Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
There is a time and place to be critical of BYU. If a kid from my ward is going to BYU, great, I'm very happy for them. Bringing up the issues I have concerns with--that's not really the place for that.
I had one young person who was planning to go to BYU privately ask me what I thought. I said that it is great for many, and not ideal for some.
I talked to a Ute who started at BYU but transferred to Utah. He said that when you are critical of BYU in front of children, they cannot distinguish between BYU and the church. Thus, you risk in fact sounding like you don't care for the church (I guess some could argue that this is the truth for these folks). I think he really doesn't like BYU, but at some level he holds back a little in front of his kids. He would support his children going to BYU if they chose that. The true-hater ALUF family I have met--they are strange. They seem to be SU-esque in their hatred, and it is off-putting to me.
At the end of the day, I think my issue with BYU is that I consider what it could be, and then look at what it is. But my vision is only my own. And it is not my fight or concern.
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Let's be honest. The things that annoy about BYU are the same things that annoy about the LDS church. In fact, I have no doubt--and this is based on substantial personal experience--that though there are an embarrassing number of kooks on the BYU faculty who have no business being faculty at a respectable university, by and large the faculty and administrators are a lot more progressive, a lot more enlightened, a lot more sensible than the First Presidency, the Twelve, the Seventies, and even the general church membership.
Apart from that, BYU is practically speaking a department of the LDS Church. Children aren't fools; in fact, they are better than adults at seeing things as they are. If you criticize BYU you criticize the LDS church.