Adam’s transgressions… and Ham’s

Yes, this was clearly speaking to “original sin.”

Of course, if we read the OT close enough it does indicate that a people can only be cursed up to the 4th and 5th generation IF they do NOT repent. As soon as the repent they are able to come out of that curse.

Also, if the curse is true then all Ephraimites and Mannassahites are also cursed from the priesthood. LOL

BTW, am I the only one who thinks of black magic when they read the word curse?

While the choices our parents make do have direct impact on our lives in the physical world, I do not believe that anything spiritual has ever been or will ever be kept from anyone because of their parents. But, that’s just me.

Fwiw, there is no way to distinguish Ham’s descendants – and Laman’s descendants were cursed more by their location and isolation than any thing, imo.

The entire idea of Ham’s descendants being cursed is an extrapolation from Protestantism (DEEPLY rooted in Manifest Destiny throughout Protestantism at the time of the Restoration) that got co-opted by early Mormon leaders at the time of Brigham Young to justify his new policy. Our current leaders have said emphatically that we need to “not repeat the justifications of the past” – and it is one of my own soapbox issues.

I collected a bunch of quotes at the following post:

“Repudiating Racist Justifications Once and For All” (http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/repudiating-racist-justifications-once.html)

I also excerpted from a post of Ardis Parshall’s on Keepapitchinin. It is from an amazing Sunday School lesson from 1935:

“An Amazing Lesson on Race: Oh, That We Had Understood and Followed” (http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazing-lesson-on-race-oh-that-we-had.html)

There is a thread here that discusses the ban. If you are interested in that particular discussion, I would suggest finding it and commenting on it. If anyone else can find it, please post the link in this thread.

I don’t think that’s too harsh, Heber. If “transgression” is defined as “mistake committed in ignorance” (which is a decent description of the general way it’s viewed and my own belief in how it occurred), I think it’s totally appropriate.

I have often wondered if these indictments of skin turning darker were just the citified Nephites criticizing the rural/nomadic Lamanites.

I don’t think the tanning bed industry would have been very profitable back then.

If anyone is interested, I wrote a post 2 1/2 years ago entitled, “Reflections from a Mixed-Race Family”:

http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2007/09/reflections-from-mixed-race-family.html

The conclusion actually is along the same line as the latest comments in this thread.

SamBee said:

“I think this is one of the most progressive Articles of Faith, and that the church’s stance on original sin is a good and liberating one.”

I believe most of Joseph’s theology is very progressive and liberating, and not just for the time. I believe he successfully explained many of the most condemnatory and contested doctrines of the time. Original sin could have been one of the most harmful. The idea that babies are not innocent and are naturally born sinful I think is a world view that is very dark and oppressive world view. Joseph was able to do this and still maintain the idea of a fallen state, and thus keeping the need for atonement. A Christian world view requires a some what dark perspective, yet Joseph could diminish most of the harmful effects of this dark perspective.

Ray,

Great blog post on things of my soul, I love the quotes you have gathered, most I had not read before. What I think we forget is the doctrine of Cain’s cures being on the heads of the African nations was not new. This is the main theological arsenal of the European and American slave trade. It is a page straight out of the book of the KKK.

I agree with you and applaud you Ray for your work of repudiating these ideas. I think this is not done enough. I believe mostly we as a people strive to forget them. I think to do so would mean losing out on a great lesson from Mormon history.

This points out a clear case of when our leadership have policies that have no backing from the scriptures or revelation we should be leery. I think Elder Oak’s comment is very telling.

“I can’t remember any time in my life when I felt greater joy and relief than when I learned that the priesthood was going to be available to all worthy males, whatever their ancestry. I had been troubled by this subject through college and my graduate school, at the University of Chicago where I went to law school. I had many black acquaintances when I lived in Chicago, the years ’54 through ’71. I had many times that my heart ached for that, and it ached for my Church, which I knew to be true and yet blessings of that Church were not available to a significant segment of our Heavenly Father’s children. And I didn’t understand why; I couldn’t identify with any of the explanations that were given. Yet I sustained the action; I was confident that in the time of the Lord I would know more about it, so I went along on faith.”

He was uncomfortable with this because he personally knew black men and women. This is a clue to the reason why the policy was in place. It is difficult to be prejudice when you truly know people of a certain group personally. I believe the generation of church authorities older than Oaks had little or none relationship with anyone black.

It is also interesting to read David O Mckay’s quote:

“There is not now, and there never has been a doctrine in this church that the negroes are under a divine curse. There is no doctrine in the church of any kind pertaining to the negro. We believe that we have a scriptural precedent for withholding the priesthood from the negro. It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice someday will be changed. And that’s all there is to it.”

I find this interesting because of other statements he signed his name to. He with the rest of the first presidency in 1947 in a letter to members in CA the full first presidency, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, and David O. McKay said this:

“No special effort has ever been made to proselyte among the Negro race, and social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes should certainly not be encouraged because of leading to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.

This move which has now received some popular approval of trying to break down social barriers between the Whites and the Blacks is one that should not be encouraged because inevitably it means the mixing of the races if carried to its logical conclusion.”

Ray,

I finally got to reading your second blog post. I enjoyed it and posted this:

Ray,

Great post, although I think we read it with tainted eyes. Few people ever see themselves as prejudice. If you read comments from the leaders of the time they will call for equal rights for all in one line than say things that smack of clear unadulterated bigotry when looking through our 21 century eyes.

I would like to share two examples.

In 1946 in a talk to the YWMIA conference J Rueben Clark of the First presidency said this:

”We should hate nobody, and having said that, I wish to urge a word of caution, particularly to you young girls. It is sought today in certain quarters to break down all race prejudice, and at the end of the road, which they who urge this see, is intermarriage. That is what it finally comes to. Now, you should hate nobody; you should give to every man and every woman, no matter what the color of his or her skin may be, full civil rights. You should treat them as brothers and sisters, but do not ever let that wicked virus get into your systems that brotherhood either permits or entitles you to mix races which are inconsistent.”

Notice how Elder Clark calls for treating all as brothers and sisters yet teat black brothers very different than you treat white brothers. In the way we think of equality this we would call prejudice, Elder Clark did not see it the same way.

In 1954 in a talk to BYU Elder Mark E. Peterson said:

“[The Negro] is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a café where white people sit. He isn’t just trying to ride on the same streetcar….t appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is the objective and we must face it….Remember the little statement that they used to say about sin, “First we pity, then endure, then embrace.””

In the same way today our leaders and we as a group of membership do not see how our actions in prop 8 are inconstant with equal rights. Notice in every document the church puts out calling to help pass a prejudicial bill they say we should never discriminate. Also, how we ask gay members to be secretive about their orientation, and we can not see how that is discriminatory. I believe at some point our leadership and our membership will be able to see past the blinding prejudice on this issue as well.