Good Idea, Paul. In fact, in regards to the selection of Apostles, I would suggest that’s where one ought to have started in the first place.

I don’t know why things are done they way they are. I feel like the Church is in good hands, though.

If I were to have discontent with the makeup of the FP and Qof12 it would be as much because of the lack of poor people as it would be the lack of non-whites.

I don’t see how geographic factors could matter. The scriptures and our own church history are full of examples of the poorest of the poor being called to all corners of the earth to minister.

Socioeconomic factors could only be relevant if the responsibilities of a general authority required a high degree of education and professional experience. If the church is so wealthy and complicated that God will only call professionals into the general leadership, then either God is more limited than we think or the church’s wealth is getting in the way of its mission. I suspect it’s more the latter given the corporate feel to the LDS experience these days.

If socioeconomic factors are relevant, it might be a good time to seek revelation on whether that is God’s will.

IMO, neither geographic nor socioeconomic factors should matter. Professionals can be hired to do the administration. God can and will call the meek of the earth to handle the ministry.

The general authorities are pretty loaded. Although it bothers me that some of them might be getting loaded writing books which saints feel honor bound to buy because they’re by general authorities.

I think class is a bigger problem in the church than some of realize. Maybe than some of us experience, I guess, also.

I think that’s why missionaries like Guatemala better than Austria. The Austrians are fairly well to do and stuck up people. I’ve heard. No offense to anybody personally.

This is why I think that there are not more black senaters, besides Senator Obama from Illinois: The unified voting patterns of blacks for democrats tend to marginalize them as candidates. When there is a more even distribution of black votes between parties, there will be more blacks elected to statewide office. The same thing is happening to Christian conservatives (sometimes called the Christian right), even though they don’t vote with anything approaching the unity of black voters. But candidates who are perceived as Christian conservatives don’t win many statewide elections either. Jews (as a voting demographic) do vote disproportionately democratic, but not nearly so much as blacks, and Republican Jews like Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Arlen Specter aren’t attacked by mainstream Jewish leaders for their political affiliations.

Absolutely, it could be. Some current disparities can probably be attributed to current racism. Exactly how much is a very difficult question to answer (or impossible–I, for one, don’t have much faith in social science). But disparity does not necessarily denote racism or racial discrimination. I believe that colorblind socioeconomic factors would be enough to cause disparity among the races to persist, even in a society free of all racism and racial discrimination.

Imagine if from this moment on all racism and all racial discrimination in the U.S. stopped. Wouldn’t disparities persist? What if all racism and racial discrimination had stopped 30 years ago? Would our current society look very much different from the way it does today? (It’s possible that there would be even be greater disparity today–no racial discrimination would mean no affirmative action, so gains that can be attributed to affirmative action would disappear).

My basic point is that racial disparity is not necessarily indicative of racism or racial discrimination, just like gender disparity is not necessarily indicative of sexism (nobody minds that men are underrepresented in the nursing profession). Therefore, our insistence on counting the numbers of people of certain races or genders in certain positions and pointing to disparities as proof of current institutional or individual racism is not productive.

Paul: Is it really possible that racism does not have anything to do with [the fact that all of the Apostles are white]?

Yes, it’s possible. It could result entirely from socioeconomic and geographic factors.

In any case, neither class nor race should factor into the selection of church leaders.