The
"60 Minutes" program on the LDS Church
Broadcast on CBS TV, April 7, 1996
Mike Wallace: If you believe, as a lot of
Americans do, that this country is going to hell in a hand basket, spend some
time, as we did, with the people who run the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. Right now they are one of the fastest-growing
religions in the world, and the 7th-largest church in America, and they are
bucking the trend. The faithful Mormon consumes no alcohol, no tobacco, no
caffeine, does not engage in premarital or extramarital sex. But isn't it true
that they engage in polygamy? No, not any more. It was once, but they gave it
up when Utah became a state more than a hundred years ago. It is rare, almost
unheard of, for the president and prophet of the church to open up and talk as
freely and easily as Gordon B. Hinckley did to us for this Easter Sunday story,
which begins at the beginning in New York state, not Utah, where Mormons
believe that God and Jesus appeared one day before a 14-year-old farm boy.
[Hinckley interview]
Mike Wallace: Your church says God and Jesus
spoke with your founder Joseph Smith back in eighteen hundred and twenty and
told him to start this church. You believe that.
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yes, sir.
Mike Wallace: He was 14 years old...
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yes, sir.
Mike Wallace: ...a backwoods farm boy...
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yes, sir.
Mike Wallace: ... in New York State.
Gordon B. Hinckley: That's the miracle of it.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of Marriott corporate offices]: You'd expect the head of the church to
believe it, but so does Bill Marriott, chief of the Marriott hotel chain, a
hard-headed businessman, and he's a Mormon.
[Interview with Willard
Marriott]
Mike Wallace: Fourteen years old, and God and
Jesus come to see him? You believe that?
Willard Marriott: Yes, I do. We believe that the
early church of Jesus Christ faded away, and that it came back to Joseph Smith.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of Hatch on senate floor]: And the senior US Senator from Utah, Orrin
Hatch, a Mormon, believes it, too.
[Interview with Orrin
Hatch]
Orrin Hatch: We believe
that we know that this happened.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage from the church film "The First Vision"]: Here is how a
church film portrays it. And what began with God, Jesus, and a single farm boy
[footage of General Conference] has now become a worldwide religion with more
than 9 million members. But more than a religion, Mormonism is a lifestyle, an
island of morality, they believe, in a time of moral decay. President Hinckley
acknowledges it is not easy to follow the Mormon faith. He calls it the most
demanding religion in America.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: It is demanding. And that's one of
the things that attracts people to this church. It, it stands as an anchor in a
world of shifting values.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of Gordon B. Hinckley interview]: Example. Mormons adhere to a very
strict health code.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Mike Wallace: No alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee,
no tea, not even caffeinated soft drinks...
Gordon B. Hinckley: Right.
Mike Wallace: ...eat meat sparingly, exercise...
Gordon B. Hinckley: Right.
Mike Wallace: ...get plenty of sleep.
Gordon B. Hinckley: Right. It's wonderful!
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of people coming to church]: And the result? Mormons live several years
longer than most other Americans. Another reason they live longer, Mormons say,
is that they suffer less from stress, because they have strong and supportive
families. Many Mormons marry early and have lots of children.
[Footage of Steve Young.]
But Steve Young is still single. The star quarterback of the San Francisco
49ers is also the great-great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, one of the
Mormons' early leaders. Steve, at 34, says that he's looking hard for a Mormon
mate.
[Interview with Steve
Young]
Steve Young: Do you wanna talk about the
pressure I feel? Brigham Young once said, right here on these grounds, that
anyone over 27 years of age that's not married is a menace to society. So
here's my grandfather telling me to get with it. You don't think that I feel
the pressure? I guarantee it.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of BYU campus]:
As part of the pressure and focus on families, premarital sex, as we said, is
forbidden among Mormons. So is adultery. Mormons don't even go to R-rated
movies. But students at Brigham Young University insist that having high moral
standards does not prevent them from having a good time.
[Group interview with 7 BYU
students]
Woman: We like to have fun, we like to go
on dates, we like to, we like to do just normal things...
Mike Wallace: But you don't fool around.
Same woman: No. It's not something that I think
is fun. A guy I remember, he told me, he's like, "You know, you'd be so
much fun if you drank, you'd have, you know, you'd be looser and
everything," and I'm like, "You know, I like to have fun knowing what
I'm doing, being completely in control, and just having fun with life."
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of SLC temple]:
And while these young Mormons stress self-control, they themselves are
controlled to a remarkable degree by the church. In fact, Mormons who break the
rules of morality or health are not allowed to enter sacred Mormon temples.
Mike Wallace [in front of Assembly Hall,
continuing as voiceover, with footage of temples and people in church]: Living
as a devout Mormon is not easy. In addition to what you cannot do, there's a
lot you are supposed to do. You're expected to read scripture daily, and to
read scripture together as a family at least one night a week. Students attend
daily religious courses. Sunday services last three hours. But beyond that,
church activities take several more hours each week.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of Ezra Taft
Benson, then footage of next group interview]: All of those hours and all of
those rules are too much for some Mormons, who fall away. Steve Benson left the
church to become one of its most outspoken critics, even though his late
grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, President Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture,
had been a church president. Steve Benson complains that by enforcing
conformity the church stifles independent thought.
