When I joined the Mormon Church in 1981, Spencer Kimball was the prophet. Had he been an ordinary man, he would have been in a rest home then but a Mormon prophet serves for life and so they propped him up and Gordon Hinckley ran the store.
I've mentioned Kimball in other posts. I refer to him as a man of mystery because he was two different people: a public scold and a private nice guy. Kimball wrote an awful book called The Miracle of Forgiveness. While in Mormonism I read the book and it's basic message is that if you are perfect...absolutely perfect...you can be forgiven of your sins. Some Mormons think it's the greatest book next to the scriptures. Others think it's a manual for becoming despondent.
I've reviewed Kimball's being fooled by Mark Hoffman and his sexual obsessions. Also, he had the idea that Indians who joined the Mormon Church would become develop whiter skin.
Beyond all of this was a man who could meet with people and make them feel at ease. He worked very hard for the Mormon Church but rose to a position of power through the influence of his cousin.
Personally I have no respect for the man because of the following idea that he taught:
The training you get in the universities, while excellent, is limited. It is but a very tiny percentage of the total knowledge. We encourage knowledge and its proper use, but we know there will be a thousand years to study about things, and compared to the years spent in universities, that great learning period is relatively limitless. When we're ready to create our own worlds and give leadership thereto, we will have great knowledge. Since knowledge is power, we will have power. Since knowledge can make us creative, we can be creators. Since knowledge can lead to judgment and wisdom, we can be just and worthy and wise. But we cannot wait for marriage until we have accumulated the knowledge we finally will need and want to have in order to create.
But, of course, marriage cannot wait for that. We shall marry, have our families, teach and train them, while we are learning these other things and building toward our creatorship. Marriage should come when we are reasonably young, to procreate and bear children, to have the patience to teach and train them and to grow up with them. Hence, marriage is a must, an early must. Of course, we would decry child marriages, but when young people are in their upper years of collegiate work surely it is time to plan this important life's work. Missionaries should begin to think marriage--when they return from their missions, to begin to get acquainted with many young women so that they will have a better basis for selection of a life's companion. And when the time comes they should marry in the holy temple and have their families, and complete their education, and establish themselves in a profitable and rewarding occupation, and give themselves to their families, the gospel, and the Church.
I have told many groups of young people that they should not postpone their marriage until they have acquired all of their education ambitions. I have told tens of thousands of young folks that when they marry they should not wait for children until they have finished their schooling and financial desires. Marriage is basically for the family, and when people have found their proper companions there should be no long delay. They should live together normally and let the children come.
Marriage is basically for the family; that is why we marry--not for the satisfaction of the sex, as the world around us would have us believe. When people have found their companions, there should be no long delay. Young wives should be occupied in bearing and rearing their children. I know of no scriptures where an authorization is given to young wives to withhold their families and to go to work to put their husbands through school.
As to sex in marriage, the necessary treatise on that for Latter-day Saints can be written in two sentences: Remember the prime purpose of sex desires is to beget children. Sex gratifications must be had at that hazard.
During my early years in the LDS Church the leaders pushed the Kimball agenda with a zeal to the point that some missionaries were being taught that they must be married within six months of their missions.
But in private the stories were that he was a super nice guy in private taking others into his home. Boy, in public he could be a real bastard.
Yes, I was sucked into it. I was young, gullible, trusting of religious leaders and an easy mark. The sad thing is that Mormon leaders are still telling young people to follow this doctrine of disaster.
I'm still trying to recover from "following the prophet" on this one.
