Was the Priesthood-temple ban from man or God?

[rongo]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

CFR on those "statements." While you are at it - wasn't there at least one statement that Joseph Smith told missionaries that slaves could not be offered the priesthood, but could be baptized if their masters permitted, but that free blacks could receive the priesthood? You can CFR those as well, and that should make for a more informed discussion as to whether the total ban came from Joseph Smith or BY.

I'll gladly provide the Smoot and Coltrin statements when I get home tonight. I'm not familiar with the Joseph Smith slaves/free blacks priesthood statement. Could you perhaps provide that?

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say u r grateful the explanation doesn't address the weighty issue of whether the ban was from man, but then turn around and say "I wish that we had bold statements...."

You're right --- I can see how that might sound contradictory. Let me amend it to say that I'm grateful that the essay leaves room for each individual as to whether or not to personally believe that the ban itself was God's will, in the absence of the FP and Q15 directly addressing the question of whether or not it came from God. I wish that they would directly address it, though, instead of using the anonymous essays to try and mitigate social criticism and concerns against the Church without addressing the core question.

Personally, I'm not sure knowing the answer would help.

Do you think we're better off right now, with no clear and direct Church position on it being God's will or not?

But I am glad the brethren finally decided to ask the Lord.

CFR that they did. The essay very carefully avoids any language along those lines. Or, do you mean in 1978?

[Jeanne]

I don't think God had anything to do with this one way or the other.  Man..meaning BY in my opinion.

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

.........................................................

To be clear, When I say they were all racist i don't say that to throw everybody under a bus or to call them all terrible people. They weren't. But rather it's to acknowledge the system, beliefs, and culture they swam in daily. EVERYBODY, minus maybe two people, were to some degree racist by our definitition of the word: Lincoln, BY, JS, most abolitionists, etc.

It's probably not fair to use such a broad brush, even if what you say is true from a distant perspective.  For Joseph Smith in particular, a man who ordained black men, and who staunchly opposed slavery in his 1844 presidential campaign, it is wrong to suggest that he is the source of the ban or that he had secret racist views.  We have no evidence to indicate that, and Orson Pratt certainly opposed the ban.  Indeed, the Mormons were run out of western Missouri largely based on the notion that they were anti-slave and altogether too friendly with black folk (which is putting it nicely).

My own people in Ohio in the 1820s refused to return to their Methodist Church after hearing a racist sermon from the pastor there.  They instead began their own Methodist congregation.  Later they and their neighbors began active participation in the "Underground Railroad," making sure that black folk arriving at their farm were fed and clothed and moved at night up through central Ohio to the Canadian border, where they could find freedom.

There was a definite stratification that privileged and assumed superiority in whiteness. Whiteness was a very tight bubble of people that would not include even all european nationalities. You could also be removed from said group based on practices considered barbaric or uncouth (think polygamy) or concerns of tainted blood mixture. They would "prove" this with "scientific" studies and phrenology reports on differing skull shapes as indicative of character and attributes. Being removed from whiteness meant that your rights and capacities in society were also in question.  It wasn't a light accusation, but a serious allegation that could  throw legitimacy toward their discrimination, loss of rights, and removal from socio-political influence. And this is before talking about slavery, civil war, tensions before the civil war and after, increased phobia about intermingling races, etc. Race and purity were extremely pertinent factors for your status in the U.S. This is why I believe racism played a heavy hand in the introduction of the ban.

Of course, you are correct.  God is dealing with humans and all their foibles.

.....................................

 

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

I find it strange active members of the Church will believe the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twevlve are speaking by the power of revelation from God when they address the Church in General Conference, but when these same leaders come right out in the open and forthrightly testify they did indeed receive a revelation from God, suddenly doubt displaces faith. Why?

