Deseret Magazine - April 2022

M AG A Z I N E – SPECIAL ISSUE –

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THE

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STATE — OF —

FAITH THE SURPRISING RESILIENCE OF AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY

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CODDLING THE AMERICAN KID

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REFORMING THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT 20 LEADERS PUSHING FOR CHANGE

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CONTENTS

SPECIAL ISSUE

THE

42 THE RESILIENCE OF SPIRITUALITY

STATE — OF —

FAITH

48 THE NEW REFORMERS 20 FAITH LEADERS

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS FAITH

PUSHING THE CONSERVATIVE

STILL PLAYS A POWERFUL, UNIFYING

MOVEMENT TO CHANGE.

ROLE IN AMERICAN LIFE. by kelsey dallas and jennifer graham

by kelsey dallas

56 THE LAST SHAKERS A VISION OF HEAVEN IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE. a photographic essay

by séan alonzo harris

64 THE HOUSE THAT EXILE BUILT

M AGAZ I NE – SPECIAL ISSUE –

A CUBAN AMERICAN'S QUEST TO UNDERSTAND FAITH, FREEDOM AND THE ENDURING POWER OF FAMILY.

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FAITH THE SURPRISING RESILIENCE OF AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY

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JANUARY

MARCH

JUNE

JULY

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

APRIL

MAY

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

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CODDLING THE AMERICAN KID

by ethan bauer

THE

STATE

THE LAST SHAKERS

REFORMING THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT 20 LEADERS PUSHING FOR CHANGE

O N T H E COV E R : I L LU ST R ATI O N BY ST U D I O M UT I

APRIL 2022

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CONTENTS

IDEAS

GOD IS NOT DEAD Why the obituary for American Christianity is premature. by ryan burge

“The way that most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to any empirical reality. Instead, it’s based on anecdotes.”

LEADERSHIP

THE NEW RULES

28

Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry, on diversity and the future of work. as told to lauren steele

PAGE 78 THE WEST

AN ILLOGICAL OASIS

36

Golfing through drought. by ethan bauer

MODERN FAMILY

ARE WE CODDLING OUR CHILDREN?

20 NATIONAL AFFAIRS

BOOKS AS A BATTLEGROUND

How parents can enjoy their children more by parenting less. by lois m . collins

CONFESSIONS OF A WORK - AT - HOME DAD Finding balance in a world upended by the pandemic. by jesse hyde

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FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME

Book bans are the newest front in the culture wars.

What’s really going on? by laurenz busch

LIFE — AND — PRO - LIFE AFTER ROE V. WADE What happens if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade? by d . hunter schwarz

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COMMENTARY

CULTURE

74

UNITING A DIVIDED WORLD

Before big money took over sports, there was church ball.

A sermon in a time of war from the U.S. Senate chaplain.

by ethan bauer

by barry c . black

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THE LAST WORD

A HEALING EXPERIENCE

85

The Rev. Andrew Teal on finding God through difficulty. by lois m . collins

APRIL 2022

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AP PH OTO/B E R NAT AR MANGU E

THE VIEW FROM HERE

A PRAYER FOR PEACE

A

s artillery shelled Ukraine during the early days of the Russian invasion, a photojournalist captured a lone Ukrainian woman in her full military fatigues offering a prayer inside the historic Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv, western Ukraine’s largest city.

Dating back to the early 1600s, the Saints Peter and Paul church was shuttered in 1946 to serve as a Soviet-era warehouse. The Jesuit order, which founded the church, was exiled. But in recent years the church has been restored. In 2011 it reopened its doors for worship and to house Ukraine’s Center of Military Chaplaincy.

The photo of this solidier surrounded by prayer candles amid the ravages of war is a symbol for what’s at stake in the now-violent clash over sacred human rights and the authoritarian forces seeking to curtail them.

According to the most recent Pew Center Report on worldwide hostilities toward religious freedom, nearly 30 percent of all nations studied (57 of 198 countries) had “high” or “very high” government restrictions on faith. This was, according to Pew, the highest level since the study began in 2007.

There are some who fear faith wanes in an environment of pluralism and freedom, but the United States serves as an important counterpoint. As secularism has swept the Western world, American faith has proved resilient, protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment freedoms.

In this issue of Deseret Magazine, Kelsey Dallas explores findings from the 2022 Deseret News Faith in America Survey (see page 42), showing

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that fully 62 percent of Americans still believe the First Amendment is inspired by God. The national survey, conducted by Marist Poll, also finds that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe in God and say the nation would be better off if we prayed for one another.

These and other data complicate fixed narratives about the state of faith in America. They upend, for example, the idea that Democrats are godless or that college campuses are always places where religious belief goes to die. On page 78, scholar and pastor Ryan Burge shows how the conventional wisdom on the state of faith in America is often little more than myths.

In his sermon on page 18, Chaplain of the United States Senate Barry C. Black admonishes readers to make a “habit to look heavenward.” The sanctification that will follow, he continues, “would have a transformative impact on our nation and world, and healing showers of unity would produce a harvest of peace, hope and love.”

During these challenging times, millions of Americans are lifting their gaze. This month, Jews observe Passover; Muslims fast for Ramadan, and Christians celebrate Easter.

James Madison believed the greatest guarantor of religious freedom was a “the multiplicity of sects” in which all worshiped equally. This kind of public pluralism was on display February 23, 2022 — the day Putin announced Russia’s intent to invade Ukraine. A live CNN newsfeed captured a group of believers kneeling together to pray in Kharkiv, a city fittingly known for its “freedom square.” Searching for the right words, correspondent Clarissa Ward said: “And to see these people kneeling on the cold stone in prayer is honestly — it’s very moving.” —HAL BOYD

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THE BUZZ

OUR READERS RESPOND

IN THE FEBRUARY I SSU E,

Jelani Cobb wrote about the importance of Black History Month, arguing that “for

Black people the struggle for full and equal inclusion remains pertinent to our everyday lives.” Cobb, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a professor at Columbia University, was interviewed about his essay by Chauncey Devega of Salon, who wrote: “How do we locate the importance of Black History Month in this moment of rising authoritarianism, neo-fascism, and Orwellian assaults on truth and reality itself? What does Black History Month help us to better understand in this moment of democracy crisis?” Reader Travis Prestwich wrote: “An important point here is that we need to be reminded of, and learn from, our history in order that we can teach that history (an accurate and full history) to our posterity so they don’t make the same mistakes. Without looking at the past and striving to have compassion for those affected and harmed by it, how can we ever move forward?” Reader Mary Holm wrote, “History should not be divisive. A country that cannot handle the truth about its past is not prepared to face the future.”

Heather Hansman was featured on “Mountain Money,” a show on KPCW, an NPR affiliate

based in Park City, Utah, to discuss her February cover story (“Peaked: How Ski Town Economics are a Harbinger for America’s Struggling Middle Class”). Jonathan P. Thompson, who writes The Land Desk newsletter, wrote: “Great story on the wealth inequality crisis plaguing ski towns (and nearly everywhere else),” while reader John D. Kriesel wrote: “These ski towns were exclusive in the 1980s, and the wealth disparity has worsened since then, no doubt. Wealth disparity overall in the U.S. has become much worse, in part because federal and state governments tax income, not wealth. That means the workers (wage earners) are carrying the tax burden while those with enormous wealth, like in Jackson Hole, are reaping the benefits of their exclusive mountain town. And that town is run by workers streaming in and out every day from Idaho.”

Benjamin Park, an assistant professor at Sam Houston

State University, praised Ethan Bauer’s profile of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (“Finding Kyrsten Sinema”), which also appeared in the February issue. “Finally, a solid long-form profile of Kyrsten Sinema,” Park wrote. “Still a lot of puzzles to be solved, but the ‘convinced she’s more gifted than all others’ seems a more convincing framing than others I’ve seen.” And Garrett Haake, senior Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News, wrote: “I found this to be a really helpful guide in better understanding perhaps the single most opaque personality in the US Senate.”

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6/15/21 12:14 PM

DESERET, proposed as a state in 1849, spanned from the Sierras in California to the Rockies in Colorado, and from the border of Mexico north to Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming.

Informed by our heritage and values, Deseret Magazine covers the people and culture of that territory and its intersection with the broader world.

CONTRIBUTORS

BARRY C. BLACK

CAROLYN FONG

SÉAN ALONZO HARRIS

ETHAN BAUER

As the 62nd chaplain of the United States Senate, Black works closely with senators to guide them in prayer, spiritual care and reflection. Having been in his position for over 18 years, he also provides assistance for research, teaches Senate Bible study groups and gained national recognition for his prayers during the 2013 federal government shutdown.

His sermon is featured on page 18.

Fong is a photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in imagery that celebrates community. She is a passionate supporter of inclusivity and representing marginalized populations.

With a degree from The Art Center College of Design and over 15 years of experience, her work has been featured in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Her portrait of Ancestry CEO Deb Liu is on page 28.

Father, husband and accomplished photographer, Séan Alonzo Harris’ clients include USA Today, J.P. Morgan Chase and Mother Jones. Focusing on environmental portraits, his work was recently featured in C0mmunication Arts magazine. Harris returns to our pages with a photographic essay entitled, The Last Shakers, found on page 56.

Bauer is a staff writer for Deseret Magazine and a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School. Originally from Florida, he’s written for the Miami Herald, The Associated Press and The Los Angeles Times. He recently traveled and wrote about faith, religious freedom and the enduring power of ancestral legacies in Cuba — where he has roots. The article can be found on page 64.

GIULIA NERI

STUDIO MUTI

LOIS M. COLLINS

KELSEY DALLAS

An Italian freelance concept illustrator, Neri lives in a small village in the Italian Dolomites and previously worked as a psychologist.

After switching professions, Neri set out to capture human emotions and behaviors through illustration. She has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal and Scientific American and for this issue, her art is featured on page 75.

A collective of 15 illustrators and designers based in Cape Town, South Africa, Studio Muti’s clients have included Google, Facebook, Uber and Nike. They are a passionate group, excelling in everything from lettering to animation.

The Studio’s work can be found throughout this issue of the magazine, beginning with the cover. Other work can be found on page 42 and page 48.

An award-winning veteran reporter for the Deseret News, Collins is a graduate of the University of Utah and is a two-time national winner of the Society of Professional Journalist Sigma Delta Chi feature award. She has even stepped out of an airplane for a story. Her story about coddling children can be found on page 20 and an interview with the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal can be found on page 86.

Serving as the associate editor of the Deseret News National Team, Dallas covers religion, politics and the Supreme Court. She has a master’s degree in religion from Yale Divinity School and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa. Her writing has been recognized by numerous prominent religious organizations. Her articles, “The State of Faith in America,” and “The New Reformers,” begin on page 42.

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OPENING SHOT

DANIEL LEAL/AFP VIA GET T Y IM AGES

“We have an end in sight, and it’s not like this is forever.”

KYIV, UKRAINE A WOMAN HOLDS A CROSS AS SHE PRAYS ON INDEPENDENCE SQUARE IN KYIV ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24, 2022.

PHOTOGR A PHY BY DA N I EL LEA L

COMMENTARY

UNITING A DIVIDED WORLD A SERMON FROM THE U.S. SENATE CHAPLAIN DURING A TIME OF WAR AND UPHEAVAL

BY B A R RY C . B L AC K

O

n Sept. 11, 2001, I was aboard a ballistic nuclear submarine miles beneath the Pacific Ocean. I was the deputy chief of chaplains for the United States Navy and had been visiting sailors aboard this marvelous vessel when we were informed that our nation had been attacked. Suddenly, my ministry was transformed by sailors who desired to seek God in prayer. They united in asking God to place a hedge of protection around our nation and world. That day I rediscovered the power of a shared tragedy to unite people from diverse backgrounds, finding cohesion as they looked heavenward.

Why do we wait for tragedies to prompt us to look toward heaven?

Why can’t we seek God and find greater unity before fear strikes us from without and within?

One reason we should look heavenward to unite a divided world is because God sees unity as pleasant and precious. In Psalm 133:1 we find these words, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” God sees preciousness in our unity because we all belong to him. Even as parents can find delight in watching their children working harmoniously together, so our Heavenly Father finds beauty when we are on one accord.

Why is unity so pleasant and precious? Unity helps believers give a positive example to the world, drawing others to embrace the walk of faith. This is indeed pleasant. Unity also encourages cooperation in a body of believers, enabling them to accomplish much more than they could if divided. This is indeed precious. I have seen the pleasantness and preciousness of unity renew and revitalize the efforts of those who seek to accomplish great things for God’s glory.

A second reason we should look heavenward to unite a divided world is because God above owns everything and we are accountable to him.

Psalm 24:1-2 reminds us, “The earth is the LORD’S, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and 18

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established it on the waters.” This sovereign God owns the heartbeats we borrow from him each day and has enabled us to be stewards of his bounty.

The kind of unity that produces this responsible stewardship does not mean that people will agree on everything. You can maintain harmony even when there are many opinions, just as there are multiple notes in a musical chord. This unity instead means making a commitment to agree on a common purpose and a willingness to work together for the God who unites us. Such unity was seen during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955 that helped to usher in the modern civil rights movement that brought greater equality for marginalized people.

A third reason we should look heavenward for unity is because people who believe in the reality of God are already a part of his family. God, therefore, expects them to be united. 1 John 3:1-2 reminds us of our divine family connection by stating, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Because God is the parent of the human family, he instructs us through his son to pray to our Father in heaven. The rest of the prayer uses plural pronouns. We are taught to pray, give us this day our daily bread, not give me. We are taught to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. John Donne, the British poet, was on target when he declared, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” King resonated with this sentiment when

IMAGINE THE HEALING THAT COULD COME TO THIS NATION IF BELIEVERS ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF DENOMINATIONS AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS WOULD HUMBLE THEMSELVES BY ADMITTING OUR CULPABILITY IN OUR NATIONAL DIVISION.

he declared about humanity, “We are wrapped in a blanket of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.”

Perhaps the most important reason we should look heavenward to unite a divided world is found in 2 Chronicles 7:1, which states, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

This conditional promise from God was given to Israel after Solomon had finished building the temple to honor God. Solomon asked God to give him guidance regarding what to do if the people of Israel deviated from the path of integrity, and reaped a bitter harvest for their sins.

God responded to Solomon’s request by providing him with a strategy to bring healing and unity to the nation.

The first part of this strategy is to humble ourselves by admitting our sins. The Bible reminds us that if we humble ourselves before God, he will exalt us in due time. When David confessed his sins, in the penitential Psalm 51, God forgave him and did not remove him from the throne.

In Jonah 4, the people of Nineveh repented of their sins by fasting and praying and were able to prompt God to keep them from the punishment they deserved. Humility and contrition matter.

A second factor of this strategy for unity is to seek God continually. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you have searched for me with all your heart.” Matthew 7:7 reminds us to keep on seeking and we will find; keep on asking and we will receive; keep on knocking and the door will be opened. This seeking for God is often triggered by a desperate situation caused by disunity, but God has the power to bring people together, transforming cacophony into harmony.

You see, fervency moves God’s heart, as read in the book of James, Chapter 5, for “effectual, fervent prayers from righteous people avail much.”

Another crucial element in this strategic blueprint is to turn from

sinful behavior. It is not enough to confess our sins, we must be willing to forsake our sins as well. This turning from sinful behavior is sometimes called repentance. It means having a change of heart regarding the sinful path on which we are walking. When we humble ourselves, pray for forgiveness, seek God continually and turn from sinful behavior, forsaking evil, the miracle happens. God promises to hear our prayers, forgive our sins and heal our land.

Making it a habit to look heavenward can unite a divided world. By looking heavenward and following the guidance of God, we will be more prone to habitually obey the admonition given to us in Colossians 3:1-2, which states, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Imagine the healing that could come to this nation if believers across the spectrum of denominations and religious traditions would humble themselves by admitting our culpability in our national division. Imagine what would ensue if this repentance led to a fervent hunger and thirst for God’s providence to prevail. I believe such a sanctified undertaking would have a transformative impact on our nation and world, and healing showers of unity would produce a harvest of peace, hope and love.

Perhaps the healing that will come to our nation and land will hasten the day when a unity described in Revelation 7:9 occurs. The seer from Patmos, John the Beloved, wrote these words: “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands.” John envisioned a day when people from every nation, tribe and people would celebrate their unity, not just for time, but for eternity. Heaven awaits our fervent pursuit of this kind of unity.

B A R RY C . B L AC K I S T H E C H A P L A I N O F T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S S E NAT E .

APRIL 2022

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MODERN FAMILY

ARE WE CODDLING OUR CHILDREN? HOW PARENTS CAN DO (A LOT) LESS AND ENJOY THEIR CHILDREN MORE

BY LO I S M. CO L L I N S

M

y first baby cried vociferously and slept very little. Consequently,

so did I. I was 37 years old, after what obstetricians call a “geriatric pregnancy,” and smugly assumed that age and experience would imbue me with the kind of maternal wisdom my siblings had to learn for themselves, since they had become parents earlier. Jeni shredded those notions on the way home from the hospital, her needs unreadable behind a wall of wails.

In the early months, my husband and I took turns swooping her up at the first hint of distress to forestall the gathering storm.

We adored her. So I eagerly consumed Heidi Murkoff ’s “What to Expect the First Year” and Dr. William Sears’ “The Baby Book,” where the famed pediatrician promoted a concept called attachment parenting. We became so attached that if she sighed, one of us would wear her like a necklace.

I wasn’t alone. Long before I fumbled my way through motherhood, bewildered new moms and dads had fueled the rise of an industry, with professional parenting guides replacing the examples once set by one’s own folks and aunts and cousins.

The gospel of the “good-enough” mom a la

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Dr. Donald Winnicott gave way to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s notions on all-consuming nurturing, with a succession of others like Sears offering new takes. New parents earnestly shared successes and failures with strangers in parenting classes that later gave way to online classes, podcasts, blogs, social media pages and prepared talks. Today, a mouse click can take you to Julie Lythcott-Haims’ TED Talk cau-

WITH TOO MUCH HELP, EVEN BABIES LEARN THEY CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO DO THINGS THEMSELVES OR SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS. “BE PRESENT AND RESPONSIVE, BUT TRUST THE BABY CAN DO THINGS.”

tion that with “overprotection, overdirection and handholding, we deprive our kids of the chance to build self-efficacy.”

As we learn to parent, we adopt a style: tiger moms and hovering helicopters, snowplows

clearing a path, drones taking down obstacles.

The process starts in those first unsure interactions with our own small human, sometimes as wobbly as a toddler’s steps. And it happens whether we’re aware of it or not, driven in part by the fear that we might get it wrong. But what if that fear is self-imposed?

The late Magda Gerber was worried like other mothers raising her daughter in Hungary through World War II, but a kind pediatrician shared an idea that changed the entire experience. Dr. Emmi Pikler taught her that even babies could communicate their needs if adults would slow down and pay attention.

Gerber came to believe that parents could do a lot less and enjoy their children more — a notion that launched another parenting movement, one that imposes calm, sets boundaries and treats an infant as a partner, rather than an experiment waiting to go wrong.

Gerber brought those ideas to America, where she co-founded a parent training program focused on the idea that newborns deserve respect and already have their own skills and inherent knowledge. Los Angeles-based Resources for Infant Educarers — shortened to RIE and pronounced “rye” — teaches parents to interact with children wholeheartedly

ILLU STR ATION BY K I M BE R LY M O R R I S

APRIL 2022

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MODERN FAMILY

but interfere minimally as long as the child is safe.

Research backs Gerber’s notion that babies are capable in their own right. A textbook published by the National Academy of Sciences says that babies pick up cues when someone is teaching them. “From very early on, children are not simply passive observers, registering the superficial appearance of things. Rather, they are building explanatory systems — implicit theories — that organize their knowledge.” Babies even “perceive the unfulfilled goals of others and intervene to help them.” In her own research, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik found

WHEN PARENTS REDIRECT THEIR ATTENTION, CHOOSE THEIR TOYS AND PROVIDE ENDLESS DISTRACTIONS, CHILDREN MAY BECOME PASSIVE. “KIDS ARE BORN WITH A LOVE OF LEARNING, BUT WE GET IN THE WAY.”

that children are master learners from birth, as part of their natural development.

