Musket Fire Revisited

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here with the effervescent Ian Wilton. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am doing well tonight, today, tonight, today. The day is beautiful. The spring is here. It's like 16 degrees. It's glorious.

16 degrees Celsius.

Yes.

Sure. Because 16 degrees is not glorious in Fahrenheit.

Right. Okay. It's pretty good for Canada this time of year. Honestly, that's really good.

All right. Well, it's, yeah, it's getting warm here too. It's going to be 57 degrees. Fahrenheit, so I don't know what that is Celsius. But yeah, spring is here and life is good.

But I think Fahrenheit is an apostate temperature unit. I think Celsius is the truest.

Celsius is the only true unit.

It is. It's the truest unit. But yeah, the two get me confused. But yeah, I think Utah will be warming up over the next few weeks for sure.

Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Well, segue here. What's also warming up is the controversy down south at BYU. There has been an announcement that all freshmen are going to be required to take a course that introduces them to their academic studies at BYU, and that course is going to include a review of the very controversial musket fire talk from Jeffrey R. Holland. And so we, we found out that news and thought that that might be something we ought to discuss. And, you know, it's really interesting because as I'm looking at the reactions that I'm seeing online, it, it highlights a real dichotomy in the church. We've talked about this to some degree when we were talking about the transgender baptism, for instance. We recognize that the institutional church seems to be moving in a direction that's more progressive and that's more LGBTQ accepting, uh, with the hire of Aaron Sherinian, for instance, with this baptism of a transgender woman. With Charlie Byrd, the former Cosmo the Cougar, being married to a man and holding callings and not being excommunicated, but actually holding callings in his ward. So you're seeing sort of on-the-ground progressivism in the institutional church, yet BYU, you're seeing hardcore retrenchment You are seeing, you know, it began in 2020 with the honor code change. I guess it's 2019, I can't remember. But BYU, in order to get more acceptance from the university community, removed the parts of its honor code in 2019 that forbade same-sex interaction, same-sex dating, you know, same-sex sex is covered by the law of chastity and, and all of that sort of thing. But the honor code explicitly used to say you're not allowed to have any kind of same-sex expression of romance. You can't hold hands, you can't kiss, you can't do all of these kinds of things. That heterosexual couples take for granted as being innocuous. And that started this sort of mini little revolution at BYU. And people, same-sex couples, started kissing in front of the statue of Brigham Young that's on the BYU campus. And there was a moment where everybody went, ooh, this is kind of exciting. And then the honor code office slapped all that down and said, no, no, no, no, no. Just because we've removed this language from the Honor Code doesn't mean that it doesn't still— any sense at all. But that's the reality. And Clark Gilbert is a name that maybe many members of the church don't know, but I see his fingerprints all over this. I've met Clark Gilbert on a number of occasions because he used to be the publisher of the Deseret News. When I wrote a column for the Deseret News and when I wrote unsigned editorials for the Deseret News. And I've had pleasant conversations with him in that context. I don't know him very well, but I know that when he was appointed as the president of the Church Educational System— so he's not the president of BYU, he's the president of the entire Church Educational System. So that includes institutes of religion, seminaries, BYU-Idaho, as well as BYU-Provo. And he's kind of in charge of the BYU educational system. And ever since he's been placed there, we have seen this kind of retrenchment happening, and particularly in the form of a new interview that is required of BYU professors. BYU professors now. It used to be that you— they had to live by the honor code, and then they decided they also have to have a temple recommend, which never used to be the case. And then they decided that the temple recommend questions weren't discriminating enough, and so they added questions that specifically ask whether or not Professors abide by Church teachings on the family and the Family Proclamation. And I've spoken to BYU professors who say it's really kind of obnoxious that I have to be more righteous to step on the BYU campus than I do to have to enter the temple. You know, the temple recommend questions do not ask those kinds of specific, you have to believe this about the family and all that sort of thing. And those questions are really fraught because the church's position with regard to same-sex marriage institutionally is one of support. And in terms of legal same-sex marriage, and I know a lot of people's heads would explode to hear that, but the church's endorsement of the Respect for Marriage Act in the United States, which makes same-sex marriage the law of the land legally in all 50 states, but it does have a carve-out to allow for religious institutions to continue to discriminate. The church embraced that legislation and is trying to sort of back away from the implications of that embrace. You can't pick up one side of the stick and not pick up the other side. And the church is trying very hard to do that. They're trying very hard to say, well, yes, we accept legal gay marriage. We recognize it's the law of the land and we sustain that law. However, it's bad and we don't like it and we don't sustain it. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a paradoxical contradictory position, which is the case in a lot of things that the church does with regard to LGBTQ rights. But BYU, under Clark Gilbert, with the church educational system, is very firmly coming down on the side of not picking up that side of the stick. And it's, it's really interesting in a lot of ways, and we're going to get into, I think, specifically the, the language of the musket fire talk and the implications of the musket fire talk. And I think we're going to get into that in this hour. But the thing that I find interesting is I don't have an undergraduate degree from BYU. All of my friends, when I graduated from high school, they all headed off to BYU. I stayed in Southern California and went to the University of Southern California. And after my mission, I spent a year at USC, went on my mission, came back. My family had moved from Southern California to Utah, and I spent a year at the University of Utah and hated it. Absolutely hated it. And I don't know that it was the University of Utah's fault, but the dynamics of the University of Utah 35 years ago were very much you were a Mormon, you were an anti-Mormon, or at least that was kind of the mentality of the Mormons. We saw everybody who wasn't a Mormon as an anti. And I got very frustrated in classroom discussions that would just sort of divide. Whenever you were talking about any kind of a philosophical topic or a moral topic, the room would just divide in half and the Mormons would side up on one half and the non-Mormons, because I don't think it's fair to call them anti-Mormons, but that's how I saw them in my amped-up return— recently returned missionary mind. And I just hated that dynamic. And I also hated the fact that the University of Utah was sort of an extension of the Salt Lake City public school system. Everybody knew everybody except for me. I didn't know anybody and I didn't really have a way to meet anybody. And so I went to the University of Utah Institute of Religion and found that to be a miserable experience. So my year at the U was kind of awful. And on spring break that year, I went back to USC just to visit, and I saw all my old friends at USC and I went, oh, I want to be here. And so I went back to USC, finished my degree down in Southern California, but I, after, after graduating, I ended up running— I graduated with a degree in theater, and I ended up running theaters. I ended up in theater administration, and I decided I wanted to go back to school and get a Master's of Business Administration. So I went to BYU, and I have my MBA from BYU. And there were 2 weeks prior to my MBA beginning that they had us go through a mandatory orientation. And what Clark Gilbert is doing with this course that has the musket fire stuff in it, uh, looks to me to be very much like that orientation. We were asked to read a book talking about the history of BYU, but it also talked about academic freedom. BYU was under fire and still is in a lot of ways. For not having enough academic freedom because they demand this sort of religious orthodoxy as well. And the book tried to thread that needle by saying true academic freedom is the freedom to live your standards and to live the gospel and all that sort of thing. And that didn't bother me much. It didn't— I didn't see that as a problem. I found those two weeks where we went through this kind of indoctrination, I would call it, although it was very mild because, I mean, by this point I was married. I had one child. My second child was born while I was getting my MBA. So I was really kind of removed from campus life. I didn't live on campus. I actually lived up in Salt Lake City, which is an hour drive. They were remodeling I-15— remodeling sounds like it's a house. They were expanding I-15 in order to make way for the 2002 Olympics that were coming up. And so it was like driving through a luge run. It was a really miserable commute, but I was not really part of the BYU on-campus life. And so that didn't really impact me all that much. But those 2 weeks, the focus was on making sure you were, you were living the honor code. And they always would quote Karl Maeser, who was the first president of BYU, who talked about the idea. I don't remember the exact quote, but they would just shove this idea down your throat. It was Karl Maeser would say, if you lock me in a prison, no matter how impregnable it may be, there is still a chance that I may be able to escape. But if you draw with a piece of chalk a circle around me and get me to give my word that I will not cross that circle, I will never escape. I would die first. You know, this is the idea of the honor code and living all of this kind of thing. And so that kind of rhetoric and mentality has been around for a long time. And this course that they're going to require freshmen to take is focused on doing all of that. And they also ask people to not just read the Musket Fire talk, but also read another talk by Clark Gilbert. Like, could you be a little less obvious Brother Gilbert, in terms of showing your fingerprints all over these kinds of changes. And I've read things from academics who are looking at this who are saying the musket fire talk, it's unfortunate that it's being included in this, but the bigger problem is that this course is a tremendous waste of time. This course is gatekeeping and shaming and, and just kind of obnoxious. It's not going to be a difficult course. I don't think it's a course that anybody's going to take particularly seriously, but it's an effort by BYU to just be gatekeepers and to weed out people that aren't orthodox enough for Clark Gilbert's liking. And I just think it's probably going to end up being a failure and being quietly dismissed because I don't think it's going to have a positive impact on anybody's lives. So I just wanted to lay that groundwork, that that's the groundwork for where the musket fire talk is being included. And Ian, you were out of the church by the time Elder Holland gave that talk. Did you have— were you aware of it when it was being given?

