The Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fulfills a unique stewardship to God in its efforts to bless lives around the globe.
So said Elder Clark G. Gilbert, General Authority Seventy and commissioner of Church education, as he spoke to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City.
He described the ways the Church demonstrates civic stewardship, intellectual stewardship and ministerial stewardship as part of its ultimate stewardship to Heavenly Father in properly using heaven-given agency and the Constitutionally protected right of religious freedom to bless the lives of individuals around the world.
President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, attended with his wife, Sister Kristen Oaks. Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles both attended with their wives, Sister Mary Cook and Sister Kathy Christofferson, respectively.
Elder Cook spoke in 2019 at the University of Oxford Pembroke College. Elder Gilbert quoted Elder Cook as he spoke about the stewardship to God that religious individuals should feel.
“There is no better demonstration of the great benefits associated with religious liberty than for devoted members of various faiths who feel accountable to God to model principles of integrity, morality, service and love,” Elder Cook said at that time.
Ministerial stewardship
One way for the Church and its members to show that service and love is to show ministerial stewardship, Elder Gilbert explained.
“Our growing religious freedom and our aligned governance structure from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our Church schools provide critical protections for the modern religious university. … The faculty and the leadership of the Church Educational System carry a stewardship to God for the opportunities we have been given,” he said.
As an example of how the Church has demonstrated responsible use of religious freedom, Elder Gilbert talked about the creation of BYU–Pathway. He said the Church opened that institution because of the “heaven-directed responsibility to care for our brothers and sisters.”
And while some may point to Brigham Young Univeristy in Provo as the Church’s flagship university, Elder Gilbert pointed to BYU–Pathway Worldwide as a growing example of the Church’s attempt to bless the lives of individuals whose lives can be blessed by a Christ-centered education untethered to a physical campus.
Pathway Worldwide now serves more than 75,000 students in close to 200 countries, Elder Gilbert said.
At the individual level, he also pointed to statistics that show BYU alumni are more than three times as likely to volunteer in their communities than the average American. That, too, is an example of ministerial stewardship, he said.
Intellectual stewardship
Elder Gilbert shared quotes from current or past university administrators at the University of Notre Dame, Yeshiva University and Baylor University. Along with the Church, each of those universities has participated in the American Council on Education.
He quoted Baylor President Linda Livingstone, who said, “We want [our faculty] to speak to us about how their faith does or might animate their research and their teaching.”
He also quoted professor Shima Baradaran Baughman, who recently wrote in Deseret News about her departure and return to BYU Law School, where she is now the Woodruff J. Deem professor of law and a distinguished fellow at the school’s Wheatley Institute.
“Values informed my religious beliefs. I started to grasp that these values were applicable in my academic career, ... [and I] left an associate deanship at the University of Utah law school to teach at BYU because I could participate in faith-centered scholarship,” she wrote.
Civic stewardship
The Church’s participation in the American Council on Education has allowed it to work together with representatives from Catholic, Jewish, Baptist and other religious schools, Elder Gilbert explained. Given the differences among these churches and their religious beliefs, the group is not without challenges when seeking for unity, he said. But the resulting outcomes have been worthwhile in the face of opposition.
“We must be prepared to counter skeptical audiences with persistence, confidence and rigor, as well as grace and humility, for our voices to eventually be heard,” he said.
When inaugurated as the newest president of BYU, President C. Shane Reese described the school as “a Christ-centered, prophetically directed university.”
Elder Gilbert said the mission that President Reese described will be accomplished only when “our people must feel both a personal and institutional stewardship to God.”
Some individuals retreat into bubbles or “protective enclaves,” Elder Gilbert said. But he added that it is not right for individuals with strong religious beliefs to withdraw from society.
“The stewardship of our religious freedom must go beyond our declarations of faith and ultimately be a source of blessing to others,” he said. “As the apostle Paul taught: ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians 13:1).”
