A packet of LDS Church declarations on evolution was compiled at Brigham Young University this month to avoid confusion in the classroom about the church's official position.
But the 10-page compilation is not designed to prevent professors from handing out other materials about evolution."For the most part, it's appropriate as a scientific topic," said William Evenson, dean of the college of physical and mathematical science. "There's very little you can do in biology that doesn't raise evolutionary theory." In those classes, students often want to know the church's official stance.
Faculty members in science and religion classes, however, distribute varying information about evolution in their classes. Students might receive statements by LDS apostles that are against evolution, sympathetic to it or somewhere in between.
Only statements made by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be considered official, Evenson said. Evenson, Provost Bruce Hafen and Robert Millet, dean of religious education, compiled the 10-page packet. Hafen asked Evenson to head the project.
"The goal is not to achieve some kind of balance among the views that have been expressed, but to give students of this subject the full range of official views so they can judge for themselves the different positions they encounter," Evenson said.
The packet includes First Presidency declarations from 1909, 1910, 1925, excerpts from a 1932 First Presidency meeting and a brief article from the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism" published this year.
"The church has said a lot more about the origin of man than evolution," Evenson said.
In short, the LDS Church believes "man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity . . . Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes," according to the 1909 and 1925 statements.
Historically, there have been disagreements on campus about the correct view of organic evolution and the origin of man.
But, "I don't think it is fair to say that colleges have taken positions or that there has been bickering between colleges," Evenson said.
BYU's Board of Trustees, made up of general church leaders, approved the packet. It is on reserve in the Harold B. Lee Library on campus.