This episode covers all the big news regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that we haven’t been able to discuss yet, including the first African-American General Authority, temple ceremony and wedding policy changes, highlights from April 2019 General Conference, the BYU Honor Code controversy, Word of Wisdom clarifications, and more.
Featuring special guest scholars Cristina Rosetti and Paul Reeve.
Morgan: So Cristina, you are a scholar of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but you yourself are not a member of the Church, you’re Roman Catholic. As you know, the General Conference of the Church is somewhere around 10 hours worth of talks and music. So do you end up listening to General Conference?
Cristina: Yes, including priesthood. I listen to General Conference every year. I have a group of friends that we all listen to it together and eat cinnamon rolls in the morning. So just like with their family growing up, I guess. I don’t know. I never did that growing up…. You know for the most part the talks are, I think are just good talks if you’re a member of a Christian tradition, you’ll find something in there. … There’s been some talks that are of course hard to listen to…. It’s long. I will say that it’s a wild thing…. I know people who dress up in their “Sunday Best” and they stand for the hymn. And that’s just so foreign to me because I wasn’t really raised in a very religious home. And so I think that’s really interesting. But yeah, I like General Conference a lot.
Morgan: So that’s Cristina Rosetti, she’s a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside, one of our guest scholars on this episode of Latter-day Landscape. We’re also joined by Paul Reeve.
Paul: … professor of history in the history department of the University of Utah, and Simmons professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah.
Morgan: And of course, with me as always is my co-host Patrick Mason, who has now completed his transition to Utah State Utah University to become the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture. How’s everything going with the move, Patrick?
Patrick: We’re well settled and Logan. It’s a terrific place. The university community has been great. Everybody’s been terrific. People keep telling us that “winter is coming.” We’re a little scared of that, but so far so good.
Morgan: On this episode, where we’ll be catching up on a wide range of the announcements and news items we haven’t talked about yet in 2019. So it’s a bit of a “catch up” episode , including some highlights of last April’s General Conference we haven’t covered yet, the first African American General Authority, the BYU Honor Code controversy, clarifications on the Word of Wisdom and more. All this, on today’s episode of Latter-day Landscape.
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Morgan: So we covered some specific highlights, but we never did get a chance yet to present you with some overall thoughts on last April 2019’s General Conference. So better late than never, and just in time to prepare your minds for the upcoming October 2019 General Conference in just a few days, we’re going to cover that on today’s episode. Given the prior General Conferences where some large structural changes and new policies were announced, a lot of people were anticipating something big in April. Of course, the change regarding the LGBTQ policy was an announcement that led to massive nationwide news coverage, but that happened just before General Conference, and wasn’t addressed directly during General Conference itself. Since we’ve covered that extensively over our past two episodes, we’re not going to revisit it today. But when April General Conference itself came, expectations were high. Instead, the only direct policy change announced by President Nelson was that there was to be no more cheering for new temple announcements.
President Nelson: As we announce plans to construct a new temple, it becomes part of our sacred history. Now, please listen carefully and reverently. If I announce a temple in a place that is special to you, may I suggest that you simply bow your head with a silent prayer of gratitude in your heart. We do not want any verbal outbursts to detract from the sacred nature of this conference and the Lord’s holy temples.
Morgan: This of course was a reaction to the boisterous response from the audience in the prior October 2018 General Conference when President Nelson read off the new temples:
President Nelson: Puebla, Mexico; Auckland, New Zealand; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington County, Utah.
Morgan: I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed that they had to clamp down on what I thought was a fun reaction, though I completely understand the desire for reverence there. Anyway, despite no big DIRECT policy announcements, that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any big news or changes… you just had to listen carefully. For instance, in the sustaining of the new General Authorities, we heard this:
President Oaks: It is proposed that we sustain the following as General Authority Seventies: Rubén V. Alliaud,…, Ricardo P. Giménez, Peter M. Johnson, John A. McCune, …and Alan R. Walker. All in favor, please manifest it.
Morgan: Believe it or not, Peter M. Johnson is the first African American General Authority in the Church. Not the first General Authority of African descent, since there have been some notable Africans, but the first African American. Let’s talk a little bit about this.
Patrick: Well, it’s exciting. I mean, of course that maybe took a little longer than many of us would have wished for. But it’s nevertheless an important moment and hopefully something to build on. Especially the church has had hard times in terms of outreach and ministering to African Americans throughout the United States, and has had greater success in Africa itself. And so hopefully this is a platform that the Church can build upon.
Cristina: My first thought was Elder Johnson’s past as a member of the Nation of Islam, and I’ve only know really briefly his story about going to BYU and joining the LDS Church at BYU. But given both religions’ historical views on race, I’m going to be really interested to hear more of his story and how he came to be a member of the Church.
