“Some people see my race rather than seeing me for who I am” — Participants find profound spiritual joy in the faith, along with heartbreaking “racism and isolation.”

Kristie Stanger-Weyland has to remind herself that people are trying to be helpful when they assume she is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She is one of 52 authors, leaders, scholars and interviewees who took part in a recent Brigham Young University study on the Black experience in a predominantly white church. Published last month in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the research analyzed public accounts of Black members and found they reaped positive spiritual joy, yet encountered “racism and isolation.”

Stanger-Weyland’s experience growing up in the church, serving a full-time mission and marrying in a Latter-day Saint temple has been a blessing to her life, she wrote in the June 2018 edition of the church’s Ensign magazine. But she is constantly reminded that to white members, she is an anomaly. …