Yesterday, production of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season 5 was halted, and The Bachelorette’s 22nd season—slated to be led by Secret Lives star Taylor Frankie Paul—was canceled. These decisions followed after entertainment website TMZ leaked a video of a domestic altercation involving Paul in 2023. In the footage, Paul is seen in her home throwing three metal barstools at Dakota Mortensen, her then-boyfriend and the father of her youngest child. Paul’s daughter, who was six years old at the time, is also seen lying nearby on the couch—apparently sleeping at the beginning, then awakened by the chaos—and cried out for her mother to stop. A subsequent criminal indictment indicated that the child was struck in the head by one of the stools, resulting in a painful goose egg. 

TMZ also reported that earlier this week, both Mortensen and Paul’s ex-husband (and father of her two older children), Tate Paul, allegedly filed new orders of protection against Paul, with Mortensen requesting sole custody of their two-year-old son.

Most Latter-day Saint commentary on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which chronicles the dramatic lives of a Utah-based social media group of influencers self-dubbed “#MomTok,” tends to focus on how these women are not devout and do not represent the values or teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The show is packed with parties, events, and a heavy focus on sexual freedom. The women openly posture against traditional norms around sex and gender while continuing to borrow the visual language of a faith they seem increasingly uninterested in living. This is no surprise, considering MomTok only rose to fame after a scandal involving some of the married members swinging with each other’s spouses — and most of those marriages are now over.

Yet the show’s cast continues to blame the majority of their dysfunction on “church culture” and “Mormon expectations.” The show’s on-again, off-again villain, Zac Affleck (who certainly has his issues), is often vilified for offering seemingly sensible, family-oriented commentary such as “Hollywood isn’t conducive to a healthy marriage” or “I don’t want you to feel mom guilt, but our kids do miss you…and it’s hard for me to fill that void with them even though I try.” This is the same Zac who deferred medical school to be a stay-at-home dad so his wife could appear on Dancing with the Stars and further pursue an entertainment career. Jen insists that “he had his turn” to pursue his career, and now it’s her turn, “and he knows that and should support that.”

The women frequently say that their religious upbringing taught them to be subjugated to their husbands’ whims. This is an obvious misunderstanding of The Family: A Proclamation to the World, which teaches that fathers are “responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.” The clear distinction is that doctrine teaches that career is a means of protecting and providing for the needs of the family, not the desires of the individual. While some sense of meaning and personal fulfillment can be found in many careers, research consistently finds that people derive their greatest sense of meaning from relationships—particularly family relationships. Unfortunately, the husbands and boyfriends in the show are often painted as adversaries or competitors of the women, rather than as partners they love and care for. Even stranger, the women seem to believe the proper correction to what they see as oppressive gender roles is simply to reverse them. 

As the show has progressed, the so-called liberation of these women appears to have yielded very little joy or true freedom. Newer seasons are no longer just about “Mormon women behaving badly.” They are increasingly a portrait of emotional affairs, fractured marriages, public humiliation, eating disorders, body-image collapse, postpartum distress, and relationships strained to the breaking point, with nearly all of the cast members in personal and couples therapy. What is being sold as liberation looks, more and more, like despair. 

Seasons 3 and 4 did not reveal a cruelty of traditional sexual morality; instead, they revealed the inability of self-centered sexual ethics to build anything stable in its place. Unfortunately, far too many viewers have bought into a worldview that claims women in the West are still largely oppressed, and thus feel they are doing their part to smash the patriarchy as they cheer on the ladies in their quest for so-called liberation.

The problem with broadcasting this drama is that the content does not merely document disorder. It rewards it. Reality television and social media incentivize family breakdown. Betrayal, sexual chaos, emotional oversharing, and the performance of self-liberation are highly marketable. Once marriage trouble becomes a storyline, sexual impropriety becomes brand identity, and personal instability becomes a platform, the incentives tilt in a very dark direction. The women of Secret Lives are not just reaping the consequences of rejecting clear moral norms. They are doing so inside a machine that profits from the damage.

Even the cast members themselves have frequently expressed concern about Paul’s erratic behavior. NBC News reported yesterday that cast members met with ABC executives earlier this month to express concerns about continuing the show if Paul remained involved. In the meeting, one of the cast members reportedly asked Rob Mills, the executive vice president of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, if he’s “aware she’s hurt a child?” Mills’ alleged reply? “I don’t know a lot, nor do I want to know too much.”

We have, of course, seen the exploitation of unwell but “sexually liberated” women before—it’s a familiar pattern to those paying attention. In The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, journalist Louise Perry argues that Western sexual culture in the twenty-first century “promotes the interests of the Hugh Hefners of the world at the expense of the Marilyn Monroes. And the influence of liberal feminism means that too many women don’t recognize this truth, blithely accepting Hefner’s claim that all of the downsides of the new sexual culture are just ‘a small price to pay for personal freedom.’” Indeed, the commodified lives of women like Monroe, Anna Nicole Smith, Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears, and others have much in common with Paul’s, and one can only hope that she gets help before reaching the same breaking point these women did.

Whatever sympathy one rightly feels for Taylor Frankie Paul as a human being, it is difficult to watch the public trajectory of her life without concluding that it has the shape of a spiral: relational chaos, legal trouble, domestic conflict, children caught in the blast radius, and a complicit fanbase eager to turn every bit of it into entertainment.

That line is haunting in light of everything that followed.

Paul, through representatives, has said the newly leaked video omits context and that she has suffered abuse as well. But even allowing for dispute over context, the broader picture is grim: this is not empowerment. It is family breakdown, made public and then repackaged as content. What the show unintentionally reveals is that discarded moral boundaries do not disappear without cost. Someone always pays.

But there is always hope. Though the MomTok ladies often display only elementary knowledge of Latter-day Saint doctrine, I pray they remember the most important doctrine—that of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The same gospel that teaches chastity, fidelity, and sacrifice also teaches mercy. It teaches that through Christ broken things can be mended, and that people who have wandered very far can still come home.

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

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

How Choirs Help Build Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Case Study

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Church Choirs and the Sound of Belonging: Where Harmony Still Exists appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The Wall Street Journal used to know the difference between covering a faith and staging it. In “‘Exmo’ Influencers Mount a TikTok War Against the Mormon Church,” that line isn’t blurred—it’s crossed. The piece does more than report on critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints; it puts their reenactments front and center, including a posed photo of an ex‑member wearing sacred temple clothing and descriptions that turn baptisms, initiations, and other temple rites into shareable spectacle. What is sacred is not content. And when a national newspaper treats it that way, it isn’t tough reporting—it’s trespass dressed up as journalism.

The Journal even said so when a boundary was breached elsewhere. In 2022, an Israeli TV reporter snuck into Mecca, a city non‑Muslims are forbidden to enter. The Journal’s opinion page ran the headline “Mecca Rules Are Up to Muslims” with the sub‑line that a “reckless Israeli journalist” had put others at risk. Another column debated whether Mecca should ever be opened to non‑Muslims (“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Should Open Mecca”), and a third reflected on rare, leadership‑sanctioned exceptions (“The Secret Mission to Sneak Into Mecca”). The throughline wasn’t hard to miss: Mecca’s boundary is real, and crossing it isn’t a media stunt—it’s a violation. Respect for sacred limits isn’t a parochial ask; it’s a newsroom norm.

Now look back at the Journal’s Latter‑day Saint story. It spotlights ex‑members who re‑create or display elements from temple worship that practicing Latter‑day Saints treat as sacred and private. A decade ago, when the Church itself chose to explain its temple clothing and asked that the press treat it as other faiths’ vestments are treated, responsible coverage did exactly that—embedding the Church’s own explainer and letting the institution’s visuals carry the story (Church Newsroom; Washington Post story and video). The Journal chose the opposite: a promotional image of an ex‑member in sacred clothing, plus social‑video reenactments. If even HBO—a profit‑minded entertainment brand—apologized for offending believers when Big Love dramatized a temple scene in 2009 (LAT; Reuters), why is a flagship newsroom now lowering the bar?

When reached for comment, a Wall Street Journal spokesperson replied,

“The Journal’s reporting is accurate, fair and meets its established and trusted high standards. The Journal practices ‘no surprises’ journalism. As noted in the article, our reporter was in touch with the church, which declined to comment. We took great care in preparing this story and stand by our reporting.”

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics is unambiguous: provide context; avoid pandering to lurid curiosity; consider cultural differences; minimize harm (SPJ Code). It also cautions that legal access to information is not the same as an ethical justification to publish. You don’t earn trust by telling believers to brace themselves while you stage their sacraments. “No surprises” is not “no standards.”

The Journal insists its story is “accurate, fair,” that it practices “no‑surprises” journalism, that it contacted the Church, and that it “stands by” the reporting. But fairness isn’t a phone call. (Especially one that the Journal reporter has mischaracterized as “no comment.”) It’s the package: headline, art, framing, context. On all four, this piece comes up short. The Journal’s own public standards promise to “fairly present all sides of the story through rigorous, fact‑based reporting” and to uphold “appropriate professional conduct” (WSJ standards overview; Dow Jones Code of Conduct). By any normal test—especially the one the Journal applied when a reporter snuck into Mecca—this isn’t it.

The Wall Street Journal may stand behind their reporting. But they didn’t meet the accepted journalistic standards. They didn’t even meet their own journalistic standards. They acted less like reporters and more like a carnival barker telling the passersby that for the cost of a pageview they can come gawk at a secret religion. 

The Journal once set the curve on restraint. Yesterday it flunked it. On matters of worship, judgment—not just facts—is the test. Here, the Journal didn’t just miss the mark. It moved the line. Pull the piece. Apologize. And then do what the best newsrooms do next: be better than your worst day.

The post Consent not Curiosity: WSJ’s Double Standard on the Sacred appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Christian Smith’s new book, Why Religion Went Obsolete, tells the depressing tale of traditional religion’s decline in America. A believer himself, Smith notes that each of the last six generations has been less observant than the one that came before. Only about 19% of Gen Z (born 1997-2012) report having a “strong” or “somewhat strong” affiliation with their religion, less than half of some older generations. Smith notes that traditional religion strikes many young people not just as wrong but as strange, outdated, and unnecessary. In a world with so many options, why spend your time or attention on religion? 

But perhaps traditional religion isn’t quite dead. Witness the curious rise of what I’ll call “Christian Merch” — clothing, accessories, and public displays that openly reference Christian symbols or themes. In my travels, I’ve noticed more wearing of cross necklaces than ever before, sweatshirts with messages like “God is Good” and “Be the Light,” backpacks adorned with turquoise ichthys symbols, and TikTok influencers filming GRWM (“get ready with me”) reels while casually sporting faith-based apparel. Am I simply noticing it more, a frequency illusion—or is there actually more of it to see? If the latter, is Christian Merch a sign that religiosity is making a comeback among young people in America? Is it more performance than conviction—just another way to grab attention? Or is it possible that it’s a little of both?

In other words, what may look to some like a surface-level display might actually reflect something far more intentional: a generation prepared to declare their faith in public ways, inviting others, in a fashion uniquely suited to their moment in history.

Wearing Belief—The Rise of Christian Merchandise

History has a way of repeating itself. In the 1970s, another rising generation—caught between the materialism of their parents and the chaos of the sexual revolution—began to visibly separate themselves from the culture around them. The Jesus Movement was born, and with it came a new wave of Christian expression: T-shirts, jewelry, bumper stickers, and patches that declared “Jesus Saves.” The fish symbol became an everyday sign of personal conviction. Historian Colleen McDannell observed that Christian retail flourished during this time, summed up by a 1978 ad that read, “If it’s worth sharing, it’s worth wearing.” From that modest beginning rose the megachurch movement, Contemporary Christian Music, and decades of growing evangelical influence.

Today, a new kind of faith-driven expression is emerging from unexpected places—skateparks, start-ups, and Shopify carts. Joe Pemberton, a software designer and father, launched Nauvoo Supply Co. in 2021 after finding mainstream brands out of step with his values. What began with a minimalist “1830” tee nodding to Latter-day Saint heritage quickly grew into a catalog of over 30 unapologetically faith-rooted designs. For Joe, it’s more than business—it’s a cause. He believes public expressions of belief can spark courage in others, which is why he’s leaned into bold statements like an “Occupy Missouri” tee—a doctrinal riff on Elon Musk’s “Occupy Mars”—and a Family Proclamation line he admits is “brave,” even among the faithful. Sales have doubled annually, but what matters most to Joe is inviting connection and reflection in a world where faith is often countercultural.

That shift hasn’t gone unnoticed by church leaders. Elder Clark Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy and Commissioner of Education for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has spent considerable time thinking about what he calls a reawakening among the rising generation. “There’s a deeper phenomenon happening, and we think it is the hastening … These young adults are smart, and they’re turning back to religion. They’re turning back to a relationship with Jesus Christ … It’s an amazing thing to behold.” Earlier this year, Gilbert and Elder D. Todd Christofferson shared global data from Church Education programs that shows the growth is not only real—it’s youth-led and peer-to-peer. While supported by institutions, it’s clearly not driven by them. “We see, in a broader way, this happening … in Jewish schools, Catholic schools, Evangelicals, whatever. There is a movement—not quite as dramatic as we are seeing here in the Church Educational System—but it is broad.”

If the youth of the seventies were rejecting materialism and moral confusion, it’s worth asking: what is this rising generation rejecting? And what new spiritual expressions might rise from it?

Music as Merchandise—Faith in the Charts

This cultural shift isn’t limited to what young people wear—unless you include wearing their earbuds.  Music has become another form of spiritual self-expression. Take Forrest Frank, for example, whose 2024 album “Child of God” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart. His breakout song “No Longer Bound” found its way to number 2 on Spotify’s U.S. Viral 50. What seems to be resonating is that Frank is genuinely living what he sings. Josiah Queen topped the same chart with “The Prodigal.” and when Megan Woods released “The Truth,” hers shot to number one.  Lauren Daigle, whose powerful vocals and spiritual themes consistently land her on the Billboard 200—not just the Christian charts—performed at this year’s Super Bowl pre-show, indicating how mainstream faith-infused content has become.  It seems that this raw, faith-centered music, especially when it is more than performative—and delivered by their peers, is mirroring a generational vibe shift.

This same appetite for faith that shows up in music and merch extends to the world of podcasts. According to Edison Research’s Q1 2024 report, the Religion & Spirituality category now ranks ninth among podcast genres in the U.S. for weekly listeners aged 13 and older. Clearly, Gen Z is leaning in: those ages 18–24 make up a growing share of the podcast audience. There is also the success of shows like The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz, which topped Apple’s charts in both 2021 and 2022. Many young people appear to be seeking spiritual insight and connection through platforms they’ve grown up with, and formats that are native to them—streaming faith into their lives one song, one episode at a time.

More Than a Trend: From Statement to Identity

Not everyone sees this trend as a sign of spiritual depth. Some critics argue that faith-themed fashion can veer into performative religion and trivialize sacred belief. There’s a subtle but striking disconnect when a large cross dangles in a plunging neckline, or when Christian slogans are printed on muscle tees alongside aggressive or politically charged symbols that feel out of step with the teachings of Christ. These contradictions raise fair questions: Is this faith, fashion, or a new kind of cultural identity? Whichever, for many, these public signals of belief are sincere entry points into a faith their parents may have neglected or taken for granted.

Importantly, this isn’t just an American moment. Across the UK and Australia, similar shifts are underway. In Australia, reports of rising conversions and Gen Z-led interest in church are challenging narratives of decline. In the UK, many describe a subtle but growing “rebirth” of faith. That conversation may take more than one article. But what’s clear is that something is shifting. Across TikTok feeds, playlists, and hoodies, a vibe shift is unfolding.

Faith is not fading, it’s trending. Baader-Meinhoff Phenomena aside, there is more Christian Merch to see—because more are choosing to be seen.

