Christian churches have an appalling record on race: Southern Baptists split to defend slavery, Dutch Reformed theology underwrote apartheid, and many denominations segregated into the 1960s. Isn’t singling out the LDS restriction a double standard?

The Christian record must be conceded, and plainly. The difference that can be defended is that the LDS restriction was official church policy, presented by prophets as God’s will, and could only be changed by revelation, whereas the Baptist and Reformed failures were violations of their own confessed teaching that all are one in Christ. The question the restriction raises for LDS theology is whether a prophet’s declared will of God can be wrong for a century; the question it raises for Baptists is why they did not obey what they already believed. Both are serious. They are different kinds of problem, and neither excuses the other.