Essay

Questions, Distortion, and Discernment

You may believe The Family: A Proclamation to the World is inspired and still have questions about something it teaches. Perhaps teachings about gender, sexuality, marriage, motherhood and fatherhood, children, the sanctity of life, or eternal family feel more complicated than they once did. Or, you may have heard people online describe some of those teachings as outdated, restrictive, unfair, or difficult to reconcile with compassion. What do you do? Who do you believe?

Those questions are worth taking seriously. But there is another question that can help us approach them with greater spiritual discernment: What has been shaping the way I understand this? None of us forms our ideas about identity, bodies, marriage, sexuality, children, or family entirely by ourselves. We are all learning from family, friends, school, entertainment, social media, personal experiences, and the larger culture around us.

Sometimes understanding a gospel question requires examining not only the answer, but also the assumptions we have brought to the question. So let’s take a look at this from a different perspective.

“Who Told Thee That Thou Wast Naked?”

One of the earliest questions God asks His children in scripture gives us a helpful pattern.

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were naked and “were not ashamed.” Then the serpent entered the garden and challenged what God had told them. He questioned God’s warning and offered another understanding of what would bring wisdom and happiness (Genesis 3:1–5).

After Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they covered themselves and hid. When Adam told the Lord that he was afraid because he was naked, God asked, “Who told thee that thou wast naked?” (Genesis 3:9–11).

The scripture does not say that Satan literally told Adam, “You are naked.” The Lord’s question draws attention to something deeper: Adam’s understanding had changed. Another voice had entered the garden, questioned what God had said, and offered a different way of seeing things.

That makes the Lord’s question useful for us. When something God has revealed begins to look different to us, we can ask: What has influenced the way I now see this? Where did that assumption come from? How does it compare with what God has actually revealed?

That is not a reason to be afraid of questions. It is part of learning how to ask them wisely.

Begin With What God Has Revealed

The Family: A Proclamation to the World gives us a revealed framework for understanding family life. It teaches that we are sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents, that gender is part of our eternal identity and purpose, that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, that the powers through which life is created are sacred, and that mothers and fathers have important responsibilities while helping one another as equal partners.

These teachings belong together. They help explain where we came from, why our bodies matter, why male and female matter, what marriage is for, why children are precious, and what family relationships can become eternally through Jesus Christ.

That larger framework matters. If marriage is understood mainly as an adult relationship organized around affection and personal fulfillment, the proclamation’s definition of marriage may seem unnecessarily narrow. If gender is understood only as a social category and can change, its teaching about eternal male and female identity may seem difficult. But the proclamation begins somewhere different: with Heavenly Parents, premortal identity, mortal bodies, marriage, children, covenant responsibility, and eternal destiny.

So when a teaching feels difficult, it can help to examine both what God has said and what we have been taught to assume about the subject.

Sheri Dew: Questions Can Make Us Seek More Deeply

In this video, Sheri Dew sits with a small group of BYU students after speaking to them earlier that day and invites them to tell her what they questioned or did not agree with. One student takes her up on the invitation, asking what to do when you sincerely seek answers from the Lord but your current understanding does not seem to line up with something the Church teaches or practices. Sister Dew does not brush the question aside. She talks with them about allowing some questions time to unfold, continuing to learn as the Restoration moves forward, and recognizing that our own understanding can deepen and change as we mature.

Watch Sheri Dew talk with BYU students about questions and answers that may take time:

There is an important distinction there. A faithful seeker does not pretend difficult questions do not exist. But a seeker also cares about where the search is taking place, which voices are being trusted, and whether God is still being allowed to teach.

Not Every Question Has to Overturn Everything You Know

Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge offers a useful way to organize questions in his BYU address “Stand Forever.” He distinguishes between primary questions and secondary questions. The primary questions include whether God is our Father, whether Jesus Christ is the Savior, whether Joseph Smith was a prophet, and whether the restored Church is God’s kingdom.

His point is not that secondary questions are unimportant. It is that not every question carries equal weight. If you have received spiritual knowledge about Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, or the Restoration, encountering a difficult question about gender, marriage, Church history, the temple, or another teaching does not require you to erase everything God has already helped you know.

You can investigate without abandoning your foundation.

Watch Elder Corbridge explain primary and secondary questions:

Elder Neil L. Andersen applies a similar principle specifically to the family proclamation. He taught that its principles are “beautifully connected” and warned that when we pick and choose among them, we can lose the eternal view that helps them make sense together.

