Scott Woodward: Shortly after the Nauvoo Saints voted on August 8, 1844 to sustain the Twelve Apostles as the new leaders of the Church, Sidney Rigdon was excommunicated, for reasons we will discuss in this episode. Then, for more than three years, between 1844 and 1847, Brigham Young and the Twelve led the Church as a group of equals. Together they oversaw the completion of the Nauvoo Temple and organized an exodus out of the United States. Yet after leading a vanguard company to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Brigham Young became concerned about the Twelve collectively leading the Church and became persuaded, for reasons we will discuss, that it was time to reorganize the First Presidency. But his proposal was not uncontested by the Twelve, and so, in a spirited series of debates, with Orson Pratt leading the opposition, Brigham Young ultimately persuaded the majority of the Twelve to re-establish the First Presidency, which officially took place on the 27th of December 1847 at the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we dig into the intriguing details of all of this. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today Casey and I dive into our fourth episode in this series about succession in the presidency. Now let’s get into it. Hi, Casey. Welcome back.

Casey Griffiths: Hi, Scott. Good to be here.

Scott Woodward: Episode four.

Casey Griffiths: Episode four.

Scott Woodward: Succession.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And I’ve got to say, this is delightful because normally I get to deal with this in one class period, but . . .

Scott Woodward: Ah.

Casey Griffiths: Ooh, the ins and outs and the intricacies and having a little breathing room here to discuss some of the particulars about succession is really, really welcome.

Scott Woodward: And I remember that’s one of the reasons this entire podcast was born. You remember when we were driving between Nauvoo and someplace and we said, wouldn’t it be cool if we could just take as much time as we wanted on the topics that we’re forced in our classes to take only one hour on? Wouldn’t that be amazing if we could just go until we feel satisfied?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And then consider it done and move on to the next topic.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So this whole—this whole endeavor exists because you and I just can’t shut up about church history, basically, and this is one subject that honestly, like, I start talking about and then, and people at first are kind of like, wow. And then they realize how intricate it is and how many, like, little rules and how many things they didn’t think about there are with succession.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And it gets crazy.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. This stuff is so interesting. A lot of things that we just take for granted today as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about how succession proceeds was not always so, and in some ways was not inevitable, right? And we’re going to kind of talk through some key decisions that were made that kind of set the precedent for how things happen today. There was some serious debate about how these things should go, and we’ll get into a little bit of that today, so very excited.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So today we’re talking about apostolic interregnums, and that’s just a cool word to begin with first, interregnum.

Scott Woodward: That’s a cool word.

Casey Griffiths: But today, when a president of the church passes away, the transition’s pretty smooth. I mean, honestly, they announce that the president of the church has passed away, they have the president of the church’s funeral, and then as soon as they can, they gather together all the apostles, and they choose a new First Presidency, and then we’re off to the races.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: That period between when there is a First Presidency and then the president of the church dies and there’s no First Presidency, and then when the First Presidency is reorganized is officially called an apostolic interregnum.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, and just to define the word interregnum itself, like if you look it up in the dictionary, it just means a period of discontinuity or, like, a gap between governmental regimes. It’s a pause between two periods of normal government, essentially.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. I think the last time this happened it was eleven days, the apostolic interregnum. The apostolic interregnum after Joseph Smith’s death is, like, three years.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Because again, these things, they weren’t ironed out. We didn’t understand exactly how to do it. Decisions needed to be made to figure out how we wanted to do it going forward, and so there is some human agency involved in this where the revelations are silent. So that’s another layer of the interesting nature of this story.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And it kind of speaks to how God kind of, in some ways, gives us very specific directions. In other ways, here’s the principles, go and figure it out. We outlined in a previous episode eight possible ways that succession could happen. What finally happened was the Quorum of the Twelve stepped up and took over leadership, but none of this is settled, and even after Brigham Young has that marvelous experience where he speaks and is transfigured and is sustained—the record says unanimously sustained—there’s still a lot of questions that linger, and it wasn’t the end of challenges to Brigham Young’s leadership either.

Scott Woodward: No.

Casey Griffiths: In fact, the next three years are full of challenges from Sidney Rigdon and James Strang—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —and Lyman White and George Miller, and you name it. Again and again and again, people kind of step up and say, no, I think I’m the right person. I think I’m the person that should lead.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. When we talked about the Brigham Young versus Sidney debate, if you will—at least it was a debate in the minds of church members until it was no longer a debate after the Lord made his will manifest sufficiently to enough members to where about 10,000 of them were satisfied that Brigham Young was the right man to lead as the president of the Quorum of the Twelve—but I was reading in William Clayton’s journal about this very meeting. This is on the August 8, 1844 day. This is his entry for that day. He talks about this, and I didn’t—I never caught this detail, but I think it’s important to note that it wasn’t like Sidney walked away hanging his head and was never heard from again. Actually, here’s the exact language that William Clayton uses: he said, “The church universally voted to sustain the Twelve in their calling as next in presidency and to sustain Elder Rigdon and Amasa Lyman as counselors to the Twelve, as they had been to the First Presidency.” So picture that in your brain, right? Like you always see the organizational charts, and when the First Presidency’s gone, right, we’ve kind of imagined the counselors, like, dissolving, but the way William Clayton is phrasing it here is the people’s understanding originally was now the Quorum of the Twelve takes the place of the First Presidency, and the counselors in the First Presidency don’t go away. They now become counselors to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Right away, Sidney Rigdon was invited to come and work together with the Quorum of the Twelve. There wasn’t, it seems from the record here, any animosity in Brigham Young’s heart towards Sidney Rigdon. It was an invitation to come and join us, and let’s work together.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And that’s another one of those nerdy topics from church history is that most people I think don’t realize that Sidney Rigdon was never ordained an apostle.

Scott Woodward: That is nerdy, but that’s really important, yes.

Casey Griffiths: Because today the counselors in the First Presidency are apostles, and they’re in the Quorum of the Twelve.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: And so when the First Presidency dissolves, they just automatically go back to the Quorum of the Twelve, but that’s not how it worked in Joseph Smith’s day.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Sidney Rigdon was never ordained an apostle. He was in the First Presidency. And so when the Quorum of the Twelve decides to take over, what do you do with this guy? You know, they didn’t want to just cast him off.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: And so they set him and Amasa Lyman, who—Amasa Lyman was a counselor in the First Presidency, too.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: They keep them around as counselors to the Twelve.

Scott Woodward: Right. In fact, according to one account, Brigham Young said, “Rigdon is one with us.” This is right after, like, the Twelve were sustained. He says, “Rigdon is one with us. We want such men as Brother Rigdon. We will lift up his hand.” So it starts out amicably. Is that fair to say? It starts out very amicably between them.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: It doesn’t stay that way for very long, but that is how it begins, and so we’re going to talk about how the road gets rocky pretty quick today, but that’s the beginning. What is our burning question of the day? Do you want to drop it?

Casey Griffiths: Our burning question of the day is, “What challenges led Brigham Young to re-establish the First Presidency rather than just have the Twelve lead the church?” Because—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —that is another assumption that we make today is that, hey, we’re going to reorganize the First Presidency. In fact, we do it usually within two weeks after the president of the church dies.

Scott Woodward: Pretty automatic.

Casey Griffiths: That wasn’t something that they automatically thought to do. In fact, it takes three years and a number of interesting circumstances for them to finally decide, yeah, we do need a First Presidency. Let’s go ahead and reorganize it. And there’s some pretty fiery debate among the members of the Quorum of the Twelve—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —about whether or not they should even do this.

Scott Woodward: That’s what shocked me the most in this history was, like, not all the Twelve were on board with this. Some even made very strident arguments against organizing a First Presidency, but just to keep it as the Twelve forever. We’ll walk through some of those arguments today, so this should be fun.

Casey Griffiths: Okay. So this is kind of like a four-act thing.

