10/21/2025 .

Unity among people can arise from both love and hate. Human beings often find common ground not only by cherishing the same ideals, beliefs, and passions, but also by sharing the same adversaries or opposing the same evils. History shows that people rally together under both banners, whether for noble causes like liberty and faith, or destructive ones like prejudice and tyranny. Unity itself is a powerful force; it can heal and build, or it can destroy and enslave, depending on the spirit by which it is animated. 

Human beings naturally bond through shared values, common beliefs, mutual goals, and cooperative labor. They build lasting friendships through shared experience and common purpose. Soldiers who have faced danger side by side often form unbreakable bonds, having learned the meaning of loyalty, courage, and sacrifice together. Likewise, families, churches, and nations that labor together toward a righteous cause experience a sacred kind of kinship. Yet there is also a somber brotherhood born of suffering, a unity forged not in comfort, but in endurance. When people share hardship or face death side by side, they discover a depth of connection that transcends ordinary acquaintance. 

The Source of Division: Misaligned Values
At the same time, what most often divides us are differences in how we value things. One person may exalt what another despises, or neglect what another holds sacred. Humanity’s conflicts rarely arise because one side values nothing; rather, they arise because people see things differently and therefore value things differently. Cain valued worldly wealth and power more than humility and goodness, while Abel valued obedience to God and righteousness above all else.[1] These differences in perspective and value led to murder and great sorrow.

Much of the world’s pain follows this same pattern. Nations fight over wealth and power because they value dominion over goodness and justice. Individuals quarrel in homes and churches because they care more about being right than believing or doing what’s right. And they care about getting what they want more than being empathetic to the wants or needs of others. Thus, division is not merely social or political; it is spiritual. It begins when our hearts fall out of alignment with the ways of righteousness.

The Unity of the Wicked

Just as righteousness has the power to unify hearts in love and peace, wickedness also produces a dark and destructive kind of unity. Those whose desires are rooted in pride, envy, or power find common cause in their rebellion against truth. Their unity, however, is not founded upon love, but upon mutual self-interest and shared opposition to the good. The scriptures describe how even Satan’s kingdom has a kind of cohesion, a counterfeit order maintained through selfishness, fear, deceit, and hatred of the light. Yet Christ declared that “if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?”.[2] Thus, even the unity of the wicked is temporary, unstable, and doomed to collapse.

In the Book of Mormon, the secret combinations of the Gadianton robbers illustrate this principle vividly. They were “united in their oaths, their covenants, and their combinations,”[3] yet their unity was one of blood and greed, not of righteousness. They worked together to gain power, to destroy justice, and to suppress truth. Their shared wickedness gave them a sense of purpose and solidarity, but it was a unity born of corruption, one that ultimately devoured itself. When self-interest is the glue that binds, betrayal becomes inevitable, for every participant seeks his own gain above all.

The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days men would be “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud… having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”[4] Such people may form alliances, movements, or institutions that appear unified, but beneath the surface lies spiritual rot. The Book of Mormon describes similar societies where “the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning.”[5] This too was a kind of unity — a collective alignment of hearts toward pride, ambition, and inequality — but it led swiftly to their downfall.

The false unity of the wicked is therefore a perverse imitation of divine harmony. It mimics the structure of righteousness but rejects its spirit. It thrives on deception, flattery, and the suppression of conscience. It is held together not by love of truth or goodness, but by fear of exposure. In time, all such alliances implode, for evil cannot perpetually cooperate; every corrupt person will eventually seeks to dominate the others. As Christ said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.”[6] Thus, while the righteous become one in truth and love, the wicked are only momentarily united by their hatred of truth, a unity destined to dissolve under the weight of its own darkness and evil.

God’s Purposes: Teaching Us Correct Values

One of God’s primary purposes in our mortal education is to teach us how to value things correctly, to help us see as He sees and feel as He feels. The Lord declared through Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”[7] Spiritual growth, therefore, consists largely in learning to value truth, goodness, and love as God values them. 

In the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin teaches that true happiness comes from aligning one’s life with divine law: “Consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual.”[8] Likewise, Alma explained that “wickedness never was happiness,”[9] for misplaced values, such as greed, vanity, or lust for power, always lead to misery. As we learn to prioritize eternal truths above temporal pleasures, our joy increases, for we begin to live in harmony with the eternal laws that determine the peace and happiness we experience now and in eternity. 

Lack of Unity is Pain

Many have learned by sad experience that lack of unity is pain. A lack of unity is primarily caused by dishonesty and selfishness, which inevitably lead to division and contention. Division and contention inevitably lead to loneliness and despair. When we selfishly prioritize our own desires over what would benefit others the most, we tend to lie and make excuses, as we choose the lower path. And the more everyone does this, the more division and contention this creates.

This separates not only people from one another, but also individuals from their own sense of inner fulfillment and peace. Christ taught that “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”[10] Division is the seed of decay, while unity, when founded upon truth and goodness, is the foundation of strength and joy. 

This principle applies both spiritually and socially. Within families, disunity tears at the heart; within churches, it destroys confidence and faith; within nations, it leads to chaos, war, and self-annihilation. The Nephite record shows that their greatest destructions came not from external enemies but from selfishness and “contention among themselves.”[11] Likewise, the Savior’s great intercessory prayer reveals His divine longing for the opposite: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.”[12] Unity, in this sense, is not merely the absence of conflict, it is the establishment of divine order and love. 

The One True Unity

The only unity that leads to lasting joy is the unity founded on truth and integrity. False unity, built upon deception or compromise of conscience, cannot endure; it is a counterfeit harmony that inevitably collapses under its own corruption. Political regimes and religious movements alike have attempted to impose unity through fear, manipulation, propaganda, or coercion—but such unity is hollow, for it lacks the moral core of authentic righteousness. 

True unity is born from the honest pursuit of truth and the living of life in accordance with divine principles. This requires humility, repentance, and a willingness to abandon selfish reasoning and false beliefs. It demands that individuals live with integrity—the alignment of belief, speech, and actions that embrace divinely revealed truth. The Savior Himself declared, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”[13] Truth liberates the soul and unites the righteous, for it removes deceit and hypocrisy, the twin poisons of disunity. 

Ultimately, it must be recognized and understood that there can be no true unity without righteousness. In the absence of righteousness, societies become fractious and incoherent.

Unity, Integrity, and Joy

Integrity is the bridge between truth and joy. Without integrity, truth remains abstract—something known but not lived. Yet when integrity and goodness are lived and manifest in thoughts, words, and actions, individuals and communities are transformed as righteousness radiates outward from individuals to transform communities.

The righteous unity described in 4^th Nephi was not a political arrangement but a moral choice: “There was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.”[14] Their unity brought about by deliberate integrity, produced joy, and their joy perpetuated unity. By continually tasting the good fruits thereof, they were fully incentivized.

This divine pattern remains the same today. Unity founded on truth and goodness brings peace and joy, while false unity founded on selfishness and lies brings sadness and destruction. Thus, every human heart must choose whether to align with the undeniable truth of God’s values or remain captive to the chaos of misaligned desires. 

As we learn to value things correctly—to love what God loves, to know what God knows, to seek what He seeks, and to live as He has demonstrated we should live—our joy increases, our relationships deepen, and our communities collectively increase in truth and righteousness. That is the pattern. That is the one and only pattern for establishing true Zion, both in ancient times and in the last days.  

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[1] Genesis 4:3–8

[2] Matthew 12:26

[3] Helaman 6:22

[4] 2 Timothy 3:2, 5

[5] 3 Nephi 6:12

[6] Luke 11:17

[7] Isaiah 55:8

[8] Mosiah 2:41

[9] Alma 41:10

[10] Matthew 12:25

[11] Helaman 4:1

[12] John 17:21

[13] John 8:32

[14] 4 Nephi 1:15

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