Today’s guest post is from Faith. This is the second post in a developing series spotlighting career backgrounds for general authorities in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can read the first post here:
As a reminder, all of us have our own personal issues, It’s not white hats vs. dark hats; it’s all different shades of gray. We want to be tougher on systems than we are on people. However, when a “leader” tells other people how to proceed with life choices and the leader’s past reflects other choices, what are we to think and how are we to act?
One GA biography that is low hanging fruit on professional missteps by an LDS general authority, is Melvin Russell Ballard. I first want to recognize that one of MR Ballard’s family members was my wife’s VT. She was the kindest visiting teacher Christian giving, stranger we have met in our various LDS wards. Sister, thanks, for helping out when help was needed!
I ask, what self-proclaimed benefit do we attain with LDS membership? I was taught we need to get baptized into the LDS church, to always have the spirit with us. The rest of the world, as taught in LDS primary, only has the Light of Christ. Why do we go to church every week? I learned that the highlight of our week should be taking the sacrament and renewing our baptismal covenant. We promise to obey and as a result we will constantly have the Spirit of God, all week long. Then, through prayer and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God guides each of us. The LDS church teaches, we need the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost to guide us through life’s decisions, “including education, employment, and marriage”[1]. I was told, if we do not have the spirit, we will personally have to pay the consequences.
Folly #1.
Russell Ballard was baptized by his grandfather at 8 years of age. “His parents were not active in church, but they loved him” [2]. (This statement alone could be its’ own blog post). As an adult, professionally, he was involved in several enterprises, including automotive, real estate, and investment businesses. He was the top-selling salesman for his father’s Nash car dealership when he left it in the early 1950s to pursue other business interests [3] In 1956, Ballard returned and took over the Ballard Motor Company from his father. During the late 1950s, Ballard was recruited by the Ford Motor Company to become the first Edsel car dealer for Salt Lake City. In a BYU Speech in 2003 he states, I had an impression: “Don’t sign the franchise.” That was the Spirit whispering to me, “Don’t do this.” “Then, following that experience came the great pressure from Ford Motor Company with all of their skill and expertise to get me to sign the franchise, which I finally did” and incurred a huge loss. [4]
I think Ballard’s self-admission shows humility, that he could have made a better choice. I applaud him for trying to help others to avoid mistakes in their future careers, from his past errors. However, he self admits, he did not listen to the Spirit. I recognize that this can be part of the maturity process. Can he dismiss not having listened to the Spirit due to his young age? Was he being disobedient to his father? Where does getting baptized and taking the sacrament weekly mix into this? Was it in step with Q15 teachings of 2023? Were the church teachings of the Spirit in 1958 different than 2023? When youth or missionaries, or even mature adults in the church do not follow the spirit and make their own choices, how does Ballard react? Is he empathetic with other people’s follies?
Folly #2
In 1961, Ballard was the president of Keystone Securities Corporation in Salt Lake City. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Keystone in 1962 after accusations that Ballard and Keystone had violated the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and the Securities Act of 1933. The investigation centered around “manipulation and fraud.” The SEC completed its’ investigation in 1963. Keystone, with Ballard as the primary cause, was found to have violated the Securities Act of 1933 in the following charges: providing false statements to the SEC and aiding and abetting Shasta Mineral and Chemical Company in making false statements that included misrepresenting the relationships of the Shasta officers with both Ballard and Keystone. The SEC revoked the broker-dealer registration of Keystone as a result. [3][5]
As I recall, the 6th, 7th and 9th temple recommend questions asks about following, promoting, and being honest with practices that are contrary to the LDS church [6]. What do you think?
In 1969, concern about one’s profession conflicting with church teachings came to the fore. A First Presidency letter announced that it was inappropriate for those involved firsthand with liquor to receive temple recommends (e.g., bartenders or cocktail waitresses). [7] However, involvement in a SEC investigation was not included in the letter. The church was more concerned about members living in Las Vegas then those dealing with questionable federal government legalities. The 1989 leadership handbook leaves the occupational worthiness to the judgement of local leaders, specifying only that a person’s occupation, profession, and affiliations should be “in harmony the gospel teachings”. [7]
Were Ballard’s business activities “in harmony with gospel teachings” ?
Folly #3
Another highlight of Ballard’s business career was his presidency of the Valley Music Hall in Bountiful, Utah, which offered family entertainment. There Ballard worked with Hollywood celebrities who were advisers to the enterprise. Although the music hall failed financially, investors recovered their money when the LDS Church purchased the building.[3] There is sparce information regarding its’ business history and the fire; other than a vague non-success statement of the business. The LDS church bought Valley Music and used it as a building for Stake and Regional conferences. [8] Ironically, the Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills, CA had financial troubles during the same time and became the regional assembly Hall for the Jehovah Witnesses. [9]
Melvin Russell Ballard was called as a Mission President in 1974, then called as a General Authority in 1976. He has been a GA longer than even Nelson or Oaks. He was not placed into Q12 until 1985. He has been on the church payroll with a “small stipend” for 47 years. If you consider a Mission Presidents’ living allowance, 49 years.
