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

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

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

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

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

I understand this impulse. I share the alarm.

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

Liberty as a Familiar Alternative

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

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

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

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

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

Liberty in God’s Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Risks of Reaching for State Power

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Path Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Caesar’s Dues appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

Attack dog. Enforcer. Culture warrior. These labels and more have been used to describe Elder Clark G. Gilbert, newly called apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has also been described as a “high-profile defender of doctrinal orthodoxy” and a proponent of “retrenchment.”

What’s all the fuss about? As Commissioner of Church Education, Elder Gilbert is accused of instituting a variety of measures to ensure that professors at BYU support the doctrine of the Church that pays their salaries—specifically on issues related to marriage, family, and gender. According to some, these measures have ushered in a culture of fear among faculty who have reservations about Church doctrine or policy. Other concerns have been mentioned, but this seems to be the heart of the issue.

Before I say a few words in defense of Elder Gilbert, I want to take a moment and recognize the difficult space that many Latter-day Saint scholars inhabit. The Church’s views on family, sexuality, and gender are (to put it gently) not popular in academia. Despite stated aspirations to diversity and inclusivity, there isn’t much room in academia for researchers who vocally promote the Church’s positions on family life. I have seen this first-hand in my nearly two decades in academic life. Those who support marriage as the union of a man and a woman and claim that sexual relations should only happen in such marriages are castigated as out of touch, prudish, ignorant, hateful, and bigoted. It’s hard to get along in your profession when your colleagues view you as little better than a racist.

There are intellectual resources to defend the Church’s positions on these matters (more on this below), but the opposition to such arguments is so loud, so confident, and so strident that often it’s easier to just keep quiet. Latter-day Saint scholars are generally trained in the same graduate programs, go to the same academic conferences, and are under the same pressure to publish in top journals as scholars who don’t belong to the Church. It’s hard to not imbibe the norms, expectations, assumptions, and conclusions of the culture, including revisionist views about gender, sexuality, and family. The implicit and explicit pressure to fall in line with the prevailing orthodoxy can be suffocating. Even Latter-day Saint scholars who want to resist the prevailing academic culture on these issues can feel bewildered about how to do so. 

In an environment where so much of your professional success is influenced or determined by people who are hostile to the Church’s views, I can see why many people would feel concerned about Elder Gilbert’s efforts to align the faculty with the doctrine of the Church.

At the same time, I, like many other faculty and students, choose to study at BYU precisely because of its doctrine. I want to be at a university where I can “seek learning, by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). As Elder Gilbert has emphasized many times, institutional drift in academia is real, and many universities that start with religious aspirations end up abandoning them later. It’s tempting to say that this is the standard arc for religious universities in the United States. Believing that BYU’s distinctive religious heritage can be maintained without intentional efforts to preserve it is naive.

But perhaps it is not possible to run a quality university that is committed to religious beliefs? Indeed, many of the criticisms of Elder Gilbert presuppose that it is inherently wrong to try to get professors to align with Church teachings. The critique takes two forms: first, that any attempt to align (or more darkly, “impose”) views about any topic at a university is wrong; and second, that it is wrong for BYU to expect faculty to support the Church’s doctrine on marriage, family, and gender.

The first view is widespread but breaks down upon inspection. As I have explained in detail, it is neither possible nor desirable for a university to be completely devoid of commitments. Without well-known and agreed-upon standards, university life would descend into a cacophony of competing claims, none of which could be evaluated as better than any of the others. The scholarly practice of peer review presupposes that practitioners in the discipline know what counts as “legitimate” scholarship and can reject submissions that do not meet disciplinary standards. (A more blatant example of institutional gatekeeping would be difficult to imagine.) As I wrote in the previously mentioned article,

The point of academic study is to produce knowledge. This search is a winnowing process, as academic ‘disciplines’ (note the word) seek to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of unsupported opinion and bias. Good scholars are committed to getting it right, which presupposes that truth is real and knowledge is possible, which in turn is premised on a host of philosophical and other presuppositions. Academic freedom cannot mean the freedom to be supported in whatever one believes; rather, it is the freedom to seek truth, which means being accountable to reality.

It may come as a surprise to some readers, but some people actually want to go to a university that includes religious beliefs among its commitments (see Elder Gilbert’s recent article on this in The Chronicle of Higher Education). A recent essay by prominent Catholic sociologist Christian Smith explains that he chose to teach and research at Notre Dame because he wanted more direct engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition. But after 20 years at Notre Dame, Smith decided to leave because (in his view) the university was not living up to its potential. He writes: “When I came to Notre Dame, I believed the university was serious about its Catholic mission. I tried to make my contribution, I think with some success. But I also saw much of the institution absorbed by other interests that, in my view, were often irrelevant to or at odds with the Catholic mission.” I don’t have enough information to know if he is right about Notre Dame, but many people want something other than the standard secular university experience. In general, the world is enriched, not diminished, by religious universities that pursue truth in a distinctive way.

To be clear, as Commissioner of Church Education, Elder Gilbert wasn’t some rogue actor trying to sneak something past Church headquarters. The family proclamation may be controversial in some quarters, but it is firmly established as Church doctrine. It would be hard to make this point more emphatically than President Dallin H. Oaks recently did: “Those who do not fully understand the Father’s loving plan for His children may consider this family proclamation no more than a changeable statement of policy. In contrast, we affirm that the family proclamation, founded on irrevocable doctrine, defines the mortal family relationship where the most important part of our eternal development can occur.”

Some critics might be concerned that Elder Gilbert’s efforts to align the faculty with the Church’s teachings diminish academic freedom. In my view, this gets it exactly wrong. There are hundreds of universities in the United States where revisionist scholarship about marriage, family, and gender is welcome and rewarded. The orthodoxy on these issues is clear and intolerant. There is a much smaller number of universities where one can pursue scholarship that is aligned with the family proclamation. If BYU became just like other universities, there would be less academic freedom than there currently is. (Attentive readers will realize that I’m using “academic freedom” in two senses here, individual and institutional, both of which are explained in detail in BYU’s Academic Freedom Policy.)

Though debates over marriage, sexuality, and gender are often framed as conflicts between “rigid defenders of orthodoxy” and proponents of love and authenticity, the reality is not so simple. At the heart of these conflicts are deep disagreements over personal identity, sexual morality, the meaning of human life, and the common good. There are many resources available to Latter-day Saints and others to think through these issues carefully. In my view, these are not issues on which one has to “blindly accept” Church teachings; the assumptions that lead to revisionist conclusions about marriage, gender, and sexuality are highly contestable.

Which brings us back to the idea of Elder Gilbert as a “culture warrior” or an “attack dog.” It’s strange that people on only one side of these controversies get called names like this—even when the university in question is clearly owned and operated by the Church. As my former teacher Robert P. George writes in a related context, “There is a culture war, alright, but supporters of the sanctity of human life and the conjugal conception of marriage are not the aggressors in it. It was people on the other side–those who reject sanctity of life principles and the idea of marriage as a conjugal union–who wanted to change longstanding legal and cultural norms.” In my view, Elder Gilbert took reasonable steps to ensure that BYU students get the education that is advertised in the BYU mission and aims, and I’m grateful for his efforts.