Former actress and model Janet Lansbury, a RIE associate since 1994 and author of two books published in 2014, including “No Bad Kids,” says children even exercise creative, big-picture thinking. “They’re also building confidence in themselves as learners because they’re very inner-directed and self-motivated naturally,” she adds. But that drive can be undermined. When parents insist on redirecting their attention and choosing their toys and providing endless distractions, children may become passive about learning. Kids are born with a love of learning, she says, but we get in the way by deciding what we think they should learn.

RIE associates — who undergo intensive, lengthy training — describe the approach as slower, less demanding, more respectful parenting. Lansbury says RIE is a gift to parents in particular because it defuses their stress.

When RIE program director Melissa Coyne first encountered the philosophy in action, she already had a bachelor’s degree in child development and experience working in child care.

What she saw at the RIE-aligned center where 22

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she eventually worked for 22 years looked odd at first. Staffers talked to babies as if they were older, involving them in their own care. “I’m going to pick you up and change your diaper.

The cloth might be a little cold when I wipe your bottom.”

One caregiver asked a mom how the baby’s night was, then turned to the baby boy: “I’m talking to your mom about how your night was.”

“I thought it was a little strange at first,” says Coyne, who later earned a master’s degree in child development, “until I started to notice that the children would respond. Even very young infants.”

A worker squatted by a baby who was exploring a stream of light on the floor and told him she was going to change his diaper. Then she gave him a few seconds before she picked him up. Coyne watched the baby get ready, as if he was thinking, “Oh, here’s this thing she’s going to do where she picks me up and flies me through the air.” The baby readied himself because he’d been told what to expect, she says.

No surprises, no unexpected grabs. Though he was too young to speak, she could see him engage with his eyes and body language.

RIE parents were learning to focus intensely on their child, while deliberately withholding action — something I as a new mother often could not figure out how to do when my children fussed. I asked how such an approach might have played out for me those many years ago.

“It depends,” Coyne says — a favorite Gerber phrase. Gerber, who died in 2007, often answered questions with a thought-provoking question. Coyne says parents have varied reserves in a given moment. She would have told me to breathe deeply and pause, then talk to the baby but accept I might not always figure out why she cried. “I hear you. I am trying to understand what you’re telling me. I just changed your diaper. You ate. Maybe you have a gas bubble. Maybe you want to be put down.”

Gerber’s counsel, passed down by those she mentored, including Lansbury, is to always acknowledge a child’s feelings, but not necessarily try to change them. Babies need to experience their emotions. When a baby cries while trying to roll over, a RIE-trained parent watches to see if the baby can do it, calming her by simply engaging but not helping. “In our best-intentioned manner, we can take away that inner drive by being overly helpful,” says Coyne. The “educarer” intervenes if the baby’s too upset or needs help regulating emotions. After soothing the baby, Coyne says

she’s put back in the same position, to again work on rolling over.

Both Coyne and Lansbury sprinkle their explanations with Gerber quotes, delivered reverentially. “Magda said to offer the infant or child the least amount of help necessary for them to take over the task on their own,” Coyne says, because “‘a little bit of struggle is good.’”

When parents help too much, even babies learn they can’t be trusted to do things for themselves or solve their own problems. “Be present and responsive, but trust the baby can do things,” Coyne says.

Slowing down extends to letting a child develop at his or her own pace. Gerber believed parents should allow young children to move freely and naturally, instead of forcing gross motor development. Letting a child set their natural pace extends to potty training and other tasks, absent worries about developmental delays.

That’s contrary to American culture.

“We are very racehorse driven,” Coyne says, launching into a staccato: “Is he rolling over yet? Does she talk? Is he standing? Are you feeding him solids? Go, go, go! Magda said, ‘Why rush when nature has a perfect plan?’”

In nearly 30 years with RIE, Lansbury has worked with hundreds of families, following infants into their toddler years. She’s repeatedly seen different parents deal with the same issues, she says, which inspired her as she developed her books and her popular podcast, “Unruffled,” where she answers common parenting questions.

She says even babies need boundaries, first set by having a predictable trustworthy routine, which provides them with structure. Newborns have entered a world that can seem overwhelming. Boundaries help them feel secure, while also keeping them safe and protecting parent-child relationships. Gerber said absence of boundaries isn’t kindness but neglect.

But in the end, how much difference do different early parenting styles really make?

Lansbury thinks it’s probably a lot, but notes that studies can’t capture the nuances or measure how well parents implement the skills they’ve been taught.

For her — and for Coyne, too, though she started with RIE when her children were somewhat older — the proof is in the strong relationships they have with their children.

“Our relationship is amazing. They’d say that, too,” Lansbury says. “And that’s really all I wanted in the end.”

Courtesy: HARPO Productions, Inc. / Ruven Afanador

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ENCOURAGEMENT

MODERN FAMILY

CONFESSIONS OF A WORK-AT-HOME DAD FINDING BALANCE IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD

BY JE SS E H Y D E

I

used to dream of taking naps.

I got the idea from a magazine article, perhaps in Esquire, about a famous author who every day, after lunch, would go into his bedroom, change into his pajamas and take a long, glorious nap. At the time, I was working in an office, in a cubicle. This was long before COVID-19, when few of us could have imagined working from home. For me, putting this idea of a daily siesta into action would have required moving to Spain. And so there it remained, as nothing more than a hopeless dream.

But then the utterly unexpected happened.

The world was transformed by the pandemic.

And for all the terrible things it wrought, it brought a certain positive change into my life.

Midday, I’d drag a blowup camping mattress into my closet, shut the door, and in the dark silence of an empty house with the kids off to school, drift off into delicious afternoon sleep.

The best part, I told my wife, was how much more work I was getting done! Before the pandemic, my days began with a 45-minute commute to the office. But there, in that sequestered space designated for the sole purpose of 24

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getting work done, I’d find myself struggling to focus on the task at hand. Every day there were so many little things that gobbled up my time that, ironically, had nothing to do with

I REALLY LIKE WORKING FROM HOME. BUT IF I TRACK MY TIME, I’M PROBABLY LIKE MOST OTHER AMERICANS WHO WORK FROM HOME, WORKING THREE HOURS MORE A DAY THAN I DID BEFORE THE PANDEMIC.

my actual work: long lunches, idle chitchat, meetings. Now freed of all that, I was productive. Insanely productive.

And with less time commuting, I now had

more time with my kids. I could walk them to school, drive them to practice, volunteer to coach baseball and soccer teams. At first, this seemed like the greatest arrangement ever.

But as the pandemic lingered and remote work became routine, something slowly started to change. Without the commute, I could now start working as soon as I woke up, which I did. I often didn’t even take the time to change out of my pajamas. I went upstairs to my home office and worked. And worked.

And sometimes forgot to break for lunch. After dinner, if I got bored or just remembered something that needed to get done, I’d sneak back for another round.

Without realizing it, I stopped taking naps.

This was happening to dads like me across the country. We were having to grapple with the realities of working at home. Balancing work and fatherhood wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

Work became all-consuming. Before there was this bright line, a demarcation point between home and work, and by the time I was home from a long and exhausting commute on Interstate 15, the last thing I wanted to do

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MODERN FAMILY

was work. Home, mentally, was not the place for work. Home was the place to be with family. To roughhouse with my boys on the living room floor. To read my daughter a bedtime story.

Now, I was around my family all the time.

And I reasoned that this was good; I was spending more time with them than ever before. But in reality, I wasn’t. Because I wasn’t really there. My mind wasn’t at least. It was upstairs, in my home office, where work was waiting for me. Bedtime stories were sacrificed for emails and calls about crises I can’t even remember now. Work stuff.

Remote work once seemed like a temporary, emergency response to the pandemic.

But now that we’ve realized how much we can get done without actually having to pay for office space, and how much cheaper that is, it’s likely to become the norm for millions of Americans.

What impact will this have on families?

Researching this article I found all sorts of essays asking that question. All with a variation of basically the same headline. “America’s Parents Are Not Okay” (The Week, February 2021); “Parents Are Not Okay” (The Atlantic, August 2021); “The Parents of the Youngest Children are Not Okay” (Vox, January 2022); “Your Co-Workers With Kids Are Not Ok” (Slate, February 2022). By April 2020, according to Bloomberg, Americans working from home were logging three more hours on the job each day. And this was leading to burnout, and something fairly unprecedented in American life: quitting en masse or as it’s been cleverly coined, the Great Resignation. An estimated 25 million people quit their jobs in the second half of 2021. In November alone, 4.5 million people quit.

And for those who perhaps couldn’t afford to quit and simply soldiered on through the burnout, there have been some pretty terrible health outcomes: weight gain, increased alcohol abuse, even a higher long-term risk of heart disease and stroke.

Reading all these articles, I was reminded that I’m lucky. I’m not a high school teacher, or a nurse or a single mom who has to shell out a huge chunk of her salary for child care. I thought of the parents of young children who had to somehow keep working full time, from home, when the pandemic more or less shut down day care across the country.

I have a great job that I love, and the fact that I can whine about whether or not I can take naps reminds me of the summer when I

worked construction for a cousin and dug a ditch all day with a shovel. A ditch he didn’t need me to dig but thought it would be funny.

Or the semester I worked in a hot dog plant.

Or the summer I built scaffolding at a mine.

Fast forward 25 years. I get paid to type. It’s a pretty good gig.

And I really like working from home. But I’d be lying if I said I’m a statistical outlier. If I track how much time I work, I’m probably like most other Americans who work from home, working three hours more a day than I did before the pandemic. And while I’m lucky to get paid to do something I love, I have felt pretty burnt out.

But what’s really bothered me is that I feel that I’m a less engaged father, and kinda cranky as a husband. Thinking about that Slack message I’ve got to send while my wife is talking to me about that day’s trip to the dentist and the cost of braces. Present in body, but not in mind.

So what’s the answer? Here are a few tips from the experts: Get ready for work the same way you do when you’re going to the office.

Disconnect when the work day is over. No work calls. No emails. No Slack.

Go home. Meaning, when you’re done working for the day, shut off your laptop, get up from your workspace, and go “home.”

Go for a walk. This helps you mentally switch from work mode to home mode, or in my case, dad mode.

Plan after-work time. This could be as simple as going to the gym, making dinner or meeting up with friends. The key is to set a specific reason to “leave” work on time.

And if you feel guilty about working less, don’t. Americans work longer hours than much of the industrialized world. In fact, Europeans have cut their work hours by about 20 percent over the last 50 years. Spain, Iceland and Japan are all experimenting with four-day workweeks, based on research that productivity actually tails off after about 35 hours a week.

I also found another interesting nugget researching this essay. One of the best things you can do if you work from home is take breaks, and many experts recommend — wait for it — taking a nap! After all, Leonardo da Vinci was a serial napper, Albert Einstein proudly napped, and while Thomas Edison was embarrassed about it, he, too, was a ritual napper.

Maybe I can again commit to the practice.

It will make me a better worker. And more importantly, a better dad.

WORK BECAME ALLCONSUMING. BEFORE, THERE WAS THIS BRIGHT LINE, A DEMARCATION POINT BETWEEN HOME AND WORK, AND BY THE TIME I WAS HOME FROM A LONG AND EXHAUSTING COMMUTE ON INTERSTATE 15, THE LAST THING I WANTED TO DO WAS WORK.

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LEADERSHIP

THE NEW RULES ANCESTRY CEO DEB LIU KNOWS THE PLAYING FIELD IS UNEVEN. THAT’S WHY SHE’S CHANGING THE GAME AS TO L D TO L AU R E N STE E L E

W

hen Jim Citrin — a noted expert on leadership, executive success and CEO succession — reached out to Deb Liu about interviewing for the role of CEO at a public company, Liu asked, “Why me?” — immediately recoiling from the idea.

But all she had to do was look at her family tree to find the insight she needed to answer that question for herself. The child of two Chinese immigrants, Liu grew up in Hanahan, South Carolina, and had always been inspired by her parents. “They came to the U.S. in the ’60s with a couple of suitcases and a couple hundred dollars and built their life here.” The tremendous courage she saw in them she was also able to find in herself.

In March 2021, as a mother of three, Liu was named CEO of Ancestry — the world’s largest consumer DNA network, which is based in Lehi, Utah. Ancestry now employs more than 1,400 people, earns more than $1 billion in annual revenue and has collected more than 13 billion ancestral profiles for its users to find and learn more about their heritage. For Liu, who had found so much wisdom in the stories of those in her family who came before her, the mission of the company felt like a perfect fit.

Now, as she marks one year in the position, Liu looks back on what she’s learned about those who came before her, diversity in the workforce and opportunities available to women

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— and looks ahead to making a better world for the next generation of business leaders.

Jim Citrin “Why me?” his response was, “Why not? This is your chance.”

And he was right.

When I first doubted myself and said “no,” I was contributing to the problem of keeping diverse leadership out of the room. A sense of

WHEN I AS K E D

I HOPE THAT BY THE TIME MY DAUGHTERS AND SON GET TO THE WORKPLACE THEY THINK ALL THESE BARRIERS AND INEQUALITIES ARE CRAZY THINGS OF THE PAST AND IT NEVER HAPPENS TO THEM.

belonging is so important, but it’s harder as a woman or minority. And I get that. The system and a lot of things are not fair, but at the same time, when you do have the opportunity, you have to embrace it. My leadership coach recently told me something that really stuck with me. She said, “When you’re in that room and you’re looking around and no one looks like you, you should take every advantage of that. Show up and get the job done.” She was

right. You don’t get every opportunity, but you have to take every opportunity you do get.

That’s something that I think about for my daughters.

My eldest, when she was about 10, came to visit my office in Lehi, and looked around and said very matter of fact, “You mostly work with boys.”

It’s something that hasn’t changed since I was a student. I went to Duke to study engineering. My dad was an engineer. My sister was studying engineering at Georgia Tech. It seemed like a natural thing for me to study.

But when I showed up to my first class, I was in for a shock. I was like, where are all the girls?

One class had 70 men and only four women.

And I remember walking down the ramp into the lecture hall thinking, “Oh my, this is really uncomfortable.”

Recently, a former colleague brought his daughter with him to a meeting of all the managers at the company. Before the meeting started as everyone was seated, she asked him, “Is this meeting only for boys?” She was only four at the time. And he had to tell her, “No, it’s not, but we can do better.”

And he’s right. She was, too. This is what the playing field looks like to the perspective of a four-year-old. These inequalities don’t go unnoticed by our children. They have observations that turn into impactful experiences.

And that translates into many people making a decision early on that will affect the rest of their life, just based on a sense of belonging they’ve gathered. And those observations continue to reinforce themselves throughout adulthood and at the office.

For example, we were thinking about acquiring a company and had a big meeting with that company. The CEO starts talking to one of my teammates that I manage. And the CEO only talks to that man on my team — I am cut out of the conversation. At some point, my teammate gestures to me and very calmly says, “You know, she decides whether we buy your company or not.” And the CEO was horrified, just beet red.

But the inequality isn’t just experienced, it’s documented. There are studies that say men PHOTOGR AP H Y BY C A R O LY N FO N G

are seen as leaders if they’re competent, but women have to be competent and warm.

Another study showed that in the office, women are expected to stay late with their team with no reward. But if men stay late, they’re rewarded. There are so many of these studies that show there are different expectations that we have of men and women in the workplace. A lot of it is just ingrained in us. Is it fair to have an extra requirement of women that men don’t have? It’s absolutely not fair.

But I want to identify those barriers and the things that we can do to change them.

The question becomes, what are you gonna do about it? The playing field is uneven and there are a lot of things playing against you, so you’ve got to take the raw materials you have and turn them into fuel to get to where you

want to go. Even if it’s hard to imagine getting there.

If you close your eyes and imagine what a leader looks like, I think we kind of have the fixed idea that a leader is a person at the front — but actually, a great leader is at the back, making sure no one falls behind.

This goes beyond diversity that is just a checkbox for workplaces. I’m not just talking about pure representation. I’m talking about seeing people in action and seeing those differences actually become strengths. And if you take every chance you have to help other people and rise together, you can get much further than you thought you could.

If that CEO of that company we were contemplating acquiring was just playing the odds of who he thought was in charge of our company, the chances were that he probably would’ve been right, probability-wise. More executives, business leaders and CEOs in this country are men and are white. And at the end of the day, we have a lot of stereotypes that are easy to play into. When you walk into a room, you defer to the most powerful person — and who that person may be is often identified only by making assumptions. Currently, we don’t automatically default to the person who’s a woman or someone of color, because the odds say that the leader is probably going to be white and a man. I hope to change those odds someday.

I hope that by the time my daughters and son get to the workplace they think all these barriers and inequalities are crazy things of the past and it never happens to them. But you know, there are a lot of women I’ve talked to that thought that by the time they got into the workplace and rose to the top, this would no longer be a problem. And yet, here we are. I have a lot of hope for the future, but I also am realistic about some of the challenges that we face. And that means that we have to be more cognizant of the challenges we do have, but also take every opportunity we can to make a positive change.

D E B O RA H L I U ’S U P C O M I N G B O O K , “ TA K E B AC K YO U R P OW E R : 1 0 N E W RU L E S F O R WO M E N AT WO R K ,” W I L L B E P U B L I S H E D I N AU G U ST 2 0 2 2

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NATIONAL AFFAIRS

BOOKS AS A BATTLEGROUND BOOK BANS HAVE BECOME THE NEW FRONT IN THE CULTURE WARS. WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON HERE?

BY L AU R E N Z B U S C H

G

athering at the Mukilteo district office on a frigid Monday night, the five elected members of the school board were about to make national news. It’s a rarity in Everett, Washington, a suburban afterthought on the Puget Sound north of Seattle. The small working-class city might merit a presidential campaign stop — voting consistently Democratic since the 1980s, its demographic echoes areas the GOP has flipped — but it’s no fixture on network TV. But in late January, that was about to change. After reading a land acknowledgment and reciting the pledge of allegiance, the board dove into its first question: whether to remove “To Kill a Mockingbird” from the district’s ninth grade required curriculum.

The classic novel — selected by readers of The New York Times Book Review as the best book of the past 125 years — is a coming-ofage story that plays out during the 1930s in a small Alabama town, where the adolescent protagonist grapples with violence, mental illness, injustice and racism. Inspired by author Harper Lee’s own experiences, the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and later became a common vehicle for teachers to discuss race in America. But now it’s a frequent target of challenges from parents concerned over its depiction of racist language and “white saviorhood,” and its potential to make students feel uncomfortable.

The board tiptoed into the national debate before an audience of about 50 who braved subfreezing temperatures to attend and another 49 watching remotely. By turns, members praised the power of the book’s storytelling, acknowledged an outpouring of community support for the book and fretted over the future impact of this decision on other books. Some questioned the text’s harsh 30

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subject matter and white point of view; others argued that teachers could still be trusted to guide young people through fraught material.

But after three student representatives and a dozen public commenters argued that the book was outdated and caused more harm than good, the board voted unanimously to delist it.

The decision was reported in news outlets of every stripe, but without the outrage one might expect. Maybe people had grown tired of discussing this one book — Tucker Carlson had already ranted about its removal from another district’s curriculum a year earlier — or maybe Mukilteo was too small to cause a splash at a time when libraries and reading lists have become heated political battlegrounds.

“WHAT YOU’RE SEEING IS HOW MUCH WE DO NOT TRUST TEACHERS TO HAVE THE EXPERTISE IN WHAT THEY DO. IT’S REALLY THE JOB OF THE TEACHER TO SAY, ‘THIS IS THE BEST BOOK FOR MY CURRICULUM AND THIS IS HOW I’M TEACHING IT.’”

Breathless headlines announcing the return of book bans erupted across the national media.

At first blush, the reports could seem sensational, a narrative driven by political campaigns that could be decided in schools. But the growth in efforts to suppress books is real.

Last November, the American Library Association warned of “widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. schools and libraries,” while The

New York Times reported that the association received “330 reports of book challenges” — attempts to remove books from library shelves and classroom curricula — last fall. For comparison, the association reported about 240 book challenges in the entire year of 2017.

Many books are targeted for their portrayals of harsh realities. A few weeks before the Mukilteo decision, “Maus,” a Pulitzer-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, was similarly delisted by a school district in Tennessee.

In “Maus,” Jews are depicted as mice and Nazis as cats. It was removed from McMinn County Schools over eight curse words and nudity, which the school board deemed unnecessary.

