They talk as though “Mormonism” were an ethnicity. As though there were something in the blood. As though having the right grandparents, the right zip code, the right memories of casseroles and church basketball and trek and EFY and green Jell-O and dirty sodas and ward culture means you retain some inherited authority to define what the Church is, what it should preserve, and what it owes the world.

The Church of Jesus Christ is not an aesthetic, it’s not an ethnicity, it’s not a regional brand, it’s not even a culture. It is a church.

It has doctrine, commandments, ordinances, priesthood keys, and covenants. It has admission requirements, and it has boundaries.

“Mormon” Isn’t a Culture

Beginning in the early- to mid-2010s, there was a tendency among online Latter-day Saint malcontents to claim they had a special say over what happened in the Church by listing their Latter-day Saint bona fides before they launched into whatever complaint they had.

It started to become an embarrassing cliche, but these critics would usually talk about callings in which they served, people they knew, and their heritage in the Church, as though this gave them some special authority to critique.

Perhaps the most groan-worthy example of this was when The Washington Post described James Huntsman, who at that point was no longer a member of The Church of Jesus Christ, as “Mormon royalty” because of who his family was. 

At the time, these complaints were usually focused on tensions between the critics’ progressive American beliefs and the positions of a worldwide church. And the attitude was imported from Reddit, a social media site that is designed to encourage groupthink, and condescension against those outside its own orthodoxy. 

At the same time, a trend began of conceptualizing a Latter-day Saint culture that was severable from the doctrine and practice of the Church, led by many of the mommy bloggers and eventual influencers. They showed their lives online, but often with the religious portions omitted or left on the edges to make the lifestyle content more broadly accessible. 

Increasingly, those who were in the space, but not faithful Latter-day Saints themselves, would use the word “Mormon” to describe themselves, their spaces, or their movement. In fact, on Reddit, they called the “subreddit” dedicated to criticizing The Church of Jesus Christ and its members “r/mormon.” 

This trend has continued as the Church’s actual membership increasingly lives outside Utah and the United States, among people who would be quite confused by carrots in Jell-O.

Why Would They Still Want the Name?

I understand why so many people want to associate themselves with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the “Mormon” name. 

For the purposes of marketing, “Mormon” clearly interests people. Latter-day Saints have incredible reputations worldwide. I can understand why those who don’t choose to support The Church of Jesus Christ or live by its covenants and doctrines still want to participate in the sense of community and identity it provided. I would also love it if I could keep getting paychecks from my employer without doing any of the work. 

But just because their desire to stay associated with the Church makes sense doesn’t mean that reasonable people need to abide by it. 

John Dehlin, for example, criticized the Church with false information for so long and so consistently that he was excommunicated over a decade ago. His podcast, “Mormon Stories,” is not about “Mormon stories,” nor has it been for a very long time. The podcast is, by all rights, about “Ex-Mormon Stories” or “Anti-Mormon Stories.”

So when he recently described himself in a podcast as “Mormon,” it makes sense, it’s just not true, not in any meaningful way. 

And we would do well to look at such claims the same way Europeans do when Americans claim European identity—with cringe. 

“You’re not Irish. Maybe your great grandparents were Irish, but then they left, and you’ve been in America for a very long time.” 

Names have incredible power, which is why they are protected under trademark law. I understand faith transitions can be difficult, and they implicate identity in difficult ways. But if you apostasize from your faith, you don’t get to keep claiming it. Or at least people should ignore you when you try to. 

The process of leaving a faith fundamentally changes the way you think about it, the way you talk about it, and the way you remember it. This is why the Washington Post’s reporting on James Huntsman was so harmful. If he were in fact a “Mormon” who chose to sue the Church, that would communicate something very different about what was happening than the fact that he was an ex-Mormon and chose to sue the Church. 

And that has nothing to do with the legitimacy of his point. But for someone on the inside to make certain kinds of claims is just different than when someone on the outside does the same. People understand this instinctively. 

So when someone uses “Mormon” to describe themselves or their community after they’ve actually left, they are trying to appropriate credibility they haven’t earned. 

I understand that many people desire to discuss their experience growing up within The Church of Jesus Christ even if they’ve left the Church. There is a simple, easy-to-understand way to describe this: “Ex-Latter-day Saint” or “Ex-Mormon.”

Didn’t You Give Up on the Name “Mormon”?

Let’s talk about the word “Mormon” for a minute. Latter-day Saints no longer choose to describe themselves this way. We choose to find every opportunity we can to refer to Jesus Christ and our membership in His Church. 

Some have attempted to argue that because Latter-day Saints no longer use the description “Mormon” for themselves, it is free for others to use. 

It’s not. 

Kentucky Fried Chicken has recently decided to no longer use that name for its restaurants; it is now called just KFC. 

When The Church of Jesus Christ announced a reprioritization of its name, there were several simple short plugins for existing nomenclature. For example:

• “Mormons” could be replaced with “Latter-day Saints”
• “Mormon Church” could be replaced with “The Church of Jesus Christ”
• “Mormon Tabernacle Choir” could be replaced with the “Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square”

But there was one common phrase that did not have an easy replacement: “Mormonism.” And as a writer who has had to deal with this limitation, the more I’ve worked through it, the more obvious it has become to me that this was not an oversight. 

In today’s Church, there is no single “Mormonism”; there are hundreds of cultures around the world as people live the gospel in their own countries and settings.

That thing we call “Mormonism” doesn’t actually do a good job of explaining the culture of all the people who believe in The Book of Mormon. There are lots of smaller cultures within it, and being left without an obvious word I’ve had to think more carefully about what I actually mean. Do I mean Word of Wisdom culture, or do I simply mean Utah culture. 

There is a culture, and it’s probably the culture you think of when I say “Mormonism,” but it is increasingly niche, and we need to find ways to describe it that do not implicate nearly 18 million people worldwide. It is a contemporary Utah-descended lifestyle culture that is downstream from an older pioneer world. It’s an evolved pioneer culture. It could be called “Utah culture” or “Intermountain West culture.” But it’s not “Mormon” culture, it’s not the culture of The Church of Jesus Christ, it’s one of many cultures within a worldwide gathering.

There’s nothing wrong with this evolved pioneer culture. I love funeral potatoes. But to suggest that Taylor Frankie Paul, the star of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” is part of “Mormonism” because she drinks dirty sodas, even after she chose to leave, is offensive. 

So I, for one, greeted the news that The Church of Jesus Christ was suing “Mormon Stories” for trademark infringement with gratitude. 

Why Do You Care Who Calls Themselves “Mormon”?

I should be clear: the Church isn’t suing John Dehlin simply because he’s using the word “Mormon” to describe his podcast. The Church is suing him because he uses the word in conjunction with visual imagery specifically to trick people into listening to his podcast, and he refuses to include a disclaimer. 

The fact that most people will quickly be able to tell, after clicking on his podcast, that he is a malcontent doesn’t change the underlying lie. I still couldn’t start a restaurant called “Kentucky Fried Chicken” even if it sold hamburgers to prevent confusion. Trading on that company’s identity to get people in the front door is a problem in itself.

But just because The Church of Jesus Christ is not going after Dehlin solely for using the word “Mormon” doesn’t mean that people of good faith shouldn’t.

This is especially important because it causes incredulous media to turn to these folks as experts on The Church of Jesus Christ, and it can impact members and investigators who are not frequently online. 

Mormon may not be the name we call ourselves, but it is still an important part of who we are. The nickname comes from a record of Jesus Christ visiting people on another continent. That matters to us. Imagine an ex-Muslim starting a podcast about “Quran Stories” and saying that this isn’t a problem because they don’t call themselves “Qurans,” they call themselves “Muslims.”

But that’s not what has happened. Those who have left the faith have not joined these other churches in good faith to continue describing themselves as “Mormon.” This also isn’t about well-meaning Latter-day Saints who may be struggling with a testimony or with standards but who still see themselves as within the community. This is about those who leave, and who, in many cases, are actively seeking to tear down the work done by people who actually love The Book of Mormon, continuing to use the word because it helps them generate more web traffic than an honest name would. 

The Subtle Racism of “Cultural Mormonism”

For a church community that is increasingly populated and run by people from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the idea that people get special say over what happens within the community because of who their grandparents were brings up unfortunate racial problems.

You gain membership through baptism, and you maintain that membership through covenant keeping. 

If you don’t do those two things, then you don’t have a seat at the table; you’ve decided to leave the table. That spot is for new converts learning to leave their own culture for the gospel way, who are trying every day to live in faith and honesty. Trying to freeze Mormon identity to a past time based on what our ancestors were doing dismisses the real work of those all over the world who don’t have that background, but who are doing the work. 

It is their voices that need to be heard, not the person whose grandfather worked with a Romney, or who was a district leader on a foreign language-speaking mission, or who served as second counselor in a bishopric but then decided to leave because the Church’s position on some social issue just wasn’t popular enough for him and his Instagram followers. That person isn’t “Mormon Royalty,” that person isn’t “Culturally Mormon,” that person doesn’t have “Mormon stories,” that person isn’t Mormon. He left. And I wish him the best. But we’re busy trying to build Zion, and you can’t steal our name to help tear it down. 

