Awaiting the 13th Prophet

By Richard N. Ostling

By any statistical measure, Spencer W. Kimball's reign as President, Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was a triumph. During his twelve-year ministry, the Mormon church nearly doubled its world membership (to 5.8 million) and its force of short-term missionaries (to 30,000). He ordered the addition of 31 temples to the 16 that stood when he took charge. Kimball, who had been an invalid for four years, died in Salt Lake City last week at the age of 90. Certain to succeed him is the senior among the church's twelve apostles who govern with the President and his counselors: Ezra Taft Benson, 86, a controversial archconservative who served eight years as President Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture.

Kimball had only a modest business career in Arizona before he became an apostle in 1943. His self-effacing manner and sieges of heart trouble and cancer led many to believe that he would be a caretaker President. Instead, he proved to be an energetic activist who toured 85 nations and spurred the international growth of the most successful religion ever born in the U.S. He was the first to put Asians and Latin Americans into Mormonism's top ranks, and permitted leaders of foreign jurisdictions to live overseas rather than in Salt Lake City.

The landmark of Kimball's reign was a 1978 decree that opened the priesthood to blacks. In the Mormon system, which has no clergy, virtually all twelve-year-old males receive the priesthood, a prerequisite for holding any church office. After assiduous prayer, Kimball announced that he had experienced a revelation about the new status for blacks. Mormonism holds that such divine disclosures are unique to the church President. The new policy, as important and radical a departure as the abolition of polygamy in 1890, added legitimacy to proselytizing efforts overseas. In nondoctrinal matters, Kimball also took a strong lead, firmly placing the church in opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment.

The church that Kimball leaves behind is expansive and rich (rumored annual contributions: nearly $1 billion). But lately, it has been shaken by the mysterious bombing murders of two people connected with the sale of historical documents that cast doubts on official teachings about the origins of the Book of Mormon. Some Mormons are also anxious about the intentions of Benson, the 13th Prophet-President. A wavemaking, pepper-tongued right-winger, Benson acquired some notoriety in the 1960s for praising the John Birch Society and calling the civil rights movement Communist influenced. Other Benson targets: the U.N., the Supreme Court and disarmament negotiations with the Soviets. Speaking at the church-run Brigham Young University in 1980, Benson asserted that the Prophet-President speaks authoritatively on civil as well as religious matters, and that his pronouncements supersede the words of the Mormon scriptures and founders. Kimball was reported to have reprimanded Benson after that speech.

Editor Peggy Fletcher of Sunstone, a magazine for liberal Mormons, fears that Benson might take steps "against intellectuals and anybody who questions or disagrees." Benson is known to have played a part in a limited toughening of doctrinal discipline during the Kimball era, forcing a discontinuation of a church history that he considered too liberal and helping to dismantle the church historical department, with an ensuing restriction on access to old church documents. No one knows how the Prophet's powers will be used by the self-portrayed "dirt farmer," who is in remarkably good health despite his age. The only certainty is that the Mormon church once again has a resolute leader at the helm. --By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Christine Arrington/San Francisco

With reporting by Reported by Christine Arrington/San Francisco