Posted by:
Book of Mordor
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Date: October 09, 2014 12:16AM
Not sure why Robbins was puzzled, other than he hadn't been paying attention. In Boyd's infamous 1993 speech to the All-Church Coordinating Council (the Intellectuals, Gays and Feminists speech) he told of the time when he received the very same instruction from Harold B. Lee.
This has been brought up before, but a reminder can't hurt.
http://www.zionsbest.com/face.html"Thirty-eight years ago I came from Brigham City to the office I now occupy in the Administration Building to see Elder Harold B. Lee, who, next to President Joseph Fielding Smith, was the senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve. I had just been appointed the supervisor of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. I knew there were serious problems in the system and I wondered why they had not appointed someone with more experience."
"Elder Lee had agreed to give me counsel and some direction. He didn't say much, nothing really in detail, but what he told me has saved me time and time again. 'You must decide now which way you face,' he said. 'Either you represent the teachers and students and champion their causes or you represent the Brethren who appointed you. You need to decide now which way you face.' Then he added, 'Some of your predecessors faced the wrong way.' It took some hard and painful lessons before I understood his counsel. In time, I did understand, and my resolve to face the right way became irreversible."
"One of the early lessons was also my first lesson in correlation. The seminaries were sponsoring speech contests. They were very successful – much better than similar contests sponsored by the Mutual Improvement Association. It was an ideal gospel-centered activity for seminaries. They were succeeding beautifully under able teachers who could assist even the shy students. We were instructed to discontinue them!"
"There was something of an uprising among the teachers. They accused Superintendent Curtis of the Young Men and President Reeder of the Young Women of being responsible. Perhaps they were. The teachers wanted Brother Tuttle and me to plead their cause before the Brethren. The logic was all on our side. Nevertheless we remembered the counsel of Brother Lee, and really, just out of obedience, we declined."
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Packer admits to discontinuing an "ideal" program that was "succeeding beautifully" helping shy students gain confidence, for no other reason than "the Brethren" said so. Didn't even try to defend the kids. The odd thing about it is that there's no faith-promoting postscript as to why this arbitrary decision turned out to be inspired.