From Rigid Faith to Personal Truth: Elizabeth Smart's Spiritual Reckoning

When Elizabeth Smart was 14, she was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. For nine months, her captors weaponized faith against her—constantly invoking God’s name to justify the unjustifiable. That trauma didn’t destroy her spirituality. Instead, it fundamentally rewired it.

Now 38, Smart reflects on how her understanding of faith has evolved in the two decades since her 2003 rescue. Where once she accepted doctrine as absolute—”This is what was said, so this is what I’m going to believe”—she’s learned to listen to her own conscience.“Now it’s evolved more, like, this makes sense to me, my heart. This resounds in my heart. For me, this is truth, and I believe in this,”she tells Us Weekly in an exclusive interview.

That shift wasn’t a crisis of faith; it was a crisis of obedience. Smart’s captors used religious language as a tool of control, claiming divine authorization for their actions. But their manipulation taught her the most important spiritual lesson:“Just because somebody says something does not mean it’s necessarily true.”She realized that the God she knows would never command someone to hurt another person. That clarity became her compass.

Today, Smart channels that hard-won wisdom into advocacy for crime victims and a life lived fully on her own terms. She shares three children—Chloe, 11, James, 9, and Olivia, 7—with husband Matthew Gilmour. And in April, she stepped on stage at a bodybuilding competition in a bikini, placing first in her division. The woman dressed modestly throughout her childhood is now reclaiming her body and her choices without apology.

The positive response to her bodybuilding post surprised even Smart.“The overwhelming majority of people were so positive about it,”she reflects, noting how different this moment would’ve been even a generation ago.“I think it is inspiring and hopeful that society is changing, that women can step on stage and feel supported instead of judged.”

Smart isn’t grateful for what happened to her. But she’s clear-eyed about what it’s made her: someone with deep passion for speaking out for victims, compassion forged in darkness, and the empathy to see beyond surface judgments. That’s the evolution of faith that matters most.