by Cynthia Winward
As the self-proclaimed Grace Peddlers1, we always love getting feedback from our listeners about podcast topics. We received an email from a podcast listener named Carol who spotted grace out in the wild, okay she actually spotted it in academia, and we wanted to share a bit of it with you all—
“One study of Latter-day Saint students examined the connection between legalism, grace, and perfectionism. Researchers found that experiencing grace related to more healthy perfectionism and less toxic perfectionism. Legalism was related to a lower likelihood of experiencing God’s grace and was also related to more anxiety, depression, and shame. It was clear from the survey findings that legalistic thinking (which does not acknowledge God’s grace) was related to substantial problems for Latter-day Saint students.”
—“Religion and Perfectionism,” BYU Studies
How amazing is it that the data from a Brigham Young University study2 is supporting grace? I don’t love the phrase ‘healthy perfectionism’, but I can appreciate the distinction the researcher is trying to make.
After receiving Carol’s email, I read the article she sent in BYU Studies. Basically, researchers found that religion itself is not the primary cause of toxic perfectionism; rather, it is the manner in which we engage with religious standards. The harmful effects of perfectionism can be mitigated if our teachers, parents, and church leaders can foster in us an intrinsic motivation and a grace-based understanding of faith.
Yikes! That seems like a really tall order, especially in a church that struggled to teach me anything about grace. And I’m not alone! I remember years ago reading a BYU Magazine article by Sheri Dew about grace3. She admits grace wasn’t fostered in her or a friend either—
“Her e-mail led me to ask another friend what she wished she understood about grace. ‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘TV evangelists have wrecked that word for me. I almost feel disloyal to the restored gospel even talking about grace. I mean, do we believe in grace?’”
I had to go on my own Grace Journey. And after that long and painful search, I am determined to continue to peddle grace to anyone who will listen. Maybe someday we will believe our own Jesus-y stuff about grace.
“Most of Jesus’s parables are about God’s grace. How about the parable of the two debtors in Matthew 18? Basically, one person owes a ton of money that they’ll never be able to repay, and that debt is wiped clean. The parable of the prodigal son? He spends all of his inheritance, then his dad throws him a party and gives him a feast. What about the parable of the wedding banquet found in Matthew 22? The wedding was filled with, as the scriptures say, good guests and bad guests. All of these parables are stories of unearned abundance.”
At Last She Said It: Honest Conversations About Faith, Church, and Everything in Between, page 61
Goodman, Michael A. (2024) “Religion and Perfectionism,” BYU Studies: Vol. 63: Iss. 4, Article 8. Available to read here.
https://magazine.byu.edu/article/sheri-dew-sweet-above-all-that-is-sweet/
Love you gracepeddlers!
To me the concept of grace in a religion that espouses a quest toward individual perfection or godliness boils down to whether someone believes there's such a thing as too much love. Most religious conservatives seem to believe that strict enforcement of rules with punishments etc is required to get people to do what they should, and that forebearance and unconditional love lead people to cut corners and get unearned rewards. But abundant experience shows that love doesn't make anyone lazy. Rather it's the ultimate motivator and the only one that really lasts and results in genuine improvement. Grace is only scary for those that worry more about people cheating their way to heaven than they do about people's spirits being crushed by legalism that deprives them of love and acceptance. Jesus taught this concept in many ways, and one of the most vivid is the parable of the laborers.