{"id":1941,"date":"2003-04-08T10:59:07","date_gmt":"2003-04-08T16:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speeches-dev.byu.edu\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2024-05-28T16:38:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T22:38:42","slug":"strengthening-one-another-community-saints","status":"publish","type":"speech","link":"https:\/\/speeches-dev.byu.edu\/talks\/gary-r-hooper\/strengthening-one-another-community-saints\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening One Another in the Community of Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"
It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk with you. I have planned my remarks in the spirit of Nephi of old\u2014to speak with \u201cplainness,\u201d that I might be understood (see 2 Nephi 31:2\u20133).<\/p>\n
I also hope my interpretations of situation and scripture are obvious and straightforward. An incident in my own life may explain what I mean.<\/p>\n
A few years ago I lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, a university town in the Appalachian plateau area. I went to renew my driver\u2019s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. As part of the process the clerk asked me to look into a box on the counter to take an eye test. I looked, and she asked me to read what I saw. There were a number of lines of letters and numbers I could read, so I took a bit of time trying to think of where to start. As I hesitated, I heard a bored voice say, \u201cOut loud, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, she thought the task was obvious. I was not quick enough to see it so. I hope today to find the right lines to read with you and to explore a topic that we can all see as important, if not obvious.<\/p>\n
Let me ask you now to look around and take a quick inventory of those assembled here today. Present are your professors, your Relief Society presidents, elders quorum presidents, bishops, and other Church leaders. Take a little more time and you can identify those who plan and maintain the buildings and other facilities at BYU and those who serve in the many supporting roles to your academic programs. Most important, you are here with your peers\u2014other students. You will recognize a growing circle of friends, many of whom will become lifelong associates. And the very discerning will perhaps see a person destined to become their husband or wife.<\/p>\n
As members of this BYU community we do share many things and have opportunities not only to derive benefit from but to contribute to this shared environment. In reality the BYU community may comprise a number of subcommunities. For example, we have the particular academic groups you belong to\u2014the college, department, and even smaller groups. Also, we have our individual ward and stake organizations with special relevance to our lives. There are probably many other subcommunities you might identify from your own experiences.<\/p>\n
Today I want to discuss some of the characteristics of our community as it influences our spiritual growth.<\/p>\n
It is obvious that we are centered around learning and education at BYU. Our very organization speaks to the academic intentions of the university. However, equally significant to us is our emphasis upon developing character and refining and enlarging our spiritual lives.<\/p>\n
Brigham Young University is very direct about its intention to fully integrate academic progress and gospel principles. It has had remarkable success in achieving this goal and stands in contrast to many other universities in both intention and result.<\/p>\n
There is a sense in the world that higher education in general may lead to more reliance upon our own human understanding and less reliance upon the Lord\u2014a sort of equation that says \u201cmore education equals less religious activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, clear evidence exists that this equation does not hold for those who participate in the BYU community. In fact, the equation reads just the opposite for us: that is, \u201cmore education equals greater religious activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graduates of institutions of higher education sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are more involved and dedicated to the gospel in their post-university lives than those from nonreligious schools, and there is a strong correlation between added years of education for Church members and greater adherence to gospel principles and practice. (See Stan L. Albrecht and Tim B. Heaton, \u201cSecularization, Higher Education, and Religiosity,\u201d Review of Religious Research,<\/i> 26, no. 1 (September 1984): 43\u201358.)<\/p>\n
In a lecture included in a small book entitled On Becoming a Disciple-Scholar,<\/i> Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke about the mission of BYU and our roles in the community. He noted, \u201cIn addition to our concern with learning,<\/i> Brigham Young University is also concerned with becoming,<\/i> with the conversion<\/i> of students and also of teachers.\u201d He continued with the reminder that our mission \u201cis not just to enlarge what we know,<\/i> but to change what we are\u201d<\/i> (Dallin H. Oaks, \u201cOn Learning and Becoming,\u201d in Henry B. Eyring, ed., On Becoming a Disciple-Scholar<\/i> [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1995], 99, 101; emphasis in original).<\/p>\n
In the same collection of lectures, Elder Neal A. Maxwell likened our situation as disciples and scholars to a form of consecration\u2014where the mind and the spirit become one. He said:<\/p>\n
For a disciple of Jesus Christ, academic scholarship is a form of worship. It is actually another dimension of consecration. Hence one who seeks to be a disciple-scholar will take both scholarship and discipleship seriously; and, likewise, gospel covenants. For the disciple-scholar, the first and second great commandments frame and prioritize life. How else could one worship God with all of one\u2019s heart, might,<\/i> mind, and strength? (Luke 10:27.) Adoration of God leads to emulation of Him and Jesus: \u201cTherefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.\u201d (3 Nephi 27:27; see also 2 Peter 3:11.)<\/i> [\u201cThe Disciple-Scholar,\u201d On Becoming a Disciple-Scholar,<\/i> 7; emphasis in original]<\/p>\n
Elder Maxwell then talked of our roles in this environment:<\/p>\n
The disciple-scholar also understands what kind of community he or she should help to build. Its citizens openly and genuinely desire to be called God\u2019s people. They are not secret disciples, but bear one another\u2019s burdens, mourn with those that mourn, comfort those in need of comfort, and witness for God at all times, and in all places, and in all things (see Mosiah 18:8\u20139). Hubris, including intellectual pride, reflects the ways of hell, not of heaven! No wonder a true community of scholars would qualify to be part of a larger community of Saints.<\/i> [\u201cThe Disciple-Scholar,\u201d 7]<\/p>\n
Elder Maxwell\u2019s language references the instructions given by Alma the Elder when he established the Church at the Waters of Mormon. Let me review Alma\u2019s words with you, as they are pertinent to our BYU community today:<\/p>\n
And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.<\/i> [Mosiah 18:21]<\/p>\n
Alma further instructed his flock to \u201cwalk uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants\u201d (Mosiah 18:29).<\/p>\n
Note that both temporal and spiritual matters were part of the obligations of these early Church members toward one another.<\/p>\n
I am reminded also at this point of the Savior\u2019s instructions to His disciples near the end of His earthly ministry:<\/p>\n
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.<\/i><\/p>\n
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.<\/i> [John 13:34\u201335]<\/p>\n
When the Savior sat with His apostles at the Last Supper, He spoke frankly to Simon Peter about his responsibilities:<\/p>\n
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:<\/i><\/p>\n
But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.<\/i> [Luke 22:31\u201332]<\/p>\n
Commandments to love and strengthen one another have been repeated over time in our scriptures and are most clearly a necessary part of the community of faith here at BYU.<\/p>\n
In a talk at the BYU 2001 Annual University Conference, Elder Henry B. Eyring reflected upon our community as a place where we may move toward such consecration and full acceptance of the Atonement. Speaking of evidence that faculty and others help students grow spiritually, he said:<\/p>\n
I see it in the eyes of the students. I have seen it especially in the eyes of students who have been trusted with great responsibilities by you. Your remarkable courage to involve students in serious research, in leading service projects, and in caring for the campus has drawn from them sacrifice in time and effort beyond what was true just a few years ago. That is changing them, and it is changing this place.<\/i><\/p>\n
One of the characteristics of a place where the Savior can come is that there will be no class of people that holds itself above another. Think of how foreign that is to the nature of most university life you have seen. . . .<\/i><\/p>\n