How many church members would be placed into a leadership calling, after three failed business endeavors? Were Ballard’s businesses saved because of divine intervention ? Was he called to be a GA due to his stellar business career? If I need help with my business, will the church intervene ?
Sources and Additional Reading
- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/the-gospel-and-the-productive-life-student-manual-2018/chapter-2?lang=eng
- https://www.deseret.com/faith/2021/9/1/22620762/president-m-russell-ballard-new-biography-anxiously-engaged
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Russell_Ballard
- https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/m-russell-ballard/focus-on-what-matters-most/
- “Violations Charged to Keystone Securities” (PDF). Securities and Exchange Commission News Digest. July 24, 1962. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/01/aus-eng-local-pages/local-news-002?lang=eng
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/23287671 The History of LDS Temple Admission Standards. Edward L. Kimball Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 1998), pp. 161-162
- https://www.thechurchnews.com/1991/2/9/23260937/lord-has-a-way-of-turning-adversity-to-good
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Music_Theater
Wheat & Tares 
“A First Presidency letter announced that it was inappropriate for those involved firsthand with liquor to receive temple recommends (e.g., bartenders or cocktail waitresses).”
I have to suppose that the Marriott family made a lot of money from selling booze and porn in their hotels — I don’t begrudge them that, but I hope we give the poor waitress as much kindness as we do the rich hotel owner. Charity never faith.
One word: nepotism.
I take great comfort in the fact that the Lord still works with me even though I’ve failed to listen to the spirit a thousand times more than Elder Ballard has.
“His parents were not active in church, but they loved him” Oof, and yikes. I immediately thought of that line from the Police song: “What if the Russians love their children, too.” Why would someone even think such a thoughtless thing as this statement reveals??
Anyhoo, I have to say that the fact that he had three failed businesses almost on some level makes me feel better about his qualifications. We’ve got way too many Church leaders who seem wedded to the ideas of the prosperity gospel. I also liked the idea that he felt prompted not to sign the franchise agreement, but he did it anyway and regretted it. Haven’t we all been there? This information makes him more relatable to me. My feelings of warmth for him increased by a titch.
I’m still not giving him a pass on his sexist comments about women’s appearance, but obviously those comments are a byproduct of his generation. All these guys are way way way past their expiration dates (well, maybe one or two exceptions to that). I guess you can’t fault someone for being old, but it would certainly be easier if they didn’t stop learning what’s appropriate to say in the 1970s or earlier.
Thank you, Faith, for another great analysis. I appreciate the willingness to candidly discuss the personal/professional missteps of Church leaders. Most faithful Latter-day Saints aren’t willing to “go there”, and I view your treatment of the subject as charitable, without engaging in dishonesty as many Church-produced biographies do. After all, they are human beings, and just as capable of making mistakes as I am.
Ballard is an interesting case, for sure. He openly attributed the Edsel decision to not listening to the spirit, implying that the Holy Ghost can and does warn faithful LDS people to avoid business (and personal) failures. Kind of an extension of the prosperity gospel, and I expect better from him. A more nuanced reading of his recounting of the Edsel mistake sounds like nothing more than an old man expressing regret for a bad past decision. So technically, he took responsibility for his bad judgement, sort of; he blamed himself for not listening to the Holy Ghost, rather than blaming God (or otherwise evading responsibility through passive-voice platitudes) as other Church leaders might have done, so there’s that.
Ballard, as I understand, is the only remaining apostle who is a blood descendant of Joseph Smith Sr. (through Hyrum). He represents the last of the “legacy apostles” who’s rise in Church leadership is largely attributable to his ancestry rather than any of his credentials or professional or ecclesiastical accomplishments. This may explain how he rose in the Church despite these significant business failures. Prior generations of Mormons, even well into the 20th century, placed a high priority on leaders having the right bloodlines and pedigrees (the now-defunct office of the Patriarch of the Church was a glaring historical example of this ridiculous phenomenon). Ballard’s ascension to the Q12 is probably the last remnant of those antiquated attitudes.
Ballard first shared the story of the Edsel fiasco not at a BYU devo in 2003, but in his book “Our Search for Happiness” in 1993. If memory serves, it was still part of the approved “missionary library” when I served in the early-2000s. I give him full points for being upfront about the fact that he has failed to follow the Spirit before, and it’s always baffled me when I’ve seen folks attack him for it online. (We can’t exactly criticize the GAs for refusing to admit mistakes, then jump all over them when they do.) That story definitely serves its intended purpose of reminding *me* to follow my own promptings.
I give him much less credit for getting sanctioned by the SEC for fraud when he was Keystone president; he definitely never mentioned *that* story in “Our Search for Happiness”, and it’s dispiriting to realize that Church leadership has been comfortable with SEC violations for decades now.
There’s not enough information here about the Valley Music Hall failure for me to conclude much of anything one way or the other. Maybe there was malfeasance, maybe there was incompetence, maybe it’s just another case where a business venture failed simply because *most* business ventures fail, and it’s not really anyone’s fault. Who knows.
