Mormons have been conditioned to respect people of title. This is how they can put anyone in as a bishop or stake president. Even people that aren't liked that well still get respect in the church because they hold a tittle.

This is no different for prophets. You hear constant praise and awe from the members about the current flavor of the month prophet. Russell M Nelson seems to understand that the more subtle changes a prophet makes and the more gung ho the rhetoric is the more excited the members get. He's loving it. Russ is stroking the members and basking in the excitement. Where is the church really going? Nowhere. What has Russ really changed? Not much. Home teaching is now ministering, scouting is now a young men's program, Sunday School now alternates with Relief Society and Elder's Quorun every other Sunday so an hour of church has been cut. This allows the church to condense wards into fewer buildings and also gives the illusion the church is bigger than it really is.

It's still the same Book of Mormon based go and share this with your neighbors and friends and do whatever we say church. Schedules may change and small changes in names and policy may occur but the church hasn't changed that much. It's still pay, pray and obey whatever stuffed suit is propped up.

Sure. It isn't a cult of personality, but a cult of office, of obedience to whatever authority is presiding. Is there a mormon who still gushes over Monson?

It's currently the Nelsonite sect of mormonism. It will in time become the Dallinite sect ("The Church: The Westboro Years"). It will be interesting when they turn into the Bednarites and he attempts to implement The Rexburg Model church-wide.

Monson should have earned some extra love points. He was highly visible for a long time. He was one of the less boring speakers in General Conference. He could wiggle his ears and was nice to widows and kids.

Even with all that the church membership dumped Monson like the cold corpse he was and put all attention on a boring, full of himself heart surgeon. Russ had the baton and he knew it. He went out of the gate chastising the members they needed to do more and be better and started making changes. The members loved it!

Well I believe that particularly true for Thomas Monsoon, who may have been allergic to milk. Boyd K. Pecker could also break wind at will, which explains his perpetual grimace, and lastly Spencer "windy" Kimbal, was known for his long winded flatulence. In general, they are all stanky.

Depends. That is the smell. Their bowels are filled with mercy. Tenderloin mercies.

It's the church of the most recent thing the current guy in charge said. Whoopee!

The leak just make Russell look like a much, much stronger profit. I don't think it hurt his "current guy" status at all.

The Prophet is dead, long live the Prophet!

I visit Deseret Industries in Utah occasionally to look for picture frames. Amazing how many of those frames hold a picture of poor dead Monson. Even a Hinkley now & then.

At least when they're dead and buried they don't take long to decompose because they were already rotten to the core when they died.

In my mission we missionaries were told not to emphasize that the church was led by a "living" prophet. This was when ETB was bed-ridden and hadn't made a public appearance (like general conference) in years. It really isn't a strong selling point if your top leader is comatose and the church authority has been hijacked by the two counselors (Hinckley and Monson).

I don't know that he teach that?

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/

Kimball was a veritable for years and then Benson and Hunter. Gordon was really running the church for most that time and he officially became prophet.

The church is just a running burocracy. As long as there is money in the accounts and enough suckers to volunteer it runs.