When Russell M. Nelson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah had been a state for less than 30 years. Calvin Coolidge was the president of the United States. And total membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is now 17 million around the world, was less than 600,000.
Mr. Nelson, the oldest president in the church’s history, turns 100 on Monday. He has been alive for more than half of the life span of the church itself.
In a presidential election cycle that has prompted soul-searching about aging and leadership, Mr. Nelson’s milestone suggests that, at least in his church, a triple-digit birthday does not merit much hand-wringing. He remains a popular figure among church members, who view their president not just as an executive but as a “prophet, seer and revelator.”
The remarkably advanced age of the church’s highest leader occasionally produces grumbling from the faithful, especially as it grapples with social issues relating to marriage, sexuality and gender that tend to be viewed more liberally by younger members. And leaders at extremely advanced ages may effectively pass most of their duties onto others less subject to public accountability.
“A power vacuum at the top, caused by the incapacitation of the Church president, can put the entire church at risk of damage that might otherwise be prevented by a competent president,” the authors of a paper titled “Gerontocracy and the Future of Mormonism” argued in Dialogue, an independent Latter-day Saints journal, in 2016.
A spokesman for the church, Doug Anderson, said Mr. Nelson was not available for an interview. But Mr. Nelson’s known concessions to his age include his giving up skiing at age 93 and curtailing international travel. After a fall on the day after his 99th birthday last year, he skipped attending the church’s twice-yearly General Conference, though he contributed a taped message.
This spring, he appeared in person but his address was again recorded.
“For each of us, time marches on,” Mr. Nelson wrote on social media, in a post that informed attendees that he and some of his fellow church leaders might be seen sitting down while they speak, or requiring assistance navigating the conference center.
“From my point of view, this is cause for celebration,” he wrote. “I thank the Lord every day for the privilege of still being here with you.”
Mr. Nelson’s age places him among the some 100,000 centenarians in America, a group that is expected to triple in the next three decades.
With strictures against alcohol and tobacco, and an emphasis on strong family and community ties, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tend to live longer than their peers. One study tracking Latter-day Saints’ lifestyle habits and mortality over the course of more than two decades found that male church members lived almost 10 years longer than white men in the general population. (The vast majority of American church members are white.)
Mr. Nelson and his first wife, Dantzel, had nine daughters and a son, which had led to, as of last year, 57 grandchildren, 160 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandson. After his wife died in 2005, Mr. Nelson remarried the next year, to a professor at Brigham Young University.
He also belongs to a smaller group of global religious figures who hold top leadership positions well past the customary age of retirement. Pope Francis, who embarked last week on the longest international trip of his papacy, is 87. The Dalai Lama turned 89 this summer.
Religious figureheads are often given more leeway than political leaders by their followers to show signs of aging. But serving as a faith leader in one’s ninth decade — or one’s 11th, as in Mr. Nelson’s case — comes with challenges. Francis often relies on a wheelchair, and has occasionally pulled out of trips over health concerns. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, cited declining “strength of mind and body” when he announced his surprise retirement at age 85 in 2013.
Mr. Nelson became the church’s top leader in 2018 at age 93, and will retain the position until he dies. By custom, the president of the church is the longest-serving member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, an all-male group of leaders. As life expectancies have risen, Latter-day Saints leaders have often assumed the top office well into their 80s and 90s.
The previous president, Thomas S. Monson, died at age 90. Mr. Nelson’s presumed successor, Dallin H. Oaks, is 92.
“He’s going to be seen as quite a consequential figure,” said Benjamin E. Park, who is a historian and the author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism,” published this year. Mr. Park described Mr. Nelson as more willing than his predecessors to adapt or even eliminate traditions he views as inessential, even as he holds firm on traditional doctrine around gender and sexuality, for example.
“He’s stripping down the institution to what he sees as the core values and stripping away any other excesses,” Mr. Park said.
Mr. Nelson discouraged the production of large pageants once enjoyed by generations of church members. In 2018, he abruptly announced he had a revelation from God that the word “Mormon,” widely used inside and outside the church, was no longer acceptable.
The church has also undertaken a building boom under his leadership. Mr. Nelson has announced plans for 168 new temples over the course of his presidency, which make up almost half of the total number existing or in development.
The church will celebrate the birthday with a program of tributes and music simulcast online worldwide at 4 p.m. Mountain time on Monday. Live interpretation will be available in 18 languages, including Arabic, Italian and Tagalog, indicating the church’s global footprint — far beyond its borders during Mr. Nelson’s childhood.
In 1996, the journalist Mike Wallace of CBS’s “60 Minutes” asked the Latter-day Saints’s president at the time, Gordon B. Hinckley, whether the church should be considered a “gerontocracy,” given its roster of older male leaders.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” replied Mr. Hinckley, who was 85. “To have a man of maturity at the head, a man of judgment, who isn’t blown about by every wind of doctrine?”
Mr. Hinckley served as president until his death in 2008 at age 97. Mr. Wallace made his last appearance on television the same year, at age 89.
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