Yes, I did hear about it. If he gave the talk in August 2021, he spoke at the BYU annual conference for faculty and staff. Uh, the talk was controversial, uh, within the LGBT community and other, um, similar communities in regards to the position and thoughts as they relate to the honor code. You know, you have lots of people with different views and opinions. I mean, that's the diversity of thinking and thought. It certainly had a fallout in terms of the way those individuals saw the talk. And Holland, in the talk, he asked the faculty to defend the doctrine of the LDS Church, essentially. You, you like the proclamation to, uh, on the family, um, and the musket fire talk, as it's now known. I understand that that was a metaphor for carrying muskets to defend essentially the fundamental principles of the church, including the proclamation on the family, that the BYU had this obligation to uphold and teach and to remain within the safe teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If I jump back, uh, in time and go back to '89, I attended actually several classes at BYU with a former companion who was attending there in a, in a formal capacity. I was attending as a, as a guest on some of the classes, and I remember having a number of conversations at that time with, faculty members and some, some of the, uh, teachers about evolution, uh, about sciences and how they— how does BYU reconcile scientific and engineering and other, uh, modern data, you know, social, uh, teachings in terms of what's happening in the world, the different cultures, you know, the different government systems that are out there, et cetera, et cetera. And the consistent message I got from 2 or 3 conversations I had was, if you come to BYU, you really need to be upholding and following the principles and the practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even if you're not a member. 'Cause I think, Jim, you can go there without being a member.

You can, your tuition is higher.

Your tuition's higher. That's what I understand. However, you do have to uphold the honor code. You might not have to believe everything, but you have to follow the rules. And that was a short stint I had in '89, speaking, you know, attending some of the classes and speaking to some of the faculty members. The talk was very controversial. It came across my social media feed with different comments, and it was extraordinary. It was another example of perhaps another metaphor or analogy that I would use called the, the elastic band theory, where you've got in the church— and this is not unique to the church, but within the church you've got this, these progressives. You have them in BYU, you have them in the ward, in the branches, you have them in every walk of life. They're across Utah, they're in the church. And they want to improve and change the church. They have a particular way of thinking, the modern, they want to modernize the church and they have more liberal views on the family and sex and gender, et cetera, et cetera. These are the progressives in the church and they are trying to lead the church in a more direction for more inclusion and more diversification. And the BYU, component in the church is very much a part of that. And then you have, and those are the people at the front of the elastic band and they're pulling the church or trying to pull the church in a certain direction and across certain fronts, quite diverse. And then you have those traditionalists, those orthodox traditionalists that will not let go, or they may change, but at a, at a snail's pace. And many of them just aren't prepared to change or modify their thinking. And they're at the other end of the elastic band and they're holding on tight. And so you have this situation where the elastic band is getting longer, thinner, and potentially could snap. I don't think that's going to happen because I do think there is some movement from those orthodox, more traditional people who are moving further ahead, albeit at a snail's pace. And so I think you have that. I wouldn't describe as healthy tension. I think it's unhealthy tension, but it's the point where there's always a significant amount of tension, over-tension between those, uh, two positions. And the BYU is a classic example of what's happening because if you look at the, uh, the talk that Elder Holland gave, I think he quotes a letter that he'd received from parents of children, of kids who were going to the BYU, and they were concerned, as he referenced in the talk, that BYU was filtering or watering down its position and not holding firm to the teachings of the church, that it was more liberal and not, again, not upholding the fundamentals of the church. And they were concerned that their children, in fact, some of the letters that he'd received, the parents who decided not to send their kids to BYU because they felt BYU was not, uh, aligned as strongly as it should be to the church doctrines. And that came through. He read that letter from those parents, I think, in the talk. That was interesting. And in the talk, he talks about the responsibility of faculty and staff to maintain a firm and clear position on the fundamental doctrine of the church, including LGBTQ. I don't know if he references that, but he, he, he highlights the, his point that it's about chastity, not LGBTQ. He's talking about chastity, or another talk, or, or a response that he gave actually to his talk 7 months ago where he emphasizes the principle of chastity. And that's what the, what's what the issue is about, not about LGBTQ. So I think he's trying to walk away from some of that. And so it, it, it, the, the talk generated significant amount of controversy. It's an interesting area of the church because you've got this BYU that claims to be an international university that represents international views and, and doctrine and, and, uh, teachings. And you may, the, the position to be able to go there and learn about everything that's out there in the world, what the world's doing, different cultures. Different business practices, et cetera, et cetera, and all the other courses that it does on, you know, social care, social programs, et cetera. So a role that it has to play to give the graduates a qualification that is recognized globally and professionally, and at the same time, it has that very difficult balance of maintaining its position and relationship with church doctrine. And church principles. And it must be a hell of a line to walk. And I think that BYU is where the church in those areas and others is perhaps more, most exposed perhaps than any other area. Because you've got academics and you read stuff and they read stuff and they go to university and get their degree to teach and they'll read all kinds of views on different things and will come to an opinion on life and principles of this and principles of that, and that's going to come through. You can't stop that. You can't force someone not to have an opinion on something that is, uh, is divergent from what the church teaches. And, and it— are those views and those, those, uh, alternative views and those, um, uh, divergent views, are they going to come into the classes and into the teaching? Of course they are. Uh, how could they not? Uh, and then of course the, the students who have access to any material, who are researching this, they research books, and not all the books are written by church members, Jim Bennett, we know that. Many of the books that the students read and the faculty use are not all written by church authors. They're not all aligned to church doctrine. There's other views, many, many views. And how could you possibly control that? You can't. It's something that they can't control.

