Religion: Mormonism Enters a New Era

It was July 24, 1847 when Pioneer Brigham Young gazed down at the desolate Salt Lake Valley and declared: "This is the place." His Latter-day Saints, hounded out of three states, had found their homestead. Last week in Salt Lake City, 200,000 people celebrated the Pioneer Day legend with a mammoth parade. At the head of the procession was Brigham Young's latest successor, Spencer Woolley Kimball, 83, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Behind him were brass bands, floats, fiddlers, and such lesser dignitaries as Scott M. Matheson, the Governor of Utah.

Just as the Saints once made the desert bloom through honeybee-like enterprise, so have they made their church into the biggest, richest, strongest faith ever born on U.S. soil. It has grown fourfold since World War II to 4 million members, including 1 million outside the U.S. Church income is rumored to exceed $1 billion a year, though Kimball insists it is "much less than that."

Despite Mormonism's obvious success and the comforting image evoked by Donny and Marie or the Tabernacle Choir, outsiders (known as Gentiles) still find something disturbing about the faith. Though Mormons are no longer as isolated as they once were in Young's mountain kingdom, they nonetheless seem to exist behind an invisible barrier. Once a Mormon temple is consecrated, no outsider may enter to see the secret rites or oxen-borne baptistries. Ecumenical entanglements with conventional Christian groups are forbidden. The Mormon religion, with its modern-day prophets and scriptures, can seem odd indeed to nonbelievers.

The most offensive tenet vanished in June in a "revelation" promulgated by Kimball, who is regarded as God's unique "Prophet, Seer and Revelator." Henceforth, headquarters announced, "all worthy males" may enter the priesthood, a lay office normally attained by all young men in the clergyless church. Previously the Mormons had denied the office to "Africans." The change will give blacks celestial benefits. Priests can "seal" their marriages for eternity in the temple. This, in turn, means they can aspire to the highest level in the multitiered Mormon heaven after they die. Thus Phone Repairman Joseph Freeman, 25, who became the first known black in the priesthood in the 20th century, was able to seal his marriage. Several dozen U.S. blacks are-expected to follow Freeman's example.

Kimball's revelation freed the faith from a gnawing problem. Missionaries faced constant questions about Mormon racism. "Church young people were mortified," says University of Utah Historian Brigham Madsen. "They would not put up with it any longer." The N.A.A.C.P. went to court to end bias in Mormon Boy Scout troops. A dissident member even dared picket the 28-story headquarters building that dominates the Salt Lake City skyline. The revelation also solved the dilemma of who is eligible to use the new temple in racially mixed Brazil.