The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith

by Terryl L. Givens

His beloved younger colleague, the colorful J. Golden Kimball, reminded his audience that “There are not enough Apostles in the Church to prevent us from thinking, and they are not disposed to do so; but some people fancy that because we have the Presidency and Apostles of the Church that they will do the thinking for us. There are men and women so mentally lazy that they hardly think for themselves. To think calls for effort, which makes some men tired and wearies their souls. No man or woman can remain in this Church on borrowed light.”11 However, in 1945, a Church magazine urged upon its readers the exact opposite, that “When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done.” Many are familiar with that expression; fewer are aware that when President George Albert Smith learned of it, he immediately and indignantly repudiated the statement. “Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking,” he wrote, “is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church.”12