"According to first-person accounts, after much discussion among the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on this matter, they engaged the Lord in prayer. According to the writing of one of those present, Bruce R. McConkie of the Twelve: "It was during this prayer that the revelation came. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon us all; we felt something akin to what happened on the day of Pentecost and at the Kirtland Temple. From the midst of eternity, the voice of God, conveyed by the power of the Spirit, spoke to his prophet. The message was that the time had now come to offer the fullness of the everlasting gospel, including celestial marriage, and the priesthood, and the blessings of the temple, to all men, without reference to race or color, solely on the basis of personal worthiness. And we all heard the same voice, received the same message, and became personal witnesses that the word received was the mind and will and voice of the Lord."

Gordon B. Hinckley, a participant in the meetings to reverse the ban, said, "Not one of us who was present on that occasion was ever quite the same after that. Nor has the Church been quite the same. All of us knew that the time had come for a change and that the decision had come from the heavens. The answer was clear. There was perfect unity among us in our experience and in our understanding."

I agree, but I think the question was about the origin of the ban, not what ended it.

There is a strong thesis in a recently published book that it began in 1852, I believe. 

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Paul-Reeve-POWERPOINT-2015.pdf

 

Edited January 29, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

The essay speaks approvingly of the 1978 revelation to end the ban. Since Official Declaration Two indicates a revelation from God was needed to end the priesthood ban, and since the leaders of the Church in 1978 most solemnly testified they did indeed receive a revelation to end the ban, the way I see it is there are 3 possibilities:

1) The leaders of the Churvh spoke the truth when they said God intervened and revealed to them the time had come to end the ban. Therefore the ban was of God.

2) The leaders of the Church lied when they said they received a revelation to end the ban. Therefore the ban was not of God.

3) The leaders of the Church were sincere but delusional when they said they received a revelation to end the ban. Therefore the ban was not of God).

.........................................................  

You left out the most likely possibility:

4)  The leaders of the LDS Church spoke the truth when they said that God intervened and revealed ot them that the time had come to end the ban.  Therefore the ban was of men.

Pres McKay was fully prepared to end the ban on his own authority, and could easily have done so -- since he found no revelation or doctrine underlying the ban.  However, his Pres of the Twelve objected that a revelation was needed, and McKay respected his opinion.  Since none was forthcoming during his administration, we all had to wait until that of Pres. Kimball.

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

CFR on those "statements." While you are at it - wasn't there at least one statement that Joseph Smith told missionaries that slaves could not be offered the priesthood, but could be baptized if their masters permitted, but that free blacks could receive the priesthood? You can CFR those as well, and that should make for a more informed discussion as to whether the total ban came from Joseph Smith or BY.

 

Brigham Young is the whipping boy because he codified, made official, and put in place all the things that Joseph only alluded to, hinted about, taught privately and in secret, and in some cases never even recorded.
The idea that Brigham was some kind of maverick changing what Joseph taught shows a complete ignorance of the thinking of Brigham.

It has led to people trying to make a false division between the teachings of Joseph and Brigham.  A division that didn't exist in any meaningful way.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JLHPROF

[mfbukowski]

8 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Brigham Young is the whipping boy because he codified, made official, and put in place all the things that Joseph only alluded to, hinted about, taught privately and in secret, and in some cases never even recorded.
The idea that Brigham was some kind of maverick changing what Joseph taught shows a complete ignorance of the thinking of Brigham.

It has led to people trying to make a false division between the teachings of Joseph and Brigham.  A division that didn't exist in any meaningful way.

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Paul-Reeve-POWERPOINT-2015.pdf

[JLHPROF]

40 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Paul-Reeve-POWERPOINT-2015.pdf

Very interesting, and very one sided.  I will say some of the information was new to me.
However:
You could just as easily create a similar powerpoint showing the opposite.
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith prohibiting interracial marriages or of him fining people for interracial marriage?
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith concerning the mental state of the Negro?
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith stating that Negros were descendants of Cain?
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith stating that black skin was a sign of apostasy from priesthood?
Where are the quotes from the Book of Mormon on dark skin?
Where is the quote from Zebedee Coltrin concerning the ordination of Elijah Abel?

