Mormon Leader Strives for Political Power

By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

---

On February 24, 1980, the Salt Lake Tribune carried a full-page advertisement concerning our new book, The Changing World of Mormonism. In this ad we demonstrated that many important changes have been made in Mormon doctrine. Two days after this was published, Ezra Taft Benson, who is President of the Council of the Twelve Apostles and next in line to lead the Mormon Church, spoke at Brigham Young University. In this speech he claimed that the “Living Prophet” is “More Vital to Us Than the Standard Works”—i.e., the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. He went on to warn: “Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the living prophets always take precedence.” Using this type of reasoning a Mormon could set aside the teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young when they disagree with the “Living Prophet.”

[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

It would appear from President Benson’s speech that he wants his people to allow the “Living Prophet” to do their thinking in temporal as well as spiritual matters. This is reminiscent of the ward teacher’s message for June, 1945:

When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. (Improvement Era, June 1945, page 354)

Ezra Taft Benson’s speech has caused great consternation among Mormons who want to “do their own thinking.” One thing they really fear is his attempt to mix politics with religion. He indicates that the Prophet has a right to dictate to his people on political matters and even to “lead them in government. Alma was the head of the Church and of the government in the Book of Mormon; Joseph Smith was mayor of Nauvoo and Brigham Young was governor of Utah . . . Those who would remove prophets from politics would take God out of government.”

Those who know of President Benson’s previous attempts to involve the Church in politics realize the danger that lies ahead if he should become the “Living Prophet.” This is a very real possibility because Spencer W. Kimball, the present leader, is four years older than Benson and now in poor health (during the last several months Kimball has undergone surgery twice to drain “an accumulation of fluid between his brain and skull” (The Ensign, January 1980, page 80).

The Mormon Kingdom

From the very beginning Mormon Church leaders were inclined to meddle in politics. Joseph Smith himself set up a secret “Council of Fifty” and had himself ordained to be a king. In 1853 William Marks, who had been a member of the Council of Fifty, revealed: “I was also witness of the introduction (secretly,) of a kingly form of government, in which Joseph suffered himself to be ordained a king, to reign over the house of Israel forever; . . .” (Zion’s Harbinger and Baneemy’s Organ, St. Louis, July, 1853, page 53).

In his master’s thesis for Brigham Young University, Klaus J. Hansen tells that George Miller, who had been a member of the Council of Fifty, admitted that Joseph Smith was ordained to be a king: “Rumors implying that the Prophet assumed royal pretensions are somewhat substantiated by George Miller who stated on one occasion that ‘In this council we ordained Joseph Smith as King on earth’ ” (“The Theory and Practice of the Political Kingdom of God in Mormon History, 1829-1890,” master’s thesis, BYU, 1959,typed copy, page 114).

In Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1966,page 104, Mr. Hansen frankly admitted that “Joseph Smith did start a political kingdom of God and a Council of Fifty; he was made king over that organization. . . .”

When Fawn Brodie stated that Joseph Smith was anointed king, Dr. Hugh Nibley claimed that there was not enough evidence to support this accusation. Since that time, however, a great deal of new evidence has come to light, and now many Mormon scholars are willing to concede that Joseph Smith was made king. For instance, Kenneth W. Godfrey, who was director of the LDS Institute at Stanford University, admitted that Joseph Smith was“Ordained ‘King over the Immediate House of Israel’ by the Council of Fifty” (Brigham Young University Studies, Winter 1968, pages 212-213). Among other things, Dr. Godfrey’s footnote refers us to the “Diary of George A. Smith, May 9, 1844,” which is in the “Library of the Church Historian.” In a dissertation written at Brigham Young University, Dr. Godfrey observed:

Davidson states that Joseph Smith had himself anointed King and Priest . . . in a revelation dated 1886 given to President John Taylor, mention is made of Joseph Smith being crowned a king in Nauvoo. Not only was he ordained a king but the leading members of the Church were assigned governmental responsibilities. Brigham Young was to be president, John Taylor vice president, members of the Church were assigned to represent different states in the house and senate of the United States, and a full cabinet was appointed. (“Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839-1846,” Ph.D. dissertation, BYU, 1967, pages 63-65)

In his book, Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, page 204, Mormon writer John J. Stewart related that “(The Prophet established a confidential Council of Fifty, or ‘Ytfif,’ comprised of both Mormons and non-Mormons, to help attend to temporal matters, including the eventual development of a government, in harmony with preparatory plans for the second advent of the Saviour.)”

