The Mormons and Racism
Mick Stockinger has an excellent post up today discussing a bit of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and recent charges against my church of racism.
I rarely agree with Mr. Stockinger but his post is very well written and right on target. I encourage everyone to give it a read.
UPDATE: 12/12/2007 10:46PM
JasonThe from The Sidetrack in the comments below:
Yes, it would be nice to say there were no blemishes on the history of the LDS faith, or any other religion for that matter. But there are. And there will be mistakes made today demanding an answer in the tomorrow. We are not perfect in our understanding, but I also believe that is an irrational expectation. Why must leaders of any faith respond to these accusations of the past with anything more than “Hey, we’re a flawed people, just like any people, doing our best to interpret and understand what we believe to be the word of God.”
Very well said.
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A number of enlightened folk have written on this subject. The “House Rules” in Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples did not discriminate toward those of African descent during Joseph’s life. All were welcome. The racism toward Africans entered after the death of Joseph as near as I have been able to read. Orson Hyde, Heber C, Kimball and Brigham Young seemed to be somewhere opposite of Joseph. Perhaps they, like many Mormons, were confused with the reference from the P of GP about ‘Pharaoh being a righteous man’ but denied the priesthood. Nibley and others knew the truth and thank God for Spencer Kimball and a more mature presbytery and laity.
Comment by WP — December 10, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
You’re right, WP. There was at least one black Saint who was given the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s run as prophet. It was only after Smith’s demise that the policy (I’m not sure I would call it revelation) of racially restricting the Priesthood was introduced.
Comment by Derek — December 11, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
I think that was Elijah Abel and he was made a Seventy. Later he had to stop using it, (the priesthood), under some sort of directive from the top. I am away from my books, on Long Island, so I cannot research it at the moment.
Comment by WP — December 11, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Yep, Elijah Abel. The fact that he had been given the priesthood initially leads me to suspect that the subsequent denial to others (and perhaps withdrawal from Abel) had more to do with racism among our leaders than any divine directive.
Given the history, I can’t blame outsiders for viewing the Church’s history skeptically in that regard, and I’m a bit disappointed that the Church leadership doesn’t confront the issue more openly and directly.
Comment by Derek — December 12, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
Very interesting article.
The issue of racism in any religion has always seemed an odd accusation to make. Regardless of your spiritual persuasion, isn’t it defense enough against a church’s bad policies of the past that religious text, no matter how much we would like to think otherwise, is often interpreted by the people of a time, according to the mores and norms of the time?
Is it so offensive to believe that a church can make mistakes? The Catholics have been forgiven for the crusades, and we can’t then forgive other religions for being slow to open up their arms to the black community, women, lesbian and gay members, etc.
Change is a social force, and in organized religion it seems reasonable to recognize the careful balancing act that always exists between understanding the accepted religious doctrine and evolving social norms.
Yes, it would be nice to say there were no blemishes on the history of the LDS faith, or any other religion for that matter. But there are. And there will be mistakes made today demanding an answer in the tomorrow. We are not perfect in our understanding, but I also believe that is an irrational expectation. Why must leaders of any faith respond to these accusations of the past with anything more than “Hey, we’re a flawed people, just like any people, doing our best to interpret and understand what we believe to be the word of God.”
It’s detrimental for the spiritual individual to expect any more than this from themselves or their leaders. We are always learning, and regardless of which religion you adhere to (or none, if that be the case), the assumption that we can perfectly parse all that is to out there to be understood in a single sitting without error is ludicrous.
I don’t think any God in any religion claims an expectation of such perfection from his/her believers. We impose the expectation ourselves, each wanting our beliefs to be more infallible than the others. And it is unfair to judge any religious group or particular faith of today for what the mistakes followers of other decades, other times, and other worlds of understanding may have made in their reasoning.
I am the furthest you can get form a religious person, by any means, but I still find it very unfair that mistakes from the past are so often used as a means of attack on this religion or the other. The pretense of perfection from the accusers is, to my understanding, simply Un-Christian.
With the issue of race, all that is important is that the black community is accepted now, and an apology has been issued for past attitudes.
Hell, the GOP forgave Strom Thurmond. Now there was a racist. I think we can cut the LDS faith (who were not alone in their church policies of that day) a little slack.
Comment by jasonthe — December 12, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
Very good points, Jason. I think the reason we in the LDS Church invite criticism of our sect’s history is because we portray our history and our leaders as perfect. If we (the membership, the leaders, everybody) were able to acknowledge the blemishes of our past and not try to rationalize them, there would be much less for critics to attack.
Comment by Derek — December 12, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
Elijah Abel on Wikipedia
This is interesting
Comment by alliegator — December 12, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
Alliegator,
Thanks for that link. You were right it is interesting. I’m sorry it took so long for your post to get out of moderation. I’m too much of a slacker I guess!
You should be able to post directly here now without having wo wait for your post to show up.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — December 13, 2007 @ 10:34 am
We all know that the LDS faith was mostly spared the great plague of destruction of the civil war. Perhaps we should be kind to the prophets of that day in their decisions in that harsh political climate.
However, in the past century, I believe that the leaders of the LDS faith have had to pressure the members of the church into accepting all peoples of the earth. It became a matter of personal bias that held members of the LDS faith back, not religious belief. The following quote demonstrates my point of view:
“…people write me letters and say, “You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?” And all I can say to that is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.
We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don’t matter any more.
It doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the matter before the first day of June of this year, 1978. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the Gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the Gentiles.
