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(by Dennis B. Horne)
I know that God lives.
I know that Jesus
is the Christ and the Son of God.
I know it as well
as if I had seen him.
“I took my
father's Book of Mormon, and I read the story of Nephi, having in mind what
President Grant had said. As I read, not only did I learn to appreciate that
great prophet of old, but I had come into my soul also a deep love for the Book
of Mormon, even as a boy.”
Early Years
Mark
Petersen was born November 7, 1900, in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he grew up.
He served a mission to Canada (Nova Scotia) from 1920 to 1922. A year after
returning he married Emma Marr McDonald in the Salt Lake Temple. He attended
the University of Utah for his education. Mark worked for the Deseret News,
the church-owned newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah, for most of his career. He eventually
moved from the lowest rung to the highest, when he was called into the Quorum
of the Twelve.[1] (One of his employees for
a year or so was a young man named Bruce R. McConkie, who would later join Brother
Petersen in the ranks of the general authorities; see Elder McConkie’s chapter in
the first volume).
Brother
Petersen served in two stake presidencies and was in demand as a guest speaker
in many wards and stakes (back when that kind of thing was common).[2]
His voice was strong and projected well and he used it to his advantage, becoming
a fine orator and expounder of the gospel.
Mark’s work
at the newspaper was generally exciting, enjoyable, and challenging. He planned
to spend the balance of his life there. He was responsible for many
innovations, such as working out a joint operating agreement with the rival
(usually anti-Mormon) Salt Lake Tribune, so they could both save on
printing costs. He wrote most of the Church News editorials over more
than four decades. During one difficult period, when his two bosses at the Deseret
News were having a political infight, he was fired and rehired repeatedly,
giving him ulcers as he strove to get the work done. He outlasted both bosses,
including the one who disliked him.
During
these years President J. Reuben Clark noticed Mark’s talents and began
mentoring him, and President Heber J. Grant alternately criticized and praised
him over articles he read in the Deseret News.[3]
Thus, at age 43, Mark Petersen felt he was on a course that would captivate and
stimulate the balance of his working life.
Call to the Quorum of the Twelve
Elder Petersen’s call to the apostleship actually
had its roots in one of the more sorrowful tragedies in church leadership
history. The story begins with President Joseph F. Smith’s declining health in
1917, worsening into 1918. When his son, Elder Hyrum M. Smith of the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles, died in January, the grief was overwhelming for him. Combined
with gradually failing health, he struggled under the burden.[4]
Yet the vacancy needed to be filled in the Quorum of the Twelve. The two men
that President Smith considered most closely were Richard R. Lyman and Melvin
J. Ballard (see the chapter on Elder Ballard in the first volume). At this time
of emotional and physical strain in his life, he selected Richard R. Lyman to
fill the vacancy.
Elder
Joseph Fielding Smith, who served as a close confidante and unofficial
secretary for his father, told President Heber J. Grant of his father’s
struggle: “Joseph Fielding said to me: ‘Brother Grant, at the time that Richard
R. Lyman was nominated to be an Apostle by father, he said to me: “My son, I
cannot make up my mind which of two young men, both worthy to be members of the
Council of the Twelve, to name—Richard R. Lyman or Melvin J. Ballard.”’ Now you
have named the other one.”[5]
Thus Elder Lyman began serving in the Quorum.
Sometime in
the 1930s, Elder Lyman began committing adultery with a woman he had been
assigned to counsel and assist to full activity in the Church. This situation
came to light in 1943, whereupon the Quorum of the Twelve held a disciplinary
council. Elder Spencer W. Kimball described the scene:
It was a terrible experience that
came to me today. I think I can never forget the scene. We were called to a
special meeting of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. . . . The slow,
deliberate and saddened approach of some of the brethren as they came to the
Temple presaged something ominous was ahead of us. As soon as we were all
seated the meeting was called to order and announcement was made by President
George Albert Smith, who was almost overcome, that there was a very serious
charge against one of our brethren. He then directed that the charge be read.
Our hearts stood still as we heard that Richard R. Lyman, for 26 years a member
of the Council of the Twelve, was accused of immorality. His written confession
was read and he being present did not deny the accusation nor the confession.
