Missing the Grove for the Cherries
or: How Dr. John Dehlin Misunderstands "Mormon God"
Permit me to break out the red pencil as a practicing Latter-day Saint. What I will focus on are faithful counterpoints to what Dr. Dehlin brings up.
After all, if you’re going to style yourself an academic and then presume to be a source to “understand Mormonism,” you should be held to an academic standard. Given Dr. Dehlin’s long‑standing public focus on Latter‑day Saint issues, precision in describing LDS doctrine is especially important. His major weakness is the use of technical theological terms without definition. To be fair, his training is in IT, psychology and podcasting rather than formal theology, which may explain some definitional shortcuts. He also treats LDS thought as if it were frozen in the 1980s, overlooking ongoing statements on continuing revelation.
While I am sympathetic to those who find themselves struggling with, around, against, or within faith, and that I hold no personal animus against Dr. Dehlin, I find his approach here to be lacking. I’ll take his points and see what I make of them. If you’d rather read a largely AI-generated TL;DR for any reason, here it is:
Before I Begin
I start before Dr. Dehlin’s actual points, because the first issue pops up before his list starts. “Since Joseph Smith and the Mormon church both have changed their positions on God dramatically over the years, and since modern Mormons often vary in their beliefs…” This is a really shaky framing. Assuming the Church and Joseph Smith are receiving continuing revelation, isn’t that what is expected, especially if our understanding of God’s nature needs fine-tuning?1 Is change or revelation regarding a concept of God a bad thing?
That’s a high, rigid bar that doesn’t admit of much nuance.
The Christian understanding itself has changed over the years, and in fact was a change in concept of God in the first place. The first Christians were Jews at one time, so there’s a real question to be had here: isn’t change the point to some degree? And I would venture to say that even Dr. Dehlin has changed his position on God over his “45 years as an active, faithful member” and after.
What follows is that Dr. Dehlin attempts to compare “Mormon God” to “Christian God” and readily shows that the topics at hand may be more complex than at first blush.
Attempted SimilaritiesDr. Dehlin: “Mormon God is all-powerful….at least in comparison to humans (D&C 19:1-3)”
Broadly correct, but lacking depth.
Dr. Dehlin will still have to parse this for his Christian (post-Christian?) audience as there are quite a few versions of omnipotence on the table here. Dr. Dehlin failed to introduce the ideas which limit God in Mormon thought, such as how God can’t contravene mercy and justice (see Alma 42:13, 22-25), can’t change as to His miraculous attitude (see Moroni 9:19), or create what is fundamental in mankind (see D&C 93:29). Already that will put “Mormon God” at odds with most Christian concepts of omnipotence because most Christians get their dander up hearing the words “God” and “can’t” in the same sentence. By inserting the “at least” qualifier Dr. Dehlin has already radically diverged from most classical Christian formulations in tacitly rejecting creation from nothing (or ex nihilo) and putting forward an idea of a pretty limited God. Strike one in similarity, at least with Dr. Dehlin’s well-read Christian audience. He also cited D&C 19:1-3 which shows a pretty decent concept of “Mormon God” in unity, but not in Trinity. He has an omnipotent Father willing the Son to do things, and yet the Son “retain[s] all power.” It would be helpful to know what he means there.Dr. Dehlin: “Mormon God is all-knowing (2 Nephi 9:20).”
Right again, in principle, but what does he mean by all-knowing? Does he mean that God knows all things, period? Does he mean that God knows all things that can be known? What can be known? Does God know the future infallibly? It’s a similar issue to #1 here. Dr. Dehlin keeps using these words, but I don’t think they mean what he thinks they mean.2
P.s. Dr. Dehlin, Several links misdirect; clarifying sources will strengthen your piece’s credibility.Dr. Dehlin: “Mormon God is considered to be all-loving….such that He intimately knows and loves every one of his billions and billions of human children (Uchtdorf 2011).”
This would follow more from God’s omniscience rather than His love it seems, otherwise this is just a tautology: God loves you so He loves you. So in Dr. Dehlin’s estimation does “Mormon God” know you because He loves you, or does He love you because He knows you? It isn’t an unimportant distinction! If God knows you because He loves you, that makes Love primary, but may leave open (logically-speaking) a point at which God didn’t know you. If God loves you because He knows you, that makes God’s omniscience primary, but may leave open a point at which He didn’t love you. Again, clarity.
