Porter Rockwell on meth???

There is still time for you to catch up on your viewing of the three currently-available episodes of Becoming Brigham before the fourth installment goes up.  They can be watched here.  In the meantime, I share with you a sneak preview of Episode 4:  “Why Brigham Young?”

Newsweek:  “Clark Gilbert Apostle Pick Sparks LDS Church Backlash”

Among other things, since Clark Gilbert’s call to the apostleship I’ve seen him described as President Dallin Oaks’s “enforcer,” emblematic of the very worst aspects of “Mormonism,” and compared to Martin Bormann and Heinrich Himmler.  One wit likened him to Porter Rockwell on meth.

So — whether my endorsement will be reckoned an asset or a liability — I want to go on public record as expressing not only my support for Elder Gilbert, and my sustaining vote, but my admiration and high but confident expectations.  I think that BYU-Pathway Worldwide, of which he was a principal architect and has long been a principal leader, is one of the greatest initiatives undertaken in this dispensation.

The chief complaint against him, from what I’ve seen, involves his stewardship of the three iterations of Brigham Young University, where he has launched measures to ensure that faculty, teaching, and programs remain aligned with the values and principles of their sponsor, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

While there will certainly always be errors, stresses, discomforts and difficulties in the interface between the Church and academia, it seems obvious to me that the Church has every right to insist that those entrusted with its youth teach and behave in conformity with its doctrines.  The academic landscape in the United States is littered with colleges and universities that were founded, originally, on a religious basis but that have since been secularized, among them:

• Harvard University (1636): Founded to train Puritan clergy with a motto of “Truth for Christ and His Church”.
• Yale University (1701): Established by Puritan clergymen.
• Princeton University (1746): Founded by Presbyterians, its crest still reads Dei sub numine viget (“Under God she flourishes”).
• University of Chicago (1890): Launched by Baptists.
• Brown University (1764): Founded by Baptists.
• Duke University (1838): Grew out of Methodism.
• Columbia University (1754): Founded as King’s College under Anglican auspices.
• Dartmouth College (1769): Established for Congregationalists.
• Northwestern University (1851): Founded by Methodists.
• University of Southern California (1880): Founded by Methodists.
• Oxford and Cambridge: Originally established by Christian orders/leaders, now largely secular. 

Brigham Young University has no obligation to follow suit.  Moreover, people who claim to value diversity should realize that BYU represents diversity.  Personally, I want Yeshiva University to be genuinely and robustly Jewish, and I wish Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame to be distinctively Catholic. (There is a current controversy, by the way, on precisely this question: “Notre Dame Trustees Grapple with Backlash to Pro-Abortion Professor’s Appointment.”)  I’m not persuaded that diversity would be furthered, or American higher education better served, if Wheaton College or Boston College or Baylor were to become Cal State lite.

There exist roughly 6,000 colleges and universities in the United States alone, and those students, teachers, and administrators who don’t wish to have Latter-day Saint ideas and practices “imposed” upon them are entirely free to seek admission to, or employment by, such perfectly respectable institutions as the University of Utah, Portland State University, Santa Barbara City College, the University of Kentucky, Florida State, or Elder Gilbert’s own Harvard.  I’m not triumphant about such cases.  Rather, I’m saddened.  But I’m still uninterested in the idea that religious schools should endeavor to be mere pale reflections of secular schools.

Here are three avenues for coming to know Elder Gilbert a little bit better:

• “Becoming More in Christ: The Parable of the Slope” (an address at the October 2021 General Conference)
• “In new interview, Elder Clark G. Gilbert shares details of his call as an apostle, what has shaped him: ‘Jesus Christ is always pointing you to something better,’ church’s 106th apostle tells the Deseret News“
• “New LDS apostle Clark Gilbert talks about orthodoxy, BYU, immigration, same-sex marriage” (a twenty-minute interview with Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune)

In reflecting upon his call, by the way, it occurs to me that Elder Gilbert brings remarkable experience with him to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  Having served as the president of Brigham Young University’s Idaho campus (2015-2017), president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide (2017-2021), and as the Church’s commissioner of education (2021-, overseeing Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, Brigham Young University-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide, Ensign College, and Seminaries and Institutes, Elder Gilbert has been responsible over many years, wholly or in large part, for a huge portion of the global Church’s educational efforts, which, in terms of both finances and impact, constitute one its most significant areas of focus.

When you couple President Oak’s call of Elder Gilbert to the apostleship with his prior call of Elder Gérald Caussé to the Twelve, it’s clear that people of remarkable managerial background have been added to the ranks of the apostles.  With a graduate degree from one of France’s prestigious grandes écoles — ESSEC, the École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales — and a prior career in French and European business, Elder Caussé served for thirteen and a half years in the Presiding Bishopric of the Church, a full decade of that time as Presiding Bishop, responsible for the Church’s financial affairs, managing such matters as humanitarian aid, welfare programs, tithing and fast offerings, physical facilities, and the organization of membership records, and so forth.

These are secondary matters, of course.  The foremost responsibility of an apostle is to be a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world.  And I believe that these men haven been selected under divine inspiration.

This new podcast just went up today on the unchanging and essentially moribund website of the Interpreter Foundation:  Conversations with Interpreter: Episode 2 — “Parallels Between the Book of Moses and Book of Mormon,” Part 2: “The Updated List of 146 Parallels”:

In this episode of Conversations with Interpreter, our hosts, Avram and Thora Shannon look at the second part of an article by Jeff Lindsay, a long-time contributor to Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, titled “Parallels between the Book of Moses and the Book of Mormon.” Where the previous episode looked at the methodology employed in finding parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith Translation as found in the Book of Moses, this episode discusses specific parallels. The episode highlights new parallels uncovered by Lindsay. We also discuss some of the parallels that Lindsay has found especially meaningful and intriguing. You can find the full article at https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/parallels-between-the-book-of-moses-and-the-book-of-mormon-part-2-the-updated-list-of-146-parallels.