Priesthood Ban Info

[phaedrus ut]

If the policy was just a priesthood issue why were Africian American women denied full fellowship in the church? They were denied the right of temple attendance, sealing, endowment, and church leadership.

The 1978 revelation says all worthy males. Where is the revelation for Africian American women?

Phaedrus

p.s. I know I've made this point to GIMR before.

[USU78]

While this:

Modern Humans originated in Africa.

can be credibly argued and supported from stuff out of the ground; this:

White skin is the adaptation.

cannot. Bones don't tell us the melanin levels of what used to cover 'em, especially after said bones turn to rock.

[Pahoran]

If the policy was just a priesthood issue why were Africian American women denied full fellowship in the church?  They were denied the right of temple attendance, sealing, endowment, and church leadership.

The 1978 revelation says all worthy males.  Where is the revelation for Africian American women? 

Phaedrus

p.s. I know I've made this point to GIMR before.

You have indeed, but if I were you I wouldn't keep reminding people.

Sort of like posting a picture of yourself wearing a dunce cap so that we never forget how thoroughly you embarrassed yourself.

Did you forget that your "point" has been answered?

The ordinances of the Temple are of course intimately tied to the rights of the Priesthood. By those ordinances we receive the fullness of the Priesthood, nothing less.

Of course a Priesthood restriction is ipso facto a Temple restriction.

Well, duh!

Regards,

Pahoran

[Moksha]

White skin is thought to have arisen from an adaptation that was selectively advantageous sometime after one of the waves of Modern Man left Africa in either Central Asia or Europe.

From Wikipedia:

However, over 1.2 million years ago, judging from the numbers and spread of variations among human and chimpanzee MC1R nucleotide sequences, the human ancestors in Africa began to lose their hair and they came under increasing evolutionary pressures that killed off the progeny of individuals that retained the inherited whiteness of their skin. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had exactly the receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was black, and the intense sun killed off the progeny with any whiter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein (Rogers 2004:107).

However, the progeny of those humans who migrated North away from the intense African sun were not under the evolutionary constraint that keeps human skin black generation after generation in Africa. Tracking back the statistical patterns in variations in DNA among all known people sampled who are alive on the earth today, Rogers concluded the following: 1) from 1.2 million years ago for a million years, the ancestors of all people alive today were as black as today's Africans, 2) for that period of a million years, human ancestors lived naked without clothing, and 3) the descendants of any people who migrate North from Africa will mutate to become white over time because the evolutionary constraint that keeps Africans' skin black generation after generation decreases generally the further North a people migrates (Rogers 2004).

-----------------------------------------------------

What they are saying is white skin arose in these northern climbs because it became non-lethal.

[koakaipo]

I believe we have plenty of doctrine on this issue. But all the doctrine say all are alike and that all men can have the Preisthood.

Joeson-I believe that too-and as a member, I celebrate that! I think that's a beautiful thing .

[Joeson]

Joeson-I believe that too-and as a member, I celebrate that! I think that's a beautiful thing .

koakaipo,

Thanks. I've appreciated reading your words, sentiments and contributions to the board. It's good to have one like you who is willing to share that which you've been blessed with in order to help others see the Gospel for what it is.

Joeson

[cinepro]

If the policy was just a priesthood issue why were Africian American women denied full fellowship in the church?  They were denied the right of temple attendance, sealing, endowment, and church leadership.

Honest Question #1: Could blacks do baptisms for the dead?

Of course a Priesthood restriction is ipso facto a Temple restriction.

Honest Question #2: If women are restricted from recieving the priesthood, how is it that they are able to participate in the Temple ordinances?

GravyBoat, you probably need to talk with your dad about the general situation before you get into statistics and trivia. I would start with these two questions:

- If the Church Leaders were acting from racist attitudes instead of divine direction, what would have been different in the way the ban was implemented and carried out? That will at least give you an idea of how he sees the situation.

