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This post is inspired by some of the discussion on Stapely’s recent excellent post on the problems with defending the church’s pre-1978 policy to exclude black members from receiving the priesthood or the blessings of the temple. One of Stapely’s points is that the reasons that Brigham Young gave for the ban were demonstrably wrong. Several commenters asked a variation of these questions: If we acknowledge that church leaders can be wrong about something so important, then can we ever trust them? And if so, how can we distinguish between when they are speaking by revelation and when they are just wrong?

This post is this is an attempt to explore those questions. In doing so it draws together a few different threads: (1) the old perennial question of how to know when a prophet is “speaking as a prophet,” (2) the role that the body of the membership of the church plays in receiving institutional revelation, (3) Wilford Woodruff’s statement that the Lord will not permit the president of the church to “lead the church astray,” and (4) the idea of assured salvation (trust me, it will make sense when we get there).

1. When is a prophet speaking as a prophet?

Doctrine how God gives revelation to the church is nuanced: We’re going to jump off with Elder Christofferson’s April 2012 Conference talk, “ The of Christ .” I think this talk is the most recent extended discussion by an apostle of the question of how to know when a church leader is speaking by revelation. Elder Christofferson attempts to explain how the church’s doctrine is defined, and his answer, is that the church’s doctrine is defined by revelation. But his discussion ofGod gives revelation to the church is nuanced:

Elder Christofferson says there are two main ways prophets receive revelation for the church:

First, the Lord may give revelation directly to the president of the church. Elder Christofferson points to the Joseph F. Smith’s vision described in D&C 138 as an example.

D&C 138 as an example. Second, the combined council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles may council together, weighing scriptures, teachings of church leaders, and past practice, and petition the Lord for guidance as a group. Elder Christofferson points to the revelation behind Official Declaration 2 as an example. (For a more detailed discussion of what led to the revelation behind Official Declaration 2, read Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on the Priesthood, BYU Studies 47:2 at 5-78 (2008). EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS. This history is not nearly as well known as it should be.)

D&C 10:37 ven published revelations acknowledge Joseph Smith’s limited knowledge and propensity to make mistakes. See(reminding Joseph Smith that he “cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous”). So if a prophet’s words are not always revelation, when are a prophet’s word’s revelation? But of course, not everything prophets say is revelation. Elder Christofferson quotes Joseph Smith’s rejection of the idea that a prophet is “always a prophet” in favor of the idea that a prophet is a prophet only when he is “acting as such.” And e

To answer that question, Elder Christofferson relies pretty heavily on what has become the classic source: President J. Reuben Clark’s 1954 talk “When are Church Leaders’ Words Entitled to Claim of Scripture?” President Clark gave this talk at a time when general authorities were expressing different opinions about the issue of evolution, and some of them had published strong, dogmatic-sounding pronouncements that some members took as a claim that those opinions were definitive statements of doctrine.

President Clark tackled this question by starting with D&C 68:4 : “whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.” Using this scripture, President Clark argues that the key is whether the prophet was “moved upon my the holy ghost” when he spoke. President Clark dismisses anyone who is not the president of the church or acting under his direction as not “moved upon by the holy ghost” if that person holds himself out as giving institutional revelation to the church. But then he acknowledges “that even the President of the church himself may not always be ‘moved upon by the holy ghost’ when he addresses the people.” (He mentions “adventurous speculation” by general authorities, and though he doesn’t say so explicitly, I think it’s pretty obvious that he’s alluding directly to Brigham Young’s Adam-God doctrine).

So the question becomes how can the church know when a prophet is “moved upon by the Holy Ghost”? President Clark’s answer to that question was this:

The church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.

This also seems to be Elder Christofferson’s answer as well. He quotes this passage specifically in footnote six to his 2012 conference talk. I think this answer is significant. For President Clark, it’s not enough to say that the statement was made in conference, or on official letterhead, or over the signature of the first presidency, or that the president of the church said “thus saith the Lord” or “in the name of Jesus Christ.” There’s no easy litmus test. The real question is whether the Holy Ghost witnesses “in due time” to “the body of the members” that it was true.

I agree with President Clark’s answer. I don’t believe there is a simple litmus test, but I consider President’s Clark’s answer to be the lodestar for determining whether the teachings of a church leader are church doctrine. I would add to it a few additional guiding principles that I have found helpful whether a particular statement was given as “moved upon by the Holy Ghost”:

First, the closer we are to the fundamental principles of the gospel–the atonement, grace, faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, and sanctification by the reception of the holy ghost–the more likely we are moved upon by the holy ghost. The further we are from these principles, the more likely we are speaking by our own lights. See 3 Ne. 11:31-35. (Elder Christofferson quotes these verses at length in his talk). See also D&C 19:31.