Joseph Smith for President

In 1844 the Council of Fifty decided to run Joseph Smith for the presidency of the United States. Klaus J. Hansen said that “the Council of Fifty, while seriously contemplating the possibility of emigration, also considered a rather spectacular alternative, namely, to run its leader for the presidency of the United States in the campaign of 1844. . . . Smith and the Council of Fifty seems to have taken the election quite seriously, much more so, indeed, than both Mormons and anti-Mormons have heretofore suspected” (Quest for Empire, page 74).

The elders of the church were actually called to “electioneer” for Joseph Smith (History of the Church, vol. 6, page 322). Mormon writer John J. Stewart refers to those who were sent to campaign as a “vast force of political missionaries” (Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, page 209).

Under the date of January 29, 1844, this statement is attributed to Joseph Smith in the History of the Church: “If you attempt to accomplish this, you must send every man in the city who is able to speak in public throughout the land to electioneer. . . . There is oratory enough in the Church to carry me into the presidential chair the first slide” (vol. 6, page 188).

The fact that Joseph Smith would allow himself to be crowned king shows that he was driven by the idea of gaining power. It is very possible that Smith seriously believed that he would become president and that he would rule as king over the people of the United States. The attempt by Joseph Smith to become president seems to have been a treasonous plot to bring the United States Government under the rule of the priesthood. George Miller, who had been a member of the Council of Fifty, recorded in a letter dated June 28, 1855:

It was further determined in Council that all the elders should set out on missions . . . and do everything in our power to have Joseph elected president. If we succeeded in making a majority of the voters converts to our faith, and elected Joseph president, in such an event the dominion of the Kingdom would be forever established in the United States; and if not successful, we could fall back on Texas, and be a kingdom notwithstanding. (Letter by George Miller, as quoted in Joseph Smith and World Government, by Hyrum Andrus, 1963, page 54)

The Living Prophet is King

The practice of ordaining the President of the Mormon Church as “king on earth” did not cease with the death of Joseph Smith. It is reported that Brigham Young, the second president, was ordained king, and the Mormon Apostle Abraham H. Cannon states that there was a discussion in the Council of Fifty as to whether John Taylor, the third president, should be ordained king:

Father [George Q. Cannon, a member of the First Presidency] said Moses Thatcher’s drawing away from his brethren commenced as far as his knowledge concerning it went, at a time when the Council of Fifty met in the old City Hall, and Moses opposed the proposition to anoint John Taylor as Prophet Priest and King, and Moses’ opposition prevailed at that time. (“Daily Journal of Abraham H. Cannon,” December 2, 1895, page 198; original at Brigham Young University Library)

The journal of Franklin D. Richards seems to show that Taylor was anointed king on February 4, 1885, (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? page 418). While we do not know whether the President of the Mormon Church is still anointed king, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie makes it plain that he is in reality “the earthly king”:

1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it is now constituted is the kingdom of God on earth. . . . The Church and kingdom are one and the same. . . .

The Church (or kingdom) is not a democracy; . . . The Church is a kingdom. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Eternal King, and the President of the Church, the mouthpiece of God on earth, is the earthly king. All things come to the Church from the King of the kingdom in heaven, through the king of the kingdom on earth. (Mormon Doctrine, 1979, pages 415-416)

Benson’s Political Involvements

While most scholars believe that the Council of Fifty died out sometime around the turn of the century, in the book Mormon Spies, Hughes and the C.I.A., page 51, we explored the possibility that it may have continued to exist in this century. We noted that on September 13, 1967, we received a letter from a man who had come to Utah to do research on Mormonism. In this letter he asserted:

Concerning the present status of the Council of the Fifty, I was told by an instructor at BYU that the Council exists today. Both Apostle Benson & a son (the John Bircher) are on it. I will write him and see if he will talk with you. He is in a very precarious situation, having apostacized but not having been excommunicated or fired from the “Y.” When he discovered this evidence on the 50, he was called into the Vice President office & sworn to secrecy. (I believe there was a mild threat used-at least he implied this. . . . (Letter dated September 13, 1967; for more information on this see Mormon Spies, Hughes and the C.I.A., pages 51-52)

While this is certainly “hear-say information” which cannot be checked unless the Church releases all of the secret records of the Council of Fifty, there is a great deal of evidence showing that Apostle Benson would like to involve the Church deeply in politics.In other words, his goals are consistent with those of the Council of Fifty. If the Council of Fifty is not in existence at the present time, it seems reasonable to believe that Benson might want to reestablish it. He would certainly have the power to do this if he became the “Living Prophet.”