The post Who is a Mormon? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

As a handful of students and I neared an apartment building to deliver the meals, we were surprised by the next-door Eugene O’Neill Theatre with its loud and brash signs promoting “The Book of Mormon” musical. The marquee featured photos mocking missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The students—many of whom had served missions—were quick to note the irony of our situation: Broadway presented a caricature of our faith while we were performing the quiet service that actually defines it. 

A dubious anniversary brought back those memories. The irreverent, bawdy, vulgar, and mocking “The Book of Mormon” musical opened on Broadway 15 years ago. According to the New York Times, the show has reached 6,000 performances for six million theatergoers, with box office sales now heading toward $1 billion on Broadway. The anniversary sparked a media circuit for creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, resulting in a wave of recent coverage.  

Jesse Green, the New York Times culture correspondent, penned an anniversary story titled “‘The Book of Mormon’ Is Sorry if You Were Offended for 15 Years.” The piece would have you believe that all is hunky-dory with the play and that it’s just been a 15-year run of good fun. No humans were harmed—including Latter-day Saints—in the creation of this Broadway hit, Green decides. 

I disagree. 

I have not seen the show, but I have read enough of the script, heard the music, and followed enough reviews to recognize its crassness and inherent bigotry.

When I reached out to Green via email, he declined to be interviewed, stating, “I don’t have more to say than I said in the article.” I wish he did, because his coverage reveals significant ethical and journalistic gaps. 

Most notably, Green didn’t ask any “real Latter-day Saints” about their reaction to the musical. Instead, he gave creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone a pass on possible tough questions about misrepresentation or harm caused by the show. It shouldn’t be that hard. With 42,000 Church members who live in the New York region, finding a local perspective from a member of the Church wouldn’t have been difficult. 

Since the Times was derelict in its journalistic duty, I’ll ask this question: Has “The Book of Mormon” contributed to an American culture where demeaning Latter-day Saints is socially sanctioned? As BYU athletic teams play games around the country, opposing fans often chant “F— the Mormons,” reminiscent of a scene where Ugandans say “F— God” in the play. Take this example of a family supporting BYU at a basketball game in Providence, Rhode Island. It has happened at numerous other venues across the country. Is it coincidental that there’s some similarity to “The Book of Mormon” musical chants and the game chants? 

In the end, Parker and Stone will collect their millions and say their show is a “love letter to Mormons,” kind of like “Fiddler on the Roof” was to Jews. But this show is not “Fiddler on the Roof” for Latter-day Saints. Instead, Parker and Stone’s work misrepresents, hurts, harms, and is meant to offend. Communication and psychological research has shown that humor often helps erode society’s normal boundaries of respect, compassion, and good faith to groups that are “othered.” That’s what this musical does.

Although Green’s bio says he abides by the New York Times Ethics Code and is “basically no use to anyone” who wants to influence him, Green sounds like a member of the New York elite theater club. He quotes whatever falls from the lips of Parker and Stone as gospel truth.

Instead of tough questions you get this about Green’s first time seeing the show.

The night I saw it, no less a dignified eminence than Angela Lansbury, seated directly in front of me, laughed her head off. I laughed too, all the time wondering: How did they dare put this on? Those laughs were half gasp.

The real gasp should come as Green gives Parker and Stone easy passes throughout the 15-year recap article with statements like this:

The authors had not meant “Mormon” to be offensive, let alone controversial.

Really? The Times just published that without questioning it? The Times would never let a politician get away with such nonsense. Parker and Stone knew exactly what they were doing and how bigoted it was. This next quote is just as damning: 

Still, Stone and Parker, having grown up around church members in Colorado, did not want to make fun of them or their religion.

So, if someone grows up around Jews in Brooklyn and they think of them as great neighbors, they have the right to be anti-semitic? If Angela Lansbury were to laugh at an Islamophobic joke, that would make it OK? The Times then piles on with another anti-Latter-day Saint trope. 

Taking precautions against a potentially hostile response, the production hired extra security for a few weeks around opening. And if some cast members worried that an army of the offended might sooner or later run them out of town, the authors were more worried about running at all. 

If Green had bothered to talk to any New York Latter-day Saints, 15 years ago or today, he would have quickly discounted any violent stereotype that this was meant to portray. A visit to any number of Latter-day Saint Sunday services only blocks from the New York Times building would have quickly provided a much different picture. 

Green’s bias toward Latter-day Saints also bleeds through again when he suggests that Latter-day Saints are inherently folksy, simple-minded people with no theological depth.

“They believe goofy stuff, but they’re really nice,” Parker said. “If you have one as a neighbor, you have a great neighbor.” That was the seed for a gentle lesson: Faith need not be logical to be meaningful; in fact, the opposite might be true.

Granted, the Times does give a nod to a 15-year-old official statement of the Church about the show, but it’s lazy, outdated reporting. The Times missed this statement from a Church spokesman at the time, which opposed the show’s content. At the same time, the ever-innocent Parker and Stone joked to Green and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that the Church was just really “nice” about all of this. 

True, when the show opened, the Church turned the other cheek through a statement and then took out ads in the playbill declaring: “You’ve seen the play… now read the book.” That was a masterstroke marketing move, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the production—filled with misrepresentations, stereotypes, racism, and vulgarity—helps mold public opinion and disrespect for Latter-day Saints and religion generally. It also gets Latter-day Saint theology wrong. The Church’s savvy response does not equate to agreement with Parker and Stone’s bigotry, although the pair keeps implying as much.

It’s also ironic how Parker and Stone live by a double standard. When “The Book of Mormon” musical was challenged about its racism after the COVID pandemic and Black Lives Matter movements, the show changed the script. But never has it been changed for its religious bigotry.

Unfortunately, as prominent writers Jonah Goldberg and Simon Critchley have observed, while expressions of racism or xenophobia are normally looked down upon in polite social circles, “anti-Mormonism is another matter.” Goldberg has written about how Mormonism is America’s last acceptable prejudice. Of course, it’s not just anti-Mormonism in the show; the central message is anti-religious.

While asking if such a show as “The Book of Mormon” musical could be pulled off today, the Times does acknowledge the sensitivities of demeaning people.

That’s because “Mormon” in 2026 is in some ways more gasp-inducing than it was when it opened. In the intervening years, sensitivities once barely acknowledged about racial, religious and sexual identity have become mandatory articles of theatrical faith.

Let’s hope that American society, with its purported standards of equality and fair play, rejects another mockery of faith groups, ethnic origin, or racial background. But our current culture of incivility and polarization doesn’t bode well for the future of culture and entertainment. Unfortunately, the Times is likely to be there cheering from the audience when another such show denigrates, misrepresents and, yes, offends. It seems that, in reality, no one is actually sorry at all. 

The post Broadway’s Last Acceptable Bigotry appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

One of those things is not like the others.

Religion is, of course, not exempt from corruption or crime. But this combination can also create a temptation to read every religious controversy as though it were a mob file waiting to be cracked open.

That seems to be part of what happened in the Sun-Times’ two recent pieces on Wade Christofferson, the brother of President D. Todd Christofferson. This case is horrifying and newsworthy. The Justice Department says Wade Christofferson was federally charged in late 2025 with attempting to sexually exploit a minor and with coercion and enticement. Prosecutors allege repeated hands-on abuse of an Ohio child, plus separate exploitation and hands-on abuse involving a second child in Utah. The Sun-Times also reported that the alleged abuse underlying the current criminal case did not occur on church property and was not directly tied to church activities. That does not make the case less awful. But it does matter when deciding what kind of story this is.

The outline of the Church’s response, as reported by the Sun-Times itself, is not the outline of an established institutional cover-up. According to the Church’s statement, Wade Christofferson was excommunicated in the mid-1990s over abuse allegations, readmitted in 1997, and D. Todd Christofferson did not learn the specific nature of his brother’s abuse history until around 2020, through family disclosure. The Church also told the Sun-Times that when those older allegations were discussed, the adult victims did not want law enforcement involved, and that when President Christofferson later learned of a recent allegation involving a minor, he immediately reported it to legal authorities. Those facts may still leave room for criticism and painful moral questions. But they do not suggest corruption, cover-up, or scandal. The framing and analogies used by Herguth do the suggesting that the facts do not.

Herguth’s coverage did not mention the research suggesting that The Church of Jesus Christ’s policies, or the research showing their low sexual abuse rates compared to other youth organizations. But he did find time to mention LGBT+ issues and Joseph Smith’s polygamy.

In other words, his coverage treats The Church of Jesus Christ not as a major religious body that helps facilitate faith for millions around the world, but treats it like a mob that should be taken down no matter how relevant or supported the accusations.

But what else would you expect when you assign your organized crime journalist to your religion stories?

Latter-day Saints should not ask to be shielded from scrutiny when children are harmed. This case deserved coverage just as other crime beat stories do. But it also deserves journalistic discipline. The Sun-Times missed the boat here in a way that was predictable and avoidable if they had just assigned the correct reporter.

The post Media Framing in the Wade Christofferson Case appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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By most measures, today’s media-literacy boom has been a public good. Charts from Ad Fontes, ratings from AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check, “nutrition labels” from NewsGuard, and “blindspot” dashboards from Ground News give ordinary readers quick heuristics for what’s trustworthy and how coverage breaks across left–right lines. In a chaotic information environment, that’s helpful. But these tools also flatten the very thing they’re trying to measure. Bias is not just a point on a horizontal spectrum—often it’s embedded in what gets covered, who gets quoted, and how complexity is collapsed into a single line of copy. When rating services only score overt partisanship and headline-level reliability, they risk missing the blind spots that most shape public understanding. 