The post Faith on Their Sleeves: How Christian Merch Signals a Generational Return to Belief appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Have you ever wondered why your faith sometimes feels boring, distant, or even disconnected from real life?

Almost as if it stopped breathing? Sure, it may look polished on the outside—reverent language, familiar rituals—but inside, it feels hollow, breathless. Where’s the fire? Where’s the passion that once burned hot in your soul? 

I think about this a lot. And I believe the problem isn’t necessarily your faith, not exactly. Perhaps it’s the version of God you were handed down from European Christianity: flawless, yes, but distant, unmoving,  untouchable. Beautiful, yes, but cold, or at least seeming uninvolved. What if that version of God doesn’t come from scripture? What if it comes from philosophy? And what if the God of scripture isn’t breathless at all? What if He walks, weeps, and speaks—and still calls your name?

Maybe faith feels dry not because it’s untrue, but because something vital is missing: a God who is present and breathing. But what if the God we’ve inherited isn’t the God of scripture, but the God of Greek philosophy (Hopkins), a God who is abstract and breathless? My purpose today is to trace how Christianity drifted from a relational, covenantal, embodied God to an abstract, breathless idea, and how the Restoration calls us back to fire, presence, and breath. 

When Faith was Fire

The God of Abraham is the God who walks in gardens and dines in tents. He speaks from burning bushes and thunders from mountaintops. Yet, He whispers in stillness, too. He is near. He hears the cries of slaves, sees the tears of barren women, and calls shepherds, wanderers, and prophets. He makes covenants sealed with sacrifice, smoke, and fire. His faithfulness isn’t distant; it’s fierce and generational, extending mercy to generations of those who love Him. He is not just spirit. He appears. He wrestles. He rejoices. He weeps. He binds. He is not merely King. He is Bridegroom. Father. Redeemer. Friend. His laws are not rules imposed from afar, but the terms of a relationship written on hearts. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph Smith. A God not of distance, but of nearness. A God who dwells with us. A God who calls us to adventure!

When Faith Lost Its Fire

Somewhere along the way, God stopped speaking and started “being.” The God who once walked in gardens, whispered in dreams, and thundered on mountaintops was slowly replaced by a principle—eternal, unmoved, and untouched. Greek philosophers, like Plato, taught that truth and perfection meant being above change, above feeling, above relationship, above anything material or physical. To them, the highest truth is abstract and unchanging, like a flawless idea, and not a living person. Philo of Alexandria took those ideals and fused them with Hebrew scripture, reframing the God of Abraham as the Logos—rational, remote, and impersonal (Runia, 1986). Over time, this vision took hold. God became less someone to walk with and more something to explain, intellectually. We didn’t mean to lose Him; we just began to prefer concept over covenant. He stopped being the God who hears and responds, and started becoming the God who simply “is.” (See Elder Holland’s “The Only True God and Jesus Christ whom He has Sent”; Also Elder Maxwell’s explanation of the Hellenization of Christianity in “From the Beginning.”) 

When God became a concept instead of a presence, worship began to hollow out. Church became ritual: beautiful, yes; majestic, yes; but often cold. We stand and sit at the right times, recite the right words, sing the hymns, and bow our heads. But sometimes, we leave wondering if anyone on either end is truly listening. Prayer, once a conversation with a living God, becomes a kind of performance. We worry more about saying the “right” thing than pouring out our real hearts. We filter our words for acceptability, not vulnerability. Even commandments, which were once invitations into deeper covenant, start to feel like items on a spiritual to-do list, items to worship. And the routine feels like this: obey, report, repeat. Instead of being drawn into God’s presence, we measure our worth by how well we keep score with, and report on, the commandments.

And yet, I believe something inside us aches for more. We long not just to follow rules, but also to feel known (1 Corinthians 13:12). We don’t just want to be obedient. We want to be held. But in a system where God is perfect but untouchable, holy but inaccessible, it’s easy to lose that hope. The truth is, when we turn God into a concept, we don’t just lose warmth, we also lose relationship. We keep the worshipful words but miss out on the voice that draws us near to God. Faith becomes less like a fire in the bones and more like a principle to memorize. And deep down, many of us feel it: it’s breathless.

To see how far we’ve drifted, look at the contrast: two very different visions of God—one abstract and distant, the other relational and near.

In the above table, you may notice that you can replace the words “The Conceptual God of Plato” with the words “Principle,” or “Laws of Nature,” or “Christianity’s version of Deity in the Trinity,” and the concepts explained under this title remain the same. That is because a portion of our culture has embraced Platonism as our form of truth. We may thus become tempted to worship this Platonic truth. The downside to this type of worship is a faith that feels platonic; and like a platonic relationship, our relationship with God feels hollow. This isn’t a critique of sincere Christian belief or the deep love many Christians have for God. Rather, it’s a reminder that theology is often shaped by the cultural and intellectual forces of its time. My aim isn’t to dismiss Christian tradition but to point out that the Restoration invites us to recover a more relational, embodied view of God. 

When Breath Was Restored

What happened in a quiet grove in 1820 was more than a revelation. It was a return of the breathing God. Let me take you back: It is a quiet spring morning. A teenage boy, confused by the religious noise around him, walks into a grove of trees—not to start a revolution, but simply to plead for his soul. The earth is still damp from winter. With awkward faith and a heart full of yearning, Joseph Smith kneels to pray. And heaven breathes again. Light pierces through the trees, brighter than the sun, descending gently until it rests upon him. In that moment, two glorified Beings are standing before him. They call him by name. They answer his prayer. This is not metaphor. It is encounter. This is not abstraction. It is relationship. Joseph sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. God has a face, a voice, and a body. This isn’t a footnote in theology; it is a rebuke of centuries of silence. It shatters the idea of a distant, untouchable God and reintroduces the God who walks, speaks, weeps, and calls.

When Fire was Restored

The God of Joseph Smith reveals Himself to be personal. From this vantage point, doctrine and principles become means to helping the children of God connect with Him. What is an intimate encounter becomes a relatable truth. Truth as person. The Restoration doesn’t just give us new scripture. It gives us back a God who is present and invested. The God who appeared to Joseph is not an abstraction; He is Father. He is personal. He is faithful, not in the sense of being unchangeable by constraint, but in being unwavering in love, yet responsive in relationship. He listens, teaches, corrects, and comforts. This God is not intangible. He is embodied. He has a glorified, tangible body, as seen and testified to in both ancient and modern scripture. He appears, speaks, blesses, and even wrestles (Genesis 32). He is emotional: He rejoices in our growth, grieves in our rebellion, weeps at our suffering, and shows mercy. As President Russell M. Nelson testified, “Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son want you back home with Them! …They will do anything within Their power that does not violate your agency or Their laws to help you come back” (original emphasis). His laws are not distant principles to which He submits; they are extensions of His character: relational, covenantal, and purposeful. He is not merely the Lawgiver; He is the Covenant-Keeper. He does not stand distant from creation; He enters it. He does not float in abstract perfection; He binds Himself to imperfect people, again and again, with grace and patience.

This is the God of Joseph—not a god of the philosophers, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who breathes, who speaks, who suffers, and who saves. The God who does not merely exist above all things, but who is “through all things”, and “in all things”, the very light of truth and life (Doctrine and Covenants 88: 6-13; there you notice nature is not governed by laws of nature, but by the light of Christ coming from the presence of God). It is this relational, covenantal, embodied God that the restoration calls us to remember and to worship anew. For example, in Genesis 18, Abraham’s negotiation with God over Sodom’s fate directly contradicts the philosophical concept of an impassive deity. Rather than an untouchable, unchangeable God beyond space and relationship, we see a divine willingness to engage in dialogue, consider human appeals, and adjust judgment based on our intercession. Indeed, as Abraham boldly negotiates from fifty righteous people down to just ten, God responds each time with patience and flexibility. This scriptural account reveals a God who is present, responsive to prayer, emotionally engaged, and who operates through covenant relationship rather than abstract principles, showing divine power through compassionate condescension rather than detached perfection.