Paul: I had the pleasure of meeting him. We had a conference at the University of Utah in 2015. And he was a stake president in Alabama, the first African-American stake president in Alabama. And I heard at least a part of his story – his conversion from the Nation of Islam. But also a really powerful aspect of his conversion story was the fact that he served an LDS mission and was not aware of the prior priesthood restriction. You understand that he’s converting from the Nation of Islam and notions of black power. He found out as a missionary about the prior restriction… actually found out in the context of a discussion he was having with someone who was interested in the faith. And that person basically said to him, “How could you go out preaching the Latter-day Saint message for a church that discriminates against your race?” And he simply denied it and said, “Well, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re misinformed.” And when he and his companion left, his companion was the one that informed him about the prior racial restrictions and was pretty terrible next three weeks where he was deciding whether to stay on his mission or leave and potentially even leave the faith altogether. Just given his own experience, I think he will bring a significant amount of understanding to the hierarchy about racial matters. He grew up in New York. He knows the inner city context. He presided over a stake in Alabama with inner-city branches. He spoke about that at our conference at the University of Utah and the way that he addressed some of those issues in an inner-city branch in Alabama. He had a branch that had largely only been presided over by white Latter-day Saints from the suburbs who would be called to preside over the branch. And he immediately changed that and called a man who for 20 years had walked to the branch from his own neighborhood. Who was African-American, and he made him the branch president and members of that branch said, “We never thought we’d had anyone who look like us preside over us.” Recognizing the value of leadership that reflects the population over whom they preside. So I think he brings a lot of that kind of “street smarts” to his position, and I’m excited for what the future holds with him in a General Authority position. And in terms of the timing, you know, it’s 2019 the first African Americans join the LDS church was 1830, o it seems that our racial restrictions really have lingered for a very long time and this American context.
Morgan: So that’s a rather significant occurrence that happened during April’s General Conference; it will be exciting to hear Elder Johnson speak in Conference at some point in the future and see what other impact he brings.
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Morgan: Another noteworthy item from April’s Conference was a subtle change in guidance pertaining to temples that came during Elder Bednar’s talk entitled “Prepared to Obtain Every Needful Thing.”
Elder Bednar: Indeed, temple preparation is most effective in our homes. But many Church members are unsure about what appropriately can and cannot be said regarding the temple experience outside of the temple.
Morgan: He quoted other Church leaders who had encouraged more sharing about the temple,
Elder Bednar: President Howard W. Hunter counseled: “Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. And let us teach them more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say about the purposes of the house of the Lord.”
Morgan: And he gave specific guidelines about always speaking about the temple with reverence and holiness, and while not revealing specific symbols or holy information…
Elder Bednar: We may discuss the basic purposes of and the doctrine and principles associated with temple ordinances and covenants.
Cristina: I really liked Elder Bednar’s talk, about talking to young people before they go through the temple for the first time. Just being friends with members of the Church who went through the temple relatively recently who were somewhat uncomfortable about their experience, and wish that they could have had those conversations with their parents or with other members of the Church that they’re close to. So for them and seeing their reaction was really positive, and seeing that there might be a better way to do temple prep. So even temple prep, how those classes are going to go at Institute. Hopefully, there’s just more explanation there.
Morgan: There was no specific mention of it in General Conference, but earlier in the year the Church had made a number of significant changes to the temple ceremony. It announced these changes indirectly in a press release in January 2019 which said essentially that adjustments to the temple ceremony have happened and will continue to happen with Prophetic guidance. Without going into any specifics, but staying true to Elder Bednar’s guidance that we should talk about the basic purposes of the temple covenants, we’ll just say that one of the significant changes had to do with making the covenant process much more equal for men and women, more direct for women, than it had been previously.
Paul: Well, I would just say that the temple changes do seem to indicate that the leadership is listening in terms of what women are saying in particular. The liturgy for some has been painful, and Latter-day Saints have been praying for this kind of change that indicates that the leadership was listening. And if you want to combine it with Elder Bednar is talk, I think I was surprised at the way that he framed the ability to talk about the temple rituals. Especially for parents to instruct the rising generation that it’s okay to speak about certain aspects of the temple experience, not necessarily the covenants and and other tokens that are a part of the temple experience. But really I think trying to encourage parents to help their children be prepared so that they’re not taken aback by what the experience in the temple, and perhaps have a better experience as a result. So those two things combined I think very much encouraging for Latter-day Saints.
Cristina: In terms of the actual changes speaking very vaguely… members of the Mormon feminist community have been seeking these changes for a very long time. Really going back to this idea of revelation. It did raise the question: are temple changes done through revelation, or are they not? And so a lot of people, about this particular issue really raised the question of, “Do changes come from people petitioning, or do they not?” And I think it’s really important to talk about the changes to the LDS temple historically, because it does shed light on the people and it lifts the voice of people who did fight for these changes, especially the women of Exponent, the Feminist Mormon Housewives, and all the women who had a really hard time with the temple. And now hopefully the next generation of women won’t feel the same thing that those women did.
