If there had been a Mormon bishop in the cult classic The Princess Bride, I’m fairly sure this piece of dialogue would have been in the movie. Inigo Montoya to LDS bishop: “Confidentiality. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” We should also consider the view of Benjamin Franklin, who famously said, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
This is suddenly a topic in the news in part because of this story in the Salt Lake Tribune: “BYU requires new hires to waive their right to clergy confidentiality.” (I linked to the msn.com version of the article so everyone can access it.) Just on the headline alone, we can discern three things about the LDS view of clergy confidentiality: (1) The LDS Church affirms there is such a right. (2) The Church believes the person conferring and communicating with their bishop or stake president holds that right and must give permission if it is to be waived. And (3) whatever the value of such a right to the person communicating with the bishop, it is significantly outweighed by the Church’s interest in learning about anything a BYU faculty or staff member might have disclosed to an LDS bishop during their conversations that relate to that faculty or staff member’s “worthiness” to hold a temple recommend and to work at BYU. So if you work for BYU, your temple recommend doubles as a work permit.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these three claims.
The Church Affirms Clergy Confidentiality. What Does That Mean?
I could write fifty paragraphs on this, but I’ll try to keep it to a dozen or so. First let’s see what the LDS General Handbook currently says about confidentiality. Here is from section 31.4:
Do not share confidential information with anyone—including your spouse or other Church leaders—unless the member gives permission. Continue to keep such matters confidential even after you are released. Breaking confidences can harm a member’s faith, trust, and testimony. Members are more likely to seek help from Church leaders if they know that what they share will be kept confidential.
That sounds good, except it is widely known that bishops sometimes do share information learned in discussions with individual ward members with the stake president or the bishop’s counselors or the bishop’s wife or the whole Ward Council. How often does this occur? Do one in three bishops do this? One in ten? I would probably summarize this rule as follows: “Information of a personal nature that you disclose to your bishop will probably be kept confidential. If your bishop shares this information with others, he might ask your permission first.”
What the Church calls clergy confidentiality is similar in some ways to the priest-penitent privilege. This refers to circumstances under which a priest — construed broadly as any church official who confers privately in a pastoral mode with members — would be barred from testifying in court about information shared by a member in a private priest-penitent conversation. The particulars of this privilege (how broad it is, who holds the privilege, and so forth) is a matter of state law and varies by state. In the LDS scenario, the privilege would not be limited to a conversation in the bishop’s office, as the Handbook in section 31.1.4 tells the bishop, “If meeting at the meetinghouse makes the member uncomfortable, decide together on a different place to meet.” Here is a key observation to take away from this section: The LDS obligation to keep clergy-obtained information confidential (an LDS policy) is considerably broader than the priest-penitent privilege (defined by state statute).
Let’s summarize. The best way for an LDS member to keep confidential information confidential is to not disclose it to the bishop. The second-best way to keep confidential information confidential is to not give the bishop permission to share it with anyone else.
Three quick detours before getting to the second point. First, as far as I can tell, this discussion of clergy confidentiality has nothing to do with the LDS bishop’s hotline. The Handbook seems quite clear that if the member does not give permission, then no confidential information should be shared. The person on the other end of the hotline wouldn’t (well, shouldn’t) have anything to add to that directive. That’s not a matter of state law, it’s a straightforward LDS policy. If the member doesn’t give permission, a bishop must not share confidential information with anyone, period. Well, almost period.
Second, there are state mandatory reporting laws concerning cases of abuse. Like the priest-penitent privilege, the particulars of state mandatory reporting laws vary by state. Obviously, there may be a conflict between clergy confidentiality (the LDS policy) or a priest-penitent privilege (defined by a state statute) and a state’s mandatory reporting law, which statute might or might not include an exemption from that duty to report for a member of the clergy. My understanding is that’s the specific and rather narrow purpose of the LDS bishop’s hotline: to help an LDS bishop navigate the tricky state law questions of a bishop’s obligation to report information about a case of abuse (mandatory reporting), state law questions about a bishop’s duty to not report (under a state law exemption or a state’s priest-penitent privilege), and the middle ground where a bishop is neither required to report nor barred from reporting. I would wager that every single bishop who encounters a report of abuse is happy to have the help line to get some guidance for how to proceed. I only hope that the guidance given over the help line accurately reflects the relevant state law for each particular case. In situations where state law provides a bishop some discretion on how to proceed, I hope the person on the other end of the help line provides sound ethical guidance to the bishop. In most cases, I would think the bishop himself has a better moral compass than the person on the other end of the hotline.
