One of those things is not like the others.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That line is haunting in light of everything that followed.

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

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

The post The Unraveling of #MomTok appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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

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

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

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

Case Study: What Wasn’t Said at General Conference

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

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

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

Case Study: Larger than Life Abuse Findings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the Checkers Miss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Criticism isn’t the Problem. Contempt Is.

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

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

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

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

What the Piece Does Well

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

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

Three Failures that Warrant Post-Publication Changes

The problems in the feature fall into three categories:

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

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

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

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

Here is a catalogue of the most obvious problems:

Doctrinal claims that are misstated or sensationalized

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

“Worthiness” and church practice presented as caricature

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

Internet folklore treated like representative practice

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

Errors of basic terminology

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

Sloppy claims about history and demographics

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

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

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

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

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

2) Mocking statements: the paper trail of contempt

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

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

Here is a catalogue of the clearest tone cues:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Examples from the article include:

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

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

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

The Biggest Omission: Jesus Christ

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

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

Why This Matters Beyond “Hurt Feelings”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post The Ethics of Contempt appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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

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

The Challenge to Journalism

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

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

Interest in Latter-day Saints in Streaming and Public Culture

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

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

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

Toward a Better Public Conversation

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

Faith Calls Us to Engagement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Seeing Critics of the Church with a Pure Love

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

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

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

#SurvivingMormonism

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Bigotries, New Veneers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Put bluntly: the villain economy found a familiar mask. 

Ministering to Deep and Unmet Needs

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

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

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

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

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

Learning from Our “Enemies”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The antichrist is a figure in scripture who has loomed ominously in the minds of Christians through the ages. He has been the subject of scary Hollywood movies and countless commentaries. Believers have speculated as to his identity and attached the title of antichrist to political leaders and even popes. Sermons on the antichrist have spread nervousness and dread through Christian congregations, and world events have been seen as bringing about the fulfillment of prophecies of his arrival.

The primary sources for most Christian understanding of the antichrist are Paul’s writings and the book of Revelation. Writing to the saints at Thessalonica, Paul warned of a time when

…that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

This mysterious figure is described as a man of sin, taking to himself the honors and reverence that people normally give to God. Paul adds,

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

With this second description, the focus is on his—and our—relationship with the truth. Paul makes a distinction between those who love the truth and those who are perishing because they don’t. In the case of the antichrist, the people desire delusion. God will give them delusion, and ideally, they will learn (the hard way) from the experience and develop different desires.

The peril of conspiracy thinking

This desire for delusion can take many forms, particularly with complex issues that don’t have obvious culprits or a clear solution. One ominous trend on the horizon is the increase in conspiracy thinking. A notable example in recent memory was during hurricane Helene, which hit the Eastern U.S. during the 2024 presidential election. After Helene hit North Carolina, there was a flood of social media posts asserting that some evil group had created or steered the hurricane for nefarious reasons. One of the posts on X said the following:

Others followed a similar line. Posts such as these demonstrate the appeal of conspiracy thinking: they seek to make the world’s difficulties explainable rather than leave us with the pain and frustration of knowing that sometimes bad things just happen, and some people just do evil things without any hidden “puppet masters” controlling their choices.

Latter-day Saints know that from the early days of the restoration, conspiracy theorists have sought to undermine the Church by creating narratives of conspiracy involving Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other prophets and valiant saints. In the present day, conspiracy thinking is the source of a significant amount of the accusatory behavior toward our current Church leadership. For centuries now, numerous conspiracy theories have been created in attempts to explain the Book of Mormon, and in broader Christianity, conspiracy theories have been created to argue that the resurrection of Jesus was a fraud.

For all of these reasons, when we read in the Book of Mormon about secret combinations, that is not a reason to turn off our critical thinking skills and believe anyone who claims to know about a conspiracy. We should understand that often the secret combinations to beware of are conspiracy theorists themselves. It is good to acknowledge real conspiracies that exist, but an appetite for conspiracy thinking that reflexively grants credence to those who claim to “see through” the “lies” is dangerous. We become vulnerable to deception because there are powerful incentives in money, fame, and recognition, for people to create false conspiracy theories that flatter their readers and viewers, leave them with delusional narratives of how the world works, and create predictable heroes and villains for every situation. As Arthur Brooks says in another context, “As satisfying as it can feel to hear that your foes are irredeemable, stupid and deviant, remember: When you find yourself hating something, someone is making money or winning elections or getting more famous and powerful.” 

Attribution theory

In psychology, attribution theory seeks to explain how people assign causes for things. A simple example of this is gas prices in the United States. When gas prices go up, Americans with intense politically partisan worldviews generally respond in one of two ways: if they voted for the current president, they will attribute the rise in gas prices to some decision made by a past president whom they disliked, which decision is now negatively impacting consumers at the gas pump. If they voted against the current president, then they will claim that the current president’s decisions are causing high gas prices.

In both decisions, the partisan brain is not really interested in what is true. The partisan brain wants to feel politically validated, so partisans will first decide who deserves blame or praise and then engage in whatever motivated reasoning is necessary to support that conclusion. In a partisan mindset, we use all our powers of reason to attribute all good news to people we like and attribute all bad news to people we don’t like. Whether a narrative is actually true is a secondary consideration or just unimportant.

What motivates us

With all of the voices offering us narratives of current events, how do we avoid being deceived? A good thing to acknowledge is that none of us will be perfect in our truth-seeking. We should understand that even doing our best, all of us will always hold some amount of correct and incorrect views, and there is no shame in that. It’s part of the human condition. But we can strive to maintain self-awareness about what motivates us. When we turn on the TV or go online to find news and commentary, what are we really seeking? Below is a triangle of motivations to help with this process of self-awareness:

Starting with the lower motivations, we consider validation. To feel validated is a wonderful feeling, but it can become intoxicating and addictive. In his book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt detailed how an experiment measured brain activity in people who were receiving politically validating messaging:

All animal brains are designed to create flashes of pleasure when the animal does something important for its survival, and small pulses of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the ventral striatum (and a few other places) are where these good feelings are manufactured. Heroin and cocaine are addictive because they artificially trigger this dopamine response. Rats who can press a button to deliver electrical stimulation to their reward centers will continue pressing until they collapse from starvation.

