Is appointment of new LDS apostle a hint that church is doubling down on LGTBQ doctrine?
Across social media, church’s progressive members criticize his selection
Clark Gilbert has been an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints1 less than a week, yet he is already the most controversial person in that position for the past 40-some years.
Gilbert, who as the denomination’s education commissioner has clamped down on nascent pro-LGTBQ activism at the church-run Brigham Young University and required professors and other employees to sign statements of agreement on certain matters of church doctrine related to marriage and the family, was ordained last Thursday as an apostle in the 17.5-million-member church. Gilbert becomes a member of the church’s all-male Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which leads the church in conjunction with its three-member First Presidency, led by Dallin H. Oaks, seen by church members as a prophet2. Apostles hold their positions for life, and an apostle who lives longer than others who were selected before him eventually becomes the church’s prophet.
Although the process of selecting an apostle is opaque, Gilbert presumably was chosen by Oaks with the support of the other leaders. He replaces Jeffrey R. Holland, who died in late December after being an apostle for more than 30 years. Oaks has long been seen as a chief advocate for a rigid church doctrine on LGTBQ matters, which has been codified in a quasi-scriptural document known as the Proclamation on the Family. The proclamation, promulgated in 1995, generally declares doctrine similar to that held by many traditional or conservative Christians, declaring that divinely ordained marriage is limited to one man and one woman. It also declares that gender is an eternal characteristic, a belief that has been used in recent years to limit church involvement by transgender persons.
Although members of the LDS church maintain a high interest who will be named a new apostle after a vacancy occurs, the appointments typically draw little to no controversy. While the appointees are typically men who have slowly risen through the ranks of the church hierarchy, most are little-known even to those who closely follow the inner workings of the church. But Gilbert is different: He began filling a series of highly visible positions starting in 2009 as CEO of church-owned Deseret Digitial Media, following that up as president Deseret News (2010), president of Brigham Young University–Idaho (2015), and inaugural president of the global online offering known as BYU–Pathway Worldwide (2017). And then as the church’s commissioner of the Church Educational System beginning in 2021, he oversaw BYU, BYU–Idaho, BYU–Hawaii, Ensign College, BYU–Pathway Worldwide and Seminaries and Institutes of Religion.
To some extent at BYU–Idaho but more so later when he oversaw all the three BYU campuses, controversy swirled around Gilbert as he became known as an enforcer of what critics see as a narrow version of the church’s family-related doctrines. In 2022, he instituted a sort of “loyalty oath” contract for school employees. Headlines in The Salt Lake Tribune gave a picture of how some BYU faculty reacted to the new policy: Dark days: New rules have BYU professors running scared, the headlines read.
According to the Tribune, the new policy, along with other attempts to restrict the ways students and faculty alike addressed LGTBQ issues, led to plummeting morale on the campus.
According to a Jan. 6, 2025, article in the newspaper:
Today, the threat of retribution apparently is so real that after dozens of interviews with present and former BYU faculty and administrators across many disciplines, not one current professor (including those with tenure, known as “continuing status”) would go on the record for this story.
“Low morale is pretty universal,” said a veteran teacher. “The default position is not to trust anybody.”
Firestorm erupts on social media
In the eyes of progressive LDS activists on social media, Gilbert has became identified with anti-LGTBQ sentiment and extreme efforts to instill some sort of doctrinal purity.
And so it was that when Gilbert’s appointment was announced, social media were quickly abuzz with criticism. “He has tirelessly created an environment of fear among both students and faculty by punishing their livelihoods for holding dissenting opinions,” said one commenter on Reddit. Another on X called him a “racist, sexist, transphobic, gay BYU student witch hunter.” And then there was Gordon Monson, a columnist at the Tribune: “‘Is this some kind of a joke?’” he wrote. “That was my first thought when I heard Clark Gilbert had been selected as the newest apostle for the LDS Church.”
Views by a woman using the name of Candace expressed on a blog of the Exponent II, a feminist Latter-day Saint website, were typical of those expressed by the church’s progressive members:
This is such a divisive choice of apostle to make. I’ve never seen friends and family upset in this way at the announcement of an apostle. The leadership likely realizes that this decision will upset progressive members and that the Church can then judge or condemn them for not sustaining an apostle, which is of course is treated like an obligation and test of faithfulness. It’s such a permanent, irreversible choice too. He’s only 55 and we’ll be dealing with this dude for the next 40 odd years. He could be the president. And which apostles will feel safe seeking greater kindness and inclusion for the marginalized in the church with this dude around? He may have impressive degrees, and I guess he must be intelligent, but he has shown that he is the evil, oppressive, controlly and proud kind of smart, not humble, kind, let me acknowledge how much I don’t know and raise useful questions smart. I’m really angry. Angry at Oaks, who should know better, angry about our corrupt and broken leadership system, and how it’s failing us.
... Here we are on the Exponent blog, boldly “speaking evil” [of] a newly minted apostle, and in my book it’s what God would have us do. This is a completely unsuitable leader for us; he has already lost our trust.
Of course, church members supportive of the church’s leadership just as quickly responded in defense of Gilbert. Among those was Christian Cardell, who frequently posts on Facebook:
As president of BYU–Idaho; as a primary architect and inaugural president of BYU–Pathway Worldwide; and as Commissioner of Church Education, Elder Clark Gilbert has already been an instrument in the Lord’s hands in an important dimension of the kingdom of God on the earth. Large and remarkable innovations are blessing tens and hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe, and small but consequential adjustments bringing greater alignment with Church teachings and practices are furthering the Lord’s purposes with regard to education for time and eternity.
And unlike some with academic pedigrees, Elder Gilbert evinces not the least inclination to innovate away from basic principles that the Lord has clearly revealed and established through the united voice of his servants, and seems perfectly happy to absorb the resulting incoming fire. May God bless him and his family in his new calling as an apostle of Jesus Christ. I look forward to his ministry and am pleased to sustain him.
And so the LDS version of the culture wars was in full force. However, ultimately there is no determinative battle, for church members have no formal voice in apostolic selection.
The last time the LDS church had a controversial apostle was when Ezra Taft Benson held the office beginning during World War II and continuing through 1985. He was the secretary of Agriculture during the Eisenhower administration and a supporter of the John Birch Society, rankling many members and even some men in church leadership with more moderate political views. Benson eventually became the church president, although he generally steered away from political topics when he held the church’s top post.
The church is popularly known as the Mormon church, although the church has rejected use of that nickname.
Technically, all 15 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency are declared to be apostles and prophets. But as the terminology is popularly used, the title of prophet is used almost exclusively for church president.