In a recent interview, Elder Gilbert recounts an important conversation he had with President Holland. Both the mandate from President Holland and his ultimate hope for BYU seem like a good way to conclude: 

I remember I was talking to President Holland, and he was bemoaning that he could feel this drift happening to the university. And he’s like, ‘What have they done with our school that we love so much?’ And I felt awkward. I wasn’t even the commissioner yet. And I felt like I needed to defend them. And I said, ‘Well, President Holland, you know, we have the honor code, we have devotionals, we have religion classes, we have the academic freedom policy.’ And I said, ‘They’re like bumper lanes protecting us from bowling into the gutter.’ And he didn’t even let me finish. And he said, ‘That’s very different than bowling for a strike.’ And he said, ‘We need to bowl for a strike at BYU.’

The post Bowling for a Strike at BYU and Beyond appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

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

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

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

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

What Bill C-9 Would Have Done to Religious Expression

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

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

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

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

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

Context for the Bill

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

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

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

Moving Forward

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

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

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

Download Print-Friendly Version

On Sunday morning, January 18, 2026, roughly three dozen anti–immigration-enforcement protesters walked into a worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Some moved all the way up toward the pulpit while others chanted “ICE out” and “Renée Good,” invoking the woman fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

The protesters’ stated reason for choosing that congregation was personal: multiple outlets reported that one of Cities Church’s pastors, David Easterwood, leads the local ICE field office.

Whatever one thinks about ICE, about the pastor’s role, or about the protesters’ cause, the method matters. There is a moral difference between showing up outside a building to make a public argument and walking into a sanctuary to stop people from worshipping.

But even those groups whose protests we find offensive have always maintained the line: protest outside, worship inside. 

The inside–outside line is more than mere preference. It’s a recognition that religious spaces matter, and a social agreement that keeps people safe and allows worship to be possible.

This is a bright line that Latter-day Saints understand intuitively and should be willing to stand up for. 

Protecting this boundary is more than theater. Worship spaces have been under attack—including others in Minnesota. Just last summer in Minneapolis, neighboring St. Paul, worshippers were attacked in a mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church during an all-school Mass. And Latter-day Saints, too, have recently experienced violence at places of worship.

When outsiders burst into a place of worship without the intention to worship, the outcome can turn violent. Protesting in places of worship poses all kinds of risks to congregants, who want to protect themselves and their families. Such trespass is simply not safe for any involved, no matter how peacefully the interruption is managed.

To be clear, sanctuaries have never been perfectly safe. Scripture and history are full of sacred spaces violated by violence or contempt.

But the point of a sanctuary is not that nothing bad can happen there. It’s that we collectively agree it shouldn’t—and that agreement restrains the worst impulses in all of us.

Interrupting a worship service is a bad idea regardless of the intent. It inflicts collateral damage on the wrong people. It swaps moral clarity for spectacle. It invites escalation and copycat behavior. It risks legal consequences while muddying constitutional principles. 

It may be tempting for Latter-day Saints to not concern themselves with this violation. After all, the Church has long supported the immigrant community, and its support for constitutional principles likely means it will not be the focus of ire for these protesters. And more largely, Latter-day Saints are not the most natural target for the kind of inside-the-service disruption we saw at Cities Church. Our congregations are politically diverse, our official posture is not partisan, and our public messaging on immigration is neither “open borders” nor “enforcement-only.”

But here’s the sober second thought: we should not assume we’re safe from becoming a target anyway.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said it opened an investigation, with officials publicly referencing potential violations of the federal FACE Act, a 1994 law that (among other things) prohibits using force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, or interfere with someone “exercising or seeking to exercise” religious freedom at a place of worship—while also clarifying it does not prohibit First Amendment–protected peaceful picketing and demonstration. We believe this is a wise and justifiable instance for utilizing this law, and we encourage law enforcement to take a stand in reinforcing the norms of places of worship as sanctuaries. 

Regardless of where Latter-day Saints as individuals or as a group reside on the political spectrum, weakening norms around chapels as sanctuaries should concern each of us. We should defend the norm of sanctuary for everyone—because once it’s gone, it will be our youth, our converts, and our visitors who suffer alongside those of our neighbors. 

The post Protest Outside, Worship Inside: A Truce Worth Keeping appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

National Religious Freedom Day stings a little this year.

The past few months have brought some painful experiences to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In September, a shooter and arsonist took the lives of four members of the Church and wounded several more in Michigan. Just hours before, the Church’s senior leader, President Russell M. Nelson, had passed away. In our mourning, many online expressed great sympathy and kindness. But sadly, some saw fit to focus on hurtful arguments that Latter-day Saints aren’t Christian—and in some cases, argued that we’re simply demonic.

Around the country this fall, explicit chants about “Mormons” echoed through several college football stadiums where BYU played, including at a game where survivors of the Michigan attack were in attendance. Although apologies followed, they claimed that the actions did not represent the university, and no actions were taken to help remedy the students’ animus. (I do note that some schools took intentional steps to prevent these hateful chants, which I gratefully applaud.)

All this in a time where Pew Research Center has reported a great irony: while Latter-day Saints are unique for feeling positive—and in most cases, very positive—toward all faith groups (and even atheists), they are, in return, disliked by nearly all those groups. (A shout-out to our Catholic friends, the only surveyed group to feel positively.)

The way that Latter-day Saints face religious hostility in America is unique. Commentator Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch said it well after the Michigan shooting: “I think extreme anti-Mormonism may be the most reactionary form of hatred in America” because it is “hating people solely for what they believe.” The hatred “is overwhelmingly theological and abstract” and does not appear to be inspired by “anything that Mormons”—or as we’d kindly suggest, Latter-day Saints—“actually, or even allegedly, do.” 

This peculiar theological hate often leads to a strange cultural tolerance for degrading Latter-day Saints in the public square in ways that would not be deemed permissible for other faiths. For all the talk in recent years of shedding hate and cultivating tolerance, love, and respect, it hasn’t seemed to apply in a widespread way to members of The Church of Jesus Christ. As Simran Jeet Singh of Religion News Service reported, “Hating Mormons remains socially permissible in modern America, just as it was nearly 200 years ago when they were forcibly displaced and almost exterminated.”

Yet despite the peculiar flavor of religious animus prevalent toward Latter-day Saints in America, I don’t think most of these cultural slights weigh too heavily on Latter-day Saints. Most of us have (perhaps sadly) grown accustomed to routine maligning by the media and the entertainment industry. We know we are countercultural—or in scriptural parlance, a “peculiar people.” The scriptures teach us to expect persecution and pay no heed to the world’s judgment. We focus on living our faith and finding joy in Christ, and we don’t spend much time fretting about this mistreatment.

But the violent attack—that was different. That pain pierced our historical consciousness, searing into our remembrance the violent persecution the early Saints in Missouri faced nearly two centuries ago. A much different context, yes. But the common thread? Hate-fueled violence toward Latter-day Saints.

I have followed religious freedom conditions around the world for nearly six years. My interest in advocating for the persecuted drove me to law school and inspires me to volunteer my free time to the cause. I frequently read horrific reports of mass atrocities, including war crimes and genocide. My heart grieves every time. Sometimes I become so consumed that the suffering persecuted are all I can think about.

