Church to Celebrate 40 years since lifting the ban. He is what I hope happens.

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Will you please share your video in a nutshell of the policy and your examples of African black priesthood holders pre-1978.  Inquiring minds want to know.  :-)

I don't understand your entire request. I don't have a video. Like the practice of plural marriage, I don't think one can put this policy in any kind of tidy nutshell. And I think the only pre-1978 Black Africans who were ordained are those mentioned in the Church's gospel topic entry.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I suspect the answer he was seeking to elicit was 'Because it's true'.

Well he got it, I did say because it is true. My comment was and is that I might not, or would not have shown interest in the Church back in 79'. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

Well he got it, I did say because it is true. My comment was and is that I might not, or would not have shown interest in the Church back in 79'. 

It certainly would have been an obstacle for many. I have a special fondness for our Black African brothers and sisters who, pre-1978, pressed ahead with the truth when they found it. 

[Traela]

I don't know why we had the Ban.  All I know for sure is that when I prayed for understanding, the answer I got was, "Did you ever consider that things could have been worse without the ban?"  Well, no I hadn't.  So I considered it.  The first thought that came to mind was how the KKK would have reacted once they realized that a black man could at any time be made the spiritual leader over a primarily white congregation.  Considering that Mormons were already unpopular in certain areas, things could have gotten very ugly.

Maybe the Church could have prevented the worst consequences by having separate wards or branches for Black members.  Or there might have been a soft ban, in which Black members, officially or unofficially, were not eligible to hold certain leadership positions.  However, both of those possibilities still create 2nd-class members (even if no one admits it), and neither one would force white members to face their prejudices as directly.  And both would probably be more difficult to overcome than the very clear-cut "Those of African descent couldn't hold the Priesthood, now they can.  Deal with it."  

I might be totally off the mark.  Maybe everything would have been just great without the ban: the Church would have been fully integrated, the world would have tolerated and eventually admired its openmindedness.  Unfortunately, I'm cynical enough to think it really unlikely.  Therefore, I'm willing to accept that just maybe the Lord was involved, and He knew what he was doing.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

That was from an earlier post, when he asked...Why did you join the Church anyway? 

Ok. I never saw that post. 

I suppose what he is getting at is that the truthfulness and divinity of the Church exists in theory independent of any disagreement you or I might have about this or that point. 

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, Traela said:

I don't know why we had the Ban.  All I know for sure is that when I prayed for understanding, the answer I got was, "Did you ever consider that things could have been worse without the ban?"  Well, no I hadn't.  So I considered it.  The first thought that came to mind was how the KKK would have reacted once they realized that a black man could at any time be made the spiritual leader over a primarily white congregation.  Considering that Mormons were already unpopular in certain areas, things could have gotten very ugly.

Maybe the Church could have prevented the worst consequences by having separate wards or branches for Black members.  Or there might have been a soft ban, in which Black members, officially or unofficially, were not eligible to hold certain leadership positions.  However, both of those possibilities still create 2nd-class members (even if no one admits it), and neither one would force white members to face their prejudices as directly.  And both would probably be more difficult to overcome than the very clear-cut "Those of African descent couldn't hold the Priesthood, now they can.  Deal with it."  

I might be totally off the mark.  Maybe everything would have been just great without the ban: the Church would have been fully integrated, the world would have tolerated and eventually admired its openmindedness.  Unfortunately, I'm cynical enough to think it really unlikely.  Therefore, I'm willing to accept that just maybe the Lord was involved, and He knew what he was doing.

 

He knew what he was doing by waiting for civil rights leaders to fight the battle instead of leading on the issue? I think that explanation is highly problematic and makes God out to be impotent in the face of needed change. Surely God is powerful enough to have led on the issue of civil rights while still protecting his church from hardship or ruin?

[Marginal Gains]

9 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

What exactly is 'a skin of blackness'? If the Book of Mormon is a genuinely ancient text, it is necessary to consider that question without applying a current interpretation. For example, as recently as the 16th century, Europeans in what is now northeastern Indonesia described the people of New Guinea as being variously white or black, depending on how far from the coast they lived. And the King of Banda had, according to the Jesuits, a white skin, in contrast to the black skins of his people. So again, what exactly is 'a skin of blackness' if we go even further back in time?

