In a recent interview,[1] I was asked about my favorite tradition. That was easy to answer: kissing my wife on the way to the podium.
On August 24, just a few weeks ago, while most of you were away, there was a major development, one that I know you each read with great interest and even excitement. After an extended period of development and collaboration, and with what some might consider an overabundance of caution, it was announced with great fanfare and media coverage that India became the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon’s surface.
Closer to home, also on August 24, the Church Board of Education approved updates to the Honor Code, Dress and Grooming Standards (which are part of the Honor Code), and Ecclesiastical Endorsements. The Dress and Grooming Standards were changed to the Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations. As you have been keenly aware of, the dress and grooming expectations “have historically varied among CES institutions and will now be simplified and unified across campuses. These updates identify a set of foundational principles while retaining an important set of common expectations.”[2]
It was noted in the press and social media that there was much joy and rejoicing among the students of BYU-Idaho. Capris were dusted off, long shorts packed for the fall semester, and even a #freetheknee was launched. It is anticipated that when winter arrives here in Rexburg in coming days, that will be changed to #freezetheknees.
Could I invite us to pause for just a moment and lift our eyes up from our newly revealed ankles and knees and ponder on some higher and holier principles? Our preeminent purpose at BYU-Idaho is to develop disciples of Christ, lifelong disciples of Christ. The Honor Code, which includes the Dress and Grooming Principles, is very much a part of that development here at BYU-Idaho. When lived in the right spirit, and I emphasize in the right spirit, the Honor Code helps us become more like Jesus Christ and helps us to draw closer to Him.
I would like to talk to you about three ways that the Honor Code can help us come unto and become more like Christ. First, the Honor Code helps us build the spiritual muscle to become covenant keepers. Second, the Honor Code gives us an opportunity to act with integrity. And third, the Honor Code provides an opportunity to walk by faith.
First, the Honor Code helps us build the spiritual muscle to become covenant keepers. Making and keeping covenants is part of the test of this life and is also the path to eternal blessings. President Nelson has taught: “Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping these covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere.”[3]The covenant path is the “one path that leads to the celestial kingdom of God.”[4] The ordinances, beginning with baptism and culminating in the temple, are essentially key milestones of the covenant path. Faith, repentance, and obedience to the commandments are how we “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ”[5] along the covenant path.
You have noted that the expectations of the Honor Code are very similar to the commandments that keep us on the covenant path. In the Honor Code, which I invite you to read intently, we commit to:
- strive to deepen faith and maintain gospel standards,
- be honest, chaste, and virtuous,
- obey the Word of Wisdom,
- participate regularly in Church services,
- respect others, including the avoidance of profane and vulgar language
- and obey campus policies, including the Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations.
Abiding by the Honor Code is good practice, if I can use that term, for abiding by our sacred spiritual covenants.
President Nelson has taught of the “joy and privileges associated with making covenants with God.”[6] He has noted these blessings:
- “Those who keep their covenants with God will become a strain of sin-resistant souls!”
- “Making a covenant with God changes our relationship with Him forever. It blesses us with an extra measure of love and mercy.”
- “When we enter a covenant with God, we have made a covenant with Him who will always keep His word. He will do everything He can, without infringing on our agency, to help us keep ours.”
It is my prayer that we will be a covenant-keeping people.
Second, the Honor Code gives us an opportunity to act with integrity. It has been said that “the bedrock of character is integrity.”[7]
Three months ago, President Nelson announced the release of an updated Preach My Gospel. He reflected: “This new edition comes at a time when the world is rapidly changing and reflects the sensitivity to many of those changes. It contains some of the best instruction I’ve ever seen, to help people accept the Lord’s invitation to come unto Him.”[8] Hearing that, I was very interested in what had changed in this new edition.
Many of you are returned missionaries and will remember that Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel is about Christlike attributes. Interestingly, there was a new Christlike attribute introduced in the new edition: it was integrity.
Preach My Gospel teaches this about integrity:
- “Integrity flows from the first great commandment to love God. Because you love God, you are true to Him at all times. Like the sons of Helaman, you ‘walk uprightly before Him.’”
- “What you choose to think—and what you do when you believe no one is watching—is a strong measure of your integrity.”
