Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

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moksha
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Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by moksha » Wed Sep 14, 2022 8:20 am

Brigham Young University is not going to be intimidated into conforming with the rest of the world, President Dallin H. Oaks told BYU students and faculty Tuesday. He suggested BYU will fight back against government regulators... He pointed out that loving God trumps "loving others stuff".
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/09 ... world-lds/
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
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Linked
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Linked » Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:13 am

Oaks is beating an old drum here. The message to be a peculiar people or in the world but not of the world has been around at least for my entire life, and probably longer. This can be a good message, and the church shares the good message sometimes. They even have songs about it for kids like "I'll Walk with You".

The problem is when the same messaging is invoked for evil. When Oaks says to love the bigoted god in his head more than you love other people that's how religion has been a scourge on humanity. When you tell someone to love God enough to hurt people that's a problem. When you use your love of God to kill your empathy for your fellow humans that's a problem.

Gotta love God enough to trash the LGBTQ+ pamphlets you agreed you would share.
"I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order" - Kurt Vonnegut

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Jeffret
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Jeffret » Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:23 am

It's hard to tell just what Oaks is rambling on about. He doesn't want BYU / the Church to change because of "the world". But, the world is a very non-homogeneous place. And the Church and BYU have a very long history of changing to accommodate the world. Do you remember when women couldn't wear pants on campus? How many rants have you heard lately from Church leaders about the utter evils of contraceptives?

Clearly Oaks is maintaining his homophobia and presenting it for everyone to see, though maybe he's coding it a little bit by referencing Title IX. Methinks the man doth protest too much. At a minimum his hatred was forged in the days he was BYU president by what he considered the greatest evil threatening his power / institution.

But the thing that stands out most prominently is what he doesn't say. He doesn't address any of the allegations of racism. He doesn't handle concerns of other teams about playing at BYU. Or the demands that BYU employees waive the confidentiality of the confessional, in spite of the Church's strict claims to clergy confidentiality (when it suits them). He doesn't address any meaningful issues in society.

Oaks is totally backwards looking. He presents no meaningful value. He provides no useful prophetic voice. There are a lot of meaningful things he could say but he says nothing.
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Gatorbait
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Gatorbait » Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:48 am

Agree with the previous posts. This is a disappointment to see Oaks doing this sort of thing. Church needs to set up a damage control for this sort of thing. This sets the church back big time.

His Pres. Kimball reference is dated- 1975 for crying out loud- and shows only indifference to those outliers who would like to attend BYU and won't because of being discriminated against. Same ol' same ol'. Rubbish.

This "Love the Lord they God" business as a catch all - do as we say because -dammit- we speak for God. Don't worry about the second commandment which is "like unto it"- you can disregard that because you show your "love" by serving the church. Rubbish. Shame on him for using this example.

Side note: The church has blabbed about "confidential" information plenty. Ever tell your bishop something and next time you see your Stake President he asks you about the thing you told your bishop? Oops. That happened to me- twice. Lesson learned.
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Not Buying It
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Not Buying It » Wed Sep 14, 2022 10:00 am

Gatorbait wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:48 am
Side note: The church has blabbed about "confidential" information plenty. Ever tell your bishop something and next time you see your Stake President he asks you about the thing you told your bishop? Oops. That happened to me- twice. Lesson learned.
Yeah, don't ever confess anything to anybody in the Church. Church leaders have no respect for privacy or confidentiality.

Yeah, Oaks is talking tough now, but watch BYU give in immediately if their accreditation is ever threatened. No accreditation = non-eligibility for federal financial aid money. And I am pretty sure they are pretty interested in keeping money flowing into BYU. I don't know if accreditation will ever be an issue for BYU, but if it ever became one, they'd cave pretty fast.

He sounds like Church leaders before the First Manifesto - "We will never give up polygamy! It is an eternal principle! I would be the Church's undoing!". And we all know how that played out.
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by nibbler » Wed Sep 14, 2022 10:40 am

Gatorbait wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:48 am
His Pres. Kimball reference is dated- 1975 for crying out loud- and shows only indifference to those outliers who would like to attend BYU and won't because of being discriminated against. Same ol' same ol'. Rubbish.
1975? What else was going on in 1975?

Oh, that's right. That's when the evil, evil world was applying pressure to treat black people as equals.
Those who deviate from a majority are often made to feel like ignorant handouts on subjects where everyone else is more enlightened
He probably meant "holdouts" but sometimes a minority opinion is a minority opinion for a very good reason. Again, the world looked a lot more enlightened than the church in 1975 and today isn't all that different.
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Red Ryder
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Red Ryder » Wed Sep 14, 2022 11:01 am

Now it makes sense why BYU students are still typing up their term papers on typewriters!

