prophecy

David A. Bednar (b. 1952) is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Widely regarded as one of the most analytically rigorous teachers in contemporary Latter-day Saint leadership, he has shaped how millions of members understand the relationship between agency, covenant, and discipleship. Before his call to the holy apostleship in 2004, Bednar served as president of Ricks College (later BYU–Idaho) from 1997 to 2004, where he led a significant institutional transformation, including the college’s transition to a four-year university. His academic background is in organizational behavior, and he has brought that analytical sensibility to his theological teaching, consistently emphasizing patterns, principles, and the active responsibilities of covenant discipleship. Bednar’s legacy rests substantially on his insistence that discipleship is participatory rather than passive. His teaching frames human beings not as recipients of divine action but as agents commissioned in a shared work of redemption—what he has described as the Lord’s agents in the work of salvation and exaltation. That framing resonates with the Mormon transhumanist reading of theosis: Godhood is not bestowed but developed through active, willing participation in the work of God.

Heber Chase Kimball (1801–1868) was an American religious leader, missionary, and settler who served as one of the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and, from 1847 until his death, as First Counselor to President Brigham Young. Born in Sheldon, Vermont, Kimball worked as a potter before joining the Church in 1832 and quickly becoming one of its most energetic and effective early missionaries. He led the first Latter-day Saint mission to Great Britain in 1837, a journey that resulted in thousands of conversions and established a transatlantic gathering movement that would shape the demographic character of early Utah. Kimball was a central figure in the organizational and physical building of the Latter-day Saint community across its most turbulent decades—the Missouri persecutions, the Nauvoo era, the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, and the overland exodus to the Salt Lake Valley. As Brigham Young’s closest counselor he helped govern the territory of Utah through its formative years, wielding both ecclesiastical and civic influence. His personal loyalty to Joseph Smith was absolute, and his preaching style was earthy, unpolished, and remarkably direct—qualities that made him beloved among pioneer settlers. Kimball’s theological instincts ran deep. His sermons returned repeatedly to the radical naturalism at the heart of early Mormon theology: God is not a being apart from nature but a being within it, who acquired knowledge through experience and inheritance, just as human beings do. His image of an infinite chain of fathers—each connected to one still further back, stretching without arbitrary terminus into the cosmos—anticipates the kind of open-ended, naturalistic cosmology that Mormon transhumanism takes espouses. Where others might invoke divine mystery to close off inquiry, Kimball pressed the logic of eternal progression outward, suggesting that the universe is populated with intelligences in various stages of development, and that humanity’s own trajectory extends without ceiling toward greater knowledge, greater power, and greater kinship with God.

Hugh B. Brown (1883–1975) was a Canadian-born Latter-day Saint leader, attorney, military officer, and one of the most intellectually courageous voices in twentieth-century Mormon thought. Born in Revelstoke, British Columbia, Brown pursued law and served as an officer in the Canadian military before committing to full-time Church service. He presided over the British Mission, taught at Brigham Young University, served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and ultimately as First and Second Counselor in the First Presidency under David O. McKay. Across all of these roles he carried the habits of a trained legal mind: careful in distinction, insistent on evidence, and unwilling to confuse provisional policy with settled doctrine. Brown’s ecclesiology was notably democratic. He argued that official statements not ratified by common consent remain matters of temporary policy, subject to revision as conditions and understanding change—a position that places theological humility and participatory governance at the center of how the Church ought to work. He was also a persistent advocate for civil rights at a time when that advocacy required personal courage within institutional Mormonism, and his speeches on intellectual freedom remain among the most forthright defenses of open inquiry ever delivered by a senior Church leader. The deepest thread running through Brown’s legacy is his conviction that science and religion are not rivals but converging expressions of the same fundamental drive toward truth. He articulated what he called a “scientific spirituality”—a mind that brings the discipline and candor of science to bear on faith without extinguishing faith’s warmth or power. Revelation, in his view, could come through laboratories and inquiring souls as readily as through vision or prayer. Every scientific discovery, he held, illuminates the divine plan in nature; the universe’s harmony across scales implies an architect whose work invites rather than resists investigation. God, he insisted, is not capricious—all is law, all is cause and effect, and that lawfulness is itself a form of reverence. These commitments map directly onto the Mormon transhumanist understanding of a naturalist God whose purposes are advanced through disciplined intelligence, free inquiry, and the willingness to let the best ideas prevail.

John Taylor (1808–1887) served as the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1880 until his death. Born in Milnthorpe, England, he immigrated to Canada in 1832 and converted to the Church in 1836. Known as the “Champion of Liberty,” he edited several Church publications and served multiple missions to England and France. Taylor was present in Carthage Jail when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred in 1844. Shot five times, he survived and was thereafter known as a “living martyr.” He is remembered for singing “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” at Hyrum’s request shortly before the attack. As Church President, Taylor led the Saints during intense federal persecution over plural marriage. The Edmunds Act of 1882 forced him into hiding for the last years of his life, during which he established colonies of refuge in Mexico and Canada. He died on July 25, 1887, still maintaining his convictions about religious liberty.

Joseph Fielding Smith (1838–1918) was the 6th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving from 1901 until his death. He was the son of Hyrum Smith and nephew of Joseph Smith. Born in Far West, Missouri, Joseph F. Smith experienced the trials of early Church history firsthand. As a young child, he witnessed the aftermath of the Carthage martyrdom. At age nine, he drove an ox team across the plains to Utah with his widowed mother. At fifteen, he was called on a mission to Hawaii, where he had a transformative vision of the afterlife. He taught that Jesus’s work was not finished with his death and resurrection but continues until all who can be saved are redeemed. This expansive vision of salvation includes work for the dead and the promise that the faithful become saviors on Mount Zion alongside Christ.