Some of this also has to do with God’s passability, that is to say that “Mormon God” is not wholly a se, or unaffected by either His creation nor His children. The talk cited deals directly with this “paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it.”3 Again Dr. Dehlin show how adept he is at some of the sharper breaks with classical Christian thought, but not in comparison. The reader will also be advised to read all of what Dr. Dehlin cites, and maybe a few verses/paragraphs around the source.
Dr. Dehlin also seems to think it is weird that God could intimately know “billions and billions of human children.”4 This would follow trivially from certain species of omniscience, and might even be a bare minimum for said quality.“Mormons are encouraged to pray daily to their ‘Heavenly Father,’ and are promised that He will guide and bless them if they keep His commandments (i.e. show obedience).”
Granted, nothing terrible here. To be fair, this is standard fare in any theistic tradition. No receipts, though.“Mormon God’s ‘blessings’ (like healing, miracles, forgiveness, etc.) are often taught to be conditional upon said obedience. This makes Mormon God’s love/support somewhat conditional. Which can be confusing.”
Much like the standard of unchangeable theology, this sounds a little weird and also has no receipts. Allow me to provide them.
D&C 130:20-21 explicitly states that there is a law by which one must abide if they are to receive “blessing.” President Nelson has recently made this a focus of some remarks given to young adults at BYU. This, indeed can be confusing, but is no more confusing than the problem of evil (to which, incidentally, LDS thought has strong stances).5 In fact, it might actually be conceptually helpful to the faithful to have the thought of a law-obedience-based approach. I don’t have to be responsible for the miscarriage of looked-for blessing simply because I didn’t know the laws at play in the state of affairs, and by LDS scripture I am not accountable for that which I do not know (see D&C 137). God is not necessarily responsible for my ignorance, and also does not have a duty to resolve that unless it’s a salvific issue. This brings up what kind of power God may (or may not) have on the LDS view, and so would be more proper to the omnipotence rather than the omnibenevolence discussion.“…as with generic Judeo-Christian God, Mormon God can be conditionally benevolent while also being simultaneously racist, misogynistic, violent, and even genocidal. Yes…I said it. Mormon God takes misogyny, bigotry, and violence to 11, so to speak. Think I’m exaggerating? I bring receipts.”
What Dr. Dehlin admits here is that a Christian (or theist of any persuasion, really) must wrestle with the problem of evil and contextualizing suffering. What he misses are the many theodicies (responses to the problem of evil) on the table from at least as many faith traditions.
I am surprised that in this bit Dr. Dehlin didn’t bring up 1 Samuel 15 or Deuteronomy 7 in the list of heinous divine commands, just the flood in Genesis 6.6 Let’s deal with the bullet points of #6. For those interested in theodicy I’ve given a starter for LDS responses in my fifth footnote.
Before I get to the sub-bullet points, this point is the largest example of trying to lock in a Latter-day Saint to only a specific (i.e. Dr. Dehlin’s) frame of reference (the 1980’s), but then switching when convenient. Dr. Dehlin wants to reference all the distinctly “Mormon” problematic scriptures, but then accuses the “Mormon” of bearing the burden of the entire canon, Bible included. If that is on the table, then Biblical responses are also warranted for the Latter-day Saint. He will probably also claim this is his understanding, having been raised and taught in the ‘80s, but this is a double standard: Dr. Dehlin is allowed to change in his understanding and attitude, but not those who supposedly have access to divine revelation.
Dr. Dehlin isn’t alone in this, it’s a hard thing to get right. There is tension baked into the program, no matter what Christian denomination you affirm, and I’m sympathetic to that. Catholics get to deal with Papal infallibility and him speaking ex cathedra, Protestants get to deal with sola scriptura (whether or not they affirm it, first of all) and their internal disagreements as to salvific doctrine. I find this to be one of the more pressing cultural (or first-level) questions at the moment generally among us faithful Latter-day Saints: How do you square divine institutional revelation, agency, tradition, culture, and so forth? This post isn’t quite the place for that, but it is an interesting question.7On With the Sub-List
“Mormon God commanded the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon to decapitate and pilfer from an inebriated and fully incapactiated [sic] man named Laban (1 Nephi 4:10-19). This story alone helped to inspire Lori Vallow Daybell and her accomplice, Chad, to murder several of her family members, including her own children (see “Be like Nephi”).”
Dr. Dehlin is right, there was that command. And the responses are also interesting.8 It’s something that has been dealt with openly, and certainly within the good doctor’s 45-year sincere activity range.
There is a sneaking-in of some psychologizing from Megan Conner concerning the Daybell case which is, indeed, horrifying. And if someone uses 1 Nephi 4 to justify actions like that, they should have the book thrown at them, legally and spiritually.
It can be true that Lori Vallow took that story from 1 Nephi 4 as inspiration. It can also be true that a fallacy of composition is committed here, and Dr. Dehlin finds good company with Messers Krakauer and Black in that regard. To paint LDS belief as necessarily being susceptible to religious violence due to few cases is not new, and it’s still wrong both factually and morally. He also breaks out of his “mostly…Mormon scripture and teachings from top church leaders” with a reference to a YouTube podcaster, but he did say “mostly.” Whatever it takes to land the point. Church leaders have never publicly taught anything close to killing for the faith.9 This might actually land as a tick in favor of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon in that they do not hide the hard stuff, especially ancient, brutal hard stuff.“Mormon God cursed ‘wicked’ Native Americans (and their descendants) with black skin so they would appear “loathsome” to His righteous, whiter children (2 Nephi 5:21-23).”
Yes, that is indeed what the text doth saith. It is also a presentist reading, though understandable, to see this as completely racially-oriented. It may have been Hebrew idiom to refer to color (perhaps of the skin) with respect to other modifiers, usually righteousness which, coincidentally, is exactly what we see reflected in these verses in the Book of Mormon (for reference see also Jeremiah 8:21 & 14:2, Joel 2:6, Nahum 2:10).10 Perhaps as a “cultural Mormon” explaining idiom and custom to outsiders, Dr. Dehlin knows some of the difficulty in misunderstanding or equivocation in terms. In this case, black and white can simply be referring to righteousness. You also need to take into account that the very same book of scripture (ostensibly from the same author) says the following: “For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (see 2 Nephi 26:33). This is not to say that one verse excuses another, but the Book of Mormon is not univocal on the subject, and one risks misleading their audience not to acknowledge that fact.
There is also a fundamental assumption here that the “skin of blackness” refers to those of a certain skin tone hailing from a specific continent. Quick pump on the mental brakes here: the Book of Mormon purports to be a record largely of the happenings in America, not Africa. I don’t know that Dr. Dehlin draws that distinction as seen below.“Incidentally, Mormon God also threw in a curse to any white person today who ‘mixes with their seed’ (i.e. has a baby) with a black person. This prohibition or discouragement of interracial marriage has continued to today within the LDS Church (see footnote 38 from current Mormon prophet Russell M. Nelson).”
This rightly belongs with point b above, but this also shows a narrow interpretive lens and a little cultural legerdemain. To be clear: is the Church’s stance to race and how it was handled until 1978 problematic? Yes. Was it wrong? I think so. Is that permissible in a LDS paradigm? Yes. Does that justify it or make it right? No. But it seems like an organization that is willing to change and acknowledge that is both doing the right thing and in line with scriptural precedent. Remember Peter and the Gentiles?
Even if Dr. Dehlin is proposing an interpretation here of 2 Nephi 5:20-24 he’s on extremely shaky ground as is anyone who would have used this particular passage to refer to those of African descent.11 Remember: the Book of Mormon records things that happened on the American continent, not the African one.12 But Dr. Dehlin brings no receipts here, so I have to assume that this point is connected to the one above. And before anyone comes at me with the “you’re being pedantic” line, please remember that Dr. Dehlin has a PhD and is also styling himself as a source to “understand Mormonism.” So either he can plead ignorance, or he can be academically rigorous and responsible, especially in his public-facing outreach.
