Word: mormon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Kimball's revelation freed the faith from a gnawing problem. Missionaries faced constant questions about Mormon racism. "Church young people were mortified," says University of Utah Historian Brigham Madsen. "They would not put up with it any longer." The N.A.A.C.P. went to court to end bias in Mormon Boy Scout troops. A dissident member even dared picket the 28-story headquarters building that dominates the Salt Lake City skyline. The revelation also solved the dilemma of who is eligible to use the new temple in racially mixed Brazil...
Kimball's predecessors felt bound by the traditional interpretation of Smith's scriptures. Passages in the Book of Mormon consider dark skin a sign of God's disfavor, and the Book of Abraham specifies that Canaanites (interpreted as Africans) are "cursed as to the priesthood." Indeed, outside dissidents bought a full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune last week accusing Kimball of heresy and pointing out that Brigham Young declared that blacks would only get the priesthood after all "other descendants of Adam" had their chance...
Sterling M. McMurrin, graduate dean at the University of Utah and leading Mormon liberal, gives Kimball personal credit for changing the church's stance. "He is a deeply spiritual person, not bureaucratic," says McMurrin. "He has suffered through this problem for 30 years." What if Kimball had not received the revelation during his tenure? Under the strict seniority system among Apostles, the next president in line is Ezra Taft Benson, 78, Ike's Agriculture Secretary. After him would come Mark E. Petersen, 77, former editor of the church-owned daily, Salt Lake's Deseret News. Both are considered much...
...took over in 1974, but he has proved to be a vigorous, globe-trotting activist. He is at his desk daily by 7 a.m., stays there till 5:30 p.m. without a lunch break, then works until 10 at the home he shares with wife Camilla. In typical Mormon fashion he attributes his vitality to the fact that "all my life, from the time I was a little boy on the farm, I have done hard work." Like other practicing Mormons, he shuns alcohol, tobacco and caffeinated drinks...
Kimball is by no means the first Mormon leader to alter a major doctrine. The most famous earlier example occurred in 1890, when one of Prophet Smith's successors ended the "everlasting covenant" of polygamy after the practice had plunged the church into a bitter, and losing, battle with the U.S. Government...