{"id":3872,"date":"2016-05-01T10:20:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T16:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3872"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:26:14","slug":"ces-reply-the-priesthood-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-the-priesthood-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"CES Reply: The Priesthood Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing\u00a0my reply<\/a>\u00a0to Jeremy Runnell\u2019s \u201cLetter to a CES Director,\u201d with Jeremy\u2019s original words in green:<\/p>\n

Blacks Ban:\u00a0 As you know, for close to 130 years blacks were not only banned from holding the priesthood but black individuals and families were blocked from the saving ordinances of the Temple.\u00a0 Every single prophet from Brigham Young all the way to Harold B. Lee kept this ban in place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we finally get to something I find genuinely troubling, too. Frankly, I\u2019m not particularly enamored with the Church\u2019s record on the subject. I have spent a great deal of time defending the Church\u2019s exclusion of black members from leadership prior to 1978, and my arguments have fallen flat with others and, frankly, with me.<\/p>\n

After the Church reversed its policy excluding black leaders a little over thirty years ago, several church leaders dusted off 2 Nephi 26:33<\/a> and made it the centerpiece of several very good sermons on the subject. I particularly like\u00a0Elder Bruce R. McConkie\u2019s sermon<\/a>, which contained this startlingly candid admission of error.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2013 Bruce R. McConkie, \u201cAll Are Alike Unto God,\u201d August 18, 1978
\n<\/i>
\nFine.\u00a0So why do so many members of the Church feel it necessary to defend some of the more racist nonsense that these people were spouting prior to the 1978 revelation? Those who honestly and open-heartedly examine the life of Brigham Young will come to the conclusion that he was a mighty man called by God to lead the Church and do a great work.<\/p>\n

But as evidenced by some of the issues you raise, anyone who believes he was infallible is missing the boat.<\/p>\n

Indeed, pretty much all of the racism that wormed its way into Church policy can be traced back to Brigham, who gave more credence to popular 19th century theories about the ancestry of the African people than he should have. It certainly doesn\u2019t come from Joseph Smith, who received the fundamental revelations that form the spiritual foundation for the Church as it existed then and today. That scripture quoted above from 2 Nephi, for instance, has been around for over 180 years. Joseph Smith himself ordained several black men to the priesthood. When asked about \u201cthe situation of the negro,\u201d as was the language of the time, here was Joseph Smith\u2019s reply:<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThey came into the world slaves mentally and physically. Change their situation with the whites, and they would be like them. They have souls, and are subjects of salvation. Go into Cincinnati or any city, and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability. The slaves in Washington are more refined than many in high places, and the black boys will take the shine of many of those they brush and wait on.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2013 History of the Church, Volume 5, page 216.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that Joseph Smith was Martin Luther King, but the view expressed in the preceding paragraph is remarkably enlightened for that time period. I doubt even Abraham Lincoln, who firmly believed that blacks were inferior to whites, would have been nearly as egalitarian.<\/p>\n

The idea that the African people descended from Cain and were a cursed race did not originate with the LDS Church. It was a popular 19th Century justification for slavery, and while Brigham Young certainly believed it, there is no scriptural justification for using that idea to exclude black members from Church leadership. Indeed, the idea was not codified as church policy until long after Brigham Young\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

David O. McKay, president of the Church from 1950 to 1970, made this very clear when he stated:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not now, and there never has been a doctrine in this church that the negroes are under a divine curse. There is no doctrine in the church of any kind pertaining to the negro. We believe that we have a scriptural precedent for withholding the priesthood from the negro. It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice someday will be changed. And that\u2019s all there is to it.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

David O McKay, 1954
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

The idea of \u201cscriptural precedent\u201d disturbs me somewhat. Critics of the church seize on volatile statements in the Book of Mormon that talk about a curse being placed on the Lamanites which included a \u201cskin of darkness,\u201d but the irony is that the Lamanites are believed to be ancestors of Native Americans, not people of African descent. Indeed, Church leaders, both then and now, consider Native Americans to be part of the House of Israel and heirs to a magnificent destiny. No one has ever tried to use those inflammatory passages in the Book of Mormon to justify keeping the priesthood from Native Americans, even though these passages are far more explicit and defamatory than the cryptic verses used to link Africans to Cain.<\/p>\n

President McKay repeatedly stated that the priesthood ban was a policy, not a doctrine, although it would take a revelation to reverse it. My question, as well as everybody else\u2019s question, is if it\u2019s just a policy, then why would it take a revelation to reverse it? And why didn\u2019t the revelation come to President McKay, who reportedly prayed very ardently to receive such?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no definitive answer. I believe, however, that since President McKay was, like many of his generation, a believer in segregation, he had difficulty imagining a colorblind world. It took someone willing to fully accept the idea that \u201call are alike unto God,\u201d and all the ramifications of that to open the door for the revelation. I don\u2019t think that someone arrived on the scene until Spencer Kimball became President of the Church in 1974.<\/p>\n