As for the critical “mixes with their seed” line, it could certainly mean sexual intercourse, but there are multiple ways in which that can be understood as seed is an equivocal term. It can mean either the stuff of copulation or the literal offspring in this context. As an example: Is it mixing if my kids play with your kids? Is it mixing if cultures live together? Obviously if those are the case the likelihood is much higher for “multiplying and replenishing the earth” (to use a Biblical phrase), but that has to be the only interpretation? While one can play the game, it severely limits both understanding and critical depth. Also remember from b above, that “black person” can be an idiom native to the Ancient Near East regarding faithfulness, and again that this particular verse was Lamanite-specific. As an example from the ANE, this treaty in §81 talks of curses of black skin given as retribution for “sin[ning] against this treaty” (see §71). I know that example isn’t from Church texts or leaders, but if texts like the Book of Mormon purport to be ancient, I should know something about ancient culture such that I can read them clearly.
As for the claim that “This prohibition or discouragement of interracial marriage has continued to today within the LDS Church,” Dr. Dehlin is really reaching. Granted, he’s drawing from his 45-year experience, which coincided with the 1995 footnote cited, but really? 30 years ago is today? Click here for the Church’s today stance.13 That said, here is the entirety of the offending footnote:
2 Ne. 26:33. Additional scripture declares that God “made the world and all things therein, … and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:24, 26).The commandment to love our neighbors without discrimination is certain. But it must not be misunderstood. It applies generally. Selection of a marriage partner, on the other hand, involves specific and not general criteria. After all, one person can only be married to one individual.
The probabilities of a successful marriage are known to be much greater if both the husband and wife are united in their religion, language, culture, and ethnic background. Thus, in choosing an eternal companion, wisdom is needed. It’s better not to fly in the face of constant head winds. Occasional squalls provide challenge enough. Once marriage vows are taken, absolute fidelity is essential—to the Lord and to one’s companion.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see “Don’t marry a black person” here. Elder Nelson doesn’t even mention race or skin color! And since Dr. Dehlin already knows something of acclimatizing to culture through his missionary service, he probably knows why this advice isn’t as ugly as it could be construed to be. It’s even borne out by contemporary research. Let’s look at the text from whence comes the footnote:
When we know who we are and what God expects of us—when his “law [is] written in [our] hearts”—we are spiritually protected. We become better people. When the Nephites were truly righteous, they avoided divisive nicknames and “there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.”“There were no … Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.”
That lesson from history suggests that we also delete from our personal vocabularies names that segregate and hyphens that separate. Paul taught that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
He invites us “to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; … all are alike unto God.” (see Children of the Covenant, Nelson 1995)
Funny how the remarks reference none of the problems from Dr. Dehlin’s points b and c, but state all of the inclusive stuff… it just doesn’t read as a “prohibition on interracial marriage.” From the above, I could also conclude that I probably shouldn’t marry a European or perhaps a Russian or a Canadian (or heavens even a Texan! It’s practically a foreign language and culture down there compared to Utah, so double strike…) even though the skin color is the same.“Mormon God threatened to literally destroy a married woman for refusing to allow her husband to take on additional polygamous wives (D&C 132:52-54). In this case, I am referring specifically to Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, and his wife Emma.”
Dr. Dehlin did get this one right. That is what the text says, and it isn’t terribly ancient and it was originally given in English. Scripture can be hard no matter the time frame. However, the circumstances surrounding the revelation are debated and interesting. I’ll defer to Brian Hales and a FAIR article on the subject since this isn’t an area of interest or aptitude for me. Suffice it to say that there is still more to the story which is readily available, and we should scrutinize available material.“After the crucifixion of Jesus, Mormon God destroyed entire cities full of His American children with “tempests, earthquakes, fires, whirlwinds, and physical upheavals” for no apparent reason (3 Nephi 8).”
No apparent reason? Dr. Dehlin picked the wrong chapter. 3 Nephi 8 is framed with the crucifixion of Jesus, but also a falling away from God in verse 4 and a realization of possible repentance in verses 24 and 25, at least for the cities of Zarahemla and Moronihah.