I am not defending the ban, but to state it started with Brigham alone after Joseph's death is still false.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JLHPROF

[Bobbieaware]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You left out the most likely possibility:

4)  The leaders of the LDS Church spoke the truth when they said that God intervened and revealed ot them that the time had come to end the ban.  Therefore the ban was of men.

Pres McKay was fully prepared to end the ban on his own authority, and could easily have done so -- since he found no revelation or doctrine underlying the ban.  However, his Pres of the Twelve objected that a revelation was needed, and McKay respected his opinion.  Since none was forthcoming during his administration, we all had to wait until that of Pres. Kimball.

And you left out the testimony of the First Presidency, as found in Official Declaration Two, that testifies "the long promised day" for the ban to be lifted had finally arrived. I have a simple faith that tells me if God had wanted the ban to end earlier he would most assuredly have intervened to make that happen. And that same simple faith tells me in God's mysterious economy it will turn out there was a very good and wise reason why he didn't intervene. And though it now seems politically incorrect and counterintuitive to say so, I believe his non-intervention will in some mysterious way redound to his greater glory and honor in the end.

 

[thesometimesaint]

19 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Very interesting, and very one sided.  I will say some of the information was new to me.
However:
You could just as easily create a similar powerpoint showing the opposite.
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith prohibiting interracial marriages or of him fining people for interracial marriage?
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith concerning the mental state of the Negro?
Where is the quote from Joseph Smith stating that Negros were descendants of Cain?
Where are the quotes from the Book of Mormon on dark skin?
Where is the quote from Zebedee Coltrin concerning the ordination of Elijah Abel?

I am not defending the ban, but to state it started with Brigham alone after Joseph's death is still false.

Here is what the Church itself says:

SEE https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

 

[JLHPROF]

8 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Here is what the Church itself says:

SEE https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

 

I know what the Church says.  I am not supporting the ban in any way.

It is still completely false to claim that it started when Brigham Young made it Church policy, and that Joseph never taught anything like it.
I take great issue with the "Blame Brigham" game that is so popular among many members.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JLHPROF

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

The ban apparently had its origins with Brigham Young:

Thanks,

-Smac

No, it didn't.

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

No, it didn't.

Care to elaborate?

Thanks,

-Smac

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Care to elaborate?

Thanks,

-Smac

I did, above - http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66941-was-the-priesthood-temple-ban-from-man-or-god/?do=findComment&comment=1209585580

[rongo]

5 hours ago, Zakuska said:

While I agree because of experience,  that doesn't quite fit the definitial of 'abradeth not'. Josephs answers usually came immediately. 

"To upbraid" means to scold or chastise. God doesn't get mad at us for asking, even if He isn't going to answer us right away (or at all ---- He sometimes doesn't give us an answer in answer. I've had that happen, and it is a valuable part of learning to discern and distinguish. Imagine what it would be like to instantly have all of our questions fully answered to our satisfaction).

Many of Joseph Smith's answers did not come immediately. "Rough Stone Rolling" cites some good examples of tough times where everyone, Joseph included, was anxious and frustrated because of lengthy periods of time with no answers to pressing, urgent, critical matters and questions (cf. p. 229. I don't have the book with me, but I have access to my shorthand notes. Check out page 229. Also, one of these citations is a newspaper interview Joseph Smith gave where he said that he couldn't always get a revelation when he needed it, cf. introduction, xxi).

Edited January 29, 2016 by rongo

[bcuzbcuz]

14 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Ridiculous to speculate

God knows the answer and he is the only one.

Ask him, not us.

One year prior to the ban being lifted my wife sought an answer through prayer, many prayers, then by asking the specific question to the Bishop, by asking the specific question to the Stake President, and the answers were, in that order: No response; don´t know but as dark skinned people they were less diligent in the pre-existence; and don´t know but don´t worry about it because God says it´s so. 

So the Bishop was wrong and the Stake President was wrong and God wasn´t responding. And if the Bishop and Stake President were both actively looking for an answer to the same question......but why would they, because we had no dark skinned ward or stake members......., would they have been told to be patient or be told the same answers they already had?

