Daily Inspiration Quote by Russell M. Nelson

Nelson’s line reads like a calm piece of civic engineering: a moral appeal built on a demographic fact. The move is strategic. Instead of arguing tolerance from abstract theology, he anchors it in a reality religious people can’t outrun: power is conditional. Today you’re the majority with zoning boards, school calendars, and cultural default settings; tomorrow you’re the odd one out, explaining your holidays to an employer or your practices to a skeptical neighbor. The sentence quietly converts self-interest into virtue.

The phrasing “inevitably a minority somewhere else” does heavy lifting. “Inevitably” turns pluralism into a law of nature, not a political inconvenience. That’s a stabilizing move from a clergyman whose audience likely spans global congregations and varied legal regimes. It also gently disciplines triumphalism: no tradition gets to speak as if it’s permanently entitled to the public square.

Then comes the subtle pivot: “should and do show tolerance.” “Should” is normative, “do” is reputational. He’s not only prescribing behavior; he’s asserting an identity claim about religious organizations as already tolerant, a flattering mirror that pressures listeners to live up to it. The subtext is diplomatic: if you want your people treated fairly where you’re vulnerable, practice the ethic you’d demand when you’re strong.

Context matters because this is tolerance framed as reciprocity, not relativism. It doesn’t ask believers to water down convictions; it asks them to manage conviction in a crowded world, where yesterday’s majority privilege is always someone else’s minority anxiety.