- “Integrity means you do not lower your standards or behavior so you can impress or be accepted by others. You do what is right even when others scoff at your desire to be true to God.”
- “When you have integrity, you keep your covenants with God as well as your righteous commitments to others.”
- “Integrity includes being honest with God, yourself, your leaders, and others.”
- “You do not lie, steal, cheat, or deceive. When you do something wrong, you accept responsibility and repent instead of trying to justify or rationalize it.”
Preach My Gospel concludes the section on integrity with this promise: “As you live with integrity, you will have inner peace and self-respect. The Lord and others will trust you.”[9]
Part of the Honor Code is to “be honest” and that includes not cheating. But living the entire Honor Code, including the Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations, is also part of having integrity, of living by what you signed up for. Even at a place like BYU-Idaho, there may be times that you are tempted to cut corners and do things that are not completely honest. Thank you for being strong and acting with integrity.
Bishop Richard C. Edgley, when he was a General Authority and in the Presiding Bishopric, told this story of learning a valuable lesson on integrity: “After my freshman year of college, I spent the summer working at the newly opened Jackson Lake Lodge, located in Moran, Wyoming.” He explains that after the summer he returned home and was greeted by his father in the driveway. He then said,
After a hug and a few pleasantries, he looked into the backseat of [my] car and saw three Jackson Lake Lodge towels—the kind you cannot buy. With a disappointed look he merely said, ‘I expected more of you.’ I hadn’t thought that what I had done was all that wrong. To me these towels were but a symbol of a full summer’s work at a luxury hotel, a rite of passage. Nevertheless, by taking them I felt I had lost the trust and confidence of my father, and I was devastated.
The following weekend I . . . began the 370-mile round trip back to Jackson Lake Lodge to return three towels. My father never asked why I was returning to the lodge, and I never explained. It just didn’t need to be said. This was an expensive and painful lesson on honesty that has stayed with me throughout my life.
Bishop Edgley, then commented, “Sadly, some of the greatest missing values in today’s world are honesty and integrity.”[10]
We are particularly interested in integrity as a spiritual principle, but I will note that is also critically important because we are a place of higher learning. The famous English author, Samuel Johnson, expressed it in these few words: “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”[11]
The world is in desperate need of men and women who value their integrity. I hope that you would not trade your integrity for towels, or a grade on a test or homework assignment, or even a beard, or shorts that would not cover garments. Be as the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, who were “perfectly honest and upright in all things; and . . . were firm in the faith of Christ.”[12] Please consider this a call for a commitment to unwavering and unyielding integrity.
Jesus Christ was the personification of integrity. In the premortal life, when the Father called for one to act as a Savior and asked, “Whom shall I send?” Jesus volunteered: “Here am I, send me.”[13] Then, when He came to earth, He was submissive to His Father’s will in all things. He said: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”[14] And when He was mocked and scorned, when He bled and suffered, when He was beaten and bruised, His commitment to do what He said He would do outweighed any desire to have the cup pass.
And finally, the third point, the Honor Code provides an opportunity to walk by faith. Before we came to this earth, we lived as spirit children with a loving Heavenly Father. He provided a plan for our happiness, and progress in this life and in eternity. Part of that plan is for us to receive physical bodies. Another important purpose of this life is to learn and grow.
In the process of learning and growing, sometimes we walk with knowledge, and other times, we walk by faith. Said another way, sometimes we understand the why, and other times, we may not.
Please understand, at this university, we seek knowledge and, perhaps more importantly, wisdom. Wisdom, by the way, is the right application of knowledge. And I acknowledge that some of you may not understand the “whys” of the Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations.
With that in mind, let me share what President Dallin H. Oaks had to say about Dress and Grooming to BYU students when he was president. His sentiments are applicable to us today here at BYU-Idaho:
I think all will agree that dress and grooming standards are not the most important standards required of those who attend this University. But they are among the very most visible as we associate with one another and as we come under the eyes of those who visit this campus. Consequently, these matters have been emphasized, and will be emphasized, to an extent beyond their intrinsic importance. Those who take exception to this emphasis should remember that while most of these standards are not vital matters of personal morality, neither are they burdensome. Like the Word of Wisdom, the requirements are “adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints.”[15]
To be clear, we do not assert that our dress and grooming expectations are celestial worthiness standards, but while at BYU-Idaho, they do stand as an outward sign of an inner commitment to, if nothing else, do what we signed up to do.