Morgan: Another temple-related change that came out just after General Conference was a standardization of a global policy regarding weddings: that those worthy individuals who were married first in a civil marriage no longer had a mandatory 1-year waiting period in order to be sealed in the temple.
Patrick: So this is standardizing it, because in a lot of countries say Mexico or France or other places that have a little different secular tradition, you had to get married civilly anyway. The nation did not recognize the temple sealing as a civil wedding. So you had to do both anyway, and in those places you could do them on the same day. So in a lot of ways, actually the United States was the outlier because the United States does recognize religious ceremonies as civil ceremonies. So that’s why the church had made that distinction and that separation. But you’re exactly right, this is bringing the United States’ practice into line with much of the rest of the world.
Morgan: I can imagine that this policy change is a simple standardization on the surface, that it will have a significant impact for many individuals and families.
Patrick: So this actually struck a chord with me on a personal level. So this speaks to the situation that my wife and I found ourselves in. My wife was a new convert when we met and dated and decided to get married… she was the only member in her family. And so we really wrestled with the decision of what to do knowing that if we got sealed in the temple right away it would exclude her family. If we chose not to get sealed right away, and be inclusive of her family it would hurt potentially my family’s feelings. Then and obviously you have people raising their eyebrows, “Why aren’t they get married getting married in the temple?” and so forth. So we actually spent a lot of time talking with our Bishop who was amazing. He was so terrifically supportive and just counseled with us and let us made our own make our own decision. And we made the decision not to get sealed right away precisely so that her family could be there for the wedding. We made the calculation that they would have been horribly offended to be excluded from that and I think it was the right calculation. And so we got married civilly. It was actually a beautiful wedding on the beach. It was terrific. And then we got sealed exactly one year later on our first anniversary. That was a tough situation. That was a tough process for us to go through and I can imagine you know, multiply that by how however many other couples have had similar situations. So I personally, welcome this and think it’s just a much more humane policy recognizing how complicated family situations are today.
Morgan: I had a similar dilemma, where my Father-in-Law isn’t a member of the Church. My wife and I opted to get married and sealed in the temple, and so he wasn’t allowed to be there. He was very gracious about it, and we had a ring ceremony outside the temple afterwards that he participated in, but to this day I still feel bad that he wasn’t there at our actual wedding. So I’m glad that future generations of Latter-day Saints will have more options of inclusion available to them, and it will be interesting to see to what degree this does impact the actual practices of weddings and sealing ceremonies in the United States.
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Morgan: Let’s talk about some of the other notable aspects of April’s General Conference, including the talks that generated a lot of social media buzz or commentary. One of those was President Nelson’s talk entitled “Come Follow Me”:
Cristina: …That talk got a lot of a lot of people commenting. That talk came Sunday morning. That talk came after a segment on the Rome Temple, and there was a Jesuit and they talked about how great it was to be in Rome. And it was a very ecumenical moment. And in general the LDS church has really moved toward an ecumenical position, really being part of the wider religious community and dialogue with other faiths. And he commented on if you’re not part of the restored Church you’re settling for second best. And questioning if this friend of his who asked “maybe one day you can do a proxy baptism for me”… wondering if that proxy baptism would be efficacious at all.
President Nelson: One such dear friend of mine had limited experiences with God. But he longed to be with his departed wife. He said, “Those commandments and covenants are just too difficult for me. … “Once I die, please do the necessary temple work for my wife and me so that we can be together again.”
Thankfully, I am not this man’s judge. But I do question the efficacy of proxy temple work for a man who had the opportunity to be baptized in this life—to be ordained to the priesthood and receive temple blessings while here in mortality—but who made the conscious decision to reject that course.
Cristina: And so it was a really interesting juxtaposition to watch the church in this ecumenical moment, and then to hear a talk that was really kind of the “one true Church rhetoric” that we’ve heard for so long coming from Mormonism. And so that was really kind of, especially as a Roman Catholic myself, to see kind of the picture of this judgment on the screen, and President Nelson say that people who aren’t part of the Restored Church are settling for second best.
