[toc]I have previously written several articles on racism in LDS church history including how it started with Joseph Smith, was vigorously defended as true doctrine, and how it’s root principle has still not been eliminated. A close friend has asked me why I feel it necessary to bring up challenging information from church history about racism. “What’s the point of criticizing flawed humans from the past? The Prophets and people of the Mormon church today are not racist – anymore than other people of the world are.” Bringing up these issues does not condemn Mormons today of being overtly racist.

In this post I will briefly review the issues of the root principle of racism, cover some of the common arguments for why the revelation didn’t come until 1978. In answer to one of these arguments I will look at the historical background of D&C 111 and examine what we can learn about the priorities of God in determining what revelations are important in coming out before others.

Willful blindness

As a Mormon I did not consider myself racist and would actively speak out against any racism that I saw around me. Just because the church and it’s members are not overtly racist today doesn’t mean they weren’t in the past. Our society and culture were much more racist in the past, but if racist teachings come out of a supposed mouthpiece of God and described as “God’s Law” it raises questions – even if those teachings have been swept under the rug. Bringing up these issues does, however, point out that Mormons are tolerant of some of the most heinous forms of racism. Most Mormons would disagree with that statement, as I would have 4 months ago. I was not aware of the teachings and statements of many of the early church leaders – not because I had not heard them before, but because when I did hear about them I chose not to acknowledge it. I still tolerated those leaders as revered men of God. I was willfully blind – I actively shut my mind to the implications of having men whom I was taught had authority to speak for God utter violently racist statements as though they were God’s eternal Law. As painful as it is to admit – in this way I tolerated racism.

(here is an excellent TED talk about willful blindness – well worth the time to watch)

The root principle

Atrocities are the ripened fruit of toxic ideas

When you look at some of the horrific genocides in the worlds history you conjure up images of the holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia and other horrors. Those atrocities, however, are simply the fruit of the seed that is first planted in the minds and hearts of men in power. That seed is the idea that some people are inherently less human for reasons of race or ethnicity. The idea precedes and is prerequisite for the evils that follow. The true evils of these genocides are the racist ideas that makes them justified in the minds of those who perpetrate them. If you are in an organization and you see that type of idea germinating in the minds of the leaders who claim a divine authority – then you need to seriously evaluate whether or not it is God that they are communing with. As you can see in Joseph Smith’s statements on abolitionists – the seeds of racism were firmly planted in his mind. The further statements of subsequent Prophets Brigham Young that justified murder of interracial couples and their children was the further flowering of this heinous idea.

You won’t find this book in the BYU bookstore. (anymore)

More recently The 1951 statement by the First Presidency on the “Negro Question” summarized the long standing views of the church to that point. In it the highest leaders in the LDS church explained that “the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality” In supporting this statement, the spokesperson of God on the earth are claiming that one’s circumstances of birth are the result of a preliminary judgement of ones behavior in pre-earth life. Birth as a black person is a sign to every one that you were less valiant and less intelligent in the preexistence. This is exactly the type of teaching that has been used to justify every hateful discrimination, every ethnic cleansing and every murderous genocide when allowed to reach it’s ultimate expression in the hands of men of power.

The Fruit of Mormon racism

Not all of these seeds bear the fruit of genocide – but in the case of the Mormons it bore the fruit of depriving black men and women from believing that they were deserving of equal standing before God. Before 1978 A believing black Mormon would sit with his family in a congregation knowing that his family was not sealed for eternity like those white families in the next pew. Each black member was told that their plight in life was the result of being less valiant in the pre-existence and this failing justified any societal hardships they experienced. Each black member was told that their greatest hope was to be a servant to white people for the eternities in the celestial kingdom. Any man who loved a interracial woman could not only have no hope for exaltation but was subject to negative social consequences – ostracism and shunning.

Mormons may acknowledge these observations as relics of an older time and actually claim that the revelation that put an end to institutional racism in the church is proof that God works through his Prophets on earth today just as in ancient times. The problem is that the institutional racism was there in the first place because of those prophets – even when other churches and religious leaders had long abandoned any such dehumanising policies. The church only changed its policies after significant social and political pressure to do so.

Common Defenses of Mormon Racism

“‘So what’ if the old prophets didn’t have their heads on straight on the race issue? The last few prophets have talked very lovingly and equitably about people of all races. There is even a couple of black general authorities now” The reason that these issues in the early church are a big deal is that the authority that the current leaders claim is directly descended from and through those early Prophets. If that power and authority couldn’t discern such a critical issue, when the whole Christian world around them had moved on decades before – it is a signal that there might be something amiss.

