It'S Coming, It'S Not Good And It'S Time To Recognize It!

[Sleeper Cell]

I can assure you, and anyone else on this board with common sense will support me, that your defense will not resonate with the media wave that is about to hit the Church like a tsunami!  With no disrespect intended BC, this will not be the world of naive sacrament talks.  This will be A HUGE ISSUE for the Church to attempt to defend - whether it wants to or not.  Staying silent, as has been it's practice in the past will only make things worse for it's favorite son and our image worldwide.  THIS IS SERIOUS!  We can no longer look at this in the safety of F&T Sunday confines.  We can no longer be naive.

I know the Church sees this coming and predict a formal announcement. If not, Romney is done!

But let's collectively pull out heads out of the sand on this one. We need to!

A coerced apology is not a real apology and it is naïve to think that the media will not portray such an “apology” as a politically motivated maneuver on behalf of the candidacy of its “favorite son.”

I do not believe that the “media wave’ will confine itself to one historical issue. For starters, what about polygamy, MMM (“the Mormon 9-11“), “blood oaths,” “homophobia” the Utah “theocracy” (will President Romney be controlled by the Mormon church?) and priesthood denial to women?

[cinepro]

I'll also go on the record and say that the less I hear from Mckay Coppins over the next seven months, the better.

I'll also go on the record as saying that I'll vote for Romney, but I seriously doubt he's going to win. But I hope I'm wrong.

[Buckeye]

I do not believe that the “media wave’ will confine itself to one historical issue. For starters, what about polygamy, MMM (“the Mormon 9-11“), “blood oaths,” “homophobia” the Utah “theocracy” (will President Romney be controlled by the Mormon church?) and priesthood denial to women?

Good question. We have an answer for at least Mountain Meadows. In 2007, Henry B. Eyring formally apologized for the involvment of church members in the event. (see http://www.deseretnews.com/article/695209359/LDS-Church-issues-apology-over-Mountain-Meadows.html)

Then Elder Eyring said the following: "We express profound regret for the massacre carried out in this valley 150 years ago today, and for the undue and untold suffering experienced by the victims then and by their relatives to the present time," Elder Eyring said.

[Buckeye]

My own particular view is that Brigham Young instituted the policy in the wake of the Missouri Compromise to get the votes necessary to make Utah a state, but it didn't work. It may have been advisable to do so at the time, or not.

Interesting view. I haven't heard this one before. Would this mean the ban was not of God?

[Zakuska]

I can assure you, and anyone else on this board with common sense will support me, that your defense will not resonate with the media wave that is about to hit the Church like a tsunami! With no disrespect intended BC, this will not be the world of naive sacrament talks. This will be A HUGE ISSUE for the Church to attempt to defend - whether it wants to or not. Staying silent, as has been it's practice in the past will only make things worse for it's favorite son and our image worldwide. THIS IS SERIOUS! We can no longer look at this in the safety of F&T Sunday confines. We can no longer be naive.

I know the Church sees this coming and predict a formal announcement. If not, Romney is done!

But let's collectively pull out heads out of the sand on this one. We need to!

Why does it need to defend it? Was not the 1978 referendum an "formal appology"?

[Cobalt-70]

Actually what bothers me more than all this kind of hubub about the Priesthood ban....is why haven't black LDS members said anything? They've been kinda silent. Why haven't they spoken up? We have all these prominent black LDS members that a lot of the general public don't even know about. Even Gladys Knight on DWTS hasn't even mentioned her religion. I was REALLY hoping that our General Authority, Joseph W. Sitati would have spoken this General Conference! Not that he needed to have addressed the situation, but it would have been good for all the world to see him speak. Just to show....hey I'm a black Mormon and I'm proud of it.

What happens at General Conference doesn't really make the news outside of Utah, so Sitati speaking probably wouldn't have made a ripple unless he said something shocking. Besides, he already spoke two and a half years ago. Putting the church's only black GA back in rotation now might seem like an overt PR move.

[Zakuska]

And yet the Church and members were so grateful and thankful when an apology from Illinois was received in 2004 for the atrocities in Nauvoo, some 160 years earlier:

http://www.deseretne...ticle/595052990

I hardly believe President Hinckley and the members found this apology "worthless".

Perhaps all I'm suggesting is the same level of empathy for the wrongs brought upon blacks for a similar historical look back. I can only believe it would have a similar healing that was brought by the Illinois apology.

