This little gem came across my Facebook feed this afternoon. It has already gotten a lot of buzz so I thought I would throw in my two cents, since I am alumni. President Clark is the president of BYU-Idaho located in Rexburg, Idaho. This is what he wrote on his Facebook page:
Go ahead and read it again, I’ll wait here for you.
All ready?
So let’s just go through this bit by bit. BYU-Idaho does have a dress and grooming standards that ALL students have agreed upon before entering the school. It is a requirement to sign this agreement or “Honor Code” to attend this school.
That being said, this is all wrong – along with this dress and grooming standards. His statement is terrible because it lacks understanding and compassion. He doesn’t know these students and he doesn’t know why they are dressed this way. Was the non-clean shaven man up late the night before taking care of a sick roommate? We don’t know and neither does President Clark. All he knows is that these men are not obedient. Since they can’t be obedient with something so trivial, something so small, who knows what is happening when he goes home! He is probably touching pink parts with his girlfriend!!!!! SINNERS! ALL OF THEM!
This is the culture of obedience. This is the culture of the Pharisees. It’s time to revisit the archaic “standards” so we can get rid of this culture and get some hair where God himself put it and also where He wears it very well. If Jesus can’t even obey these “standards” it might be time to reconsider them. It’s time to get off this train!
“The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism. Longhairs, beards, necklaces, LSD and rock, Big Sur and Woodstock come and go, but Babylon is always there: rich, respectable, immovable.” – Hugh NibleyÂ
Pablo
Born and raised in Northern California, Pablo received his education at Ricks College and BYU with a BA in Spanish, minor in PE Coaching. Pablo served his LDS mission during the years 94-96 in Rosario, Argentina. He now runs a skate shop and batting cages in Orem, UT. He's married and has 4 boys.
All posts by Pablo
And am I nuts or isn't he more or less condoning tattle telling and shaming, and in fact, advising and advocating for it? "I hope you will will help each other be obedient in these small but important things." That is wide open to interpretation on what would be the helpful thing to do. I bet if you asked the students at BYU who gave some co-eds slut shaming notes about their clothing (that there was not one danged thing wrong with), they'd say they felt they were being helpful and sustaining the brethren.
Well said Michele
This really irritates me. I was at Ricks for President Bednar’s first year and he gave a devotional that said this same thing only it was you wouldn’t be prepared to make and keep the temple covenants if you weren’t getting home before curfew or bringing your scriptures to teusday devotional. This was at least 15 years ago and it still makes me angry.
Redics!
At least he wasn’t telling students to tell on each other for porn usage/masturbation…….oh wait….at least he wasn’t comparing masturbators to wounded soldiers…..hmmmmm. Apparently he seems to be toning down his crazy talk since now he’s only talking about beards and ankles and shorts.
This makes me want to puke, seriously.
So much pharisaical rhetoric from our “leaders” is exasperating. I debrief my kids every Sunday to try to buffer them from these types of damaging attitudes. Is it too much to ask to just focus on the gospel of Christ at church (and church schools)?
“You may wonder why the president of BYU-Idaho would spend time on these small things.”
Because introducing and strictly enforcing pharisaical rules is the quickest way to get promoted inside the church?
The university’s president’s fb post is an embarrassment. It comes across as so very shallow and petty. Adding insult to injury, he’s pitting other students against one another in a sense — essentially asking/teaching students to become the judge of another. This is perpetuating what I see as a serious disease among us today: being the judge of another, which was so clearly railed against by Jesus. Am I, as I write this, judging Pres. Clark? I guess so… Crap!
Obedience in small things creates obedience in all things? No, even in college, to prove I had some control over my own life, I would have found some way to rebel. If left with nothing else, I would have started with the actual commandments.
Or, perhaps more likely, I would have been so wound tightly trying to be perfectly obedient in everything (completely ignoring the power of the Atonement), I would have turned on myself. Probably with food, because its’ a Word of Wisdom-compliant addiction.
Either way, this notice from the president would have had me doing the exact opposite of whatever it is he may actually want for his students. Although, frankly, that’s hard to know as I find his thoughts to be so completely at odds with everything I value in my religion.
I’m so glad not to be on the crazy train anymore. As on friend put it, is Harvard offering free lobotomies when faculty leave? I just cannot understand how this can come from the former dean of HBS. Of course, if his goal is promotion in the Corp., Elder Bednar showed him the path and involves increasing the speed of the crazy train. So far, he appears to be off to a great start.
Business school is the important observation. Business has one of the strangest, most restrictive, most artificial dress codes of any group. “Dress for success!”
College years should be a time to grow up and take responsibility for your self. This means taking risks, suffering the consequences, enjoying the success. this type of leadership dis-empowers youth/young adults and keeps them from growing up. Ridiculous.
But parents don’t send their kids to Ricks to experience risk. This is not a problem primarily of church manufacture, although we give it our own flavor. BYU-I is just one of a cohort of schools across the country that use “safety” for the students as a selling point. I’ve worked at and visited a number of others. Their dress code requirements are different, but the arbitrary, enforced safety is the same. It’s something a number of small, private schools sell.
As I have written elsewhere: Obedience is the first law of hell.
Obedience does not equal morality.
To me the most troubling connection in logic here is the one made between obedience to BYU-I campus rules and obedience to God’s rules. There’s this weird conflation of the honor code of BYU-I as an extension of stricter (higher?) commandments for a select few of God’s children (like an Idaho-Nazarite sect or something). You generally wouldn’t talk about obeying arbitrary secular laws (not exceeding speed limits or sneaking bottled water through a TSA airport screening) as “cultivating a spirit of obedience.” So while some aspects of a BYU-I honor code (or the one at BYU, or Notre Dame or the honor codes of hundreds of other non-Mormon universities) reflect universal commandments (honesty, respect for others etc.) the modesty, facial hair aspects of the BYU-I honor code have literally nothing to do with spiritual blessings.