Paul: I think it also perhaps raise some questions for people in particular who might be first generation converts, who have done work for their deceased ancestors. And one of the appeals of Latter-day Saints is the claim they have the solution to the problem of Christian exclusivity. That if you didn’t happen to encounter Christ at some point in your earthly sojourn, you’re just automatically relegated to hell or whatever else the afterlife might afford you, but certainly not heaven. And Mormons have always suggested that they have the solution to that through proxy baptism. And I think as Cristina pointed out President Nelson’s remarks while maybe narrowly made in relation to one person who he encountered, at least what I saw play out on social media, raised all kinds of questions amongst Latter-day Saints in terms of what that meant for their own vicarious work for their own loved ones. And it did seem kind of difficult to square with other notions that Latter-day Saints and prior leaders have, or other statements that they have made. I’m just thinking specifically of Wilford Woodruff when he changed the law of adoption to mean that Latter-day Saints should do their own family history, quit asking to be adopted into the leadership line of Wilford Woodruff or anyone else. Their ancestors who had died before they accepted the gospel would readily accept the gospel. And you know President Nelson’s remarks didn’t seem to quite match up with that. And so I think it did raise some eyebrows.
Patrick: Yeah. I have to say that I recognized and saw a lot on social media and some of the things that people were saying. And I have to say that I’m a little bit surprised by it because I heard his talk on Sunday as as a pretty strong statement of Latter-day Saint orthodoxy. It was a bracing statement of that orthodoxy. But what I heard from him was what I understand to be, you know, the mainstream doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was pitched in such a way that, you know, not with rounded corners, but with maintaining the idea that this is the true Church, and that it has the authority to perform saving ordinances and the people have to accept those ordinances either in this life or in the next if they want to be exalted.
President Nelson: How I wish I could visit with them and invite them to consider seriously the enabling laws of the Lord. I’ve wondered what I could possibly say so they would feel how much the Savior loves them and know how much I love them and come to recognize how covenant-keeping women and men can receive a “fulness of joy.”
Patrick: And there was a kind of generosity, I think, which is inherent in the Latter-day Saint system of salvation to say that, “hey salvation is offered to everybody, but if you want what we call the best kind of salvation, if you want exaltation, this is what you have to do.” And so I heard that as in some ways what I would expect from a President of the Church. And maybe we got a little bit used to a slightly different tone from somebody like a President Hinckley or even a President Hunter… a little bit of a kinder, gentler tone. But I think President Nelson, he sees this as teaching the orthodoxy, teaching the doctrine, is his job, it is his responsibility. And to do so is an act of love, because it’s the way to exalt people. And in a Saturday night address in the priesthood session, I mean, he was inviting Latter-day Saint men to be better, and a lot of people were upset that he didn’t give a specific challenge to the men that the they same way that he did to women six months ago. But certainly he and the other Church leaders are mindful of what a lot of cultural commentators have talked about, that at least American culture has a kind of “man problem” or that there’s some kind of problem with masculinity or various problems with masculinity.
President Nelson: If you have a need to repent because of the way you have treated the women closest to you, begin now…. Brethren, we all need to repent… We need to get up off the couch, put down the remote, and wake up from our spiritual slumber…The Lord needs selfless men who put the welfare of others ahead of their own.
Patrick: So I think especially in the in the spirit in which I think it was intended to be given, he’s trying to ask Latter-day Saint men to step up and to inhabit a different kind and a holier type of masculinity.
Morgan: Let’s discuss another one of the April General Conference talks that generated some buzz, Elder Christopherson’s talk entitled “Preparing for the Lord’s Return”:
Elder Christofferson: This great and last dispensation is building steadily to its climax—Zion on earth being joined with Zion from above at the Savior’s glorious return. The Church of Jesus Christ is commissioned to prepare—and is preparing—the world for that day.
Paul: Well, I guess my reaction to that one was very similar to I guess how Patrick articulated his reaction to President Nelson’s talk. It felt really kind of old-timey Mormon to me and just “end times.” He talked about the Second Coming. He talked about it in terms of hope, but also preparation. And he also talked about the need to care for the poor and the needy as a part of that preparation for the end times. And so a lot of the quotes that he drew upon where scriptural, but not necessarily scriptural quotes that in at least in my recent memory have been put together in the same way that he did.
Elder Christofferson: We must acknowledge that the building up of Zion occurs in tumultuous times—“a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord.”
Paul: And it felt like I was reading maybe a talk from the Journal of Discourses in the 19th century rather than something I have been accustomed to in recent General Conferences in the 21st century. So it did drop a lot of what are fundamental aspects of I would say Mormon theology, but which haven’t been emphasized in the same kind of way at least in my recent memory that Elder Christofferson emphasized it in this conference.
Cristina: One of the main themes of this year’s General Conference was that this is the last days at that we need to get ready. And I actually, you know from not being a member of the church. It’s interesting to hear those ideas, especially when you’re part of a church that doesn’t hold that as strongly. But the idea of the last days is part of the name of the Church. It’s a primary tenet of the church. And his talk really reminds me of Cleon Skousen. There hasn’t really been someone like Cleon Skousen in the LDS church for a very long time that really pushed this idea of preparedness and getting ready, because this really is the last days. And so, like Paul commented, I thought it was interesting to hear his ideas that were so common and so part of what it meant to be a member of the Church, to hear them again.