- If your father were to become convinced that the priesthood ban was a tragic mistake born of racism and ignorance instead of divine edict, then what? Does his testimony have room for Church leaders who foster racist attitudes, or a Church beurocracy that is slow to recognize error and correct it? If not, the risk may be too great for him to approach the subject with an open mind.

In any case, you should have your father read this article as a starting point:

http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/conf/2003MauA.html

Good luck!

[Moksha]

Here is some extraneous information I just learned: On June 10, 1854, James Augustine Healy was ordained in Paris, France, thus becoming the first African-American priest in the Catholic Church. James Healy became the first Black bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875.

Two brothers followed him to study abroad. Alexander Sherwood Healy was ordained for the diocese of Massachusetts. Patrick Frances Healy obtained his PH.D (the first Black) from Louvian University, Belgium and became the first Black president of Georgetown University (Washington D.C.).

The three brothers were sons of an Irish Plantation owner in Georgia and a slave woman. Their sister Eliza, became a nun and notable school administrator.

[GravyBoat]

Thanks to everyone who responded, even if we disagree.

My advice, GravyBoat.  Don't discuss it with your dad.  You are not going to change his mind, and I doubt he will change yours. Why would you want to do something contentious with your father?  If you want a "racism vs inspiration" debate just for the fun of it, there are plenty of people around you could get into it with. Don't risk family upheaval over it.

CHARITY: the very reason this discussion is coming about was that I expressed my beliefs to him. He now feels obligated to refute all of the information that I can bring to him after some preparation. Furthermore, I had been meaning to bring this up to my parents, because I think that they are dreadfully wrong. There's no way that the priesthood ban could be from God because of the level of possible members it scares away. There's no way we can be a light unto the world with this bushel-like issue in the way.

My dad also made sure that he was glad that I said something. He said that it showed a lot of maturity (considering that I haven't always been known for that).

ROLLO: I know you get a lot of guff for being a hardcore liberal mormon, but your information makes sense to me about 60-70% of the time; this is a good thing. Not everyone has the guts to openly say what you say. My former elder's quorum teacher (and quite a high-profile non-high-church-calling mormon celebrity) was also very forward about his opinion about women receiving the priesthood someday; luckily, he's high-profile, so nobody gave him guff.

Here's what I'm afraid of:

[own emphasis added]

StBALTHASAR, I know I'm really pushing buttons when I say this, and forgive me for picking on you for this. I firmly believe that this is the very root of the problem of leaving the "doctrine" behind: we're too afraid. We're afraid that our God-defined world will come crumbling down. We're afraid that doing this will directly affect our beliefs. I would imagine that when Joseph Smith started bringing about these new revelations, there was a bit of wondering, like what kind of changes will these messages bring? The Lord says "go," but am I really helping? We ultimately know that he put his shoulder to the wheel and believed it, but I like to think that even he questioned what he was doing. After all, the Hebrew slaves doubted when the hand of God separated the waters of the Red Sea; certainly this man that we have come to know for his weaknesses and strengths had moments of doubt, too. Perhaps the darkness he felt in the grove was a lingering doubt that we all have before we make the jump to that brave new idea. I mean, it takes a lot of guts to be an intermediary to the most perfect creator.

Joseph pleaded for answers about the relationship between God, the Father, and the Holy Ghost when there wasn't one. Joseph pleaded for answers about the ability to act in the name of God. Joseph pleaded for answers all throughout the listed pages in the Doctrine and Covenants.

All I ask of God is more than an "I don't know" about a policy that may or may not be from Him. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

KOAKAIPO: I'm going to take the time to search through your listed topics. I'm currently going through David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by cinepro's and Prof. Darron Smith's recommendation. I've never read a better book.

CINEPRO: Thanks for the book recommend, thanks for the FAIR link. 'Nuff said.

I don't think that someone could prove or disprove that the priesthood ban was a question of racism or revelation from the high.