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: Act One, we’ve got to take care of some unfinished business, and that is what happens to Sidney Rigdon.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: This astounding vote happens on August 8, where the Twelve led by Brigham Young are sustained as the leadership of the church, but like you mentioned, Sidney Rigdon is still there. Walk us through what happens to Sidney Rigdon in the weeks following August 8.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, at first he just goes out and starts preaching to the saints, just in normal meetings in classic Rigdon style. He was a little more scatterbrained than I guess typically, so it wasn’t typical Sidney style. He—I mean, he used to be so polished and so, like, spellbinding to listen to, but the saints who heard him speak after this said that he was a little scattered. He seemed to be really fixated on the end of times, the end of days. Parley P. Pratt and others said that Sidney was kind of fixated on the queen of England as well. He kept talking about how a mighty army would be collected to fight the battles of the Lord. It would go across the Atlantic. They would defeat the British army and demand a portion of Queen Victoria’s riches and dominions. Some of the sermons started to kind of feel weird to a lot of the saints. Like, why is he talking about that? He also at first kind of endorsed the temple. He kind of weakly said that, yeah, it’s—this is good. You’re doing right to build the temple. But that’s going to change. That’s going to change shortly. In fact, a few days later, the Twelve and Sidney are going to come into conflict again because Brigham hears that Sidney was out ordaining people privately to be prophets, seers, and revelators, and some to be kings and priests. Now we don’t know exactly what that means. We’re not sure exactly what he was doing, but some historians feel like this is a reference to temple ordinances, which kind of brings up all that complicated history here. Sydney was not a member of the Quorum of the Anointed for very long, and Brigham and the Twelve, who were, might not have been sure that he had authority to administer any of the temple ordinances like the endowment ceremony, et cetera.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Certainly not to ordain someone a prophet, seer, and revelator. Parley P. Pratt later said that it was “for this ordaining men to unheard-of offices in an illegal manner and the proceedings of their secret meetings that the fellowship of the Twelve was withdrawn from Elder Rigdon.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So there’s a couple things that could mean. We mentioned this, but Sidney Rigdon receives his endowment in May 1844. He never receives his second anointing.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Some historians have speculated that what Sidney was doing was giving the endowment without the authorization of the Twelve, and that he may have also been performing second anointings, and the way Parley P. Pratt phrases it is, “ordaining men to unheard-of offices in an illegal manner.” So according to Parley P. Pratt, he may have been going completely off script, and this is sort of distressing to the members of the Quorum of the Twelve, because up to this point, who received the temple ordinances and who was sealed and who received their second anointing was directed by the leadership of the church, and if Sidney’s doing this, it’s kind of like he’s insinuating that, no, I’m the actual leader. I have the right to say this stuff. So you can see why it would be alarming to them.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So Brigham Young, after hearing about this, he and Orson Hyde go and meet with Sidney to discuss. They go to his house and ask him, what’s going on, Sidney? And according to one report, Sidney said that he held the keys and authority above any man or set of men in this church, even the Twelve. Now, that came after Brigham pried it out of him. He said, do you believe that’s true? And he’s like, well, you know, he kind of hemmed and hawed, but after Brigham asked him really explicitly, do you believe you have keys and authority above any man, even the Twelve? And Sidney said yes. And so that was instantly alarming, right? That same evening, eight of the Twelve Apostles, along with Bishop Newel K. Whitney and several others, were present, and Sidney told them a good deal more of the revelations that he had received in Pittsburgh. He defended the ordinations that he had made. He claimed that he had authority and keys above anyone else. He also spoke about a bloody battle that he would participate in, and he talked about the particulars that had been revealed to him, after which he would be standing atop the church. He’s saying some pretty inflammatory things, basing it in this claim of prophecy, and one of Sidney’s supporters in the meeting said that he now regarded Sidney as his prophet, seer, and revelator. So Brigham was pretty direct. He tells Sidney that “this matter must be settled before you go away to Pittsburgh.” One way or the other, we’ve got to get down to the bottom of this.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: They wanted to hold a membership council that the Quorum of the Twelve get together and decide that they wanted to disfellowship Sidney. They wanted to, “demand his license,” like his license to preach, “and to say to him that he could not hold it any longer unless he retracted from his present course and repented of his wickedness.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And just another detail to add here, they’re speaking to Sidney Rigdon until about midnight—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —just trying to figure out where he’s at, where he’s coming from, and then after that, they go and meet again.

Scott Woodward: Separately, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, to try and figure out what to do. That’s where they decide, well, we need to take away his license, because he’s saying things that might undermine our leadership of the church.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, so after having come to that determination, the Twelve send Orson Hyde, Amasa Lyman, and Parley P. Pratt as a committee to go and confront Sidney and revoke his license. But as they did so, Sidney refused. He said, I didn’t get my license from you, so you can’t take it away. And then he drops this: he threatens to, “write a history of this people since they came to Nauvoo of all their iniquity and midnight abominations and publish it in the public prints.” Probably some insinuation here about polygamy, right? According to Parley, Sidney told him, “it had been revealed to him that the Twelve would do what you have done this evening, and that he had been sitting and laughing at it to see it fulfilled.” He’s like, I saw exactly that you guys would come over here, that you would do this. Casey, I get the feeling Sidney’s not fully in his right mind during this time period. I feel bad for the guy, honestly. Like, that head trauma of ’32 is continuing to raise its ugly head, and I think this is evidence that he’s going a little bit senile. I don’t know. Is that too strong to say?

Casey Griffiths: I don’t know. You know, it’s so tough to kind of diagnose someone medically or psychologically from historical documents.

Scott Woodward: From history, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: There is an element of megalomania here, too, because at this point it’s not just the Twelve who are saying, you know, they should lead the church. They’ve held this sustaining vote, and the members of the church have overwhelmingly said they want the Twelve to lead the church, and yet Sydney is kind of persisting.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: The main source we’re using here is the recently published Brigham Young Journals, which Gerrit Dirkmaat and a couple other great historians worked on. Their footnotes, they exhaustively go through what everybody involved had to say about this—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —and Sidney just really sort of, like, went for it, and then he starts to threaten them. For instance, he says when he goes to Pittsburgh, he’s going to publish a history that tells of all the wickedness.

Scott Woodward: Exposé.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Brigham Young says that he was going to insinuate that Joseph and Hyrum were wrong and that Joseph had been receiving false revelations and that they shouldn’t do any more work on the temple, so . . .

Scott Woodward: Yeah, there it is.

Casey Griffiths: It goes back to what we were talking about last time: this, what kind of church is it going to be, actually?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: This seems like Sydney was intending to abandon the temple and the revelations that have been received in Nauvoo. So this is a scary moment.

Scott Woodward: And a lot of this material comes from the excommunication trial of Sidney Rigdon. It’s very well documented. I read through almost all of it last week and just was like, wow. They had person after person just coming to the stand and telling these stories and telling, this is what happened. This is what he said to us.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Then we went and confirmed with him, and he confirmed that that’s exactly what he meant, and so reluctantly, okay, after basically hearing his case and confirming that they understood him correctly—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —they held a gathering of saints. This would be an excommunication trial. There’s an estimate of 7,000 saints who gathered at the temple in Nauvoo where this trial was held. Like, that’s a very public meeting. This meeting lasts for about five hours, and according to George A. Smith, here’s the official charges against Sidney: “He was charged with ordaining unheard-of offices and holding secret meetings, and in them attempting to lead away the saints to the Allegheny Mountains and threatening to publish an exposure of the church and declaring it had not been led by the Lord for a long time,” meaning the church. That basically, yeah, the whole Nauvoo period is an example of Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet. And so the temple, polygamy, all that stuff is not inspired.

Casey Griffiths: Can I add in a nerdy detail from church government here?

Scott Woodward: Of course.

Casey Griffiths: I just get excited, but the trial’s not actually presided over by Brigham Young.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: I mean, we wouldn’t do this this way today. This would be a private meeting. We wouldn’t invite 7,000 of our closest friends.

Scott Woodward: No.

Casey Griffiths: But this is a big deal, and they’re still deciding the future of the church, and I just get a little thrilled because they actually follow the procedure in section 107—

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: —which is if a member of the First Presidency is accused of transgression, it’s not the president of the church that oversees the trial. It’s the presiding bishop.

Scott Woodward: Newel K. Whitney.

Casey Griffiths: Newel K. Whitney. Newel K. Whitney, the presiding bishop, is the one who oversees this. Section 107 says the presiding bishop, along with twelve high priests, and the twelve high priests chosen here are the members of the Nauvoo High Council. In the course of the trial Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, W. W. Phelps, John Taylor, Orson Hyde all speak against Sidney Rigdon. William Marks is the one who speaks for Sidney Rigdon, and all he says is that, I don’t think he’s guilty of any crimes, but then the actual decision is made by the presiding bishop per the procedure that’s laid down in section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward: Anyone who would like to nerd out with Casey, that’s verses 81 through 84.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: You go check it out.

Casey Griffiths: It just—it’s just nice to know that they use this stuff. Like, I served on a high council and I walked in, and they were like, draw a lot, and I was like, oh my gosh. Are we doing section 102? And they were like, uh-huh, and I got so excited, and I shouldn’t have, because you know, we were doing a membership council, but it’s still kind of nice to know we follow the revelation.

Scott Woodward: We follow this stuff. And, okay, so the conclusion that the presiding bishop, Newel K. Whitney, and the members of the Nauvoo Stake high council come to is they actually vote unanimously for Sidney to be “cut off from the church and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until he repents.”

Casey Griffiths: Ouch.

Scott Woodward: Oof! So then Brigham Young and W. W. Phelps present this decision to the congregation and except for, “a few of Sidney Rigdon’s party, numbering about ten,” the congregation voted in the affirmative to sustain that action. And so according to the earliest account of this meeting, Sidney was actually not present at the meeting because he was “not feeling well,” which several of the Twelve raised an eyebrow at, like, oh, he’s feeling sick today. He always seems to be feeling sick when we want him to come to a meeting of importance, you know, but maybe he actually was sick. So who knows? Maybe they’re being hard on him, but it’s only a few days after that that Sidney returns to Pittsburgh, where he’s going to start his own church.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He originally calls his church the Church of Christ, and then that only lasts for, like, three years. He was trying to establish Zion, and then he was discouraged. It kind of crumbled. So then in the 1860s it was revived by the encouragement of some of his loyal followers, and he changes the name to Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion. He’s got his own First Presidency, his own Quorum of the Twelve, but by 1884, most of the members of his church had gone and joined with the RLDS church that had been organized back in 1860. So it’s kind of a quick rise and fall of Sidney Rigdon’s church. It’s basically nonexistent after the 1880s.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and this is where Sidney kind of fades out of the story, though I will mention he’s going to come back, because while he’s in Pittsburgh, he converts a good preacher named William Bickerton, and William Bickerton eventually parts ways with Sidney, too, but he goes on to organize the Church of Jesus Christ, sometimes known as the Bickertonites, though they don’t like to be called by that name. It’s kind of like calling us Brighamites.

Scott Woodward: Brighamites, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But the Church of Jesus Christ founded by William Bickerton and based in Monongahela, Pennsylvania is probably the third largest restoration church that’s out there, and in a couple of weeks, we’re going to shine the spotlight on them a little bit. So Sidney Rigdon sort of leaves the story at this point, but he will come back when we talk about the Church of Jesus Christ at that time.

Scott Woodward: Okay. Bookmark the Bickertonites.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Future reference.

Scott Woodward: One last thought on Sidney before we wrap this section up, but years after all of this went down, Sidney’s own son, who he named John Wycliffe Rigdon, which is an awesome name, he gave an assessment of his father as a leader, as a speaker. He was sympathetic, but he basically says the church did a good job not voting Sidney Rigdon to lead it. And here’s what he says exactly: he says, “Sidney Rigdon was not a leader of men, having no talent in that direction. He could talk. He could interest an audience with his eloquence, but he needed one to control and direct him, and therefore the Mormon Church at Nauvoo after the death of Joseph Smith made no mistake in placing Brigham Young at the head of the church. He was the right man in the right place, and if Sidney Rigdon had been chosen to take that position, the church would have tottered and fallen to the ground years ago.” And then he says, “Brigham Young was a born leader of men, and it was by his efforts that the church was kept together.”

Casey Griffiths: A little awkward father-son interaction there.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. A very candid assessment of his father and Brigham Young there.

Casey Griffiths: Wycliffe Rigdon’s history of his father can be found online, and it’s very well written, and there’s a ton of affection there, but yeah, that is his assessment of his own father, was that he just wasn’t a born leader of men the way Brigham Young was.

Scott Woodward: And if you want to see that play out, you can see that he started his own church twice, and it failed twice. And so John Wycliffe Rigdon here is not—he’s not exaggerating. He’s just explaining the reality of the situation, so . . .

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: There you go.

Casey Griffiths: Okay.

Scott Woodward: Okay. So what’s next, Casey?

Casey Griffiths: So what’s next? Well, before we move on to the next major developments, we want to talk about Brigham Young as a leader, and there have been some interesting documents that have come forward recently, most importantly the Council of Fifty minutes, which were published in 2015. We mentioned these before, but for a long time they were unavailable to the public, even unavailable to researchers.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But in 2015 they were published as part of the Joseph Smith Papers project. Again, the Council of Fifty is this organization that’s set up in Nauvoo by Joseph Smith to manage his presidential campaign, but also with higher intentions in mind. In the minutes Joseph Smith literally says, like, the church is an ecclesiastical kingdom; the Council of Fifty is political.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: When the savior comes to earth, the governing body politically will be the Council of Fifty. And the interesting thing is Joseph Smith only leads the Council of Fifty for about three months before he’s killed.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And then Brigham Young takes over as the leader of the Council of Fifty, so the Council of Fifty minutes, which you can read on the Joseph Smith Papers site, actually tell us way more about Brigham Young as a leader than it does about Joseph Smith, because about 70 percent of the minutes come from the Brigham Young era.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And so, I mean, there’s been some good stuff written on the Council of Fifty. We’re going off a chapter written in a book called The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History that Matt Grow and R. Eric Smith wrote, and I’m just going to give you a couple of highlights here from the minutes to explain Brigham Young’s philosophy, or I guess this would say Brigham Young at the beginning of his presidency, because he’s going to lead the church for 33 years.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: So in this, he shares his mind. For instance, he believes revelation is the most important factor in leading the church. So Brigham Young, for instance, would consult the scriptures, would share from the scriptures, but he didn’t believe the scriptures were perfect. He thought revelation was more important, but he also didn’t believe revelations were perfect either. Like, he saw himself and anybody that leads the church, including Joseph Smith, as very human. For instance, this is an excerpt from April 5th and April 18th, 1844:

Scott Woodward: So Joseph Smith’s still alive here.

Casey Griffiths: Joseph Smith’s still alive, yeah. “Revelations must govern. The voice of God shall be the voice of the people.” Brigham Young says revelation was suited to a specific moment in time, and he said, “There has not been a perfect revelation given, because we cannot understand it, yet we receive here a little and there a little.” And even went on to say “he would not be stumbled if the prophet,” this is Joseph Smith, “should translate the Bible 40,000 times over, and yet it should be different in some places every time, because when God speaks, He always speaks according to the capacity of the people.” And then on another occasion, he says, “When we had done all we were capable to do, we could have the Lord speak and tell us what’s right. When God sees that his people have enlarged upon what he has given us, he will give us more.” So he’s got this healthy view of scripture, that it’s from God, but it’s not always perfect.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Prophets—that they speak for God, but God’s message is dynamic and changing, and that God’s revelations should be considered in the context in which they’re given, which is a really, really intelligent, healthy way to view the scriptures.

Scott Woodward: Mm. Sure. Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He also, the way he ran the council—we kind of think of Brigham Young as very, very, like, direct. It’s my way or the highway. And he does become that way—

Scott Woodward: A little later on.

Casey Griffiths: —sort of more towards the end of his life, but his early presidency, he’s very, very open. For instance, in one excerpt from the minutes, he said, “Joseph declared that for every man to spew out everything there was in him and see there is not a foundation in him for a great work, I want to hear, he said, the brethren’s view on the subject. And by talking over each other’s views, we learn each other’s feelings, and all learn what each other knows. There has always been an objection in this church to listening to what I term,” the word he uses is explatteration, which was a slang term from the time to kind of, like, explaining too much. Over explaining.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Casey Griffiths: He says, “But if there are fools among us, let them speak out their own folly. We will know who are men of wisdom.” So he’s like, hey, who knows what’s up and who doesn’t, it’ll come out in the discussions that we have.

Scott Woodward: So he’s very open to counseling together, getting everyone’s thoughts and ideas.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Don’t worry about explatteration, just tell us what you think and feel, and somewhere in the midst of that discussion, we’ll be able to discern wisdom.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He’s—so he’s sort of like, hey, everybody put your stuff out there, and we’ll sort of let the cream come to the top, basically. Now the other thing the minutes show is that Brigham Young was much more practical than, say, Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith would have lengthy discussions on theology, on religious freedom. That’s the primary stuff that gets discussed in the Council of Fifty minutes. Brigham Young was more like, what are we going to do, and how are we actually going to get this done? And that might be partially because he’s leading the council under emergency circumstances. They’re getting ready to evacuate Nauvoo. They’re managing a trek to the West, where they don’t know exactly where they’re going to end up, and in that sense Brigham Young is more like, how many wagons? And where can we get flour from? And how do we get everybody through the temple before then?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But that is kind of a theme of his presidency, too. Like, he would give long speeches on irrigation because he was like, you know, theology doesn’t matter if people starve to death. Like, let’s figure all this out.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He also showed a marked bitterness towards the United States because he felt like the people of America had rejected Joseph Smith and the gospel. For instance, on one occasion, now he’s paraphrasing Lyman White here, but he says, “Let the damn scoundrels be killed. Let them be swept off the earth, and then we can go and be baptized for them easier than we can convert them.” So . . .