“It’s like when you’re watching TV and a cuss word or nude scene comes on (and) it would be the same movie without it,” argues board member Tony Allman. “Well, this would be the same book without it.”

Beyond school board meetings, where parents, students or teachers can voice their concerns, the movement to restrict material has spread to state legislatures. One Texas Republican, Matt Krause, recently released a list of 850 books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Krause asked schools to investigate whether they possessed copies.

Out of the 125 bills Pen America tracked over the past year that seek to censor educational material, 72 were filed in January alone.

Eighty-four of them target K-12 schools.

Many of the bills also threaten severe consequences for educators who teach prohibited material. For example, Oklahoma Senate Bill 1142, introduced last December, would allow parents to seek monetary damages at a minimum of $10,000 per day, if a book is not removed within 30 days after a parent submits

ILLU STR ATION BY R O BE RT N E U BE C K E R

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BOOK-BANNING CROSSHAIRS OFTEN HONE IN ON POLARIZING IDEOLOGIES THAT ARE EITHER PRESENT IN THE BOOK OR ARE PERCEIVED TO INFORM THE TEACHINGS AROUND IT. ONE REASON: POLARIZATION CAN BE AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS AND FUNDRAISING.

a written request to the school district. The bill would also ban certain books related to the study of sex or that contained sexual content. In Indiana, House Bill 1362 would allow violators to be sued for including or promoting “certain ideas about sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.”

Combined with the bans on broad topics, these punishments can have a chilling effect on teachers and other educational professionals.

For example, when choosing books, librarians are likely to “play it safe, you don’t buy the books that are going to get parents mad,” says James LaRue, former executive director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Emily Knox, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies intellectual freedom and censorship, says that the increased conflict over educational material stems in part from a political backlash to demographic and cultural changes as the U.S. evolves, becoming a nation with no true ethnic majority. But she also believes that such disagreements are driven by divergent perspectives on how America came to be what it is. “For many people, it (seemed) like there (was) a consensus on our history,” she says.

“What we’ve seen over the past five to 10 years is that there is not, in fact, a consensus.”

Another issue is the relationship between parents and teachers, Knox says. “What you’re seeing is how much we do not trust teachers to have the expertise in what they do. It’s really the job of the teacher to say, ‘This is the best book for my curriculum and this is how I’m teaching it.’” She contrasts that with certain censorious parents, who instead believe that teachers “have nefarious ideas about what our children should know. We don’t trust your expertise.” This is especially pronounced among political conservatives.

Only about 53 percent of Republicans believed that colleges and universities in America had a positive effect on American civic life in 2012, according to Pew Research Center. By 2019, that percentage had fallen to 33. don’t only come from the right. When it comes to books like “To Kill A Mockingbird,” LaRue says that the left-leaning argument is a “pushback against (attacks) on marginalized populations.” For instance, reading aloud racial slurs such as the N-word could make a Black student in a predominately white classroom feel uncomfortable. Nonetheless, LaRue says that even these

OF CO U RS E , CONT ROV E RS IE S

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books are important, and to categorize them as one thing or another, does a disservice. “It’s exactly like somebody saying Toni Morrison is about sex. These books are not about racism. They do reflect racism from the time, but that’s not what the books are about.”

Still, the book-banning crosshairs often hone in on polarizing ideologies that are either present in the book or are simply perceived to form part of the teachings around it. One reason: Polarization can be an effective strategy in political campaigns and fundraising. In a related example, Glenn Youngkin campaigned against critical race theory in last fall’s Virginia gubernatorial election, and won. “You have a real and genuine fear that our society is changing around us,” LaRue says. Tapping into that fear, he argues, “has been proven to generate money and that goes into its leveraging individual parental fears.”

Tellingly, it’s been reported that banning books actually makes them more popular.

And in the age of the Internet, removing a book from a shelf doesn’t always make it inaccessible. Scott Denham, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, offered a free online course on “Maus” to McMinn County high school students. Ryan Higgins, owner of Comics Conspiracy in Sunnyvale, California, promised on Twitter to donate 100 copies of the book to families in his school district.

Across the country, students have been forming banned book clubs in protest.

In a world of smartphones, social media, TV, movies and the vastness of the Internet, why are books being attacked? For Knox, it comes down to symbolism. “What if I just walked on these books?” she asks, “What if I just dumped a bunch of books on the floor?

Why do we have a reaction to that? Because the book as an object has a certain sacred quality. It’s really that idea that this technology has developed over time to be almost as important as the text itself.”

Back in Everett, Mukilteo school board member John Gahagan reread “To Kill a Mockingbird,” to refresh memories that “had the gloss of time.” He’d heard the complaints but knew that some teachers felt capable of helping their students to understand the difficult language and subject matter. That was before the vote, which took the book off the required list but still allows educators to teach it. What Gahagan found was a “disturbing and excellent piece of literature” — a phrase that might get closest to the crux of the issue.

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LIFE – AND PRO-LIFE – AFTER ROE V. WADE AS THE SUPREME COURT RETHINKS ABORTION, ACTIVISTS PREPARE FOR THE FALLOUT

BY D. H U N TE R S C H WA R Z

N

early 50 years after the United States Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on abortion were unconstitutional, the court could be on the verge of reversing that stance. Sometime this summer, the court is expected to rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a 2018 challenge to a Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. The outcome could effectively end the efficacy of Roe v.

Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that once seemed to change the legality of reproductive rights forever.

The Dobbs ruling has the potential to transform abortion access for women across the country. While there are pathways for a limited ruling, a full reversal of Roe would revert to states the authority to decide their own laws governing the procedure, which medically terminates a pregnancy before the fetus is viable. That seems more likely considering the court’s 6-3 conservative majority. “There’s excitement in the air,” says Sue Swayze Liebel, state policy director at Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political action committee.

“A lot of lives will be saved.”

In anticipation of that possible outcome, the Arizona Senate recently passed a ban on abortion after 15 weeks, mirroring the Mississippi law, as did the Florida House. Overall, 26 states are expected to ban the procedure should the court overturn or gut Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice reproductive health research and policy group.

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In the West, Idaho and Utah are among 12 states with “trigger” bans set to go into effect should the case be overturned, and Arizona is one of eight with a pre-Roe prohibition of abortion that remains on the books and could again become enforceable. California, Oregon and Washington all have laws protecting the procedure.

Activists are also preparing for the impact on women dealing with unwanted pregnancies.

A DOBBS DECISION COULD BE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT RULING ON ABORTION IN HALF A CENTURY, BUT IT WOULDN’T END THE DEBATE AS LONG AS THE PRACTICE CONTINUES.

Anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony List are recommending that states expected to ban abortion take stock of social services available to women and families through government agencies, faith organizations and the private sector. It can be a complex map of public and private services, including medical care,

job training and parenting classes, and “one of the things that we are looking at is ways to help women navigate all those things,” Liebel says.

On the other hand, providers in states where abortion is expected to continue are bracing for increased demand, beefing up their capacities, training additional staff and even planning to build new clinics. Groups are working together, building stronger relationships to pool resources and provide complimentary services, especially in communities near conservative state borders, like Spokane, Washington. Cutting access to abortions for millions of Americans will increase the stress on reproductive health structures that are already inundated, says Iris Alatorre, a program manager for the Northwest Abortion Access Fund. The fund works in Washington, Idaho and Alaska. More than half of the calls to its hotline already come from Idaho, which has the most restrictive laws in the fund’s coverage area and few providers.

The number of abortions in the U.S. is on the decline. Between 2011 and 2017, abortions fell 19 percent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, including in states that didn’t pass abortion restrictions. Among the likely contributing factors to this drop, the organization listed lower pregnancy rates due to increased contraceptive use, a decline in sexual activity among young people and rising infertility.

It’s unclear what might come next for the anti-abortion movement if Roe is overturned. In 1973, that decision energized the

KEN T NISHIM URA / LOS ANGELES T IM ES VIA GET T Y IM AGES

ABORTI ON RI GHTS ADVOCATES AND ANT I-AB ORT ION P ROT E ST E RS DE MONST RAT E IN F RONT OF T H E SUP R E M E COURT ON WEDNESDAY, DECECEM B E R 1 , 2 02 1 . T H E JU ST IC E S WIL L WE IGH WH E T H E R TO U P H OL D A MISS I SS I PPI LAW THAT BANS MOST ABORTI ONS AF T E R 1 5 WE E KS AND OV E RRU L E T H E 1 973 ROE V. WADE DE C IS ION.

movement. Cardinal John Krol, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the time, called it “an unspeakable tragedy.”

The first March for Life was organized in January 1974, one year later. Abortion galvanized social conservatives and has since become one of the defining social issues for the political right. A Dobbs decision could be the most significant ruling on abortion in half a century, but it wouldn’t end the debate as long as the practice continues.

Nationally, Americans lean toward allowing abortions, with a 2021 Pew poll finding 59 percent believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A similar percentage told Gallup last year that they do not want Roe

overturned. An even higher 83 percent believe abortion should be legal if the life of the mother is in danger, while 77 percent believe it should be legal in cases of rape or incest and 60 percent believe it should be legal during the first three months of pregnancy. And while abortion sharply divides the two major political parties, more than a third of Republicans support it. Nearly a fifth of Democrats do not.

Some expect the issue to become even more divisive, and activists say the fight will continue.

“Everybody says it’ll go back to the states’ rights, but I am incredibly skeptical,” says Grayson Dempsey, a consultant at the Lilith

Clinic, an abortion provider in Portland, Oregon. “I think that the very next step that they will go after is a nationwide ban on abortion care.”

Others, however, see a scenario in which the court's ruling is more focused on the case at hand and doesn’t significantly upend broad precedent. The court under Chief Justice John Roberts has gained a reputation for bringing both conservative and liberal justices into majority opinions on contentious issues by issuing decisions focused on narrow areas of agreement. But whether the court will do the same on what could prove to be the most consequential ruling in a generation remains to be seen.

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AN ILLOGICAL OASIS GOLF COURSES GUZZLE WATER. CAN THAT LAST IN A TIME OF EXTREME DROUGHT?

BY E TH A N B AU E R

J

im behnke parks his electric-powered golf cart on the sidewalk and stares out at what looks like the crossroads between two worlds. To our right, the dusty orange rock of the Southwest desert, with a few scattered shrubs and not much else. To our left, the lush greenery of a grassy fairway, veiled under the mist of sprinklers. Here, even on a golf course, the grass seems incommodious — an artificial, prickly green invader that interrupts the desert landscape.

Behnke, 66, comes here, to the private golf course at Entrada in St. George, almost every day. He’s retired, lives in the neighborhood and knows more about golf than most. He’s played every course in Utah, and at least one course in all 50 states. That’s why, when Entrada decided to overhaul its then-23-year-old golf course in 2019, its leadership consulted with Behnke. He can talk about innovative tee boxes or fast-moving greens endlessly. But conversations these days stress the course’s need for water efficiency. “We have to use less water,” Behnke says, his short, silver curls jutting from beneath the brim of a gray Titleist cap. That’s why the course is upgrading the irrigation system, which previously used about 145 million gallons per year. Golf course managers, players and ordinary citizens alike are realizing that such numbers aren’t sustainable.

Entrada hopes to get down to somewhere in 36

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the range of 105 million to 115 million gallons a year using the most innovative methods, and not a moment too soon.

These days — at a time when the Western U.S. is facing a 20-year “megadrought” that happens to be the worst in modern history — the mere optics of green fairways in the desert prompt questions about the relative

“HOW MUCH WATER OUGHT TO BE DEDICATED TO A GAME THAT BENEFITS RELATIVELY FEW?”

importance of golf and how it fits into the parched landscapes of Utah, Nevada, Southern California and Arizona.

The Colorado River’s water levels are at an all-time low. The Lake Mead reservoir dropped to its lowest levels ever recorded following a 20-year decline, threatening a historic agreement between Western states governing how its water is apportioned. States are having to rethink how much water there is as well as how it’s used. The largest water guzzler in Utah, by far, is farming. But golf courses, while a

small contributor to water use in comparison to sectors like public use and hydroelectric power, suck up more water than the state’s livestock. The U.S. Geological Survey’s most recent water use data for Utah shows the state uses about 38 million gallons of water on golf courses per day — enough to fill almost 58 Olympic-size swimming pools. “Golfer expectations, I think, need to change,” says T.A. Barker, superintendent at the Fore Lakes Golf Course in Taylorsville, Utah, and director of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

It might seem unfair to “pick on” golf when industries like snowsports and agriculture put more duress on our resources, but those industries currently prove more beneficial by providing higher rates of overall employment and revenue, even though golf can be a potent financial force in terms of revenue per acre of water used. The most recent available numbers for employment and economic impact from golf are from 2012, with the next release planned for 2023. But that (admittedly outdated) report states $805.6 million of direct, indirect and induced economic output; $250.1 million of wage income; and 9,625 jobs credited to the golf industry in Utah. Those numbers are likely to have risen thanks to golf ’s bump in popularity during the pandemic, but they’re still dwarfed by Utah’s

J I M BEHNKE, CHAI RMAN OF TH E GRE E NS COMMIT T E E AT E NT RADA AT S NOW C ANYON, LOV E S GOL F, BUT HE ALS O K NOWS T H E GAME MU ST ADAP T TO S U RV IV E .

PHOTOGR AP H Y BY S PE N S E R H E A PS

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T.A. BARKER, CERTI FI ED GOL F COU RS E S U P E RINT E NDE NT AT F ORE L AK E S GOL F COU RS E IN TAYLORSVI LLE, UTAH, BELI EVES T H AT GOL F WIL L E VOLV E AS T H E WE ST E RN DROU GH T WORS E NS .

main outdoor industry. Outdoor snow recreation, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, accounts for $4.9 billion in gross domestic product, $2.7 billion in compensation and 61,890 jobs.

Golf has long enjoyed a prominent place on the mantle of upper-class America — particularly among men — which makes it a potent flashpoint for issues at the intersection of economy, recreation, equity and climate change. And understanding why, as well as what the future might look like, starts with understanding what golf is — not as a game, but as a consequential social factor. “A golf course’s impact on neighboring communities and, by implication, on a global water system is … a legitimate focus of human rights litigation and advocacy,” wrote Richard P. Hiskes, University of Connecticut emeritus professor of political science and human rights, in the May 2010 issue of the journal Human Rights Quarterly.

Golf — especially in the West — is an activity 38

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most often pursued by relatively few. According to the most recent data from the National Golf Foundation, about 250,000 people played the sport in Utah in 2021. That number includes all

UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE FUTURE MIGHT LOOK LIKE STARTS WITH UNDERSTANDING WHAT GOLF IS — NOT AS A GAME, BUT AS A CONSEQUENTIAL SOCIAL FACTOR.

kinds of golf, from driving ranges and Topgolf to more traditional, 18-hole courses. That’s a lot of people — but that’s only about 8 percent of Utah’s population. And that small

percentage tends to skew to be upper class.

With that in mind, the question then becomes, “How much water ought to be dedicated to a game that benefits relatively few?”

This isn’t to say public golf courses don’t have communal benefits and aren’t accessible in their most basic form. A prospective player can pick up some used clubs at a thrift store and play late in the afternoon for a reduced price at a municipal course. But that isn’t normally how the story goes. “Despite members of the working class being able to access the sport, the sort of social imagination and material reality of the sport is very different,” Hugo Ceron-Anaya, professor of sociology at Lehigh University, says. “You have wealthier-than-average folks playing, and that, I think, is part of the tension.” The median price of 18 holes at a public course on the weekend, according to a 2018 Golf Channel survey, was $36. That figure could vary significantly given the many variables surrounding it, but regardless, it helps

explain that tension — which figures to increase as the population of the West continues to swell. States in the region are growing faster than anywhere in the nation. Utah, according to the most recent U.S. Census numbers, leads the way. Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona all crack the top 10.

With this impeding squeeze of a growing population and dwindling water resources, the benefits of a golf course can be achieved in a way that’s more advantageous for a wider swath of the public, says Alessandro Rigolon, a professor in the University of Utah’s department of city and metropolitan planning. “We are dedicating a lot of water to a resource that very few people are using on a daily or weekly basis when we could use that water for a soccer field that hundreds more people are going to use,” he explains. “In a context of competition and scarcity for water, using that water for a hobby that only a few do is subsidizing that hobby.”

Which is why stewardship, Barker says, is all the more important. “We want to do our part,” he says. “But we also want to please our golfers.” In other words, he knows change is necessary — if not explicitly to support the environment, then at least to keep courses financially afloat.

At Entrada on that sunny St. George day, Behnke and I continue our drive through the course, pausing at a fairway. St. George is a tough area for green lawns; the temperature can reach over 100 degrees in summer and under 20 in winter, which means whatever grass Entrada plants must be versatile. This particular variety of grass — flagstick grass — is normally a cold-weather variety, but this strain has been genetically engineered to withstand the heat. It also requires less water than what Entrada had before. Between the new grass and the new irrigation system, Behnke says the course is hoping to save 30 million to 40 million gallons per year. And — aside from the environmental benefits — that can also make for a new way to enjoy the game. “I think having courses not use as much water is going to actually take us back to the old Scottish roots of learning how to play,” he says. “You learn how to roll the ball off the ground, you learn how to hit different shots off the ground, and go from there. Which is, to me, a lot more fun than just throwing the ball in high every time.”

Better technology and new strains of grass are one potential contributor to salve golf ’s water problem. Rigolon offers a few others.

His goal is to make the water used by golf courses reach further, for the benefit of more

THE E DGE OF T H E NE WLY RE NOVAT E D E NT RADA AT S NOW C ANYON GOL F CO U R S E T R A N S I TI O N S INTO AN ARE A OF NAT U RAL V E GE TAT ION AND DIRT, WH E RE P RE V IOU S LY T H E R E WAS T U R F.

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A B OVE : THE E N TR A DA AT S N OW C A N YO N G O LF CO U RSE IN ST. GE O R GE. R I G HT: JIM B E HN K E CO L L A B O R ATE D O N R ED E S I GN E F F O R TS F O R T HE N E W LY R E N OVATED E NT R A DA CO UR SE THAT CO U LD B R IN G B AC K N AT U R A L VE GE TATIO N A N D CO N SE RVE WATE R.

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than the players. A light touch, he explains, could take the form of simple versatility: making a golf course more of a park by adding a basketball court or a playground, for example, or welcoming the use of its paths for joggers or dog walkers. Salt Lake City, he explains, as part of its “Reimagine Nature” initiative, has looked at integrating other uses into public courses. Other, less golf-friendly options would be to downsize golf courses — turning an 18-hole course into a nine-hole course and turning the back nine into a large, regional park. A more extreme measure would be to close some courses. “You don’t get rid of all of them, of course,” he says. But a few closed courses could potentially address several Western concerns at once by creating more accessible green space, using less water and, as in California, even serving as a site for new affordable housing.

Whether or not Rigolon’s proposals become reality, some golf courses are sure to remain. And for the people tasked with managing them, the question of water often distills to a simple economic reality. “If water is being properly priced,” says Ed Osann, director of the National Water Use Efficiency, Water Initiatives, Healthy People and Thriving Communities Program at the National Resource Defense Council, “then you may have fewer

of these irrational placements of extremely high water-using operations in areas that have great water scarcity. I think that professional golf course managers, and their association, are quite conscious of the significance of water use by golf courses. Attitudes about water consumption have changed.” Which is why Barker, like Behnke, is enthusiastic rather than apprehensive about what could be next for the game. “I think golf will evolve,” he says.

Behnke and I scuttle along in the golf cart, approaching the final act of the tour he’s given me. We coast to a stop in front of a green fairway that gives way to a sea of volcanic basalt rock. There are piles and piles of it, jagged and dark. It’s one of the few courses in the continental U.S., Behnke explains, that features lava formations. It has been known to golfers past as a dreaded stretch where golf balls went to die, requiring almost perfect shots to avoid getting sucked in. Behnke casually acknowledges that you can learn a lot about those golfers by how they react to tough situations, like when they hit the ball into these saw-toothed stones.

When it comes to water, climate and their overlap with golf and its social niche, maybe the same is true of us, as Americans and as Westerners. In however small of a purview, perhaps golf — quite visibly and literally — can show us what we value.