You can't.

They're trying to, and I think they're trying to use this, this requirement to read what I understand, Jim, to be a second version of Elder Holland's talk. I know there are two versions out there. I'm, I'm, I'm researching and I'm hearing that they have to read an excerpt of, and some revisions on a, on a second, not a talk, but a revised text that Elder Holland has endorsed in regards to the, um, added this honor code, uh, entry process. And I think it's a way of another filter, another way that the church can filter and limit and restrict LGBTQ people attending the university. It, it doesn't want gay people, or it wants to prohibit or limit or put off, uh, gay people from attending BYU. And, and they're doing a pretty good job. I mean, why would you go there in a place like that, um, where you just don't believe in the same things and you have to take this, uh, you know, take this course? And, uh, it's like, it's like someone standing up and, and, uh, you know, hailing the Queen of England when you don't believe in the monarchy. I mean, that, that's extremely difficult for a lot of people. So there's a lot of interesting things going on. I think the church has got itself into hot water again, and I think there's gonna be a reversal of this. I predict, prophesy here that in a few weeks, if months, if not weeks, there will be a revision of this and a reversal of this. And somehow the church has gotta figure out how does it reconcile the need for a university to be modern, uh, to be an advanced institution like this, learning institution, teaching institution, with all the modern practices of thinking and teaching and learning, etc. How does it reconcile that with the fundamental church doctrine? And what about the freedom of BYU to operate with some level of autonomy, to think freely, to be diverse, to be a place of safety and security? Because that's a really important factor as well, where People with divergent views or different views, alternative views, need to feel safe and secure. And if they do have a different opinion and they, they, they can, they express it in class, can they believe that? And they're allowed to believe that. I think that BYU is, is a hotbed of problems. I think it will continue to be, and I don't know where it's all gonna end, but it's a constant tension on that elastic band. Idea that I've suggested earlier.

Well, I think that elastic band analogy is really quite a good one and describes BYU over time. This is not a new sort of tension. This is a kind of tension that has been going on since the beginning of BYU. And, you know, BYU at one point said they wanted to be the Harvard of the West. And yet at the same time, All of these universities in the United States began as religious universities. I remember going to the University of Southern California, and I had classes in the basement of the United University Church, which was right on campus, and it was no longer used as a church, but it was part of the original USC campus. This was a religious institution, and universities used to be religious sorts of institutions. It was religious people that decided it was important to establish places of learning where people could learn the Bible, where people could learn religion. And the other sorts of things that we now see as the primary focus of universities were sort of ancillary to that. And so, you know, BYU has always tried very hard to sort of navigate that tension. And I remember when my father was a senator and he was speaking to the president of BYU, and I don't— I think it was Rex Lee at the time, Rex Lee being the father of Senator Mike Lee right now. Um, but Rex Lee, uh, said the, the goal is to make sure that BYU doesn't become Notre Dame. The University of Notre Dame is ostensibly a Catholic university but requires no Catholic fealty in order for anybody to attend. There's no honor code. You don't have to pledge allegiance to Catholic doctrine in order to be a Notre Dame student. And beginning after Rex Lee in, in the late 1990s, they started— they appointed Merrill Bateman as the president of BYU, and he was a General Authority at the time. And the next president after that was Cecil Samuelson, who was also a General Authority. The current president is not a General Authority, but he's the first one to not be a General Authority since the late 1990s. And so the idea was, okay, BYU, it's a religious institution before it's an academic institution. And the problem with that is they want all of the credit for being an academic institution without being able to provide all the freedom for that. And I think the most glaring piece of tension, the stretching of the rubber band here, happened right after the musket fire talk. And it happened when the speech pathology department at BYU stopped allowing the teaching of gender-affirming speech services. For BYU students. So the idea is, if you are transgender, if you are transitioning from a man to a woman, you go to a speech therapist to get speech coaching so that you can sound more like a woman. And there is an academic, rigorous academic protocol for how that's to be done. And in order to get a speech therapy degree, you have to know how to do that. And BYU said, no, we're not going to teach that. And so that's, and that's been problematic. And, you know, the, the credentialing board, uh, the AHSA, which I'm not sure what AHSA stands for, but they issued a strong condemnation of BYU's unwillingness to teach speech students necessary skills that, that are required of speech therapists. That essentially they're saying you're not, you're not training them to be speech therapists because you're depriving them of the ability to be able to do something that speech therapists are being called upon to do. You know, I, I think that's one You look at the fact BYU has a, a very respected law school, but it doesn't have a medical school. University of Utah has a medical school. In fact, my daughter just graduated from the University of Utah Medical School this week. It was a delightful thing. And she just got a residency match. She's going to be moving to Chicago in order to begin her residency. Very exciting. But she, she's a BYU undergrad. But did not have the option of going to a BYU medical school because I don't think BYU would be willing to teach OB-GYNs how to perform abortions, for instance. And in order to stay away from that, they just don't teach it. And but the speech— but the speech therapy department doesn't have that luxury. They're being deprived of the ability to do something that their profession requires them to do. And so, you know, in the musket fire talk, Elder Holland talked about the fact that it's so much more important for us to be a religious institution than it does for us to be an academic institution, that if we lose some of those credentials or those certifications, then so be it. And that's a very brave and noble sounding thing to say, I suppose. But as someone who holds a degree from BYU, a master's degree, it has the potential to cheapen and to diminish the credibility of my degree. You know, BYU wants to be the Harvard of the West, but BYU is, is, is in danger of becoming the Bob Jones University of the West. Have you ever heard of Bob Jones University? Exactly.