And yet the Michigan attack shook me differently. Perhaps because Latter-day Saint meetings and chapels are so universal, and because I have spent nearly every Sunday of my life in them, I felt that I could visualize every moment of the attack as if I had been there. I could see the lay bishopric member at the stand when the truck drove into the building, the unassuming carpet on which the members would have run as they scattered, the hallways with gospel art where each member would have frantically searched for a safe way out. 

I wept for days after this attack. And I felt intense guilt that I do not weep every time I read of one. It is my firm conviction that every human life holds equal inherent worth and dignity. This belief is what drives me to advocate for the religious freedom of all people. And yet I suppose we are all most emotionally affected by what we are most intimately connected to. 

But now I no longer view my emotional response to my own faith’s suffering with shame. Instead, I see it as an impetus for me to better bear the burdens and “mourn with those that mourn” outside of my faith community in the wake of religious violence. Having briefly tasted, if only from a distance, the sting of religious violence aimed at my own faith community, I can more empathetically engage with others who have endured it too.

And sadly, many have. Just a month before the Michigan attack, an attacker opened fire on Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, killing two children. In June, a heavily armed man opened fire on CrossPointe Community Church in Michigan and was fatally shot. In May, a Jewish couple who worked for the Israeli embassy was shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Similar attacks have happened to various people of faith and houses of worship across the country in recent years.

And for minority faith groups in America, religious persecution in the form of hate crimes, even if not violent, is too often a real and pervasive part of their experience. Of the 3,096 hate crimes motivated solely by religious bias in 2024, the three most affected groups were minority faith groups: about 69 percent of the religious hate crimes were targeted at Jews, 9.3 percent were targeted at Muslims, and 4.9 percent were targeted at Sikhs.

Antisemitism in the United States is surging. In 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported the highest total number of antisemitic incidents since it began tracking data in 1979. 77 percent of Jews have reported feeling less safe in the U.S. since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, according to a report by the American Jewish Committee. And the same report indicated that more than half of U.S. Jews avoided a behavior in 2024 due to fears of antisemitism. 

Islamophobia is also increasing significantly. 70 percent of Muslims have reported facing increased discrimination in American society since the Hamas–Israel War began. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported the highest number of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents in 2024 since the group began compiling data in 1996. 

These trends are not limited to the United States. Just days after the Michigan attack on The Church of Jesus Christ, a Manchester synagogue was attacked during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The Manchester attack had startling similarities to the one in Michigan: the attacker drove a vehicle toward the sacred space (though this time, not into it), then exited in an attempt to violently attack the worshippers. 

As Latter-day Saints engage in dialogue about religious persecution—which I fully encourage—we must make sure we understand the broader context of religious persecution and hostility in the U.S. and abroad. As we join the conversation, we must neither understate or overstate our own case. Yes, we are often treated in highly unusual ways, particularly culturally, that should be adamantly condemned. But in so many ways, we fare much better than others in our acceptance, freedom, and safety in society. We are not persecuted the way we were in the early days of the Church. We are not victims of atrocities like ethnic cleansing or genocide because of our faith ties. Many of our fellow human beings are not so lucky.

If we plan to advocate for ourselves, we should first become better aware of the other faith groups experiencing religious hostility and persecution. We should realize that we do not carry the same fear that many Sikhs or Muslims or Jews carry when they leave their homes dressed in religious apparel. We do not know what it is like to have an ethnic-religious identity, with both aspects triggering acts of discrimination against us. We should try to better understand the experiences of our brothers and sisters for whom these forms of persecution are daily realities. And we should understand hostility toward or persecution of Latter-day Saints in this broader context. 

If we wish to advocate for ourselves, there is always the question of whether to turn the other cheek or to defend a righteous cause. In my own view, while we must seek to turn the other cheek and achieve personal reconciliation, and we must forgive those who have persecuted us, scripture teaches it can be righteous to advocate for ourselves as a group when we are persecuted as a faith community (so long as we did not provoke the offense). Restoration teaching adds that this advocacy should be peaceful.

In fact, I think it is important for members to peacefully and respectfully advocate for our faith community when we experience persecution: first, because it is just, and second, because it signals the standard of how we believe all human beings and their religious beliefs should be treated. If we don’t speak up about cultural desecration of the Book of Mormon in a musical, are we implying it’s okay to desecrate the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Qu’ran, or the Bible? If we imply that hate speech against us is okay, do we think it’s okay against Buddhists, Sikhs, or evangelical Christians? Would we stand for explicit chants against them at sporting events or vile tweets against them on X in the wake of religious violence aimed at their communities? 

Even if you don’t want to deal with the question of whether self-advocacy is righteous, one thing is surely just: advocating for the religious freedom of others. In so doing, we honor the human dignity—the inherent, unchangeable, equal worth—of every person. We recognize that to be human is to have a conscience, and that from this follows the corollary human right to follow it. We emphasize that all human beings deserve to be treated with kindness, respect, and love—no matter what aspects contribute to their identities.

The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable was the unlikely advocate and rescuer for the injured Jewish man. Jews viewed Samaritans as religiously impure and heretical. Samaritans saw Jews as arrogant and wrong. And yet, the Samaritan man was the one who both noticed the wounded Jewish man and addressed his needs. Laying aside the tension between their communities and perhaps their inabilities to fully understand each other, the Samaritan had compassion for the Jewish man. However different from himself, the Samaritan saw the humanity in the other, “shewed mercy,” and helped the broken Jewish man heal from what he had so cruelly been a victim of. The Jewish man was not the Samaritan man’s enemy, but his neighbor and his brother.

This is our example. We must set aside our differences to advocate for the religious freedom of other faith groups. We may not fully understand them, and they may not understand us. Sometimes, there may even be significant theological rifts or cultural tensions between us, including harsh words uttered. But we can choose to see the humanity in one another and to stand for it.

So, on this National Religious Freedom Day, when persecution strikes my faith group, I commit to peacefully but firmly condemn it. And when it strikes others, I will condemn it too—perhaps even more vigorously. 

The post Latter-day Saints Must Stand With the Religiously Persecuted appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

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

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

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

A Pattern Learned in Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Echoes

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

From Polarization to Fragility

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

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

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

I’ve lived this story before.

What to Rebuild

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download Print-Friendly Version

Whenever we talk about Thanksgiving and its origins, we refer to the first Thanksgiving in 1621. We talk of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag and the great feast they had together, celebrating the abundant harvest which was, in great part, thanks to the Wampanoag’s help. That is a part of our past well worth remembering. But there is actually another Thanksgiving story, equally important, which we don’t often recall. And this story includes an important founder of our nation who is likewise unfamiliar. This story, the first Thanksgiving under the new Constitution, had nothing to do with harvests or Pilgrims or American Indians.

[Boudinot] could not think of letting the session pass … without offering an opportunity to all citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he has poured down upon them. With this view, then, he would move the following resolution:

Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.

This Thanksgiving proclamation would not be a reminder about great harvests or friendly people. This Thanksgiving would be about the Constitution, its new form of government, and the peaceable way it came about for everyone’s protection and happiness.

Surprisingly, only a month before, President Washington himself had written to James Madison, mentioning that he was contemplating asking the Senate to implement a day of Thanksgiving. However, this proved unnecessary, as Boudinot, feeling the same way, initiated the process in the House of Representatives.

After some debate about the appropriateness of this idea and whether they had the power to put forward such a resolution, Representative Roger Sherman, a Congressman from Connecticut, as well as a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, spoke in agreement with Boudinot. He felt the resolution was justified and reminded them of the long tradition of calling for a day of Thanksgiving. In fact, having a day of prayer and Thanksgiving, or even fasting, prayer, and Thanksgiving, was common. Sherman reminded them that it was more than just a routine practice in the colonies. The idea actually extended all the way back to the Old Testament times after King Solomon finished building the Temple. 

Boudinot’s resolution passed. Within just a few days of receiving the resolution, President Washington issued the proclamation. It was subsequently published in newspapers throughout the fledgling nation.

Perhaps the first Thanksgiving held here on the North American continent was for the Pilgrims to celebrate a great harvest with their American Indian friends. But the first Thanksgiving held in these United States was actually to give thanks to God for His help in establishing the new constitutional form of government through peaceful means. This story of the nation’s first Thanksgiving is less remembered today. And knowledge of a key catalyst of this Thanksgiving has largely disappeared from view. Who was this man, so intent on ensuring that God be given proper appreciation?

Elias Boudinot (pronounced Boo’-din-oh) is by no means a household name in the United States today. His personal legacy as a U.S. founding father has faded from public view. This neglect is unfortunate, considering the important roles he played during the country’s founding.

In 1772, Elias was appointed as a trustee of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Not long after this appointment, however, rumblings of the coming revolution began to spread throughout the colonies, and Elias was swept up in the cause. While he felt that many of Britain’s actions toward the colonies were unjust, he initially hesitated. But once it was clear that the war of independence was inevitable, Boudinot was all in. 

In the spring of 1777, Gen. Washington commissioned him to serve as Commissary General of Prisoners. This position ended in 1778, when he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he served for a year. In 1781, he was elected to Congress under the Articles of Confederation and was quickly elected as the presiding officer of the Confederation Congress. He served in that position during the end-of-war negotiations with Great Britain, during which, as president of the Congress, he signed the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. After the war ended, Boudinot remained heavily involved in the young nation’s transition to peacetime independence. 

Following this service in the U.S. Congress, Washington appointed him director of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. After completing ten years in this role, Boudinot finally retired to Burlington, New Jersey. 

Boudinot’s ancestors were devout French Huguenots, and Boudinot carried on this tradition of devotion. His Christian values led him to shun slavery. As the question was being debated in Congress, a few supporters of slavery tried to use the Bible to support their position. Boudinot responded with a sober warning. While God had preserved America thus far, He would not necessarily turn a blind eye to the sin of slavery forever:  

It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, … but … gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm, and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

Considering these words, it comes as no surprise that he gave complete credit to God for the success of the fledgling American nation as well. A letter from Boudinot in 1783 makes it clear that, in his mind, involving the Lord was the only way America could have survived its violent separation from England: 

I have been in the midst of principal scenes of action during the whole contest. I have not been a bare spectator. I have carefully watched and compared the steps of Divine Providence thro’ the whole, and as the result, I can assure you that our success has not been the effect of either our numbers, power, wisdom, or art. It has been manifestly the effect (I was going to say the miraculous effect) of the astonishing interposition of a holy God in our favor. I do not mean in the least to derogate from the bravery, wisdom, patience, and perseverance of our army. … My meaning is that in no instance have our numbers, power, wisdom, or art been such that, in the judgment of impartial judges, success could have been reasonably depended on, independent of the overruling power of heaven. In many instances, our misfortunes have been our happiness, and often our blunders and mistakes have been the cause of our succeeding beyond the most sanguine expectations.

On another occasion, Boudinot lauded the Constitution and the new form of government that was being established while also expressing an earnest hope that the coming prosperity and newfound liberty of America would be preserved by the virtue and faith of the people:  

Who knows but the country for which we have fought and bled may hereafter become a theatre of greater events than yet have been known to mankind? May these invigorating prospects lead us to the exercise of every virtue—religious, moral, and political.

Boudinot’s most important writing is a book penned in response to a later work of Thomas Paine’s. In 1776, Paine wrote his famous pamphlet, Common Sense, which took the American colonies by storm. It preceded the Declaration of Independence by six months and helped to solidify the colonists’ resolve to break free from Britain—and it cemented Thomas Paine’s status as one of the Revolution’s most memorable figures. John Adams himself noted, “[W]ithout the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”

Adams records in his journal his conversation with Thomas Paine concerning his book, Common Sense. It is an early hint at Paine’s future work, The Age of Reason:

I told him further, that his reasoning from the Old Testament was ridiculous, and I could hardly think him sincere. At this, he laughed, and said he had taken his ideas in that part from Milton: and then expressed a contempt of the Old Testament and indeed of the Bible at large, which surprised me. He saw that I did not relish this, and soon check’d himself, with these words ‘However, I have some thoughts of publishing my thoughts on religion, but I believe it will be best to postpone it, to the latter part of life.’

He kept his word to John Adams and, beginning in 1794, Paine published a work that incited quite a bit of controversy. This work of Paine’s, entitled The Age of Reason, embraced many of the Enlightenment-era philosophies of the day, including deism, which some contemporaries condemned as atheistical.

In the dedication to his daughter, Susan, Boudinot explained: 

I was much mortified to find the whole force of this man’s vain genius pointed at the youth of America. … This awful consequence created some alarm in my mind lest at any future day you, my beloved child, might take up this plausible address of infidelity. … I have endeavored to … show his extreme ignorance of the Divine Scriptures … not knowing that ‘they are the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth.

While he is not as well remembered as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or John Hancock, Elias Boudinot played a consistent and influential role in the founding of America. He was a model of the values held by the founders, who wished to see their nation prosper under God for many years to come and who lived their lives accordingly. Boudinot’s priorities of faith, family, and virtue made him beloved as a father, husband, friend, and statesman. And his writings, including The Age of Revelation, testify to his faith and the service he gave the citizens of this country. Thus, while the general public does not know him today, he undoubtedly left his mark upon countless contemporaries and most certainly upon America every Thanksgiving season. 

Recognizing the importance of Boudinot’s work, The Age of Revelation, Mount Liberty Press, the publishing imprint of John Adams College, has issued a new, annotated edition of the work. In this way, the College honors Elias Boudinot and looks forward to a revival of appreciation for the man, his work, and the faith of a generation that brought about the United States of America. The Mount Liberty edition of The Age of Revelation is available on Amazon.

The post The First Thanksgiving Was for the Constitution appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

There are several stark ironies in my life. First, I grew up in an active Latter-day Saint family in a small farm town in southern Idaho. So, my upbringing was about as conservative as you can imagine. Yet, I got a PhD in psychology, which is about as liberal a field as you can imagine. Second, I’m still an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while I’ve had numerous family members and friends leave the Church. Yet, I’m the one who is in psychology, arguably the least religious field in academia. Third, I study deconversion, so I know all the reasons people leave religion. Yet, I have little if any motivation to leave myself. Fourth, I’m one of the leading researchers of adolescent religious development in the world, yet I struggle to raise my own kids in the Church. Fifth, I’ve been in the field of psychology for two and a half decades as a developmental psychologist, so I should understand growth and change. Yet, I have struggled mightily with my own mental health and relationships. Sixth, I have spoken and written about how to navigate faith crises, yet I am still struggling with my own faith.

