BYU Sociology Department encourages students in Karl Marx’s class struggle

The cultural Marxism embedded within our society via education, media and other venues has really done a number on my generation. Have our foundations so eroded that we completely disregard the divine word of scripture and the warning voices of prophets? Will we instead embrace THE secret combination of the Latter-Days as lightly and as merrily, as it were if we were going to another movie marathon (part and parcel of the problem)? A false doctrine and a philosophy that has been the cause of mass, heartless murder, reaped terrible havoc and heartbreak the world over?

We need to return to the scriptures and the Book of Mormon, we need to recognize the striking parallels in the conflicts that the valiant Captain Moroni, the prophet Nephi son of Helaman and others faced in the form of secret murderers and plunderers. “Today, the international, criminal, communist conspiracy fits this Book of Mormon description perfectly, for there is a combination of gangsters who lust for power, who have liquidated some 70 million people, brought one-third of the world’s population under bondage and who seek to overthrow the freedom of all nations.” (Ezra Taft Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 331)

Thanks for sharing, this is critical to get. Works like Tortured for Christ, reemphasize to us that this battle is real, it’s at the very doors. (Romans 13:12) while we sit in security and casually adopt the vile edicts of Karl Marx people are being brutally killed for standing with the Lord. Where are we going to choose to stand? No matter how uncomfortable they make us, the words of President Benson stand as a testament even now, “God grant that we may repent prayerfully, study the Book of Mormon, follow the Prophet, do our homework, and wake up in time to reverse the tragic course we are following, I humbly pray.” (Ibid, p. 342)

I really don’t know what to say about this other than this is the reason I homeschool.

If a modern Prophet of God named Karl Marx as an Anti Christ in our day, why would any covenant keeping Latter Day Saint want to entertain or study the teachings of Karl Marx?

BYU strives to provide its students with a thorough education. Marxist ideas have shaped the world, like it or not. As a humanities student, I have studied him as a theorist–NOT as an idol or even a good example. Karl Marx lived and his ideas were influential. I don’t see the BYU sociology department trying to say anything beyond that.

I just read the comments made before they were deleted from the BYU Sociology Facebook page, and I suggest everyone read them. Exactly why were these comments deleted? It seems to me that if Marxist theories are to be studied at BYU, the teachings found in the scriptures and quotes from the Prophets should be included in the discussion. Obviously the professors don’t want them included. Some of the comments deleted from the BYU Sociology Facebook page included the following:
Quote from Karl Marx: “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of man is a requisite for their real happiness.”
“Promoting a t shirt that is in bad taste and pushing Marx as a great philosopher is inconsistent with the principles of the Church.”
“Why don’t we put Satan on our shirts? Or Hitler? Because many at BYU and colleges in general do like Marx because they’ve been taught that he isn’t that bad constantly by their Marxist professors. This shirt just proves this is also happening at BYU and the brainwashing continues as a “joke” to make the satanic false teachings of Marx acceptable. It’s great to study his false teachings. I encourage everyone to read the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto so you can understand why they’re false. But it’s not fine to promote Marx as being acceptable because this leads people down the road of anti-liberty, and anti-Constitution, and anti-Truth, and anti-Christ. Satan always disguises evil as a “joke” as a crafty way to deceive and brainwash people to his (Satan’s) false teachings.”
All of these comments, which were deleted, are excellent. There were many more comments with quotes of our Prophets and scriptures in the Book of Mormon, which were also deleted. Obviously, BYU’s Sociology Department wants students to have a good opinion of Karl Marx, as one quote that was not deleted stated: “He;s a valid theorist worth studying.” That’s why there were so many comments of students, which were not deleted, stating how much they “love” Marx and his theories.
So sad this is happening at BYU. Pres. McKay, when someone suggested that BYU was “the Lord’s University,” stated that the Temple is the Lord’s University. Many members of the Church have the false idea that our Church universities are the “Lord’s Universities”– therefore everything that is taught there must be true. Not so. If that were the case, the teachings in the scriptures and words of the Prophets, which are the words of the Lord (D&C 1:14-16,19-20, 38), would be uppermost in what is being taught at BYU and our other church universities on every subject, and not censored.

When I was at BYU in the early 1990s, I can remember being taught pro-Marxism in World Geography, Sociology, Psychology, US History, Environmental Economics, Philosophy and more subtly in other classes. This indoctrination has been taking place for many years. It is not something new. The BYU students and professors may be more open, bold and forward about it currently but the foundation was there long ago.

Well this explains why Bernie sanders was the candidate of choice at byu. ????

As a BYU graduate and flaming homosexual, I find your selective use of prophetic words disturbing. Hugh B. Brown publicly chided Benson in a conference for peddling his idiotic fear of socialism over the pulpit. And, as someone who things that Mormonism is really just religious socialism when practiced in its purest form (remember how you covenanted in the temple to live consecration?), I think y’all just need a couple Xanax. Workers of the world unite!! And also, smash the patriarchy. Close quote.

My gosh. Obviously this wasn’t a ringing endorsement of communism, just like President Monson quoting Aldous Huxley in General Conference wasn’t a ringing endorsement of atheism.

Saying that Marx has more blood on his hands than anyone else in the last days is absurd. If you actually knew anything about the theories that the shirt is referencing, you would recognize that they are commonly accepted ideas in both political parties. It’s pretty much a statement of the obvious now, but in the 1800s it was less understood and Marx became famous for his novel explanation. Blaming him for the slaughter and abuse that took place in the name of those theories is like blaming Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the other apostles for the centuries of crusades and slaughter that took place in name of the Holy Bible. The Satanic influence at play here is the one that is always at play…taking good and perverting it. Marx arrived at many good truths, some of the same observations as the Book of Mormon, but Stalin, Lenin and other tyrants hijacked it to gain power. And the best way to discern between the two and not make the same mistakes as the communist followers of the 20th century is to learn about them EXACTLY the way students do at BYU.