No.

Yeah. Well, well, Bob Jones University is the largest evangelical Christian university in the country, and they aren't certified. They don't have any academic credentials. They refuse, for instance, to teach evolution. They refuse to teach that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. I'd be interested in Ian, to hear you talk about your experience talking about evolution, because, because BYU professors do teach the principles of evolution now. That hasn't always been the case. They don't teach a young Earth. They teach— they go with the science on that. And but in the religious departments, They're still sort of contradicting that. And I want to get into the fact you talk about the fact that they're going to be hearing a modified version of the musket fire speech. This idea of modifying a talk that has already been given has a long and ignominious tradition at BYU. I think of Bruce R. McConkie's talk, The Seven Deadly Heresies, where he talked about One of the seven deadly heresies is that the earth, the, that organic evolution can be reconciled with the principles of the gospel. He absolutely insisted that that was a doctrine of devils and used the strongest possible language to condemn it. And then when you look at the printed version of the talk, they reframed all of his condemnations. As questions. In other words, you know, he says, this is a doctrine of devils. And then in the printed version it says, could this be considered a doctrine of devils? You know, in order to sort of allow for the possibility that there might be a less offensive academic answer that, that would be able to be reconcilable with academic disciplines. And so this is something that the church has done. You know, we've talked about Elder Pullman actually having to go in and rerecord his talk because it ran afoul of, of the church. But as recently as 2010, Elder Packer gave that talk where he insisted that nobody was born gay, and he was the president of the Quorum of the Twelve at the time. And that statement does not exist. In the printed version. He also announced that the proclamation on the family is a revelation. Well, that's not in the printed version. So this is not something that the church hasn't done before. But what's interesting to me, I want to get into the specific changes that are being made, because I think the biggest change that's being made, one of the things that I found most offensive about the musket fire talk was Elder Holland dumping on Mattie Easton. Mattie Easton was a valedictorian in one of the schools at the graduation, gave a graduation talk at BYU and announced in that talk that he was a gay child of God. And that's all he said on the subject. And he had submitted his talk in advance. To talk about. So it was approved. Everybody knew that this was coming. This was not a surprise. And yet Elder Holland went after Matt Easton. This is what he said. If a student commandeers a graduation podium intended to represent everyone getting diplomas that day in order to announce his personal sexual orientation, what might another speaker feel free to announce the next year? Until eventually anything goes. What might commencement come to mean or not mean if we push individual license over institutional dignity for very long? Do we simply end up with more divisiveness in our culture than we already have? And we already have far too much everywhere. Okay, so that, that paragraph was just so offensive for an apostle of the Lord to punch down on a BYU student who did everything right, who got that talk approved. He didn't commandeer a podium. They knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. He didn't, he didn't do anything outside of the guidelines, and, and he didn't teach anything contrary to church doctrine. We now say that being gay is not a sin. We, you know, and that's all he said. He didn't say, I'm a gay child of God that's now going to enter into a gay sexual relationship. He announced his orientation in a way that we supposedly embrace. We supposedly say, yes, LGBTQ people are welcome in the church. They're one, you know, they're wonderful and and all that sort of thing. So that paragraph that I just read is the largest block of text that has been removed from the speech. So they're quietly trying to pretend he didn't say that. So clearly either Elder Holland or Clark Gilbert or both recognize just what a huge problem piece of text was. It's not the only problematic piece that was taken out. The first thing that's removed, he cracked about how this won't be a very long talk, and he said, as Elizabeth Taylor said to her 8 husbands, I won't be keeping you long.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Really weird sort of thing to— I doubt many people there knew who Elizabeth Taylor was, so he's generationally, but beating up on Elizabeth Taylor? What's the point? Anyway, they're taking that out. Other changes. And the way I know this is that Matt Easton has posted this on his Twitter feed. So he's highlighting all these things. There's a statement about purse strings. Says President Nelson started to chair our Board of Trustees, hold our purse strings, and have the final yay or nay as on every proposal we might make, from a new research lab to more undergraduate study space to approving a new pickup truck for the physical facilities staff. All that language from hold our purse strings, all that idea about President Nelson being able to, uh, approve the financial decisions of BYU, that's being taken out, which I thought was kind of interesting. And, um, there's also something about when he gets into musket fire, you know, the musket fire analogy was not original to him. He's quoting Elder Oaks, who first used it, talking about, you know, when they were building the Kirtland Temple, they had a trowel in one hand and a musket in the other. So they were defending the temple while they were building it. And so that's where the analogy comes in. And he said, and sometimes it isn't friendly wound— friendly— the musket fire isn't friendly. Wounded, wounding students and the parents of students. So many who are confused about what so much recent flag waving and parade holding on this issue means. That clause, so many who are confused about what so, so much recent flag waving and parade holding on this issue means, that's been taken out, which I think is interesting because the pride flag— he's, he's coming down on the pride flag here. And yet there are student organizations that use the pride flag., and there was actually one that, that put, uh, LGBTQ-friendly material in the orientation packets BYU students received, and Clark Gilbert freaked out about that and demanded that didn't happen. So you're seeing this tension back and forth, but he's taking that out. Um, also there's this phrase, my brethren have made the case for the metaphor of a basket fire, which I have endorsed yet again today. They've taken out which I have endorsed yet again today. I think he doesn't want people to know that he's endorsed it. And the reason I think this is Clark Gilbert and not Jeffrey Holland is that the people I talk to who know Jeffrey Holland— I have not spoken to Elder Holland. I, I know him in passing. I don't know him well. I have spoken to him in the past, but I have not spoken to him about this. But the people who have say that he— first of all, they insist that he was assigned to give that talk, that he didn't choose the topic, at which to me doesn't let him off the hook at all, because he could have said no. What are they going to do? Are they going to kick him out of the Quorum of the Twelve? And the other thing is that, that he said things in that talk that I— that he did not have to say, particularly the punching down on Matt Easton. On the BYU valedictorian. He didn't have to do that. And so I don't think he gets a pass for that. But they also say that he deeply regrets the talk. He recognizes, you know, I've seen so many people that say, I used to love Elder Holland. Elder Holland was my favorite apostle. And, and now he's sacrificed his entire legacy with this talk, his legacy of being the compassionate apostle the one who's understanding and kind and inclusive. He threw all that away with this talk. And I think Elder Holland recognizes this. And I'm going to be very vague here because I don't want to expose this person. But I saw a message from somebody talking about this who said— who has spoken. He says, I have it on good authority that they say they've actually seen the emails that Elder Holland is sad about this. And they quote Elder Holland as saying, I've really— I've realized that speaking publicly on this is either very stupid or very dangerous. And so I think he would just as soon see this sort of slide, you know, fade quietly into history. And Clark Gilbert is making sure that it doesn't. And I think that's a problem. So with all of that, what other problems do you see, or can you elaborate on the ones that I've already described?

I think so. I want to apply or share another interpretation of the elastic band, rubber band analogy. And if we went further with that, took that a little bit further. It's like a tug of war, the tug of war. And thinking of that analogy, the tug of war is where that ribbon in the middle reaches a certain, um, uh, point in, in that tug of war, and which determines who's won that tug of war contest. Uh, you know, the progressives pulling hard and trying to get that ribbon, that line over the certain threshold, certain point. And then of course those who were the anchors, uh, the traditionalists, the Orthodox members of the church trying to hold on and, and, and trying to, uh, uh, keep the, um, uh, the members and the, the doctrine, uh, integrity intact. And so my another interpretation is, uh, where The question is what comes first? Is it the institution or the individual? And it's, this thinking is not unique to the church. It's manifest all over the world since the beginning of time with the evolution of humans. You know, what comes first? Is it the group and the business, the organization or the institution, or is it the individual? And we are seeing that across the world, not just in the church where individual rights have been squashed or trampled upon. I mean, right now we have this election going on in Russia. There's only one candidate really, and you've only really got one choice. And we should congratulate Putin for winning. He should have done that months ago because it was a foregone conclusion. And in that example, clearly the institution comes first. You've got to toe the line. You can't even describe that war in Ukraine as a war. It's a special military operation. So They're indoctrinating their, you know, their people and trying to control the narrative. And that is old, that's been around forever. And the church through its own process and own thinking has tried to do the same. The, the, the rights of the individual freedom and alternative thinking and to express yourself freely. You know, like what's wrong with saying an individual saying that they are a gay child of God, they are a gay child of God. That's a fact. We teach that now, or rather we, we support that.. And I think that, I think this is a big mistake for Holland. And I agree with your comments there that he's lost his, uh, part of his position, at least in terms of his being, you know, being a compassionate, um, apostle. I just wanna read some of the comments on, uh, Ex-Mormon Reddit here briefly, Jim, cuz I think they're fascinating on the subject. And, uh, some of the comments are that, uh, where there is someone's making a comment about how the talk is, the Musket Fire talk was abhorrent. And that they're saying that the sure—

I didn't cut that.

Abhorrent. This individual is saying—

Oh, abhorrent. What did I say? You said it, I think, appropriately for somebody from Yorkshire.