And where exactly in the verse you quoted does it identify this 'skin of blackness' as a sign of cursing. The simplest reading is that it was a marker of undesirability.

And how exactly did 'racial' divisions work in the Book of Mormon as a whole. What exactly happened to Lamanites who converted? And what happened to Nephites who dissented? Hint: if Nephites could become Lamanites simply by dissenting, then we are not dealing with a people whose conceptions of difference were rooted in any kind of biological determinism, including (but not limited to) actual skin pigmentation.

And how many times were the Nephites told by prophets that their hatred of the Lamanites was a sin?

I honestly don't know how to respond to people who see the text of the Book of Mormon as inherently racist when the text so thoroughly deconstructs notions of race and difference from beginning to end.

And I’m the one over interpreting?

[Glenn101]

5 hours ago, Traela said:

I don't know why we had the Ban.  All I know for sure is that when I prayed for understanding, the answer I got was, "Did you ever consider that things could have been worse without the ban?"  Well, no I hadn't.  So I considered it.  The first thought that came to mind was how the KKK would have reacted once they realized that a black man could at any time be made the spiritual leader over a primarily white congregation.  Considering that Mormons were already unpopular in certain areas, things could have gotten very ugly.

Maybe the Church could have prevented the worst consequences by having separate wards or branches for Black members.  Or there might have been a soft ban, in which Black members, officially or unofficially, were not eligible to hold certain leadership positions.  However, both of those possibilities still create 2nd-class members (even if no one admits it), and neither one would force white members to face their prejudices as directly.  And both would probably be more difficult to overcome than the very clear-cut "Those of African descent couldn't hold the Priesthood, now they can.  Deal with it."  

I might be totally off the mark.  Maybe everything would have been just great without the ban: the Church would have been fully integrated, the world would have tolerated and eventually admired its openmindedness.  Unfortunately, I'm cynical enough to think it really unlikely.  Therefore, I'm willing to accept that just maybe the Lord was involved, and He knew what he was doing.

 

It really seems that we have a pragmatic type of God that adapts His policies to meet the circumstances of the time and people, policies that do not always set well with everyone. We mortals do not always (ever?) understand the why and wherefore.

For example, the Lord knew that there was going to be a widespread famine many years before it happened and allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery in Egypt where he attained a position of great influence and power prior to the famine and prepared Egypt for it. Then he had Israel bring his whole entourage to Egypt to ride out the famine and actually sojourn there for many years. He could have warned Israel of the impending famine and had him save up for that time instead of sending the to Egypt. (Of course  their neighbors just may have decided to take that food storage and the lives of Israel and his clan in the process.)

Then when Israel was finally allowed to leave Egypt ostensibly to go three days into the wilderness to worship their God, the Egyptians took after them when they realized that Israel was not stopping at the three day limit, God could have used another strategy to keep the Egyptians at bay, such as blinding them with a mist of darkness, or sending a sandstorm to impede their progress until the Children of Israel, but He chose to send a goodly portion of the Egyptian army to a watery grave instead. We can speculate as to the reasons for this but that is all we can do. 

When in the wilderness the children of Israel indicated early and often that they were not ready to live by the higher law that Moses received at first for them, so, instead, God gave them a law of strict obedience. A taskmaster law, which was in place for many centuries.

Even today God is mindful of the shortcomings of His children. That is why we are living the Law of Tithing, and that rather imperfectly, rather than the higher law of Consecration, because we have proven, as a people, that we cannot live the higher law very well.

Even the much maligned practice of polygyny is another example. The practice was ended in part because of overwhelming adversity, but I also suspect that it was another law that was not being lived very well in too many instances. (It must have been of God though. How else to explain the tide of opposition when the much more weird practices of the Oneida group in New York went unchecked and the group finally just fell apart. )

So, when it comes to the priesthood ban, we have one prophet who declared it to be from God. Whatever one's personal feelings, that is what we have. It would seem from the evidence that has been produced, that Davis O. McKay would have ended it in his tenure as president and prophet, but was told to wait. I am not in a position to apologize for Brigham Young or David O. McKay, or any other prophet of the church. I am one of the many who received that revelation in 1978 with great joy.