Yet I still maintain some lingering affection for Ballard, because he was also the only GA to remember to observe the centennial for D&C 138 back in 2018–even using it as an occasion to address the evergreen themes of mourning and grief–which I thought for sure more speakers would mention, but didn’t.
Jack Hughes,
“Ballard’s ascension to the Q12 is probably the last remnant of those antiquated attitudes.”
I understand that this can be a bit of a stumbling for some of us. And my hope is that, perhaps, with that stumbling block removed we might be able to receive the counsel of living prophets more readily. But if not, I don’t know why their pedigree should be of any real concern to us.
Regarding Folly #2 where Ballard ran into trouble with the SEC.
That is not exactly the same kind of “OOPSIE” that the mistake in judgment of signing on with the Nash dealership was.
What is it with these guys a flauting the rules and regs of the groups that they are trying to make gobs of money with.
These rules and laws of banking and finance do not seem to matter much to quite a few of the LDS church “high level leaders”.
.
A SEC violation here a SEC violation there, no big deal.
This has been going on a lot longer than I ever imagined.
Are any of them “Honest in in their dealings”.
Some of the posters here have mentioned making wrong or bad business decisions and asked the question as to how many of us have been able to avoid that.
Yes, my husband and myself have made some bad business decisions but that is what they were bad ones not illegal ones.
We have never been investigated or sued or brought up on any charges dealing with our business.
We have been running it for over 35 years.
It is not easy, there are a lot of rules and regs and laws to follow and keep up with.
( I better go knock on wood now, probably just jinxed us by saying that and the feds will be on our case this Monday!)
Have you ever met a famous athlete or entertainer? I have. What you discover very quickly is that they are just like the rest of…usually no better no worse.
I haven’t met any of the current Q15 but I can pretty much guarantee they are like the rest of us too…regular people with follies and flaws.
@Josh h: I’ve met many of them personally over the years, often in church-related settings when they came to local wards/stakes to visit, but a few times outside of a church setting.
I bumped into Elder Uchdorf once buying ice cream on a date with his wife. They were both very kind.
I also met most of the Q15 at a birthday party once, which was honestly so refreshing.
Nearly all of the Q15 at that time came through the party and I met almost all of them. I spoke with Elder Holland for a bit when he walked up and introduced himself. I was introduced to “Tom Monson.”
They were dancing with spouses and friends, eating cake, posing for photos and just having a good time…very much normal people smiling and enjoying time with friends. It’s easy for them to just become talking heads in General Conference. Seeing and interacting with them in such a different atmosphere just showed how human they are.
@Jack: I believe that it was D. Michael Quinn who said that GA’s are “a circle of family and friends”.
Very interesting, Faith, thanks again for this series! I know very little about the backgrounds of the General Authorities.
Fraud and manipulation is serious stuff. I’m surprised he was called into high Church office with that in his background. It’s really disheartening that the Church takes steps to make sure cocktail waitresses don’t have temple recommends, but shrugs off securities fraud, which has the potential for so much more harm.
Regarding the SEC violations that seem to come up again and again, is this a byproduct of a conservative anti-regulatory attitude? I mean that’s taking it a bit far since it’s actually illegal, but some SEC violations are illegal the way speeding is illegal, including the one where the Church got caught recently. Nobody is going to jail. It’s a fine. Personally I disagree that it’s trivial, but that doesn’t mean wealthy businesses don’t see it that way. They get enough benefit from flouting the rules that in the remote event they get caught later, the fine is considered worth it to them. Not at all a “godly” attitude, nor an honest way to do business, but perhaps not uncommon among wealthy conservatives.
Again, an excellent post on the business dealings of God’s chosen and following the profit.
I think this explains in part why the leaders have failed to denounce MLM scams which have run rampant through Utah and other parts of Mormondom and have been the financial downfall of thousands upon thousands of Mormons who have blindly trusted their fellow ward member to be acting in good faith. For the leaders sympathize with the scammers and don’t think that financial misdemeanors and crimes are that big of a deal. Heck, the SEC just recently charged the church with disclosure failures and misstated filings. And the church’s response is to blow this off as a nothingburger and severe overreaction on the part of the SEC. Still, the leaders command their bishops to hound members every year and subject them to questioning about whether they’ve paid enough in tithing or not.
Ballard is probably one of the last (Eyring may count here, he was Spencer W. Kimball’s nephew after all) examples of how the Church was ran by a small interconnected, often related clique for most of its history (Hinkley’s uncle was an apostle, McConkie was Joseph Fielding Smith’s son in law, Ballard’s grandpa was an apostle, ETB came from a family of GAs, etc. etc.).
Also probably one of the last examples of a lifetime Church employee/GA. Most of the new GA’s are called in their 50’s so they have prior work/life expeience outside of the COB, but for a lot of the Church’s history GA’s were called young and spent most of their lives as GAs.
Hard to imagine he would have made much of a name for himself if not for his family connections, even his various business ventures were probably only made possible due to his family connections putting him in touch with Utah’s wealthy.
FWIW Elder Neil Andersen was a mission president at age 38 for three years then had a year back home in Florida before returning to SLC in 1993 as full-time Q70.
My comment above is also relevant for the post on Apostles Getting Older.