I have a friend on Facebook whom I have never met, is not Mormon, and who has never been to BYU. She recently became aware of the Honor Code and was completely flabbergasted that anyone would agree to live by such ridiculous rules. To be fair, she willingly admitted the virtue of things like no drinking, drugs, or gratuitous sex, but she could not wrap her head around the idea of a beard card. She asked me to shed some light on the absurdity and this is my response. I post it here because I have many non-member friends that I am sure think the same things as Corrine about the Honor Code, although they have never said so out of fear of insulting me. I hope you enjoy my explanation.
Dear Corrine,
I'm not offended at all! Imagine feeling as annoyed and frustrated as you are right now for four years and you'll have an idea of how I feel. I have to say that seeing the Honor Code through your eyes was actually very interesting to me. I've always found it annoying, but to hear your absolute incredulity at the beard card thing is quite enlightening. I've never realized exactly HOW absurd it really is until right now.
BYU students owe our lovely dress and grooming restrictions to Ernest L Wilkinson, President of BYU from 1951 to 1971. Wilkinson came from a military background (navy to be exact) and was president during a very volatile time in our nation’s history. In an effort to dissuade BYU from getting sucked into the "Hippie Movement" he enacted a series of dress and grooming standards that aligned with his clean-cut military sensibilities. This included being clean shaven, men having short haircuts, and women being required to wear skirts (thankfully that at least has changed).
Fortunately, while these standards remain, not everyone in our church leadership consider them to be virtuous. Hugh Nibley, prominent Mormon scholar and considered by many to be the best professor and intellectual BYU has ever seen, said of the honor code, "The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances." (Waterman, Brian and Kagel, Brian Kagel. The Lord’s University: Freedom and Authority at BYU. 1998.) Hopefully someday we will listen to Hugh and stop being so petty, but looking at how the church is operating these days, and how BYU continues to grow in totalitarian practices, I doubt it.
As for the tea and coffee, this dates back to a revelation given to Joseph Smith in the mid-1800's that came to be known as "The Word of Wisdom". Among counsel to eat meat sparingly and going to bed early in order to wake up early, the revelation states to refrain from "hot drinks". It was several decades after the revelation was received that the church universally accepted this to mean coffee and tea. Indeed, coffee was drunk all the way into the 1900's by many church members. Today however (as Nibley quite rightly pointed out), our church has become obsessed with the appearance of righteousness instead of righteousness itself and drinking coffee is tantamount to drinking alcohol or doing weed on a regular basis. We are allowed to drink herbal tea, however, as long as there is no caffeine in it. For many, that is the rational for not drinking tea and coffee, although you would be hard-pressed not to find a Mormon that drinks Coke or Pepsi within 10 feet of you in Utah. Although I will say that at BYU, it is impossible to buy a caffeinated beverage. You have to come to school prepared with your big gulp or energy drink from 7-11.
As I stated before, you are not expelled for things like drinking coffee or tea (as I have had both), but you are not allowed to do anything on campus if you are unshaven or have pink hair. When I go to take tests, I have to wear a baseball cap; when we go to shows on campus, my guy friends have to shave; if I want to pick up my paycheck, I have to be sure to dress modestly. Of course, all of this is so arbitrary. Someone with power decided which laws were most important to keep (usually correlating with the ones that were the easiest to measure concretely) and we obsessively adhere to them. I actually have one friend who lived in Southeast Asia that states, "I will stop drinking tea when there are no more fat people in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir" (one of the most beloved institutions of our religion).
Anyway, I hope this message has shed some light on the absurdity of BYU. To be sure, it is still absurd, but at least you know where it comes from. As with any institution, conformity is key and Mormonism has NO SHORTAGE of conforming. If you ever have any more questions, please feel free to ask them! I am always open to discussion and am very hard to offend. :)
Your Friend,
Shannon
So a friend just informed me of WHY women are allowed to wear pants at BYU. Like I said, absurdity.
"The story takes place the spring prior to the code being adjusted. A young woman, can't remember her name, currently a Utah state senator, needed to take a final. However, she also was needed to help with farm chores on her family farm several hours awayShe went early to help with the chores and then raced back to BYU to take her final. The only problem was that she forgot to change out of her work clothes, so when she arrived at the testing center they denied her access due to not fitting the dress code. Enraged, with no other options, she went downstairs to the girl's bathroom and took off her jeans and tied her windbreaker around her waist to look like a skirt. She was admitted in to take her test. The next Monday she wrote an article for the university newspaper explaining her surprise that according to the honor code it's not ok to take a final in her jeans, but taking one in her panties is just fine. :):)The policy was changed for the new school year."
