Heber J. Grant - Church Service

Church Service

In 1901, Grant was sent to Japan to open the Japanese Mission of the LDS Church, and he served as its president until 1903 when he returned home but was almost immediately sent to preside over the British and European Missions of the church.

Grant succeeded Joseph F. Smith as president of the LDS Church in November 1918. However, he was not sustained in the position by the general church membership until June 1919, as the influenza pandemic of 1918 forced a delay of the church's traditional springtime general conference.

During his tenure as president, Grant enforced the 1890 Manifesto outlawing plural marriage and gave guidance as the church's social structure evolved away from its early days of plural marriage-based families. In 1927, he authorized the implementation of the church's "Good Neighbor" policy, which was intended to reduce antagonism between Latter-day Saints and the United States government. In 1935, Grant excommunicated members of the church in Short Creek, Arizona that refused to sign the loyalty pledge to the church that included a renunciation of plural marriage. Although he recognized the 1886 Revelation by John Taylor to be in his own handwriting, he denounced it due to the fact that it was not in the archives of the church at the time of his official acknowledgment. The renunciation action signaled the formal beginning of the Mormon fundamentalist movement, and some of the excommunicated members went on to found the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

One of Grant's greatest legacies as president is the welfare program of the LDS Church, which he instituted in 1936. He said, "our primary purpose was to set up, insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people help themselves." His administration also emphasized the practice of the LDS health code known as the Word of Wisdom. Until Grant's administration, adherence to the health code was not compulsory for advancement in the priesthood or for entrance to LDS temples. (Allen and Leonard, p. 524)

Grant died in Salt Lake City, Utah from cardiac failure as a result of arteriosclerosis. As the final surviving member of the church's Council of Fifty, his death marked the formal end of the organization. Grant was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.