Here’s what the Handbook states about abuse at section 31.1.8, and you can certainly go read the referenced sections for additional information:
Abuse cannot be tolerated in any form. Take reports of abuse seriously. If you become aware that someone has been abused, report the abuse to civil authorities and counsel with the bishop. Guidelines for reporting and responding to abuse are provided in 38.6.2.
For information about what bishops and stake presidents should do when they become aware of abuse, see 38.6.2.1.
Third detour: the term “confidential information” is never defined in the LDS policy. Given how broad the LDS concept of worthiness is, the term “confidential information” is probably best construed as potentially anything you tell your bishop.
The Person, Not the Bishop or the Church, Holds That Right
This one is short and simple. The Church requires faculty and staff to sign away their right to clergy confidentiality (which is different from waiving one’s legal right to the priest-penitent privilege if granted by state law) because it holds that the person, not the bishop and not the Church, holds that right to confidentiality. I guess the point to glean from this is no member should, in an offhand or casual way, give a bishop any impression that they give permission to the bishop to share confidential information unless they truly and objectively do want the bishop to share that information. It’s not like there’s a form to sign. If a bishop says, “I’ll bet the stake president would have some helpful guidance on this difficult issue,” and you respond, “Yes, the stake president is a wise man” — whoops, you probably just forfeited confidentiality without knowing you did so. You should probably respond to any such offhand remark by the bishop with “this is a confidential conversation and should not be shared with anyone, period.” Or, “I’m sure you will seek my formal and express permission to share confidential information with anyone else, including the stake president.”
If You Are BYU Faculty or Staff, All Bets Are Off
I don’t know if the third point is a real change in procedure for BYU. Bishops and stake presidents already sign some sort of ecclesiastical endorsement form for LDS students, faculty, and staff. I can’t find the actual form online (it seems to be an online procedure now, there may not be a printed form anymore) so they are already conditioned to provide information about faculty and staff to BYU. If someone from BYU calls a bishop or stake president to follow up on something checked or detailed in that form, I’m fairly sure most bishops or stake president share additional information without giving much thought to the general LDS confidentiality policy. If the Church, including BYU and bishops, were serious about clergy confidentiality, there wouldn’t be an ecclesiastical endorsement in the first place.
Here is what the Salt Lake Tribune article reports about the new procedure (ellipsis in original):
[W]ording has been added to the agreement candidates must sign, authorizing the Ecclesiastical Clearance Office at church headquarters to “contact” their lay leaders to determine their “worthiness” for employment at BYU. Candidates must agree that their bishops can disclose “matters that priesthood leaders would otherwise keep confidential … to the extent the confidential matters relate to the standards of employment.
I think this new procedure accomplishes two fairly narrow steps. First, it makes all BYU faculty and staff fully aware that, being associated with BYU, they have no clergy confidentiality. If they are considering confessing something to the bishop, they might as well just do it on Facebook (slight exaggeration). Second, it gives BYU leverage over those few bishops who, when contacted by BYU for further information on a faculty or staff member, would decline to provide additional information on the grounds that it is confidential. A bishop who doesn’t want to share information on a ward member who has ties to BYU will have to come up with another excuse. “I don’t recall that conversation” or “I forget the details” might work.
A final observation. It would appear the Church, at the end of the day, doesn’t really place much weight or importance on clergy confidentiality and on clergy pastoral counseling in general. If they’re willing to jettison that right for BYU faculty and staff, that just shows that it’s not really that important in the first place. BYU faculty and staff, it seems, should rely on general guidance in the scriptures, on their own conscience (aka the light of Christ), and on professional counseling if needed or desired. The Church, in a strange way, seems to be acknowledging that the pastoral role of LDS bishops for BYU faculty and staff just isn’t that important. Which suggests that, in fact, the LDS leadership view is that the pastoral role of LDS bishops for any member of the Church just isn’t that important.
Conclusions?
A few disclaimers. First, one never really knows whether a media story gets all the details right. I doubt the Church, if contacted by a reporter asking details about how the BYU faculty and staff vetting and endorsement system is supposed to work and how it *actually* works, is going to provide much information. “That’s for us to know and for you to not find out” is probably the gist of the official response.
Second, how the procedures are supposed to work as spelled out in this or that policy, and how the system *actually* works, are two different things. Given the anti-intellectual bias of LDS leadership in general, there are probably LDS bishops who think anyone with a PhD shouldn’t be teaching LDS youth, including BYU students. Maybe the Church should just get out of the university education business entirely.
I don’t have any great prompts for this discussion. The likely consequences of the new procedures may be fairly minimal. A few potential LDS applicants who are otherwise “worthy” in the LDS sense may nevertheless decline to proceed with their faculty or staff application. A few current faculty and staff may decide to pursue other employment opportunities. It’s not clear whether the long-term impact on students at BYU will be positive (protect students from those faculty wolves in sheep’s clothing who would otherwise impart uncorrelated information to them) or negative (prevent students from exposure to faculty who would expand their minds by imparting uncorrelated information to them).
Wheat & Tares 
It really is disappointing to watch all this happen. I did my MA at BYU (1999-2001) and had a blast. Maybe it was because I was a grad student so I didn’t have to take dodgy religion classes or have to worry about some of the more silly things inflicted on the undergrads, but it was fun and I have fond memories of my time there. Now. I would not go to BYU for any reason. Tragically, this shift to greater fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism is only going to create intellectually impoverished graduates. It does not need to be this.
A good summary of the jackassery that BYU has now codified. A few points that I think are worth emphasizing:
1. The biggest takeaway from all of this for me is one of your main points: The church has now made explicit the fact that confidentiality and the role of the bishop in spiritual counseling is simply unimportant. More than that, the repentance process is also unimportant, which means that repentance itself, a fundamental cornerstone (supposedly) of the Mormon religion is now rendered moot. The church can say otherwise, but nothing happens at BYU unless the Mormon Church approves it, which means that leadership doesn’t take (and perhaps never did) either the repentance process or confidentiality seriously. This is a massive, if tacit, admission by the church that I hope will get coverage and spread far and wide: The Mormon Church no longer sees the confession/repentance process as valid or important.
2. In terms of consequences, as always for many TBMs, this will be no big deal. And perhaps for the world at large, where there are many other more important things happening, this will be no big deal as well. But I think it’s worth noting that BYU is essentially, deliberately and purposefully, getting itself out of the higher education business. There was a time (mid-8os) that BYU was really trying to be seen as a legitimate and respectful institution of higher education. That is no longer the case. There has been a slow but steady erosion of academic principles and rigor over the past few decades and, if BYU isn’t careful, they could be facing the prospect of losing accreditation, which would essentially make all degrees from the institution useless. It’s clear this educational retrenchment is meant to combat such horrible realities as the intellectual growth and development of young people, the nurturing of ideas and imagination and the legitimate exploration and discovery of new knowledge. As such, BYU is headed squarely back to the nineteenth century.
And as a last note, I hear that this is only the beginning. There is talk that BYU is going to begin actively discouraging most faculty scholarship and hire faculty whose chief (only?) duty will be to teach. They are literally getting out of the scholarship business. And that will end up harming anyone who is associated with the school.
I think I just identified a positive from this new policy: BYU professors will now be much more empathetic towards BYU students who have a crisis of faith or who make mistakes while attending BYU because now they are all in the same boat. BYU students have always had to calculate the risk of talking to their bishop about mistakes or a loss of faith, knowing that this could lead to an Honor Code violation that would get them kicked out of school. And for that reason, many students have not confessed (as they should) or sought after council (as they probably should) for fear of unintended consequences. Well guess what? BYU professors (at least the new ones) are in the same boat.
@Brother Sky, many schools have been doing that for years, decades even. The term is “professor of practice.” Alternatively, “full-time lecturer.” It’s not a bad thing. It lets good teachers BE good TEACHERS, and good RESEARCHERS be good RESEARCHERS, without demanding a mixed skillset. You know the cliche about how absent-minded college professors are terrible teachers? Hiring faculty whose chief (sometimes only) duty is to teach actively combats that cliche. There are valid reasons to dish on BYU, but hiring people specifically to TEACH their students is not one!
(Disclosure: I have several close family members who are college professors whose chief duty is teaching, not research.)
This new policy–which I can attest is not only in place but being weaponized against current and potential faculty–not only creates a disincentive to seek pastoral care, but it also opens a BYU faculty member to a myriad of potential problems. Let’s say you make a comment in Relief Society or Elders Quorum that is insufficiently orthodox for a member of the ward, who then casually mentions it to the bishop, who agrees and then informs the Gilbert Inquisition Squad. You could lose your job. Social media? Same pitfalls. Op-eds or other media appearances relating to your research? Proceed at your own risk. I know I am not the only member of the faculty who has not spoken a word in EQ or Gospel Doctrine in over a decade due to these concerns and the refusal to opt-in to this new policy.
In effect, this policy not only denies the reality of the Atonement for faculty, it also creates an unattainable standard for those who teach at BYU. The bar to be a BYU student or faculty member is already higher than the expectations for the rest of the Church’s membership–higher (or, more appropriately, more extensive and Pharisaical), in fact, than the requirements to enter the temple (the holiest place on earth in LDS theology). Now, faculty must essentially be perfect…at least in the eyes of their bishop, which is an ever-changing target given leadership roulette.
This is clearly an effort at “protecting” BYU’s students from negative faculty influences, “protecting” BYU and the Church from “worldly ideas,” and “protecting” BYU’s and the Church’s image. But in reality, faculty are often the ones dealing with students struggling with LDS doctrines and faith crises that have nothing to do with what faculty are teaching. It is clear, after two decades at BYU, that the number of “radical” BYU faculty who are actively seeking to undermine the institution, students’ testimonies, or the Church is negligible; in fact, I have not encountered one. What happens is that parents/donors see students struggling with their faith or disagree politically with something being read/taught on campus and then complain to the Church’s leadership…who take these handful of comments and extrapolate them to the entire university–hence Elder Holland’s talk on campus in August 2021 and the proliferation of acres of hedges around the actual laws/doctrines of the LDS faith.
Critics will say that if you don’t like it, leave. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of academic disciplines, jobs are not that easy to obtain under the best of circumstances. In some fields, there are 500+ applicants for each position–with very few at a tenured or senior level. So many faculty bite their tongues, keep their heads down, and stay at a university they like in order to teach students they like and continue to support their families…all while becoming increasingly disenchanted with the evolution of the institution and increasingly concerned about their employment.
These new policies and the vigor with which people like Clark Gilbert and Reid Nielsen (the assistant VP for religious scholarly publications) are implementing them chills academic freedom (such as it is) at BYU, fosters an atmosphere of fear and anxiety that makes one yearn for the less perilous days of Joe McCarthy, and has created a Brobdingnagian morale crisis at the university. To say that the mood on campus is bleak would be a monumental understatement.
Could not agree more with Doc on all points.
Let me also say re: Brother Sky’s comments: even TBMs at BYU consider these new policies terrible.
“Third detour: the term “confidential information” is never defined in the LDS policy. Given how broad the LDS concept of worthiness is, the term “confidential information” is probably best construed as potentially anything you tell your bishop.”
As a member, it might be safest to assume that “confidential information” only covers things that you have specifically told your bishop are confidential. Without having that discussion with your bishop, how is any member to know what he will or won’t consider confidential? One bishop might hold my evaluation of the BYU football teams performance last week as “confidential information” but another might not consider something confidential unless I’ve committed a crime. Do I need to start every conversation with my bishop with a disclaimer about confidentiality? (Do I need to start bringing my lawyer to my appointments with the bishop?)