One reason I have no motivation to leave is that I have adequately applied my heart, head, and hands to my faith journey, as articulated in a four-part series of essays I wrote previously with my colleague Ed Gantt. These essays are extensive, so I won’t repeat what is said there. But they capture a lot of the reasons why I have not left the Church. 

One major reason I am not motivated to leave the Church, as pointed out in our essays, is that I focus on primary questions and let go of secondary questions. Elder Corbridge beautifully described this distinction in a BYU devotional. I have studied why people leave religion (deconversion) for about a decade, so I know all the secondary questions. But I don’t spend much time and energy on them. This is largely because of what I describe in my faith journey essays. And part of it is, I have my hands full with the primary questions, which are essentially the pillars of a testimony. Here they are:

1. Is there a God? 
2. Is Jesus the Christ?
3. Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
4. Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the true church?
5. Is the Book of Mormon the word of God?

Let’s start with, is there a God? I really believe there is a God, but I have several barriers that have made it hard for me to feel His presence and love. First, although I grew up in a wonderful family that I love, we aren’t the most emotionally intelligent (at least speaking for myself). We learned how to use our heads more than our hearts. Second, I made that worse by getting a PhD and becoming a professor. My career is very focused on logic and observable evidence. Third, I have struggled with my mental health. In a recent study I conducted with my colleagues and students, we showed that spirituality and mental health are bidirectionally linked. That is, it isn’t just that spirituality protects people from mental health challenges, but in turn, having such challenges can hinder spirituality. So, I feel my mental illness has made it harder than usual for me to have spiritual experiences. Fourth, it seems like my weakness and sin have often been like an umbrella, blocking me from the rays of light coming down from God. Fifth, more importantly, I have lived with shame as my harmful constant companion. Shame blocks me from feeling love from myself, others, and God. 

Next, is Jesus the Christ? One of my big challenges here is that it is hard, with my modern, Western, scientific mind, to envision having a relationship with someone whom I can’t observe with my five senses. Also, the barriers above for me feeling God’s presence and love are also barriers to me experiencing the Atonement of Christ. In particular, shame is basically a denial of the Atonement of Christ. Sort of like, I know you paid for my sins, but I prefer to keep them and beat myself with them. In short, even though I really want to believe in Christ, I have struggled in my relationship with Him and in experiencing the healing and enabling powers of His Atonement. 

Yet, I love all things Christian. I am a junkie of The Chosen. I’m all in on that personable Jesus! I feel the Spirit so powerfully in many of the most beloved scenes. I’m also obsessed with Christian music, particularly Christian rock. Most of my listening time these days is devoted to Christian music. I feel uplifted and connected to God, Jesus, and the Spirit. Many of the lyrics echo my struggles, triumphs, and the desires of my heart. So, although I struggle in my relationship with Jesus, I seem to yearn for it. 

Next, was Joseph Smith a prophet? Most of the issues people have with Joseph Smith probably qualify as secondary questions, so I’m not very interested in those. I’ll evaluate him based on his two major contributions, which are restoring the Church and translating the Book of Mormon, discussed further below. If those are legitimate, then he was a prophet.

Despite these struggles, I love the Church and the gospel and hold onto faith and hope that they are true. And my meager but sincere attempts to “Hear Him” seem to be bearing some fruit, as attested by my spiritual experience described earlier. Furthermore, the social sciences data regarding our church is overwhelmingly positive. One book about youth has a chapter called “Mormon Envy” (a Freudian play on words). The researchers were so blown away by how amazing our youth were compared to most other youth in the U.S., and my colleagues and I at BYU have largely replicated these findings with newer data, better measures, and a larger sample of Latter-day Saint youth. So, with all our flaws, we seem to be doing something right.

The final reason I am not motivated to leave the Church is that I really want and even need it to be true. First, I want to honor my ancestors. I have Latter-day Saint pioneer heritage on both sides of my family. Maybe this seems like lame conformity, but I’m not the only one who thinks it’s important. Second, my parents both died of cancer. It is unacceptable that death is the end. Third, as noted earlier, I am stumbling my way through life. My own will and intellect have been good for my career, but have fallen short in other areas of my life, such as my mental health and relationships. I’ve come to the end of myself to the point of turning my life over to God and accepting Jesus as my Savior. Fourth, I got to the point of realizing that no amount of observable or rational evidence in mortality will ever give sure answers to any of the questions above. So, as Elder Renlund encouraged, I decided to be inclined towards faith. I know, critics of the Church will point to Occam’s razor. Be careful, it’s a double-edged razor. It isn’t any simpler believing in evolution as the origin of man than divine creation. It isn’t any simpler believing Joseph Smith was insane, or a genius, or a copycat, than believing the Book of Mormon was translated by revelation. It seems that either way we go when answering these primary questions, whether “Yes” or “No,” requires a faith of sorts. So, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the affirmative answers.

The post Confessions of a Deconversion Researcher: A Scholar’s Journey of Faith appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

When President Russell M. Nelson passed away, I felt both grief and gratitude. He was a prophet whose warmth and vision expanded my understanding of the Savior. When President Dallin H. Oaks stood at the pulpit during General Conference and spoke tenderly of his “dear friend” President Nelson—his voice catching with emotion as he recalled learning of Christ through him—I saw a man feeling the full weight of both loss and legacy. It was the first conference he attended without the companion apostle who had served alongside him for decades.

I know the anticipation of his presumed imminent ascendancy to the Presidency of the Church has some feeling joy and excitement, while others feel anxiety or frustration. That tender moment when President Oaks opened his heart as he opened General Conference sets the tone for how I want to invite you to approach him as the probable new leader of the Church: with empathy, curiosity, and a willingness to see not only his divinely-appointed office but his humanity.

A Ministry of Law and Love

These stories and insights show how President Oaks’ seriousness about sacred things reflects not coldness but reverence. They flow naturally from his lifelong effort to balance love and law—firm in conviction yet humble enough to be guided by the Spirit.

When his critics accuse him of harshness, they often stop reading before they reach the part where he pleads with us to treat each other tenderly. It’s true: it is all too easy to call out sin. It is far harder to move beyond professing love to practicing it—leaning in, reaching out, and staying committed without reservation. Yet that is exactly what he asks of us—and what he tries, however imperfectly, to model himself.

These glimpses into his private spirituality show how his devotion to divine law deepens, not diminishes, his capacity for love. A poignant anecdote from Richard Turley’s biography of him adds further insight. Early in his calling as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he gave a 45-minute talk to a local congregation in New Zealand that was peppered with personal stories and humorous asides. The audience ate it up (as I would have), but he later recorded in his journal feeling rebuked by the Spirit (“never do that again”), warning him to focus more on preaching and testifying of Jesus Christ.

His current wife, Sister Kristen Oaks, remarked to Turley that one of his daughters said to him, “Daddy, you look like you are mad sometimes when you speak.” But Sister Oaks explains, “he was never angry or irritated, just somber as he shared sacred truths.”  It seems like in President Oaks, we have the inspired leader the Lord needs us to have, even if we may not always realize it or appreciate it.