He told also of the situations. He had little to say. He was as pale as could
be. He minimized his act and seemed to feel that it should be overlooked but
showed no repentance and no expressed sorrow for his sin. . . . It was a
terrible ordeal. To see great men such as the members of this quorum all in
tears, some sobbing, all shocked, stunned by the impact was an unforgettable
sight! No tears from him but plenty from the rest of us and what a
heart-rending experience. After considerable discussion a motion was made,
seconded and we voted unanimously to excommunicate him from the Church.[6]
Only a few weeks
before this episode, Mark, then working as the Managing Editor for the Deseret
News, was given a strong premonition of what would shortly take place.
According to his biographer:
One
night he fell into a deep sleep and had a dream. The very existence of the
dream made him uncomfortable because he rarely dreamed. The subject of the
dream was appalling. He could see the lead headline of the front page of the Deseret
News with a terrible mistake in it. The headline read “Lyman R. Richard Dies.”
How could the copy desk make such an error and reversed the order of Elder
Richard R. Lyman’s name? He was absolutely certain that . . . he would lose his
job because of it. . . . He woke with a jolt. “I was responsible for the
newspaper, and to think of Elder Lyman’s name on the front page all scrambled
up made me almost sick, even in the dream,” he recalled. . . .
Mark
could not shake the feeling that some terrible accident or swift moving illness
was about to strike down Elder Lyman, and that he himself would replace him in
the Twelve. . . . But he knew President Grant would call him to the Twelve.
“Then
on a very fateful day, Joseph Anderson came over to the office at the Deseret
News and told me that President Grant wanted the little notice that was in
the envelope which he handed me placed on the front page of the newspaper. . .
. It was a plain announcement, but no news story was to accompany it. When I
read it, to my horror I saw that Brother Lyman had been excommunicated from the
Church. . . .”
Mark
began to feel nervous about the second part of his dream in which he took Elder
Lyman’s place. A few days before April conference he received a telephone call
from Joseph Anderson asking him to come to see President Grant. . . . As Mark
related, . . . “I knew exactly what he was coming for. When he came in, he
shook hands with me. He had been a great friend to me over the years . . . He
sat down and told me that the Brethren had appointed me the new member of the
Council of the Twelve. I said, ‘President Grant, I have known for some weeks
that this was coming.’ I told him about my dream. He shook my hand warmly and
told me that the Lord had given me the right impression. I was sustained the
following Sunday, April 7, 1944, in general conference. I felt so weak and
young and so inadequate, as, of course, I was all of those things.”[7]
In his
first talk to the membership of the Church as a special witness, he said:
I
was greatly shaken by the call which came to me yesterday. I feel that I am the
least among you all. I have never felt so humble in all my days, as I do at
this present moment. . . .
I
know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. I know
it as well as if I had seen him, and I shall take great pleasure in declaring
His word for the remainder of my life.
I
am thankful for my testimony of the divinity of the mission of the Prophet
Joseph Smith. I love him. I have read all I could find about him. I know that
God spoke to him and appeared to him, and I know that his testimony, for which
he died, is true.
I
willingly and gladly, although most humbly, accept this great call which has
come to me. It certainly has humbled me. . . .[8]
Thus he
began a powerful and uncompromising ministry as an apostle of the Lord. He felt
great love and loyalty to the Brethren he began serving with, and was eager to
say so, and to also bear witness of Jesus:
Five
years ago, I stood at this pulpit trembling from head to foot, when I accepted
a call to the Council of the Twelve. I have lived now these five years, in
close association with the men you sustained today as the leaders of this
Church. I have come to know them well. I knew most of them well before I came to
this position, but not nearly so well as I now know them. . . .
I
want to bear you my testimony, and I do it with God as my witness, that these
men who lead your Church are honest, true, great men of God; that they do
receive the revelation and the inspiration of the Almighty; that they are
guided by the Holy Ghost: that this is God's Church; and that if you desire to
have guidance from heaven, then you follow the guidance of these men whom you
sustain as the prophets of God. They are prophets. They are prophets just as
Jeremiah and Moses were prophets. They are Apostles in the same sense in which
Peter, James, and John were Apostles, because those three gave the powers of
the apostleship to modern men, and those powers have been handed down to the
men who stand and sit before you today. . . .
