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Last night, I came across this program on KUED about the History of Blacks in the church. I found it to be very helpful as it answered some of my questions. You see I was rasied in the church and it seemed to me that there was two agendas happening at the same time. I would hear the Mormon doctrine whisperings about Cane’s curse or about a groups of fence sitters in the war in heaven. But then I would hear these faith promoting stories in many nations of color around the globe including Africa. I even met an African man who found a BofM and waited to become a member for 18 years because of the political conditions at the time. I was pleased that at one point in this documentary our prophet apologized, at least privately, for any role the church may have played in racism or slavery. It seems that even Bruce R explained that his understanding at the time was limited and revelation had trumped his writings. I still don’t understand why the church hasn’t said public/universal apologies. I don’t understand the delay in receiving the revelation except for what others have explained to me as “correct timing”. What I do know is that black members of the church, at least those few interviewed in this documentary, are inspirational to me.
Thank you to Darius Gray and Margaret Young (producers.)
http://www.kued.org/?area=pressReleases&action=details&id=NDI3 This documentary is fantastic – and Darius Gray is one of my heroes. I posted links in a post here to some posts Margaret Young wrote. The link to that post is:
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=356&start=0&hilit=margaret I’m impressed and inspired by these stories too. As to the church issuing an apology: I understand working in the paradigm that as the resurrected Jesus Christ himself is the literal head of the church, speaking through His apostles and prophet, there could never be an apology. For anything, ever. An apology would mean apologizing for God incarnate, which would mean that He was somehow mistaken or had erred in some way.
In this paradigm, the church is perfect, no apology needed. Incidentally, I see a similar trend in the political world: the U.S. is lead by God and therefore should never apologize for anything. Mitt Romney has just codified this in a book entitled “No Apology”.
There is some very good material on the church and the civil rights movement, blacks in general and specifically blacks and the priesthood in “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.” It’s worth the read. Thank you ray and SS. I had lots to read now. And Ray, I am so impressed by Darius Gray. I wish I could just listen to him all afternoon.
swimordie wrote:I’m impressed and inspired by these stories too.
As to the church issuing an apology: I understand working in the paradigm that as the resurrected Jesus Christ himself is the literal head of the church, speaking through His apostles and prophet, there could never be an apology. For anything, ever. An apology would mean apologizing for God incarnate, which would mean that He was somehow mistaken or had erred in some way.
In this paradigm, the church is perfect, no apology needed. Incidentally, I see a similar trend in the political world: the U.S. is lead by God and therefore should never apologize for anything. Mitt Romney has just codified this in a book entitled “No Apology”.
This is interesting. I can see what you are saying. I think it was key, in this document anyway, the nature of the apology — the prophet apologized for any role the church may have played. They didn’t apologize for taking so long to change. I guess I would hope that the approach the church is taking is more than just saving face.
swimordie wrote:I’m impressed and inspired by these stories too.
As to the church issuing an apology: I understand working in the paradigm that as the resurrected Jesus Christ himself is the literal head of the church, speaking through His apostles and prophet, there could never be an apology. For anything, ever. An apology would mean apologizing for God incarnate, which would mean that He was somehow mistaken or had erred in some way.
In this paradigm, the church is perfect, no apology needed.
That’s an interesting way to view it, Swim. You are probably right. It helps me understand the “no apology” approach the church has also taken wrt the Mountain Meadows Massacre — a sad event, to say the least. But perhaps your label “God incarnate” explains the approach.
I certainly would do things differently…but that’s why “they” are where they are, and I am “here”
So, as mentioned above, I’m in the middle of the third chapter of the David O. McKay book which discusses civil rights and the blacks in the priesthood. The leaders of the church in that era, as now, were a product of the times, and many were outright bigots. Ezra T. Benson said the civil rights movement was rooted in communism. McKay would not support laws in Utah that would require hotels and restaurants to serve blacks. Utah was nearly as repressive as the deep south, according to the book. Laws against mixed marriages remained on the books decades longer than they should. Now sixty years later, most of us (LDS), with the exception of probably some elderly folks and a few others, see the civil rights movement in a different light, and are very uncomfortable with the outright racism of the past.
Two observations:
1) Elder Oaks in his speech at BYU Idaho today, tried to relate the persecution the church experienced post-Proposition 8 to the blacks and the civil rights struggle. While I understand the arguement, I can’t help thinking that this is like comparing a 1.0 Richter Scale earthquake to a 8.0 earthquake. It the same, but HUGELY different in intensity. I also found it ironic to be chumming up to a movement that we as a church and a society decidedly resisted.
2) I can’t help, but make comparisons to the gay rights movement, and wonder how much change their will be in our leader’s attitudes and in our own in the course of the next 50-60 years. I doubt we would ever support gay marriage, but can we get to a point of supporting some legal rights for homosexuals, employment rights, recognizing that they have loved ones that they may wish to make medical decisions for, etc?
silentstruggle wrote:1) Elder Oaks in his speech at BYU Idaho today, tried to relate the persecution the church experienced post-Proposition 8 to the blacks and the civil rights struggle. While I understand the arguement, I can’t help thinking that this is like comparing a 1.0 Richter Scale earthquake to a 8.0 earthquake. It the same, but HUGELY different in intensity. I also found it ironic to be chumming up to a movement that we as a church and a society decidedly resisted.
I agree with you that it is quite an ironic statement, similar to a General Conference talk a few years back talking about the evils of racism and how isn’t it great the church has never been racist (yeah right!) I think the persecution the church experienced post-Prop8 is likely just a little warning of things to come, there is likely to be much more of a backlash against the church as support for same sex marriage increases.
silentstruggle wrote:2) I can’t help, but make comparisons to the gay rights movement, and wonder how much change their will be in our leader’s attitudes and in our own in the course of the next 50-60 years. I doubt we would ever support gay marriage, but can we get to a point of supporting some legal rights for homosexuals, employment rights, recognizing that they have loved ones that they may wish to make medical decisions for, etc?
I hope you are wrong and that the church makes more progress than that and in a shorter time span. I think the church can be remarkably flexible with its doctrine when it comes to the right types of political and public opinion pressures. Blacks and the Priesthood and Polygamy are two great examples, but the pressure is going to have to increase quite a bit from where it is today.
Just a personal remembrance of blacks and the church. While among the Navajos in the late 1950’s, we found the perfect family. Two women, both with children, lived in a humble hogan camp. They were golden. The husband of the older lady was a truck driver and not around. We waited for him to return to seek permission to baptize his wife and kids. He returned and was Black (raised as a Navajo). Both women were ALSO his wives (a traditional Navajo thing). we asked our mission leader what to do. The question went to SLC. An answer came back. “Baptize all of them, just make him aware he can take no further wives.” Also, tell him males can’t hold the priesthood. One last story. At another location, we had a non-member Black lady who taught in the Indian school helping us at SS and MIA (we were the only church there). Finally the summer came and she was leaving. We bought a gift for her and asked her to attend church while back home in Nashville. She smiled (at us dumb elders) and replied, “Boys, I wouldn’t welcome in your church in my town.” I never felt lower than at that moment.
I wonder if the polygamist family stayed active (I know they did for awhile). The dad chose not to be baptized.
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