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SPECIAL ISSUE

THE

STATE — OF —

FAITH

YES, ORGANIZED RELIGION IS ON THE DECLINE. B U T N E W R E S E A R C H S H O W S FA I T H S T I L L P L AY S A P OW E R F U L , U N I F Y I N G R O L E I N A M E R I C A N L I F E

BY K E L S E Y DA L L AS I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S T U D I O M U T I

APRIL 2022

43

We’ve all heard the headlines. Church membership is dropping. Secularization is rising. Religious activities no longer anchor the average American’s social life. And yet a new survey from the Deseret News and Marist Poll shows that the story of faith in America is far more complicated — and nuanced. Among many groups, faith is thriving, resilient and even on the rise.

QUESTION:

Do you believe the moral compass in this country is pointed in the right direction?

RESPONSE:

22 7 72 %

RIGHT

%

UNSURE

%

WRONG

NUMBERS DO NOT EQUAL 100 PERCENT DUE TO ROUNDING

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According to the new research, the share of Americans who pray regularly is high and holding steady. Especially among Black Americans, religious disengagement is the exception, not the rule.

And the vast majority of Americans still believe in a higher power, while a majority believe in the biblical God. Despite the common assumption that Democrats are godless, nearly two-thirds of members of the party believe in God and 24 percent attend church at least once a week.

Furthermore, most people continue to see faith as a good thing. Nearly 7 in 10 U.S. adults think the country would be better off if Americans prayed for each other. Just 37 percent say it’s hard for people who don’t believe in God and people who do believe in God to get along, the new poll reports.

Taken together, these findings show that the U.S. remains a very religious country, especially compared to other industrialized nations. But it’s clear that a renegotiation is underway as people grow less willing to make strong religious commitments and more interested in doing things their own way, says Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center

on American Life and a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“We’ve gotten used to the ability to pick and choose what pieces of things we like. With our online dating profiles and social media profiles, we pick which people to engage with and what information or materials we want to see,” he says.

Young people, in particular, aren’t interested in making the sort of sacrifices that church membership demands. They may respect the moral wisdom of religious traditions, but fewer are heeding the religious call to build a community-focused life.

The younger you are, the less likely you are to believe in God, describe yourself as spiritual or regularly pray, notes Michael Conte, a research analyst for Marist Poll who worked with the Deseret News on the survey.

The modern affinity for do-it-yourself faith helps explain why, according to the new survey, just one-third of U.S. adults (34 percent) believe it’s necessary to be religious to live a moral life. It also likely plays a role in the rise of loneliness, the fall of life satisfaction and the widespread belief that America’s moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction. “People need and crave community,” Cox says.

Organized religion can fulfill that craving for people if they’ll give it a chance. As it stands, religiously disengaged Americans seem more interested in talking about the value of faith than embracing it themselves, according to Conte.

“It’s a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ type of thing,” he says.

Most researchers date the beginning of organized religion’s current decline to the mid-1990s. That’s when surveys began showing a notable uptick in the number of nonreligious adults.

QUESTION:

Do you believe each of the following is inspired by God?

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

RESPONSE:

FIRST AMENDMENT (FREE SPEECH)

62% 15TH

FIRST AMENDMENT (FREE SPEECH)

48

19TH AMENDMENT (WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE) 50%

15TH AMENDMENT (RIGHT TO VOTE)

48%

19TH AMENDMENT (WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE)

13% I BELIEVE IN THE GOD OR ANY HIGHER POWER OR SPIRITUAL FORCE

13% I BELIEVE IN THE GOD OR ANY HIGHER

50

AMENDMENT (RIGHT TO VOTE)

37%

SECOND AMENDMENT (RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS)

POWER OR SPIRITUAL FORCE “There was a decline in religious affiliation and participation,” Cox says. From 1995 to 15% who identified as 2021, the share of Americans I DO NOT BELIEVE THE GOD religious “nones” jumped 15INpercentage points, BUT I DO BELIEVE IN A HIGHER from 6 percent to 21 percent, according to POWER OR SPIRITUAL FORCE Gallup polls.

At first, many scholars thought the scope of the religious shift would be limited to people’s self-identification and church16% attendance rate.

I BELIEVE IN GODas BUTthe NOT counThe assumption was that, even AS DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE try disconnected from religious institutions, Americans would continue to practice their faith at home.

But recent research shows that religious beliefs have changed, too, albeit to a lesser extent than affiliation and attendance. Although overall belief in God is high, the share of U.S. adults who believe in God as described in the Bible has fallen to 54 percent. Fifteen percent of Americans say they don’t believe in God but, instead, some sort of higher power or spiritual force, according to the new poll from the Deseret News and Marist. It was fielded in January 2022 among 1,653 U.S. adults.

In general, Americans are increasingly willing to express doubt about the existence of God. There’s also growing acceptance of the idea that you can be moral even if you don’t have faith, Cox says. “People are changing how they think about the importance of raising kids in a religion and the connection between faith and morality. Negative views about atheists are on the decline.”

These trends are present within essentially all demographic groups, but members of some races, generations, political parties and religious communities are more likely to be religiously disengaged than others. For example, Democrats are nearly half as likely as Republicans to attend religious services at least

37%

SECOND 55%AMENDMENT (RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS)

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

UNSURE

71

%

UNSURE

Percentage of Americans who consider themselves spiritual, regardless of how often they attend religious services.

1%

weekly, the new research showed. Nearly twothirds (63 percent) of women pray 15% daily, compared to fewer than half (44 Ipercent) of men.

DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE GOD As Conte noted, young BUT people are much I DO BELIEVE IN A HIGHER POWER OR SPIRITUAL FORCE less likely than older Americans to attend worship services or profess belief in God. The survey also found that Americans ages 18 to 29 I BELIEVE IN THE GOD are less likely to describe themselves as spirituAS DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE 16% al than older adults.

“I was thinking we’d see younger people deI BELIEVE IN GOD BUT NOT scribe themselves as spiritual but not AS religious.

DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE It was interesting to see they were also lowest Unsure on the spirituality question,” Conte says.

On the flip side, Black Americans stand out for their high levels ofDisagree/ religious commitment.

1%

54%

54

I BELIEVE IN AS DESCRIBED

2%

Strongly Disagree

30%

QUESTION:

Do you, yourself, pray daily, weekly, monthly, less often than that, or not at all?

22

%

NOT AT ALL

9%

MONTHLY

30%

Strongly Agree/Agree

68% 1 %

UNSURE

53%

LESS OFTEN THAN THAT

3%

RESPONSE:

Disagree/ Strongly Disa

DAILY

12% WEEKLY

APRIL 2022

45

FRIENDS

65%

RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS

63%

RELIGIOUS LEADER WHERE YOU WORSHIP

57%

WELL-KNOWN SPIRITUAL LEADER

45%

BOSS OR WORK COLLEAGUE

29%

POLITICAL LEADER Describe your belief in God

16%

QUESTION:

American Church and Why It Matters.” “If you’re in crisis, that’s the folks who are there to help.”

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER 12% Other potential sources of community RESPONSE: OPRAH 10% rarely have the same type of unifying or nur% turing power, Cox says. You may gain friends ATHLETE 10% from joining a video game club or professional % I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD connections from a parent-teacher organizaOR ANY HIGHER POWER OR tion, but those groups won’t be able to rally to UNSURE SPIRITUAL FORCE support you in times of need in the same way that churches do.

“I can’t imagine the type of community created through video games is as effective in % terms of creating a sense of meaning and belonging as houses of worship,” Cox says.

Despite faith groups’ relative strengths, efI DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD forts to attract new members often fall on deaf BUT I DO BELIEVE THERE IS A HIGHER POWER OR ears.

Some Americans aren’t ready to forgive % SPIRITUAL FORCE religious leaders for ongoing crises stemming from abuses of power, says Smietana, who is also I BELIEVE IN GOD a national reporter for Religion News Service.

AS DESCRIBED “Organized religion has a bad rap. And IN THE BIBLE that’s, in part, because of its own problems,” % he says.

Other Americans believe their own values I BELIEVE IN GOD and goals are out of step with the moral viBUT NOT AS DESCRIBED sion that’s promoted within most faith com55% THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IN THE BIBLE NUMBERS DO NOT EQUAL 100 PERCENT DUE TO ROUNDING munities. They’re rejecting churches’ current teachings in addition 62% 1ST AMENDMENT (FREE SPEECH)to their actions in the Nearly half of Blacks say they attend church “All the research shows that being part of past, Cox says.

37% 2ND AMENDMENT TOmany BEARfolks, ARMS) at least weekly and two-thirds pray every day. a community, being married, being part of a (RIGHT “For there’s some amount of Three-quarters of Black Americans believe in church or religious organization, that all of distrust of religion. There’s some amount of 50% 15TH AMENDMENT (RIGHT TO VOTE) God as described in the Bible, compared to these are associated with greater satisfaction assumption that the values of a lot of places just half of whites and Latinos, according to in your personal life,” he19TH says, AMENDMENT adding that even of worship are consistent with their own48% (WOMEN’S RIGHT TOnot VOTE the new poll. tiresome social obligations can, counterintuivalues,” he says. tively, be a big source of joy.

These observations help explain why many “I’ve heard this over and over again when Americans are disengaged from faith groups I’ve interviewed Latter-day Saints. Demanddespite expressing interest in strengthening church-related schedules end up feeling ing their community ties. When considered These various trends affecting organized rewarding. That is really true,” Cox says. alongside young people’s particular disinterreligion are part of a broader transformation It’s also true that Americans recognize the est in attending church, it becomes clear that taking place in American culture. People today value of a strong social support system, retime may be running out to stop organized are less civically minded than they used to be, gardless of whether they have one themselves. religion’s decline. which leads them to prioritize individual purNearly nine in 10 U.S. adults, including 84 per“Being secular is a much more permanent suits over community ties, according to Cox. cent of those who do not practice a religion, state than I think we initially thought,” Cox “There’s been a real shift away from comagree that it’s important to be part of a closesays. munity and civic organizations toward personknit community, the new poll found. al endeavors,” he says, adding that, although These findings point to a potential sales parents spend more time with their kids today pitch for churches to make as they try to attract than in the past, families are less likely to attend new attendees and members. Faith leaders can neighborhood events or eat dinner together. emphasize the social aspect of organized reliThe widespread breakdown in the social gion, reminding people that religious commufabric helps explain why many Americans nities share more than a set of beliefs. were feeling lonely and burnt out even before “One of the things religious congregations the COVID-19 pandemic began. It’s clear do is to bring people together,” says Bob Smithat culture’s embrace of personal indepenetana, author of the forthcoming book “Redence has come at a cost, Cox says. organized Religion: The Reshaping of the

13

1

15

54

16

30

%

Percentage of Americans who attend church at least once a week.

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QUESTION:

The United States would be better off if more people prayed for others.

RESPONSE:

68 2 30 %

%

%

STRONGLY AGREE OR AGREE

UNSURE

STRONGLY DISAGREE OR DISAGREE

If there’s one bright spot for faith leaders in the new research from the Deseret News and Marist Poll, it’s that many Americans are dissatisfied with where the country stands today.

Overall, more than seven in 10 U.S. adults (72 percent) believe the country’s moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction. Nearly as many Americans (68 percent) say we’d be better off if more people prayed for each other.

“I thought we’d see a big difference by age group on morality questions. It’s interesting that the belief that things are going in the wrong direction is not tied to someone’s age or religious stance,” Conte says.

Whether people realize it or not, their pessimism about the country’s moral compass likely has something to do with the current state of faith. For centuries, organized religion served as America’s moral backbone and social safety net, Smietana says. Now, that longtime support network is losing strength.

“We still rely on organized religion” to feed the hungry, resettle refugees, provide financial assistance to the poor and do any number of other things, he says. But it’s running out of resources to do this “good and important” work.

Over the course of the pandemic, many houses of worship saw further membership decline and drops in financial donations. Faith leaders struggled to keep their congregations united when holding in-person events was deemed to be unsafe.

But, over the same period, religious organizations showed how valuable they can be to the rest of the country. Without faith-based food drives and other religious-motivated service projects, it’s hard to imagine how much more suffering there would have been, Smietana says.

“The pandemic gave us the chance to see

the benefits of organized religion,” he says.

The challenges of the past two years also enabled religious communities to test new ways of connecting with people, which could serve them well in the years ahead, Cox says.

“Online faith communities could really open the door to folks. If you’re a little bit suspicious of what being part of a religious community entails, virtual services are an easy and safe way to engage and explore,” he says.

Whether or not that strategy works, Cox and others believe faith groups need to focus on bringing spiritual-but-not-religious and believing-but-not-attending Americans back into the religious fold. Without the community aspect, faith becomes a much less formative force in people’s lives.

“If religious practices become something people mostly do by themselves, religion becomes a very different thing,” Cox says.

87

%

Percentage of Americans who believe it is important to be part of a close-knit community.

QUESTION:

Who do you look to for guidance on how to live a moral life?

RESPONSE:

FAMILY

79%

RULE OF LAW

66%

FRIENDS

65%

RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS

63%

RELIGIOUS LEADER WHERE YOU WORSHIP

57%

WELL-KNOWN SPIRITUAL LEADER

45%

BOSS OR WORK COLLEAGUE

29%

POLITICAL LEADER

16%

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER

12%

OPRAH

10%

ATHLETE

10%

APRIL 2022

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SPECIAL ISSUE

— THE NEW —

REFORMERS

2 0 FA I T H L E A D E R S C H A L L E N G I N G T H E C O N S E R VAT I V E M O V E M E N T TO C H A N G E

BY K E L S E Y DA L L AS A N D J E N N I F E R G R A H A M I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S T U D I O M U T I

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Call it the politics of the moment. Or a willfully myopic view of the American religious experience. The state of a nation at a peculiar crossroads. Whatever the root cause, there’s a prevalent notion lately — a persistent stage whisper on cable news and other forums — that the religious movement in the U.S. is a monolith. That people of faith, particularly of Christian faith, all ascribe to an identical political ideology or harbor unquestioned fealty to the same candidates, however problematic. Yet there is a cast of crusaders inching religious conservatives toward something more expansive, who through their words and actions ask more from our fellow communities of faith. The 20 men and women on this list don’t all agree with each other. In fact, their disparate approaches and ideas are the point. What they do hold in common is a passion for the kind of discourse that elevates moral conviction over political party, that prizes principles over partisanship.

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— THE NEW REFORMERS —

ROD DREHER

G. MARCUS COLE

BETH MOORE

THE REV. SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ

THE REALIST

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY DEFENDER

UNFLINCHING EDUCATOR

POLITICAL INDEPENDENT

Rod Dreher started his career as a journalist, but these days you could call him a professional Cassandra. Best known for his 2017 book “The Benedict Option,” Dreher says the culture war is over and that people of faith lost. Their mistake now is thinking their main work is at the ballot box. “People of faith need to abandon the idea that we can vote our way out of this crisis,” Dreher says. “We have to stay involved in politics to protect our religious liberty, but I see far too many Christians who sincerely believe that if we get the ‘right’ people in office and judges on the bench, all will be well. This is dangerous self-delusion.” Instead, American Christians, confronted with values that contradict their own, must learn to suffer the loss of status and professional opportunities as secularism increases, Dreher says. “Churches are not remotely prepared for what is rapidly coming to us.”

Dean of the University of Notre Dame Law School since 2019, G. Marcus Cole is a legal scholar whose work focuses on economics and commerce, but brings to the public square a passion for both religious liberty and social justice. “Our mission statement calls us to train a different kind of lawyer, one that has an impact for good, one who is a force for good,” he has said. “We need to pay attention both to the law and to God.” Cole taught for 22 years at Stanford, but he welcomed joining an institution “where your faith can be on full display.” At Notre Dame, he launched the school’s Religious Liberty Initiative to fight persecution around the world, and increasingly, in the U.S. “I want people all around the world,” he has said, “to look to Notre Dame for help when their religious liberty is being encroached upon.”

A dynamic Bible teacher as prone to tweet about her oven-fried chicken as her love for Jesus, Beth Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 after years of angst over the embrace of Donald Trump by evangelicals. Moore has used her enormous platform (nearly a million Twitter followers) not only to speak out against the former president, but also sexism, racism and nationalism. Moore is not new to controversy; she is a radical within some circles simply for being a female Bible teacher, and her ministry, Living Proof, lost millions in revenue as her criticism of Trump ramped up. The Houston mother of two remains focused on writing books and teaching the Bible (her latest class was on the book of Philippians) despite being told by some Southern Baptist leaders to, essentially, sit down and “go home.” But, she says, “I am going to serve whoever God puts in front of me.”

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who leads a megachurch in California and heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is not an immigrant himself, but he champions their concerns. He parlays his unique access to leaders in both parties into meaningful progress on immigration reform. At times, these efforts complicated his relationship with former President Donald Trump, who abandoned promises to protect “Dreamers,” the young people brought to the U.S. as kids. But the Rev. Rodriguez continues to advocate for putting religious values ahead of partisanship, regardless of which party is in power. “I offered (the same) solution to President Biden that I’d offered President Trump,” he told Deseret earlier this year. “We should grant those individuals who are not engaged in nefarious activities and do not have a criminal record immediate citizenship.”

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NANCY AND DAVID FRENCH

ANDY CROUCH THE CULTURE WHISPERER

THE MAVERICKS

MICHAEL GERSON

YUVAL LEVIN

CHAMPION OF ‘HEROIC CONSERVATISM’

COACH FOR THE OFFENSE

Before he was a columnist for The Washington Post, Michael Gerson wrote speeches for Bob Dole and George W. Bush, and as far back as 2005 he was considered one of the most influential evangelicals in America, so named by Time magazine. He has described the current state of evangelicalism as “tidying up the kitchen while the house burns down” and criticizes his fellow believers as being too angry and “culturally defensive.” As one of the rare columnists at a major newspaper who writes frequently about his religious faith, he advocates for what he calls “heroic conservatism” and a GOP built on principle. He warns, however, that right now, “Only one party in the United States is committed to liberal democracy.” And that party is not, alas, the GOP.

The decline of organized religion has put many faith groups in a defensive crouch. They’ve stopped trying to combat cultural ills and focused, instead, on protecting themselves. To Yuval Levin, a Jewish political analyst and author, this situation cannot stand. In his writing and speaking, he calls on conservative believers to stop apologizing for who they are and what they believe and refocus on the important work of transforming the world. “Our religious institutions need to show … that they are capable of addressing (culture’s) deficiencies — that they can speak with legitimate authority and be counted on to do the work of molding souls and shaping character,” he wrote last year for Deseret Magazine.

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In 2008, David French, the constitutional lawyer turned public intellectual and writer, and his wife, author Nancy French, led the group “Evangelicals for Mitt.” People with similar political views, they maintained, don’t have to agree on fine points of theology. Now, in the post-Trump era, they argue for more moral courage, for standing up to politicians and movements that don’t represent religious conservative values.

“If you had told my Sunday School teacher in the 1980s that the white evangelical church would make moral compromises for a presidential candidate who’d made a cameo in ‘Playboy Video Centerfold,’ that teacher would not have believed it,” Nancy says. “But white evangelicals moved as a group, and very few people were willing to take a stand and say, ‘No, this isn’t right’ or ‘No, I won’t do it.’”

America can’t afford to splinter along ideological lines, David contends in “Divided We Fall,” his 2020 call for a new commitment to pluralism, which warns “Geography plus culture plus fear equals secession.” But neither, he says, should conservatives be afraid to “punch right” at extremists who seek to justify political violence with their faith.

Rather than complain about the culture, people of faith need to be building their own, Andy Crouch argued in “Culture Making,” the 2013 book that sparked Praxis, a startup accelerator for Christian entrepreneurs with a vision for a business or a nonprofit. A former editor of Christianity Today, Crouch is best known for advocating for a more measured approach to technology. His new book, “The Life We’re Looking For,” expands on his earlier ideas and argues for people to reimagine our solitary ways of living, to return to communities built around households that may include extended families and even friends. “In Manhattan, two-thirds of people live in studio apartments with a single occupant, and there’s so much loneliness,” he says. “We have to rebuild physically where we live so we’re living close to people we trust and who can really know us at all stages of life.”

— THE NEW REFORMERS —

THE CONFIGURATIONS OF THE REV. TIM KELLER

DAVID BENTLEY HART

PURVEYOR OF HOPE

SOCIAL VISIONARY

The founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, the Rev. Tim Keller has inspired tens of thousands in person and on YouTube. He was recently described in The New York Times as having one of “the most impressive and important minds in the evangelical world.”