I
am grateful for the experience of the past five years. I have learned a better
appreciation of this, the great restored Church, of its principles, of the men
who lead it. I humbly submit to you my solemn testimony that Mormonism is true,
that the restored Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is
God's own Church, and that through it we find salvation.[9]
West European Mission
From early
1962 through 1964 Elder Petersen served as president of the West European
Mission where he supervised the work of eleven mission presidents. London,
England, served as the mission headquarters. While on a brief return to Salt
Lake City for some medical care, he was able to report his labors to President
McKay. This visit, “Allowed him to hear President McKay explain a little more
about the reason for his overseas assignment. President McKay told him that he
had been ill and thought he was dying. Then he dreamed that he had gone to the
other side and that all his family there were preparing a happy reunion for
him. But just as he reached his arms toward his waiting relatives, a voice said
to him that his time had not come, for he had work still to do. President McKay
felt a deep conviction that it was Mark Petersen who must go abroad [to serve
in Europe].”[10]
Later, near
the end of his mission service, when President Hugh B. Brown visited the mission
headquarters and spoke to the eleven mission presidents serving under Elder
Petersen’s charge (and while President Petersen was not present to hear
him), he told them: “You have been very fortunate to have spent three years of
your lives with Elder Mark E. Petersen. None of you know the role Elder
Petersen will play in the hereafter, but I tell you that it is a very important
part.”[11]
A Watchman on the Tower
In the
1940s and 50s, a time when the Church was much smaller, one of Elder Petersen’s
assignments was to work with (and try to correct) doctrinally errant or
apostate members and groups. Consequently, some of his general conference
addresses reflected this effort and awareness of the many doctrinal divergences
scattered throughout the Church. In one of his first messages, in what has to
be one of the longest single sentences ever spoken in general conference
history, he said:
Latter-day
Saints, beware of false teachers. When men come among you and begin to preach
doctrines unto you which tend to destroy your confidence in the holy
scriptures, when men come among you, as they are now coming, declaring to you
that the appointment of George Albert Smith as President of this Church is not
valid, because they say this Church should only have seven presidents and no
more, when people come among you declaring that Christ is not divine, or when
they come among you advocating the so-called practice of plural marriage,
contrary to the teachings of this Church and contrary to the law of the land,
when they come among you declaring that you can enter into domestic relations
with another man or another woman without committing adultery, when you do not
have a marriage bond which is recognized as legal by the law of this land, or
when people come among you declaring that the Church is out of order, because
we are at the present time not practicing the United Order, or when a man comes
among you declaring that the Church is off the track and that he is one mighty
and strong sent to set the Church in order, or when anyone comes and tells you
that temple marriage is just a fad and that it has no relationship to your
exaltation in the kingdom of God, or when someone comes to you, as one group is
now doing, preaching that reincarnation is a Christian doctrine, or when men
come to you declaring that predestination is one of the doctrines of the
gospel, declaring that one group of the Saints is predestined to go to one
degree of glory and another group of the Saints is predestined to go to another
degree of glory, or when they come among you declaring that they have had
dreams and visions about some get-rich-quick scheme by which they are going to
save the Church financially in some period of distress, or when they come to
you and declare that the method of administering the sacrament of the Lord's
supper is to be changed, contrary to all the teachings of the scriptures, or
when they come to you and say you can serve two masters, that you can serve the
Church and also one of these wild-cat cults that are starting up, when you hear
teachings of this kind you remember that such doctrines cause dissention among
the people, that they cause disputes which lead to apostasy and that the Lord
condemned disputes of that kind. . . .
Salvation
comes not by being tossed about by every wind of doctrine but by learning the
truth as it is taught by the inspired, authorized leaders of the Church, and
then having learned that truth, by living up to it and enduring in faithfulness
unto the very end.[12]
Elder
Petersen taught by the power of the Holy Spirit and continued to bear his
special witness, also with great power—and concerning critically important
matters related to the foundation of the Restoration. At the 1955 general
conference he declared: “I testify to you, and I testify to all men, that God
has made known to me that he lives, and I know it as well as I know that I
live. He has given me testimony that Jesus of Nazareth was his literal Son in
the flesh, and that he is our Savior, and our Redeemer. And he has given to me
testimony that Joseph Smith truly knelt in prayer and in answer received the
glorious visitation in which he talked face to face with the Father and the
Son. And he has given me personal testimony that the Book of Mormon is true. I
know it as well as the three witnesses or the eight witnesses who held the
plates in their hands. I know it. God as made it known to me, and I give you my
testimony.”[13]
He testified
likewise in 1963: “I bear you testimony that I know he lives, and I am raising
my voice as loudly and as strongly as I know how to declare it to everyone who
is willing to listen. Jesus lives. He is the Christ. He is the Son of God. He
is the Divine Redeemer. He is the Creator of the worlds, and if we will but
follow him, great will be our joy—salvation in this life and eternal life in
the world to come.”[14]
His special witness mingled with that of his Brethren: “I have come to realize
more and more that there is only one voice in all the world that can bear
testimony to these groping nations that Jesus is the Christ. I mean only one
voice of authority, and that is the voice of the Latter-day Saints. We are the
only authoritative voice declaring to the world that Jesus is the Christ. We
know that God lives because our prophets have seen him and talked with him. We
know that Jesus is the Christ because our prophets have communed with him, and
we know that he lives because of the testimony of the Holy Ghost that burns
within us.”[15]
Elder
Petersen wrote prodigiously, publishing some 43 books on gospel subjects (which
is probably a record for a general authority), along with a number of pamphlets
and editorials. Most of his writings were a response meant to correct error he
saw in others’ works.
