A prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such

Prophets say a lot of things. And the challenge is knowing when they're speaking for God, or when they're giving their own ideas and opinions.

I wrote a few weeks back about my experience with watching my first R-rated movie ever as a guy in his 40s. My point was that we should trust our personal revelation when deciding what media is appropriate for us individually. But as quickly as I said that, there were fellow Latter-day Saints in my DMs reminding me: a prophet told us to not watch R-rated movies!

This is, of course, true. In 1986, President Ezra Taft Benson spoke to the youth of the Church, and said, and I quote, “Don’t see R-rated movies.”

“Jonah and the Whale” by Pieter Lastman, 1621

So, isn’t that all we need? Doesn’t that close the book on that topic? Don’t we believe that when the prophet speaks, the debate is over?

Before we get too far, I want to establish that I believe two things can be true at the same time: 1) Prophets are called of God and lead His church through divine direction, and 2) prophets are human beings who make mistakes in things they say and do.¹ It can be hard to reconcile the two, and I’m sure plenty of people have left the Church over similar concerns. But for me, knowing that prophets aren’t perfect is a faith-affirming concept; because when I see the inevitable imperfections, I can attribute them to man instead of to divinity.

But still, there are plenty of questions. We’ll tackle these:

• When the prophet says something, does that mean it came from God?

• Will God allow a prophet to lead us astray?

• If not everything the prophet says is from God, how do we know what is?

Let’s start with the first question.

When the prophet says something, does that mean it came from God?

When President Benson spoke to the youth about R-rated movies almost 40 years ago, he used a direct statement: “Don’t see R-rated movies.” It’s hard to get any more clear than that. Linguistically, this is called an imperative, a statement that expresses a direct command or request.

When a prophet speaks in imperative statements it’s easy to listen and understand. Do this, don’t do that. They sound like commandments; “Don’t see R-rated movies” sounds a lot like “Thou shalt not see R-rated movies.” I understand anyone who sees this simple statement and says, okay, that ends that discussion.

Here’s the thing, though. In that talk, President Benson made ninety-four imperative statements.² “Don’t see R-rated movies” was slotted in among many, many other instructions he gave when speaking to the Young Women, including:

• "Learn some favorite hymns"

• “Attend dances where the music and the lighting and the dance movements are conducive to the Spirit”

• “Earn the Young Womanhood Recognition Award” (and "proudly wear the gold medallion")

• "Let the young men of your acquaintance know that you expect them to assume their missionary responsibilities"

• "Avoid steady dating with a young man prior to the time of his mission call"

• "Do not take the chance of dating nonmembers, or members who are untrained and faithless"

Is every imperative statement in this talk a commandment? They all came from a prophet. They’re all worded in similar ways. But I simply can’t understand this to mean that, at the time, not earning the Young Womanhood Recognition Award was a sin against God.³

The reality is that President Benson expressed a lot of thoughts in this, and culturally many Latter-day Saints elevated the R-rated movies reference to near-commandment status while being more lenient with others. The logical conclusion here is that not everything he said in this talk is from God, and certainly not that everything he ever said while serving as prophet or Apostle is God’s direct commandment to us. Even Joseph Smith insisted that “a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such.”⁴

So, to answer the question, does everything the prophet says come from God? I don’t think we can say this is true. The prophet can speak for God, but isn’t always doing so.

Will God allow a prophet to lead us astray?

You know the scripture reference on this one, from Wilford Woodruff in Official Declaration 1:

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place…

At face value, the quotation supports some level of prophetic infallibility. It suggests that God would not allow a prophet to make a mistake, presumably by taking away their agency to do so.

In reality, the context of this quote is important. It’s at the end of remarks given by President Woodruff in General Conference in 1890, shortly after the release of the Manifesto which ended the practice of plural marriage in the Church. In the talk, he talks very openly about how the practice was discontinued because of the laws of the United States at the time, and alludes to how there was threat that the government would seize the Church’s three operating temples.

Historian and scholar Janiece Johnson reframes the quote in that context, suggesting that it’s not actually an assertion of prophetic infallibility:

Now, some use this to infer that a prophet can’t do wrong, that prophets are infallible. But I think this context here is essential. He is saying… “Maybe… maintaining the temples and the places where we perform these sealings is the more important thing.”

It seems likely that President Woodruff was talking specifically about the life-altering announcement he’d just made, about discontinuing plural marriage—and not making a claim that no prophet would ever make a mistake.⁵

If not everything the prophet says is from God, how do we know what is?

This is the golden question, isn’t it? This is the question I get asked, more than any other, when the topic of prophetic fallibility comes up.

Have you heard the phrase, “when the prophet speaks, the debate is over”? This originated with Sister Elaine Cannon, who said it in a women’s meeting in 1978, while serving as the Young Women General President. This kind of idea gets repeated frequently in the Church. There are good reasons for following the prophet with alacrity—we can find safety in following what the prophet says, we can be unified with our fellow Latter-day Saints, and we demonstrate humility with our obedience.

And at the same time, following the prophet exactly suggests that our personal revelation doesn’t play any role in our decision to do so (or not).

