The leader of the world’s 17 million Mormons, Russell M. Nelson, has died, aged 101. 

The former heart surgeon didn’t assume the role of prophet until he was in his nineties and, yet, in death, he’s being described as a transformational figure in the Church of Latter-Day Saints, as Mormons are known formally.

His death came the same day that four members of the church died in an attack on a church in Michigan. 

GUEST:

• Professor DAVID SMITH of the US Studies Centre wrote about extensively about the Mormon church in his 2015 book Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States.