If I were in charge of church governance, there are a lot of things I’d change. First and foremost, women would be equally represented at all levels of leadership and decision making, full stop. But second only to that change would be the ability for general authorities to all take (or be obligated to take) retirement at a certain point.
At this moment a lot of people are debating if United States President Joe Biden is too old to run for president again. Mitt Romney (both a member of the LDS church and senator from Utah) recently announced that he will not seek re-election. He said, “At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-eighties. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders.” This parting shot is definitely aimed at both of the likely frontrunners for president (Donald Trump and Joe Biden), although at eighty Biden is the oldest president to occupy the Oval Office. Potentially adding another four years has set the discourse ablaze in my conservative part of the world.
There are regular news stories about the president tripping on stairs or flubbing words in speeches.
I live in Utah County, which (like I said) is a very politically conservative place. I’ve heard concerns from local church members about what a geriatric president might mean for the safety of our country. What if he’s senile? What if he has a stroke during an important meeting? What if he accidently hits the button for nuclear war because he mixes it up with his toaster?
When California Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away at the end of September, conservative Latter-day Saint friends brought up her age to me as well. She was ninety years old at the time of her death and they talked about how she’d been looking terrible and missed votes leading up to her death. “Why aren’t there age limits in place for these people?”, someone said, and “Not very many people have their full brain capacity left at ninety.” Ironically, this was said to me on the literal eve of General Conference – when it had already been announced that the 99-year-old president of the church would be absent from the meeting he was in charge of due to a fall related to his age. None of these same people raised these valid concerns about their own beloved church leadership.
When President Biden trips but stands right back up and brushes his pants off, they see him as elderly and unfit for office. When President Nelson posts on Instagram that he’s using a walker, they gush with pride over how amazing he is to still be leading us even in his old age. Why do these two separate parts of their world never seem to converge?
There are benefits of an older leadership, such as experience, wisdom, and an ability to slow down and take time on decisions. President Hinckley talked about this with Mike Wallace in 1996, and it reminded me of a recent quote by President Biden.
On the other hand, most corporations choose to wisely hire and also include younger employees who will bring innovation, new ideas and excitement into their company. I think a healthy institution probably has a good mixture of both. Unfortunately, in the church we are generally limited to only half of this equation.
What are some things that a younger leadership might move on faster?
Off the top of my head:
- LGBTQ issues
- Women’s issues
- Eradicating racism
- Embracing modern technology
- Understanding the importance of intersectionality
Younger people are more likely to accept criticism, push for needed but uncomfortable change, and look at the long-term outcomes (because they’ll still be alive decades from now and have to deal with the consequences of their actions). I’ve seen too much harsh prophetic counsel given from the pulpit in the 70s and 80s (from right before I was born or during my childhood) that was particularly harmful to girls and women. None of the men who made those statements are around anymore to have to deal with those of us who were harmed by their heavy-handed language.
Looking back at the founding of the LDS Church, male leadership at the top was made up entirely of young men, not old. They all had multiple wives and young children, led military endeavors and ran for political office. As the decades and centuries have dragged on, the age of leadership has slowly crept upwards until now – where we are on the brink of having the first 100-year-old church president. When the church chose to make some callings only end upon death we didn’t have the kind of end-of-life-extending medical care that we have now. I doubt anyone in the 1800s expected their leaders to last for decades upon decades without younger men taking their place. (Actually, I doubt anyone in the 1800s expected it to even matter anymore in 2023, because they expected the second coming to occur well within their lifetimes.)
Members of the public can go online and view President Biden’s full health report online (and it’s extremely detailed). I think this sort of health transparency is very useful to the people he is leading. In our church President Monson spent years dealing with increased dementia, but while it remained an open secret to those around him it was never addressed to the general church membership. Why should it have been a secret? Are prophets not allowed to get old? Are their brains not allowed to age? Would a church president succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease make the church less true?
