Articles of Faith: What Do Latter-day Saints Believe About the Godhead 6?

Article of Faith 1

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ,

                                and in the Holy Ghost.

This is the sixth and last article on the Godhead in my series on the Articles of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The past few weeks, I discussed the character of God the Father or Elohim, and last week I discussed Jesus Christ or Jehovah. Since Jesus Christ taught that His disciples “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9), we can know that He has the same character traits as His Father.

Through latter-day revelation, we know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ each have a physical body made of flesh and bone, but the Holy Ghost is a spirit personage. Doctrine and Covenants 130:22-23 teaches as follows:

22 The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.

23 A man may receive the Holy Ghost, and it may descend upon him and not tarry with him.

My essay for this week will use the words of Elder Bruce R. McConkie to explain clearly who the Holy Ghost is.

There are several ways in which the labors and ministry and status of “God the third,” who is the Holy Ghost, are separate from the other members of the Godhead. Chief among them are these:

1. He is a personage of spirit.

The Father and the Son have tangible bodies of flesh and bones, while “the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit.” That is, he is a spirit person, a spirit entity, a spirit man. He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord. Why this difference between him and the other two members of the Godhead? With reference to his status as “a personage of Spirit,” the scripture says: “Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (D&C 130:22.) That is to say, according to the eternal laws ordained by the Father, there are certain separate and distinct things to be done by a spirit member of the Godhead. He is to dwell, figuratively, in the faithful, and he is to speak to their spirits in a special and particular way, which he can do because he himself is a spirit.

2. He is the Testator, Revelator, Comforter.

The Holy Ghost is God’s minister; he is appointed to teach and testify, to bear witness of the Father and the Son, and to reveal all needful things to men. As the Testator, he bequeaths salvation, through an eternal testament, to the heirs of God. The Holy Ghost is a Revelator. Almost always the first great revelation received by any person is a testimony of the truth and divinity of the Lord’s work on earth. “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5.) He is the Comforter. Those who enjoy his companionship find their whole souls are filled with comfort and joy. And the very reason men are commanded to repent and be baptized is so they “may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that [they] may stand spotless before [the Lord] at the last day.” (3 Nephi 27:20.)

 3. He uses the light of Christ in his ministry.

The light of Christ (also called the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Lord) is a light, a power, and an influence that proceeds forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space. It is the agency of God’s power and the law by which all things are governed. It is also the agency used by the Holy Ghost to manifest truth and dispense spiritual gifts to many people at one and the same time. For instance, it is as though the Holy Ghost, who is a personage of spirit, was broadcasting all truth throughout the whole universe all the time, using the light of Christ as the agency by which the message is delivered. But only those who attune their souls to the Holy Spirit receive the available revelation. It is in this way that the person of the Holy Ghost makes his influence felt in the heart of every righteous person at one and the same time. (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [1985], 69-70)

What Is the Voter ID Act?

It is now in the latter part of July and moving closer to mid-terms and November. Congress has not yet passed a bill to require U.S. citizenship to register to vote and picture identification to vote. In their article published at The Daily Signal, Don Palmer and Elizabeth Schlueter discussed a proposal to improve election identity. 

Voter ID Act (HR 9368) was sponsored by Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis. [and] passed the Committee on House Administration June 24. It was attached to the Stop Insider Trading Act (HR 7008) as an amendment and will be heard in the House Rules Committee. This is a crucial step toward authorizing consideration of the Voter ID Act for final passage on the House floor….

The bill requires voters to show photo ID when casting a ballot in a federal election, creates a grant program to provide valid IDs for voters who cannot afford them, and allows voters who forget their ID on election Day to cast provisional ballots – all measures that have proven effective in the states….

The Voter ID Act offers five options for valid photo ID: driver’s license, state-issued identification card with a photo and expiration date, U.S. passport, military ID, and tribal ID….

Americans are accustomed to providing photo ID for other important transactions, and the Voter ID Act makes provisions for voters who struggle to obtain a qualifying ID before Election Day. Requiring a valid ID at the polls ensures that our ballots are as well-protected as our booze – seems like common sense. Even the Olive Garden never-ending Pasta Pass requires photo ID!

The authors shared several examples of voter fraud from across the nation that are gathered in The Heritage Foundation’s Voter Fraud Database.

For instance, last September, Louisiana used the SAVE database and identified 390 noncitizens on its voter rolls; 70 of them had illegally voted in at least one election. The state recently brought charges against one of the illegal voters and anticipates more such cases.

Given that 22 states are not using SAVE or attempting to establish an agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to do so, one can only guess at how many noncitizens are on other states’ voter rolls….