MARCELO: If that certainly is true that we cannot tell for sure whether it is or isn't revelation, then I all for serving my fellow men, 'cause when you serve those guys and gals, you're only serving God. Whether I'm right or wrong, I do not break from God's commandment to love one another. It's like when Eve and Adam took the apple: they sinned by doing so, but ultimately they were able to perform one of the greatest of God's commandments; thus the earth became populated. If I sin for what I believe, then so be it: at least I made a few of my african brothers and sisters more welcome at Church (or wherever life takes them). If that's not service, then I'll go work at the local Church cannery for 4 hours.

MOKSHA: Your info on Catholic priests is astounding. It puts us to shame.

PHAEDRUS: I've heard you say this before about African women. You speak volumes, friend.

GIMR: I swear that no one I meet will ever feel unwelcome at Church as long as I can help it, unless they fully deserve it. That's as good as Moroni's Promise right there.

[DragonLord]

Aw, Family disputes. I don't know anything on the Priesthood Ban being inspired or not... but I love my African American best friend to pieces and I wouldn't want her to not join the church over this...This should be discussed because this leads to dysfunctional LDS families when feelings aren't expressed or open, but continue to talk in a Christ-like loving way to your father when expressing your feelings. I feel all families should be able to discuss and express their feelings and opinions about these things and actually learn to listen to one another, whether secular, temporal or spiritual...It helps others deal with the issue at hand, meet each other's needs, and creates a loving family unit.

Divided we fall. United we stand.

The Family As A System.

What is a family?

On the surface, that seems lke an easy question to answer, and I suspect that most of us could give a rational definition. However, our understanding of how a family functions is based on feeling rather than logic. It is more subconscious than conscious. Most people don't really know what drives their family as a unit. In fact, focus on the family as a unit or a system is a comparatively recent development.

Prior ro the 50's, an individual experiencing difficulties was treated as if his problems existed in isolation. Therapy focused solely on the disturbed child, the suicidal teen, the depressed mother, or the addicted husband. The role of the family itself was rarely called into question.

That began to change when psychologists started to consider the environment of their clients. Alfred Adler was one of the first in the field to believe that a person could not be helped unless he was understtod in the context of the family and the society in which he lived. Adler studied children in their homes and schools, as well as in the family education centers that he set up. He emphasized the family group, thus indirectly contributing to the development of family-systems theories.

Probably the most important of these theories is that a family cannot be understood as a simple mathematical equation: father + mother +child + child= family. Rather, the family is best understood in terms of physics.

Let's say, for example, that individual family members are represented as electrical transformers. Their relationship is represented by a power line stretching bewteen each and every other family member. Father and mother form the first connection. When a child is born, two more lines are drawn, one representing the relationship between child and mother and one representing that between child anf father. The advent of the second child would create three more connections: child 2--mother, child 2--father, and child 2--child 1.The more children in th family the more lines.

Example: 1)

F---------M

The child 1 would be below with lines connecting to both mother and father, but it won't let me draw the proper lines connecting the power lines. So I hope you get the idea.

This system of transformers and power lines can be thought of as an energy grid. The interaction between family members would be the energy constantly moving along the power lines. Each connection or relationship has its own particular level and kind of energy, which affects the energy pattern of the grid as a whole. Perhaps a *father and son* have a poor relationship. When conflict sends a surge of negative energy (anger, for example) between them, it also sets in motion a particular pattern of energy flow (reactions, in this case) throughout the entire grid, which affects all the family members.

Taking the analogy further, if you were to look at the plan that indicated the placement of several transformers (family members) and the connecting lines (relationships), it wouldn't tell you much. A more useful plan would indicate both level of energy passing between specific pairs and typical patterns of energy flow throughout the system as a whole. Interaction--the pattern of energy flow between family members--is thus the real defining element of a family.

Survival, the Prime Function

Once the system (whether a family, an organization, or a government) is in place, its prime function becomes survival. If something threatens its survival, members of the sytem react in a way that will restore balance. In a family system, individuals take on particular roles to keep that balance. They usually do so woithout being consciously aware of what they are doing or why.

