Moral Injuries in the LDS Church: Part 2

In the conversation I previously mentioned with my Relief Society president, I talked about the value in building bridges of understanding and compassion. There is a dynamic to having these kinds of conversations that is important to acknowledge: the risk of moral injury and how to handle them.

What is moral injury?

Moral injuries are a type of trauma that happen when a person encounters anything that forces them to violate their own conscience or moral beliefs. It can be mental, emotional, spiritual, or social in nature. These injuries occur because of the cognitive dissonance that results from betrayal or transgression, either from behavior someone was forced to participate in against their will, or encounters because of the actions of another person. It's the stress that results from violating, or seeing others violate, the rules and standards by which a community is governed.

This has deep applications for those who participate in faith communities because these groups hold up and attempt to live by high moral standards. The higher the moral standard to which people are held, the greater the moral injury if (and when) they and others fail to live up to it.

Moral injuries hurt. They are traumatic. If left untreated and unacknowledged, they fester and can become profoundly disruptive to a person's life. Moral injuries can result in profound stress that can affect many systems throughout the body. In religious communities, these injuries can lead to lost faith, broken family relationships, and conflicts that go on for years without ceasing.

In my efforts to build bridges of understanding in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across all that separates us as people, I have encountered moral injuries of many types and varieties. Some of them were from behaviors I was forced and coerced to participate in. Others have been encounters I've had with people in my faith because of choices they've made, both in-person and at a distance. Coping with and healing from moral injuries is one of the most important skills a person can possess in their relationship with any religious organization. The Latter-day Saint community is no different.

Healing from moral injury is a skill set. It's something anyone can learn and practice to develop spiritual resiliency. Because this is something I have a lot of experience with, including in the conversation I just had with my Relief Society president, I want to talk about what this means and what it looks like.

The Church is composed of people who hold a variety of beliefs. Because the political landscape in the United States is built on dehumanization, the fractures between groups, which largely run along partisan lines, runs very deeply. It is a reality that when two people from opposites of the political spectrum in the United States try to talk to each other, they can waste a lot of time speaking past each other, rehearsing talking points with each other instead of listening and genuinely connecting with the person in front of them. This is why the conversations that build bridges I call for in Part 1 are so important. They are necessary for community healing and the return to civility that is lacking in our society.

At the same time, this climate of dehumanization is one where moral injuries become inevitable because of the talking points that people use in political discussions are dehumanizing. They're often based in harmful stereotypes and tropes, factual and historical inaccuracies, deliberate misinformation, and can often include abusive and derogatory language. In conversations a Latter-day Saint can have with others in their communities, including with the leadership the Church asks them trust, these moral injuries can and do still happen. Knowing how to respond to these injuries when they happen is an important part of self-care and having healthy relationships in the Church.

Relying on the Atonement of Jesus Christ for Healing

There is no reward for facing down moral injuries alone. Jesus Christ knows what it's like to face humiliation and violent rejection from others in his own faith community. He also knows personally the individuals ways in which each of us have been hurt, and hurt each other. There is no portion of our pain, including in facing moral injury, that Jesus Christ does not understand. He knows us. He loves us. We have a friend and a help in him to heal from these injuries when they happen to us because of the Atonement.

Accessing that atoning power begins with sincere prayer. Praying for ourselves, including laying out all of the ways we are hurt and upset, can be a valuable exercise--not because God doesn't already know, but because we need the experience of voicing the experience and claiming it as our own. This is an important step in mental and emotional processing that we need as human beings. And unlike any other audience we could choose, we can trust God to listen to us with love and compassion, and without judgment or interruption.

Praying for Others

There exists in Christianity a moral imperative to pray for others, especially those with whom we disagree. No matter what kind of enmity develops between us and another person, the moral imperative to pray for them never goes away. Having had to do this with people who have harmed me throughout my life, I've learned an important lesson about praying for others. God doesn't ask me to do it because he can't or won't help me with my problem if I don't. It's also not to force me back into abusive situations where I would be unsafe. Praying for those who have hurt me isn't for them. It's for me. It's part of the healing process I need to be unburdened by the pain I'm carrying. It's the sacred act of letting go of animosity to say "Let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds." (D&C 64:10-11)

Reconciliation through Honest Communication

It's not enough to simply tell ourselves that people are human and make mistakes, then attempt to forget that anything ever happened—especially not without ever acknowledging or resolving the problem with everyone else who was affected. That is not forgiveness or repentance. Healthy change and reconciliation cannot occur on a foundation of denial, shame, and resentment.

The fact is, many people who hurt us don't understand that they've done so. They will not receive clarity of how to correct their mistake if no one ever offers them the guidance and redirection they need. While the person who was injured doesn't always need to be the one to do this, it can be difficult for anyone else to know how to speak to an injury they themselves have never experienced.

Where reconciliation is possible, it happens through the principles taught in D&C 121:41-45

41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—

43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

44 That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

45 Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

Laying aside a conflict is only right once it has been resolved. Resolution happens through the maturity to admit fault, the commitment to change, and progressing forward with a new outlook on life and an expanded understanding of God's love for his children.

Setting Boundaries to Prevent Reinjury

There are times when reconciliation isn't possible because a person isn't capable of seeing or admitting to what they've done wrong. These are moments where the best thing to do is to involve others who can bring official intervention into the situation and help to set boundaries that will prevent repeat injuries. No one should have to deal with repeated instances of abusive and harmful behavior in their own religious community without the protection of those whose job it is to prevent that from happening. Everyone deserves to feel safe in the act of searching for God. This has to be the one thing we can all agree on. While we can't always prevent these errors from happening because of our human nature, there can be no excuses to avoid dealing with them once they become known. That is not what Jesus Christ would do, and it's not what he expects his called servants to do for the sake of maintaining a flimsy and artificial peace.

As a Christian, I have to believe in the reality of repentance for all sin. It is my duty to help others repent, and to do nothing to insert myself into that process to determine what others do or don't deserve. That doesn't mean I won't end up with injuries of my own by being willing to go to the darkest depths of the human soul with people to help them change. Giving space to allow people to admit their sincere feelings to me means I may hear some things that will hurt me, just in the act of hearing them.

I came back to Church because I knew there were lessons I could teach to those around me that no one else was prepared to teach the way I can. It's in my very nature to pull people out of the mires of the soul, no matter where they are and what the personal cost is to myself. I know this is in my nature. I know that this opens me to moral injuries. Because of that, I know what I have to keep in my spiritual First Aid kit—not just for others, but for myself. 

The ability to triage, treat, and recover from moral injuries is essential to ministering effectively to others. Recognizing that they've happened and calling upon the powers of heaven is how we learn to repent together as a community. There is no greater skillset that we could posses to heal the divides in a world full of broken nations and morally injured people. There is no substitute for the power of Christ in that healing, and no hope of success without the generosity that makes all things possible to those who believe.