“Wherever we are in the world, religious believers should seek to be light, leaven, and salt,” Johnson said at the 2023 Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Summit at London’s Inner Temple.

Johnson’s appearance at the summit follows President Dallin H. Oaks, of the First Presidency, at the 2022 gathering in Rome and Elder Quentin L. Cook, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in 2021 in Indiana.

“We should try to pursue principles of political neutrality and take care to protect our institutional independence and integrity,” Johnson said. “In our humanitarian work, we should endeavor to be guided by principles of love, focusing on those whose needs are most profound.”

Johnson added that defense of religious liberty is “an extraordinary occasion and a pressing call,” echoing language used about the founding of the Relief Society in 1842.

Courtesy Intellectual Reserve

The Relief Society leader’s remarks were part of a panel discussing the religious response to autocracy. She outlined several principles that guide the church’s global work and detailed its global humanitarian efforts.

In 2022, the church made significant donations to the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the American Red Cross and Rotary International. The church also made financial contributions to help the people impacted by natural disasters and armed conflict.

The Church’s 2022 annual report on Caring For Those In Need shows that this work included more than $1 billion in expenditures, 6.3 million volunteer hours and 3,692 humanitarian projects in 190 countries and territories.

“Members of the Relief Society exercise executive responsibility in planning, directing and administering global humanitarian projects and in ministering to the needs of their neighbors,” Johnson said. “Relief Society members speak out, serving in government, education and community organizations, and, importantly, in their own homes. Motivated by their faith in God and the love of God and their neighbors, members of the Relief Society care for those in need.”

When speaking at the 2022 conference, Oaks said religious freedom is in the DNA of the church, quoting Joseph Smith’s 1843 declaration that he was “ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination.”

Cook, in 2021, maintained that support of the Constitution and advocacy for “strong, peaceful efforts to overcome racial and social injustice are not opposites. Eliminating racism at all levels needs to be accomplished. And, historically, religious conviction has been one of the great forces in accomplishing that goal.”