The Creation of Man and Scientific Theories
In several
of his messages to larger church congregations, such as general conference and
the Brigham Young University studentbody, and as part of his effort to correct
error in the Church, Elder Petersen taught the true (but often misunderstood) doctrine
of the creation of man, and the fall, and also spoke strongly against the false
scientific theory of evolution. During the first portion of his first address
to BYU students (in 1953), who may not have fully understood his message and
specific wording usage, he taught:
I
am so glad that you believe in God. I am so glad that you accept Him as the
great Creator of all. He is the great Creator. He made all things. He made this
earth on which we live. He made the light. The scripture makes it clear that
the Gods decided to create this world. In the process of their work they did
separate the light from the darkness. They put lights in the firmament of
heaven. As they looked upon their work they said it was “good.” And then they
separated the waters from the earth; and they said it was “good.”
Then
they began to make life upon the earth. All sorts of vegetation. And each bit
of vegetation was given a commandment—to reproduce after its own kind; after
its own image and likeness. As God surveyed His work, He announced that it was
“Good.” Then He created the birds in the air and the fish in the sea, and they
were given a similar commission—that they were to bring forth after their own
kind; after their own likeness and image. As the Lord surveyed that bit of His
work, again He was pleased and announced that it was “good.” And then He
created the animals, and each one of them was commanded that it should bring
forth after its own kind; reproduce in their own likeness and image: the cow,
the bear, the horse, the sheep—all the animals. As He surveyed all of that, he
pronounced it “good.” Then came the time for the creation of man; the time for
the crowning act of creation. Why was it the crowning act? Why was it so
important? God was placing His own race upon the earth; His own children. God
knew that He was to perpetuate His own race; that we were His offspring; that
we were to come to the earth and that we were to have experience in mortality.
So
He placed us here and the record says that man was made in the exact image and
likeness of God. Why?—because we are of the race of God. We are His children.
Is it at all unusual that a child should resemble its parent? He was our
Father; we, His children. The first of our race to enter mortality was placed
on the earth. They [Adam and Eve] were in the exact image and likeness of
God—just as the cows that were placed upon the earth and reproduced after their
kind had more cows that were in the exact likeness and image of the parent
cows. Just as was the case with the horse, and with the sheep, and with the
trees and the birds and the bees and the flowers. Each one bringing forth after
its own kind. Then God brought His own race upon the earth and commanded that
they should reproduce after their own kind; in their own likeness and image.
And they in turn were in the likeness and image of God. Therefore, as they
reproduced, they reproduced the race of God; each one being in the exact
likeness and image of God. Wasn’t it a marvelous creation? He, our Father; we,
His children; we, of the race of God. After He had made man, male and female,
in His own likeness and image, He surveyed His work. This time He did not say
it was only “good.” This time He said, “It is very good.” It was a great act.
