Anyhow, over the last 20 years or so, my political views have grown more progressive, and that has accelerated over the last 6 or 7 years, where now I refer to myself as radically left in my politics. If you’re familiar with the political compass, here is where I sit.

As my politics have shifted, I’ve started to notice things in the LDS canon I hadn’t noticed before, seen things from new perspectives. At some point over the last few years, I came to the conclusion that LDS theology is well-positioned for leftist Christians.

The problem, however, is that right-wing politics have invaded Mormon theology over the last few decades as to either ignore or even distort its original social justice nature. That invasion is so pervasive that outsiders see Mormonism as only a conservative religion, with little to offer leftists. Even leftists themselves can’t see the social justice nature of LDS theology and eventually leave the church themselves.

What I wanted to do with this post is highlight some of the more radical elements of LDS theology and tenets, which I hope can then show how it has potential to be a home to leftists Christians, if the right-wing faction within the church can be moderated, if not converted.

Environment

This is one area that sets us apart from many (if not most) other Christian traditions. We have canon that specifically tells us to be wise in our use of the Earth’s resources:

Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;

Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.

And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.

D&C 59:18–20

Used with judgement. Used without excess. Used without extortion.

Right-wing Mormons don’t take this stance, often seeing climate change as undecided, or even a hoax. They do not see our role as stewards of the Earth, rather than owners of it. They may even see it as something to be dominated, rather than something that we must harmonize with.

Consider this video the church released about 7 years ago.

I find it interesting that the above scripture highlights that the resources of the earth aren’t just for use to eat, or wear, or build with, or burn. There are some things on the earth that are simply here as sensory pleasures, things for us to smell and see, things to bring us gladness and enliven our souls. Without conservation, some of the things we enjoy looking at or smelling today may not be there for us in the future.

Racism

The church has a problematic history with race. It banned Black members from holding the priesthood and attending the temple. It took Indigenous children out of their homes and placed them into white homes to be raised by white families. The Book of Mormon is replete with racist messaging. The premise of missionary work has colonial undertones to it.

That being said, there is also an egalitarian component to LDS theology.

As I said, racism permeates the text of the Book of Mormon. However, a careful reading of the text shows that the text isn’t instructing us to be racist, but that it is warning us to not be racist.

Much of the book speaks of racial animosity between two groups of people: one lighter skinned and the other darker skinned. And while there were some periods where portions of the two groups lived in harmony, much of the book has them in opposition to each other.

Except for a period of about 200 years, shortly after Jesus’ visit, when everyone lived in harmony and there was no ethnic or racial delineation.

There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.

4 Nephi 1:17

Anti-capitalism

I have heard conservatives use the argument that the law of the harvest (see 2 Cor. 9:6 and Gal. 6:7) to justify their support of free and open markets.

The problem with this argument is that it’s just not true. In a capitalist society, no one reaps all of what they sow unless they’re self employed. Either you reap only a portion of what you sow or you reap a portion of what others sow.

I don’t think that the law of the harvest was meant to be applied to economic theory, but if it was, clearly it would be more closely related to something far more egalitarian than capitalism.

Related to this, Jesus taught at least one rich person to sell everything he owned and give it away to the poor. And when that person refused, he commented that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. (Mark 10:21–25). And related to that, Jesus taught that we cannot pursue both God and wealth (Matt. 6:24), that we cannot be truly Christian while also exploiting others for our own financial gain.

Plus, King Benjamin gave a profound sermon on caring for the poor, and even chastised those who judge the poor as being morally deficient, something we see even today.

And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

Mosiah 4:16–18

In fact, King Benjamin considers caring for the poor so critical that he ties it directly to our ability to retain any remission of sins we receive:

And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

Mosiah 4:26

Queer issues

This one is the trickiest one of all. There is very little in LDS canon that explicitly states that there’s nothing wrong with being queer. That being said, however, there is nothing in it that there’s anything wrong with it either. The canon is fairly silent on queer issues. Heck, they’re silent on sexuality in general.

