EP 569 – Brad Wilcox and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

BYU professor, fireside speaker, and member of the Young Men's General Presidency, Brad Wilcox, has had a pretty troubling week. Leaked fireside remarks showed Brother Wilcox using insensitive language to discuss race and the priesthood and women and the priesthood, making disparaging remarks about other religions, and employing fear tactics to keep youth from leaving the Church. Overall, it was pretty bad, and social media erupted in condemnation. Brad Wilcox apologized twice for his remarks, but is he apologizing for the right things? Can the Church truly move forward on racial issues while refusing to reckon with its past? How can we move past a privileged white male's perspective as the default one in Church culture? How do we acknowledge difficult doctrinal issues without being patronizing to those more adversely affected by them? There's lots to unpack here. Of course, there's still other news, and you can grab links to the stories below! Latter-day Saint News Brad Wilcox Brad Wilcox first apology President of BYU Black Student Union responds BYU is "deeply concerned" Sam Brunson on abandoning prejudice Sam Brunson on insensitivity towards women Second apology What do you do when Brad Wilcox and John Bytheway no longer have all the answers? Other News President Nelson shares Valentine's Day message The twice-evacuated missionary New Deseret Industries in Tucson Napoleon Dynamite retrospective Women's Session returns to General Conference Support the Show Please join our proud Patreon family. We're asking YOU to pitch in $3 per month. You know you've thought about it. In the words of Emperor Palpatine, "DO IT!" Transcript 00:00.00 Geoff Openshaw Everybody how's it going welcome to this weekend Mormons the premiere latter day Saint News Podcast I'm Jeff Openshaw we're thrilled to have all of you with us this week big show this week lots of talk about president Nelson breaking the mold and sharing messages about Valentine's day never seen that before. Um. 00:04.79 Jared And I'm Jared gillins. 00:19.55 Geoff Openshaw Lots of drama happening at Byu Lgbt Bills in Arizona you know missionaries being evacuated twice during the same mission and you know there's this little batter of 1 Brad Wilcox that I guess maybe we'll we'll get into you know it's ah brother Wilcox is terrible. Horrible. No good, very bad week and we'll have play to say. About that and of course last but not least a new location for desret industries. That's that's our that's our major one but we won't tell you where until we get there. Gotta find you gotta hang out for the whole pot. Ah Jared. How's it going though? What's what's new with you. How's life. 00:55.67 Jared I'm I'm good and I'm doing all right and life's pretty good I had it fun. We can hanging out with my in-laws. We watched the super bowl together at my really oh I Guess you're from that area. 01:03.10 Geoff Openshaw go rams go rams so I didn't have like a lot of feelings about it I mean the thing is the rams played in Anaheim down the street for me through most of my early youth. But then they left in like 94 or after the 94 season so most of my life. 01:15.86 Jared Is that when they went to St Louis right 01:19.43 Geoff Openshaw Would say louis and the raiders left at the same time back to Oakland so I mostly grew up in my adolescence without there being professional football in Southern California so it's just that wasn't a thing that anybody really cared about so it's great that they're back. But I also love cincinnati. 01:29.98 Jared So when you were a kid what were they were they the Los Angeles rams or were they the Los Angeles rams of Anaheim even though they played in Orange County yeah 01:35.42 Geoff Openshaw Of anahe that was I believe back then they were just the l a rams yes, they played at Anaheim stadium which is shared with the angels.