Hopefully I did. But yeah, abhorrent. Did I get that right? And so the Muskie Fire is offensive. And the message on the Muskie Fire is that the BYU is a religious institution first. It is a religious indoctrination institution first and foremost, and that the education is an afterthought. So much so that BYU will be willing to give up accreditation in order to maintain its primary mission as a religious indoctrination. And then other comments are, I bet this come from Holland himself. He's Q12 president. He can make that happen. He's doubling down. Speech was widely criticized, et cetera. And if you, if you look at, uh, uh, ex-Mormon Reddit here, uh, it seems, it says here, one comment is, it seems that they're trying to dissuade queer kids from even attending BYU so they won't have to deal with any LGBTQ equality inclusion difficulties going forward. So you've got those kind of comments all the way through of some students that are attending. You've got here some young, uh, uh, kids who are still in the church and others who have left. And there's other comments that, uh, where they're saying that they, uh, so glad that they never went to BYU and that the young people, the youth are really not gonna respond very well to this. So again, it's another example of what comes first, the institution or the individual. Clearly the, the brethren would like the institution to come first because if they don't keep that intact, keep that glue there intact, keeping all those pieces together, then it, the whole thing unravels and becomes something that they can't control. And that, that will happen. That's going, we're gonna see further fragmentation. And BYU is right at the cutting edge because it, it's the Institute for Learning. It's CES, it's, it's teaching, learning, uh, it's being an academic. It's having your degree recognized and respected from a professional, uh, institution that has got some level of credibility. The Bob Jones example, I thought you'd made that up actually deliberately.

No.

And clearly, and so, you know, if it just, it just sounds, just the name Bob Jones, it sounds absurd. It isn't, obviously it's a real institution, but no one's heard of it. I certainly haven't heard of it. Take back what I said, other people who have heard of it, but I certainly haven't. And so the BYU is in a real dilemma. And to introduce a version of this or excerpts from this second version of the talk, remove things, obviously it reflects their concern over that. But to say, look, you've gotta read these sections of the talk, these revised sections, in order to what? In order to be accepted into BYU. And does that, do you have to sign something? Do you have to, is there something you have to put your name on and say, yeah, it's just, It sounds, it sounds like, uh, it sounds a bit Russian to me. It sounds a little bit like Russia. It's just weird in America. It just is so backward. It's so backwards thinking. I, I, it's not going to last. This is going to— they're going to reverse this. They're going to take it out or do some other little step to show that they're removing it. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It was a mistake to make that talk. Someone should have advised Holland that that, you know, be able to look ahead a little bit of prophecy and say, look, if you give this talk, it's going to be stupid and dangerous. He obviously has learned that, you know, in hindsight. I've met Elder Holland a few times. You know that we served with his son Matt. Wonderful family. I have enormous respect for him, but not on this topic. I think he's lost his way, and I think he knows that. I just think the— you and I were messaging back and forth. You asked me what I thought about this before we had this conversation. And my words were, I think it's very strange to have introduced this into the, you know, into the policy of BYU. It's very bizarre. I, even for the church, it's just weird. Why would he do that? Just let, just let the, just change, keep the, you know, change the policies, keep them, make them modern, become a modern institution and allow people to express their and to be free to express their thoughts and opinions, but do so obviously with respect and with kindness. And within, you know, within guideline, you know, there's that balance between freedom of speech, be able to say and think and feel and have opinions on things that might differ from the church. And of course not speak any hate speech, 'cause we don't want that at the same time. And So I think the church is again another example of it losing its way, but I think this will be reversed at some point.

