Four prominent and politically active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe they know whom God would not endorse for president: Donald Trump.
The faith’s scriptures, they reason, spell out divine qualifications for public service.
“Honest men [and women] and wise men [and women] should be sought for diligently, and good men [and women] and wise men [and women] ye should observe to uphold…” it reads in Doctrine and Covenants 98. “I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good.”
These members — Christine Durham, a past chief justice of Utah’s Supreme Court; Brent Ward, former U.S. attorney for Utah; Richard N.W. Lambert, a retired assistant U.S. attorney for Utah; and James W. McConkie II, a civil rights attorney — declared in interviews Thursday at the Utah Capitol that Trump is not “honest, wise or good” and thus should not get Latter-day Saint support.
It is not just a general recommendation, they argued, but rather by way of “commandment.” Nor is it a partisan issue, they believe, as the foursome includes two Democrats, a Republican and an independent.
They have spelled out the case in an online petition, titled “LDS Opposed to Trump,” explaining what they believe are Trump’s lies and his actions toward others, and are hoping to help their fellow believers more clearly see that he is “unqualified” for office as established by God.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jim McConkie stands in front of the Utah Capitol as a group of prominent Utahns gather to announce "Latter-day Saints Opposed to Trump" on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
“If a person, regardless of their ideology, fails the character test, then I think we have an affirmative responsibility to oppose that person, and the Lord gives the reasons,” McConkie said, quoting Latter-day Saint scripture further, “because, ‘when the wicked rule, the people mourn.’”
Latter-day Saints “should be sounding a war cry when we have somebody that’s off the charts,” the attorney said, “when you measure his moral character.”
The way the former president “treats women, his disdain for the military and the disabled, and his antisemitism and his racism.” Durham said, “all of those are, in my view, entirely incompatible with any notion of Christian compassion.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Christine Durham speaks in front of the Utah Capitol as a group of prominent Utahns gather to announce "Latter-day Saints Opposed to Trump" on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
She points as evidence to Trump’s repeated lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio who migrated legally, to his exaggerations about “millions of immigrants” crossing U.S. borders each month, and his pressure on Republicans in Congress to vote against a bipartisan immigration bill that could have eased the influx.
GOP leader responds
No voter will find a candidate “who completely aligns with their faith,” Robert Axson, Utah’s GOP chair, said Thursday. “For me, Donald Trump is the better of the two options.”
He aligns more to “the principles and core issues I hold as a person, as a Christian, and as Latter-day Saint.”
Trump has been the biggest “peacemaker president” in Axson’s lifetime, with a better record of “not starting new armed conflicts,” he added, creating “more economic opportunities for people of all stripes” and promoting “values supportive of families.”
Axson argues that the former president’s “core values” are beneficial “for people of faith or no faith.”
A ‘fool’s bargain’
Latter-day Saints have faced this quandary before of whether to support an unscrupulous leader, Lambert said. Some church members embraced Adolf Hitler during his rise when he promised economic prosperity and the rule of law, he noted, and many Chilean Latter-day Saints endorsed dictator Augusto Pinochet, who promised progress but was a murderous autocrat.
Those members ended up, Lambert said, on the wrong side of history.
“What those men did for their country was terribly destructive,” Lambert said. “And I believe that that is exactly what’s going to happen for those Latter-day Saints who back a man [like Trump] who is unprincipled. … You can’t set aside the counsel of God directly, thinking ‘I’m smarter than deity.’ In this case, you’re going to find out that you have made a fool’s bargain.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Richard Lambert, left, with Christine Durham, speaks in front of the Utah Capitol as a group of prominent Utahns gather to announce "Latter-day Saints Opposed to Trump" on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
The Utah-based faith has maintained strict political neutrality throughout this charged U.S. election atmosphere, while declaring that “some principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties.”
The governing First Presidency of the 17.2 million-member global church urges its U.S. adherents to “seek candidates who best embody” those principles. Members should also study candidates and vote for those who have “demonstrated integrity, compassion and service to others, regardless of party affiliation.”
In 2016, the church did, however, publicly oppose a then-candidate Trump proposal for a ban on Muslims entering the country (without mentioning his name).
And, in January 2018 — soon after Russell M. Nelson was installed as church president — it called on Congress to overrule Trump’s effort (again without naming him) to rescind protection for “Dreamers,” whose undocumented parents brought them to the United States as children.
A time for ‘soul-searching’
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brent Ward, left, with Richard Lambert, speaks in front of the Utah Capitol as a group of prominent Utahns gather to announce "Latter-day Saints Opposed to Trump" on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
Through it all, Utah has remained reliably Republican, including the majority of Latter-day Saints who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Do these notable members expect their critique of the GOP nominee’s character to change that?
“It will make some difference,” Ward said. “We happen to be the red state that voted with the least percentage for Trump in the 2016 election and in the 2020 election. And I hope that we can become even more lopsided in that favor.”
The former U.S. attorney doubts the state will go for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, but he hopes to prompt “some soul-searching about whether Trump satisfies the standard proclaimed by God himself.”
He added: “And it’s the only declaration by God that I know of in written scripture … that specifically addresses the standard to apply when choosing elected political leaders.”
Ward hopes members “deeply, deeply consider whether Donald Trump meets that standard” and that more of them will “oppose him — whether that means voting for Harris or writing in another figure.”
How does Ward respond to fellow Latter-day Saint Republicans who say they deplore Trump but like his policies?
“No policy victory can compensate,” he said, “for failure in character.”
