It is common
to hear that “the prophet,” until the presidency of David O McKay, was never
used for the then-president of the Church. However, this is not entirely true. In
his review of The Next Mormons, John
Gee wrote:
Riess claims that “Even the notion that
Mormons would call the president of their church ‘the prophet’ is a
mid-twentieth-century innovation; the practice can be dated to 1955, during the
presidency of the exceptionally popular David O. McKay. Before 1955 the term
‘prophet’ was used in LDS periodicals to refer to founding leaders Joseph Smith
and Brigham Young, or else prophets from scripture” (The Next Mormons, 191). This is an intriguing theory, but it does
not work. The popular hymn “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” entered the
hymnal in 1863 (Karen Lynn Davidson, Our
Latter-day Saint Hymns [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988], 48). In 1883,
Franklin D. Richards, an apostle, called John Taylor “our Prophet, who had been
illegally imprisoned" (Franklin D. Richards, "Independence," Journal of Discourses 24:279). Evan
Stephens wrote a hymn whose opening line is “We ever pray for thee, our prophet
dear” for Wilford Woodruff’s 90th birthday in 1897 (Davidson, Our Latter-day Saint Hymns, 51). On 6
October 1899, Seymour Young referred to “our Prophet, Seer and Revelator,
Lorenzo Snow" (Seymour B. Young, in Conference Report, October 1899, 55).
The children’s song “Stand for the Right” was written by Joseph Ballantyne who
died in 1944, before President McKay was the prophet. The line “Our prophet has
some words for you, And these are the words: ‘Be true, be true.’” would seem to
refer to Joseph F. Smith. These are just a few examples that show that Riess is
wrong on this point. (Conclusions
in Search of Evidence)
In reality,
it would be much more accurate that “the prophet” was used more frequently for the president for the Church during and after
McKay’s presidency, not that it was never used in such a manner.