Losing the Priesthood

Another look at John Taylor’s 1886 prophecy regarding the validity of the Priesthood in the Church

In the Autumn of 1886, President John Taylor predicted that there would one day be a question over validity of the Priesthood held by many of the Saints:

“I would be surprised if ten percent of those who claim to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood will remain true and faithful to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, at that time of the seventh President, and there would be thousands that think they hold the Priesthood at that time, but would not have it properly conferred upon them.”(1)

President Taylor’s worry it seemed was also shared by his counselor, George Q. Cannon.  According to one witness, Canon stated in a meeting with the Saints, that “The day will come when men’s Priesthood and authority will be called into question, and you will find out that there will be hundreds who have no Priesthood, but believe they hold it, they holding only an office in the Church.”(2)

Although no contemporary accounts of these particular statements, but they are not dissimilar from other warnings and prophecies made by other Church leaders during the same era.  For example in 1884 President cautioned the Saints that “the time will come when it will be necessary for every man to trace the line in which he has received the Priesthood that he exercises. …  I believe this is of extreme importance, …  Every man should be careful on this point, to know where he gets his Priesthood; that it has come to him clean and undefiled, legitimately;”(3)

These quotes raise many issues, such as what would cause some of the Saints to lose the Priesthood or give it incorrectly? how could such a situation arise in which this could occur, and some Saints not know about it? and how can we ensure that the Priesthood we hold is legitimate?  Fortunately the Lord’s servants have left answers to all of these questions, although there are several different viewpoints on these matters which we will try to cover in this treatment of the subject.

Priesthood Conferral

President Taylor’s prophecy has traditionally been interpreted amongst many Fundamentalism and their critics to refer only to the issue of changes in the wording of Priesthood ordinations.  This was because he spoke of the Priesthood not being properly conferred, and he spoke of the prophesy coming to fulfillment during the time of the seventh President of the Church, during whose tenure the method of ordination certainly was altered.

Certainly, Church leaders such as Brigham Young stated the importance of conferring the Priesthood before ordaining to an office therein.  “Do not forget to confer the High Priesthood”,(4) he instructed in 1877.  In doing so he was following the president laid down with the restoration of the Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in 1829, when John the Baptist spoke the words, “Upon my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron.”(5)

However those who oppose the necessity of conferring the Priesthood have pointed out several Journal entries, which seem to chronicle ordination done early in this dispensation which did not use the word ‘confer’, as well as statements from some early General Authorities in which they expressed that they believed it didn’t matter if a conferral was done or not.  Although it is quite probable that the reason why the diaries of early members did not contain the term ‘confer’ is because either they were primarily interested in recording the office they had been ordained to, and just expected that others who might read their account would assume a conferral had taken place.  This does not explain, however, the remarks of Church authorities who did not think conferral was necessary.

President George Q. Cannon has been cited as someone who would have agreed with Heber J. Grant’s alteration of the method of ordination,(6) yet he stated that “care should be taken to bestow the authority”, and gave the conferral of Priesthood upon Joseph and Oliver by John the Baptist as an ideal method of ordination.(7)

Of course we could conclude that those who disagreed with the need for conferral were just sharing an opinion of theirs, that had no effect on general practice of ordination amongst the Saints.  Alternatively, we might think that they were wrong, or that it is due to ordinations they may have performed (without conferring) that the situation arose that President Taylor prophesied about.  Such explanations do not seem to cover all of the accounts and statements.  But there are aspects to this subject which have sometimes been overlooked.

Let us begin with our concept of the Priesthood and its offices.  When Joseph Smith received the Aaronic Priesthood there was no indication that he was ordained to any office in it, and the Lord revealed to him on a couple of occasions that “offices in the Church are appendages to the Priesthood.”(8)  Or, in other words, that the Priesthood can exist apart from an appointment to a specific office or calling in the Church.

At least one Church authority, President Charles W. Penrose, had a different view on this matter.  One LDS scholar summarised a sermon he gave in 1921 that touched on the this issue, “President Penrose conveyed the impression that priesthood does not exist apart from priesthood offices.”(9)

This view was undoubtedly what led him to state a few years earlier, “We have been making a mistake in ordinations. We have been conferring the priesthood, and it ought not to be done. If we confer the Priesthood on a man, we give him all the offices and callings in the Church. We should ordain directly to the office in the Priesthood.”(10)

In that same year the First Presidency (which he was part of) made its first statement regarding ordaining without conferring,(11) and formally instructed the Priesthood in line with this view in 1921.(12)

It seems before 1919 it was understood that a person being ordained was being given the Priesthood, yet after that point it was no longer certain, as the view had begun to take hold no-one (apart from perhaps the Church President) had the Priesthood, but only had offices in the Church.  The understanding of what the Priesthood was and who could hold it had changed fundamentally, from being ordained into the Melchizedek Priesthood to being ordained into the Church.  Possibly it was because of this, that many receiving ordination under such situation might have indeed only received what they were promised – an office in the Church, without the Priesthood itself.  In this way the change in ordination procedure could have been more of a sign of the prophecy being fulfilled rather than the only reason.

All of this happened despite Joseph F. Smith’s statement, as Church President in 1901, that conferring should precede ordination.(13)  Whatever ambiguity may have existed before President Smith made it clear what method he expected in the Church, only to have it reversed a couple of decades later.

Even if ordinations had been done incorrectly beforehand, President Smith set a standard, from which Heber J. Grant deviated, and opposed the explicit instructions of his predecessor on how ordinations were to be done.  If differences in conferring had not invalidated ordinations before, one might argue that they did after President Smith made the matter clear.

Click here for Part 2

1. 27 September 1886, John W. Woolley home, Centreville, Utah
2. 1901, Draper, Utah, as related by Daniel R. Bateman, Ballard-Jensen Correspondence
3. 18 October 1884, Journal of Discourses 26:24
4. Deseret News, 6 June 1877
5. 29 May 1829, D&C 13:1
6. In Brian C. Hales, Is Fundamentalism Fundamental?
7. Juvenile Instructor 31:174-5, 1896
8. 28 March 1835, D&C 107:5 & D&C 84:29-30
9. Maxine Hanks, Women and Authority, Ch.2, p.39; see General Conference, April 1921, p. 108
10. Stake Quarterly Conference, Utah Stake, Provo, Utah, 1919, as recollected by Daniel R. Peay.
11. 1919, in the Appendix of Gospel Doctrine by Joseph F. Smith
12. 23 April 1921 (see also Missionary Handbooks after that time)
13. 1901, Improvement Era 4:394