Our Inter-belief Mormon Communities Need Intentional Ethical Boundaries

The feature image for this post is a photo I took at work of faith symbols I printed as part of making a community garden sign. (Which symbols do you recognize?)

Interfaith communities support diverse worldviews and needs

Twice a year, I help coordinate an interfaith dinner at the university I work at. I invite representatives from over thirty faith clubs and a dozen faith leaders. Every world religion as well as secular viewpoints are represented.

At the dinner, collaboration and mutual support are the rule. Student leaders chat about ideas for joint events, faith leaders become friends despite their differences, and secular students and staff are just as involved as everyone else. There is no space for superiority or criticism.

We order vegetarian, halal and Kosher food. This communicates it’s okay that people eat different things just as it’s okay they believe and practice different things. We discuss how our office and the university can better support diverse communities clubs, both collectively and according to their unique needs. Another goal is for participants to learn and grow through dialogue across worldviews.

It challenges everyone to be surrounded by people whose perspectives are different from their own, yet participants come away from these events with a sense that all spiritual frameworks can be compelling and rich, and that there is great untapped potential for collaboration.

Nuanced Mormon communities are interfaith spaces that need intentional ethical boundaries

Online and in-person, many of us are engaged in what are technically interfaith Mormon-focused spaces. I’m talking about communities that seek to support people across the Mormon spectrum in their personal development and understanding of religion. We could also refer to such spaces as “inter-belief” since most participants share roots in and focus on discussing one branch of religion. Many individuals in these communities are practicing. Many aren’t religious. Others have transitioned to a different kind of faith or spirituality. Many others have unique combinations in between. There is great diversity of spiritual sensibilities and needs. These communities offer wonderful opportunities to hold space for differences and to learn from others.

Yet sometimes participants treat these communities like debate platforms meant for competing for vindication or influence. They might claim to discern the supposed core falsity or truthful certainty of Latter-day Saint faith, or invite others to deconstruct or reclaim religiosity. At times, they challenge others’ personal choices, or promote claims that religion is either all good or all bad. 

I get it. I feel pride or disdain sometimes when I engage with others’ thinking about religion, and part of me wants others to see things my way. It’s easy to get caught in such behavior when we want to feel seen. It’s okay if we have strong beliefs or if we feel like we really know what’s right or best for ourselves to uphold and value, but this doesn’t mean we can’t hold space for people who are different.

One thing we have in common is the desire to be understood and find belonging. In a recent comment on this blog, a woman named Amy wrote to me saying, “I want honesty and accountability from others in my relationships. I want to be respected for surviving a faith transition–not rejected and held as ‘less’ because I drew different conclusions.” How can we offer the equal treatment, space for differences, accountability, and respect Amy describes so well to each other? Mormon communities can do this by upholding ethical principles that guide interfaith dialogue, the same boundaries that make the interfaith dinners I help organize productive and positive experiences.

Boundaries for our Inter-belief Communities

To set the stage for ethical interfaith conversations, each participant enters conversations on an equal footing with others. Diverse worldviews, whether religious, non-religious, spiritual, or some combination, are treated as equally valid and worthy learning from. No one is treated as one up or dominant. Each conversant needs to come prepared to learn from others and to share their own understanding on an equal basis. One-way dialogue is not appropriate or effective in these spaces.

Certainty, superiority, and contempt can’t have a seat in our conversations. If community members take up stances of arrogance or disdain for others’ views, this diminishes the benefits of interfaith exchange, damages trust, and prevents goals of inclusivity and mutual support from being reached. At an interfaith dinner, what would it be like if someone loudly told others that they hold other certain other faiths or worldviews in contempt, or that they are quite grateful their family left a certain religion behind? Reformed Jewish individuals would never flaunt ways they feel superior to orthodox Jewish representatives, or talk about how they see orthodox practices as oppressive. Likewise, any Jewish orthodox attendees would never treat their reformed counterparts as fallen or depraved. Mutual respect for differences of identity and worldview is the rule.

To reach its potential, interfaith dialogue requires building trust through consistent respectful exchanges over time. Instances when mutual respect and equality are not upheld damage the sense of safety in inter-belief relationships and communities. Sometimes we need to deliberately recalibrate expectations and goals together and rebuild trust patiently.

Participants engage out of the desire to change and grow themselves rather than to change others. People come to these spaces wanting to learn, heal, and belong rather than to be indoctrinated or given unsolicited advice or wake-up calls. The best motivations to interact focus on our own learning and growth and our desires to support others where they’re at. What we share will have an impact on others and help them to learn and grow, but we only get to control how we want to learn and grow. The goal isn’t to all be the same or to agree.

