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Bravo’s three‑part limited series Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay leans into difficult personal stories and pointed criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints. Episode one premiered Nov. 11, with all three parts streaming on Peacock the next day; the trailer and network page frame the project as revealing the religion’s “dark history.” The hook is effective: the testimonies are raw, the stakes high. So how do we address these problems?
What we can learn from other institutions’ hard lessons
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is far from the first organization to have three or more troubling incidents occur among its membership. Across faith, civic, and community settings, major investigations have revealed troubling stories that have led to the implementation of harm-reducing best practices.
1) Clear pathways to civil authorities.
Every credible blueprint insists on uncomplicated routes to law enforcement. The painful proof came into focus in the USA Gymnastics scandal. For years, athletes reported Larry Nassar’s abuse to coaches, trainers, and officials, only to see their disclosures trapped in internal channels, bounced between organizations, or delayed while leaders worried about reputations and jurisdiction. Congressional investigations concluded that this web of overlapping responsibilities and in‑house handling helped enable his crimes.
How do we address these problems?
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales—after seven years of studying abuse in churches, schools, care homes, local authorities, and youth organizations—reached a similar conclusion: confusing internal routes and deference to institutional reputation repeatedly left children unprotected. Both SafeSport and IICSA’s recommendations are built on the same insight. When allegations are routed through slow, internal channels, cases stall and perpetrators move on; when pathways to civil authorities and independent safeguarding bodies are direct, simple, and well‑trained, reports increase, patterns are detected earlier, and children are safer.
2) “Two‑deep” (no one‑on‑one) supervision—everywhere youth are present.
The clearest example of why one‑on‑one contact is so dangerous came in the Boy Scouts of America abuse scandal. As lawsuits and internal “ineligible volunteer” files became public, they showed how serial offenders had repeatedly used solo hikes, tenting arrangements, and car rides to isolate and groom youth with little or no immediate oversight. Part of what made the problem so intractable was structural: the program still allowed adults to be alone with non‑family youth in ways that created predictable opportunities for abuse.
In response, Scouting tightened its rules into a strict “two‑deep leadership” and “no one‑on‑one contact” standard. No adult is to be alone with a child who is not their own in any program setting—at meetings, on campouts, or in transit—with electronic communications governed by the same spirit. The point is not to question leaders’ sincerity but to design the system so that temptation and opportunity are sharply reduced.
Over time, youth‑serving organizations across the country—sports leagues, camps, community programs, and churches—have copied this approach because insurers, risk managers, and child‑safety experts all converge on the same conclusion: when adults are never alone with unrelated children, grooming becomes harder, disclosures are more likely to be observed by a second adult, and overall risk drops. Two‑deep supervision is not a cure‑all, but it is one of the simplest structural safeguards to duplicate anywhere children are present.
3) Mandatory, role‑specific training and renewal.
At Minnesota’s Anoka‑Hennepin School District, nine students died by suicide in less than two years, at least four of whom were gay or perceived to be gay. Investigations and a civil‑rights lawsuit documented a climate of anti‑gay bullying: students were shoved, spat on, urinated on, and told to kill themselves, while staff often minimized or failed to respond. The net effect was a system where harassment flourished and adults lacked both clarity and skills.
In 2012 the district agreed to a comprehensive, court‑enforced settlement that forced a systemic overhaul. Among other changes, Anoka‑Hennepin hired a Title IX coordinator, strengthened mental‑health support, and—crucially—committed to mandatory annual training for all staff who interact with students, the revised policies, and their duty to act. Peer‑leadership programs and annual student meetings were also required to address harassment and explain how to get help.
The lesson travels well. In a large system with many well‑intentioned adults, problems don’t persist because people are uniquely cruel, but because they are untrained, unclear about their authority, and afraid of “getting in trouble” for speaking up. When training is optional or generic, many adults remain passive bystanders; when every teacher, coach, bus driver, and aide is required to complete targeted, recurring training, the culture shifts, students are more likely to be believed, and dangerous patterns are interrupted earlier.
