Blacks and the priesthood

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Blacks and the priesthood:

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This page is a summary or index page. More detailed information on this topic is available on the sub-pages below.

Contents

Criticism

  • Critics argue that God would not allow His church to ever deny blessings or privileges based on race.
  • They are critical of the Church waiting until 1978 to lift the ban on ordaining black members to the priesthood.
  • They mine quotes made by Latter-day Saint leaders prior to 1978 to portray the church as racist in its doctrines.
  • They cite passages from LDS scripture that Latter-day Saints used to provide a rationale for the priesthood ban.
  • They question the revelatory process that brought about the policy shift, portraying it as a response to social pressure or government threats to remove the church's tax-free status.

Source(s) of the criticism

Introduction

Members of African descent were restricted from holding the LDS Church's lay priesthood until 1978. Critics with an agenda, as well as sincere seekers with a laudable abhorence of racism have used this fact to portray the former (or present) Church and its members as racist.

Understanding the priesthood ban is sometimes difficult, because the historical record is not entirely clear about the ban's institution. There is no contemporary, first-person account of the ban's implementation. Some members believe the ban was commanded by revelation. Others believe that Church leaders responded to threats and dangers facing the Church by restricting activities among black Americans in the pre-Civil War era, and that these policies and procedures persisted.

However, once the ban was in place—whether as a matter of revelation, or as a policy that arose out of the Church's 19th-century origins—members and leaders did not feel that they could simply "change" things.

Many modern Protestant denominations believe in a "priesthood of all believers," and settle doctrinal differences via councils, meetings, or plebescites. As new social realities develop (e.g., the civil rights movement, women's suffrage, "gay rights," etc.), denominations adapt or modify previous stances.

This is not how the Church functions, and non-members may not appreciate this fact. Members or leaders of the Church do not feel that they have the right to alter previous practices or doctrines without direct revelation from God. Much as the ban confused and troubled many members—black and white—leaders did not feel at liberty to alter them without divine guidance. It is also important to realize that priesthood, in the LDS tradition, is not a right, nor is it something to be used to grant or enhance spiritual or social "status."

Furthermore, efforts to use political pressure against the Church may have slowed the change, since members do not believe that God will allow the Church to appear 'manipulated' by outside forces to create a convenient 'revelation' merely to satisfy social pressures.

It also important to give credit to Church members' strengths in the pre-1978 period:

  • Church doctrine never held that blacks were less than human or without souls, as some denominations did
  • Joseph Smith taught that any mental or economic weakness suffered by blacks was not due to any in-born defect, but simply due to not having ample opportunity to advance and receive the same education as whites
  • Church members were overwhelmingly abolitionist and were even persecuted and driven out because of their anti-slavery leanings
  • the Church never had segregated congregations; all members worshipped together
  • the Church supported equal civil rights for many years before the 1978 revelation: to the Church, the issue of priesthood was not one of civil rights or granting status, but of revelation.
  • sociologic studies demonstrated that pre-1978 Mormons were no more or less racist than their contemporaries

Racist doctrine?

The most unfortunate legacy of the ban is perhaps an aspect that was least intended. Since many members were sincerely concerned about the justice of the ban, many sought to explain it through a variety of hypotheses. Such "doctrinal folklore" was never official, but became widespread as members sought to reconcile their ideas about the justice and mercy of God with the ban's reality. In a good faith effort to understand, members drew on ideas about blacks then current in Protestantism generally.

Leaders of the Church have repeatedly emphasized that such explanations were misguided and never represented official doctrine.

For example, Elder Dallin H. Oaks pointed out that some leaders and members had ill-advisedly sought to provide justifications for the ban:

...It's not the pattern of the Lord to give reasons. We can put reasons to commandments. When we do we're on our own. Some people put reasons to [the ban] and they turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There is a lesson in that.... The lesson I've drawn from that, I decided a long time ago that I had faith in the command and I had no faith in the reasons that had been suggested for it.
...I'm referring to reasons given by general authorities and reasons elaborated upon [those reasons] by others. The whole set of reasons seemed to me to be unnecessary risk taking.
...Let's [not] make the mistake that's been made in the past, here and in other areas, trying to put reasons to revelation. The reasons turn out to be man-made to a great extent. The revelations are what we sustain as the will of the Lord and that's where safety lies.[1]

Interviewed for a PBS special on the Church, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said:

One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. ... I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. ... They, I'm sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. ...
It probably would have been advantageous to say nothing, to say we just don't know, and, [as] with many religious matters, whatever was being done was done on the basis of faith at that time. But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. ... At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that doctrine existed. I think, to the extent that I know anything about it, as one of the newer and younger [apostles] to come along, ... we simply do not know why that practice, that policy, that doctrine was in place.[2]

Recent remarks by the current prophet, President Hinckley, demonstrate that members of the LDS church must put aside any thoughts or legacy of racial intolerance or unkindness:

