The Secular Religion Of Racialism: Not A Part Of The Gospel

[Loran Blood]

It has now been clearly established, in a spate of recent threads, and through an official statement obtainable online at the Church Newsroom, that race qua race, and race in the modern sense of that term, had nothing to do with the origination and maintenance of the priesthood ban. This has been elucidated in the past, as well, by sundry Church leaders and was articulated in detail in OD2, which was brought to our attention by Lightbearer in another ongoing thread. The salient text follows:

Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God's eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood, and witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom the priesthood has been withheld, we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.

He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.

Clearly, then, both the ban and its eventual destiny were foreknown to earlier prophets, and equally clearly the ban itself must therefore have been a integral part of the larger gospel plan, and not simply a racial afterthought requiring later mending.

In recent days this board has been the scene of what can only be described as an orgy of criticism, self doubt, existential guilt, and even invective centered in and aimed at the Church, by both critics and some apologists regarding its historic policy of ordination with respect to black people. Some of that discourse has included highly overwrought and heated attacks by members of the apologetic community against other apologists. There are those who may not feel comfortable going here, but nonetheless is has to be stated clearly: there is the whiff of political correctness in the air in all of this, and the perceived right, by virtue of the anointing of the correct social, political, and philosophical perspectives, to browbeat and patronize others with different views and cast them in a morally and humanly debased light.

It should be understood at this juncture, based upon everything that has been said thus far, that those holding the position that the ban was a mistake, that it was grounded in a traditional white racial animosity toward blacks, and that the Church, as an institution, owes all black people an apology for "past racist policies," are starkly and unambiguously out of harmony with the official position and standpoint of the Church, as the Church as now expressed and established its position. One has the right, of course, to disagree with the Church on anything one wishes to part company with them over. When "apologists" do so, however, the boundaries, purposes, and meaning of LDS apologetics itself comes into question and falls under critique, as it must, not from the outside, but from within the larger apologetic community of intellectually engaged, faithful members for whom apologetics is a salient aspect of their spiritual and intellectual lives, but for whom it is, and always must only be, an adjunct and appendage to the living, teaching, and defending of the gospel. If LDS apologetics takes on a life of its own, and becomes, in and of itself, an adjunct and appendage; an LDS representation of the surrounding secular academic and media world, and if the Church becomes an appendage to the apologetic movement, rather than the other way around, apologetics will find itself bereft of its core mission and drifting aimlessly upon the turgid waters of "neo-orthodoxy" and looking, if only glancing coyly now and then, toward the Great and Spacious Building for consolation and affirmation that, as a people, we are not too "peculiar" and that there is some room in the "big tent" of Mormonism for the orthodoxies of the fashionable moment. The Church can be "inclusive" at the same time its road and gate can be "straight and narrow."

Or can it?

Why, when the Church has made its position and claims officially clear, is their doubt, argument, rancor, and moral breast-beating in opposition to the Church's teachings, from LDS apologists themselves who's core purpose, one would think, is to be active in, as the FAIR logo says, "Defending Mormonism?" Why are faithful, educated, intelligent LDS who publicly defend the Church's position scathingly impugned and their motives questioned by other LDS apologists?

I understand perfectly well why critics of the church are, well, critical of the church. What is consternating is watching a free-for-all among LDS apologists over an officially stated Church position on a key issue of the day and of its historic past. What does this portend for other contentious and vexing sociocultural issues upon which the Church has taken unequivocal stands? What of convenience abortion on demand? What of woman and the priesthood? What of the acceptance of open homosexuality in the Church? Are prominent members of the aplogetics movement going to feel the need to "reevaluate" these core issues as well, at some future time, in order to sufficiently bring church member's values and beliefs into closer coincidence with those of the elite Western intelligentsia? Who's values are the frame of reference? From within which prism do we perceptually partake of the universe and our mortal plethora of choices and determinations of truth and falsehood?

Re the title of this thread, this is a plea for us, as Latter day Saints, to forsake the modern secular religion of race, racial consciousness, racial grievance, racial guilt, racial victimology, racial hypersensitivity, and the mythopoeic cult of White racial oppression, and love our black brothers and sisters free of ideologically/culturally imposed (and interested) guilt, free of any sense that we must either defer to them because of past injustice not of our doing, or exempt them from the standards and principles that condition the success of all peoples, of whatever color or lineage, and free of the need to morally exalt ourselves above our own brothers and sisters in the Church because they do not subscribe to specific ideas about race and the priesthood ban that some have absorbed from outside the Church, and for whom the Church's own teachings must defer.

