Elder M. Russell Ballard addressed Church Educational System (CES) employees and their spouses Friday evening for the annual “Evening with a General Authority.” He urged instructors to take more seriously their responsibility to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century.
We give medical inoculations to our precious missionaries before sending them into the mission field so they will be protected against diseases that can harm or even kill them. In a similar fashion, please, before you send them into the world, inoculate your students by providing faithful, thoughtful and accurate interpretation of gospel doctrine, the scriptures, our history and those topics that are sometimes misunderstood.
Elder Ballard introduced a new initiative for seminary students called “doctrinal mastery,” a variation of the existing scripture mastery program. Elder Ballard described the goals of the new initiative:
Drawing on the scriptures and the words of the prophets, they will learn how to act with faith in Christ to acquire spiritual knowledge and understanding of His gospel. And they will have opportunities to learn how to apply the doctrine of Christ and gospel principles to the questions and challenges they hear and see every day among their peers and on social media.[1]
Most noteworthy was Elder Ballard’s charge to CES instructors to increase proficiency with controversial historical and doctrinal topics. Concerning the Gospel Topics essays, he said, “know the content of these essays like you know the back of your hand.”
Gone are the days when a student asked an honest question and a teacher responded, “Don’t worry about it!” Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue. Gone are the days when students were protected from people who attacked the Church.
In the past teaching by pure testimony was sufficient due to the sheltered rearing of Mormon youth, he explained. Today, however, some youth are coming into seminary already “infected by pornography and worldliness.” In addition to pure testimony they need to learn doctrinal or historical content and context by study and faith. Teachers must be equipped to provide this education through study from the best books, including scriptures, teachings of modern leaders, and “the best LDS scholarship available.”
Elder Ballard warned teachers not to become overconfident:
Now a word of caution, please recognize you may come to believe, like many of your students do, that you are a scriptural, doctrinal, history expert.[2] A recent study revealed that the more people think they know about a topic, the more likely they are to allege understanding beyond what they know. Even to the point of feigning knowledge of false facts, and fabricated information. Identified as overclaiming, this temptation must be avoided by you CES teachers. It is perfectly all right to say, “I do not know.” However, once that is said, you have a responsibility to find the best answers to the thoughtful questions your students ask.
He also cautioned teachers against feeding bad information to their students:
In teaching your students or in responding to their questions let me warn you not to pass along faith-promoting or unsubstantiated rumors, or outdated understandings and explanations of our doctrine and practices from the past. It is always wise to make a practice to study the words of the living prophets and apostles, keep updated on current Church issues, policies and statements through mormonnewsroom.org and lds.org, and consult the works of recognized, thoughtful and faithful LDS scholars to ensure you do not teach things that are untrue, out-of-date, or odd and quirky.[3]
Elder Ballard repeatedly warned against the risk of student exposure to difficult topics on the internet. “Teach them about the challenges they face when relying upon the Internet to answer questions of eternal significance. Remind them that James did not say, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him Google!’” Like President Uchtdorf, Ballard used the example of unwisely seeking medical advice from the internet before consulting a medical expert. If experts should be consulted when facing mental, emotional, and physical challenges, he said, experts should also be consulted when facing spiritual challenges.
Throughout the address Elder Ballard referenced his “old ship Zion” metaphor. Predictably, there was a strong emphasis at the end on the importance of students understanding the doctrine on the family. A correct understanding of their roles as sons and daughters of God gives students appropriate context to face the challenges of life.[4]
- What do you think about the new inititative on “doctrinal mastery”?
- Do you think inoculation will ultimately build or break down testimonies? I’ve seen speculation that CES instructors might themselves risk faith crises dealing with the controversial material. Do you believe that likely or unlikely?
- Some of the gospel topics essays are already incorporated into seminary lessons. How do you see incorporation of essays only loosely connected to traditional scripture lesson materials? (Heavenly Mother, Race & the Priesthood, etc.).
- Will bringing up these issues in institute and seminary decrease the traditional stigma against discussion of controversial topics in Sunday classes? Or should Sunday classes keep to “pure testimony”?
[1] Incorporating teachings of current prophets and application of doctrine to today’s challenges sounds similar to the new “cornerstone” classes required of institute students.