Racial strife still lifts its ugly head. I am advised that even right here among us there is some of this. I cannot understand how it can be. It seemed to me that we all rejoiced in the 1978 revelation given President Kimball. I was there in the temple at the time that that happened. There was no doubt in my mind or in the minds of my associates that what was revealed was the mind and the will of the Lord.
Now I am told that racial slurs and denigrating remarks are sometimes heard among us. I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ. How can any man holding the Melchizedek Priesthood arrogantly assume that he is eligible for the priesthood whereas another who lives a righteous life but whose skin is of a different color is ineligible?
Throughout my service as a member of the First Presidency, I have recognized and spoken a number of times on the diversity we see in our society. It is all about us, and we must make an effort to accommodate that diversity.
Let us all recognize that each of us is a son or daughter of our Father in Heaven, who loves all of His children.
Brethren, there is no basis for racial hatred among the priesthood of this Church. If any within the sound of my voice is inclined to indulge in this, then let him go before the Lord and ask for forgiveness and be no more involved in such.[3]

Further details

It is important to understand the history behind the priesthood ban to evaluate whether these criticisms have any merit and to contextualize the quotes with which LDS members are often confronted.

This is complex and sensitive issue, and definitive answers as to why God allowed the ban to happen await further revelation. There are some things we do not know, and we rely on faith that God will one day give us the answers to the questions of our mortal existence.

Please consult the sub-page which treats the issue(s) which interest you:

Conclusion

Sometimes God withholds certain blessings from certain people without explaining why he does this. Sometimes this is a willful decision on his part expressed via direct revelation to his prophet. At other times, God allows his prophets to act as they feel best. In the case of the priesthood ban, we do not know which of these scenarios is applicable. What we do know, however, is that the ban was lifted by revelation in God's due time.

Past church leaders should be viewed as products of their times, no more racist than most of their American and Christian peers (and often surprisingly enlightened, given the surrounding culture). A proper understanding of the process of revelation creates a more realistic expectations of the Latter-day Saint prophet, instead of assumptions of infallibility foisted on the Saints by their critics.

Previous statements and scriptural interpretations that are no longer in harmony with current revelation should be discarded. We learn "line upon line, precept upon precept," and when modern revelation has shed new light, old assumptions made in the dark can be done away with.

Endnotes

  1. [back] Dallin H. Oaks, Interview with Associated Press, in Daily Herald, Provo, Utah, 5 June 1988.
  2. [back]  Jeffrey R. Holland, Interview, 4 March 2006. off-site
  3. [back]  Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Need for Greater Kindness," Ensign (May 2006): 58–61. off-site

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

1978 Priesthood revelation wiki articles

FAIR web site

1978 Priesthood revelation FAIR articles
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Blacks and the priesthood FAIR link
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Infallibility of prophets FAIR link
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Personal beliefs of prophets FAIR link
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Race and cultural issues FAIR link
  • FAIR BlackLDS site: FAIR link (Key source)
  • Marcus H. Martins, "A Black Man in Zion: Reflections on Race in the Restored Gospel" (2006 FAIR Conference presentation). FAIR link PDF link
  • Mike Parker, "Dispelling the Myth of the 'Curse of Cain'" (one-page handout that argues against Cain's curse being black skin and a priesthood ban). PDF link

Video

Blacks in the Bible, Darius Gray, 2005 FAIR Conference
Reaching Black Saints, Marvin Perkins, 2005 FAIR Conference

External links

1978 Priesthood revelation on-line articles
  • Lester E. Bush, Jr., "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8:1 (Spring 1973): 11–68. (Bush argues for Brigham Young as author of the priesthood ban.) off-site
  • Lester E. Bush, Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, eds., Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church, (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1984). ISBN 0941214222. off-site
  • Ronald K. Esplin, "Brigham Young and Priesthood Denial to the Blacks: An Alternate View," Brigham Young University Studies 19:3 (Spring 1979): 394–402.. (Esplin argues for Joseph Smith as the author of the priesthood ban.) PDF link
  • Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Need for Greater Kindness," Ensign (May 2006): 58–61. off-site
  • Marcus H. Martins, "All Are (Really) Alike Unto God: Personal Reflections on the 1978 Revelation." off-site
  • Marcus H. Martins, "'Thinking Way Back': Considerations on Race, Pre-Existence, and Mortality," expanded version of a talk presented at a meeting of The Genesis Group, a branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 1 August 1999. off-site
  • Seth R. Payne, "A Work in Progress: The Latter-day Saint Struggle with Blacks and the Priesthood," paper submitted at Yale Divinity School, 5 May 2006. PDF link
  • John A. Tvedtnes, "The Charge of 'Racism' in the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 183–198. off-site PDF link

Printed material

1978 Priesthood revelation printed materials
  • David M. Goldberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). ISBN 0691123705 (2005 paperback edition).
  • Stephen R. Hayes, Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). ISBN 0195313070 (2007 paperback edition).
  • Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), Chapters 20–24. ISBN 1590384571 (CD version)
  • Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham's Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Chicago and Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2003). ISBN 0252028031.
  • Alexander B. Morrison, Dawning of a Brighter Day (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co., 1990). ISBN 978-0875793382. ISBN 087579338X.
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