What I Now Believe About a BYU Education That I Wish I Had Believed When I First Came

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Tuly
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What I Now Believe About a BYU Education That I Wish I Had Believed When I First Came

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I knew A. Legrand Richards when I was at BYU and knew him as Buddy. What I Now Believe About a BYU Education That I Wish I Had Believed When I First Came - BYU Speeches January 14, 1997. I appreciate this talk by Brother Richards, it's what I believe a BYU education is to me.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/a-legran ... irst-came/
When I was a student I wish I had believed that the standards of the world were not sufficient for a consecrated people. I believed this phrase as it pertained to religion, but I supposed that it didn’t have much to do with my education: “Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom” (D&C 105:5). It isn’t enough to go beyond the standards of the world. We must build upon a different foundation “according to the pattern” the Lord has given (D&C 94:2).

In 1914 Joseph F. Smith offered the Church a prophetic warning. He told us:

There are at least three dangers that threaten the Church within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. . . . They are the flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity. [“Editors’ Table: Three Threatening Dangers,” Improvement Era 17, no. 5 (March 1914): 476–77]

With the perspective of time, we see how prophetic this warning was and is. I was serving a mission when Elder Ezra Taft Benson built on this theme, declaring, “As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions” (“Strengthening the Family,” Improvement Era 73, no. 12 [December 1970]: 46).

If BYU is to heed these warnings, we must build on a different foundation than the world’s.
"Condemn me not because of mine imperfection,... but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been." Mormon 9:31
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