It is difficult to see this come from a church school, where so many parents have sacrificed much to keep their children safe from propaganda and evil conspiracies of men.

The vision of BYU was beautiful, but somehow has been lost due to our training in segregating State and church from our public educational training as children. The vision in 1875, when Brigham Young first commissioned the academy was to teach the standard academic curriculum and the doctrines of the restored gospel, and to teach them both by the Spirit of God. The Academy’s founding principal, Karl G. Maeser, took these instructions as his guide. He was also determined to emulate the Prophet Joseph Smith, who, he said, “taught his people correct principles and they governed themselves accordingly.”

Now we are seeing right before us a generation that was raised without the spiritual along side the temperal. This is why we were warned many years ago to not separate our learning by early prophets. We are reaping the fruit of it now. Elder Holland says- “This Church is always only one generation away from extinction. … All we would have to do … to destroy this work is stop teaching our children for one generation.”

I wonder if the shirt said Korihor rather than Marx if that would have changed anyone’s view. If we were to compare the two, their teachings are parallel. I would say the main difference is that Marx had a much larger audience, therefor his message has had the ability to do much more harm than Korihor. When I think of all the death and suffering caused by Godless people serving communism or socialism, it is hard for me to fathom how warmly it is embraced in this country. I guess the fight for freedom in the preexistence continues in mortality. I for one will strive to be on the side of freedom, which is The Lord’s side.

This article lacks academic and intellectual rigor and balance. Ezra Taft Benson belonged to a radical political pseudo-secret group known as the John Birch Society. Their main objective at the time was to destroy the “evil” that is communism. Benson’s philosophies of men mingled inappropriately into his scripture and he abused his role as general authority and was corrected on this on a few occasions but the first presidency prior to his tenure in the presidency. This should be acknowledged by the authors of this article, whomever they may be.

The fact that Mormons and BYU affiliates cannot have an educated and balanced conversation about the merits and shortcomings of Marxist theory demonstrates how pseudo-academic BYU remains in so many aspects of academia and sheds a very poor light on the Mormon church and BYU. The counter argument to Marx cannot be based on “Satan.” Marx has a proven existence in flesh and blood and legitimate social theories. Satan is a faith-based character founded upon the teachings of spiritual leaders throughout history but there are no first hand sources that we are aware of. In other words, there is no theory penned by Lucifer’s fingers himself. We can’t use a magical or faith-based world view to disprove legitimate social theories. That just makes us all look bad.

I emailed the Sociology Department. This is their response:

“Dear Eric,

I am the chair of the sociology department at Brigham Young University, and I thought it might be appropriate for me to respond to your email. The t-shirt with a picture of Karl Marx and the caption “The Class Struggle is Real” was chosen as part of our social media promotion because the faculty felt that it was a good joke. It was a play on words, a pun, with class struggle referring to the struggle of students trying to get an A in classes at BYU. Our students got the joke, and our faculty got the joke.

Our decision to delete your comment, as well as others’ comments, was based on the fact that the posts were distracting from the intent of what we were trying to do. We weren’t making a statement about Karl Marx; we were trying to get students to start looking at our social media in order to create a better learning community among our students and faculty. This was supposed to be a little fun activity with our students, not a serious discussion about the merits of Karl Marx and whether or not his writings should be taught at BYU. It wasn’t the right time or place to have that discussion. Consequently, we deleted those comments.

I assure you that our curriculum, what we teach in the sociology department, is approved by our university administration and our Board of Trustees, which includes the First Presidency and other church leaders.

I hope these clarifying comments are helpful.

Best wishes,

Rick Miller”

I am the chair of the sociology department at Brigham Young University, and I thought it might be appropriate for me to respond to this post. The t-shirt with a picture of Karl Marx and the caption “The Class Struggle is Real” was chosen as part of our social media promotion because the faculty felt that it was a good joke. It was a play on words, a pun, with class struggle referring to the struggle of students trying to get an A in classes at BYU. Our students got the joke, and our faculty got the joke.

Our decision to delete comments from our Facebook page was based on the fact that the posts were distracting from the intent of what we were trying to do. We weren’t making a statement about Karl Marx; we were trying to get students to start looking at our social media in order to create a better learning community among our students and faculty. This was supposed to be a little fun activity with our students, not a serious discussion about the merits of Karl Marx and whether or not his writings should be taught at BYU. It wasn’t the right time or place to have that discussion. Consequently, we deleted those comments.

I assure you that our curriculum, what we teach in the sociology department, is approved by our university administration and our Board of Trustees, which includes the First Presidency and other church leaders. We are teaching what the Brethren want us to teach. What better place than at BYU for students to be exposed to the “philosophies of men”, where it can be taught from a gospel perspective by inspired instructors who are faithful disciples of Christ?

There are corrupt teachers and departments at BYU. They get a kick out of making fun of the prophets and apostles. They teach students how to justify breaking the Church standards. You can’t let your guard down when you go there.

The presentation of Marx’s poem “The Player” is genuous. It is first of all from Marx’s liberal idealist days, i.e., several years before he became a “Marxist,” or communist, in the modern sense. Second, the poem is not a political statement but about a violinist that summons up the power of darkness. The player is apparently either Mesphistopheles or Lucifer. Third, Marx was fascinated by the ramifications of early industrial capitalism, among them the dark psychological toll it was taking on workers, in the extreme suicide. In that, he was dead on, as the statistics of the time, and even ours, supports.