Elder Holland wants to know

Elder Holland wants to know what is the matter with BYU.

Three years later, 2017, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, not then but soon to be in the First Presidency where he would sit, only one chair — one heartbeat — away from the same position President Nelson now has, quoted our colleague Elder Neal A. Maxwell who had said:

“In a way[,] [Latter-day Saint] scholars at BYU and elsewhere are a little bit like the builders of the temple in Nauvoo, who worked with a trowel in one hand and a musket in the other. Today scholars building the temple of learning must also pause on occasion to defend the kingdom. I personally think,” Elder Maxwell went on to say, “this is one of the reasons the Lord established and maintains this university. The dual role of builder and defender is unique and ongoing. I am grateful we have scholars today who can handle, as it were, both trowels and muskets.”[10]

Then Elder Oaks said challengingly, “I would like to hear a little more musket fire from this temple of learning.”[11] He said this in a way that could have applied to a host of topics in various departments, but the one he specifically mentioned was the doctrine of the family and defending marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Little did he know that while many would hear his appeal, especially the School of Family Life who moved quickly and visibly to assist, some others fired their muskets all right, but unfortunately didn’t always aim at those hostile to the Church. A couple of stray rounds even went north of the point of the mountain!

My beloved brothers and sisters, “a house divided against itself . . . cannot stand,”

Transcript here.

Elder Holland went on to mention that one should not use their commencement address to come out. Yet the way he spoke was kindly and encouraging. He could have been much much sterner if he wished.

But the progressive Mormon types are cheap dates and have gone into a frenzy. Elder Holland did not fire anybody. He did not announce that he intended to fire any body. He did not even warn that it was a possibility.

All he did was say there are limits on how far we can go to bend to the world, and that was enough to cause them distress.

Well, hopefully they get over it. You cannot serve two masters.

So what does the musket talk mean?

Here is one of the more interesting reactions I have found.

One way of reconciling the musket talk with the disquieting extent to which we have tried to accommodate and bend to the world of late is this.

The watchmen up there at the top of the church think it is just as bad as some of the more extreme of us down here do. In fact, they think it is worse.

And how do you act when things get real bad? Well, if you I think of that the powers-that-be are wicked and tyrannical you might well decide to avoid saying so out loud. If you really think that, you likely don’t publicly and histrionically say so.

That is one possible way of reconciling the musket talk with everything else.

One other thought: Although the brethren have been extremely patient with both BYU and the Maxwell Institute, damagingly patient some might say, it is patience offered in the interest of repentance. If the repentance never comes, the patience will end.

If you read carefully, Elder Holland hinted that in extremis the brother and maybe just be willing to pull all funding and shut the whole thing down.

I’d rather we just try firing people first.