While undergoing treatment for stage 4 pancreatic cancer, Keller continues to evangelize and lay out his vision for a new evangelicalism that is intellectually robust, committed to racial justice and equipped for a post-Christian culture. Loving our neighbors, as Jesus instructed, requires political involvement in order to build a society that is just and good, Keller says. “But it’s my belief that the social teaching of Christianity does not line up well with our current political parties.”

Instead, he calls for believers to embrace “a striking combination of biblical values” that represent both conservative and liberal positions. His most recent book, “Hope in Times of Fear,” exudes his confidence in the church’s capacity to change.

A theologian and philosopher in the Eastern Orthodox tradition who confronted pop culture atheism in his 2009 book “Atheist Delusions,” David Bentley Hart has more recently invited Christians to reconsider their notions of capitalism and socialism, writing that Americans have “succeeded in turning ‘Christianity’ into another name for a system of values almost totally antithetical to those of the Gospel” and overly cherishing the economic motor of self-interest.

Socialism, he says in blistering critiques of American culture, has gotten a bad rap.

“The configurations of the old Christian order are irrecoverable now, and in many ways that is for the best,” he wrote recently in Commonweal Magazine.

“But the possibilities of another, perhaps radically different Christian social vision remain to be explored and cultivated.”

THE OLD CHRISTIAN ORDER ARE IRRECOVERABLE NOW, AND IN MANY WAYS THAT IS FOR THE BEST. BUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF ANOTHER, PERHAPS RADICALLY DIFFERENT CHRISTIAN SOCIAL VISION REMAIN TO BE EXPLORED AND CULTIVATED.

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— THE NEW REFORMERS —

RABBI MEIR Y. SOLOVEICHIK

THE REV. WILLIAM J. BARBER II

INTERFAITH FACILITATOR

PROTESTING PASTOR

As a member of the most prominent family in modern Orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik was destined for faith-related fame. In 2013, he lived up to that expectation when he took the helm of North America’s oldest Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel in New York City. Rabbi Soloveichik’s rise didn’t stop there. In the past decade, he’s deepened his connection to his own community through teaching and writing. He’s also branched into the mostly Christian world of religious freedom advocacy to call for mutual support between members of different faith groups. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty awarded Rabbi Soloveichik, now 44, their prestigious Canterbury Medal in recognition of his commitment to interfaith relations. As Becket’s board chairman said at the time, despite the impressive resume, Rabbi Soloveichik’s just getting started.

For the Rev. William J. Barber II, living a life of faith means being willing to go to jail. The anti-poverty activist has been arrested more than a dozen times for civil disobedience related to voting rights, racial justice and raising the minimum wage. The Rev. Barber rose to prominence in 2013 by leading “Moral Monday” protests in North Carolina, but his work today is national in scope. As co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, a project inspired by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s initiative of the same name, the Rev. Barber is working toward nothing short of a religiously inspired moral revolution. Although the Rev. Barber is widely associated with the political left, he tries to pitch a big tent. He’s invited everyone from democratic socialists to BYU students to join his efforts to care for the poor.

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ASMA UDDIN THE BRIDGE BUILDER

While tackling religious conflict as an attorney, Asma Uddin was struck by how little even self-described religious freedom advocates knew about the law.

She was excited by strides made in the courtroom but also well aware that culture was lagging behind. “There needed to be someone who bridged the two spaces,” she says. So Uddin, who is Muslim, wrote two books — “When Islam Is Not a Religion” and “The Politics of Vulnerability” — demonstrating how those who promote political or religious tribalism are only hurting themselves.

“Many Christians are feeling a sense of vulnerability or a sense of being under siege,” she says.

But when they lash out at other faith groups, it undermines their own cause.

SHADI HAMID AND MATTHEW KAEMINGK SPARRING PARTNERS

Last year, U.S. church membership fell below 50 percent for the first time since Gallup’s founding in 1935. Rising secularization is fueling church closures, political conflict and the widespread demonization of conservative people of faith. Matthew Kaemingk and Shadi Hamid, one Christian, the other Muslim, are trying to improve religion’s reputation in the public square.

Together, Kaemingk, director of the Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Seminary, and Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, engage in scholarship and open debate, showing how to find strength in religious difference. In January 2022, the pair received a grant to research how deep religious commitments can strengthen democracy. “Matthew and I don’t agree on a number of things. But we don’t see that as a problem,” Hamid says. “It animates and energizes us.”

JACQUELINE C. RIVERS

RUSSELL MOORE

JUSTICE ADVOCATE

CONSCIENTIOUS DEFECTOR

Jacqueline C. Rivers spent years partnering with Black churches on racial and economic justice projects before she thought about the laws that helped make that work possible. When she dove into religious liberty advocacy, she realized ignorance went both ways. The faith groups committed to boosting religious rights rarely engaged with social justice efforts. Now, Rivers, executive director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, brings the voice of the Black church to the mostly white, mostly conservative world of religious freedom work.

She’s trying to show that diversifying the movement strengthens the case for giving churches the legal protections they need to do lifesaving work.

A clean-cut, teetotaling, father of five, Russell Moore doesn’t seek out scandal, but scandal has indelibly shaped his faith and career. As a teenager in the 1980s, Moore watched prominent televangelists fall from grace.

As a top leader in the Southern Baptist Convention for the past decade, he saw many of his colleagues refuse to reckon with crises related to sexual abuse and race. Living through the first scandal helped Moore respond to the second. Last year, he broke with his denomination and became one of the faces of what’s been called the “moral minority” in the evangelical world. “I initially thought (leaving) would be disorienting,” he says. “Yet I’ve been filled with gratitude every day.”

EVE TUSHNET LGBTQ LEADER

MATTHEW LEE ANDERSON JOYFUL NONCONFORMIST

Eve Tushnet was already out of the closet when she joined the Catholic Church. She cites that fact to explain how she found beauty where others felt pain.

“For me, faith really was the good news and promise of rescue that Christians always say it is.

But it often doesn’t feel like that for gay people who grew up in church,” she says. Through her writing, Tushnet, the author of “Gay and Catholic” among other books, casts a vision of a world with less shame. She’s helping gay Christians who choose celibacy for religious reasons find self-acceptance and helping others recognize what LGBTQ believers bring to the church.

Scripture and Christian history tell us there are “possibilities for insight, beauty, joy and hope precisely in the experience of being gay,” says Tushnet, who describes herself as a lesbian living as an obedient Catholic.

Matthew Lee Anderson believes in what the Religious Right has to offer. He just can’t stand how it’s being sold. Rather than engage with their political sparring partners, he says, his fellow evangelicals write them off. Rather than joyfully speak and write on conservative beliefs about abortion, gay marriage and other issues, they favor somber, tragic tones. Anderson, the founder of Mere Orthodoxy, a clearinghouse for commentary on conservative religion, politics and culture, is calling for — and trying to model — a very different approach. He dares to talk about challenging, controversial ideas with a smile on his face.

“You’ve got to actually want to persuade your neighbors who disagree with you by helping them see that what you have to offer is good news,” he says.

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SPECIAL ISSUE

— THE LAST —

SHAKERS AT T H E I R P E A K , T H E R E W E R E 5 , 0 0 0 S H A K E R S . O N LY T W O R E M A I N .

A N D Y E T T H E I R I M PA C T O N A M E R I C A' S C U LT U R A L A N D R E L I G I O U S L A N D S C A P E W I L L E N D U R E LO N G A F T E R T H E Y A R E G O N E

PHOTOGR APHIC ESSAY BY

SÉAN ALONZO HARRIS

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THE TINY VILLAGE OF SABBATHDAY LAKE, Maine, is the world’s last community of Shakers. They trace their roots back to Ann Lee, the daughter of a blacksmith born in Manchester, England, around 1736. Lee associated with a group that worshipped charismatically, rolling on floors, shrieking and shaking with the rapture of spiritual transcendence.

And from this came their name: the Shakers.

Ann and eight other Shakers fled England in 1774 and settled in upstate New York. Theirs was a particularly austere form of Christianity, one that required great sacrifice: Shakers are required to live communally and in celibacy.

At their peak, there were 5,000 Shakers, with settlements stretching from Indiana to Connecticut, and from Maine to Florida. But because the Shakers don’t really evangelize, and because they are celibate, their numbers have dwindled. By 1900, there were less than 1,000; by 1936, there were 92.

And now, there are just two, Arnold and June.

They live together in the village of Dwellinghouse, but sleep in separate beds. They own all the Shaker property communally, and confess to each other their sins.

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PR E V I O U S S PR E A D : S I STE R J U N E I N SA B B ATH DAY LA K E , MAINE. C LO C KW I S E FR O M TO P LE FT: BROOM-MAKING STATI O N — S H A K E R S A R E K N OW N FO R T H E I R FLAT B R O O M S ; S E W I N G M AC H I N E FO R M A K I N G C LOT H E S ; FR O N T E N TRYWAY TO T H E I R M A I N LI V I N G Q UA R TE R S ; A S C H O O L C H A LK B OA R D A N D C H I LD R E N ' S M A R B LE SAC K ; A FI E LD COAT, H AT A N D WA LK I N G STI C K .

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L EF T: THE P R IMA RY S HA K E R S SA N C TUA RY ST IL L HO L DS SE RVICES I N THE SPAC E O N S U NDAYS. T HIS PAG E : B R OTHE R A R N O LD.

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O P P OSITE F R O M TOP L E F T: A GR O UP IN G O F S HA K E R B R O O MS; S HA K E R F UR N ITUR E ; S HA K E R - MA DE B O N N E TS F O R WO MEN, A N D A SE WIN G STATIO N .

THE SHAKER THEOLOGY IS SIMPLE, modeled on what they believe is the way Jesus Christ lived: chaste, with no possessions. Arnold Hadd joined the Shakers in 1978 at the age of 21, at a time in which the only other Shaker community, in Canterbury, New Hampshire, had decided to close its ranks to outsiders.

Arnold has done pretty much everything in the village: he’s at times the head farmer, chef, press secretary and nurse. The village regularly gets visitors and Arnold is often weary serving them all.

In 2017, Arnold told Commonweal magazine that Shakers were building heaven on Earth. “We’re not prefiguring heaven — we’re living it. This is it, right now,” he said.

Because labor and craftsmanship are seen by Shakers as a way to worship God, Shakers have become known internationally for making high-quality furniture and inventing some basic household items, like clothespins, the flat-bottom broom and the circular saw. Unlike the Quakers, they do not eschew technology.

At Sabbathday Lake, Arnold and June teach visitors how to make soap and bind books, and money generated from these courses keeps the village alive.

Arnold says his life of celibacy has been a “wonderful privilege” but at times a “dreary, horrible existence all at the same time.” He followed a straight and narrow path, he told Commonweal. “The more you’re on it, the more straight and narrow it becomes.”

Still, his life of sacrifice for Christ has given him visions of what heaven might look like. “I don’t know that it necessarily has to look like a Shaker community,” he said.

But what might it look like? “Light, all light, because that’s what God is.”

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SPECIAL ISSUE

THE

HOUSE — THAT —

EXILE BUILT

A C U B A N A M E R I C A N J O U R N E Y S TO T H E I S L A N D H I S FA M I LY F L E D O V E R H A L F A C E N T U R Y A G O , S E E K I N G A N S W E R S A B O U T FA I T H , F R E E D O M A N D T H E E N D U R I N G P OW E R O F A N C E ST R A L L E G AC I E S

BY ETHAN BAUER

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THE ROADS IN EL CERRO,

T HE AUTHO R IN HAVAN A . B E HIN D HIM, T HE F O R TR E SS K N OW N AS L A C A B A Ñ A , W H E RE HIS UN C L E WAS I M P R ISO N E D LO N G AG O.

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like the roads in much of Havana, are pricked with potholes and bumps and are prone to flooding. They’re crisscrossed with tangled power lines, and they smell of rust and tobacco. El Cerro ranks among the poorest neighborhoods in a city full of them. But of all the stops I want to make in Cuba, this is the most important. Our driver bobs over the uneven asphalt in a yellow Chinese taxi, looking for 405 San Pablo, between Mariano and Clavel. I know we’ve found it when, on a glass panel above the front door, I see the initials “JR” shining in the morning sun. They stand for Julio Robla, my great-grandfather. The “tap, tap, tap,” of a metal knocker on old wood echoes in my ears.

I’ve been sent to Cuba to understand the role of faith and religious freedom in a country long thought opposed to such liberties. But I’ve also waited my whole life to come here, to stand and knock, to find some part of myself.

Fifty-six years, two months and 23 days earlier, my mom, my uncle and my grandparents left Cuba for Miami. They were among the final departures of the Camarioca boatlift of 1965, which brought some 3,000 Cubans to the United States. Now, I’m the first among them and their descendants to return. The others have refused to venture here as long as the revolutionary regime remains unchanged.

As my mom puts it, “Why would I want to go back when they never wanted me there?” I’d always vaguely understood that position. But I thought my own detachment from their firsthand experience might insulate me.

My family had been hopeful that Fidel Castro and his rebel army would restore the Cuban constitution that had been abandoned by dictator Fulgencio Batista when he took over the country via coup d’état in 1952, but they quickly grew concerned about the authoritarian nature of the new regime. They refused to join the Communist Party, which led my grandfather to resign his post as a captain in the Cuban navy and my mom’s classmates to call her “gusano” — literally “worm,” but

contextually akin to “traitor” — for not wearing the red beret and neckerchief available only to children whose parents acquiesced.

Perhaps because I never experienced those consequences directly I harbored a lifelong curiosity about the island a mere 90 miles from Key West, Florida, yet as seemingly impenetrable as any place on Earth.

Growing up as I did, eating pastelitos de queso at birthday parties, speaking Spanish with my grandma — who, at 91, still speaks not one word of English — and taking salsa dance classes, you can’t help but feel more Cuban than American. My favorite food is a Cuban hamburger called a frita. My tan, linen wedding suit was made by a company named Cubavera. In Miami, when you come from a Cuban family (or even a half-Cuban family, like me) you’re surrounded at all times by Cuban culture — or, at least, what Cuban culture once was. Yet Cuba itself remains mysterious.

A sort of forbidden mirror of the Cuban exile community. I always thought I was missing something. Like to understand what it really means to be Cuban, I had to get past the distorted reflection in Miami; to see Cuba itself.

My suspicions grew when, upon landing in Havana, the entire plane inexplicably burst into spontaneous applause, myself included. I wanted to understand why. And that, I figured, started with seeing what my family left behind.

No one answers when we knock the first time, so my guide and I knock again. This time, a woman’s voice calls back from inside. These meetings rarely go well. Today’s Cubans often feel threatened by people who return. They sense these visitors are there to claim land or property long abandoned and, for that reason, they slam the door. Or so I had been told, and so I’m thinking before the voice calls me over to a glassless window frame.

From behind rusted iron bars and frayed wooden blinds, the voice asks what we want.

My guide and I do our best to explain something so imposing and strange — that I’m the

L A V IR GE N DE LA CARI DAD I N THE SAGRADO CORAZON DE JE SÚ S CHURCH I N HAVANA.

grandchild of the family that used to live in this house, and I want to look inside.

The blinds pop open. A pair of brown eyes stare back at my blue ones.

was well on his way to victory when my mom was born in September 1958.

His rebels — including his brother, Raul, and a then-unknown Argentine doctor named Ernesto “Che” Guevara — had invaded Cuba’s southeastern shore in early December 1956 aboard a yacht called the Granma. They reached the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they recruited peasant farmers disgruntled by government corruption and American favoritism. The force kept growing, hidden from Batista’s army, until it was too big to stop.

During the early morning of Jan. 1, 1959, Batista fled, and Castro’s troops marched into Havana. Castro himself arrived a week later, clad in rosaries, the liberator of Cuba.

Castro was a product of Catholic education, having attended the long-standing Colegio de Belén — a school run by Jesuit priests in Havana since 1854. Nevertheless, he declared Cuba an atheist state soon after taking power and feuded with the Catholic Church. On May 1, 1961, he announced a new law that would nationalize education, and on May 13, all the Jesuits at Belen were forced out. Many of them eventually settled in Miami, where they reestablished the school — the same school I graduated from in 2014, 69 years after Castro.

Many religious people fled Cuba in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. My family was among them, though they didn’t flee specifically for religious reasons. For them, the last straw came when my mom’s uncle, Julio, was jailed.

A string of bombings at the electric company, where he worked, swept him up. According to his daughter, Lourdes — my mom’s cousin — Julio was arrested for “contra poderes del

F I D E L C ASTR O

Like the crumbling houses of Havana, religious institutions can only stand as long as their support systems allow them to.

estado”; basically, as an enemy of the state. His crime was, supposedly, aiding the counterrevolutionaries who carried out the bombings by acquiring supplies for them. The verifiable historical details get murky here, so let’s just say that according to family legend, he was sentenced to three years in prison (that part is definitely true) because he was found to have not provided the aid, while his co-workers who did got 30 years, and the actual bombers were executed. He served part of his sentence, carried out between 1965 and 1968, slicing sugar cane in the fields near Santiago, and part of it at La Cabaña — the Spanish fortress-turned-prison where Guevara spent five months as Castro’s commander in charge of revolutionary justice. Upon Julio’s release, he’d tell stories of guards rounding people up late at night and hearing them scream “Viva Cristo el rey!” — “Long live Christ the king”— before the sounds of gunfire and bodies falling on stone.

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often came with a price.

A price my family knows well.

“HI J O DE QU IE N?” the woman in the window asks. “Son of who?” I tell her my mom’s name.

I tell her that the “JR” above the door stands for Julio Robla, my great-grandfather. Suddenly, this faceless woman becomes my family’s personal historian. How’s Valladares? she asks about my grandfather. Hectico, Lourdes, Julito — she knows all their names, all the uncles and cousins long since gone. She invites me inside.

Her name is Tania. She has black hair streaked with gray, held in a ponytail by a limegreen scrunchy. My family doesn’t know her, I would later learn, but they know her aunt, Josefita, who lived on the bottom floor when my family was here. Tania would have been very young in 1965, and she would have lived in the countryside. But she knows my mom very well, it turns out. Because when my family left, she inherited my mom’s toys. Cuban property rarely changes hands, so eventually, Tania moved to her aunt Josefita’s home with her mother, Pascuala, and the two of them still live there today.

Cubans generally struggle to pronounce

my name. Most settle on “EH-than” or “EHtan.” Curiously, Tania is the first Cuban I meet who pronounces it exactly like my grandma — “EE-ssen.” “Que sorpresa,” she adds, smiling at me from behind her white COVID-19 mask.

“What a surprise.” I’m similarly surprised to find the house in excellent condition. My great-grandfather built the bottom floor in 1928 and added the top floor around ’45. Outside, chipped sections of paint and groupings of dirt draw all the attention — as you’d expect for a building nearing 100 years in a place where paint and pressure cleaners are nearly impossible to find. But inside, the teal walls and floral tile look almost new, if a tad dusty. A small chandelier dangles from the living room ceiling. The place hasn’t changed much, she tells me, and she’s trying to keep it in the best shape she can.

That’s the story of homes across the island: People trying to maintain or rebuild with scarce resources. Many buildings fester in full decay, with supportive beams of wood bending beneath the weight of crumbling concrete.

Tourists like me often don’t see that, as I’d learned a few days earlier.

I’D S E T OU T F OR VARA D E R O

with my guide

PHOTO BY JACQ UE S L AN GE VIN /SYGM A/SYG M A VIA G E TTY IM AGE S

grandmother and great-grandmother. They brought Julio empanadas and clothes in shopping bags. Unbeknownst to my mom, this was her last chance to say goodbye. Soon, they’d pack up a suitcase with a single change of clothes each, and my mom’s Mariquita Perez doll. They drilled holes in the bottom of their bedroom door and stuffed them with bills, still entertaining the idea that they’d return some day. They spent several weeks at the small fishing town of Camarioca, awaiting word from government workers about when they could leave, all the while eating a daily serving of lentejas — lentils — from the communal cafeteria. “That is why,” my mom says, “I have a horrified aversion to lentejas.”

On Nov. 22, 1965, their ferry finally left Camarioca bound for Key West. Along the way, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel brought over some snack boxes with water, chewing gum, cookies, apples and sandwiches. “Nobody had seen a sandwich — or bread — in I don’t know how long,” my mom says. “It was a feast.”