My own racism I have confronted and have tried diligently to erase from my makeup. God will be the judge in how well I have succeeded. We can continue to flagellate ourselves over the issue, to no avail. It does not help anything. I believe there are more productive ways that people can spend their time in relation to the church instead of the constant divisiveness that some attitudes engender.

So, I too am willing to accept that just maybe the Lord was involved, and He knew what he was doing. But to each his or her own.

Glenn

[california boy]

So God wanted His church to be thought by many as perverse for practicing Polygamy, which many think of as immoral.  And God wanted His church to be thought of by many as being prejudice against blacks by instituting a racist policy.  And God wanted His church to be thought of as anti gay by leading a political campaign to take away the civil rights of gay couples.doctrines to stop them from having any interest in becoming a part of such a church.  The three things the church is most known for in the world today.

All is going to plan.  It seems to be working perfectly.  Many of God's children who are sensitive to such issues want nothing to do with such an organization.  And some how, that explanation seems better than just mistakes were made by fallible men.

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, california boy said:

So God wanted His church to be thought by many as perverse for practicing Polygamy, which many think of as immoral.  And God wanted His church to be thought of by many as being prejudice against blacks by instituting a racist policy.  And God wanted His church to be thought of as anti gay by leading a political campaign to take away the civil rights of gay couples.doctrines to stop them from having any interest in becoming a part of such a church.  The three things the church is most known for in the world today.

All is going to plan.  It seems to be working perfectly.  Many of God's children who are sensitive to such issues want nothing to do with such an organization.  And some how, that explanation seems better than just mistakes were made by fallible men.

You're argument seems to be that God obviously wouldn't make commandments that His children didn't agree with or that could be viewed in a negative light by those so inclined.  Is there any scriptural evidence that your argument is valid?

[Marginal Gains]

9 minutes ago, california boy said:

So God wanted His church to be thought by many as perverse for practicing Polygamy, which many think of as immoral.  And God wanted His church to be thought of by many as being prejudice against blacks by instituting a racist policy.  And God wanted His church to be thought of as anti gay by leading a political campaign to take away the civil rights of gay couples.doctrines to stop them from having any interest in becoming a part of such a church.  The three things the church is most known for in the world today.

All is going to plan.  It seems to be working perfectly.  Many of God's children who are sensitive to such issues want nothing to do with such an organization.  And some how, that explanation seems better than just mistakes were made by fallible men.

In terms of plural marriage, God can’t seem to make his mind up. First it was restored as it was essential for admittance into the Celestial Kingdom. It all got a bit confusing when God told his members that women could have more than just one husband too. Some folk didn’t like that, so He changed His mind on that too. Then the locals got a bit mad so God decided plural marriages should still go ahead in secret, to prevent jail time and loss of property, but be denied in public. Then he got found out so he banned them altogether. Going as far as excommunicating members for entering into plural marriages, you know, the only way previously you had of gaining full exaltation. But actually plural marriage is okay so long as only one of the wives is alive at any one time. Of course, different rules. apply for women who want plural husbands.

What a mess.

[Marginal Gains]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You're argument seems to be that God obviously wouldn't make commandments that His children didn't agree with or that could be viewed in a negative light by those so inclined.  Is there any scriptural evidence that your argument is valid?

Polygamy and the Priesthood Ban reversals suggest God seems to come around to societies way of thinking, albeit late and begrudgingly.

[ksfisher]

16 hours ago, The Nehor said:

And what about the Britons? My ancestors crossed over with William the Conqueror and took over. Do I owe them an apology too?

This really has me in a quandry.  I need to figure out some meaningful way of apologizing to myself (being descended fron both sides).  What if I don’t accept my apology?

Edited April 20, 2018 by ksfisher

[Exiled]

43 minutes ago, california boy said:

So God wanted His church to be thought by many as perverse for practicing Polygamy, which many think of as immoral.  And God wanted His church to be thought of by many as being prejudice against blacks by instituting a racist policy.  And God wanted His church to be thought of as anti gay by leading a political campaign to take away the civil rights of gay couples.doctrines to stop them from having any interest in becoming a part of such a church.  The three things the church is most known for in the world today.