President Spencer W. Kimball was the President of the Church when Sister Cannon said this, and this was his response, as recorded in Sister Cannon’s biography:

President Kimball called Elaine regarding the controversial statement. He commended her for her example and abilities, but gently asked her not to use the phrase “when the prophet speaks, the debate is over” again. He felt it conveyed a message that was too easily misunderstood. He wanted to be sure that members of the Church would feel free to decide for themselves, prayerfully and faithfully, about the statements of a prophet.⁶

Compared to how insistently we talk and sing about following the prophet, it’s refreshing to hear President Kimball temper that a little bit. Brigham Young similarly emphasized the role of personal revelation in following church leaders, when he himself was President of the Church:

I am… afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are lead by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence… Let every man and woman know by the whispering of the spirit of God to themselves whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates or not.⁷

But that’s also more complicated than it seems. If the prophet speaks, what do we do if the Spirit tells us individually something different? Do we just… not follow the prophet?

A modern example is when COVID-19 was at its peak, and President Russell M. Nelson urged members of the Church to wear masks and get vaccinated. His words, representing himself, President Oaks, and President Eyring as members of the First Presidency in an official statement, were “we urge the use of face masks” and “we urge individuals to be vaccinated.” They could hardly have been more clear.

In this case, I felt confirmation of what the prophet was saying, and felt confident in following President Nelson’s counsel. But many of my fellow Latter-day Saints did not, and despite the prophet’s words chose to not wear masks or get vaccinated. Who was right? Was this a case we should follow the prophet? Is this different from President Benson instructing us to not watch R-rated movies, or is it the same?

There’s not a clean answer to the question of, “How do I know which of the prophet’s words are from God?” It’s messy, because revelation is messy. None of us is totally clear on when something is inspiration, vs. when it’s our own idea. It may even be that the prophet himself isn’t entirely clear when something comes from the Lord vs. from his own mind—because if he was, I think he’d tell us when something is for sure from God.⁸

So, clearly our own access to inspiration from the Holy Ghost plays a role here. If you wish it were always clear what came from God and what came from man, you’re in good company. J. Reuben Clark, even while in the First Presidency, tackled this topic in some depth. He cites, as a starting point, Doctrine & Covenants 68:4, which introduces the problem:

And 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.

How do we know, though, when a prophet or Apostle is “moved upon by the Holy Ghost”? How do we know when that’s happening, and when it’s not? President Clark’s conclusion on this is elegant and clear:

The question is, how shall we know when the things they have spoken were said as they were “moved upon by the Holy Ghost?”

I have given some thought to this question, and the answer thereto so far as I can determine, is: We can tell when the speakers are “moved upon by the Holy Ghost” only when we, ourselves, are “moved upon by the Holy Ghost.”⁹

On one hand, it can’t get much simpler than that—it’s when the Spirit confirms to us that something is true.

On the other hand, this is still a messy business; what if your neighbor in the pew has come to different spiritual conclusions than you? That’s just how this works. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and trying to control personal revelation at the institutional level simply isn’t possible. You and I are entitled to personal revelation to understand if even a prophet—called of God—is speaking God’s words, or his own.

Wrapping up

We have a lot of words from modern prophets. The President of the Church speaks in essentially every General Conference, sometimes 2-3 times per conference—all the while not claiming every single thing they say is inspired. I took President Benson’s counsel about R-rated movies seriously for a lot of years, and I don’t regret that. Eventually I turned it over to my God-given personal revelation and discernment, and I approach it through that lens now.

Maybe a recent prophet has said something, or instituted a Church policy, that doesn’t sit right with you. That’s okay. It doesn’t brand you as an apostate, or unfaithful. The nature of personal revelation is that it’s personal; nobody gets to tell you what you do or don’t feel. Personal revelation is how God speaks to human beings—and this church, at every level, is full of them.

1. This is a little different from apologist approaches to this topic. I don’t make any excuses or rationalizations for times when I believe prophets have made human mistakes. Instead, I think we benefit from holding the paradox of someone acting as God’s mouthpiece on earth while also acknowledging their humanity and God-given agency.

2. I’m using the talk “To the Young Women of the Church.” The equivalent talk that he gave the same year directed to Young Men is here.

3. Plus, we don’t have to look too far to find things prophets have said that don’t hold today. Brigham Young is the easy one; he said a lot of things, from the idea of blood atonement to the notion that mixed-race marriages were punishable by death. These things were said by a prophet, but we don’t treat them as though they came from God.

4. Documentary History of the Church, 5:265. Also referenced here in the Joseph Smith Papers.

5. There’s also a bit of irony here. The quote seems to say that the Lord won’t let a prophet go rogue. But what if President Woodruff is going rogue in saying this…?

6. Holly C. Metcalf, Love’s Banner: Memories of the Life of Elaine Cannon, (Lion and Lamb, 2011), 204.

7. Brigham Young, “Remarks,” Deseret News, 12 February 1862.

8. Occasionally a prophet has made clear when his words are his own. I love this quote from President Heber J. Grant, from General Conference in 1922:

I say to the Latter-day Saints, and it is my right to say it -- because you have sung… “ We thank Thee, O God, for a prophet, To guide us in these latter days… “ Now, if you mean it -- I am not going to give any command, but I will ask it as a personal, individual favor to me, to let Coca-Cola alone.

He’s clear that it’s his own opinion, and given Coca-Cola still contained trace amounts of cocaine when President Grant said this, I think we can take it in good humor rather than as a serious exhortation..

9. “When are the Writings or Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?” by J. Reuben Clark, delivered July 7, 1954 and published in the Church News, July 31, 1954; subsequently republished by Dialogue here.