“Worldly influences would hinder use of our agency afforded through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But we are agents who can act, and that affects everything in terms of how we live the gospel in our daily lives. It affects how we pray, how we study the scriptures, how we worship at church.”

American religious leader and educator

David Allan Bednar is an American religious leader and former educator, known for serving in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was president of Brigham Young University-Idaho from 1997 to 2004. His public work is tied to leadership in the Latter-day Saint church and to higher education. Before becoming an apostle, he led BYU-Idaho as its president, and his words often reflect the concerns of religious teaching, discipleship, and academic life.