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I’m curious what you think about this one. There is this underlying or implied belief that the Apostles have all seen Christ. They are called “Special Witnesses”. Based on your own experiences in the Church, do you believe this is true? And is it a necessary condition of being an Apostle that you actually see Christ as some point? Or is the Special Witness concept simply open to parsing or interpreted as having symbolic meaning? No. No. Yes. 
and I think the “underlying” or “implied” is one of perception / hope / desire / etc. of those who want to believe that – not statements by them
SD wrote:do you believe this is true?
No. I was surprised when I got to my mission to find out that many elders did believe that. It was news to me.
SD wrote:And is it a necessary condition of being an Apostle that you actually see Christ as some point?
By the way apostles are discussed in the New Testament, the answer would seem to be yes. From the modern LDS church, I’d think the answer is no.
Though some current leaders are awfully coy about their personal experiences, and seem to intimate that they have (“…through experiences too sacred to mention…”).
SD wrote:Or is the Special Witness concept simply open to parsing or interpreted as having symbolic meaning?
Yeah, I think so. Though I do think that some of the Brethren are content to let members continue to believe that a personal visitation or vision of Christ is necessary to be an apostle.
No. None of them has seen Jesus in the superficial, temporal, and physical way that Judas saw him. In other words, none of them can tell us whether his voice was high or low, whether he was tall or short, fat or thin, blond or dark, chiseled or rounded. That part of Jesus died 2000 years ago.
Yes.
Depending on what you mean by seeing and what you mean by the Savior, yes, some of them have seen the Savior as Peter, James, Luke, John, and Mary Magdalene saw him. The greater questions are 1) how often do they walk with their gaze on him and 2) have we seen him too?
Tom
No. No. Yes. I’m with Tom. I know this is a cultural legend within Mormonism. Certainly Joseph Smith and early Church leaders claimed this. My personal opinion — most current leaders today know that they have not seen Jesus Christ in that way. The ones that “get” the symbolic or mystical aspects, they might perhaps kinda-sorta see it like Tom explained.
I think it should be the goal of all to experience this mystical experience. I think it exists in many religions, even outside of Christianity. Having Jesus Christ appear to you, and having your “calling and election made sure” (using Mormon lingo), is a major event of enlightenment for mystics in all cultures and times.
cwald wrote:No. No. Yes.
+1I have three poor references to prove that the Apostles have seen Jesus: 1)
Quote:PH was taught by the visiting high counselor and he related a story. Pres. GBH was visiting with area SP’s and after hearing the low numbers asked sadly, “How can I go to the Savior with numbers such as these?”. The high counselor expressed that he, for one, takes this literally to mean that GBH had PPI’s with Jesus. I share this as an example of how the SP Bridget has referenced might think that if there is anything new to be revealed, it should come from the top through the appointed method.”
2) I have an insert in my scriptures that has a list of GA’s that have spoken of a Christ visitation experience. I believe the last person on the list was Elder Haight. This insert was produced by some scripture insert company from Orem, Ut and sold to me from Deseret Book. How is that for a smoking gun?😈 3) The talk on tape entitled “Why we believe in Jesus” by Brad Wilcox. This talk told a story about a boy who was losing a debate in his classroom about the existence of God/Jesus. When in the culmination of the debate the opposition asked him if he had ever seen Jesus, he responded – No. When asked how he could believe in something he has never seen, he said – because I know men who have seen him. The thrust of the talk was that if we believe in Jesus because we are a Christian nation, surrounded by other Christians, we have ancient Christian scriptures, we have Christian parents, Christian forefathers, and Christian upbringing – then how are we different from any other professed Christians? According to this motivational talk on tape, the answer is because we have special witnesses that have seen Him and should everything else pass away we would still be Christians based on that premise.
I acknowledge the poor sources, but this is the type of material that influenced my testimony as a young man.
The new handbook says explictly that members should not rely on second-eigtheenth-hand stories (ok, the “eighteenth-hand” wording is mine) about what GA’s said somewhere at some time 😳 That alone is fairly instructive, I think.I agree, roy, that the “evidence” is really weak and made up generally of that type of story.
I would not for an instant argue that our church doesn’t teach and encourage folks to believe that we have GAs who have seen Jesus personally. I just don’t believe it – personally. To be fair, none of the sources I mentioned came from any official (correlated) church channels. I think “the brethren” have been trying to quietly downplay the role or necessity of personal visitations for some time but that it is difficult to be explicit without challenging the literalist faith of some(“…through experiences too sacred to mention…”). As a rather poetic example of this: President Harold B. Lee wrote:I have a session with the missionary groups as they go out, in the temple, where they are permitted to ask intimate questions that wouldn’t be proper to be discussed elsewhere. They sometimes ask, Could you tell us a certain place in the temple where the Savior has been seen? My answer is, ‘Keep in mind that this is the house of the Lord; this is the place that we try to keep as pure and holy and sacred as any building we have. This is the most likely place he would come when he comes on earth. Don’t ask for a certain place because he has walked these halls. How do you know but what he is here in your midst? (In Conference Report, British Area Conference 1971, pp. 135–36; or Ensign, Nov. 1971, pp. 12–13 .)
To echo Tom,
Tom Haws wrote:The greater questions are 1) how often do they walk with their gaze on him and 2) have we seen him too?
For some reason I am not as comfortable with the word “walk” in that context as I am the words “see” and “converse”. You know, I really truly used to believe in this whole heartedly. Just a few years ago I would have said that “yes, of course they have seen Him!” However, as can be the case with a crisis of faith, there are some things you just can’t really believe anymore. For me, this is one of them. I think they may see Him in the idea that perhaps they (and we all) see Him when we see others who are displaying Christ-like attributes. I guess these days, I would say they have not literally seen Jesus. I believe that, at least historically, it is a requirement to have seen Him. That is why Matthias and Paul were able to be called as Apostles. They were witnesses of His actual ministry and/or resurrection.
Finally, I would say that yes, it is probably more symbolic than anything else.
Why do you think this possible untruth/legend/folklore is allowed to continue in the Church? To be careful not to destroy the faith of the members? There was another one floating around which was corrected in our sacrament meeting a while ago. Someone said that our time is one of the grandest in human history and that people will “bow at our feet when they find out we lived in the time of Gordon B. Hinckley” or something like that. This was going around in different talks and Sunday school classes, and it was corrected over the pulpit. I’m not sure if it was a SLC bulleting that prompted the correction, or whether it was the Stake correcting a local phenomenon, but they stepped in there.
However, it seems to me, they would like this lore about Apostles seeing Christ continue so long as it inspires the members….which, for me, is questionable.
I first heard that story a few years ago and it was been attributed to a few different Church authorities (usually Boyd K. Packer). However, you are right that it was corrected from the pulpit. A letter from the First Presidency was read to address these types of things and said basically that it isn’t true and isn’t appropriate to be used during any Church meeting, talk or lesson. The letter is here
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