Gerrit Gong makes Mormon history to become first apostle of Asian ancestry as church signals interest in China
Appointment could be a sign of church’s ambition to establish a stronger foothold in China, a country that currently doesn’t officially recognise the religion
The Mormon church made history and injected a bit of diversity into a previously all-white top leadership panel on Saturday by selecting the first-ever Latin-American apostle and the first-ever apostle of Asian ancestry.
The selections of Ulisses Soares of Brazil and Gerrit Gong, a Chinese-American, were announced during a twice-annual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The choices triggered excitement among a contingent of Mormons who for years have been hoping for the faith’s top leadership to be more representative of a religion that has more than half of the its 16 million members outside the United States.
“It’s a sign that the church is for everyone,” said Guilherme De Castro, a 37-year-old Mormon from Brazil who was there for the announcement.
“It doesn’t matter where you are from or the way you look.”
The selections come during a two-day conference – the first presided over by new church President Russell Nelson. His choices for the two open leadership spots sparked hope that the 93-year-old former heart surgeon will focus on the globalisation of the faith during his tenure.
He is set to embark on a trip in April to visit eight cities in Europe, Africa and Asia, including Hong Kong.
The last time there were openings on the quorum, in October 2015, the church chose three Utah men. Past church president Thomas Monson, who died in January, was leading the church at the time.
The religion believes church presidents choose new Quorum members with the help of divine revelation.
The choices mark the strongest statement in favour of global diversity by senior church leadership since 1978 when the church lifted a ban on black men in the lay clergy, allowing the church to spread to Brazil, Africa and elsewhere, said Mormon scholar Patrick Mason, associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California.
Soares and Gong join a panel called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that, before Saturday, was made up entirely of white men from the US with the exception of one German, Dieter Uchtdorf.
The all-male panel sits below President Nelson and his two counsellors and helps set church policy and oversees the faith’s business interests. The new appointees start as junior members, but they could someday become church president because the group’s longest-tenured member ascends to president when the current one dies.
Like the previous 12 men chosen for the panel, Soares and Gong were serving in a lower-level leadership called Quorum of the Seventy that has served as a farm system for the governing body.
The 59-year-old Soares was an accountant and auditor for multinational corporations in Brazil before joining church leadership, according to a church biography. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The 64-year-old Gong worked for the US State Department, the Washington, DC-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies and Mormon-owned Brigham Young University before being selected for the lower-tier church leadership panel. He was born in Redwood City, California. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from China.
The new selections reflect the “rising focus of church leadership on the world outside the United States, where the church is growing most rapidly,” said Mormon scholar Matthew Bowman, an associate professor of history at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
With 1.4 million members, Brazil has the second-most Mormon in the world along with Mexico, according to church figures. Both rank behind the United States, which has about 6.6 million members.
Nelson has long had a special interest in China, Bowman said. He speaks Mandarin and spent time there during his professional career. It’s possible Nelson is hoping Gong’s selection could help establish a stronger foothold in a country that currently doesn’t officially recognise the religion and only allows certain activities, Bowman said.
It is estimated that there are at least 10,000 church members in mainland China, most of which are native Chinese members, though there are no official church estimates because the Chinese government does not recognise the religion, said Matt Martinich, an independent Mormon researcher.
