Succession of power

[Mark]

Can you think of a better way to consistently have the best leader for the church than to choose the most senior / the one w the most experience of the apostles? I can’t.

I can. He would be called by God directly like every true Prophet before Brigham Young was.

The idea that the senior Apostle would always be the next Prophet when the sitting Prophet dies is a construct of man not of God. If of God there would be a revelation stating as much.

I agree, and I'd say the more correct term is simply, "President of the Church."
Still, maybe this is the best the church can come up with. Ideally, yes, each prophet would actually act as a prophet (prophecy, see a better future and actively lead people to it) and ideally, God would clearly make it known who that was to be. But as we know, in and out of the church, egos rule.

IMO, Prophets specific to our church, did kind of stop about Joseph Smith. Maybe prophets are kind of a one-time thing and no succession dynasty or whatever. Yesterday, I thought of how Martin Luther King Jr. was a true prophet - in word and deed. He was called of God, not by a group of people in a religious ceremony but by God. He saw a dream of a better future and actively led people to it - and as Joseph Smith, he was killed in the process.

Another casualty of the indoctrination received from the public education system. Martin Luther King was a plagerizing philanderer with VERY suspicious sympathies and affiliations to communist run organizations. True Prophet? Not a chance. No wonder you struggle so much with the church..

[Finrock]

Can you think of a better way to consistently have the best leader for the church than to choose the most senior / the one w the most experience of the apostles? I can’t.

I can. He would be called by God directly like every true Prophet before Brigham Young was.

The idea that the senior Apostle would always be the next Prophet when the sitting Prophet dies is a construct of man not of God. If of God there would be a revelation stating as much.

I agree, and I'd say the more correct term is simply, "President of the Church."
Still, maybe this is the best the church can come up with. Ideally, yes, each prophet would actually act as a prophet (prophecy, see a better future and actively lead people to it) and ideally, God would clearly make it known who that was to be. But as we know, in and out of the church, egos rule.

IMO, Prophets specific to our church, did kind of stop about Joseph Smith. Maybe prophets are kind of a one-time thing and no succession dynasty or whatever. Yesterday, I thought of how Martin Luther King Jr. was a true prophet - in word and deed. He was called of God, not by a group of people in a religious ceremony but by God. He saw a dream of a better future and actively led people to it - and as Joseph Smith, he was killed in the process.

Another casualty of the indoctrination received from the public education system. Martin Luther King was a plagerizing philanderer with VERY suspicious sympathies and affiliations to communist run organizations. True Prophet? Not a chance. No wonder you struggle so much with the church..

A person is not a prophet just because they've been given authority. Priesthood power comes from God and God only. You can be the president of the Church and not be a prophet. You don't have to be the president of the LDS Church to be a prophet.

The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy. Being filled with the Holy Ghost makes one a prophet. One gets filled by the Holy Ghost by having a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Unfortunately, but a reality nonetheless, LDS members on a massive scale conflate and confuse the difference between a "president" and a prophet, a seer, or a revelator.

The LDS Church today is closer to Catholicism than when it was originally organized in the latter-days. Sociocentric tendencies, group think, and frankly spiritual/religious insecurity becomes an impediment to seeing things as they truly are and many begin going down the path of mastering sophistry, double-speak, or in short living in a state of cognitive dissonance where reality doesn't match up with the ideal, forcing many to twist, rationalize, explain away, and often to just turn a blind eye to what is in fact the truth. One's paradigm must be maintained at all costs, even if it means being dishonest with others and one's self.

-Finrock