Cook unsuccessfully tries to defend past racism, confirms black skin was the sign of a curse

[_Philo Sofee]

But Cook voiced concern that some in those movements are attacking faith and attempting to reframe and distort history.

What he meant, of course, is don't distort our distortions and reframings back to the original truths from which we departed through a catalyst revelation or some such.......

[_moksha]

But the 79-year-old apostle insisted the church’s second president (from 1847 to 1877) taught that “of one blood has God made all flesh. We don’t care about the color.”

Didn't Brigham Young share many more thoughts on race than this? Can anyone remember some of his quotes?

[Guest]

Getting 404 Not Found when I try and look at the article.

The page is still there but not sure why the link to it isn't working.

[_I have a question]

But the 79-year-old apostle insisted the church’s second president (from 1847 to 1877) taught that “of one blood has God made all flesh. We don’t care about the color.”

Didn't Brigham Young share many more thoughts on race than this? Can anyone remember some of his quotes?

After saying critics deliberately take things out of historical context, with this Brigham Young quote about "one blood" Cook deliberately takes things out of historical context to try and make Young sound like he wasn't a racist. Let's put it back into perspective and chronology.

In March of 1847, Brigham Young indicated that God did not see his children by color and race. He said to a distraught black member, William McCary, concerned about his place in the community, “Its nothing to do with blood, for of one blood has God made all flesh. …we don’t care about the color. … We have one of the best Elders – an African in Lowell, Massachusetts [referring to Walker Lewis, an ordained African-American].”[1] However, there were some events that followed that, ultimately, lead Brigham to change his stance.

Walker Lewis’s son, Enoch Lovejoy Lewis, married in 1846 to a white LDS woman, Mary Matilda Webster in Boston. They had their mixed-race child in 1847. The previous year, 1846, William McCary married a daughter of Nauvoo stake president, Daniel Stanton. Then, in 1847, he independently “sealed” himself to other white LDS women in Winter Quarters in 1847. This experience prompted apostle Parley P. Pratt to make the first statement linking black skin with priesthood.[2]

When Brigham returned to Winter Quarters from Salt Lake in the fall of ‘47 , he began thinking about the issue earnestly. He could declare interracial marriage to be a capital offense worthy of “death on the spot” in one breath and suggest that interracial couples are worthy of baptism and eternal sealings in the next.[3]

In 1849, he made his first statement about a priesthood restriction.

The curse remained upon them because Cain cut off the life of Abel, to prevent him and his posterity getting ascendency over Cain and his generations, and to get the lead himself, his own offering not being accepted of God, while Abel’s was. But the Lord cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the priesthood, that Abel and his progeny might yet come forward, and have their dominion, place, and blessings in their proper relationship with Cain and his race in the world to come.

https://proveallthingsholdfasttogood.wo ... f-the-ban/

So, when seen in the wider context (as Cook exhorts us to see things) Brigham Young changed his mind about blood and colour and became increasingly racist.

[_I have a question]

Well that is what the Book of Mormon says.It is what it is. I mean you cannot reasonably pretend it says something about beautiful dark skin. It just does not say that.

The quoted comment suggesting that dark skin was divine disfavor applied only to a group of people living long ago is about as good a response as is possible while trying to keep the books divine status.

Cook is avowing something the Church has explicitly disavowed.

[_Kishkumen]

I am getting really tired of the phony history lessons from the leaders of the LDS Church.

[_Holy Ghost]

I am getting really tired of the phony history lessons from the leaders of the LDS Church.

They LDS church has been whitewashing its history since at least the Article on Marriage. It's institutional with them. It's "how they roll."

[_huckelberry]

Well that is what the Book of Mormon says.It is what it is. I mean you cannot reasonably pretend it says something about beautiful dark skin. It just does not say that.

The quoted comment suggesting that dark skin was divine disfavor applied only to a group of people living long ago is about as good a response as is possible while trying to keep the books divine status.

Cook is avowing something the Church has explicitly disavowed.

I am sorry , I am not quite understanding what has been disavowed. The Book of Mormon is not talking about Africans it is talking about natives of the Americas who have always been able to hold the priesthood.

[_Shulem]

Brigham Young said things about race that fall short of our standards today

This means that those things you refer to whether written or spoken were done WITHOUT the inspiring influence of the Holy Ghost. This means that those things you refer to were said without the approval of Heavenly Father and were not inspired by the Spirit. It also means that Brigham Young was speaking as a man regardless of the implications he might have made while making them and that the Spirit of the Lord would have been grieved in him making such statements because they FALL SHORT of the beliefs of Latter-day Saints of the future who disregard his teachings on this subject because they are now deemed uninspired.

[_Dr LOD]

Cook is avowing something the Church has explicitly disavowed.

I am sorry , I am not quite understanding what has been disavowed. The Book of Mormon is not talking about Africans it is talking about natives of the Americas who have always been able to hold the priesthood.

Why does it matter? Curse of Cain, or Lamanite Curse the base problem is the LDS version of the doctrine that dark skin color equates to some kind of curse from god. And Cook just reinforced racism as doctrine.

I even caught Professor Midgley engaging in color-ism in his Maori works. Where Maori were presented as being more Nephite because of the Hagoth myth than other groups identified as Lamanites.