As we head into midterms, legislators should take the commonsense route and establish federal means of enforcing current election statutes by passing the Voter ID Act if it arrives on the House floor. Americans deserve to know that only legitimate voters are casting ballots come November.

 

Who Is John Solomon?

My VIP for this week is John Solomon, an investigative journalist. According to an article by Greg Hughes published at The Daily Signal, Solomon has “been involved in politics in some way for 38 years” but spent most of his journalist career in the mainstream media. 

Hughes wrote, “His resume boasts 20 years with The Associated Press, stints at The Washington Post, collaboration with ‘60 Minutes,’ and a senior position at The Hill.” Hughes continued, “He was highly regarded by his peers and received many awards for his investigative work, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Society of Professional Journalist National Investigative Award. However, things changed after “the election of [Donald] Trump, [when] he became an outcast among these same peers.” Hughes claims that Sullivan’s “sins” was digging “into the legitimacy of the Russia collusion narrative and the Mueller investigation.”

Solomon’s commitment to truth had not changed. He had always had a consistent approach – which included questioning the government’s behavior, no matter who was in power. But any attempt to give Trump – the trespasser, the usurper – a fair shake in the press was deemed to be the ultimate betrayal.

In time, Solomon’s trailblazing investigative work has been vindicated. He founded Just The News in 2020 after it became clear that authentic investigative journalism was no longer welcomed within his profession.

Solomon is an investigative journalist. Today, he is widely considered a right-wing voice, but only because he stayed true to his profession while that profession turned into a leftist ideological camp.

It seems that CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, tasked with trying to restore some semblance of objective journalism to the network, understands Solomon’s work. He was recently interviewed on the network.

The interview would appall members of the regime media. In it, he shared facts that have been ignored and censored, meaning they had never been heard by most of the American public before.

I trust the reporting of John Solomon. His “Just the News” is honest. He reports news as it is and not what he would like it to be. His investigations and reporting were instrumental in breaking the Russian collusion narrative and getting to the bottom of the Mueller investigation.

 

Should Americans Worry About Democratic Socialists Winning Elections?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns socialism and “the recent rise in democratic socialists winning primary elections.” In an article published at the Deseret News, opinion editor Jay Evensen wrote the following: 

I’ve been around long enough to see how most long-term political plans eventually crack and disintegrate under the harsh heat of reality. So, I try not to get too worked up over the recent rise in democratic socialist winning primary elections, or over the movement’s supposed aims, which sound closer to Marx than to Jefferson or Madison.

But those who hope a post-Trump future might revert to the calmer political days of our youth may be disappointed. The far left seems to be on the rise to compete with the far right.

And while that rise is still small, if politicians don’t stem the fearsome rise in the national debt, a possible economic collapse and the chaos it could cause might bolster all kinds of radical ideologies….

Democracy has a way of taking the sharp edges off radical ideologies, eventually. The MAGA movement benefited from a charismatic leader, which the far left currently lacks.

A Gallup poll last year found a majority of Americans still feel favorably toward capitalism, but support is waning.

As I said, that trend could accelerate if the economy collapses under the weight of the national debt and its annual interest payments, which already exceed the nation’s military budget.

Samuel J. Abrams (professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute) agreed with Evensen in his column for Deseret News. “… Evensen is right not to panic [about] the recent string of democratic socialist primary victories nationwide.” Why young Americans are turning to socialism | Opinion – Deseret News

This is all true, but there is a deeper story that must be told as to why these radical ideologies have begun to win and why these politicians have been able to organize so effectively. It begins with the question of why so many young Americans are drawn to them.

The answer can be found in a book published a quarter century ago by a late mentor of mine – Seymour Martin Lipset. Writing with Gary Marks, Lipset wrote “It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States” and asked why America, alone among industrial democracies, never developed a serious socialist movement.

The socialists trying to reshape the Democratic Party

The answers Lipset and Marks offered were partly structural – our two-party system and winner-take-all elections punished third parties – but they were also, crucially, experiential. So many Americans lived capitalism’s promise and positive realities.

America’s workforce saw real mobility for themselves and their children and an individualist, antistatist creed ran deep. Moreover, Americans were formidable joiners – as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville decades earlier – and they were deeply embedded in churches, lodges, unions, clubs and neighborhood associations that gave them belonging, status and voice without any need for a revolutionary party to supply it.

Lipset and Marks argued that socialism did not fail in the United States because Americans read the right rebuttals to Marx. Rather, it failed because the conditions present nationwide never let it take hold. This points to the uncomfortable truth of 2026: Almost every immunity Lipset and Marks identified in their book has now degraded – particularly for young adults.

A misunderstanding of market economics

Start with young Americans’ lived experience of markets and capitalism. In cities where socialism has gained political traction – Chicago, Seattle, New York and San Francisco – many younger Americans are living through soaring housing costs, shrinking opportunities and dysfunctional markets. Their frustrations are real.

