How to Love Your Enemy: Arthur Brooks at Restore 2025

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Oct 5, 2025

Arthur Brooks, a behavioral scientist and author, delivers a poignant keynote on loving enemies and overcoming division. He tackles the deeper issue of contempt, arguing it fuels national disunity more than political differences. Drawing from personal experiences and science, he challenges listeners to elevate their standards from mere tolerance to truly loving their opponents. With insights on emotional roots of division and practical assignments like 'disagree better,' Brooks inspires a movement towards moral courage and small acts of kindness.

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INSIGHT

Contempt, Not Politics, Is The Real Problem

Arthur Brooks says the core problem tearing us apart is contempt, not mere political disagreement.
He argues moral courage is standing up to your own side on behalf of those you disagree with.

INSIGHT

Motive Attribution Asymmetry Explains Polarization

Motive attribution asymmetry explains intractable conflicts: each side thinks it loves while the other hates.
Brooks found polarization between US liberals and conservatives matched conflicts like Palestinians and Israelis.

ANECDOTE

Tea Party Crowd Experiment

Brooks recounts stopping a Tea Party speech to urge love instead of insults and got a hostile heckle.
That heckle reminded him of his liberal parents and clarified how contempt operates across divides.

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Today we’re sharing Arthur Brooks’ keynote from Restore this last weekend. This message was so powerful—it will stop you in your tracks, and feels so essential for this exact moment. We believe it needs to be heard everywhere—in our homes, our communities, and across the country—so we’re sharing it with you now.

This year we gathered at Utah Valley University for Restore, where just two weeks earlier Charlie Kirk was assassinated while addressing a large crowd. So soon after such horrific violence, the campus itself carried a real weight of grief and uncertainty. Arthur walked straight into that heaviness with so much clarity and conviction—and called us toward a powerful vision of moral courage and discipleship.

His message was bold. He confronted unflinchingly what’s really breaking us apart—not political division, but the deeper poison of contempt. And then he challenged us with this:

Moral courage isn’t standing up to the people you disagree with—moral courage is standing up to your own side on behalf of those you disagree with.

Arthur says tolerance and civility are too low a bar. The real standard is much higher. It's the Sermon on the Mount. It’s loving our enemies—not as a feeling, but as radical, concrete, countercultural action.

Arthur wove together science, story, faith, and humor into something deeply personal and urgently needed. His challenge was clear: if we want a different kind of country, we have to become a different kind of people.

This felt like a spark. Now the work of discipleship begins.

We also want to mention that you can watch this presentation on our youtube channel. Arthur is a super engaging presenter and we strongly recommend that you watch this one.

If you bought a ticket for Restore this year, we will email you the recordings as soon we they're edited! If you didn't get a ticket this year, you can order the Restore 2025 recordings at faithmatters.org/restore.

We’re so excited to tell you about a new Faith Matters initiative called Organized Intelligence, supported by the Future of Life Institute.

Our first gathering will take place November 4-5 in Salt Lake City, where you'll hear from scholars, creatives, technologists, and religious leaders.

This gathering is for curious minds, and we would love to see you there! Go to organizedintelligence.ai to RSVP.