A recent essay in the Milwaukee Independent makes a similar point: rating platforms intended to counter spin can end up penalizing outlets that refuse false equivalence, confusing “moral clarity” with “partisan bias.” That critique should ring a bell for anyone who’s ever read a nuanced beat story reduced to a pin on a bias chart. 

Case Study: The AP, a Temple, and the Meaning of “Bigger”

Consider Associated Press coverage of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Lone Mountain Nevada Temple in Las Vegas. An AP dispatch about temple growth asserted that the Lone Mountain temple would be “larger in size than the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” with a steeple nearly 200 feet tall. The phrase “larger in size” landed with neighbors—and readers—like a bomb. Larger than Notre Dame? The problem is that the temple is about one-third the size of Notre Dame and one hundred feet shorter. The error comes from a misunderstanding of square footage.  That’s framing bias, not partisan bias—and you won’t find a category for it on most ratings sites.

Case Study: What Wasn’t Said at General Conference

In 2024, AP ran a story on the conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under the headline “Latter-day Saints leader addresses congregants without a word on racial or LGBTQ+ issues.” That piece treated omission—what didn’t happen—as the news. That isn’t a left-right bias, but it is quite obviously a bias nonetheless. 

The author, Hannah Schoenbaum, has no background in religion reporting, but instead covers government, politics, and LGBT+ rights. Six months later, she was still on the same beat, and her coverage of the conference mostly covered political angles. Despite these two incidents, AP still assigned Schoenbaum to the same article for the most recent conference. She was also responsible for the inaccurate Las Vegas Temple coverage.

The bias here isn’t a partisan one; it’s a worldview one. When you assign a political and LGBT+ rights reporter to do religious reporting, what you get are only stories that fit into the narrow lens of the reporter. This headline imports the author’s opinion about what should have been spoken about into a story that was in fact about something entirely different. The headline “Latter-day Saints leader addresses congregants without a word on environmental issues in Asia” is equally as accurate, but manages to convey an entirely different story.

Case Study: Larger than Life Abuse Findings

Similarly, the AP had investigative reporter Michael Rezendes devote significant resources to sex abuse cases within the Church of Jesus Christ.  

Rezendes received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about the sex abuse scandals inside the Catholic Church, systemic issues of offending priests being known, covered up, and moved to a new diocese to continue causing harm.

Rezendes’ selection for the assignment communicates certain ideas to the readers: There is a sex abuse problem in the Church of Jesus Christ; it is a problem of significant size and a serious institutional error.

But what Rezendes actually found over the course of several years was that there are some Latter-day Saints who commit sexual abuse (he found three stories), including some of our leaders. They are excommunicated when they are discovered. The Church has a helpline so that local leaders know how to follow complicated disclosure laws. And the Church also tries to provide financial restitution to the victims.

It’s a tragic story, but one about the inevitable tragedy of human frailty rather than institutional cover-ups. 

But by choosing to write long features for stories that would normally be reserved for page-seven crime beats, it communicates that this is news worth paying attention to, which communicates a nefariousness, pervasiveness, or culpability that doesn’t in fact exist in any of the reported cases.

The lasting impression left with many readers was of a sweeping institutional cover-up, even though the stories were ultimately about distinct criminal acts by individuals. That’s a classic scale problem: to what extent does a set of horrific cases justify institutional generalization? Bias checkers don’t score how disciplined news outlets are in attributing scale—but it’s central to how audiences come away thinking about an institution.

And the effects of this bias are serious. The best available evidence suggests that Latter-day Saints commit sexual abuse at rates significantly lower than those of many other faiths or the general population. Our protective factors should be a lesson to others. Instead, a recent survey by YouGov had more people believing that abuse is a “very big problem” in the Church of Jesus Christ, more than in the Southern Baptist churches, despite the fact that Southern Baptist churches had been involved in a systemic controversy covering up sexual abuse, dwarfing in severity the problems in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Is that unfortunate misunderstanding a result of the editorial choices of the Associated Press? Do Americans know less about sexual abuse and where kids are safest because of the Associated Press’ coverage? It’s certainly possible, but it’s not a kind of bias you would be able to identify in the media literacy tools currently available. 

The Bias You’re More Likely to Encounter: Access and Sourcing

Here’s a quieter example. I recently had a wonderful experience with Maggie Penman of The Washington Post. Penman runs “The Optimist,” a column about positive things in the world. 

After the Michigan attack on an LDS chapel, Penman ran a feature about Latter-day Saints raising money for the attacker’s family—an act of grace that surprised many readers. It was a beautiful and generous story. This is why I was surprised to find a quote by a religion scholar at the end of the article attacking Latter-day Saints: he disagreed with them on a doctrinal point. For those within the Latter-day Saint sphere, this attack from this commentator, who is a frequent critic, is unsurprising. What was surprising was that he was included.

What the Checkers Miss

Most popular rating systems do some things well: They reward corrections, penalize serial fabricators, and map partisan lean. However, several endemic newsroom behaviors, including those discussed above, fall outside their frameworks.

None of these is chiefly about “left vs. right.” They’re about habits, networks, and time. 

My intention here is not to call out the media checkers. These are still emerging projects. And media checkers have done incredible work, shining light on real issues and helping to improve media literacy. My hope is to encourage their work. As they are continuing to grow, here are some suggestions of practical metrics that might be tracked and could add to our understanding of media bias:

• Source Diversity Index: Track whether coverage of a community consistently quotes the same one or two academics/activists, or shows range (rank-and-file members, leaders, critics, independent scholars).
• Correction Transparency & Latency: Not just “did they correct,” but how long did it take, and was the core ambiguity addressed?
• Scale Discipline Score: When a story makes institutional claims from individual cases, does it disclose sample size, scope, and limits?
• Beat Maturity Indicator: Tag when a reporter is new to a complex beat and flag when framing changes as literacy improves.

Whatever their flaws, biased tools are still better than the invisible curation of our social feeds, which reward engagement over understanding and routinely amplify the most polarizing takes. And they’re certainly better than the reflexive dismissal of all journalism because of a monolithic, misunderstood “bias.” We want readers to be able to recognize the kinds of bias they actually encounter in the checkers describing them. That work—however halting—beats a world where the only algorithm that matters is the one designed to keep us scrolling.

The post The Biases that Aren’t Measured appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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New York Magazine’s The Cut published a long reported feature yesterday on Latter-day Saints, Utah, influencer culture, and the national appetite for “Mormon aesthetics.” Buried inside it is a serious thesis: Latter-day Saints helped shape key parts of modern online life—tech, genealogy, affiliate marketing, brand deals—and now a particular Utah-flavored influencer ecosystem has gone mainstream.

That subject deserves real cultural journalism. But the feature doesn’t treat Latter-day Saints seriously. It treats a living religious community as a cultural prop: a reliable source of weirdness, a costume rack of eccentric doctrines, and an acceptable target for winking contempt—then layers that tone over doctrinal errors and an over-reliance on critics with little balancing context.

Latter-day Saints do not need the approval of a lifestyle magazine to live out our faith, but there is something wrong when editorial culture still thinks it is acceptable, or even smart, to understand a religion through nothing but memes.

Criticism isn’t the Problem. Contempt Is.

The Church is not above scrutiny. If you want to examine PR strategy, media posture, investments, or Utah’s insular status dynamics, fine—do the work: show receipts and speak with informed believers, scholars, and, where relevant, critics. Latter-day Saints are so accustomed to sneers from legacy outlets that even serious critical coverage can feel like a relief. But this feature does not read like an investigation guided by intellectual curiosity. It reads like something else: a story that wants to be both reported analysis and group roast.

A Publication That Wants Credibility Can’t Cover Faith Like It’s a Freak Show

The clearest tell is the piece’s reliance on outsidery shorthand: familiar “Mormon jokes,” recycled late-night tropes, and online folklore presented as representative. That method is at best lazy, at worst socially corrosive. When a major publication treats the sacred life of its neighbors as a punchline, it is not merely “edgy.” It’s the normalization of contempt for a minority faith.

And to be blunt: there is a reason this kind of tone still shows up with Latter-day Saints more easily than it would with many other religious groups. The feature claims Latter-day Saints now carry real cultural cachet, yet writes as if anti-Mormon mockery is still culturally acceptable. That’s a sign that anti-Mormon mockery is still socially permitted in a way it wouldn’t be for many other minority faiths.

What the Piece Does Well

To be fair, the feature does some real reporting: It paints a vivid picture of a Utah influencer ecosystem; it traces how early Mormon mommy bloggers helped professionalize affiliate marketing and online commerce; it captures how “noncontroversial” family content became brand gold during the pandemic; it correctly notices that Utah’s particular blend of community networks, aspirational domesticity, and entrepreneurial hustle can be an accelerant for online business.

If you want to analyze a community that you believe has exported a powerful cultural product—“Mormon mom” influencer culture—then you also owe that community the baseline respect of accuracy and the basic fairness of being represented by more than its loudest detractors and its most sensational reality TV exports. 