Haidt noted that in the experiment, as people transitioned from negative to positive messaging about their candidates, their brains created a reward of dopamine. He continued, 

And if this is true, then it would explain why extreme partisans are so stubborn, closed-minded, and committed to beliefs that often seem bizarre or paranoid. Like rats that cannot stop pressing a button, partisans may be simply unable to stop believing weird things. The partisan brain has been reinforced so many times for performing mental contortions that free it from unwanted beliefs. Extreme partisanship may be literally addictive.

When we develop a strong enough appetite for validation, we become averse to any information that feels invalidating, including challenging truths that are needed for our personal development. Emotional and intellectual maturity involves learning to integrate new truths that challenge us. 

Next, belonging is another important motivator. Latter-day Saints recognize the common process of growing up in a faith and holding beliefs in our youth out of a sense of belonging but then moving into stages of life where belonging is no longer sufficient grounds for our beliefs. We ask ourselves what we really believe, and why. This is a normal part of a person’s faith development. Similarly, many people grow up in families or communities with strong political orientations, but there comes a point where belonging is no longer a strong enough motive for their political loyalty. It feels good to have a team and to feel supported. But there are times when we feel compelled to ask ourselves what really is true and whether we should sacrifice some amount of our sense of belonging in light of new information.

Finally, there is the motivation of truth. Princeton University professor Robert George recently posted on the centrality of commitment to truth:

To be truth-motivated is often unsettling because so many simple questions turn out to be complex upon close examination. We also discover that our perception of truth is heavily shaped by our culture, our genetics, and things outside of our awareness. And for many issues, truth-seeking means recognizing real ambiguity. This is especially true in questions of history.

But despite the difficulty, to be truth-motivated is extremely important for individuals and societies. As psychologist M. Scott Peck said,

Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say that we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.

As of this writing in early 2025, there are many Americans who are still distraught over the results of the 2024 presidential election. Many who voted against President Trump were completely blindsided by the result and were stunned that anyone could have voted for him. Psychologist Sarah Dargouth wrote an article discussing the impact of the election on her therapy practice: “For many, the election results are front and center, the only topic that we discuss. Emotions are generally loud: despair, rage, disappointment, fear, disgust, hopelessness. Past histories of trauma and abuse are rekindled.”

When lying becomes normal

For understanding how a lack of dedication to reality can affect a society, Russia provides an important case study. In its attempt to create a Marxist utopia, the Russian regime under Lenin quickly found that Marxist/Leninist theories about society did not actually work. People did not respond to communism as expected, and Russia became an extremely violent and oppressive system. In that system there emerged a notion of extraordinary lying, called vranyo. In her memoir of living under the Soviet system, Elena Gorokhova reminisces of her university dean in Leningrad: “Like my mother, he comes from the first Soviet generation, from the time when vranyo was still fresh, still a little curly sprout. He comes from the time when it hadn’t yet morphed and metastasized and tunneled its way through our tissue the way my father’s cancer wormed into his bladder and his lungs.”

Gorokhova goes on to give this description of vranyo:

The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.

Imagine living in a society where relentless lying was the basis for every citizen’s relationship with the state, and imagine the psychological impact of exercising that muscle of constant lying, day in and day out. When in 2021, Russian authorities figured they would be able to capture Kyiv in three days, that was likely due to vranyo among their military planners and analysts. Russians currently do not have a sense of the magnitude of the loss of Russian lives, nor their war’s toll on their country’s long-term economic well-being, also due to vranyo in their public commentary. A prominent public military analyst recently created a presentation on vranyo in the Russian military, pointing to “the culture of constant, incessant lying at all levels of command.”

A warning to the West

The example of Russia serves as an ominous warning to the West, particularly the United States. Currently, we have numerous mechanisms for fact-checking statements of our public figures, but sometimes those are subverted by political interests and ideological bias. In recent years we have seen a shift to open, brazen, unapologetic lying at the highest levels of culture and government, and also increasingly wild claims about what our government leaders are able to do. Presidential candidates regularly claim to be able to steer worldwide markets, stop foreign wars, impose control on the world’s climate, and perform any number of increasingly outlandish feats of governance that are simply not humanly possible to do. In past decades, people making these claims would have been considered fabulists and delusional narcissists, but now we barely raise an eyebrow with each new claim of godlike power.

When we see these trends of dishonesty, conspiracy thinking, and misattribution escalating together, it is not hard to envision a day when dishonest political pundits or leaders actually do claim credit for a hurricane, or for stopping a tornado in its path, or for making an earthquake … and an astounding number of people believe it and accord the leader the power of a god. We sometimes imagine the antichrist as performing wonders and miracles, but perhaps those wonders and miracles will be things that such a leader merely claims after the fact, and his claims are believed by the public because we, with our partisan conspiracy brains, have so fully lost our grip on reality. It is not hard to see why Paul would use the phrase “lying wonders.”

As Latter-day Saints, we sometimes receive encouragement to hasten the Lord’s work to prepare for His second coming. I suggest that the escalating lying of our public figures is mentally conditioning the world in a way that creates an appetite for ever-greater delusions. This may be a hastening of a different work that is preparing the world for the arrival of “the man of sin … the son of perdition,” the antichrist figure prophesied by Paul and John the Revelator, whose defining attribute is spectacular, sensational public dishonesty.

To this, our response should be to maintain a relentless dedication to reality even amid political and cultural trends toward delusion. This is a lonely road for church members to walk, as it is likely to keep us out of alignment with a number of popular movements and communities. But maintaining a grounding in reality can be a way that we function like salt in the world that keeps its savor. Reality and the order it brings can help us to show the world the contrast between the gospel and the mental chaos around us.

The post How Conspiracy Thinking Is Prepping the World for the Antichrist appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

But to me, faith and its challenges are neither relics of history nor mere fodder for Hollywood. They became so much more on August 16, when a man broke into my missionary apartment and stabbed my companion and me multiple times in our sleep. We woke up and fought with the man for about 10 minutes, just struggling to preserve our lives. This experience was extremely rare and was so targeted and so unheard of that it was simply unpreventable. Through God’s mercy alone, we were eventually able to call 911 and escape. I sustained 9 stab wounds. I was 19 years old and had been serving as a young missionary for just ten weeks of what was supposed to be an 18-month assignment. My area of service was just north of Houston, Texas, and the COVID-19 pandemic was in full force.

When I look back on that night now over four years later, I view it all as the most sacred night of my life. Every wound, every scream, every breath, every prayer was the making of a miracle and has brought me closer to God than I could ever imagine. However, in my mind’s eye, I can still see and feel the original terror of that night. Blood soaked the carpet and stained the walls like the zombie escape room I did with friends in 11th grade. We were trapped inside our own home fighting for freedom, with one man preying on our sleeping innocence and vulnerability: an eerie parallel to Heretic’s setting. Bleeding out on our floor with a stab through my stomach—my companion with one to her neck—made a striking comparison to Heretic’s ending for the fictional Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton.

I could not have been more mistaken. Although Heretic’s directors and actors showed a marked effort to improve representation in many areas, nothing could justify the targeted emotional and physical consequences that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could experience from this film. It is almost as if the writers built a trojan horse of happy interviews showing their good faith to build an accurate wardrobe, research the Book of Mormon, and learn missionary lingo, while deep inside the film was an attack that, whether advertently or inadvertently, could significantly harm members, missionaries, and investigators of the faith. They justify and say this is a fictional film, but that’s because they have not heard my story.

From the very first day, I described the physical scene as a real-life horror movie. Many people reached out after my recovery, good-naturedly suggesting that it could be made into a movie someday. But I knew four years ago that something like what I went through should not be made into a movie—at least one could never attempt to show what actually happened in that apartment. I could not imagine anyone else having to see or feel that violence, and I knew the full experience could never be captured. I cringed after returning home when I realized how many people find entertainment in movies with gore and terror every single day. 

Yet, for every captive audience fascinated by horror, there are people around the world who live captive in horror as their reality. Sure, you can say, the movies are just fiction, but Heretic is not a fictional world. The writers and directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, made it off of real life: the lives of righteous, virtuous, hard-working young adults all around the world dedicating themselves to bringing hope and salvation to others. Their mission is to save, and yet this movie, with actual missionary outfits, with their conversations, their name tags, their teachings, and their sacred calling, strikes harm against their message and against missionaries themselves.

Originally, I will admit I was hesitant to speak up about this movie at all because of my proximity to its controversial nature. I resolved long ago that I never wanted my story to be used for anything but a promotion of love and faith in God. After careful consideration though, I do not believe that this runs contrary to that purpose. Since God saved my life, I promised that I would stand for Him with every breath, and I cannot help but feel that He would be weeping to see His precious missionaries portrayed in violence and His sacred doctrine used in the context of horror for entertainment. Add my mission experience to my undergraduate studies and career beginnings in journalism and religious freedom advocacy, and it almost seemed as if God had given me a perfectly tailored background to prepare me to speak up when Heretic was released. 

I know that not all Latter-day Saints or even all missionaries will view Heretic the way I do. It is important to note that the A24 team did make an effort to correctly portray some of the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I also have returned missionary friends who feel that Heretic brings new understanding and compassion towards the missionary experience. Acknowledging all of this, my experience has shown that the good does not outweigh the bad in this case, and both the creators and innocent viewers may be completely unaware of what a movie like this could promote.

I read hundreds of reviews praising the acting and the masterful cinematography—and I kept asking myself, where are the people disturbed by Heretic’s message? Where are the believers banding together to push back and promote faith? Where are the watchdogs saying that something about this movie goes a little too far? I thought if I just kept scrolling, I would surely find a wise internet stranger who shared my concerns, yet there was nothing more negative to be found than simply calling the movie ‘slow-paced’ or boring. So, in its absence, I hope in good faith to shed some light and speak here for the other side: to counter the popular narrative and raise a voice for believers, for missionaries, and for the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ, which I hold sacred.

Hollywood’s Fascination with Latter-day Saints 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long been a favorite feature religion of Hollywood. Many have referred to the faith as an easy target, with its mysterious and sensational elements like visiting angels, modern temples, ‘extra scripture,’ sacred underclothing, and even the iconic missionary duo being used to capture an audience. Heretic’s writers are no exception. With this high intrigue, the Church has been held under a very close microscope for the public eye, where Hollywood has managed to portray just about every facet of the Church … except the truth.

Our current prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, has invited “responsible media” to be “sympathetic” in using the correct name of our church, but even these directors and actors who claim to accurately represent the Church have referred to it in slang terms disregarding the religion’s central focus on Jesus Christ. These inaccuracies snowball to simply perpetuate the preexisting stereotypes of misrepresentation, and religious misrepresentation is religious persecution so long as it engenders doubt, disbelief, mistrust, or disrespect toward any religious sect.

Along with such negligent factual errors, the movie’s villain, Mr. Reed, concludes that the underlying factor and the only true form of religion is control. Specifically, misogynistic control. This theme seems to push a very niche concern from former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where some attack priesthood leadership or claim, like Mr. Reed, that members are blinded from the Church’s history or accept teachings just because it is what they have been taught throughout their lives by religious authority figures. 

As a practicing adult and covenant woman in the Church of Jesus Christ, I strongly reject this claim. While fully fleshing out a counterargument to this could be an entire article by itself, it is sufficient here to say that I have felt loved and empowered by leaders of both genders within the Church and learned that, although naturally imperfect, they are called by God. This knowledge has come from a witness of the Holy Spirit, which is the only way to find the truth of these things, and yet remains an element completely unaddressed by Heretic’s writers.

It’s about Heresy, not a Heretic

I do not expect everyone to believe as I do, nor do I oppose open discussion if that is Heretic’s intent here. After all, asking questions in pursuit of truth is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the way Heretic raises questions—through displaying violence and disrespecting sacred beliefs—could never create bridges of understanding. It only serves to endanger young, faithful men and women seeking to do good and does so under the guise of “religious dialogue.”