Having
made man and woman after His own likeness, He introduced something that had not
been introduced in creation before. Not with the animals, not with the birds
nor the bees nor the fish nor the vegetation. Something different was now being
introduced—because there was a different species—here was the race of God. The
animals and the birds and the bees were His creations, yes. They had life in
themselves; He gave them the right and the power of reproduction after their
own kind. But now with man, who was of the race of God, something else had to
be introduced before He could give them the commandment. That something else
was marriage. So God brought the woman whom He had made to the man whom He had
made. They twain became one flesh; she, his helpmeet. Having given her, in the
bonds of holy matrimony, to the man, the Father in heaven stood before those
two and gave them a commandment: to bring forth after their own kind. To
multiply and fill up the earth with more of the race of God. . . . It [sex] is
holy. It is part of the function of Almighty God.[16]
Twenty
years later, Elder Petersen taught the same creation doctrine at the same
church school and while doing so used unusually (even for him) blunt language
to describe those teachers seeking to supplant or taint pure church doctrine
with evolution. To students at BYU that were being subjected to this theory
being taught as fact, he both taught and warned with emphasis:
How
are we the offspring of God? We are dual beings. Actually every one of us is a
spirit, and our spirit occupies a body of flesh and bone. The body is not the
person at all. The spirit is the real person. I am a spirit; you are a
spirit—every one of you. Our spirit resembles our body, or rather our body was
tailored to fit our spirit. The spirit bears the image and likeness of God, and
the body, if it’s normal, is in the image and likeness of the spirit. And the
spirit is the offspring of Almighty God. You remember that Paul said also, “We
have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and
live?” (Hebrews 12:9).
So
we, as spirits, were begotten of Almighty God. We are his children. We are not
products of creation in the usually understood sense. We obtained our being by
birth and not by manufacture, if I may use that word without being
misunderstood. We were born of Almighty God in the spirit, in the same sense in
which our bodies were born of our parents here on the earth. As we have the
blood of our earthly parents flowing through our veins, so we have divinity
within us, because our eternal spirits have a divine parentage. . . .
There
has developed in recent years what almost amounts to a cult in certain fields.
This is a cult which also points the finger of scorn at believers and would
seek to make us ashamed of our faith. It is one which would have us reject the
doctrine of a special creation and accept the unproven but time-worn theory
that all life evolved from lower forms, that worms and microbes were our
ancestors, and not God. It teaches that God is not our father, but that our
first progenitors were microscopic forms which came into existence
spontaneously, without cause, without reason, and without purpose. According to
this theory of primordial life, man at one time developed from an ancestor
which, as one writer described him, was “a hairy, four-legged beast which had a
tail and pointed ears and lived in trees.” I ask you, which requires more
faith, to believe that God is our father, or that some monkey-like ape gave us
birth? And which would you rather have as your father, a creeping ape or
Almighty God?
Our
religion tells us that God is our Father. Some so-called intellectuals who
point the finger at religion have become so domineering in their attitude
toward those who do not believe their ghastly theories that they assume an
attitude almost approaching tyranny. In some circles it has become
persecution. . . .
Yes,
our religion tells us that God is our Father, and that we lived with him before
we were born on this earth. It tells us further that every creature,
microscopic and otherwise, was made by him before it lived here on the earth,
and also that each one was made as a spirit before it was made in the flesh
here in mortality. There were two creations, one in which God made all things
in the spirit. That is, he made the real life, the real being, as a spirit, in
the first creation. And then, in the second creation, he provided these mortal
tabernacles in which he placed these spirits that he had created in the
preexistence.
I
hope you read the scriptures on this. Moses, in the book of Moses, was very
specific on this subject, and I’d like to read to you what Moses had to say.
“And
now, behold, I say unto you, that these are the generations of the heaven and
of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God, made the
heaven and the earth;
“And
every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the
field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have
spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. . .
. in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither
in the water, neither in the air.” [Moses 3:4–5]
They’re
significant words, aren’t they? He made all life in heaven, making them
spirits, which were the real persons, or the real creatures, or whatever they
were. He made them all as individual persons—or creatures, as the case may
be—and they were in the spiritual creation. Then he created the mortal part of
life, this earth and all mortality. But at the time he made the spirits there
was no flesh, Moses says, “upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the
air” (Moses 3:5). He hadn’t even sent them here.
And
then another very interesting thing in the second chapter of Moses: he says
that when he did place them here on the earth, he placed within each one the
seed, of reproduction with the power to reproduce after its own kind. Well, he
gave human beings the power to reproduce, didn’t he? We have within ourselves
the seed to reproduce, but what do we reproduce? We reproduce after our own
kind, don’t we? The only reproduction among human beings is more human beings,
isn’t that right? Whoever heard of a human being bringing forth a horse or a
cow or—well, excuse me for being ridiculous, but it’s to the point, isn’t it?
