Is Mormonism Still Racist? Comments from a BYU professor stir up a troubling past

“God has always been discriminatory.” So says Randy Bott, a professor of religion at Brigham Young University...

Why did the church withhold the priesthood from blacks for over a century? Among the reasons trotted out by church leaders—including church presidents...Black people are the cursed descendants of ancient Biblical figures; black people committed pre-mortal perfidy; black people lacked the intelligence and personal integrity...

Such past beliefs have never officially been repudiated. And the failure of the church to repudiate them helped set the stage for the comments made by Bott, perhaps the most popular professor at BYU...

The Mormon Church’s own longstanding priesthood ban was, according to Bott...a “blessing.” Prior to 1978, blacks weren’t spiritually mature enough to be ordained with such authority. Bott compared blacks to “a young child prematurely asking for the keys to her father’s car,” and told Horowitz that misusing priesthood authority—like crashing dad’s Oldsmobile—could have put blacks “in the lowest rungs of hell,” reserved for serial killers, child rapists, world-class tyrants, and “people who abuse their priesthood powers.”

...Bott...claimed that he had been misquoted. Yet he provided similar justification for the priesthood ban in a blog post from 2008 that was only taken down after this week’s story broke.

...For most of the 182-year lifespan of the LDS Church, members of the church hierarchy—the senior-most of which are called prophets...—used similar racist rationalizations for excluding blacks from full membership. Joseph Fielding Smith, who served as church president in the early 1970s (and was the great-nephew of the religion’s founding prophet), wrote a popular treatise, still available on Kindle, asserting that during a pre-mortal battle between God and the devil, blacks were “fence-sitters”...According to Fielding Smith...God cursed them with dark skin to set them apart from the more courageous whites who had sided with God.

President Brigham Young:

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African Race? If the White man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” (Journal of Discourses 10:110)
President Joseph Fielding Smith:

“There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less.” (Doctrines of Salvation, p. 61)
Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

“Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them... Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned…” (Mormon Doctrine, p. 343)
Apostle Mark E. Petersen:

“God has commanded Israel not to intermarry. To go against this commandment of God would be in sin. Those who willfully sin with their eyes open to this wrong will not be surprised to find that they will be separated from the presence of God in the world to come. This is spiritual death…
“The reason that one would lose his blessings by marrying a Negro is due to the restriction placed upon them. “No person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the Priesthood” (Brigham Young). It does not matter if they are one-sixth Negro or one-hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is the same. If an individual who is entitled to the Priesthood marries a Negro, the Lord has decreed that only spirits who are not eligible for the Priesthood will come to that marriage as children. To intermarry with a Negro is to forfeit a “Nation of Priesthood holders…

“The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent, and then, of course, they have been persuaded by some of the arguments that have been put forth…We who teach in the Church certainly must have our feet on the ground and not to be led astray by the philosophies of men on this subject…

“I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn’t just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn’t that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, ‘First we pity, then endure, then embrace’…

“Now let’s talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? When the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation…

“When he told Enoch not preach the gospel to the descendants of Cain who were black, the Lord engaged in segregation. When He cursed the descendants of Cain as to the Priesthood, He engaged in segregation…

“Who placed the Negroes originally in darkest Africa? Was it some man, or was it God? And when He placed them there, He segregated them…

“The Lord segregated the people both as to blood and place of residence. At least in the cases of the Lamanites and the Negro we have the definite word of the Lord Himself that he placed a dark skin upon them as a curse — as a punishment and as a sign to all others. He forbade intermarriage with them under threat of extension of the curse. And He certainly segregated the descendants of Cain when He cursed the Negro as to the Priesthood, and drew an absolute line. You may even say He dropped an Iron curtain there…

“Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. But let them enjoy these things among themselves. I think the Lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, ‘what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ Only here we have the reverse of the thing - what God hath separated, let not man bring together again.

“Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood…This Negro, who, in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in their lineage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in darkest Africa—if that Negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.” (Apostle Mark E. Peterson, Race Problems - As They Affect The Church, Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954)

References

How Obvious Would It Have To Be?

