of others to see the basic causes for their failures and shortcomings.” 

This counsel to “look deeply into the lives of others” stands in a constructive sort of tension with the Book of Mormon’s depiction of giving no “heed” to mockery and scorn. In the day of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the word heed meant partly “to regard with care.” Then, Latter-day Saints must learn to carefully regard every soul who points the finger of scorn while disregarding the offensiveness of scornful language itself. This can be a difficult line to walk, but it is also the one encouraged by those who seek to follow Jesus Christ. 

One practical help here is that our perception machinery is biased by availability cascades (what we keep seeing feels typical) and out-group homogeneity (we infer “that’s how they are” from one vivid case). Knowing that these are human tendencies—not personal attacks—lets us choose slow empathy over quick certainty. And because familiarity often breeds warmth, not contempt, it is good discipleship (and good social science) to actually know the neighbors we’re tempted to reduce to headlines.

To put this another way, we must learn not to be fragile conflict-avoiders who passively stay out of trouble, but Christlike, antifragile peacemakers who actively strive to bring peace to troubled souls. President Russell M. Nelson reiterated his prophetic call for us to become peacemakers until, as it were, his dying breath, highlighting the significance of our efforts while recognizing our ongoing need for improvement. As we recognize both our own parochial concerns with public sentiment against Latter-day Saints and our broader sociopolitical environment of divisiveness and extremism, it is easy to see why peacemakers are needed and will continue to be needed.

Learning from Our “Enemies”

That posture doesn’t just restrain us; it teaches us. The host and individuals who will appear on the screen are children of God. Their stories matter. Our task is to keep clarity and charity together—refusing caricature, refusing contempt, and refusing to let the market’s heat stand in for moral light.

Latter‑day Saints in general are renowned for being enthusiastically kind people, both to outsiders as well as to each other. Yet we, like all faith communities, have our blind spots, and those blind spots tend to enlarge when we are in the majority. And who better to help us learn how to better prevent the lapses that sometimes happen in our policies than those who previously fell victim to them?

The landmark book “The Anatomy of Peace” explains that the individuals and groups we consider our most bitter enemies can also teach us about some of our largest moral blind spots. In one of the book’s exercises for “recovering inner clarity and peace,” the authors invite us to ask ourselves a series of introspection questions such as how we, or a group with whom we identify, have made our enemies’ lives more difficult, and how progress toward peace with them might be hindered by our own pride, our feelings of victimization and entitlement, and our desires for validation, status, or belonging. Conducting this kind of searching inventory of our attitudes and behaviors and of those in our faith community is difficult soul‑work, but it yields hearts and congregations that are kinder, more inclusive, and more unified in our quest to build Zion. The alternative is to be damned to continue with our moral blind spots—talking past one another, disregarding or downplaying each other’s needs and pains, and grieving in the gridlock of our seemingly irreconcilable differences.

Because “the pure love of Christ” is so far above and beyond mere human capacity to obtain, we are exhorted to “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart” to receive this love. We know we are receiving His love as we begin to “look deeply” into the lives of others and see their divine worth, hear the cries of their hearts, and offer them our peaceful presence and care without mixed feelings and motivations. Through faithfully living by the doctrine of Christ and practicing “diligence unto prayer,” Christ’s pure love may endure with us.

When criticism comes: (1) Heed not the mockery—don’t amplify heat. We know why this happens. (2) Regard the person with care—see “a blessed being of light, the spirit child of an infinite God.” (3) Respond in the Savior’s way—facts with fairness, humor with humility, love without capitulation. As we pray “with all the energy of heart,” His pure love will reshape both our moments and our ministries.

The post Attention Is Cheap. Love Is Expensive. It’s Worth It appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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As I’ve previously discussed, there is an ascendant civic religion in the United States. This religion puts expressive individualism at its epistemological and moral center, with Rogerian humanism as its soteriology. 

The effort to establish this as the de facto social religion at the exclusion of others is one of the long-term challenges that people of those other faiths and those who prioritize religious freedom face in the United States. These movements, like other forms of secular extremism (such as French Laïcité), can seek to exclude or delegitimize religious expression in public life. That these acts are often done in the name of neutrality constitutes one of their risk factors.

As we consider ways to approach these long-term risks, we would be wise to look at the lessons and experience of our religious friends around the world. 

Southeast Asia, while vastly different in its historical and religious background, is also wrestling with their own versions of pluralism, secularism, and religious conflict—and have been since long before the American experiment began.

Today, countries like the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia are learning how to embed these principles in young democracies. To be clear, their story is not one of uninterrupted success. But it is one that offers important lessons to a West that is staring down a threat to religious freedom, unlike one it’s faced before. 

Today, the threat to religious freedom in Southeast Asia often comes from state control or nationalist movements seeking religious conformity. Coalitions like the Asia and Pacific Interfaith Youth Network (APIYN) and the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) have emerged in response to these developments. 

The APIYN is a regional initiative that is part of the larger Religions for Peace group. APIYN brings together young people from diverse religious backgrounds. They engage in interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding exercises. The group and its actions are youth-led. 

The KAICIID is much more of a top-down organization. It was established in 2012 by Saudi Arabia, Austria, Spain, and Vatican City. They have focused much of their efforts in Southeast Asia.