Human beings can reproduce only human beings. And he put this seed in animals,
likewise, so that animals can reproduce only after their own kind. So dogs will
only reproduce dogs, and never cats or polliwogs. They will only reproduce
after themselves. The same is true in vegetable life. An apple will only bring
forth an apple, and it will not bring forth a cucumber. Now, I’m being a little
extreme, but I think you get the point. God placed in every one of his
creations, as it says here in Moses 2, the seed within itself to reproduce
after its own kind. . . .
It’s
a very interesting thing to read in section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants
some further information on this same subject. . . . The Prophet asked the Lord
for some explanations, and in this section 77, certain explanations are made
that have to do with this very subject. We learn from this section that in
heaven beasts and fowls and creeping things exist as spirits. Then the
scripture goes on: “That which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which
is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is
spiritual” (D&C 77:2). So you see, the body matches the spirit, and the
spirit was made in the preexistence, so that the body that’s made here fits the
spirit that was made in the preexistence. Then notice this next part of this
little section: “The spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the
spirit of the beast and every other creature which God has created” (D&C
77:2). Isn’t that a marvelous and an interesting scripture? Lots of people
don’t read that, but this is one of the most significant things in the Doctrine
and Covenants, in my humble opinion. So in heaven God created the spirits of
all forms of life as they appear in mortality, the mortal form being in the
likeness of the spirit, with mankind being God’s own offspring, his literal
children, having the full capability of becoming like him.
.
. . Man, then, was always man, because he was made that way in the preexistence.
Cows were always cows and horses were always horses, because they were made
that way in the preexistence, when first they were made as spirits before they
were tabernacled in flesh, since all things were made spiritually before they
were temporally in the earth. Then trees were always trees, corn was always
corn, cats were always cats, because they were made that way in the
preexistence. Now I ask you, if God were not our father, literally, why would
the Savior teach us to pray as he did in the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father which
art in heaven?” Would he deceive us? And why, after the resurrection, would he
say to Mary, “I ascend unto my Father, and to your Father; and to my God, and
your God” (John 20:17)? If it were not so, why would he have said a thing like
that? Our whole religion, you see, is based upon the concept that God is our
Father. . . .
According
to our doctrine, the fall of Adam and the process of death are inseparable.
Death and Adam are inseparable; death and the resurrection are inseparable; the
fall of Adam and the atonement of Christ are inseparable; Adam and Christ are
inseparable. If there was no Adam, there was no fall. If there was no fall of
Adam there was no atonement by Christ. If there was no atonement by Christ our
religion is in vain, for if there was no Adam, there was no Christ either. If
there is no Christ, where are we? Are you ready to reject your inspired
religion, your faith in God and Christ, to accept the questionable philosophy
that may be thrust upon you by some unbelieving, even atheistic, professor of
an unproved hypothesis? This is certainly a case in point where we must do as
Joshua of old said, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15).[17]
To conclude
his clear and direct teachings of Christ as the Creator and that mankind are
the children of God, Elder Petersen bore testimony that he had taught them the
truth:
Paul
was one of the great witnesses of Christ anciently. We have many witnesses for
Christ today. I am one of them, and I humbly stand before you as one of his
witnesses. Today I join with the apostle Paul and give you my testimony in
Paul’s words, so that Paul and I bear you the same testimony as it is recorded
in 1 Corinthians 15:50, 53–55, 57–58. . . .
Let
us realize this great fact, that God reproduced himself and gave us birth to
give us the opportunity of sometime becoming like him, and he provides the
means, which is the gospel of Christ, to help us to become like him. It was not
an idle statement, quoted by President Lorenzo Snow, that “as man is, God once
was, and as God is, man may become.” That is why Jesus commanded us to become
perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. For this reason we must
follow his way of life, his plan of development, the only plan which will permit
us to reach this goal. . . . That is why we must not be like the world, even
though we live in the world. That is why the apostle Peter declared that we are
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood an holy nation, a peculiar people, that
we might indeed become like God our Father. . . .