In truth, the restoration calls us to trade aesthetic form for fire, to move from verbal precision to presence. In this restored gospel, truth is not an abstract concept floating above us; it’s a voice that speaks, calls, and answers. The Atonement is not a cosmic force we tap into, it’s Jesus Christ Himself, kneeling in a garden, bleeding from every pore, reaching for us with nail-scarred hands. Obedience is no longer a transaction to earn favor, it’s a covenant, a relationship that binds us to a God who already loves us, already chose us, and walks beside us. And everything changes. Reading scripture becomes less about mining for principles and more about meeting a living God in the text. Prayer stops being a ritual and starts becoming a conversation. Forgiveness stops being a moral ideal and becomes an act of healing a relationship. Love ceases to be a virtue we aim for and becomes a way of binding ourselves to one another and to Him. The Restoration invites us to more than abstract faith—it invites us to communion with the divine. It is thus not about being good enough for God, but it’s about belonging to Him. As Elder Christofferson said, “In the end, it is the blessing of a close and abiding relationship with the Father and the Son that we seek.”

So where’s the fire? Maybe it’s not gone, just buried. Buried under quiet disappointments, unanswered prayers, and Sunday routines that feel more like obligation than encounter. Buried under the pressure to perform, to be perfect, to check every box, and to pretend we’re fine. But fire doesn’t need to be created from scratch; it only needs to be rekindled. The Restoration invites us to a return. A return to the God who feels, who speaks, who weeps, and who walks with His people. The same God who walked in Eden, who made covenants with Abraham, who sat by wells and called out to fishermen and tax collectors. He’s still calling. He hasn’t changed. Maybe we have. Maybe we’ve traded intimacy for intellect, mystery for management, presence for performance. But even now, He invites us to come back, to walk with Him.

The God of Hagar still sees. The God of Hannah still listens. The God of Elijah still whispers. The God of Joseph Smith still answers prayers, even when the words come out uncertain. What He wants is not our polish, but our presence. Not flawless prayers, but open hearts. Not public perfection, but quiet surrender. He wants to dwell with us, not someday, but now. Faith doesn’t have to be breathless. It doesn’t have to be cold. It doesn’t have to be a thing you carry alone. So let faith become less about checking the boxes and more about experiencing the flame. Let it be less about reciting and more about responding. Let it be alive again, not because you master a system, but because you hear Him speak. Because you feel Him weep. Because you find Him walking beside you in the ordinary places—at the kitchen table, on your drive home, in the quiet after everyone else is asleep.

God walks through silence, yet burns in flame,
And in the hush between heartbeats,

He calls your name.

The post The God Who Ceased to Breathe: Restoring the Fire of Faith appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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In the fall of each year, the Jewish people observe a holiday called Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles. This holiday commemorates the miraculous protection God provided to the Children of Israel during their 40-year journey to the promised land. During this week-long celebration, worshippers re-enact aspects of this monumental journey to varying degrees, in particular by worshipping inside a booth called a sukkah, which is intended to represent the tents in which the Children of Israel dwelt, and the cloud, which shadowed and protected the travelers by day. 

While observers typically strive to at least eat all of their meals in the sukkah (including certain symbolic foods), more orthodox observers try to spend as much time in the symbolic dwelling as possible, reciting prayers and reading the Torah. The week culminates with the end of the cycle of Torah reading for the year, after which the cycle immediately begins again. The Feast of the Tabernacles is a joyous holiday, intended both to remember the goodness of God to the Jewish people and to inspire practitioners to turn the spiritual insights of the season into spiritual growth and devotion over the coming year.

In a quite peculiar tradition sometimes disparagingly referred to as “pioneer LARPing,” we send thousands of teenagers into the wild each summer to re-enact the momentous journey of our ancestors across the plains to our own modern promised land, complete with costumes and working handcarts (albeit with much better footwear and supply chain operations). We are a “peculiar people,” and Trek is one quite peculiar example of that. 

For those not familiar with the practice, a Pioneer Trek reenactment is a large-scale camping and hiking activity for youth ages 14-18 put on by the Church at the local level. Typically, the youth dress in pioneer-style clothing, pack everything for the trip (except food) into a sleeping bag and a 5-gallon bucket, and divide into groups or “families” which each work together to pull their own hand carts with all their belongings for three to five days of hiking. During this time, they play pioneer era games, have religious devotionals, learn about real pioneers, and share family history.

Though there were a few instances of Pioneer Trek re-enactments beginning in the 60s, they first gained real popularity among the saints in the United States in 1997, the year of the Mormon Pioneer Trail Sesquicentennial Celebration. The idea quickly caught on, and suddenly, stakes all over the United States, as well as some in other countries, began routinely holding Treks for their youth. Today, most stakes in the United States, as well as many others internationally, hold Trek once every four years for all the youth in their area.

Although it is sometimes criticized as pointless, unnecessarily difficult, or too expensive, Trek is generally quite popular (as evidenced by the thousands of youth who sign up each year) and fulfills an important role in our religious culture. Like the exodus of the Children of Israel in the Old Testament, the Latter-day Saint exodus to the Salt Lake Valley was a defining event in church history. Thousands of faithful saints trekked thousands of miles by wagon or handcart, facing trials that beggar comparison in the 21st-century United States. They left behind everything they knew, buried loved ones along the trail, and in some cases never even saw our own “promised land” in the Salt Lake Valley. For many years, most members of the Church could trace their ancestry directly back to the pioneers, and pioneer stories were told and retold as part of rich family histories.

Not by coincidence, the sudden surge in interest in Trek closely followed a huge surge of growth in the Church (between 1947 and 1997, the Church rapidly grew from about 1 million members to about 10 million). Within the span of a few decades, the Church suddenly had an enormous number of members who did not have direct pioneer heritage. The history of the pioneers achieved a new place within our culture—a way to connect us both to literal ancestors, pioneer stock or not, as well as to our spiritual forbears in the faith, regardless of actual ancestry. In this sense, Trek is another way in which the Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled, that the spirit of Elijah would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”

The Church’s official guide for Trek leaders states that the goal of Trek is to provide opportunities for youth to “strengthen testimonies, build unity, do family history, learn and appreciate Church history, feel gratitude for the sacrifices of the pioneers and the heritage they provided, appreciate their blessings more fully, seek and find guidance to overcome challenges, focus on serving and rescuing others, [and] learn core gospel principles.” In essence, those excellent goals are accomplished in a few days of hiking by teaching our youth resilience at two levels.

The second and even more important way that this experience teaches resilience is by teaching the reason for that resilience. Several studies have shown that storytelling and family history have a positive effect on identity formation by helping people find a secure place within a family narrative that extends beyond themselves. President Russell M. Nelson said, “When our hearts turn to our ancestors, something changes inside us. We feel part of something greater than ourselves.” 

By connecting their own personal experience of overcoming challenges to the experience of the pioneers, youth on Trek can make a connection between the strength their ancestors (literal, spiritual, or both) drew upon and what they can also draw upon when facing the difficulties of life. That strength is, of course, the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, as the central point of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In speaking of connecting to our pioneer ancestors, Elder Russell M. Ballard said, “I have a deep conviction that if we lose our ties to those who have gone before us, including our pioneer forefathers and mothers, we will lose a very precious treasure. I have spoken about “Faith in Every Footstep” in the past and will continue in the future because I know that rising generations must have the same kind of faith that the early Saints had in the Lord Jesus Christ and His restored gospel.” The stories of the pioneers are filled with ways in which they drew upon the hope and strength of the gospel, so newly restored, to persevere through incredible challenges and tragedies. 

President Dallin H. Oaks said, “It is not enough to study or reenact the accomplishments of our pioneers. We need to identify the great, eternal principles they applied to achieve all they achieved for our benefit and then apply those principles to the challenges of our day. In that way, we honor their pioneering efforts, and we also reaffirm our heritage and strengthen its capacity to bless our own posterity and “those millions of our Heavenly Father’s children who have yet to hear and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.” We are all pioneers in doing so.”

When young people are able to connect to their histories and see their place in a tradition of faith and courage, they are able to go forward in life with confidence, even if that confidence was discovered in the peculiar garb of a 19th century bonnet, a pair of suspenders, or a week in a modern tabernacle.

The post The Sacred Psychology of Pulling a Handcart appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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When I was nineteen, I thought I understood what a mission would be like. I had seen the videos, heard the stories, and imagined the glow of faithful, fulfilling service. But a few weeks into the field, I was already disoriented. It was harder than I’d ever expected—physically, emotionally, spiritually. That uncomfortable realization—that reality wasn’t what I expected—turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of my life.

I now recognize that moment as a kind of Garden of Eden experience: a step out of innocence, into awareness. Into a world where nothing was automatic anymore. And it’s the kind of transition we all make—sometimes in faith, sometimes in relationships, and sometimes in the middle of a quiet Sunday School class.

The Garden of Eden is a story that evokes a number of questions. In considering that story, we sometimes get hung up on particulars like the exact location of the garden; the relationship between the fall and death; God’s language around male-female relationships; and more. These questions can be interesting, but they are peripheral to the intentions of the story. In the story of the Garden of Eden, believers are presented with a model for how we develop as human beings.

Psychologists have long recognized that human development unfolds in stages. Erik Erikson, for example, mapped out a series of life phases—each with a key challenge that can lead either to growth or regression. Others, like Lawrence Kohlberg and James Fowler, explored how our moral reasoning and faith mature over time. While each model differs, they all affirm the same truth: healthy development requires that we move through periods of disorientation, adjustment, and deeper understanding.

I suggest that the Garden of Eden story is the best possible framework for understanding how we develop, and it is relevant across all areas of our lives. The basic contours of the story are

1. A time of innocence, where participation in a system feels automatic;

2. An awakening to awareness that reality is more than what we previously understood, in ways that are beyond our current ability to process well; and

3. Decisions in the direction of growth and development to function well in reality, or in the direction of maladaptive coping strategies that keep us from functioning well in reality.

As an example, I look back on my experience as a missionary. I grew up in a time when the Church was producing emotionally satisfying audiovisual materials to promote gospel concepts. Among those materials was a 1990 video called “Labor of Love,” which depicted missionary service as a clean and comfortable series of positive experiences. With that as a reference point, I entered missionary service in Brazil in 1993, and quickly found myself shocked and overwhelmed by missionary life that was stressful, frustrating, and physically exhausting. Before I entered the mission field, my future mission experience had only existed in theory, informed by positive stories that had been told to me. My commitment to my mission had been automatic, but now I had new information that led to daily decision points of actively choosing. I was no longer in the garden, where problems and challenges and irony (the “thorns and thistles” described to Adam and Eve by God) exist only in theory.

This process of leaving the garden and then facing these choices is one we face in church callings, but also many other areas of life: marriage, child-rearing, university studies, military service, career, and more. For most of our significant life experiences, there is a process of bringing to the experience an automatic commitment based on our paradigm of what the experience will be; then seeing differences between reality and our paradigm; then facing developmental crossroads in how we choose to respond.

In the Garden of Eden story, there is another aspect of awareness that greatly determines whether our departure from a garden of life experience becomes developmentally positive or negative. In restoration scripture, we read “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had been naked…”. In other words, they had become aware that there was a gap in their understanding of themselves and the world around them.

The way that we become aware of these gaps in our perspective matters. Our restoration understanding of Adam and Eve’s new awareness of their nakedness is that it was presented to them as something shameful. To represent Satan as a serpent in the garden is an excellent teaching tool, because his objective was to poison Adam and Eve using the venom of shame as they made their transition to new awareness. In his narrative, their nakedness meant that they were lacking and deficient. And worse, it was God who had allowed them to live in the garden in ignorance of that shameful situation. This was the venom of the accusing serpent in the garden.

I do not mean to suggest here that shame is always a bad thing to experience. I know of a number of situations where a sense of shame has been the catalyst for positive personal transformation. In some cases, shame is the only thing that will lead a person to reverse from a destructive path they have chosen. But when facing a common Garden of Eden-like developmental crossroads—the simple experience of being awakened to gaps in our paradigm and expectations—shame is not helpful or appropriate.

“Your mission experience is not what you envisioned, and that means one or both of two possibilities: you are stupid and clueless and live in a fantasy world, or you were deceived by people who gave you the wrong impression of the missionary experience.”

Or,

“Your mission experience is not what you envisioned, but making adjustments to our paradigms and expectations for our life experiences is normal. There is tremendous growth available to us in the process, and in your mission experience, the Savior is eager to lead you through that process over time.”

The first message reflects the patterns of shaming that are found in much of the critical messaging from disaffected members and former members of the Church. In critical spaces, a simple developmental crossroads, like my becoming aware of the humanity and shortcomings of prominent people in scripture and church history, is framed in shame: the difficulty of making adjustments to my paradigm is a sign that I am deficient or I have been wronged. I’m hurting, so obviously it’s my fault or someone else’s fault. Either I or the Church needs to be blamed and shamed. When our loved ones leave the covenant path and isolate themselves defensively, that is a good indicator that they have internalized narratives of shame. Letting go of that poison will allow them to reconnect with us and, in some cases, resume spiritual development. But that can be a long process of returning to their developmental crossroads and making a different choice.

How does this apply to our gospel questioning? It is clear that not all questions are equal. Some are designed to keep people developmentally stuck. In critical spaces, gospel questioning is infused with shaming, accusatory venom. Consider the form of each of these “questions”:

“Obviously, good people do x. So, why do church leaders do y?” (an accusation/insinuation disguised as a question)

“I’m totally open to accepting the Church’s teachings, as soon as unresolvable brain teaser x is resolved to my satisfaction. How do you resolve x?” (a false commitment presented as a question)

“I’m not really willing to apply myself to do the work to understand issue x in depth. So, can you explain it to me in a way that meets all my expectations, validates me, and fits within my worldview?” (an impossible demand presented as a question)

None of these are really questions. They are shaming, dishonesty, and entitlement presented in the form of questions. Sadly, some online spaces reinforce patterns of questioning that are less about curiosity and more about blame.

“I have studied x, y, z materials on this gospel topic. Are these the best possible resources, or are there some I’m missing? My understanding is _____. Is that accurate, or is there a better way to understand this concept?”

“Are there aspects of my worldview, my life experiences, or my personality that are causing me to see this issue the way I do? Are there other emotional or cognitive lenses through which I can examine this information that would open up new possible understandings?”

Here, questioning comes from genuine openness and curiosity. There is no sense of shame over a lack of understanding. I come to my questioning with a positive view that with new resources, there might be a need to make further adjustments to thinking, and that is okay. It is a normal process of spiritual and intellectual growth. And if someone is not engaged in that same process of seeking, it does not mean that they are deficient in any way, or that they are being “kept in the dark,” or any number of other grievance narratives that are inappropriately applied to normal human experience.

This is the developmental crossroads of gospel questioning. Without an awareness of the choices available to us, we can be led to narrow and cynical biases and undertake our gospel questioning like a fearful, wounded animal. With awareness, we can approach our gospel questioning with the bias of charity, free of the poison of shame.

And to be biased by charity is what it means to be truly open-minded.

In our own gospel wrestling, may we choose that bias of charity. It doesn’t just help us grow—it keeps us connected to one another, and to the God who waits for us outside the garden, ready to walk with us again.