Three Failures that Warrant Post-Publication Changes

The problems in the feature fall into three categories:

1. Factual inaccuracies
2. Statements included for the purpose of mocking Latter-day Saint belief
3. Unchallenged criticisms presented as if they are settled truth

These are not nitpicks. They go to the heart of whether the piece is journalism or polemic.

1) Factual inaccuracies: the kind that shouldn’t survive a competent edit

Some errors are interpretive. These are not. These are statements about what Latter-day Saints believe, teach, or do—asserted in the narrator’s voice—that are wrong, distorted, or presented with such sloppiness that readers are misled.

Here is a catalogue of the most obvious problems:

Doctrinal claims that are misstated or sensationalized

• The piece claims there is a doctrine of spending 1,000 years in “spirit prison.”
• It claims spirit prison is for the “least worthy,” implying a ranked afterlife prison system.
• It calls spirit prison a “temporary hell,” borrowing a loaded popular image that distorts how Latter-day Saints understand the spirit world.
• It states inaccurately that women cannot prophesy in the Church—erasing a long Latter-day Saint teaching about women’s spiritual authority and gifts.

“Worthiness” and church practice presented as caricature

• The piece asserts that for Latter-day Saint women, “worthiness” depends first and foremost on marriage and motherhood. That is an editorial line that reads powerful and condemnatory—and it is misleading. Latter-day Saint worthiness has formal, published standards and interviews; you can critique those standards without inventing new ones.
• It describes bishops’ interviews for youth and lists topics that are not included in the youth interview questions.

Internet folklore treated like representative practice

• The piece presents “soaking” as a way young Mormons can have sex without breaking chastity covenants, treating it like a real, meaningful “loophole” in lived religion. At best, it’s gossip; at worst, it’s a joke inserted because it’s humiliating.

Errors of basic terminology

• The feature confuses temple clothing worn in the temple with temple garments that are first received in the temple and then worn as an everyday religious commitment. That confusion is exactly the kind of thing that happens when a writer is covering a community from the outside and does not slow down to learn the vocabulary.

Sloppy claims about history and demographics

• The piece asserts that Black men could not hold leadership positions before 1978, when what it appears to mean (and should have precisely stated) is that Black men could not be ordained to the priesthood prior to 1978.
• It gives a Utah Latter-day Saint self-identification figure with no clear sourcing, and different from the most widely reported Pew Research figure.
• It reports an incorrect count of temples announced in 2025—again, a checkable detail that signals a lack of verification.
  

[Editor’s Note: New York Magazine has since corrected the final two errors, but declined to fix the other factual mistakes in the piece.]

These are not obscure theological disputes. An understanding reader might handwave these away as honest mistakes or minor points. But these are precisely the kinds of facts that journalists care about (or at least should). The errors suggest an editorial posture of stereotype-driven credulity: if a claim sounds weird enough, it is assumed true, and therefore not worth checking.

Religious reporting is challenging and detail-heavy, which is exactly why careful outlets verify doctrine and terminology with knowledgeable members of the faith and scholars—so the people being described can recognize themselves in the description.

In response to a request for comment about the article’s editorial process, Lauren Starke, head of communications for New York Magazine, replied, “Our writer consulted a wide range of sources with varying perspectives, and the story was carefully reported, edited, and fact-checked.” If so, these varying perspectives and careful reporting did not appear in the final draft of the article. It does not even appear that an in-house religion reporter was consulted. 

2) Mocking statements: the paper trail of contempt

Even if every factual claim were perfect, the piece would still have a problem: it repeatedly deploys editorial asides and framing choices that read as intended to belittle.

A story can have a voice without being cruel. This one is cruel in small, deliberate ways—the kind that accumulates until the reader understands the assignment: these people are weird; feel free to laugh.

Here is a catalogue of the clearest tone cues:

• Opening with a sexual pun as the entry point into “Mormon” Utah: a signal that this community will be handled with a wink, not with care.
• Describing Latter-day Saint beliefs as “zany” in the narrator’s voice—an adjective that invites ridicule rather than understanding.
• Referring to Mormons as “freaks” (even as part of a broader cultural arc). If you want to understand how a community went mainstream, you do not need to label them freakish. That’s not analysis; it’s sneering.
• Casually conflating Latter-day Saints with polygamous shows like “Big Love” or “Sister Wives.”
• Throwing out tangential doctrinal ideas with no purpose beyond making it appear silly, and in a way an average member would not recognize as “what we believe.”
• Bringing up “soaking” as a narrative beat—not because it’s crucial to the thesis, but because it’s humiliating and clickable.
• Referring to church reserves/investments as a “war chest” rather than using neutral language like “savings” or language Latter-day Saints would use themselves such as “rainy day fund.”
• Referring to the most serious source on the church as “a Happy Valley mom who posts educational content about the faith.” While Latter-day Saint women often view their roles as mothers as the most significant, the phrasing here is clearly meant to downplay her professional accomplishments and portray her as a frivolous home vlogger. 

None of this advances the core journalistic purpose. All of it advances a social purpose: to reassure the reader that they are part of the in-group that knows how to roll their eyes at the out-group.

A publication can choose that posture. But it shows they should not be considered a serious, fair-minded journalistic institution.

3) Unchallenged criticisms: letting the loudest critics define the subject

Professional journalists abide by The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics. Or at least they are supposed to. 

One of these codes is to diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing. The article fails on this front. According to internal sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the subject, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not brought in on the article until late in the process. New York Magazine did not diligently seek out other Latter-day Saint organizations who could respond to the criticisms in the article either. 

Reality television is not ethnography. It selects for spectacle, conflict, and extremity; it is not designed to be representative. Most readers understand that instinctively. But when the subject is Latter-day Saints, that genre literacy seems to vanish: the most sensational export becomes the interpretive key for the whole community.

The feature repeatedly gives critics a runway and does not bother to add context, corrections, or faithful perspectives—especially when describing sacred worship. In over 6,000 words, the article manages to include only a few active Latter-day Saints. Jasmin Rappleye, an experienced content creator with serious doctrinal literacy, was woefully underused as a source—she is given a brief quote about “publicity,” and responds to one allegation that influencers are paid directly by the Church (they’re not). Meanwhile The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star and frequent church critic Heather Gay is featured in a quarter of the article. 

This is where the piece crosses from “critical” into “polemic”: it grants authority to the sharpest negative descriptions without doing the basic work of hearing from people who actually practice the faith. 

Examples from the article include:

• It repeats “magic underwear” without noting that Latter-day Saints find that label offensive and have asked others to stop using it—something a respectful publication would at least mention if not honor, even if it still determined that underclothing or a religious minority was a proper subject of journalism.
• It presents “community surveillance” as a defining cultural norm without giving ordinary faithful members a chance to explain how they experience community, accountability, and belonging, and push back on the narrative.
• It gives a critic’s description of temple worship designed to make sacred practice sound ridiculous without any counterweight from a believing voice who can explain what temple worship is intended to be and why it matters.
• It allows the Church to be inaccurately labeled “a theocracy”—a term that describes governments, not churches.

The only moment where balance appears is when the writer needed a denial for legal reasons (the clarification about the church paying influencers). Everything else—the theology, the worship, the moral life of millions of people—gets flattened into outsider narration and the commentary of critics.

That isn’t how you cover a religion. It’s how you prosecute one.

The Biggest Omission: Jesus Christ

One might not expect a cultural publication to take our faith in Jesus Christ seriously (though it did identify us correctly as Christians). But if you are writing a cultural article on why Latter-day Saints do what they do, and you do not talk about how we love Jesus Christ and try to follow His example, then you are not telling the full story.

The story turns a Christ-centered faith into an aesthetic, a machine, a brand strategy, and a collection of quirky doctrines for outsiders to gawk at. Readers come away thinking Latter-day Saint life is mainly about branding, surveillance, and monetization. You cannot tell the truth about Latter-day Saints while ignoring its core animating fact. That omission doesn’t just offend believers. It robs readers of the most important explanatory key to the lives of Latter-day Saints.

Why This Matters Beyond “Hurt Feelings”

Some editors respond to criticism like this with a shrug. They determine it is not their job to be the Church’s PR, or they believe that upsetting people means that their hard-hitting coverage landed. 

I am sorry to disappoint you. But it is also not your job to be the PR for Heather Gay, and an article about how a Hulu reality show made people buy sodas with syrup in them is not hard-hitting coverage.

The reason Latter-day Saints don’t like this kind of coverage is because it’s bad. 

And Latter-day Saints have a long history of being treated as something less than fully American—something exotic, suspect, culty, ridiculous, or dangerous. The article tries to say that is over, while making it very clear it is not. 

The story even gestures at historic persecution early on, then proceeds to participate in a softer modern form of the same impulse: they’re weird, so it’s fine to talk about them in a way you would never talk about others.

A fair feature can be sharp and unsparing and still meet standards of fairness and accuracy. If a publication wants to cover religions—especially minority religions it believes are culturally influential—it should meet the minimum bar:

• Get doctrine right or do not summarize doctrine.
• Avoid lazy stereotypes and derogatory tropes.
• Do not turn sacred practice into spectacle for clicks.
• Include the voices of sincere practitioners, not only critics and reality TV proxies.
• When you make an error, correct it publicly.