[2] A lot of us have seen religion instructors with massive student followings. When I was at BYU, Randy Bott’s classes were always filled to the brim (he wasn’t even my professor, I just tagged along with my roommate sometimes to see what all the fuss was about).
[3] Does this mean dinosaurs aren’t from matter drawn from other worlds?
[4] I’m guessing disagreement with the gender essentialist portion is a symptom of the “worldliness” infection Elder Ballard laments.
Wheat & Tares 
It’s the general authorities who are scared to have the full truth about church history taught in class. They always have been. When was the last time you heard a great truthful lesson on the mountain meadow massacre, the danites, Josephs smith’s involvement in masonry or polygamy authorized after the manifesto but before the second manifesto in 1904? …yep, never.
Mountain Meadows Massacre and Danites are addressed in the Gospel Topics essay “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints.” The polygamy authorized between 1890 and 1904 is addressed in the a plural marriage sub-essay (linked to in the main plural marriage essay) “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage.” I’m not aware of Freemasonry being discussed in any of the gospel topics essays, but Joseph’s involvement is discussed on the Joseph Smith Papers Project website, which Ballard also encouraged CES instructors to examine.
While these materials are available to teachers, I still don’t know if they are required to bring these up in class or only use the information when students ask. Like you said, it’s hard for me to see in-depth lessons on these topics.
I thought this address was good. Elder Ballard brought up some great points. I appreciated him naming some of the topics that are controversial. I thought his advice to not dismiss questions and to not disseminate made up explanations was really needed. However, this leaves CES instructors in a difficult situation. He said if the instructor doesn’t know the answer, he or she should find the best answer possible. But what if nothing modern has been written about a question? What if the only information available is speculation from past church leaders that may not be faith promoting? I hope the church continues to gain new revelation about these controversial topics because if youth can’t get answers from any church sources, they will continue to go to the internet. I don’t think going to the Internet is always bad, but it would be nice to have certain questions resolved by the church.
Mary, I agree that CES instructors are in a very difficult situation. Take Randy Bott addressing the priesthood ban topic in Feb 2012 in a newspaper article using old justifications. Church leadership flipped, but the race and priesthood essay still wasn’t published till Dec 2013.
Elder Ballard admitted that some questions won’t have answers, but most would. Are they only supposed to pass along answers/justifications published on official church sites, or are they allowed to use alternate explanations put forth by trustworthy LDS scholars (supposed experts)? Who qualifies as a trustworthy LDS scholar? Should teachers use only answers limited to what leaders have used in the last 10 or 20 years, or are they allowed to go back further?
There is a lot of wiggle room for the church to lay any gaffes on the shoulders of individual instructors.
“Do you think inoculation will ultimately build or break down testimony?”
It will do both, I think, and there’s nothing to be done about it. They want it to be odds similar to actual inoculation in which fatal reactions are vanishingly rare. It’s not going to be like that.
They are finally addressed in a remote place on the website but not taught in seminary or institute. They were only recently added to the church website. …because the church finally knew they needed to admit to it and have into public pressure.
Old: don’t trust anything on it not written by a past or current GA; source must be official church publication
New: the Internet is scary. Teach the kids not to trust it (CES letter, blogs, etc.). You can use ldsscholars as sources now (I’m seeing a lot of FAIR being used in the future) but stay away from that old stuff (it’s best to ignore it).
Progress?
Ruth, I agree. Thing is, when students get frustrated at a teacher just shutting down a question, they’re more likely to go looking for answers themselves. If a teacher can produce a halfway decent response that acknowledges the concern and says that the church has addressed it in X resource, it’ll probably be enough for most kids to drop it. I can’t see most teenagers pursuing more in-depth research, especially when the essays and JSPP website are written like history books.
In my mind, the biggest testimony risk will be for the CES instructors themselves. There’s also the problem of parents accusing the teachers of anti-Mormon teachings when they get wind of what the teachers are introducing to their kids.
Kristine, I agree that FAIR is going to become an even more popular resource. I’m still curious if the church will come out with some sort of “approved scholars” list, or if the footnotes in the essays were supposed to serve that purpose.
I vote for footnotes of essays. But I don’t hold much sway amongst CES types 🙂
Some of those footnotes include “anti”, “ex-Mormons”, and people thought less than faith promoting. Todd Compton, Valeen Avery, and Michael Quinn come to mind as having been footnoted in the essays. I’m not sure the church wants people looking to them for information.