If blacks are really our equals, then there is no need to insult them by begging the Church to apologize for actions that no living church members or leaders had any part, and for which the church itself has not admitted or accepted responsibility as to having actually done something wrong. There is no need to treat them like traumatized, emotionally fragile children who cannot themselves and for themselves work out, in their own minds and souls, the problems that must be negotiated in understanding and accepting this aspect of Church history, not the least of which is working through this spiritually, through prayer and revelation.

Please, let's stop the ideologically and culturally influenced histrionics about race, race, race, race, and again, race, and accept the Church's position just as we accepted the ending of the ban some thirty years ago. Then we can talk about the ban, at least among ourselves as apologists, with both civility and the unity the Lord expects of his Saints.

Loran

If you persist in comparing blacks to children you will be banned from the board. Read the memo!

[CA Steve]

If blacks are really our equals, then there is no need to insult them by begging the Church to apologize for actions that no living church members or leaders had any part, and for which the church itself has not admitted or accepted responsibility as to having actually done something wrong. There is no need to treat them like traumatized, emotionally fragile children who cannot themselves and for themselves work out, in their own minds and souls, the problems that must be negotiated in understanding and accepting this aspect of Church history, not the least of which is working through this spiritually, through prayer and revelation.

Please, let's stop the ideologically and culturally influenced histrionics about race, race, race, race, and again, race, and accept the Church's position just as we accepted the ending of the ban some thirty years ago. Then we can talk about the ban, at least among ourselves as apologists, with both civility and the unity the Lord expects of his Saints.

Loran

If? Seriously?

[Loran Blood]

If? Seriously?

Don't even think about it. I'm not in the mood for head gaming. This is a serious plea and expression of my thoughts from my mind, heart, and spirit. That's a figure of speech, I'm asking a rhetorical question for a very serious purpose.

You see, this is exactly what I'm talking about...

This is a fine example of just how deeply the well of thought and intellectually reasoned discourse about racial subjects has been poisoned by what could only be called a race industrial complex within academia, the media, and the political world. This is what appears (among other things here and there) to be creeping into the apologetics movement, and its coming from outside Zion, not from within.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Loran Blood

[Mariner]

Loran,

Although I often follow multiple threads on this board, I normally refrain from posting unless the threads concern education, science or technology. While it has been interesting to watch the threads in response to the Bott fiasco be systematically closed, including the one started by Dr. Peterson, I do have a lot of empathy for the LDS Church on this issue.

I was raised in an all white farming community that was probably 25% - 30% LDS. The LDS Church and its members were central to life there. While those of other faiths had to drive 30 miles or more to the nearest town for Sunday services, we Mormons built a local chapel on donated land, which I now realize, tended to isolate us even more from life outside our small community.

In our home, alongside the Standard Works of the Church, were Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, Talmage's Jesus the Christ, and books by Cleon Skousen. Many of these books, and the lessons taught from them at home and in Church, contributed to the latent racism that I, and my friends and relatives who grew up in the Church, carried with us into early adulthood. Since the only things we knew about Blacks came from Church books Church teachings and TV, we simply didn't know any better.

In my case, racism was extinguished in short order by a service in the Viet Nam era US Marine Corps. The views and attitudes I had been exposed to growing up Mormon were replaced with a deep appreciation and respect for the courage and strength and complementary skills and attitudes that those of other races brought to the mission of the Corps. The names of some of the individuals who taught me these truths are engraved on the Viet Nam Memorial Wall in Washington DC.

Since few of the Mormon friends I grew up with took the opportunity to go into the military, they missed that particular life changing experience. None of my relatives who are still in the Church have had the opportunity to work alongside those of other races in the service of our country, or to live in neighborhoods with substantial populations of those of other races, or to attend church services other than LDS, especially in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

And when I talk with these relatives about issues of race and Mromonism, they sound just like you.

It is pretty clear from your OP that you. my friend, have no clue regarding what is racist and what is not. You are simply embarrassing yourself, and no doubt many others who read your OP, because your OP is itself racist, and blatantly so. The best thing that you could do in this situation, until you have time to get a clue, would be to simply be silent on this issue.

I would guess that this is what CA Steve was trying to tell you in a nice way. You clearly didn't get the message, so I thought I would be a little more direct. Although I fully expect to be banned from the thread for this post, I simply had to speak up. If you would like a point by point explanation of why your OP is racist, I would be glad to provide it. Please feel free to PM me, if you wish.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Mariner