That is especially helpful when one sentence in the proclamation becomes the center of a question. God is asking you to see gender, marriage, sexual intimacy, motherhood, fatherhood, and children as literally central to His plan for why you are here on this earth.

We Are All Being Taught

Ideas rarely arrive in our minds with labels attached to them.

You may hear one understanding of marriage in a class, see the same assumptions built into a television story, encounter them again in an Instagram reel, and then hear friends use the same language. The same can happen with ideas about sexuality, motherhood, masculinity, gender identity, or the value of unborn life. Through repetition, a particular philosophy can begin to feel less like one interpretation of life and more like obvious truth.

Contemporary conversations often emphasize things faithful disciples should care deeply about: equal human worth, compassion, freedom from abuse, respect for women, and kindness toward people whose circumstances differ from ours.

The more searching question is whether those conversations include everything God has revealed about human identity and purpose.

What Research Shows

Research helps us understand why influence is worth noticing. BYU professors analyzed 59 studies on sexual content in mainstream media and found a significant relationship between exposure and sexual attitudes and behaviors, with stronger effects among adolescents than emerging adults. This research showed something important: the messages we repeatedly consume can participate in shaping what feels normal.

That makes it worth asking occasionally: Who has been teaching me about gender, sexuality, and the family?

How Satan Works With Distortion

This brings us back to Eden.

The serpent did not begin by asking Adam and Eve to reject everything they knew about God. He questioned one command and offered another interpretation of what would lead to knowledge and happiness.

Deception can still work by separating good principles from the larger truths that give them meaning. Compassion matters. Equality matters. Agency matters. Love and human dignity matter. But when those principles are separated from divine identity, eternal purpose, the sacredness of the body, marriage between man and woman, the creation of life, and covenant responsibility, they can lead toward conclusions different from those God has revealed.

Recognizing that does not require assuming that everyone who disagrees with the Church is deliberately trying to deceive you. Most people are living according to what they sincerely believe.

It does mean that disciples of Jesus Christ should learn to discern philosophies as well as intentions.

What If This Is Deeply Personal?

For some people, these questions intersect with circumstances they did not choose. You may experience same-sex attraction, struggle with your body, be single much longer than you hoped, come from a painful family, or be unable to have children.

Asking what influences your understanding does not mean dismissing those realities. Nor does it mean assuming that your feelings or circumstances were created by social media or culture.

The deeper question is who gets to tell you what those experiences ultimately mean.

The proclamation begins with your identity as a son or daughter of Heavenly Parents. That identity existed before your current circumstances and reaches beyond them. Jesus Christ can help you live faithfully within mortal circumstances that may remain complicated while trusting the eternal purposes Heavenly Father has revealed.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• When a teaching in the family proclamation feels difficult to me, what experiences, voices, or assumptions may be shaping how I understand it?
• Who has had the greatest influence on how I think about gender, sexuality, marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, children, and the purpose of the body?
• Have I carefully distinguished between what the proclamation actually teaches and what other people tell me it means?
• Am I allowing one unresolved secondary question to overshadow truths the Holy Ghost has already helped me know?

Three Things You Can Do This Week

Choose one sentence in the family proclamation that you have wondered about. Read the paragraphs around it and identify the larger doctrine connected to it. Then write down what you have heard other people say that teaching means. Comparing the two may help you separate the revealed teaching from interpretations that have accumulated around it.

Then notice your influences for a week. Pay attention to the accounts you follow, podcasts you hear, entertainment you watch, classes you attend, and people whose opinions carry unusual weight with you. You do not need to fear unfamiliar ideas or avoid everyone who disagrees with you. The goal is simply to become conscious of who is teaching you and what assumptions you are absorbing.

Finally, read Genesis 3:1–13 and bring one sincere question to Heavenly Father. Ask Him to help you understand what He has revealed, recognize anything you may have misunderstood, and notice influences that may be making His purposes harder to see.

Jesus Christ does not ask you to stop thinking or to be frightened by difficult questions. He teaches you how to seek truth with faith, intelligence, humility, and the Holy Ghost. As you become more aware of the voices shaping your assumptions and learn to compare them with revelation, you can understand more clearly why Heavenly Father has taught what He has about identity, bodies, marriage, children, and eternal family. That kind of discernment can help you become a stronger disciple of Christ and build your life with greater confidence in the good things God is preparing you to receive.