Bruce R. McConkie, (18 August 1978), All Are Alike unto God, CES address
Comment by cody — December 14, 2007 @ 3:03 am
Cody,
I’ve never heard a line of argumentation associating Utah’s lack of involvement in the Civil War with the church’s position on Blacks and the priesthood. I’d be interested to hear more on that.
I think your quote of Elder McConkie is a good example of a church leader showing the humility we as members should show towards our leaders. I’ve always admired that Elder McConkie was able to so publicly and completely repudiate his earlier rationalizations for the exclusion of blacks from full participation in our church. The problem is that so many Latter-Day Saints are raised from infancy to adulthood to take every word these authorities say about any topic as established gospel truth and it isn’t that hard to believe that church leaders had a hard time getting members to change their thinking on this issue after over a century of indoctrination.
Of course it is wrong to judge someone’s work and life based on one errant or evil belief or teaching they espouse. The past leaders of our church very clearly worked many miracles and taught many beautiful and true doctrines in the years since the church’s founding. That doesn’t change the fact that the policy of excluding some from full activity in the church because of the color of their skin was wrong and the argument that our church was a racist institution up until 1978 has a lot of merit.
Just as I love my parents and grandparents in spite of their sometimes ignorant views on race I love former church leaders from whom I’ve learned so much about the gospel. That doesn’t mean I don’t abhor their wrong-headedness on this issue or the apologies I have to give for the church while sharing the gospel with my black friends.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — December 14, 2007 @ 10:04 am
I agree Jeremy, and feel the same way you do. I actually take pride when my multi-racial family gets some sideways glances from some of the much older generation. I love all of my children the same, as I’m sure God does, and I hope I’m setting a good example for my children’s generation.
Some ugly things have happened in the past in the name of religion. The eradication of the Incan and Aztec empires are some horrible examples. I just hope that all religions and their members will continue forward in promoting peace. The ugliest wars are those fought in the names of religions.
Comment by cody — December 14, 2007 @ 10:40 am
Regrettably, BRM did not totally repudiate all of his earlier statements with regard to race and the priesthood. He was, as the Deseret Book publication disclaims his book ‘Mormon Doctrine’, a product of the time and culture in which he lived. He had strong opinions and they were not inspired as have been the statements and opinions of many other of our leaders. Elder Harold B. Lee was so concerned about Negro blood donors that he petitioned the American Red Cross to identify donors who were of African descent lest the Elders of Israel be contaminated with the blood of Cain. I guess that meant some of us might have lost our priesthood. It was a sad time for the Kingdom of God to have been so ethnically challenged.
Racism is alive and well today among many Mormons who use the ‘rule of law’ as an excuse to marginalize the Hispanic brown folk among us. Sadly, we have not learned a lot over the decades and the last 160 years as a Church and people.
Comment by WP — December 14, 2007 @ 11:59 am
Jeremy, I think your attitude towards the issue is right on target. We can respect and admire Brigham Young for the amazing things he accomplished and the good teachings he provided–and still acknowledge he was a human, flawed like any of us. It appears he was a bigot. Unfortunately, most of the Church membership prefer to maintain their perceptions of the prophets as semi-divine, and prefer to rationalize (”pre-existential fence-sitters,” “mark of Cain,” “Sin of Ham”) the apparently flawed policies in our Church’s history. The leadership of the Church subconsciously promote those attitudes by being unwilling to openly and candidly evaluate the history of the Church. I honestly believe that if they were to do so, it would reduce the fodder for attacks by critics.
And yes, WP, unconscious bigotry is still alive and well among Church. My own parents, in no way deliberately racist, told me in my teen years that they would not support it if I were to date a black girl because of various quotes from Presidents Lee and Kimball.
Comment by Derek — December 14, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
I will dig the quote out from BRM if you want it. Itl dogged him to his deathbed. We all wanted him to completely disavow but he did not.
An honest history would be too challenging for too many of us that live in an illusioned Mormon history. ‘Rough Stone Rolling’ is a good place to begin a fair assessment of our own history or more correctly Joseph Smith’s. Most anything by Arrington or Quinn illuminates more correctly our (new) Mormon history. As long as I mentioned Michael Quinn’s name, can I say I believe he is the best of all Mormon historians alive today?
Comment by WP — December 14, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
I’m not sure why we have to be so defensive about things in the past. They involve another people in another time. The best thing we can do when dealing with our history is to openly view it in the full light of rational objective scholarship and then use the lessons we learn from that to help us as we find OUR answers to the challenges and questions of OUR daily lives.
How do we deal with the “other” as a society is a question that other peoples have dealt with in the past. Now it’s OUR turn. How are WE going to approach this challenge? Massacre them or bring a loaf of warm bread to their door? (we all know what the people of Iron County chose a hundred years ago in Mountain Meadows. Not good–we might be able to do better . . . I hope)
If we are here to be tested and challenged in this life, then it’s up to us to pass or fail OUR own test. But we can sure learn much from the successes and failures of our progentors. Hopefully, each generation might get it closer and closer to the right.
I’m not going to condemn the past for being human, but neither can that be an excuse for my own inhumane choices. Let’s keep our eyes to the prize, our life choices on the ideals we hold as truth, and the humility to take our lumps when we need to from GOD or from History.
Comment by Homer — December 14, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
You can’t blame LDS racist policies on the mores of the times. Christian churches (non-LDS ones) in J. Smith’s time were leaders in the abolitionist movement. If the church truly was of God, why were they not one of these churches?
It would go a long way to eliminate racism in the LDS church if they’d just admit they were wrong and made a mistake and that teaching such religous mythology as the mark of Cain will not be tolerated anymore. Then maybe throw in a few scripture quotes about Jesus and Samaritans.
Comment by Andrew — May 20, 2008 @ 2:57 pm