We invite New York Magazine, The Cut, and the author and editors of this article to make a public apology to Latter-day Saints, and if they don’t remove the article, to at least correct the inaccurate statements and remove the mockery. 

Moving forward, this can be an opportunity for reflection and improvement. 

One of the most frustrating parts of being part of a community that pop culture periodically discovers is the sense that you are never being spoken to—only spoken about. That your real life is invisible behind the versions of you that sell: the cartoon missionary, the “zany belief,” the “magic underwear,” the reality show scandal, the internet rumor, the aesthetic mood board.

Latter-day Saints are not asking to be shielded from critique. We are asking to be treated as fully human and honestly represented.

New York Magazine can do better. But “better” is not a vague aspiration. It starts with the basics: accuracy, fairness, and the humility to admit when a story uses a minority faith as a punchline.

The post The Ethics of Contempt 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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In an era marked by rapid information flow, deep polarization, and an often shallow engagement with religion in the media, the year 2025 finds members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a crossroads of faith and public discourse. Members of the Church believe truths that are not only foundational to our eternal salvation but also deeply relevant to how we interact with our neighbors and society at large.

Yet as digital platforms expand and multiply, the representation of our faith in the public square often lags behind reality, too frequently reduced to caricatures or superficial narratives. In this context, publications like Public Square Magazine—which expressly seek “to convene, encourage, and support voices of conscience and conviction”—play an important role in elevating discourse and correcting widespread misunderstandings about the Church.  

The Challenge to Journalism

Too much of today’s journalism treats religion as a fringe footnote—a subject for stereotype rather than serious engagement, especially when covering faiths that fall outside the mainstream Christian tradition. In 2025, this problem persists. Many news outlets repeat sensational claims about Latter-day Saint culture or internal governance without providing historical context, doctrinal clarity, or the lived reality of millions of believing Saints.

This is not an occasional problem—it’s a pattern with depictions of religion in the media. Headlines about Latter-day Saint temples, doctrinal practice, or cultural norms frequently prioritize spectacle over substance. This journalism feeds misunderstanding. It substitutes caricature for context and leaves readers—both Latter-day Saints and those not as familiar—with a distorted sense of who we are. We must demand better: journalism that illuminates rather than obscures.

Interest in Latter-day Saints in Streaming and Public Culture

Another notable phenomenon of 2025 is the significant interest among Latter-day Saints in streaming media and cultural content that bears on faith and identity. From documentaries exploring religious history to series that touch on moral complexity, many Latter-day Saints—especially younger generations—are engaging with visual media as a primary window on the world.

This trend presents both opportunity and risk. On one hand, engaging with culture through streaming services allows members to see diverse perspectives and draw connections between gospel principles and contemporary issues. On the other hand, without discernment, it’s easy to absorb narratives that are sensational, misleading, or simply indifferent to spiritual realities.

As Latter-day Saints, our engagement should be thoughtful. We should seek media that challenge us to grow in compassion, strengthen our testimony of Christ, and equip us to serve others rather than fostering cynicism or division. In this, we can borrow from the aims of Public Square Magazine: to promote dialogue that is “persuasive, honest, and research-based,” and not merely provocative.  

Toward a Better Public Conversation

What does better journalism look like? It begins with curiosity rather than assumption. It respects believers as whole persons, not caricatures. It treats doctrine with attention to official sources and authentic voices, not secondhand interpretation. And it acknowledges the complexity of human experience, including the sincere devotion and enduring faith of millions of Latter-day Saints worldwide.

Faith Calls Us to Engagement

Ultimately, our faith doesn’t retreat from the world—it engages it with hope. In a world hungry for meaning, the gospel of Jesus Christ offers answers that resonate across boundaries: forgiveness, purpose, community, and eternal perspective.

For those who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ, our calling is twofold:

1. Live with integrity. Let our actions reflect our beliefs, showing Christlike love in every setting.
2. Speak with clarity and charity. When we see incorrect or incomplete information about our faith, we should correct it gently but confidently, rooted in truth and humility.

In doing so, we contribute to a public square where faith is not marginalized but understood, where journalism does not sacrifice accuracy for sensationalism, and where every reader—Latter-day Saint or not—can walk away with a clearer picture of one of the most dynamic religious movements in the world.

In 2026 and beyond, let us strive for a public discourse that honors both truth and dignity—for in Christ’s gospel, both are inseparable.

The post A Clarion Call to Truth: Faith, Journalism, and the Public Square in 2025 appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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I was seven when I learned to disappear—not with footsteps, but with thought—because silence meant survival. In post-revolutionary Iran, an honest question could lead to prison, exile, or worse. Before I had words for any of this, my mind built an invisible checkpoint: Don’t say that. Don’t ask that. Don’t look too curious. The wrong word, heard by the wrong person, could alter your life—or end it.

I wasn’t one of “them,” and I couldn’t pretend to be. So I kept my head down and poured myself into work and family, trying to make a quiet difference and raise a daughter whose future might be larger than my survival. Even that carried risk. The regime turned the poor against the successful, stoking envy to keep control. More than once, I was told that any achievement must be luck or appearance.

What happened there explains what worries me here—and the small civic habits that can interrupt the slide.

A Pattern Learned in Iran

Ideological tyranny weaponizes belief, envy, and resentment to divide and rule. In Iran, the regime co-opted the moral authority of religion to suppress opposition. Questioning those in power became synonymous with questioning God. Censorship, exile, and even execution were justified as moral acts. And in time, people not only lost faith in the regime, but also lost faith in faith itself. Suspicion replaced solidarity. Society fractured into millions of pieces.

I tried to raise a daughter whose future might be brighter than mine. But even that came with risk. When my daughter grew older—bright, outspoken, and unwilling to tolerate injustice—I knew what her boldness could cost her. I didn’t want her future to be one of quiet survival. I wanted her voice to grow, not shrink.

Before the 1979 revolution, Iran was politically and socially fractured. Communists, monarchists, nationalists, theocrats—each group believed it alone held the moral high ground. Everyone had a cause. Everyone had a criticism. But no one had a unifying vision.

The revolution succeeded not because it was inclusive, but because one faction, Khomeini’s theocratic movement, was more organized, more absolute, and more ruthless. The rest of those critics, visionaries, students, and intellectuals were silenced, exiled, or killed.

One of the promises that helped with the revolution was Khomeini’s vow to make electricity, water, and bus fares free. It was seductive rhetoric, devoid of any real plan, a lie. My family remembers the applause. They also remember the decades of suffering that followed.

So I made the hardest decision of my life: I left everything behind to start from zero in a new country. I believed in the promise of free speech. I believed that talent and hard work could still open doors. I believed in the American ideal.

But today, I’m concerned by the familiar patterns I once fled. I don’t worry that America is Iran. I worry that no democracy is immune to decay. 

American Echoes

In this new homeland, outrage is often harvested for influence. Pain is politicized for gain. People are labeled, deplatformed, publicly humiliated, and shamed, all because they expressed a different opinion. What I fled from was a system that blurred the line between faith and power. What I now observe is a culture where ideological certainty plays a similar role, enforced not by the state, but by tribes of public judgment and algorithmic enforcement.

From Polarization to Fragility

In this environment, we no longer debate; we condemn. We no longer ask questions; we assign guilt. The moderate voice isn’t just overlooked; it’s erased.

Technology accelerates these dynamics. Social media amplifies rage. Performance replaces substance. Remote work and fragmented communities weaken the civic bonds that once tempered our most reactive impulses. Loudness trumps logic. Outrage substitutes for outcomes. We reward those who stir emotion, not those who offer answers.

And as we fragment into increasingly isolated factions, we grow more vulnerable, not to reasonable compromise or better ideas, but to those willing to exploit the chaos. 

I’ve lived this story before.

What to Rebuild

We are not doomed to repeat the past, but we are not exempt from it either. I don’t believe the solution lies in going back in time. In moments of uncertainty, humans romanticize obsolete systems. We tend to retreat, not toward innovation, but toward the familiar. That impulse is a symptom of fear, not a path forward. 

We need to move beyond performance and toward pluralistic, rational solidarity—rather than blind allegiance or nostalgia. This solidarity is grounded in mutual respect, shared responsibility, and the discipline of critical thought.

That begins by rebuilding the habits of thinking critically and asking the hard questions:

• Ask for evidence and trade‑offs. Reward arguments that grapple with costs, not just causes.
• Separate people from positions. Disagree without dehumanizing.
• Protect conscience and respectful dissent. Honor moral agency and religious liberty. The freedom to make mistakes is part of what helps us grow and develop. 
• Prefer outcomes to outrage. Celebrate solutions, not just slogans.
• Assume partial knowledge. Speak in drafts; listen for revision.
• Rebuild local ties. Thick communities make thin caricatures harder to sustain.

I’m not writing this as an expert. I’m writing this as someone who has lived the consequences of silence, of tribal fracturing and dogmatic chasms. I don’t have all the answers. But I’ve seen what happens when a society abandons the effort to find them, when it replaces thoughtful debate with emotional absolutism.

That’s why I’m speaking now to provoke reflection. To ask: How far are we willing to go down this path? And what are we giving up along the way? And to achieve what? 