3 Ne. 11:31-35. (Elder Christofferson quotes these verses at length in his talk). D&C 19:31. Second, when we’re dealing with a statement made unanimously by the twelve and the first presidency, or a statement that many of the brethren have repeated, it’s more likely that they are moved upon by the holy ghost than when it’s one leader saying something idiosyncratic, or multiple leaders disagreeing. So, for example, the controversy between Joseph Fielding Smith and B.H. Roberts and others about creationism seems to me to be a question of church leaders expressing their own opinions, not speaking revelation.

Third, when we’re dealing with a statement that was made a long time ago and has not been repeated by more recent church leaders, that weighs in favor of the statement not being revelation, or at least, not timeless revelation. The church’s former opposition to birth control might be an example of this. It is simply not an issue today.

2. The role of the membership of the church in receiving institutional revelation.

At first glance, President Clark’s answer that it is the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the body of the members of the church that provides the key to whether a church leader is speaking as moved upon by the Holy Ghost might look like nothing more than the idea that individual members can pray for themselves and know that the prophet is speaking the truth. But I think there’s more to it than that. President Clark doesn’t just refer to the individual members of the church, he refers to “the body of the members.” I think he’s getting at a notion of the membership of the church acting in its official capacity as a ‘quorum’ of sorts. This notion is something similar to the capacity that the membership acts in when it sustains the decisions and actions of its leadership.

As I wrote a bit about in my post on conferences, the membership of the church forms the oldest and most basic body of church business. Before there were any priesthood quorums, the church did all church business in conferences, where the membership of the church did the business. Over time, much of the day-to-day business moved from conferences to councils, but many of the decisions of those councils need to be confirmed by the membership of the church in conferences to be valid. Ultimately, the most important council in the church is the membership.

And as I’ve written about before, I believe that prophecy is a gift of the spirit that it doesn’t come from ordination alone, but comes only from God. And like all gifts of the spirit, institutional revelation is given according to faith of the institution.

The membership of the church therefore plays a vital role in receiving institutional revelation for the church in at least two ways: First, we, as a body, have to have the faith to receive institutional revelation. Second, it is not enough to have the president of the church dictate revelation; we, the body of the members, have t have the faith to receive the witness of the Holy Ghost to confirm that revelation, just as we have to give our sustaining vote to confirm the actions of the leaders of the church.

ex cathedra (and that is further defined as speaking by his papal authority, to define a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the entire church). I’ve said before that the doctrine of papal infallibility is not that different, in practice, to the idea that a prophet declares revelation when he is “acting as” a prophet. But President Clark’s answer that institutional revelation necessarily requires the confirming testimony of the Holy Ghost to the members of the church is different. The Catholic answer is essentially a question of whether the pope properly exercised his authority. President Clark’s answer, by contrast, focuses on the reception of the teaching by the church. This is an interesting contrast to the idea of papal infallibility. The catholic dogma is that the pope’s declarations are infallible when he is speaking(and that is further defined as speaking by his papal authority, to define a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the entire church)I’ve said before that the doctrine of papal infallibility is not that different, in practice, to the idea that a prophet declares revelation when he is “acting as” a prophet. But President Clark’s answer that institutional revelation necessarily requires the confirming testimony of the Holy Ghost to the members of the church is different. The Catholic answer is essentially a question of whether the pope properly exercised his authority. President Clark’s answer, by contrast, focuses on the reception of the teaching by the church.

I think it’s significant that the two examples Elder Christofferson chose to illustrate institutional revelation (OD-2 and Section 138) were examples that were formally adopted by the body of the members of the church in conference. Between that and his quoting President Clark’s answer verbatim in the footnote to his talk, I think Elder Christofferson is endorsing President Clark’s answer: we can know when the President of the Church is moved upon by the Holy Ghost when the Holy Ghost witnesses it to the body of the church.

The other interesting bit in President Clark’s answer is “in due time.” This suggests to me that perhaps the “body of the members” he refers to is not just the membership that exists at any one point in time, but a larger “body of the members” that exists across time. This seems to me like an important check on temporary trends and groupthink.

3. Can the president of the church make big mistakes?

See Deseret Evening News, p. 2 (Oct. 11, 1890). President Clark’s recognition that even the president of the church may not always be “moved upon by the holy ghost” when he addresses the membership seems potentially to be in tension with President Woodruff’s statement in a conference talk at the same conference where he introduced the manifesto that he could not lead the church astray and that if he tried to, God would remove him from the presidency.

I think there is a way to reconcile them. But first, let’s clear up a few things about President Woodruff’s statement. In the first place, it’s not canon. Official Declaration 1 has been adopted as canonized scripture, but President Woodruff’s statement has not. It is included in our modern edition of the D&C as part of several statements by President Woodruff to give context to OD-1, but it is like the study aids, or the bible dictionary, or the introduction to the Book of Mormon: it is not part of the canon. (And let’s note, neither is President Clark’s talk canon.)

