Monday, July 8, 2013

The Irony of Protests about the LDS Church Being a Racist Organization

A couple of years ago, I came across a newspaper article about a member of the Scottish Parliament complaining about how racist BYU and the LDS Church was.  As I read that article, I was struck by something I have known for some time - something that includes the former Priesthood ban but goes to the power of continuing revelation and the synergy that is found often within the LDS Church. 

The real irony of the parliamentarian's claim is that, despite the ban and our relatively recent implementation of official integration, we are WAY more integrated than most of the Protestant churches that surrounded my family when we lived in the Deep South in the 1990's.

Say what you want about about the previous policy, and say what you want about the danger of group-think and such, but when Mormons and the LDS Church mobilize around "good" they tend to do it better than most others. This is one great example.

Sure, there still are some racist members in the Church - and, yes, there are some wards and branches that struggle with racism - and, of course, there still aren't enough black members in many places - and those are important issues - but there also are many units where black members sit side-by-side with white members and members of other races and ethnicities, both in the pews and in leadership callings.

One of my most memorable temple experiences was seeing the Lord put forth his hand at the veil and realizing it was black.

When we do something good, we tend to do it very well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said. I still live in the deep south, and there are "black" churches and "white" churches among most all the prominent Protestant and Catholic churches. Sure, there are a few integrated non-denominational churches, but not many. As a whole, we are much more integrated than other major churches.