CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is urging that a better approach be used in dealing with current conflicts, without compromising an individual’s core values.

President Oaks made the point as part of his speech at the University of Virginia’s 2021 Joseph Smith Lecture on religious liberty on Friday night.

“We now need a new, workable balance between religious freedom and non-discrimination,” President Oaks said in a press release from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He says a better way to dealing with current conflicts is by stressing the importance of Christ-centered virtues. Among those that virtues President Oaks mentions are loving, listening, respecting, negotiating, persuading, balancing, tolerating, cooperating, reconciling, and accommodating.

“We should accept the reality that we are fellow citizens who need each other,” President Oaks said.

President Oaks also mentions that instead of settling on the courts to determine who is right, and who is wrong, religious leaders should unite and work together to seek “peaceful resolution of painful conflicts between religious freedom and non-discrimination.”

Later, President Oaks says the fear of potentially losing some of our own freedoms should not prevent us from seeing the freedoms of others.

“Let us unite with those who advocate non-discrimination to seek a culture and laws that respect the rights of all to the equal protection of the law and the right to the free exercise of religion,” he said in the press release. “The right relationship between religious freedom and non-discrimination is best achieved by respecting each other enough to negotiate in good faith and by caring for each other enough that the freedom and protection we seek is not for ourselves alone.”

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