The seed of Cain

[_paulfisher]

Why would an omniscient God change His rules in 1978 regarding the priesthood for blacks? Do we believe in a god that does NOT know everything? Is it because of this false dogma of "free" moral agency? If we truly have a free from god agency, god would NOT know what we were going to choose until after we chose it, right?

If god doesn't really know everything because he gave us this "free" agency or will, he certainly would NOT know how to teach us perfectly to become like him could he? He would NOT be able to influence our choices and so could ONLY play "catch up" with us in trying to teach us. This must be why god fails to "exalt" all of his children, all of humanity. He is a failure as god.

Can a god that fails be God?

Again, why would an omniscient God change His rules in 1978 regarding the priesthood for blacks?

Thank you all for your comments.

[_Drifting]

As I understand it (and I've prayed about this so I must be right) God decided to reverse his discrimination against the cursed blacks who had been less valiant in the pre existence were about to cost Him money.

The revelation came AFTER

Martin Luther King had died for fighting discrimination.
BYU teams were boycotted by all other teams because they had no black players.
The Church had been threatened with losing its tax exempt status.

Now, those points may of course just be coincidence...

Anyway. We can clear this up by checking the original revelation where the Prophet was told by God that blacks were bad and shouldn't have the Priesthood. It can be found in Doctrine & Cov....oh.....hang on.....

[_bcspace]

Why would an omniscient God change His rules in 1978 regarding the priesthood for blacks?

He didn't. The doctrine always was that they would get the priesthood at some point. This and plural marriage are two obvious examples of LDS doctrines that haven't changed.

[_Morley]

Why would an omniscient God change His rules in 1978 regarding the priesthood for blacks?

He didn't. The doctrine always was that they would get the priesthood at some point. This and plural marriage are two obvious examples of LDS doctrines that haven't changed.

(Emphasis mine.)

Can you give a reference for this doctrine you cite on the priesthood and blacks, BC? Thanks.

[_bcspace]

Can you give a reference for this doctrine you cite on the priesthood and blacks, BC? Thanks.

The 1949 statement would be one. JFS in Answers to Gospel Questions 2:185 would be another.

[_moksha]

Again, why would an omniscient God change His rules in 1978 regarding the priesthood for blacks?

Thank you all for your comments.

My answer is but a codicil to Bc's answer: God allowed those men, who maintained otherwise, to see that blacks should not have been excluded in the first place. Joseph Smith understood this but the point needed to be reemphasized when we were ready for greater light and wisdom to enter our world.

[_Morley]

Can you give a reference for this doctrine you cite on the priesthood and blacks, BC? Thanks.

The 1949 statement would be one. JFS in Answers to Gospel Questions 2:185 would be another.

In part, you seem to mean this:

The First Presidency Statement on the Negro Question

August 17, 1949

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: "The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

It does appear that some of this doctrine has changed, however.

[_Daheshist]

God changed his Mind about blacks in 1978, because the
Church had two major problems:

1. The Church had already ordained tens of thousands of white Brazilian men to the Priesthood, many or even most of whom had one Negro ancestor. To enforce the Priesthood-ban in Brazil (anyone with "one drop" of Negro blood....) would essentially mean the "end" of the Church in Brazil.

2. The U.S. Government was threatening to deny all BYU students federal grants and loans, and also (rumor) that it was threatening to end the Church's tax-exemption on the many Church owned businesses which brought in billions of untaxed dollars to the Church every year.

God could have went """"""ZAP""""" and ended the existences of the Federal agents threatening the Church, and God could have told Kimball to simply wipe out the Church in Brazil, because a curse is a curse, but God decided to end the priesthood-ban LONG before the Millennium was over and Negro woman began to have Anglo-Saxon children, as was expected.

[_Zelder]

The problem with the priesthood ban is that there is no recorded revelation and no solid scriptural support. The only thing about it that gives any credance to the church is that they kept saying that negros would eventually get the priesthood.

[Guest]

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