Gone from my immediate family’s view, Cuba’s state atheism lasted decades. Over time, however, the government’s approach to religion evolved. That evolution offers a useful road map for understanding the evolution of Cuba itself. Because even as the country began accepting people of faith, that opening

THE “CHRI ST OF HAVANA” STATU E LOOKS OV E R T H E C U B AN C AP ITOL F ROM AC ROSS T H E H ARB OR. I T WAS I NSTALLED J UST DAYS B E F ORE F IDE L C AST RO’S RE VOLU T ION T RIU MP H E D.

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seen any newish American cars in Cuba until that moment. How it got in was a mystery to all of us, though as they said, it must have involved some major favors. My guide had already brought up George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” which is unofficially banned in Cuba. “I don’t know how that guy saw into the future,” he’d told me, “but it’s like he was writing about Cuba.” Upon speeding past the shiny truck, he cited it once again. “All animals are equal,” he told me, “but some animals are more equal than others.”

As we approached Villa Blanca, he suggested we make a stop. His aunt, uncle and cousin lived right off the road. If I wanted to see the real Cuba, he told me — the kind that would be forbidden if he were working as an official state tour guide, as he once did — then I should stop in. So I did. I hopped a small metal barrier onto the front porch, where a friendly little dog jumped on my leg. Cinder blocks painted white formed the spine of the home, which we entered through a rusted metal door. Two box-shaped TVs rested in a corner of the living room. A frayed red curtain served as a bedroom door. His aunt offered us coffee and scrambled into the kitchen to put it on the stove. His uncle sat in a wheelchair at a small table, sipping from a plastic yellow coffee cup. He offered to tell me anything I

ROBERTO MAC HA DO NOA /LI GH TROC KET VI A GE T TY IMAG E S

Over time the government’s approach to religion evolved.

That evolution offers a useful road map for understanding the evolution of Cuba itself.

and a driver. The famed beach, about two hours east of Havana along the well-maintained (aside from wandering cows and horses) Villa Blanca highway, extends north into the Gulf of Mexico on a narrow peninsula. It’s often ranked among the best in the world, with turquoise water, powder sand and open space.

My mom has a picture of herself there when she was 10 months old. My grandma talks about it like nothing else compares. I had to see it for myself.

I already figured I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. Not fully. Cuba’s economy functions on a sort of tourism apartheid, where folks like me have access to things regular Cubans don’t. In one meal, I ate three things — shrimp, beef and fish — that average Cubans can’t afford.

So while I wanted to see one of the most treasured parts of Cuba, I also wondered whether I’d be able to escape my own privilege, my own guilt.

On the way, our driver spotted a new-looking Ford F-250. It was white, and its bumper sticker suggested it came from a dealership near Washington, D.C. That’s rare in Cuba, where the U.S. embargo makes new American cars pretty much impossible to find, much less afford. “That has to be the relative of a general,” my guide said. He and the driver went back and forth expressing disbelief. Indeed, I hadn’t

REI NA CHURCH, THE PARI SH OF TH E SAC RE D H E ART OF JE S U S AND ST. IGNAT IU S OF LOYOL A IN H AVAN A .

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wanted to know — about the revolution, the “special period,” the current situation, all of it.

Only when he turned toward me did I realize he didn’t have either of his legs. When he talked, he squinted, and I could hardly see his eyes.

He was a big fan of the revolution when it triumphed, he told me. He was just 12 then, and for many years the island’s Soviet relations ensured relative material stability. Plenty of food, everything was affordable. Then the Soviet Union fell, and Cuba felt the full force of the U.S. embargo; he almost winced at remembering the shortages and suffering. He helped many people build makeshift boats, he said, in an efforts to flee to the U.S. during the 1990s and early 2000s, when tens of thousands of Cubans took to the seas aboard homemade rafts to escape. And he lectured at length on how the embargo makes life miserable. “No ha ayudado a nadie. Es terrible,” he said. “It hasn’t helped anyone. It’s terrible.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was a big fan of Barack Obama, and his new era of relations with Cuba. Perhaps just as unsurprisingly, he wasn’t a fan of Donald Trump, and his policies that undid much of what Obama had done. Trump screwed everything up, he told me — in lesskind language.

Back in the car, I asked my guide what he made of his uncle’s view of Obama, Trump and Cuban-American relations. He disagreed.

Echoing the very same arguments that rage in American political circles, he said the root of the problem is not the embargo, but the Cuban government. If he was an American politician, he added, he would favor the same iron-fisted approach; he simply doesn’t trust Cuban assurances that foreign investments and trade with the U.S. would trickle down to the people. Cooperation, therefore, entrenches government power without tangible benefit. The changes Obama brought, in his view, were largely artificial. We passed a crowd of dozens waiting at a bus stop. “The Cuban way,” he called it.

We eventually made it to Varadero, which felt like a slice of Miami. A new resort grew near the entrance. Homes featured fresh paint and up-to-date maintenance. We even came across a Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally. It was a beautiful place — one that I could visit and appreciate, while most Cubans can’t. My guide said that if he ever managed to buy a car, the first thing he’d do is pile in his family and bring them there. But for now, that remains a far-off dream. “Esto es otro mundo, chico,” he said as we drove past the strip of restaurants along the coast.

“This is another world, man.”

T H E AU T H OR S H OWS TANIA T E L L E RIA, WH O L IV E S IN T H E H O U S E H I S GRE AT GRANDFAT H E R B U ILT, P H OTOS OF H IS FAMILY B E F OR E T H E Y LE FT C U B A .

C L ARA MART INE Z AND ANTONIO DARIAS , L E F T, L IV E IN T H E A PA R T M E N T W H E R E T H E AU T H OR’S MOM AND GRANDPARE NTS L IV E D B E F ORE FLE E I N G C U B A .

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Tania offers a tour of the downstairs dwelling. She leads me to the back, where a concrete courtyard opens up.

She has a few potted purple flowers and crotons growing in one corner, which she hopes to expand into a full garden. Beside the door leading back inside, she’s assembled scaffolding out of stripped tree trunks and two-by-fours. I follow her through the bedrooms, through the living rooms, which feature some familiar artifacts: A pendulum clock; green leather chairs with ovular red armrests; a mahogany cabinet, all dating from the days my family lived here.

As Tania moves toward the cabinet to retrieve something she wants to show me, I notice something that isn’t here: Religious artifacts.

My family was never too religious back then. Though my grandfather had grown up across Havana harbor in Regla, home to one of the most unique churches in the world: Nuestra Señora de Regla — Our Lady of Regla.

It’s officially Catholic, but many, if not most, of the people who go there to worship are not Catholic. They practice a religion officially known as the Regla de Ocha, commonly called Santeria. It originated with African slaves, who disguised their faith by adapting their beliefs into a Catholic framework, resulting in a syncretism where Catholic symbols represent Yoruba gods. Our Lady of Regla — a depiction of the Virgin Mary with a Black face and a blue robe — represents Yemayá, the god of rivers and water. So this Catholic church, located steps from the harbor, is actually a functional shrine to Yemayá.

Perhaps living near this place is why my grandfather made regular reference to a Santero phenomenon known as “el sereno” — a vague, superstitious phrase that basically translates to condensation or mist in the air, especially at night; avoiding it meant avoiding ill health effects or even death. All that, despite the fact that he was Catholic. Though he left too early to really feel the consequences of that affiliation.

Indeed, family members that stayed in Cuba after my mom and grandparents left, like cousin Lourdes and uncle Julio, bore the brunt of the overt religious discrimination that accompanied the early revolution. After the Jesuits and other religious leaders were forced out, many believers were driven into hiding. Lourdes told me about her family’s quest to worship covertly. “We used to hide to go to church at the beginning,” she says. “We decided that we had to go, so we did. … But we were not in a good place. Because the thing was, if you were going to church, then you weren’t communist.” And if you weren’t communist, you were an enemy of the revolution — or so the thinking went.

B AC K AT 40 5 SA N PABLO,

Over time, that approach changed. Petra Kuivala, a scholar of history, religious studies and Cuban studies at Harvard, says churches were working behind the scenes to undo their tense relationship with the Cuban government for decades before they saw results. Protestant churches, according to one longtime minister I spoke with, led the way. “There is a process of 25, 30 years of finding new common ground,” Kuivala explains, “from religious institutions to state institutions to deciding the terms and parameters for a shared coexistence.” Those talks bore fruit in the ’90s, during what Fidel Castro dubbed Cuba’s special period. After the fall of the Soviet Union, which Cuba relied on for trade, an epidemic of poverty and material scarcity overtook the island, leading to various reforms. In 1992, Cuba amended its constitution to declare itself a secular state, rather than an atheist state. A 1998 visit by Pope John Paul II signaled a new phase of the revolution’s

Cuba really has more religious freedom than it once did. But is “more freedom” synonymous with freedom itself?

approach to religion. For the first time since the early ’60s, even the Catholic majority was free to worship. “The before-and-after moment for religion in Cuba is Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1998,” says Michelle Maldonado, a former professor of religious studies at the University of Miami. “Folks trace that as the moment when we saw a distinct opening, and a much more public opening.” But this opening was not a free-for-all. Today, barriers to religious liberty take a more covert form.

Before I flew from Miami to Cuba, I visited Colegio de Belén President Father Guillermo Garcia-Tuñon, known to most as Father Willie. He grew up in Miami and presides over the school, but he’s also of Cuban heritage. We

met at his sports-themed office. His homilies when I was a student were known for references to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, so I’m not surprised to find football helmets and bobbleheads crowding his desk. It’s worth noting that the Cuban exile community in general has the sharpest of axes to grind against the Cuban government, and its hatred of anything the regime does can border on irrational. That said, from what I saw in Cuba, Father Willie sums up the religious freedom question perfectly.

There are basically two schools of thought, he said. One holds that maintaining dialogue with the Cuban government keeps certain doors open. “They may be limited,” he says, “but it gives them an opportunity to do something and be there and be of service.”

The Catholic Church, since the Pope’s visit in 1998, has moved toward this position, as have most religious leaders on the island. The other school believes in speaking out against the government as a core component of liberty — religious or otherwise — at the risk of retaliation. By now, many such believers have been pruned, usually by forced exile. “The one interesting thing about the Castro regime is there was never a severe, violent persecution of priests and nuns, like there may have been in places like China or the Soviet Union,” Father Willie told me. “I can’t think of any priests or nuns that were killed or incarcerated for long periods of time.”

China offers an interesting comparison point.

According to Pew’s religious freedom index, which plots countries on axes of social hostilities and government restrictions, China is the worst country in the world in terms of state prohibition of religion. Cuba isn’t ranked well — it’s the lowest-rated country in the Americas — but it ranks far better than China, and above places like Israel, Russia and Singapore.

In that sense, Cuba really has more religious freedom than it once did. But is “more freedom” synonymous with freedom itself?

I’m reminded of Paco Rodés, a Baptist pastor I met in the port city of Matanzas, about an hour and a half east of Havana. He’s 79, with short white hair and ears that stick out just enough to notice. He’s been at the First Baptist Church of Matanzas since 1965. These days, part of his strategy is to give the Cuban government credit when it does a good job — for example, with new laws or with hurricane preparedness — rather than insist on constant criticism. Therein lies the tension of religious freedom in Cuba, and indeed around the world: Is the church really free if it operates only at the will of the state?

“They know that if they speak up, life will become very hard for them,” says Carlos Eire, a Yale historian and religious studies professor, APRIL 2022

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THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER AND GRANDPARENTS SHORTLY BEFORE THEY LEFT CUBA I N 1965.

of the ecclesiastical leaders who take this more diplomatic route. “Their prime objective is to create a space where at least some people can be religious. But they’re all painfully aware of the fact that those people are going to be paying a price for it.”

Despite a crumbling roof in the sanctuary itself, Matanzas First Baptist still appears very much alive. Tapestries and watercolor paintings decorate the walls. The wellspring is even more obvious next door at the Kairos Center, founded in 1994 to bridge the gap between Protestant worship and Cuban culture.

It serves as a sort of community center, with a purified water station available to anyone; a communal dining room; a proliferation of paintings from local artists; and a garden of flowers and medicinal plants. “We have a place in this city, in relation to the arts,” Rodés told me. I followed him up an orange tile staircase to his small, beige office, where a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a poster of Gandhi’s “Seven Deadly Social Sins” hung on the wall. This place, I thought, was exactly what religion could be in Cuba: a force for communal good.

Yet when Rodés left his office to use the bathroom, I was once more reminded of what Father Willie, Eire and others have observed about such religious flourishing: Like the crumbling houses of Havana, such institutions can only stand as long as their support systems allow them to. Which is why, even here, a 20-something man with a short beard and a “California” T-shirt poked his head inside.

“Communism is bad,” he told me. “Don’t let them fool you.”

the mahogany cabinet and pulls out a dusty old photo album. Most of it features pictures of her own family — of people I don’t recognize. But there! There it is! Nearly at the end of the album, on the top-left corner of the page, there’s my mom!

She’s probably two or three years old, wearing

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a feather headdress for some reason, but that’s her! On the same page, I notice Hortencia and Julio Robla, my great-grandparents — the man who built the house where we now stand. I show Tania some pictures of my own, brought from Miami. Of my mom, grandmother and grandfather in this very same place. She covers her mouth with her hands and smiles behind her mask before leading me up the turquoise staircase, to the living quarters my mom once called home.

The only thing that’s changed up here is the kitchen. Even the bathroom, with its blue tiles trimmed with black and its white porcelain fixtures, is the same — and it shines like new, too. In what was once my mom’s bedroom, I walk past a black sewing machine that my grandmother once used to tailor dresses. In the living room, I try out the rocking chair that my mom’s cousin famously tumbled out of, and that my great-grandfather often took out onto the balcony. And on that balcony — where my mom recorded her earliest memory, sitting on her own little rocking chair — I look out at the neighborhood.

Some things, like the bodega half a block over where Tania tells me my family used to shop, remain intact. Some things, like the house across the street now reduced to random walls of cinder blocks, roosters running free in their midst, do not. I follow Tania back down the staircase, where a thin wire runs along the wall. That wire, I realize later, connects to the lock at the front door. My family

installed that a lifetime ago so they wouldn’t have to go all the way down to let visitors in.

And there it is — still here. This is why people — even people who have never been here — clap upon landing in Cuba.

Cousin Lourdes explained it well. She left Cuba when she was 20. So, unlike my mom, she spent most of her formative years on the island. She’s no fan of the government or the current situation, but when I ask her about the clapping, she surprises me with simplicity: They applauded “because they are happy to come back,” she says. “Most of them are homesick.” And if it wasn’t for the passport laws that make it difficult for people born in Cuba to visit, she would like to go back, too.

Because when you’re Cuban — or Cuban American — Cuba still feels like home, like a part of yourself. Potholes and bumps and all.

I follow Tania up the street to the old Materva soda factory, which these days looks like a rust museum. My great-grandfather once worked here, helping make what was then sort of Cuba’s own Coca-Cola. The company still exists in Miami, but the product remains unavailable to most Cubans here. Staring up at the ex-factory, with its rusted white water tower and cracked concrete walls, Tania trips backward in a small asphalt crater. She tells me she remembers they used to have a slogan printed on all the cans: “If you drink, don’t drive. And if you drink, drink Materva.” I tell her they still print the same slogan. She laughs.

She smiles. I laugh. I smile. I wish I had a can to give her.

We walk back toward the house, and outside we find Conchita, another woman who knew my grandparents. “Eran como familia,” she says. “They were like family.”

Before I get going, Tania has something to say. “Yo siento alegría. El bisnieto de Julio Robla está en la casa que él construyó,” she tells me. “I feel joy. The great-grandchild of Julio Robla is in the house that he built.” She smiles, and she pulls me in for a hug. She asks when I’m leaving. When I tell her the next morning, she pouts. Next time I’m in Havana, she assures me, I’m welcome to stay for free, to eat their food. I don’t know whether that day will ever come, though I’d sure like it to. Such is the paradox of exile: You want to go, but you know you shouldn’t. You want to enjoy it, but you can’t. As long as the tourism apartheid remains intact, it’s hard to justify journeying back.

But should such an opportunity arise, Tania says I’m always invited. Yes, at this old house, she promises I’m welcome any time.

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CULTURE

FOR LOVE OF THE GAME LONG BEFORE MARCH MADNESS, LATTER-DAY SAINTS VIED FOR THE ‘ALL-CHURCH’ TITLE

BY E TH A N B AU E R

F

rom inside a glossy, black cardboard box, Kathryn Hadfield extracts a leather-bound scrapbook. She makes no effort to conceal her joy as she flips it open, her wrinkles of 88 years disappearing behind her broad smile. Why would she? Hardly anybody asks about the photos these days. Everybody’s long forgotten them. Heck, the men in them are all dead — including Jack, her husband of 67 and a half years who died in 2017. Kathryn grins even wider when she sees him. It’s as though — for a few seconds, at least — he’s alive again.

But not here, seated around her sturdy kitchen table, beneath the “Families are forever” sign mounted beside the sliding glass door. No, it’s as though they’re both back in 1948, young and curious and uncertain about where they’ll go or who they’ll become. Yes, let’s start with the snapshot of Jack dated 1948. That’s him in the front row, on the right, with the No. 7 jersey and sweat drenching the letter W in “4th Ward,” the team name stretched across his chest. Without realizing it, he’s just reached a milestone that will follow him for the rest of his life and beyond, right into his wife’s scrapbook some 74 years later.

Back then, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsored an annual basketball tournament featuring the best ward-based teams from across the country, and even from across the continent. It began in 1922, a full 17 years before the first NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, and the “AllChurch” tournament soon grew to include 74

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annual volleyball and softball competitions, too. The number of young men competing, by church estimates, reached 10,000 by the mid1930s. For comparison, today’s NCAA features almost 19,000 men’s basketball players. But at the Division I level — that is, the teams eligible for March Madness — there are only

IT WAS RECREATION FOR RECREATION’S SAKE, BEFORE BIG BUSINESS CONQUERED THE COUNTRY’S ATHLETIC LANDSCAPE.

5,510 by the most recent count, meaning that the young men competing for a spot in the AllChurch tournament back then nearly doubled the amount seeking March Madness glory today.

A team had to be the best in its stake, then the best in its region, then the best in its zone to reach the All-Church level. As both an outgrowth of the influential “muscular Christianity” movement and a phenomenon all its own, the tournament was emblematic of an era marked by robust community life; a time when youth sports weren’t pay-to-play and supposedly “amateur” college sports didn’t reek of corporate cash and swollen administrator pockets. It was recreation for recreation’s

sake, before big business interests conquered the country’s athletic landscape. Though it was still plenty competitive, as when the “unseeded and unheralded” Brigham 4th Ward, as the Deseret News then called them, faced off against Edgehill, the tournament’s “team to beat,” in the ’48 All-Church finals.

Church President Ezra Taft Benson once remarked that the All-Church tournaments existed to develop men of proper character by cultivating virtues like teamwork and excellence. “May (the tournament) bring joy to our hearts, may it teach you valuable lessons,” he said during a long-ago address to participants, “(and) may it make you appreciate more fully the rich program of the church, the purpose of which is to build men and women of character and strengthen and deepen spirituality.”

Members used anecdotal evidence to bolster such claims, says historian Jessie Embry, whose 2009 BYU Studies Quarterly article “Spiritualized Recreation: LDS All-Church Athletic Tournaments, 1950-1971” offers a detailed history of the tournament’s origins and eventual demise. One bishop from Jacksonville, Florida, she observed, praised the tournament for encouraging missions. A player from Cincinnati called it a “spiritual experience … a testimonybuilding experience.” And a coach from Blanding, Utah, touted its correlation with church service; four of his players became bishops, he bragged, and one a stake president. The tournament could also be a potent missionary tool, bringing new young men closer to Christ

G ERAL D S ILVE R/ DE S ERE T N EWS ARCH IVE S

SA LT LAKE AND ARI ZONA PLAYERS CO MP E T E IN T H E 1 9 6 5 AL L- C H U RC H B AS K E T B AL L TOU RNAME NT. T H E P RO G R A M , WHIC H B EGAN I N 1922, LASTED 50 YEARS BU T WAS DIS B ANDE D IN 1 97 1 B E C AU S E OF T H E FAR- F LU NG NAT U RE OF TH E C H U R C H .