Paul: …Part of my reaction is because I spend a lot of my intellectual time in the 19th century. And so certainly reading sermons from a 19th century, Latter-day Saints were expecting Christ’s return tomorrow. Not some distant kind of phenomenon, but it would be immediate and Christofferson’s talk seems to harken back to the more immediacy of Christ’s return. He combined it with the needs to prepare for the present for the impending return. He said,
Elder Christofferson: “so yes, let us do all we can to relieve suffering and sorrow now, and let us devote ourselves more diligently to the preparations needed for the day when pain and evil are ended all together, when Christ shall reign personally upon the Earth, and the Earth will be renewed and will receive its paradisaical glory.”
Paul: So drawing upon very much fundamental Mormon tenets, and giving hope to “there will be a brighter day, a future Millennium where there will be peace, and evil will end.” Very much a part of the Mormon founding, and like I said, it just reminded me of some of those 19th century sermons.
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Morgan: Let’s move on to another topic, which was a very interesting and potentially profound doctrinal point that came up almost in passing in President Oaks April General Conference talk.
Paul: So President Oaks’ talk, I think it’s titled, “Where Will This Lead?” he was simply making the point that we don’t know sometimes where something may lead. And he uses a variety of examples to illustrate his point. The one that seemed to catch some attention at least on social media was his point about our labels and our identities. No surprise that he articulate the most important identity for each of us. He says is as a child of God with a potential destiny of eternal life. And then he said,
Elder Oaks: every other label, even including occupation, race, physical characteristics, or honors is temporary or trivial in eternal terms.
Paul: And I think especially the notion of race in that mix is somewhat startling especially for Latter-day Saints simply because of the Latter-day Saints’ own struggle with racial issues, and how important race was defined, and has been defined, and continues to be an unsettling issue amongst Latter-day Saints because of the racial priesthood and temple restrictions. Where a variety of Latter-day Saint leaders talked about race and especially race for people of black African descent as holding eternal consequences, and stretching back to the pre-earth life the premortal existence and all the way through the eternities. And so I think I understand President Oaks intends when he made his statement, but it also then just sidesteps an enormous amount of history and lingering questions, as well as racial issues that have never fully been addressed. and fully been resolved.
Cristina: … This isn’t the first time but President Oaks has commented on labeling. This is the second time that he has made kind of similar remarks. I want to say this is the first time that he’s included race in that so it was interesting to hear that especially is a Latter-day Saint context given its history with race and what race means in a theological sense.
Morgan: So that’s a theological point to watch for in the future as well, to see if the temporal nature of race is reinforced. Before moving on from Elder Oaks talk, I will say that there was one other line in President Oaks talk that really caught my attention was this one:
President Oaks: As we do, we will be following President Russell M. Nelson’s counsel to begin with the end in mind.
Morgan: When I heard that I thought, that wasn’t President Nelson who said that originally, that was Stephen Covey. “Begin with the end in mind,” was made famous as one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is a self-help book – with over 25 million copies sold, it’s one of the biggest selling non-fiction business books in history. So I did some digging, and it turns out that President Nelson gave a talk at BYU in 1984 entitled “Begin With the End in Mind” which predates Stephen Covey’s book by almost 5 years.
Elder Nelson: I have entitled my remarks this evening, “Begin with the end in mind.” … What would you like said about you at your funeral? Or, if you were to write your own eulogy and you could have only three sentences (no big flowery speeches, please), what would you want to say?
Morgan: So that’s interesting, it’s possible that Stephen Covey got that principle from President Nelson rather than the other way around.
Patrick: I wonder if president Nelson got any royalties off of that.
Morgan: Aside from just focusing on those specific attention-grabbing aspects of President Oaks talk, I will say that overall his talk was a personal favorites of last April’s Conference, with some especially memorable and meaningful stories:
President Oaks: A gasp of horror arose, and the crowd of students surged forward and wrested the little animal away from the dog, but it was too late. The squirrel was dead.
Morgan: As well as some very thoughtful, powerful principles for living a better life:
President Oaks: we make countless choices in life, some large and some seemingly small. Looking back, we can see what a great difference some of our choices made in our lives. We make better choices and decisions if we look at the alternatives and ponder where they will lead.
Morgan: It reminded me of another one of his classic talks which is widely cited in the Church membership: “Good, Better, Best…” in some ways this talk last April was like a Good, Better, Best 2.0, and it will be interesting to see if it has the same long-term impact and longevity. Before we move on to some other news, what other talks from last April jumped out to you as especially meaningful on a personal level?
Patrick: So I was really struck by Sharon Eubanks’ talk. I think a couple of things, I thought the message was straightforward. It was compassionate. It had a kind of generosity to it, and a call to Christian discipleship that I found quite authentic and moving.
