SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The longest-serving president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged worshipers Sunday to spend more time worshiping in temples. He backed this invitation by announcing plans to build 15 new places of worship around the world.
Russell M. Nelson announced the planned construction in a pre-recorded closing address at the biannual conference in Salt Lake City. It is traditionally watched by millions of people around the world.
“Nothing will help you hold fast to the iron rod more than worshiping in the temple as regularly as your circumstances permit,” Nelson said.
The 99-year-old retired heart surgeon attended both days of the conference in a wheelchair, but did not speak live. He was out of the fall 2023 conference due to a back injury.
As his 100th birthday approaches, the president has created a mixed legacy that some faithful say has made members of the faith around the world feel more included, but left LGBTQ+ members and other minorities without support. Sunday’s speech made no mention of this.
Nelson had a conservative background in his previous position on the Church’s leadership committee, leading many to predict that he would not make any significant changes as president. Religious scholars now say his six years in office were anything but stagnant.
“He has shaken up the Church in so many ways – he has changed everything from what happens each Sunday in regular worship services to the long-term trajectory of where the Church is headed,” said Matthew Bowman, professor of religion at Claremont Graduate Universities.
Nelson, who notes that he has been alive for more than half of the faith’s 194-year history, is known for leading the Church through the COVID-19 pandemic and urging people to stop calling Latter-day Saints as “Mormons,” a sharp term. change after previous Church leaders spent millions over decades to promote the nickname.
He severed the faith’s century-old ties to the Boy Scouts of America, creating the church’s own youth program that could also serve more than half of its 17 million members who live outside the United States and the Canada. He appointed non-American leaders to the highest governing body and pushed for the publication of regional hymnbooks celebrating local music and culture around the world.
The president shortened Sunday services and launched a massive construction campaign totaling more than 150 temples, even before Sunday’s announcement of 15 additional sites to come. This initiative accelerates a long-standing effort to provide the world with sumptuous places of worship of the faith.
It also formed a formal partnership with the NAACP. Until 1978, the Church barred black men from the lay priesthood, a policy rooted in the belief that black skin was a curse. The Church disavowed the reasons for the ban in a 2013 essay, but never issued an official apology. It remains one of the most sensitive topics for the Utah-based religion.
Considered a prophet by Church members, Nelson largely avoided taking positions on hot-button issues.
“He’s not a culture warrior,” said Patrick Mason, a professor of religion and history at Utah State University. “But in terms of church presidents over the last century, I would put him among the top two or three who, at the time of their death, will have left their mark on the church.”
Mason described Nelson’s administration as “gentler” and more welcoming than those of previous presidents, even though he strictly interpreted religious doctrine.
Under Nelson, the Church insists that LGBTQ+ members are welcome, but maintains that same-sex marriage is a sin. It also limits the participation of transgender members who undergo gender-affirming medical procedures or change their name, pronouns or way of dressing.
Nelson’s early actions as president gave some LGBTQ+ members hope that he could change these policies.
He made waves in 2019 by repealing controversial rules banning the baptism of children of gay parents and labeling same-sex couples as heretics who could be excommunicated. His administration then supported a 2022 law protecting same-sex marriage at the federal level because it included what Nelson’s top adviser, Dallin H. Oaks, called “necessary protections for religious freedom.”
Oaks, 91, is Nelson’s likely successor. He has reminded his congregants at several past conferences that the Church believes children should be raised by a married man and woman.
This message is echoed in the so-called “Musket Firing Discourse,” now required reading at Brigham Young University. In it, a high-ranking religious leader urges professors and students to take up their intellectual “muskets” to defend the faith’s position on marriage and family values.
Fred Bowers, president of the Latter-day Saint LGBTQ+ support group Affirmation, highlighted the speech as one of many recent examples of how faith has made LGBTQ+ members feel isolated.
Despite ongoing tensions between Church leaders and LGBTQ+ members, Nelson repeatedly asked congregants to be kind to those whose experiences they may not understand.
“One of the simplest ways to identify a true follower of Jesus Christ,” he said in his conference address last spring, “is the compassion with which that person treats others.”
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