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JOH N B E NNION, L E F T, BY U 5 0 T H WA R D, AND C ARL L E S E U R, BY U 95 TH WA R D, F IGH T F OR A RE B OU ND D U R I N G A COL L E GE F INAL IN T H E A LL- C H U R C H B AS K E T B AL L P L AYOF F S .

through a language — sports — that they already understood.

Jack Hadfield made the 60-mile trip to Salt Lake City to the old Deseret Gym in 1948 with the upbeat string rhythm of Art Mooney’s “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover’’ humming from AM dials as the No. 1 song in America and the green air of a Utah spring wafting through the windows. Dated March 8, 1948, Jack Fairclough’s Deseret News dispatch told of the Brigham 4th’s “climb to the heights Saturday night to become the new, impressive ruler of the Men’s all-Church world with a thrilling 34 to 32 hairline decision.”

From there, the pictures do the rest. The one mentioned earlier, with Jack Hadfield in the bottom right, shows a tired team that had just clinched the contest, with a teammate’s hands on Jack’s shoulders. The one beside the Deseret News story shows Jack Hadfield and eight teammates standing in a line, arms slung over each other, matching snap-button jackets crumpled and crinkled and sweaty, with their coach holding up the toddler-sized trophy. And then there’s one from a little while later, on the cover of the Church News. It features Jack shaking hands with his fellow team captains and holding his personal trophy.

“The Story Behind the Winners,” the headline reads. “M Men basketball is much more than just play in the world’s biggest league,” follows the subhead. “It helps build true Latter-day Saint manhood.” Kathryn, taking in the buffet of pictures, grins once more. two years later, in 1950. She and Jack had just gotten engaged. “That was an exciting night,” she remembers, once more letting the joy of the past spread across her face. She yelled so intensely that a fellow spectator — one of a then-record 4,000 — asked a friend of hers to tell her to tone it down.

“That’s her fiancé,” the friend replied. “She can yell at him if she wants.” Jack won the title again that year, and again in ’53. The Brigham 4th Ward was the Duke of its day. “They were kind of celebrities,” says Ben Hadfield, Jack and Kathryn’s son. “They had won the All-Church three times. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“They were happy years,” Kathryn adds,

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GERALD SILVER/D ESERET NEWS ARCHIVES

LDS CHURCH NEWS

JAC K HA D F IE LD, O F THE BRI GHAM 4TH WARD, HOLDS A T ROP H Y H E E AR N E D P LAY IN G IN THE ALL-CHURCH BASKETBALL TO U RNAME NT ON THE COVE R O F THE LATTER-DAY SAI NT CHURCH NEWS IN 1 9 48 .

recalling both the excitement of “back then” and the quiet of now.

“Were” is the key. The All-Church tournament is long gone, done in by forces of globalization. It always had some drawbacks — at least if the goal was a spiritually enriching experience. Like the elite high school football programs of today, for example, some wards recruited players to move within their boundaries. Embry cites one case where a man was offered a full-time job if he’d simply move from Utah to California to play for a team there. Some teams were accused of brokering the services of college players, who were not eligible. And some players didn’t attend the required church meetings that kept them eligible. But the main reason for the end of the All-Church tournament was macro rather than micro: The church was simply becoming too big, shifting from an American institution focused in Salt Lake City to an international faith with followers across the world. The logistics of planning a tournament

AC T ION ON T H E COU RT AS H IGH L AND DE F E AT E D D OW N E Y 4 T H WA R D, F OR T H E JU NIOR T IT L E IN AL L- C H U RC H B AS K E TB A LL.

for an international church were just too much, which is all right with Ben Hadfield, who reached the All-Church tournament in all three sports during his senior year of high school in 1970 — one year before it ended in 1971. “I think we’ve grown past it,” he says. “It’s like the trophy case in the foyer.”

The trophy case to which he refers goes back to his dad, Jack. After the 4th Ward won its three basketball titles, it displayed its hardware in a trophy case at the meetinghouse entrance. “It sounds funny now,” Ben says, “but back then, it was just part of the culture.” When that part of the culture fell out of fashion, the ward gave Jack one of the three championship trophies, which he proudly displayed in his home until shortly before his death (he donated it to the church archives, where it rests today). That trophy also followed Ben, who even though he didn’t win it himself got recognized by apostle Elder Marvin J. Ashton in a terminal at New York’s JFK airport while returning from his mission

in 1973. Ashton told the young Ben that he remembered playing against his father in the All-Church tournaments of yore. “What do you mean played against him?” Jack asked Ben when he got home. “I’m not that old.” It was perhaps the most obvious example of how winning the tournament, like winning March Madness, could stick to a person — or even to a family. “That kind of became a little bit of their identity,” Ben says. “Everybody around town remembered that.”

Kathryn remembers it well, too. “We sure laughed through the years,” she says. “We had some fun times.” Nowadays, though, she admits the memories have faded from the town’s consciousness. The trophy case is gone; the team is gone; she and two other widows remain, each clinging to their scrapbook mementos. She places hers — including the photo of the chiseled, jerseyed, young Jack — back into the brown leather book, back into the glossy black box and sets it aside, unsure of when she’ll next open the delight within.

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IDEAS

GOD IS NOT DEAD THE OBITUARY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY HAS BEEN WRITTEN AGAIN AND AGAIN. BUT THE DATA TELLS A DIFFERENT STORY

BY RYA N B U R G E

I

knew what I was doing was a mistake. I got into an argument with someone on social media. They were making a point using statistical evidence that I knew to be false. So I did what I always do in situations like this: I made a graph. I sent that graph to him with a note that simply said, “I think that data you are relying on is faulty, and I have more confidence in these results that I’m illustrating here.” The reply I got a few minutes later was direct and demoralizing: “I don’t believe your data.”

Trying to be data-driven, neutral and objective is my entire career, my life’s purpose, something I’d like to think that I am pretty good at. But no matter how much data, how many graphs, how much evidence I muster, this guy will never believe me. And he’s not alone.

A growing segment of the population is completely unwilling to even entertain facts that may contradict the way that they think about politics, culture and society. Huge swaths of the public seem to express no desire to rethink their worldview. I like to believe that American discourse used to be focused on high-minded ideas like freedom, morality and the role of government in the lives of its citizens. Debates about the purpose of life, what is true and what constitutes a good life are worth having, because they focus on what we value, how our life experiences shape our worldview, and what we hope and fear for the future.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that when verifiable facts are in dispute, we are at a moment of crisis. If we think about the structure 78

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of political discourse, facts are the foundation.

If we cannot agree on the foundation, there can be no meaningful debate.

Observing the devolution of American debate over the past two decades has been especially jarring for me. I grew up in a conservative evangelical Southern Baptist church that was led by pastors who emphasized to me over and over again that there are objective truths in this world. I can’t tell you how many sermons I heard about the boogeyman of moral relativism. The phrase “All truth is THAT THE COUNTRY IS BECOMING LESS RELIGIOUS AS EACH DAY PASSES SEEMS TO BE THE HIGHESTPROFILE STORY IN AMERICAN RELIGIOUS DEMOGRAPHY. THE AMERICAN CHURCH IS ON A DEATH SPIRAL AND WILL LOOK LIKE WESTERN EUROPE’S IN THE NEXT FEW DECADES.

God’s truth” has been deeply embedded into my subconscious.

The same men and women who taught me those lessons in Sunday school and on church camping trips now try to tell anyone who follows them on social media to ignore the evidence from the scientific community, or courts of law, and instead to believe in random videos they find on YouTube or an article that

was copied and pasted on social media with zero attribution or fact-checking.

While high-profile conspiracy theories take up a lot of bandwidth on social media and cable news networks, right below those are a menagerie of less outlandish but no less insidious lies about the way American society actually works. These haven’t been pushed by hucksters trying to get more views on their videos or more shares for their content. Instead, these are suppositions about the world that people just naturally assume are true because they have never seen any real evidence to the contrary.

These nuggets are considered by pastors, denominational leaders and even people in the pews as true unless proven false. These myths, I’ll call them, are worth really considering, because they form the foundation of our worldviews. Imagine a builder was tasked with constructing a new bridge made entirely of bricks. If he got lazy and decided not to carefully inspect all the bricks that would form the base of the bridge, eventually those faulty materials would lead to a catastrophic collapse. Similarly, we can expect collapse when our worldviews are too often built on a series of small, untested assumptions about the way things work.

You might ask, “How can having an inaccurate view of things like religion and politics have any real impact on society?” Let me give you an example. Some of my favorite types of survey questions ask respondents to describe how they view members of the other political party. These surveys provide an important

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window into just how unmoored perception can be from reality.

In a poll conducted in March 2015, two political scientists asked Republicans to estimate what share of the Democratic Party is atheist or agnostic. The average guess was 36 percent, but the reality is that only 9 percent of Democrats say they are atheist or agnostic. Republican respondents also believe that 38 percent of Democrats are lesbian, gay or bisexual. In reality, just 6 percent say they are.

But this misperception cuts both ways. In the same poll, Democrats said they believed that 44 percent of Republicans were 65 or older. In reality, just 21 percent are. Additionally, Democrats believed that nearly half of Republicans made $250,000 a year or more. In reality just 2 percent of GOP members do.

While poll results like these are great for clickbait articles with titles like “Look how wrong Democrats are about Republicans,” there is something much more dangerous going on just below that headline. The takeaway for me is this: Americans don’t have a firm grasp of what the opposition actually looks like, and in the absence of actual data, they usually assume the worst about those on the other side of the aisle.

So what’s the antidote to this morass in which we find ourselves? It begins when people from all political persuasions start to embrace a worldview that is less partisan and more empirical.

To perceive the world in an empirical way is, in my estimation, a superpower. It means that emotion plays no role in how I receive and incorporate facts into my understanding of how society works. To be empirical is to rid myself of ideological, theological and cultural bias, and instead ruthlessly to seek out what is verifiably true in this world. If anything can unite a country that seems to be becoming more politically, economically and religiously polarized every day, it’s the embracing of an empirical worldview. It may be the only thing we can ever agree on in the future.

Being empirical is uncomfortable, because it may challenge our suppositions of how the world works. It requires accepting evidence that challenges our worldview. But just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. An empirical worldview gets us closer to what is true in the world than any other approach that we have at our disposal.

And maybe my own bias as a pastor is showing, but seeking truth is supposed to be the ultimate goal of any follower of Jesus Christ.

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How do we begin to do that? Where do we start? We start with the facts.

And if you want information about religion and politics in the United States, I can help you, because I’m an expert in that field. The reason I can state that, by any objective measure, is that it is the truth. How did I acquire this expertise? In the same way that a plumber becomes a master at the craft or a violinist becomes the first chair in their symphony — through a dogged pursuit of becoming more knowledgeable in my field of study. I earned

ALTERING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD BASED ON NEW INFORMATION IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS BUT GREAT INTELLECTUAL STRENGTH.

a religious or political agenda on a distracted public. That’s incredibly caustic for the future of American politics and religion, because facts are the building blocks of not just debate but all aspects of a civilized society.

So I want to help you see what I see in the data. Some of it will surprise you, and hopefully some of it will change you. Altering our understanding of the world based on new information is not a sign of weakness but great intellectual strength. Can you imagine if we all had the same viewpoints that we held when we were 18? One of the most powerful images I’ve seen in the last few years was a man standing at a protest holding a small sign that said, “I’m sorry I’m late. I had a lot to learn.” What a tremendous display of humility and openness.

I am reminded of the famous quote by James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Here are three myths I’ve found about the state of faith in America today.

MYTH NO. 1 a doctoral degree in political science after six years of study and writing a dissertation that was focused on religion and political behavior in the United States. Since then I have published two dozen peer-reviewed articles on religion and politics in academic journals. I have written a book on the religiously unaffiliated in the United States and have contributed analysis about American religion and politics to some of the largest media outlets in the nation.

I have cut every dataset a thousand different ways, looking for a new angle or a new story about American religion. It’s the thing that I think about when I lie in bed at night or when I’m taking a shower. I have a running note on my phone where I gather ideas that hit me that I just have to explore.

There’s something that happens when you work with data every day that I didn’t fully understand until just a few years ago. Insights begin to materialize that lead to further analysis — and in my case, to an even deeper understanding of the religious and political landscape of the United States. After doing all that work, I’ve come to realize that the way that most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to any empirical reality. Instead, it’s based on anecdotes, a quick scan of news headlines or worse — just flat-out lies told by bad actors trying to push

American religion is in decline E V E RY F E W Y E ARS , a national media outlet publishes a story about the inevitable decline of American religion.

It all began with that famous Time magazine cover from April 1966. Three words in a bolded red font stood against a solid black background, “Is God Dead?” Of course, the editors were borrowing this idea from the famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

Nietzsche was making a point that the era of the Enlightenment and its push for scientific reasoning had eliminated a need for God, but most Americans did not know the full context of the quote. They just saw the magazine cover at the supermarket checkout stand, and many of them got angry. A retrospective on the piece noted that Time magazine received 3,421 letters from readers upon its publication.

One of those letters stated, “Your ugly cover is a blasphemous outrage.”

Significant portions of the United States were devoutly religious in the 1960s, and to say that God was dead was an affront to their entire worldview.

Discussion surrounding the supposed death of religion, including evangelical Christianity in the United States, has only

picked up steam since then. There seems to be a never-ending drumbeat of stories declaring the end of American religion.

The Atlantic ran a piece titled “Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion.

Why?” and just a few months later the Week published an article with the headline “The Coming End of Christian America.” That the country is becoming less religious as each day passes seems to be the highest-profile story in American religious demography. The American church is on a death spiral and will look like Western Europe’s in the next few decades.

True, the story is not entirely manufactured or without some empirical merit. Ample evidence from a variety of data sources points to a continuing rise of the so-called nones in American society. Pew Research Center noted that the nones were 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2007, 23 percent in 2014 and 28 percent in 2019. I wrote a book about the topic myself, noting that the share of Americans with no religious affiliation may be as high as 30 percent, a finding I reached using a survey methodology different from Pew’s.

No matter how the numbers are crunched, though, we can say that those without a religious affiliation are a larger share of America than ever before. Still, we need to keep in mind that the nones increasing doesn’t necessarily mean all religious traditions are on the decline.

I do not blame the American public for believing that religion is in its twilight in our society. However, I think most people arrive at that conclusion by extrapolating a bit too much from the headlines they glance at as they scroll through the titles of books on Amazon, a news app or their social media feed. Or they notice Pew headlining its most recent report “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.” No matter the source, they conclude that Christianity, writ large, is on its deathbed.

What they miss is that Pew and others lay out a very nuanced and careful story that highlights how certain types of American religion, not all of Christianity, are in decline. The story of what is happening to American Christianity is much more complicated than any headline could ever really capture and, in my opinion, is even more interesting. The real story of American Christianity is that those who are intensely religious have not changed in any meaningful way in the past 50 years.

Let’s look at evangelicals in particular. The General Social Survey has been asking questions about religious affiliation since 1972 and

is considered the only authoritative source for tracking the composition of American religion over a long time horizon. Thus, it makes sense to start there when trying to understand what has happened to evangelicals over the past 40 years.

When the trend line for evangelicals is illustrated in the survey, the trend for American evangelicals in the United States is a slightly upward one over 46 years. They were just under 24 percent of the population in the early 1970s and rose to just over 25 percent in 2018.

Despite this slightly upward trend, many people focus on what has happened to evangelicals since their peak around 1993. If we begin our analysis in 1987, the trend is downward. In statistical terms, nearly 28 percent of Americans were evangelical in 1987 and that has dropped about 5 percentage points in the past 30 years.

But that second narrative ignores two key pieces of relevant evidence. The first is that evangelicals today are the same percentage of the U.S. population in 2018 that they were in 1982 — a fact that does not support the “evangelicals are dying” hypothesis. The other is that the decline of evangelicalism has basically stopped since 2000. Instead of claiming a decline in evangelicalism, the more objective perspective is that the period from the late 1980s through the late 1990s was an aberration in the history of American religion.

Because of a confluence of a number of religious, cultural and political shifts, evangelicalism saw a significant but relatively short-lived burst in popularity. The more honest reading of the data is that evangelicals constitute just slightly less than a quarter of Americans in an average year, and there is little reason to think that this will substantially shift in the next decade.

However, there’s another way to measure the size of evangelicalism over time — self-identification. The prior analysis did not rely on a survey respondent saying they were an evangelical. Instead, they told the survey administrator what denomination the church they attended belongs to, and social scientists sorted them into the evangelical camp based on just that information.

However, many surveys have begun to include an additional question about religious identification: “Do you consider yourself to be a born-again or evangelical Christian, or not?” The person hearing the question determines their religious attachment. To that end, since 1988 the General Social Survey has been

asking this question, “Would you say you have been ‘born again’ or have had a ‘born-again’ experience — that is, a turning point in your life when you committed yourself to Christ?”

The results of those responses show a slow upward trajectory in the past three decades.

About 37 percent of Americans said in 1988 that they had had a born-again experience, but by 2004 that had dropped by about 3 percentage points. From that point forward there has been a slow and steady climb in the share of Americans who say they have had a bornagain experience. The born-again portion of the sample jumped by 4 percentage points between 2004 and 2010 and then has increased just about 4 percentage points again from 2010 to 2018. In the most recent data available, the share of Americans who say they have had a born-again experience is 41 percent. There’s definitely no sign of evangelical decline from that angle.

MYTH NO. 2

The personal faith of a presidential candidate can activate part of the electorate school term was already shaping up to be an incredibly busy semester, but something else was going on that diverted my attention from advising students, planning courses and organizing a small conference: the 2020 presidential election.

Every news outlet in the United States and across the world was trying to find a new way to spin the same old horse race-style coverage of presidential elections. No one wants to read the same basic story from five or six different media outlets that all cover the same details in a similar fashion. So editors tell reporters, “Find a new angle on this” and they begin to scour the internet and talk to sources in hopes of finding another way to frame the November contest. Apparently, some of them managed to zero in on the impact religion would have on the presidential vote, because my inbox began pinging in early October and continued through Thanksgiving with requests for interviews, data points and musings about how the matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump played out among the faithful going to the polls.

Many of the questions I received from reporters were focused on the personal faith of the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Biden

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had never shied away from speaking about his Catholic upbringing, both as a member of the United States Senate and as the vice president However, pictures of Biden coming or going from Mass while on the campaign trail became a steady part of the media coverage of his candidacy in 2020. Having seen those images and heard the chatter on social media, lots of political analysts thought this would give Biden the ability to win over larger shares of the Catholic vote than Hillary Clinton received in 2016.

However, when I was asked by reporters if I thought Biden would be well positioned to take a larger share of the Catholic vote, I couldn’t provide the full-throated support for the theory that they wanted. There’s very little evidence that any candidate in the past several decades has been especially adept at winning over certain religious groups.

But data availability and quality issues aside, there’s another more existential problem with the media coverage around election season: In most cases, the vote choice among faith groups does not shift in any meaningful way from one presidential election to the next. Journalists are always hunting for the big headline, like “White evangelicals vote share for Donald Trump dropped by 10 points in his reelection bid” or “Why did atheists support Biden in much larger numbers than they did Clinton four years earlier?” Unfortunately, the data indicates almost no sweeping changes happen at the intersection of religion and politics every four years. Instead, most of the movement in the electorate is much more incremental. A one- or two-point shift between two elections can become an eight-point swing across four election cycles.

Looking across data from presidential elections from 2008 through 2020 makes it clear how these trends develop with some groups over time. For instance, only 3 percent of Black Protestants voted for John McCain in 2008. Mitt Romney did two points better, then Donald Trump got 7 percent in 2016 and 9 percent in 2020. That same gradual trend appears for Orthodox Christians, Buddhists and Hindus as well. But generally, most of the trend lines are relatively flat over four election cycles. Stability among religious groups at the voting booth is very much the expected outcome.

The results from the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections illustrate this point very well.

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term in office. When only one of the two candidates changes in an election, the likelihood of dramatic shifts in the way that electorate votes is fairly low. The other notable aspect of the 2020 election was that Trump had seen no significant shifts in his approval rating across his four years in the White House. Thus, there was not a lot of reason to believe that the 45th president had either turned off a big portion of his base or that he had won over indepen-

PUT SUCCINCTLY, AMERICAN RELIGION HAS BECOME SMALLER BUT MUCH MORE POTENT. THERE’S STRONG EVIDENCE THAT PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS ARE JUST AS DEVOUT TODAY AS THEY WERE FOUR DECADES AGO, AND IN SOME CASES CHURCH ATTENDANCE IN 2018 MAY BE HIGHER THAN IT WAS IN THE EARLY 1970S.

dents or conservative Democrats between 2016 and 2020.