Sister Eubank: I testify you are beloved. The Lord knows how hard you are trying. You are making progress. Keep going. He sees all your hidden sacrifices and counts them to your good and the good of those you love. Your work is not in vain. You are not alone. His very name, Emmanuel, means “God with us.” He is surely with you.
To me it spoke for the need of hearing different types of voices and in particular women’s voices. This was another conference where there were more than one session where we didn’t hear any female voices, and I think Sister Eubanks because of her experience in humanitarian relief around the world and in her various ministries, I think she brings a really unique perspective that was really welcomed. And I thought a really nice addition to this year’s conference.
Cristina: That was my favorite talk of all of conference. As a woman, it’s always good to hear from women. I’m friends with `a lot of women in the Mormon feminist community, and one of the things that they mention all the time is that men and women are considered to be very different in the LDS Church. The LDS Church holds the view that men and women are created different, have different roles. And if that’s true, then hearing from both men and women is vital and important. And Sister Eubanks talk was resoundingly – from people that I saw on social media and talk to in real life – was one of the favorite talks. And I think it just really emphasized that people want to hear from women.
Paul: I think it really seemed to come from the heart, and she also seemed to be speaking to, and be aware of the concerns of Latter-day Saints on the margins. And she seemed to really connect and express notions that she understands, that she empathizes, that they aren’t forgotten by her, but they also are not forgotten by Jesus Christ. That there is hope. It was a profound message of hope, I think, and it does down at stand out as a highlight of General Conference this year.
Morgan: Were there other talks from last April that really connected with you?
Paul: My favorite personal moment, I think came in response to Elder Brooke P Hales of the Seventy. His talk was “Answers to Prayer.” He shared a personal experience about a coat, a coat that was too small for his missionary son and nonetheless it somehow ended up in France with his missionary son, and out of frustration, even he suggested just giving it away. A fellow missionary of his son who was the exact size for the coat had been praying for a coat. He didn’t have the same kind of parental and financial support, and he became the recipient of that coat, and Elder Hales just made the point that a whole variety of circumstances had to come together for that coat to get into that missionaries hands, sort of just suggesting that God knows us, and knows our needs, and is preparing an answer to our prayers. Sometimes long in advance of even perhaps even uttering that prayer.
Elder Hales: Heavenly Father… knew that these two missionaries would be serving together in Paris and that the coat would be an answer to the humble and earnest prayer of a missionary who had an immediate need.
It stuck out to me simply because I’ve had those type of experiences where you just imagine all of the moments of serendipity that have to come into play for something to fall into place like that. And I guess because I believe in a divine power, I attribute that to the divine power. And his sharing of that experience just kind of struck a chord with me and brought back a lot of fun memories.
Cristina: So as I mentioned before I really enjoyed Sister Eubanks talk, but I also really liked Elder Gong’s talk. He talked a lot about bearing one another’s burdens and rejoicing alongside one another. And I think in a time that you know, a lot of people were feeling a lot of repercussions from just what had been going on in the Church in the last few days, his comments about how Heavenly Father and Jesus reach out to the One and to the ninety-nine.
Elder Gong: As we minister, we acknowledge the ninety-and-nine who are steadfast and immovable, even while we yearn after the one who has strayed.
Cristina: I think those were words that were very comforting to people, and were really necessary.
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Morgan: So we’ve covered some of the noteworthy items before and during April’s General Conference. Let’s talk briefly about a couple items that came up just after General Conference, one of them regarding the Honor Code at Brigham Young University. This BYU Honor Code doesn’t just cover honesty and not cheating, but is perhaps the nation’s highest set of college behavior standards as it includes the Church’s high expectations around ethics and morality, such sexual activity and substance abuse, as well as stringent guidelines on dress and grooming. Every BYU student must agree to abide by these guidelines, and violation of the Honor Code leads to disciplinary measures and/or expulsion from the University. There have been some high profile violations in the past, such as BYU athletes who weren’t members of the Church, who were expelled and kicked off the team for having sex out of wedlock. But in Spring 2019, the BYU Honor Code came under the highest degree of public scrutiny to date.
Cristina: … a woman started an Instagram page about the honor code. People could post their Anonymous stories about… for lack of a better word “mishaps” with the honor code and struggles that they’ve had. A lot of them are about the honor code not being helpful and unduly negatively impacting students. Or about students telling on other students.
Morgan: This led to hundreds and hundreds of online posts. The stories covered a wide range, from people who hadn’t reported being raped for fear of being held accountable to the Honor Code, to others who felt that the Honor Code had become a weapon used for revenge or blackmail. Many talked about how the harsh penalties from the Honor Code seemed disproportionate, leading to depression and even suicide. Many others talked about how even when the outcome was fair, the process itself was far less than ideal.
