Free Write - My American Life

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/35/fall-clearance-sale

This entire episode is just random things that didn't really fit anywhere else, so I'm taking that to mean that I get to write about whatever I want that hasn't really fit anywhere else. It's like the free space in your bingo card, but for writing!

Yesterday I went to LDSBC (the school that I'm going to be teaching at) and sat through the new teacher orientation. Now, I'm all for the church doing its thing and making education available for people that would otherwise not have it, and the college itself is a powerful tool that will help students become something more than what they are and give them the skills and knowledge to make it in the world, but there's a point in time that you have to draw a line between the corporate secular world and the very spiritual world of church. To try to blend together something so secular (making money, starting a business, etc) with something super spiritual just doesn't work, and I don't see how it could ever work.

For example, while sitting there, the main guy introduced the next speaker and said something along the lines of, "If you've been in the Salt Lake temple recently you might have seen him there."

For those of you who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have temples. They're awesome places where we make covenants with Heavenly Father and we believe that what we do in there is some of the most sacred things that we can do while alive. But, to do them, we need people to officiate and run things in the temple. All the announcer was doing was saying that the next speaker works in the temple, but I just didn't see the relevance of it. What does him being a temple worker have anything to do with him being a good teacher at the LDSBC? The two are not related in any way, but for the announcer, one proved the other as if it was proof that he was the next greatest thing in the world just because he was a temple worker.

Given, this is also the guy who tried to hint and wink and nudge things towards the temple without outright saying that this is what happens in the temple, and it was just done in bad taste. Pretty much this guy was everything that I see wrong with the church in the area; they don't understand where seperations between topics exist. For them, EVERYTHING is the same level, and that either diminishes something that is levels above something important, or hightens something that is secular and stupid to too high of a level.

For example - BYU's honor code.

It's an interesting thing, but basically every single student is forced to sign it, or else you can't go to school there. It says that you won't lie, cheat, steal and that you will follow the dress and grooming standards of the school. The first part, I think is an interesting and really good thing to have within any university. Having students agree to not cheat on tests is something that is a good thing to have students agree with on their way into a school, however, the grooming standards have never made sense to me. Things like making sure that you shave EVERY day is just annoying, not to mention the fact that specific hair and clothing styles can get you kicked out of the classes that you go to. The biggest problem about the honor code is that people think that this university policy is doctrine of the church.

Let me be perfectly clear, because apparently the people at LDSBC that were teaching this didn't want to mention this and looked at me like it was heresy for me to say it. The honor code is in no way associated with, or doctrine of, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You can make it to heaven with facial hair. You can make it to heaven while wearing a hat. You can even make it to heaven with long hair if you're a man. Jesus isn't going to be standing up there going, "Oh, you were so close, but that beard. . . sorry but that just means that you're not going to make it."

Again, for anyone that didn't catch it the first time - the dress and grooming standards of the church schools is not doctrine for the church. They are separate things, and do not apply to each other. There never has been, nor ever will be (hopefully, I don't know I'm not a leader in the church) a revelation to the entire world wide church body saying that every single member of the church has to follow the honor code standards of dress and grooming. It's a dress code for a school, it's just like if you go to a private school and they say you have to wear khaki's and a specific color of polo shirt, it only applies to the standards of that school, not for the entire church.

It's stupid things like this that people don't understand that there is a separation between the two. The church as a whole, and the entities that it supports, are not always the same thing. Just because you go to LDSBC, BYU, BYU-I, BYU-HI, or anything else ran by the church, does not mean that the rules of those schools, are actual doctrine. It frustrates me when people go off about what is and isn't doctrine, and over emphasize something that is not actually a commandment from God and try to make it out to be just as important as the ten commandments, but then take something that is from God (like the temple) and demean it and lower it down to something as simple as what qualifies them to be a public speaker.