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J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years
Beautiful book with no markings or highlights. Comes with dust cover. Binding is nice and tight. Very good condition.
334 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 11, 2014
This was a surprisingly honest and empathetic biography (especially for one with first presidency approval during that era). I think Quinn did a great job of highlighting what makes Clark tick - loyalty, self-reliance, integrity, and carefulness. He did an incredible job of showing the reasoning behind some of Clark's seeming inconsistencies. I certainly didn't always agree with Clark, but this biography made me respect him.
My biggest take-away from this book was watching how Clark managed to be fiercely loyal to the prophet while still maintaining his own sometimes differing opinions. I've struggled with wondering if I'm truly supporting the prophet if I don't always agree with his positions, so it was valuable to see how Clark would still voice his opinions to the prophet, as well as his friends, but completely support whatever the prophet decided, delivering addresses that completely differ from his views, defending the prophet for taking positions he disagreed with, etc. It gave me a good model to consider.
I also found this book useful in gaining understanding of church history during that era. I feel like I have a solid grasp on church history until 1910, and then after 1970, but I had a big gap in the middle that this book helped fill.
I liked his format of giving an overall biography, then honing in on certain elements of his work. Some of those later chapters lost narrative focus from time to time, but still, an interesting work that I'm glad I read.
My biggest take-away from this book was watching how Clark managed to be fiercely loyal to the prophet while still maintaining his own sometimes differing opinions. I've struggled with wondering if I'm truly supporting the prophet if I don't always agree with his positions, so it was valuable to see how Clark would still voice his opinions to the prophet, as well as his friends, but completely support whatever the prophet decided, delivering addresses that completely differ from his views, defending the prophet for taking positions he disagreed with, etc. It gave me a good model to consider.
I also found this book useful in gaining understanding of church history during that era. I feel like I have a solid grasp on church history until 1910, and then after 1970, but I had a big gap in the middle that this book helped fill.
I liked his format of giving an overall biography, then honing in on certain elements of his work. Some of those later chapters lost narrative focus from time to time, but still, an interesting work that I'm glad I read.
November 27, 2016
The funny thing about this book for me was as follows. I was delighted to discover that this book was not the typical LDS general authority hagiography. I've grown bone tired of account after account of LDS general authorities who are portrayed as nearly perfect when I know that while they are good men who have been called of God to labor in God's vineyard they undoubtedly have weaknesses and sins like the rest of us. This book candidly delved into the strengths and weaknesses of President Clark, of which there were many. However, to my dismay, I found President Clark's weaknesses so significant that I found him unlikable and pitiable in many respects, and was surprised that a man of so many flaws could serve in the First Presidency of the Lord's kingdom on earth for so long. I guess I thought I wanted the truth about a key figure in modern church history but couldn't handle the truth once it was presented to me. I guess there is hope for all of us, if the Lord could accept Reuben Clark's offering, imperfect as it was.
August 22, 2025
BOOK REVIEW - J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years by D. Michael Quinn (1983)
I read this book after my first year of law school at the J. Reuben Clark law school. Havin read the first volume I was excited to take this one up, especially given the high esteem I had developed for the work of Mike Quinn. Clark had the most unconventional path to the twelve, probably in history. Yet he left and imprint on the institution like no other.
Quinn’s portrait of Clark is both admiring and unflinching. Unlike most Latter-day Saint apostles of his era, Clark did not rise through pastoral ranks. He was a world-class lawyer and statesman first—Solicitor of the U.S. State Department, international law expert, and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico—before being vaulted into Church leadership. Quinn shows how this “outside-in” résumé shaped everything that followed: Clark thought like a cabinet officer, wrote like a jurist, and managed like an executive.
Clark’s was called straight into the First Presidency (as Second Counselor to Heber J. Grant) before he was an apostle, then ordained an apostle later. Quinn argues that this inversion mattered. Clark’s authority drew less from pastoral seniority and more from demonstrated competence. He introduced cabinet-style memos, legal precision in policy, and a budgetary rigor that few ecclesiastics could have invented from scratch.
Clark professionalized the Church’s temporal administration with comprehensive budgeting and auditing, standardized handbooks and procedures, stronger legal and property oversight, and a clarified division between ecclesiastical doctrine and administrative policy. He was a principal architect of centralization—moving the Church away from ad hoc local practice toward uniform systems for finances, education, and publications. Clark’s famous education address (“Charted Course of Church Education”) was the blueprint for aligning religious education with doctrinal guardrails and institutional accountability.
