Tag Archives: apostles

The Apostles Testify of Jesus Christ

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If you’re on social media (have you liked the Millennial Star Facebook page yet?), you might have noticed a lot of activity surrounding the dedication of the Rome, Italy temple in the last few days. All the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 were in attendance at the dedication. There was also a new picture of all 15 men taken in the Visitor Center in front of the Christus and 12 apostles statues.

Today, the Church released this video of our apostles and prophet reading passages from “The Living Christ.” The Living Christ was released by the Church in 2000, declaration to the world of our belief in Jesus Christ. Here is the video, I hope you will share it with your friends of all faiths.

Russell M. Nelson Called as 17th President of the Church

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If you missed this morning’s announcement about the newly organized First Presidency, you can watch the video below. The First Presidency announcement starts at the 52 minute mark and the press conference, which began at 10am this morning starts at the 1:51 (one hour, fifty-one) minute mark.

President Russell M. Nelson was called and set apart on Sunday as the 17th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dallin H. Oaks has been called as the First Councelor and Henry B. Eyring has been called as the Second Councelor. Elder M. Russell Ballard has been called to be the acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve.

Elder Christofferson conducted the meeting and took a few minutes to explain the process of how the new president is chosen and how things are organized, he also bore his testimony of the meeting, “As a participant, it was sweet, sacred experience in which the Lord’s will was clearly manifest and all were in full accord. This experience confirmed once again that Jesus Christ directs His church.”

He also explained that by choosing the senior most apostle to be the president of the church, posturing or campaigning for position is eliminated, that this process provides continuity and that the one who becomes the new president has been prepared for this calling. He also quoted Elder John A. Widtsoe, “This is a wise procedure. It places at the head of the church the apostle who has been the longest in service. He is known well to the people and trusted by them. He himself knows the procedure of church affairs. He is no novice to be trained for the position.”

My thoughts… Continue reading →

How to Watch Tuesday’s Press Conference

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From the Mormon Newsroom: “Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from around the world are invited to participate in a live message from President Russell M. Nelson on Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. This message will be shared on all Church broadcast, internet and social media channels in 29 languages. President Nelson’s message will be followed by a press conference at 10:00 a.m. MST.”

You can watch or listen to the broadcast on:
LDS.org
BYUtv.org
KSL TV and radio
BYU Radio
MormonChannel.org
and any of the BYU’s mobile apps, which can be downloaded HERE.

Succession in the Presidency
How the LDS Church chooses its new president

On the Folly of Demanding Demographic Diversity among the LDS Apostles

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[Cross Posted from Sixteen Small Stones]

As you probably already know, three new apostles were called during the recent October 2015 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Apostles serve as special witnesses of Jesus Christ and hold priesthood authority and keys to direct the work of God on the earth. Jesus directs his church through these living apostles and prophets. And as members of the church we believe these men are called by God through inspiration to the living prophet and president of the church.

Some members of the church, and not a few dissidents and former members, have expressed disappointment and feelings of hurt because the three new apostles do not come from diverse enough backgrounds to meet their contemporary concepts of Diversity. All three new apostles are white men, born in Utah. These disappointed members and critics wanted new apostles with backgrounds more representative of the diversity in church membership, which now has more members outside of the United States than in.

There has been plenty of commentary about this criticism, and I don’t want to rehash what has already been said. But I do want to step back and take a more abstract look at some of the problems with wanting the Lord to call apostles based on demographic diversity.

Diversity is a good thing. Each individual brings a unique package of experience, background, talents, and ideas that can contribute to building the Kingdom of God.

However, when considering diversity, it is important to recognize that we, as human beings, tend to draw arbitrary lines and to group people based on simplistic similarities. However we draw those lines, we unavoidably generalize, oversimplify, and reduce people from complex individuals into artificially uniform groups.

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