The Purpose of a General Authority

President Oaks once explained, “As a General Authority, it is my responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don’t try to define all the exceptions.” He was describing not cold detachment but duty—the call to declare doctrine broadly and trust members to apply it individually; in the same address, he quotes Joseph Smith: “I teach [people] correct principles and they govern themselves.” I believe the perceived firmness we sometimes hear in his addresses grows out of that stewardship, not a lack of compassion. In private, he is always described as gentle, personal, approachable, even playful, and cracking jokes. (When my friend met him at his local Church meeting, he introduced himself as “Brother Oaks.”) I think understanding this difference between his public General Authority ministry and his personal ministry “to the one” helps us broaden our perspectives and judgments about him.

Seeing Beyond the Headlines

President Oaks’ comments about sexual and gender minorities have often stirred controversy. Some hear his warnings about “gender confusion” as a lack of understanding or criticism of people. But careful attention to his words suggests otherwise.

That distinction matters. It may not erase the pain some have felt from his words, but it clarifies the intent behind them: to preserve a pattern he believes God established, not to belittle the people he knows God cherishes.

Private Encounters of Warmth and Humor

Those who have met him describe a different side than his public reputation, as stern, aloof, and detached. One of my friends, a man who experiences same-sex attraction, met privately with President Oaks years ago. He expected formality; what he got was warmth and humor. President Oaks cracked jokes, asked penetrating questions, and listened with real interest. Another friend saw him after a controversial address and mentioned the online uproar. President Oaks simply smiled and said he paid no attention to it before asking for personal details about my friend, wanting to get to know my friend, rather than (as I likely would have) getting distracted by and sucked into the drama about himself. His focus on what truly mattered in that moment struck me—it wasn’t indifference, but a refusal to let outrage define his ministry, or allow controversy to detract from connection with the person in front of him.

Recall that other incident when he visited my other friend’s downtown ward: he introduced himself not as “Elder Oaks,” but as “Brother Oaks.” That single word change encompasses a world of meaning. It said, in effect, I am one of you. He did the same thing when he visited my Stake a few years ago—showing that this is not a one‑time gesture but a pattern of humility. Whatever else one may think of his expository style, humility is part of his discipleship.

Stories of Compassion and Bridge‑Building

One of President Oaks’ relatives and a friend of mine within the North Star community (an LDS-focused ministry for sexual and gender minorities and their families) once shared a moment that beautifully captures his heart. In 2019, at a family reunion, this friend’s gay son and his husband attended–though a bit hesitantly. President Oaks, then in his mid‑eighties, went out of his way to greet this family. With unmistakable kindness, he warmly greeted the son and his husband. That simple act sent a clear message to everyone there: we can always choose to be kind, loving, and welcoming—no matter what.

This North Star friend also recalled that an attorney involved in the Utah “Fairness for All” legislation described how pivotal President Oaks’ behind‑the‑scenes efforts had been. And those efforts did not stop in Utah. People close to the process of the federal Respect for Marriage Act confirm that he worked relentlessly—quietly but personally—to safeguard both religious liberty and LGBT dignity. His conviction was steady: religious freedom and civil respect can and must coexist. I can confirm this—I heard the same thing from more than one employee at Church Headquarters. 

Similarly, I know of another person who struggles with persistent gender dysphoria and hears from President Oaks often, asking questions and offering support and encouragement. 

These two examples also suggest that those who assume President Oaks is unaware of the personal and private pain experienced by sexual and gender minorities—and that if he knew more, he would speak differently—may want to reconsider that assumption.

A Broader Pattern of Growth and Change

Prophetic callings often bring new emphases. Ezra Taft Benson was famous as a fierce anti‑communist throughout the time he was an apostle. Yet, once he was ordained President, he became the prophet of “flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon” and warning about pride. I cannot predict what themes President Oaks will be inspired to emphasize as president, but we should not assume that the themes he has dwelt upon during his apostleship will extend to his presidency. His legal mind may still prize order, but his heart, refined by years of listening to those who hurt, seems relentlessly focused on healing and unity. Whatever happens, his record shows consistency in one thing: he deeply and lovingly respects people, even when he cannot agree with them.

A Personal Connection to the Family-Centered Gospel

In his concluding remarks at the October 2025 General Conference, President Oaks emotionally recounted the pain and grief he experienced as a young boy upon learning from his Grandfather Harris that his father had died of tuberculosis. Fleeing to his room, he collapsed on his bedside and cried out to God. This personal tragedy gave President Oaks a firsthand understanding of the profound impact on children when families are fragmented. He acknowledges that few families fully embody the ideals presented in the Proclamation on the Family, often due to circumstances outside our control. However, his own experience as a suddenly fatherless child highlights the suffering that arises when those ideals are not achieved. That burden is primarily borne by the most vulnerable—our children. It is likely that his own experience of fatherlessness has made the ideals expressed in the Proclamation, particularly the statement that “children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother,” especially meaningful to him.

An Invitation to a Fresh Start

Some may still struggle with his tone or with the weight of his words—both past and their fears of his future words. That is understandable. I get it. I have been pricked by his words more than once myself. But perhaps the challenge is not to turn away from him, but to walk beside him—to practice the same discipline he preaches: loving without surrendering conviction, and holding conviction without losing love. When I’ve tried to do that with his words or other leaders’ words, the spiritual struggle has always been worth it.

If, as I expect, President Oaks will soon rise to lead the Church, then we will also have the chance to rise a level as well. To accept the challenge he’s set before us, to prove that disciples of Christ can hold truth and tenderness in the same outstretched hands, that we can disagree with courage, clarity, and love. I pray we will enter this new season of the Church not with fear or cynicism, but with faith: faith that God can continue to work through imperfect servants to do perfecting work. I know He has done that with me, and I am very far from perfect. If we can try to trust that divine pattern, then perhaps, under President Oaks’ leadership, we will all have opportunities to increase our ability to love boldly, speak truly, and walk humbly before our Heavenly Father.

Further Reading

For those who would like to explore more of President Oaks’ compassionate and faith‑filled teachings, consider reading or watching these talks:

1. He Heals the Heavy Laden (October 2006) – A deeply empathetic message about how the Savior heals our burdens and sorrows.
2. Love and Law (October 2009) – His foundational statement on how divine commandments and divine compassion work together.
3. The Paradox of Love and Law (BYU–Idaho Devotional) – A more conversational address on the same theme, rich with examples of humility and understanding.
4. Love Is the Great Commandment and the Law Is the Great Framework (October 2024) – His most recent treatment of this balance, emphasizing empathy and faith.
5. Helping the Poor and Distressed (October 2022) – Focused on compassion, ministering, and the Christian call to lift the vulnerable.
6. Always Remember Him (April 1988) – An early talk reflecting his tenderness and reverence for the Savior’s atonement.

The post When Law Meets Love: Dallin H. Oaks’ Ministry to Sexual and Gender Minorities appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

A few weeks before his death, President Russel M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an editorial in TIME magazine. In it, he wrote: “Imagine how different our world could be if more of us were peacemakers—building bridges of understanding rather than walls of prejudice—especially with those who may see the world differently than we do.” Sadly, much of the world is not heeding this call. Mass shootings, arson, politically motivated murder, war, and genocide are all too common.  Our world is full of turmoil and conflict. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As President Nelson taught in April 2023, 

Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.

As we mourn his passing, we want to reflect on these teachings and what it means to be a peacemaker. The word itself is interesting. “Peace” can mean more than an absence of conflict; it can also mean a state of harmony, wholeness, and stillness. The word President Nelson emphasizes is not peace-experiencer, peace-taker, or peace-enjoyer. The word is peacemaker. A maker is someone who uses effort and intention to create, to build. 

