What Clark Gilbert Gets Wrong About Religious Education

Religious education ought to be expansive; the CES commissioner's approach is spiritually suffocating

illustration by Beck Seamons

At a time when much in the world feels truly newsworthy, Utah news sources have carved out journalistic bandwidth to shed light on a local story: the shift in governing ideology at BYU and other Latter-day Saint educational institutions. The manner in which these stories have emerged follows the conventional pattern: the Salt Lake Tribune published a thoughtful, longform article that documented widespread faculty discontent with BYU’s new policies (here); this was followed by several rapid-fire Deseret News articles suggesting that, actually, all is well in Zion (here and here); finally, RadioWest mediated afterwards with a more neutral approach (here).

The focus of all these stories was Elder Clark Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System since August 2021. The background goes something like this: in the years prior to Gilbert’s arrival in the office of the commissioner, BYU was making strides in cultivating a campus culture that was more liberal and open-minded than it had been in the past. In particular, the university had taken efforts to make LGBTQ+ students feel safer and more included. For example, the school sponsored formal Q&As with LGBTQ+ students, providing them a platform to describe their experiences at BYU. The Y was lit in rainbow colors in a showing of solidarity, and though the act was not authorized by BYU administration, it left an unforgettable impression of progress. Perhaps most significantly, Elder M. Russell Ballard, speaking to the student body at a Tuesday morning devotional in 2017, said:

I want anyone who is a member of the Church who is gay or lesbian to know I believe you have a place in the kingdom and I recognize that sometimes it may be difficult to see where you fit in the Lord’s Church, but you do. We need to listen and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing.

All of this proved to be too much, too soon. In August 2021, the Church Board of Education—the body that oversees all religious education within the church, led by the First Presidency—called in the big guns. Elder Clark Gilbert, Harvard MBA and former CEO of Deseret Book, strode onto campus to restore order and orthodoxy. He established a series of new policies, and continues to do so, that largely target faculty hiring and expectations to ensure that all teaching at BYU is doctrinally sound. His primary target is the faculty. To separate the wheat from the chaff, Gilbert has implemented a strict ideological checklist to ensure that the personal lives and beliefs of all instructors (and their spouses) are perfectly aligned with the gospel as he understands it. Gilbert’s approach has been called Orwellian, a witch hunt, a purity campaign, and an ideological cleansing.

My purpose here is not to rehash in detail the substance of these policies as they concern the faculty. Rather, I hope to provide a personal reflection on my time at BYU as both an undergraduate and law student, and to explain why I believe Gilbert’s ideological approach to church education is likely to do more spiritual harm than good for BYU students.

The aim of the new Gilbert-era policies is to ensure that all instruction provided at BYU, no matter the discipline, is “bathed in the light and color of the restored gospel.” On paper, I think this is an admirable goal. One of the main reasons I chose to attend BYU for both my undergraduate and graduate study is because I valued a religious community centered on shared ideals, which provided me the freedom to explore the depths of my most cherished beliefs in an academic setting. 

Unfortunately, the execution of this policy is proving to be anti-intellectual in a way that I believe hinders both intellectual growth and spiritual development. “Man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge,” Joseph Smith revealed. A foundational teaching in Mormonism is that the spirit and the intellect are inseparably intertwined. The expansion of our intellect enhances our spiritual capacities, and vice versa. I believe the anti-intellectual flavor of Gilbert’s policies—regardless of their intent—creates a spiritually suffocating atmosphere that discredits these basic teachings on intelligence, education, and spirit.

For example, pursuant to the new ideology, faculty are encouraged to avoid subjects and conversations in the classroom that introduce ideas that are contrary to “church doctrine.” When a subject absolutely must be introduced for the sake of a well-rounded discussion, faculty are instructed to make it crystal clear to the students that such teachings are contrary to the church’s position and therefore false and harmful. Rather than allowing the bright light of the gospel to illuminate each intellectual pursuit, this hand-holding approach instead attempts to draw binary lines in the sand to differentiate capital “T” truth from heretical nonsense—as if students were unable to think for themselves. And though this teaching method may not be a major issue for students and faculty engaged in the study of mathematics, engineering, or chemistry, it becomes incredibly strained and inorganic in any academic pursuit that demands an open exploration of how different people think about and see the world: disciplines like history, literature, language, law, psychology, art, religion, philosophy, music, or communications.

Another problem with Gilbert’s penchant for ideological litmus tests is that as these tests are applied to prospective faculty members, the credentials of the instructors (and more significantly, the quality of instruction) will see a steady drop. Gilbert, however, does not seem to see this as a problem: for example, new hiring policies in the College of Religious Education give preference to applicants from the Seminaries and Institutes pipeline, rather than individuals with relevant scholastic qualifications. To be clear, I have nothing against high school seminary teachers; I loved mine. But seminary teachers are simply not qualified to teach college-level classes on theology and scripture. The combined result of these policies is a culture on campus that places limits on students’ freedom and capacity to grapple with life’s most deeply complex and difficult questions.

My experience, and the experience of many of my peers, has been that difficult, high-stakes questions concerning religion, spirituality, human suffering, church history, or sacred texts are more likely to be dismissed with cheap, Primary-esque answers than taken seriously. When I asked a religion professor—a faithful Latter-day Saint with a PhD in Biblical studies—about how these ideological shifts at BYU affect his work, he said, “I love the scriptures too much to teach them the way [the administration] wants me to.” To me, this suggests that we do a disservice to our fundamental beliefs when we reduce them to easy, rote dogma.

When I’ve had the opportunity to ask BYU administrators about the repercussions of such restrictive policies, my concerns have been disregarded. I asked a head administration in 2023 whether he was worried that BYU’s new policies would decrease the quality of instruction offered at BYU, and I was silenced with a rhetorical question: “How could the quality of education possibly be decreased when there is an abundance of the Spirit in the classroom?”

These dismissive clichés do more spiritual harm than good, and are likely to bring about precisely the result that Gilbert presumably seems so intent on avoiding—a continual exodus of young members from church activity. This is because Gilbert’s infantilizing policies limit intellectual freedom and thus limit the spirit’s capacity to gain dexterity and grace.

The ability to grapple with difficult questions that challenge or strain our preconceived notions of gospel truth is a hallmark of spiritual maturity. Without the tools to wrestle with and reconcile these questions productively, people are inclined to abandon the spiritual foundation they’ve built altogether, leaving in a cloud of bitterness and resentment. BYU could and should be the perfect institution to provide each rising generation with such tools; but in my estimation, Gilbert’s policies, if carried out to their fullest, will ensure that each BYU student graduates with an empty toolbox.

I write these thoughts because I care deeply about BYU. My time as a student at BYU was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to a Zion community. Not because everything was perfect, or because everyone believed the same things; in fact, I often struggled with spiritual doubts that at times felt soul-crushing. There were moments when I shared my concerns with faculty and peers, only to be met with an unbending brick wall of “doctrine” that, unfortunately, did not put my mind at ease. These encounters left me frustrated and alienated, even if the “doctrine” they taught was sound. 

My saving grace during these times of darkness were the faculty who invited me into their offices, sat with me, and listened to me. Rather than tell me what was “right” and what was “wrong,” they instead told me that they understood where I was coming from, and that I wasn’t alone. They taught that many things can be true at once—even contradictory things. They embraced me despite my struggles, doubts, and concerns. In those moments, I felt redeemed by the pure love of Christ. I regained the confidence to move forward with faith. 

As we open ourselves to all avenues of truth, our spirit expands. Joseph Smith’s quip about religious freedom applies with equal force to academic freedom: “It feels so good not to be trammeled.” It has been my experience that fear-based ideology which limits the intellectual diet of BYU students and faculty will not allow the spirit to flourish. My hope is that the policies of today will soon be replaced with ones that reflect sacred trust in the faculty and students, encourage discovery, and cultivate both intellectual curiosity and spiritual fortitude. These are the types of believers, thinkers, and leaders BYU can and should send out into the world. Faith is the antidote to fear.