That said, there is a far better chapter than 3 Nephi 8, because the destructions are not framed as acts of God but as an almost as a dry historical tally of what happened where. FAR better for Dr. Dehlin’s case is 3 Nephi 9 where the voice of God takes credit for the far more boring account from just a chapter earlier where God isn’t even mentioned once. But that doesn’t really help the “for no apparent reason” line, because reasons are given in 3 Nephi 9. I’ll trust the reader with them and to come to your own conclusion as to whether they are warranted.“And perhaps the most brutal punishment of all — Mormon God has promised that some of his children (whom He claims to infinitely know and love) will be sent to “outer darkness” after Judgement Day, wherein “…there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come…” and wherein they “…shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels” (D&C 76:32-38). Yes…that’s right. Eternal punishment. Eternal.”
Dr. Dehlin has Calvinism and predestination in his head here. And this is where I’m assuming his concept of omniscience comes from, since this would indeed be terrible, especially if God knows infallibly who will be consigned to punishment and separation and suffering without end, and especially if God created that place to be populated with people He already knew would arrive there. That is a fairly monstrous proposition, and added to that the fact that it seems like it will be an Eternal Conscious Torment, that would indeed be monstrous.
But please, dear reader, do as I have shown above and please just read the verses cited by Dr. Dehlin, plus verse 31. It’s fairly clear that this is something which is known and which is chosen through an active denial of God’s saving power through Christ. Hence the moniker Sons of Perdition. Verse 31 says, “Thus saith the Lord concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power.” This puts most of Dr. Dehlin’s point to bed on two counts: the agency part I already mentioned, and the mere fact that there is also the possibility that no one fulfills this category. The way the verse is phrased leaves the door open to the fact that this state is possible, but because that is the case it is also possible that it not be filled.
But let’s assume in the billions and billions of God’s children there’s at least one who fulfills the conditions above. Here I will appeal to the good Doctor’s mission language of Spanish to illustrate this idea, because it pops right out. In Spanish the plan of God to save is called El Plan de Salvación, derived from the verb salvar which means “to save.” The title for Sons of Perdition is Hijos de Perdición, derived from the verb perder which means “to lose.” Hence, directly translated, anyone who accepts even a modicum of glory due to God’s Plan of Salvation will be a Son (or Daughter) [of] Saved, while one who completely and freely reject it will be a Son (or Daughter) [of] Lost.14 Those who will not be saved of their own free will will become lost, they won’t necessarily even be sons of God anymore, they will become sons of Lost of their own free will. That’s a significant difference from what was described as “brutal punishment.”
And lest we get confused and think this to be Hell, that is clearly outlined by “Mormon Jesus” in D&C 19:1-20. Hell is temporary both in duration and in punishment, they both end at some point. At least for the sinner. Outer Darkness, yes, is forever so far as we know. But it is also chosen over and against any kind of salvation whatsoever. You have to want it.
I will also note that eternal has multiple meanings in a LDS paradigm, and not just that of “everlasting duration.” The scripture above does a good job, but Moses 7:35 also explicitly uses both endless and eternal as name-titles for God. Hopefully that also gives the reader a bit more regarding the importance of defining theological terms and interpretations.
Conclusion(s)
“Overall, like the traditional Judeo-Christian God, Mormon God is a hot mess of exquisite yet often conditional love, with an occasional side of bigotry or brutality. Still….I’m guessing that these are common themes for both Jews and Christians alike.”
Maybe Dr. Dehlin should look up the meaning of the word bigot before slinging that one around. But only if he’s obstinately or intolerantly devoted to the opinions and prejudices of 1980’s Mormonism.
That said, I’ll just point any reader again to just search up some theodicies and see how to negotiate some of the issues involved. You can start in footnote five if you’d like. It is also the case that someone may look at them and reject them. That’s ok, too. But at least then you’ve read some and wrestled some, and that would be a good thing in the long run.
And with that, I lay down the red pencil. I might get around to his “Ways that Mormon God is Possibly DIFFERENT than Generic Judeo-Christian [sic] God.”
Again, I bear Dr. Dehlin, Ph.D. no personal animus. I’m sure in most things he is sincere, especially interpersonally. Given his public Mormon track record, this post under his credentials and styling did not rise to sincerity in my book, so there is the critique and the parts I disagreed with. Along with receipts, hyperlinked to the best of my ability. If he’d like to chat about this or other points here, I’m happy to oblige.
see The Princess Bride. I was told to bring receipts, and if a podcaster is good enough for Dr. Dehlin, then this is what I choose. It’s pretty close to LDS cultural scripture at this point; I’m just waiting for a millennial General Authority to quote it over the pulpit in General Conference.
see You Matter to Him by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, October 2011.