Scott Woodward: Geez.

Casey Griffiths: He’s saying, yeah, we’ll let them go to destruction, but then we’ll do baptisms for the dead, which I guess in its own way is sort of compassionate.

Scott Woodward: I don’t know. He’s got a little, little pepper in his blood still toward the United States.

Casey Griffiths: He does.

Scott Woodward: In some ways you could say that view is kind of justified, considering how much they have felt abandoned by the government, right? The government of Illinois, certainly, the United States, yes, the way they’ve been treated, there’s still, after Joseph Smith’s martyrdom, once the Mormons didn’t go away like a lot of people were hoping, and now there’s renewed threats against the Saints, and so, yeah, so Brigham Young’s intention and attention here is to get us out of the United States, and I don’t care if war breaks out among them and they all die, we’re not going to preach to them anymore because we got to get out of here for our own safety. We’ll baptize for the dead for them later.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I see where he’s coming from. Yeah, you can see his little window into his soul during this time.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, so this kind of captures his character, where part of him is this open discussion, everybody hear what they have to say, and part of him is, like, on a practical level, we’ve got to get things done. I’m not going to worry about them anymore.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So when does Brigham Young start to feel like there should be a First Presidency and not just ongoing leadership by the Twelve Apostles? Like, what are some of the defining moments where that starts to become apparent here? Is that in Nauvoo or after we leave?

Casey Griffiths: It’s sort of after Nauvoo, and it’s partially because after they leave Nauvoo, there’s still insecurity about Brigham Young’s leadership, and there’s still people breaking off. Like, George Miller, who’s a presiding bishop in the church, takes off on his own. Lyman White, who’s a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, takes off on his own and founds a colony in Texas. Doesn’t last very long, but he’s able to do that. By the way, great research on that from Mel Johnson. Polygamy on the Pedernales is the name of that book.

Scott Woodward: On the what? On the Pedernales?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Polygamy on the Pedernales. That’s the river where Lyman White settles by, and alliterative titles are always better for books.

Scott Woodward: Definitely.

Casey Griffiths: I know: I’m the author of 50 Relics of the Restoration. See how that was alliterative there, too? Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: Double R’s.

Scott Woodward: So if we did a history this time, it could be Explatteration and the Exodus or something like that.

Casey Griffiths: That’s right. That’s right.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Bombastic Brigham Young’s Big Ball of Batches of . . .

Scott Woodward: Now you’re just explatterating.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, I’m just explatterating, so . . . We’re going to work that back into the common parlance. Anyway, the first part of the exodus—and we always think of the exodus as being, like, expertly organized.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Totally taken care of. And it does get there eventually, but the first part’s sort of a disaster. Like, they cross Iowa, it’s an unusually wet spring.

Scott Woodward: Muddy. Nasty.

Casey Griffiths: People are very disorganized leaving Nauvoo, and Brigham Young is frankly frustrated with how the whole thing happens. He wants to go all the way to the Salt Lake Valley the summer after they leave Nauvoo in 1846, but he gets outvoted by other members of the Twelve, who basically say, no, everybody’s still too disorganized. So instead everybody winds up in Winter Quarters, present day Nebraska, Iowa, and they spend a sort of miserable winter there. But in that winter Brigham Young receives a revelation. It’s his only revelation that’s canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, the word and will of the Lord, Doctrine and Covenants section 136. And that seems to be the start of him saying, you know what? If I’m going to lead the church, I’m going to lead the church. I’ve got to do what Joseph Smith did. I’ve got to receive revelation. I’ve got to be maybe a little bit more forceful, because we’re living in emergency conditions here. And a lot of times when he starts to assert the need for a First Presidency, it comes back to the fact that he sees church leaders sort of ignoring that revelation that he received at Winter Quarters, the word and will of the Lord, as he calls it.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, isn’t there a kind of a blow up between him and Parley P. Pratt?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: As Parley’s headed toward the Salt Lake Valley after Brigham Young’s first trip there?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So let me set you up here, and then we’ll go into this. There’s two big council meetings: one’s called the Prairie Council that kind of happens spontaneously, and the Kanesville Council, which happens because of the Prairie Council. So most people know the story that Brigham Young leads the vanguard company to the Salt Lake Valley. He takes a significant number of members of the Quorum of the Twelve with him, but there’s two notable exceptions that don’t go: that’s John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt, who are totally best friends, and they’ve been on a mission to England, and when they come back, Brigham Young’s like, we’re going to the Salt Lake Valley. They say, we’re not going to go with you.

Scott Woodward: Oh. Why not?

Casey Griffiths: I mean, they’d really just gotten back, and they needed to sort of look to their families. They weren’t organized. They weren’t ready to go, basically. And so Brigham Young takes off and takes the vanguard company, which is a small group of people. You know, kind of a lean, mean setup. Just, we’ll find the valley, we’ll come back and report to you.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And he does. Like, makes it to the valley, the valley looks like it’s going to be a suitable place, still where church headquarters is, and he only spends about three weeks in the valley before it’s like, okay, we’ve got to get back to Winter Quarters.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And when we get back to Winter Quarters, we’ll tell everybody, and then we organize. Then the exodus really begins. The vanguard company’s founded.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: However, on his way out of the valley he runs into a huge wagon train. Like, Brigham Young’s Vanguard company is less than 200 people. On his way out of the valley, when he gets to Wyoming or so, he runs into Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, who are leading a wagon train of about 1,500 people.

Scott Woodward: Whoa.

Casey Griffiths: And this really sets off Brigham Young.

Scott Woodward: Why?

Casey Griffiths: Well, I mean, first of all, they go against his counsel. Like, they don’t organize their wagon trains according to the provisions in the revelation that’s section 136.

Scott Woodward: So they’re ignoring his revelation.

Casey Griffiths: They’re ignoring his revelations, and he—

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: His argument, and again, he’s got a really good argument here, is that they didn’t even know that the valley was capable of supporting this large number of people. The vanguard company was small enough that if they got there and the valley was not going to work, they could get everybody back with ample supplies. Parley and John bring over 1,000 people, and they don’t know if the valley can support that many people, and they leave really late in the year, too. So Brigham Young runs into them in September. About ten years after this, when the handcart disaster happens, it’s clear that leaving to go to the valley too late in the year is not a great idea.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But it seems like the thing that bugs him the most is that they don’t follow the counsel in section 136 to look after the poor as well. And so we’ve got extensive notes of what happened here. Wilford Woodruff calls this “one of the most interesting councils ever held together on the earth.” It takes place high on the plateau of the Big and Little Sandy Rivers west of South Pass, and, I mean, it’s mostly Brigham Young and Parley P. Pratt talking to each other very directly and very frankly, and Brigham Young starts out by saying, why didn’t you follow the revelation? Why didn’t you follow section 136, the word and will of the Lord?

Scott Woodward: And Parley says, well, because so many people wanted to come.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: You know, he said, I didn’t join your company because I didn’t feel like it was my duty to do so. But then the real heart of the matter comes to the fore when Parley argues that his position in the Quorum of the Twelve is as a co-equal member of the Twelve with Brigham Young, which gives him the right to act independently of Brigham Young. He said, “We hold the keys as well as yourself, and I will not be judged by you, but by the quorum.” Ah, shoot.

Casey Griffiths: Ooh. Like, them’s fighting words, right?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: You’ve got to admire Parley P. Pratt’s guts, cause I wouldn’t talk to Brigham Young this way. And by the way, we have extensive notes from this meeting.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: We know the whole conversation pretty much written down.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Brigham Young looks at him and says, “Our companies were perfectly organized.” In other words, we followed the counsel in section 136. “Why should our whole winter’s work be set at naught? Every man knew what they should do when they got to the horn. There was the president to appoint who should lead. This is all disarranged and disannulled. When the Quorum of the Twelve do a thing, it is not in the power of two of them,” meaning Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, “to rip it up.” So Brigham Young is saying, oh, we’re all apostles here, but I’m the presiding apostle, and you two just went off the reservation and decided to do what you wanted to do. And to Parley’s everlasting credit, this is his response:

Scott Woodward: “If I have done wrong, I am willing to repent.” Good job. Good job, Parley.

Casey Griffiths: Parley’s awesome. And Brigham Young responds, “You had no business to control, alter, or direct our organization. We wanted you to bring part of your family with the Pioneer Camp and leave the rest the same as we did.” In other words, I didn’t do it this way; I didn’t pack up everybody that I knew. I knew I had to travel light and fast.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He says, “If you had done right, you would have come into the organization and would have been assisted.”

