I’ve seen comments (RLD on here especially) note it being fortuitous to have a president who was a doctor during the pandemic. As we all know, our leaders shut down and meeting pretty fast after the pandemic hit the US. No doubt opinions vary, but I think most here view the shutdown of our meetings as a wise and sensible policy.
Yet, for me, I see President Nelson’s placement at the time of the pandemic fitting a category that I will call here “divine providence,” which I see as slightly different than the revelatory claims we make in our “leadership theology.”
So to reiterate, I DO believe in revelation/inspiration, but I argue for it often being less frequent and more subtle than how we talk about those things in our leadership theology. That theology seems to have God actively directing the leaders and their policies in ways that I don’t think the historical record bears out.
For instance, under our leadership theology, it would seem that any prophet/leader could get a revelation from God about the shutdown and convey that to the members. Yes, President Kimball calling President Nelson when he did suggests inspiration for President Nelson to be President when he was. Again, I’m good with such things, but again, in the way our leadership theology tends to be framed, another leader should have been able to receive that revelation.
In fact, I know that a number of conservative/orthodox members were bothered by the directive to get the vaccine. Some close family friends who are very orthodox uttered the line, “When President Nelson directed us to get the vaccine, he was speaking from his expertise as a doctor and NOT as a prophet. Therefore, we are not under God’s command to get the vaccine,” which they didn’t.
This was odd in a couple of ways. 1) We’d never heard them use this logic before. They, like lots of orthodox members, really made it a point to follow the prophet. So this pushback was quite new. 2) I thought it was really odd to reject the church’s council BECAUSE of President Nelson’s medical expertise. We could go on and on about that, but the point is, some members saw President Nelson’s expertise as providential and others did not.
And I thought about divine providence and church leadership when I read Harris’s Second Class Saints. As we all know, President Kimball was central to working to gain the consensus about the leaders to get the ban lifted. Reading Harris’s book makes it look pretty clear Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee were quite staunchly in favor of the ban. From a providential viewpoint, it appears fortuitous for them to have had short presidencies, making the way for Kimball.
But that point of view suggests that Smith and Lee were hindrances to lifting the ban, and I think we all agree lifting the ban was a very good thing. Smith and Lee being something of a hindrance would seem to contrary to our leadership theology. That theology would suggest that if God wanted the ban lifted, he would simply tell the leaders, whoever they were, to lift the ban and they would do so. But Harris’s book, in my opinion, paints quite a different picture, one of a long process of attempts at persuasion and the seeming need of some leaders to first pass on.
And I see what Harris describes as fitting the caretaker model. We have leaders working hard to do their best but coming at issues from their own point and views and experiences. Like the rest of us, God does not direct our every action. Like the rest of us, our leaders have to use trial and error as we all grow as a church.
I do think other leaders could also have issued the church’s Covid shutdown based on what I see as the caretaker model. A President Oaks, Holland, or Monson could also have watched the news, been informed by experts and the other leaders and have made that call. Yet, I’ve also heard discussions that surgeons must be very decisive and confident in their decisions, so that it’s quite likely that President Nelson was willing to move much more quickly than other possible leaders would have. President Oaks talked about that tendency at President Nelson’s funeral (see the beginning part).
Of course, the pandemic went on a while, and we all had the opportunity to be exposed to Covid outside of church. But it’s also likely that the rapid shutdown slowed the exposure for many LDS, which certainly did save lives and reduce other negative consequences.
President Nelson’s decision was very wise and we all benefited, which is how I see the caretaker model working at its best. Again, I do believe in God’s providence, I do see the shutdown as providential, but I still see all these factors fitting within the caretaker model. I do see God acting providentially in the church, but in less than step-by-step ways that we often claim in our leadership theology.
And perhaps President Oaks becoming president at this time is also providential. Sam Brunson notes at BCC the difficulties and opportunities President Oaks faces, and in this interview around minute 12, Jonathan Rauch points to President Oaks’s wise legal views. Such wisdom is certainly needed, making Dallin Oaks’s presidency already look providential.
Comments
7 responses to “The Caretaker Model and Divine Providence”
Has Oaks accepted the calling yet? Maybe they will run the church as a quorum after seeing the last pres change what ever he wanted to. No way, IMO, that all 15 agreed with every change made by Nelson. I think they may re-think how it is done moving forward.