I seem to remember Joseph Smith running for President on a platform of buying the salves freedom with the sale of public lands.

http://bycommonconsent.com/2007/12/19/joseph-smiths-views/

All the church would really have to do is bring up that fact to defuse the entire argument.

[thesometimesaint]

Cobalt-70:

I don't believe it is in the Churchs' interest simply to make it into the news.

[LDS_RM]

Why does it need to defend it? Was not the 1978 referendum an "formal appology"?

The 1978 Revelation was in no form an apology, and in my opinion it is gross error to suggest that the Revelation was an apology.

[Cobalt-70]

As to current events, my speculation (yes, speculation) is that there is a 50/50 chance the church will feel the need to publicly explain the reason for the priesthood ban. Yes, certainly the Romney campaign will be asked about the ban, but Romney has a well prepared and correct answer - "I was thrilled when the ban was lifted. Thus church has been open to all races for some 35 years. I will never judge someone by their race. Let's move on." Its yet to be seen whether this answer will be enough. The media may very well choose to move on because Romney is not a racist (he's clearly not; and I'm a democrat saying that) and because the Mormon angle has already been used extensively in the primary race. In the end, the public's appetite for such investigation will deterimine whether the media keeps pushing Romney to answer the question "sure, you're not racist now, but wasn't the ban wrong?" If that happens, Romney will just defer to the church and I think the church will feel compelled to answer.

I remember Obama's issue with Jeremiah Wright. Though Wright's statements were nowhere near as inflammatory as some of the disturbing quotes made by past LDS presidents and leaders, the media did not let up on the issue until Obama resigned his membership in the church and renounced Wright personally. Presumably, you would expect that Romney would be held to at least the same standard.

[zerinus]

You guys are all missing the point. The LDS Church is a religious organization, not a political one; and as such it does not owe any "apologies" over it's theological beliefs to anyone. If a Church or religion wants to be theologically racist, that its business; there is no law in the Constitution that says that it shouldn't.--That is quite apart from the fact that the LDS Church has publicly declared that it is not racist, and condems racism in the strongest terms. If tomorrow I started a new religion which was theologically founded on the belief that all redheads are predestined to be damned, and cannot join my new religion, I don't owe any apologies to anyone. That is my religious belief. If anybody does't agree with it, they don't have to join my new religion. The LDS Church has already declared what it needs to declare with regard to racism past, present, and future; and there is nothing further that it needs to say on the subject.

Mitt Romney is a political candidate, not a religious one. He may be a "Mormon" candidate, but he is not the candidate of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is neither nominated nor endorsed by the LDS Church. If he feels that his religion is an embarrassment to him, or if he feels that he stands a better chance of election by recanting his religious beliefs (and winning the Presidency is more important to him than his religion), there is nothing to prevent him from disowning Mormonism. But the LDS Church does not owe any "apologies" to anyone, over race or anything else.

Edited April 11, 2012 by zerinus

[Buckeye]

I remember Obama's issue with Jeremiah Wright. Though Wright's statements were nowhere near as inflammatory as some of the disturbing quotes made by past LDS presidents and leaders, the media did not let up on the issue until Obama resigned his membership in the church and renounced Wright personally. Presumably, you would expect that Romney would be held to at least the same standard.

Sure, but there is a big difference between statements made by BY 150 years ago and statements made by your preacher within the last decade. The media may be willing to let up because every religion has false statements made sometime in the past. Kennedy was not pestered about the Catholic church's treatment of Copernicus or about the inquisition. Our church's priesthood ban was ended much more recently than these events (and, yes, was still in place while Romney was a missionary - so he arguably played a role in enforcing the ban), but they ended 35 years ago.

To speculate more, I think the most likely resolution will working something like this:

(1) media scrutiny builds;

(2) Romney responds that "I am not a racist, I am glad the ban was lifted, end of story";

(3) the story doesn't end; media scruitny builds for a repudiation of the ban by Romney (who demmurs) and by the church;

(4) the church issues that same type of statements it has recently (i.e., "we don't know");

(5) some of the more balanced media outlets interview unofficial spokesmen for the church (Bushman, Givens, Brooks, Dehlin, etc) who will say in a nice way that, "yeah it was racist, it was wrong, we suffered for it, we're trying to do better, and we're actually succeeding with race relations";

(6) the church will not repudiate such those members' statements or take action against them (same outcome as with the BYU It Gets Better Video)

(7) most of the media will see that they have a tacit admission/apology by the church and move on

(8 ) eventually the church will issue an apology. If Romney wins, this will come within the first year of his presidency as the priesthood ban keeps getting negative press in every country Romney visits. If Romney loses, it will come within a decade.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Buckeye

[Pahoran]

I am so sorry you have such a lack of imagination that it limits your ability to be able to comprehend other rational reasons for the ban.

You are out of the thread.

So, let's see if I understand this correctly.

Person A brings an accusation of institutional racism against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Person B defends the Church by suggesting that the accusation proceeds from a lack of imagination.

An anonymous mod turfs person B out of the thread.

Am I the only one who remembers when this forum was one of the few places on the internet where orthodox Mormon voices could speak up in defense of the Church without fear of heavy-handed censorship?

Regards,

Pahoran

[Pahoran]

And a related issue, which could be a problem for Romney and Hispanics, is that the LDS Church still teaches (because it's in the Book of Mormon) that Native Americans were a cursed people, and that the pigment in their skin was a mark to prevent interracial marriage between whites and Native Americans. The media will want to know (and frankly, I do too) whether Romney believes that.

So you join with those who think a politician running for office is an opportunity to get polemically useful sound bites.

Why am I not surprised?

I suspect he will claim he doesn't. But the fact that he even would have to deal with that issue is a bit embarrassing.

You hope.

Regards,

Pahoran

[cinepro]

If tomorrow I started a new religion which was theologically founded on the belief that all redheads are predestined to be damned, and cannot join my new religion, I don't owe any apologies to anyone. That is my religious belief. If anybody does't agree with it, they don't have to join my new religion.

That may be the case, but I wouldn't vote for you for President.

[wenglund]

This is not a political thread. And I know that I have been a big advocate of a formal Church apology for the Church treatment of blacks in the past. I still am very much so.

And, as I warned long ago, it will come to haunt and harm the Church in such a HUGE WAY this year.

I don't want to turn this into a political thread, but a thread of reality. This is just a very small sample of what will be heading our way this year:

http://m.newsbusters...nd-how-it-deals

Our leaders need to get smart sooner before later. I fear this will take the Church backwards 100 years!

We need a formal apology NOW!

I am sorry, but to me, this kind of Chicken Little histrionics is beyond silly.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Cobalt-70]

Sure, but there is a big difference between statements made by BY 150 years ago and statements made by your preacher within the last decade. The media may be willing to let up because every religion has false statements made sometime in the past. Kennedy was not pestered about the Catholic church's treatment of Copernicus or about the inquisition. Our church's priesthood ban was ended much more recently than these events (and, yes, was still in place while Romney was a missionary - so he arguably played a role in enforcing the ban), but they ended 35 years ago.

Yes, but the statements of everybody from Brigham Young to Bruce R. McConkie still have currency, and will continue to have currency until the LDS Church specifically denies that God was the author of the church's racial policy. If the church does not deny it, then any Mormon who believes that the policy was the work of God (in other words, that God was at one point effectively racist) is expressing a legitimate LDS view. That wraps up the issue in present LDS theology. This issue is not really in our past. The fact that a BYU professor--a BYU religion professor, of all things--could still in the year 2012 believe in the same disturbing 19th and 20th century Mormon racial theologies shows that this issue is not in our past.

[wenglund]

So, let's see if I understand this correctly.

Person A brings an accusation of institutional racism against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Person B defends the Church by suggesting that the accusation proceeds from a lack of imagination.

An anonymous mod turfs person B out of the thread.

Am I the only one who remembers when this forum was one of the few places on the internet where orthodox Mormon voices could speak up in defense of the Church without fear of heavy-handed censorship?

Regards,

Pahoran

It is starting to remind me a bit of the last of the ZLMB heydays when the moderating at the time brought on a mass migration of orthodox members, ironically, to the FAIR message board.

Oh well...there are worse things in life. We will just have to learn not to speak so frankly here about socially sensitive or pet issues like homosexuality, blacks and the priesthood, and the nature of a Zion society. I can live with that.

Thank, -Wade Englund-

[zerinus]

That may be the case, but I wouldn't vote for you for President.

Who cares? Nobody says you should.

