With a sort of ‘cool factor,’ apostle Dieter Uchtdorf makes being LDS sound ‘fun and joyful’

With the recent deaths of Russell Nelson and Jeffrey Holland, apostle Dieter Uchtdorf moved two steps closer to the top rung on the leadership ladder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The 85-year-old Uchtdorf is now the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and stands second in line — behind 92-year-old Henry Eyring — to take the reins of the global faith. While certainly not wishing death on any church leaders, many Latter-day Saints nonetheless look forward to the prospect of Uchtdorf one day rising to the presidency.

What is it about this German apostle that makes him so popular? Is it his backstory as a two-time refugee or the fact that he rose from outside the usual church leadership track? Is it his high-flying career as an airline pilot? Is it his sermons, filled with soaring rhetoric and down-to-earth wisdom? Is it his GQ looks and perennial tan, his endless energy, or his willingness to tackle sticky, relevant questions — like the fallibility of top church leaders, the need for self-reflection rather than judgment, or shadows of the Cold War on the horizon?

In a recent episode of The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast, Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University and Kristine Haglund, a writer and former editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, explore the much admired apostle and why he seems to stand out among the faith’s top leaders.

Here are lightly edited excerpts from the discussion:

What was your first impression of the German apostle?

Mason • My first [impression of] him came from General Conference talks, where he mentions being an airline pilot. That certainly stood out to me, and also his overall demeanor and charisma at the pulpit. I marked him as somebody of just a little bit different stripe than some of his colleagues. … There is a kind of cool factor of being an airline pilot that I don’t have as a professor, right? … When kids walk on a plane for the first time and they give them those toy little wings and be able to gaze in the cockpit. There’s some kind of modern magic happening there.

Haglund • I actually remember an early talk of his where he talks about blowing the bellows for the organ at the chapel in Zwickau, East Germany, when he was a little boy. That stood out to me, both because I love the organ and because he also talked about a stained-glass window, which is also something that I notice and like.

Have you heard the term “Silver Fox” applied to him?

Haglund • Yes, he’s a nice-looking man. It has to be said. We might as well get it out of the way. I think he would be good looking just as a still image, but even more, it’s his demeanor and warmth. He’s extremely charismatic in that hard to identify and define way.

It’s also because he has hair, right?

Haglund • [Laughs.] He mentions David O. McKay as the prophet of his youth, and someone whom he admired. McKay also was one who had hair. So maybe that’s it.

What is it that you personally like about Dieter Uchtdorf?

Haglund • There’s a way that Latter-day Saints can revel in their devotion and suffering for their faith. He never does. He makes it sound like being a Latter-day Saint is fun and joyful. He’s so delighted by small things. He’s always pointing out things like that stained-glass window, a tiny forget-me-not flower or delicious Diet Coke. It does seem like he takes delight in the world and that’s always appealing.

Mason • He projects that there are lots of ways to be religious and lots of ways of conveying your religiosity. You can do it through a kind of stern white-knuckling-your-way-to-heaven type of way. Or you can do it through the joy of living the gospel. He actually sort of exudes that — a joyfulness in relationship with God and relationship with other people. He seems kind of happy to be along for the ride.

What do you think other members see in him?

Mason • He’s a pretty good storyteller. He has evocative imagery. Stories from his own past, or parables, use other kinds of metaphors that become memorable. He has spoken a lot about grace and the love of Jesus Christ. With that, he’s been part of a wave of 21st-century Mormonism. If you grew up in the church and you’re our age, he doesn’t sound like some of those apostles, where it’s all about obedience and commandments. It’s not that he neglects those things, but there’s a greater emphasis on the grace and love of God that I think is warm and inviting. He’s really well-suited for 21st-century sensibilities and a 21st-century church.

Haglund • His sermons often have an arresting visual image that sticks. In one of his talks about delivering laundry on his bicycle, he says, “I wanted to have a nice, sleek, shiny, sporty red bicycle,” but then says, “instead, I had a heavy, ugly, black, sturdy workhorse of a bicycle.” There’s one extra adjective in there that really gives you time and a cue to see this thing. They’re memorable because you can see that one picture that triggers the memory.

Do you think his appeal to American members differs from international members?

Haglund • I’m inclined to say that it’s the same. … He’s not worried about not having pioneer ancestors. I think that sets up permission for other people to fully embrace the religion and claim it as their own.

Mason • In a book that I published years ago, a scholar from Europe, who was also a church leader, talks about when Elder Uchtdorf was called into the Quorum of the Twelve [Apostles]. In conversation with some German members, they said, “We love Elder Uchtdorf. We’re very happy for him. But, they said with a twinkle in their eye, “he is an American after all.” He had spent so much time in the top echelons of corporate culture at Lufthansa and as a general authority before he was called into the quorum that he’s clearly cosmopolitan. He could fit in in Europe. He fits in in Utah. He could fit in probably anywhere. Maybe that actually is a kind of European sensibility rather than an American one. I think he is kind of both.

What kind of church president do you think he would make?

Haglund • He could be transformative. He’s healthy, but he’s not young, and so it’s a little bit hard to predict, but I do think that the sort of generally hopeful, positive sense of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint in the world would be different from some of his sterner [predecessors] with [their] strong emphasis on obedience and even regimentation of the covenant path. I also think that his sense of humor is really wonderful, and he might teach Latter-day Saints to take themselves a tiny bit less seriously, which would be salutary.

Mason • Were he to become president, it would be another step, or half step, toward The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints truly being a global religion. So that would be important. I think he would be a beloved president [like] McKay. Not sure how transformative he would be. There’d be so many factors in terms of his age and health and things like that. President Nelson showed that if somebody comes into the presidency and has a mind to do it and has a to-do list and is willing to flex the muscle of the presidency, it can be a transformative position, even in a very short period of time. Would a Dieter Uchtdorf want to be a muscular president in that way? Would he lean into sort of transforming some of the internal workings of the church, or would he be more content with conveying a more public image of warmth and hope and grace? Does he have people who are lined up ready to do what he says, or would he meet some level of resistance within the massive bureaucracy? That’s all just pure speculation.

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