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Hey Shannon,
ReplyDeleteI find your blog very interesting and it has been cool to see how your outlook on life has changed over the past couple of years. Anyways, this is slightly off topic, but when I was a TA at UCI we had to make sure that students did not wear baseball hats during tests because people would write answers on the inside. So I'm curious if this has crossed the minds of BYU, or if the pink hair would take priority over academic dishonety. Or they would make you dye it back....
Wish you the best, hope I can see you sometime in the future!
Stefanie Chernow
Very nice to read. currently having a beard makes me smile at the trouble I will face at returning to school in the fall and asking permission to keep it. It really is funny the things we enjoy and chose to be a part of in this life, but at least we are happy.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I really enjoyed reading that, and especially liked the "i'll stop dreaking tea when there aren't fat people in Mo-tab". hahahah, laughed like crazy!
Love you
Richard
Hey Stef! That is a very interesting point you bring up. Oddly enough that is not a problem because cheating is taken extremely seriously by the student population. Do people cheat? of course. But there is such a moral guilt-trip placed on the students that when they do, 8 times out of 10 they confess! To them, it's on the same level as drinking and smoking weed, which 99% of the students choose not to do here. There is 0 tolerance here. If you are caught plagiarizing, even on one-page papers, you are reported to the Honor Code office and more often than not are expelled. As for test taking, you will love this: At BYU we have a testing center. It's a big building with one HUGE room with about a thousand desks in it. Professors will send their tests to this building and the students have one week to take said test at their leisure. They just walk in, say what test they are taking, are given the test, walk into the room, take it, and hand it back in. There is so much peer pressure against cheating that this system actually works (people don't take tests and then tell their classmates exactly what's on it) and the grading curve comes out normal. Crazy huh?
ReplyDeleteHey Shannon. I'm not trying to argue or create more of a debate beause this topic is too easily maniupulated for me to venture into that. I'd just like to add a simple insight which I gained while working in the honor code office. During the entire school year I saw several hundred cases and I observed a consistency. Without exception, the people who had an issue with the honor code were actually having issues with personal righteousness in some other area first. Contempt or disregard for the honor code was always a secondary issue; a symptom that something else wasn't right. The honor code certainly does not define or determine personal righteousness (closeness to Christ), but rather the other way around. It is much more likely that personal righteousness (closeness to Christ) will determine how one views the honor code. This is what I saw happen over and over again. Again, I'm not trying to take a jab, I just thought I'd add a little diversity to your blog. :)
ReplyDeleteKilee, thank you so much for your comment! I welcome differing perspectives and respectful debate. To be sure, if you are drinking or having sex, your testimony is definitely on the rocks. I honestly don't have that big of a problem with those aspects of the Honor Code. While I think adults should be able to make their own decisions, I also recognize that BYU students CHOOSE to come here and that there is definite virtue in refraining from drinking and things of that nature.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do take issue with the perspective that how you dress and present yourself reflects your closeness to Christ. Using myself as an example, I would like to point out that when I had magenta hair or wore ripped stockings, plaid skirts and combat boots to school, my testimony was quite strong. Iron-clad even. And I have NEVER followed the rule of having young men out of my apartment before midnight, or not having them in my back room, but I have NEVER gotten even CLOSE to doing ANYTHING I would have to tell my bishop about (or even confess to Heavenly Father about) at those times. Because once again, I had a testimony about the church AND the law of chastity, I just thought the Honor Code was ridiculous. Furthermore, how many young men do you know who only shave when they have a test? Do you find that their testimonies are severely lacking? I don't. I just think they don't like to shave, and quite rightly feel that shaving is not a moral imperative. That is my criticism of the Honor Code. It fixates on things that are not morally important.
I also feel that how a person views the honor code does not measure their testimony, but how comfortable they are with authority. And there is nothing wrong with being comfortable with authority and conformity. Everyone in society conforms to some group, even the non-conformists! And I spend the better part of my week trying to get young people to accept authority as a good thing. But it makes me very uncomfortable when conformity is equated with righteousness. I just don't feel that is what the gospel is about. I mean look at Jesus, he was the ultimate non-conformist, a true revolutionary. He challenged authority at every turn, whether it was the pharisees, sadducees, or Romans. He established a new order and refused to conform to the messed-up principles the Jews were practicing, even though they were 1. his people and 2. following rules he gave them in the first place.
Then you look at Paul who says to Peter, To hell with your traditions! They have nothing to do with true righteousness! I'm gonna preach to the gentiles anyway and I'm NOT gonna make them get circumcised! I feel that Christ and early Christians understood what true religion was about, and they knew it wasn't about conformity. It was about faith and perseverance. I mean one of the 12 apostles was a publican. Christ put prostitutes before priests. He understood that appearances meant very little because he himself was not what he seemed. And I feel like the church and BYU would be much better off if we would remember that a little more often.
Unfortunately, Shannon, you've fallen for the popular yet false idea that Jesus was the champion of non-conformists. It's just not true. The fact is that Jesus was the ultimate follower of the law, because he knew that any deviance from the law would weaken his standing as an authority figure. The frustration on the part of Jesus' opponents was due to the fact that he broke no law, and any differences were based on his exact interpretation of the Jewish laws. You state that he "challenged authority at every turn", when actually, he didn't. He assumed only the authority that was granted him under the law of Moses. He didn't challenge Roman authority. He paid his taxes, and ultimately subjected himself to their justice system, without protest. In fact, the Jews would have heartily accepted him if he had been a "revolutionary" that challenged the Romans and wiped away all other law. His non-conformity was restricted to social norms that some perceived to be part of the law. He worked within the system and thus carried a power that can only come from one who does so. I don't think the honor code really fits into the same category.
ReplyDeleteYou protest that your adherence to the honor code in no way reflected your righteousness or closeness to God. You claim that your testimony was "iron-clad" while you were ignoring chosen elements of the honor code. But yet, you also claim to have lost your testimony and status as "a Mormon". From an LDS perspective (and BYU us LDS), you've proven a point. The more effective protest would come from one who follows the code, and then discusses ways to improve it.
Some of the examples you give of objections to the honor code are disturbing. Congratulations on having the confidence to remain chaste in your dorm room without following the rules. However, your not needing the rule doesn't make it unnecessary for everyone. I can't tell you how many silly girls I've known who go to BYU, and want to spread their wings, who break those rules and end up regretting it.
Even the grooming standards have valid reasons behind them. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I appreciate that for some, it serves a reminder to distinguish oneself through excellence in the intended purpose of a school, rather than in non-conformity. Granted, not everyone needs all the rules, but think of what a challenge it would be to create the "perfect" set of rules to help each succeed. Like Jesus, work within the structured environment to achieve greatness and then when you leave the confines of that environment, you will be more able to master your next one. Hardly an "absurd" concept.
Dennis,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument that my criticisms of the honor code lack authority because I am no longer a member. I was talking to a friend the other day who is an active member and asked if I was still interested in working with him to change the church even if I've left it. I responded that I would love to improve the church but that no one would listen to me because I had left. I no longer had any authority. In fact, there was a time where I considered staying, going on a mission, living up to all the potential I had in the church in order to affect positive change. I eventually realized that I could not and did not want to do that, but I did seriously consider it.
As for your assertion that Christ adhered to all facets of the law, I respectfully disagree. Christ broke the Sabbath on several occasions by healing and by picking corn and eating it. When criticized for these actions he stated that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In other words, the Sabbath was made to improve our lives, not restrict it. One could say the same of certain aspects of the honor code. Being turned away from filling out paper work because you have a little stubble does not improve your life, it unnecessarily restricts it.
You also pointed out that "His non-conformity was restricted to social norms that some perceived to be part of the law." That is EXACTLY the point I am making. A large portion of the Honor Code is a set of social norms that is not apart of the commandments of the church. I take issue with those parts and don't conform to them. And I'm not the only one that feels this way. Hugh Nibly thought the Honor Code was very damaging to testimonies and made us focus on the wrong things. Professor Kearl who is a BYU professor and a Stake President pointed out in stake conference last year that breaking the curfew laws of the Honor Code is not sinning, it's just being foolish.
And speaking of foolish, I have to say that I take issue with how you worded your criticism of not following curfew rules. You're statement of "I can't tell you how many silly girls I've known who go to BYU, and want to spread their wings, who break those rules and end up regretting it" is very offensive to me. It implies that only "silly girls" make those mistakes. I know several young men who have made that mistake, and I would not call them silly. I would not call those girls silly either. I think it is very sad that they made that decision before being ready for the consequences. I also know that they probably would have eventually made that mistake whether they were in their dorm-rooms after midnight, or in a car up in the canyon at 10pm. It's not about location, it's about personal commitment. I also don't think it was about spreading their wings, it was about really wanting something and not having the willpower or conviction in the moment to keep their priorities straight.
Lastly, I want to address your criticism of my testimony and personal conviction. I accept the fact that I put that part of me up for debate because I posted it in a response. However, I want you to understand that I posted that in response to my former freshman year roommate who had an intimate knowledge of my testimony, which really was iron-clad. We would stay up late into the night talking of God and Christ and religion and I would often help her work out her own testimony and beliefs. I grew up 15 minutes from Palmyra and my summer job was maintaining the church sites there for four years. There are a handful of people in this world that have spent more time in the Sacred Grove than I have, and most of them were my bosses. I would bet you that if anyone at home knew that I had left the church, they would be SHOCKED. I was the spiritual giant in my youth-group. The one that others came to for spiritual support. I had a very powerful testimony that I know for a fact that people heard and were converted. I truly believed in the church and Christ with all my heart. And I had magenta hair and never followed curfew. I tell you this not to brag, but to give you an understanding of who I was, that Kilee already understood. Furthermore, I didn't start questioning the church until three years after my freshman year, by which time I was actually dressing quite conservatively and keeping the curfew laws because I didn't have many guy friends (or boyfriends for that matter) at the time. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't break the honor code AT ALL when I was considering leaving the church. I kept all aspects of the dress-code, chastity laws, curfew rules, and I didn't have my first cup of coffee until after I left the church. So you see, I didn't prove your point. When my testimony was strong, I broke all sorts of rules (much like Christ did). When it was weak, I kept everything. It just goes to show that the Honor Code is not a reflection of your personal righteousness, but your willingness to conform. And as I've already stated, there's nothing wrong with conformity. I just don't want it being mistaken for righteousness.
ReplyDeleteDennis-
ReplyDeleteI would like to address some of your concerns with Shannon's post.
First and foremost on my mind is your idea of coming up with a set of rules that will keep everybody safe from sin. This is exactly what Jesus (from my understanding at least) fought against. Yes, he was the ultimate rule keeper, but wasn't he also the one who taught us to look past the inward appearance of things and concentrate on changing our hearts? Was he not the one that said (I paraphrase) "some say not to commit adultery, but I say that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his mind..." He also said the heart of all commandments is loving God and one's neighbor. At the heart of commandments is always a personal change of heart-- a mental shift to becoming more christlike. This is the heart of the gospel. We are simply trying to become godlike. The pharisees attempted to take this past its original intent-- they made definite, measurable rules on these commandments (ie. how many steps you can take on a given sunday,etc.). Jesus instead fought to bring us back to the heart of the issue: loving your god and your neighbor, not mentally lusting after another, not holding grudges, etc. I therefore argue that your ontological assumption that it is the intent of the church to devise a set of rules that will keep us all "safe" from sin, misses the heart of the issue. Rules without faith do not lead to salvation. Obedience without understanding does not lead to salvation. This is my argument with the honor code. My outward appearance is in no way an indicator of how Christlike my heart is. Christ looks on the heart of man, not at his beard.
One more point: God is the same yesterday, today and forever, right? Well cheap razors that can provide a dependently clean shave are a fairly modern invention. God did not value our ancestors any less for having to go a few extra days between shaving. Therefore it is my belief that the honor code restrictions in no way came from God but instead from man. President Wilkinson to be exact. As such, we are morally bound (for fear of being dishonest) to obey these man-made restrictions because we signed the document before beginning our education at BYU. Once again, how close I am to Christ is in no way represented in how clean shaven I am.
Lastly, I myself am an active church member. Therefore according to this conversation my opinion should be listened too... right? That idea in itself is ridiculous. We are all members of God's family. Being a member of the church and obeying its commandments in no way means you have arrived at your own salvation. It just means you have taken a few steps in the right direction. We are all members of God's family. We therefore all have potential to be god-like. We are all just at different points in this process. Each of us have valid ideas and thoughts on how to reach that end goal... the thing is we will never quite reach it. Eternity is about trying to learn, grow and become more christlike. It is an eternal endeavor. I therefore would like to request people to look past the distinction of active church member or inactive church member when considering other people's opinions on God. Everyone has a little bit of truth- and the beauty of the gospel is that we all have different parts of the truth. We should learn to listen and love and learn from each other instead of dismissing someone for not conforming to outward restrictions.