Perhaps the most sacrilegious moment comes when a woman lifts a missionary’s skirt, exposing her temple garment—a private, sacred expression of faith akin to the Muslim hijab or Jewish yarmulke. The film’s creators had no qualms about violating a young woman and this intimate aspect of her belief. 

“First, they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

At its core, Heretic is not just a movie about Latter-day Saints. The film is not concerned with whether the heretic is a missionary leaving their former beliefs or Mr. Reed attacking their traditional religious upbringing because the individual believer or religion was never the main point. No, this movie is not about a heretic at all. It is just about heresy—about promoting disbelief or irreligion—and the most disturbing part is that the actors and directors enjoyed generating this doubt and did so intentionally.

Real Religious Dialogue Will Speak the Truth

As someone who has experienced a very similar reality to what was portrayed, I can confidently say that Heretic completely misses the mark. From the doctrinal attacks to the physical ones, the movie was designed to engender doubt. But I have heard just about every doctrinal argument Mr. Reed raises (trust me, they would be no surprise to real missionaries). I have suffered extreme violence as a missionary that could give me every reason to turn against God. I have had my faith tested and tried, almost to the point of dying for it, but unlike these fictional characters, every one of these experiences proved to build my faith. Beck and Woods thought they were making a movie to question absolute truth—to even question the existence of God—but what they did not know is that they were portraying my path to learn the truth about God with absolute certainty. 

Simply put, what Heretic got wrong is not so much the doctrinal inaccuracies as it is the missed potential that this movie had to finally represent the truth of a path shared by millions of church members and billions of believers all around the world.

Indeed, the truth is that one of the only reasons I survived my own completely unpredictable danger is because my companion remembered and followed instructions we read only the day before in the missionary handbook as part of our routine studies. The truth is that my priesthood leader felt inspired months prior to utter a blessing with minutely specific protections that would save my vital organs. The truth is that any missionary who lay dying would not, like the fictional Sister Paxton, use her last breaths to deny the reality of prayer. The real truth is that God would have never left them as He never left me, and that as I wrestled in the darkness against a force of death greater than I could overcome, I prayed with all the energy of my soul and felt the presence of God save me as clearly as if He were standing before me. 

The truth is that people like Mr. Reed do not win and that God protects and provides, whether in life or in death so that we can witness of His love and mercy.

This is the true story of our faith, the power of belief. The spiritual witness, the miracles, the connection to heaven—this is the real truth of religion, and no attempt to portray members or missionaries is complete without it. This is the opportunity for true religious representation that Heretic lost and that the media misses any time they fear promoting religion or deny its good fruits for lack of tangible evidence.  But if you, like Mr. Reed, are looking for something tangible in your experiment of belief, start with my story. Because I am tangible evidence that tragedy and horror, when fought with Christ, will build faith, not destroy it, and that with true religious dialogue this same story can make anyone a believer, not a heretic.

The post Heretic in Real Life: A Missionary’s True Story of Survival and Faith appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Heretic is a horror film distributed by A24. It arrives in theaters this fall. It stars Hugh Grant, as well as relative newcomers Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East.

What is Heretic About?

Heretic is about two sister missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes. Hugh Grant plays Mr. Reed, who requests a visit from the missionaries. Reed kidnaps the sister missionaries.

Who is involved in creating Heretic?

The film was written, directed, and produced by childhood friends Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. They are known for writing the script for the popular film series A Quiet Place. This is the largest production Beck and Woods have directed themselves. In a Q&A at the film’s world premiere, they described themselves as lapsed evangelicals.

Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both former Latter-day Saints, portray the sister missionaries. Hugh Grant describes himself as not a believer.

Heretic hasn’t come out yet. How do you have details about it?

While the film has not been released nationwide, it has had its premiere. The Q&A below is spoiler-heavy based on previous screenings of the film. While most Latter-day Saints will not want to watch the film, we felt that it was important to discuss the portrayal of sister missionaries in an open and honest way so members can participate in and be aware of the dialogue surrounding the film. 

How does the film begin?

The film opens with the two sister missionaries sitting on a bus bench with a condom advertisement. They discuss condom sizes and which sizes Sister Barnes’ ex-brother-in-law wears, which leads Sister Paxton to describe watching pornography. She describes watching a video where the performers were interrupted by the person in the next room. One performer looked aghast “like her spirit left her.” Paxton says that this helped her testimony.

We learn that the senior companion, Sister Barnes, has taught many people who have been baptized, while Sister Paxton hasn’t taught anyone who was then baptized. Sister Barnes commits that they are going to get Paxton a baptism.

We are then shown a montage of them doing unsuccessful street contacting. 

They then approach a group of teenage girls because Paxton says she has “a good feeling about them.” Those girls then ask Paxton about her “magic underwear” and then pull her skirt down, revealing her temple garments before she can answer. Paxton is very embarrassed.

How do the missionaries meet Mr. Reed?

The missionaries had received a referral for Mr. Reed, but someone in their ward warned them not to go. They go anyway because Barnes wants to get Paxton a convert. Mr. Reed is very friendly and invites the missionaries in. 

They inform him that they cannot come in if there is not another woman present. Reed says his wife is in the kitchen cooking a blueberry pie. 

The missionaries walk in and start a conversation. Reed says he thinks people should have some belief and the conversation begins on a friendly basis. Sister Barnes shares a story of her father’s illness, and Mr. Reed uses this as a reason to question her faith. Barnes says when she dies she wants to come back as a butterfly. He then begins to lecture them about what he sees as the weaknesses of their religion.

When his wife does not appear within a few minutes, the missionaries press that she needs to come out or they need to leave. Mr. Reed goes into the kitchen to get her, and the sister missionaries realize that the blueberry pie they smell is actually from a candle. 

While Mr. Reed says he’s getting his wife, he’s actually stealing the missionaries’ bikes from the front so no one will know they’re there. 

They decide to leave, but the door is locked. The windows are too small to escape from, and their cell phone doesn’t have reception.

How does Reed begin to mistreat the missionaries?

The missionaries ask him to let them go, but he tells them that his locks are automatic and cannot be unlocked until the morning. 

Mr. Reed is obsessed with the idea of control, so at this point, he never physically hurts the missionaries but rather tells them they can make their own decisions. He tells them they must go into the back room if they want to get their coats and that the house exit is out the back. When they get their coats, they realize that the key to their bike lock has changed pockets.

Reed continues to insist they can leave at any time they’d like through two doors from that backroom.

Worried about being harmed, Barnes convinces Paxton to stay and listen to a lecture Mr. Reed wants to give them about religion. 

What is Reed’s Theory of Religion?

Reed begins to tell the missionaries that religion is about iterations. He claims that the story of Jesus Christ is merely a reworked myth of previous cultures like the Persian Mithras or the Egyptian Ra.

He compares Judaism to “The Landlord’s Game ” and Christianity to “Monopoly,” which is substantially similar but better marketed. He compares Islam to “Monopoly: Ultimate Banking Edition” and the Church of Jesus Christ to “Monopoly: Bob Ross Edition.”

He also plays the songs “The Air I Breathe” and “Creep” by Radiohead, which share similar melodies and chord progressions.

While in this room, Sister Barnes sees a letter opener which she gives to Paxton to put in her pocket. Barnes tells Paxton that if she says the phrase “magic underwear,” that means to stab Mr. Reed with the letter opener.

Is there any way for the missionaries to get out?

Mr. Reed insists throughout that the missionaries are not locked in the house but that there is an exit through the back, and they just need to go that way. 

There are two doors out the back, and when he finishes his lecture, he tells them to leave either through a door representing belief or disbelief. Sister Barnes convinces Paxton that they should go through the belief door, and they proceed even though it clearly leads to a basement. Reed immediately locks the door behind them. 

When they get into the basement Barnes notices a loose floorboard with nails in it. Soon, they see a woman walking across the room with a blueberry pie. They hear Reed through a speaker. He lectures them about miracles and says that he brought them here to witness a miracle. The woman is going to eat the pie, which has been poisoned, and she will then come back to life. Reed calls her “the prophet.” She is elderly and in rags. Her eyes have thick cataracts, and she doesn’t speak. She scoops the pie with her hand, eats it, begins to spasm, and then dies in front of the missionaries. Reed forces them to check for a pulse, which she does not have.

Does anyone come to check on Sisters Barnes and Paxton?

Yes, there are occasional scenes with Elder Kennedy. He is a single, middle-aged man played by Topher Grace. He wears a missionary tag, and we see him cleaning the local chapel. When he notices that the missionaries aren’t back at the chapel by the usual time, he goes out into the snowstorm to find them. 

He stops by several homes, including Mr. Reed’s. Reed insists that the missionaries have never come, and Elder Kennedy leaves before returning for a brief second to pass along a pamphlet to Mr. Reed.

While Mr. Reed is at the door, the missionaries are screaming and getting a set of matches. They use them to try to create smoke that Elder Kennedy might see, but it doesn’t work.

Has Mr. Reed planned this encounter?

Yes. We see Reed in a study where he has created a model of his house and has planned in detail how he expected the sister missionaries to act throughout his plan. The entire architecture of his house, including metal roofs to block cell phone signals, has been built with this abduction in mind.

What happens to the woman who ate the pie?

When Sister Barnes and Paxton go back down, Paxton notes that it appears like the woman has moved. Eventually, she sits up and, in bursts of words, describes a vision of a train in the clouds, ending with the words, “It’s Not Real.”

Mr. Reed then comes into the basement. He lectures the missionaries, insisting they call what happened a miracle. Barnes argues with him, saying that it’s an illusion. She calls it “magic—” and in suspense, we see Paxton is ready to stab Reed if Barnes says “underwear,” but instead, Reed stabs Barnes, killing her. 

He then insists that when the prophet said, “It is not real,” she meant that life is actually a simulation. To illustrate this, Reed recounts a Daoist thought experiment where a man had a dream of being a butterfly but wondered if he was really a butterfly having a dream of being a man. Reed says Barnes was not a real person but part of the simulation. He then cuts open her upper arm and pulls out what is clearly subcutaneous birth control, claiming it is actually evidence of the simulation. 

Paxton then says it’s birth control and (inaccurately) says Barnes would have faced church discipline if anyone knew she had it. 

How does the movie end?

Reed then tries to convince Sister Paxton of the miracle, but Paxton says that what happened is that the old woman actually died, and a second woman was brought into the room to replace her. Paxton tells Reed that she doesn’t believe his trick went according to plan. She believes that when the second woman said, “It’s not real,” it was a warning to the missionaries.

Reed is skeptical, saying if that is true, there must be a door underneath the basement. 

Paxton immediately finds the door and discovers the dead body of the woman she saw before and cages filled with women dressed exactly the same as the one who had died eating the poison pie.

Paxton then says Mr. Reed actually believes “the one true church is control” and that he had been controlling them the entire time. Reed then lectures Paxton about how much she is controlled, cutting off a finger of one of the women to demonstrate. He then uses the example that Paxton has even been told she has to wear “magic underwear.” At this, Paxton stabs Reed with the letter opener and runs back up into the cellar, but she’s still locked in. 

Reed follows and then stabs Paxton. She then admits that she doesn’t believe that prayer works, but she thinks it’s nice anyway. 

Sister Barnes, who had been presumed dead, stands up and impales Reed with the loose floorboard, and he dies. Barnes immediately collapses again. Paxton then goes back into the sub-basement, finds the bicycle lock, which she unlocks, and then goes outside. She briefly hallucinates a butterfly landing on her finger before passing out in the snow, presumably dead.  

Is the movie good?

It is suspenseful. The set design is above average. There are some moments of great cinematography and other moments where it’s poor. The dialogue is not written very well. Hugh Grant is a strong actor, but both Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who play the sister missionaries, feel like amateurs who can’t communicate with much nuance or carry the weight of the narrative. 

