Brad Wilcox gave a talk to the LDS youth in Alpine, Utah, in February 2022. I suppose it’s another sign of things not going perfectly in the church. Or maybe I should say things are going well for anyone re-thinking blind obedience to religion. The news media picked up on the racist remarks of his talk. But it goes much deeper if you were raised in the LDS church or if you have youth in the church today.
So what did I find disturbing with the talk? I watched some of the video, but I couldn’t sit through all of it. So, I got the transcript to read. From the get-go, Wilcox is scripting the youth — telling them what to think, what to do, what they will want to do, and how they will feel if they do these things. That, for one thing, is a red flag for me. That is what I call scripting (similar to leading the witness) — and that in itself is dangerous rhetoric to throw out to youth or anyone. Some LDS youth and parents will feel rebellious and not want to be told how to feel, but some will feel guilty if they disagree. All around, it’s a failure of a message.
You’re going to have a blast. You’re going to have fun times. You’re going to dance together, you’re going to play games together out on the field, you’re going to have a big talent show. Jackson is going to be performing, and all the women are going to love him. And you’re just going to have a great time with lots of fun…
And you’re going to see this difference that this can make this summer, and you’re going to be part of it. And you’re going to be able to tell your great grandkids, “I was part of the very first FSY that they did in North America”, and all your grandkids are going to go, “oh, my gosh, Grandma, you are so cool”, “grandpa, you are so cool”, and they’re going to be very impressed that you are part of making history. (transcript.)
Wilcox says that President Uctdorf told him we need FSY (the new EFY from the older generation, a type of youth camp) because they will go home and influence their parents:
He (Pres. Uctdorf) says when the teenagers come home this summer from FSY and they’re standing at their pulpit, in their home ward in their baring testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, he says “maybe that’s going to get the parents to quit fighting about vaccines and masks long enough to remember they’re members of the true Church of Jesus Christ.”(ibid)
I’m reticent to make this connection, but in the following few sentences, as I read it, I thought, “this feels something like the Hitler Youth programs,” where the individual and the family are deemed less important compared to the needs of the group.” — you have to get away from your family reunions:
So the long and the short of it is if your summer is this summer, man you need to walk through fire to get to FSY. I don’t care what kind of arrangements you have to make it work. I don’t care what kind of schedules you have to change to get away from your family reunion. I don’t care what has to happen, but I need you to be at FSY. The Lord needs you to be there at FSY. (ibid.)
Wilcox addresses the fact that adults and youth are leaving the church, and how they may know some youth who left the church, commenting that:
They’re choosing to do it without God, without Christ, without the Church… Maybe some people can leave some churches and they don’t miss that much. But you leave this church, you miss everything. You miss everything. Let’s talk about the blessings of the gospel that you can only find here. (ibid.)
The talk is full of doctrinal problems, such as saying if you leave the church, you will leave God and Christ — not true. Then he makes a racist comment when explaining why the blacks had to wait for the priesthood. And then his way of talking about “girls” waltzing into the temple without the priesthood because they don’t need it. That was disturbing. The racist comment is extremely similar to one in a John Bytheway book.
Maybe instead of saying, “Why did the Blacks have to wait until 1978?”, maybe what we should be asking is “Why did the whites and other races have to wait until 1829?” 1,829 years they waited. And why did the Gentiles have to wait until after the Jews? And why did everybody in the House of Israel except the tribe of Levi have to wait until —
when you look at it like that, then instead of trying to feel like you have to figure out God’s timeline, we can just be grateful. Grateful right down to our socks that the blacks received the priesthood in ’78. (ibid.)
But wait, that goes against Joseph Smith, who included priesthood for the blacks — for example, Elijah Abel: “on 3 March 1836, Joseph Smith, Sr., father of the church’s founder, ordained Abel as an Elder. Later that year, the church appointed Abel to the Quorum of the Seventy.”
Wilcox makes comments about women and girls not needing the priesthood:
What else don’t women have? Priesthood ordination. They’re not ordained to the priesthood. “Well, how come they’re not ordained to the priesthood?” Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Maybe we should be asking, “Why don’t they need to be”.
Girls, how many of you have ever entered a temple to perform ordinances? Raise your hands high. Raise them high. Do you realize that you have done something that no man on this Earth can do? There is not a male on this planet who can enter a temple to perform ordinances without being ordained, and yet you just waltz right in. You just walk right in.
So what is it that sisters are bringing with them from a premortal life that men are trying to learn through ordination? Maybe that’s the question that ought to be keeping us up at night. (ibid.)
And his explanations about baptism and the Holy Ghost are not accurate and his antics about having the spirit with you are crazy and demeaning. He also bashes other churches, which is not good either, saying they are only “playing” church.
It’s all very disturbing. I believe you need to think for yourself — God and Christ are not found only in the LDS church. That is a narrow arrogant view. And it’s not true.
And yes, I have compared the Boy Scouts to the Hitler Youth in an older post.
An interesting account of the first Hitler youth who was beheaded.