4) Centralized records and portability of warnings.
For years, the Southern Baptist Convention assumed that because each congregation was autonomous, the national body could do little more than issue statements. Survivors who tried to warn denominational leaders were often told nothing more could be done, even as reports accumulated about the same individuals. The 2022 independent investigation by Guidepost Solutions exposed the cost of that “loose polity” model: there was no maintained, denomination‑wide database, no consistent escalation process, and no one charged with seeing patterns across churches. Allegations sat in private files, internal lists documented names that local search committees never saw, and known offenders were able to move from congregation to congregation undetected.
The scandal spurred a shift. In the wake of the report, Southern Baptists created an Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, began work on a public “Ministry Check” database of pastors and leaders credibly accused or convicted of abuse, and started debating stronger, convention‑wide expectations for background checks and information‑sharing. The goal is simple: when a church considers calling a pastor or staff member, it should be able to check a central resource rather than relying only on informal references or word of mouth.
Although the reforms are still developing and remain the subject of intense internal debate, the underlying logic is sound and widely echoed in other sectors: when credible warnings are captured in one place and made available to decision‑makers, it becomes much harder for abusers to outrun their history by simply changing employers or congregations. Even decentralized systems need centralized tracking and escalation if they want to stop perpetrators from starting over in a new community.
5) Survivor support and redress.
In Australia, decades of revelations about institutional abuse—especially in Catholic parishes and schools, Salvation Army boys’ homes, and state‑run care—showed a common pattern: when children finally disclosed what had happened, institutions quietly moved abusers on, fought civil claims aggressively, and offered only limited pastoral support. The mounting evidence that clergy and other carers had been shuffled from place to place instead of being reported to police led the federal government in 2013 to establish the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
After five years of public hearings and thousands of survivor accounts, the Royal Commission concluded that such a history could not be addressed by apologies alone. One of its key recommendations was the creation of a National Redress Scheme, funded by government and participating institutions, to provide survivors with a package that includes counseling, a direct personal response from the responsible institution, and a monetary payment as tangible acknowledgment of harm. Many major churches and charities have joined the scheme; institutions that refuse to participate can now be publicly identified and pressured to do so.
Whatever its limits and delays, the scheme embodies a hard‑won consensus: institutions that failed children must contribute to their healing in concrete, material ways—not just in words. These frameworks are sobering reminders that apologies must be joined to tangible care.
6) Culture and communications: humility beats reputation‑management.
Chicago Public Schools is one vivid example of how “reputation first” thinking harms children. A 2018 newspaper investigation and a scathing federal Title IX review documented cases in which students’ allegations of sexual violence were mishandled or ignored, staff failed to notify police, and the system’s main instinct was to protect the district rather than victims.
The scandal spurred a shift.
While no large district can claim perfection, watchdog reports and follow‑up coverage now focus less on cover‑ups and more on whether the new office has enough staff and resources to do its work. Similar cultural critiques appear in IICSA’s Anglican case studies and in U.S. Senate hearings on the Nassar scandal in Olympic sport: institutions minimized or deflected to protect their brand, and only when that instinct was repudiated—and replaced with clear structures and accountability—did real reform begin. In all these arenas, the shift from reputation first to safety first is measured not in slogans but in whether disclosures reach police quickly, victims receive services, and leaders welcome independent scrutiny.
How The Church of Jesus Christ has performed on these six lessons
With decades of sad lessons learned, how is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doing in implementing these best practices?
1) Clear pathways to civil authorities and outside help
As early as the mid‑1990s, the Church created a confidential ecclesiastical abuse help line for bishops and stake presidents. Long before SafeSport or CPS‑style offices existed, local lay leaders had 24/7 access to legal and clinical professionals whose explicit mandate was to help victims and ensure compliance with reporting laws.
By the mid‑2010s, member‑facing resources on ChurchofJesusChrist.org were already teaching ordinary members that if they know or suspect abuse, they should report to civil authorities first and then seek additional spiritual and practical support from Church leaders and professional counselors.