Because of its heavy emphasis on lecturing about atheism, the plot often feels weighed down and dull. In that way, it’s kind of like overly preachy religious cinema like “Saturday’s Warrior,” but for atheists.

In terms of its artistic merit, it’s average, certainly not great or even good. It also doesn’t have the makings of a cult horror movie, nor is it good enough to be an award contender. It’s unlikely to be remembered in a year by anyone except academics who study Latter-day Saint depictions in movies or horror movie buffs.

Who is the Heretic?

A heretic is someone who believes the wrong thing. The title is likely intended to make its audience wonder if the missionaries are heretics because Reed “proves them wrong” or whether he, as the non-believer predator, is the heretic.

Does Heretic have an agenda?

The creators say they want the movie to spark conversations about religion. Mr. Reed is portrayed far and away as the most intelligent character in the movie. Paxton’s vision of the butterfly at the end is portrayed as a hallucination. Barnes briefly coming back to life to kill Mr. Reed could be seen as a miracle.

In the Q&A, the directors said that they were influenced by the “new atheist” movement’s writers, such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

Could this result in missionaries getting hurt?

A copycat attempt is one of the worst possible outcomes here. The creators don’t seem to be trying to create them, though. It is shown that Reed has spent years planning this, including building the very architecture of the home to enable it. It also requires strong manipulation from Reed to work around the missionaries’ safety standards. 

What criticisms could Latter-day Saints face as a result of the film?

While Mr. Reed mocks Latter-day Saints generally throughout the film, there are only three cogent criticisms that he makes:

1. Joseph Smith instituted polygamy for his own sexual satisfaction. This is an old criticism, and recent research into the timeline of Smith’s polygamous marriages is making this claim feel more out of touch with reality. 

2. The story of Jesus Christ is a reworked myth from other ancient cultures. Interestingly, the screenwriters have Reed, who otherwise seems well-read, repeat easily debunked claims about mythological Gods to make this point. 

3. Religion is all about control. This is Reed’s main conclusion in the film, so it may be picked up on by others as well. 

How does Heretic make Latter-day Saints and the Church of Jesus Christ look?

Different viewers will have different takeaways, but a group of those who have seen the film reported having, on average, more positive feelings about missionaries but worse feelings about the Church of Jesus Christ as a result of the movie.

Is Heretic Insulting to Latter-day Saints?

Those who feel insulted will likely notice that the film spends a lot of time implying that all faith is unintelligent. In the end, Sister Paxton reveals the reality of her lack of faith. The missionaries are sexualized in ways most missionaries would be uncomfortable with. The film also seems to revel in embarrassing the sister missionaries, such as pulling down their pants, comparing their religion to Bob Ross Monopoly, and repeating “magic underwear” ad nauseam.

One person who watched the film said, “Whoever wrote that was really angry that a sister missionary said no when he tried to hit on her.”

Those who feel the film respects Latter-day Saints will likely focus on the fact that the missionaries are the protagonists and that, in the end, Sister Paxton outwits Mr. Reed. 

In our assessment, however, the creators of the film wanted audiences to take the message that religion is obviously wrong but might make you a better person anyway. Different viewers will certainly make their own interpretations.

The post Heretic Movie: All Your Questions Answered appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

The result is a disaster of journalistic credibility. This article makes it clear the AP is unfit to publish authoritative news about the Church, at least until it makes significant changes in its processes.

Rod Dreher, the influential writer and editor, quipped in response to the AP’s most recent article, ”I thought this was a Babylon Bee headline.” That reaction has become a bit too common in responses to coverage of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in national media. But it’s usually aimed at publications with established editorial bents, like Rolling Stone Magazine. That the AP has joined its ranks is sad.

The AP article had the headline, “Latter-day Saints leader addresses congregants without a word on racial or LGBTQ+ issues.” Dreher remarked, “I thought this was a Babylon Bee headline, making fun of the media’s obsessions. Nope, it’s real. The failure of the 99-year-old head of a religion to talk about what a journalist thinks he ought to have done is news.” 

That’s right. The Associated Press published a “news” story about what wasn’t discussed in the conference.

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ also didn’t speak about the War in Gaza, the population crisis in South Korea, how well the Armenian dram is performing against the dollar, or Javier Bardem’s stunning performance in Dune Part Two.

Perhaps most egregiously, the headline is factually inaccurate! During Nelson’s remarks on Sunday afternoon, he said, “[God] invites all to come unto Him—black and white, bond and free, male and female; … all are alike unto God.” He explicitly mentioned race in his remarks. Not to mention the dozens of remarks that touched on issues of love, charity, and truth, which explains, even if not directly, how the Church approaches LGBT+ issues.

And this is not merely bad coverage by Hannah Schoenbaum who wrote the article. Schoenbaum’s entire beat is covering LGBT+ issues at state houses. The editor who assigned Schoenbaum to the conference did so, knowing precisely what would come out of the narrow point of view of her coverage specialty. 

As the saying goes, If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Or, in this case, all you can see is there are no nails, ignoring both the beauty and actual news that is there. 

Please, don’t focus your ire on Schoenbaum. What she produced is about what you would expect from a person in her position. The true blame lies at the feet of the journalistic system that put her in the position to fail. Does the AP truly not have a single journalist in Utah who is religiously literate? Until they get one, perhaps they shouldn’t try and cover explicitly religious events. They simply don’t have the right personnel to do it right, as Schoenbaum demonstrates.

Schoenbaum lacks a fair bit of religious literacy in her article. She uses language foreign to the Latter-day Saint tradition, such as  “Church’s leadership panel,” “Nelson’s top adviser,” or “heretics.” She also makes the statement, that the priesthood exclusion was “a policy in the belief that black skin was a curse,” which is at best controversial, without any mention of the fact that neither the Church nor most of its members endorse this version of history. 

However, the article is not only bad in its framing and its lack of religious literacy. It was written to be a straight news story and is peppered with negative editorializing of the faith. She mentions Nelson’s work of reasserting the Church’s full name but describes it as a “sharp shift.” Then adds a frequent line used by critics of President Nelson about the previous ‘I’m a Mormon’ campaign but she states it as a simple fact in her own voice, not attributing it to critics. She doesn’t mention any of the reasons that have been used to support the request.