I don’t know if this is known official policy, but I have heard that BYU is no longer considering any new faculty hires who are not LDS.
The anecdotal source for this is a person I know who is not LDS who used to work for BYU and left. That person reached out recently to consider reapplying and was told by former colleagues in the department that while it’s not officially stated in job listings that one must by mormon, the department is only considering LDS applicants.
Whether or not this holds true for the entire university or just that department or is even accurate I can’t say, but this is what was related to me directly by this individual. If it is true, I am not surprised.
While officially BYU is willing to consider non-LDS applicants (they insist on wording in job ads to the effect that “preference will be given to members of the sponsoring institution”), the reality is that outside of the law school and perhaps business school, that ain’t happening. You cannot even get clearance to conduct preliminary interviews with non-LDS candidates, let alone bring them to campus. “Mission fit” is now the controlling doctrine for hiring at BYU.
And, yes, there is a push in the new university strategic plan to hire more professional (vs. professorial) faculty. Gilbert’s comments at Education Week notwithstanding, research is being devalued at BYU. The slow yet inexorable devolution of BYU into BYU-Idaho South proceeds apace–not surprising when you consider where the most influential current forces in the Church leadership on education (see: Gilbert, Bednar) worked.
Finally, despite some right-wing gnashing of teeth, there are many TBM faculty at BYU. Most of them are as concerned and depressed about the changes that have occured in recent years as those that some would characterize as liberal.
Why in the world would anyone talk to their bishop about anything? (other than giving the rote answers for a temple recommend interview). We’ve created a system where bishops do not want to hear anything off script and the members getting interviewed have every incentive to tell them what they want to hear.
I have a family member that is a tenured professor at BYU. I can confirm that it is very difficult to even interview a non-LDS applicant for a teaching position. (At least in their department.) I have also been told that despite the number of applicants for most university teaching positions, they struggle to find qualified LDS applicants. (It’s important to remember that when someone leaves a department and they need a replacement, they are often looking for someone to match some of the specializations that the departing professor had; the art history department might not just be looking for an art history professor, but one that knows something about Byzantine art, because they already have 3 people focused on modern art.) Finally, I know that my family member, and most of their department, is absolutely not excited about these recent changes to their employment. They may be willing to abide them, but they certainly don’t prefer them.
Put all this together, and I can’t help but wonder if BYU won’t start to have more trouble finding well qualified professors. I graduated from BYU, and had a great time. (Not that it was perfect back then.) I can’t help but wonder if I wasn’t one of the lucky ones that caught BYU at its peak.
Thanks for the comments and discussion, everyone.
Jason said, “Tragically, this shift to greater fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism is only going to create intellectually impoverished graduates.” Yeah, it’s sure going to make the average faculty member careful about what they teach and speak about with students on a variety of gospel-sensitive topics. Orthodoxy and university teaching/research just don’t mix well.
Doc said, “I know I am not the only member of the faculty who has not spoken a word in EQ or Gospel Doctrine in over a decade …”. The best gospel doctrine teacher I ever had was a historian who taught in an Orem ward. Some blockheads complained and he was released. I can see a similar dynamic becoming possible at BYU.
Doubting Tom said, “I don’t know if this is known official policy, but I have heard that BYU is no longer considering any new faculty hires who are not LDS.” I’m not in the loop on this but it sounds like the general direction things are heading.
“If the Church, including BYU and bishops, were serious about clergy confidentiality, there wouldn’t be an ecclesiastical endorsement in the first place.” Bingo!
Brother Sky: “the repentance process is also unimportant, which means that repentance itself, a fundamental cornerstone (supposedly) of the Mormon religion is now rendered moot.” Just to caveat that, only repentance involving confession to a bishop is rendered thus. Basically, repentance has now been privatized to the individual. If anyone is naive enough to confess something to a bishop, well, caveat emptor.
