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Another interesting item in the most recent SWK Bio, which is written by his son Edward, is the whole black and the priesthood topic.

An examination of the historical basis for it is provided-it really does seem to have originated from BY and more likely then not Joseph Smith had nothing to do with it. The author's conclusion.

The scriptural justifications are discussed and they seem to be weak arguments. The author's conclusions.

The idea of blacks being less valiant spirits in the pre-existence is discussed as well and it is discussed in the context that it was actually considered doctrine to justify the ban. The author certainly thinks the idea was used in a doctrinal sense and provides detail from other leaders that seemed to conclude that this was the only reason to doctrinally justify the ban.

I know that many apologists argue that this was never doctrine, or maybe they use the term official doctrine. But from a historical perspective it does seem that this was the doctrinal reason in most member’s eyes. Growing up in the Church I often heard this as the reason.

I really think to argue that it was not considered doctrine is a rather weak position to take.

I always wondered why the church was defending a policy as if it were a doctrine. If it were simply policy, I could swallow that. But God was brought into the picture, and sadly in the eyes of some, he's still in it.

GIMR wrote:I always wondered why the church was defending a policy as if it were a doctrine. If it were simply policy, I could swallow that. But God was brought into the picture, and sadly in the eyes of some, he's still in it.

Another interesting thought on this that the book highlighted, and which was held by Marion D. Hanks, Lowell Bennion and some other leaders, was the idea that God restricted the priesthood to blacks not because of the blacks but because the white people in the Church were spiritually immature and to prejudiced to accept black people holding he priesthood. Allowing them to have the priesthood would have hindered the progress of too many of the majority and thus God waited till more were ready.

Personally I do not buy that argument. I very close friend of mine has the same view and actually I never heard it from anyone but him till I read this book.

Hey JB,

I heard that argument plenty of times, but never bought it. It seems to me that these days people aren't really ready to do what it takes for their faith to go forward. It's ok to talk about the persecution of the pioneers, but let's not talk about Jane Manning James who walked that distance to SLC as a faithful saint too, only to be denied entrance to the temple. Let's talk about Elijah Abel, but not talk about all those talks that have mysteriously disappeared from LDS.org.

I agree that Joseph Smith didn't have anything to do with the priesthood ban. BY started that mess. I think Joseph Smith had the limited views of his day, and the references to skins of blackness in the Book of Mormon really disturbed me when I read them. But that's nothing compared to the lengths church leaders went to in order to justify the ban. Their ideas were not new, but they sure did hang on a lot longer than many.

What's strange is that many black LDS do not buy the current reasonings for the priesthood ban. But things vary as far as what people feel should be done. Some are afraid to speak up, some do and get blacklisted. Look at Darron Smith. Some are content to know what the problem is, are miserable by the runoff caused by it, but do nothing but mumble when no one can hear. And one dude I knew from Ghana said that in his hometown ward they said amongst themselves that the priesthood ban was a bunch of bovine fecal matter erected by the crazy white people in America.

The saddest thing is that you will still hear "it was of God" in this day and age with regards to this. And yet people are horrified when comedians get up and start using the "n" word. The bias had to start somewhere...

The idea that the ban was not doctrinal is nonsense!

Of course it was official doctrine.

Like GIMR, the justification and rationalization I STILL HEAR TODAY, is far worse than the actual ban, as disgusting as it was.

Regarding the very ridiculous idea that white folks weren't ready ... ohhh don't get me started on that! Yeah, God can create a galaxy but he can't figure out a way to teach white people acceptance and equality? God had to wait for non-LDS people to show the way? LDS folks are more racist than the rest of the country so God couldn't help them learn some basic truths regarding our human family? God can tell a prophet to buy a mall but he can't figure out a way to teach believers to treat all people as equals regardless of their ancestry or skin color? God can tell a prophet how many earrings women are allowed to wear but he can't help people realize we all have ancestors from Africa who had black skin?

It is all ridiculous! :-(

~dancer~

Mark of Cain and related garbage thought,

I frankly would have preferred growing up innocent of these malignant doctrines. Perhaps past a certain age a person might make a distinction about their doctrinal status. When you are growing up being taught that the church has a special open door to understanding the truth being taught that black Americans are deficinet and need to learn patience and respect for order before being included claims your understanding even when you suspect there are reasons to doubt the idea.

