Being Deliberate in the Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University

I felt impressed this morning to share a personal introduction. I would like to share some of my own path and progress in Church education and specifically my love for this university. In some ways I feel as if the Lord planted in me a love for this place at a very early age. My parents met here on the debate team. At the time, my Grandpa Clark was serving here at BYU as the dean of Continuing Education. My dad later taught as a visiting professor in the BYU Law School with his partner, Rex E. Lee, and later served as the alumni president.

I was raised as a religious minority in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I had to constantly stand up for my faith, and I always felt I was different. Watching Danny Ainge and Steve Young represent BYU always made me feel I was part of something bigger, even as a little boy.

When I came to BYU as a freshman, for the first time I felt that I fit. I met friends who changed my life. I found a faculty who modeled the integration of faith and reason. And of course I met my wife, Christine. I later earned a doctoral degree—not out of a love for my discipline but out of a hope that one day I would return to BYU as a member of this faculty. When I eventually did receive an offer in the Marriott School, it felt like the culmination of my life’s preparation. And yet, at that very moment, the Lord took me and Christine to a different place. I served at BYU–Idaho and later at BYU–Pathway, but my heart and my hopes for this university have never changed.

Four years ago, in this same setting, President Jeffrey R. Holland introduced my new role as follows:

Our bright, budding new commissioner of education, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, is one of my traveling companions today. You may be certain that Elder Gilbert loves this institution—his alma mater—deeply and brings to his assignment a reverence for its mission and its message.¹

Today as I begin my remarks, I want to reassure you of that love for BYU. In my admiration for the work you do at this university, I would have loved to stand up years ago—like many of you did today—to be introduced with the new faculty and new employees of this school.

Let me now turn to my formal remarks. In Charles Dickens’s classic novel of formation, the young orphan Pip has “great expectations” thrust upon him from the would-be sophistication of Victorian England society. Could he engage that world without being defined by that world? Pip eventually learns to navigate these pressures by being deliberate with the anchor links that formed the long chain of his future character.² As we continue to engage the demands of higher education, let us consider our own story of formation and what it will mean to be deliberate in the second half of the second century of BYU.

The Unique Mission of BYU

BYU has a unique mission. President Holland observed that in President Spencer W. Kimball’s address “The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” the prophet used forms of the word unique eight times and the word special eight times.³ President Holland then explained:

BYU will become an “educational Mt. Everest” only to the degree it embraces its uniqueness, its singularity.⁴

While BYU is unique relative to a secular academy, President Dallin H. Oaks has reminded us that we are also unique within the Church Educational System itself.⁵ Like all of our Church schools, BYU is charged “to develop disciples of Jesus Christ who [can be] leaders in their homes, the Church, and their communities.”⁶ But as the flagship of the Church Educational System,⁷ BYU has a distinct responsibility to engage the world, but, in doing so, to engage the world without being defined by it. Being a light to others requires that we simultaneously pursue excellence even as we maintain our spiritual integrity.⁸ This is what President Kimball referred to as our “dual heritage,”⁹ a charge to “speak with authority and excellence to [our] professional colleagues in the language of scholarship” while still being “literate in the language of spiritual things.”¹⁰

Challenges to the Mission of BYU

From time to time, questions about our ability to realize this mission surface. These concerns are not without merit. This does not reflect a lack of confidence in you but rather a recognition that what we have asked you to do is hard. As Elder Quentin L. Cook explained two years ago at university conference:

My intent in referencing this high standard is not because I have a sense that BYU is falling short. My feelings are quite the opposite. I am exceedingly pleased with what I see transpiring at this great university. I see continuous and significant righteous achievement. But the standard that President Kimball set is a high bar.¹¹

This is especially challenging for us in an academic climate that is often hostile to a religious mission. President Oaks described:

I don’t need to tell you that there are great external pressures for BYU to conform . . . [in ways] that would prevent or impede the attainment of our institutional and Church goals. This is an old problem.¹²

Those who would try to minimize these challenges are either naive or simply do not understand the reality of modern academia. Evidence of these tensions are manifest in today’s dominant secular doctrines, including views on moral relativism, human sexuality, and agendas that would diminish moral agency. As President Kimball explained:

We have no choice at BYU except to “hold the line” regarding gospel standards and values. . . . Freedom from worldly ideologies and concepts unshackles man far more than he knows.¹³

In my observation, there are two common ways that worldly ideologies embed themselves in faith-driven organizations. First is the claim of ambiguity around truth itself. This is not to say that we do not need more humility and compassion as we engage differences.¹⁴ I applaud the call for increased empathy, listening, and personal vulnerability as we enter discussions about truth and those who might have very different viewpoints.¹⁵ I have had to learn myself how to do this more effectively and with more compassion. But as my colleague Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, has observed, the academy’s aspiration for academic freedom has often left moral clarity as its casualty.¹⁶ Of course at BYU we don’t see academic freedom and moral clarity in conflict. Elder James R. Rasband, our former academic vice president, explained that at BYU, faith and reason are “paired aspirations,”¹⁷ not competing agendas.

A second way secular agendas mask their presence in faith-driven organizations is that they seek implied validation by using religious justification for things that are not true with things that are. In these cases, outside agendas essentially co-opt the mission and language of an institution by capturing its language and institutional systems. For example, the truths about divine worth and compassion for others, which are true, can minimize or mistakenly mask God’s truths about moral agency and personal accountability. Similarly, arguments for religious freedom, to which we deeply ascribe, can become so rigid that they circumvent our call to be peacemakers.¹⁸

Please note that these attempts to co-opt truth can come from either end of the political spectrum. In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis exposes the devil’s desire for us to replace spiritual perspectives with social and political agendas. In their conspired correspondence, Wormwood asks his supervising devil which political party—the patriot party or the peace party—he should push his subject toward. Here is Screwtape’s reply:

Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. . . . Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.¹⁹

The Need for Prophetic Governance

Those who think these concerns are overstated need only to look at James Tunstead Burtchaell’s analysis in The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches.²⁰ Burtchaell’s analysis outlines three factors we have discussed previously that allow secular agendas to take hold of modern religious universities: (1) faculty hiring and promotion is outsourced to secular disciplines, (2) university leadership is decoupled from the sponsoring religious institution, and (3) funding moves to outside sources.

President Holland has reminded us that this will not happen at BYU because of the clarity of our governance. In each of these areas, the Church Board of Education remains deeply engaged in ensuring BYU is aligned with its mission. Of course our governance goes well beyond these simple oversights. As Elder Ronald A. Rasband explained at President Reese’s inauguration:

BYU’s governance structure create[s] a tremendous advantage for BYU, its president, [and] the work of its faculty and staff. . . . It allows—in fact, it compels—you to do things at this university that could be done nowhere else in the world.²¹

Bumper Lanes Versus Bowling for a Strike

Five years ago I was invited to a very candid conversation with then Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on whether BYU was realizing its prophetic potential. Sensing his concern, I explained that we still had the honor code, our academic freedom policy, religion classes, and devotionals to act essentially as “bumper lanes” protecting us from getting too far off spiritually.

Without hesitation, Elder Holland cut me off and responded, “Clark, bumper lanes are very different than bowling for a strike!”

In the ensuing years, we have ensured that BYU has appropriate bumper lanes in place: temple recommend requirements, mission-fit hiring, aligned promotion criteria, mission-focused questions in the student application, and other key institutional guardrails. We will continue to safeguard this university, its standards, and its expectations with clarity and purpose. This is a basic stewardship of governments.

But if these boundary conditions capture our concerns and attention, we may be missing the real aim of the university itself. Hiring and promotion standards establish boundaries, but they are not the goal.

The original guidelines for Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in nineteenth-century England allowed debate on any subject as long as the debate didn’t criticize the Queen. Such a policy bound London’s debates, but it did not elevate the quality of public discourse.

Bowling for a strike means we move past what should be clear guidelines and choose to be more deliberate in our stewardship itself. How does our religious mission shape the way we prepare and mentor incoming students, design our general education curriculum, inspire research and teaching, shape distinctive research questions, and construct unique and proprietary datasets? How does our mission shape the way we engage in public scholarship and communicate our impact to the world?