Scott Woodward: Like the vanguard? Is he talking about the vanguard?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, he’s talking about, if you would have come on the vanguard, you would have seen what we were trying to do.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He said this: “I know you’ve had a hard time, and you’ve brought it on yourself. We’ve got a machine moving, and it’s not your business to stick your hands among the cogs and stop the wheel.”

Scott Woodward: Yeah. We’ve got a good thing going here, Casey, where you read Brigham—

Casey Griffiths: So you’re Parley, and I’m Brigham? Okay, okay, yeah.

Scott Woodward: I’ll keep going with Parley. So then Parley says, “I’ve done the best I could. You said I could have done better. If I’m to blame in it, if I’ve done wrong, if I’m guilty of an error, I’m sorry for it. I would lead them to the Twelve.” That was my goal. I wanted to lead these people to the Twelve. “I’m willing that all the camp should know that I’ve done wrong and that I repent. I’m willing to confess that I did wrong. Am I forgiven, Brigham?”

Casey Griffiths: And Brigham says, “I forgive you. If I don’t do right, I want every man so to live in the sunshine of glory to correct me when I’m wrong. I feel bowed down to the grave with the burden of this great people, and if a president of the quorum does not do right, put him down and put another in his place. Parley, you did know about the divisions, and it was to get the poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind.”

Scott Woodward: Oof. And then Parley says, “It was at the last moment that we organized and had not time to organize them,” meaning the poor, halt, and lame, and blind, I think.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: “I acknowledge the error, but I did the best I could, Brigham.”

Casey Griffiths: That’s the exchange, essentially, it kind of captures the whole gist of the argument, which is Brigham Young is insisting they need to follow the organization and the revelation, but at the end he finally reveals what’s really bugging him here, which is—the Iowa Trek was a disaster because they didn’t help the poor. They didn’t assist people that didn’t have the resources.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And Brigham’s trying to get them to remember their temple covenants of consecration, where, hey, we’ve got to help everybody that’s out there. And his feeling is when John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt said, hey, anybody that’s ready and wants to go, let’s go, left behind people that weren’t ready to go and took the strongest away from the weakest, which makes Brigham’s job to get everybody to the valley, the strong and the weak together, even harder. And so I’m with Brigham here. Like, I mean—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —sometimes he’s a little bit—

Scott Woodward: Heavy handed.

Casey Griffiths: —more direct.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And again, this is a public council, but he’s concerned for the right reasons. Like, they left late. They weren’t organized. They took the ones that had the most resources away from the ones that had the least resources, and that’s going to spell trouble down the road. So I’m on Brigham’s side here, but at the same time, too, I want to credit Parley P. Pratt for being a great man and taking this very, very meekly as well.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, because I think at the end of the day, Parley’s on Brigham’s side, too, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He writes in his own journal about this and said that, “A council was called today in which I was highly censured and chastened by President Young and others because of some defect in the organization under my superintendence.” And then he said, “I no doubt deserve this chastisement, and I humbled myself, acknowledged my faults and errors, and asked forgiveness. I was frankly forgiven, and bidding each other farewell, each company passed on their way. This school of experience made me more humble and careful in the future, and I think it was the means of making me a wiser and better man ever after.” Wow. Good job, Parley. Way to take correction.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He is a good man, isn’t he? Like, Parley P. Pratt is a good guy, because I don’t know if I would have responded that way, but Parley P. Pratt’s like, yep, I was publicly censured.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But it made me a better and wiser man after. However, this little council, what’s called the Prairie Council today, is the final straw for Brigham Young.

Scott Woodward: In terms of what?

Casey Griffiths: In terms of him thinking, oh, maybe we need a First Presidency again. Up to this point, just like Parley P. Pratt expressed, the understanding was that the Twelve were all equal, and Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor can do whatever they want to do because they’re members of the Twelve, but Wilford Woodruff says that immediately after the meeting, Brigham Young pulls him aside, and Wilford Woodruff records, “I had a question put to me by President Young what my opinion was concerning one of the Twelve Apostles being appointed as the president of the Church with his two counselors.” In other words, a First Presidency.

Scott Woodward: Reorganize the First Presidency, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And Wilford Woodruff says, “I answered that I thought it would require a revelation to change the order of the quorum. And so Brigham Young is thinking about this the rest of the way back to Nebraska, and when he gets there, he is going to put the issue before the members of the Twelve. Now, unfortunately, Parley and John can’t participate in this council because they’re on their way to Utah, and they do get there so late that they have to spend the winter there, but as soon as Brigham Young gets back to Winter Quarters, he gathers every member of the Twelve, most of whom had been traveling with him in the vanguard company, and says, I’ve got a proposal. We’ve got to change things. It’s not working the way it is right now, and I think I know why. And then they have the Kanesville councils. The Kanesville Council.

Scott Woodward: Okay, so what does the Quorum of the Twelve think about Brigham Young’s proposal in Kanesville to reorganize the First Presidency?

Casey Griffiths: It’s interesting, because it seems like at first, most of them are opposed to it.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But at the same time, Brigham Young has already been having kind of a mini, a shadow First Presidency, where it seems like Heber C. Kimball, who’s his best friend, childhood friend, and Willard Richards are already acting as his counselors in a sort of de facto First Presidency, and Brigham Young is just kind of saying, I want to make this official. So he gathers everybody together, and there are extensive minutes of this meeting as well. Like, we can pretty much create the whole conversation. We’re taking a lot of this from a book called Conflict in the Quorum by Gary Bergera. Really, really interesting book.

Scott Woodward: Spicy book.

Casey Griffiths: Spicy book. Lots of good stuff in there, but if you really want to know what these people are like, the original minutes are great. And that’s what Bergera does here. He pretty much just sets the scene.

Scott Woodward: Recreates it, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Here’s the minutes. Decide for yourself. It’s a great, great work in that sense. And so Brigham Young basically gathers everybody together, they have several meetings, and the first meeting it’s him and Orson Pratt going back and forth, but Brigham Young presents a thing. Like, why am I the leader of the Quorum of the Twelve, is basically what he brings up.

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: According to the transcript, he says, “I mean good shall come from this, and so does the Lord, but Brother Orson,” meaning Orson Pratt, “stated yesterday there’s no difference between me and the Twelve, only on account of my age.” So when they were originally organized, because all Twelve of the Apostles were called at the same time in 1835, the way they determined seniority was literally seniority by age.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Thomas B. Marsh is the original president of the Quorum of the Twelve because he’s oldest. Then David Patten, then Brigham Young, and Orson Pratt basically says the reason why you’re leading the quorum is because you’re older.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: There’s no other reason. And Brigham is basically pushing back and saying, is that the only reason? In fact, in the minutes he says, “If that’s the case, I will take back my age and put someone else to preside. Are you willing to say that this shall be the understanding, that there’s no other preeminence than sixteen days of age?” Because that’s how much older he is of the next person in seniority.

Scott Woodward: And then Orson Pratt responds, “Well, I do say that every member of the quorum has a right to express his sentiments, and if I’m incorrect, I stand ready to be corrected by the authority of the church, which is the Twelve. There is no authority higher in decision than seven of the Twelve Apostles. The highest decision is the united authorities of the church,” he says. “But if in my views I am wrong, and I am willing to be corrected, I ought to have the confidence of the quorum. If I come out before the church and proclaim in public against any member of the quorum, I should be doing wrong. We all hold equal offices in this quorum. This quorum has a right to regulate the president as much as to regulate me or any other member.” Whoa. So he’s saying the president of the quorum is subject to the voice of the quorum collectively. Ooh. And then he says, “There is no subject but this quorum has a right to decide, and I consider it is superior, on account of being a majority, than the decision of the president of the quorum.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So that’s an interesting perspective, too, that—I think it has merit for sure.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: You can see where he’s coming from.

Casey Griffiths: You can see where he’s coming from, and we’re excerpting the conversation, but Brigham Young kind of responds by saying, “How much fault have I found with Thomas B. Marsh or Joseph Smith or Sidney Rigdon? I never opened my mouth when they lambed it onto me.” And so he’s basically saying, hey, in the past I supported the leaders and didn’t question what they had to say. Then he says, “If my lot is to preside over the church, and I am the head of the quorum, I am the mouthpiece, and you are the belly.”

Scott Woodward: You are the belly.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. We’re all part of the body of Christ, but I speak, and you guys kind of . . .

Scott Woodward: You digest.

Casey Griffiths: You digest, yeah.

