By MEAGAN BRUNSON
Elder Alexander B. Morrison of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will speak Tuesday about “Church Response to Crises” in a Forum at 11 a.m. in the Marriott Center.
According to a BYU press release, Elder Morrison said major crises, both natural and man-made, result in great human suffering and significant population dislocations.
Elder Morrison will assess the church’s response to recent major crises such as the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Central America and the flight of refugees from Kosovo.
When Elder Morrison was called to serve in the First Quorum of the Seventy on April 4, 1987, he was a professor and Food Science Department chair at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
Elder Morrison received his doctoral degree from Cornell University. He is a fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and the Royal Society of Medicine.
He received the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies’ Service Award, the Borden Award of the Nutrition Society of Canada and the Queen’s Jubilee Award.
Elder Morrison has served the LDS Church as a regional representative, bishop, branch president, regional welfare agent and most recently, as president of the Utah North Area.
Randy Bott, professor of religion at BYU, said the LDS Church response to modern crises is extremely important to assure stability for people in the last days.
“The church will stand as the sole voice of reason in the last days,” Bott said. “In a world that has lost its ability to reason, it doesn’t become the church to overreact to crises like Y2K and others.”
Arnold Garr, associate chair of BYU’s Church History Department, said he thinks LDS Church crisis response is a great topic because the church helps both LDS and non-LDS people in crisis situations.
“When there is a crisis, the local church has the ability to mobilize faster or as fast as any other organization to help people,” he said.
“I think in the last 15 years, the church has given over $160 million to humanitarian aid causes — that’s over $10 million a year,” Garr said, noting that these numbers do not include money that comes through the church welfare program.
Jana Parker, 21, a senior from Fresno, Calif., majoring in health science, said she is anxious to hear what Elder Morrison has to say about the church’s timeliness in responding to crisis situations.
“I’m interested to know how well our system really works,” Parker said. “I know that we, as an organized, worldwide church must be able to accomplish a lot of good in a short amount of time. It will be cool to hear about actual times we have made a difference when awful things are happening.”
Following the Forum, there will be a question-and-answer session in the Cougar Room of the Marriott Center.
The forum will be broadcast live on KBYU-TV (Channel 11) and on KBYU-FM (89.1). It will be rebroadcast Sunday at 6 a.m. on Channel 11 and at 8 p.m. on 89.1 FM.
