I love BYU. My parents met at BYU. My older brother went to BYU, I grew up in Orem always dreaming about the day I would go to BYU and graduate, and if it was not for a crystal clear personal revelation I had to go to UVU, I would be a senior at BYU right now.
Within that context, it breaks my heart to share with you the grave apostasy that is taking place among the faculty and staff at BYU. My wife goes to BYU and over the past year, she has shared with me the apostate teachings of her professors. One professor taught her that it is 100% okay to masturbate if you have the goal of trying to find out what pleasures you so that you can share that knowledge with your spouse.
It broke my heart to hear that her professors were teaching this. But tonight one of my friends shared a new movement called “Keeping Faith at BYU” with me. (https://www.instagram.com/keeping_faith_at_byu and https://twitter.com/KeepingFaithBYU on twitter). These social media pages are an anonymous place for BYU students to expose the apostate nature of their professors. At first, I figured it would be professors who were progressive/liberal pushing political ideology. But when I looked up the posts they were sharing, it is much worse than simply pushing politics, there is full-blown apostasy going on in Provo. These apostate BYU professors are teaching against the Family Proclamation, denouncing doctrines like personal responsibility, agency, or the law of chastity, and they are using their position within the church to speak out against the Church authorities. I want to share just a few of their posts.
KFBYU has independently confirmed that @BYULaw is recommending “Mormonism and White Supremacy” to incoming law students.
— Keeping Faith at BYU (@KeepingFaithBYU) August 20, 2020
This book was written by @_joannabrooks, who recently advocated the tearing down of statues of Latter-day prophets such as Brigham Young and Ezra Taft Benson. https://t.co/7lk60oXw2I
Reading these posts made my stomach curl, what has happened to BYU? I don’t believe all the professors are apostate, but the house needs to be cleaned. We must demand that the gospel is the center and framework for all teaching at BYU.
The gospel contains all truth of every field of study, no truth exists except it is embraced by the gospel. The purpose of BYU is to allow for the study of any given topic from the foundational understanding that restored gospel truth brings. Joseph F Smith taught, “There is no truth in any other religious society or organization, which is not included in the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and after him by the leaders and elders of this Church; but it requires some effort on our part, some exertion, some devotion, to learn of and to enjoy these things.” Yet many times BYU students feel like they can’t mingle the gospel with their studies, for example:
This ought not to be at BYU! We must have teachers who embrace the gospel truths in their respective fields and teach the gospel perspective of their fields to their students. John Taylor addressed the need to have good teachers when he said: “Whatever you do, be choice in your selection of teachers. We do not want infidels to mold the minds of our children. They are a precious charge bestowed upon us by the Lord, and we cannot be too careful in rearing and training them. I would rather have my children taught the simple rudiments of a common education by men of God, and have them under their influence, than have them taught in the most abstruse [or complex] sciences by men who have not the fear of God in their hearts.”
These professors are not just rogue professors at a state university, they are not even just members pushing their ideas as doctrine, these professors are practicing priestcraft, they are being paid with the tithing funds of the Church. Think about that, the widow’s mite is paying professional apostates who are actively teaching the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture! Prophetic are the words of Harold B. Lee that perfectly describe these professors:
There are those in the Church who speak of themselves as liberals who, as one of our former presidents has said, “read by the lamp of their own conceit.” (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Deseret Book Co., 1939], p. 373.) One time I asked one of our Church educational leaders how he would define a liberal in the Church. He answered in one sentence: “A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony.”
Dr. John A. Widtsoe, former member of the Quorum of the Twelve and an eminent educator, made a statement relative to this word liberal as it applied to those in the Church. This is what he said:
“The self-called liberal [in the Church] is usually one who has broken with the fundamental principles or guiding philosophy of the group to which he belongs. … He claims membership in an organization but does not believe in its basic concepts; and sets out to reform it by changing its foundations.
Harold B. Lee, The Iron Rod, Address delivered at general conference Sunday afternoon, April 4, 1971
As members of the Church, we need to speak up and speak out against the apostate faculty and staff at BYU. We need a cleansing of the inner vessel. Am I calling for these professors to be fired? Yes, I am 100% advocating that BYU fire any and all faculty and staff that are actively teaching against the very organization that they belong to! Not only do I believe those who teach against the gospel should be fired at BYU, when warranted I believe they should be excommunicated for using their position of authority within the church to destroy the testimony of the youth and lead them into apostasy. To quote President Benson, “Watchmen—what of the night? We must respond by saying that all is not well in Zion. As Moroni counseled, we must cleanse the inner vessel (see Alma 60:23), beginning first with ourselves, then with our families, and finally with the Church.” Cleansing the inner vessel, General Conference, April 1986.
So what can we do?
We can stand up and make our voices heard. If you have stories of apostate professors share them, You can follow the social media accounts for Keeping Faith at BYU:
Keeping Faith at BYU on Twitter
Keeping Faith at BYU on Instagram
Keeping Faith at BYU on Facebook
You can sign the petition to have BYU retrench (return the roots of the gospel). The petition to retrench at BYU is on change.org
You can also share this blog post, and these pages with your friends and family and raise awareness about what is happening at BYU.