Scott Woodward: Wow. So then Orson Pratt responds and says, “Well, I consider that the regulating power lies in the quorum. I consider the decision of seven men as superior to the decision of the president alone.”

Casey Griffiths: Mm. So that’s setting up a situation where possibly, if the leader of the church, the prophet, receives a revelation, but seven members of the Quorum of the Twelve contradict it or don’t believe in it, they would—he’d basically be outvoted. So could you outvote the president of the church?

Scott Woodward: Well, and in this particular context, the president of the church is the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the president of the quorum is Brigham Young. So this is not in the current context we live in with the First Presidency, but Orson’s arguing, as a member of your quorum, like, seven of us could make a decision in harmony that supersedes the decision of the president alone.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And how does Brigham respond to that?

Casey Griffiths: Brigham Young responds and says, “I believe when the president speaks, if he was absolutely wrong, God would disown him, and the church would disown him, too, has been the right to say, if I receive the will and mind of the Lord, that it is wrong.” So he’s saying, no, you know, the president of the church answers to God, basically, and if he’s in error, God will correct him, but it’s not the job of the Quorum of the Twelve to correct him. Everybody’s making good points here.

Scott Woodward: Orson retorts, “I say that the decision of seven men would be right. They would not decide that a thing is a revelation if it’s not a revelation.” So I trust the discernment of the seven together as to whether or not the president of the quorum is speaking a revelation or not.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And Brigham Young responds, “There is not a set of men on earth who can say that a revelation from the Lord is wrong. I am God’s freeman. I am the president of the Twelve, and they are the head of the people. I am the mouth. I will say as I please and do as I please, if I am right. And then he goes on to say, “Which is better: to untie the feet of the twelve and let them go to the nations or always keep the seven at home?”

Scott Woodward: Okay, this is actually a good point for Brigham Young. This is a good point he’s making, yes.

Casey Griffiths: Point Brigham Young. Boom.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: Because section 107, which lays out the roles of the First Presidency and Twelve, actually says the Twelve are supposed to be traveling all the time. Their job is to be special witnesses of Christ to all the nation—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —and the First Presidency, the three, their job is to preside, and Brigham’s basically saying, hey, I want to set the Twelve loose.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: It’s not going to be your job to stay here. And under your system, Orson, the Twelve would just stay at home.

Scott Woodward: Because you’d always need at least seven.

Casey Griffiths: You’d always need at least seven people to make any decision, basically. He’s saying, nope, it’s supposed to be three people that preside at home and make decisions while the twelve go out and spread the gospel and organize the kingdom in all the world. So I think this is a point for Brigham Young. He’s clearly the one that’s being more scriptural here.

Scott Woodward: To which Orson Pratt responds, “Well, it’s my feelings there should not be a three-member First Presidency, but the Twelve be the First Presidency.” Ooh, he’s also kind of hearkening to D&C 107 right there. Isn’t he? Verse 24.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Then he makes a pretty good scriptural argument back, too. Here: he says, “In the ancient order, there was no three in a First Presidency, neither were there any high councils.” Right? Because Jesus organized twelve Apostles, but then Peter, James, and John acted as three, but they were part of the Twelve. They weren’t a separate thing. It wasn’t Peter, James, and John, and then underneath them, twelve more Apostles. There were just twelve Apostles.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And there was no three in the First Presidency. There was just a group that led called the Twelve Apostles.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So, like, the three should stay in the First Presidency, which weirdly enough is actually how—this is how The Church of Jesus Christ, the Bickertonite church we mentioned earlier, this is how they do it.

Scott Woodward: What do you mean they stay in the First Presidency?

Casey Griffiths: So they have a Quorum of the Twelve, but their First Presidency are three members of the Twelve who are still part of the Twelve. They’re not separate from the Twelve, like we do it.

Scott Woodward: Three of the Twelve.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: Which I’m going to go out on a limb and say, I think our system, where we have a separate First Presidency from the Twelve, lines up with what section 107 says better, but . . .

Scott Woodward: But their system lines up better with the New Testament.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah. But I’m—I think the New Testament is sufficiently vague and the Doctrine and Covenants is specific enough that I’m going with the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward: And to your point, the one is more recent, right? Section 107 is more recent. I think they’re both adequate systems, but, yeah, the D&C 107 would, should, trump, is what you’re saying.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And the New Testament sort of infers that this is the way it is; it doesn’t actually say this is the way it is. Section 107 directly declares, this is the way it is: there’s three presiding high priests, then there’s a Quorum of the Twelve, and my reading of section 107 is that they are separate from each other. Like, it seems really clear.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Because the Lord says they’re equal in authority. The First Presidency directs the Twelve, all this stuff that makes it sound like they’re two separate organizations. So I’m team Brigham here. But this is sort of, like, fun, right? Like, they’re—

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —two venerable apostles, like, sparring with each other using the scriptures.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And, I mean, I kind of love the fact that it’s not all, oh, yeah, you say it, let’s do it. Like, Orson Pratt feels like it’s his job to kind of say, well, let me push back against that just a little bit.

Scott Woodward: Totally. And this whole exchange goes to show that section 107 is vague in some crucial parts. Like, yes, the Quorum of the Twelve is equal in authority with the First Presidency, a la verse 24, but what it doesn’t say, what it’s very silent about, is should a First Presidency be reorganized after the dissolution of a First Presidency?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Like, was Joseph Smith’s thing unique to that time? Kind of like assistant president with Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith. Like, that was a position that we don’t have anymore. It was unique to the time, time specific, and now it’s gone.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: That’s kind of an unthinkable position for us today because we’re so used to a First Presidency, but you could see the argument here. Like, do we even need a First Presidency? Was that kind of an icon of its own that isn’t something that needs to be perpetually passed on? The Quorum of the Twelve is the thing that continues to hold authority equal to the First Presidency, and so why not just let that body govern the church, “as the First Presidency,” if you will.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: It takes a minute to get your head into their space, but once you get there, like, they’re kind of making some good arguments on both sides here, and to watch how this thing develops that you and I know today, like, how this ends, we know what happens, but it’s just really fun to watch how the history is unfolding, how the sausage is made here.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and this is just their first meeting. This meeting takes place in November 1847.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Both sides score some points, but it’s pretty much Orson Pratt and Brigham Young just sort of going at each other.

Scott Woodward: As it often was.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, as it often was. This is actually a pattern throughout Brigham Young’s presidency. By the way, they end up okay.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: They let the idea sort of percolate, and they hold another meeting at Orson Hyde’s house December 5, 1847. Brigham Young opens the meeting, and by the way, this meeting is the more kind of calm, conciliatory, let’s hear from everybody. This meeting’s better conducted, I guess you’d say. Brigham Young opens by saying, “The Spirit prompts me to take these steps. If the Church continues to stand as now, if the Twelve stand as the Presidency, the Church may judge whether it wants the Twelve to go abroad or to teach, or if the Twelve will stay at home and preside. So, again, he’s appealing back to the roles laid out in section 107. The Twelve go out and teach. The First Presidency presides.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He said, “The Lord requires and manifests that it be wisdom to have a First Presidency and to liberate the Twelve, the Twelve to stand as now and not separate and to stay with the church or to preside over the church. Now I hold the prerogative in either case. I’m going to roll that responsibility off my shoulders and roll it onto these brethren.” So Brigham Young’s saying, if we try to have the Twelve do everything, that means that I have to go out and preach as well, and I want that responsibility to rest on the Twelve so that I can be here at church headquarters kind of taking care of everybody—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —which is the pattern that Joseph Smith generally followed during his presidency as well.

Scott Woodward: And Orson Hyde seems to be on his side. He says, Brother Young is the man. It’s his natural instinct. It’s his privilege to nominate counselors. You may as well commence the work. Let’s do it, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: But Orson Pratt says, well, but this is the first time this subject of a First Presidency is formally brought before the council. In the past, this has just been thrown around incidentally in conversation. And then he says, “There is nothing to prohibit this church from appointing a three-man First Presidency—”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: “—but according to my present sight, I should say it’s not expedient.” We could do this thing, but do we need to do this thing?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I don’t think so.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah. Orson Pratt, again, is still hesitant. And the interesting thing about this meeting is everybody else kind of gets their moment to say something, too. So they do kind of follow, you know, more of a regulated path, because the next person to speak is Willard Richards.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Willard Richards says, “I can’t see why our Heavenly Father saw best to have a presidency of three instead of seven. My feelings are for those truths that have originated from a spirit to me, and which were manifested to me before it was mouthed to me. This has manifested me clearly, and that’s an end of the controversy, that there should be an end of the law to me, and I saw by the spirit that this is where there should be a First Presidency.” So Willard Richards says, we could go either way, basically, seven or three. But he’s saying, I feel that the Spirit’s manifested in me that we should have a First Presidency. Like, let’s at least all agree on that, that there should be some kind of First Presidency that exists to lead the church.