The data bears that out pretty clearly. Most religious groups shifted just a few percentage points between the two races. For instance, the overall shift in vote share for Trump among evangelicals was only 2 percentage points in his favor. Among mainline Protestants, there was absolutely no change. For Catholics, the shift was slightly larger than it was for evangelicals at just about 3 percentage points overall. Among the smaller religious groups such as Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews, the movement was 2 or 3 percentage points in Trump’s direction as well. Among the religiously unaffiliated, Trump lost about 4 percentage points of support in his reelection bid.

But read those numbers again: The overall shift among any religious group never exceeds 4 percentage points. That’s not what I would describe as a large swing.

Really, the only religious group that shifted significantly between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections was the Latter-day Saint vote. In 2016, Trump got a very slim majority of the Latter-day Saint vote, but

that’s not because Hillary Clinton was seen as a particularly attractive candidate to the Latter-day Saint community. Rather, they didn’t particularly like either of the two major party candidates. Instead, nearly a quarter of the Latter-day Saint vote went to third-party candidates, with many casting a ballot for Evan McMullin (a moderate Republican who is a member of the church). Because neither McMullin nor any other viable third-party candidates ran in 2020, the Latter-day Saint voters had to decide between Trump and Biden; thus, both parties did better with Latter-day Saint voters in 2020. Or, in short, the Latter-day Saint vote was truly an outlier.

But what happens if we pull back the time frame and compare the election results from the 2020 presidential election to the matchup of Barack Obama and John McCain back in November 2008? Remember, that election was by any objective viewpoint a blowout for Barack Obama. Obama beat John McCain by over seven percentage points in the popular vote but also won states that seemed far out of reach for any Democratic candidate running in 2020. So if we were looking for big shifts in vote share, it should be through comparing 2008 to any subsequent election.

But the results from 2008 and 2020 in terms of changes in vote for all the religious traditions are not nearly as dramatic as many would anticipate (or the media would hope for).

For most of the largest religious traditions in the United States, the actual shift in the overall vote was relatively minor over those 12 years. Take many of the largest Christian traditions, for instance. Despite all the think pieces written about how Trump would turn off white evangelicals in both 2016 and 2020, he actually did better than McCain did — but by only three percentage points. The same three-point shift to the Republican side is evident among white Catholics as well. Among mainline, the movement is just two percentage points, also the case among nonwhite Catholics and Protestants.

In fact, if you are looking for big swings, there are only four religious groups whose vote share for Trump was at least 10 points different from what it was for McCain. Those four groups were: Orthodox Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. But in total those four groups constitute about 2.5 percent of the adult population of the United States. So while there were significant swings in the vote share of some religious groups, they represent a very small fraction of the total votes cast.

Among these four groups, their vote-share switching resulted in the changing of one in 400 votes cast on Election Day — clearly, not enough to make the difference in who wins the White House. For comparison, getting 1 percent of the white evangelical vote to switch to the Democrat would net more overall votes than getting 10 percent of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Orthodox Christians to change their votes.

I think the reason the media anticipate tectonic shifts in the vote of religious groups is that observers focus in general on each presidential candidate’s unique strengths and weaknesses, assuming these particular characteristics will help them win over new voters — while acknowledging, if they’re honest, that these same traits could hurt their chances with other demographic segments of the electorate.

In the same way, candidates themselves (and their campaign advisers, of course) focus on their religious background, believing this aspect of their biography will have significant influence on voters’ choices. George W. Bush had a very strong following among evangelical Protestants, because he saw himself as an evangelical and was conversant in the terminology and culture of that strain of American Christianity. Bush made it a point to talk about how his born-again experience helped him end his alcohol addiction and become a better husband and father. In much the same way, Biden did not shy away from talking about his strong commitment to the Roman Catholic Church while on the campaign trail. That was a sharp contrast to the prior Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, who was a lifelong United Methodist but did not emphasize that during her run for the White House. Given these differing strategies, one might assume Biden was well positioned to win over a bigger share of the white Catholic vote in 2020 than Clinton received just four years earlier.

However, if we dig into the data about presidential vote choice among white Catholics in 2016 and 2020, we find no evidence that Biden won any more of this voting bloc than Clinton did. If the white Catholic vote is subdivided into levels of church attendance, Biden did not do significantly better than Clinton in a single attendance category. In fact, in five of the six categories there were no statistically significant differences between the two election cycles. Among monthly attending white Catholics, Hillary Clinton earned 45 percent of the vote in 2016, but Joe Biden actually did eight points worse four years later. If you had

hand-picked a candidate primarily to gain back the white Catholic voting bloc in the 2020 presidential election, it would have been hard to find a more ideal person than Biden.

But Biden’s share of the white Catholic vote in 2020 was not statistically distinct from Clinton’s share four years earlier.

The last thing I want to do is write myself out of my job, but in the phrase “religion and politics,” it seems that politics is more important than ever before. The idea that large swaths of Americans are willing to listen honestly and openly to the arguments from both sides of the political spectrum is more a product of wishful thinking than statistical reality.

And, it’s also idealistic to think that voters place their religious affiliation at the center of the political decision-making process. Instead, the vast majority of political scientists contend that partisanship is the most important factor in the lives of most Americans, with faith a distant second. If that’s how most voters make their decision on Election Day, then it’s inevitable that religious voting blocs won’t shift significantly from one election to the next — no matter how compelling the candidate.

MYTH NO. 3

America is much less religious today than a few decades ago ON ONE S IDE of the religious spectrum, increasing numbers of Americans are indicating they have no belief in God, they never attend religious services, and they see themselves as atheists or agnostics.

But among those who still affiliate with a religious tradition, there’s fairly compelling evidence that their religiosity is at least as high as it was 40 years ago. And, in some cases, they are more devout than Christians from the 1970s.

One of the most important developments in American political science literature over the past few decades is mounting evidence of political polarization. The empirical reality is that the Democratic Party has moved further toward the left side of the political spectrum, while the Republicans have shifted significantly toward the right. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was not at all uncommon for members of Congress to vote for bills supported by members of the other party. Today, bipartisanship is verboten. There is no place for moderates in American politics.

But the same phenomenon seems to be occurring in American religion as well. On one side, a growing number of Americans identify as secular and eschew many of the trappings of American religion. But on the other side, a significant portion of the American population is devoutly religious. They attend church at high rates, and they have a strong belief in God. In essence, American religion has boiled down to either being very religious or being completely secular, with little in between.

An interesting narrative emerges when analyzing church attendance rates of the various traditions in American Christianity. There’s strong evidence that Protestant Christians are just as devout today as they were four decades ago, and in some cases church attendance in 2018 may be higher than it was in the early 1970s.

Among those identifying as evangelical in the 1970s, about 36 percent reported weekly church attendance. By 2018, the share of evangelicals who attended church weekly or more had risen to just over 46 percent — an increase of 10 percentage points.

That same upward trend appears for both Black Protestants and mainline Protestants as well, but the rise is a bit more muted. About 29 percent of Black Protestants were weekly attenders in the 1970s. In 2018, that group was up to 33 percent. Among mainline Protestants during the same time period, the share of weekly attenders rose from 21 percent to 23 percent.

There is a marked decline in attendance among Roman Catholic respondents, however. In 1972, about 45 percent of Catholics said they attended Mass weekly or more. By 2018, that share was only 20 percent. That trend line is in stark contrast to those from the three Protestant groups and is hard to comprehend.

It may be partially related to the fact that a growing number of people embrace a type of “cultural Catholicism.” According to data from Pew Research Center, 62 percent of cultural Catholics see their attachment as more about family heritage than religious devotion.

The closest parallel may be the significant number of people who identify as Jewish because of the ethnic lineage of their family but never attend synagogue.

Yet religiosity is about more than just church attendance. Alongside religious behavior, there is also religious belief. The General Social Survey has been asking respondents to indicate their belief in God since 1988. The share of the sample who responded “I know APRIL 2022

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IN ESSENCE, WHAT AMERICAN SOCIETY HAS SEEN IS THAT WHILE SMALLER SHARES OF AMERICANS CLAIM A RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION, THOSE WHO STILL CHOOSE TO ATTACH THEMSELVES TO RELIGION ARE THE TRUE BELIEVERS.

God really exists and I have no doubts about it” was calculated for both the entire sample, as well as for those who still reported an affiliation with a religious tradition.

In 1988, about two-thirds of Americans said they had no doubt God existed. But if the nones are excluded, the share is a bit higher at around 69 percent. The share of Americans who expressed a sure belief in God declined over the next three decades to about 56 percent in 2018. However, if the nones are removed from the analysis, the share of Americans who express a certain belief in God drops only about 2 percentage points in 30 years. For those who still claim a religious affiliation in 2018, their beliefs look almost identical to the same group 30 years earlier.

If the sample is separated into the various traditions in Christianity, there’s little evidence of a significant decline. In 1988, just over 80 percent of evangelicals and Black Protestants indicated that they believed in God without any doubts. Thirty years later, that share was 83 percent for Black Protestants and 82 percent for evangelicals.

Among mainline Protestants, there may be a 1-percentage point decline (from 59 percent to 58 percent in three decades). And while the share of Catholics who attend Mass weekly has dropped dramatically in the past several decades, that same pattern is much more modest when it comes to religious belief. In 1988, about two-thirds of Catholics claimed a belief in God without doubt. That dropped to about 60 percent 30 years later. Looking holistically, there’s little reason to believe that Christians believe in God with any less certainty in 2018 than they did three decades earlier. about American religion, I am drawn to the analogy of a chef making a reduction on the stove. They typically put some type of liquid with lots of seasonings in a saucepan. They let those seasonings steep in the liquid over heat for a long period of time.

As that reduction simmers over several hours, some of the liquid evaporates. In many cases, a reduction recipe calls for the sauce to reduce by half before it’s ready. The chef is left with less liquid, but what remains has a much more concentrated flavor than when all the ingredients were combined at the beginning of the cooking process.

The same thing seems to be happening to American religion. Over the last several decades the heat has continually been turned up as politics has become more polarized, as

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people take on more commitments that make them less available to attend church services, and as rapid advances in technology make it easier than ever to entertain ourselves without leaving the comfort of home.

All those factors have led significant numbers of Americans to no longer indicate a religious affiliation. But for those who have not chosen to become a none, what is left is an even more concentrated version of American religion. People who are truly committed to their faith and who honestly believe in the doctrines and dogmas of their church are not going to leave those behind very easily. In essence, what American society has seen is that while smaller shares of Americans claim a religious affiliation, those who still choose to attach themselves to religion are the true believers. Put succinctly, American religion has become smaller but much more potent.

There is something troubling about this trend for me as a pastor who believes deeply in the role of faith in the public square. I worry we’re creating a self-reinforcing loop among young people coming of age in 2020. While there used to be a wide variety of religious options for people, the number of viable church traditions has declined significantly. While conservative evangelicalism is still robust in the United States, this reduction process has driven out a lot of moderate Christians.

Mainline Christianity (which is typified by moderate churches such as the United Methodist and the United Church of Christ) used to make up 30 percent of Americans. Today, it’s just 10 percent.

Thus, many people who would like to find a church home are left with a landscape that is either theologically conservative and incredibly devout on one side or completely irreligious on the other. Left with those choices, many Americans seem to be choosing to become a none rather than an evangelical or conservative Catholic. Thus, as the middle disappears it becomes even more difficult to reverse this trend. So while those who still maintain a religious identity are more devout than ever, there are many who feel left out and spiritually homeless in the 21st century.

As a pastor, I want to end with a call to action that we, as believers, find ways to not leave these types of believers behind.

E XC E R P T E D F R O M “ 2 0 M Y T H S A B O U T R E L I G I O N A N D P O L I T I C S I N A M E R I C A ,” C O PY R I G H T 2 0 2 2 F O RT R E S S P R E S S, A N I M P R I N T O F 1 5 1 7 M E D I A . A L L R I G H TS R E S E RV E D.

THE LAST WORD

A HEALING EXPERIENCE AN OXFORD SCHOLAR AND ANGLICAN PRIEST ON HELPING EACH OTHER THROUGH HARD TIMES

BY LO I S M. CO L L I N S

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ast year was both exhilarating and painful for the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, an Oxford University theologian and Anglican priest and visiting lecturer at Brigham Young University. He moved to Provo for fall semester with high hopes and plans to research a book framing Joseph Smith as an outcast. That was before the Rev. Teal walked barefoot onto a patio in the Utah summer, not realizing the surface was covered with heat-reflective panels. He burned his feet so severely that he had to spend nearly a month in the burn unit at the University of Utah Hospital before convalescing back home in the United Kingdom, where Deseret found him preparing for a nine-hour, major reconstructive foot surgery.

The Rev. Teal, 57, had accepted an invitation to visit BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship as an affiliate scholar at the behest of his close friend, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The two had met through Elder Holland’s son Matthew, who’d done a sabbatical at Oxford’s Pembroke College, where the Rev. Teal is a chaplain and lecturer. Both men have described an immediate and enduring kinship, each taking a turn lecturing in the other’s home country. While “not quite a job swap,” the Rev. ILLU STR ATION BY KY LE H I LTO N

Teal jokes, “when I was in Utah, he was here in my chapel, which is quite funny.”

Asked to describe himself, the Rev. Teal hints at the contradiction of appearing learned while sometimes feeling inadequate. Mostly,

been blessed by a vision of what it is to be a human being in a network of relationships.”

After a long day of teaching, he talked about finding blessings in unexpected events and the importance of building community.

YOUR INJURY SOUNDS HORRENDOUS. HOW IS YOUR RECOVERY GOING?

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, NURSES AND DOCTORS WOULD TALK TO ME — LAPSED CATHOLICS AND METHODISTS AND LATTER-DAY SAINTS, PRACTICING CHRISTIANS OF VARIOUS DENOMINATIONS — ABOUT THEIR DIFFICULTIES WITH FAITH.

I have a major operation coming, with muscle tissue taken from my thigh being attached over amputated toes onto the top of the foot, because there’s very little flesh there. They will use microsurgery to attach capillaries that are half a millimeter thick, and how on earth they do that I can’t even think. I am absolutely awe-inspired by the fact that people are willing to invest their time, expertise and energy into something as modest as my feet.

DID YOU FIND ANY LESSONS IN THE EXPERIENCE?

he says, he is a person “worthy of love because God loves me.” He notes rich and joyous relationships with his wife and children and friends and colleagues, but also with many others, some unexpected. “I know some of the world’s great academics, but also fantastic people who are cleaners and cooks, and I have

I learned how proud I am and how unhappy I am being dependent on others. When you cannot put a foot on the floor and you need other people to do everything for you in intimate ways you wouldn’t want, it’s difficult.

They treated me with such dignity at the hospital. It was incredibly humbling, rather than humiliating, which is how I imagined it would APRIL 2022

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be. In the middle of the night, nurses and doctors would talk to me — lapsed Catholics and Methodists and Latter-day Saints, practicing Christians of various denominations — about their difficulties with faith. I found what Paul says in 1 Corinthians to be true: It is when we are weak that not only are we strong, but God is strong. I don’t think I would have had this experience if I’d have been simply researching and doing lectures. I glimpsed the mystery of human beings. It’s in the small, unexpected things that we find the biggest truths about who we are.

I’ve done wrong and I’ve said things which are unkind. Yet there’s the grace of repentance to start again by being in community. Together we can build a place where love can flourish, with networks of security and truth and forgiveness. You don’t find forgiveness in cancel culture at all. You find condemnation. So building community also means saying yes to things that we don’t yet know. If we’re cynical and want to undermine other people, then we’re never going to grow. And we’re also going to be so bitter. We’re going to be torn apart by resentment and unkindness.

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH AMERICANS?

WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE RELATIONSHIPS YOU BUILT IN UTAH?

Perhaps this is because I was in the West, but people there are incredibly hospitable and so generous. After intensive care, a friend put me up in a house. Others not only invited me out to eat, which was wonderful, but kept bringing me food. It was extraordinary. And it made me realize that it’s an act of grace not only to receive, but to allow other people to give. You have to allow people the human dignity of giving and blessing others.

YOU’VE LECTURED ON BUILDING COMMUNITY, WHICH SEEMS VERY HARD IN THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW.

That’s not just an American thing. It’s part of the spirit of the age, where we don’t listen or relate to people with respect for who they are. We almost enjoy finding reasons to cancel them. It’s such an annoying phrase, but I think it’s quite true. We cancel people out rather than listen to them, rather than engage and find in that encounter something beautiful that is happening, that takes us out of ourselves. Instead, we get so brittle, so defensive, so angry, that we want to shut other people up.

We don’t love people because we agree with them. We love them because they’re people.

And that's important to practice, rather than digging ourselves into our own prejudices.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A COMMUNITY?

It is only by committing to community that we ourselves can grow. We don’t thrive in a hostile environment where we just attack other people all the time. If you’re accusing somebody else of something, it shows that you’re not at home with the mystery and the complexity of who we are, of who I am. That 86

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Outsiders often think that American culture is highly individualistic. “It’s all about me.” In Utah, I found it was the opposite. I found that people were industrious together and went out of their way to understand and to connect. It was a real challenge to those perceptions.

IN THE U.S., CHURCH ATTENDANCE IS DOWN AND PEOPLE SEEM LESS CONNECTED TO FAITH INSTITUTIONS. DO YOU SEE THAT ELSEWHERE?

In a sense you’re a bit behind Europe on that. After the First World War — we’re talking 1918 — churches in England took a big hit because a whole generation of young men had been lost and there were questions about the goodness of God. After the Second World War, it was a bit different. There was quite a religious revival in the 1950s in England, and churches became quite important in society again after the horrors of that war and its impact on families. But by the 1960s, families were beginning to fragment and the power of churches and their presence in society was diminishing quite significantly. The most highly attended church in the U.K. today is the Roman Catholic Church, but that’s partly because of immigration. There are very few homegrown Catholic priests now. Most are from abroad. The Catholic Church in Ireland has more or less collapsed, as it has in Spain.

Although something like 46 percent of people would identify themselves as Church of England, attendance is tiny. I think it’s less than 2 percent of the population.

WHAT DREW YOU TO YOUR VOCATION?

This is intensely personal. I grew up with

my grandparents, who were the stability in my family. My mother, who died last year, got pregnant when she was 16. So she married my father, even though they were both young teenagers and not mature enough. My mum lost that child running for a bus. Then I came along. By the time I was born, effectively they were split up. My mum was like my big sister.

And my grandparents were extraordinary, on both sides, paternal and maternal grandparents. So in essence, my context was always a generation older.

When I was 13, my grandmother died. And I found all of the people at school were incredibly kind. School kids can be anything but, but they weren’t. I found a letter. I shouldn’t have looked at it, but the head teacher had written to my grandfather, a beautiful letter of condolence, adding that they’d keep an extra special eye on me. We were reading the Gospel of St. Mark at the time in religious studies, and I remember thinking, why does it take somebody’s death to make people more human?

Suddenly things began to make sense to me.

It was a testimony of the love of God to a child who was in bereavement. Thanks to the ministry of one or two people at that time, I realized that I had an obligation to live a life of love.

That’s when I thought, perhaps the best way I can give and contribute to the world would be in public ministry. I didn’t catch it from a Christian community. It wasn’t from going to church.

It was from something that happened inside.

ANY LAST WORD?

You can never do anything or be anything that will make God love you any less. He is love. He can’t do anything other than what he is. His only desire is for every human being to flourish. If this has been a bad week, or if you feel that your life has dealt you more blows than hugs, keep on keeping on, because the dignity and importance of a human being is never dispensable. You’re never worthless.

And feeling worthless itself can prompt us to reach out in empathy to other people, and to understand other people’s pain, rather than crumble.

If you have the opportunity to say, I’m sorry, I got that wrong and build somebody else up, do. The mystery, the strange thing is that will build us up more than anything that we can accomplish or acquire. Never give up on the mercy of God. Never give up knowing that you can be a light to somebody else, without you knowing it, just by being who you are.

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125 years of SUU NOW THAT'S A REASON TO CELEBRATE