Elder Cook at BYU: Faith in Jesus Christ in the Information Age
This page is our own summary. The original belongs to BYU Speeches; please read it there.
Elder Quentin L. Cook urged BYU students to ground truth in eternal principles, use technology as a servant not a master, and stay on the covenant path centered on Christ and the temple.
Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at a Brigham Young University devotional on March 3, 2026, under the title “Faith in Jesus Christ in the Information Age.” The full address is published on BYU Speeches. He framed the talk around BYU’s 150th anniversary and the shift from agricultural and industrial ages into an information age now shaped by artificial intelligence.
Choose truth when deception is easy
Elder Cook argued that restored doctrine applies in every era, and that in a world flooded with information it is “increasingly important to be certain that what we accept as truth is grounded in eternal principles.” He pointed students to the Book of Mormon as an ongoing spiritual witness and shared a missionary-era account of an Oxford-educated scholar who first approached the book intellectually, then gained a spiritual testimony and was baptized.
He quoted President Russell M. Nelson on the need for the Holy Ghost’s constant influence and echoed President Dallin H. Oaks’s February 2026 BYU counsel that knowledge comes by both scientific and spiritual methods without ultimate conflict, because God knows all truth.
Technology as servant, not master
Elder Cook urged students to slow down enough to hear the Spirit and to use technology as a servant rather than a master. He noted that technology has already accelerated missionary and temple work “almost exponentially,” while also warning that media can normalize behavior contrary to revelation—citing historical Word of Wisdom guidance under President Heber J. Grant as an example of prophetic foresight ahead of later public-health consensus.
Temples and the covenant path
Near the close, he praised President Nelson’s teaching on the covenant path and said the Lord has inspired Saints to build temples and participate more fully in ordinances for the living and the dead. He testified that President Oaks is the prophet prepared for this day and counseled listeners to follow the prophet, filter noise, and follow Jesus Christ.
Takeaway
The address is a discipleship briefing for students entering an AI-shaped information age: ground truth in revelation, keep technology in its place, and stay on the covenant path centered on Christ and the temple. Summary based only on the BYU Speeches text of the March 3, 2026, address.
How we wrote this: we read the source page linked above and summarized it in our own words, quoting at most a short line with attribution. We have not added facts from outside that source. If anything here differs from the original, the original is correct.