Abstain from and guard against words that denigrate or dismiss worldviews and identities. Honesty and sincerity are important principles to follow in interfaith dialogue. This is part of how we build trust over time. At the dinner meeting, for example, It’s safe to share how you really experience things without being judged. A Sikh student might tell me about times when his practices have been disrespected at school, or a queer Muslim student may tell me about her wrestle with her community’s expectations. In our inter-belief spaces, it should likewise be safe to share our honest thinking. It’s fair to say, “I’m personally not convinced of the Book of Mormon’s divinity,” or “prayer means everything to me,” but it’s harmful to deprecate others’ perspectives. Examples that cross the line include: “Escaping this bull crap religion is the best thing I ever did,” or “why do you stay engaged here if you don’t believe our prophets are directed by God? Go find a different community.”

Suspend any assumptions that there is one right path toward spiritual growth, and protect personal agency. Sometimes community members engage as if the default direction for spiritual growth is religious deconstruction, while others have ulterior motives to persuade people to become more religious or orthodox. Many members of our communities seek experiences somewhere in between these paths that are complex. We are on many different kinds of trajectories that are all toward growth and that are a matter of personal, not community, choice. Authentic use of agency without pressures to conform to or please others is something we need to work together to protect in these spaces.

Don’t allow binary thinking to answer the big questions. The promotion of binary thinking–that is, logic that argues that “religion is all true and divine or it’s all false and fraudulent,” whether this is in favor or disfavor of religion–happens in our spaces. Binary thinking about all kinds of problems is common, natural and sometimes helpful. As Richard Rohr has written, “Binary thinking is not wrong or bad in itself…But it is completely inadequate for the major questions and dilemmas of life” (The Naked Now 32). When we apply all-or-nothing thinking to questions about life’s mysteries, it can lead to unhelpful reductive thinking and divide us. It can urge us to make big final choices on issues before carefully examining details or to cling to simplified versions of the truth. In nuanced Mormon communities, people are trying to do the very opposite of this. We’re working through highly complex ideas and histories as thoughtfully as we can in three dimensions. If people come to our communities sharing their binary thinking, we can gently offer ideas for integrating other approaches, but we shouldn’t buy into it or urge others to. I recommend Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now for learning more about binary thinking’s relationship with religious thinking.

Hold space for community members who disagree. As one example, it can be empowering and valuable to raise concerns about a religious practice, and we need to make space for such voices. Yet it is possible to criticize a practice in such a way that those who value it don’t feel there is space left for them to be heard or validated. It is a delicate balance. The most productive conversations use a fair minded approach that leaves space for counter voices to be dignified and impactful also. We should also be mindful not to label aspects of religious life as untouchable products of human vices (e.g. patriarchy). At an interfaith dinner, if I talked non-stop about concerns about hijabs and the modesty standards of Muslim and Jewish women and taught about how these things are connected with sexism, things wouldn’t go well. I would make others feel unwelcome and discourage them in personal practices that, however problematic I might think they are, currently serve important functions in their religious and family lives.

Maintain an tone that is affirming of diverse views and that avoids excessive negativity or positivity. Outside the interfaith lounge where I work, there is a sign that says, “this is a faith and spirituality positive space.” This message acknowledges that some people need safe spaces to talk about their spirituality, and that religion is sometimes disparaged; it sets a boundary. Like my office, many nuanced Mormon communities support people wherever they are in their spiritual lives, and need to intentionally affirm diverse paths. Our spaces shouldn’t be “faith positive” in the sense of placing pressure on participants to adhere to religious ideas or being toxically positive about the benefits of religion. They should be spirituality-positive in the sense of affirming individual spiritual development and authenticity. Communities should be safe places for criticism and negativity about religion, but if conversations where negative feelings and deconstructive thinking and goals dominate, communities can become catered only for some people while pushing others out or putting undue pressures on them to change.

Keep content high quality and inclusive, avoiding divisiveness and attention-getting. If the thinking, comments, or content we want to bring up are not high quality enough to benefit people inside and outside of religion and everywhere between, it might not belong in communities that focus on learning and mutual support. As we decide how to engage and what to offer, we can ask questions like Will this content be received as fair-minded and pertinent to the audience as a whole, or might it come across as arrogant, divisive, or biased by segments of our community? Is it provocative for the sake of getting attention and responses? Could it polarize community members, or invite them to show contempt for one another? Might it harm or push out segments of the community?

At the interfaith dinner, the food served needs to provide a full meal for everyone, whatever their dietary needs. Patterns of serving up comments, arguments, and sources that are only really supportive of one portion of the Mormon spectrum would be like serving a non-Kosher, non-halal lasagna at an interfaith dinner that only a fraction of the guests can enjoy. It leaves others feeling left out, unseen, and hungry, and they may stop participating. We should do our best to keep diverse participants in these communities because we will learn more, be more challenged to grow, and avoid echo chambers, biases, and blind spots. Deliberately speaking to a broader variety of people across the spectrum empowers us to have a greater impact helping the greater Mormon community and perhaps even the institutional Church move forward as one, learn from mistakes, and stay connected and in dialogue with each other.

