Daily Inspiration Quote by M. Russell Ballard

A “giant step forward” is the kind of language institutions reach for when they want credit for motion without naming the destination. Ballard’s line is a carefully stage-managed victory lap: it frames public skepticism as “misconceptions,” not critiques, and casts the church as the patient corrector of other people’s errors. That rhetorical move matters. It protects authority by implying the problem isn’t what the institution did or taught, but what outsiders mistakenly believe about it.

The second sentence tightens the strategy. “We’ve made a lot of friends” shifts the metric from truth to reception. Friends aren’t necessarily persuaded by evidence; they’re cultivated through tone, access, and familiarity. It’s PR vocabulary disguised as pastoral optimism, suggesting that goodwill itself is a spiritual win. The implied audience isn’t only members needing reassurance, but also journalists, critics, and wavering observers: people whose approval can stabilize the church’s social standing.

Contextually, this fits a modern religious organization navigating an information-saturated era where control of narrative is harder than control of doctrine. The phrase “taken a…step” signals incrementalism: we’re improving, responsibly, at our pace. It’s also a subtle message inward: don’t panic about bad press; the leadership is managing it.

The subtext is less about correcting facts than about reasserting legitimacy. If the church can relabel controversy as misunderstanding and convert scrutiny into “friendship,” it can keep the conversation on its own terms: not “What went wrong?” but “Haven’t you heard we’re doing better?”