by

Maybe not everyone follows the news around religious conventions, but this year’s meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention had some fascinating turns. After having at first rejected a proposal condemning white nationalism and the alt-right, the SBC faced some major internal chaos, changed course and adopted a reworded proposal. The proposal itself is worth a close read.

The history of the SBC and the context for this scandal are fascinating. I didn’t know much about the SBC until recently, and would recommend this article in the Atlantic regarding the recent convention, as well this article regarding the troubled racial history of the SBC. The gist is that the S in SBC stands for Southern, i.e. established by Southern whites to distinguish their worship from the Northerners, specifically over the issue of slavery. Since those initial divisions, the SBC has wrestled with racial inequities among its body, with lasting effects. Now, I am no expert in the SBC or its history, so this is a lightweight overview to situate some more relevant remarks. I know that the last few decades have seen efforts within the SBC to attract minorities. Its first African-American president was elected in 2012. Then in November 2016, evangelicals (including much of the SBC) turned out for Donald Trump in massive numbers. SBC pastors with anti-Trump agendas lost funding and had their jobs at risk. The election of DJT, that American symptom of rising white nationalism and xenophobia across the West, unleashed a new wave of public racism and hatred under the guise of the “alt-right,” involving Christians of many denominations (including SBC).

To understand how this recent proposal came to be, it’s probably helpful to understand how an SBC annual meeting works. Each cooperating church in the SBC (depending upon size) can send up to ten members as messengers to the meeting, where they vote on policies, budgets and initiatives for the coming year. Proposals are run up through committees and approved before voted upon by the general body of messengers. The draft anti-alt-right proposal was voted down in committee. Ultimately, the proposal was resubmitted from the floor in the general meeting. After much wrangling, the proposal first linked to above was passed. It was a very interesting popcorn moment.

What’s interesting to me is how similar and how impossible this all is in an LDS context.

First, let’s define some terms, specifically what I mean by “white nationalism”. It’s not quite the same thing as white supremacy, that racist belief in the innate ‘superiority’ to people of other races. White nationalism is about maintaining dominance – cultural, economic, political – over other races. It manifests itself via cultural anxiety, a longing for “older times” when the nation was built around white identity, and its tools are anti-immigration policies and limited government services to the poor. Most white nationalists would probably not see themselves as such; rather, they see themselves as wanting to protect the cultural values, traditions, and neighborhoods of their youth (or, more accurately, their parents or grandparents’ youth). When Donald Trump says that he wants to “make America great again,” the expression taps into a fictional nostalgia and feeds anxiety, particularly among older and less educated white voters. The boundaries of what level of racism is “acceptable” are shifting as this anxiety rises and populist politicians take power. When we talk about the “alt-right,” it’s a modern collection of white supremacists, white nationalists, internet trolls, monarchists and others. The SBC proposal decries every form of racism, including the alt-right, as “antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Could Mormonism issue such a statement? I don’t think so.

The LDS history of racism is a matter of public record. W. Paul Reeve’s book is a good starting point. And while there are schismatic entities within Mormonism, there are none (to my knowledge) based on the issue of slavery. For most of LDS history, this church has been a white church, with black members deprived of full fellowship and rights to ordinances. There is no Southern LDS Convention, but none was ever necessary within Mormonism — insular and homogeneous demographics of culture and race made this church a de facto white church from the beginning. And while there have always been black members of the Church, they have been historically marginalized, unrepresented in leadership until 1978. I say all this not to posit that the LDS Church is as racist as the SBC — that statement would be unprovable and unhelpful — but to situate the LDS Church in a comparative context. The LDS Church was not founded specifically to preserve the slavers, but we waffled on abolition and walked a delicate line regarding free people of color, until Brigham Young established as both policy and doctrine that black people were descendants of Ham and so would never hold the priesthood or receive their endowment. Those teachings persisted in folkloric form after 1978, even after the ban was rescinded. Racism in our generalized discourse also persisted, wrapped in dating & courtship guides, anecdotes of pre-existence fence-sitting and other casual expressions. At the same time, leaders of the church have repeatedly and publicly repudiated racism as a general matter, as recently as Gordon B. Hinckley.

The structural differences between the SBC and LDS churches are worth considering here. The LDS church has immensely centralized authority and superlative respect for leaders. Local congregations have extremely limited decision-making authority and are expected to methodically execute the pre-established program dictated by the central Church committees. The SBC, on the other hand, is governed by elected officials from among the cooperating churches, but each local church is autonomous and self-governed. This means that an SBC who travels from one congregation to another could see a significantly different church service and teaching. These two power structures produce very different results, both in terms of decision-making and rollout of changes. The LDS church makes decisions centrally, through the Quorum of the 12 and the First Presidency. Once that group has made decisions, the Church can quickly and easily institute changes throughout the entire organization with immediate effect, as it did in 1978. The SBC would require a consensus vote for new policies or practices, and even then an individual church would have significant liberty in interpretation and implementation. However, despite its ability to rapidly institute changes, the LDS Church has demonstrated a more conservative approach with respect to course corrections, while the SBC is comparatively more dynamic. This may be a product of the older leadership within the LDS Church, or simply the result of having top-down decision-making as opposed to a structure where proposals can be submitted from the various congregations. There is no formal system within the LDS Church for local proposals to be considered. LDS members are typically proud of this measured, conservative approach; we are not waves of the sea [of popular opinion], driven with the wind and tossed. Of course, detractors are quick to find the octogenarian, conservative leadership to be out of touch with the times and unable to appropriately deal with modern crises — and then when decisions are made, they are unquestionable and not open to public review. When the Prophet speaks, the debate is over. This can be a strength, keeping us on a steady course despite the influence of the world. Unfortunately, this also created a system where white supremacy could become unquestioned and doctrinal (adopting many of the same lines of argument decried by the recent SBC proposal).

Perhaps it is because of this singular system of authority that the LDS Church has not issued an apology or official repudiation of its own racist past. We cannot stomach the idea that the Prophet could ever lead the Church astray — it is “not in the programme.“. And so, to preserve the power of that anecdote, we bring ourselves to the conclusion that if the Prophet directs something, it must therefore be of God. As recently as two weeks ago I witnessed online debate over whether the Ban was inspired. I do not believe it was, because I don’t think God teaches exclusion on the basis of the color of our skin. However, it is so unpalatable, so impossible for our leaders to err that we must attribute some element of this obviously noxious practice to the Almighty. Elder Oaks has said, “we no not seek apologies, and we don’t give them,” and this may be part of the reason. Thus, a statement like that from the SBC seems impossible in a Mormon context.

But we should apologize. We should not be afraid to repudiate past doctrines that were not of God, because attributing evil to the Creator is blasphemy. An apology demonstrates to all that our leadership is fallible, that we are capable of mistakes, but more importantly that we are capable of improving, progressing and becoming better as a people. Now, I love the centralized model of authority within our Church — it has helped us navigate crises that would have destroyed other religions. However, with that central authority we also have an increased responsibility to keep ourselves in check, to recognize that central authority does not mean that our leaders are perfect. General Authorities receive a level of ceremony and deference that in my opinion can border on a form of idolatry. Issuing an apology and formal repudiation of white supremacy would go a long way not just towards healing race relations within the Church, but towards helping the membership and the leadership bridge the chasm between us. We are all baptized into one body. Paul tells us that the head cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of you.” By apologizing and explicitly rejecting those past doctrines, we can reconcile to each other, see eye-to-eye and continue the march toward Zion.