My Neighbor's Faith: Diversity in the Latter Day Saints

Typical LDS picture in DC Temple

Several decades ago, the Latter Day Saints could have been described as a racist church.  The validity of their theological reasons for this and the convenient timing of the revelation relieving them of this charge is not the topic of this post.  However, it is important to know that before the Civil Rights movement, the Latter Day Saints taught that people of color were under a kind of curse from God that forbade them from participating in upper-level priesthood roles.  During this era, the LDS leadership received a revelation that God had removed the curse.

Three of the four sisters I spoke with that the visitors center were of Hispanic descent.  Two of them spoke fluent Spanish as was indicated on their name tags, which instead of saying "sister so-and-so", said "hermana so-and-so"  The young people I saw in the building were people various racial backgrounds.  I had two impressions.  (1) Part of the reason there was so much diversity was to reflect the DC culture.  The goal is to be able to connect with and evangelize to whoever walks in the door.  (2) The LDS is becoming a global church and it's younger population is starting to reflect that diversity.

I saw the sum of all these things in the photos on the walls.  Pictures of younger Mormons reflected a lot of racial diversity.  However, the pictures of senior church leadership, the Presidents and Apostles showed an all white leadership (which does not reflect a global church).  The stark contract reflects the radical change in Mormon attitudes towards race over the last few decades.  I expect that within a decade there will be Apostles and Presidents of color.

LDS 12 Apostles

One could judge the Latter Day Saints for their previous views on race, but most churches behaved similarly whether their theology defended it or not - many of them did use the Bible to defend their behavior.  The claim to be the one true church alongside convenient revelation may spark skepticism, nevertheless they should be credited with significant progress towards racial diversity within their ranks.  This is not an easy change to make.