If we lose the courage to ask those questions, we may soon find ourselves unable to ask any at all.

So I leave you with a question: while we are all busy criticizing, resenting, and defining ourselves by what we oppose, who is guarding our freedom? If we mistake outrage for civic action and replace deliberation with denunciation, our liberties can be hijacked sooner than we imagine, and an entire country can be held hostage to a new form of dictatorship.

The post I Fled Post-Revolution Iran. I’m Worried for America. appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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I glanced at my son and saw the tension in his face. Sunlight flowed through one of the museum’s large windows, catching the tears running down his cheeks. His eyes were red. We had held them back for the first three chapters of the exhibit. Now, in front of him, was a panel showing the last known photograph of a group of Latvian women and children, moments before their execution by the Nazis. Inside, the mood was grave, the air heavy, and the silence tactile.

On the last day of our vacation, my family and I visited the Topography of Terror in Berlin. The museum documents the rise and fall of the Nazi regime and is located on the grounds where, from 1933 to 1945, the headquarters of the SS, the Gestapo, the Nazi intelligence, and—during World War II—the Reich Security Main Office were located. Its main exhibit is divided into five chapters of Nazi history and consists of multiple large panels that hang from the ceiling. Each panel includes unsettling photographs and documents. 

In an interview with B.Z. Die Stimme Berlins, Dr. Andrea Riedle, director of the Topography of Terror Foundation, explained: “It is a perpetrators’ site, not a memorial. We also want to reach people intellectually so that they reflect on the larger context.” When I recently contacted her, she added: “The purpose of the Foundation is to share the history of, and life under, National Socialism through our documentation center and to promote dialogue about the injustices of the Nazi dictatorship and its lasting impact beyond 1945.” 

It is shocking to see how systematically everything unfolded. The regime’s atrocities, the dismantling of democratic institutions, and the establishment of a tyrannical legal order are well-known. Many are familiar with the once-fringe ideas that became central to the regime, e.g., eugenics, the myth of the Aryan race, and the völkisch movement. But another disturbing and less discussed aspect of the rise of the Nazi regime was the extent of its acceptance by the German population. Hitler came to power in 1933, after being appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. By 1934, many Germans—moved by nationalist pride, promises of prosperity and order, propaganda, intimidation, and social pressures—either supported the regime or accepted it. 

Examining this dark chapter of history is crucial, not only to honor the victims but also to recognize how easily democratic institutions can be subverted and how quickly professional ethics can erode under pressure.

While there are no moral equivalencies, this history serves as an effective example of the mechanisms that can lead to ethical erosion, allowing us to avoid similar mistakes today.

Today, we are witnessing pressures and incentives to discredit science, dismantle public health safeguards, and erode trust in medical expertise.

Science is being discredited through the amplification of the anti-vaccine movement, the weaponization of social media, the unchecked spread of pseudoscience, and the viral promotion of so-called miracle cures on digital platforms. Actively harmful proposals, such as the injection of disinfectants to treat COVID-19, have entered public discourse. Leading academic and evidence-based institutions, including journals and universities, have been accused of bias for publishing research or guidance that contradicts political narratives.

Public health safeguards are being dismantled. Institutions such as the CDC, FDA, NIH, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, once internationally respected for their scientific integrity, have faced political interference, funding cuts, and deliberate campaigns of misinformation. These efforts weaken their ability to respond to public health issues and undermine their authority in the eyes of the public.

We should invite good-faith methodological critique, which improves safety. Institutional humility serves us well, and it must be paired with our own personal responsibility. Ultimately, we do not need to believe that these organizations are faultless or above correction to recognize that the rapid erosion of trust we’ve witnessed—often unearned—causes more harm than good. 

And this is where our responsibility begins. Moral agency and care for the vulnerable transcend any single tradition and are foundational to the practice of medicine itself. Truth-seeking, both scientific and ethical, honors these commitments. That is why defending evidence-based medicine, while insisting on transparency and accountability, is not merely a professional obligation; it is a moral imperative shared across diverse communities of conscience. History teaches us that silence enables erosion. A single physician may hesitate to speak out—out of fear, uncertainty, or futility. But when we raise our voices together, we can become a civic force. If we don’t defend the principles that define our profession—evidence, ethics, and advocacy—who will? The consequences aren’t theoretical. When we allow misinformation and ideology to guide health policy, it is patients, especially the most vulnerable, who suffer first.

Note: The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Washington or any other professional institution.

The post Primum Non Nocere: A Berlin Museum’s Warning Against Silence appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Bravo’s three‑part limited series Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay leans into difficult personal stories and pointed criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints. Episode one premiered Nov. 11, with all three parts streaming on Peacock the next day; the trailer and network page frame the project as revealing the religion’s “dark history.” The hook is effective: the testimonies are raw, the stakes high. So how do we address these problems? 

Lessons From Other Institutions’ Hard Lessons

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is far from the first organization to have three or more troubling incidents occur among its membership. Across faith, civic, and community settings, major investigations have revealed troubling stories that have led to the implementation of harm-reducing best practices. 

1) Clear Pathways to Civil Authorities
Every credible blueprint insists on uncomplicated routes to law enforcement. The painful proof came into focus in the USA Gymnastics scandal. For years, athletes reported Larry Nassar’s abuse to coaches, trainers, and officials, only to see their disclosures trapped in internal channels, bounced between organizations, or delayed while leaders worried about reputations and jurisdiction. Congressional investigations concluded that this web of overlapping responsibilities and in‑house handling helped enable his crimes.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales—after seven years of studying abuse in churches, schools, care homes, local authorities, and youth organizations—reached a similar conclusion: confusing internal routes and deference to institutional reputation repeatedly left children unprotected. Both SafeSport and IICSA’s recommendations are built on the same insight. When allegations are routed through slow, internal channels, cases stall and perpetrators move on; when pathways to civil authorities and independent safeguarding bodies are direct, simple, and well‑trained, reports increase, patterns are detected earlier, and children are safer. 

2) “Two‑Deep” (No One‑on‑One) Supervision—Everywhere Youth Are Present
The clearest example of why one‑on‑one contact is so dangerous came in the Boy Scouts of America abuse scandal. As lawsuits and internal “ineligible volunteer” files became public, they showed how serial offenders had repeatedly used solo hikes, tenting arrangements, and car rides to isolate and groom youth with little or no immediate oversight. Part of what made the problem so intractable was structural: the program still allowed adults to be alone with non‑family youth in ways that created predictable opportunities for abuse.

In response, Scouting tightened its rules into a strict “two‑deep leadership” and “no one‑on‑one contact” standard. No adult is to be alone with a child who is not their own in any program setting—at meetings, on campouts, or in transit—with electronic communications governed by the same spirit. The point is not to question leaders’ sincerity but to design the system so that temptation and opportunity are sharply reduced.

Over time, youth‑serving organizations across the country—sports leagues, camps, community programs, and churches—have copied this approach because insurers, risk managers, and child‑safety experts all converge on the same conclusion: when adults are never alone with unrelated children, grooming becomes harder, disclosures are more likely to be observed by a second adult, and overall risk drops. Two‑deep supervision is not a cure‑all, but it is one of the simplest structural safeguards to duplicate anywhere children are present. 

3) Mandatory, Role‑Specific Training and Renewal
At Minnesota’s Anoka‑Hennepin School District, nine students died by suicide in less than two years, at least four of whom were gay or perceived to be gay. Investigations and a civil‑rights lawsuit documented a climate of anti‑gay bullying: students were shoved, spat on, urinated on, and told to kill themselves, while staff often minimized or failed to respond. The net effect was a system where harassment flourished, and adults lacked both clarity and skills.

In 2012, the district agreed to a comprehensive, court‑enforced settlement that forced a systemic overhaul. Among other changes, Anoka‑Hennepin hired a Title IX coordinator, strengthened mental‑health support, and—crucially—committed to mandatory annual training for all staff who interact with students, the revised policies, and their duty to act. Peer‑leadership programs and annual student meetings were also required to address harassment and explain how to get help.

The lesson travels well. In a large system with many well‑intentioned adults, problems don’t persist because people are uniquely cruel, but because they are untrained, unclear about their authority, and afraid of “getting in trouble” for speaking up. When training is optional or generic, many adults remain passive bystanders; when every teacher, coach, bus driver, and aide is required to complete targeted, recurring training, the culture shifts, students are more likely to be believed, and dangerous patterns are interrupted earlier.

4) Centralized Records and Portability of Warnings
For years, the Southern Baptist Convention assumed that because each congregation was autonomous, the national body could do little more than issue statements. Survivors who tried to warn denominational leaders were often told nothing more could be done, even as reports accumulated about the same individuals. The 2022 independent investigation by Guidepost Solutions exposed the cost of that “loose polity” model: there was no maintained, denomination‑wide database, no consistent escalation process, and no one charged with seeing patterns across churches. Allegations sat in private files, internal lists documented names that local search committees never saw, and known offenders were able to move from congregation to congregation undetected.

The scandal spurred a shift. In the wake of the report, Southern Baptists created an Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, began work on a public “Ministry Check” database of pastors and leaders credibly accused or convicted of abuse, and started debating stronger, convention‑wide expectations for background checks and information‑sharing. The goal is simple: when a church considers calling a pastor or staff member, it should be able to check a central resource rather than relying only on informal references or word of mouth.

