Latest from Mormon Land: Will Dallin Oaks challenge Donald Trump on the Constitution?

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Is Oaks the man to match the moment?

More than a few Latter-day Saints saw Russell Nelson — a former surgeon, with a belief in (and understanding of) science and vaccines — as, well, just what the doctor ordered to lead the church through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will Dallin Oaks, a lawyer and former Utah Supreme Court justice, be just what the global faith needs at this time as constitutional debates erupt in the United States and the rule of law comes under attack worldwide?

Latter-day Saint law professor Sam Brunson sure thinks so and urges the newly installed church prophet to use his presidential pulpit to speak up and speak out.

“The Trump administration has no interest in law or the Constitution as such, only in law as power to himself and his cohort,” Brunson argues in a By Common Consent blog post. “...And how can [President] Oaks underscore the importance of the rule of law and of not succumbing to creeping authoritarianism? As explicitly as possible, I hope.”

Brunson points specifically to Trump’s immigration crackdown as threats to individual and religious liberties.

“This is a tangible example of violation of rule of law and of the Christian obligation to love and care for our neighbors, that [President] Oaks could — and should — address,” writes Brunson, noting that religious freedom has been “central” to Oaks’ teachings so far and “would be a timely and critical central message to the rest of his ministry.”

Voicing similar sentiments, Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess told The Tribune that Oaks’ arrival comes at “precisely the time when, in the United States at least, many of the democratic norms the U.S. has long cherished are being pushed aside in favor of authoritarianism and concentrating power in the executive branch of government.”

Oaks also has preached that Americans should peacefully abide by election results, Riess said, and that their loyalty should be to the Constitution, not to any officeholder.

The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: Who is Dallin Oaks?

Relisten to our 2021 podcast with Oaks’ biographer to learn about the life of the new president, who was raised by a widowed mother and his maternal grandparents, and went on to become a lawyer, constitutional scholar, university president, and Utah Supreme Court justice (with whispers that he could land on the country’s highest court) before jettisoning it all to serve as an apostle — and now the church’s 18th prophet-president — for the rest of his life.

Listen to the podcast.

Around the world

• After 177 years, a bell — for decades mistakenly believed to be from the 19th-century Nauvoo Temple — is finally back and ringing where it belongs — at the First Presbyterian Church of Iowa City.

“The construction project at [Salt Lake City’s] Temple Square gave us the opportunity to rethink what was on the square,” Keith Erekson, director of historical research and outreach for the Utah-based church, said in a news release. “When the option came up, we said, ‘You know, the best thing to do would be to send this back to the church where it came from.’ We reached out, and they were excited. We’re thrilled to be able to make that restoration of the bell to its home.”

• Fires charred church meetinghouses in Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia in recent days, according to multiple media reports.

No one was injured and the blazes remained under investigation.

• Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman and apostle Quentin Cook participated last week at a Forum on Faith in New York City with leaders from religion, government, business and education.

“We are seeing youth return to religion and embrace faith in ways that they haven’t before,” Freeman said in a news release. “That is such an exciting thing to see.”

• For the first time in 137 years, a Latter-day Saint temple was dedicated during the transition period between church presidents.

Apostle Gary Stevenson did the honors Sunday, dedicating the Elko Temple. The single-spired, single-story, 13,000-square-foot building is Nevada’s third Latter-day Saint temple, with plans for a fourth, in suburban Las Vegas.

Wilford Woodruff dedicated central Utah’s Manti Temple in 1888, when he was leading the church as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

From The Tribune

• Dallin Oaks is set apart as the church’s 18th president, with apostles Henry Eyring and D. Todd Christofferson as his counselors in the governing First Presidency.

• Latter-day Saints react to Oaks’ installation.

• An emeritus general authority known for his writings on Christ’s Atonement and conservative politics has died.

• Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann remembers his first Halloween as a “holy drag queen.”