Advocate

Hedcut illustration of In ancient courts, advocacy meant more than concern; it meant presence beside the defendant and a willingness to stake one’s standing on another’s cause. — In ancient courts, advocacy meant more than concern; it meant a willingness to stake one’s standing on another’s cause.

Advocate derives from the Latin advocatus⁠—one called alongside, a legal friend who stands with the accused and speaks on their behalf. The term carries that forensic weight into the New Testament through the Greek parakletos, rendered variously as advocate, comforter, helper, or intercessor. Scripture explicitly names Christ as our advocate with the Father, and the Holy Spirit as the Comforter who sustains disciples living in a hostile world (1 John 14:15-17).

Advocacy goes beyond mere sympathy. Sympathy can be exercised from a comfortable distance; it observes, it feels, and it goes home. The advocate takes a position, assumes a cost, and places his own reputation on the line in defense of someone who cannot effectively represent themselves in a forum where their fate is being decided. Anciently, when a Roman patron stood beside a client in court, he staked his reputation on the client’s cause. The relationship preceded and grounded the legal act. The role is relational before it is forensic, and it remains so in Scripture.

Christ as the Model Advocate

Christ’s advocacy is grounded in his atoning sacrifice. Because he descended below all things, he understands every condition from the inside. His advocacy goes beyond mere procedural intercession; it is an empathetic defense by someone who has personally experienced the plight of the accused.

Doctrine and Covenants 45:3-5 gives us the most vivid rendering of Christ’s advocacy found anywhere in scripture, and it merits close reading:

“

Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him⁠—saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.

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D&C 45:3-5

Notice what Christ does not say. He does not argue that the accused are innocent. He does not minimize the charge. His plea rests entirely on his own experience and his own standing⁠—behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin. True advocacy is embodied by those who have endured the cost and step forward to speak for the vulnerable. To bear a burden, to stand as witness⁠—this is the advocate’s work distributed across a covenant community.

Advocacy and Participatory Atonement

Hedcut illustration of Comfort is promised as companionship under pressure: the Spirit is pictured as a continuing defender who stays close when the world turns hostile. — And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1).

Mormon transhumanism places participatory atonement at the core of this covenant structure. The atonement is not only received; it is practiced. To stand with the marginalized, to represent the voiceless in forums of power, to bear some portion of the cost that would otherwise fall entirely on the vulnerable is what true religion looks like.

Framed this way, advocacy carries profound theological weight. We are called to address the world’s systemic deficits by championing the rights of the marginalized in policy, technological design, and institutional settings.

Protecting Future Generations

Today’s technological shifts presage a dangerous gap in advocacy, leaving the very people impacted by these innovations voiceless in shaping them. Future generations cannot attend the meetings where long-term risks are weighed. People in communities without political or economic power rarely shape the systems that restructure their lives.

Mormon transhumanism takes these gaps seriously. The tradition’s forward orientation and its insistence on the compassionate use of technology creates a responsibility to advocate on behalf of those who cannot yet advocate for themselves. This is prophetic work in the literal sense: speaking on behalf of those who are not present, representing interests that will matter before they can be heard.

Bridging the empathy gap

The parakletos in John’s gospel is specifically an advocate for truth⁠—one who convicts the world of its errors and guides the community into fuller understanding. Advocacy in this sense represents not only persons but reality itself against distortion. To defend a true account of what is happening, to name harm that powerful interests prefer to leave unnamed, to insist that evidence matters when dismissal would be more convenient: this is the advocate’s work.

For a community oriented toward rigorous inquiry and honest engagement with evidence, this dimension cannot be separated from the others. Building institutions, technologies, and communities that accurately represent the interests and experiences of those they affect requires sustained, deliberate effort against the natural tendency of power to widen the empathy gap. The quintessential advocate is one driven by love and alive to the full range of persons and futures at stake. Christ is our exemplar and advocate with the Father. The question is whether those around us, and those who come after us, have an advocate in us.