The post What the Garden of Eden Teaches About Gospel Questions appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The pulsating melody of Mack Wilburg’s “O Light of Life!” ran before the sight of the choir. I inwardly exclaimed my excitement as memories of the first time I heard the song flooded back into my mind. A lonely, 19-year-old missionary lays on the floor of his flat, attempting to cool down. His first week in a new area, he listens to a new CD after a hot day of service doing yard work under the Australian summer sun. He needs to shower and change from his sweaty, muddied work clothes into a white shirt and tie. He only has a couple of moments before he must hurry to be on time for a dinner and lesson hosted by a local church-member family and one of their friends who is interested in their church. All the while, he tries to catch his breath and find a peaceful moment …

This upcoming July 13th will mark the 5,000th episode of Music & the Spoken Word. This weekly live broadcast of inspiring messages, imagery, and music presented by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints features musical performances by The Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra, Bells, and Organists at Temple Square. Such a milestone represents nine decades of weekly broadcasts, making it the world’s longest continuing network broadcast in history. To prepare for the upcoming celebration, Public Square, along with other advocate organizations for the Church, were invited to meet some of the Music & The Spoken Word production team, watch the Choir rehearse, and tour their facilities and performance venues.

The evening began with guests gathering together in the Salt Lake City Conference Center’s indoor plaza. The grand space with vast stone floors, polished wood walls, and larger-than-life murals depicting New Testament and Book of Mormon scenes was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun, glinting through high windows crowned by frosted glass beehive motifs. Pearly white, the marble Christus statue gleamed from the second-story balcony. Other groups began to filter in. Mostly, it seemed like local YSA and youth groups, along with tourists and the occasional local regular, all chatting joyfully and dressed in arrays of casual attire, waiting for the auditorium doors to permit them into the Choir’s weekly rehearsal. Initially confused by the large gathering, I learned from a young, smiling sister missionary that the Choir opens their rehearsals to the public for free every Thursday evening (rehearsal attendance details here). While the gathering crowd went into the Conference Center Auditorium, our group was guided outside.

We walked South along raised flower beds full of fragrant and gorgeous early summer blossoms on our path toward the iconic Tabernacle at Temple Square. Myself born and raised in Utah though recently home from living abroad in Europe, the structure of the Salt Lake City Temple––with its undeniable European influence (SAH Archipedia)––peeking out from under its renovation scaffolding granted me a sense of gratitude and amazement at the accomplishment of those European pioneers who made that same trek. What took me 28 hours of plane ride for a year-and-a-half of studies, took them just about the same amount of time to travel one way as my whole experience abroad (The Convert Immigrants). Passing between huge, dark wood doors, we entered the large, domed oval tabernacle. Frank Lloyd Wright, famed American architect, called this building “one of the architectural masterpieces of the country and perhaps the world” (Henrichsen and Dixon). Similar praise for the innovative design of the hall earned its place as a National Historic Landmark in 1970 and the first National Civil Engineering Landmark in 1971 (SAH Archipedia).

The ovular, white-domed roof sits atop rows of dark wood pews with a second-story balcony all facing toward the rostrum, choir stalls, and large pipe organ. The silhouette of this organ’s facade is immediately recognizable to Latter-day Saint worshippers as the icon on all our sacred music and has served for years as the logo for the Tabernacle Choir. The vast majority of the building’s structure is original, and the decor is lovingly preserved. Upon closer inspection, one may notice that the dark wood, at first appearing as dark oak, is in reality hand-painted pine. Pine, the available Utah native wood, was hand-painted darker to look like the color and grain of oak––a reminder of the native wood in the Eastern United States, home for most of these now settled immigrants.

In the art of placemaking, there is the ever-desirable goal of creating a space that is uniquely itself. When in the Tabernacle on Temple Square, there is a tangible sense of experiencing an entirely individual expression of the Latter-day Saint pioneer culture during the mid-late 1800s. The building has an almost minimalist focus: a place for gathering, hearing, speaking, and music-making. Unique among instruments, an organ is an instrument that is fully integrated into the architecture of the building. Like the relationship between the strings on a guitar and the belly of the guitar acting as a resonator, the pipes of an organ resonate within the cavern of the building. The Tabernacle is more than a building; it is a massive musical instrument.

Our guide pointed out an open access hatch into the complex interior of the organ casework. Joseph Ridges’ instrument of 11,623 pipes, 206 ranks, 147 stops, and mechanical air pumps extending all the way to the back of the hall requires daily maintenance and tuning by 1 or 2 organ techs with PhDs. There I saw a hand-written sign saying, “Please Do Not Turn on The Organ––We are working inside!” I chuckled, wondering what experience necessitated the sign. In addition to the Choir’s weekly rehearsal, the 5 Organists of Temple Square present a “century-old tradition” of daily open-to-the-public organ recitals (recital attendance details here).

Growing up, I had often heard urban legends about the network of tunnels beneath the five blocks of Temple Square, but this was the first time I finally got to walk through them. The network was clean but winding, with the combined facilities for servicing the logistics of the Tabernacle Choir, Bells, Organists, and Orchestra all underneath the Tabernacle building, accessible through a south-facing entrance with a tunnel leading under the street over to the Conference Center.

Of these subterranean facilities, our group saw: 

• The Women’s wardrobe and changing space with 5 dresses and jewelry for each sister in the choir. 
• A completely wood recording studio large enough to fit large musical ensembles and doubling for Chorale rehearsals (the 9-month vetting process of new choir members led by Ryan Murphy, complete with a written exam).
• The audio control studio, which services not only the Choir and Music & the Spoken Word but any major broadcast or recording for the Church, includes a wall-to-wall screen showing the Choir, and a massive mixing board of 128 analog channels. We silently walked into the space just in time to watch the designer, whose job it is to achieve the iconic warm, clear, and deep (“full-bodied”) tone of the Choir near the end of a rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. In live-time, the sound for every live broadcast is recorded digitally in the Conference Hall, then immediately sent across the street via fiber-optic cable to this studio, where it is converted and mixed in analog, then converted back into digital and sent back across the street to the Conference Center from where it is broadcast. When asked why they go through such a rigamarole, he replied, “It just sounds better.”
• Where once there was a baptismal font and religious gathering space, now the full-time staff offices––including Mack Wilburg’s––reside.
• The music library of over a million copies of music, supplying each choir, orchestra, organist, and bell musician with their own music in their own locker.
• Behind the library––“The Horse Shoe”––a large rehearsal space with two of the three practice organs and a giant lift for moving large instruments and set pieces from underground onto the stage.
• The ‘backstage area’ immediately behind the rostrum and organ, originally designed for presiding authorities to meet, now additionally serves as lovely green rooms for presenters and guest artists.

These spaces facilitate the movement of the 400 volunteer choir members (with 360 singing at any one time), 200 orchestra volunteer members (of which 85 perform at a time), 32 musicians in the Bells ensemble, five organists, over 50 backstage technicians, a 20 person full time staff, and over 100 logistics volunteers all coordinated underneath the sloping, raked seats of the Tabernacle.

After our tour of the Tabernacle, we retraced our steps back toward the conference hall. By this time, the sun had completely set, and a warm glow emanated from the interior of the Conference Center Auditorium. Before our eyes could explore the details of the massive auditorium, waves of music greeted us.

It was at this point that the memories from my mission passed before my mind’s eye, prompted by the same song, “O Light of Life!” Both on that day (over a decade ago) as a lonely missionary in Australia and today, visiting Temple Square as I walked into the auditorium, I saw the same smiling face. Michelle Pollard and her family became dear friends nearly immediately. That night at dinner, as soon as they learned I could keep a pitch, I was immediately propped against a piano for an impromptu concert of Les Misérables. With members of the family taking their turns, including a grand finale from Michelle singing Phantom of the Opera. At the time, Michelle led the local Moe Ward choir (which I was commanded to participate in), earning acclaim from the then mission President Cory Maxwell and his wife Karen Bradshaw Maxwell––a former Tabernacle Choir member herself––who punningly dubbed the group of vocalists “The Moe Tabernacle Choir.” At dinner, conversation turned to favorite hymns and primary songs, and particular favorite recordings of the then “Mormon Tabernacle Choir.” Afterward, I remember Michelle sighing, then telling me, “I don’t know how, but someday I will sing in that choir.” I nodded because she was obviously talented, yet shrugged, admittedly doubting; 8.5 thousand miles, half the globe seemed to stand between her and such a dream.

