The question sounds ludicrous, I know. Recently I was listening to Tal Bachman's address to the annual meeting of the ExMormon Foundation, when I heard him relate the most unusual story from his former stake president. When Tal, in full heartbreak from his discoveries about the LDS Church, presented a letter of his issues to his stake president, the stake president replied by saying the President Hinckley had told a meeting of bishops that NO RELIGION COULD WITHSTAND HISTORICAL SCRUTINY, NOT EVEN OURS, but that the Church still makes us better husbands and fathers.
The chronological context of this statement is important to consider. It was made between the purchase of the Salamander Letter, and the discovery that it was a fraud. So perhaps Hinckley was feeling particularly downhearted about the Salamander business, or maybe he was finally being open about a problem he has known about for a long time, but has not previously been compelled to admit. Either way, the fact that the prophet of the LDS Church could say such a thing at all is astounding to me. Obviously he does consider it possible that the Church is not 'true' in the sense that your average TBM would.
I think it is altogether possible that Gordon B. Hinckley does not have a testimony by the usual definition. Consider also the relative ease with which he personally waffles on important LDS doctrines in public fora, and authorizes Church spokesmen to lie by omission about Church beliefs. You probably recall how President Hinckley fudged on the longstanding belief in the exaltation of the being we worship as God in Mormonism. I recall a Church spokesman waffling on our belief in visions on National Public Radio. I was astounded at how he evaded the question.
It should be a sobering thought to all of the extreme TBMs out there that the prophet may not be a member of their ranks. This is especially interesting given the fact that he has better access to the restricted documents possessed by the Church, and that he knows the leadership's inner workings most thoroughly. It is also the case that while many TBMs out there imagine face-to-face meetings taking place between the resurrected Lord and the prophet, they must accept the fact that President Hinckley openly stated that the days of open vision have passed.
So here we have it folks, a Mormon prophet who argues the truth of the Church based on its utility in making better men (a questionable claim to say the least, and one equally true for Freemasonry), whose stance is unclear regarding formerly precious doctrines, and claims that the days of such miracles as visions to the LDS prophets are over. I don't know whether to be relieved that my uber-conservative Mormon friends no longer have much of a position to protect, or to be sad that Mormonism's vitality is waning. In either case, I am left with little reason to think that the much vaunted Restoration was at all necessary.