Lesson 1: Fostering Inclusive Interfaith Dialogue

KAICIID’s Dialogue Cities Southeast Asia initiative, launched in 2024 in Davao, Philippines, exemplifies how interfaith dialogue can bridge divides between distinct worldviews, without resorting to erasure.  Bringing together religious leaders, city officials, and civil society from diverse hubs like Yogyakarta and Bangkok, the initiative uses a “5Cs” framework—collaboration with media, connecting generations, creative arts, common spiritual values, and environmental conservation. In Davao, participants visited temples and churches, building trust without compromising their beliefs. This practical, community-driven approach produced media campaigns and art projects that celebrated shared values, reinforcing religion’s relevance in public life.

Lesson 2: Empowering Youth to Counter Extremist Narratives

APIYN’s 2024 youth camp in Manila showcases the power of young people in countering extremist narratives, both religious and secular. Gathering Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and others, the camp trained participants in interfaith literacy and digital storytelling, fostering relationships across faith lines. Youth-led media campaigns highlighted religion’s role in peacebuilding, challenging secular ideologies that dismiss faith as irrelevant. In a region where urban diversity amplifies tensions, APIYN equips young leaders to advocate for pluralism while staying true to their beliefs.

In the U.S., where many young people view religion through a lens of skepticism or polarization, APIYN’s approach could be useful. American youth, often distanced from organized faith, are hungry for meaning and community. And at this moment where teens are beginning to return to traditional religion, a U.S.-style interfaith youth network, modeled on APIYN, could host retreats or online platforms where young Christians, Muslims, as well as those who adhere to the new religion, can explore issues like mental health or racial justice through their faith’s moral frameworks. Picture a digital campaign showcasing stories of faith communities aiding hurricane victims or supporting refugees—narratives that counter secular tropes of religion as outdated. By empowering youth to articulate faith’s public value, such initiatives could shift cultural perceptions and strengthen religious freedom.

Lesson 3: Advocating for Inclusive and Sustainable Policies

KAICIID’s 2023 partnership with the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation trained Southeast Asian officials to navigate religious diversity, ensuring policies respect faith without favoring one tradition. Similarly, APIYN’s Southeast Asian Youth for Humanity (SEA Y4H) network empowers young activists to engage legislators, proposing inclusive policies that protect religious minorities. These efforts embed religious perspectives in governance, as seen in advocacy against restrictive laws in Indonesia.

A Call to Action for American Believers

While the West has long dealt with denominational disputes, we do not have nearly as much experience handling fundamental worldview differences. If we are going to learn to navigate such profound differences, we would do well to look at those who have experience navigating these more fundamental problems. Southeast Asia, with its robust religious diversity, can serve as a lesson in how to effectively bridge these differences. 

Southeast Asia’s interfaith coalitions remind us that religious freedom thrives when faith communities engage the public square with confidence and collaboration. APIYN and KAICIID show how dialogue, youth empowerment, and policy advocacy can counter erasure efforts while honoring diverse beliefs. 

For American believers, this means building local coalitions, inspiring young advocates, and shaping policies that affirm faith’s role in public life. Resources from KAICIID (www.kaiciid.org) and Religions for Peace Asia (rfpasia.org) offer practical guidance. As we struggle with the emergence of these distinct worldviews and how to integrate them into our religious landscape without letting them take over, these lessons can be helpful.

The post America’s Interfaith Problem Isn’t Denominational: Learning from Southeast Asia appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The Supreme Court tackled some significant religious freedom issues in its most recently concluded term. 

Parental Rights

The most publicized religious freedom case asked this question: What rights do parents have for their children’s education when public schools insist on teaching things that are contrary to the religious teachings the children are taught at home? 

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, arose when a Maryland school district told parents they no longer had the right to opt their children out of book readings that promoted views of sexuality and gender that conflicted with the religious beliefs of many families in the district. The Mahmouds, a Muslim couple for whom the case is named, joined with two Christian couples to ask the Court to restore their rights as parents to opt their children out of the book readings.

The Court said yes: Parents have the right under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution to direct the religious upbringing of their children—and not just in their own homes. The right also extends to public education.

The Yoder Court allowed the Amish to withdraw their children and declared that parents have a First Amendment right to direct the religious education of their children. But the extent of that right remained unclear. Many lower courts downplayed Yoder, emphasizing the unique nature of the Amish faith and its unusual religious command that necessitated the outcome in that case. As a result, Yoder’s broader principle—that parents have First Amendment rights to direct the educational upbringing of their children—became a casualty. 

But post-Mahmoud, the right can no longer be downplayed. The Court affirmed that parents’ right to direct their children’s religious education receives a “generous measure of protection from our Constitution,” including “choices that parents wish to make for their children outside the home.” Although the extent of the right remains dependent on the facts of each situation, Mahmoud shows that Yoder was not a one-off decision; rather, it espoused a core principle of Free Exercise law.

Disputes like the one in Mahmoud are likely to continue, and the answers are not always easy. Public schools have to be able to function, and they cannot cater to every possible religious objection. Often, the best solutions may involve accommodations to objectors. For example, the Court has protected the right of those who object to participating in the Pledge of Allegiance rather than removing the Pledge from schools. The situation in Mahmoud was similar. The parents did not ask the school district to remove the books from the curriculum—merely to allow their children to sit out for their reading. 

As the nation navigates future tensions in this area, Mahmoud makes clear that just because parents send their children to public school does not mean they relinquish all of their rights to direct their children’s upbringing. 

“Religious” Organizations

Another important victory for religious freedom this term came in a case where a Wisconsin law ran into a religious liberty problem. 

In Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, Wisconsin law granted certain religious organizations an exemption from paying unemployment compensation taxes. But Wisconsin told Catholic Charities it didn’t qualify because it wasn’t “religious” under the Wisconsin law. Why? Because Catholic Charities serves non-Catholics and doesn’t engage in proselytization. 