She describes temples as “lavish,” a description that may feel apt to those who are critical of the temple but not one that would feel appropriate to the Church or its many members. 

She brings in a wild non sequitur about a speech given by a different church leader at BYU and says it’s “known as the ‘musket fire speech’” without clarifying that it is only known this way by those attempting to discredit the remarks.

Schoenbaum additionally claims there are “ongoing tensions between church leadership and LGBTQ+ members” without mentioning the many LGBT+ members who are at home in the Church and do not feel the “tension” she assumes in her statement.

Schoenbaum frequently covers the Utah legislature, so in case she gets the assignment next October as well, let me pass along some directions from the capital. One block south, one block west. That’s it. That’s the conference center. It’s so easy to find from the capital anyone can do it. And if you can manage the ten-minute walk, there are tens of thousands of sources who would be more than happy to talk to you about what was said at conference, rather than what was not said. 

The problem, of course, is that it wouldn’t fit with the narrative that was predestined for this story from the second it was conceived. 

This kind of deeply flawed coverage is antagonistic to Latter-day Saints. And because it was published by the Associated Press it will be reprinted to media markets across the country. In most of those markets, Latter-day Saints are religious minorities. The narratives imposed on these stories are used by those in these markets trying to stop Latter-day Saints from being able to build places of worship. And this agitation over the different worldview of Latter-day Saints from the broader culture over sexuality inspires vandalism and other hate crimes. 

Come on, AP. Latter-day Saints are actual, real people. And we deserve to be treated like it. This coverage is embarrassing for you. Do better.

Correction: The 16th paragraph has been corrected. It previously said Schoenbaum didn’t interview anyone “celebrating” his birthday, it has been changed to read “speaking in celebration of his birthday.”

The post Associated Press Embarrasses Itself in Conference Coverage appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

“Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?”

And with a quick breath and a nod of his head, “Yes,” the legend was gone. 

Charles Shepard sat in the 1980s newsroom of the Charlotte Observer when his phone rang. He covered a number of beats, including that of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, among the most influential televangelists in the country.

“My name is Jessica Hahn,” the voice said, “Jim Bakker paid me off after raping me.”

James Frey invented a story about being a hero in the third world. Ravi Zacharias, an influential pastor, was involved in a massive sexual misconduct scandal. Brian Williams, Mark Driscoll, John Rigas, Mike Daisey, Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and Peter Popoff all presented one image to the world that was shattered when it was discovered they were cheats—not at all who they presented themselves to be. 

Tim Ballard—the influential leader in the anti-child-sex-trafficking arena—may have now joined their ranks. As a hero to many Latter-day Saints, a faith he shares, Ballard has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, fabrications of his work, misappropriation of funds, and falsely claiming official church support. 

An Ongoing Story

To be clear, the story is still being written about Tim Ballard. Details will continue to come out. Ballard has denied the allegations entirely. There are certainly cases where politically useful public accusations turn out to be baseless, such as Richard Jewell and the Atlanta Olympic bombing, the Dreyfus Affair, or the Duke Lacrosse Team. 

The evidence facing Ballard includes records from a police investigation (though they have not yet been released in full), a resignation, video evidence, and accusations from seven women. And while Vice as an outlet is certainly guilty of overstating the evidence in pursuit of its agenda at times, the evidence in support of this reporting is robust, reasonably high-quality evidence.

In addition, the decision of a major institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to conclude that Ballard was involved in “activity regarded as morally unacceptable” holds significant weight. (Some have questioned whether the Church, in fact, released the statement quoted by Vice. I have independently verified the statement, as have multiple other trustworthy sources.) For everyday Latter-day Saints like me, the fact that the Church publicly weighed in on these accusations lends them a significant amount of credibility even while some details are still to emerge.

For a still-developing story, withholding judgment can be appropriate. This is true both for Ballard and for those judging the Church for the propriety of its statement without knowing what information the Church is privy to. As the evidence continues to stack up, it can be valuable to begin processing the information that does exist and considering a way forward.

A Real Price

It’s tempting to dismiss the fall of a hero as inconsequential, to say, “Grow up, no one is perfect.” But the reality is far more complex. Heroes, especially those with significant influence, don’t just inspire; they shape perceptions, mold values, and set standards. When they fall, the ripple effects are profound, often causing pain, disillusionment, and a reevaluation of deeply held beliefs.

Bill Cosby, once affectionately dubbed “America’s Dad,” was more than just a comedian; he was a cultural icon. His influence on American television and his pioneering role as a Black comedian made his conviction on sexual assault charges all the more devastating—posing challenging questions for those who identified with and looked up to him. 

This has led to a complicated response from fellow black male comedians. Jerod Carmichael said, “It’s a place of categorizing that you have to take your mind to in order to not erase any good memory, but also being aware of the responsibility you have to be a moral person. … There are real, serious accusations. … The mind is torn. But I think both can coexist, even within our own heart.” 

Dave Chapelle, meanwhile, crafted a comedy routine about an ugly superhero who must sexually assault women to get his superpowers. While discussing the moral quandary involved, Chapelle compares the hero to Bill Cosby. 

These fallen heroes have real-world impacts. 

Samuel Hislop wrote for Public Square Magazine about “The steep price of hypocrisy in Christian witness” regarding the sexual abuse allegations of Ravi Zachariah and the harm it did to the faith of those around him.

Latter-day Saints even have a scriptural example showing the effects of Corianton’s sexual misconduct on the people he served as a missionary. “O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct, they would not believe.” 

For those who admire Ballard, such accusations can deeply shake their sense of trust and their sense of place in the world. 

A History of Chastisement

The phenomenon of influential figures falling from grace is not new to Latter-day Saints. Historically, the pattern of calling out by name is deeply tied to Latter-day Saint history and practice. The Doctrine & Covenants, revelations from the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ, chastises Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr., Ezra Thayre, Frederick G. Williams, and Newell K. Whitney. Though each of these figures was also a powerful influence for good, the Lord also saw fit to publicly chastise them. “As many as I love,” the Lord explained, “I rebuke and chasten.”