While I think it is important to ask why and to question, if I may be direct, you do not have to understand “the why” to abide by what you signed up for. In the context of dress and grooming, not understanding the why is never an excuse to not live by those principles and expectations. In other words, sometimes you simply have to walk by faith.
Adam was a great example of walking by faith, of being obedient to commandments that he did not fully understand. We read in the Pearl of Great Price: “And [the Lord] gave unto them commandments [sacrifice was one of those] . . . and Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord. And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.”[16] I pray that you will have Adam-like faith. That if asked to look at the proverbial staff[17] or dip yourself in the proverbial river seven times,[18] that you will do so.
At BYU-Idaho, we humbly strive to maintain the highest standards of personal conduct and appearance. We all understand that we are not trying to mimic what is acceptable in the world, nor do we judge anyone for dressing and grooming differently than we do here at BYU-Idaho. But these standards help us step away from the world and remind us that we are in a different kind of place here at BYU Idaho, “a special and sacred and set apart place.”[19] We commend you for signing up to live by these standards. That speaks volumes about your character. That makes you different, a good kind of different. I hope you feel good about that.
Now let me conclude with a different thought. This is the second day of school. Some of you, including Sister Meredith and I, are still finding your way around campus. You are figuring out classes and roommates and whether you can put dark clothes in with light clothes. Can I just tell you: You can do this! Sister Meredith and I love you! We are rooting for you! We believe in you! Be kind to yourself in this transition at the beginning of this semester. Ask for help when you need it. And most importantly, stay close to the Master. Keep Him first.
Elder David A. Bednar once said, “Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners. I am not so sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints.”[20] I am telling you, you are saints, and the strength of the Atonement of Jesus Christ is for you if you will seek it. I witness of the love and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Brandon Isle, “Merediths introduce themselves to BYU-Idaho, the community,” BYU-Idaho Radio, Sept. 12, 2023, https://www.byui.edu/radio/merediths-introduce-themselves-to-byu-idaho-the-community.
[2] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Updated CES Standards Help Students Grow Closer to Christ,” news release, Aug. 24, 2023, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/updated-ces-standards-students-closer-to-christ.
[3] Russell M. Nelson, “As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2018, emphasis added.
[4] D. Todd Christofferson, “Why the Covenant Path,” Liahona, May 2021.
[5] 2 Nephi 31:20.
[6] Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant,” Liahona, Nov. 2022.
[7] Richard G. Scott, “The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2010.
[8] Scott Taylor, “President Nelson introduces new edition of ‘Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ,’” Church News, June 22, 2023, https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2023/6/22/23768558/president-nelson-introduces-new-edition-of-preach-my-gospel.
[9] "Chapter 6: Seek Christlike Attributes,” in Preach My Gospel (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2023), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/preach-my-gospel-2023/14-chapter-6.
[10] Richard C. Edgley, “Three Towels and a 25-Cent Newspaper,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2006.
[11] Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (New York: Dover Publications, 2005), 81.
[12] Alma 27:27.
[13] 2 Nephi 16:8.
[14] John 6:38.
[15] Dallin H. Oaks, “Standards of Dress and Grooming,” New Era, Dec. 1971, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1971/12/standards-of-dress-and-grooming.; see also Dallin H. Oaks, “Why Dress and Grooming Standards?,” BYU Speeches, Sept. 23, 1971,
[16] Moses 5:5–6, emphasis added.
[17] See Numbers 21:4–9.
[18] See 2 Kings 5:1–4.
[19] David A. Bednar, “BYU-Idaho: A Disciple Preparation Center,” BYU-Idaho Foundational Addresses, Aug. 31, 2004, https://www.byui.edu/foundational-addresses/byu-idaho-a-disciple-preparation-center.
[20] David A. Bendar, “In the Strength of the Lord,” BYU Speeches, Oct. 23, 2001,