I’m glad to hear Doc say that TBMs are equally demoralized by these changes. Gilbert and Bedar are really the worst people to put in charge of education, and the fact that the Church thinks they are the best is an indictment of how the Church views higher education. It used to be that BYU-I / Rick’s College was viewed as the institution aspiring to BYU-P’s higher standards. Now we are completely reversing that and trying to turn BYU-P into the deliberately inferior education provided at BYU-I, including the more pharisaical “standards.”
Those who are scrupulously honest and understand the vicissitudes of life should NEVER work for BYU from this point forward. Liars and imbeciles may still apply.
BYU consumes itself. What a surprise. At a BYU devotional some years ago a young speaker referred to the Y as “the only true & living university in the world.” True to the inverse laws of hubris, Randy Bott’s shooting star streaked across the firmament some short while thereafter. I can only guess what dire karma will result from this latest inanity.
@Brother Sky, curious about the claim that BYU will actively discourage scholarship. I can certainly see things going in that direction, but Gilbert’s recent Education Week speech suggests that BYU-P will continue a research / academic focus in order to continue to attract good scholarship and dialogue with people outside the Church, whereas BYU-I has a teaching focus. (In the speech, he lays out how each University has a different role / focus.).
https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2022/8/17/23308942/elder-gilbert-byu-education-week-church-educational-system-courage-to-be-different
Elisa: I should have said “some faculty are concerned about the potential de-emphasizing of scholarship”. I have no concrete evidence that BYU has definite plans in that direction, which, with apologies, I didn’t make clear in my original post. Though as you say, I don’t think it’s that big a leap. I imagine that there would be more concerns at least about the potential limiting of scholarship in more “subjective” humanities disciplines than in something like, for example, engineering. And I have heard anecdotal evidence (many years ago), that BYU used to ask potential hires what they would do if they were asked to stop doing scholarly work that might put the church in a bad light. Perhaps someone who is currently employed there could confirm whether this is/was actually the case. And there may be reason for faculty to be nervous. This article from last year quotes Holland’s “musket” speech where, at least according the Salt Lake Tribune, he defines BYU Provo’s role as “primarily…an undergraduate teaching institution” and says that if maintaining the school’s stance against LGBTQ people costs BYU some “professional associations and certifications, then so be it.”: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/09/07/can-unique-byu-really-be/
That doesn’t quite square with Gilbert’s words, but who knows? It’s difficult sometimes to parse the different messaging.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Recall that quite a few years ago, when serving as BYU President and before he was installed in the Twelve, Dallin Oaks fended off an attempt by the Religion Dept. folks (supported by some in LDS senior leadership, apparently) to excise evolution teaching and research from BYU-Provo. Oaks stood up for the University against imposing (misguided) LDS orthodoxy on the University.
Well, it seems like Oaks has changed his view. I certainly can’t imagine him piping up in a meeting of senior LDS leaders arguing the same thing now. Just the opposite, it would appear. “Let’s impose conservative LDS religious orthodoxy on BYU-Provo, regardless of the consequences” could be the current mission statement for the University.
@bro sky, I think it’s absolutely the case that research could be limited or curtailed. I just don’t think it’s because the university wants to curtail ALL research. Just research that doesn’t align with Church doctrine. Which will still curtail research 🙂
I wonder what it would take for a critical mass of BYU faculty to go on strike. Call it a “fast from work” or something, for the blessing of being allowed to counsel with their priesthood leaders in confidence.
Thanks to those from the BYU community willing to dish with their comments here.
I’ve been at my firm for 17 years. This is my family. And I mean that because, like family, we disagree, we have bad days, as well as having amazing days. I cannot even imagine the hurt I would feel if they started changing policies to harm me in this way. I feel very sorry for BYU faculty. One silver lining: now they know how the students feel.
@your food allergy sadly there seems to be a bottomless supply of people who would step in and do the work. Ditto the women of the Church – no matter how many quit or get released over horrible experiences with sexist overbearing male leaders, there’s always someone to take her place.
