Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as the 15th United States Secretary of Agriculture during both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower and as the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.

It was while serving as a missionary, particularly an experience in Sheffield, that caused Benson to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the message of the church and in converting people to it.

[3] Due to local antagonism and threats of violence, LDS Church leaders sent apostle David O. McKay to personally oversee the mission.

Benson encouraged crop rotation, improved grains, fertilizers, pest controls, and establishment of farmer's cooperatives to market farm commodities.

In particular, he objected to farm subsidies, and efforts by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to raise prices by paying farmers to destroy crops and kill livestock.

He spent eleven months there, traveling 61,000 miles and supervising two thousand tons of relief supplies, including to Germany and Poland.

"[12] Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley noted of Benson's experience in Europe, "I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism.

[15][16] Benson's teachings as an apostle were the 2015 course of study in the LDS Church's Sunday Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood classes.

In 1948, Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey approached Benson before the election that year about becoming the United States Secretary of Agriculture.

[10] He became the first clergy member to be a cabinet secretary since Edward Everett in 1852, which created some controversy as crossing a boundary between church and state.

[17] The American Council of Churches opposed Benson for being a member of what they felt was a "pagan religion...hostile to the Biblical evangelical Christian faith.

[19] Benson opposed the system of government price supports and aid to farmers which he was entrusted by Eisenhower to administer, arguing that it amounted to unacceptable socialism.

He integrated these ideals into his religious teachings, frequently emphasizing personal responsibility, moral agency, and the dangers of government overreach.

[33] Benson was a close friend with the JBS founder, Robert W. Welch Jr., exchanging dozens of letters, and many hours in person discussing politics.

Brown, a politically liberal member of the church's First Presidency, to begin publicly and privately pushing back against Benson.

In the April 1962 general conference, Brown said, "The degree of a man's aversion to communism may not always be measured by the noise he makes in going about and calling everyone a communist who disagrees with his personal political bias.

Brown wrote in a letter shortly after the endorsement that he was "disgusted" and if Ezra Taft Benson continued his JBS activities that "some disciplinary action should be taken.

"[41] In January 1963, the First Presidency issued a statement, "We deplore the presumption of some politicians, especially officers, coordinators and members of the John Birch Society, who undertake to align the Church or its leadership with their political views."

Three days later, Benson spoke at a JBS-endorsed political rally, reported by several newspapers as purposefully ignoring the First Presidency statement, and embarrassing to the LDS Church.

[42][43][44] In February 1963, the JBS asked its members to "write to President McKay," with the suggested verbiage to praise "the great service Ezra Taft Benson and his son, Reed (our Utah Coordinator), are rendering to this battle, with the hope that they will be encouraged to continue.

Some, including the New York Times, interpreted this move as an "exile" after Benson's virtual endorsement of the JBS in general conference.

McKay publicly denied that the assignment was an exile or a rebuke, but other church leaders, including Joseph Fielding Smith, indicated that a purpose in sending Benson to Europe was to break his ties with the JBS.

[48] In a similar vein, during a 1972 general conference, Benson recommended that all church members read Gary Allen's New World Order tract "None Dare Call It a Conspiracy".

[49][50] U.S. Representative Ralph R. Harding, during a speech in Congress, accused Benson of being "a spokesperson for the radical right" and using his apostleship to give the impression that the church "approve[d] of" the JBS.

[53] Also in 1967, Benson gave a talk discussing his views on the civil rights movement at the anti-Communist/segregationist leadership school of Billy James Hargis, who published it in his Christian Crusade magazine.