Part IV | Select Quotes from Church Leaders

Category E | Perspectives

Topic 26 | Navigating other differences

Religious freedom helps us navigate other differences. When we become comfortable and adept at navigating religious differences, we become better at handling other differences and disagreements. This is true on both an individual and a societal level.

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Elder D. Todd Christofferson: Religious liberty promotes pluralism and peace among diverse religious traditions despite profound disagreements.  

“Religious liberty promotes pluralism and peace. For centuries, people fought over religious differences, often with government suppressing one religion in the name of another. Religious liberty has allowed people of diverse religious traditions to live together in peace and friendship despite profound disagreements. At this very gathering, representatives from faith traditions with enduring differences associate in a spirit of respect, unity, and friendship. The history of religious freedom demonstrates that respect begets respect. Governments that protect religious freedom have fewer social conflicts and greater levels of social cohesion.

Respect for religious liberty infuses society with an ethos of respect for different opinions and ways of life. People know how to live peacefully and respectfully despite religious differences are more likely to live peacefully and respectfully despite other differences, including different secular beliefs about marriage, family, gender, and sexuality. Religious liberty is the basis for a more inclusive, tolerant, and peaceful nation.”

• D. Todd Christofferson, Religious Liberty: The Basis of a Free and Just Society, First Forum on Religious Freedom in the Southern Cone (Oct. 29, 2021), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/religious-liberty-the-basis-of-a-free-and-just-society.

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Professor W. Cole Durham, Jr.: Religious freedom requires us to tolerate and respect views with which we disagree, but not accept, endorse, or support them.  

“Paradoxically, following the pattern set by the Master includes learning to respect the beliefs and choices made by others, even while standing firm in witnessing and teaching doctrinal truths. Indeed, following the pattern means standing for the rights and freedoms of others, even at the cost of our own lives—and surely also even at the lesser cost of inconvenience or discomfort.

This paradoxical nature of the doctrine of religious freedom needs to be emphasized and understood more deeply. Most of our doctrines are teachings that we affirm and agree to follow. In contrast, although religious freedom is basic and foundational for the system of gospel truth, it demands that we respect the views of those who adhere to other systems of belief. What is paradoxical is that our belief in religious freedom obligates us to tolerate and respect beliefs with which we disagree—though it does not require us to accept, endorse, or support them.”

• W. Cole Durham, Jr., The Doctrine of Religious Freedom, BYU Forum Address (Apr. 3, 2001), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/the-doctrine-of-religious-freedom (internal citations omitted).