This lack of commentary has made it very easy for right-wing homophobia to embed itself into LDS tenets, despite the canon being silent. But that lack of canonical commentary means that it’s also possible that the LDS church could instead embrace the queerness of any of its members.

While not explicit to queer issues, there are some scriptures that show us we need to do a better job than we are now regarding supporting queer people, if not downright implementing inclusive policies and practices.

Take the words of Alma, when he is about to baptize his followers at the Waters of Mormon

As ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort,

Mosiah 18:8–9

When our queer members are burdened by homophobia and transphobia, we don’t implement an exclusion policy that prevents them from having their children baptized. We bear those burdens; we take their burdens on our shoulders. We alleviate the burden caused by our own homophobia and transphobia. We call out their oppressors, so they don’t have to. We develop empathy for what they’re experiencing. We stand in solidarity with them.

Gender equality

This is another area with a problematic history within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The same church that practiced polygamy (which almost exclusively was a man with multiple wives and rarely a woman with multiple husbands) also marshalled its members to make sure Utah was one of the first places in the United States to allow women the right to vote (well, White women at least).

And certainly, the patriarchal nature of how to priesthood is organized within the church seems to exclude women to some degree. But there is nothing in LDS canon that precludes women from holding the priesthood. At times, they have even practiced it, particularly within the early church, and usually regarding laying on of hands. Even today, women administer certain priesthood ordinances within the temple. So allowing women to hold and exercise the priesthood is not without precedent.

Even Joseph Smith claimed that he was giving the Relief Society keys.

At the foundation of a potentially gender-inclusive priesthood is the belief in a feminine divine, a Heavenly Mother, who theoretically stands in equality with Heavenly Father, and together the two of them comprise what we refer to as “God”.

If Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father can be equal in power and responsibility, then so can men and women with the LDS church in how the hold and exercise the priesthood and fill leadership positions.

Humility

Throughout LDS canon is the idea of humility, but this is not a principle specific to Mormonism. Jesus himself taught it.

And while it may often be portrayed as a principle that encourages submissiveness to hierarchy and patriarchy, I think humility has another role. I believe that as we develop humility—especially those of us who are in positions of privilege—we will be more open to accepting correction and guidance from those we are allies for.

If we are humble, we will be less likely to think we are more right than those marginalized groups who we advocate for. If we are humble, we will be more likely to follow their lead instead of trying to lead them. If we are humble, we are more likely to accept when we are called out by them and more willing to heed their counsel.

And these are just some of the issues I could think of off the top of my head. There are plenty of others. There are very few social justice issues that could not be embraced by LDS theology and canon.

What the LDS church needs is more leftist members, not fewer. As leftist members leave, it further entrenches right-wing politics in its culture, practices, and policies. And these eventually are elevated as de facto doctrines.

No, what we need is for leftist members to stay, to push back, to restore the original social justice nature of the LDS gospel. What we need is to be able to restore LDS church practices to the point that when people ask for an example of what a Christian church really looks like, “the LDS church” is one of the first responses, rather than one of the last.

Even though it has 231 calls for justice, people got hung up on the report’s use of the word genocide. Critics of the term argue that since Indigenous people in Canada weren’t rounded up into concentration camps and executed by the millions, as was done to Jewish people and others during the Holocaust, we can’t use genocide to refer to Indigenous experience. They also say that what happened to Indigenous people doesn’t parallel the Rwandan genocide, another reason to not use the word.

Except these critics are wrong.

Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group”. As does the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as “the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group”. The Oxford Dictionary uses “The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.”. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the murder of a whole group of people, especially a whole nation, race, or religious group”.

Now keep in mind that dictionaries don’t dictate what words mean; they just report how the general public uses them. To find out what words actually mean, rather than how people generally interpret them, we must consider academic sources.

In 1944, Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin coined genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, combining the Greek prefix genos– and the Latin suffix –cide, creating a word that literally meant “race (tribe) killing”.

In his book, he specifically states:

“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”

During the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the UN codified genocide as a crime, defining it as committing any of 5 acts “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Those 5 acts are:

1. Killing members of the group
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Marion Buller, the inquiry’s chief commissioner, in relation to genocide in Canada, referred to it as the

“persistent and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered human- and Indigenous-rights violations and abuses, perpetuated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state, designed to displace Indigenous people from their lands, social structures and governments, and to eradicate their existence as nations, communities, families and individuals.”

The report itself, which the critics either haven’t read or choose to ignore, specifies their usage of genocide:

“The truths shared in these National Inquiry hearings tell the story – or, more accurately, thousands of stories – of acts of genocide against First Nations, Inuit and Métis women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This violence amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This genocide has been empowered by colonial structures, evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools, and breaches of human and Inuit, Métis and First Nations rights, leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations.”

It goes on to define genocide over 2.5 pages, including:

“Considering the application of genocide on both legal and social fronts also means examining the historical record in light of the particular ways in which the programs aimed at subjugating and eliminating Indigenous Peoples were enacted, and the contemporary effect of these structures in the ways that many programs and pieces of legislation continue to be administered. In the Canadian context, and in reference to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, some examples include: deaths of women in police custody; the failure to protect Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people from exploitation and trafficking, as well as from known killers; the crisis of child welfare; physical, sexual, and mental abuse inflicted on Indigenous women and girls in state institutions; the denial of Status and membership for First Nations; the removal of children; forced relocation and its impacts; purposeful, chronic underfunding of essential human services; coerced sterilizations; and more.”

It’s clear that genocide is an accurate term to describe the violence and disproportionate death rates of Indigenous peoples in what is now called Canada.

Read the entire report.

I’ve been contemplating that position recently. I’m still doing this, trying to expose myself to different viewpoints and trying to not dismiss viewpoints contrary to my own.

However.

I recognize that my ability to do this is because of the immense privilege I enjoy. I can do this because differing opinions will only ever affect me as opinions. They will never be a threat to my existence.

Because I’m white and live in a predominantly white society, race-based commentary will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m straight and live in a predominantly straight society, commentary regarding sexual orientation will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m cisgender and live in a predominantly cis society, gender-based commentary will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m male and live in a society designed for males, sex-based commentary will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m middle class in a society designed for the middle and upper classes, class-based commentary will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m generally able-bodied in a society designed for able bodied people, commentary about disabilities will never be a threat to me.

Because I’m Christian in a predominantly Christian society, religious commentary will never be a threat to me.

And because none of this will threaten my existence, I can afford to not turn my Facebook feed into a silo.

Not everyone has that privilege. Commentary that affects me only as a disagreement can affect others as a direct threat to their existence. Where I might get frustrated with someone arguing with me, others might get anxious, worried, or scared.

So, while I can still keep my feed unrestricted, I realize not everyone can. And I need to not judge them for it.

If you support the justice system, for example, which apprehends and incarcerates people of colour at higher rates than white people, hands them harsher sentences, and is more likely to reincarcerate them, then you support white supremacy. And you don’t need to be white to support the justice system.

If you support capitalism, which depends on the exploitation of people of colour and disproportionately benefits white people, then you support white supremacy. And you don’t need to be white to support capitalism.

If you support—even through so-called patriotic actions—colonial states (such as Canada and the United States), whose very existence depended on the exploitation of the lives, labour, and resources of people of colour for their establishment and maintenance, then you support white supremacy. And you don’t need to be white to support Canada.

White supremacy isn’t just being a Nazi. White supremacy is the idea that whiteness is better, that it’s a default.

White supremacy is what convinces us that it’s okay for Indigenous people to be followed around in a store because white supremacy sees indigeneity as criminal.

White supremacy is what convinces us that it’s okay for cops to card black people at higher rates than white people because white supremacy sees blackness as criminal.

White supremacy is what convinces us that it’s okay to be afraid of people of colour walking down the street because white supremacy sees non-whiteness as violent and savage.

White supremacy is what convinces us that white people pull themselves out of poverty through their own hard work because white supremacy sees non-whiteness as lazy.

And anyone can believe these things.

