[b]gmj81 wrote:
...One thing is for sure, I bet the average attendance of the baseball team is going to skyrocket.[/quote]

For the wrong reasons.

If the punishment for not attending church enough was being kicked out, students would be booted right and left. And attendance sheets would be circulated at each meeting.

IMO someone doesn't like Walton and doesn't want to give the real reason why.

As a member of the LDS church, return missionary and a grown man, I am shocked that this could happen. I agree we all need to obey the rules but this was not justified. The bishop and stake president made a mistake and they should do the right thing and step up and invite this young back.....which will never happen because of pride... this hurts the school, the church and the people involved...the student and his family anf friends who will now and always feel betrayed and rejected by the church and school they love, the bishop and stake president who have and will loose the support and trust of some members...even one is too many, the school and church who now can not explain why they have done this to a person supported by everone else who knows him.
Blindly following leaders of your church or school is wrong, they are still human and they too can still make mistakes and this was one of them.
I hope this can be resolved soon, the student will be back in school, maybee not BYU, but life will go on but I fear the damage has been done and BYU will be left with another black eye most will just try and pretend never happened....

cruiser wrote:

More and more, this appears to be exactly what it purports to be---a BYU student-athlete getting kicked out of school because he didn't attend church often enough. According to at least one coach, Walton had a great chance at being an all-American this year. According to Walton and his roommate, he went to church at least five times in eleven or twelve weeks, plus he watched general conference.

Have we really gotten to this point? Have we become so concerned with exactness in keeping the laws of the Church that our students at BYU have to account for their Sunday attendance or risk having their academic and athletic careers jeopardized? Are we really willing to tell the world that athletes are not invited to come to BYU unless they are willing to prove their church attendance 75% or even 50% of the time? Can we read the words of Jesus, who routinely criticized the Pharisees yet said to the adulterous woman, "Neither do I condemn thee"---can we read his words and not hesitate to dismiss people from school for not going to church often enough in their own ward?

When I read the words in section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants, I get a different sense: "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the prieshood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." (41).

These words, which have special significance for many, lead me to be very careful about coercing another person to obedience. Yes, there are rules and regulations and promises and covenants. But there should also be some perspective applied when administering punishments. It seems that Kent was never warned that his lack of attendance was about to get him dismissed from school. It also appears that he was not asked if he had attended sacrament meetings elsewhere. And he was almost certainly not allowed a period of time to improve his attendance in his home ward after a warning. And now, as a result of this, we have a young member of the Church who feels betrayed, a family who is hurting and angry about the actions of local Church leaders, an athletic department that is "mystified as to why this is happening," and a public who is trying to make sense of the whole thing. Soon we may even see our enemies using this as supposed proof of our intolerance and/or foolishness.

As a rule, we do not question the actions of our leaders in the Church. But to their credit, they almost always act in a spirit keeping with Section 121---in love, tolerance, and gentleness. I guess I'm saying that this doesn't seem to measure up to those virtues. If this offends anyone, I apologize. I don't mean to offend anyone. I just wonder if there wasn't a better, wiser way to handle all of this. I guess it's easier for me to put myself in the shoes of the young man, than in the shoes of his leader. And now, as one who loves the Church and BYU and the many good things they stand for, I sorrow for the image of intolerance, pedancy, and harshness that all this brings upon us.

That was very well said Cruiser. I appreciate your words and tone.
I have loved the ward and stake Church leaders in my life that have lived section 121. I always respect and sustain the calling of my local Church leaders equally, but I have seen ward members thrive more fully under the direction of some than others.

I guarantee that there are others in the same ward/stake with only 50% attendance. If the bishop truly feels that justifies expulsion from BYU there should be a mass revokation of ecclesiastical endorsements. There is no room in the Priesthood for singling out a high profile young man for the sake of an example.

My Church attendance hovers around 50% due to my work in the hospital...sick people don't take Sundays off. The highlight of my week was seeing how happy a single mother in my ward was when she found out I would be caring for her sick child in the hospital, even though I would miss teaching her other child's primary lesson. There is much more to the gospel than Church attendance.

As a 59 year-old lifetime Church member, I've gone through a large gammet of feeling, opinions, etc. regarding the actions of other "saints" - be they leaders or not. I've pretty well settled into the mode of something an old RM lady once said at her homecoming. She said that she used to worry so much about the actions and sins and things other people would do. And she had an opinion about every one of them. Then one day she realized that Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind and that He would be the judge of right and wrong. She concluded by stating that "once I truly realized that He was the judge and I didn't have to judge my fellow man,a great burden was lifted off my shoulders and I was free to spend more time in His service."

Might I suggest that this thread would be better left untouched from here on out. Jesus Christ is the judge. I could go on a lot longer and say much more but it's best to leave it alone. By what measure ye judge, ye shall be judged. I don't want to go through life saying that I was critical or failed to forgive someone. I wouldn't want it coming back on me in the hereafter.

This looks horrible for BYU. When I was there, you really only had to come 25% of the time to be safe. Even if you missed months and months, the bishops I knew would WORK with the individual. It takes major events for a bishop to remove an endorsement. If there is not more to the story, BYU had better right this situation. Freak, there have been people on warning n such who didn't get their endorsments removed. I'm not gonna say anything bad about the bishop because I dn't know the whole story. But there has to be more to it. If there isn't, Duff Tittle and the BYU Athletics PR department are gonna have a big problem on their hands. And not from outsiders. WE (the cougar faithful) should clean our own house. If this is a case of "misunderstanding" or "missteps" it is up to us to clean up and not be FORCED to do so by outsiders.
Let's fix this NOW. (Or get the FULL and TRUE story out there!) the_other_blackguy@byu

This is the kind of crap that made me go inactive in the first place i cant stand the double standard. This is one of the dumbest things ive ever seen from a school. The Kessman thing for drinking coffee was bad enough but this is terrible.