As you are no doubt aware, the open spot in the Twelve was filled last week by the calling of Clark G. Gilbert as a new apostle. The LDS Newsroom posted a piece with biographical information, most notably his service as President of BYU-Idaho, as Director of the online initiative BYU-Pathways, and most recently as a General Authority Seventy and Commissioner of the Church Education System.
There has been a lot of online chatter about the aggressively conservative approach Elder Gilbert has, in the past, taken while presiding over BYU-Idaho and then CES, with concern that might carry over to his new calling. An article at RNS by Jana Riess reflects some of this line of thinking. The truth is we don’t really know to what extent that approach is going to carry over to his work as an apostle. Here are a few paragraphs worth of my thoughts, in which I offer comments on both sides of the question.
First, there will be a new Commissioner of CES. If you think Gilbert’s tenure as Commissioner was too harsh, the good news is that there will be a new Commissioner. Take some solace in that. If, on the other hand, you stood up and cheered every time a not-quite-conservative-enough prof was chased out of one of the BYUs, don’t despair. I’m pretty sure the next Commissioner will be more or less as conservative as Gilbert was. They are not looking for the next Eugene England to run CES. Maybe they should be, but that’s a different discussion.
Second, there is the weight of office. A calling as an Apostle is a big deal. Generally, when a person is called to high office, they try to rise to the occasion and meet the expectations that go along with the calling. That’s as true of a new bishop or new stake president as it is of an Apostle. Remember when Ezra Taft Benson ascended to the Presidency of the Church? Lots of people feared that he would say the same sort of wacky things he did as an Apostle in General Conference and elsewhere. Well, he didn’t. His most noteworthy talk as President was on the Book of Mormon. So Apostle Gilbert might be a rather different person than President of BYU-I Gilbert or Commissioner Gilbert.
Third, he will be a junior Apostle. While we often talk about the Big 15, it is certainly the case that those in the First Presidency and two or three other senior apostles carry most of the weight in making decisions. Junior apostles spend ten or twelve years in waiting before they can start making a real impact. A junior Apostle can perhaps make some waves at a Stake Conference where they speak and possibly with a General Conference talk if they come up with the right term or metaphor but that’s about it. Contrast the high profile of Elder Uchtdorf when in the First Presidency with the disappearing act that followed his return to the Twelve.
Fourth, it might be a signal. This being the first apostolic call issued by President Oaks, some fear this signals a hard right turn toward retrenchment under President Oaks. Well, for one, it’s hard to get more right-turnish than we already are. And for two, if Pres. Oaks wanted a hard right turn, he could have called Elder Bednar or Elder Renlund into the First Presidency. He didn’t. It’s worth noting that recent apostles called in the Nelson years were surprisingly diverse and open-minded. Elders Gong, Soares, Kearon, and Causse give me hope for the future of the Church. If Elder Gilbert turns out to be an arch-conservative, maybe that just brings some balance to the Force.
Fifth, there is a shortcut to influence. As a counter-argument to my “he’s just a junior Apostle” paragraph above, there is a chance that when the next opening in the First Presidency arises, Elder Gilbert gets called in. He seems like an experienced, talented administrator and he has the (relative) youth and energy generally needed to be productive in that calling. He might be the same sort of high-profile or at least highly effective counselor that J. Reuben Clark and N. Eldon Tanner were. Somone favoring this development might argue that touchy-feely talks by kinder, gentler apostles might make people feel good, but it’s nice to have a leader who can just Get Things Done. Elder Gilbert seems like a Get Things Done kind of guy.
Sixth, remember who is running the Twelve now. Elder Gilbert will sit in meetings of the Twelve run by Acting President Uchtdorf (Pres. Eyring is senior, but he is in the First Presidency). Perhaps some of Elder Uchtdorf’s charm and gentle touch will rub off on Elder Gilbert. Imagine the first meeting, with Elder Uchtdorf bringing up the first item of business, “What do we do about the problems in such-and-such a stake?” Elder Gilbert, as the juniorest apostle, shares his opinion first: “Excommunicate everybody.” Uchtdorf chuckles, and says, “Well, I hope it doesn’t come to that. Think what Jesus might do. Elder Causse, what do you think?” A few years of this could be very instructive.
Seventh, sometimes personality trumps seniority. Another counter-argument to my “he’s just a junior Apostle” argument is that sometimes a strong personality creates influence despite lacking seniority. In a big committee like the Twelve, there are usually two or three people who speak a lot and make an argument and then just a bunch of other guys who go with the flow. Bruce R. McConkie is the best example of a strong personality that had outsized influence, although he was sort of a rogue apostle and I suspect Elder Gilbert is more inclined to stay in his lane. But Elder Gibert may nevertheless exercise more influence than his junior status would lead us to expect. He may not turn out to be Darth Gilbert, but I don’t think he’ll be just another guy in the quorum.
What do you think? Any guesses what Elder Gilbert might talk about in General Conference five or so weeks from now?
Wheat & Tares 
Honestly, is Clark Gilbert terribly different from the others? Anderson, Bednar, and Rasband seem fairly hardline to me, as is He was picked younger, so in the next couple of decades he’ll probably be president. But for now, he’ll have one talk per conference and one talk every more and then featured in the Liahona. His talks might stand out a little more for their hardline nature, but there can be backlash effect, just like what happened with Packer. He still will have to choose his words carefully.
Lots of things about Gilbert make me nervous, but if I were to look for positives, his business background is interesting and somewhat unique. He was a protege of the late Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School. Christensen is best known for introducing the term “disruptive innovation” in his hugely influential 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma. It was a groundbreaking insight at the time, and still is an important way of thinking about things, even if the terminology has now become a bit overused and frequently misapplied. BYU Pathways very much looks like an application of disruptive innovation theory to higher education. It seems like it has been successful and beneficial to many. Gilbert has been criticized for his leadership of the Deseret News, which included large layoffs. That is never confidence inspiring, but in his defense I would say that a downsized but (I assume) still profitable news media organization is a better than average outcome for that particular industry in the last decade or two (see Washington Post).
As a long time reader of Christensen’s work, I’ve considered the question of how one would apply the concepts to the church itself. One of the key ideas in The Innovator’s Dilemma is that sometimes transformational ideas begin in startups that are serving underserved parts of the market with solutions that are inexpensive but good enough for that market segment. Applying that to the church, I would say that means the top leadership should be more open to ideas originating in the far corners of the church that have proven to be beneficial to the local membership. It implies being less top-down and more bottom-up. It possibly implies more regional autonomy. I imagine that Gilbert, if he can get past his urge to impose Soviet-style thought policing on the membership of the church, could potentially be a strong advocate for that kind of thinking, which could result in a lot of positive change.
So there you go; that’s the best case I can make for Gilbert being a benefit to the Q15. But he still makes me nervous. As a Gen Xer who is only slightly younger than Gilbert, he could be president of the church when I die. We’ll see what 30-something years of being an apostle does for him until then.