Obituary: Jeffrey R. Holland

Jeffrey R. Holland (December 3, 1940-December 27, 2025) who served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Aposltes since June 24, 1994, passsed away on Saturday, December 27th at 3:15 a.m. from kidney disease. He was 85. It was the final of several serious health crises he had experienced over the past several years, each time almost costing him his life.

Holland, a native of St. George, Utah, had been hospitalized on Christmas Eve. Preceding him in death was Patricia, his wife, who passed away in July 2023 at the age of 81. Three children, 13 grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren survive him.

The funeral is scheduled for Wednesday morning, December 31st at the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

Holland, who had become President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles beginning October 14, 2025 and was the next in line to the church presidency after current President Dallin H. Oaks, was born in 1940 to Frank D. Holland, an LDS convert, and Alice, whose family had been church members for many years. Holland graduated from Dixie High School where he helped his team win championships in football and basketball. He then attended Dixie College where he was a co-captain of his college’s basketball team. A building named after him was built by the college in 2012 (Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons Building).

He served a mission in England; his misssion president was Marion D. Hanks, who later became a member of the First Council of the Seventy. A fellow missinary was Quentin L. Cook. In 1966, Holland received a master’s degree in English from church-owned Brigham Young University. His thesis was on selected changes to the Book of Mormon.

From here, he becme an Institute of Religion teacher in California, later becoming the institute director in Seattle, WA. Then, in 1972, he received a second master’s degree and his PhD at Yale University. In 1974, Holland founded BYU’s Religious Studies Center and was the first director. From 1976-1980, he was the eleventh commissioner of CES, replacing Neal A. Maxwell.

In 1980, Holland became the president of BYU, upgrading programs and working to improve relationships with the faculty. During his time, Holland helped found the BYU Jerusalem Center. In 1989, he ended his time at BYU and became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. From 1990 to 1993, the Hollands moved to England where he served as the church’s Europe North Area. He became an aposlte in October 1994.

Holland was married to Patricia from 1963 to 2023 when she passed away on July 20, 2023. They have three children. The oldest child, Matthew, served as president of Utah Valley University from 2009 to 2018 and has been a general authority since April 2020. The youngest son David is a professor at Harvard Divinity School

In April 2023, Holland took time off from his duties to focus on his health. He had been undergoing dialysis for a kidney issue and had contracted COVID-19.

He reentered the hosptial in late December 2025 for “treatment related to ongoing health complications” before passing away on December 27th.

Holland was known for being a stickler for those who did not want to toe the line. For instance, on April 26, 2016, Holland addressed a group of young adults in Tempe, AZ on word that many LDS singles were leaving the church. In a strong but animated voice, he said,

“How do you become godly? You do godly things. That’s how you become godly. And you practice and you practice and you practice until your nose bleeds, until you’re sick of it, until you say I can’t do it any more, until you say is there any other way? . . . Most of us do not want to pay that price. Now thank heavens we survived that war, that one-third two-third cut in the preexistence. But I think there’s some days here where we get a little weak-kneed, a little willy-nilly, and say, ‘I don’t know what to make of all this.’ Don’t you dare bail. I am so furious with people who leave this church. I don’t know whether furious is a good apostolic word. But I am. . . . What kind of paddy-cake, taffy-pulled experience is that? As if none of this ever mattered, as if nothing in our contemporary life mattered? As if this is all supposed to be just exactly the way I want it and answered every one of my questions and pursue this and occupy that and defy this and then maybe I’ll be a Latter-day Saint. Well, there is too much Irish in me for that. This church means everything to me. Everything. I don’t care what happens, what price has to be paid, as painful as that can be, and as much as I don’t want to invite the test, as much as I don’t want to sound arrogant, or self-confident, or filled with any kind of pride other than the love of the Lord. This church means everything to me, and I’m not going to leave it and I am not going to let you leave it. And if there is anybody in this room who is investigating, I want to talk to you tonight before the clock strikes twelve for you to get in it. . . . The first great rule of a storm at sea is STAY IN THE BOAT! This is no time for you to say . . . nobody cares. I’ll get up here on the end and do a little half gainer over the side. . . . That’s the dumbest thing you can do. And the only thing dumber would be for somebody else to follow you. You stay in the boat” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Tempe (AZ) Rescue,” April 26, 2016. Ellipses mine)

Holland was known for having interesting general conference messages. A few weeks before his demonstraton in Arizona, Holland said the following in his talk:

First of all, if in the days ahead you not only see limitations in those around you but also find elements in your own life that don’t yet measure up to the messages you have heard this weekend, please don’t be cast down in spirit and don’t give up. The gospel, the Church, and these wonderful semiannual gatherings are intended to give hope and inspiration. They are not intended to discourage you.