You don’t need to be white to believe that people of colour should be convicted of more crimes because they must commit more crimes. That there must be something inherit in non-whiteness that leads to crime—or for that matter, laziness, or poverty, or drunkenness, or any other measure where people of colour are at a disadvantage.

Just like you don’t need to be a person of colour to see that the system is inherently racist.

“I opened my inside door to find a native female attempting to steal my daughters boots.”

When someone asked her why she identified her as “native”, she said, “So we could all be aware as a community who was that entered my home.”

The problem though is this is racist. Here’s why.

“Native” was the only descriptor she used. She didn’t mention height, body type, clothing, or anything else that might help neighbours keep an eye out for someone.

By saying only that she was Indigenous, she’s telling everyone to be on the lookout for an Indigenous female, any Indigenous female. Because to her, indigeneity is the only descriptor she needs when discussing crime.

To her, indigeneity is criminal. Likewise, her readers also see indigeneity as criminal. Both the speaker and the receiver understand this concept so well that it can be used as code.

It doesn’t matter to the writer nor the reader whether she was short, skinny, limping, or wearing a white hoodie. Because they don’t see short people as criminals. They don’t see skinny people as criminals. They don’t see limping people as criminals. They don’t see clothing as criminal. But they see indigeneity as criminal.

She never would have said, “I opened my inside door to find a white female attempting to steal my daughters boots.” Or if she did, she would’ve qualified the whiteness with other descriptors. Because whiteness isn’t a crime.

She didn’t even indicate whether she was a woman or a teen girl. Literally the only descriptor she used was “native”. Arguably, she further dehumanized this person by simply using “female”, which outside of being a term to refer collectively to both women and children is used primarily to refer to animals.

If your only descriptor of bad behaviour is race, then it’s racist.

First, the idea that they all share a common Israelite ancestry is unprovable. DNA evidence conflicts with that narrative. Archaeological and anthropological evidence doesn’t support it. And even the LDS church is moving away from the idea that these Indigenous people are exclusively descendants of Lehi.

Second, it contributes to panindigeneity, the idea that Indigenous people are homogenous, that they aren’t separate nations with different languages, cultures, beliefs, customs, and so on. It erases their cultural individualism.

Third, the idea that people indigenous to a place are merely just immigrants to a place, similar to Europeans, is a way for white people to justify their claims to land and resources. Saying that a people have been in the Americas, for example, for only 3,000 years, instead of tens of thousands of years minimizes their right to exist on this land, and maximizes the right of white people to exist on this land.

Finally, no matter how much you try, there is just too much racist language tied up in the term “Lamanite”. Through much of the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites are portrayed as filthy, lascivious, primitive, violent, and base, as people who needed saving from white Nephites. You can’t erase that. No amount of effort will ever make “Lamanite” a positive term.

So if we argue that slavery is ordained by God, then it’s blasphemous to abolish it. If we argue that God ordained that women be stay at home mothers, then it’s blasphemous for them to have a career. If God ordained marriage between a man and woman only, then it’s blasphemous for anyone else to marry.

By couching Christian positions as God’s will, churches perpetuate inequality as divine. It allows them to overlook oppression by saying, “Oh, I don’t understand why God made it that way. I just trust he did it for the right reason. We will know in the end.” It absolves them of complicity. It makes them feel as if they’re being objective and balanced, as if they aren’t actually homophobic, racist, or sexist.

They fault God for their bigotry. And they don’t change.

It’s why they like rainbows painted on crosswalks but not on half naked bodies in a pride parade. It’s why they like Ellen Degeneres’ benign behaviour on TV but not two gay men kissing passionately on TV. It’s why they’re fine with trans women using a women’s washroom when they look feminine but not if they look masculine.

It’s why they liked the eloquence of Obama but not the destruction of the Ferguson riots. It’s why they liked the Standing Rock protestors blocking Keystone construction but not the Idle No More protestors blocking their morning commute. It’s why they like Jagmeet Singh showing love toward his racist oppressor but not if he’d aggressively opposed her racism.

It’s why they’re fine with giving money to food banks but not to panhandlers.