Out of curiosity, I recently looked at the recently-revised seminary lesson that covers the origins of the Book of Abraham. As I remember it, the controversies were summarized in about two blink-and-you’ll-miss-them sentences.
I don’t think that will be enough for youth realize the significance of the issues. Most probably won’t even remember that there was an issue at all.
I guess it’s enough for the church to be able to say “we told you about this in Seminary.” I doubt it’s enough to actually resolve or forestall concerns. I’m sure it’s insufficient to repent of decades of dishonesty.
We inoculate our children against disease. The metaphor doesn’t fit for me. I wonder if we would do better to give our children gospel antibiotics. Instead of trying to perform mental gymnastics about questions of church history or doctrine, perhaps we could let go of the infection of perfectionism and always appearing right and move on to the gospel of Christ and the two great commandments. The absolute truth claims seem contrary to the broken heart and contrite spirit required of Christ. We may be inoculating against a disease that needs antibiotics to cure.
Honestly, the problem is that there aren’t easy answers to most of these topics, and CES types like to have an easy answer. They like to be the final authority (as do most church leaders) when in reality, most of these questions lead to more questions, not final answers. They can try to give satisfying alternatives to internet searches, but the internet’s still going to be there.
I have a problem with the metaphor of inoculation. Vaccines are used to protect against diseases, things that are inherently bad and bad for you. It gives you a little bit of the bad thing so you can recognize it and fight it off later. But if the bad thing is the truth what does that say about our vaccination campaign?
@Ellis #14: Amen! It’s a terrible analogy.
I do think the Church is trying to be more open and honest. So ‘A’ for effort, but a ‘C+’ for actual transparency. When the Church stops forcing us to regurgitate Conference talks each fourth Sunday and instead cover the Gospel Topics essays (or the mormonsandgays website), when they change the Sunday School manuals to admit that Joseph Smith had multiple (some underage) wives, when they admit South Park gave a more honest portrayal of the BOM translation than most Sunday School lessons for the past 100 years, I may consider a better grade.
I think the idea is that you give the distasteful data in a weakened state through “faithful, thoughtful and accurate interpretation” – a pro-church spin. When the distasteful data comes along later as a support for criticism of the church, the kid remembers that they’ve encountered that data before with a positive spin, so the critical argument loses potency. It’s inoculation against attacks by undermining the potency of the more gut-wrenching details.
I haven’t listened to the full thing so I feel like I need to before I comment….but I can say I’m very excited the essays will be part of the seminary curriculum my daughter will receive. For her generation they’ll be things they reference for the rest of their lives as reputable sources….which is better than pretending like they don’t exist for the older generations.
“Remind them that James did not say, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him Google!’””
James didn’t have either google, or readily accessible public libraries. We were always taught in seminary and lessons that D&C 9:7-9 meant we should do all or research first before asking in prayer. Are they going to be changing this?
On the medical example, I found google to be very helpful when I injured myself, when the only official and not very helpful medical response I got was, ‘hopefully it’ll stabilise soon’!; googling how to sleep with this particular injury (I’d been waking up back at square one every morning), and later as things improved the required physio exercises. So yes… as far as I’m concerned google’s good.
I’d add, on the injury, that when rather concerned about my condition and unhelpful medical response, I asked my husband for a blessing. I was told I was capable of researching what I would need to do. Google was my tool in that.
Google must not be THAT bad. Anytime I google anything related to the Church, sponsored links to official Church websites pop up at the very top of the results. If Google were the search engine of the Devil, that wouldn’t happen.
Bing, on the other hand…
This is so true. There are definitely some things in the essays that raise troubling concerns and questions. I am grateful for the essays, but how on earth do you spin “the law of Sarah” in a faith promoting light?
Hedgehog, the funny thing is that even doctors aren’t against people doing online research. When I asked my husband how he felt about his patients using Google, his reaction was, “Google is awesome! It gives them way more information about their condition and what’s happening in their bodies than what I could share in a sitting. The problem is that people often use the wrong search terms for their symptoms, so usually they’re convinced they have a tumor when they come in. Once we figure out the correct diagnosis, I can give them the correct medical terminology for their symptoms and disorder so that they can find more pertinent data.”
