Apostle, later Church President
Spencer W. Kimball
1895–1985
2 topics · 6 dated events · 2 sources
Their part in each topic
Race and the Priesthood
Church president 1973–1985
Kimball spent many days alone in the Salt Lake Temple's upper room on the question, then on 1 June 1978 led the First Presidency and Twelve in a prayer during which, participants said, the answer came. The letter of 8 June announced that every faithful, worthy man in the Church might receive the priesthood. He had visited Brazil for fifteen years and knew the Saints the restriction was excluding from a temple they had helped build.
LGBTQ Latter-day Saints
Apostle, later Church President
From the 1950s onward Kimball was the general authority to whom members with what the Church then called 'homosexual problems' were referred. His 1964 leader address 'A Counselling Problem in the Church' and his 1965 BYU talk 'Love versus Lust' framed the response, and his 1969 book The Miracle of Forgiveness devoted a chapter, 'Crime Against Nature,' to homosexuality. He wrote that a person could 'repent of his perversion' and 'force himself to return to normal pursuits and interests and actions and friendships with the opposite sex,' and that 'this normal pattern can become natural again.'
In the timeline
6 events across 2 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Kimball sets the counseling frame
Spencer W. Kimball, then an apostle, addressed Church leaders in 'A Counselling Problem in the Church' (1964) and BYU students in 'Love versus Lust' (1965). He wrote that a person should 'repent of his perversion, force himself to return to normal pursuits and interests and actions and friendships with the opposite sex,' and that 'this normal pattern can become natural again.' He compared the condition to alcoholism, requiring continued vigilance. The medical consensus he was working inside classified homosexuality as a 'sociopathic personality disturbance' in DSM-I (1952) and a 'sexual deviation' in DSM-II (1968); the American Psychiatric Association removed it from its list of disorders in December 1973.
The Miracle of Forgiveness is publishedhinge
Kimball's book devoted a chapter titled 'Crime Against Nature' to homosexuality. Dialogue's survey of the period lists the vocabulary as 'ugly,' 'repugnant,' 'ever-deepening degeneracy,' 'evil,' 'pervert,' 'deviant' and 'weaklings,' and describes the chapter as teaching that homosexuality was a spiritual disease that could be cured. One Latter-day Saint historian called it the earliest and most comprehensive treatment of homosexuality by an apostle and the foundation of Church thought, policy and political action for the next forty-five years.
A temple is announced for São Paulo
Brazilian Saints of mixed ancestry had been subject to lineage tracing for ordination since the 1940s; a 1967 instruction had shifted the burden of proof away from the individual. The temple announcement created a body of faithful members who were donating to and building a house they would not be allowed to enter. Leonard Arrington recorded hearing that this was one of the immediately precipitating factors of the revelation.
Packer addresses BYU at Kimball's request
At President Kimball's request, Packer spoke at BYU on homosexual temptation. FAIR notes that in this address he treated such temptations as deep and relatively fixed, indicating that those affected might spend the rest of their lives resisting them — a position he restated in 2010: 'That may be a struggle from which you will not be free in this life. If you do not act on temptations, you need feel no guilt.'
The upper roomhinge
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve met in an upper room of the Salt Lake Temple. Kimball said he had spent many days alone there pleading for an answer, and that if the answer was to continue the present course he was prepared to defend it to the death. Each man spoke; then Kimball offered prayer as voice. McConkie wrote that all of them heard the same voice and received the same message. No text of the revelation was written down.
The First Presidency letter is announced, and canonized
The letter said: “He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple.” Sunstone called it probably the most photocopied document in the history of Church headquarters. On 30 September N. Eldon Tanner presented it to conference as a constituent assembly; the sustaining vote was unanimous, and it became Official Declaration 2. In November the São Paulo temple was dedicated and the Martins family was sealed, with their son Marcus — soon the first Black full-time missionary called after the revelation — serving as witness.
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
The Miracle of Forgiveness, chapter "Crime Against Nature"
Spencer W. Kimball
The foundational mid-century Latter-day Saint text treating homosexuality as sin, sickness and something curable.
Doctrine and Covenants, Official Declaration 2 and its 2013 introductory header
Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney
The canonized text of the 1978 revelation and the Church's own 2013 statement that its records offer no clear insights into the practice's origins.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Spencer W. Kimball.
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