Heresy at BYU

It would be interesting to see a study (perhaps someone has done one) about contemporary attitudes towards heresy (professing false doctrine), blasphemy (irreverence or insubordination with respect to the Divine) and apostasy (irreverence or insubordination with respect to the Priesthood) at BYU or in the Church more generally. It has always seemed to me that one is considerably more likely to be disciplined for apostasy than for heresy or blasphemy. Shooting from the hip, I would venture that this would seem a relatively natural outcome in a Church that professes: (1) belief in continuing revelation on both a personal and institutional level; and (2) the importance of a personal relationship with God.

In such a context, we must -- relative to the right doctrine -- allow one another sufficient space to come to a knowledge of the truth, to explore, to find our way. Finding the truth in our way of think involves of necessity a revelatory process. Our missionary efforts, e.g., are much less an effort to catechize those exploring our faith than to teach them the process whereby they can ascertain the truths of our faith on their own. That is, we are more concerned about the use of the revelatory process than about the current content of an individual's beliefs. Hence, we tend (or ought to tend) towards generosity in ascribing to other's supposed misstatements of doctrine a bona fide stop at a way point along the path to further enlightment and the possession of a better and more accurate understanding of the truth. Thus, we see a only rare accusations of heresy and fewer still disciplinary actions on this basis.

Relative to an individual's being or coming into a correct relationship with the Divine, a similar thing is true. E.g., it might indeed be blasphemy to speak of the Divine by reference to "My Cosmic Buddy" "The Big Cheese" "Mother in Heaven" or other formulations. Some of these formulations may reflect a deep irreverence toward God and may be offensive to the Divine ear. But we believe that the process of entering into a right relationship with God is just that: a process. In the final analysis, in the process of our groping for this relation (or running from it) we have probably all blasphemed -- the tongue being a very tricky member indeed. Again our process orientation probably gets in the way of our taking a great deal of notice of the many blasphemies uttered along the way, often enough st BYU and in Sunday School in every ward of the Church. But then, it these are schools and people are there to learn (i.e., they have regarded themselves deficient in their understanding ab initio and, hence, have come to learn - not to demonstrate their perfection [though we have all sat in a class or two with the fellow who thought that was the purpose of the gathering]).

Where our process orientation seems to kick into high gear (in terms of producing plenty of disciplinary proceedings and actions) appears to be in the area of apostasy, which essentially entails getting into a hostile or insubordinate relationship with the Priesthood. Why this might be so has to do with the role of Priesthood in performing saving ordinances and where its presiding councils are concerned in establishing doctrine and policy of the Church as an institution. In these categories, where order and unity are required most, disorder and disunity are tolerated least.

I am not sure it is possible to getting an interesting discussion going about heresy or blasphemy as offenses involving Church discipline except to the extent such offenses also involve apostasy, e.g., disobeying direct instruction to cease use the Church as a venue for teaching doctrines believed by the Church to be heretical or blasphemous. In these cases, it is not the heresy or blasphemy that is the offense yielding the discipline, it is the defiance of the Church order as established by those holding the Priesthood keys. Unlike simple heresy or blasphemy (in the absence of Priesthood direction), which are errors of a passing nature for true seekers of the truth, the sin of apostasy, in one who has made covenants relative to the Priesthood, may be an error of first order soteriological consequence and, hence, worthy of discipline (especially of the kind meted out by ecclesiastical authority).

We may leave to Nature and Nature's God to cure through natural process the errors of heresy and blasphemy, for people either will or will not come to an understanding of the truth and either will or will not enter into a correct relationship with the Divine. But where apostasy is concerned, where violating the order of the Church -- which is a Priesthood Order -- we might intuitively anticipate that the Church will act to defend the order against those who having once covenanted to abide the order had since decided to defy it.

For the reasons above, I found the title to your note interesting.

Heresy at BYU. Of course, it is a university after all and that is what universities are for. Blasphemy . . . same answer. As for apostasy, well, now that is a horse of a different color. I pick BLUE.

Cougar regards.

Jim

The real heresy at BYU is assuming (with regard to evolution) that God had anything to do with it at all.

I think one of the concerns was best expressed in Brigham Young on Darwin, Huxley and Miall. In 1875, Brigham Young saw that the work of these men would be used to promote a political economic theory based on natural selection.