- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Quote:
I read all 75 pages. It didn’t make me feel any better.
Dang. It really helped me.Quote:But honestly, it doesn’t help the problem I have with the church perpetuating a policy for over a hundred years prior to this. It is good there are prophets that can recognize or correct our mistakes of the past. But it doesn’t mean there are no mistakes or sins in our past. It just doesn’t.
And I wish the church would just say that and own it, not try to excuse it.
It seems to me that the Church has owned up to it and it’s in the past now.The Church has repudiated all racism in its newsroom release, and I appreciate that – especially since it allows me to parse it as an indirect admission that the ban was racist in nature. I really do appreciate much of the movement recently in this regard – and I, personally, am not looking for an official apology, even though I think it would be cool. It’s not behind us, however – since there still are too many members who hang on to blatantly and subtly racist ideas and racist justifications for the ban.
I have two black “sons” and a black friend in church who has spoken with me in depth about what she has observed in the Church – and I have seen first-hand that it is not behind us yet. It should be, but it isn’t. That’s a problem.
If you are interested in three specific posts about this, read the following from my personal blog. The first and last ones are personal reflections; the middle one is a compilation of quotes from modern LDS leaders about racism and the ban:
“Reflections from a Mixed-Race Family”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2007/09/reflections-from-mixed-race-family.html “Repudiating Racist Justifications Once and for All”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/repudiating-racist-justifications-once.html “We Must eradicate Even Subtly Racist Messages”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/01/we-must-eradicate-even-subtly-racist.html Everyone else: Try to be gentle. Shawn is new here and seems sincere.
Old-Timer wrote:Everyone else:
Try to be gentle. Shawn is new here and seems sincere.
Ray, you beat me to it…I was logging on to give Shawn some props.Shawn wrote:Dang. It really helped me.
I like the fact you find this helpful to you, honestly. I hope you feel welcome here, and the discussions are healthy even if we disagree about some things.
:thumbup: No, I don’t believe that if the ban had been lifted earlier, blacks would’ve faced discimination in the church. Obviously, the ban prevented black men from having the priesthood, and black men and women from entering the temple, but it didn’t prevent them from being baptised and being part of congregations. Also, I think that most members have always been loyal enough to the Prophet that when he comes out with a revelation, they accept it. For members to display racist behavior towards any other members, at any time, before or after the ban, would’ve been apostasy and sin in its purest form. There isn’t as much racial understanding in the church as I would like there to be. We hold back on exploring solutions to understanding the nature of the priesthood ban, dark skin as a punishement in Biblical/BoM times, the concept of God having a chosen people, and the plausiblity of natural selection giving a human population more individual characteristics over time. Sometimes we may even try to hide it.
How many times in the Bible is it been reiterated that the Hebrews were God’s chosen people, and others were, to some degree, lacking the same, if any, capacity to achieve a spiritual relationship with God? It is made clear to us that the Lord does regard race in some way.
I encourage everyone in the church to heavily ponder and seek revelation to the topic of race. Its one of those things where you really have to be patient and have Faith that Heavenly Father will reveal to you the answers. It can’t be taken lightly. You can’t ignore it.
Quote:For members to display racist behavior towards any other members, at any time, before or after the ban, would’ve been apostasy and sin in its purest form.
Yes, it would have – and it happened without being seen as such, in many, many instances for over 100 years.
Again, I prefer to think of what we can learn about ourselves (humans) and God in looking at this. I think we learn that humans really have sucked at loving those who are different in some obvious way like skin color, and we learn that God allows us to be bigots if we insist on it.
Old-Timer wrote:
The Priesthood ban should be the flagship of our rejection of infallibility and the anchor of our acceptance of the Restoration as a process rather than an event, imo.Very well said, Ray.
I do feel welcome. Thanks, everyone. 🙂 I think if the ban had been lifted earlier, it would have got rid of the more bigoted elements of the church earlier. There might have been a schism, but it would have killed two birds with one stone. I wish the church would have been out front leading the way in the civil rights movement, rather than lagging behind. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
And then there is always the possibility that our early prophets were correct and we are just laying down for what is PC. :think: I love you, Bruce. I think you know that. However, I personally will balk hard at anyone who suggests here that the Priesthood ban was correct and even harder at any suggestion that the justifications for it were correct and even harder at any suggestions that the repudiations of those justifications were incorrect bowing to political pressure. Given your fundamentalist beliefs, I understand your view intellectually. However, this is one area where I will ask in all gentleness, as a participant only and not as an admin, that you bow out of this type of discussion and not share that perspective here.
Well I sort of agree with Bruce. There was no ban with Joseph Smith, so I think he was right. There wasn’t a ban under Brigham Young until 1847, so I agree with the first 3 years of BY too. After that, Brigham Young was being PC with banning blacks. So I think it was post-1847 Brigham Young that was PC and wrong. cwald wrote:I wish the church would have been out front leading the way in the civil rights movement, rather than lagging behind.
The whole joke is that JS foresaw the Civil War, and appears to have brought black people into the church. BY had a bit of an issue with the whole thing. That said, JS produced the BoM and BoA, both of which have references to darkened skins and naughtiness.
mormonheretic wrote:There wasn’t a ban under Brigham Young until 1847, so I agree with the first 3 years of BY too. After that, Brigham Young was being PC with banning blacks.
+1
I think THAT is where we went wrong, bowing to the pressures of the world instead of obeying the Gospel. Our next mistake was pride, refusing to listen to the numerous and plentiful promptings from the Lord to correct our error. Utah Mormons have a high threshold for pain, the downside of enduring so much suffering and being hardcore.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.