Family Systems Are Complex

The reason families can get caught in negative systems of behavior is that the rules and roles governing family behavior are passed down primarily on a subconscious level. We often do not know why we react the way we do. In quieter moments, we may make a resolution that we won't react that way again--but within days or even hours, we're right back where we were before.

Why? Vincent Foley explained it this way, "Family systems are powerful precisely because they 'hook' an individual in his 'guts' more than in his head." Logic and will-power don't have much to do with family patterns.

In spite of this, people rarely take the time and effort to learn about the dynamics of family living, unless their family is in turmoil. That is dangerous, says Virgina Satir, author of People-making. She writes:

Family life is something like an iceberg. Most people are aware of only about one-tenth of what is actually going on--the tenth that they can see and hear--and oftenthey think that is all there is. Some suspect that there may be more, but they don't know what it is and have no idea how to find out. Not knowing can set the family on a dangerous course. Just as a sailor's fate depends on knowing about the iceberg under th water, so a family's fate depends on understanding the feelings and needs and patterns that lie beneath everyday things.

If it is irresponsible to remain in ignorance of the behavior patterns upon which our daily habits of interaction are built, how do we begin discovering them? As a fisrt step, you may wish to answer the questions in each of the categories listed below. Your answers will provide insight into how your family works and the areas where change may be appropiate.

Communication: What can be said and what can't? Are needs and wants directly communicated?

Family Rules: What are the family rules concerning money? Punishment? Having fun? Achievement?

Family roles: Who is the peacemaker? Who is the clown? Who is the boss? The caretaker?

Family network (this is the grid of power lines discussed earlier): How do different pairs of family members interact with each other?

Family system--open or closed (this has to do with the availability of information from out side the family): Is new information about issues such as relationships, money, or sex welcome?

For those who wish more information on family patterns, feel free to ask me.

[juliann]

I need all of the information that I can get my hands on to prove my point, including statistical data, facts, and opinions.  Anything else you can think of would help.

Send him to our blacklds website...but first use the new book on David O'McKay. He is on record saying it was not doctrine. I can probably count the people I know on two fingers who have studied the issue and think it was anything more than going with the flow of the society at large. Using the word "racism" is historically inaccurate and inflammatory. There is not a much uglier label to attach to someone/thing. That you would tells me that you are not really interested in a discussion. Racism did not exist as a concept let alone a word when this all began. Today we have assigned it a name and behavior. Don't expect people without your advantage of hindsight and a hundred years to act or think like you.

[juliann]

Marcelo, you are right LDS are not more racist than other Christians. There are many out there with this issue. But their organizations have faced the issue as an organization, and now it's up to the individual to decide what to believe. The LDS church isn't really doing this. They're stuck at "we don't know".

We can't completely discard that. We just can't overgeneralize. We don't "know". What do you want us to say beyond acknowledging what happened? We do not know how it started. That is just as an important a truth as any other statement. Making up stuff to fill in those gaps is what got us in trouble. As for other churches...."facing it as an organization" has not done one thing to reunite the splintered congregations. It is all cheap and easy words that require no behavior changes. Both are needed but it is not happening. When the rubber hits the road I'd take a church who is doing rather than just saying.

"Some of the white elite evangelicals attempted reconciliation, but incompletely.  The problem with whites' conception of reconciliation, many claimed, was than they did not seek true justice--that is, justice both individually and collectively.  Without this component, reconciliation was cheap, artificial, and mere words.  It was rather like a big brother shoving his little brother to the ground, apologizing, and then shoving him to the ground again."

Richard O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith:  Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),  p. 58.

Get back to me with the wonder of mere words when they up their integration numbers in those other churches.