This mistake is not in recognizing the problems but in misidentifying their causes. Too often, however, they are seeing the consequences of regulation, restrictive zoning and poor governance as if they were failures of capitalism itself.

That confusion is hardly surprising. Most young Americans have never been taught how markets create prosperity. Significant numbers graduate from college without taking a single economics course….

A lack of strong social structures

Moving beyond economic systems, Lipset and Marks would point to the recent real decline of associational life as a major cause of socialism’s ascent. Theorists from Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke to Robert Nisbet and Richard John Neuhaus have long marveled at Americans’ art of association. Lipset understood that these institutions kept radicalism marginal by meeting fundamental human needs for fellowship, purpose and recognition.

Those institutions have been hollowed out, and young adults are the loneliest Americans on record. They may be digitally connected and habitually online, but few join congregations, civic clubs, scouting or recreational leagues. They are not merely under-informed; so many younger Americans are isolated, under-formed, unattached and without a social core….

What can be done?

If we consider this framing, it radically changes how we think about this so-called socialist surge. If the problem were socialism as an ideology itself, the answer would be rebuttal with more op-eds, more education and public-focused work, and more warnings about Venezuela and countless failed states. But reason and evidence alone do not persuade or work on people whose initial attraction was rooted less in ideas than belonging.

If the problem is formation – and that certainly appears to be the case – the real answer is to rebuild what once formed young Americans into confident, connected participants in a free society.

That means teaching economics so that graduates understand scarcity, trade-offs, incentives and the astonishing record of market economies, along with their real failures. It also means rebuilding our social associations where young people find the belonging they now seek in ideological movements like the DSA….

Finally, I should note that Lipset’s title contained a quiet warning that his admirers sometimes miss. Socialism didn’t happen here in the past tense because a particular America existed: prosperous, mobile, religious, fraternal and thick with institutions that formed citizens and demonstrated capitalism’s promise in daily life. That America was not an accident, and its immunities are not permanent as we see now – our nation’s immunities to socialism were built and then regularly reaffirmed.

Evensen is right that we need not fear the socialists. What we should fear and then fix is the loneliness and disconnection as well as the ignorance that make socialism feel like an answer for so many young people. Restore formation, purpose, community, and belonging and this socialist impulse will fade the way of every American socialist movement before it did.

  

Why Should We Discover What Is in Scriptures?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to 2 Kings 16-25 and a lesson titled “He Trusted in the Lord God of Israel.” The lesson was introduced by the following information. 

Despite the prophet Elisha’s powerful ministry, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel did not repent. Eventually, the Assyrian Empire conquered and scattered the ten tribes of Israel. Meanwhile, the Southern Kingdom of Judah wasn’t doing much better: idolatry was also widespread there.

Amid all this spiritual decay, the scriptures mention two kings of Judah who, for a time, turned their people back to the Lord. One was Hezekiah. During his reign, the Assyrians conquered much of Judah. But Hezekiah and his people showed faith in the Lord, who saved Jerusalem in a miraculous way. Later, after another period of apostasy, Josiah became king. Inspired in part by a rediscovery of the book of the law of Moses, Josiah brought reforms that revived the religious life of his people.

Like Israel and Judah, we all make both good and bad choices. When we sense that our lives need some reforms, we can take encouragement from these two bright spots in the dark years of Judah’s history. Perhaps the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah can inspire us to “trust in the Lord our God” (2 Kings 18:22).).

The scripture block teaches several principles, including (1) I can stay true to the Lord when my faith is challenged (2 Kings 18-19); (2) All things are in the Lord’s hands (2 Kings 19:20-37); (3) The scriptures can turn my heart to the Lord (2 Kings 21-23); (4) A covenant is a whole-souled commitment between me and the Lord. This essay will discuss principle #3 about scriptures helping us to turn our hearts to God.

Josiah was only eight years old when he became King of Judah. He followed a long line of wicked kings, but he was righteous. Eighteen years later, renovations were being completed on the temple, and the book of the law was found in the wall of the temple. King Josiah read the words in the book of the law and was concerned about what he read.

The book of the law told Josiah that the Lord would destroy Judah just as Israel had been destroyed. Josiah gathered the prophets, priests, and people and read the words of the book of the law to them. He called them to repentance.

President Spencer W. Kimball called the story of King Josiah “one of the finest stories in all of the scriptures” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 62). 

When the book of the law was read to Josiah, he “rent his clothes” and wept before the Lord.

“Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us,” he said, “because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.” (2 Kings 22:13.)