“The prophets just hadn’t asked or hadn’t asked the right questions about the blacks and the priesthood. One principal of revelation is that it comes in answer to a petition to God. When the Prophet finally asked the right question – then revelation was forthcoming.” This argument holds no water.  Even he recent essay on Race and the Priesthood published on the official church website acknowledges that the prophet David O McKay asked the Lord about the issue decades previously and the answer was not forthcoming:

“Nevertheless, given the long history of withholding the priesthood from men of black African descent, Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter the policy, and they made ongoing efforts to understand what should be done. After praying for guidance, President McKay did not feel impressed to lift the ban.” (“Race and the Priesthood” lds.org)

“There was other important work that had to be done before the priesthood could be restored to the Blacks. Revelation comes in the Lord’s time and not according to the timetable that man may set” If this is true, then one may look at what revelations were forthcoming and see what priorities “the Lord” had.

The Telling Priorities of Revelation

The Lord was providing revelation to all sorts of things during Joseph’s lifetime. It is instructive to see what revelations took precedence during the life of Joseph Smith. What revelation could be more important than opening up a complete race to the fullness of God’s promise? One anecdote in particular is very telling. In 1836, Joseph Smith and the leaders of the church were in a bad financial spot. A man named burgess came to them and told them that he alone knew of a large sum of money that was in the cellar of a widow who had died in Salem Massachusetts.  This is described in some detail in the Doctrine and Covenants manual

“There came to Kirtland a brother by the name of Burgess who stated that he had knowledge of a large amount of money secreted in the cellar of a certain house in Salem, Massachusetts, which had belonged to a widow (then deceased), and thought he was the only person who had knowledge of it, or of the location of the house. The brethren accepting the representations of Burgess as true made the journey to Salem to secure, if possible, the treasure.”
(“The Greatest Treasure” lds.org)

Joseph and his brethren joined up with Burgess in Salem, but Burgess was unable to remember which house contained the money and Burgess departed. It was in this context that Joseph received the revelation in D&C 111. In that revelation it was told to Joseph that:

“And it shall come to pass in due time that I will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall not discover your secret parts; and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours.” (D&C 111:4)

So here we have an example of the type of revelation that Joseph Smith was receiving which would take precedence over declaring that every black man woman and child was deserving of every dignity and privilege before God – He was told that he would get all the gold and silver in Salem Massachusetts. This after he went with his friends on an unsuccessful trip to steal a deceased widows money that he had no right to, and in verse 1 of D&C 111 Joseph says that the Lord was not displeased with him for attempting to do so! This revelation never came to pass in it’s literal sense – the gold and silver of Salem Massachusetts has yet to be given into the churches power. Numerous articles and lessons and essays have been authored to explain that God wasn’t really talking about Gold (despite the lord specifically stating “and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours”) or that he was referring to the tithes that would come from converts eventually. The reader is invited to read these apologetics and decide if they pass muster.

Such as Gandhi’s priority of sleeping with young girls.

The revelations of the prophets are words that these men claim come to them from God. If they were true prophets with this power of divine direct communication – why would God give them an unfulfilled prophecy about gaining gold and silver while leaving a whole host of his children in a low and shameful state? What were God’s priorities? Was he more concerned about gold and silver or bringing the good news of his Gospel to all men regardless of race. Surely He could have interjected a brief paragraph declaring the universal equality of men between the promise of power and the promise of gold found in D&C 111.

If you understand God’s love for all his children – you cannot see these events as evidence of anything other than the cunning of man. If the early prophets were men of cunning rather than men of God, then all of those who have followed since then, even if they are pious and selfless, have no special divine power or authority than any other man may claim to. If the root was not divine – then the branches are not either.

Echoes and Implications

Once you see this possibility, then all of the other apparent discrepancies make sense. The reason that Brigham Young could preach that Adam was God and Bruce McConkie could call that doctrine heresy is because they were both uninspired men who spoke with cunning rather than inspiration. The reason Brigham Young could declare that the church would never give up polygamy and yet Wilford Woodruff could declare that earthly practice done is because they were both speaking with cunning and self serving purposes rather than through inspiration. The reason the temple endowment ceremony is mostly a modified reinterpretation of the rituals of the archaic and secular masonic fraternity is because it is the result of cunning rather than God. The reason that Jesus in the Book of Mormon quotes King James versions of new testament epistles, translation errors and all, even before they had been written by the apostles is because its author plagiarized the King James Bible – again cunning instead of inspiration.

Look at all that healthy lung!

Once this is recognized. All of the cognitive dissonance about the church at once becomes crystal clear. The reason that these challenging issues in church history are important is because they reach into the present. The authority and deference that current leaders enjoy is only the result of the integrity of the root of that power. Joseph Smith is the root. Those prophets who were in close succession were the foundations and trunk. A counterfeit coin or bill will have an appearance that is nearly completely genuine – but it is in the subtle and hidden defects that the fraud is discovered. Many people will point to the good that those men and the current prophets do as evidence of their worth. The question is not about what good that they do – there are many men and women of all faiths and persuasions who do good. The question is whether the subtle and hidden things reveal a fraud.

You should not ignore a cancer in the chest because the rest of the lungs are normal and healthy.