Praise for Torn

Torn is an insightful, well supported by meaningful research, and compelling appeal to all of us to be understanding, supportive, and compassionate as we navigate the challenges met by families and individuals wrestling with their beliefs and affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeff Strong is a caring and faithful Latter-day Saint and committed disciple of Christ who seeks not only to inform but to heal and unite. To those for whom these issues are relevant, Torn will be a detailed road map for positive engagement and dialogue.

Jeff Strong is a truth-seeker, treasured friend, and fellow believer. With deep faith and conviction, Jeff asks, ‘Who is the Church for?’ That question is difficult. It makes us wrestle deeply. It requires honesty, especially if people we love choose other paths. But the answers will heal us—individually and collectively. In love, Jeff reminds us we need each other. We need eyes to see and ears to hear so we can truly minister and ensure all God’s children, no matter their journey, feel they belong in the nourishing body of Christ and know in whom they can find healing and wholeness.

For fifteen years I’ve had countless conversations with people in faith crisis, and this is a book I wish I’d had from the start. Drawing on groundbreaking research into the tensions that are leading our loved ones out of the Church, it provides essential maps and mental models—identifying pain points, diagnosing problems, and suggesting solutions, all while speaking the truth in love. For anyone wrestling with questions, struggling with aspects of our culture, or wanting to learn the healer’s art, this book is required reading. I’ll be rereading it—and recommending it—often.

Torn examines the deeply sensitive topic of disaffiliation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is no better person than Jeff Strong to provide understanding of its causes and hope for reaching those who have left. I have known Jeff for over 30 years, three as a counselor to him as he presided over a mission. I have witnessed his faith in action and his remarkable desire to help those who struggle with their own faith. Having served in Church Leadership myself, I believe Jeff’s data-driven, Christ-centered book helps clarify why those we love are leaving and encourage practical, inclusive conversation to help people stay.

The first crisis in the New Testament Church revolved around a question: What demands are cultural, and what demands are required by love? (see Acts 15). The question still has maximal relevance. To thrive as a body of Christ, we need to pay attention to that question. We can love better than we love, but love requires empathy and moral imagination. Strong’s book provides the best data to date on where we are failing as a people, and how we might improve, because he is asking the right questions.

Compassionately and comprehensively, Jeff Strong expertly analyzes the soil of our Church culture while faithfully recommending how each of us can participate in its healthy renewal by ‘how we listen, how we respond, and how we make room.’ Without finger pointing or laying blame, he gently illustrates relationship-based ways we can replace a perceived need for conformity with a generous offer of security by honoring agency and extending love. Torn is a candid and encouraging look at belonging—what strengthens it and what fractures it—and how profoundly it affects belief. Helpful and hopeful, it will have you looking for your gardening gloves, anxious to cultivate a more beautiful place of belonging!

In the restored Church, we are encouraged to seek learning by study and by faith. This book exemplifies that dual approach, offering solid data to illuminate and inform the complexities of contemporary Latter-day Saint religious life. Yet, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, all our efforts will amount to nothing if not motivated from first to last by love. It is in that respect that Torn truly shines. Jeff Strong really loves people in all their glorious messiness, and that love is shimmeringly apparent on practically every page. This is a book that centers both head and heart. Torn will help us all—no matter where you stand on matters of faith—better understand and love one another.

In a time when conversations about faith can feel especially tense or tender, Torn opens the door to more compassion, clarity, and understanding. Drawing from compelling research and lived experience, Jeff translates complex data into practical wisdom for everyday life. With unflinching honesty and deep love for our community, he invites us to examine our fears, rigidity, and blind spots while pointing us toward something brighter, a way rooted in Jesus’s gospel of love. Nourishing for believers across the spectrum, Torn guides us toward deeper connection, greater resilience, and real transformation in our hearts, our relationships, and our communities.

A faith crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Too often today it leads to the fracture of families and friendships. Jeff Strong’s pathfinding research shows not only that this need not be the case, but that these very struggles offer opportunities for deeper trust and more authentic connection. They are both invitations to grow for both the disciple and the doubtful. This is not just an important book. It is a road map to fuller Christianity.

As someone who has wrestled with questions and doubts throughout my life, I was deeply touched by the tone and wisdom Jeff Strong brings not only to those who struggle but also to their families and friends. I left the Church for eight years as a young husband and father, and I remain profoundly grateful for a loving wife, children, parents, and extended family who never condemned me but instead made room for my doubts and for a complicated, often painful, spiritual journey. In Torn, Strong reframes disaffiliation not as a failure of faith but as an earnest effort to deepen spiritual roots and live the gospel of Jesus Christ more fully. His perspective offers both compassion and clarity at a time when so many feel polarized or misunderstood. I came back to the Church because I love the gospel and I want our Church to thrive. This book points us, as a community of Saints, toward a more mature faith—one grounded less in conformity and fear and more in love, understanding, and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Torn has the power to heal relationships, soften hearts, and help us grow together into a more Christlike community.

Torn is the indispensable guide to healing our community. Working with LGBTQ Latter-Day Saints and their families, I’ve discovered the struggle for understanding and belonging, rather than a crisis of faith, is the deep wound causing individuals to leave. Jeff Strong’s disruptive research on disaffiliation, paired with his compassionate approach to ministry, is a healing balm for those navigating faith challenges and a comprehensive guide to becoming effective and loving healers in the Body of Christ.

We often measure the health of the Church by listening primarily to those who remain while overlooking those who have left or are quietly struggling. Jeff courageously addresses this blind spot—not as a critic outside the faith but as a devoted disciple who loves the Church and its doctrine. Torn does not undermine belief; it invites us to examine how culture shapes belonging, trust, and spiritual experience. By giving voice to those who wrestle in silence, this book calls us to a needed self-reflection. Its message is timely and vital—strengthening our ability to build connection, preserve faith, and minister more like Christ.

With beautiful imagery, Jeff Strong shatters our cones of light and encourages us to step into a new world of transformation—one step at a time. For anyone who desires to have ‘eyes to see,’ this is MUST read.

Ever since Jeff Strong engaged with a comprehensive spectrum of 20,000 current and former Latter-day Saints in the largest and most detailed survey ever conducted about our experiences, I have been on tenterhooks waiting for the publication of what it revealed. This book does not disappoint! It decisively lays to rest the frustrating myths that once-loyal members who leave are lazy learners who do not try hard enough, want to sin, and get deceived by foolishness. Instead, it accurately presents the principled and painful processes involved, and the real reasons for our concerns. Everybody who wants the Church’s culture and community to be healthier, kinder to those who leave, or thrive in the 21st century will find the information they need here.

Jeff Strong’s book thoughtfully explores the culture and shared experiences we all encounter as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of our long and trusted friendship, I know the sincerity and integrity behind his words. Over the past decade, I have wrestled to better understand why Jesus Christ needs His church, and Jeff articulates many of the same feelings and questions I’ve carried. This is an honest, faith-affirming work that offers clarity, hope, and a healthier perspective on discipleship within the Church.

Words are powerful and Jeff’s words have the power to bring much healing to many who are hurting—a sense of identity and belonging, validation of their unique yet communal experience and perhaps even a flicker of hope for ongoing connection to Christ through his instrument on this earth. What an amazing book!