We declare without equivocation that God the Father
and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith.
Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision.
It either occurred or it did not occur.
If it did not, then this work is a fraud.
If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work
under the heavens.
That They came, both of Them, that Joseph saw Them in Their
resplendent glory, that They spoke to him and that he heard
and recorded Their words--of these remarkable things we
testify.
I knew a so-called intellectual who
said the Church was trapped by its history.
My response was that without that history we have nothing.
The truth of that unique, singular, and remarkable event
is the pivotal substance of our faith.