See Donald Trump.
I have given a few resources to this effect before, but a good primer is the book Eternal Man by Truman Madsen, Blake Ostler’s fourth volume of Exploring Mormon Thought, and Terryl and Fiona Givens’ The God Who Weeps. A really accessible one by David Paulsen can be found here. I know of other philosophical frameworks that are beginning to depart from standard LDS lines in interesting ways like this one.
Dr. Dehlin can thank me later. Naughty naughty, you’ll get caughty! The way the “there, I said it” is written like a teenager showing you something dirty on the internet is just funny. This is probably unfair of me, but the Peeves voice actor won out on this one.
This article by Michael Goodman does a fairly decent job at outlining the issue.
Nephi’s killing of Laban has been analyzed as a literary device, as necessary for Nephite sovereignty, as justified legally in Israelite culture, as rudimentary Divine Command theology, as atonement typology and deliverance typology, as a model for revelation (NOT action, obviously), and various other ways.
You can use this resource to search any scriptural reference in any publicly available general conference of the Church since 1830. Maybe someone is hiding something, but it doesn’t look that way to me. Let me know if you find anything otherwise, especially connected to 1 Nephi 4:10.
This article from Scripture Central does a good job of showing the context. You already know all the arguments against, here are some arguments for. They include a symbolic approach as well as consideration of “skin” referring to self-imposed markings or garments.
The most explicit example I could find after a little digging was a talk given by Mark E. Petersen titled Race Problems—As they Affect the Church given to religion teachers at BYU in 1954. The Church even gives you where to find the typescript if you look, and there are a few different digital transcriptions extant. If you’re willing to do some archival research, physical manuscripts are held at the U of U and Utah State. The offending passage regarding 2 Nephi 5:21 (the whole speech is pretty bad, to be honest, especially by contemporary standards) is:
The Lord segregated the people both as to blood and place of residence, at least in the bases of the Lamanites and the Negroes we have the definite word of the Lord himself that He placed a dark skin upon then: as a curse — as a sign to all others. He forbade intermarriage with them under threat of extension of the curse (2 Nephi 5:21) [a]nd He certainly segregated the descendants of Cain when He cursed the Negro as to the Priesthood, and drew an absolute line. You may even say He dropped an iron curtain there. The Negro was cursed as to the Priesthood, and therefore, was cursed as to the blessings of the Priesthood. Certainly God made a segregation there.
I don’t have to be a Mark Petersen apologist, but I can also raise the same question here that I did in my body text with Dr. Dehlin: Didn’t they both realize that the verse in 2 Nephi 5 is Lamanite-specific? It is certainly a stretch interpretively, literarily, and critically to try and universally extend the curses there. That just doesn’t follow from the text, but might from certain interpretive lenses which, I’ll grant, are still alive and well in the general Christian landscape.
There are certainly others, it doesn’t take but a quick Google search to quote-mine. This example was the highest-ranking Church official I could find with quickly verified records and readily available text. What this does show is that the topic of race at the time was hotly debated, vehemently defended, and eventually the proponents of the ban were in the wrong. It’s messy, it’s interesting, and it’s not necessarily right nor easy. But the fixation is a little baffling to me, especially when the implicit argument seems to be (not just from Dr. Dehlin, but from many detractors): “Go back to pre-1978 and Official Declaration 2 so you can be racist and consistent, but fix it; but you’re racist for having been racist and trying to fix it, and you’re inconsistent, so fix that, and it’s not enough to fix it, recognize error, and extend the same sort of opportunities to anyone who is morally worthy.” Makes the head spin, frankly. I’m not that good at moral superiority.
Paul Reeve has done good work on this. You can find an article on it here or pick up his Let’s Talk entry here.
You can also look at sections 38.3 and 38.4 in the Church’s Handbook of Instructions for guidelines on marriages if you’d like. I’m sure there is plenty there to offend those who look, but you won’t find guidelines on racial differences there.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, Dr Dehlin’s article as well. You did a great job clarifying and challenging the doctor. He was sloppy in his “points”.