Gerrit W. Gong (b. 1953) is an American religious leader, diplomat, and scholar who serves as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a calling to which he was ordained in 2018. Born in Los Angeles, California, Gong grew up in a family that bridged Chinese heritage and Latter-day Saint faith—a bicultural formation that has shaped his lifelong interest in the meeting points of diverse traditions, civilizations, and ways of knowing. He earned his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and built a distinguished career as a China specialist, serving in various capacities at the U.S. State Department and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies before his full-time ecclesiastical service.
Gong’s scholarly work focused on the standards and norms of international society, the dynamics of civilization, and the conditions under which peoples with different histories and values can find common ground. His book The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (1984) remains a notable contribution to international relations theory. Within the Church, he served as President of Brigham Young University--Hawaii and as a General Authority Seventy before his call to the Twelve, bringing to his apostolic ministry a rare combination of diplomatic experience, cross-cultural fluency, and intellectual depth.
What distinguishes Gong’s public voice is a consistent attentiveness to the way personal memory, family bonds, and shared stories carry people across generations and toward greater wholeness. He speaks often of the power of belonging—to family, to community, to God—as a living force that shapes identity and sustains hope. This vision of covenant relationship as something that grows, deepens, and ultimately transcends mortality resonates naturally with the Mormon transhumanist conviction that eternal progression is not an abstraction but a present practice, woven from intelligence, love, and the patient work of becoming.