I
bear you solemn testimony tonight, my brothers and sisters, that the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ is true. By all that I hold sacred, I testify to you that
God indeed is our Father, that we are the offspring of God, that he’s the
father of our spirits, and that we can become like him. By all that I hold
sacred I testify to you that Jesus Christ lives, that he is the Savior of the
world, and that he will save every one of us if we will but allow him to.[18]
Elder
Petersen’s teaching is most germane: “We believe in God. Regardless of what all
the rest of the people of the world may say or do, we Latter-day Saints have a
testimony that God lives, and therefore we believe in him. We have various
reasons for believing in him. One of the reasons is, of course, that our
prophets have actually seen him. Our prophets have seen Almighty God, and they
bear testimony that he lives.”[19]
Around 1959-60
Elder Petersen was assigned, along with Elder Marion G. Romney, to read and
report on the first edition of Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s famous book Mormon
Doctrine. Elder Petersen had noticed that this best-selling work was
becoming highly influential in the Church. He read it and took his (unspecified)
concerns to the First Presidency. For some reason, that the available
historical records do not make entirely clear, Elder Petersen did not like the
book and made an issue of it with the First Presidency, who, with him present,
called Elder McConkie in and gave him a “horsewhipping” over it (for further
information on this incident, see the chapter on Elder McConkie in volume one).
Publication of a fifth printing was halted, but President McKay permitted Elder
McConkie to revise and republish a second edition of Mormon Doctrine under the supervision
of Elder Spencer W. Kimball, in 1965-66.
For many
years, these two dedicated doctrinal giants of the Church (Elders Petersen and
McConkie) did not get along well and were not close, but as the years passed
and they sat in collegial council with their brethren of the Twelve, their
relationship improved and it is likely that by the time they died (within a
year of each other) they had patched up their differences. Certainly all is
well between them now, on the other side of the veil.
In comparing
some of their individual doctrinal teachings on the same subjects I find that
they were highly harmonious (such as with the creation, the fall, and the
atonement). I therefore conclude that Elder Petersen’s objections to certain
content in Mormon Doctrine were probably mostly related to smaller more
incidental matters. And it also ought to be acknowledged that neither man was much
of a diplomat at the pulpit or in writing.[20]
Elder
Petersen’s beloved wife, Emma Marr, an accomplished and prodigious author in
her own right, died in 1975, leaving Elder Petersen grief stricken. He applied
to the First Presidency to be relieved of the normal requirement to remarry and
thereafter lived the rest of his life single.
Bearing His Special Witness
As Elder
Petersen entered the fullness of his apostolic years, he continued to raise his
voice in testimony, such as before another assemblage of students at BYU:
I
bear you solemn testimony my young friends that what I say to you today is
true. I bear you solemn testimony that there is a God in heaven. I know it as
well as I know that you live. I know it as well as I know that I
live. God does live and He is a person and He is our father. He is as real as
you are real. . . .
I
bear you solemn testimony that Jesus the Christ lives as you live. That He is
just as real as you are real. I bear you solemn testimony that He not only died
on the cross but that He came forth in a literal physical resurrection. It was
a fact that He could say, “Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and
bones as you see me have.”
It
was a fact that 2,500 Book of Mormon people came up one by one in a line and
felt the marks of the crucifixion in His hands and feet and side. It was a fact
that they knew by their physical experience that He lives.
It
is a fact that He appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith; and that the Father
likewise appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I bear you testimony that that
visitation was not a dream. It was not something that came out of the Prophet’s
mind. It was not even a vision in the sense of which we normally speak of
visions. The Father and the Son came to the Prophet Joseph Smith physically and
literally, even as you have come to this campus. The Father and the Son
literally and physically were there in that sacred grove and faced that boy and
talked with him as one man speaketh to another.
I
bear you solemn testimony that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery saw Jesus the
Christ there in the Kirtland Temple. And that they saw His face and figure; His
beautiful white hair, whiter than the driven snow. And that they heard His
voice as He spoke to them and announced that in truth He was the Christ.
These
things I know by reason of the experiences God has given to me. I bear you this
testimony and ask you to believe it and to know that you are really and truly
the children of a real God who is really and truly your Father.[21]
Of Elder
Petersen’s special witness of Jesus, his daughter wrote: “Mark had born strong
testimony of the Savior even as a missionary. But as he grew in the gospel and
served so many years as a special witness, those close to him noticed that his
sermons on the Christ had a slightly different quality. No longer were there
any “I believes.” He began to speak as if he had received some personal
manifestation. As he referred to Jesus with such solemn knowledge, his family
wondered if he had seen the Christ, but being well brought up, . . . they knew
better than to ask. Mark always taught those close to him that certain things
were too sacred to be discussed.”[22]
Final Years
With the
advent of the 1980’s, Elder Petersen began to suffer from a number of ailments
that he had largely avoided during his ministry, but that now slowed him down.
