Lorenzo SnowEdit
Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) was a significant American religious leader who served as the fifth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1898 until his death in 1901. A long-tenured apostle and administrator, Snow helped guide the church through the late 19th century as it confronted the political pressures surrounding polygamy, reorganized church governance, and expanded temple worship. He is often associated with durable statements about eternal progression and family, and his tenure reinforced a pragmatic, institutionally focused approach to church life that aimed to stabilize church membership and operations in the post-Manifesto era.
Early life
Lorenzo Snow was born in Mantua, Ohio, in 1814. He joined the early LDS movement in the United States during the 1830s and became a prominent participant in the church’s westward growth and institutional development. Snow rose through the ranks of church leadership and became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, where he worked alongside other church leaders such as Brigham Young and later Wilford Woodruff. His early years in the church were marked by a focus on faith, obedience, and the practical administration of a faith that was expanding across a rapidly changing American landscape.
Presidency and leadership
Snow was sustained as the fifth president of the LDS Church in 1898, a period when the church was redefining its public life in light of external pressure to abandon polygamy and to align more closely with state and national norms. His leadership emphasized the centrality of the family, personal responsibility, and the stabilizing routines of church life—temple worship, missionary work, and laid‑down policies governing governance and education. He oversaw a church that was increasingly organized around the standard practices that would shape the church through the early 20th century, including a continued emphasis on tithing, temple-building, and a disciplined lay clergy.
A notable element often associated with Snow is a maxim that is widely cited in LDS tradition: as man now is, God once was; as God is now, man may become. The attribution of this saying to Snow has appeared in various sources and discussions about LDS theology, and it is part of a broader conversation about eternal progression and exaltation. While the maxim has been embraced by many faithful members, scholarship and scriptural interpretation vary, and the exact authorship and scope of the idea remain topics of debate within the broader discourse on Latter-day Saint doctrine.
Snow’s presidency occurred during a transitional era for the church, following the 1890 Manifesto issued by Wilford Woodruff that led to the discontinuation of new plural marriages in the church. In this context, Snow’s leadership helped steer church policy toward stability and reconciliation with civil authorities, while maintaining the church’s emphasis on doctrinal continuity and organizational prominence. He was succeeded after his death by Joseph F. Smith.
Doctrinal emphasis and social orientation
From a traditional, family-centered perspective, Snow’s leadership underscored the importance of strong family bonds, personal virtue, and fidelity to church teachings as foundations for a healthy society. The emphasis on temple worship, genealogical work, and the idea of eternal family relationships were framed as core to individual salvation and communal well-being. The church’s insistence on order, doctrinal consistency, and disciplined lay leadership during this period is often highlighted as contributing to long-term stability and growth.
In discussions of church history and doctrine, Snow is frequently situated within a lineage of leadership that prioritized practical governance alongside spiritual instruction. His era is viewed by many observers as a time when the church increasingly integrated faith with organization, education, and global missionary activity—an approach that reinforced the church’s capacity to function as a durable, traditional institution in the face of external secular criticism.
Controversies and debates
Contemporary debates surrounding Snow and his era tend to center on questions about historical polygamy, prophetic authority, and the extent to which non-canonical statements influenced church culture. The association of Snow with the phrase on eternal progression is sometimes cited in discussions about LDS doctrine, though the precise source and scope of the quote remain debated among scholars and church members alike. Critics have pointed to past practices and rhetoric as evidence of tensions between religious authority and modern norms, while supporters emphasize the gradual reforms and policy shifts that ultimately constrained polygamous living arrangements and aligned church practice with state law.
Another area of contention in the broader historical record is the so‑called White Horse Prophecy, a controversial and disputed attribution claiming prophetic insight about the church’s role and the fate of the American constitutional order. Most scholars treat such prophecies as apocryphal or non‑canonical, yet they persist in popular discussions among some readers who seek to connect historical figures to dramatic eschatological narratives. In weighing these claims, readers often distinguish between asserted traditional beliefs and the formal doctrinal stance of the church in its official channels.
Despite these debates, Snow’s legacy within institutional LDS history is frequently described in terms of steady leadership, continuity of practice, and a focus on building the church’s organizational and spiritual infrastructure for a new century.