This is what President Kimball described when he charged us to employ “gospel methodology.”²² This is what President Oaks meant when he declared:

[I] firmly believe that it is the destiny of Brigham Young University to become what those prophetic statements predicted it would become. . . . This great goal will not be attained in exactly the same way that other universities have achieved their greatness. With your help, it will become the great university of the Lord—not in the world’s way but in the Lord’s way.²³

Prophetic Direction for BYU

All summer I have been reviewing the prophetic messages given to BYU since my call as the commissioner of education for the Church. As I have studied these messages, it is remarkable how consistently President Kimball’s second-century address has been on the minds of our current leaders. In this research, I have seen two recurring themes in their counsel:

1. BYU needs to be increasingly deliberate about its distinctive mission.
2. The Lord will use this university in preparation for His return.

President Oaks to Church Leadership

President Dallin H. Oaks catalyzed what has become a chorus of discussions on President Kimball’s second-century address. Interestingly, this early spark did not originate in an academic setting but in a 2021 General Authority leadership meeting in which President Oaks discussed examples of prophetic revelation. In that discussion, President Oaks informally referenced President Kimball’s second-century address—given here at BYU—as evidence of prophetic revelation. President Oaks stated that only a prophet could have foreseen the things President Kimball described. Remarkably, when that talk was given, President Oaks was the president of this university, President Holland was the dean of Religious Education, and Elder David A. Bednar was a senior married student sitting in the audience.

Elder Bednar to BYU Leadership

It was Elder Bednar who picked up on that message. In April 2021, Elder Bednar addressed BYU’s leadership meeting. Elder Bednar chose a rhetorically compelling way to invite the university leadership to reflect on our progress relative to President Kimball’s vision by simply reading six statements in sequence from the second-century address without commentary:

Statement 1: “I see even more . . . a widening gap between this university and other universities.” . . .

Statement 2: “We hope that our friends, and even our critics, will understand why we must resist anything that would rob BYU of its basic uniqueness.” . . .

Statement 3: “This university is not of the world any more than the Church is of the world, and it must not be made over in the image of the world.”

Statement 4: “. . . BYU . . . must become the last remaining bastion of resistance to the invading ideologies that seek control of curriculum.” . . .

Statement 5:  “. . . The faculty has a double heritage.” . . .

Statement 6: “Gospel methodology, concepts, and insights can help us to do what the world cannot do in its own frame of reference.”²⁴

Elder Holland at BYU University Conference

In August of that same year, Elder Holland—then chairman of the executive committee of the Church Board of Education—addressed BYU faculty and staff at university conference with a message entitled “The Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University.” That message helped us internalize the need to revitalize the mission of the university. Included in that message was a specific charge to me in my role as commissioner to study how we might make headway on the original charge laid out by President Kimball.²⁵

Continued Apostolic Reinforcement

At the BYU university conference the following year, Elder D. Todd Christofferson highlighted the aims of a BYU education, reminding us that these are more accurately framed as ways to help our students serve and bless others.²⁶

At the 2023 BYU university conference, Elder Cook built on President Kimball’s invitation for BYU to employ “gospel methodology” as we prepare “students for eternity”²⁷—as Elder Cook described it.

Later that year at President Reese’s inauguration, Elder Christofferson charged our new president “to commit [his] time and talents in leading the university during this second half of its second century and to help it become what prophets past and present have foreseen it would become.”²⁸

At the inauguration for President Reese, Elder Ronald A. Rasband spoke of the comparative advantage of BYU’s prophetic governance,²⁹ which he later reemphasized in the 2024 BYU university conference.³⁰

And of course President Reese has taken this prophetic counsel as he introduced the prophetically guided theme of “Becoming BYU”³¹ that is now codified into the university’s five-year plan.³²

It is all there. Repeated, clear, and transparent for five straight years—spoken publicly in university conference and reinforced in the monthly meetings that President Reese and I have with the Church Board of Education. I am not aware of any university that has such clearly articulated direction from its governing board. The consistent nature of these messages should be a witness not only of the prophetic inspiration that has come but also of the importance of this university to the work of the Lord Himself.

