Can Mormonism move beyond its white, middle-class American base to become a truly global religion? Or will it remain an American church with some carefully controlled international outposts?
So far, it has tended to embrace the latter. For example, in 2015 the Church had a once-in-a-century opportunity to appoint three new members of the Quorum of the Twelve. While many thought it was high time for at least one apostle of color, the Church instead moved in its usual direction; all three appointees were white men from Utah.
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Colvin: The way the Church plants itself in the global south destroys local leadership. We don’t give local people the opportunity to dream and envision the church in ways that are good for their people. The injunction is for a transplanted Mormonism from Utah that works against local cultures. The church asks people from all over the world, regardless of language, culture. and politics to run the enterprise the way that an American business would—replete with an outdated American corporate uniform.
Doing that makes you a stranger in your own culture. And it takes the freshness away that only intercultural practice will discover. It makes it so sterile and without any imagination so that the church simply becomes a vehicle through which bad copies of Utah are replicated all over the world.