Side note, can you imagine how much money Pres Nelson spent during his tenure? Not that it matters, just a curios thought.
In my (limited) experience in church leadership, the times the Lord gave the most and clearest guidance was in calling people to leadership positions. I’m not saying the Lord puts the right people in place and then leaves them to figure everything out on their own, but putting the right people in place does seem to be a big part of his program.
A doctor-prophet for the pandemic and a constitutional scholar-prophet for a constitutional crisis are scarily on the nose. A public relations expert-prophet for the “Mormon Moment” stands out too. (The little kid in me who was obsessed with the original Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica really wants to know why the Lord might need a fighter pilot-prophet.) But I imagine the Lord matched all the presidents of the Church to the challenges of their times.
But this leads to one of my objections to calling Joseph Smith a “prophet” and later presidents of the Church “caretakers.” Of course the first president of the restored Church would face unique challenges, including restoring a great deal of doctrine. And Joseph Smith was chosen for that role because his gifts matched what was needed. But I think his uniqueness among the presidents of the church stems from the unique circumstances of his calling, not from having a fundamentally different calling.
RLD is wise beyond his many years.
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Many right-leaning members don’t believe the members of the First Presidency were speaking prophetically when they issued their counsel on Covid 19. And many left-leaning members don’t believe the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve were speaking prophetically when they issued the proclamation on the family.
I agree with Jack. It seems like we are close to picking and choosing what to pay attention to based solely on preference — and mostly on politics.
The disconnect is even more stark and complicated than what he suggests — since many of the oft-repeated statements are things we have heard so often, and not done so frequently, that we no longer even hear them, let alone try to put them in place in our lives. Do we even think carefully what it means to “love your neighbor”? Too often it is clear that we aren’t really doing it!
While I am not always comfortable with what our Prophets do, I think we owe a certain deference and attention to what they say because of their callings. I do NOT think that means we follow blindly or that we interpret everything said as imperative for each of our lives, but I do think we need to take what they say seriously, and prayerfully understand how their statements should apply in our lives.
“But I think his [Joseph Smith’s] uniqueness among the presidents of the church stems from the unique circumstances of his calling, not from having a fundamentally different calling.”
But he did have a fundamentally different calling. Joseph Smith was the great prophet of this dispensation, receiving keys and revelation directly from heaven. No subsequent presidents of the church received the same kinds and degrees of visitations and instructions that Joseph did.
Stephen, I regret that some of your interlocutors are distorting your message to imply disloyalty and lack of faith on your part. I wish they would engage with what you are actually saying.
REC, I am curious why we haven’t gotten the announcement of the new First Presidency yet. I’ve not timed how long it took with the last few presidents, but this seems like a bit. And I know it’s only been a short time, but the couple of talks from President Oaks (conference and funeral) did feel like a bit of a change of tone. I really thought the funeral talk was interesting with President Oaks suggesting decisions before President Nelson being more deliberative and less so with Nelson. I can’t help but think that the more deliberative process was likely the better one.
RLD, those are all good points. As bishop, I felt kind of a mix of “inspiration styles”: times when I felt promptings, but much more common was the “prompting” to gather information from my ward members, deliberate and make the best decisions we felt we could. I felt very uneasy when first called as bishop, but often felt the prompting “Steve, figuring this stuff out is at the center of the growth I want you to have as bishop. Me (God) just telling you everything to do would take away that growth.”
Not to get into an even bigger topic, but with my very long study of Joseph Smith, I’m arguing in my book that he and close advisers (his father and Oliver Cowdery) were more deliberative in the early years than they said in the official narrative they told. So in that sense, I do see some parallels with the differences noted between Presidents Nelson and Oaks that President Oaks noted in his funeral talk.
Kent, I do believe our leaders are wise and good men who give good and valuable counsel. But, Kent and Jack, I do think the system works a little differently than how we talk about it in church.
ji, yes this is a tricky topic, but I’m good with there being differences of opinion. I am aware that I’m saying some edgy stuff here, so I don’t mind disagreements. I very much appreciate your insights!