The Chosen

As a boy, Joseph Fielding Smith knew pioneers who had trundled handcarts over the mountains and across the plains to Zion. In a pristine valley now called Salt Lake City, he watched the Mormon tabernacle take its fabulous shape. And when he died last week, in his 96th year, most Mormons accepted their beloved tenth president's passing as a signal that an era had ended. A son of the church's sixth president (who was a polygamist) and a grandnephew of its founder, Smith wanted to be remembered as a fundamentalist "defender of the faith." That he most assuredly was. But now that he is gone, many Mormons are frankly uncertain as to what their faith must be defended against in the years ahead.

That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the midst of profound and far-reaching change seems indisputable. Fortunately, however, its most immediate concerns stem from its phenomenal vitality. During the past dozen years, worldwide membership has nearly doubled; it now stands at more than 3 million people. Under the evangelical leadership of Smith and his predecessor, David 0. McKay, the church increased its "stakes" (dioceses) threefold, to nearly 600, and its foreign missions now number 101. Salt Lake City, of course, remains the church's spiritual Mecca. But scattered throughout the "diaspora," lavish new temples now serve an increasingly cosmopolitan congregation. Only the day before Smith's death, the church unveiled a plan to decentralize its farflung missionary activities and thereby cope more effectively with its explosive growth rate outside of the U.S.-a startling 250 per cent since 1960.

Seer: Appropriately, the man "called" to assume Smith's mantle as "seer, prophet and revelator" has been a chief architect of modernization within the church for more than 35 years. At 73, stocky Harold B. Lee is a mere lad, as Mormon leaders go. On the surface he looks and acts rather more like a businessman than a prophet vouchsafed divine revelation. In point of fact, his sharply honed management and organizational skills have enabled the church to streamline and computerize many of its diverse services and enterprises. During the Depression years, he established the welfare program that today helps clothe and feed nearly 100,000 needy Mormons. And Lee has long played a central role in briefing the church's missionaries on scriptural and doctrinal affairs.

Even with that background, however, the soft-spoken Lee faces some stiff long-range challenges. For one thing, some skeptics question how long the Mormon faithful will continue to support a missionary program that now costs the church more than $15 million annually. Looming still larger as the central issues confronting the church are the twin problems of race and relevance. While Mormon missionaries strive to bring American Indians and other non-Caucasians into the fold, little or no effort is made to recruit blacks. And to many younger Mormons in urban areas, the dogma formulated by the church's elders seems increasingly out of joint with the times.

Curse: According to Mormon doctrine, Negroes bear the curse of Cain and for that reason they are barred from the priesthood that is automatically extended to most male Saints. Anachronistic

[Photograph caption: ] Smith (left), Lee: Will God speak?

though it seems to many Mormons and gentiles alike, that doctrine has been steadfastly regarded by the church as a matter that can be changed only by God, speaking through the president. In the meantime, however, the Lord's work reportedly goes well among whites in South Africa and Rhodesia, where Mormon-controlled businesses are proceeding apace.

For the moment, president Lee is understandably wary of dealing with such questions. Most observers consider him somewhat more progressive than Smith, who uttered many prophecies in his time but none concerning liberalization of doctrine. In the past, Lee has observed simply: "If you believe in revelation as we do, you will see that [equal status for blacks] is a matter of the Lord's telling us." Now, for a sizable segment of the Mormon faithful, concentration on institutional growth and efficiency without fundamental regard for the forces at work in the larger society may no longer be acceptable. If that proves to be the case, Mormon liberals hope that God--and pragmatism-will inspire their eleventh president to come to terms with the new world.