Should I confess that I puzzled about the doctrine and peeked at doubting it while Mormon but probably did not discard untill securely seperated from the organization. It was only at a real distance that I could really see that it is a seriously stupid idea. It is an idea without foundation existing only for the purpose of self gratification.

I left the organization when it was unquestionably a carrier and purvayor of racist thought. I realize not everybody was happy even then with that role. There were many genuinly gland when the rule changed. My mother called to tell me the great news of the priesthood ban ending. I am glad for her that it changed.

I have difficulty not hearing echos of the old attitudes in speach I have read on message boards.

"It was not racial but a matter on lineage"

Is there some other meaning to the idea of race but lineage? Well its easy to say other peoples forebarers are a problem when you are a group going out of its way to claim a priveledge lineage for oneselve.

Actually speaking abuot blacks being racist when they bring up racial problems in America.

You know you are sitting in a sublet kkk when you hear that.

It reminds me of the criticism I heardr from Mormons about Martin Luther King. He didn't understand and respect proper order.

I have read a good number of arguments about what aspects of Mormon thaught might not be genuinely Christian. I think there are doubious ideas. The most dubious is the concern with chosen lineage that infects Mormon thaught. American indians are supposted to be blessed by a connection with a handful of Jewish immagrants. Nonsense. Native Americans are blessed through being themselves. Mormons are supposed to treasue some sort of connection to tribes of Isreal. What for?

One of the most profound Christian realizations is that Gods actions in choosing Isreal was to reveal something essestial in his relationship to all people. The hope sent forth by Christ was sent to all people to strengthen and give hope to all nations all peoples.

Hi huck!!!

Welcome to this board!

Jersey Girl
(LSD)

\o/\o/\o/

Jason Bourne wrote:I really think to argue that it was not considered doctrine is a rather weak position to take.

You are quite right. In the first official FP statement (dated August 17, 1949) regarding "[t]he attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes," it is made clear that the priesthood ban "is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord...." (emphasis added).

This statement goes on to quote BY's "seed of Cain" reasoning for the ban, but adds this further justification: "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 ...."

For one to argue it was not once "doctrine" is absurd in light of this official FP statement, in my opinion.

The revelation extending the full blessings of the priesthood to all races ranks among the great events of this dispensation. It is one of the singular events necessary for the fulfillment of prophecies that the fullness of the gospel would be taken to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people before the return of Christ.

The events that attended the receipt of this revelation constitute a classic illustration of how revelation is received. The time was right, and accordingly the Spirit of the Lord began to work on President Kimball. For months he labored with the issue, spending many hours in the most holy of places in the temple, importuning the heavens for direction. Preparatory to the receipt of this revelation, he was required - according to the pattern established in Doctrine and Covenants 9 - to study, search, and councel with those charged to direct the affairs of the Church. By his own ackknowledgment, it was also necessary for him to rid his own heart and soul of any possible sence of racial superiority, particularly as such feelings were common to the community in which he had been raised.

President Kimball did not act alone on the matter. He sought the feelings of his counselors and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In March 1978 he invited any of the Twelve who desired to do so to make expressions to him in writing so that he could carefully consider them. Three members of that Quprum responded to this invitation: Elders Monson, Packer, and McConkie. Elder McConkie's memo centered on the doctrinal basis for confering the Melchizedek Priesthood on the blacks. After the revelation was received, he freely shared with his family the scriptural chain of thought he had suggested to President Kimball. The power of it was in its simplicity. He simply saw things in scripture that the rest of us had conditioned ourselves not to see. He saw them in a new light and had no hesitation in moving forward.

He reasoned that inherent in any passage of scripture that promised that the gospel would go to all mankind was the promise that it - with all its blessings - must go to the blacks. The Third Article of Faith states, "We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel." The word saved as used in the text, he said, meant to be exalted or obtain all the blessings of the celestial kingdom. To illustrate the point, he quoted Doctrine and Covenants 6:13: "If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for their is no gift greater than the gift of salvation," and Joseph Smith's statement that "salvation consists in the glory, authority, majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses and in nothing else."

