One Heart Before One Mind

Reflections on harmony, conscience, and the sacred order of Zion

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“I would rather submit to the decision of the group than insist that my view be followed. For me, harmony between brethren is more important than getting what I think best to be followed. I believe harmony can lead to much greater things than can merely enforcement of even a correct view. I know how difficult it is to have a correct view, because of how often I have been corrected by the Lord. Sometimes I am humiliated by my foolishness when the Lord reproves me. Humiliation can lead to humility, but my experience is that the humiliation is accompanied by shame, whereas humility can proceed with a clear conscience.”

“My experience with others leads me to conclude that if we can have one heart first, eventually we can likewise come to have one mind. But if we insist on having one mind at the outset, we may never obtain one heart together.”

— Denver Snuffer

Introduction

When I first read these words, I paused at the quiet power behind them. They were written as part of an ordinary exchange about how best to phrase and publish scripture. The setting was practical, even mundane. Yet tucked inside this brief comment is a world of theology about how God governs His people, and how we, in turn, are meant to govern ourselves.

Denver was not writing as a man trying to win an argument, but as a man who had already lost many for the sake of conscience. Years earlier, he was directed to withdraw Passing the Heavenly Gift from publication or face discipline. It was a command he could not fulfill in good conscience or practicality. He investigated what it would take to comply and found it impossible, the book could be revised but not withdrawn. To obey such an order would have required dishonesty and silence about truth, something he could not offer.

So he refused, not out of pride or rebellion, but because obedience to God required transparency. He would no longer conceal what he called the counsels kept from the public, choosing instead to stand openly for truth and accountability. His excommunication followed, a loss imposed by men, not God. In his appeal letter to the First Presidency, he signed himself “your obedient servant,” and the words ring true. In every act, whether standing alone or yielding later, Denver remained just that, an obedient servant.

That is why, when he later spoke of submitting to the group, it cannot mean passive compliance or the silencing of conviction. For a man who once stood alone before the powers of religion, submission carries a different weight. It is a priestly act, not a political one.

Submission as an Act of Faith 

His submission was sacred—it happened within a community of equals, not under coercion. When Denver wrote that email, the covenant had not yet been offered. The Restoration Scriptures project was still unfolding, a long, painstaking collaboration meant to gather and purify the Lord’s word in preparation for whatever He might do next. In that setting, Denver’s submission was not just procedural courtesy, it was prophetic groundwork. By yielding his own will to the group, he demonstrated the very humility God would soon require of all who wished to enter His covenant.

The foundation for that act had already been laid three years earlier in Phoenix, when he taught that fellowships should have no offices, no ranks, and that power can only come from Christ. In that address, he laid out the order of equality that would later guide the movement, men and women acting by persuasion, cooperation, and faith, without hierarchy or compulsion. The same principle was now being lived out in the scripture project. The blog announcing that work described how it was produced by two independent bodies of volunteers, whose cooperation over time led to one another, emphasizing that unity itself was the miracle. Denver’s deference modeled that miracle in miniature.

For ordinary believers, submission often means yielding to pressure or hierarchy. For Denver, it was something higher. He was not surrendering conviction, he was showing faith that God could bring a people into harmony through patient, cooperative labor. His submission foreshadowed the covenant to come.

But that does not mean every act of submission is righteous. There are times when the group strays, when harmony becomes a counterfeit of holiness. The scriptures are full of lonely figures who stood apart, Abinadi before the court of Noah, Alma walking away. Samuel preaching to those that rejected him, Christ Himself refusing to bend to the Sanhedrin’s demands. Their fidelity divided them from the group, yet united them with heaven.

If we mistake Denver’s humility for docility, we miss the point. The principle is situational. Sometimes yielding to others is faith in God’s overruling hand, other times, it is unbelief disguised as peacekeeping. His own submission did not produce a movement wide rule or binding precedent, it produced an example of how charity can govern even strong conviction. The wisdom lies in discerning which kind of moment we are in.

The Pattern in Scripture

The rhythm of heaven has always moved between submission and defiance. Both are sacred when done in the right spirit.

When Abraham gave Lot first choice of the land, it was not weakness but confidence that God governs outcomes, not men. “Let there be no strife between me and thee,” he said, valuing peace over territory. In that act, Abraham revealed his trust that unity of heart mattered more than the landscape itself. The promise would hold no matter which direction he walked.

Yet only a few generations later, another prophet stood before an entire assembly and refused to yield. Abinadi defied the king, the priests, and the people. He spoke what God told him to speak, even as they condemned him for disturbing the peace. His obedience to God was disobedience to man, but it preserved the light of God’s word among the people.

The same pattern repeats, Nephi’s bow failed in his hands while his brothers murmured, yet he turned to the Lord for direction. Alma left Noah’s court, Peter defied the Sanhedrin, and Christ stood silent before Pilate, not yielding to men, but to God alone.

In every case, the question is not whether one submits or resists, it is to whom. Both harmony and dissent can serve heaven when they are anchored in love and light.

The Cost of Being Correct

Denver’s reflection about how often he has been corrected by the Lord reminds us that spiritual sight is a humbling gift. The prophets were rarely right at first try. Jonah fled his calling, Peter denied his Lord, Joseph lost the 116 pages, Moses struck the rock. The Lord’s corrections sting because they pierce pride.

Yet correction is the only true education of a prophet. It teaches that even inspired men must approach revelation with trembling hands. This is why Denver could say he would rather submit to the group than force his own opinion. He was not surrendering truth, he was acknowledging his fallibility.

The irony is that prophets often learn humility just before they must stand alone. The same heart that bows to God must sometimes stand against His people. Perhaps heaven allows both experiences so we learn to be neither tyrant nor coward.

One Heart Before One Mind

“If we can have one heart first, eventually we can likewise come to have one mind,” Denver wrote. That is the essence of Zion. The Lord called His people Zion because they were of one heart and one mind, but the order matters. Heart first, mind second.

Hearts can unite even when minds differ, because charity can bear tension longer than intellect can. Doctrine divides until love bridges it. The early saints in Acts did not achieve oneness through a unanimous vote but through the shared fire of the Spirit. They learned that hearts softened by grace eventually align their minds without coercion.

The danger today is reversing that order. Many want agreement first, affection later. Unity can’t be legislated; it must be lived through relationship. Forced uniformity breeds quiet resentment, not Zion. Real unity grows from within, it begins when we stop fearing each other’s difference long enough to seek the Lord’s presence together.

Learning to Yield Without Losing Light

Denver’s email was not a manifesto. It was a small act of faith in the middle of a conversation most of us would have forgotten by the next morning. Yet that single sentence revealed what kind of kingdom God intends to build.

For him, submission was not compliance with error, it was trust that the Lord governs His work through imperfect people. He could let the group decide because he believed heaven was still at the helm. When we are ruled by fear of being wrong, we clutch for control. When we are ruled by love, we can let go.

There is something astonishing about a prophet who once defied an entire church hierarchy later choosing to yield to a small circle of volunteers working on a set of scriptures. It shows the difference between submission to men and submission to God within men. One demands surrender of conscience, the other invites surrender of ego.

If we imitate his humility without discernment, we risk confusing peacekeeping with peacemaking. But if we imitate his trust, that God can correct us as a people when we err, then we step into the same living covenant. That is what makes Zion possible, a community that can disagree without departing from love.

Maybe that is the real miracle of these last days, not that we will all finally agree on every doctrine, but that we will stay soft enough to be taught, even by those who see differently. Unity of heart is not sameness, it is shared surrender to the same God. Not the shallow peace of silenced voices, but the deep accord that withstands honest fire.

And if we can learn to yield like that, without losing the light that guides us, then perhaps heaven will look down and finally see in us what Enoch saw, a people of one heart, at last capable of becoming of one mind.

These are simply my views as I understand them, and I’m always open to correction or persuasion if I’ve erred.