I hope that you had some time to reflect on the three questions that we posted for Elder Maxwell’s lecture.
For this post, I want to focus on the first question. Katie touched on this question in her comment where she said that sometimes she was challenged with things taught in her AP Literature class.
I have felt that way too. Sometimes in high school I felt like I was taught things that were contrary to the church’s teachings. Even at BYU, sometimes we are taught certain things that may be new or foreign to us at the time. I have found in my experience that the best way to handle these types of situations is to be a better disciple-scholar (just as Mandell mentioned, we should all be actively pursuing a course that makes us better disciple-scholars).
As a disciple-scholar, I try to take all teachings and find how they truly relate to the gospel. This pursuit requires meekness. As Arica touched on in her comment - if we are meek, then we can challenge ourselves to grow. Taking new teachings and applying them to my life has helped increase my vision and understanding of the world and gospel.
However, some teachings truly oppose the gospel. These teachings should be understood but not applied. We should learn how to handle situations that involve these teachings and thoughts, but as a disciple-scholar we cannot believe them.
There was a point in BYU history where several teachers were trying to teach things that truly opposed the gospel.
The following video shares the story of that time (it is kind of long, but it is really good).
Education in Zion: For the Students' Sake from Education in Zion on Vimeo.
Thanks to all that posted last week. Your posts were great. This next week we will focus on Paul Alan Cox’s lecture Journey to City Creek: Adding Scholarship to Discipleship. There won’t be any questions for this one, but this story is pretty amazing. As you read, try to think about how you can apply the principles they focused on in your life.