Although the reforms are still developing and remain the subject of intense internal debate, the underlying logic is sound and widely echoed in other sectors: when credible warnings are captured in one place and made available to decision‑makers, it becomes much harder for abusers to outrun their history by simply changing employers or congregations. Even decentralized systems need centralized tracking and escalation if they want to stop perpetrators from starting over in a new community. 

5) Survivor Support and Redress
In Australia, decades of revelations about institutional abuse—especially in Catholic parishes and schools, Salvation Army boys’ homes, and state‑run care—showed a common pattern: when children finally disclosed what had happened, institutions quietly moved abusers on, fought civil claims aggressively, and offered only limited pastoral support. The mounting evidence that clergy and other carers had been shuffled from place to place instead of being reported to police led the federal government in 2013 to establish the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

After five years of public hearings and thousands of survivor accounts, the Royal Commission concluded that such a history could not be addressed by apologies alone. One of its key recommendations was the creation of a National Redress Scheme, funded by government and participating institutions, to provide survivors with a package that includes counseling, a direct personal response from the responsible institution, and a monetary payment as tangible acknowledgment of harm. Many major churches and charities have joined the scheme; institutions that refuse to participate can now be publicly identified and pressured to do so.

Whatever its limits and delays, the scheme embodies a hard‑won consensus: institutions that failed children must contribute to their healing in concrete, material ways—not just in words. These frameworks are sobering reminders that apologies must be joined to tangible care. 

6) Culture and Communications: Humility Beats Reputation Management
Chicago Public Schools is one vivid example of how “reputation first” thinking harms children. A 2018 newspaper investigation and a scathing federal Title IX review documented cases in which students’ allegations of sexual violence were mishandled or ignored, staff failed to notify police, and the system’s main instinct was to protect the district rather than victims.

While no large district can claim perfection, watchdog reports and follow‑up coverage now focus less on cover‑ups and more on whether the new office has enough staff and resources to do its work. Similar cultural critiques appear in IICSA’s Anglican case studies and in U.S. Senate hearings on the Nassar scandal in Olympic sport: institutions minimized or deflected to protect their brand, and only when that instinct was repudiated—and replaced with clear structures and accountability—did real reform begin. In all these arenas, the shift from reputation first to safety first is measured not in slogans but in whether disclosures reach police quickly, victims receive services, and leaders welcome independent scrutiny.

How the Church of Jesus Christ Has Performed on These Six Lessons

With decades of sad lessons learned, how is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doing in implementing these best practices?

1) Clear Pathways to Civil Authorities and Outside Help

As early as the mid‑1990s, the Church created a confidential ecclesiastical abuse help line for bishops and stake presidents. Long before SafeSport or CPS‑style offices existed, local lay leaders had 24/7 access to legal and clinical professionals whose explicit mandate was to help victims and ensure compliance with reporting laws.

By the mid‑2010s, member‑facing resources on ChurchofJesusChrist.org were already teaching ordinary members that if they know or suspect abuse, they should report to civil authorities first and then seek additional spiritual and practical support from Church leaders and professional counselors.

The current Abuse Help Line and “Abuse—How to Help” pages now make this even more explicit: leaders are instructed to call the help line every time they learn of abuse, and members are told to contact legal authorities immediately and then work with their bishop or stake president, who in turn is required to use the help line. The help line is utilized to ensure that proper reports are made directly to the appropriate authorities in line with local privacy laws. Recent updates to the General Handbook and the “Protecting Children and Youth” page in 2024–25 again reinforce that reporting to civil authorities is not optional and that no leader should ever discourage or block a report.

2) Two‑Deep Supervision and No One‑on‑One Settings

Well before many school districts or community programs embraced two‑adult standards, the Church began strengthening its expectations around supervision. By 2006, the Church Handbook of Instructions required two adult supervisors for activities, a policy that continued to be iterated and tightened to cover children’s Sunday School (primary) classes, women and men, and ecclesiastical interviews, among others.  

These principles were built into the 2020 General Handbook and then expanded in the 2025 updates under headings such as “Safeguarding Children,” “Classes for Youth,” and “Adult Supervision.” Region‑specific safeguarding pages (for example, in the United Kingdom) repeat the same standards and adapt them to local legal requirements.

By the time other systems were being forced into similar standards through lawsuits or consent decrees, Latter‑day Saints had already received global, written instructions embedding two‑adult supervision into ordinary ward life. Those standards continue to be reiterated in new training and safety pages, making the Church one of the more structurally safe environments for one‑on‑one adult–youth contact in the congregational world.

3) Mandatory, Role‑Specific Training and Renewal

In 1995, The Church of Jesus Christ had produced training materials for bishops on how to understand and recognize abuse, and then provided step-by-step guidance on how to respond. 

This publication was quoted in later manuals as an early training, though implementation was not mandatory or systematic. The Church provided similar materials for all members in two 1997 publications: “Preventing and Responding to Spouse Abuse” and “Child Abuse: Helps for Members.”

In the early aughts, the Church produced a DVD Responding to Child Abuse to be played at ward and branch council meetings with an associated pamphlet. In 2008, the First Presidency wrote a letter to be read in leadership trainings explaining to leaders how to protect victims. 

Continuing and incremental improvements were made through the 2010s. In 2019, the Church moved to a more formal system with the launch of Children and Youth Protection Training for leaders and volunteers in the United States and Canada, accompanied by a directive from the Priesthood and Family Department that those in relevant callings must complete the training, formally systematizing best practices training.

4) Centralized Records and Portability of Warnings

Long before the current wave of abuse reporting, the Church built its ecclesiastical life around centralized membership records rather than purely local rolls. That meant that serious concerns raised in a membership council did not simply disappear when someone moved; there was a mechanism to mark records, restrict transfers, and ensure that new leaders received needed background.

In the current General Handbook, those instincts are made explicit. Instructions on membership councils and move restrictions explain how a bishop or stake president can place a hold on a membership record when serious concerns are pending, and how decisions from councils are reported centrally.

The Handbook’s policies on abuse specify that when a person has sexually abused a child or youth—or seriously abused a child physically or emotionally—their membership record is annotated. Members with such annotations are not to receive callings or assignments involving children or youth, are not to be assigned as ministering companions to youth, and are not to be given ministering assignments to households with children or youth. These restrictions follow the member wherever they move because the annotation is part of the central record. In a world where many congregational networks are only now building abuse databases after devastating investigations, Latter‑day Saints have the advantage of a long‑standing global membership system and clear written policies about annotations and move restrictions. 

5)Survivor Support and Redress

For decades, Church leaders have been instructed that their first responsibility when abuse occurs is to help the victim and protect the vulnerable. Gospel Topics essays and counseling resources emphasize that victims are not at fault, that abuse is a serious sin, and that leaders should help survivors access both spiritual care and professional counseling.

Handbook instructions have long allowed bishops to use fast‑offering funds to help members pay for professional counseling when they cannot do so themselves. That principle—combining pastoral care with tangible financial assistance—has been part of Latter‑day Saint welfare practice for years, even if it was not framed in the language of “redress schemes.”

Recent materials have made this more visible and explicit. A 2018 Ensign article and subsequent online lessons on recognizing and healing from abuse gave members and leaders concrete steps for support. A more recent newsroom article, “How Latter‑day Saints Approach Abuse,” states plainly that the Church offers and often covers the cost of professional counseling for victims, regardless of their ability to pay, and directs leaders again to use fast offerings where needed. International safeguarding pages, such as those in the United Kingdom and in responses to national inquiries in New Zealand, repeat similar commitments.

Unlike Australia’s government‑run National Redress Scheme, the Church’s approach is ecclesiastical rather than statutory; it works through bishops, welfare funds, and, where appropriate, legal settlements. But measured against the core survivor‑centric lesson—words must be joined to concrete care—the Church has for many years combined clear doctrinal condemnation of abuse with structured access to counseling and material help. 

6) Culture and Communications: From Reputation Management to Safety‑First

As early as 1978, there was direct condemnation of child abuse during the Church’s general conference. And in 1979, domestic abuse was a consideration in giving a temple recommend.

In perhaps the strongest possible cultural signal within the Latter-day Saint context, questions about abuse of family members were added to the temple recommend questions in 1989, alongside other major cultural and doctrinal signifiers such as chastity and dietary restrictions. 

Between 1976 and 2013, more than 50 news and magazine articles appeared in Church publications condemning child abuse in unequivocal terms and encouraging members to seek help rather than suffer in silence. 

That cultural messaging has remained consistent. Since 2018, that cultural messaging has accelerated. Articles like “Hope and Healing for Victims of Abuse,” online lessons on recognizing abuse, the consolidation of the General Handbook (with entire subsections titled “Safeguarding Children” and “Safeguarding Youth”), and newsroom explainers on how the Church approaches abuse have all pushed in the same direction: make expectations public, normalize reporting, and center the needs of victims rather than the reputation of the institution.

Culture is the hardest thing to measure. There will continue to be local leaders who respond poorly, and media stories will rightly scrutinize those failures. But if we apply the same standard we used for Chicago Public Schools and other systems—Are there clear structures? Are expectations written down? Are leaders being told in public documents that protection comes before reputation?—the answer for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints today is yes. The Church was well ahead of the curve in addressing this tragic issue.