“We won’t be bullied into using worldly computer programs! Sister Stevens…. Type up a telegram ASAP!”
~ Elder Oaks

O God! Hear the words of my telegram!

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Red Ryder
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Red Ryder » Wed Sep 14, 2022 11:19 am

Ok, read the article.

I love how he injects obedience into the first great commandment. I’d argue Mormons put obedience to the brethren as the first great commandment. Then to love God. Love thy neighbor comes with too many exceptions. Gay, unbelievers, women, Catholics, etc.
Oaks said that love thy neighbor is the Lord’s second greatest commandment, but not as important as the commandment “to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ... The love of neighbor — however important — does not come ahead of love of God and obedience to his commandments.

“If we truly love God and serve him as he has taught us,” the Latter-day Saint leader said, “we will love our neighbor as God loves him or her and as he would have us love and serve them.”
“It always devolves to Pantaloons. Always.” ~ Fluffy

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Jeffret
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Jeffret » Wed Sep 14, 2022 11:21 am

Gatorbait wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:48 am
This is a disappointment to see Oaks doing this sort of thing. Church needs to set up a damage control for this sort of thing.
I can't say Oaks talk is really a disappointment. This is exactly what I expect from him, exactly what we've seen over and over.

It does highlight just how disappointing the Church and it's leaders are at addressing anything of value or providing any meaningful moral guidance. This is what counts for the highest moral guidance to these students and it's pretty morally bankrupt.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by stealthbishop » Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:31 pm

It's interesting to see both my wife's and my reaction to it. It really shows what stages of transition we are in. My wife is angry about the talk. She was going on a rant about this morning. I totally don't blame her when I think about the damage that is done by these people. For me, I'm just numb to it.

This talk is so vague and therefore filled with plausible deniability. Of course everyone is going to read between the lines and know that he's talking about LGBTQ+ issues. That's been his thing before he was even an apostle.

This talk, Holland's musket talk at BYU, them cracking down on BYU employees (need to have a TR and waive clergy confidentiality), and them throwing out the LGBTQ+ welcoming pamphlets with resources, shows that they feel they need to crack down obviously and that BYU students and their professors have become too liberal and worldly! Holland spilled the beans and talked about the donors (probably very conservative and anti-LGBTQ+) and a letter he got about donating money. So once again, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. They are definitely sending a signal to the donors.

John Dehlin has a theory and/or a source that says that BYU will increasingly become like BYU-ID. Good professors are going to leave and more and more students will attend schools that better reflect their values so it will be increasingly easier to attend BYU unlike in the past where it was much more competitive to get in. The reputation of the school for having good scholarship will crater.

Y'know for being SEERS, the so-called "brethren" are really short sighted. Short sighted is probably generous. They are so blind.
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by AdmiralHoldo » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:35 pm

God, they are really trying to render my husband's college degree useless. I'm dreading the next time he's unemployed... I bet he won't even get job interviews when HR sees BYU on his resume and does even a simple Google search. Out here in the 'mission field,' being homophobic is actually seen as a reason NOT to hire someone.

I didn't go there... thank heaven... I attended a college named after an abolitionist and not one named after a woman-hating racist.

But for all of Oaks' and Holland's big talk, they WILL crumble if their accreditation is at risk... OR if other colleges start refusing to play them because of their gay-hating policies. I mean that was a BIG part of what caused God to spontaneously change his mind about the priesthood and temple ban.

Oaks is 90 years old, Rusty is 98. They will never have to live with the long-term ramifications of the dumbass decisions they keep making. But in the long run I still think the majority of upper-middle church leadership likes the clout of having a university that's actually respected and not seen as a big joke like Bob Jones University.

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by wtfluff » Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:34 pm

Jeffret wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:23 am
...
He doesn't address any meaningful issues in society.
...
Don't address any meaningful issues in society: That's a perfect definition for modern MORmONism. (And possibly the entire history of MORmONism.)
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by stealthbishop » Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:22 pm

Jeffret wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:23 am

But the thing that stands out most prominently is what he doesn't say.
+1

This is exactly what I said to me wife this morning. Look at what the mouthpieces of the Lord DON'T talk about. There are so many problems in this world that are actually serious. Therefore, God doesn't really care about these issues.
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Things on your chest
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Just This Guy » Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:56 pm

moksha wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 8:20 am
Brigham Young University is not going to be intimidated into conforming with the rest of the world, President Dallin H. Oaks told BYU students and faculty Tuesday. He suggested BYU will fight back against government regulators... He pointed out that loving God trumps "loving others stuff".
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/09 ... world-lds/
Okay, have they stated that they will stop taking government money and government sponsored student financial aide?