As America grows ever more ethnically diverse, Christian churches remain racially homogeneous.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...d=2ID84ZPFSSTPS

[Joeson]

Using the word "racism" is historically inaccurate and inflammatory. There is not a much uglier label to attach to someone/thing. That you would tells me that you are not really interested in a discussion. Racism did not exist as a concept let alone a word when this all began. Today we have assigned it a name and behavior. Don't expect people without your advantage of hindsight and a hundred years to act or think like you.

I'll sincerely try to say this with love and tenderness, that it might be a benefit for all that read this. Just because something is widely accepted doesn't make it any less atrocious. Demeaning another person because of their color, excluding another because of their color, enslaving another because of their color, not helping to ease the suffering of one in your midst because of their color, using language that makes one feel less than because of their color, treating one in an unkind manner because of their color etc, is and was racist, deplorable and unacceptable in the eyes of Christ. What is the purpose in trying to minimize this great inhumanity? It is statements and thoughts and sentiments like this that solidify the racist reputation that we have. Racist don't want to hear that they are racists. Abusers don't want to hear that they are abusers. Liars don't want to hear that they are liars. That way they can continue in their blissful ignorance. But the pure in heart, the meek, the humble, will hurt when they hear the truth because they have wronged others, and will be glad that they have heard it, so that they might not offend in that way again.

[Joeson]

Get back to me with the wonder of mere words when they up their integration numbers in those other churches.

My dear sister, we don't have too much of a leg to stand on here either, at least when it comes to African Americans. Most of the wards in the county have between zero and 1 African American or family in them. African Americans leave the church at an alarming rate. Something about being told they are cursed by ward members and leaders make those non segregated Christian churches a bit more appealing. Many are offended out of the LDS church before they've had time to gain a sufficient testimony. We have a major problem here. And until we own up to it and stop trying to minimize how horrible it is and was, it will not get better.

[Refuge]

I need all of the information that I can get my hands on to prove my point, including statistical data, facts, and opinions.

[koakaipo]

I personally don't think terming something "racist" is wrong as long as you qualify what you mean by it. Alot of times people simply associate "racists" with guys in white hoods. That's an extreme form, but not in any way the most common and insidious form.

Here's the dictionary terms for racist:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability.

2. that a particular race is superior to others.

3. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

The reality is that today, in our suppossedly enlightened period, all of us have fallen into at least 2 of these cateogories at some time. I like to think since because of my background and experiences and studies, I'm pretty aware of racist thinking. At yet-I mentioned this the other day-I got cut off by some jerk in a car and you know what was the first thing that came into my head? You stupid Mexican! I'm freakin' Mexican! THAT"S how insidious racist thinking is! That's how reflexive and how well instructed all of us are in such thinking, even "us" who think we are pretty aware of it.

So, I think if we specify what we mean by racist, how that term reall applies not to one time or one group of people, but many times and many people and even ourselves alot of the times, we are actually allowing the notions of racial thinking to come more to the surface. The only time I have a problem with people using the word is when they seem to think they are not touched by racism and yet a particular group is. That's just total denial.

I don't think it's wrong to use the term as defined above historically either. It doesn't have to be a judgement call. Definitions 1 and 3 particular are pretty objective ways of using the term I think.

I think the reason this term is considered inflammatory is because we just don't let it come up for air enough to discuss it rationally and we then end up marginalizing the term to simply mean complete freaks and that's all. That does us no good to simply assign it to other people, that won't help us deal with the issue better.

[phaedrus ut]

If the policy was just a priesthood issue why were Africian American women denied full fellowship in the church?

[Moksha]

Using the word "racism" is historically inaccurate and inflammatory. There is not a much uglier label to attach to someone/thing.

Actually racism seems a bit euphemistic compared to bigotry or racial hate mongering. Some word is needed, and I prefer not to use the word, "Klannish".

[phaedrus ut]

I guess I don't get a response.

[juliann]

Actually racism seems a bit euphemistic compared to bigotry or racial hate mongering. Some word is needed, and I prefer not to use the word, "Klannish".

Have you ever considered using a historically accurate word? What word was used at the time? Or is accurate representation just an inconvenience you don't need to bother with?

