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Mormon and Black: Grappling with a racist past
The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 06/10/2008 | Peggy Fletcher Stack

Posted on 03/20/2009 1:00:38 PM PDT by Alex Murphy

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"...there was a different spirit in Brigham [Young's] journals." Young brought prejudices common in America at the time into the Mormon faith, sociologist Armand Mauss wrote. No longer were men with even a drop of African blood allowed to be ordained to the priesthood, which otherwise was available to virtually all males starting at 12. Blacks could still be members, but couldn't be leaders, serve missions or be married in one of the faith's temples.
1 posted on 03/20/2009 1:00:38 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Alex Murphy

I am a black woman married to a white man for the last 20 years. I am sorry, but could not join a “church” that had such racist origins.


2 posted on 03/20/2009 1:02:50 PM PDT by brwnsuga (Proud, Black, Sexy Conservative!!! I am no LEMMING!)
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To: Alex Murphy
320 replies HERE
3 posted on 03/20/2009 1:07:44 PM PDT by greyfoxx39 (Recession-Your neighbor loses his job, Depression-you lost your job, Recovery-Obama loses HIS job.)
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To: brwnsuga
This country once enslaved people of color....is that enough to say you wouldn't be an American now, given the choice? The state of West Virginia keeps electing a Democrat, Byrd, a former Klansman as its senior Senator. Is that enough to say you wouldn't be a West Virginian?

To me, it is a matter of today and now. If they, the Morman Church, still espouse or exhibit this, then it is a different story.

4 posted on 03/20/2009 1:07:48 PM PDT by Gaffer
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To: brwnsuga

That would rule out a lot of churches. People and institutions can change.


5 posted on 03/20/2009 1:12:31 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS (Obama - what you get when you mix Affirmative Action with the Peter Principle.)
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To: Alex Murphy

“I am told that racial slurs and denigrating remarks are sometimes heard among us,” Hinckley said during the all-male priesthood session. “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?”


6 posted on 03/20/2009 1:13:24 PM PDT by Old Mountain man (Blessed be the Peacemaker.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Almost every American denomination split between north and south during the 1850s. Southerners insisted on defending slavery, while many northerners wanted to denounce it.

Interestingly, one can find a great deal of support in the Bible for the institution of slavery, but none at all for racism. In the ancient world, the two had nothing at all to do with each other.


7 posted on 03/20/2009 1:14:45 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Everyone has a right to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.)
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To: brwnsuga
I am a black woman married to a white man for the last 20 years. I am sorry, but could not join a “church” that had such racist origins.

I'm not trying to be a jerk but seriously, what religion doesn't have racist origins? I mean, even a tribe 5,000 years ago probably were racist against other tribes or whatever.

8 posted on 03/20/2009 1:17:09 PM PDT by exist
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To: Old Mountain man
Those are good remarks made by President Gordon B. Hinckley. I noticed they were made in 2006, twenty-eight years after the 1978 revelation and eleven years after the SBC statement, though.
9 posted on 03/20/2009 1:18:22 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ( "Every country has the government it deserves" - Joseph Marie de Maistre)
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To: IYAS9YAS

“That would rule out a lot of churches. People and institutions can change.”

Most of them. I can find good ‘Christian’ slave owners attending just about any Christian Church in the 1850’s.
Have they all apologized?


10 posted on 03/20/2009 1:18:49 PM PDT by AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925; Foreigners 2008)
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To: exist; brwnsuga
I'm not trying to be a jerk but seriously

You're doing a great job for not even trying.

11 posted on 03/20/2009 1:19:46 PM PDT by colorcountry (A faith without truth is not true faith.)
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To: exist

There’s a difference between tribalism and racism. The ancient Israelites believed their tribe was God’s chosen people. They had no greater antipathy to tribes that looked very different from them than to those that looked almost the same. Even this rather mild tribalism was utterly rejected by the New Testament, and BTW, by the Koran.

The idea that man is divided into three to five great “races,” with vast differences between the races (with some being closer to the animals) and great commonality within them, actually dates back only to early modern times and has little or no history prior to that.


12 posted on 03/20/2009 1:22:27 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Everyone has a right to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.)
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To: Alex Murphy

The difference is, I can take you to lots of segregated SBC churches in the South and you cannot take me to one segregated LDS chapel in the world.


13 posted on 03/20/2009 1:25:22 PM PDT by Old Mountain man (Blessed be the Peacemaker.)
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To: Old Mountain man
I can take you to lots of segregated SBC churches in the South and you cannot take me to one segregated LDS chapel in the world.

I could take you to lots of all-white ones. Does that count?

14 posted on 03/20/2009 1:26:27 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ( "Every country has the government it deserves" - Joseph Marie de Maistre)
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To: Alex Murphy

No, because all are welcome. I can guarantee you that is not true in the SBC. I am an expert, a former Baptist and under the terms of debate on these issues, that qualifies me as THE expert on the subject.


15 posted on 03/20/2009 1:28:18 PM PDT by Old Mountain man (Blessed be the Peacemaker.)
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To: Old Mountain man
I can take you to lots of segregated SBC churches in the South and you cannot take me to one segregated LDS chapel in the world.

What does that mean? Does it mean that no black people attend that particular congregation? Because I can sure take you to PLENTY of LDS Churches with not one single black person in the congregation.

16 posted on 03/20/2009 1:29:21 PM PDT by colorcountry (A faith without truth is not true faith.)
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To: Old Mountain man; colorcountry; SENTINEL
I am an expert, a former Baptist and under the terms of debate on these issues, that qualifies me as THE expert on the subject.

colorcountry and SENTINEL will be thrilled to hear that those same terms qualifies them as THE experts on the subject of all things Mormon.

17 posted on 03/20/2009 1:35:12 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ( "Every country has the government it deserves" - Joseph Marie de Maistre)
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To: Alex Murphy

I am an expert on all things Mormonism.

I say their teachings are racist, sexist, sex-crazed, prideful and will lead them to hell.

Next!


18 posted on 03/20/2009 1:36:55 PM PDT by colorcountry (A faith without truth is not true faith.)
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To: Alex Murphy

That has been what every one of you anti-Mormons has claimed. What’s new?


19 posted on 03/20/2009 1:41:29 PM PDT by Old Mountain man (Blessed be the Peacemaker.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Sadly, while Christians were at the forefront of the abolition movement, other Christians were brought along kicking and screaming.

It is a sad fact that not everyone awakens to evil right away when that evil is embedded in the culture, even when opposition to that same evil is also embedded in the very same culture. It takes time, even generations, to work all that through.

Its human nature. It takes time for some evils to be overturned, even among otherwise good and virtuous people. Christ has a way of undermining evil, but not all of it will be worked out in any one generation, not even among Christians.


20 posted on 03/20/2009 1:50:57 PM PDT by marron
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