In any case, at one time Benson served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower. Although he is not a member of the John Birch Society, his activities on its behalf have caused other Church leaders a great deal of embarrassment. On January 4, 1964, Drew Pearson made the following comment concerning Ezra Taft Benson: “Benson has become so extreme in his views that the Mormon Church, of which he is one of the Twelve Apostles, has quietly transferred him abroad to head the church’s European mission” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 4, 1964).

President David O. McKay denied the accusation, but the newspapers let the “cat out of the bag” when they published two letters written to Rep. Ralph R. Harding. One of them was written by Joseph Fielding Smith, who became the tenth president of the Church:

“I am glad to report to you that it will be some time before we hear anything from Brother Benson, who is now on his way to Great Britain where I suppose he will be at least for the next two years. When he returns, I hope his blood will be purified.” (Salt Lake Tribune, February 21, 1964)

On September 25, 1968, a newsman sent us a letter which contained this information about Benson:

Had an interesting telephone conversation with Elder Benson the other day. He said he could have had the American Independent Party vice presidential nomination, but turned it down after consultation with President McKay.

Since the death of Joseph Fielding Smith, the Apostle Benson has risen to great power in the Mormon Church. On February 25,1974, the Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe reported the following:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)—President Ezra Taft Benson, . . . said, in an interview this week, it is “entirely possible” the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) will one day declare support for a political candidate . . . President Benson stands next in the traditional line of ascension to the Mormon presidency. . . .

President Benson, . . . said he has never had to separate his religion from his politics. . . .

Asked if a good Mormon could be a liberal Democrat, President Benson said, “I think it would be very hard if he was living the gospel and understood it.”

In an article entitled, “Benson Tells Party Support,” we find the following:

Ezra Taft Benson, . . . has praised the principles of the American Party as “divine and eternal,” according to an Associated Press story Sunday.

In remarks confirmed by The Tribune, the former secretary of agriculture . . . said, “Never in a decade have I read a set of principles of any party that come so close to the philosophy which I have and which I think my own church people have.” (Salt Lake Tribune, November 4, 1974)

Some have speculated that the Freemen Institute may be in some way connected with the Mormon Kingdom. While we have no way of knowing whether this is true, the Institute was founded by Benson’s friend W. Cleon Skousen, a former F.B.I. agent who was devoted to J. Edgar Hoover. Mr. Skousen also served as Chief of Police in Salt Lake City and as professor of ancient scriptures at the Church’s BYU. Ezra Taft Benson seems to be deeply committed to the purposes of the Institute. In 1976 a “Special Invitation” to the“grand opening of the new national headquarters building” stated that “President Ezra T. Benson will be the featured speaker.” The Ogden Standard Examiner for February 25, 1980, reported that Benson spoke at a gathering of the Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona. Utah Holiday magazine for February 1980, gave this information:

Generally the impact of the far-right is discounted. An exception is the Benson/Skousen following. Representative Irvine considers Skousen’s Freeman Institute the most cohesive and influential conservative group in the state. They reportedly claim 5,000 members in the Salt Lake area which would make them a rather formidable organization, especially in light of their ability to control the nominating process. By heavy mass meeting participation it is relatively easy for a well organized minority to push through their candidate, which is what frequently happens. . . .

Ezra Taft Benson, . . . has the most instantly recognizable conservative image of any Utahn, and it extends nationwide. (pages 29-30)

According to Sunstone:

Mark A. Benson, a regional representative of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, has been appointed Vice-president and Director of Development for the Freeman Institute. . . .

The new vice-president is the son of Ezra Taft Benson, President of the Council of Twelve Apostles. (Jan.-Feb. 1980, page 50)

The Freeman Institute is growing rapidly in America and is spreading to other countries as well.

In any case, Ezra Taft Benson realizes that he is very close to the position of “Prophet, Seer and Revelator,” or as Apostle McConkie would phrase it, “king of the kingdom on earth.” It would appear from some of his statements that he is now polishing the crown in anticipation of the day he becomes President. The following extracts from his speech of February 26, 1980, make this very plain:

My beloved brothers and sisters. I am honored to be in your presence today. . . . As a Church we sing the song, “We Thank Thee, Oh God, For A Prophet.” Here then is the grand key—Follow The Prophet—and here now are Fourteen Fundamentals In Following the Prophet, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

FIRST: The Prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in Everything. . . . Did you hear what the Lord said about the words of the Prophet? We are to “give heed unto all his words”—as if from the Lord’s “own mouth.”

