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Toward Becoming a Universal Church 1950-1990

The new Church Office Building, completed in 1972, symbolizes on its facade the worldwide scope of the Church. (LDS Church)

In 1950 the planet earth was a complex, contradictory, and not yet peaceful world. On the one hand the United Nations, founded in 1945, was dedicated to keeping peace; on the other hand, the major world powers were locked in an ideological cold war that would continue for another four decades. Essentially a struggle between competing political and economic ideologies, the cold war created two armed camps. Each possessed awesome nuclear weapons and was capable of destroying the other. Dominated by the Soviet Union on one side and by the United States on the other, the cold war had already turned hot in China where, in 1949, the Communists took over. It heated up again in Korea in 1950, in Vietnam in the 1960s, and in numerous other places around the world, though the superpowers avoided confronting each other directly.

Scores of other wars, revolutions, military coups, and civil conflicts caused death and misery around the world in the last half of the twentieth century. Among them was the bitter conflict between the state of Israel, founded in 1948, and the Arab world around it which, in turn, was divided on almost every issue except that of the legitimacy of the Israeli state. In Asia and Africa, meanwhile, one of the great turning points in world history came with the end of over four hundred years of European colonialism. It was not long before the former colonies found new ties, mostly economic in nature, not only with their prior rulers but also with other world powers, and found themselves newly involved in many global affairs. Decolonization, however, did not mean peace, for continuing political conflict brought violence in many newly independent nations. South American nations, too, saw civil conflict in these years, usually as an ideological struggle between democracy and Communism or some other form of authoritarianism. But whatever the cause, post-World War II political alignments failed to create a peaceful world.

Neither did the postwar world find solutions to wide economic disparity. Western Europe, parts of Asia, and North America saw rapid and amazing economic growth in these years, and even though there were distressing pockets of poverty in each of these areas, the general standard of living soared. But in the so-called third world, the emerging nations of Asia and Africa, life remained difficult and poverty continued to abound. Efforts at industrialization and modernization resulted in considerable economic growth, but burgeoning populations almost negated the impact, and the contrast in living standards between these and other nations seemed only to become more apparent. The United Nations, various churches, and other charitable groups stepped up their efforts to help, especially in times of famine and other disaster, but in general poverty remained.