That would seem to imply that answers do not come to those that seek an answer, but answers only come through the chain of authority.

[JLHPROF]

7 minutes ago, bcuzbcuz said:

That would seem to imply that answers do not come to those that seek an answer, but answers only come through the chain of authority.

A hard lesson for many to learn.

[BlueDreams]

2 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I did, above - http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66941-was-the-priesthood-temple-ban-from-man-or-god/?do=findComment&comment=1209585580

 

Ok I am still confused by your reasoning as to how JS initiated the ban or  the evidence you have to point to that. I can understand that some of the ideas that were used as justification for BY didn't originate with him and were around even before JS (curses and slavery being a biggie). But the actual ban at this point it's pretty clear began in BY's time as president. This doesn't mean I necessarily blame Brigham for everything or would be willing to throw him under a bus. Much of the beliefs around it were also formatted later and were in direct contradiction to what even BY believed in it. I'm just curious about the line of reasoning that it was JS derived. I haven't seen an evidence based argument indicating this and from what I can see most historians agree it started sometime after the utahn settling.

 

With luv,

BD

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

 

Ok I am still confused by your reasoning as to how JS initiated the ban or  the evidence you have to point to that. I can understand that some of the ideas that were used as justification for BY didn't originate with him and were around even before JS (curses and slavery being a biggie). But the actual ban at this point it's pretty clear began in BY's time as president. This doesn't mean I necessarily blame Brigham for everything or would be willing to throw him under a bus. Much of the beliefs around it were also formatted later and were in direct contradiction to what even BY believed in it. I'm just curious about the line of reasoning that it was JS derived. I haven't seen an evidence based argument indicating this and from what I can see most historians agree it started sometime after the utahn settling.

 

With luv,

BD

The "official Church ban" came under Brigham Young when he codified Church practices according to his understanding of Joseph's teachings.
The same thing happened with the temple ordinances.  The same thing happened with Adam-God (which Brigham attributed to Joseph).
The same thing happened with polygamy.  The same thing happened with Consecration/United Order.  And the same thing happened here. 

Brigham was 120% devoted to Joseph Smith and his teachings - to suggest he would ignore Josephs teachings and make up his own as some imply (not you of course BD), is just wrong.  Brigham would have absolutely believed he got this from Joseph.

Brigham might have made it Church policy, but the doctrines upon which he based the policy were around under Joseph Smith as I alluded to above.  The quotes from the time of Joseph are all readily available, and could easily have led Brigham to make the already extant idea into official policy.
Does that make it Brigham who initiated the ban, or the source from which he got his teachings?  Is the issue that it became official policy, or that it was believed and taught?
 

[rongo]

1 minute ago, BlueDreams said:

 

Ok I am still confused by your reasoning as to how JS initiated the ban or  the evidence you have to point to that. I can understand that some of the ideas that were used as justification for BY didn't originate with him and were around even before JS (curses and slavery being a biggie). But the actual ban at this point it's pretty clear began in BY's time as president. This doesn't mean I necessarily blame Brigham for everything or would be willing to throw him under a bus. Much of the beliefs around it were also formatted later and were in direct contradiction to what even BY believed in it. I'm just curious about the line of reasoning that it was JS derived. I haven't seen an evidence based argument indicating this and from what I can see most historians agree it started sometime after the utahn settling.

 

With luv,

BD

The evidence lies in witness statements from Abraham Smoot and Zebedee Coltrin. In my experience, these are dismissed by Mormons who don't want the ban to have originated with Joseph Smith without any reason other than they don't want to believe them. They are attacked as lying, mistaken, or so hopelessly racist that "of course" they are mistaken or lying. But with not evidence or good support.

It appears to me that a firm policy on priesthood was elastic and fluid in the 1830s and crystallized in the Utah period. I think Joseph Smith wavered on this but really did say what people said he did, which provides the foundation for the rationale for the ban in the Utah period. That is, I don't think it originated out of whole cloth with Brigham Young, like some people desperately want it to (like with the RLDS and polygamy).