If that sounds wrong, the Supreme Court agreed. Why does the government get to determine that a group that serves people outside of its own faith is nonreligious? Or that a religion must proselytize to be a religion? Indeed, for many religions, serving those outside of the faith or abstaining from proselytizing are religious tenets themselves. It is constitutionally precarious for the government to be too prescriptive in defining what’s “religious.”

Here, the Court said, there was no reasonable justification for Wisconsin to impose theological guardrails—such as only serving those of your own faith—to determine whether an organization was religious for the purpose of a tax break. As a result, Wisconsin’s law was religiously discriminatory because it preferred some types of faith over others (e.g., those that proselytize)—a violation of the Establishment Clause. The law could not be enforced to prevent Catholic Charities from being considered religious under the statute. 

While tax exemptions might not seem exciting, the implications of the case are significant. Ensuring that the government stays out of overly defining what counts as “religious”—unless it can meet the high bar of strict scrutiny—is vital for protecting religious freedom in all contexts where the government makes law affecting religious organizations. Because religious freedom by nature implies the protection of diverse beliefs and practices, serious Establishment Clause concerns emerge when the state gets too prescriptive about what is religious.

The issue is not a new one. Just a few years ago, Yeshiva University in New York City did not recognize a number of applicant clubs that it found inconsistent with its religious mission, including a fraternity, a gambling club, and a pride club. As a religious organization, Yeshiva is constitutionally entitled to recognize only the clubs that align with its religious mission, including its interpretation of Torah and Jewish law. 

However, the pride club argued that Yeshiva could not reject its approval because Yeshiva failed to meet the strictures imposed by New York City law for religious corporate form. Therefore, the argument went, Yeshiva was not religious and did not have an exemption from a New York City human rights law to make decisions consistent with its doctrine.

That theory, if it had prevailed, would have achieved a strange result: Yeshiva University would have been deemed not religious and would have been compelled by the government to take actions inconsistent with its religious doctrine. 

The ruling in Catholic Charities is likely to help in such situations. The Court made clear that it doesn’t fly for the government to consider obviously religious groups nonreligious absent a compelling reason and a narrowly tailored policy scheme for doing so. 

To be fair, it’s true that the government often has to impose some guidance on what counts as religious under a statute to distinguish plainly non-religious actors from the religious. But nobody doubts that organizations like Catholic Charities or Yeshiva University are religious. When the effect of a government’s law is to call the plainly religious non-religious, that’s a problem. Because of Catholic Charities, governments know that their attempts to define what’s religious must avoid becoming religiously discriminatory by getting too specific about what it means to be religious. 

On What the Court Didn’t Say: Religious Charter Schools

The Court also heard a second case about religious freedom and education in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummon. The case involved a novel situation in Oklahoma where the state contracted with St. Isidore to form a first-of-its-kind Catholic charter school. As such, the school would receive some amount of public funding and be subject to certain governmental requirements, yet still operate as a religious school.

The Court did not decide the case due to a 4-4 tie, a result of Justice Barrett’s recusal. Justice Barrett declined to participate in the case due to a conflict of interest—perhaps due to her personal ties to the faculty at the Notre Dame Law School, who represented the Catholic charter school. 

Because a tie goes to the winner at the court below, the Oklahoma Catholic charter school remains blocked from coming into existence. It’s possible the Court may have more to say if a similar scenario makes it back to the Court and no justice has to recuse. Clearly, the Court is quite split on the issue, though the reasons why remain unknown. Because the religious charter school model is quite novel, it’s not clear that others will follow suit in light of this ruling. For now, Oklahoma’s almost-first religious charter school remains a no-go. 

Religious Freedom’s Trajectory at the Court

The Court’s recent docket of religious freedom cases seems to signal an emerging appetite to address religious freedom cases again. Although the Court has heard a few cases touching on religious liberty issues in the past few years, it has been relatively quiet after the blockbuster religious liberty term that concluded in the summer of 2022. The Court has several cases petitioning to be heard in the term that begins in October. 

For now, religious parents can celebrate that the Court has protected their constitutional right to direct the religious upbringing of their children—and the right is not limited to the confines of the home. Religious organizations can celebrate that the government cannot impose arbitrary definitions of what is “religious” when defining religious exemptions. For religious people and organizations, these are key religious liberty wins to celebrate.

The post Religious Liberty at the Court in 2025 appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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It has been thrilling times for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States. The deepening polarization in US politics has shone a spotlight on efforts made by leaders of the Church to reduce the intensity of political conflicts. It is into this moment that Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute invited Jonathan Rauch to speak about his new book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy.

The invitation should not be surprising given the book’s generous engagement with Latter-day Saint politics, history, and doctrine. Few books and authors by non-Latter-day Saints have sought to understand the faith and its political journey in the US with such kindhearted interest. And this interest comes despite the chasm between the author and the LDS faith on “culture war issues.” This sort of engagement should prompt some thoughtful reflection by Latter-day Saints regarding the ways in which their faith intersects with today’s political environment, and Rauch’s visit should inspire efforts to establish a distinct civic theology that uplifts people and supports the republic.

The crux of Hancock’s critique seems to be that Rauch’s olive branch is really a poisoned apple—that Rauch’s proposed liberal/Christian synthesis will undermine Christian witness in general and Latter-day Saint beliefs in particular. Though “liberalism” does a good deal of heavy lifting in Hancock’s argument, he does not define it with enough precision to know whether it actually poses a threat to Christian beliefs. His argument seems to have three steps: liberalism undermines Christianity; Rauch is a liberal; therefore, Rauch’s thinking undermines Christianity. But one could accept the first and second steps without accepting the third. “Liberalism” means many things to many people, but for Hancock’s argument to work, we are simply supposed to accept on faith that liberalism carries within itself a moral framework that poses a threat to Christian belief and practices. QED. 

While Hancock does not provide his own definition of liberalism, he assigns one to Rauch. The definition that Hancock saddles Rauch with involves being “governed by rules and not by rulers.” The definition places emphasis on the procedures and processes by which citizens of a polity arbitrate their differences. Hancock further garnishes the definition with negative moral implications. He writes that ‘[we] are thus asked to believe that the “rules” we must follow favor no class of persons and are absolutely neutral with respect to contending views of human flourishing, as if a regime of laws, institutions, and regulations could somehow equally honor all possible priorities of the governed.’ That characterization of liberalism reduces politics to a static zero-sum game.

And yet Rauch himself does not make those claims for liberalism. Rauch already concedes that the application of rules and the outcome of processes will not, if ever, be equal. For that reason, politics will always be necessary to sort out the competing claims made by citizens and groups. Rauch’s interest in Christianity is that the process itself might be less bitter and divisive if a process that is ongoing is fortified by values that only Christianity can impart to the political process.

Hancock casts doubt on the sincerity of such a project by arguing that Rauch once believed that the only way for the religious and the non-religious to exist was by creating a strict separation between the practices of the two. Hancock says “[w]hereas he [Rauch] once thought the best way to deal with the religion and politics question was to require a strict ‘separation between church and state,’ he now sees this approach as simplistic and inadequate. The problem today is that religion (the former majority belief, which Rauch labels ‘white Protestantism’) is bound up with politics in the wrong way.” The outreach that Rauch makes is not to be received because his original position somehow taints the current effort to work with religions.

This is why Hancock’s attack on Rauch for his scientific framework is puzzling. Early on, Rauch writes, “My claim is not just that secular liberalism and religious faith are instrumentally interdependent but that each is intrinsically reliant on the other to build a morally and epistemically complete and coherent account of the world.” This does not sound like a rationalist project to replace religion. Rather, it sounds like the project described by Charles Taylor in his tome A Secular Age. Taylor writes that we have moved on from a condition “in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others … Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives.” Rauch seems to be doing what believers and non-believers have done ever since: explore the borderlands between two powerful modes of thought and see whether a society composed of multiple moral claims can cohere. But Hancock will have none of it. He does not want to engage, writing dismissively that “Rauch seeks a Christianity that will somehow complete liberalism in practice, but without interfering in any substantial way with its ‘scientific’ epistemology or with its ‘progressive’ understanding of ‘freedom’ and ‘equality.’”

Rather than disparaging Christianity’s contribution, Rauch is highlighting it as part of a moral foundation that can make meaningful democratic deliberation possible. In these sorts of interactions, the parties must not dominate each other or seek to always have their position prevail. Once again, President Oaks acknowledges the possibility of such a dynamic when he writes, “[on] a broader front, what if the conflicting demands of civil and religious law are such that they cannot be resolved by negotiation? Such circumstances rarely exist. If they do, the experience of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suggests that a way can be found to reconcile divine and human law — through patience, negotiation, and mutual accommodation, without judicial fiat or other official coercion.” This is a message of hope that Hancock’s pessimistic view of liberalism impulsively forecloses.

Hancock also disapproves of those who use the language of modern liberalism to seek compromise. For Hancock, the liberal framework flattens the moral terrain by demanding that people must “respect” all opinions and treat all people with “fairness.” He claims that it would be “wrong” to respect a particular practice even when we are required to live with it as a feature of a nation’s legal and social practices. The challenge for Christianity is to avoid “losing its vertical orientation, its moral and religious substance.” Indeed, from Hancock’s perspective, it would be impossible to extend real “respect” to such practices because their violation of a moral law is not something that can be respected. Latter-day Saints may be able to accommodate the practices, but they can never respect them. Thus, when they use such terms as “respect and “fairness,” they have unwittingly adopted the individualistic and relativistic frameworks that reduce all morality to a contest of opinions.

There is a contradiction, though, in this argument. Hancock cites President Oaks’ 2011 essay as support for the faith’s values: “Our tolerance and respect for others and their beliefs does not cause us to abandon our commitment to the truths we understand and the covenants we have made. We must stand up for truth, even while we practice tolerance and respect for beliefs and ideas different from our own and for the people who hold them.” But earlier, Hancock asserts that, “If the metaphysical demand for human autonomy that underlies the radical redefinition of marriage is wrong, even evil, then it would be wrong to ‘respect’ it, even when we must accommodate it legally and politically.” So, which is it? Is respect possible when there are fundamental disagreements, or is President Oaks wrong to suppose that some form of respect is possible with others who believe differently?

What is the alternative to Rauch that Hancock is proposing? Ultimately, Hancock’s view of politics seems to be a pessimistic one. His formulation of the problem does not require much in the way of new efforts from Latter-day Saints. Indeed, it seems to parrot the approach of those elements of modern Christianity who fervently embrace fear. “Sharp” Christianity is a Christianity that approaches politics out of fear. A fear of having its tenets undermined or its congregants corrupted. The fear originates in the lack of or ineffective ways in which Christians learn and practice their faith. This is the “thin” version of Christianity Rauch describes. It is a version of Christianity that is “too thin to provide meaning and morals to the culture and thus reliably support democratic society.” And it does not seem to be able to generate versions of “respect” and “love” that can provide more stable foundations for a republic. Is this effort dangerous for Latter-day Saints? Only if you accept Hancock’s papering over of the differences between “thick” and “thin” Christianity.

A further concerning aspect of Hancock’s critique is the rhetorical strategies he uses to sow doubt about the desirability of engaging somebody who makes arguments like Rauch’s. Hancock’s argument invokes a form of psychologizing, speculating that the interest expressed by Latter-day Saints in such endeavors must be rooted in some “psychological and sociological need felt by many Christians.” Thus, people who would want to engage Rauch must suffer from some inferiority complex.

But if we are going to allow speculation about the motives of the Latter-day Saints who listened attentively to Rauch, why not also consider in those speculations the stated motives of the people who organized the event and who were there? Apparently, those motivations cannot explain the interest. For Hancock, the only people who can show interest in these ideas have some subconscious need to be liked by a representative of the “liberal” establishment.

Hancock’s rhetoric also “poisons the well,” a logical fallacy meant to demean a person or group and to distract the reader. Rauch confesses he does not share in the faith practiced by the religious. But Hancock asserts that arguments or efforts that originate from such a place cannot be taken seriously. He writes, “It is from this standpoint that [Rauch] proposes to instruct the reader on the true, operative meaning of Christianity in American society today.” Well, yes. We know that Rauch is an atheist. But what is it about atheism that disqualifies Rauch from talking about Christ-like values?  Hancock never really says. Apparently, a different set of cosmological assumptions means that Rauch can no longer engage the dynamic between Christian belief and questions of good government. And the tactic of labeling Rauch as an “atheist” only seems intended to inhibit engagement. If we want to foster engagement that can help alleviate the rancor in politics, we might consider following the counsel of President Oaks in his Virginia speech when he said that “[a] basic step is to avoid labeling our adversaries with epithets such as “godless” or “bigots.” 

Latter-day Saints, and presumably others, must find a way to extend more than a cursory respect to people on the other side of the disputes. It is a tall task and requires Latter-day Saints to find a way to truly love people while disagreeing with them about the most fundamental issues. When the stakes seem existential, as they often do in a two-party system, both the winner and the loser in these contests must act even better by recognizing the challenge. This is where the “thick” form of Christianity practiced by Latter-day Saints can come in handy. President Oaks writes, “What I have described as necessary to going forward—namely, seeking harmony by finding practical solutions to our differences, with love and respect for all people—does not require any compromise of core principles.” 

Latter-day Saints, with their access to the resources of the restored gospel, can accomplish more than what Hancock thinks possible. We can engage in politics with love and respect. In the Virginia address, President Oaks hints at where we might begin by telling the story of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. “When he [the rabbi] agreed to meet with a staunch atheist who detested everything he held sacred, the Rabbi was asked whether he would try to convert him. “No,” he answered, “I’m going to do something much better than that. I’m going to listen to him.” So, what are we, as Latter-day Saints, going to do that is “much better?”

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This is the 7th article in our Peacemaking Series. The previous article: The Complex Art of Christian Kindness: Building Bridges

I don’t agree, but I’m not saying anything. 

I’m going to keep my opinion to myself. I don’t want to rock the boat. I’m just trying to avoid contention; I don’t want to argue or start a fight. I want to maintain the peace, get along, and play well with others. If I say something, it’s a party foul: nobody likes a party-pooper, buzzkill, debbie-downer, wet blanket, tight-wad, stickler, contrarian, Nazi, one-upper, smart-aleck, know-it-all, skeptic, cynic, nay-sayer, zealot, fanatic, troublemaker, right-winger, left-winger, fence-sitter anyways! There’s a lot of pressure to choose a side and be a team player. It takes less effort to go with the flow, blend in, keep my head down, and roll with the punches. Right now, I’m being selfish: I need to let others have their turn. It’s important to listen to those you disagree with, be open-minded, and have diversity of thought. If things get out of hand, then the system will correct itself. Plus, it’s not like they’d listen anyways…right?

There are so many “good” reasons to stay quiet.

Many haven’t had effective communication patterns modeled for them. Online, clickbait writing and algorithms tend to exploit extreme opinions and communication tactics, promoting the most extreme and loudest “shouted” opinions because it maximizes engagement. For the same reasons, so many movie conflicts get “resolved” by shouting matches, fist-fights, gun-fights, building smashings, battles, death, and war. Not to say these problems are new; they’re only the most recent evolution in negative gossip and tall tales. We are saturated with extreme portrayals of what disagreements can lead to.

But disagreeing is so important. I’m sure we’ve all felt the crushing blow of accountability when hearing variations of the quote, “Bad men need no better opportunity than when good men look on and do nothing” (Mill). But realistically, not all disagreements are good versus evil; rather, they distinguish among variants of “good, better, best” (Oaks). Unilaterally shared information, collaboration, and perceptive participation are necessary in resolving such issues. 

The seventh of its kind, the following article is a compilation of research used when creating a video for The Skyline Institute’s playful yet informative videos on conflict resolution called the Peacemaking series. This month’s video, “Disagreements Bring Balance,” teaches the value of and tactics for voicing one’s opinion, even when disagreeing.

Our intent is to help people embrace vocal disagreement through an empathetic framework that can align actions with beliefs. There are several contributing factors affecting one’s ability to disagree effectively, such as personality, emotions, and verbal tactics.

What Makes Me So Special?

It is clear our genetics––as much as how we were raised––have a significant influence on our personalities. Psychologists often use the Big Five personality traits—or Five Factor Model (FFM)—to describe our natural tendencies. The traits are Openness (to new experiences), Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism—often remembered by the acronym OCEAN. For our purposes, Agreeableness is most relevant. Agreeableness describes the tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, and trusting in social interactions. Individuals high in agreeableness are typically described as friendly, patient, and often prioritizing the needs of others––seeking to maintain positive relationships. Personalities oriented toward agreeableness are just going to have a harder time finding the internal motivation to disagree. Those who score low in agreeableness (or high in disagreeableness, depending on how you wish to phrase it) will find the motivation to disagree easier. However, they will find it harder than agreeable people to express their disagreements in a socially effective way.

Consider the irony of staying silent because of wanting to respect and not contradict someone else’s opinion. It’s almost as if saying, Their opinion is important, they should share it, and I should listen to it. In fact, everyone’s opinion is important, everyone should share, and we all should listen. Except for my opinion, I will not share it, and therefore, no one can listen to it. When stated in this way, the illogic is exposed. 

As an example of this same sort of illogic, one co-author of this current video works as a mental health professional at an OCD clinic and interacts with clients who have determined they are unworthy of God’s forgiveness, often diagnosed as scrupulosity. When he asks them, “Who is God willing to forgive?” They reply, “Well, everyone.” He then, smiling, gently asks them, “So what makes you so special?” To which they often chuckle, recognizing their own mistaken perception of themself. So for those of us who don’t share our opinions out loud for fear of whatever reason, consider: What makes me so special that I’m the only exception to the rule ‘every voice matters’, or ‘two heads are better than one’? We invite you to consider yourself responsible for voicing your perspective; every voice matters.

Brene Brown’s research on these ideas clarifies the power of vulnerability. Vulnerability is a social currency that strengthens and deepens relationships. Relationships die when only one side is vulnerable. Internally, if I consistently diminish and disregard my own voice by not sharing my opinions out loud, I reinforce a negative perception of my own thoughts and ideas or a negative perception of other people’s opinions about my thoughts and ideas; and, repetitive silence can lead to resentment and emotion bottling. Externally, it will eventually impact my relationships with others “because, as it turns out, we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly” (Brown). Instantly obliging without voicing one’s opinion excludes the other participants from the opportunity of increased perspective and possible collaboration (to be explored more in an upcoming article). Intrapersonally and interpersonally, a deep sense of connection can only come from authenticity: letting go of who one thinks they should be in order to be who they are. The principle of sharing isn’t just for kindergarten. To truly connect with others, we also have to share our honest thoughts and feelings—starting with ourselves.

Some might not share because they think other people aren’t worthy of their opinion. It’s worth considering whether that reluctance comes from a place of insecurity masked as arrogance—often, what looks like detachment is a quiet need for compassion.

Tactics for Assertive Communication

With motivation lined up inside of an empathy-oriented framework that is mutual empathy toward self and others, we can move on to verbal strategies that help structure disagreements effectively. Last month, we highlighted the importance of curiosity—like asking questions and restating the opposing view before expressing disagreement. This month, we share tools for expressing disagreement. These help foster “emotional safety” in our relationships.

Assertive communication clearly states personal needs with consideration for the needs of others. This is in contrast to passive or aggressive communication. Passive communication is preoccupied with the needs of others, inappropriately apologetic, and timid or silent. Aggressive communication focuses only on personal needs, often with an intensity, blame, or shame at the expense of others. Then, of course, there is that toxic cocktail of passive-aggressive communication that shames others while never clearly expressing personal needs. Just like other problems, the best way to address passive-aggression from others is not to ignore it (that would be passive), or by attacking it head-on (that’s aggressive), but by 1. keeping emotions in check, 2. directly addressing the negative behavior, and 3. asking direct questions. For example, you might say calmly, “It looked to me like you rolled your eyes. That makes me feel small and disrespected. I think I’ve upset you—do you want to talk about it?” This is what assertive language reads like; it clearly states personal needs; it is unambiguous and addresses the actual issue (which is not eye-rolling); and, it creates space for them to express their needs and feelings; also, it doesn’t force a conversation. However, even if the language is assertive, but the emotion is uncontrolled, then the communication is no longer assertive: the emotional intensity tips it into aggressive communication. The manner of conduct and the language expressed contribute to the quality of communication, whether it’s aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, or assertive. 

Communication that is couched in personal experience doesn’t shift blame and direct anger toward other people. Instead, it focuses on personal feelings and personal perceptions of the situation. The Gottmans––marriage relationship experts––recommend using “I statements” or “I language” as a technique for verbally structuring disagreements. Begin any statement with an “I,” and make sure what follows is factual information from your own perspective. For example, an “I think…”, “I feel…”, or “I noticed…” are all particularly good ways to generate a “soft start” in a disagreement. This isn’t an excuse to say something like, “I think you waste your time on video games.” That’s still blaming and shaming the other person. Instead, describing without placing judgment, like “I’m worried you’re spending too much of your time on video games,” would be way better. Better yet, adding “… and I think it could be affecting your grades and relationships. I want to see you succeed and spend more time with you myself. Can you help me understand this from your perspective?” The real concern is addressed, vulnerability is shared, and an abundance of space has been created for the other person to share their feelings. There’s a chance the person could be wasting their time, but the latter conversation could foster an environment for the next Shigeru Miyamoto. 