All is going to plan.  It seems to be working perfectly.  Many of God's children who are sensitive to such issues want nothing to do with such an organization.  And some how, that explanation seems better than just mistakes were made by fallible men.

Mistakes were definitely made and if fallible men won't take the blame, I guess blame God?

[Exiled]

31 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

In terms of plural marriage, God can’t seem to make his mind up. First it was restored as it was essential for admittance into the Celestial Kingdom. It all got a bit confusing when God told his members that women could have more than just one husband too. Some folk didn’t like that, so He changed His mind on that too. Then the locals got a bit mad so God decided plural marriages should still go ahead in secret, to prevent jail time and loss of property, but be denied in public. Then he got found out so he banned them altogether. Going as far as excommunicating members for entering into plural marriages, you know, the only way previously you had of gaining full exaltation. But actually plural marriage is okay so long as only one of the wives is alive at any one time. Of course, different rules. apply for women who want plural husbands.

What a mess.

God is confused or men are.

[Exiled]

31 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

Polygamy and the Priesthood Ban reversals suggest God seems to come around to societies way of thinking, albeit late and begrudgingly.

He is 30 to 40 years behind the times, seemingly.

[hope_for_things]

16 hours ago, bluebell said:

It doesn't really work that way.  For example, society's definition of sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex, but regardless, the church does not consider it sexist to deny women the priesthood.  

Society defines racism as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."  But does the church consider the ban to have been racist?  I don't know.  The essays go out of its way to disavow the prejudice and antagonism that came with the ban, but does the essay teach that the priesthood ban was not divinely inspired and therefore something that can also be disavowed?  No, the essay doesn't teach that.

I like you example with sexism, and I could say this is a perfect illustration of a problem that the church has.  Its priesthood policies are clearly sexist, they fit that definition perfectly.  Its priesthood bad was clearly racist, and also fits that definition perfectly.  

The problem is with how the church thinks it can define itself.  An analogy might be with a white supremacist person that personally doesn't believe they are racist.  These words have meaning, and they can't be changed for individuals or institutions to mean something different just because of how they want to self identify and because they don't want the label of sexist or racist.  If you don't want those labels then change your behavior, don't try to redefine the language.  

16 hours ago, bluebell said:

The church allowed some blacks to be ordained but not other blacks.  Is that discriminatory against blacks?  Some people would say yes, some people would say no (so it ends up being like the whole sexist issue where people disagree).  The church's priesthood ban was actually based on lineage and not color.  Is that discriminatory against blacks?  Again, some say yes, other's say no.  

The church discriminated based on race, they way they defined that discrimination changed over time, but don't let that confuse the issue.  Whether one leader allowed people with black skin from Brazille to get the priesthood while another leader refused those same people, it doesn't change the fact that discrimination had a racial component to it.  The problem with trying to clearly distinguish between skin color and lineage is that many people confused the two and there wasn't any clear way of distinguishing between these attributes.  

17 hours ago, bluebell said:

Quote

Lastly they did disavow the ban outright with the statement that I put in bold "Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form."

Nope, they didn't.  That's not an outright disavowal of the ban itself, a fact that has been discussed here and many other places on the internet for years.

Aaron Brown wrote a good article about the ambiguity of the essay, saying in part-

When the LDS Church’s Gospel Topics essay “Race and the Priesthood” was released in late 2013, large numbers of my fellow Mormons — particularly moderates and progressives — rejoiced that the Church had, among other things, finally distanced itself from its long-standing claim that the Church’s pre-1978 priesthood and temple ban was divinely inspired. They pointed to the fact that the essay inundates the reader with historical information and context that grounds the ban in 19th Century racial ideas, suggesting such ideas were its cause.

Other LDS Church members weren’t so sure. Some insisted that the Church wasn’t throwing divine authorship under the bus, per se, since the race essay doesn’t technically claim the ban WASN’T inspired.  (It repudiates earlier LDS leaders’ theological explanations for the ban, but that’s a different issue).  There’s no smoking gun, no unambiguous declarative sentence that definitively settles the question. Ergo, claims of divine origin have not been discarded, they argued.  They are still alive and well, very much a part of the Church’s truth claims.