Seams like their protests against government do not extend to the accountants.
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by AdmiralHoldo » Thu Sep 15, 2022 4:40 am

You know what else I realized is that if Holland gets his wish and BYU gives up its accreditation in order to remain homophobic - What's the NCAA going to have to say about that? How long do you think the Big 12 is going to let them stick around?

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Hagoth » Thu Sep 15, 2022 5:57 am

AdmiralHoldo wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:35 pm
God, they are really trying to render my husband's college degree useless. I'm dreading the next time he's unemployed...
That's the reason I wish they would fix their issues.

Apart from that, part of me wants to see them really show their colors (all white) and double down and turn it into the kind of school Oaks wants it to be. Then they could get rid of everyone who can't get past the "you must be this white to enter" sign, teach 6-day creationism, and all of the others stuff the High Sheriffs would feel compelled by their self-righteousness to do that would make it auger in to a smoldering crater. They deserve to lose their accreditation, their sports standing, their law school... Then, in my fantasy, someone would step in and buy the campus and turn it into CDU (Charles Darwin University), rename the buildings after Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk and Gerald & Sandra Tanner, and make a phoenix rise from the ashes.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by wtfluff » Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:09 am

Weirdly enough: Last evening, during a weed-pulling "meditation," Mr. Oaks suddenly popped into my fluffy brain, and I instantly felt sorry for him.

Can you imagine being an old bigot like him, spending your retirement years constantly spilling hate out into the world about other humans who are different from you? By-golly, when it comes to Oaks, he's pretty much spent his entire life focused on hate. What an awful way to live.

Thank the universe that I was able to see the light and remove myself from that oppressive bubble that Oaks and his cohorts are stuck in.
Last edited by wtfluff on Thu Sep 15, 2022 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Hagoth » Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:57 am

wtfluff wrote:
Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:09 am
Weirdly enough: Last evening, during a weed-pulling "meditation," Mr. Oaks suddenly popped into my fluffy brain, and I instantly felt sorry for him.

Can you imagine being an old bigot like him, spending your retirement years constantly spilling hate out into the world about other humans who are different from you? By-golly, when it comes to Oaks, he's pretty much spent his entire life focused on hate. What an awful way to live.

Thank the universe that I was able to see the light and remove myself from that oppressive bubble that Oaks and his cohorts a stuck in.
Yes, Oaks has a real dilemma on his hands. He has spoken so long and so authoritatively in his bigotry against LGBTQ members his ego simply can't tolerate not be taken seriously. It used to be about the sanctity of the family, but we are beginning to the real motivation poking out around the edges. The idea of members of the church tolerating and even embracing diverse sexuality is not primarily about the fear of sexual deviance, it's about the church leaders' fear of the weakening of their unquestioned authority. If people start recognizing more love and reason in "the world" than in the ivory tower who knows what they might start to question.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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moksha
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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by moksha » Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:03 pm

My daughter came into the computer room and handed me a bowl of spicy chicken bibimbap. Upon tasting it the words, "Oh God, thanks for the tastiness on my tongue" came to mind. I realized how far I had drifted from McDonald's hamburgers.

Sooner or later the Brethren will realize how far the membership has drifted from Victorian hatreds lingering in its Elderly Quorum. The spiritual journey of this generation has moved away from the folly Oaks so desperately wants to maintain.

Will Oaks be successful in helping BYU keep its head buried in the sand, or will graduation cause a massive surge of students washing that gritty stuff out of its mouth and nose and seeking to rejoin 21st Century Humanity?
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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Re: Oaks vows BYU will not be part of "the World"

Post by Hagoth » Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:25 pm

Although it is slow and cumbersome and painfully reluctant, the Mormon church exists and thrives today BECAUSE it is able to change under pressure. Other Second Great Awakening sects like the Oneida community and the Shakers eventually failed because they refused to adapt. The Mormon church has given up some of its most cherished trophies: polygamy, racial purity, blood oaths, women swearing obedience to husbands. The current bigots-in-charge will be dead soon and the church will continue to adapt, just always a little too late to get credit for it. The only thing more distasteful to LDS leaders than "the World," is the threat of their own irrelevance within it.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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