Elder Matthew Cowley as a Special Witness of Jesus

By Dennis B. Horne

            Elder Matthew Cowley was one of the more unique men to be called to the Apostleship in our day. It might be said that he served in his ministry more like one of the three Nephites or John the Revelator, all translated beings, than as a businessman. He in fact disliked working in the business-related aspects of the departments that support the ecclesiastical Church. He preferred to be out among the people, blessing them, which he did by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This was his great spiritual gift and was probably the most pronounced way that he demonstrated his calling and authority as a special witness for Jesus (only excepting bearing his testimony)—by exercising his faith to heal the sick and afflicted as directed by the Spirit. During his ministry he healed hundreds of ill people.

            He was also known as a special friend and supporter of the Polynesian peoples of the Pacific, among whom he served for many years. He sometimes hinted that it was from them that he learned and developed his pure and simple but powerful faith in Christ. One of his missionaries, Glen L. Rudd, became an unofficial companion to him as he blessed the sick, both as a mission president and as an apostle. Rudd seems to have had like faith to Cowley and they made a great team, going to hospitals and the homes of the sick to bless and encourage. Glen Rudd, who passed away just this last December (President Monson spoke at his funeral), later became a General Authority himself. Along with his own ministry, and especially after having been released from the Seventy, Elder Rudd spent considerable time and effort keeping the memory of his great mentor alive among the latter-day saints. Elder Rudd often spoke about Elder Cowley and took time to record many precious stories in talks and booklets that he passed out to friends and relatives and work associates. He gave many of these to me, including copyright permission to publish from them.

            Years ago, Cedar Fort published a book that I wrote about healings, Faith to Heal and be Healed, that also contained a chapter by Elder Rudd, adapting some talks he had given about Elder Cowley. Yet he had preserved much more about Elder Cowley than what was included in the chapter there.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie as a Special Witness of Jesus

By Dennis B. Horne

            Twenty years ago, when I was trying to become an LDS seminary teacher, I did some student teaching, and also some part-time teaching for a few months (till I got cut). I remember that on one occasion, I asked a class of 35 ninth graders if they had ever heard of someone named Bruce R. McConkie. This was in Bountiful, Utah, in the heart of Mormondom. Not one hand went up. He had only been gone for a little over a decade by then, yet the rising generation was unaware of him.

            That was one of many reasons I decided to write a book about him: Bruce R. McConkie: Highlights from His Life & Teachings, issued in 2000 and in 2^nd edition in 2010. I wanted to help preserve memory of him and his doctrinal insights. I think I helped do that in some small way. As 2 more decades have passed, I find that few under the age of 50 remember him, and I continue to feel a desire to keep memory of him alive, and also that of other apostolic spiritual giants of his generation. Hence, I have now prepared a 300 page work, I Know He Lives: How 13 Apostles came to know Jesus Christ (published by Cedar Fort), slated to be available in mid-September. Among other things, the chapters therein review 13 testimonies of now deceased apostles, with especial and pointed focus on their special witness of the resurrected Christ. Elder McConkie’s chapter is the longest of them, the main reason being because I know the most about him of any of the others and because I have assembled the most precious source material.

            Many of the older generation remember his final testimony given in General Conference in April of 1985. Those spiritually historic words have been quoted and requoted by church members who felt the Holy Spirit witness to them of their truth, in power, at the time they were uttered. And Elder McConkie was dead 3 weeks later. It is true that Elder McConkie’s voice cracked with emotion as he bore that final witness, but that is not the reason they were powerful—anyone can speak emotionally and say most anything. It was because they were perhaps the best wording that can be harnessed from the English language to convey his meaning and were conveyed and enveloped by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Elder Boyd K. Packer as a Special Witness of Jesus

By Dennis B. Horne

            Editorial Note: this blog piece introduces and comments on a few matters relating to a chapter in my forthcoming book, I Know He Lives: How 13 Special Witnesses came to know Jesus Christ.

            Some six years ago, Elder David A. Bednar gave an interview to a staff member in the office of the BYU Religion Department’s Religious Educator journal. It was all about the work and purpose of special witnesses of the name of Jesus Christ in all the world; the work and testimony of the apostleship. In this piece he mentioned the following conversation: “President Boyd K. Packer and I were talking one day when he made a most helpful observation. He said the longer one serves as a member of the Twelve, the weightier the mantle becomes and the more overwhelmed you feel. I think this truth also applies to all Church callings. The longer I serve, the more I see and understand the weight of the calling. Consequently, the responsibility drives me to my knees and requires me to rely upon heavenly help instead of the arm of flesh.”

            President Packer’s apostolic mantle found place upon his shoulders for over four decades, and he bore it well. I recently listened to a talk by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, now an emeritus member of the Seventy. He spoke of listening to a very old man who had served in many local leadership capacities, and who had known most of the General Authorities for many decades. This old man replied to someone’s question about who among all those church leaders impressed him the most. His answer was that they all impressed him, but that Elder Packer impressed him as having a marvelously pure heart for one so young. He felt Elder Packer evidenced a clean and pure mind and heart, with no guile.

