Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Passing the Heavenly Gift/Brigham Young and apostles not witnesses of Christ

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Brigham Young and subsequent apostles were not personal witnesses of Christ[1]

The first apostles were charged by Oliver Cowdery with the “necessaryity” duty of their being able to “bear testimony…that you have seen the face of God….Never cease striving until you have seen God face to face,” for “[y]our ordination is not full and complete till God has laid His hand upon you” (89).[2]

In Snuffer’s view, the apostles and their successors failed in this charge, which “was rarely realized, and that failing gave rise to feelings of inadequacy among Apostles who were never able to obtain such a blessing” (243). (Snuffer relies here upon D. Michael Quinn’s Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power for documentation, and his account suffers from some of the same flaws.[3]

As a result, claims Snuffer:

The first phase of Mormonism was dominated by visions, angels, and direct involvement by God. Those experiences are still celebrated and taught. However, they are only used as a legitimizing credential for a demystified church. The current phase of Mormonism is missing the direct appearance or involvement of God, angels, and visions. There is a disconnect between the miraculous events upon which Mormonism is based, and current church events (47).

All of this is part of Snuffer’s view that “Mormonism has become increasingly less mystic, less miraculous, and even less tolerant of ‘gifts’ of the Spirit. Although it retains an emphasis on personal revelation, there is no continuing expectation of new scripture, new commandments, or Divine visitation” (45). Snuffer ignores all the documents that prove otherwise, including Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s extensive discussion of apostolic witness, where he not only quotes Cowdery with approval, but indicates that both the present-day Twelve and all Church members have the same privilege and duty.[4]

Snuffer’s claims are simply false—and I do not mean false in the sense that I have a differing interpretation or reading of the history. They are false because there is evidence that directly contradicts them, which we will now examine.

Modern examples—New Scripture

Snuffer provides no evidence that new scripture is not anticipated—though he does reject the authority of the apostles and prophets who could provide such scripture. Elder Neal A. Maxwell told an assembled Book of Mormon symposium:

The day will come, brothers and sisters, when we will have other books of scripture which will emerge to accompany the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Presently you and I carry our scriptures around in a “quad”; the day will come when you’ll need a little red wagon.[5]

Elsewhere, he promised that “Many more scriptural writings will yet come to us,” mentioning those of Enoch, John, the ten tribes, and the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon.[6] If new scripture is not anticipated, why would an apostle say this to a roomful of scripture scholars? Snuffer’s claim is false.

Modern examples—the Necessity and Reality of Ongoing Revelation

Revelation continues with us today. The promptings of the Spirit, the dreams, and the visions and the visitations, and the ministering of angels all are with us now. And the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost “is a lamp unto [our] feet, and a light unto [our] path.” (Ps. 119:105.) Of that I bear witness....
—Elder Boyd K. Packer[7]

Despite Snuffer’s claim (45, 47), the expectation and experience of angels is not lacking in the modern Church. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has spoken extensively about angels, quoting Moroni 7:35–37 on the persistence of angelic visions “as long as time shall last…or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved.”[8] In a 1982 BYU devotional address, he taught that “when we've tried, really tried, and waited for what seemed never to be ours, then ‘the angels came and ministered unto him.’ For that ministration in your life I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.” “Angels and ministers of grace to defend us?” he asked in 1993 general conference, “They are all about us, and their holy sovereign, the Father of us all, is divinely anxious to bless us this very moment.”[9] “Our defense,” he told a CES audience in 2000, “is in prayer and faith, in study and fasting, in the gifts of the Spirit, the ministration of angels, the power of the priesthood.”[10] In 1993, he taught

May I suggest to you that one of the things we need to teach our students, and one of the things which will become more important in their lives the longer they live, is the reality of angels, their work, and their ministry. Obviously I speak here not alone of the angel Moroni, but also of those more personal ministering angels who are with us and around us, empowered to help us, and who do exactly that….
I believe we need to speak of and believe in and bear testimony to the ministry of angels more than we sometimes do. They constitute one of God’s great methods of witnessing through the veil, and no document in all this world teaches that principle so clearly and so powerfully and so often as does the Book of Mormon.[11]

These are not the words of someone convinced angels are safely in the past, useful only for “legitimizing…a demystified church.” Snuffer is simply wrong.

