Well, at least they had some courage to speak up.
It’s good to speak up and be heard. I do agree with some that it would be difficult to share some of those issues with others on campus. The HC does have a few strange things, but I understand what is being accomplished by it.
What I don’t get is the LDS lack of faith coming to BYU. You’re suppose to be a active member to come fully engaged. If coming out of HS, you were suppose to have attended and graduated from Seminary. I suspect that most of those complaining about this are the ones whose parents have been pushing this on them.
Don’t forget Russ, some of us grads aren’t even members. I saw that a few days ago KC, and I was planning to post it here too but you beat me to it. I’m going to see what you have to do to be a member of Free BYU when I get a chance. Wouldn’t it really be great if BYU was a bit more secular? Maybe they’d stop embarrassing me enough that I wouldn’t even have to hide my BYU paraphernalia at work.
Seriously, I love BYU and I think they’ve come a long way in the 3 decades since I attended. Still a ways to go but at least you can get a coke in the cafeteria these days. (I’m sliding my mouse on my BYU mouse pad right now…) Oh and KC, I figured out how to put up a pic so I’ll put mine up when I get home. I’m sure Jim will think its your dad’s picture. 
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“About 40 percent of those in attendance were part of FreeBYU, a group devoted to promoting freedom of thought and freedom of religion at BYU. Others represented the LGBT community with Understanding Same Gender Attraction (USGA). Some were there for their own interest or just to listen.”
SG: Same basic liberal antagonists that want to fundamentally change the Church without the Lord’s direction and change America into a fascist country. Have you ever known a single apostate who still attends Sacrament meeting? If someone commits apostasy, why would they want to stay at BYU? It’s a CHURCH OWNED university. It’s going to teach LDS Doctrine only. Parents have the trust that if they send their children to BYU that they aren’t going to end up Bhuddists! Nor, should Korrihor’s be allowed to stay among the good sheep of the Shepherd. This is entirely a different topic than what the Church is all about, bringing souls unto Christ, missionary work! Of course they accept non-members who want to attend! We accept non-members into our congregation every week. There are callings that can be given out that don’t require membership too (you probably didn’t know this). Music leader in Sacrament Meeting for one.
This is really the same old crap you spew out. Instead of calling a sin, a sin, you want to de-sin the sin. Thus, allowing more bad examples to take over our Church. Yet, you are fine with liberal universities squashing conservative and moral speech.
You’re only embarrassed because you refuse the Lord’s Words. You pick and choose what you want to see and hear but refuse to hear the voice of the Lord. You want members to lower their standards to be average and ordinary in the cesspool of carnal man. You want us to love the sinner and love the sin. You are unable to differentiate the two. But, faithful believing members in the Lord can and do differentiate the two. Since we are all sinners (something you refuse you are) we have to love sinners. But, because our first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God, we only show this by keeping HIS commandments. Not the doctrines and commandments of men. "Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:…Isaiah 29:13.
Perhaps some parents hope that if their children are with many other members they will shape up and gain a testimony. Or, at least, a stronger testimony. When kids get older, they start to question things which is good. That’s how a testimony can be established and grow. But, it has to be done with the Spirit involved. KC and Mike want to make BYU more secular so that “questioning” becomes faith damning. That way, their secular immoral agendas can get a grip on future leadership in the Church. At least, that’s their plan. Much like the 60’s and 70’s radical leftists learned that instead of fighting the system, become part of the system and collapse the system from within. Wolves in sheepskins principle.
While we can become more Christlike, we cannot allow immoral doctrine into the Church and destroy many from obtaining Celestial Glory later. Have you ever noticed that the Church never teaches us to seek out the Terrestrial Glory or Telestial Glory? Yet, that’s the way these Korrihor types want us to do.
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Good post grasshopper. If people don’t want to follow the HC they signed and don’t want to be LDS, why would they want to go to BYU in the first place? This sounds a lot like Baltimore or Ferguson to me.
Well, I did really go to be LDS so much as I was influenced by the standards and clean school environment. I did want to go there to learn more about the Church though. I had been reading the Book of Mormon before I left SP to go there.
So, it’s okay for non-members to go. But, they certainly do have to be willing to keep not only the standards of the Church but BYU as well. Not go there to tempt people to do evil.
