In 2020, church President Russell M. Nelson pleaded with Latter-day Saints to “do whatever we can” to “preserve the dignity and respect every son and daughter of God deserves” and to “work tirelessly to build bridges of understanding rather than creating walls of segregation.”

Later that same year, he went further: “I call upon our members everywhere to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice.”

These statements were part of a larger pattern. In 2018, the church celebrated the 40th anniversary of the revelation that ended the faith’s priesthood and temple ban for Black members. There, President Dallin H. Oaks taught that the lesson of the revelation was a “divine call to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children.”

Just a year before that, church leadership issued a public statement against white nationalists, affirming that “white supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them. Church members who promote or pursue a ‘white culture’ or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the church.”

As recently as 2025, the church created a new webpage, “Race and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” that forthrightly denounces white supremacy and racism, while addressing past racism in the church and more.

For many observers of Latter-day Saint culture, these were welcome developments. But six years after Nelson’s exhortation, can we say that Latter-day Saints are “leading out” in the “divine call” to overcome racism and other prejudices?

Latter-day Saints in the United States are diversifying but remain far whiter than the overall population. Fortunately, they are the least likely of any Christian group (7%) to believe that racial diversity weakens American society. They are also the highest Christian group (60%) to report that religious and racial diversity makes America stronger. These numbers were not particularly flattering for Christians — even the relatively high Latter-day Saint numbers were still lower than every other non-Christian religious group’s support of racial and religious diversity.

Why do Latter-day Saints seem to report high approval of racial and religious diversity?

One hypothesis: missions. Tens of thousands of young Latter-day Saints serve volunteer proselytizing stints across the globe every year.

Their exposure to diverse cultural, linguistic and national contexts bring higher understanding than their peers. Some older data support this hypothesis for recently returned missionaries, though none shows whether there are longer-term effects.

At the same time, other trends suggest unfinished business in addressing prejudicial attitudes and actions among white American Latter-day Saints. Indeed, I would suggest that many white Latter-day Saints fall into a familiar trend of claiming not to be racist while still exhibiting many behaviors that constitute prejudice.

Racism in today’s church

In recent years, two senior church leaders, general authority Seventy Kyle McKay and Young Men counselor Brad Wilcox, have issued apologies for racist remarks. In another, emeritus general authority Tad Callister wrote approvingly of a “noble sentiment” behind Columbus’ slave trade.

There are other reasons to believe that the work in combating racism among Latter-day Saints remains unfinished. A BYU study from 2023 found that Black members continue to face racism. Just last year, Black Latter-day Saints continued to report negative experiences and hurtful racial attitudes within their congregations. These experiences have been documented among Latino and Pacific Islander members as well.

Further, Latter-day Saint leaders have been conspicuously quiet about racist statements and actions taken by the Trump administration — from racial profiling, to vicious and often illegal attacks on immigrants and Muslims, to efforts to whitewash racist history, to attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion that amount to abandoning civil rights protections for racial minorities.

Perhaps in part because of the divine call to lead out against such prejudices, Latter-day Saints are the only major religious group to have shifted to the left in recent years. Grassroots Latter-day Saint support of Trump and the current Republican Party, however, remains the second highest of any religious group. Even today, with Trump’s historically low approval ratings, Latter-day Saints indicate their support at far above the national average.

In the face of ongoing racism within and outside the church, what might Latter-day Saints do to become leaders on this issue? Researchers and activists have attempted for decades to offer pathways to address this social plague, and it is far from clear that there is any easy path.

What the church is doing and not doing

On its website, the church lists several things it is doing. These include ministering in one another’s homes, publishing the perspectives of diverse individuals in the faith’s magazines, and improving FamilySearch and grants to Black organizations in the United States. These are all important steps, but it would be difficult to conclude that they constitute Latter-day Saints being leaders against racism.

While church headquarters is taking positive steps, and many individual members are receiving the message, it seems there has been little if any support in Latter-day Saint congregations for addressing racism. Speaking anecdotally, I have never heard any reference to any of these statements by Latter-day Saint leaders condemning racism mentioned in church settings, nor can I recall a sacrament meeting talk assigned on Oaks’ “divine call” to church members. I learned about the 2025 updated webpage on “race” from news reports rather than being taught in church contexts.

Members are called to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27). As members, we might take more responsibility to address these issues when and where we can. But such large problems cannot be overcome by individuals alone. Church leaders might use their vast resources, research tools and expertise, and a large volunteer membership to provide further field studies on prejudice reduction and incentivize greater attention to race studies at BYU and its various research institutes.

Church leaders’ statements against racism, white supremacy and white culture are helpful expressions of values but offer little guidance in how to best accomplish these goals. Global and local church leaders might take greater steps to follow best practices in addressing prejudice.

Research suggests that the most effective ways in addressing prejudice are meaningful group contacts. Further, focusing on youth and young adults is shown to be particularly effective. Intragroup contact requires institutional support and dedicated efforts to work toward common goals. Ministering in the home provides limited experiences, while larger cooperative projects with other secular groups and churches could produce more substantial results.

No single solution — one more speech, one more website, one more fireside — will suffice. That doesn’t mean that we should not take these actions regularly, but we also might be more anxiously engaged at all levels of the church to address this problem in our congregations, communities, nation and world. We should not be content with our efforts to fulfill our divine calling until we can legitimately say that we are leading out on eliminating racism.

Note to readers • Taylor G. Petrey is a professor of religion at Kalamazoo College. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles, including “Tabernacles of Clay: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Mormonism.”