The current Abuse Help Line and “Abuse—How to Help” pages now make this even more explicit: leaders are instructed to call the help line every time they learn of abuse, and members are told to contact legal authorities immediately and then work with their bishop or stake president, who in turn is required to use the help line. The help line is utilized to ensure that proper reports are made directly to the appropriate authorities in line with local privacy laws. Recent updates to the General Handbook and the “Protecting Children and Youth” page in 2024–25 again reinforce that reporting to civil authorities is not optional and that no leader should ever discourage or block a report.
2) Two‑deep supervision and no one‑on‑one settings
Well before many school districts or community programs embraced two‑adult standards, the Church began strengthening its expectations around supervision. By 2006, The Church Handbook of Instructions required two adult supervisors for activities, a policy that continued to be iterated and tightened to cover children’s Sunday School (primary) classes, women and men, and ecclesiastical interviews, among others.
These principles were built into the 2020 General Handbook and then expanded in the 2025 updates under headings such as “Safeguarding Children,” “Classes for Youth,” and “Adult Supervision.” Region‑specific safeguarding pages (for example in the United Kingdom) repeat the same standards and adapt them to local legal requirements.
By the time other systems were being forced into similar standards through lawsuits or consent decrees, Latter‑day Saints had already received global, written instructions embedding two‑adult supervision into ordinary ward life. Those standards continue to be reiterated in new training and safety pages, making the Church one of the more structurally safe environments for one‑on‑one adult–youth contact in the congregational world.
3) Mandatory, role‑specific training and renewal
In 1995, The Church of Jesus Christ had produced training materials for bishops on how to understand and recognize abuse, and then provided step-by-step guidance on how to respond.
This publication was quoted in later manuals as an early training, though implementation was not mandatory or systematic. The Church provided similar materials for all members in two 1997 publications “Preventing and Responding to Spouse Abuse” and “Child Abuse: Helps for Members.”
In the early aughts, The Church produced a DVD Responding to Child Abuse that was to be played at ward and branch council meetings with an associated pamphlet. In 2008, The First Presidency wrote a letter to be read in leadership trainings explaining to leaders how to protect victims.
Continuing and incremental improvements were made through the 2010s. In 2019, The Church moved to a more formal system with the launch of Children and Youth Protection Training for leaders and volunteers in the United States and Canada, accompanied by a directive from the Priesthood and Family Department that those in relevant callings must complete the training, formally systematizing best practices training.
4) Centralized records and portability of warnings
Long before the current wave of abuse reporting, the Church built its ecclesiastical life around centralized membership records rather than purely local rolls. That meant that serious concerns raised in a membership council did not simply disappear when someone moved; there was a mechanism to mark records, restrict transfers, and ensure that new leaders received needed background.
In the current General Handbook, those instincts are made explicit. Instructions on membership councils and move restrictions explain how a bishop or stake president can place a hold on a membership record when serious concerns are pending, and how decisions from councils are reported centrally.
The Handbook’s policies on abuse specify that when a person has sexually abused a child or youth—or seriously abused a child physically or emotionally—their membership record is annotated. Members with such annotations are not to receive callings or assignments involving children or youth, are not to be assigned as ministering companions to youth, and are not to be given ministering assignments to households with children or youth. These restrictions follow the member wherever they move because the annotation is part of the central record. In a world where many congregational networks are only now building abuse databases after devastating investigations, Latter‑day Saints have the advantage of a long‑standing global membership system and clear written policies about annotations and move restrictions.
5) Survivor support and redress
For decades, Church leaders have been instructed that their first responsibility when abuse occurs is to help the victim and protect the vulnerable. Gospel Topics essays and counseling resources emphasize that victims are not at fault, that abuse is a serious sin, and that leaders should help survivors access both spiritual care and professional counseling.
