Episode Details

BYU has a history of manipulating & pressuring its educators into consistently stopping short of teaching modern best accepted ideas and research. While it claims to be a university that values education what it really does it limit the critical thinking skills and works to prevent its students from having access to the best information. We start by discussing the modern moment where BYU has changed its policy around the worthiness of BYU and CES Educators to control what is taught in the classroom and then we dive deep into the past to show the more things change the more they stay the same. And lastly we demonstrate that agency really is a value that The Church’s mouth writes but their actions just aren’t cashing.

A.) BYU’s (All of CES) New policy for its staff (Notice the Church speaks officially for BYU as it is one and the same)

1. The old Wording vs the new wording
   
   1. The new policy is: “to hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend.”
      
   2. The Old policy is “ “accept as a condition of employment the standards of conduct consistent with qualifying for temple privileges”
      
      1. Friend and One of the Mole Professors I have on the inside of BYU. (We’ll call him Elder Dyches for anonymity) “Elder Dyches” told me that “Under that condition, I could tell my bishop I qualify, but am not interested in having a recommend and it wouldn’t affect my employment.”

2. The permutations of such a change
   
   1. Gives more control to Salt Lake over local leaders and the CES staff those leaders have stewardship for as “worthiness issues arise in an employees behavior (AKA – Apostate Teachings in Seminary or BYU college classes
      
   2. Imagine Pressure to stay in line this adds.  Is it significant? Maybe not versus the old wording but it absolutely feels like additional undue influence.  BYU is simply looking for just cause AKA – breaking the “Worthiness Standard”.  Even if on a loophole that involves abusive underhanded methods intended to manipulate people into obedience and loyalty over conscience.

B.) Which led me to wanting to share with you The 1911 Brigham Young University modernity controversy

1. In 1907, then BYU president George H. Brimhall (No you silly gooses Elder Oaks wasn’t BYU president back then.  He’s not that old) began hiring a new group of faculty to increase the academic reputation of his school.  His goal “to include in [his] faculty … the best scholars of the church.” (Brimhall was 55 yr old)
   
   1. 1907 Joseph Peterson – Psychology (Joseph Peterson was the first Ph.D on the faculty of BYU)
      1907 Henry Peterson – College of Education.
      1908 Ralph Vary Chamberlin – Biology
      1909 William Henry Chamberlin– Philosophy
      
      1. These were devout Mormons but who were sought out intentionally to bring the Church’s College approach into Modernity including increasing the intellectual atmosphere of the university and community.This led to these four facilitating discussion and debates on evolution and the Bible, and attempting  to convey that evolutionary ideas and Mormon theology were not mutually exclus