To me, it’s fine if ANY university administrator wants to nitpick and publicly remind students to do what they’ve agreed to do. It’s stupid, but OK, if that floats your boat I guess. But it’s spiritually and logically tenuous to try to tie that nitpicking to spiritual blessings that result from obedience.
Thanks again Michael for another stellar article! I am so,so weary of this kind of judgment made on the “outward appearance.” My husband reminded me of an address at BYU (years ago-we are old) in which one of our poobahs said, “The length of a man’s hair directly affects his relationship with Jesus Christ.” This kind of thing sends me into my “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth” mode…which is not pretty.
I attend school at BYU-H and the president’s wife one day told a group of students that her and her husband like to spend time on Sundays watching girls walk by and making comments to each other about whether or not they were modestly dressed. Nothing like some judgement to start your Sunday off right!!!
Warren Jeffs started out the same way. Now look at him.
Do you guys seriously think it’s not the place of the President of a school to remind students of the honor code they chose to sign before they attended school? You wanna wear whatever you want? Grow a beard? Awesome! You shouldn’t have signed the dress code that said you wouldn’t. And then we wonder why the current generation of those under 20 are such narcissistic, entitled brats. They have people like Paul, etc. on the sidelines telling them that lying to get into a college is perfectly fine, that they can be the exception to the rule, because it’s always, always, ALWAYS someone else’s fault. That is what keeps these kids from growing up. Would this fly at their first job out of college? Of course not. But don’t worry, kids. We’re on your side to protect you from the big, bad establishment… that you chose for yourself.
I was about to say these kids need to nut up, but I think anyone who makes excuses for them needs to grow a pair as well. You don’t like it? Fantastic; don’t send your kids there. If they choose to attend, don’t have them sign an honor code they don’t intend to keep. Paul, some of your rants have had a point in the past. This is just disappointing; you’re telling our youth that honor isn’t important. Stop… just stop.
It’s sad to see so many, sarcastic, angry reactions to President Clarks post. I go to Byui and the rules can seem pretty silly but, what do they hurt? I just got off my mission and I learned that obedience to the rules brings safety. I also learned that you can get away with breaking rules with out anything serious happening. But it’s better to be safe. I also think about the grooming standards that I had to follow during my mission and how my obedience to those and the other many rules that I was asked to follow blessed me. I wonder if Sheldon Greaves and others who have commented here, would say the same things about the rules that LDS missionaries are asked to follow during their missionary service.
There is nothing “honorable” about a school that assumes young adults don’t know how to dress, that enforces conformity down the the distance between a pant hem and an ankle.
Jesus not only reviles the nit-picker legalists, they were among the very few whom Jesus specifically condemned to hell for carrying on about such stupid stuff.
I am proud to say that I walked through my BA graduation at BYU with at least two day’s growth on my face. After my MS, I “lost” my razor and went happily off to Berkeley.
I meant honor in terms of keeping your word. What you describe here is twice as bad. You attended a school whose practices you believed were condemned by Jesus Christ. You signed a code of honor you had no intention of keeping and you describe yourself as “proud” for not keeping your word. Perhaps this is why you care so little for honor.
I’m fine with the dress standard set (though I would personally not agree to it, or expect anybody else to.) I’m fine with the president reminding people of the dress code.
I’m not fine with the idea that people need to be following it perfectly at all times. We don’t expect perfection in this life, just the best human effort capable. People make mistakes, hence the atonement. It doesn’t erase their “honor.” I am also not fine with the invitation to police each other to the students. That is wrong, and there is no way to defend that.
While I agree with much of what you said, but I believe his words of “helping each other” to keep the honor code is meant to be taken literally. To help each other; in the same way we cultivate a sense of community and help each other at church. Others may envision police states where children were asked to tell the State if their parents harbored opinions that ran counter to the Third Reich, but I don’t see it that way.
Most of the comments in response to this story make no sense to me, as these kids were not forced to attend the school or sign the honor code. I’ve only been a member for a couple of years, and most of the members I know are good people who try to do what the Lord wants them to, but there is a very small but very loud (and angry) section of the members that cry and break out the tinfoil hats literally every time the prophet says something. Almost like there’s some fantastic prize for claiming to be the most oppressed… In a church they CHOSE to be a member of.
Not everybody chose to be a member of this church. For a lot of children, that choice is made for them and going into adulthood (especially in the state of Utah) breaking away from it comes with some serious social/familial complications, and is an incredibly difficult thing. There are also some that work for what they perceive to be better for all people, and see some wrongdoing going on. People are free to agree or disagree with them, but it’s not nearly as simple as “Well follow or leave. It’s your choice to be here.”
And it is things like this that keep reinforcing to non LDS and LDS critics that the LDS church really is a cult.
It reminds me of the Quiverfull believers. Good grief.
When will the Salt Lake City leaders get a clue!
Brent,
Once I’ll never make it to the Crazy Train, I can safely state: “be careful so your righteousness doesn’t take you straight down to hell”.
I was called the ward YM president after being back home from my mission in UT for only a couple of years. We once had a joint activity with the YW and the Bishop forbade us from staring at the girls in bathing suits, so we all were locked up in a room as they were playing in the pool… That weekend the YW president and I questioned his atitude… “I’m protecting my youth from the appearance of evil” he shouted. Sure enough, we learned, later that year, that he had been cheating on his lovely wife with a 17 yo investigator…yeah, now I know that, for him and for a whole bunch of pharissees, I mean, leaders, the appearance of evil is evil, but evil itself…uh babe!