Then he added,

With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed.For more, visit “Credit for Trying;” A Loophole for Latter-day Saints?”

Holland is someone whom MRM has critiqued more than the average LDS general authority. Here are some of our other criticisms from the past few years:

Our Top 10 Quotes from Holland

“I don’t know how to speak about heaven in the traditional, lovely, paradisiacal, beauty that we speak of heaven – I wouldn’t know how to speak of heaven without my wife, my children. It would, it would not be heaven for me” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Introductory DVD shown at various LDS temple public viewings or open house).
“To consider that everything of saving significance in the Church stands or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of how it came forth is as sobering as it is true. It is a ‘sudden death’ proposition.
Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is, or this Church and its founder are false, a deception from the first instance onward” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, 334).
“Indeed no less a source than the stalwart Harper’s Bible Dictionary records that ‘the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament].’ So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post-New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2007, 40. Italics in original).
“We are charged with the responsibility of getting people out of their ruts and routines, out of their problems and their pain, out of their little arguments and ignorance and sins, and take them to the Gods — to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost — ultimately we are to take them toward their own Godhood” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Divine Companion: Teaching by the Spirit,” Church News, July 4, 2009, 15).
“…if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit”(Jeffrey R. Holland, “Safety for the Soul,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2009, 90).
“So we are very comfortable, frankly, in letting it be known that we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century, pagan-influenced view of the Godhead, and neither did those first Christian Saints who were eyewitnesses of the living Christ. We are New Testament—not Nicene—Christians” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Knowing the Godhead,” Ensign, January 2016, 37).
“With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Tomorrow the Lord will Do Wonders Among You,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2016, 125).
“My brothers and sisters, except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing, so while in mortality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists call ‘toxic perfectionism’” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2017, 42).
“Observing the Christian world in that day [early part of 19^th century], we would have hoped to find someone authorized by God with true priesthood authority who could baptize us, bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost, and administer all gospel ordinances for exaltation” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Perfect Brightness of Hope,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2020, 82. Brackets mine).
“As I attempt to explain why we generally do not use the iconography of the cross, I wish to make abundantly clear our deep respect and profound admiration for the faith-filled motives and devoted lives of those who do. . . . By the fourth and fifth centuries, a cross was being introduced as a symbol of ‘generalized Christianity.’ Being neither Catholic or Protestant, we are, rather, a restored church, the restored New Testament Church. Thus, our origins and our authority go back before the time of councils, creeds, and iconography. In this sense, the absence of a symbol that was late coming into common use is another evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of true Christian beginnings” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lifted Up upon the Cross,” Liahona (Conference Edition), November 2022, 78. Italics in original. Ellipsis mine).

In his final conference talk, Holland continue his acerbic ways as noted in several of the citations above by extolling the Book of Mormon while critizing those who criticize this LDS scripture:

My first sight-giving, life-giving encounter with real evidence of truth did not come with anointing clay or in the pool of Siloam. No, the instrument of truth that brought my healing from the Lord came as pages in a book, yes, the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ! The claims about this book have been attacked and dismissed by some unbelievers, the anger often matching the vitriol of those who told the healed man that he could not possibly have experienced what he knew he had experienced.

It has been hurled at me that the means by which this book came to be were impractical, unbelievable, embarrassing, even unholy. Now, that is harsh language from anyone who presumes to know the means by which the book came to be, inasmuch as the only description given about those means is that it was translated “by the gift and power of God.” That’s it. That’s all. In any case, the impact of the Book of Mormon in my life is no less miraculous than was the application of spit and dirt placed on the blind man’s eyes. It has been, for me, a rod of safety for my soul, a transcendent and penetrating light of revelation, an illumination of the path I must walk when mists of darkness come. And surely they have, and surely they will” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “And Now I See,” Liahona (Conference Edition), November 2025, 75).

With Jeffrey R. Holland, what you saw is what you got–-a man who was passionate about his beliefs and wasn’t afraid to say so in direct language, even if his words may have been taken as harsh against those who disagreed.

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