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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons
I BELIEVE that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people, sings Elder Kevin Price in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. The line is meant to be funny, and it is in part because its true.
<snip>
The revelation may have lifted the ban, but it neither repudiated it nor apologized for it. It doesnt make a particle of difference, proclaimed the Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie a few months later, what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June of this year, 1978.
Mr. McConkie meant such words to encourage Mormons to embrace the new revelation, and he may have solemnly believed that it made the history of the priesthood ban irrelevant. But to many others around the country, statements of former church leaders about the Negro matter do, in fact, matter a great deal.
It was Smiths successor, Brigham Young, who adopted the policies that now haunt the church. He described black people as cursed with dark skin as punishment for Cains murder of his brother. Any man having one drop of the seed of Cane in him cannot hold the priesthood, he declared in 1852. Young deemed black-white intermarriage so sinful that he suggested that a man could atone for it only by having his head cut off and spilling his blood upon the ground. Other Mormon leaders convinced themselves that the pre-existent spirits of black people had sinned in heaven by supporting Lucifer in his rebellion against God.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/racism-and-the-mormon-church.html
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Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons (Original Post)
cali
Aug 2012
OP
Kessi
(2 posts)1. Mormons on Native Americans
They also believe that Native Americans are actually the lost tribe of Israel. A lot of their beliefs concern the histories of various racial groups.
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)2. They're always going to have a problem. If you are non-white and/or non-Mormon, you're a problem.
jsr
(7,712 posts)3. Heck, look at the white bread ticket
Last edited Mon Aug 20, 2012, 12:00 AM - Edit history (1)
Vattel
(9,289 posts)4. The content of the article suggests that it isn't that much of a problem.
I expected something more damning.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)5. The only reason McConkie
changed was the IRS was going to pull the Mormons Tax Exempt status. All this other garbage is what it is garbage.