Are We Actually Doing Poorly?

Part of the answer is simply mathematical. In a global church with millions of members, hundreds of thousands of local leaders, and decades of weekly contact with children and youth, even an exceptionally small failure rate produces more than enough heartbreak to fill a docuseries. A system can be comparatively safe and still have real, grievous failures. The stories in Surviving Mormonism are painful precisely because they are exceptions in a people who know, instinctively and doctrinally, that children ought to be protected.

The best available research suggests that on both child abuse and the well-being of LGBT+ members, the Church of Jesus Christ performs well above the average. Docuseries such as Surviving Mormonism tell important stories that can help continual improvement, but they can paint a misleading picture by picking exceptional rather than representative cases. This treatment is applied to the Church of Jesus Christ simply because, as a religious minority, there is curiosity. And frankly, the word “Mormon” when combined with scandal sells. 

It is tragic that any of the stories featured in Surviving Mormonism happened at all. Latter‑day Saints should continue to improve training, to enforce the two‑adult rule without exception, to post reporting steps, and to support survivors with compassion and concrete help, always working toward the goal of eliminating abuse. Perhaps the Church can be at the forefront of developing even better policies than we are currently imagining. That said, when we step back and compare reforms across churches, schools, Scouts, and sports, the evidence suggests that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints has built the right safeguards and, in key areas, has been ahead of broader societal trends in implementing them, and has the results you would expect from such forward thinking.

Related Articles

• Attention Is Cheap. Love Is Expensive. It’s Worth It
• When Compassion Misleads: How Faith and Identity Can Coexist
• Netflix’s American Primeval: The Prejudiced Fiction of Brigham Young

The post “Surviving Mormonism” and the Real Story of Institutional Harm 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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In two articles published here (Bridle Your Empathy and Empathy or Echo Chambers), I have discussed some lesser-understood challenges in the exercise of empathy. In response to these previous articles, I saw my stance labeled “anti-empathy”––a response I expected. In popular culture, empathy is understood to have an almost sacred value: empathy is never to be scrutinized, questioned, or second-guessed. To even suggest empathy can be a force for anything but good surprises many people. Since many have never imagined criticizing empathy in any possible way, anything but affirmation and praise only registers as an attack on empathy.

Some might be inclined to “balance” the always positive messaging surrounding empathy by making sharp statements about empathy’s problems and drawbacks. This seems to have been the logic behind two recent book titles. The first is The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits by Christian theologian Joe Rigney, which offers a Christian perspective on how empathy is misused in the context of faith. The second is the forthcoming book Suicidal Empathy by Concordia University professor Gad Saad, which will reflect his popular commentary on how societies implement self-destructive policies in the name of empathy. However, those of us engaged in critical discussions of empathy have a greater task beyond articulating negatives. Our real challenge is in educating and promoting readers toward an effective mode of empathy. 

Reality Testing

Expanding upon my previous articles, I suggest empathy leads to good only when paired with reality testing. A concept commonly employed in psychotherapy, reality testing is the process of examining beliefs and perceptions to see if they align with reality.

Beyond the context of mental health, reality testing is considered to be important in politics. I say “considered to be” because many tend to assume their political views are based in reality. Many also believe that differing political views arise because others have not engaged in sufficient reality testing. Further, individuals often delegate the task of reality testing to those who curate their political information. By assuming the source has already done their due diligence of reality testing, they treat the information they receive from them as a final product. Reality testing in politics involves accounting for bias in our sources and actively seeking multiple perspectives.

In the United States and Europe, our politics are in a crisis of empathy without reality testing, and much of our lack of reality testing comes from our lack of confidence in institutions that we relied upon in the past to perform that function. This has been a long process, underway for decades. For example, some readers remember the presentation made by General Colin Powell to the United Nations in 2003, making the case that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. When the extensive WMD program described in his speech was not found in our subsequent invasion of Iraq, the U.S. intelligence community suffered a tremendous loss of public credibility as a source for reality testing.

More recently, The Atlantic writer Thomas Chatterton Williams described how decisions in the public health establishment during the COVID pandemic helped to undermine this confidence:

… As the direct consequence of lockdowns and quarantines, many millions of people around the world lost their income, depleted their savings, missed farewells and funerals of loved ones, postponed cancer screenings, never experienced graduations and proms, at times went without human touch entirely, and generally put their lives on pause for the indefinite future. They accepted these sacrifices as awful but necessary when confronted by an otherwise unstoppable virus. And then, from one day to the next, they were told with a straight face that this had all been done in vain. “The risks of congregating during a global pandemic shouldn’t keep people from protesting racism,” NPR announced with eyebrow-raising certitude, citing a letter signed by dozens of American public health officials and disease experts. “White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19,” the letter further explained. One prominent epidemiologist went still further, arguing that the public health risks of not protesting for an end to systemic racism “greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”

To encourage protesting and thereby spread a deadly disease among the protestors themselves, members of our public health establishment gave the impression they were driven by ideology more than public safety. Because of that decision, public health officials ceased to be a viable source of reality-testing for many. The consequences of this have been severe. On questions of public health, a large segment of Americans has turned to alternative voices for reality testing, and it is possible that institutions like the Centers for Disease Control will never recover the valuable role for reality testing they once held.

Other examples could be cited, but Americans who wish to employ reality testing for our political views face an uphill battle when seeking sources that have not been significantly compromised.

Reality testing in faith

The council system of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an excellent mechanism for bringing reality testing into decision-making. Many painful moments in the Church’s history resulted from decisions made outside the council system and the reality testing it offers. Perhaps the most notable example is the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where local church leaders in Southern Utah sent a request for guidance from President Brigham Young, and then, in a failure of the council process, they made terrible decisions before allowing enough time to include his voice in their deliberations. President James E. Faust once said the council system among the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve “provides a check on bias and personal idiosyncrasies … guard[ing] against the foibles of man.”

When President Dieter F. Uchtdorf encouraged church members to “doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith,” this was another invitation to reality testing. To “doubt our doubts” is to honestly inquire whether those doubts are the product of sound assumptions and mature thinking. Many people over the years have assumed that if something can be criticized without a satisfactory response, then––by default––it must not be true. But this same logic leads people to “deconstruct” their belief that the world is round or adopt other wild conspiracy theories. For people in these situations, the solution is to learn to deconstruct one’s own deconstruction and apply reality testing to the doubts.

Empathy and reality testing

The motte and bailey is a rhetorical trick where an individual gets an opposing party to agree with a very agreeable position (the motte). However, the individual then swaps the agreeable position for an extreme position (the bailey) to reframe the opposing party’s agreement within the more extreme argument. An example is the following hypothetical exchange:

Person 1: “The Bible says that we should be kind to the stranger among us.” (motte)

Person 2: “I agree.”

Person 1: “Then of course you must also agree that no one should ever be deported or extradited from our country. If not, then you don’t believe in the Bible!” (bailey)

Empathy is manipulatively employed in the motte for a number of baileys that afflict the nations of the world. For example, in 1987, the popular rock band U2 released a haunting song called “Mothers of the Disappeared,” written for the grieving mothers of youth who disappeared under right-wing authoritarian movements in South America during the 1970s. I consider it one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, and the song always achieves its intended purpose with me: leading me to feel deep mourning for the political violence of that era. Since I first heard “Mothers of the Disappeared,” I have learned more of the history and have wondered, why has not a similar song been written for the children taken from their families under the regime of Mao Tse-Tung, or for the quarter of the population of Cambodia wiped out under the Khmer Rouge? Fascist right-wing movements tend to arise in response to fear and legitimate grievances in the wake of cruel, authoritarian left-wing Marxist movements. Both Marxism and fascism exploit empathy over grievances and injustice toward specific groups as the motte for authoritarian baileys of oppression. Part of reality testing is to apply scrutiny to empathy itself and discern whether empathy is applied selectively to one group or another based on whether they align with the ideological left or right. If so, then one is not really practicing empathy, only partisan sympathy.

In a recent article for Quillette, Brian Stewart wrote a criticism of the empathy-drenched commentary of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof:

From his perch at America’s newspaper of record, Kristof has spent many years travelling to far-flung places ravaged by poverty, famine, genocide, and war, and rubbing his nose in the misery he finds there. These trips through landscapes of privation and atrocity have brought forth a steady stream of lugubrious dispatches documenting the world’s ills and enjoining the rest of us to do something about them.

Stewart argues that Kristof’s columns reflect no understanding of tradeoffs or unintended consequences. In his reporting on Gaza in particular, Kristof makes claims and moral judgments and avoids asking necessary questions like what Israel is facing, what Hamas intends, and what the consequences would be for different choices. Kristof speaks to the empathy of his readers, but does no reality testing.

And so, we return to the question: If empathy has possible drawbacks, then what is a positive and healthy exercise of empathy? The answer: empathy becomes a force for good only when paired with reality testing. Only then can empathy lead to human flourishing as opposed to performative partisan sympathy, moral grandstanding, and other unhelpful behaviors. 

As Edith Stein expressed, “Do not accept anything as truth that lacks love. Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”

The post The Limits of Empathy: Why Feeling Isn’t Always Knowing appeared first on Public Square Magazine.