[katherine the great]

While this:

Modern Humans originated in Africa.

can be credibly argued and supported from stuff out of the ground; this:

White skin is the adaptation.

cannot. Bones don't tell us the melanin levels of what used to cover 'em, especially after said bones turn to rock.

Modern humans originated in Africa. That is a fact, and there is no evidence "out of the ground" that points to another origin. It's true that skin color can't be determined from bones. Observation and common sense tells us though that fair skinned people originated in less sunny habitats. Those with fair skin in very sunny climates would not thrive. Those with dark skin in cold, non sunny environments would not thrive (with the exception of those who have lots of vitamin D in their seafood diets.) It's so simple.

The priesthood ban was not technically against black people though. It was against people of Sub Saharan African descent, no matter how light their skin might be.

[USU78]

White skin is thought to have arisen from an adaptation that was selectively advantageous sometime after one of the waves of Modern Man left Africa in either Central Asia or Europe.

From Wikipedia:

However, over 1.2 million years ago, judging from the numbers and spread of variations among human and chimpanzee MC1R nucleotide sequences, the human ancestors in Africa began to lose their hair and they came under increasing evolutionary pressures that killed off the progeny of individuals that retained the inherited whiteness of their skin. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had exactly the receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was black, and the intense sun killed off the progeny with any whiter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein (Rogers 2004:107).

However, the progeny of those humans who migrated North away from the intense African sun were not under the evolutionary constraint that keeps human skin black generation after generation in Africa. Tracking back the statistical patterns in variations in DNA among all known people sampled who are alive on the earth today, Rogers concluded the following: 1) from 1.2 million years ago for a million years, the ancestors of all people alive today were as black as today's Africans, 2) for that period of a million years, human ancestors lived naked without clothing, and 3) the descendants of any people who migrate North from Africa will mutate to become white over time because the evolutionary constraint that keeps Africans' skin black generation after generation decreases generally the further North a people migrates (Rogers 2004).

-----------------------------------------------------

What they are saying is white skin arose in these northern climbs because it became non-lethal.

Speculation.

There is no fossil record to support the speculation.

[USU78]

Those with fair skin in very sunny climates would not thrive. Those with dark skin in cold, non sunny environments would not thrive (with the exception of those who have lots of vitamin D in their seafood diets.) It's so simple.

And yet it's not. It began as XIXth Century Anglo-American speculations fueled by Social Darwinism and ends in "common sense." And yet there's nothing we can look to to support the speculation.

[katherine the great]

Those with fair skin in very sunny climates would not thrive. Those with dark skin in cold, non sunny environments would not thrive (with the exception of those who have lots of vitamin D in their seafood diets.) It's so simple.

And yet it's not. It began as XIXth Century Anglo-American speculations fueled by Social Darwinism and ends in "common sense." And yet there's nothing we can look to to support the speculation.

Social Darwinism? How about scientific Darwinism? I suppose we could begin by looking at our knowledge of skin cancer and rickets. Do you not believe in human adaptation?

[USU78]

Those with fair skin in very sunny climates would not thrive. Those with dark skin in cold, non sunny environments would not thrive (with the exception of those who have lots of vitamin D in their seafood diets.) It's so simple.

And yet it's not. It began as XIXth Century Anglo-American speculations fueled by Social Darwinism and ends in "common sense." And yet there's nothing we can look to to support the speculation.

Social Darwinism? How about scientific Darwinism? I suppose we could begin by looking at our knowledge of skin cancer and rickets. Do you not believe in human adaptation?

Let me tell you what I think. Genus Homo probably originated in Africa, but there was no particular type and melanin levels, body types, bone mass, cranial-facial features, and hair colors and grades were all over the place.

What happens after that may well be along the lines of what is suggested in "common sense," but to say we all started out as Black Africans is a gross oversimplification and a reaction to Social Darwinism.

That is what I object to.

But all of this is and remains speculation without evidence from the ground.