The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints named a former justice on the Utah Supreme Court, Dallin H. Oaks, as its next president on Tuesday.
“I accept with humility the responsibility that God has placed upon me,” Mr. Oaks said in brief remarks in Salt Lake City.
Mr. Oaks, who is trained as a lawyer, is a conservative known best within the church for his attention to issues related to religious liberty, sexuality, gender and the family.
In a recent speech to church members, he emphasized the importance of family life, encouraging Latter-day Saints to defy national trends of declining marriage and birth rates.
“We are a family church,” he said, exhorting his audience to remember “the purpose of marriage and the value of children.”
The church, which has more than 17 million members around the world, has been officially without a leader since its previous president, Russell M. Nelson, died on Sept. 27. This gap in leadership is the longest since the 19th century.
Still, there was little mystery about Mr. Oaks’s ascent. The church’s approach to succession means the presidency goes to the longest-serving member of its top leadership body. Mr. Oaks, 93, has served on that body since 1984, and was selected by Mr. Nelson as one of his two formal counselors.
The announcement of Mr. Oaks’s ascent streamed online in 10 languages on Tuesday. Founded in the United States, the church has invested heavily in expanding globally. Almost a million converts have joined in just the last three years, with the fastest recent growth happening outside North America.
Mr. Oaks was born in Provo, Utah, in 1932. He expressed rare public emotion when he recalled the death of his father when he was 7, and how his widowed mother pressed on to raise him and his siblings in a happy home, in a speech at a recent conference watched by church members around the world.
Mr. Oaks graduated from Brigham Young University, the church’s flagship university, and then from law school at the University of Chicago, where he edited the law review. He served as a clerk under Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court, and was later considered for a seat on that court by President Ronald Reagan.
In 1970, church leaders invited Mr. Oaks to become Brigham Young’s president, a role for which he resigned a faculty position at the University of Chicago Law School. After leading Brigham Young for almost a decade, Mr. Oaks became a member of the Utah Supreme Court before he was again tapped for an important church leadership role.
This time the invitation was to join the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the church’s second-highest leadership body, a full-time role for the rest of one’s life that is both executive and spiritual. Reflecting later on his decision to make the commitment, he said he asked himself, “Would I be a lawyer who had been called to be an apostle, or would I be an apostle who used to be a lawyer?”
The answer, he said, “depended upon whether I would try to shape my calling to my own personal qualifications and experience, or whether I would undertake the painful process of trying to shape myself to my calling.”
He did not leave his legal training behind, however. Early in his tenure, Mr. Oaks drafted an influential memo encouraging the church to “vigorously” oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage, an issue that was not yet on the minds of most church members, voters, and many other denominations and faith traditions at the time.
“He identified same-sex marriage as a moral cause the church should be invested in,” said Benjamin Park, the author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism.”
The church went on to be a key player in the legal battle against same-sex marriage. “You can trace the entirety of the church’s political approach over the last four decades to that memo he drafted in 1984,” Dr. Park said.
Mr. Nelson took the role of president in 2018 at age 93, the same age at which Mr. Oaks is assuming the role. Mr. Nelson surprised many observers by making significant changes to the church.
Months into his presidency, he abruptly instructed members to stop using the term “Mormon” in most settings, saying that it removed Jesus’ name from the church. He shortened the length of Sunday services to two hours from three. And he reversed a church policy that had forbidden the children of same-sex couples from being baptized.
Mr. Nelson died at age 101 in Salt Lake City, where the church is based. His funeral took place one week ago at the church’s large conference center.
Close observers say Mr. Oaks’s vision for the church is similar to Mr. Nelson’s, although one difference has already emerged. Mr. Nelson initiated the building of 200 new temples around the world during his presidency, with the unveiling of new locations becoming a highlight of the church’s semiannual conferences for many members. Mr. Oaks surprised some attendees at the latest conference by saying it was “appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples,” and announcing no new locations.
Mr. Oaks is the church’s 18th leader in 195 years, a lineage that began with Joseph Smith. Within the church, the role of president is viewed not just as an executive but as a living prophet.
Succession in the church is determined by seniority within the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, meaning there were no debates or politicking leading up to Mr. Oaks’s ascent to the role. The adherence to seniority also means the church is ruled by what some critics describe as a gerontocracy.
Mr. Oaks named Henry B. Eyring, 92, and D. Todd Christofferson, 79, as counselors who will join him in the First Presidency, as the church’s top leadership body is known. The next in line to the presidency by seniority after Mr. Oaks is Jeffrey R. Holland, who is 84.
Ruth Graham is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith and values for The Times.
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