Provo • “Darkness had its day,” Brigham Young University President C. Shane Reese told students Tuesday on the Provo campus less than a week after the shooting death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in neighboring Orem.
But, Reese added at a devotional in the Marriott Center, “the answer to darkness is light. The answer to evil is Christ.”
Reese, head of the flagship school of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, echoed recent statements from the faith’s top leaders in condemning violence and pleading for people to be peacemakers.
He called political brutality “particularly abhorrent.”
It “chills the exchange of ideas, which is the lifeblood of our democratic republic,” Reese explained. “The First Amendment of the Constitution — the very first amendment — protects this precious God-given freedom. By taking a life engaged in the act of speech, in an assembly of people with differing views, is an attack on the bedrock of our inspired Constitution.”
Reese called on students to “practice what we preach on this campus.”
“Let’s love one another,” he added. “Indeed, love even our enemies. Let’s selflessly serve to build something better than animosity and division.”
Reese praised the work police, security officers and counselors have shouldered to keep BYU’s campus safe and the assistance they gave to UVU.
Increased security was visible for Tuesday’s devotional at the Marriott Center, with metal detectors, more police officers on hand and event staffers checking the possessions and backpacks of the thousands of attendees.
“During challenging times like these, I appreciate that it can be hard to focus on your studies,” Reese said. “Take heart. Be the peacemakers you hope to see in the world.”
After Reese’s opening remarks, he and his wife, Wendy Reese, welcomed students back to campus for fall semester.
In her address, Wendy said it takes more than attending classes to become a BYU student and a “woman of BYU.”
The true-blue students, she said, “take notes and take charge,” while heeding the Latter-day Saint school’s religious tenets.
Her husband, meanwhile, shared his enthusiasm for BYU’s 150th anniversary and pointed to some of its accomplishments:
• It has the single largest undergraduate student body — it topped 35,000 last year — of any brick-and-mortar private campus in the nation.
• It has more than 466,000 living alumni worldwide.
• Nine current or former Cougar student-athletes competed in the Paris Olympics, with steeplechaser Kenneth Rooks claiming a silver medal.
Reese even thanked the school for expediting his own marriage back when he was a student.
“BYU didn’t just launch my education or my career,” Reese said. “It launched my eternal marriage.”