Prophets, Seers, and Revelators of 2013 \u2013 in its December 2013 Race and the Priesthood<\/a> essay \u2013 disavowed the \u201ctheories\u201d of yesterday\u2019s Prophets, Seers, and Revelators for their theological, institutional, and doctrinal racist teachings and \u201crevelation\u201d. Yesterday\u2019s racist doctrine and revelation is today\u2019s \u201cdisavowed theories\u201d.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Your use of the word \u201crevelation\u201d \u2013 quotation marks yours \u2013 is interesting. Can you show me the revelation that banned blacks from the priesthood? You can\u2019t, because none exists. The idea that lifting the ban was a renunciation of a revelation cannot be sustained by the facts. In addition, President McKay\u2019s statement that the ban was a policy, not a doctrine, further undermines your position here.<\/p>\n

Joseph Smith permitted the priesthood to at least two black men.\u00a0 Elijah Abel <\/a>was one of them.\u00a0 Walker Lewis <\/a>was another.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, Joseph Smith gives the priesthood to blacks.\u00a0 Brigham Young bans blacks.\u00a0 Each and every single one of the 10 prophets from Brigham Young to Harold B. Lee supported what Spencer W. Kimball referred to as a “possible error” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 448-449).<\/span><\/p>\n

A possible error, yes, because error is possible. Prior to your faith crisis, you apparently believed that prophetic error was impossible, despite the central nature of agency to Mormon theology.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father likes blacks enough to give them the priesthood under Joseph Smith but He decides they’re not okay when Brigham Young shows up. And He still doesn’t think they’re okay for the next 130 years and the next 9 prophets until President Kimball decides to get a revelation.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father\u2019s love for all people has been clear in the Book of Mormon since the founding of the Church. 2 Nephi 26:33 states that \u201c[The Lord] denieth none that cometh unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female;\u00a0\u2026 all are alike unto God.\u201d The fact that the Church didn\u2019t fully live up to that principle is the fault of man, not God.<\/p>\n

The same God who “denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free,<\/a> male and female<\/a>” is the same God who denied blacks from the saving ordinances of the Temple for 130 years. \u00a0 Yet, He changed His mind again in 1978 about black people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quoting from the Book of Mormon musical, are we? Of course God didn\u2019t change his mind about black people. God instead had to wait for fallible white people to reject racism.<\/p>\n

Of course, the revelation He gives to the Brethren in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978 has absolutely nothing to do with Jimmy Carter’s IRS potentially revoking the Church\u2019s and BYU\u2019s tax-exempt status, Stanford and other universities boycotting BYU athletics, we can’t figure out who\u2019s black or not in Brazil, and that post-Civil Rights societal trends were against the Church’s racism.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

On the contrary, I\u2019m sure the revelation had a great deal to do with all of those things. Why would that be a problem? Revelations don\u2019t come in a vacuum and never have. Remember, the Word of Wisdom was received because Emma was tired of cleaning up the tobacco stains all over the floor in the School of the Prophets. Revelations come when we ask questions, and we ask questions when there are pressing circumstances that require an answer.<\/p>\n

Christ\u2019s true Church should have been the one leading the Civil Rights movement, not be the last major Church on the planet in 1978 to adopt it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed! That\u2019s probably why the Church issued strong statements in support of the Civil Rights Movement well before the 1978 revelation. The following statement was read by a member of the First Presidency in the October 1963 General Conference:<\/p>\n

During recent months, both in Salt Lake City and across the nation, considerable interest has been expressed in the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known that there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.<\/i><\/p>\n

We say again, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God, and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny any human being the right to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.<\/i><\/p>\n

On this one, the Church beat Congress to the punch. The landmark Civil Rights Act, which codified these ideas into law, didn\u2019t pass until 1964.<\/p>\n

As a believing member, I had no idea that Joseph Smith gave the priesthood to black men.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I would think discovering that Joseph gave the priesthood to black men would be extraordinarily encouraging, as that info demonstrates that the early Church was remarkably egalitarian for its time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m supposed to go to the drawing board now and believe in a god who is not only a schizophrenic racist but who is inconsistent as well?<\/span><\/p>\n

No, you\u2019re supposed to go to the drawing board and rethink your faulty premise that prophets have their agency extracted from them when they become prophets.<\/p>\n

Yesterday’s doctrine is today’s false doctrine. Yesterday’s 10 prophets are today’s heretics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as all of us will be tomorrow\u2019s heretics when new light and knowledge enters the world.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow: Mark Hofmann… and More!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Continuing\u00a0my reply\u00a0to Jeremy Runnell\u2019s \u201cLetter to a CES Director,\u201d with Jeremy\u2019s original words in green:Blacks Ban:\u00a0 As you know, for close to 130 years blacks were not only banned from holding the priesthood but black individuals and families were blocked from the saving ordinances of the Temple.\u00a0 Every single prophet from Brigham <\/span> ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3872"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5256,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3872\/revisions\/5256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}