By Sandra Tanner

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Following the death of three of the fifteen top leaders of the LDS Church, new apostles were appointed on October 3, 2015, at the semiannual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While many members were hoping for a foreign-born appointment, those chosen were all white men from Utah.¹

Prior to conference, Brady McCombs, of the Associated Press, reported that “scholars predict that for the first time ever, at least one could be from outside North America and Europe.”² Those hoping for a sign of diversity were certainly disappointed. The New York Times reported:

The Mormon church didn’t go far to select three new members for a top governing body that sets policy and runs the worldwide faith’s business operations—choosing two former business executives and a cardiologist from Utah who had already been serving in lower church leadership positions.

Ronald A. Rasband, 64, is a former CEO of the Huntsman Chemical Corporation. Gary E. Stevenson, 60, was the co-founder of an exercise equipment manufacturing company. Dale G. Renlund, 62, was a cardiologist and directed a cardiac transplant program.

Their appointments—announced Saturday at church conference in Salt Lake City—surprised many outside religious scholars who speculated that the Utah-based faith would choose at least one new member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from a country outside the U.S., perhaps from Latin America or Africa.

That would have been a symbol and recognition of the expanding global reach of a religion that has more than half of its 15 million members outside of the United States.

Instead, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made safe, solid and comfortable decisions that fit the template for choosing modern apostles in the church, said Patrick Mason, associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California . . .³

The article then quoted Ignacio Garcia, a BYU professor:

Saints of color always have to respond to: “Why do [we] belong to that white church?” . . . It becomes harder and harder as we go further into the 21st Century: We still can’t point to a more diversified leadership.⁴

Garcia was also quoted in a Salt Lake Tribune article:

The real challenge “is not whether we get a person of color—people of color are ready to serve,” says BYU history professor Ignacio Garcia. “The question is whether the church is ready for the changes a person of color might make necessary.”

Right now, the church is perceived as a white institution, he says, and so it needs to prepare itself for the evolving demographics that will come both in the church and outside.

“It isn’t just picking a brown or black face as an apostle,” says Garcia, author of Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War and Keeping the Faith. “It’s about what that says about us and about our faith.”⁵

One event that might have raised hopes for the appointment of an apostle outside of the usual pioneer-descended members was the Fall 2014 short-lived experiment of allowing foreign-born speakers at General Conference to deliver their talks in their native language. At that time four men elected to speak in their mother tongue. Writing for the BYU Digital Universe, Annmarie Moore reported that students expected “that the Church’s decision to allow general conference talks in foreign languages would help its international image.”⁶ That it was not repeated in 2015 may be a matter of logistics. When those talks were broadcast, instead of someone hearing the leader speak in Spanish or Portuguese, the voice of someone speaking in English was dubbed over the sound of the original language, thus losing the whole point. One person commented “I was really excited to hear some general authorities speak their native language but was disappointed when I heard a translator speak for them.”

LDS apostles are appointed for life and are ranked in order of ordination to the office. Thus the next president of the church is not chosen by a vote, but is the apostle with the most seniority. Although during the early days of the LDS Church the apostles ranged in age from 24 to 36, with a system of lifetime appointments, the age of succeeding apostles and presidents continually advanced. By the time of Brigham Young’s death, his replacement was 69-year-old John Taylor. Current president Thomas S. Monson was 81 when he became president. Next in line for the presidency is 91-year-old Russell M. Nelson. Thus we see that the system of lifetime appointments guarantees that the top leaders of the LDS Church will always be older men. And with no diversity in the apostleship, the future presidents will continue to be white.

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Footnotes:

1.  “Mormons Select 3 New Leaders; All From Utah,” New York Times, (October 3, 2015). ↩︎
2. Brady McCombs, “Mormon church expected to name new leaders at conference; scholars predict historic decision,” US News and World Report, (October 2, 2015). ↩︎
3. New York Times, (October 3, 2015). ↩︎
4. New York Times, (October 3, 2015). ↩︎
5. Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mormon church has a chance to diversify its top leadership—will it?” Salt Lake Tribune, (August 7, 2015). ↩︎
6. Annmarie Moore, “Speakers use their native language at 184^th Semiannual General Conference,” Digital Universe, (October 8, 2014). ↩︎

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