MR says: With the turmoil on social media and the news, it's important to know the spiritual threats that seek to tear down our testimonies and plant doubts. To learn why one Mormon woman has chosen to stay in the Church even after her friends have left it, click here.
A spiritual threat is influencing some Church members: the notion that “the Church has lost its way. Church leaders are not inspired or in favor with God, so God has raised up new leaders outside the Church hierarchy whose visions and teachings are important for us to follow,” a speaker at the FairMormon Conference observed August 7.
Cassandra Hedelius, an attorney who works for the federal government near Washington, D.C., was one of an assortment of speakers at the two-day conference sponsored by the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, a group not affiliated with the Church but whose purpose is to defend it against public attacks.
Sister Hedelius identified a potential point of misunderstanding in the Mormon faith between the principle that everyone can and should receive personal revelation through the Holy Ghost and that God calls prophets to receive essential revelations that are binding on each Church member.
“Most Church members resolve this tension without too much trouble—guidance from prophets and personal revelation work together to confirm one another and show a harmonious, whole picture of a divine plan for our lives,” she observed.