Our Lewis Family Witnesses to the Inspired Leadership Pattern in the Church

    Did you know that our family has direct ancestors who were present at the wonderful spiritual manifestation that established the inspired leadership pattern for the Church and left their witness of its reality and truthfulness?  The apostolic and prophetic leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ has the authority and capability to direct the work of God effectively worldwide in a single united effort, given its revealed pattern and with modern communication and transportation resources.  At the beginning of the latter-day Gospel restoration, this pattern was revealed gradually, culminated by a miraculous confirmation of this Godly leadership pattern at the time of Joseph Smith’s martyrdom and succession. This leadership pattern is unique in this capability.  No other religious organization in the world has the ability to provide this united global direction to the work of the church.  The rest of the Christian world is desperately and irretrievably fragmented.  For example, the Center for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimates that there are currently 47,000 different evangelical Protestant denominations.
    There seems to be a tendency in religious movements for ambitious persons to rise and draw off people to their own discipleship and organization.  Noel Reynolds, writing about the problems in the New Testament branches of the church established by the Christ’s apostles, “early Christians in disarray”, concludes the New Testament church was an immature or “Kirtland” church made up of new converts, who were drawn to the new religion, but seemed easily swayed by competing ideas and contention.  In “city after city where Paul and other missionaries had established branches of the church, fast-talking and self-appointed men began to take over and exploit the faith of [their] converts for their own material and even lascivious benefit... The faithful often seem to no longer be in control of the local situation... As we reflect on the administrative problems the early church faced, we have to be impressed with the impossibility of their task.  No branch of the church had the benefit of experienced, second-generation leadership.  Paul and the other apostles were themselves converts, with no established tradition or well of practical wisdom to draw on...”
    “The early church had no monthly reporting system and no instant communication... Crises came and went on the local level without any intervention or guidance from the general authorities of the church... Travel was slow, dangerous and difficult... The trials of faithful and humble Christians must have been excruciating as they witnessed the demise of Christ’s church at the hands of self-promoting and entrepreneurial fellow members who strove with one another for dominance...”  (pp. 356-357, Early Christians in Disarray, FAIR/BYU, 2005)
    In our day, the Church of Jesus Christ restored by God through the Prophet Joseph Smith had some similar organizational challenges and problems in its first few years in Kirtland and also in Nauvoo.  The restored Church was made up of many fine, new converts, who were drawn spiritually to the new religion, but seemed easily swayed by competing ideas and contention, and lacked understanding of an effective pattern for unity and for leadership succession.  
    Elements of the pattern for overall leadership of a single united world-wide Church of Jesus Christ appeared to have begun to be revealed and practiced in the New Testament Church of Christ’s apostles (see Acts 1:22-26 and 15:1-29 in the replacement of Judas as one of the twelve apostles and the decision on whether Gentile converts needed circumcision).  More direction regarding this overall pattern of general leadership of the restored Church of Jesus Christ was recorded in the Doctrine & Covenants in 1835 (section 107:22-24)   It involved having 15 High Priests in two leadership quorums (a First Presidency of three and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) whose membership in these two fully united quorums consisted of individual men who each when ordained to the apostleship had received all of the keys of the Kingdom, but who were to exercise presidential leadership according to seniority.  (Initially this was determined to be by age but in later years by dates of ordination and length of quorum membership).   Also, it was required that for policies of these two quorums to be valid, their decisions as a quorum must be unanimous (D&C 107:27).
    If the Quorum of the First Presidency became disorganized due to the death of the quorum leader and Prophet, leadership of the Church then devolved upon the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles with the senior apostle as leader.  Then the First Presidency is reorganized with the senior apostle as Church president and prophet.  These two quorums are equal in authority; but when both are organized, the First Presidency presides.
    While the overall pattern for Church leadership was given in 1835, more detailed instruction regarding its implementation seems to have been gradually revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith, and only fully taught even to Quorum of the Twelve, with Brigham Young as senior apostle, in the months just preceding Joseph’s death. (references: Orson Hyde, Statement about Quorum of the Twelve, circa Late March 1845,” josephsmithpapers.org. For more on the context of this statement, see Matthew J. Grow, Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, and Jeffrey D. Mahas, eds., Administrative Records: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846. Vol. 1 of the Administrative Records series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, and Matthew C. Godfrey (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 65–66, 378–80)
    At that time it would seem that many members of the newly restored Church had not completely understood the process of leadership succession in the case of the loss of the Church President and Prophet.  Even Sidney Rigdon of the First Presidency, the prophet’s wife, Emma, and son, Joseph III, did not fully grasp this pattern.  
    When the Prophet Joseph Smith was murdered in Nauvoo, Illinois, in June 1844, Elder Young and most of the apostles were scattered in various parts of the United States promoting Joseph’s candidacy for U. S. President.  When most quickly returned to Nauvoo, they were met with Sidney Rigdon, counselor in the First Presidency, promoting himself to be the Church’s leader.  At a hastily called meeting of Church membership on August 8, 1844, Brigham Young re-taught the gathered saints the revelation of the Lord regarding succession in the Church presidency by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  And this pattern was confirmed spiritually by a mighty heavenly miracle, which then the members of the Church sustained by vote.
    In this meeting, as he was speaking, President Young was transfigured so that the audience miraculously saw not his image but instead the person of Joseph Smith and also heard Joseph’s voice and manner of speaking even to the point of a lisp that Joseph had from a partially broken tooth that had happened at an earlier time when his enemies had tried to force his taking some poison.  
    We need to remember and have gratitude that three of our very own family ancestors participated in and testified of this miraculous confirmation of the pattern of priesthood succession and leadership in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, which is so necessary for the furtherance of God’s kingdom in our day.  
    Here is our own wonderful family testimony of this revelation and manifestation provided by my great-grandmother, Martha Ann Townsend Lufkin [REL], written by my aunt Dorothy Hall,  after the time she had moved as a young women from Oregon to Utah to attend BYU.
    “[James Foss Townsend, his wife Susan Davis Townsend, and daughter Martha Ann Townsend] were in Nauvoo at the time of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and were present at the meeting when the mantle of Joseph fell upon Brigham Young. This happened at a meeting at Nauvoo on the afternoon of 8 Aug. 1844.  It was concerning the matter of authority and who now would lead the church.
    “Joseph Fielding Smith, in his book “Essentials of Church History” tells about it in this way: President Brigham Young addressed the congregation.  He spoke with great power and the people were convinced that the authority and power of presiding was with the apostles (quorum of the twelve).   When he first arose to speak, the people were astonished for President Young stood transfigured before them and they beheld the Prophet Joseph Smith and heard his voice as naturally as ever they did when he was living.  It was a manifestation to the saints that they might recognize the correct authority...
    “In 1926, when I (Dorothy Hall) visited my cousin Mattie Barron Norton in Salt Lake City she told me of a time when she was visiting our grandparents in Logan.  One day as she watched our grandmother (Martha Ann Townsend Lufkin) make biscuits, she also listened to her tell stories of Nauvoo.  Mattie told me that Grandma was about twelve years old but remembered the meeting very well and [stated that] it was true as reported.  She told Matttie to remember what she said and to tell others as she had the chance.  It was additional testimony to her the L.D.S. church was true.” (Dorothy D. Hall, “Histories of Parents and Grandparents and some other ancestors of Kate Naomi Lufkin Davenport”, 1986, handwritten document, pp. 27-28)