Still others read the essay as intentionally ambiguous on the matter — the essay neither endorses divine origin nor repudiates it. It is strangely silent on this crucial question (just as the new introductory paragraph to OD-2 released earlier in 2013 was also silent). This was sometimes interpreted to signal a “We don’t know” response to the question of divine authorship.  That the Church was neither willing to embrace nor jettison the notion that God was behind the ban.

I disagree with Aaron Brown's statement here.  He says there is no statement that settles the question and I'm showing you the exact statement and the reading of that statement that settles the question.  The condemnation of past racism.  The fact that the priesthood ban was racist.  This is the smoking gun that completely condemns the priesthood ban.   The essay moves on from the "we don't know" language, that is in the past, the essay is more recent.

I also quoted the church newsroom statements about the Charlottesville incident last year, and their second clarifying statement was unequivocal about its condemnation of racism and racist ideas.  The church has moved forward from the ambiguity of past "we don't know" language and is directly confronting racism today and it directly addressed past racism in the essay as well.  

Those are the words of the essay.  Tell me how to read them differently, don't just tell me what other internet commentators have said, give me evidence for how I'm wrong in reading the essay directly.  Lets discuss the actual reading of the essay. 

[hope_for_things]

16 hours ago, CA Steve said:

There is a difference between the past actions of an individual or even a group of individuals who are no longer alive and the actions of an entity like a state or organized religion which still exists.

A better analogy would be perhaps a comparison to how the US treated it's own Japanese citizens during WWII. Do organizations bear responsibility for actions taken in past, even though a different set of people were in control of the organization? Should the US have apologized and even offered compensation like it did?

 

 

 

 

I agree, and my answer is yes.  

[hope_for_things]

15 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, we are which is not a good thing. There are ways to distinguish. God is the voice telling me to do hard and sometimes illogical things and whose morality sometimes seems to clash with mine in some ways. If I created the Earth I would have left out cancer for example. God did not. 

If God is just a projection of your own ideals and is entirely subjective then the Assyrians brutally torturing prisoners in the name of their God is as divine as the Good Samaritan helping the wounded man out of the ditch.

People throughout history do many things that they believe is condoned by God.  God is subjective.  Why do you think we have a gazillion different religious denominations all with people having a subjectively different experience with God?  

Why would you think your personal experience with God is any less subjective than everyone else through the history of humanity? 

[Marginal Gains]

15 hours ago, The Nehor said:

God is the voice telling me to do hard and sometimes illogical things and whose morality sometimes seems to clash with mine in some ways.

Didn’t the Lafferty’s claim something similar?

[california boy]

53 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You're argument seems to be that God obviously wouldn't make commandments that His children didn't agree with or that could be viewed in a negative light by those so inclined.  Is there any scriptural evidence that your argument is valid?

I am just pointing out what others outside the church think of when they hear the word Mormon.  It is the reality the church finds itself in today due to past and current policies.

[Maestrophil]

12 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I don't understand your entire request. I don't have a video. Like the practice of plural marriage, I don't think one can put this policy in any kind of tidy nutshell. And I think the only pre-1978 Black Africans who were ordained are those mentioned in the Church's gospel topic entry.

Autocorrect :-)  'views" not video

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, california boy said:

I am just pointing out what others outside the church think of when they hear the word Mormon.  It is the reality the church finds itself in today due to past and current policies.

Let's be a little more accurate.  What some outsiders think of the church.  Many outsiders think very highly of the church.  But yes I get that's what you are doing, but you are pointing it out as if that means something about the truth claims of the church.  

[The Nehor]

44 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

This really has me in a quandry.  I need to figure out some meaningful way of apologizing to myself (being descended fron bith sides).  What if I don’t accept my apology?

I believe you are ethically obligated to kill yourself but I am not an anthropologist.

[The Nehor]

33 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Mistakes were definitely made and if fallible men won't take the blame, I guess blame God?

That should work. He has gotten used to it by now.