Quinn shows Clark’s intellectual power, administrative discipline, fearlessness in counsel, and a practically unmatched capacity to turn principle into policy. His administrative competence was not overshadowed by his private acts of pastoral care. One would expect that a man of his accomplishment might carry with him an ego, yet Clark showed decency in private, was loyal and dutiful to Pres. Grant, and frugal with church resources. Which may have been the reason McKay did not retain him as a counselor.
Quinn details a long, complicated working relationship with David O. McKay—respect never wholly absent, but tension often palpable. McKay prized inspirational leadership, global outreach, public warmth, and—later—the correlation impulse that would streamline overlapping auxiliaries. Clark prized doctrinal fence lines, fiscal orthodoxy, and hierarchical order. Their conflicts, as Quinn renders them, were seldom theatrical; they were cumulative: who sets educational tone, who controls purse strings, which departments report where, how public messaging should sound, and how much latitude to give scholars and teachers. McKay won some decisive ground as President; Clark preserved significant terrain in finance, legal oversight, and educational boundaries.
Quinn does not sensationalize the unexpected release when President George Albert Smith died in 1951. By long-standing rule of seniority in the Presidency passed to McKay. Clark, though the senior counselor and a towering administrator, had been ordained an apostle only in 1934 and was far junior in apostolic seniority. In that sense he wasn’t “passed over” so much as he stood outside the succession lane. It is hard to tell from the record if Clark expected the presidency. He did not show it in the aftermath and was gracious and supportive. Perhaps releaved not to have the administrative burden of the presidency he settled into the pastoral role of the apostleship. He also was a mentor to others who followed in, especially Harold B. Lee.
The twentieth-century Church learned to think and operate like a global institution, Quinn shows Clark’s fingerprints everywhere: standardized budgets and audits; systematic property, legal, and HR management; clearer lines between doctrine, policy, and practice; and a professionalized Church Education System with durable expectations for orthodoxy and accountability. Even initiatives often associated with later leaders sit on administrative foundations Clark poured.
Quinn was one of the greatest Church historians of his era and his treatment of Clark is brilliant.
Quotes:
“He sought order, not merely efficiency, in the House of the Lord.”
“Administration, for Clark, was a moral act—a defense of doctrine in policy.”
I read this book after my first year of law school at the J. Reuben Clark law school. Havin read the first volume I was excited to take this one up, especially given the high esteem I had developed for the work of Mike Quinn. Clark had the most unconventional path to the twelve, probably in history. Yet he left and imprint on the institution like no other.
Quinn’s portrait of Clark is both admiring and unflinching. Unlike most Latter-day Saint apostles of his era, Clark did not rise through pastoral ranks. He was a world-class lawyer and statesman first—Solicitor of the U.S. State Department, international law expert, and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico—before being vaulted into Church leadership. Quinn shows how this “outside-in” résumé shaped everything that followed: Clark thought like a cabinet officer, wrote like a jurist, and managed like an executive.
Clark’s was called straight into the First Presidency (as Second Counselor to Heber J. Grant) before he was an apostle, then ordained an apostle later. Quinn argues that this inversion mattered. Clark’s authority drew less from pastoral seniority and more from demonstrated competence. He introduced cabinet-style memos, legal precision in policy, and a budgetary rigor that few ecclesiastics could have invented from scratch.
Clark professionalized the Church’s temporal administration with comprehensive budgeting and auditing, standardized handbooks and procedures, stronger legal and property oversight, and a clarified division between ecclesiastical doctrine and administrative policy. He was a principal architect of centralization—moving the Church away from ad hoc local practice toward uniform systems for finances, education, and publications. Clark’s famous education address (“Charted Course of Church Education”) was the blueprint for aligning religious education with doctrinal guardrails and institutional accountability.
Quinn shows Clark’s intellectual power, administrative discipline, fearlessness in counsel, and a practically unmatched capacity to turn principle into policy. His administrative competence was not overshadowed by his private acts of pastoral care. One would expect that a man of his accomplishment might carry with him an ego, yet Clark showed decency in private, was loyal and dutiful to Pres. Grant, and frugal with church resources. Which may have been the reason McKay did not retain him as a counselor.
Quinn details a long, complicated working relationship with David O. McKay—respect never wholly absent, but tension often palpable. McKay prized inspirational leadership, global outreach, public warmth, and—later—the correlation impulse that would streamline overlapping auxiliaries. Clark prized doctrinal fence lines, fiscal orthodoxy, and hierarchical order. Their conflicts, as Quinn renders them, were seldom theatrical; they were cumulative: who sets educational tone, who controls purse strings, which departments report where, how public messaging should sound, and how much latitude to give scholars and teachers. McKay won some decisive ground as President; Clark preserved significant terrain in finance, legal oversight, and educational boundaries.