[Buckeye]

Yes, but the statements of everybody from Brigham Young to Bruce R. McConkie still have currency, and will continue to have currency until the LDS Church specifically denies that God was the author of the church's racial policy. If the church does not deny it, then any Mormon who believes that the policy was the work of God (in other words, that God was at one point effectively racist) is expressing a legitimate LDS view. That wraps up the issue in present LDS theology. This issue is not really in our past. The fact that a BYU professor--a BYU religion professor, of all things--could still in the year 2012 believe in the same disturbing 19th and 20th century Mormon racial theologies shows that this issue is not in our past.

I fully agree that the issue is not in our past and that some of the most harmful statements were made in modern times. I'm just not convinced that the media will push so hard on the issue that the church cannot successfully ride it out, at least for this election. 50/50 is the best I can do. On one hand, the issue is sort of "old" - the church's practice has been in the spotlight for at least 50+ years. So there may be some "racism fatigue" that leads to journalists pursuing other issues. On the other hand, there is a lot of time between now and November and few things get the public's attention like someone else's racism.

[Zakuska]

The Church doesn't need to apologize for the past. So let the past to be past.

Words of Wisdom:

"It doesn't matter, it's in the past!"

-- Rafiki, Lion King

[Zakuska]

Following the theme of this thread and the attitudes of many of the posters on it, all us White Americans need to apologize for the racist remarks of President Abe Lincoln (A contemporary of BY) now too?

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

Abraham Lincoln

(1809-1865) 16th US President

Source:

Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858

(The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)

Or how about Thomas Jeferson?

The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. . .

I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.

Notes on the State of Virginia, by Thomas Jefferson, J.W. Randolph

Virginia, 1853

Sounds earily identical to some things Brigham Young said about the Black race?!

Where will the insanity end?

Edited April 11, 2012 by Zakuska

[Senator]

So, let's see if I understand this correctly.

Person A brings an accusation of institutional racism against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Person B defends the Church by suggesting that the accusation proceeds from a lack of imagination.

An anonymous mod turfs person B out of the thread.

Am I the only one who remembers when this forum was one of the few places on the internet where orthodox Mormon voices could speak up in defense of the Church without fear of heavy-handed censorship?

Regards,

Pahoran

It was a snide and patronizing laced remark. Did it deserve thread banning? Ehhh...

Behave yourself and you'll be fine!

[Buckeye]

Words of Wisdom:

"It doesn't matter, it's in the past!"

-- Rafiki, Lion King

Thanks Zakuska. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but that clip is actually a really great argument for why the church should confront its past. Look at the context. Simba says he "knows he needs to confront the past, but he's afraid because it will hurt." Then Rafiki hits him and says - sarcastcially - "it doesn't matter, it's in the past!" The point is that things in the past can still hurt and that running away from them only delays the healing.

EDIT:

Looking at your next post re Lincoln and Jefferson, I can see that you were not being sarcastic in the Lion King clip. So I guess we disagree.

The obvious difference between the church's racial ban and the Lincoln/Jefferson statements is that today the American government, and most of the American people, repudiate and reject those racist statements. We venerate the men, we honor the good they did, we even build them monuments, but no one - particularly the man who now holds the presidency that Lincoln and Jefferson once did - agrees with their sentiments. Those statements are wrong. Perhaps we can cut some slack to the men because they lived in a different day, but the statements themselves are wrong and have no place with us today.

In contrast, Brigham Young and other church leader's racist statements have never been formally repudiated by the current leadership. The church's recent statements are a great progress (particularly removing the notion that the ban was instituted of God), but it is not yet a rejection of the ban itself.

Imagine if President Obama were to say "I'm glad that slavery ended, but I'm not 100% sure it was wrong at the time." That's quite different from his - and the Amercian people's - real view that slavery was always wrong and never should have happened.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Buckeye

[Zakuska]

Thanks Zakuska. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but that clip is actually a really great argument for why the church should confront its past. Look at the context. Simba says he "knows he needs to confront the past, but he's afraid because it will hurt." Then Rafiki hits him and says - sarcastcially - "it doesn't matter, it's in the past!" The point is that things in the past can still hurt and that running away from them only delays the healing.

And here I thougt the 1978 Revelation did just that, ie confront the past AND started the healing process.

Silly me?!

Edited April 11, 2012 by Zakuska