 

 

[BlueDreams]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It's probably not fair to use such a broad brush, even if what you say is true from a distant perspective.  For Joseph Smith in particular, a man who ordained black men, and who staunchly opposed slavery in his 1844 presidential campaign, it is wrong to suggest that he is the source of the ban or that he had secret racist views.  We have no evidence to indicate that, and Orson Pratt certainly opposed the ban.  Indeed, the Mormons were run out of western Missouri largely based on the notion that they were anti-slave and altogether too friendly with black folk (which is putting it nicely).

My own people in Ohio in the 1820s refused to return to their Methodist Church after hearing a racist sermon from the pastor there.  They instead began their own Methodist congregation.  Later they and their neighbors began active participation in the "Underground Railroad," making sure that black folk arriving at their farm were fed and clothed and moved at night up through central Ohio to the Canadian border, where they could find freedom.

Sorry, I don't have time for more thoughtful answers, though I found your story about the Methodist church interesting. I didn't mean to infer that JS was the source of the Ban. And by racist I say so knowing full well that he was against slavery and ordained black men. It's the ideas and/or moderately progressive beliefs for his era. This does not mean that he approved of things like interracial marriage or did not reiterate common racialized beliefs that we today reject as obsolete and (yes) racist. That's why also threw in abolitionists. They weren't envisioning our modern view of equality for the large part.there were of course exceptions (I was being hyperbolic with 2) but most just weren't and it's not exactly a secret.

It doesn't mean that  don't appreciate all beliefs/actions that moved us forward, but there were just several assumptions they held then that were, for all intents and purposes racist.

 

With luv,

BD

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, rongo said:

The evidence lies in witness statements from Abraham Smoot and Zebedee Coltrin. In my experience, these are dismissed by Mormons who don't want the ban to have originated with Joseph Smith without any reason other than they don't want to believe them. They are attacked as lying, mistaken, or so hopelessly racist that "of course" they are mistaken or lying. But with not evidence or good support.

It appears to me that a firm policy on priesthood was elastic and fluid in the 1830s and crystallized in the Utah period. I think Joseph Smith wavered on this but really did say what people said he did, which provides the foundation for the rationale for the ban in the Utah period. That is, I don't think it originated out of whole cloth with Brigham Young, like some people desperately want it to (like with the RLDS and polygamy).

 

The Smoot and Coltrin statements are not the only sources. 
As I put earlier there are quotes from Joseph Smith on record regarding a prohibition on interracial marriages, fining people for interracial marriage, the mental state of the Negro, that Negros were descendants of Cain and that black skin was a sign of apostasy from priesthood.  All things now disavowed, but once doctrines behind the ban.
Joseph was as much a source for these doctrines as Brigham ever was.

If Brigham knew all of these teachings from Joseph, and believed Joseph in all doctrinal issues as we know Brigham did, the fact that he had this coalesce as policy under his presidency is hardly a surprise.

[theplains]

17 hours ago, rongo said:

I agree with the opening post that the essay on the ban leaves it wide open to believe whatever one wants about the ban's origins. It condemns explanations for the ban (lack of valiance in the pre-existence, etc.), but falls short of stating that the ban itself was a mistake of man. I'm very grateful for that. 

Former LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith taught (in Answers to Gospel Questions volume 5) 
that the ban originated when certain spirits were not valiant in the battle between the 
forces of God and the forces of Lucifer.

His tone was pretty authoritative.

Regards,
Jim

[Calm]

My understanding is that Coltrin contradicted himself.  I will go doublecheck in a bit, but if so it does draw into question his claims. (see the link I give in the thread below...assuming it is still there)

Here it was discussed before:

 

I think it is important to note that Able baptized and confirmed people on his missions, thus showing that his priesthood was not only confirmed but he was allowed to practice it.

[VideoGameJunkie]

Looks like from men is kicking butt in the poll. And the I don't knows are leaning more towards from men.