There Is Spiritual Momentum at BYU

The momentum that we are seeing today at BYU started from early prophetic counsel but is being realized through your deliberate efforts and personal inspiration. In last year’s university conference, Elder Ronald A. Rasband recognized this progress, citing BYU’s college success course, efforts to support at-risk students, public scholarship in the Wheatley Institute, the strengthening of religious education, and the expanding reach of our inspiring learning initiatives.³³

There are other areas of the university in which we see deliberate efforts from its faculty and staff. For example, the McKay School of Education has developed an onboarding seminar to help new faculty understand BYU’s distinctive mission—an approach that they may not have seen while studying in doctoral programs across the country. This is part of a broader effort to focus on spiritually strengthening course outcomes. These and other efforts have helped the school meet President Reese’s call for teaching that is both “intellectually enlarging” and “spiritually strengthening.”³⁴

The university communications teams are also being deliberate. Last year a strategic communications committee was formed to sharpen our enterprise-wide messaging at BYU. This council has integrated messaging platforms across the university and developed a messaging guide that reinforces BYU’s mission.

Externally, President Reese has elevated our national standing through his participation in the American Council on Education’s commission on faith-based universities. President Reese serves alongside the presidents of Notre Dame, Yeshiva University, Baylor, and other leading faith-based universities. BYUtv has reinforced these efforts with the launch this fall of a documentary series entitled Higher Ed: The Power of Faith-Inspired Learning³⁵ that profiles many of these peer institutions, including the work at BYU.

In the competitive world of college athletics—where others sometimes question our commitment to mission—how inspiring it was when one of our men’s basketball assistant coaches stated:

[At BYU] you don’t have to worry about some of the distractions that are typical at other schools. . . . When coming here, I thought [the honor code] was going to be an obstacle, but I really actually think it is an asset.³⁶

Coach Kalani Sitake discussed what makes BYU different:

Our mission is always going to be aligned. As a football team it’s going to be aligned with the university and with BYU and the mission of the university. And then it’s going to be aligned with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so, even though we’re in different times now . . . and [with] what’s going on with being able to pay student athletes . . . , we’re in the mix. . . . But our focus will always be on what we think makes us different and makes us unique. Our focus will be on being disciples of Christ. And that doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. It just means your intent and what you’re trying to be focused on is there.³⁷

I love that last line from our coach when he said that you don’t have to be perfect. We know we are going to make mistakes. There is only one perfect person. But our own shortcomings should not change our aspirational focus.

Several years ago, President Henry B. Eyring foresaw what could happen at BYU. He shared with me in a very sacred setting that there would eventually be a spiritual quality on this campus that we previously thought only possible in the very strongest areas of the Church of Jesus Christ. He said that this would happen only as we turn to the Savior and let the Savior change us.

As President Reese described earlier today, our exit survey measures whether BYU positively impacts students’ faith in Jesus Christ.³⁸ Looking at this data from the last three years, the aggregate response has increased from 78 percent to 87 percent—a nearly ten-point gain. Of course this is only one measure of the spiritual strength of the university. But as someone who tracks institutional data closely across the Church Educational System, this is remarkable progress. It is an outward expression of the spiritual quality that President Eyring believed was possible.

Prophetic Direction to Young Adults

Another way we can continue to “bowl for a strike” here at BYU is to deliberately point our students to prophetic counsel. It was the prophet Samuel who originally declared to the Lord, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”³⁹ We can share this same declaration by amplifying the words of the Lord as revealed through His current prophet.⁴⁰

I hope that we will give particular pause and attention to two messages President Russell M. Nelson has given to the young adults of the Church. The first was given right here on this campus by President Nelson shortly after he was called as the prophet. The title of that address was “The Love and Laws of God.”⁴¹ The second message to young adults was his worldwide devotional entitled “Choices for Eternity.”⁴²

I often tell young single adult bishops to study these two messages, and I would extend that same charge to you as you minister to and mentor our students. Let me highlight three themes that come out of President Nelson’s messages:

First, “truth is truth.”⁴³ Those are President Nelson’s own words from right here on this campus. It is fascinating that in both of President Nelson’s messages, the design of his remarks was simply a sequential list of truths. There must be something President Nelson feels in the climate where young adults are being broadcast things that are not true. These truths include teachings on our divine identity as children of God, the truth about marriage and gender, the love and laws of God, and the truth about testimony and conversion. Here at BYU, in his devotional, President Nelson stated:

Many now claim that truth is relative and that there is no such thing as divine law or a divine plan. Such a claim is simply not true. There is a difference between right and wrong. Truth is based upon the laws God has established for the dependability, protection, and nurturing of His children.⁴⁴

Second, we can know the truth through the Holy Ghost. In President Nelson’s BYU message, he stated, “You may know for yourself what is true and what is not by learning to discern the whisperings of the Spirit.”⁴⁵ President Eyring reinforced this message at BYU–Hawaii during a question-and-answer panel discussion.

A student referenced President Nelson’s statement “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”⁴⁶ The student asked where they would need the direction of the Holy Ghost.

President Eyring asked me to respond, and I cited the importance of choosing a major, career planning, and where we live after graduation. I had answered this question in similar forms many times in other university settings, and I thought I had done a reasonable job in my response.

Then President Eyring pasued on the phrase “survive spiritually.” President Eyring proceeded to explain that we are living in a season of great confusion about God’s truths and that students would need the Holy Ghost so they would not be misled.⁴⁷

Third, we teach truth with love, but we still teach truth. In President Nelson’s message here at BYU, he stated:

Sometimes we as leaders of the Church are criticized for holding firm to the laws of God, defending the Savior’s doctrine, and resisting the social pressures of our day. . . .

In doing so, sometimes we are accused of being uncaring. . . . But wouldn’t it be far more uncaring for us not to tell the truth—not to teach what God has revealed?

It is precisely because we do care deeply about all of God’s children that we proclaim His truth.⁴⁸

Early in my service as Church commissioner, I received a call from President Oaks, who invited me to be his companion speaker at an Ensign College devotional. I asked what he wanted me to speak about. He informed me that we would speak together, going back and forth at the podium discussing several difficult topics of the day, including race, prophetic infallibility, and gender.

Then he said, “I would like to make this authentic. So let’s not use a teleprompter. Let’s just go back and forth.”

Knowing the importance of following the prophet, I hesitantly said, “President Oaks, that will probably work for you. But for the sake of the Church, we may want to write out what I say.”

He compromised somewhere in the middle, and the title of that message was “Stand Fast with Love in Proclaiming Truth.”⁴⁹ A year later, in a worldwide devotional, President Oaks would similarly counsel young adults to remember to teach truth with love.⁵⁰

President Holland described this balance, stating:

As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld His love from anyone, but He also never once said to anyone, “Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments.”⁵¹

Elder Christofferson followed this with a reminder here at a BYU devotional, where he stated:

Putting the first commandment first does not diminish or limit our ability to keep the second commandment. To the contrary, it amplifies and strengthens it. . . . Our love of God elevates our ability to love others more fully and perfectly because we in essence partner with God in the care of His children.⁵²

How remarkable that we would ever think showing love to others would have us walk away from showing love to God, the person who loves them more than we ever will.

President Nelson has invited all of us to teach truth with love.

Brethren and sisters, the role you play in amplifying these messages from President Nelson is part of your effort to be deliberate about the mission of BYU.

Conclusion

Let me conclude. Four years ago, President Holland pled with us to “keep [BYU] not only standing but standing for what she uniquely and prophetically was meant to be.”⁵³ On behalf of the entire Church Board of Education, I express my heartfelt gratitude for your deliberate efforts to respond to this plea.

The momentum on this campus is remarkable, and it is part of a historic hastening that is happening all across the Church. President Nelson has testified, “The Lord Jesus Christ will come again.”⁵⁴ The counsel our prophet has given to young adults about truth, identity, and testimony is designed to help our students prepare for the return of the Savior.

To apply President Nelson’s words to this university, I believe that the Lord will use BYU to “help to prepare a people who will help prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord!”⁵⁵ In many ways, this is the mission of BYU.

May we be more deliberate in that mission as we embark on the second half of the second century of Brigham Young University. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

© by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.