Handbook instructions have long allowed bishops to use fast‑offering funds to help members pay for professional counseling when they cannot do so themselves. That principle—combining pastoral care with tangible financial assistance—has been part of Latter‑day Saint welfare practice for years, even if it was not framed in the language of “redress schemes.”
Recent materials have made this more visible and explicit. A 2018 Ensign article and subsequent online lessons on recognizing and healing from abuse gave members and leaders concrete steps for support. A more recent newsroom article, “How Latter‑day Saints Approach Abuse,” states plainly that the Church offers and often covers the cost of professional counseling for victims, regardless of their ability to pay, and directs leaders again to use fast offerings where needed. International safeguarding pages, such as those in the United Kingdom and in responses to national inquiries in New Zealand, repeat similar commitments.
Unlike Australia’s government‑run National Redress Scheme, the Church’s approach is ecclesiastical rather than statutory; it works through bishops, welfare funds, and, where appropriate, legal settlements. But measured against the core survivor‑centric lesson—words must be joined to concrete care—the Church has for many years combined clear doctrinal condemnation of abuse with structured access to counseling and material help.
6) Culture and communications: from reputation‑management to safety‑first
As early as 1978 there was direct condemnation of child abuse during The Church’s general conference. And in 1979 domestic abuse was a consideration in giving a temple recommend.
In perhaps the strongest possible cultural signal within the Latter-day Saint context, questions about abuse of family members were added to the temple recommend questions in 1989, alongside other major cultural and doctrinal signifiers such as chastity and dietary restrictions.
Between 1976 and 2013, more than 50 news and magazine articles appeared in Church publications condemning child abuse in unequivocal terms and encouraging members to seek help rather than suffer in silence.
That cultural messaging has remained consistent. Since 2018, that cultural messaging has accelerated. Articles like “Hope and Healing for Victims of Abuse,” online lessons on recognizing abuse, the consolidation of the General Handbook (with entire subsections titled “Safeguarding Children” and “Safeguarding Youth”), and newsroom explainers on how the Church approaches abuse have all pushed in the same direction: make expectations public, normalize reporting, and center the needs of victims rather than the reputation of the institution.
Culture is the hardest thing to measure. There will continue to be local leaders who respond poorly, and media stories will rightly scrutinize those failures. But if we apply the same standard we used for Chicago Public Schools and other systems—Are there clear structures? Are expectations written down? Are leaders being told in public documents that protection comes before reputation?—the answer for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints today is yes. The Church was well ahead of the curve in addressing this tragic issue.
Are we actually doing poorly?
Part of the answer is simply mathematical.
Part of the answer is simply mathematical. In a global church with millions of members, hundreds of thousands of local leaders, and decades of weekly contact with children and youth, even an exceptionally small failure rate produces more than enough heartbreak to fill a docuseries. A system can be comparatively safe and still have real, grievous failures. The stories in Surviving Mormonism are painful precisely because they are exceptions in a people who know, instinctively and doctrinally, that children ought to be protected.
The best available research suggests that on both child abuse and well-being of LGBT members, The Church of Jesus Christ performs well above the average. Docuseries such as Surviving Mormonism tell important stories that can help continual improvement, but they can paint a misleading picture by picking exceptional rather than representative cases. This treatment is applied to The Church of Jesus Christ simply because, as a religious minority, there is curiosity. And frankly, the word “Mormon” when combined with scandal sells.
It is tragic that any of the stories featured in Surviving Mormonism happened at all. Latter‑day Saints should continue to improve training, to enforce the two‑adult rule without exception, to post reporting steps, and to support survivors with compassion and concrete help, always working toward the goal of eliminating abuse. Perhaps the Church can even be at the forefront of developing even better policies than we are currently imagining. That said, when we step back and compare reforms across churches, schools, Scouts, and sports, the evidence suggests that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints has built the right safeguards and, in key areas, has been ahead of broader societal trends in implementing them, and has the results you would expect from such forward thinking.
The post “Surviving Mormonism” and the Real Story of Institutional Harm appeared first on Public Square Magazine.
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