“When we keep the covenants made,” by baptism and the sacrament, said Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “we are promised that we will always have His Spirit to be with us. The ministering of angels is one of the manifestations of that Spirit.”[12] “Visions do happen,” he said, “Voices are heard from beyond the veil. I know this.”[13] “I feel compelled, on this 150th anniversary of the Church, to certify to you that I know that the day of miracles has not ceased. I know that angels minister unto men,” said Boyd K. Packer.[14] Elsewhere, he said, “The Lord reveals His will through dreams and visions, visitations, through angels, through His own voice, and through the voice of His servants.”[15]

Modern examples—Theophany or Divine Visitation

Modern visitations of Deity: Wilford Woodruff

Modern visitations of Deity: George Q. Cannon

Modern visitations of Deity: Lorenzo Snow

Modern visitations of Deity: Joseph F. Smith

Modern visitations of Deity: George Albert Smith

Modern visitations of Deity: David O. McKay

Modern visitations of Deity: Harold B. Lee

Modern visitations of Deity: Spencer W. Kimball

Modern visitations of Deity: Ezra Taft Benson

Modern visitations of Deity: Heber J. Grant

Notes

  1. ↑ Portions of this wiki response are based upon Gregory L. Smith, "Passing Up The Heavenly Gift Part 1 Part 2," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship7(2103): 181–341. The text here may have been expanded, reworded, or corrected given the nature of a wiki project. References in brackets like this: (xx) refer to page numbers in Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Passing the Heavenly Gift (Salt Lake City: Mill Creek Press, 2011).
  2. ↑ History of the Church 2:195–196. I have omitted PTHG’s boldface emphasis to the original.
  3. ↑ The misleading claims and citations in the opening pages of Quinn’s mammoth work are reviewed in Duane Boyce, "A Betrayal of Trust (Review of: The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 9/2 (1997): 147–163. For another example of Quinn’s shoddy work and dishonest footnotes, see HERE [citation needed].)
  4. ↑ Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1978), 592–595.
  5. ↑ Neal A. Maxwell, “The Children of Christ” in The Book of Mormon: Mosiah, Salvation Only Through Christ eds. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1991), 1.
  6. ↑ Neal A. Maxwell, Wonderful Flood of Light (Bookcraft, 1990), 15.
  7. ↑ Boyd K. Packer, "Revelation in a Changing World," Ensign (November 1989): 16.
  8. ↑ Jeffrey R. Holland, “For Times of Trouble,” Brigham Young University devotional (18 March 1980). See also Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Inconvenient Messiah," BYU devotional address (15 February 1982).
  9. ↑ Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Look to God and Live’,” Ensign (November 1993): 13.
  10. ↑ Jeffrey R. Holland, "Therefore, What?" CES Conference on the New Testament, Brigham Young University (8 August 2000), 1–2.
  11. ↑ Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘A Standard Unto My People,’” CES Symposium on the Book of Mormon, Brigham Young University, 9 August 1994, 10–11.
  12. ↑ Dallin H. Oaks, “The Aaronic Priesthood and the Sacrament,” general conference, October 1998.
  13. ↑ Dallin H. Oaks, "Teaching and Learning by the Spirit," Ensign (March 1997), 14.
  14. ↑ Boyd K. Packer, "A Tribute to the Rank and File of the Church," Ensign (May 1980): 65. Snuffer also quotes Elder Packer’s talk “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect”, 5th annual CES Religious Educator’s Symposium, 22 August 1981 (reproduced in BYU Studies 21/3 (Summer 1981): 259–278) as evidence that Packer advocates the view that “Though He did not appear, speak or send angels, God was not absent” (256 n. 318). As demonstrated by this and citations that will follow below, Snuffer distorts Elder Packer’s views—Elder Packer refers in the August 1981 talk to those to whom “the hand of the Lord may not be visible.” He does not deny that God speaks, appears, or sends angels, and in fact urges those who write history to be those who “believe that the successors to the Prophet Joseph Smith were and are prophets, seers, and revelators; that revelation from heaven directs the decisions, policies, and pronouncements that come from the headquarters of the Church” (p. 13 in on-line reprint).
  15. ↑ Boyd K. Packer, “Personal Revelation: The Gift, the Test, and the Promise,” general conference, October 1994.
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