But it was a statement made by the president of the church in conference wasn’t it? Doesn’t that mean it’s scripture? Well, not necessarily. Let’s ground ourselves: there’s a lot of kooky stuff in the Journal of Discourses that was said in conference that we don’t hold ourselves to, and some of which the church has expressly repudiated (like the Adam-God stuff). And again, as President Clark pointed out, canonized scripture says that church leaders’ words are scripture only when spoken as the leader is “moved upon by the holy ghost” ( D&C 68:4 ). Let’s not be unreasonable about that: a person can be moved by the holy ghost and speak revelation, but still put revelation into imperfect language. Joseph Smith often went back to revise written revelations and even the Book of Mormon itself because the language didn’t always accurately capture the revelatory truth he had recieved. The promise that church leaders speaking when moved upon by the holy ghost will speak revelation is a promise that their when they are moved upon by the holy ghost their overall message is from God, but it is not a guarantee that all their language attempting to express that message will be inerrant. Put differently, President Clark asks when church leaders’ words can be called scripture, but even if they are scripture, even scripture is not inerrant–indeed one of the key features of the Book of Mormon is it’s emphatic and repeated rejection of inerrancy. As members of the church, our responsibility is to read church leaders’ words in their context and understand the message intended, not pick words out of context and infuse them with meaning that wasn’t really part of the general message or part of the question that the statement is addressing. (I acknowledge that what I’m doing here is something like the legal distinction between holding and dicta.)

So let’s look at the context of President Woodruff’s statement: the purpose was to reassure the members of the church that President Woodruff was not leading the church astray by abandoning polygamy. It’s one of several arguments that he made over the next several conferences after the manifesto, including the practical argument that were the church to continue official polygamy after the Reynolds decision had extinguished the church’s claim that it had a constitutional right to do so, the government could have seized the temples and driven the church entirely underground. The point was not “here, I’m going to declare forever the definitive doctrine of the church on prophetic fallibility,” the point was more specific than that. Look at the opening lines of his talk: “I want to say to all Israel that the step which I have taken in issuing this manifesto has not been done without earnest prayer before the Lord.” And in fact, he acknowledges the role of the membership of the church in receiving the institutional revelation behind the manifesto:

I want the prayers of the Latter-day Saints. I thank God that I have seen with my eyes this day that this people have been ready to vote to sustain me in an action that I know, in one sense, has pained their hearts….But go before the Lord and ask Him for light and truth and to give us such blessings as we stand in need of. Let your prayers ascend into the ears of the God of Sabaoth, and they will be heard and answered upon your heads, and upon the heads of the world.

The statement that God would not permit the president of the church to lead the church astray comes at the end of his address, when he is rising to a rhetorical crescendo. It’s not unreasonable that he might have drifted into hyperbole to make a point–that was normal in late nineteenth century sermons–but the point he was making is not that prophets cannot make mistakes, the point is that this decision to end polygamy was not done lightly, and that it was God’s will. It’s not fair to President Woodruff to take a statement he made in one context and turn it into something else entirely divorced from that context.

But, like I said, I think there is a way to reconcile President Woodruff’s statement that God will not allow the president of the church to lead the Church astray with President Clark’s acknowledgement that even the president of the church may not always be moved upon by the Holy Ghost when he speaks to the church. It depends on what “lead the church astray” means, but I do not believe that it means that the president of the church cannot make terrible decisions or believe wrong things.

For example: as a matter of scientific fact, Brigham Young was wrong when he said that black skin and African features were proof of being descended from Cain (or Ham), and that lack of such features is proof of the absence of such descent. As a matter of historical fact, he was wrong when he said the priesthood (both the ecclesiastical priesthood and the blessings of the temple) would be withheld from black people until all white people had received it. As a matter of doctrinal fact now recognized by the church, he was wrong when he said that Cain murdering Abel made black people ineligible to receive the priesthood or the blessings of the temple, and that interracial marriage was a sin punishable by death. He was wrong on many things. I believe he was called of God to lead the church, and that he was a prophet, but that did not make him superhuman, and it did not make his racism magically disappear. So I do not believe that the promise that the President of the Church cannot lead the church astray means that the President of the Church cannot teach wrong teachings to the church.

Instead, maybe it means that even if the President of the Church makes terrible decisions or believes and says things that are spectacularly wrong, he cannot stop the Lord from redeeming the church from his mistakes–even if it takes a very long time for the Lord to do so.

Perhaps one of the ways that the Lord may prevent the President of the Church from leading the church astray is the check of the testimony of the holy ghost to the body of the membership of the church as President Clark explained. Maybe the point is that when the President of the Church speaks or acts without being moved upon by the holy ghost, he cannot prevent God from using the testimony of the holy ghost to the membership of the church to correct his errors. And maybe it takes several generations, but “in due time,” the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the body of the membership of the church will prevail in the end over church leaders’ mistakes and wrong ideas.

4. Institutional salvation and perseverance.

In other words, I read the teaching that the church will never be led astray not as a promise that the church will never be wrong at all, but as a restatement of the idea that some the church may get things wrong, it will not fall into a total apostasy and lose the restored priesthood. This is sort of like the institutional analogue to the idea of perseverance–the idea that an individual person is assured of salvation while still in life. This idea shows up in early Mormon scriptures and teachings. The plural marriage revelation talks about this: those that are sealed by the sealing power have their salvation assured, and with the sole exception of murder, those that are sealed will be saved no matter what sins or blasphemies they commit. It shows up later in Orson F. Whitney’s famous talk where he says that Joseph Smith had taught that “the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity.” He then explained:

Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.

Other general authorities have quoted this passage many times over the years. Like Elder Faust in 2003 for example, saying “I believe and accept the comforting statement of Elder Orson F. Whitney” and going on to quote the above passage verbatim. It’s worth noting, also, that Elder Whitney was not just giving a doctrinal exposition; he was speaking from his own experience as a father of a son that struggled almost his entire adult life with alcoholism and depression, spent most of his adult life outside of church activity, and ultimately abandoned his first wife and their two children, whom Elder Whitney then raised in his own home.

But the idea of assured salvation scares people. It’s easily misunderstood as somehow suggesting that some people will be saved without repentance, or as condoning or justifying sin. So sealings gradually began to be understood less as dispensing an assurance of salvation and more as a conditional promise of salvation that would only apply at the end of a life of faithful service. ( Stapely’s book explains this shift well.) More recently, Elder Bednar has taken pains, speaking in the same vein, to explain that Elder Whitney’s teaching that sealings assure salvation for children of the covenant cannot overcome the children’s agency: they still have to repent and obey the gospel.

dominate the will of those that rebel, it will in the end persuade their will, and they will eventually “yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” ( But I don’t think that’s what the promises of assured salvation ever meant. They never meant that God would drag unrepentant people kicking and screaming into heaven. But that does not take away the forcefulness of the promises: They mean that God is faithful, that he is longsuffering, that his grace is eternal and that eventually, though it may take a long time, Heavenly Parents seek their own with unending patience and infinite love, and that though their eternal grace may notthe will of those that rebel, it will in the endtheir will, and they will eventually “yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” ( Mosiah 3:19 ) and repent. Those promises mean that Heavenly Parents will range through all eternity seeking their own, finding them, and bringing them back, not, to paraphrase Joseph Smith’s March 1839 Letter , by “compulsory means,” but by “persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned, by kindness, and pure knowledge,” because their “faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.”

If President Woodruff’s statement means that the Church’s institutional salvation is assured, then I think the promise must be similar. It doesn’t mean that the Church won’t make mistakes, it doesn’t mean that the President of the Church is somehow immune from the same propensity to sin that we’ve all inherited as children of the fall; but it does mean that God’s faithfulness is stronger than the fallen-ness of the church’s members and leaders, and that while we may wander, and even kick against the pricks at times, he will not abandon us. And though it may take many generations, “in due time,” he will redeem us from the mistakes of the past. If the church’s institutional salvation is assured, it is not because of the church’s faithfulness, but because of God’s faithfulness. It is not because the church can’t sin, and it is not because the church need not repent; it is because grace will eventually lead us to repent of every sin, and lead us to all truth. The president of the church, even if he makes terrible mistakes, simply does not have the power to stop God’s infinite grace toward the Church. As Joseph Smith said

What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints.

Human beings sin. We “hate [our] own blood” and do terrible things to one another. Sometimes we do it out of malice. But sometimes we do it ignorantly, out of a misguided sense that we’re doing the right thing. Even good men do these things sometimes. Even good men with important callings do these things sometimes. God loves us anyway. And let me be clear: God does not wink that these evils. He is the advocate of the oppressed, and the bane of the oppressor, and his anger and his justice are on the side of the victims of these evils. But he still loves us even when we are the oppressors, and he believes we can repent. God is playing the long game.

Conclusion

So I’m at peace with the idea that church leaders can make mistakes, even big ones, even harmful ones, and that they are still called of God to lead the church. I won’t claim to know with certainty every time a church leader speaks whether each word he speaks is revelation or opinion, but I’m at peace with that uncertainty. I’m able to recognize the possibility that they are wrong sometimes, but I’m not giving up on them. And I trust that God is ultimately in charge. For me, this is enough.