Commentary: Mormon church misses chance to reflect its growing global diversity

Two days later, we are still an almost entirely American-led church.

Consider the numbers. The LDS Church had 15.3 million members as of April 2015.

Nearly 1.3 million of them are in Brazil alone, and more than 1.3 million live in Mexico. Other nations with LDS populations exceeding half a million include Peru, the Philippines and Chile.

But all of our 12 apostles are white, our nine female auxiliary leaders are white, and most of the members of the Quorum of the Seventy are white.

And while the statistics in a Salt Lake Tribune article demonstrate that more international diversity is entering the ranks — in 2013, only 66 percent of all general authorities were born in the United States — that demographic change hasn't yet trickled up to the Quorum of Twelve.

One of the comments on my recent blog was that "God chooses the new apostles and reveals his choice to his living oracles." My expressed desire for racial diversity was "irrelevant" since "God has prepared whom he has prepared and they will be called."

But it's not this simple. I do not believe that apostolic callings happen so very differently and miraculously than other callings occur in the church. It is the combination of divine inspiration and human agency working together that makes a calling happen. When we issue callings in the church, we do so under the guidance of prayer and the Spirit's leading, but our own experiences and inclinations factor in as well.

Which is why we need to think carefully as a people when there is such a growing discrepancy between the beautiful racial and international diversity that characterizes our religion around the planet and the much narrower range that is evidenced among our most visible leaders.

What would it be like to have an apostle like Elder Joseph W. Sitati of Kenya, a nation which has only about 12,000 Latter-day Saints?

What that could mean is having an apostle who is not the product of generations of Mormonism, a proud descendant of pioneer stock. What it would mean is that he would be a pioneer himself.

He would know what it's like to be a convert, with all the fresh energy and trials that converts experience.

He would know firsthand the challenges of establishing and expanding the church in places where it is untried.

And he would be a light to all of the people of his heritage who currently cannot look at the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and see a single person whose race and cultural experiences resemble their own.

Currently, the only apostle who was not born into the church is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who is also the quorum's only non-American.