Beauty for Ashes

The events of this past week at BYU have raised a lot of questions about the history of the Church, and the mistakes that anyone who studies Church history will inevitably run across.  In case you didn't hear about it, a BYU religion professor (whom I know to be a very good man) made some rather unfortunate and offensive remarks about the possible reasons for the priesthood ban.  The event set the Mormon history community, BYU, and probably a few other places on fire, prompting two very important statements from the Church on the matter (found here and here).

My purpose in writing this isn't to delve into the question of the ban or its historical interpretations.  I don't know enough about the history of the ban nor the circumstances that brought it about to make any qualified statements on it.  So I will just let those two statements speak for themselves.  But I believe there is a lesson that flows out of this incident that has been, is, or will be of value to each of us at some point in our lives.  It is the important message that God is able to make something positive out of our often foolish mistakes.  The two Church statements which were issued in the aftermath of this problem are beautifully written reminders to people both inside and outside of the Church that God loves all of His children of all races and is "a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).

As a student of Church history and as a consummately imperfect soul, I have come to realize that the Lord is consistently making something good out of our mistakes, giving us, as it were, "beauty for ashes" (Isaiah 61:3).  I discovered a classic example of this when I was working for the Education in Zion Exhibit at BYU.  While working there, I had the opportunity to study an obscure Church program known as the Religion Class Program.  The Religion Classes lasted from 1890 to 1929, and had the purpose of providing weekday religious instruction to Latter-day Saint youth who were unable to attend one of the Church's private academies.  In many regards, the idea for this program was ingenious.  In fact, it is the idea upon which the whole system of seminaries and institutes currently rests.  The classes were an important reminder that it is not enough for us to just receive a secular education.  We must likewise be instructed in the principles of light and truth that flow from the mouths of Prophets and Apostles.

The only problem with the Religion Class Program was that it was a dismal failure.  The practice of holding religious classes in the public school buildings (often taught by the regular school teachers) did not create a warm relationship with the non-Mormon community in Utah.  In fact, the Religion Classes were even discussed in the famed Reed Smoot Senate Confirmation Hearings in Washington D.C.  That this function of the classes would create controversy was expected and even predicted before the Church Board of Education established the program.  But what was not expected was the fact that the Religion Classes met with opposition from Stake Presidents, Bishops, and the leaders of the other Church auxiliaries.  These Church leaders saw the program as "a superfluous burden" that unnecessarily duplicated the work of the Primary and other programs.  Hence, during the first twenty years of the Religion Class program's existence, the general authorities made repeated efforts to encourage wards and stakes to support the Religion Classes in their wards and stakes.  In 1929, Church leaders finally decided to eliminate the program by combining it with the Primary Program.

Given this history, one might assume that the Religion Class Program had been a complete and utter failure.  But I see it differently.  In 1911 and 1912 as Joseph F. Merrill--later a member of the Council of the Twelve--began to lay the foundations of the Church's seminary program, he organized a program that avoided almost all of the issues that had plagued the Religion Classes.  I do not have any concrete evidence that Brother Merrill had examined the faults of the Religion Classes, but I am thoroughly convinced that he used this struggling program as a model upon which to build a stronger and more effective program for the education of the LDS youth who could not attend private Church schools.

This year will mark the 100th year of the founding of the first seminary at Granite High School in September of 1912.  In the past 100 years, millions of Latter-day Saints have had their testimonies fortified and their faith built by the program that Brother Merrill built.  It was a revelatory program in every sense of the word.  But I am convinced that even as we celebrate and acknowledge the inspiration and guidance that led to that program, we ought to be grateful that the Lord had allowed an earlier program to experience some hardships and struggles for Brother Merrill to see and then work to correct.  These words of the Lord to the Prophet Joseph remain eternally true: "Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.  For after much tribulation come the blessings" (D&C 58:3-4).  I am grateful for a Father in Heaven who allows us to gain experience not only by success, but occasionally by failure.  And I am grateful for a Savior whose merciful atonement and redemptive power can and does indeed give unto us "beauty for ashes."

Brett