midwinter
06-14-2006, 10:01 PM
Interesting story out here in Utah. A non-tenured (and I believe non-tenure-track) BYU philosophy professor, Jeffrey Nielsen, wrote an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune challenging the LDS church's position on gay marriage (http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3896635) and 4 days later was told his contract would not be renewed at the university, which has a policy that faculty may not contradict the "first presidency" of the Church (which is to say, you can't disagee with the church's stated positions).
Now, BYU was certainly within its rights to let him go, and the professor admits that and is uninterested in making a fuss about losing his job.
The result is that he made it onto one of our wonderful local public radio shows (podcast available here sometime on the 15th (http://kuer.org/2005_RSSinfo.htm)) and took part in a fascinating discussion about all of this.
A few things:
1) He is not angry with the church, nor has he left it. He repeats a number of times that he is still an active member (he teaches one of the core classes in his church) and that his ward (equivalent to Catholic parishes) is very supportive of him. And listening to him talk, it is clear that he is not bitter at all about it, but is instead interested in a conversation that he believes needs to happen.
2) One of the issues that he raises is obedience to authority within the LDS church. There is a tendency among many LDS around here to consider questioning or interrogation of authority figures as anathema; they are raised their entire lives to respect authority--some would argue (among them former BYU professor Brian Evenson [who I was lucky enough to get to know when he joined the faculty at my grad school; now he's at Brown], who left BYU in protest and then went on to write a book about child abuse among LDS families, which typically goes unreported because of this tendency toward obedience). Nielsen raises a series of questions about the relationship between questioning and faith and about obedience gone too far. When, in other words, does one have a moral imperative to speak out against one's own church? And then, in turn, after one willingly accepts the consequences of that opposition... how is one to have a conversation about the issue at all?
He closes his op-ed with this statement about the way he wishes the chuch would work:
We need to trust the membership of the church and treat them as adults, as equals. We are a church of brothers and sisters, not one of the few privileged leaders and the many subordinate followers. There might be a diversity of roles and responsibilities from prophet to Sunday School teacher, but we are all peers with one another and equally irreplaceable in God's thoughts and affections.
3) What are the difficulties that individual members of a faith find themselves in when the religious body makes political statements? Now, admittedly, I tend to see religion as politics by other means, but what are dissenting members of a faith to do when religion and politics become so clearly blurred, as they are with the issue of gay marriage? How do we draw distinctions between the two? Can we?
I highly encourage everyone to grab the podcast and give it a listen tomorrow (it's 1 hour). It's a remarkable discussion, and this show is really one of the crown jewels of Utah.
Cheers
Now, BYU was certainly within its rights to let him go, and the professor admits that and is uninterested in making a fuss about losing his job.
The result is that he made it onto one of our wonderful local public radio shows (podcast available here sometime on the 15th (http://kuer.org/2005_RSSinfo.htm)) and took part in a fascinating discussion about all of this.
A few things:
1) He is not angry with the church, nor has he left it. He repeats a number of times that he is still an active member (he teaches one of the core classes in his church) and that his ward (equivalent to Catholic parishes) is very supportive of him. And listening to him talk, it is clear that he is not bitter at all about it, but is instead interested in a conversation that he believes needs to happen.
2) One of the issues that he raises is obedience to authority within the LDS church. There is a tendency among many LDS around here to consider questioning or interrogation of authority figures as anathema; they are raised their entire lives to respect authority--some would argue (among them former BYU professor Brian Evenson [who I was lucky enough to get to know when he joined the faculty at my grad school; now he's at Brown], who left BYU in protest and then went on to write a book about child abuse among LDS families, which typically goes unreported because of this tendency toward obedience). Nielsen raises a series of questions about the relationship between questioning and faith and about obedience gone too far. When, in other words, does one have a moral imperative to speak out against one's own church? And then, in turn, after one willingly accepts the consequences of that opposition... how is one to have a conversation about the issue at all?
He closes his op-ed with this statement about the way he wishes the chuch would work:
We need to trust the membership of the church and treat them as adults, as equals. We are a church of brothers and sisters, not one of the few privileged leaders and the many subordinate followers. There might be a diversity of roles and responsibilities from prophet to Sunday School teacher, but we are all peers with one another and equally irreplaceable in God's thoughts and affections.
3) What are the difficulties that individual members of a faith find themselves in when the religious body makes political statements? Now, admittedly, I tend to see religion as politics by other means, but what are dissenting members of a faith to do when religion and politics become so clearly blurred, as they are with the issue of gay marriage? How do we draw distinctions between the two? Can we?
I highly encourage everyone to grab the podcast and give it a listen tomorrow (it's 1 hour). It's a remarkable discussion, and this show is really one of the crown jewels of Utah.
Cheers