Paul: … it seems to be a lot of students current students and former students who are sharing stories, and almost universally negative experiences with the Honor Code office, where it seems to be used by people outside of any realm of ecclesiastical authority to try to enforce its standards of conduct. But doing so in a way that humiliated people. Well, I shouldn’t say publicly embarrass them, but embarrass them in front of people who were in the room, sometimes feelings of voyeurism, and the way that the honor code reviews were conducted, and I think the movement is an effort to shine a light on that, and to bring about hopeful reform…
Cristina: And so it’s raised a lot of questions about the idea of agency and what the Atonement means and about, “Is it a bishop’s responsibility to discipline or is it a university’s?”
Morgan: This eventually led to a fair amount of national news coverage as well as protests on BYU campuses:
Cristina: So… there was a protest at BYU where students shared their stories about either being expelled or being disciplined for honor code violations that were reported against them.
Morgan: BYU actually did authorize the protests which took place at both BYU Provo and BYU Idaho campuses.
Chrisina: Yeah, I think it’s important to note that there was a time that BYU probably wouldn’t have granted permission for this to even happen… And so I think that is a step that we do need to acknowledge in light of the fact that we might disagree with how the honor code has played out.
Morgan: And the protests and online campaigns did lead to a few immediate changes to the Honor Code in the last few months, including promises of more transparency, enforcement of “innocent until proven guilty,” and allowing a second person to accompany the accused student.
Patrick: For me this shows that the church and its various institutions like BYU continue to be responsive to people. Sometimes we think the Church being distant or being entirely top-down… and to some degree that’s true, I think there’s some merit in that… but they are responsive and as times change as the culture changes as problems arise as they realize that the way that they had done things previously was no longer working… the Church is capable of change, and it’s capable of being responsive to people. Now Church leaders are fond of saying that the Church is not a democracy and it doesn’t give in to interest groups and so forth. Again, I think that’s largely true. But that’s also not what we’re seeing here. We’re seeing with the BYU Honor Code a system that in general works for most students and it works for the institution. So they’re not doing away with the Honor Code, but they’re doing away with, or changing some of the way that it’s administered. And I think that’s entirely appropriate. That’s the way institutions should be. They should always be responding and thinking about “How can we do things better?” And especially something like the honor code, the first principle should be “do no harm.” And so I think the changes that they’ve made have gone in that direction of making sure that it’s a code that maintains the Church’s standards at its flagship university, but at the same time is not harming individuals either directly or indirectly. And ideally not as “collateral damage” either.
Morgan: As might be expected, there are still some who say the changes aren’t enough to protect those who may be harmed from improper application of the Honor Code.
Patrick: I mean that’s always going to be a complaint right is this is that yeah, the changes aren’t far enough. They aren’t fast enough and who knows we might see more change down the road, but I think any progress is good progress and sometimes with big institutions you have to deal with half a loaf because it’s better than none.
Morgan: The BYU has already made multiple announcements changes to the Honor Code so far, so we’ll watch for more adjustments as well as how the current changes are being received.
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Morgan: We’ve covered a lot of this year’s news items, but I’ve got Patrick with me for just a couple more minutes, so before we close I’m going to ask him to give us a few thoughts on some recent announcements. One is that the Church released a statement on August 15 in the New Era, its magazine targeted to teens, clarifying the Word of Wisdom, which of course is the Church’s revelation and guidelines on health and avoiding harmful substances. The article clarified various substances that were explicitly banned, including vaping and e-cigarettes, non-prescription opioids and marijuana, as well as green tea and coffee-based products…They advise that it might be easier to just never order anything from a coffee shop altogether, or if you do to ask if there is coffee in it and avoid anything with caffé, mocha, latte, espresso, or anything ending in -ccino as those probably contain coffee.
Patrick: So the church has been formulating and reformulating what exactly the Word of Wisdom is and how its applied really ever since the Word of Wisdom came about, and certainly since it has been enforced in a strict manner beginning in the early 20th century. I see these recent clarifications as very much in that spirit, very much along those lines, because times change and the substances, the product, the delivery methods in which these things these substances come do change because producers and and marketers and others find new ways to market their products especially to young people. So I actually think this is helpful advice from the Church in terms of clarifying which substances in which things are in which are out especially you know, vaping is essentially the equivalent of smoking because I think the tobacco industry has in many ways tried to suggest otherwise. Of course, you know one of the funny things about this is that there was so much talk especially on social media before the last General Conference that somehow the Church was going to relax its standards on the Word of Wisdom, especially around coffee and there were lots of you know jokes about people investing and in coffee companies are in Starbucks or waiting for a Starbucks to pop up all over Provo. This to me indicates that those rumors were always nothing but that. That the Church doesn’t have any intention on relaxing its standards with the Word of Wisdom, which have been very successful in terms of differentiating Latter-day Saints from other people, from their neighbors and co-workers and others. It’s one of the things that make the Latter-Day Saint distinctive. So I think the fact that they’re clarifying, and sort of drawing this line means that we should not expect any relaxation of standards anytime in the near future.