I think it probably will. I think it will. It's not they have to sign anything. You have to take this course, which is sort of an orientation course, and it's a nothing. I think what will happen is that they'll realize that this course is just kind of boring and meaningless. And so I think it will, it will quietly— this too shall pass. I want to say two things here at the end. One is that this again, to me, demonstrates that the church is coming from a position of weakness and not strength. There are so many fundamental doctrines of the church that we do not continually hammer home like this because the general membership of the church accepts them, right? We don't— we're not teaching a class where we're trying to teach people that adultery is wrong, for instance. No, that we, we don't have to do that because the general body of the church says, yeah, if you're married You shouldn't be having adulterous relationships. You know, we don't repeatedly say open marriages are an abomination, and because, because the general membership of the church recognizes that. The fact that Clark Gilbert and others— I don't, I absolutely do not think Elder Holland had anything to do with this. I think Elder Holland is sheepishly embarrassed by this talk that Every account I've had from behind the scenes is that he's embarrassed by it. Uh, could he, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve, tell Clark Gilbert not to do it? Yeah, but now that Clark Gilbert's announced this, I don't think he cleared it with anybody. I think he just thought, well, that— this is great, you know, I'm supporting the brethren. I, I think now it would be very embarrassing for him to withdraw it. And so I think Elder Holland is kind of stuck with the fact that the train has already left the station. But the reality is that the church, the church, this, this, this repeatedly demonstrates that the church has lost on this issue in every way it is possible to lose and is continually trying to find some way to keep from getting to the logical conclusion of the changes they have already made. Of the concessions that they have already made. You cannot say, as the church has done, that there— that gay marriage should be legal and then sort of say, but gay marriage is entirely wrong and never acceptable. You just can't do that. And the church is trying desperately to do that, and this is sort of the death throes of the church on this. And so it doesn't— I have a lot of people who think that I'm this terrible apostate because I'm looking for greater LGBTQ inclusion. And whenever something like this happens, and these kinds of things are happening quite a bit, you know, with frequent— we've talked about different moments where the church has kind of said, no, no, no, wait a minute. This isn't okay. This will never be okay. This will never, never, never, never, never change. And I have people who don't like me who cite me and say, aha, see, Jim Bennett, you idiot, this will never change. And I just think, guys, I don't think you realize how weak you look when you do this. I don't have to panic because I think long term, I can see where this is going. And so can they, which is why they're panicking and I'm not. So I, I just think that bears mentioning. This is a sign of weakness. This is, this is going to go the same way that all the other churches' attempts to, to stop greater inclusion from happening have gone. Uh, but the last thing I want to say is, uh, I want to be positive here in terms of my BYU experience. When I went to the University of Southern California, uh, the part of me that was religious had to be kept in a box. You know, I couldn't discuss in classroom settings where I thought philosophical discussions fit into my worldview. Because, you know, nobody knew or understood my worldview. And so I kind of felt somewhat isolated. And when I went to BYU as a graduate student, it was the first time I had ever been in an academic setting with a majority— where the majority of the people, if not the entirety of the people, were Latter-day Saints. And I don't think there was any compromise in terms of the academic rigor of what I was studying. I think I got a great education because I don't think really anything that was taught in the MBA school, uh, really had the potential of running afoul of church doctrine or teachings. But it was just kind of lovely that, that, that church discussions could kind of come and go with the academic discussions in an organic way. You know, there wasn't this sort of, this is, this is a religious class, so we're going to talk about religion. But it was, you know, in a discussion, somebody say, well, do you fast and pray about that, or do you just go with your gut? You know, and you would say that in a reference that everybody in the room understood. And it was very refreshing to me. It was delightful. I have nothing but positive memories of BYU. And I, I have two children. I have two sons now that are at BYU. One just got a scholarship to get a master's there after he finishes his bachelor's. So the success of BYU still has an immediate impact. You know, my two oldest children graduated from BYU, so if BYU were to lose accreditation and to lose credibility, uh, it would damage not just— I mean, I'm far enough removed from my degree that I don't know that it would matter so much, but for them I think it would, it would matter. And so I, I very much want to see BYU succeed. And I think what they're trying to do is lovely, is, is the merging of academics with spirituality and creating a whole person, I think, is a lovely, worthwhile thing. And I think it's difficult to find that balance. And BYU has always had that tension, sometimes healthy, right now unhealthy in terms of how to do that. But I want them to succeed and I am grateful grateful for how much BYU has done for me and for my family. And so I, I make all of these observations, uh, just as observations, not as criticisms, because I think that any academic institution that is trying to find that balance is going to have a hard time doing it. And I think BYU in many instances has done it better than just about anywhere else in the world. So we are out of time. So I'm just going to— do you have any final pithy thoughts here to wrap us up?

Other than that, in the short time I spent at BYU on those informal classes, it was positive. People were great. Learned a few things along the way. There's a lot of qualities at BYU for sure. I don't have that experience that you have or others have got at BYU. But I, I, people I know very well who have been to BYU, like you, Jim Bennett, speak and have a degree there, speak extremely highly of their experience at BYU. So I can only communicate my understanding and knowledge of the qualities of BYU through people that I know, that you and I both know extremely well, who have gone on to do great things, and they started out at BYU. It is It's a great institution and I, I, I hope that they can achieve some balance between the rights of the individual to, to be inclusive, to be respectful, to understand that people have their own opinions and views, et cetera. And faculty as well, not just the students, but faculty will respect the faculty. And yes, you know, carry forward some of those important principles and the universal principles like love and respect and kindness and And, uh, education and knowledge, uh, the church, uh, doctrine is, uh, uh, replete with examples of how important education is and getting a degree and, and having knowledge in the world and going out and changing the world for the better. And the BYU is certainly, I think, for the most part, done a great job in sending out wonderful students into the world who are equipped and informed on that on really reliable knowledge and understanding across a range of topics. And I hope that, I hope it will change and improve. And that's what a podcast is about, is trying to look at ways where we can improve, right? And I think there's opportunity for improvement with the BAWA to build on that great legacy, because it does have a great legacy, for sure.

All right, well, let's let that be the last word. And to all of you listening, thank you very much for spending this time with us. And we look forward to seeing you on our next episode of Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.