He pointed out that all those who accept the gospel become the seed of the family of Abraham and are entitled to all of the blessings of the gospel. Jehovah told Abraham that his seed would take the gospel and the "Priesthood unto all nations" and that "as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father" (Abraham 2:9-10). Jehovah also promised Abraham that when his literal seed took the message of salvation to "all nations", then shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal" (Abraham 2:9, 11; emphasis added). This, of coarce, is the doctrine of adoption into the house of Israel.



In his address at Elder McConkie's funeral, Elder Boyd K. Packer observed that "President Kimball has spoken in public of his gratitude to Elder McConkie for some special support he received in the days leading up to the revelation on the Priesthood." It would be hard to suppose that this special help did not include the assurance of Elder McConkie's gospel understanding.

It is well withen the mark to say that no member of the Church was more excited or pleased than Bruce McConkie about the revelation given to President Kimball on this matter. One evidence of his excitement about this momentous event is the freedom with which he spoke and wrote about the events that led up to the receipt of the revelation.

As the First Presidency and the Twelve discussed the matter the week before the revelation, Elder LeGrand Richards identified the presence of President Wilford Woodruff in their temple meeting. Perhaps it was given to Elder Richards to know this because he was the only one of their number old enough to have actually seen Wilford Woodruff, which he had done as a young boy. As to why President Woodruff was there, Elder McConkie reasoned that since he had presided over the Church when the revelation to reverse its cource on the matter of plural marriage was given, it was natural that he would be called on to help direct the Brethren when the revelation was neded that represented a reversal of direction.

Elder Richards asked that the Twelve and the First Presidency keep his having seen President Woodruff a confidential matter because he did not want people thinking him some kind of great man to have had that experience. Elder Packer felt it proper to make this knowledge public at Elder Richard's funeral.

The revelation was received on Thursday, June 1, 1978, about twelve noon in the upper room of the Salt Lake Temple. The normal order of the day was for the Twelve to meet and attend to their business and then be joined by the First Presidency. When the two quorums meet, they unite in prayer, according to the pattern of the temple. They then conduct their bussiness, which normally ends about the middle of the afternoon. The Brethren then retire to a dining room for lunch, after which they leave the temple.

On Thursday, June 1, 1978, the Twelve met as usual. They were joined by the First Presidency, the Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric at 9 a.m., and the normal meeting was held. It included partaking of the sacrament and the bearing of testimony. The Spirit of the Lord was present in great abundance. After the prayer closing that meeting, President Kimball took the usual step of inviting the members of the First Presidency and the Twelve to remain in the room and excused the other Brethren. All had come to the meeting fasting. President Kimball told the Twelve that he would like them to continue during the rest of the day to fast with the First Presidency and that the normal luncheon at the end of the bussiness meeting had been cancelled. He reminded the members of the Presidency and the Twelve that in recent months he had been giving extended serious prayerful consideration to the matter of conferring the priesthood upon the blacks and that he felt the need for divine guidance. He had spent many hours alone in the upper room in the temple pleading with the Lord for councel and direction. He said he hoped the Lord would give a revelation one way or another and resolve the matter. He indicated that if it was the mind and will of the Lord that the church continue in the present cource, denying the priesthood to the descendants of Cain, that he was willing to sustain and support that decision and defend it with all its implications to the death. He said, however, that if the Lord was willing to have the priesthood go to them, he hoped for a clear affirmation of this so there would be no question in anyone's mind.



A long discussion followed in which each member of the Quorum of the Twelve expressed himself. Elder McConkie recorded: "A strong, compelling spirit of unity was in the meeting. It seemed as though all of the Brethren were in effect joining in the prayers which President Kimball had recently been making on this tremendously important matter."

President Kimball suggested that they go forward with the prayer. He said that if it was agreeable with the Brethren, he would be voice. He importuned the Lord with great fervor and faith. He asked that a revelation be given manifesting the Lord's mind and will on this matter so that the issue could be resolved. "it was one of those occasions," Elder McConkie wrote in his journal, "when the one who was mouth in the prayer prayed by the power of the Spirit and was given expression and guided in the words that were used and the sentances said. The prayer he gave was dictated by the Holy Ghost."