If you are sending your children to BYU, you can encourage them to stand for truth and against professors. Teach them to think critically and value standing for truth more than a grade. There are things more important than GPA’s. Encourage them not to simply drop the class with rogue professors and let them preach their false doctrines unopposed, but to stand for truth and challenge the professor.
You can pray for the brave students are standing against their professors, and also pray for the students who are not standing out of fear that they will find the courage to stand up for truth.
I believe in BYU. I believe in its mission. Let us cleanse our personal vessels, family vessels, and then let us do our duty stand up and speak out to help cleanse and maintain the purity of the Church and BYU.
If you liked this article, you might like these other articles about BYU and Brigham Young.
Rob
Tuesday 22nd of February 2022
I had similar experiences as these, though not at a BYU campus. I went to school at Southern Virginia University. A school not owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but that claimed to espouse the teachings of it. Before I state some of my negative interactions with hypocritical member professors or virtue-signaling nonmember professors I did have more positive experiences than negative with professors that shared my religion and those who didn't (two in that latter category made huge impacts on my professional career choices). Many of my spiritual, academic, and life experiences that I've received there are invaluable and I'd do it all again just for those experiences (including finding my wife).That being said... There was a history teacher and a business teacher who took every opportunity the could to make the LDS kids uncomfortable about their faith, take subtle jabs at Christianity in general, or just blatantly attack it. One professor who was a member and author told the students that if they abandoned many of the core beliefs of the church they'd be happier and several times openly attacked any attempts by the heads of the school to enforce the honor code. And if any student dared defend the church or the honor code he'd basically spend the rest of class explaining why they were blind and wrong. Another member professor, the day after Uchtdorfs "Doubt your doubts" talk, made it sound like he said "don't ask questions". The most infuriating to me was someone on the opposite side of the "apostate spectrum" I was concerned about how rude and unsportsmanlike the SVU home crowd was being at home games (this coming from someone who's been attending sports games his whole life up to that point)000 and that they were misrepresenting the church. I brought it up to the athletic director and he said something to the effect of 'Well, we're mistreated everywhere we go because we're Mormons. So I'm going to allow it". And then said, and I quote, "I wish we could be good Mormons but..." shrugs and then walks away. I might add that this man repeatedly cursed at, insulted, and belittled any staff at athletic events AND constantly turned a blind eye to honor code violations of his favorite sports teams' players while enforcing it on other athletes. Students who openly opposed the honor codes chastity standards, who weren't members of the church (or who left), were allowed to stay at the school while members who broke the honor code usually were met with harsher punishments. Those same people who opposed took every opportunity to ridicule members, Christians, and/or conservatives. To the point of saying out right that they were "Banking on (the church) being wrong" and then would get overly offended at the slightest insensitivity to there own views and report it to the school authorities. I had discussions with others who were active in the church and who were annoyed by it, and as far as we could tell, the only reason they were allowed to do these things was because of so many members trying to make sure that nonmembers could be heard there and that they are allowed to worship "how, who, or what they may." More than a little Ironic me thinks.
JTP
Friday 28th of January 2022
I agree, excommunicate them all and make their names public for the rest of the Church, to be known as enemies of the Gospel and disturbers of the work of God. They are evil and prideful every one of them. They are in league with ideas originated by the devil and designed to destroy truth and goodness itself.
Allie
Thursday 16th of September 2021
I've had an experience with this, and I honestly thought I was going crazy when I first heard a professor say things like this. I had a professor basically tell me that I was stupid and racist on an online class discussion when I stated a statistical fact that black immigrants in America are better off financially than black Americans in inner cities because of different --cultural-- priorities (i.e. family and hard work). I had done research on the particular topic for months because I wanted to get a truthful idea of why certain demographics were better off than others, and she dismissed it all by saying I clearly hadn't done any research. I spent most of that night awake, crying, because of how horrible the accusation was. I wanted to reply, but with the masks, and the fact that responses were turned off after the due date, I just didn't have it in me to respond during the class. She also actively used class activities to undermine conservative beliefs and to teach students to trust obviously politically biased sources like the New York Times. I've regretted not responding and will be adding a post on the FB page to expose this pseudo-professor. Glad I have other brothers and sisters fighting with me. :)
CA
Wednesday 25th of August 2021
The problem is, these stories don't "expose" anything. POST THE NAMES OF THE PROFESSORS.
Jeremy
Thursday 26th of August 2021
The stories highlighted the issue to the point that the Admin started looking into these issues.
Aaron
Monday 16th of August 2021
I was in a meeting with BYU's MPA dean, very kind and loving woman. Very smart and who cared deeply about the students.
When the honor code changed a year or so ago and all the confusion about same gender attraction and gay marriage was running rampant she went around and met with every class under her care.
She basically hinted that this might be the catalyst for major change of doctrine in the church as a whole. I reminded her, and the entire class, that doctrine doesn't change. Policy and expression of doctrine does, but but doctrine doesn't change. She rambled for about twenty minutes about how she hoped it would, and how it might be a new day for BYU and the church as a whole.
Again, this is a very kind and loving woman who I have felt the spirit with on multiple occasions. She was just hoping that a good thing in her mind might happen. Problem is I fear she laid the seeds of doubt and decent in the minds of most of the people in that class. I know at least three or four of them have since graduation, left the church over LGBTQ issues, and what they saw as a betrayal when the clarification letter came out the very next morning.