Lessons from Bosnia & Herzegovina

Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life has hosted a five-week study abroad program in central southern Europe for the last two years. One thing the program covers is how war and trauma impact human development. The two of us had the privilege of attending as a co-director (Alex Jensen) and as a student (AnnMarie Sandridge). The program is life-changing: faculty and students leave with a deeper connection to the Savior and an increased ability to see the suffering of others through Christ’s eyes.

Eight years after hosting the Olympics, the city of Sarajevo became a symbol of the consequences of hate, intolerance, and contention. In March 1992, the Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina declared independence from the fragmenting country of Yugoslavia. The move to independence brought simmering religious and ethnic tensions to the surface. The country fell into a brutal civil war, and the city of Sarajevo was put under siege for nearly 3 years and 11 months. More than 11,000 people would die in this city alone. Hundreds of thousands would frequently suffer without running water, electricity, heat, and sufficient food.

In addition to the millions of bullets, an estimated 500,000 grenades, mortars, and bombs were fired into the city from the surrounding mountains over the course of the siege, bringing terror, death, and destruction. In cities surrounding Sarajevo, Bosnian Muslims were raped, tortured, and killed in a cultural and ethnic genocide. Across the country, approximately 100,000 people were killed during the Bosnian war and genocide, resulting in some of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.    

Given the experiences the people in the city endured, you would expect to find a people full of hatred and a desire for vengeance. Undoubtedly, some feel this way, but many do not. Our group spent time with many people who, despite going through the horrors of the siege, have become peacemakers. Their examples provide shining examples of President Nelson’s teachings. Below, we share three specific ways the people of Sarajevo taught us about being peacemakers.  

Let God Prevail

First, the people of Sarajevo taught us the importance of worshipping God sincerely and letting God prevail in their lives. Nearly half of the population of Bosnia & Herzegovina is Muslim. During our time in Sarajevo, we visited many mosques, including attending the call to prayers and visiting with worshippers following the prayers.

Beauty for Ashes

The second lesson we learned was to choose to see the good in bad situations – in other words, to see the ways God can make beauty from ashes and give the oil of joy from mourning (Isaiah 61:3). A small street in Sarajevo has been home to generations of coppersmiths. These smiths produce beautiful tableware, drinkware, spice grinders, and other decorative items. During and immediately after the siege, copper was hard to source. It made it hard for them to make a living and provide for their families. When the siege ended, the coppersmiths scoured the mountains around the city, collecting the casings from grenades as well as artillery and tank ordnance. They took the casings and made them into exquisite works of art.

One coppersmith told us that it brought him peace. He was able to provide for his family because he saw the beauty in things that were designed for killing. Despite being wounded in the siege and losing several friends, he smiles when he says, “I am a happy man. I have my family, I have enough, and we are at peace.” The coppersmiths taught us to see the beauty in everything around us, even the ashes.

Peace is not Passive

The last and perhaps most important lesson the people of Sarajevo taught us was that peace is not passive. We spent time with multiple men who were sent to fight on the front lines of the siege as teenagers or young adults. In each instance, the front line was only one, two, or three miles from their homes. They were sent off with little to no training, and in many cases, unarmed. The unarmed soldiers carved sticks into the rough shape of a weapon to appear armed. Each man lost friends and family in the fighting. 

One man told us that following the war, he was bitter and angry. His thirst for vengeance was destroying him from within. In this state, he came across an organization that brought veterans of the war together—veterans from each side of the conflict. People would come share their stories, listen, and learn from one another—regardless of the social divisions that may have contributed to the war. At first, it was painful and even angering, but he kept attending. At one point, he realized, “these people are just like me.” Today, he calls some of them his friends.

These men modeled for us the truth taught by Nephi, the Lord “inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (2 Nephi, 26:33). If God invites all to come unto him, perhaps like these men from Sarajevo, we should not turn our hearts away from those different from ourselves: the rich, the poor, the conservative, the liberal, the heterosexual, the homosexual, the single, the married, the able bodied, the disabled, the citizen, the immigrant, the friend, the enemy—the children of God.  

As we honor the life and passing of Russell M. Nelson, we hope that we can heed his call to be more like the Savior Jesus Christ and work toward becoming peacemakers. We are grateful for the people of Sarajevo who opened their hearts to us and shared their stories of making peace. May we each learn to turn to God and worship Him more fully, see the beauty in the ashes, and actively make peace by connecting on a personal level with those who are different from ourselves.

The post “Peace Is Not Passive”: Russell M. Nelson’s Radical Call to Peacemaking appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

The idea that religion is essential to the American experiment in self-government has carried significant weight since the Founding era. For example, in his final address, George Washington declared that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to the new country. Many others throughout American history have made similar arguments. I lead America’s Quilt of Faith, an organization committed to this idea in today’s modern and turbulent public square.

While it is true that many religions and traditions draw upon forceful, even militant language to describe the spiritual quest to enact God’s will on the earth, these movements are different.

They are rooted in dominion theology and a vision of enacting Christian political and cultural dominance over every sector of society. Several are influential within conservative politics, and a majority of their proponents are also fervent supporters of the current president. The original articulator and foremost proponent of one of these movements is among the most influential MAGA Christian activists today.

This particular belief was central to the spiritual warfare theology and political propaganda that drove many Christians to participate in the January 6 insurrection. Some are part of a broader movement of the Christian right in the United States to more fully embrace (what they perceive as) the workings of the Holy Spirit, which has brought a more assertive, militaristic rhetoric and sensibility to the values and policy agenda of the old Christian right.

America’s Quilt of Faith celebrates the freedom that allows for all religious beliefs, including those described above. Yet we are concerned that these particular religious movements undermine American constitutional democracy.

The founders of the United States held that religion was essential because religions have a unique capacity to build virtue in citizens. We applaud all religions and beliefs in this indispensable work, which brings peace and stability to communities and the nation. However, we believe the founders of the United States of America did not intend for religion, let alone one sect or belief system, to “take over” any sector of society, most especially the government they had just created.

It is true that many Christians believe Jesus will one day return and rule on earth during a time of worldwide peace. It’s hard to imagine even in this scenario that such a global reign would be enacted through aggression that somehow forces a belief in Him, and without an allowance of continued free expression and peaceful pluralism.

Latter-day Saints join many other believers in insisting on an unpressured conversion experience—respecting other faiths to walk their paths even as they seek to “build the Kingdom” by influencing and persuading through love and the Holy Ghost’s workings. As Princeton’s Robert P. George argues, “Any attempt by the state to coerce religious faith and practice, even true faith and practice, will at best be futile and would likely damage people’s authentic participation in the good of religion.” A true relationship with God “cannot, by its very nature, be established by coercion.”

We urge all religious Americans who, as part of their faith, believe that God had some role in establishing the United States Constitution and see it still relevant today to be wary about supporting the aggressive goals and methods of these movements and instead participate in the public square in ways that support, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitutional order.

