The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has its newest apostle: Clark G. Gilbert.
The 55-year-old fills the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles left by Jeffrey R. Holland, who died in December. In a church video, Gilbert spoke of the moment when he found out about his new position in the second-highest-ranking group of leaders.
“It was immediately sobering and humbling and took us back, but beautiful at the same time,” he said. “This is such an exciting time in the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, and you can feel momentum gathering and people's lives being changed.”
But as someone with an orthodox view on church values, his appointment comes with some controversy.
Apostolic appointments are significant because they’re lifelong and a pipeline to the presidency, said Sam Houston State University history professor Benjamin Park. This pick, he said, “seems particularly consequential.”
That’s based on what Gilbert has done in other high-profile jobs, such as president of Brigham Young University-Idaho, manager of Deseret Media, including Deseret News, and commissioner of the Church Educational System.
“Clark Gilbert has not been shy about what themes he sees as center for the LDS Church,” the author of “American Zion” said. “He worries that the world has become too secular, that they've lost their spiritual morals, and so the LDS church is going to be a safe haven where people can return to divinely appointed values and principles.”
Park said apostolic appointments typically reflect where the church president, through revelation, wants the institution to go. President Dallin H. Oaks is still relatively new as head of the church, having become prophet in October 2025.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Ciara Hulet: What has Gilbert’s desire to return to the fundamentals looked like at Brigham Young University?
Benjamin Park: Well, he's instituted a few important mechanisms to assure orthodoxy and correlated messages among faculty, staff and students. Faculty were expected to sign a pledge that assures their orthodoxy and beliefs, and that they would not be spreading their own ideas. He established a new ecclesiastical clearance office that was to oversee all new hires or renewals of appointments. That led to not hiring a large number of potential faculty and staff at BYU, for reasons that are never explicitly given but are likely connected to his broader view of trying to avoid bringing in people who are not, in his words, “mission-aligned” or dedicated to what he sees as the fundamental values.
So, according to extensive reporting, many BYU faculty have felt that their lives and ideas have been surveilled in recent years, and that the parameters of freedom of speech and what they can do with their students have been curtailed. And many students have spoken up that student groups have lost their support. They've lost their sanction, that what they can engage in as — in their minds — faithful Latter-day Saints wrestling with difficult issues, that they do not have as much liberty in those regards as they did before.
CH: President Dallin H. Oaks’ first apostle appointment, Gerald Caussé, seems like he might be more progressive, having talked openly about climate change. What do you think these two appointments say about Oaks’ leadership and where he's taking the church?
BP: I think it's notable that Oaks’ background is in law. And I mean, he served on the Utah Supreme Court before serving on the Quorum of the Twelve. So he's probably somewhat of a fan of an idea of these competing visions within organizing circles, that they're going to be able to balance one another, both in temperance and temperament and background and education and race and ethnicity and nationality. And so it's likely that Oaks, in envisioning the ideal composite of the Quorum of the Twelve, probably wants a diversity of opinions, even while someone like Gilbert probably matches some of Oaks’ own predilections of what he expects of a church leader.
CH: Oaks’ first major speech as prophet was all about helping BYU students come closer to Christ and stay faithful in the church. Is there any connection between Oaks’ speech and choosing Gilbert?
BP: I don't know if there's a direct connection, but I think it's very clear that Gilbert and Oaks see that topic along similar lines. This is not a question of whether Latter-day Saints, especially young Latter-day Saints at universities, should be wrestling with these difficult issues. I think everyone agrees that they should. The question is, how and why.
And I think the language that we've been getting from Clark Gilbert for several years — points that were reaffirmed by Oaks just last week — are that when you are wrestling with those topics, there are safe sources and there are unsafe sources. And you should surround yourselves by believers, and you should only go to approved sources, and that's how you deal with these difficult questions. Whereas others might posit an idea that truth can, you know, stand inquiry, and that you can expand your horizons of engagement. But that type of process can be seen as dangerous, and has been denounced by people like Gilbert and Oaks in the past.
CH: What power and influence will Gilbert have as the most junior apostle?
BP: So on the one hand, not much. The Quorum of the Twelve, like many LDS institutions, is really steeped in seniority, and so those in the early years are usually learning the ropes, although they will have a number of important assignments. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Gilbert will be assigned to oversee the commissioner of education, whoever replaces him, and so he'll still have his fingerprints on church matters. But he'll likely have a much broader spectrum of duties and obligations.
On the other hand, every apostle has a lot of significance because church decisions, especially those made at the highest levels, require unanimity, and so any apostle has veto power over important matters. So I think, on the one hand, being a junior apostle does not immediately bring you lots of power and authority, but it does get your say on important matters church-wide and sets you up to shape church doctrine, practices, policies for the next 30 to 40 years.