With that memory in mind, I was reminded of something Choir President Mike Leavitt said earlier that evening to our group. He mentioned, “Every human being needs quiet moments of reflection,” and The Choir produces music for people in such moments “to draw closer to the divine and feel God’s love for His children” (Our Mission). The initially lonely but blessed night on my mission was no exception. Executive Producer and Announcer Derrick Porter shared what he’s learned during their recent initiative to hear listeners’ memories with the Music & the Spoken Word program. The program has delivered weekly uninterrupted broadcasts through the Great Depression, World War II, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, 9/11, and the COVID-19 pandemic (Rappleye, Church News). Its broadcast has been heard in 50 countries, the depths of the ocean in submarines, the frozen expanse of Antarctica, and the summits of Fuji and even Everest. The reach of the program has an incredible heritage.

Whatever the circumstances of your life, may you find a moment of quiet contemplation. Enjoy your opportunity to share in Music & the Spoken Word’s 5,000th episode legacy this July 13th at 9:00 AM (MT) either in-person or by livestream via the Choir’s YouTube channel. I pass along their warm welcome to visit Temple Square for free to see its beautiful grounds, buildings, and venue tours, organ recitals, choir rehearsals, events, and future broadcasts. And “until we meet again, may peace be with you this day and always” (Music & the Spoken Word salutation).

The post From Dust Bowl to COVID: One Choir’s 5,000-Week Witness appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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The topic of listening to women recently made the rounds again in the online Latter-day Saint world as a result of a post by historian and podcaster Jared Halverson of Unshaken Saints. In the original post, Halverson, discussing D&C 25, lamented that women are leaving churches in higher numbers than men, and stated that women are “important in the kingdom of God” and, like Emma Smith, should “lay aside the things of this world.”

What would it mean for him and other men in the Church to “listen to women”? Listening is often rightly urged in public discourse—understanding the perspectives of others is important.  But often what is really meant is not “you’re not listening to me,” but “you’re not agreeing with me.” 

As Allyson Flake Matsoso has written previously in an article aptly titled “What Love Isn’t”: 

Without disagreement, there would be no need for tolerance. But now, tolerance has come to mean simply: accept what I believe or do as good and valid.  Yet validation is not true tolerance. Let’s keep the disagreement in the definition of tolerance. If we still hold to Christianity, or any form of objective truth, there must be disagreements, for we make the bold claim that our way is The Way.

During the 2020 “Great Awokening,” when I became deconverted from the social justice movement, I had many conversations with friends who insisted that I simply must not understand their positions or the lived experiences of minorities. No matter how well-versed in Foucault or Said or Derrida I was, my perspective was dismissed as ignorant and uncaring, rather than simply rejecting a worldview of which I had a deep understanding.

Likewise, when Elder Holland addressed BYU in what has now been dubbed the “musket fire speech,” he expressed deep caring and concern for LGBT+ Latter-day Saints, and noted the effort which the Brethren have dedicated to understanding and ministering to this population: 

Too often, the world has been unkind, in many instances, crushingly cruel, to these our brothers and sisters. Like many of you, we have spent hours with them, and wept and prayed and wept again in an effort to offer love and hope while keeping the gospel strong and the obedience to commandments evident in every individual life.

And yet this claim was ignored, and he was willfully misconstrued as having called for “musket fire” toward LGBT+ students. 

While I find it truly saddening that individuals interpreted that talk as a call to attack, I also find it genuinely concerning that a call to defend the gospel was met with so much hostility. In the same way, Halverson’s genuine expression of admiration for women and concern about what a catastrophic loss it is anytime a woman leaves the Church was so twisted into a paternalistic caricature, it is almost hard for me to take his critics’ arguments seriously.

But when faithful Latter-day Saint influencers concede ground to critics, it makes it harder for women of faith to express faithfulness. It grants authority to agitators to set the boundaries of what is acceptable to discuss in matters of faith. It tells faithful Latter-day Saint women that, yes, the critics are right, when you say that you are happy in your role as a woman, that you aren’t interested in priesthood ordination, you are hurting other women. 

My friend Meagan has written powerfully about the eye-opening experience it was for her when she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 15 years old, and saw the way the Church molds boys and men “to care for women and about women.” This was in stark contrast to many of the men she was exposed to in her traumatic early childhood. Latter-day Saint men, through service in the Church, become thoughtful, generous, gentle, and selfless leaders. But the women of the Church also need men who are bold and courageous, who defend faithful women and their viewpoints against the kind of emotional terrorism that is so common in online discourse. In the case of Halverson’s video, hundreds of women poured into the comments with words of support. Their perspectives are also important.

So are men listening to women in the Church? I asked some faithful sisters I know about their experiences feeling heard by men in the Church.

One sister shared that she had recently had to request a release from a leadership calling in her ward because of a change in family circumstances. Her bishop asked thoughtful questions about what was going on in her life and not only honored the request, but made an extra effort to look after her family during their challenging time. 

Another pointed to the many additional garment materials and styles that have been introduced in the past 15 years, which allow for more comfort and flexibility in clothing. 

One friend recently participated in a focus group facilitated by the Church for a new women’s podcast pilot. She met virtually with women of diverse backgrounds and life circumstances to give feedback about the direction of the podcast and to share more broadly about what they would like to see more of in church media. 

For myself, I recall a Face-to-Face in 2018 with Elder Quentin L. Cook and the late historian Kate Holbrook, where Elder Cook deferred to Dr. Holbrook to teach and testify about church history, including tough topics like polygamy. I also think of my own family and the families of many of my friends—women are valued decision makers in Latter-day Saint homes, with the important stewardship of not only caretaking and nurturing but also secular and gospel education.

But as a general membership, we must choose which voices we listen to. We cannot hear and validate all perspectives; we cannot agree with everyone; we cannot caveat every testimony. What women am I choosing to listen to on matters of faith? I am choosing to listen to the women who teach and testify of the Savior and His gospel. 

I do not believe it was a coincidence that the parable of the ten virgins was cited at least five times during this last general conference. Our leaders are trying to help us refine our focus toward the Savior and prepare for His second coming. To that end, while we should all embrace our friends of all faiths—including our more heterodox or progressive Latter-day Saint friends—there is also wisdom in filtering our own social media so that it supports our faith in Christ, or at the very least is not actively working against faith. We need to turn off and tune out the voices that do not help us hear Him. 

President Camille Johnson of the General Relief Society recently gave wise counsel applicable both to influencers and podcasters and general church membership: “We are commanded to share His light. So, keep your lamp full of the oil of conversion to Jesus Christ and be prepared to keep your lamp trimmed and burning bright. Then let that light shine. When we share our light, we bring the relief of Jesus Christ to others, our conversion to Him is deepened, and we can be whole even while we wait for healing. And as we let our light shine brightly, we can be joyful even while we wait.”

The post Listening to Women—or Listening Through the Narrative We Prefer? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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To say life was difficult at home would have been the understatement of a lifetime. My dad had been unemployed for over a year, and our family of eight felt the crushing strain financially and otherwise. While I was used to a life of financial worry, this time felt different—desperate, even.

As a new high school graduate, I had my whole life before me, and I could not wait! With a small nest egg of money I earned at a local ice cream shop, I excitedly began a new chapter of life at BYU. In my naïve 18-year-old mind, I believed my family’s worries would remain at home in Arizona, allowing me to build a carefree existence in Provo.

I could not have been more wrong.

As I settled into college, I did all I could to support myself, not wanting to ask my parents for a single dollar. And, while I was getting by on my own, I could not hide from my family’s financial devastation. Just weeks into the fall semester, in an unexpected blow, I learned we would soon lose our home to foreclosure.

No job. No home. No money. What would become of us?

Trying to distract myself, I buried myself in school, work, and social activities. I was outwardly stoic, driven, and composed. But, beneath the surface, I was crumbling. While I loved being away at school, I could not shake the feeling that I had abandoned my family in their time of need. Perhaps, had I stayed, I could have worked hard enough to save our home. Maybe this financial tsunami that threatened to destroy us was partially my fault.

One day, amid this escalating trial, I stopped by the desk in the Morris Center to retrieve my mail. Hiding in the small stack of envelopes was a folded piece of paper with my name on it. Opening it, I read these simple words: “Lynnette, let those pearly whites shine, and know that you are loved.”