It’s interesting to compare and contrast discussion of confidentiality in this context with discussion in the context of disciplinary councils (or whatever it is they’re called now). Several people whose cases were at least somewhat in the public eye were told that they absolutely couldn’t record them. Natasha Helfer didn’t even end up being allowed into her own because the local leaders were so concerned that she would. The reason local leaders give for this is confidentiality. But if the member (or soon-to-be-ex) is okay with sharing the details with the world, why should church leaders care? Wasn’t the confidentiality to protect the member?
Like so many other issues, it seems to boil down to a question of the Church trying to manage bad press. Disciplinary councils must be confidential because releasing recordings of them would make the Church look bad. But BYU faculty members can’t have confidentiality because allowing it to them might permit some unorthodox types to slip through the filter of faith and influence young minds. As you say so well in your opening, Dave, the Church doesn’t have a general sense of what confidentiality is or a general policy on it. It’s just a question of claiming it’s either good or bad in the moment depending on the Church’s needs.
@ziff, good points.
The other thing I’ve been thinking in this is that apparently the Church’s highest priority is to indoctrinate people. They clearly don’t trust people to be able to evaluate information on their own.
Dave B: “Which suggests that, in fact, the LDS leadership view is that the pastoral role of LDS bishops for any member of the Church just isn’t that important.” I won’t assume that this is their view, as members are encouraged to meet with their bishops. But in reality it is true. Bishops receive limited or no training in pastoral care. They wing it. Same is true for doctrinal questions. No training. They wing it. The Church should admit that bishops serve as unit administrators, and that we do not offer true pastoral care.
I retired from BYU fairly recently, after teaching there for many years. Apparently it was just in the nick of time.
I empathize greatly with current faculty at BYU. My last 5-10 years there, it seemed as though my mental health had begun to suffer under the burden of being a PIMO (“physically in mentally out”). If there’s anything that the words of Christ have taught me (aside from the overarching message of loving others unconditionally and reaching out to the marginalized), it’s the message to “not be a hypocrite”. And yet I was a hypocrite — for many, many years. I professed in temple recommend interviews to believe one thing, while in my heart I knew this was not true. And I did it all for a paycheck. That’s really going to mess with your sense of integrity.
Since I retired, I have been able to be open — very open — with both my bishop and stake president. And I feel like an incredible load has been lifted off of me. I feel that I am “whole” again, for the first time in many years.
Truly, my heart goes out to those who are still trapped at BYU, and who cannot afford be honest with others — not because of any moral failings of their own, but because of a corrupt system, which is designed solely to benefit the organization.
@ heterodoxcl thanks for sharing your experience! I am eager to hear from more faculty on this. Living in Provo I have many friends who are faculty but they have kept very quiet about the changes. It’s hard to know how to read that – sometimes I assume they must just rationalize it like “well yeah I work for the Church so what do you expect” but I imagine there are many who are troubled by it but have to keep those thoughts to themselves for fear of losing their livelihoods.
“Unfortunately, in the vast majority of academic disciplines, jobs are not that easy to obtain under the best of circumstances.
In some fields, there are 500+ applicants for each position–with very few at a tenured or senior level.
So many faculty…” and potential faculty will say anything to get a job.
It used to be upon getting tenure they would suddenly loosen up. Now they are in a box.
Not sure of what the solution is.
Just know that it is painful for everyone.
I came back to this thread and read the experiences shared by BYU faculty, and it’s sobering. I know how it feels to censor oneself, almost permanently over a long time. It’s an awful weight on the soul, done to preserve something very painful to pull out by the roots. I’d be panic-stricken if my livelihood and pension were involved. It’s evil to preach equality; that they aspire to be as no respecter of person, and to create this unequal, hypocritical, threatening system. I fear for the friends I have caught in this web.
LHCA – ” The Church should admit that bishops serve as unit administrators…”
Indeed – I aced a recommend interview yesterday because the bishop’s counselor is a newbie who read the questions from his laptop and gave me a casual glance whilst awaiting each response. I’m only holding on for a potential wedding of my only child who is most likely to get married in this fashion.