4. Brigham Young. Man of the hour--actually, man of the three decades--when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered, and the church could easily have faded into obscurity. I love him for his drive and for his devotion. As with any strong leader in a crisis, he did plenty of things that draw lightning, irritating many. And some of his views, perhaps prejudices, threaten to overwhelm the good he did, seen from the 21st century. But without his strong leadership, Mormonism would not be a force in people's lives today.
3. Gordon B. Hinckley and David O. McKay. Okay, it's cheating to have two, but I couldn't decide. President Hinckley is the only prophet I've shaken hands with and talked to one on one, as he visited my mission in Germany in 1971 and I had an interview with him. And President McKay was the prophet of my youth--set apart a month before I was born, died when I was a freshman in college. I remember listening to general priesthood meeting in our stake center, and as a deacon or teacher being bored and unattentive, but then President McKay would speak, and there was a difference somehow--an early intimation of the uniqueness of prophets. Their devotion to principle and positive demeanors both did much in their day to present the church in a good light to the world at large--a difficult thing to accomplish.
2. Joseph Smith. The blender approach taken for the church's priesthood/Relief Society study manuals--taking snippets and organizing them into lesson topics--has the unfortunate side effect of making it almost impossible to tell one prophet from another. But not Joseph Smith, his unique voice comes through unmistakably loud and clear. To take the restoration on from your youth, to fight against unremitting enmity from the people around you, to create so much--it's impossible to comprehend how he did it. He should be #1, but I wasn't around when he was, so it puts him at a little distance. So, my number 1 is
1. Spencer W. Kimball. As I entered adulthood, the one thing that concerned me about latter-day prophets was that most of them after Joseph and Brigham seemed to be administrators first and foremost. No new doctrine, just mostly administrivia--where should we put a new stake, should we emphasize missionary work or the Book of Mormon, and so on. Not President Kimball. There were big administrative deals, like the new version of the scriptures, and the reconstitution of the general Quorums of Seventy. But President Kimball went much further. He proposed new scripture (D&C 137-138) to expand our understanding of temple work. In perhaps his crowning achievement, he bucked history and drew the revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males from God. Without his surprising drive to seek and implement this revelation, who knows how many more years or decades would have gone by with the church still hobbled by racism.
So I love President Kimball for being the most prophet-like of all the prophets in my lifetime. One more example: I admit I was getting tired of the apparent mundaneness of many of his messages: paint your barn, lengthen your stride, don't kill birds for sport, etc. Then suddenly one conference he talked about how little we knew about God's knowledge, for example, what exactly did it take to resurrect a person? I never assumed again that his was a limited mind. God bless him, and God bless all our latter-day prophets.
Who's your number one?
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