To be clear, I don’t think old age should be an automatic disqualifier for church service. (I mean, I know plenty of 40-year-olds who are idiots.) However, we should have something in place that ensures those who have reached physical or mental limits can retire with dignity and rest. To me, it’s a question of morality. Is it kind to ask these men to work long hours well past retirement age simply because we don’t want to let them go? My parents live in an assisted living center and my mom is currently under hospice care. Many of the seniors there relish the ability to relax at the end of their long lives and be taken care of by caring staff members. Not allowing prophets and apostles (or their wives) that same ability to finally rest feels wrong, and one day forcing men to serve past their physical and mental capabilities might very well come back to harm us.
11 Responses
Great post. Thanks.
I love your posts! Preach!
Amen! President Monson was failing when Pope Benedict chose to retire. It felt like an insult to President Monson’s dignity to parade him up to the lectern. He should have been able to enjoy his last days in peace
Can I leave a link in a comment? I’m not sure.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ew_a0MkA-JM?si=lR7qk9D2kAozt1C6
That’s supposed to be faith promoting (a video of Elder Wirthlin trying to give his talk on conference when he couldn’t stop shaking and President Nelson stands behind him to steady him), but it just makes me sad. Let the poor guy rest. Also, is this the best idea to have someone in such frail health be in charge of such important work that affects so many lives? My mom is nearing the end of her life and she just needs to sleep a lot. Let elderly people sleep and younger people come in and take the burdens on instead.
This is a very needed conversation. I wonder how LDS leadership plans would have shaped differently if Joseph Smith hadn’t been killed in office, but aged naturally. I have thought that of all our church presidents, Dr. Nelson could retire and say, “Look, I’ve been the doctor to aging prophets and seen what happens at the end of life. I’m going to step down and set a retirement age at 80 [or whatever] for all apostles.”
I think that when a leader has waited his entire life to finally be the one in charge and make the changes he’s been wanting to make for decades (like President Nelson and his desire to get rid of the word “Mormon” forever), it would be really hard to give it all up when you finally reach that position.
But maybe he could do it now, since he’s had a few years to do what he wanted already. President Monson had such severe dementia by the end I don’t think he could’ve made that decision. Our best hope is for a prophet in good health still, who’s had years to do what he wanted, to finally make that call. So maybe? ???? (Probably not.)
Thank you for making well-reasoned arguments for why we need people from a variety of ages as leaders! I’m afraid though that too many church members think that prophets get some sort of pass at dealing with old age compared to the general public; that they are magically protected. It’s not great. I agree that age should not be an automatic disqualifier and yet there needs to be protections in place to prevent church members from church leaders who are mentally and/or physically capable of making sound decisions and also allow Q15 & First Pres to move to emeritus status just like the Q70. I sometimes wonder though if moving to emeritus status was available, if any of them would take it? Would it be hard to let go of power after decades? Or would it become an issue of people pushing out others they don’t like? (Would Nelson push out Uchtdorf?)
It would become very complicated, I agree. In the political world where the people can vote out leaders who are past their prime it’s much easier – but where the men in charge of us are the same ones choosing what other men get to be in charge with them – how can that even work? Everyone agrees they aren’t infallible and God doesn’t force them to do everything exactly right, so it’s very easy to see how they can make problematic decisions for who stays in leadership. The process is also so unclear to those of us on the outside that it’s hard to decipher what’s really going on.
How have I never put it together that President Nelson is so much older than President Biden? I’ve never thought about the age difference. It’s like they exist in completely different spheres in my head. But now that you point it out it is kind of ridiculous how conservative members of the church talk about them so differently. I’m realizing I think about them differently too. I don’t really have a profound comment here, I just want you to know that you are kind of blowing my mind and making me rethink some of my thought processes. Thanks for this post.
Isn’t it weird how our brains separate different parts of our world? I totally understand!
To your point – Gordon B. Hinckley was called as a third counsellor to Spencer W. Kimball because the entire first presidency at that point was no longer able to function fully. Ezra Taft Benson disappeared from public view two or three years before he died. It felt almost akin to a cover-up.