BYU As A Covenant Community: Implications for Excellence, Distinctiveness, and Academic Freedom - Quotes

It would seem that a Mormon college or university seeks to do more than provide a healthy climate and an atmosphere suited to finding one's eternal companion (as valuable as such things are). For this campus to become a "temple of learning" we need to stretch beyond what the Christian college seeks to do. We must constantly ask ourselves: What difference does it make that there was a Joseph Smith, a Restoration, or modern revelation? How does my religion, my way of life, my revealed worldview, impact what I study or the discipline in which I spend my professional life? Am I at peace, one with myself, or do I tend to compartmentalize my life, being a behavioral scientist, for example, on Monday through Saturday and a Latter-day Saint on Sunday? Is there any tie between the scriptures I read, the sermons I hear, the prayers I utter, and the work I do in my chosen field? Finally, how willing am I to ask such questions? Is it difficult to do so, and if so, why? Is my intellectual quest merely an effort to master and acclimate myself to an academic discipline, to memorize and converse in the vocabulary of the prevailing school or trend, or rather is mine a sincere effort to seek for, tap into, acknowledge, and adapt to eternal truth, to judge and assess all things thereby? (p. 13)

We can be thoroughly competent disciples and thoroughly competent professionals. If we had to choose, then surely we would choose commitment to the faith. But we do not. We do not hide behind our religion, but rather we come to see all things through the lenses of our religion. (p. 14)

I am one who is not too excited about seeking to merge and mesh everything or to locate and point out similarities between what the world teaches and what we believe. I see limited value in taking an idea from this text or that theory and then saying, "Oh, look! This sounds similar to what Jesus said" or "That's interesting! That sounds very much like what Paul (or Joseph Smith or Ezra Taft Benson) taught on the matter." I suppose there is some merit in that approach, but it does not, from my perspective at least, require the kind of mental and spiritual discipline (nor yield the same righteous fruits) of seeking to filter all that we study and declare through the teachings and doctrines of the restored gospel. It is simply a matter of perspective, or orientation, a matter of what comes first, a matter of where we start. "If we start right, "Joseph Smith observed, "it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it [will] be a hard matter to get right" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 343). (pp. 14-15).

We cannot fully appreciate the power and depth and breadth of the Restoration until we immerse ourselves in what people have put forth without the aid of modern revelation. It is then that the light of truth can shine forth in a way that could not otherwise be the case. We really do have something to offer the academic world . . . but we will make very little difference in what others think or feel if we spend most of our time belittling or denigrating their way of viewing things. (p. 16)

As we ponder upon the challenges we face at Brigham Young University now and in the days to come, there seem to be certain principles that ought to govern what we do and say. . . . To paraphrase Jacob for our purposes, "Before ye seek to become a great university, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ, ye shall become a great university, if ye seek to do so; and ye will seek to do so for the intent to do good--to bless the sons and daughters of God and glorify Him whose we are." We must consecrate our hearts and minds, must rivet ourselves on the things of God as well as prepare ourselves academically to make a difference in our chosen field of study. Whenever we fail to build our scholarship on the rock of the Restoration, we sacrifice our distinctiveness and come short of what could be (pp. 45-46).

I know there are some who feel there should be no distinction made between the secular and the spiritual at Brigham Young University. Though such an approach is neat and tidy, though it certainly does much to avoid placing one dimension of learning and experience above another, it is inconsistent with the teachings of latter-day apostles and prophets. It is true that to God all things are spiritual (D&C 29:34), but God has all knowledge and power. . . . Our views are at best an approximation of what is. (p. 48)

We must open ourselves to very serious spiritual introspection and make whatever individual and institutional adjustments in our lives that might be necessary to enable this campus to become the temple of learning that it has been prophesied to become. We must ask ourselves hard questions, like the Master's apostles: "Lord, is it I? (Matthew 26:22). "Search your hearts," Joseph Smith the Prophet counseled the members of the Church, "and see if you are like God. I have searched mine," he added, "and feel to repent of all my sins." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 216.) Perhaps one might ask: Is my commitment to the Church and kingdom known? Is it obvious? Can people tell by my words, my works, or my appearance where my heart is? Have I matured beyond the point where I am prone to yield to the easier approach to university life--the compartmentalization of the spiritual and academic? Am I willing to pay the price to acquire new vision? It is not enough for us to be members of the Church who attend our meetings, observe the standards, pay tithing, and attend the temple, although such should and must be part of our lives. What is needed is vision, perspective, and orientation, a peculiar kind of orientation that drives us to put first things first. (p. 51)

Like an individual, an institution that is reborn will show forth the fruit of the Spirit. Its faculty members will mirror and reflect the light of the Lord. They will be far less concerned with what the academy thinks of their labors than what the Lord and the board of trustees think. Having thus an eye single to the Lord and his overarching purposes, they shall be filled with that light and truth, that intelligence the scriptures call the glory of God. Viewing all things through the lenses of the Restoration will then follow naturally and be reflected in the teachings and writings of men and women with regenerate hearts. And as we begin to do what we alone have been charged to do here at Brigham Young University, we shall become a light to the religious and academic world; such will come, ironically, because we sought first the glory of God. In other words, if BYU is ever to achieve its prophetic destiny, is ever to make its mark in the world as a spiritual and intellectual Mount Everest, it must more closely approximate Mount Zion. As time passes, as President Spencer W. Kimball prophesied, there will be "a widening gap between this University and other universities both in terms of purposes and in terms of directions" ("Second Century Address," p. 4). (p. 54)