[Interview with Steve
Benson and 3 others]
Steve Benson: The cultural mindset in the church
is when the prophet has spoken, the debate is over.
Mike Wallace: And the prophet is?
Steve Benson: Gordon B. Hinckley would be the
prophet. When he has pronounced the
church's position on any issue, it is incumbent upon the members of the church
to pray, pay, and obey.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: Well, that's a clever statement
from Steve, whom I know. Now look, our people have tremendous liberty, they're
free to live their lives as they please.
Mike Wallace: Are they?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Oh, absolutely.
Mike Wallace: Really?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Surely. They have to make choices.
It's the old eternal battle--the forces of evil against the forces of good.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of Gordon B.
Hinckley arriving at a meetinghouse, the chapel filled with missionaries]: The
critics acknowledge they represent a tiny minority of Mormons. Still, they say
that too many Mormons look and act like they came off an assembly line. But
these young Mormon missionaries look that way on purpose.
Gordon B. Hinckley [addressing missionaries]: You all
look alike--white shirts, some of them a little wrinkled, ties. I look at you,
I look at your faces, and think of your age, and I'm inclined to say,
"Well, you're not much to look at, but you're all the Lord has."
[Gordon B. Hinckley and congregation laugh.]
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of missionaries
working]: Many young Mormons leave college for 2 years, at their own expense,
to be missionaries. Every day 50,000 of them go door to door in America and 150
other countries. Steve Young missed his missionary chance in college but...
[Steve Young interview]
Steve Young: I will be a missionary in a remote
village at some point.
Mike Wallace: You think so really?
Steve Young: Oh yeah, I think so. Even as a
couple. My goal--and this is kind of my own little secret--but when I get
married, just to head out and finish football and, and, and be a missionary
around the world. Places where Steve Young--not that it's big really that many
places--but places where they have no idea about football.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; more of the
church-produced footage of missionaries at work]: This church film demonstrates
that missionaries have helped Mormonism achieve its phenomenal growth. Half its
members are now from outside the United States. But until its expansion into
Latin America and Africa, church membership had been overwhelmingly white.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Mike Wallace: From 1830 to 1978, blacks could not
become priests in the Mormon church. Right?
Gordon B. Hinckley: That's correct.
Mike Wallace: Why?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Because the leaders of the church
at that time interpreted that doctrine that way.
Mike Wallace: Church policy had it that blacks
had the mark of Cain. Brigham Young said, "Cain slew his brother, and the
Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin."
Gordon B. Hinckley: It's behind us. Look, that's behind
us. Don't worry about those little flecks of history.
Mike Wallace: Skeptics will suggest, "Well,
look, if we're going to expand, we can't keep the blacks out."
Gordon B. Hinckley: Pure speculation. [Laughs.]
Mike Wallace [voiceover, footage of people in
church]: Now that blacks can be priests, the current issue is whether Mormon
women will ever be priests.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: Men hold the priesthood in this
church.
Mike Wallace: Why?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Because God stated that it should
be so. That was the revelation to the church. That was the way it was set
forth.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; footage of people in
church]: Fact is, most Mormon women don't want to be priests. They accept that
men control the church and dominate Mormon society. And this has triggered complaints
about how the church handles child sexual abuse. Child abuse among Mormons is
surely no greater than among non-Mormons. But a study has found that many
Mormon women who went to their clergymen for help believe the clergy were just
not sympathetic.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Mike Wallace: The sociologist tells us, at the
root of the problem is the fact that men in effect in your church have
authority over women, so that your clergymen tend to sympathize with the men,
the abusers, instead of the abused.
Gordon B. Hinckley: That's one person's opinion. I, I
don't think there's any substance to it. Now, there'll be a blip here, a blip there, a mistake here, a
mistake there. But by and large the welfare of women and children is as
seriously considered as is the welfare of the men, in this church, if not more
so.
Mike Wallace [voiceover; shot of cover of new
manual on dealing with abuse]: President Hinckley says the church has been
teaching its clergy how to handle abuse more effectively.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: We're working very hard at it.
There are cases. They're everywhere. They're all over this world. It is a
disease, it's an illness, it's a sickness, it's a reprehensible and evil thing.
We recognize it as such.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of Jeffery Holland addressing an audience, and Gordon B. Hinckley
shaking hands in a corridor]: Mormon clergy are not professionals, they're not
paid. Their church work is in addition to their regular jobs outside the church.
Whatever the jobs, just being a Mormon is expensive. Mormons are expected to
give ten percent of their salary to the church. Most of them, including Steve
Young, say that's no sacrifice.
[Steve Young interview]
Steve Young: I don't really look at it as my
money. You know, in my terms, it's the Lord's money, and I'd be, you know, in
effect stealing from him if I didn't do that.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of meetinghouse under construction]: The church reportedly takes in
several billion dollars a year, and has never had a major financial scandal.