The idea of discouraging internet research is weird, but my thought is that if the CES teachers are solid, they can point the kids to reliable online sources.
In elementary school my kids are being taught to use search engines and consider the type of website they are looking at to determine credibility and bias. I’ve noticed those less familiar with online searches (like a lot of elderly people I help with family history) have a much more difficult time scanning search results to pick up on the more reliable data. Successful online research skills depend heavily on practice and experience.
Mary Ann, “I’ve noticed those less familiar with online searches (like a lot of elderly people I help with family history) have a much more difficult time scanning search results to pick up on the more reliable data. Successful online research skills depend heavily on practice and experience.”
I guess so. Back before I became a SAHM I was a patent searcher, scanning through results to pick out which are the relevant data is pretty much second nature. Also became familiar with which search terms were helpful.
My kids use the internet to research for school assignments all the time. It’s absolutely expected. The idea that googling isn’t helpful really isn’t going to go down well, I’d have thought.
I agree. I just know the majority (NOT all) of the 70+ crowd I work with are highly skittish of jumping online to find an answer. Sometimes I wonder if that might be playing a role here.
It won’t go down well, but CES teachers are younger than general authorities. I still feel like they’ll orient the kids towards preferred resources rather than just idiotically saying “Don’t Google!” (Which then makes the kid even more curious about what Google will tell her.)
As Bloggernacle work product enters the chapels, “prophets” enact reactive damage control.
I think Elder Ballard’s remarks were needed. I hope they were received, loud and clear. I also hope we hear similar things repeated. There are several full time CES people in my extended family and I wonder how they will handle some of the more controversial issues of church history (both in class and in their personal devotion).
CES types like to give a definitive answer which is often not possible when discussing many of these topics. They will have to adjust to that.
His advice to not use Google was… well, let’s just say his talk wasn’t perfect. I Google medical symptoms all the time. Sometimes it has saved me from paying unnecessary copays (i.e., ice the knee, take an ibuprofen, and do some stretches). Other times my research has prompted a trip to the doctor when I otherwise would not have gone (i.e., that knee pain needs an x-ray to rule out certain conditions that might get progressively worse).
But it was a major step in the right direction. CES peeps, hope you were paying attention!
@16 So really a better analogy would be that CES teachers need to help their students build up an immunity to iocane powder. Start with small doses with positive spins so that when they are “attacked” with a full strength dose they will survive it. But it still begs the question of why we are ingesting toxic substances to begin with. Why is there so much of toxic nature in our church to begin with and why do we insist on keeping it around and building up an immunity to it anyway? I suppose what I am really getting at is that it bothers me that we have to keep swallowing bitter powder instead of outright rejecting it and building our testimony on true principles, rather than sanitized, fairy tale versions of extremely complex and messy history. I’m not expressing it well, but I guess what I want is an acknowledgement of the powder for what it is and a recognition that even though we thought it had great health properties back in the day it turns out we were wrong and we don’t have to keep swallowing it. But I suppose we have to start somewhere….
The LDS Church operates according to the following principles:
– The ideal situation is for people to never learn about the difficult topics, because they frequently damage people’s testimonies.
– If people are going to learn about the difficult topics, it will be less likely to hurt their testimonies if they first learn about them from the church in a faithful context rather than from the church’s critics.
– If people have heard of the difficult topics in a faithful context, they are less likely to accept the critical interpretation of those topics or to be interested in reading both sides.
So pre-internet, the approach was to avoid the difficult topics altogether and label any outside treatment of them as anti-mormon. Now with the internet, the information is so ubiquitous that too many members are confronting these difficult topics from critical sources, so the approach is now to provide a faithful context of these topics from the church. But they know that a lot of people are still in the first camp, and won’t learn about these difficult topics unless the church brings it up. So they limit their dissemination to the youth who are more internet savvy and bury it on their website. Everyone is still discouraged from consulting non-faithful sources.
Instead of antibiotics, we should be focusing on probiotics. Absolutely, candidly, address the difficult questions. And also teach them it is OK not to know everything. And it is OK to ask more than once (Gideon is my example here). But we should also be seeding their testimonial microbiome with frequent fresh supplements of the good bacteria, so that their system can cope with the bad ones from time to time.