Mormon racism in perspective: An example for possible future changes in policy relating to women and gays

Apologist Response

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie explained how earlier statements by church leaders on African-Americans and the priesthood should be disregarded because their understanding was limited at the time:

“There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren that we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, “You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?” All I can say 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 whoever 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 light line upon line and precept upon precept (2 Ne. 28:30; Isa. 28:9-10; D&C 98:11-12; 128:21). We have now 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 anymore.” (Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, All Are Alike Unto God, pp. 1-2)

Marvin Perkins explained the Book of Mormon teaching that those “cursed” with a “skin of blackness” could remove the “curse” by coming unto God:

“There are Blacks here today who are members of the Church. Why have we not turned White? But there are Blacks who have joined the Church, married White spouse, and their children became lighter than their Black parents. Then those kids grew up to marry those that believe as they do, which most are White, so they married White, and their kids became even lighter, and so on. Makes you think a bit, doesn’t it? (Marvin Perkins, Blacks and the Priesthood, FAIR)”
President Spencer W. Kimball described the process through which the church decided to bestow all church privileges upon African-Americans:

“It went on for some time as I was searching for this, because I wanted to be sure. We held a meeting of the Council of the Twelve in the temple on the regular day. We considered this very seriously and thoughtfully and prayerfully.
“I asked the Twelve not to go home when the time came. I said, ‘now would you be willing to remain in the temple with us?’ And they were. I offered the final prayer and I told the Lord if it wasn’t right, if He didn’t want this change to come in the Church that I would he true to it all the rest of my life, and I’d fight the world against it if that’s what He wanted.

“We had this special prayer circle, then I knew that the time had come. I had a great deal to fight, of course, myself largely, because I had grown up with this thought that Negroes should not have the priesthood and I was prepared to go all the rest of my life till my death and fight for it and defend it as it was. But this revelation and assurance came to me so clearly that there was no question about it.” (President Spencer W. Kimball, Deseret News, Church Section, January 6, 1979, p. 19)

According to President Gordon B. Hinckley, he simply doesn’t know why Blacks were denied the priesthood until 1978:

“HN: Until 1978 no person of color attained the priesthood in your church. Why did it take so long to overcome the racism?
“GBH: I don’t know. I don’t know. I can only say that. (long pause) But it’s here now. We’re carrying on a very substantial work on Africa for instance and in Brazil. We’re working among their people developing them. We’ve had them among the leadership of the Church and they’re able to do a great work and we love them and appreciate them and we respect them and we are trying to help them.” (Gordon B. Hinckley Interview, ZDF German Television, Salt Lake City, Utah, January 29, 2002, Conducted by Helmut Nemetschek)

Source: 20Truths.info

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

Author: Brigham Young
Source: Journal Of Discourses
Volume: 10
Page: 110

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.

Author: Brigham Young
Source: Journal Of Discourses
Volume: 7
Page: 291

It was well understood by the early elders of the Church that the mark which was placed on Cain and which his posterity inherited was the black skin. The Book of Moses informs us that Cain and his descendants were black.

Author: Joseph Fielding Smith
Source: Way To Perfection
Page: 107

The Lord said, I will not kill Cain, but I will put a mark upon him, and that mark will be seen upon the face of every negro upon the face of the earth; and it is the decree of God that that mark shall remain upon the seed of Cain until the seed of Abel shall be redeemed, and Cain shall not receive the Priesthood, until the time of that redemption. Any man having one drop of the seed of Cain in him cannot receive the Priesthood; but the day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.

Author: Joseph Fielding Smith
Source: Way To Perfection
Page: 106

Why is it in this Church we do not grant the priesthood to the Negroes? It is alleged that the Prophet Joseph said—and I have no reason to dispute it—that it is because of some act committed by them before they came into this life. It is alleged that they were neutral, standing neither for Christ nor the devil. But, I am convinced it is because of some things they did before they came into this life that they have been denied the privilege. The races of today are very largely reaping the consequence of a previous life.

Author: Melvin Joseph Ballard
Source: Sermons and Missionary Services
Page: 248

The negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow therefrom...

Author: Bruce R. McConkie
Source: Mormon Doctrine
Page: 527

Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. A curse was placed upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with a black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. Moreover, they have been made to feel their inferiority and have been separated from the rest of mankind from the beginning.

Author: Joseph Fielding Smith
Source: Way To Perfection
Page: 101

As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed and told that “the earth” would not thereafter yield him its abundance as previously. In addition he became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition. As a result of his mortal birth he is assured of a tangible body of flesh and bones in eternity, a fact which will enable him to rule over Satan. The Lord placed on Cain a mark of a dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race.

Author: Bruce R. McConkie
Source: Mormon Doctrine
Page: 102

Now, my brothers and sisters, I would like you to understand that long before we were born into this earth we were tested and tried in our pre-existence, and the fact that of the thousands of children born today, a certain proportion of them went to the Hottentots of South Africa; thousands went to the Chinese mothers; thousands went to Negro mothers; thousands to beautiful white Latter-day Saint mothers: You cannot tell me that the entire group was just designated, marked, to go where they did, that they were men and women of equal opportunities. There are no infant spirits born. They had a being ages before they came into this life.

Author: Melvin Joseph Ballard
Source: Sermons and Missionary Services
Page: 247

Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to. The volition of the creature is free; this is a law of their existence, and the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God.

Author: Brigham Young
Source: Journal Of Discourses
Volume: 11
Page: 272

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