Does racism equal hate?

[JAHS]

I think the obvious answer to this question would be,  Yes.  However, although Jesus taught we should love our neighbor, there is this one interesting event that seems to teach that racism is acceptable to Him under certain circumstances:

Matthew 15
22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

It seems he called a Canaanite woman a dog and at first refused to help her because of her nationality, because she was not a Jew. That actually sounds pretty racist to me, although He did still show love for this person and ended up healing the woman's daughter because of her faith.
According to President Joseph Fielding Smith:
"The reason our Savior did not carry his message to other peoples than the Jews is due to the fact that the times of the Gentiles had not arrived in which they were to participate in the gospel."
So are there times when racism is appropriate or is what Jesus did not considered racism and if not what is it? Can racism exist without hate?

[bluebell]

Is gentile a race?  I guess I had never thought of it like that before.

But even if we take this story to mean that Jesus was o.k. with racism under certain circumstances, it wouldn't be true anymore since Peter was told it was time to preach the gospel to all.

[JAHS]

20 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Is gentile a race?  I guess I had never thought of it like that before.

But even if we take this story to mean that Jesus was o.k. with racism under certain circumstances, it wouldn't be true anymore since Peter was told it was time to preach the gospel to all.

I agree. Normally racism is characterized by someone thinking his race is superior to another's race. Perhaps In the example with Jesus it was simply a matter of timing; that it wasn't time for the gospel to be preached to everyone except for the Jews.
 

Edited July 23, 2019 by JAHS

[The Nehor]

Tribalism is built into our physical genetics. Trusting those who are like us over those who are not has survival value. This does not need to be tied to skin color obviously but that is where it comes from. I trust family members over strangers, church members over non-members, and the like. This is why MLM scams thrive in tight-knit religious and social communities. Note that there are exceptions as you get to know individuals There are some church members I trust about as much as I trust an anti-western terrorist.

Part of the problem in addressing racism is we have made it a huge moral flaw. Calling someone racist is pure insult and ignores the fact that everyone has the urge to tribalism and racism. This means everyone denies they are racist and almost no one examines themselves to figure out if they are acting on those instincts and correct as necessary. Some claim we have made strides against racism but if you go to places without open social embarrassment (unregulated commenting systems, porn, and the like) racism shines through everywhere.

Or to have it described by puppets:

 

[stemelbow]

I can't take that story very literally.  Why would Jesus not answer her at first?  To demonstrate to his followers that it doesn't matter where one comes from, who one is, what race one is?  Perhaps.  He didn't answer only to get his disciples to complain to send her away, then, after that, he could teach them that discriminating on race, or heritage is stupid.  That's perhaps the best way, as I see it, to view this little story.  

[Robert F. Smith]

49 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I can't take that story very literally.  Why would Jesus not answer her at first?  To demonstrate to his followers that it doesn't matter where one comes from, who one is, what race one is?  Perhaps.  He didn't answer only to get his disciples to complain to send her away, then, after that, he could teach them that discriminating on race, or heritage is stupid.  That's perhaps the best way, as I see it, to view this little story.  

Exactly, and this applies to many another story about Jesus:  (1) The tale of the Good Samaritan, a person hated and vilified by Jews, yet who behaved better than the Jews.  (2) Jesus and the Roman Centurion (Matt 8:5-13).

[The Nehor]

58 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I can't take that story very literally.  Why would Jesus not answer her at first?  To demonstrate to his followers that it doesn't matter where one comes from, who one is, what race one is?  Perhaps.  He didn't answer only to get his disciples to complain to send her away, then, after that, he could teach them that discriminating on race, or heritage is stupid.  That's perhaps the best way, as I see it, to view this little story.  

I do not think that works. Jesus would not say He was sent only to the House of Israel just to be ironic and provoke the exchange. There is something to this whole House of Israel thing I do not yet understand.

It is worth noting that Jesus did recognize her faith and helped her as He did with others. I think it is more the D&C admonition to do many good things without being commanded. Jesus had a specific Mission but He could be kind and helpful outside of that mission. On my mission my call was to preach but I did other things to help others as long as they did not get in the way of my primary mission.

[JAHS]

5 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

59 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I can't take that story very literally.  Why would Jesus not answer her at first?  To demonstrate to his followers that it doesn't matter where one comes from, who one is, what race one is?  Perhaps.  He didn't answer only to get his disciples to complain to send her away, then, after that, he could teach them that discriminating on race, or heritage is stupid.  That's perhaps the best way, as I see it, to view this little story.  

Exactly, and this applies to many another story about Jesus:  (1) The tale of the Good Samaritan, a person hated and vilified by Jews, yet who behaved better than the Jews.  (2) Jesus and the Roman Centurion (Matt 8:5-13).

Perhaps, but I think unfortunately there may be many who use such stories in a literal sense to support their views and prejudices.  

[JAHS]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I do not think that works. Jesus would not say He was sent only to the House of Israel just to be ironic and provoke the exchange. There is something to this whole House of Israel thing I do not yet understand.

It is worth noting that Jesus did recognize her faith and helped her as He did with others. I think it is more the D&C admonition to do many good things without being commanded. Jesus had a specific Mission but He could be kind and helpful outside of that mission. On my mission my call was to preach but I did other things to help others as long as they did not get in the way of my primary mission.

Speaking of missions, could the example of Jesus be used to justify not actively proselyting to the people of the black race during the time before 1978?  Was this racism or just a matter of it not being the right time to bring the gospel to them? 

[clarkgoble]

It's worth distinguishing racism from intents. Often people want to define racism just in terms of ones representation of others or the intents of their actions. So people who consciously think other races are inferior are obviously racist. However it seems clear that a person who unconsciously treats other races worse even if they don't intend to is also being racist. Where it gets more complicated is the trend in the past decade or two to index racism to power. So an African American who hates white people isn't racist because of the power imbalance but a white person who loves blacks, tries to do right by them, but is part of "white supremacy" just because of the power and structures of the system they are in. I confess I have a lot of problems with that redefinition. Not the least of which is it isn't exactly clear how to treat bigotry by people in relatively equal power relations. (Think say tensions in LA during the 90's between African Americans and Korean shopkeepers)

All of that is really a semantic issue of what word we use. I think it unfortunate we've applied the words "racism" and "white supremacy" to vague often unintended structures. But that's more or less where it is at least in discussions among the college educated. i.e. most of the press. I think that ironically such language makes it harder to solve problems and incentivizes backlash such as we've seen the last few years. That is if you're labeling a swath of people as racists you tend to push them towards adopting explicitly traditional racist behavior. I think we've seen some of that - although I'd hasten to say that the language games are hardly the only thing pushing people like that. 

9 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Speaking of missions, could the example of Jesus be used to justify not actively proselyting to the people of the black race during the time before 1978?  Was this racism or just a matter of it not being the right time to bring the gospel to them? 

I think a significant issue is the fact that the gospel didn't go to all people until substantially after Jesus had died. Even after Peter had his vision it's clear he was mixed upon the issue leading to conflict between Paul and himself. I'm not sure that excuses actions in the 19th century by Mormons up through the revelation. After all it's quite possible Brigham Young was wrong, was racist in most ways, but that for other reasons the Lord wanted Kimball rather than McKay to reform the system. It's also important to note that even if the gospel originally was just taught to the Jews (fairly explicit in the Gospels) it doesn't follow that Brigham  Young's actions were inspired.

Edited July 23, 2019 by clarkgoble

[stemelbow]

49 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I do not think that works. Jesus would not say He was sent only to the House of Israel just to be ironic and provoke the exchange. There is something to this whole House of Israel thing I do not yet understand.

It is worth noting that Jesus did recognize her faith and helped her as He did with others. I think it is more the D&C admonition to do many good things without being commanded. Jesus had a specific Mission but He could be kind and helpful outside of that mission. On my mission my call was to preach but I did other things to help others as long as they did not get in the way of my primary mission.

He alluded to the precious house of Israel sarcastically, to further his point.  That's the best way to read it (think of him tossing up his four fingers and dropping them at the middle knuckle a couple of times as he states that line).  Don't get all caught up on the details.  They dont' matter and are probably the pieces to the stories that got all mixed up, added to and edited as the story carried through the years before it was ever recorded by anonymous people with their own agendas.  Again, probably the best way to view it.  

Edited July 23, 2019 by stemelbow

[Storm Rider]

38 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Exactly, and this applies to many another story about Jesus:  (1) The tale of the Good Samaritan, a person hated and vilified by Jews, yet who behaved better than the Jews.  (2) Jesus and the Roman Centurion (Matt 8:5-13).

These are more distortions and an attempt to apply the obnoxious concern of "racism" in today's present world. 
The verses in question have nothing to do with race, but covenant. The NT is pretty clear that Jesus' main objective was to teach Israel, the covenant people, rather than the world at large. That objective of teaching the gentiles was to come later after Jesus' resurrection. 

This is not to say that Jesus did not recognize the faith of others outside the covenant - you cited examples of some of those. Yet, recognizing faith and, at this time, equating that to covenant is a misunderstanding of scripture. 

Today, we like to think of the world in terms of racism almost exclusively....well, that and genderism, feminism, and every little -ism that comes to the minds of social activists.  Society has become brainwashed with this single lens to view the world. 

Did Jesus come to the House of Israel? Yes, emphatically yes and exclusively yes. He had a sole focus on how to bring them to an understanding that the Messiah had come. Later he assigned the task of teaching the world to his disciples.

The scripture cited in the opening statement of this thread is one of the harshest spoken by Jesus. He compares those individuals outside of the covenant to dogs. When I read this I try to understand what he is saying. His purpose was the House of Israel and calling labeling others as dogs has more to do with his wholehearted commitment to the Jews than a condemnation or denigration of others. An example comes to mind, an Olympic athlete is in training. For him, his training is everything - how he exercises and how/what he eats is everything. In talking with him, he says, "I would not eat that poison you are eating." Is he saying that the food is poison? Yes, literally, but really he is speaking from a commitment to winning an Olympic medal. For him, everything outside of his focused objective is anathema. I think this is the context of what Jesus is saying. 

The attempt to introduce discrimination, racism into the issue is presentism. 

[Storm Rider]

2 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

He alluded to the precious house of Israel sarcastically, to further his point.  That's the best way to read it.  Don't get all caught up on the details.  They dont' matter and are probably the pieces to the stories that got all mixed up, added to and edited as the story carried through the years before it was ever recorded by anonymous people with their own agendas.  Again, probably the best way to view it.  

Absolutely not. His entire focus was the House of Israel. He made no attempt to teach other people other than the Jews during his time on earth. To distort that fact is to completely misunderstand Jesus' mission and misunderstand the value and importance of entering into a covenant with him. 

[The Nehor]

13 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

He alluded to the precious house of Israel sarcastically, to further his point.  That's the best way to read it (think of him tossing up his four fingers and dropping them at the middle knuckle a couple of times as he states that line).  Don't get all caught up on the details.  They dont' matter and are probably the pieces to the stories that got all mixed up, added to and edited as the story carried through the years before it was ever recorded by anonymous people with their own agendas.  Again, probably the best way to view it.  

Doubt it. If it was that obvious why did Peter have such a problem with his vision later?

41 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It's worth distinguishing racism from intents. Often people want to define racism just in terms of ones representation of others or the intents of their actions. So people who consciously think other races are inferior are obviously racist. However it seems clear that a person who unconsciously treats other races worse even if they don't intend to is also being racist. Where it gets more complicated is the trend in the past decade or two to index racism to power. So an African American who hates white people isn't racist because of the power imbalance but a white person who loves blacks, tries to do right by them, but is part of "white supremacy" just because of the power and structures of the system they are in. I confess I have a lot of problems with that redefinition. Not the least of which is it isn't exactly clear how to treat bigotry by people in relatively equal power relations. (Think say tensions in LA during the 90's between African Americans and Korean shopkeepers)

That is not quite how it works. The power imbalance influences how damaging the racism is. For a comparison imagine a German who hates Jews and a Jew who hates Germans. The German throws the Jew into a concentration camp where the Jew is worked to death. Which was more damaging? In a less severe example imagine a black family living in a very racist white community. The parents caution their children to be careful, not to trust those in authority if they are white, etc. Strictly speaking that is racist but I would not judge it as harshly as a white police officer abusing their authority to persecute the family. It also shows that the onus for ending the racism falls more heavily on those in power. If the family teaches their kids to ignore race they are probably putting their children in danger. Those in power can change and stop and then the family could do the same.

[JAHS]

18 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

These are more distortions and an attempt to apply the obnoxious concern of "racism" in today's present world. 
The verses in question have nothing to do with race, but covenant. The NT is pretty clear that Jesus' main objective was to teach Israel, the covenant people, rather than the world at large. That objective of teaching the gentiles was to come later after Jesus' resurrection. 

This is not to say that Jesus did not recognize the faith of others outside the covenant - you cited examples of some of those. Yet, recognizing faith and, at this time, equating that to covenant is a misunderstanding of scripture. 

Today, we like to think of the world in terms of racism almost exclusively....well, that and genderism, feminism, and every little -ism that comes to the minds of social activists.  Society has become brainwashed with this single lens to view the world. 

Did Jesus come to the House of Israel? Yes, emphatically yes and exclusively yes. He had a sole focus on how to bring them to an understanding that the Messiah had come. Later he assigned the task of teaching the world to his disciples.

The scripture cited in the opening statement of this thread is one of the harshest spoken by Jesus. He compares those individuals outside of the covenant to dogs. When I read this I try to understand what he is saying. His purpose was the House of Israel and calling labeling others as dogs has more to do with his wholehearted commitment to the Jews than a condemnation or denigration of others. An example comes to mind, an Olympic athlete is in training. For him, his training is everything - how he exercises and how/what he eats is everything. In talking with him, he says, "I would not eat that poison you are eating." Is he saying that the food is poison? Yes, literally, but really he is speaking from a commitment to winning an Olympic medal. For him, everything outside of his focused objective is anathema. I think this is the context of what Jesus is saying. 

The attempt to introduce discrimination, racism into the issue is presentism. 

Yes, He did come to the house of Israel specifically to preach His gospel, but it's hard to understand why He would not help anyone in need regardless of where they come from.
Your example makes some sense. 
I guess sometimes we should not take things so literally in the scriptures (We believe in the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly) and just focus on the main point He was making, that His mission was only to a specific group of people.  

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

It's worth distinguishing racism from intents. Often people want to define racism just in terms of ones representation of others or the intents of their actions. So people who consciously think other races are inferior are obviously racist. However it seems clear that a person who unconsciously treats other races worse even if they don't intend to is also being racist. Where it gets more complicated is the trend in the past decade or two to index racism to power. So an African American who hates white people isn't racist because of the power imbalance but a white person who loves blacks, tries to do right by them, but is part of "white supremacy" just because of the power and structures of the system they are in. I confess I have a lot of problems with that redefinition.

Racism is a difficult topic.  On one hand there's tons of elements that make the issue complicated.  On the other it's a rather simple explanation.  A few weeks back my son (who is of mixed race) and his aunt (white, my wife's sister) had some argument that I was out of on their social media accounts.  My son had used a meme that expressed the injustices he had received at various hands in his life due to race, including Church.  My sister-in-law, ever the defender, took great exception that he pointed out the Church issues and claimed he was being racist by sharing his concern about the difficulties he faced within Church culture.  He pointed her to some interesting articles, as we've seen them, pointing out "Belief in reverse racism is widespread in the United States; however, there is little to no empirical evidence that white Americans suffer systemic discrimination".  As it is racism in our culture has a live context.  It's true anyone from any race can hate another from another race because of one's race, it does not really fit the context of the on-going discussion of racism to point out that some particular black person said something awful about white people.  

Quote

Not the least of which is it isn't exactly clear how to treat bigotry by people in relatively equal power relations. (Think say tensions in LA during the 90's between African Americans and Korean shopkeepers)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this reference.  Korean-town, it was said, was basically ignored by police (an act of racism it seems again) so they suffered greatly and were forced to take matters into their own hands.  As the violence went through Korean town and inched towards the rich white neighborhoods the police put up blockades (likely another factor of racism).

Quote

All of that is really a semantic issue of what word we use. I think it unfortunate we've applied the words "racism" and "white supremacy" to vague often unintended structures. But that's more or less where it is at least in discussions among the college educated. i.e. most of the press. I think that ironically such language makes it harder to solve problems and incentivizes backlash such as we've seen the last few years. That is if you're labeling a swath of people as racists you tend to push them towards adopting explicitly traditional racist behavior. I think we've seen some of that - although I'd hasten to say that the language games are hardly the only thing pushing people like that. 

I do think there is some level of convenience to the term racist in our day.  That is to say it is easy to employ, sometimes hard to really convict, near impossible to retract, and definitely polarizing in our climate.  Though I hardly think that means it's all a language game.  It may be that one is acting in racism but not know it.  It's can be helpful for the naïve to learn that his/her actions affect others in the way they do.  

Quote

I think a significant issue is the fact that the gospel didn't go to all people until substantially after Jesus had died. Even after Peter had his vision it's clear he was mixed upon the issue leading to conflict between Paul and himself.

Well, we find ourselves with a narrative created after the fact.  We don't really know that Jesus wasn't about spreading the gospel to all, other than from stories afterward--and yet even some of those can give us briefs on evidence that Jesus was interested in converting anyone who expressed faith in him.  Nor do we know that the story we get is not influenced heavily by the people who came after Jesus, suggesting heritage, religion, race had something to do with it.  

Quote

I'm not sure that excuses actions in the 19th century by Mormons up through the revelation. After all it's quite possible Brigham Young was wrong, was racist in most ways, but that for other reasons the Lord wanted Kimball rather than McKay to reform the system. It's also important to note that even if the gospel originally was just taught to the Jews (fairly explicit in the Gospels) it doesn't follow that Brigham  Young's actions were inspired.

It's possible and likely that Kimball and McKay held discriminating views based on race due to their upbringing too.  They didn't seem to really take it seriously or reflect heavily until the twilight years of their lives, after "the world", as it were, showed them the error of their traditions.  

Edited July 23, 2019 by stemelbow

[stemelbow]

51 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Absolutely not. His entire focus was the House of Israel. He made no attempt to teach other people other than the Jews during his time on earth. To distort that fact is to completely misunderstand Jesus' mission and misunderstand the value and importance of entering into a covenant with him. 

That's a rather cavalier and nonsensical use of the term "absolutely", after all we have here in front of us a story wherein he was happy and praised the faith of a Canaanite woman, and then blessed her for it.  As I suggested this story shows he attempted to teach other people, in part, perhaps, for the very sake of breaking the prejudices of his followers.  

Edited July 23, 2019 by stemelbow

[stemelbow]

27 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Doubt it. If it was that obvious why did Peter have such a problem with his vision later?

 

It was obvious as can be to me that the priesthood ban was ugly and evil, but leaders definitely had a problem dropping it.  I'm not sure Peter is any more saintly than say McKay.  Why should we expect any different?  

[Maidservant]

The more I read the scriptures, in one, the more the understanding is emerging for me that the House of Israel has nothing, if anything, to do with bloodline.  It represents a stage of progression, mainly for communities (but necessarily then also for individuals as they would be prepared to participate in the community).  As such, 'the House of Israel' is a level of repentance beyond certain worldviews and practices; as well as a level of repentance and light that has not yet been reached (i.e. there are progressions beyond 'the House of Israel'; and I would submit that in this day and age we must very quickly emerge from the House of Israel structure or we will not be prepared for Zion).

While Jesus was situated in a Jewish/Greek infused/Roman state milieu (not House of Israel, because the other tribes were already gone by then), and may very well have been answering his fellows within that story, the story of covenant begins far previous to the House of Israel, thus encompasses all the peoples of the world.  That Jacob/Israel and then eventually Moses were called was mainly to show a clear covenant template for everyone, not to be the only ones with the template or who it was for--because covenant never was.  The first we know of covenant starts with Adam and persists to our day.  House of Israel is only helpful to the degree it shows that everlasting covenant, not as something unique to a bloodline.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

Speaking of missions, could the example of Jesus be used to justify not actively proselyting to the people of the black race during the time before 1978?  Was this racism or just a matter of it not being the right time to bring the gospel to them? 

Could it be used to justify not actively proselyting Muslims right now?

As to your final question, I just do not know. I have guesses but nothing more.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Storm Rider said:

These are more distortions and an attempt to apply the obnoxious concern of "racism" in today's present world. 
The verses in question have nothing to do with race, but covenant. The NT is pretty clear that Jesus' main objective was to teach Israel, the covenant people, rather than the world at large. That objective of teaching the gentiles was to come later after Jesus' resurrection. 

This is not to say that Jesus did not recognize the faith of others outside the covenant - you cited examples of some of those. Yet, recognizing faith and, at this time, equating that to covenant is a misunderstanding of scripture. 

Today, we like to think of the world in terms of racism almost exclusively....well, that and genderism, feminism, and every little -ism that comes to the minds of social activists.  Society has become brainwashed with this single lens to view the world. 

Did Jesus come to the House of Israel? Yes, emphatically yes and exclusively yes. He had a sole focus on how to bring them to an understanding that the Messiah had come. Later he assigned the task of teaching the world to his disciples.

The scripture cited in the opening statement of this thread is one of the harshest spoken by Jesus. He compares those individuals outside of the covenant to dogs. When I read this I try to understand what he is saying. His purpose was the House of Israel and calling labeling others as dogs has more to do with his wholehearted commitment to the Jews than a condemnation or denigration of others. An example comes to mind, an Olympic athlete is in training. For him, his training is everything - how he exercises and how/what he eats is everything. In talking with him, he says, "I would not eat that poison you are eating." Is he saying that the food is poison? Yes, literally, but really he is speaking from a commitment to winning an Olympic medal. For him, everything outside of his focused objective is anathema. I think this is the context of what Jesus is saying. 

The attempt to introduce discrimination, racism into the issue is presentism. 

So you are suggesting racism and discrimination did not exist at the time of Jesus?

That you find the very idea and discussion of racism obnoxious should be a cause for self-reflection. What exactly irks you about it? Why do you feel so personally targeted?

[The Nehor]

39 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It was obvious as can be to me that the priesthood ban was ugly and evil, but leaders definitely had a problem dropping it.  I'm not sure Peter is any more saintly than say McKay.  Why should we expect any different?  

Because Peter would have seen Jesus making these sarcastic comments and surely picked up on generalized egalitarianism. Jesus did not do this. To the woman at the well he stated that salvation came through the Jews.

I am curious why you chose President McKay for this. By most accounts he wanted to end the ban. 

[The Nehor]

25 minutes ago, Maidservant said:

The more I read the scriptures, in one, the more the understanding is emerging for me that the House of Israel has nothing, if anything, to do with bloodline.  It represents a stage of progression, mainly for communities (but necessarily then also for individuals as they would be prepared to participate in the community).  As such, 'the House of Israel' is a level of repentance beyond certain worldviews and practices; as well as a level of repentance and light that has not yet been reached (i.e. there are progressions beyond 'the House of Israel'; and I would submit that in this day and age we must very quickly emerge from the House of Israel structure or we will not be prepared for Zion).

While Jesus was situated in a Jewish/Greek infused/Roman state milieu (not House of Israel, because the other tribes were already gone by then), and may very well have been answering his fellows within that story, the story of covenant begins far previous to the House of Israel, thus encompasses all the peoples of the world.  That Jacob/Israel and then eventually Moses were called was mainly to show a clear covenant template for everyone, not to be the only ones with the template or who it was for--because covenant never was.  The first we know of covenant starts with Adam and persists to our day.  House of Israel is only helpful to the degree it shows that everlasting covenant, not as something unique to a bloodline.

That explanation would solve a lot of problems but I do not believe it works. Even the Book of Mormon which repeatedly says that Christ will accept all spends a large amount of time talking about Israel and addressing concerns of specific groups within Israel and talking about seed.

I have some strange theories as to what the whole Israel thing is about but they seem too ludicrous to be true.

[Storm Rider]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

Yes, He did come to the house of Israel specifically to preach His gospel, but it's hard to understand why He would not help anyone in need regardless of where they come from.
Your example makes some sense. 
I guess sometimes we should not take things so literally in the scriptures (We believe in the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly) and just focus on the main point He was making, that His mission was only to a specific group of people.  

His mission was vital and necessary for our salvation. He spend some 33 years on earth. I choose not to instruct him that he could have taken the time to preach to all peoples, all nations while on earth. What is important is to be converted rather than focus on what race I am, what gender I am, etc. 

I think humans have always judged things with incomplete knowledge; though I do think that today it is worse. Our lens is so incredibly narrow and more often than no, through an overwhelming perspective of ignorance. Today we seek to be offended; we seek to find fault. Worse, the social warriors strike out at anybody or anything that dares to shade racism, tolerance, and open sexuality....as long as we use the word love, everything is good. 

[Storm Rider]

47 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

That's a rather cavalier and nonsensical use of the term "absolutely", after all we have here in front of us a story wherein he was happy and praised the faith of a Canaanite woman, and then blessed her for it.  As I suggested this story shows he attempted to teach other people, in part, perhaps, for the very sake of breaking the prejudices of his followers.  

Oh, please. Prejudice? This is presentism.

Yes, the gospel of Jesus Christ taught us to forgive and to love. He was focused on the root causes of hate - prejudice is just one face of hate. To contextualize his message in terms of prejudice is to limit what he said and taught. Yes, it fits better with today's nauseating message of racism, but it limits the all-encompassing message of Christ.