Historical instances like John C. Bennett’s scandal in Nauvoo remind us that falling public figures aren’t a modern phenomenon. However, the social media age, and the blooming of unvetted religious influencers, have amplified this effect giving rise to figures such as Sterling Van Wagenen, Denver Snuffer, Natasha Helfer, and most recently, Ruby Franke. 

Tim Ballard is only the latest in this trend, though because of his political poignancy and the recent popular film fictionalizing his claims about his life, his scandal is larger and more notable than most of these.

Still, some wonder why the Church would call out Ballard and not these other figures. Others wonder about the prudence of using Ballard’s name. In our influencer age, names are an institution complete with brand, persona, and ideology. Ballard’s approach to personal branding certainly fits into this mold. As the Latter-day Saint blog “Wheat and Tares” recently pointed out, this kind of public distancing is not only found in church history but in the recent past. 

It occurred when Ammon Bundy claimed his seizure of federal property was based on scriptural principles. And when Ayla Stewart publicly claimed that the Church’s statement condemning racism supported her white-supremacist views, the Church issued an amendment that “Church members who promote or pursue a ‘white culture’ or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church.”

The unifying feature of these public statements is they respond to individuals who claim authority or support from the Church, which they do not, in fact, have. As a result, these kinds of rebukes have more often occurred to those on the political right since they are speaking to an audience that is attracted to authority. When left-wing figures similarly speak in opposition to church teachings, they often do so as anti-institutionalists, so the parallel issues can be dealt with privately through membership councils since there are no public claims of support the institutional Church needs to contend with in these cases. 

This is particularly sensitive when it involves issues of financial enrichment, as Ballard is accused of. The Doctrine and Covenants sections chastising Frederick G. Williams and Newell K. Whitney both refer to financial matters. More recently, in 2015, an internet store was set up by a family member of a general church officer to profit off of his general conference remarks. By the next day, the financial venture was stopped, and the general officer issued a public apology. 

The Book of Mormon contains many enjoinders against what it calls priestcraft and defines it as those who preach “that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.” Priestcraft is a concern for all church-adjacent influencers and organizations and something each person should carefully consider in choosing their influencers.

Perceptions, Politics, and Peace

If our perceptions are skewed toward one political bubble, when incidents occur, we immediately put the participants into the hyper-stylized roles of our echo chambers. This makes the heroes seem more heroic and the villains more villainous, and when anything happens that contradicts that view, we adopt a mechanism to reconcile it.

Take, for example, the case of a teenager wearing a MAGA hat who had a standoff with a Native American elder. The initial video clip went viral, with many quick to condemn the teenager’s perceived disrespect. However, as more footage emerged, the narrative became more complex. One political bubble had moved on and largely dismissed new developments, while the other used the new developments to craft a new story about media villainy.

Such incidents highlight the role of identity politics and tribalism in shaping our reactions. Rather than evaluating events on their merits, we often view them through the lens of our affiliations. How would the responses to this matter change if the political affiliations were flipped?

The media, with its need for clicks and views, plays a role in magnifying these divisions by confirming the biases of one camp, and outraging the other camp, generating crucial click-through and ad views from both. 

Latter-day Saints who were all-in on Ballard are now faced with a difficult conflict to navigate. One approach is to deny it entirely. This is the approach that Ballard has taken, not only denying the allegations but denying that the Church even issued the statement—it has. Similarly, some seek to undermine the legitimacy of enough of the relevant information that their worldview is back in equilibrium.

Others choose to ignore the allegations because of the biased system that produced them. Comedian Eddie Griffin chose this approach to the Bill Cosby scandal, saying, “There is a systematic effort to destroy every black male entertainer’s image. They want us all to have an asterisk by our name,” before listing the controversies of several popular black entertainers and athletes.

Still others use the scandal as evidence that the tragic figure must be making a difference or the “powers that be” wouldn’t want to bring them down. In this case, public misbehavior can, unfortunately, increase someone’s public influence. 

Meanwhile, those on the other side politically use these examples of human failing as little more than points to score in a cultural war battle. 

We must avoid each of these types of reactions. For Latter-day Saints struggling to understand why an individual whose work they love and the Church they love may appear at odds, the answer is not these kinds of mechanisms that serve to only dig in. And we should never succumb to celebrating sin. Rather the answer may be found among the lyrics of a Latter-day Saint hymn, “Where can I turn for peace? … Where, when my aching grows? Where in my need to know, where can I run?” The hymn answers simply that we can turn to Jesus Christ. 

We are All Fallen

Business leader Tara Mohr wrote about dealing with fallen heroes. She wrote that when we discover our public heroes have fallen short, “it can leave us disillusioned not just about the hero but also about the ideals that he or she seemed to stand for. … we confuse admiring the work with admiring the person.”

She goes on to suggest that the part of people who stand for true principles and the part that violates those same principles come from different parts of them and suggests that sometimes it’s those who are most in need of learning those principles who become public figures supporting them. She adds, “Don’t think you have to find a way to love all their personal decisions because you love their work.”

We are all fallible human beings. And we will all fall short and disappoint those around us. We are all sinful regardless of our politics, religion, culture, wealth, or any other feature or identity.

As the narrative around Tim Ballard unfolds, it serves as a poignant reminder of the fragile nature of human integrity. Institutions, including churches, have a responsibility to their members and the public and, at times, must take stances to maintain institutional integrity and provide moral clarity, drawing from a deeper well of understanding and discernment.

Yet, as individuals, especially as Christians, we must resist the allure of trial by media and instead approach such situations with a heart that seeks both justice and mercy. People will always fail us at some point. The only sure foundation is Jesus Christ and the redemption found in Him. By placing our faith in Him, we need not rush to judgment nor feel compelled to defend the indefensible. Instead, we can navigate these tumultuous waters with grace, compassion, and a steadfast commitment to truth, love, and righteousness.

The post In the Wake of Scandal: Tim Ballard and the Latter-day Saints appeared first on Public Square Magazine.