Scott Woodward: And Wilford Woodruff then tells his thoughts. He says, “Our president,” speaking of Brigham Young, “seems to be moved upon by the Spirit. He stands between us and God, and I, for one, don’t want to tie his hands.”

Casey Griffiths: Seems like things are going in Brigham’s favor, and Brigham Young jumps in and says, “I see some things run to a point, and again, I say glory hallelujah, shout and sing.” He says, “I foresee things. I’ve stood up, and only death is no difference to me,” and then he looks at Orson Pratt and says, “Brother Orson, I don’t attach any blame to you, but I want you to know where the spirits lead to.” So he’s like, I appreciate your opposition. I totally imagined Brigham Young saying, I appreciate your opposition, not, you know, a lot, but this is where the spirit’s leading us to. So he’s saying, hey, Willard feels this way. Wilford feels this way. That’s where the spirit’s leading most of the brethren.

Scott Woodward: But then George A. Smith says, but I also think we might want to stick together as we’ve done in the past. I don’t want to see this quorum divided. We’re good fellows, and we’re better having unity, and if three are picked out, I’m concerned there might be jealousies, he said. Here’s kind of George A. Smith kind of pushing back. Like, is this going to create an elitism? Is this going to create three apostles are higher than the rest of the Twelve? Like, I don’t know.

Casey Griffiths: Brigham responds and says, “I know what it is to have a First Presidency. God has brought us where we are, and we’ve got to do it, and if the devil can get us to decide that we will not have a First Presidency, if you throw the kingdom into the Quorum of the Fifty, they can’t manage it, and the Seventy can’t do it.” And it seems like his argument here, I’m not quoting him anymore—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —is, well, if the Twelve have equal authority, why not the Council of Fifty? And why not the quorum of the Seventy? Like, he’s basically saying, your argument essentially leads to other places where other quorums could make the same argument, too, where why wouldn’t the Council of Fifty step up and say, “Hey, we’re supposed to lead the church”? And why wouldn’t the Quorum of the Seventy, who actually are designated with equal authority in Section 107, saying, “We should lead the church, too”? Brigham’s saying, no, they should all be separate. If there’s not a First Presidency, then all these other quorums will be competing for primacy and for control, essentially.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Then Amasa Lyman weighs in. He says, “The head is who made it. Did the body? Then I say the body has no right to dictate to the head.” I’m not even sure exactly what he’s saying, but I think he’s saying we should follow what Brigham is saying.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I think that’s what he’s saying. And then Ezra T. Benson.

Casey Griffiths: Ezra T. Benson. This is the grandpa of Ezra Taft Benson. He says, “The arguments that have been used are good. The time has come that it may well be done as now as any other time.” So, hey, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it now.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: “I can act as well tonight as any other time, as the revelation says it is of necessity. I’ve thought more about it to understand the order of God. It is as plain to me as the nose on my face. I want to help with the Quorum of the Twelve, and I mean to stick to Brother Brigham. I love him as well as I do any other man, and I’m perfectly willing you should take three, and they govern and control me as the Lord would have it, for I consider they have some burdens and have feelings for us.” So he’s come around to Brigham Young’s way of seeing it.

Scott Woodward: He’s all in.

Casey Griffiths: Yep.

Scott Woodward: Then Orson Pratt says, “Well, we acknowledge that Brother Young has more inspiration and superior wisdom to any one single individual of this quorum.” Wow. That’s quite the concession. “Now to say, brother, as when he says that the spirit of the Lord says thus and so, I don’t consider we should act as machines. If we all acquiesced, where would be the use of counseling? If a man supposes he has the Spirit of God and the others unitedly think he’s mistaken, I feel they overrule the first. I do not acquiesce with the sentiments of Brother Amasa. In another thing, if I do not misunderstand, the Doctrine and Covenants points out that the First Presidency with the Twelve shall do so and so. And there is where I consider the highest power lies: in the quorum of the Apostles. Yet if the president told me to do thousands of things, I’d go and do it, but I do not consider it in the light of the quorum doing it.” Okay, so let me digest that. So it sounds like he’s saying, if we’re going to appoint a president who is going to dictate what the Spirit tells him, and then we’re just going to act like a bunch of machines, then what’s the use of having a council?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: What if someone says he has the Spirit of God, but all the rest of the quorum thinks he doesn’t? Can we not overrule him? I think we should. Now, I’m happy to do whatever the president asked me to do, but I wouldn’t consider it as binding as if the entire quorum is asking me to do it. So he’s kind of sticking to his guns, even though it seems like the quorum is starting to stack against him here. I think he still has a really good point, though, right? Because I guess what he’s arguing for is a check and balance on someone claiming inspiration who may not actually have it. As you and I have talked about, Casey, this is going to play out with the priesthood ban, the priesthood and temple ban.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: That is—that’s a dangerous example here of not counseling together and therefore, you know, just dictating what, you know, he thought about the matter and how that kind of catches steam over time and then becomes precedent upon precedent, which then hardens into a policy, and then we’ve got a hundred plus years of problematic policy toward black Africans in terms of their ability to be ordained to the priesthood and have temple ordinances. And so—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —I’m just stepping back here for a second. I’m wondering if Orson Pratt’s wisdom here could have prevailed, it may have looked something like saying, well, Brigham, that’s an interesting thought about Black Africans. Can we counsel about it together as a quorum? And let’s make sure we’re all on board with this. That that maybe could have been useful here.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Maybe helpful. Maybe change the trajectory of history. I don’t know.

Casey Griffiths: Let me push back against that a little bit, though, because what Orson Pratt is also saying, though, is that they’re not going to fully organize the church. There’s not going to be a First Presidency. And I do believe that the Doctrine and Covenants sets up checks and balances. Like, we talked about this earlier, but there’s a procedure in section 107 that if you think a member of the First Presidency is in transgression—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —that you can bring them to trial. The presiding bishop, who’s kind of an outside voice, who is a third party observer, can come in and say, yes, this person’s right and this person isn’t. That’s what they use with Sidney Rigdon.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: They use it several times when Joseph Smith is president of the Church, and that system was still in place and still is in place in the church today.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: So I don’t think Orson Pratt’s system would have solved anything. The system, if you feel like the leader of the church is wrong, has always been in place. They didn’t utilize it in different times and places, but I see where Orson’s coming from. Like, he’s worried about one person having too much power, but I also think that the system that we followed and we—spoiler alert, like, we do follow Brigham Young’s counsel here—still has the checks and balances in it that we need, essentially. And Brigham Young, by the way, responds to this by stating an obvious thing. He says, “You can’t give me the power because I have it.” Like, he’s like, you can’t say that you give me my authority. I already have the authority. I’m the presiding officer of the quorum.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: So he’s, like, making the argument of, is there a difference if I tell you to do it as the President of the Church in the First Presidency, or as the President of the Church as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve? I’m already leading the Church.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And he’s making the argument, and I’m saying, I feel like organizationally we need to have this full setup that’s laid out in Section 107. He says, you won’t even give us the power you’ve got yourself. Like, he’s like, hey, I want you to come along with us, but I, what’s the issue here? And then he makes this argument: he says, “I want to advance. You want your mind to expand wide as eternity.” Like, you want to talk about this to death. He said, “We must either ascend or descend. Now’s the time to take another stride.” So Brigham Young just lays it out and basically says, I think this is the next step forward. I know you want to talk about it for a really long time, but I just think we’ve got to make a decision. And at that point Orson Hyde calls for a vote. He says, “I move that Brother Brigham Young be president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that he nominate his two counselors that will constitute a First Presidency. They vote. Wilford Woodruff seconds. Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, George A. Smith—

Scott Woodward: Orson Pratt.

