On March 13, Wheatley Institute, along with the BYU Religious Education Department and the Peacemaker Project, welcomed Dr. Lawrence E. Carter to BYU campus for an inspiring speech on the necessity of active pursuit of world peace, outlining steps students could take towards establishing peace in both their personal lives and in a global community.

“All of us can play a part in healing our society’s wounds and divisions these days by thinking consciously, explicitly, about how to make the institutions that we are part of a little stronger."

Wheatley Fellow Jenet Erickson gave a devotional address at BYU-Idaho about the human need for connection, and how humans are designed, both in a theological and a biological sense, to thrive in a family.

Tyson Reeder, an Affiliated Scholar for Wheatley Institute's Constitution Initiative, was awarded the prestegious George Washington Prize for his book Serpent in Eden. The book is an exploration of foreign meddling in early American politics, analyzing both the ways in which foreign powers swayed American democracy and the ways the new republic attempted to respond. The work was praised as "a blend of wonderful storytelling and intriguing characters along with perceptive historical analysis. . . . This important contribution stands out as an incredibly timely and relevant book for how we can use the past to understand the present."

I am not legally bound to honor the holy spaces of others, to make room for their beliefs and practices, or to respond to their religious speech with peace, tolerance and respect. But the norm of religious freedom creates a powerful social force encouraging me to do so.

Differences of opinion are part of life and differences of conviction are part of life too. I think we need to have the expectation that we're not always going to agree, even on the most important, even on the most personal, down-to-the-heart type of things. And that is okay. The way that we disagree is what's important.