Quinn does not sensationalize the unexpected release when President George Albert Smith died in 1951. By long-standing rule of seniority in the Presidency passed to McKay. Clark, though the senior counselor and a towering administrator, had been ordained an apostle only in 1934 and was far junior in apostolic seniority. In that sense he wasn’t “passed over” so much as he stood outside the succession lane. It is hard to tell from the record if Clark expected the presidency. He did not show it in the aftermath and was gracious and supportive. Perhaps releaved not to have the administrative burden of the presidency he settled into the pastoral role of the apostleship. He also was a mentor to others who followed in, especially Harold B. Lee.
The twentieth-century Church learned to think and operate like a global institution, Quinn shows Clark’s fingerprints everywhere: standardized budgets and audits; systematic property, legal, and HR management; clearer lines between doctrine, policy, and practice; and a professionalized Church Education System with durable expectations for orthodoxy and accountability. Even initiatives often associated with later leaders sit on administrative foundations Clark poured.
Quinn was one of the greatest Church historians of his era and his treatment of Clark is brilliant.
Quotes:
“He sought order, not merely efficiency, in the House of the Lord.”
“Administration, for Clark, was a moral act—a defense of doctrine in policy.”
November 2, 2021
J. Reuben Clark's unusual path to the apostleship and leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a very interesting story. His capabilities, foresight, and work are amazing. This is a very good book about a very interesting man and time.
One sort of peculiar aspect of this biography is the subject's death is dealt with in about the middle of the book, and then a topical approach to various subjects is taken after that. It works, but it is a little odd in a biography; the conclusion of the book, although appropriately comprehensive in the concluding chapter, doesn't leave one with the same strength of feelings that come from learning about the conclusion of a life at death.
One sort of peculiar aspect of this biography is the subject's death is dealt with in about the middle of the book, and then a topical approach to various subjects is taken after that. It works, but it is a little odd in a biography; the conclusion of the book, although appropriately comprehensive in the concluding chapter, doesn't leave one with the same strength of feelings that come from learning about the conclusion of a life at death.
January 20, 2013
J. Reuben--a real man with real feelings, real sympathies, real philosophies, real ideals, real inadequacies. D. Michael paints a portrait of this tightrope walker, entirely comfortable with his own views yet absolutely supportive of Church decisions when made in contrast.
We receive an incredibly particularized history of J. Reuben and his transfer from 19th century raising and education and life's work through the very early 60's of the 20th century. His ability to adjust to new ideas and situations give him props not usually afforded people of his status.
His ability to be non-judgmental and allowing, even promoting, discourse within the Church, sets him within the proscriptions of Corinthians that note the ability of the Church to use all as personalities or predilections or out of box thinking contribute to the overall spiritual health of the Church.
Haven't as yet read the book about David O. McKay and his "modernization" of the Church, it would seem this tome to be an essential co-read.
We receive an incredibly particularized history of J. Reuben and his transfer from 19th century raising and education and life's work through the very early 60's of the 20th century. His ability to adjust to new ideas and situations give him props not usually afforded people of his status.
His ability to be non-judgmental and allowing, even promoting, discourse within the Church, sets him within the proscriptions of Corinthians that note the ability of the Church to use all as personalities or predilections or out of box thinking contribute to the overall spiritual health of the Church.
Haven't as yet read the book about David O. McKay and his "modernization" of the Church, it would seem this tome to be an essential co-read.
September 12, 2008
I don't usually read biographies, but this has to be my very favorite one. Pres. Clark led such a interesting, principled life that it's hard to not want to follow his example. Really. He was long gone before I was even born, but I think he was amazing and inspiring. This book is filled with good stories and tidbits that I've often used in talks and classes, too.
May 10, 2016
Commissioned BYU to write this book professor Quinn finds a lot to like in this person despite his anti-Semitic tendencies (which Quinn doesn't hide). I'm surprised this book was originally published by BYU.
February 9, 2008
This is a great book on the life of J. Reuben Clark and his Chuch service.
"It's not where you serve, but how you serve."
"It's not where you serve, but how you serve."
July 13, 2008
This is the D Michael Quinn book. Fox wrote the other one, I believe. Anyway, I read this long ago and it was the book that got me interested in biography about LDS church leaders.
June 17, 2012
J. Reuben Clark, a great legal mind & intellectual as well as grounded in his religion.
September 13, 2012
Great bio! Almost up to Kimball, Bushman, and Prince status. But not quite ;-)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews