Marvin Kent Gardner is a Latter-day Saint hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

writer and editor.

Gardner served as a mission

Mormon missionary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most active modern practitioners of missionary work, with over 52,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, as of the end of 2010...

 for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. He then studied at Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...

 (BYU). After that he served as an editor of the Ensign. Gardner also was an editor of the New Era

New Era (magazine)

New Era is an official magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. First published in January 1971 along with the Ensign and the Friend, the New Era's intended audience has always been the youth of the Church...

and the Friend and Liahona

Liahona (magazine)

Liahona is the official international magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is named after the word Liahona from the Book of Mormon. The Liahona is published in 51 different languages from one to twelve times per year depending on the language...

. He served as assistant or managing editor at one or more of these publications from 1978 to 2005.

Among the hymns written by Gardner is "Press Forward, Saints".

Gardner is currently a member of the BYU faculty where he is an associate teaching professor of English language and linguistics. Gardner has also taught religion classes at BYU.

Sources

• Karen Lynn Davidson
  Karen Lynn Davidson
  Karen Lynn Davidson is a Latter-day Saint hymnwriter, author and literary critic. Davidson has written widely on the hymns of both The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of the Community of Christ....
  
  . Stories of Our Latter-day Saint Hymns. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988) p. 378.
• BYU faculty bio
• Vita