Ideas for expanding, enriching, and improving our interactions and relationships

Much like after an interfaith dinner, I come away from nuanced Mormon communities with a sense of the untapped potential to learn more from one another and to collaborate more effectively. I’ll share a handful of ideas that go beyond boundaries to ways to expand these relationships and help them reach their potential.

We can serve as a healers rather than an influencers. To optimize the support we give in inter-belief spaces, we can practice moving through and expressing pain and/or whatever strong feelings we may have in a way in which we don’t inadvertently hurt or dismiss others. We can seek to become wounded healers whose sincere sharing helps educate and support others. When we share the things we have experienced, what we have learned, and how we have felt about it for the sake of connecting with and supporting others, we can normalize difficult experiences and help offer healing to them and to ourselves. Asking sincere open-ended questions and active listening are effective, caring ways to engage in these conversations.

We can seek to become spiritually multilingual. A friend of mine recently told me she can now talk at length about whatever others want to connect on whether they are religious or not. This took practice and was difficult at first, but she can now sincerely treat both religious and non-religious worldviews as valid and interesting. And all this has brought her a cherished sense of freedom to love, understand, and embrace friends and relatives as they really are, without trying to fully be on the same page as them. She loves her capacities to move seamlessly cross spiritual borders, and to feel at home in both territories.

We can directly communicate that we support others whatever path they choose. A couple years ago, I took a walk with a friend who was raised Mormon but isn’t religious now. While she is proud of her own journey, she also affirms that practicing religion is a compelling choice for some people. As I talked about my struggles with Church participation, she told me she would support me wherever my path led. If I stayed in the Church, she’d be there for me. If I left, she’d also accompany me. What she wanted most for me was for me to be true to myself and what I wanted and needed. Last month, she took time to tell me she admires how writing is an authentic expression of my spirituality. I felt loved and seen.

Seek to understand others’ experiences “from within.” Conversations in which we look for the strengths and beauty in other worldviews, and imagine how we would think and feel if this was our own perspective help us do this. Catholic scholar L Swindler writes “Each [interfaith dialogue] participant eventually must attempt to experience the partner’s [worldview] ‘from within’; for [spirituality] is not merely something of the head, but also of the spirit, heart, and whole being.” When religious individuals seek to sympathize with secular perspectives from the inside, for example, they may be touched and surprised by the unique courage, humility, and insights about religion and life this worldview may demand or offer. This kind of exercise can help us leave judgmental assumptions behind.

Lean into uncertainty and exercise intellectual humility. Leaning into shared lack of knowledge can help us foster kindness, emotional safety, and togetherness. While we rode the subway with our kids, a friend of mine who identifies as atheist told me her kids were scared of dying because they believed they would just stop existing. I told her my kids were scared of dying because they believed they would live on forever. We laughed together at our shared (yet also not shared) dilemma. I said, “Maybe we can all find comfort in recognizing that none of us know for sure. Maybe life ends, and maybe it doesn’t. And whatever it is, we’re in this together.”

Recently, my husband and I met for dinner with an acquaintance visiting our city who went through a faith transition in recent years and is no longer religious. He exercises intellectual humility, saying things like, “if there is a creator and an afterlife, I feel at peace.” His open-mindedness fostered an ideal space to connect. At the crossroads where spiritually diverse people all acknowledge how much we don’t know, we can feel mutually seen and understood. In such conversations, we create wonderful space where we can see eye to eye and speak heart to heart.

Final Thoughts

I dream of nuanced Mormon communities more consistently fostering moment like those above–spaces where we all can can grow and belong without words or intentions that do violence to whatever path each person is on. In a divisive era when perhaps the majority of us face some loneliness and depression, and when community connection and friendship are corroding, building inclusive and supportive Mormon communities is so valuable for all of us. I long for us all to enjoy belonging in spaces where friendship, support, and kindness come before any agenda to be right or influential. 

I started this post a while ago without politics in mind, but in light of the 2024 election happening this week, I’ll just mention that many of the principles I’ve discussed here are applicable to helping us overcome political divisiveness and move forward together. Refusing to treat others as inferior or worthy of contempt, acknowledging blind spots and uncertainties, seeking to understand others’ perspectives from within, and addressing problems and needs directly are productive, inclusive, and collaborative approaches.

For thoughts on general interfaith dialogue boundaries, I can recommend one of the sources for this post, L. Swindler’s editorial, “The Dialogue Decalogue: Ground Rules for Interreligious Dialogue”