Casey Griffiths: Orson Pratt! Amasa Lyman, Wilford Woodruff, Ezra Taft Benson, and Thomas Bullock all sustained the decision. So.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So I guess I’m just stepping back here and thinking about—because I’ve read Gary Bergara’s book, Conflict in the Quorum, and if you want to wrestle with some church history, that’s a good wrestle. Like, it’s all of Orson Pratt and Brigham Young especially just butting heads over and over again. This is not the last time this is going to happen.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And I tend to sympathize a lot with Orson Pratt in that we can now see with hindsight some of the things that Brigham Young proposed doctrinally were not accurate. Like, Adam-God theory—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —they butt heads over that a ton. What happens is Orson Pratt gets talked down by a bunch of members of the Quorum of the Twelve who say, hey, Brigham’s the mouthpiece for the Lord here, brother. You don’t have a right to do what you’re doing and opposing him. You should just get on board with this because he’s the mouthpiece of the Lord. And Orson continues to push back and say, he’s the presiding officer, yes, but to say that because he says it, it’s true, even though it contradicts section 78 and other teachings of Joseph Smith, like, are you kidding? We can’t question a teaching of our presiding leader just because he’s the presiding leader? Like, there should be a way that a body of us can check the president of the church in things that he teaches—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —rather than simply bowing down because he is in the position of presiding authority. And you see Wilford Woodruff and others taking him aside and be like, Orson, we’re worried about you, brother. You’ve got to sustain him. And he’s like, I sustain him as our leader, but I don’t sustain what he’s teaching. And time vindicates him. Like, over time, we have—like, Joseph F. Smith’s going to come out explicitly against the Adam-God doctrine. Elder McConkie, President Kimball, and others have said, yeah, that was wrong.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And so we look—and maybe we’ll have to do more detailed treatment of the Adam-God doctrine sometime, Casey. I know people have requested that. Some of our listeners want us to do that. I don’t know.

Casey Griffiths: That’s a ways down the road.

Scott Woodward: The point here is simply that the issue doesn’t seem to be with what Brigham Young is proposing here. I think organizing the First Presidency is great, and they do it, and it’s worked great ever since, but there is a lingering issue here that Orson Pratt has raised that I’ve never seen fully addressed ever, and I don’t know that that ever gets fully resolved. Everyone is super awkward about checking the teachings of the President of the Church, and Orson Pratt was like, why should we be awkward about that? We should see if that resonates with the scriptures and with the Holy Spirit, and that should be okay, you know? But I think over history Orson Pratt has gotten outvoted on that. I mean, it’s spicy. It’s a spicy book.

Casey Griffiths: Let me push back a little bit, because I think there’s multiple occasions where Brigham Young says, like, I’m saying this, but you should go home and confirm it with the Lord. The very fact that Orson Pratt wasn’t, like, kicked out of the Quorum of the Twelve or excommunicated from the church means that Brigham Young saw the value in his role.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And, I mean, my overall feeling after reading this whole thing as I’m prepping the outline is I sat back, and I was like, I love these guys. Like—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —I see their personalities, because it seems like when you’re trying to get something big to happen, there’s three basic types, right? There’s the, “Let’s just get this done,” right? And that’s Brigham Young. Like, we’ve got to get this done. This is the most efficient way to do it. Then there’s the, “Let’s get it done right.” That’s Orson Pratt, right? Like, let’s do it the correct way.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And then there’s the, “Let’s all get along. Let’s do it, but let’s all get along” kind of people, and that’s maybe, like, Wilford Woodruff and others there.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: All of these personalities are valuable, and I don’t think that anybody other than Brigham Young could have pulled off what he pulled off, but am I grateful that Orson Pratt was there checking him and voicing other opinions? Yeah. I really do. And sometimes there’s this fallacy among members of the church that the leaders of the church are always in harmony, that they always agree.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And the historical record just doesn’t say that. And the reason why I bring that up is in your own dealings with other people, it’s okay. You’re not being, like, a bad person if you say, “I just don’t know if that’s right.” And if you’re the leader, it’s okay for you, too, to be like, okay, tell me why.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: There’s been times when I’ve acted defensively, when somebody’s questioned the decision I’ve made when I was in a leadership role. There’s been other times when I wasn’t the leader, but I was the counselor. I was the Orson Pratt, and I felt like I should hold back, and I think this whole exchange kind of illustrates the value in having a strong leader who’s decisive, but also in having somebody who’s willing to say, have you considered this? Have you thought about it? Has it always worked perfectly? No, obviously not. They’re humans.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: But is it inspired? Do I feel the spirit when I read this stuff? I do. Like, I came away with a profound love for these men, for all their faults.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: That they were just so passionate about this that they felt like they had to have discussions lingering over weeks for what seems like a simple procedural matter today, which is, do we reorganize the First Presidency?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: They just really sincerely believed, and that’s why this is such an intense discussion.

Scott Woodward: This is what true counseling looks like. There’s so much at stake.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I remember Elder Bednar talking about being in the highest councils of the church, and he said, we don’t really care about who is right. We care about getting it right because we know that a lot rides on this. This is going to have impact. And so he says the reason we can disagree with each other so vehemently is because there’s not ego involved here.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: We just want to get it right. I think it’s amazing, as we just read in these minutes, like Orson is—his very last words are that I still disagree with this, and then Orson Hyde moves that Brother Brigham be the president of the church and that he nominate two counselors. All in favor? And Orson Pratt raises his hand. At the end of the day, when he saw he was outvoted, he’s like, okay. I’ll be fully on board with this decision. And he does.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I don’t hear him ever murmuring about this decision ever again.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And so I think that’s the right way to counsel. Let it all out, and then whatever the decision is, now you stick with that decision collectively.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And it’s interesting that Brigham Young, on one occasion, he expressed appreciation for Orson Pratt’s careful nature. He said, “Orson Pratt would dip into everything a perfect gauger.” Like he wants to just gauge and measure everything perfectly. He would inquire and find out if it’s the disposition of some to think this way or another way, and he would say, well, I want to know about this and that. He’s a very inquisitive man, and he wants to be careful. And he brought up the idea that the Twelve all hold the keys equally, and so Brigham says, “Here’s the Twelve Apostles. Do they not all hold keys equally? No and yes.” He says, “We could prove both.” He said, “but when a man is ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ, he has all authority and can receive no more keys. He may not be made a king and priest yet,” but then of Orson, he says, “We locked horns, Orson and I, but all to bring things out.” It was all for the good.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So that’s a good perspective, too.

Casey Griffiths: I love that, it was “all to bring things out.” Like, he’s saying the inspiration came in the discussion, and I’ve seen this happen again and again—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —when I’ve been involved in councils in that sometimes the fireworks are the point, right? That we discuss things, and we’re passionate about it and the Lord gives us revelation through that. Like, revelation isn’t always just a pillar of light coming down. Sometimes it’s hearing the voice of somebody else, considering all the alternatives and then making a decision and moving forward in faith. So I love these guys.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, me too. And this sets a really important precedent, right? This sets the pattern that there’s now a First Presidency separate from the Twelve that will be established after the death of the president of the church. That’s a big deal.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: This discussion we just reviewed today set the pattern that’s still followed in the church today.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Even though we still have apostolic interregnums, they’re just now a lot shorter.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and so this is another one of the pieces of the puzzle. The senior apostle becomes the leader of the church. Next piece of the puzzle, the First Presidency needs to be reorganized after an apostolic interregnum, but there’s still other questions that linger, like so many things they had to work out.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Some of these are worked out during Brigham Young’s presidency, as we’ll talk about next time, and some of them are worked out after Brigham Young passes away, and that’s what we’re going to kind of continue to go through in the next few episodes. So this has been a good discussion. And you and I are modeling this, right? Because Scott, sometimes you’re so wrong and I just want you to like, cow tow and agree with me.

Scott Woodward: Well, it’s okay to lock horns. We’re just bringing all things out.

Casey Griffiths: We’re just bringing all things out. And sometimes I’m wrong, and I’m grateful when you correct me as well, so I’m grateful for good people like you that offer correction or alternatives, so . . .

Scott Woodward: Likewise. I think there’s value in the back and forth. I think engaging about this, even if at the end of the discussion you don’t agree with one another still, I think what’s remarkable is that it shows that we care about it deeply, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Anyone who wants to engage about anything like this, like, policy of the church, doctrine of the church, history in the church, like, the fact that you care enough to want to get into the details and to form an opinion and then to defend it, like, good job.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: That means you care about it, you love it, and it matters to you. And that’s what we believe on this podcast, Casey. We believe that church history matters.

Casey Griffiths: Oh, way to go. You got the title in.

Scott Woodward: See what I did there?

Casey Griffiths: Well done.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Well done. All right. Until next time, Scott.

Scott Woodward: Okay. We’ll see you next time. More drama to come.

Casey Griffiths: More drama.

Scott Woodward: Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Join us next week as Casey and I discuss what, at one time, was a controversial issue regarding succession in the presidency, namely how to determine seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve. We’ll dig specifically into Brigham Young’s consequential final shuffling of the order of seniority in the Twelve, which directly impacted who became his successor, as well as the resolution in the year 1900 to the question about how those men who were ordained apostles but not brought into the Quorum of the Twelve factor into this issue of succession. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As always, thank you so much for being a part of this with us.