Lastly, we offer the tool of talking in parts as a way of exploring and giving voice to the complex array of emotional nuances inside of oneself, especially when in a conflict. This technique draws from therapeutic models like Internal Family Systems (IFS), which recognize that we often have multiple internal perspectives. “Part of me wants to, but another part of me doesn’t.” One of the benefits is that there’s no limit to how many parts of you there are; “Part of me feels angry, but part of me gets where you’re coming from, and another part of me doesn’t want me to admit that.”

Closing Exercises

As our last exercise, let’s construct a “soft start” for an argument. Think of the last conflict you had or one that’s preoccupying your mind right now. Surely something came up. For the sake of exercise, let’s go with it. No scenario works out perfectly, but assuming the best, let’s apply the techniques in this article. 

1. What am I feeling? Emotions—like awkwardness, frustration, or fear—usually pass within 10–90 seconds. Instead of pushing them away, notice what you’re feeling and name it. Then choose how to respond. For the sake of the exercise, name the emotion, and accept it. Whether it sticks around depends on how we react to it, our thoughts, and our actions. So, what am I gonna do? Let’s decide to say something—which might not be appropriate for every situation (more on that in a future article), but for the sake of the exercise, let’s play it out in our mind.

2. What questions should I ask? Find my curiosity. Foster a feeling of goodwill. Ask as many clarifying questions as necessary. Do not try to trap or blame, seek understanding. For the sake of the exercise, think of at least 2-3 questions that could help or would have helped.

3. What is their perspective? Restate their perspective for them to hear in a way with which they would be completely satisfied and wholeheartedly agree. It is a generous and compassionate perspective of the other person, not some reduced characterization or strawman. We must steelman their argument and maybe even take the time to consider, Do I really disagree? At the very least, what do we agree on? Vocalize what you agree on. For the sake of the exercise, restate their opinion in the best version you can consider.

4. Share my perspective. Use assertive language. State actual needs and feelings. Use “I statements” or talk in “parts” to help. Avoid shame, and seek the deeper connection your vulnerability has enabled. For the sake of the exercise, structure an example of using at least one “I statement” and one talking in “parts”.

Depending on the situation, these steps may not always happen in the same order. But generally, understanding the other person (Step 3) follows curiosity (Step 2). And, Step 4 often clarifies Step 1 as we speak out loud.

May you find belonging and a deeper connection, and make more peace within yourself and your relationships.

The Peacemaking Series

You can view the rest of the videos in the Peacemaking Series HERE on YouTube. Each month, a companion article is released with new tools and insights. Next month’s topic is Forgiveness. To explore more articles by The Skyline Institute published in Public Square Magazine, visit us HERE. You’ll also find our original research supporting The Family Proclamation, along with videos and podcasts, at TheFamilyProclamation.org. Follow us on social media for more.

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The sixth article in the Peacemaking Series, published in partnership with Public Square Magazine and Skyline Research Institute.

Christian discipleship must navigate the seemingly dichotomous relationship between the commands always to be “kind” to one another (Ephesians 4:32), while simultaneously “standing” for Christ in all times, things, and places (Mosiah 18:9). When in situations of conflicting standards or beliefs this means implementing the social savvy of “disagreeing” without being “disagreeable” (Oaks, 2014). For successful conflict resolution, one or all of the parties must achieve a clarity of understanding. When motivated by goodwill, questions act like bridges for differing perspectives to pass from conflict to understanding.

Christianity will always be “offensive” (Kierkegaard, pg. 139). With perfection unattainable in this life, a relationship with Christ’s Gospel will always expose needed improvements, “for all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). And, since the Christian endeavour is foundationally social (John 15:12), this is why personal righteous behavior can be offensive to others. Even when implementing strictly personal behavior, disciples simply trying to live and preach the Gospel will expose others’ shortcomings and likely their associated insecurities (Matthew 5:11-13). In addition, disciples will inevitably, continually encounter conflicting perspectives about what the “right” thing to do is––even amongst other believers (Mark 9:33-34).

With God as “no respecter of persons” this pattern of behaviour must permeate not only events and discussions surrounding organized religion, but all social interactions with all people (Acts 10:34). This is a high bar, which to effectively implement would require perfection: only Christ’s atonement reconciles mankind with God, and only His Gospel will unite the Earth in peace (Ezra Taft Benson). But in the meantime––especially considering all the conflict our discipleship is likely to stir up––how do we make and keep friends who do not agree with our beliefs or standards? 

The Skyline Institute––hosts of TheFamilyProclamation.org––shares a playful yet impactful message as part of the Peacemaking Series regarding the powerful––though too frequently overlooked––functionality of sincere question asking, and its necessity when managing conflicts arising from differing perspectives:

Taking the time to understand someone else’s perspective doesn’t require compromising personal standards. Latter-day Saint missionaries live extremely conservative lifestyles and solely devote their time to preaching the Gospel, yet they foster eternally impactful relationships with individuals living completely opposite lifestyles. Preach My Gospel teaches all modern missionaries that the first conversational step in building a relationship of trust is to “ask inspired questions” (PMG, Ch. 10). Conveniently, the manual includes principles and examples for both “inspired” and “ineffective” questions. Naturally, the manual then follows with as effective a step: to listen.

