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.