The king then read the book before all the people, and at that time they all made a covenant to obey all the Lord’s commandments “with all their heart and all their soul.” (2 Kings 23:3.) Then Josiah proceeded to clean up the kingdom of Judah, removing all the idols, the groves, the high places, and all the abominations that had accumulated during the reign of his fathers, defiling the land and its people. …

“And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.” [2 Kings 23:25.]

I feel strongly that we must all of us return to the scriptures just as King Josiah did and let them work mightily within us, impelling us to an unwavering determination to serve the Lord.

Josiah had the law of Moses only. In our scriptures we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness; and if a taste is sweet, in fulness there is joy.

The Lord is not trifling with us when he gives us these things, for “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Luke 12:48.) Access to these things means responsibility for them. We must study the scriptures according to the Lord’s commandment (see 3 Ne. 23:1-5); and we must let them govern our lives and the lives of our children.

 

How Can We Begin Strengthening Our Family?

 Families are stronger when individual members encourage positive habits in every life. Strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. According to Kristina Fuller, “Building strong family relationships is an ongoing journey” that includes “small, everyday actions” and “add up to lasting change.” She gave the following “habits to encourage in your home.” 

·       Express gratitude daily: Make it a habit to say thank you for little things.

·       Celebrate each other’s successes: Cheer on achievements, big or small.

·       Practice kindness: Simple acts like helping with chores or leaving a kind note can brighten the day.

·       Stay physically connected: Hugs, holding hands, or a gentle touch can communicate love and reassurance.

·       Laugh together: Humor is a powerful way to relieve stress and bond.

Fuller concluded with the following statement: “Remember, no family is perfect. What matters most is your willingness to grow and support one another.”

How Can America Have Fair and Honest Elections?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday comes from President Donald Trump’s prime time address to the nation given on July 16, 2026, from the East Room of the White House: “No country can be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness.” 

President Trump spoke on several topics and shared information that has recently been declassified. Among the most disturbing information of the evening was Trump’s statement that broadcast networks ABC and NBC chose not to air his speech live. He suggested that such networks should lose their licenses if they refuse to carry information from the President to the American people. 

According to Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal, Trump blamed the “deep state” for withholding information that should have been given to him during his first presidential term.

President Donald Trump announced the release of declassified documents he said are evidence that China has been meddling in U.S. elections by hacking into voter registration databases and by other means.

Trump, who spoke Thursday evening in a prime-time address to the nation, said the “deep state” had this information and suppressed it from the president and Congress.

“They kept it secret and hidden. Did not disclose to me or Congress,” Trump said.

Trump said the declassified information shows “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure….

The president said that China conducted a massive hacking of voter registration information. “The People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files,” Trump said.

[This would amount to almost all American adults because there are approximately 350 million Americans – adults, teens, and children.]

He said the information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other data.

“This data loss presents an unprecedented election, security nightmare,” the president added. At least a portion of the declassified information was released Thursday night.

The point of the hacking, according to Trump, as to steal information about thousands of voters. He also said information from 2018 and 2019 shows that Chinese operatives wanted to harm Trump so he would be forced to resign or be defeated in his reelection bid.

“The Chinese government wanted U.S. president to lose the next election and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charged them billions in tariffs, and built the largest military in the world,” Trump said.

Trump, who has long disputed his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, also said the FBI found China attempted to manufacture ballots in favor of Biden.

“Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden,” Trump said.

The president further said China paid U.S. journalists to write negative stories about him during his first term.

“The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could, and they did not care what they said,” Trump asserted.

Trump said elections were “vulnerable and easily compromised and people within our government knew that.”

The Department of Homeland Security has information showing about 278,000 registered voters are foreigners, Trump said.

“According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections,” Trump said. “Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that.”

The address comes as Trump is pushing Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require photo identification to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote. The president, as he concluded his remarks, made a passionate plea for Congress to pass the legislation.

In March 2021, during the early months of the Biden administration, the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint report that asserted China considered trying to influence the presidential election but backed off. It further said, “No evidence found that a foreign government manipulated any election results.”

Still, there have been documented cases of China election meddling and hacking.

In the 2024 campaign, FBI officials said Chinese government operatives targeted the phones of candidates, including now-President Trump, now-Vice President JD Vance, and individuals associated with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

A Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security report released in December 2023 found Chinese cyber actors collected publicly available voter information during the 2022 election.

In July 2024, the Justice Department Office of Inspector General issued a report that described China as one of several foreign governments that conducted malign influence campaigns directed at U.S. elections. This included using fake online personas and promoting propaganda.

For six years, Trump claimed that the election of 2020 was rigged. Now, the FBI and other intelligent agencies brought the receipts: Foreign nations influenced the election. What can Trump do to prevent future rigging of elections?