The post Perspective: Religion Can Support the Constitution. A Religious ‘Takeover’ Does Not appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

There are questions that create profound divisions among Christians. Some of these divisions become so deep that two Christians in the same congregation can be said to be living a completely different religion. For example, among Latter-day Saints, the question of whether or not to sustain the leadership of the church—and as President Henry B. Eyring taught, how strongly to define the word “sustain”—is one of those basic foundational questions that creates fundamentally different experiences of religion among people who sit in the same pews. And for the broader Christian world, one of the greatest divides is found in how believers respond to the gospel of John chapter 6. There, Christ provides a clear contrast between His mission and the world’s approaches to alleviating pain and poverty.

Christianity is experienced by believers internally, who then impact the world externally. The internal impacts of Christian faith are described in terms of repentance, inner rebirth, and transformation of our desires in the direction of goodness and holiness. With inner transformation, the Christian is then equipped to bless the external world with judgment, a scriptural concept that basically means to make the world right. Inner conversion leading to change in the world around us is the Christian order to follow for the transformation of society, and there are no shortcuts to the ideal society (“Zion”) that it produces.

They go on to associate Jesus with Moses, under whose leadership the children of Israel were given a constant supply of manna in the wilderness: “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” And there follows a demand: “Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.”

We read that the people saw Jesus as “the prophet who should come into the world” as a result of this similarity with Moses (v.14), and immediately they sought to “take Him by force, and make Him a king” (v.15). Jesus responded in ways that must have gone against the people’s mental conditioning: He refused to be a king, and He refused to perpetually feed them. With these choices, Jesus was only repeating His responses to the temptations in the wilderness, where Satan offered Him political power— “the kingdoms of the world”— and also recognition, “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up…”.

And as with the temptations in the wilderness, Jesus’ choices in John chapter 6 should give us pause. Every reader would benefit from pondering what we would do in Jesus’ situation. With the power to eliminate all hunger forever by distributing an endless supply of food, would we do it? Or would we see, as Jesus did, reasons to refrain from doing so? With the ability to eliminate oppression by becoming a politically all-powerful king or queen, would we do it? Or would we see, as Jesus did, reasons to refrain from doing so? These questions that arise in John 6 are at the heart of much of modern political conflict.

In the wonderful series “The Chosen,” this conflict has been represented in the story of Judas. Viewers are given a portrait of Judas as a man who is extremely earnest, who feels deeply the pain of the world and sees in Jesus the possibility of immediate resolution for all of that pain.

In this dramatization of Judas, the creators of The Chosen are tapping into a deep current in the psyche, the current of our expectations toward God. When we feel some sympathy toward Judas in The Chosen and we relate to his desire to see the world made right as quickly as possible, we can understand people’s expectations of God and how those shape so much of the world around us.

Consider the views of German academic Bruno Bauer, one of the formative influences on the mind of Karl Marx. Similar to The Chosen’s portrayal of Judas, Bauer said of Jesus,

On earth, [Jesus] would be a thousand times more necessary and useful to man than in heaven, if what we say about him in good Jewish fashion is true, that God will give him the kingdoms of the world and through him restore peace to the whole earth. What reasonable reason can Christians give as to why God did not keep his word to the Lord Jesus? Why did he take him to heaven if he is to be a Lord on earth and to judge the dead and the living in the way we imagine? Why must the devil, whom he is supposed to have overcome, still rule the whole world more than 1700 years after his overcoming and leave the conqueror behind? Why did he (the Lord Jesus) not take the kingdom immediately after his resurrection, as his Father had promised him? What was the reason that he had to ascend to heaven and in the meantime let everything on earth go topsy-turvy?

Marxism and its twin ideology of fascism on the right emerged in societies that knew the Bible. In biblical texts like the book of Isaiah, we read of an ideal future world free of the kinds of conflict and pain that we now experience:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Like The Chosen’s Judas, Bruno Bauer viewed Jesus as a failure: holding all the power to inaugurate this ideal world envisioned by Isaiah, Jesus frustratingly declined to do so. It is interesting to note that in his summer 1839 university studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, Karl Marx took only one course, and it was a course on Isaiah taught by Bruno Bauer.

But are these horrors exclusive to the ideological left? Consider this statement:

If positive Christianity means love of one’s neighbour, i.e., the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of _____ has accomplished a prodigious work …

Not knowing the source of the quote, we might assume it to come from a Marxist luminary like Antonio Gramsci, who famously said that “socialism is precisely the religion that must kill Christianity.” But in reality, if we fill in the blank in the above quote, it is referring to “the people of National Socialist Germany.” The speaker claiming that German national socialism was superior to commonly lived Christianity was, in fact, Adolf Hitler, speaking in February 1939.

In a recent discussion on the Doctrine and Governance program, we observed how at the extremes of left and right, people work toward delusional visions of an ideal world; on the left, there is the vision of a classless society articulated by Marx, and on the right, the current vision is Christian nationalism, which imagines a king-figure imposing Christian righteousness upon the nation. Both of these delusions emerge in the swamps of social theory that form as people reject the Christ of John chapter 6.

By stark contrast, consider a recent devotional address given by Sharon Eubank at BYU-Idaho. There she repeated and answered an “accusation-question” that is commonly aimed toward the church:

I am occasionally asked, “Why doesn’t the Church spend more money on humanitarian work? Why doesn’t it stop building expensive temples and focus its resources on relieving the poor?” This is a legitimate question for the Church of Jesus Christ. But is it money that solves society’s ills? The world has poured two trillion dollars into addressing chronic issues in Africa. Why isn’t the situation better? Because money isn’t really the issue. Lasting progress comes through trusted relationships, infrastructure, reducing corruption, and the ability of people to work together. Money doesn’t necessarily create those things. They must be developed alongside the resources, and frankly, it is much harder work.

I will never discount the one thing this Church does that lifts entire communities in rapid development. It invites men and women of all social classes and backgrounds to enter sacred buildings and make the most binding and important promises of their mortal lives. In those buildings, they promise not to steal or lie, they promise to be faithful to their spouse and children. They vow they will seek the interest of their neighbors and be peacemakers and become devoted to the idea that we are all one family—all valued and alike unto God. If those promises made in holy temples are kept, it transforms society faster than any aid or development project ever could. The greatest charitable development on the planet is for people to bind themselves to their God and mean it. So, thank goodness the Church builds 335 temples and counting. It is the greatest poverty alleviation system in the world.

The quality of our viewpoint depends on what we are willing to see, and in Sharon Eubank’s role leading humanitarian efforts for the church, she has seen which assistance strategies actually help people, and which ones fail. She has seen how root causes are ignored when endless loaves and fishes are demanded of God or governments.

In confronting the root causes of humanity’s struggles, the Christ of John chapter 6 invites our conversion, the writing of God’s law upon our hearts. And the results of that process are exactly what Sharon Eubank described. As I noted in a recent article, it is no accident that Utah, the most templed region of the United States, consistently ranks at or near the top in annual surveys of upward mobility and income equality. The Zion society we yearn for is indeed available to us, but only on God’s terms, in God’s timing, through processes revealed by God’s ordained servants.

In her devotional, Sharon Eubank spoke to young, impressionable students who will eventually be exposed to utopian ideologies in the world, ideologies that always promise heaven yet end up creating hell. In the midst of all the voices pulling these students toward delusional extremes, Sharon Eubank modeled the example of the Christ of John chapter 6. She stood before her audience and, rather than promise them a life of endless free loaves and fishes, she loved them enough to ground them in God’s truth.

The post When God Refuses to Fix the World: The Politics of John 6 appeared first on Public Square Magazine.