New Book coming about Special Witnesses of Jesus Christ: “I Know He Lives: How 13 Special Witnesses came to Know Jesus Christ”

By Dennis B. Horne

            During the decades around the turn of the 19^th to 20^th Centuries, Andrew Jenson, for many years an assistant Church Historian, collected voluminous amounts of data and published hundreds of short biographical sketches in his LDS Biographical Encyclopedia (4 vols.). Orson F. Whitney did the same in the 4^th volume of his imposing History of Utah. Also around this time Elder Matthias Cowley (father of Elder Matthew Cowley) also produced similar work in his Prophets and Patriarchs. (This was before his fall from grace as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve over plural marriage issues.) Some other similar works, such as Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, by Frank Esshom, also appeared.

            These works often traded information and articles with one another and it is sometimes said that to more recent academic historians, they feel more like lengthy obituaries. They concentrated on the highlights of what their subjects had done, including various inspirational stories and important leadership positions held. The more prominent subjects usually got more space. While limited in nature, these earlier treatments remain valuable as being a source of helpful biographical information on many early prominent Mormons and Utahns.

            In the 1950s, Bryant S. Hinckley, father of President Gordon B. Hinckley, then in his late eighties, wrote Faith of Our Pioneer Fathers. This work of under 300 pages has some 22 chapters, each biographically covering an important LDS church leader from the past. The individual pieces are somewhat longer than most of the previous treatments mentioned above and contain more stories and anecdotes and spiritual experiences had by their subjects. This volume was published in 1956 when Hinckley was 89 years old. His intention was to be faith-affirming and inspirational as well as truthful—a worthy goal.

The LDS Doctrine of Sex in the Spirt World and the Resurrection

By Dennis B. Horne

In the proclamation on the family, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stated: “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”[1] From this we are assured that male and female reproductive organs will remain in their proper place as gender identifiers for all eternity, worlds without end.

Misled people can make use of all the science and surgery they can to change these identifiers in mortality, but in the next life beyond the veil they will see that they still have the same essential characteristics they were born with to those same heavenly parents in their pre-existent home. God our Eternal Father is a perfect being with all knowledge and all power and he knows how to put a male spirit in a male body and a female spirit in a female body and he has never made one mistake in this regard in all the history of the world; nor will He ever. For those rare incidents of nature or other intervention, where some confusion (on our part) is present with these organs, if nothing sorts them out before then, death certainly will. Surgery cannot affect the eternal spirit found within the body of a man or woman in any way.

            But there is a further question as it relates to the resurrection: will those sexual characteristics/organs be functional—will they be operative? The revelation says: “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase” (D&C 131:1-4). These verses constitute the settled doctrine of the church, that those who are resurrected with any kind of body other than an exalted glorified body in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom, will not be able to have increase, or spirit children—a continuation of the seeds: “Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory. For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever” (D&C 132:16-17). This is the eternal law.

A Critique of John Dehlin's LGBT Research

This paper shows that John Dehlin has been playing fast and loose with statistics and surveying methods.

John Dehlin and the Weaponization of Scientific Research by Jacob Z. Hess, Ph.D.
http://www.flirtingwithcuriosity.org/?p=1734

The Future of the Church

by Dennis Horne

            Some of the enemies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have predicted its demise over its stand opposing gay marriage and homosexual sin. They predict that within a few decades the Church will disintegrate and be no more.

            Below is what the prophets have said, to the contrary. Somehow I just don’t think we need strain our minds with great mental exertions and run about in circles suffering anxiety and panic to figure out which voices speak the truth. I think President Hinckley’s thoughts pretty well sum it up, and President Packer’s confirm:  

President Gordon B. Hinckley discussed this very question:

I noted from last Sunday’s papers that a new book is off the press, put together as a “history” of this work by two men who have spent much time gathering data. I have not read the book, but the conclusion, reported one reviewer, is that the future of the Church is dim.

Without wishing to seem impertinent, I should like to ask what they know about that future. They know nothing of the prophetic mission of this Church. The future must have looked extremely dim in the 1830s. It must have looked impossible back in those Ohio-Missouri days. But notwithstanding poverty, notwithstanding robbing, notwithstanding murders, notwithstanding confiscation and drivings and disfranchisement forced upon the Saints, the work moved steadily on. It has continued to go forward. Never before has it been so strong. Never before has it been so widespread. Never before have there been so many in whose hearts has burned an unquenchable knowledge of the truth.

It is the work of the Almighty. It is the work of his Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of salvation. Men and women may write now, just as Hurlburt and E. B. Howe and others wrote in those days, but the work goes on because it is true and it is divine. These are the best of times in the history of this work. What a wonderful privilege it is to be a part of it in this great era.

President Boyd K. Packer has declared: “Despite opposition, the Church will flourish; and despite persecution, it will grow.”

Will there be a sifting of the wheat from the tares as the years pass? Of course. Will the weak and even a few of the elect be deceived? The prophecies so state. But I think the above quotations speak for themselves, despite the gnashing of teeth by the adversary and his online spokespeople.