Morgan: Were there any other aspects of this announcement you found noteworthy?
Patrick: What the Church doesn’t do in this statement is address all of the many forms of caffeinated beverages, and beverages with very mild narcotics and other things that you find in cultures around the world, and there are all kinds of questions of those things. Any missionary is who served in in certain areas in Latin America or Africa or Asia knows what I’m talking about here. So the statement did not offer much clarification along those lines. It was in many ways a very Ameri-centric policy clarification. To me the most interesting part was how specific it got about the various kinds of fancy drinks that you could order at coffee houses and the advice that maybe you just shouldn’t even go into coffee houses or you shouldn’t order anything. Probably goes a little too far, I mean I’ve had plenty of good hot chocolates at Starbucks, but I think this is erring on the side of caution. And this was printed in the New Era, so it’s clearly aimed at teenagers and so the Church wants them to exercise an abundance of caution and maybe not become part of a coffee culture which has become prevalent over the last 20 or 30 years, especially in the United States. And so maybe not get wrapped up into it to a culture that will put them on the wrong side of the line in terms of the Word of Wisdom.
Morgan: Another bit of news was in August the Church also announced that the were starting mandatory abuse prevention training for all adults who interact with children and youth as part of their Church calling.
Patrick: Yeah for me this new mandatory training is probably overdo. It’s now a decade and a half almost two decades since the revelations about the sex abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church. We’ve seen stories and lots of churches and increasingly stories within our own Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So Latter Day Saints are not immune to this. Latter-Day Saint leaders are not immune to this. The church has to dedicate legal resources to addressing these kinds of concerns. And of course the thing that matters most of all is the experience of victims who have been abused. So fortunately the Church is now joining many other, most other religious organizations to require mandatory training. You know, this is always a tough thing for for the Church because it’s got a lay ministry. I mean you’ve got people with no theological training people who didn’t have to go to Seminary and oftentimes get this training, and pastoral ethics, and what does it mean to be a leader, and those kinds of things. So often times people have questions. Maybe they come out of cultures where sexual abuse, sexual violence, sexual discrimination is not talked about very much. And so I for one welcome the fact that the church is is instituting this mandatory training for people. Again, some people are going to say it’s too little too late and certainly there have been victims along the way. But hopefully this will stem the tide, and at least lessen… you’re never going to eliminate abuse, you’re never going to eliminate bad actors, people who will abuse their position of power. But hopefully this kind of thing will help reduce the likelihood of those kinds of unfortunate cases.
Morgan: Last question Patrick, anything we should look for in this upcoming October’s General Conference in a few days?
Patrick: I think I’m looking for the same thing that everybody else is looking for. I mean the church has already announced that they will be rolling out a new program for the Youth to replace Boy Scouts and to replace you know, and really overhaul what they do for both young men and young women around the global church. So I expect that we will hear a lot about that program throughout General Conference. But I also expect that we’re going to hear more about temples. President Nelson has been talking a lot about temples. He’s been sort of hinting as he’s traveled around the world and in his recent tour of Latin America he was talking a lot about temples. So I think certainly we should expect new temple announcements. But it will be interesting to see if it goes beyond that as well, and they say even more about temples and temple worship. I think certainly president Nelson sees that as a central aspect of his ministry.
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Morgan: Thank you Patrick. We’ll all be watching for those and other items of note in the October General Conference in just a few days. Now, just as we were getting ready to publish this podcast, there was some late-breaking news from the Church regarding witnesses to Church ordinances: President Nelson and leaders of the Church have announced that any baptized member of the Church (male or female) may now serve as a witness of the baptism of a living person (this is for baptisms outside the temple, and would include any age down to 8 years old). Baptisms for the dead may be witnessed by anyone (male or female) holding a current temple recommend, including a limited-use temple recommend, so that would include teenagers. Any endowed member (male or female) with a current temple recommend may serve as a witness to sealing ordinances in the temple, both living and proxy. This is a substantial policy change from the prior policy that only priesthood holders, and therefore only men, could witness these ordinances. And I think it really confirms what Patrick was saying that President Nelson will be focusing on revelation regarding the temple and ordinances. It gives us yet another reason to watch Conference for further clarifications, and will give us plenty to talk about on our next episode. And with that, we’ll wrap up this episode. Thanks again to Paul Reeve and Cristina Rosetti, who have been some outstanding scholars to have with us over the past few episodes. Thank you for listening, and we’ll catch you next time on Latter-day Landscape.