Sometimes the struggle with conflict management principles is that they come across as too obvious and thereby people ignore them (see Intellectualization). But the reality is that conflict management breaks down when the obvious steps of symbiotic relationships aren’t followed. John and Julie Gottman became leaders in the field of conflict management through studying the most microcosmic, intimate, and voluntary of interpersonal relationships: Marriage. The longevity and thoroughness of their findings have produced theories effective in their applicability to any relationship. Among their work, they illustrate the four most destructive habits in a relationship and their “antidotes.” Among the antidotes is the simple act of “turning toward” your partner. Additionally, they call a “bid” any action motivated by an internal intent to solicit a “positive connection” (Gottman). “Bids” are both initiated and received by both sides of the relationship. Successful, healthy relationships turn toward bids. 

Christ admonishes His followers to both initiate and receive bids; “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you … pray for them which despitefully use … and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), persuade “by kindness … and without guile” (D&C 121:41-42), and ”forgive … seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22). Observe the commandment to “agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him” (Matthew 5:25). Notice the footnote for “Agree” clarifying an alternative Greek translation: “Quickly have kind thoughts for, or be well disposed toward.” This is a specific commandment from Christ to adopt a mentality when entering into conflicts––to foster goodwill toward the other party. Remember the example of Christ, one who was unimpeachably kind and “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38) yet unflinchingly committed to His commandments, covenants, and doctrine.

A structure for effective debate-oriented conversations systemized by mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapaport, “Rapoport’s Rules for Dialogue and Criticism” incorporates some of these principles taught by Christ. While true discipleship would not require adopting this specific system, it serves as a valuable example of grounded behaviors incorporating the principles Christ taught. The system––originally published by Rapaport in Fights, Games, and Debates (1960)––as summarized by Daniel C. Dennett (pg. 25):

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”

2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Consider practicing this with someone while debating something trivial you don’t understand, like a favorite food, recent movie, or hobby. Remember, we’re not just practicing the system, we’re practicing the intent to establish a positive connection and ask questions motivated by sincere curiosity.

Next time you find yourself spinning wheels in a conversation with both sides talking past each other, pause, take a deep breath, and search for a question motivated by sincere curiosity and the desire for a positive connection. God will guide you in your efforts (D&C 6:14-15).

The Peacemaking Series

You can view the rest of the videos in the Peacemaking Series HERE on YouTube. Each month, an article is released to accompany each video of the series. To view the rest of the articles in this series and other articles written by The Skyline Institute published by Public Square Magazine, visit our author page HERE. The Skyline Institute curates and performs original research to complement the prophetic teachings found in The Family Proclamation. You can view this research on TheFamilyProclamation.org and follow our accounts on social media.

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In Genesis, the people of Shinar came together to construct a great temple-tower (11: 1-9). By their hubris, they supposed they could, without the aid of God, build strong and high enough to reach Heaven. God, seeing their arrogance, cursed them. The previously perfect language which had passed from generation to generation became corrupted, and the Adamic tongue broke into the languages of the world. Misunderstanding and disunity scattered and divided the people from the incomplete ruins of their tower. Since then, fallen men have had to communicate one with another through the words of fallen language.

Over the period of a decade or more, a couple of our organization’s founders have traveled to another great tower––The United Nations in New York City––specifically to attend the Commission on the Status of Women, a global policy-making body dedicated to promoting gender equality and empowering women worldwide. In many ways, they observed and participated as the nations of the world engaged in and sought to legislate a tower that might reach the Heavens and bring peace to all the Earth. But too frequently, they observed how the very language one would use corrupted, and at times manipulated, any endeavor to bring about genuine equality or empowerment. The meaning and definition of words like love, equality, family, gender, marriage, feminism, (etc.) have been debated heatedly for hours at a time and from year to year. Such focused constructions of arrangements like family versus the family bore heavy consequences and connotations in the implementation of their practice. Each word means vastly different things to each attendee.

After years of frustrated efforts, they coined the term semantic ambiguity as a method of explaining their frustration, only later to discover it as a majorly discussed phenomenon amongst linguists. Semantic (or lexical) ambiguity is a form of verbal polysemy. 

Polysemy – when something has the capacity to have many meanings.

Poly – Many

Semy – Meanings

Some words are literally polysemantic. Words like light, bank, and cool each have multiple definitions. In addition, words’ connotations and concepts can vary significantly depending on an individual’s personal understanding or experience. Phrases and words like mental health, spiritual, and politics, or concepts like right and wrong, faith and science, or race and equity are all examples of words and concepts that may have very different meanings based on the context of the conversation and someone’s life experiences. And polysemy is not isolated to words but could include any kind of symbol; like flags, social groups, and even fashion. 

Semantic ambiguity is the frustrating experience when the appropriate interpretation of a word is unclear. This month’s video from TheFamilyProclamation.org’s Peacemaking Series discusses this topic.

In the video we see a playful analogy for when an innocently introduced idea turns into a squirrelly conversation of a highly debated topic. Perhaps it’s an uncomfortably relatable scenario, and semantic ambiguity doesn’t only relate to situations mentioned in the video, like politics, religion, and culture. It happens quite often, even when a parent or spouse asks, “Will you hand me that ‘thing’?” To which it seems the only useful response is, “What ‘thing’?”

Like the scattered builders of Babel, we wrestle with the fractured nature of language, striving to construct meaning amidst semantic ambiguity. By our assumptions, words––the basic brick for building bridges to understanding––can just as easily become barriers, shaping or distorting the truths they seek to convey. In the pursuit of peace—whether in the halls of policy or the intimacy of daily conversation—clarity should not be assumed, but constructed. Seeking to understand before seeking to be understood builds something lasting: the foundation of unity for a tower to Heaven.

The post From Babel to the UN: How Semantic Confusion Undermines Peace—and the Radical Power of Clarity appeared first on Public Square Magazine.