I appreciate Matt’s comments here and they made me think of when I go to visit my daughter in Texas, the one person in their ward that I end up talking to and finding much common ground with is the head of the Tea Party in that area. He, like I, seeks to organize his neighborhood on LDS principles of shared responsibilities, food storage, etc. He believes we should be living the law of consecration as I do–I was a young socialist once–and there are number of other things we have in common. We usually avoid the differences though when we don’t we don’t argue. So there is much common ground, though the different take on them can make us rather adament adversaries. But what I really want to say is that there will be some significant theological challenges from the Saints of color that will be coming in the near future. I think that both conservative and liberal Mormons will be surprised and while they will find some commonalities with those Saints, they will both find some some stark differences. I experienced it as bishop a few years ago. There we mixed some orthodoxy with some rather liberal or radical views. I remember in our ward we were very strict on white shirts, ties, “appropriate hair cuts” but we boycotted grapes and lettuce in support of the farm workers, marched in protests against police brutality, and our Mia Maid president led a school walkout in her middle school. We are law abiding citizens but share social security numbers, advise on how to avoid the “migra”, and rail against the rich even while we listen attentively and appreciative to the wealthy high councilman. And we usually vote against the conservative member running for office. And while liberal are “long past” the Native Americans and Latinos are Lamanites phase, we cling to it as a sense of identity. I could go on and on, but I think we all get the point.
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