SECOND: The Living Prophet is More Vital to Us Than the Standard Works. . . .

THIRD: The Living Prophet is More Important to Us Than a Dead Prophet. . . . the most important prophet so far as you and I are concerned is the one living in our day and age to whom the Lord is currently revealing His will for us. Therefore the most important reading we can do is any of the words of the Prophet contained each week in the Church Section of the Deseret News, and any words of the Prophet contained each month in our Church magazines. Our marching orders for each six months are found in the General Conference addresses which are printed in the Ensign magazine. . . .

Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the living prophets always take precedence.

FOURTH: The Prophet Will Never Lead the Church Astray. . . .

President Marion G. Romney tells of this incident which happened to him: I remember years ago when I was a Bishop I had President (Heber J.) Grant talk to our ward. . . . he put his arm over my shoulder and said: “My boy, you always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.” Then with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “But you don’t need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.” (CR, October 1960, page 78.)

FIFTH: The Prophet is Not Required to Have Any Particular Earthly Training or Credentials to Speak on Any Subject or Act on Any Matter at Any Time. . . . We haven’t yet had a prophet who earned a doctorate degree in any subject,but as someone said, “A prophet may not have his PhD but he certainly has his LDS.”. . .

SIXTH: The Prophet Does Not Have to Say “Thus Saith the Lord” to Give Us Scripture.

Sometimes there are those who haggle over words. They might say the prophet gave us counsel but that we are not obligated to follow it unless he says it is a commandment. But the Lord says of the Prophet, “Thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you.” (D&C 21:4.) . . .

Said Brigham Young, “I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they many not call scripture.” (JD 13:95.)

SEVENTH: The Prophet Tells Us What We Need to Know, Not Always What We Want to Know. . . .

Said President Harold B. Lee: “You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. . . . Your safety and ours depends upon whether or not we follow . . . Let’s keep our eye on the President of the Church.” (CR, October 1970, pages 152-153.)

But it is the living Prophet who really upsets the world. . . . the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or mind their own business. Some so-called experts of political science want the prophet to keep still on politics. . . .

EIGHTH: The Prophet is Not Limited by Men’s Reasoning.

There will be times when you will have to choose between the revelations of God and reasoning of men—between the prophet and the politician or professor. . . .

NINTH: The Prophet Can Receive Revelation on Any Matter-Temporal or Spiritual. . . .

TENTH: The Prophet May be Involved in Civic Matters.

When a people are righteous they want the best to lead them in government. Alma was the head of the Church and of the government in the Book of Mormon; Joseph Smith was mayor of Nauvoo and Brigham Young was governor of Utah.

. . . Those who would remove prophets from politics would take God out of government.

ELEVENTH: The Two Groups Who Have the Greatest Difficulty in Following the Prophet Are the Proud Who Are Learned and the Proud Who Are Rich. . . .

TWELFTH: The Prophet Will Not Necessarily be Popular with the World or the Worldly. . . .

THIRTEENTH: The Prophet and His Counselors Make Up the First Presidency—The Highest Quorum in the Church. . . .

FOURTEENTH: The Prophet and the Presidency—The Living Prophet and the First Presidency—Follow Them and Be Blessed—Reject Them and Suffer. . . .

I testify that these fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. . . . how close do out [sic] lives harmonize with the words of the Lord’s anointed—the living Prophet—President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency. (“Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophets,” by President Ezra Taft Benson, BYU Devotional Assembly, February 26, 1980)

We have reprinted this speech¹ in its entirety together with an address by Apostle Bruce R. McConkie entitled, “All Are Alike Unto God.” McConkie’s speech relates to the new revelation granting blacks the priesthood. Like Benson’s speech, it recommends blind-obedience to the “Living Prophet.”

We also recommend our book, Mormon Spies, Hughes and the C.I.A. This book gives a great deal of information about the involvement of Mormonism in government. Although we do not want to sound too extreme, we are rather concerned about what could happen if Benson becomes President. We remember that Heber C. Kimball, a member of the First Presidency in Brigham Young’s time, once predicted that “The Nations will bow to this kingdom, sooner or later, and all hell cannot help it” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, page 170).

---

1. These speeches were originally reprinted by the Utah Lighthouse Ministry in the book Following the Brethren, which is no longer available. ↩︎

---

---