Saturday, April 29, 2017

Ending racism in Mormonism

In general I think the Mormon leaders have done well in ending racism. I still think the voice against it could be more clear.

The notion that in 2012 any well informed observer could think that pre-1978 attempts to explain the priesthood restriction were workable is not believable.

In August 1978 Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave a talk to Church Educational System instuctors in which he explicitly said forget what he, Brigham Young or anyone else had said before June 1978 on the priesthood restriction and its meaning.

Today this can be found by going to the race and the priesthood gospel topics essay at LDS.org https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng&old=true and going down along the side and clicking on Bruce R. NcConkie's "All Are Alike Unto God" talk. That leads to this link https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie_alike-unto-god-2/ so I am guessing BYU based searchs might find it.

Back before my mission the internet was not well searchable, and I had never found this. I knew when I heard people quote Brigham Young and Bruce R. McConkie on these matters they were not quoting current Church teachings. I think I first heard mention to this talk about halfway through my mission when a sister in one of our wards whose son-in-law was African American was listening to a recording of a talk by an African-American sister in Oakland California in which she mentioned this talk. I wish I had known of it sooner.

I had read Helvicio Martins autobiogrpahy.

The race and the priesthood link has made things explicit that were not before. However in 1988 the first presidency denounced racism, without neccesarily explicitly denouncing the folklore to justify the former priesthood restriction.

In an August 1978 interview for Time Magazine Spencer W. Kimball denounced the idea of less faithfulness in the pre-earth life. The one professor I had at BYU who ever addressed this topic as far as I remember in class in an explicit way was Camille Fronk. She explicitly denounced the notion.I think I had other professors state there were no neutral spirits in the war in Heaven, but not explicitly connect it to or use it to denounce specific ideas.

I do have to wonder if the Church should have publicized the gospel topics essays more fully. I am still also hopeful that a general authority will directly recommend or draw on them in general conference.

On the other hand, they have been fully incorporated into the new institute curriculum, and are clearly fully endorsed by the leadership of the Church.


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