Spencer W. Kimball

Spencer W. Kimball is presented as president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a position that places him at the center of the book’s account of institutional religious authority. His direct appearances are limited, but the references to him show how a church president’s teachings could shape disputes over fundamentalism and how a policy decision could be challenged by rival claims of divine revelation.

Office and Authority

The church’s supreme leader bears the title President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. The book links that office to Mormonism’s premise that religious truth and ecclesiastical authority derive from an ongoing series of revelations. Kimball is identified with this institutional arrangement as its contemporary leader, rather than as a character whose personal history or private life is developed.

The account also describes a tension embedded in the tradition’s origins. Joseph Smith encouraged members to seek personal impressions from God, but recognized that competing individual revelations could undermine the authority of the prophet. That history helps explain the significance of Kimball’s office: authority to teach and guide the church was not simply one revelation among many, but an institutional position against which rival religious claims could be measured.

Kimball in Ron Lafferty’s Religious Dispute

At a gathering in his parents’ Provo home, Ron Lafferty read an essay published by the church that warned of fundamentalism and urged members to obey the teachings of its president and prophet, Kimball. It was the first time Ron had attended one of his brothers’ regular discussions of religion and politics. As the conversation continued, he challenged Dan Lafferty’s new beliefs and tried to persuade his younger brothers that Dan’s ideas threatened their eternal welfare.

Kimball does not speak in this scene. His authority reaches it through the church essay and its instruction to follow the president and prophet. Ron uses that institutional teaching to argue against his brother’s beliefs, making Kimball’s office part of a family dispute over who could credibly interpret religious truth.

The 1978 Priesthood Decision and Rival Revelation

In 1978 Kimball decreed that Black men should be admitted to the Mormon priesthood, a major reversal in church policy that was widely applauded outside the church. Onias, who claimed to receive revelations from God, condemned the change as a departure from doctrines he attributed to Joseph Smith. His own asserted revelation advanced a racist view of Black people; this was Onias’s claim, not Kimball’s teaching.

The disagreement sets institutional authority against a competing prophetic claim. Kimball’s decision marked a change in official church policy, while Onias presented his revelation as a reason to reject the decision and condemn the church’s leadership. The contrast places Kimball in the book’s broader account of continuing revelation: the same religious language could support an established hierarchy’s authority or be invoked by a rival claimant to oppose it.