The idea that people are free, without the freedom to change their minds, seems a bit strange to me. People get new information and learn new things every day. Life isn’t static and no one can predict what they themselves we’ll believe four years from now, let alone what someone else should believe. The honor code is just totalitarian authoritarianism that hurts BYU, and not just in football. The argument that, “well you made a promise… too late to change your mind…ever!”, is disingenuous and arbitrary. BYU doesn’t kick out students that change their minds and want to become LDS even if they have made the exact same promise to their ecclesiastical authority as many have. The honor code is not about keeping promises. Its about controlling behavior.
there is nothing in the agreements made by BYU and accepted by the student that he can’t be converted from their non- LDS faith to the LDS faith. But, there is the agreement that LDS do not leave the Church. Both members and non-members agree to this as a binding agreement. Nothing immoral nor unethical as both agree to BYU conditions. What agreement a non-member makes with his/her ecclisiastic minister is not binding with BYU. Your argument falls apart quickly.
Nothing about the agreement prevents someone from apostatizing and going elsewhere to live without the gift of the Holy Ghost. Something that completely alludes and mystifies you. Fact is, I can tell you what I will believe in 4 years because my testimony is real and that frustrates you.
BYU does not force people to go or stay. Therefore, it is not totalitarian at all. Nor does BYU force you to change your religion. But, members agreed prior to attending not to leave the Church nor teach false Doctrine against the Church. This, not totalitarian.
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Very good points SG.
The honor code is a standard that everybody has to agree to live to go to BYU. If a student doesn’t want to live the standard anymore, they are free to leave.
There are people who are overly aggressive at times in seeing that everybody lives by it as they see people should. I never found that many people there when I was there, but I did run into a few.
Most of these students are still kids, they are free to leave and go where? And sometimes BYU holds transcripts and refuses to release them if you break the honor code. There is some corruption with it, not always, but there is some. To say you are free to leave if you don’t like it is not very compassionate towards those who may have been falsely or excessively punished by those who administer the code.
The problem I have with the code is simple, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent and the secret society of honor code rats at BYU are looking to stick it to undesirables any chance they get.
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Totally agree rblack. (Just kidding kc.) Yeah its not right. It seemed like they were moving in the right direction for awhile but lately they’ve gone backwards a bit. Its still way better than back in the Wilkinson era when there was a whole secret police force out patrolling Provo Canyon camp sites looking for BYU stickers on cars and making couples sharing tents prove they were really married, etc.
Once when I was about 12 or 13 one of my neighbors about my age in Provo was getting ready for bed and turned around to see a man on a ladder staring at her through her bedroom window. This was in off campus housing, just a house in Provo, but for some reason BYU security got involved, even though no students were involved. That seemed pretty weird to me. Anyway, They made her look through a bunch of mug shots and she found about 4 students she knew from her ward in the book. It turns out they had never committed a crime but had at some point confessed to same sex attraction! Back in those days they were using electroshock therapy to try to convert gays into straights and they were leaving no stone unturned to try to find patients. This stuff really kind of creeps me out and seem kind of Orwellian. Things are much better now but I still don’t think the honor system does more harm than good.
I agree that there maybe instances of your guilty until proven innocent at times. Not sure that happens all the time, but when you go to BYU, you’re expected to hold to a standard. If you don’t think you can abide by that standard, there are many, many, many other Anniversaries that don’t require that level of standard. If people want to discuss changes to the standard, that’s not a problem. The problem is when people refuse to follow the standard, then demand changes to the standard to fit there own life style. That is a problem. If people are in this camp, they need to move on because they are unwilling to follow the standards that they committed to follow.
You call that not being compassionate, but I see you do the same thing to church leaders who say something you disagree with and say they should have their temple recommends revoked for what they say. How compassionate is that in comparison.
I think the only time I made any comments to someone about their behavior was on the tennis courts. During a class that I was doing my practicum teaching, President Oaks wife and one of Elder Packer’s daughters were in the class when one of the tennis players for BYU was practicing on a closed outdoor court using the F word and other poor words because he was upset with the way he was hitting the ball. He was alone too. The instructor for our class didn’t do anything. So, I went over and asked him if he was having a bad day and if I could do anything for him. He barked at me so I went up to him and explained who was in the class and that I would appreciate it if he would control himself. I didn’t turn him in because he stopped. I think people should do that first before tattling on people.
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Well done Scott. That is how I feel about it too.