He realized that such were the accompaniments of old age, for he was passing
eighty.
He had a
close doctor friend that had helped him with some of these ailments, but had
been killed in a car crash by a reckless teenage driver. “Mark spoke at the
funeral services. Recalling his association with Dr. Webster, he told of the
physician’s influence on his grandchildren and of the time Jim had literally
saved Mark’s own life after back surgery. Then, in matter-of-fact tones, he
told of an interview that Jim had just experienced with the Savior in which he
was asked how he had treated his fellowmen.” One of those in attendance, Dr.
Russell M. Nelson (who later became the President of the Church), wrote a note
to Elder Petersen: “Having just returned from the funeral service for our dear
friend and colleague, Dr. James W. Webster, I want you to know how moved and
inspired we all were to have heard your address at his funeral service. I
happened to be sitting by many not of our faith, including Jews, Catholics,
Protestants, and the like. I testify to you that there wasn’t one of them who
wasn’t moved to the point of conviction that they had heard a true apostle of
the Lord speak to them.”[23]
An illness
that Elder Petersen couldn’t beat was cancer, which caused him great suffering
and pain as he endured surgery and other common energy-draining treatments. His
last couple of years were spent fighting illness while trying to magnify his
apostleship. He was sometimes able to attend his meetings with the First
Presidency and the Twelve. He noted one of these occasions that was somehow
exceptional and critical, but exactly how is not given: For December 16, 1983,
he wrote in his diary: “Today I was able to attend a special meeting of the
Twelve. Some of the brethren picked me up at home and drove me downtown for
this special meeting. I was delighted to be able to go.” To his family, he
said: “I needed to be in that meeting. It was one of the most important of my
life. Afterward almost everyone came to tell me how glad he was that I had
expressed my opinion. This is a difficult time for Gordon Hinckley, who carries
so much of the burden of the Church. He is doing a magnificent job, just as I
would expect.”[24]
A year
later, on January 11, 1984, Elder Petersen succumbed to the cancer and died. In
an article in a church magazine eulogizing his beloved associate in the Quorum
of the Twelve, Elder Thomas S. Monson wrote: “Told at his funeral were several
accounts of his being voice in prayer on occasion for the Brethren at our
regular Thursday meeting, particularly one time when President Spencer W.
Kimball was not well and not present. Elder Petersen’s crystal clear faith and
pleading soul sought in our behalf a blessing upon the President, and it was as
if a ‘conduit opened to the heavens.’ We knew that our prayer and our faith had
been recognized. How completely natural that our spokesman on that occasion
would be Elder Mark E. Petersen, such a giant of unshakable faith.”[25]
[1]
For this biographical information and other info throughout this chapter, see
Thomas S. Monson, “Mark E. Petersen: A Giant Among Men,” Ensign, March 1984.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
This information and some of that in preceding paragraphs is taken in
summarized form from Peggy Petersen Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985).
[4]
See Joseph Fielding Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1938), 473-75.
[5]
Heber J. Grant diary, April 7, 1937.
[6]
Spencer W. Kimball diary, November 12, 1943:
[7]
Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography, 85-87.
[8]
Conference Report, April 1944, 92.
[9]
Conference Report, April 1949, 145.
[10]
Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography, 129.
[11]
Ibid, 130-31.
[12]
Conference Report, October 1945, 91.
[13]
Conference Report, October 1955, 63.
[14]
Conference Report, October 1963, 123.
[15]
Ibid.
[16]
Mark E. Petersen, “Chastity,” (also titled, “The Sacredness of Procreation,” BYU
Speeches, February 3, 1953; (4 mins to 15 mins); audio file transcript
excerpt created by author.
[17]
Mark E. Petersen, “We Believe in
God, the Eternal Father,” BYU Speeches, September 2, 1973.
[18]
Ibid.
[19]
Ibid. I don’t think Elder Petersen meant all of the prophets, but some
of them have indeed, along with many many apostles.
[20]
For some comments Elder Petersen made about Elder
McConkie’s teachings about the Savior at a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve,
see this BYU Speech.
[21]
“Be Ye An Exponent of Christ,” BYU Speeches, September 28, 1965.
[22]
Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography, 166.
[23]
Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography,
207.
[24]
Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography, 212.
[25]
Monson, “Mark E. Petersen: A Giant Among Men,” Ensign, March 1984.
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