Sunday, February 17, 2008

The new president of the mormon church

80 year old Thomas Monson has been named the new President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, replacing the recently deceased Gordon B. Hinckley. Called as an "apostle" at age 36, Monson has served for 44 years as one of the highest authorities in the mormon church. Monson continues the tradition of Gordon Hinckley who spent most of his adult life in the employment of the church. Both Hinckley and Monson assumed control of the mormon church in their 80's, and Monson has been waiting a long time to become president of the mormon church. It will be interesting to see how Monson serves compared to Hinckley. Hinckley always gave out this image of being a genteel old gentleman, a kindly grandfather. Monson strikes me as less telegenic, so I am curious to see how open with the media Monson is. Hinckley was very active with the media, although he was less than honest about mormon beliefs when he was pressed about them. Hinckley's legacy was the explosion in the number of temples around the world, including the McTemples in areas with smaller mormon populations. I wonder what Monson's will be?


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