We should look to the example of Paul in the New Testament, who followed the Spirit as he returned to Jerusalem, almost on trumped up charges of “not following the church”, when he had been off on a mission teaching all manner of “false doctrine” in their minds. The Spirit told Paul how to manage the situation. I return to this story again and again.
My kids ask hard questions. I called my dad frequently with hard questions. I bothered my seminary teacher and my Institute directors. I never felt like I was getting a canned response; but a thoughtful, well-thought out response to the hard stuff.
Some hard stuff I didn’t learn until I was out of college and exposed to someone *else’s* LDS family history. But by then I knew how to manage that information.
#27 Ellis, you expressed yourself very well and I think it is an apt metaphor. Church leaders are very hesitant at denouncing previous teachings as mistakes, even when we have current teachings to the contrary. It seems to me that they double-over backwards to defend the formation of that belief, usually by appealing to the context of the time period. If everyone else believed that belief, then we should be more understanding of church leaders falling into the same trap.
#28 Joel, I agree with your assessment.
#29 Barely East, I also grew up in a family where hard questions were not just okay, but encouraged (unfortunately, I learned more stuff I should have asked about after I left home). I also had 2 seminary teachers and a handful of religion professors who were very respectful and open when I had questions. I think the benefit of Ballard’s talk is his insistence that these experiences should be the rule rather than the exception. *No* question should be shut down, even if a teacher has to admit ignorance and take some time to get a good response together. I had some seminary teachers, most of my youth sunday school teachers, and several religion professors who were in the “don’t worry about!” or testimony-as-avoidance camps.
Barely East, Are not probiotics advertised as helpful in keeping you “regular”? So is your analogy to help move the bowel along so some people are not so full of $#!+. Maybe the analogies have been stretched a bit too much, so I will stop right there.
The biggest problem our young people have with the church is the obsession of their leaders with homophobia. If they could only apply their own advice to that subject we might get somewhere
A recent study revealed that the more people think they know about a topic, the more likely they are to allege understanding beyond what they know. Even to the point of feigning knowledge of false facts, and fabricated information. Identified as overclaiming, this temptation must be avoided by you CES teachers. It is perfectly all right to say, “I do not know.” However, once that is said, you have a responsibility to find the best answers to the thoughtful questions your students ask.
In teaching your students or in responding to their questions let me warn you not to pass along faith-promoting or unsubstantiated rumors, or outdated understandings and explanations of our doctrine and practices from the past. It is always wise to make a practice to study the words of the living prophets and apostles, keep updated on current Church issues, policies and statements through mormonnewsroom.org and lds.org, and consult the works of recognized, thoughtful and faithful LDS scholars to ensure you do not teach things that are untrue, out-of-date, or odd and quirky.[3]
Please take you own advice Apostles and Prophets
We talk of inoculation when we should be talking of full honesty. Not all the church history is positive. There is much that is not. We and our children are deserving of the full story.
Full public access to church historical documents would be a start.
We hear frequently about the need for milk before meat, but then the meat is never offered. It is locked up.
Serve meat.
Elder Ballard is not my favorite apostle by a long shot, and while ham-fisted at times, his talk here is timely and welcome. I attended seminary in the 90s (early morning, outside the mountain time zone, volunteer teachers) and the lessons were a little too heavy on testimony and appeals to emotion rather than earnest studies of scripture or history. When I asked tough questions, they were met with dismissive hostility, and sometimes concerned phone calls to my parents. Of course, my parents were baffled, since they grew up in a time when lively debate and honest inquiry were encouraged at church, and never backed away from controversial topics themselves. Since the rise of correlation, the Church has been doing a poor job of teaching critical thinking to the youth, to the particular disservice of my generation. This initiative from Elder Ballard seems to be a baby step back in the right direction.
I don’t know why Quinn get such a bad rap…(I do know actually, but just being funny) my testimony and understanding of the gospel, doctrine, and our silly cultural commandments grew by leaps and bounds when I discovered Quinn and others like him. Also, I served a mission when being “faith promoting” was the eternal, brainless March. As a half-witted elder, even I could tell that focusing on faith promotiting rhetoric and testimony-ing away the controversy was an ineffective approach.