Respectability politics excuses liberals from having to address their own homophobia and transphobia, from having to address their own racism, from having to address their own classism, from having to address any of their discrimination.

When we say something such as “Donald Trump is a racist.”, it implies that being a racist is binary, that either you’re a racist or you’re not. If you’re like Donald Trump, then you’re racist; if you’re not like him, then you’re not racist.

It also implies that there are certain qualities to being a racist, and if we don’t have those qualities, then we’re not racist.

However, racism isn’t binary, nor can it be defined by a checklist.

Each of us is racist. You see, racism isn’t innate; it’s something we have to learn. We learn it from our friends, from our parents, from the media, from classmates, from neighbours, from Sunday School teachers, from siblings, and from a whole host of everyday interactions with others.

The thing about racism is that it doesn’t need to be overt for it to be racist. Just because I never call a black person a nigger, for example, doesn’t mean I’m not racist. Likewise, someone doesn’t need to tell you that “Indians are drunk and lazy” for them to teach you racism.

Racism can be taught in several ways. It can be how a parent responds to a person of colour walking by on the street, or how a cashier responds to a non-white customer, or how a police officer changes how they talk to someone based on their skin colour.

It can be how your neighbour responds abruptly to an old First Nations person walking on the sidewalk because he doesn’t realize the Blackfoot he is speaking is simply, “How are you”. It can be your brothers making fun of your sister’s new friend because she happens to be Cree. It can be your parents mentioning that someone breaking into your house was “Indian”, as if that explained their actions somehow. It can be your boss charging a surcharge every time he has to do a cleaning job on the nearby reserve because a previous customer out there wasted his time. It can be your classmates saying Sikh classmates never shower. It can be your Sunday School teacher telling you to marry only white people. It can be your friend saying, “It’s okay if I say ‘prairie nigger’ because I’m part Métis.”

All these things add up over the years, and unchecked, can influence how you perceive someone based on their skin. And that can take a long time to undo.

Labelling others a racist erases our own racism, and if we can’t see our own racism, we’ll keep perpetuating our own racism.

One time, we went to a nearby reserve, but the person who booked us wasn’t home. My boss then implemented a surcharge for every reserve job we had. Plus he required the client to meet us in Lethbridge and we’d follow them to their house.

Here’s why that’s racist.

Before I get to that though, I remember one time a client on one of the reserves mentioned that he worked at the school on the reserve. My boss asked him if he was the janitor. He was a teacher. It’s a reserve school. Most of the people who worked there were indigenous.

Anyhow, back to the surcharge.

We had plenty of white people who were no shows. But we never once had a white person surcharge. We never required white people to meet us then lead us to their house. And it didn’t matter how many times white people screwed us over.

My boss’s tendency to treat indigenous people all the same because of an individual’s actions wasn’t the only time I’ve seen this.

If an indigenous person steals from a store, mall security and store employees follow all indigenous people. No matter how many white people steal, white people aren’t followed because they’re white.

If an indigenous person panhandles, pedestrians assume panhandling is an indigenous activity. No matter how many white people panhandle, no one ever sees panhandling as a white activity.

If an indigenous person is publicly intoxicated, people assume public intoxication is an indigenous activity. No matter how many white people are publicly intoxicated, no one ever sees public intoxication as a white activity.

If an indigenous person is a bad rental tenant, landlords assume all indigenous people are bad tenants. No matter how many white people are bad tenants, landlords never create policies to avoid renting to white people.

If an indigenous person’s name show up in a police crime news release, people assume crime is an indigenous activity. No matter how many white names show up in police crime news releases, no one will see crime as a white activity.

Anytime we tie the colour of a person’s skin to their undesirable behaviour, we’re being racist, especially if we don’t do the same thing to white people.

It’s normal for store owners to worry about shoptlifting. It’s normal for pedestrians to be uncomfortable with panhandling. It’s normal for people to be uncomfortable around drunk people. It’s normal for landlords to worry about their property.

All of that is normal. But you need to be worried about it across the board, not just when black people, indigenous people, and other people of colour are in the room.

This is how white people perpetuate racism.