Brian gave the opening prayer in class on Wednesday, and in it he expressed gratitude for the sacrifices Dr. Holzapfel made to teach us.
    This spurred Dr. Holzapfel to briefly mention how so many of the teachers here sacrifice to be at BYU because they want to be BYU.  Many other colleges offer higher salaries, focus more on research instead of teaching, and offer more secular pristege (though not by much most of the time.)  Here at BYU, most of the professors want to work with students and enjoy working with undergrads instead of focusing solely on those with potential to do work and research for them that could boost their own standing.
    Best of all, the teachers here are either a Latter Day Saint in good standing, or someone of another faith (or lack of) who is willing to live and at least not discourage the standards and honor code we try to live by.  We have scriptures telling us to let no man teach us save he is a man of God, I can think of no place with greater concentration of these people trying to live righteously and Christlike than here at BYU.

    Immediately after that, we began the lecture on the dismantling of established Church's in the colonies.  The juxtaposition of integrating the Spiritual and Intellectual with the separation of church and state almost seems comical in hind sight, but I think it's pretty well established that there's a big difference between things of the state and things of the intellectual.
    In all seriousness, separation of church and state seems to be the biggest thing to help religion really kick off.  Instead of whithering away as Jefferson probably thought church's would after their monetary life line was cut, events like the Second Great Awakening and the spread of Baptist and Methodist church's caused spirituality and church attendance to erupt like wildfire in the new states.  We drew some contrasts with Canada and England, where their church attendance in quite substantially lower today than here in the states.
    People do want good.  Let them go after it, and people will often surprise you.

Tags: BYU Holzapfel Founders Thomas Jefferson Seperation Church State Intellectua

Bookmark: