Mormons select 3 new leaders, all from Utah

SALT LAKE CITY - The Mormon church has chosen three new members for a top governing body that sets policy and runs the faith's business operations - all are from Utah.

The new members of the religion's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were all serving in lower-level church leadership positions and had held executive posts previously in the private sector.

Ronald A. Rasband is a former CEO of a chemical corporation. Gary E. Stevenson was the co-founder and president of an exercise equipment manufacturing company. Dale G. Renlund was a cardiologist and directed a cardiac transplant program.

Their selections were announced Saturday during The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' conference in Salt Lake City by Henry B. Eyring, a member of the quorum.

The selections prove outside church scholars wrong who speculated that one of the selections would be a person from outside North America and from a country never before represented on the governing body. The one member of the current board from outside the United States remains Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who was born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Germany.

The selections are safe, solid and comfortable decisions that fit the template for choosing modern apostles in the church, said Patrick Mason, associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California and Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies.

They all have served many years in church leadership, and are in the 60-65 age group - a sweet spot for men to begin tenures on the quorum, Mason said.

Though all three men have distinguished records in church leadership and in their private careers, some Latter-day Saints will be disappointed that the church didn't pick a minority or someone from outside the U.S, Mason said.

But Mason points out that Renlund and Stevenson have held major leadership positions with the church in foreign countries: Renlund in Africa and Stevenson in Japan.

"That suggests they that care about finding leaders with international experience, but don't feel like the leaders must themselves come from outside the U.S.," Mason said.

Matthew Bowman, associate professor of history at Henderson State University, said he was surprised the church didn't select somebody from the global South. But he said he still thinks that will eventually happen.

The announcements marked a rare moment in church history. It had been six years since a new quorum member was chosen, and more than a decade since the leadership council had two openings. The last time there were three was in 1906.

The new members of the quorum are the 98th, 99th and 100th members of the governing body. They are scheduled to speak later Saturday afternoon at a news conference, and give speeches at church conference Sunday morning.

Modeled after Jesus Christ's apostles, the group serves under the church president and his two counselors.

The new appointees start as junior members, but they could someday become church president because the group's longest-tenured member ascends to president when the current one dies.

Rasband, 64, of Salt Lake City, will enter the quorum with seniority over the other two because he was the first to be informed of his selection earlier this week, church officials said in a news release.

Rasband has been on a lower-level leadership council called the Quorum of the Seventy since 2000. He was senior president of that quorum since April 2009. He was previously CEO of the Huntsman Chemical Corporation before going to work for the church. He and his wife have five children.

Rasband said in a church news release that he's honored to be chosen and will devote everything he has until the day he dies.

Stevenson, 60, of Ogden, was first called to the Quorum of the Seventy in 2008. Before going to work for the church, he co-founded and was president of an exercise equipment manufacturing company. He and his wife have four children.

Stevenson said in the news release that getting the call that he had been chosen was a "knee-buckling moment" for him. He says he approaches church service with a simple philosophy: "Keeping the commandments brings blessings, and blessings bring happiness."

Renlund, 62, of Salt Lake City, has been on the Quorum of the Seventy since 2009. Prior to joining church offices, Renlund was a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Utah and medical director of a cardiac transplant program. He and his wife have one daughter.

Renlund said in the news release that he was shocked by the appointment. He said he found himself in the "sweet spot in between apoplectic and catatonic," and later went back to his office and fell to his knees.

Quorum members serve until they die, and three recent deaths created the unprecedented void.