Most of the money, they say, is spent building 375 chapels a year, all around
the world.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: We're reaching out across the
world. We're not a weird people.
Mike Wallace: A weird people?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yes.
Mike Wallace [standing in
front of SLC temple]: Mormons know that some outside people think they are
weird. Why? Well, for one thing, devout Mormons wear sacred undergarments for
protection from harm--cotton undershirts with under shorts that reach to their
knees.
[Willard Marriott
interview]
Mike Wallace: Do you wear the sacred
undergarments?
Willard Marriott: Yes, I do. And I can tell you they
do protect you from harm.
Mike Wallace: Really?
Willard Marriott: Uh-huh. I was in a very serious
boat accident. Fire--boat was on fire, I was on fire. I was burned. My pants
were burned right off of me. I was not burned above my knee. Where the garment
was, I was not burned.
Mike Wallace: And you believe it was the sacred
undergarments.
Willard Marriott: I do. Particularly on my legs,
because my pants were gone, but my undergarments were not singed.
[Steve Young interview]
Mike Wallace: And do you think that the sacred
undergarments have kept you from harm on the football field?
Steve Young: I actually take them off to play
football. The sacred nature of them, I find that the nature of football, and
the sweating and so forth, I actually take them off, and I think that's
probably prevalent with athletics in the church.
Mike Wallace: Really?
Steve Young: But my teammates have enjoyed when,
you know, you're getting dressed and you're putting your garments on. They,
they think they're pretty cool, a lot of them. And they're, uh, "Hey,
where'd you get those?" And I always tell them, "They're way too
expensive." [Both laugh.]
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
aerial footage of farmland, then of Mike Wallace and Gordon B. Hinckley walking
around Temple Square; then Orrin Hatch]: Another curiosity. The church owns more
than 3000 acres in northwest Missouri where Mormons believe that Jesus will
return for his second coming. Gordon Hinckley prefers not to talk about Jesus
returning to Missouri, or about sacred undergarments. He says that those points
miss the point. He wants to portray Mormons as mainstream, not extreme. And for
that Hinckley has hired a Jewish-owned public relations firm. Mormons hiring
Jews to help spread the word? Makes sense to Senator Orrin Hatch. But then he
wears a mezuzah on a chain around his neck. A mezuzah is often put at the
entrance to a Jewish home as a reminder of their faith.
[Orrin Hatch interview]
Orrin Hatch: It's typical
of Mormon people to love all people, but especially Jewish people. I wear a
mezuzah just to remind me, just to make sure that there is never another
holocaust anywhere. You see, the Mormon church is the only church in the
history of this country that had an extermination order out against it, by
Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri. We went through untold persecutions.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of buildings in SLC, then Gordon B. Hinckley greeting people]: To
escape the persecutions Mormons moved west, and when they reached Salt Lake,
their leader, Brigham Young, pointed and declared it their promised land. And now
Temple Square is their Vatican. In Salt Lake City, the church owns a TV
station, a radio station, a newspaper, a department store, and a lot of the
land downtown. Utah is 75% Mormon, and the church could wield political power
if it wanted to. But President Hinckley says, unlike the religious right, the
Mormon church does not have a political agenda.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Gordon B. Hinckley: We urge our people to exercise
their franchise as citizens of this nation, but we do not tell them how to
vote, and we do not tell the government how it should be run.
[Footage of missionaries
coming out of chapel, shaking hands with Gordon B. Hinckley]
Missionary: Elder Smith,
Houston, Texas. Can I give you a hug?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yes. [Tall missionary embraces
Gordon B. Hinckley, pushing him backwards.] Look out, you'll roll right over
me! [laughs]
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of missionaries continues]: Gordon Hinckley says he never intended to
become president of the church, but that one by one all the other church
leaders with more seniority died.
[Gordon B. Hinckley
interview]
Mike Wallace: There are those who say, this is a
gerontocracy, this is a church run by old men.
Gordon B. Hinckley: Isn't it wonderful? To have a man
of maturity at the head, a man of judgment, who isn't blown about by every wind
of doctrine?
Mike Wallace: Absolutely, as long as he's not
dotty. [Laughs.]
Gordon B. Hinckley: [Laughs] Thank you for the
compliment.
Mike Wallace [voiceover;
footage of SLC temple]: Mormons believe that after they die their families will
be reunited, and will live together forever in heaven.
[Gordon B. Hinckley and
Mike Wallace chatting in lobby of meetinghouse, surrounded by onlookers,
apparently the missionaries that have come out of the meeting]
Gordon B. Hinckley: We know it's there. We have an
assurance of that.
Mike Wallace: A lot of us who don't.
Gordon B. Hinckley: Yeah, I know that. But you could.
Mike Wallace: I've thought about it. I've not
been able to persuade myself.
Gordon B. Hinckley: You haven't thought about it long
enough! [All laugh.]