While President kimball prayed, the revelation came. When he ended the prayer, there was a great Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit such as none of those present had ever before experienced. There are no words to describe what happened. It was something that could only be felt in the hearts of the recipients and which can only be understood by the power of the Spirit. Afterward, President Kimball, his couselors, and President Benson, representing the feeling of all who were present, expressed themselves to the effect that never in their experience in the Church had they felt or experienced anything in any way comparable to what occured on this occasion.

The manner in which the revelation was given could not have been more perfect. it came through the prophet of the Lord, President Spencer W. Kimball, and at the same time was received by way of confirmation by twelve others. Thus, the prophet received the revelation with twelve men (two members of the First presidency and ten members of the Quorum of the Twelve) all of whom had been set apart as apostles of the Lord and all of them receiving the same revelation at the same time to attest to the verity of the event.

Those absent were Elders Mark E. Petersen and Delbert L Stapley. Elder Petersen was on assignment in South America, and Elder Stapley was ill in LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. It was felt that they should be given opportunity to learn what had transpired and to be asked if they were in accord. A call was placed to South America for Elder Petersen, who was in complete accord with the feelings of his Quorum. Later that day, the First Presidency called upon Elder Delbert L Stapley in the hospital. He, too, wholeheartedly sustained the revelation.

It was decided to present the matter to the rest of the general authorities the next Thursday, June 8, 1978. They were invited to attend the meeting fasting. The meeting enjoyed a marvelous outpouring of the Spirit that served both as a witness to all present that the time had come to give the priesthood to all races and also as a confirmation of the events the previous week.

Reflecting on the timing of these events, Elder McConkie observed, "I think the Lord waited to give this new direction to his earthly kingdom until his Church was big enough and strong enough to absorb those of all races and cultures, without being overwhelmed by the world, as the primitive saints were when the Church in their day gained acceptance in the Roman Empire."

Excerpt from "The Bruce R. McConkie Story, Reflections of a Son" - Joseph Fielding McConkie p.373-379

Another interesting item in the most recent SWK Bio, which is written by his son Edward, is the whole black and the priesthood topic.

An examination of the historical basis for it is provided-it really does seem to have originated from BY and more likely then not Joseph Smith had nothing to do with it. The author's conclusion.

The scriptural justifications are discussed and they seem to be weak arguments. The author's conclusions.

The idea of blacks being less valiant spirits in the pre-existence is discussed as well and it is discussed in the context that it was actually considered doctrine to justify the ban. The author certainly thinks the idea was used in a doctrinal sense and provides detail from other leaders that seemed to conclude that this was the only reason to doctrinally justify the ban.

I know that many apologists argue that this was never doctrine, or maybe they use the term official doctrine. But from a historical perspective it does seem that this was the doctrinal reason in most member’s eyes. Growing up in the Church I often heard this as the reason.

I really think to argue that it was not considered doctrine is a rather weak position to take.

Loran:

First, this alters nothing as to the relation of official doctrine to the membership of the church. It was never official doctrine, and it was never put before the membership of the church for their sustaining support. The idea of less valient spirits has a scriptural and doctrinal basis, but as applied to blacks never had an official, binding character. There is no question as to its having been used in a doctrinal sense, but so have other ideas that have never been part of the core, settled doctrines of the gospel.

I won't carry the water of Mormon folk doctrine or statements of GA's on various subjects (like evolution, the nature orf Adam, or the Priesthood ban), that were never a part of the fundametal concepts required of a faithful adherant of the restored gospel.

You know, at some point we're all going to get beyond our continued pathological obsession with race, and in particular, with the history of race relations regarding black people in this country and grow up intellectually about it. The Priesthood ban is over. Relations between blacks and whites, when left to themselves and not set upon incessantly by ideologues and race hustlers, is just sterling.

Every time I see a thread like this I think "oh no, NOT another thread on blacks and the Priesthood". You know, there will still be people trying to free Mumia ten thousand years from now. Permanent revolution. It will never end. The grievance and pathological, flagellating collective guilt will still be with us.

Well, I've gone beyond it and, in fact, I was never part of it because my parents never taught me racist attitudes and I was never part of any racial oppression of anyone nor did I ever support such oppression, so I bear no guilt or responsability for it. I guess I have trouble understanding why this rottong corpse won't stay in its grave.

Loran