Last July, when Joseph Fielding Smith died at the age of 95, command of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints passed to a relative youngster. The new president, Harold Bingham Lee, was only 73—the youngest man to assume the mantle of "prophet, seer and revelator" for the Mormons since 1918. (Smith took office at 93.) Since his accession, both outsiders and members have wondered just how much innovation Harold Lee would bring to the rich, rapidly growing but still monolithic Mormon Church.
This month Mormons from round the world gathered in Salt Lake City for their semiannual general conference, filling hotels and homes, jamming Temple Square—a clean-cut, well-dressed crowd, heavy with zealous young. In a vote that was never in doubt, they "sustained" Prophet Lee in his selection. There was talk of expansion, modernization, more efficient administration, but little talk of change. "Lee is the man of the hour," said Apostle Gordon Hinckley, 62, one of his closest associates. "But instead of saying he will innovate, I would say he will change the way of implementing those principles that have been with us from the earliest days of the church."
An Idaho grade school principal at the age of 17 and a onetime city commissioner in Salt Lake City, Lee has spent most of his adult life in the Mormon bureaucracy. Lately he has represented the church's interests as a member of the board of such companies as the Union Pacific Railroad. By all accounts a skillful administrator, he began streamlining various Mormon enterprises as first counselor during the brief rule of Joseph Fielding Smith. Says an associate: "Lee has a genius for organization. The church runs like a great beautiful computer, clicking away. Everything is in its place." Some of Smith's achievements and problems:
GROWTH AND EVANGELISM. With 16,000 young missionaries at work in the U.S. and abroad, the Church of Latter-day Saints remains one of the most aggressively evangelistic in the world. All young men and women are expected to put in two years as missionaries, mostly at their own expense—a requirement that has paid off handsomely. The church has grown by 50% in the U.S. over the past twelve years to a total of 2,000,000 members, and by 250% outside the U.S., bringing its foreign membership to 1,000,000. Missions have been especially successful in Mexico, South America and the South Pacific.
Lee is likely to emphasize further the international character of Mormonism. He has already held a conference in Mexico City and made handshaking hops to England, Israel and Greece, reassuring government officials that visiting Mormons will stay out of politics. Says Dean Sterling McMurrin of the University of Utah's graduate school: "Lee has caught the vision of Mormonism as a worldwide movement. He is trying to break through the bonds of provincialism into universalism."