There was no signature, and the absence of a stamp told me this note had been dropped into my mailbox by someone who knew which box was mine. But nobody fitting that description knew anything about my heart-wrenching challenges. 

Except God.

As I read those words through tear-filled eyes, I knew they had come from Him through the willing hands of someone who had followed a simple prompting. To me, that letter from heaven said, “I see you. I know you. I love you. Everything will be okay.”

For me, the incomprehensible thing about the Lord’s love is that it is both infinite and strikingly personal. In a garden long ago, His love led Him to do what would be impossible for the rest of us. While His friends slept, He pushed through excruciating pain and did what the Father sent Him to earth—atone for all humanity’s sins. I can think of no greater manifestation of infinite love.

But, somehow, miraculously, His love is also deeply personal. It reaches across time and space, borders and boundaries, and finds its way into individual hearts. It is amplified on a thousand daily stages that all lead to Him, often through the hands of those who hear and heed His call to help. 

Long ago, the resurrected Savior stood on the seashore with His chief apostle, Peter, who would soon take over the leadership of His church on earth. In their final conversation, before He ascended to heaven, the Lord asked Peter a significant question: “Peter, do you love me?” When he answered in the affirmative, Christ instructed Peter to “feed my lambs.”

Then again, the same question: “Peter, do you love me?” Perhaps the Master had not heard, so Peter answered again, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” The same urgent instructions bridged the space between them: “Feed my sheep.”

The Master Teacher undoubtedly knew the power of repetition. So, a third time, He asked His increasingly confused apostle: “Peter, do you love me?”

At this point, Peter was noticeably rattled. What was he missing? Did the Lord not understand or approve of his answer? But, once more, he pleadingly replied, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”

Not missing a beat, the Savior repeated the familiar instructions that would forever change the trajectory of Peter’s service: “Feed my sheep.” 

With such a short time to spend with His beloved apostles before returning home to His Father, the Savior needed Peter to grasp what it meant to love Him because love would always be the foundation of His work. Consequently, if Jesus had a few minutes to spend with each of us, I believe He would teach us exactly what He taught Peter in that historic conversation over 2000 years ago: If you love Me, take care of my children.

Loving God has never been and never will be passive—it is feeding, lifting, serving, and succoring on His behalf. It is finding the lost, nurturing the lonely, and strengthening the weak. It is praying to know how we can be His hands and then following quiet promptings to do unexpected things we otherwise would not do. 

Nearly thirty years ago, a folded piece of paper containing a few simple words of encouragement interrupted a cascading waterfall of challenges with undeniable evidence of God’s love for me. I may never know whose hand wrote those words, but like Peter of old, they had learned to follow the Lord’s call to share His love. I will be forever grateful for that simple gift, which continues to point me to Him.

The post Share His Love: Why Christ Still Asks Us to Feed His Sheep appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Serious consideration of the analyses, arguments, and implications drawn from Stephen Webb’s book, Mormon Christianity:  What Other Christians Can Learn from The Latter-Day Saints, published by Oxford University Press in 2013, must acknowledge the influence of the “Mormon Moment,” brought about by the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney in the election of 2012.  Without that historical context, the book is less likely to have been written and might well have been merely a chapter in a larger edited book on contemporary religions in America.  Not only did the Romney presidential candidacy put the LDS Church in the spotlight, but it also provoked—or at least gave reason for—spirited analyses and assessments of LDS doctrine and practice by Protestant and Catholic clerics and theologians.  

It is in the context of this commentary that Webb’s book stands out.  For a number of important reasons, this book offers a perspective on the Church and its doctrines that, insofar as I know, is available nowhere else in the form and context Webb provides.  One aspect of Webb’s analysis is what it offers to the larger Christian world who might not ever have had occasion to examine the Church so closely.  However, more important—at least in my mind—than what the book offers to scholars and non-members of the Church are the insights and analyses Webb offers to LDS Church members themselves.  He opens a door to understanding and provides a context for understanding the Church and its doctrines, which many LDS members and scholars may not have ever realized by themselves.

Webb describes his own religious background as part of the same restorationist tradition that informed much of the protestant world and contributed to the zeal of the protestant sects during the time of the “second great awakening” in the early part of the 19th century during the time of what we proclaim to be the restoration of the primitive and original Church of Jesus Christ.  That early restorationist movement also produced many of the prominent early members of the restored church.  Webb marks differences between the LDS Church and other restorationist movements.  While most restorationist movements expected that it would be necessary to essentially start over and reject all established sects in order to establish the true church, Webb notes that Joseph Smith took a different tack—which has been reiterated many times during the history of the restored Church.  

It was, essentially, to not reject out of hand all contemporary Christian doctrines deemed to have deviated from primitive Christianity.  Rather, Joseph Smith and the church he founded sought to examine doctrines and practices and, with the help of revelation, decide what could be maintained, what needed to be rejected, and how things might need to be modified and re-understood. Some of these considerations were made during the period in which they were translating and reading the Book of Mormon.  There is a sense of moderation here that is seldom recognized by outside observers and, especially, critics of the LDS Church. To such critics, certain key doctrines are sufficient to establish the church as deviant, and perhaps irretrievably so.  This perspective that Webb articulates is one that we might well examine in our own expressions of our doctrine and practices as we seek to both define ourselves and locate ourselves among other faith traditions.

Webb provides a list of what we might refer to as defining distinctions of the LDS version of restorationism, which, to some degree, provides a principal theme or thesis for the book.  We can think of these, perhaps, as a set (probably not the set) of defining principles of the restored gospel and the Church.  These principles are: 1) that all mortals can actually share, or come to share, in God’s own powers, 2) that spirits are composed of matter, and thus that God Himself has a material being, 3) that there are legitimate new (we might prefer to call them continuing) revelations from God to mortal beings and to the Church, and 4) that spirit or intelligence—which constitutes our identity—is pre-existent, i.e., that it did not (we did not) come into existence suddenly in an act of creation.  We should note here that these things seem so obvious and natural to us (as LDS members) that we sometimes lose sight of just how radically different they are in the context of contemporary Christian theology and practice.  Webb rightly notes that much of what makes us controversial, for better or for worse, centers on these four issues.(1)

It is in dealing with these issues where, in my view, Webb makes his most important contribution to our understanding of ourselves as Latter-day Saint Christians. In so doing, he makes available to us an insight that represents perhaps the most important contribution we can make, not only to the religious world but to the academic world and to the scholarly discourse of our time.  Webb’s contribution is simply this: he understands (even if we do not) that the unique aspects of our doctrine (a.k.a. our revealed religion) dealing with materiality, eternal uncreated intelligence, and the possibility of genuine perfectibility and godliness as we understand them and deal with them are genuinely metaphysical (or ontological) issues, and not just theological positions.  That our passive God is a metaphysical reality rather than merely a theological necessity is fundamental to our faith and, in combination with our claim of the perfectibility of immortal material souls, defines for us a unique place in the Christian world that cannot be easily ignored and overlooked.  Furthermore, although Webb does not develop this idea, these metaphysical—not merely theological—issues empower us to make a unique contribution to the scholarly discourse related to the human moral world, what it means to be a human being, and what constitutes a good and flourishing life.  And this contribution, because it is grounded in metaphysical rather than theological discourse, has untapped potential for good.

Stephen Webb was a very bright, careful thinker, a unique scholar, a deeply Christian man, a humble disciple, a good friend, and, in some ways, a Latter-day Saint.(2)  I think he will derive some joy if his gift to us of this book enables our mission and contributes to the restoration. I am honored that I could count him among my friends.

References: 

(1) It should be noted that Webb also takes up some of the more traditional controversies that the Church and its members often face. He has a chapter on Brigham Young and Parley P. Pratt as examples of LDS leaders and practices outside the traditional Christian mainstream. However, his treatment of these issues is fairly restrained.

(2)  See, for example, Webb’s article in First Things, February, 2012.

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