Neal Andersen
 

Harvard MBA
Stake President
Mission President
Quorum of the Seventy for 16 years
Presidency of the Seventy

Clearly a well-known quantity to the other apostles.

A simple farm boy from Idaho with no relation to any other member of the twelve as far as I know.

Another white, highly educated, blah, blah, blah....I think the church does itself a disservice by going to the same barrel. I'm sure Elder Andersen is a great person and highly qualified, but if our church truly is international, why does the leadership primarily come from Idaho and Utah? 11 come from Idaho and Utah and 14 of the 15 were educated in the beehive state.

This got me thinking, if Joseph Smith was the prophet today, do you think he'd call essentially the same person over and over to the quorum?

I think he'd spice it up a bit, add a black dude, a latino, maybe even an inactive.

He's not prophet today.

During his press conference he was asked a similar question, and pointed out that when he was called to be a GA there were 9 minorities, and today there are 25.

Only time will tell whether the 1Q70 continues to be their glass ceiling.

Don't confuse Harvard MBA with highly educated. Not the same thing.

Kind of like confusing highly educated with a law degree from Georgetown, eh?

Well, we won't be happy until we get a head-scratcher for an apostle.

Well, this administration has demonstrated, it will go with the safe choice, safe in terms of a known commodity.

And for us non-GA's, what does it matter?

Apostles administer the daily affairs of the upper management concerns, give "feel-good" talks and teach lower GA's and stake presidents, how to do their jobs. They serve no real purpose for most of us.

So as long as the local membership has a local feel to its leadership, that's what matters really. The upper management will do what's best for them, and we members on the ground will deal with our own kind.

Agreed.

A degree from a distinguished institution is NOT indicative of being educated. It only means one may have learned from the best.

And IMHO, the truly educated are those who continue their intellectual, emotional and personal education far beyond their graduations.

In terms of Renaissance education, few people aspire to true education nowadays.

Agree with all of this; moreover, these are professional schools. They are high falutin' vocational schools.

I remember one of my law school prof's statements. We're not teaching you to become professional legal philosophers, we're teaching how to learn to practice law. The philosophy department is across the street. Philosopher kings be damned.

UtahDan, your witness.

You should be comfortable with the same sort of leadership. But who is called to be an Apostle in a large corporate organization is mostly symbolic, because, when was the last time an Apostle served the Sacrament, gave a priesthood blessing or made a decision directly impacting you?

It doesn't matter, but to make you happy and others disappointed. OTOH, you would be happy if Jack the Ripper were called, "at least we got a Brit."

And I believe all or almost all of the leaders called are probably good, congenial men, capable of administrative oversight over large regions of the globe. Beyond the ward level, church service isn't much fun. Stake service sucks, so anything above that must really suck.

The truth is that the Q12 are assistant administrators.

It's the First Presidency that calls the shots. The choice of an apostle is mostly important, in the global sense, to the point of whether he will one day be in the First Presidency and what kind of direction he would then charter.

It may be argued that we are in the most stable unchanging period in church history.

Begs the question, what would Joseph think of the church as constituted?

An interesting thought came to mind while I was in the Draper temple, our leadership is willing to go to the ends of the earth to find the best products to construct our edifices of worship. Limestone from France, granite from China, cherry wood from West Africa, yet our human resources are centralized to people who attended Utah or BYU.

I thought Elder Andersen's quote was telling, 'I could have given 5 or 6 names,' when talking of international mormon's qualified for the post. Five or six our of the seven million foreign born and bred saints. Wowzers.

In terms of a big organization, except for a few major decisions, the top, being so distant from the body doesn't really matter.

Obama matters insofar as he increases taxes on the lowly taxpayer, impairs our healthcare, takes away our right to self defense, or sends our children to war, but his daily life is irrelevant most of the time.

The Prophet has less daily impact because he's not raising tithing rates, doesn't meet with us, and isn't lengthening missions.

To the extent he implements a Perpetual Education Fund, alters policy at Church schools or changes a policy, he affects us, otherwise, he tries with nice talks to soften our hearts to do good.

I just don't think the high level administrators impact most of us most of the time. So I'll stop worrying or caring who's at the top because they will rarely impact me. The top folk are symbols, but I can find my own symbols and shouldn't look for them in other people or in an organization. I'll just enjoy the local leaders because those are they who interact with us.

Check this out: https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/ind...=088-54-57.pdf

Some one made the point a while ago that people use Joseph to support whatever particular proposition they want to. Perhaps that is correct. I think fusnik's speculation on this point is pretty useless because there are too many variables to it. Maybe my speculation suffers from the same problem. But as you know, I don't really think it does. :-) I think there is a difference between asking what he would have done and observing that his approach didn't really survive the open scenes of the restoration.

I look at it differently.

In business, you have entrepreneurs, those who start great businesses with great energy and ideas.

Then you have guys who can take it to the next level, get the IPO and Wall Street financing, and

Then you have the bureaucratic types to deal with Wall Street, no one manager type is the same.

It's a different world, probably needing a different mentality than Joseph possessed. He may not have been able to do what needs to be done. So in reality, it's an unfair question, romantic as it might be.