Elder Stapley Letter To Gov. George Romney

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

So do you believe you should follow them even though they are wrong, or are you entitled to pick cafeteria style and still receive all the blessings?

That's a tricky but good question. I dislike the cafeteria metaphor in this case because it usually applies to a different situation. If God is the one directly providing the food then the answer is an emphatic no. God has asked me to do things and taught me things that seemed strange, illogical, and once even abhorrent to me. I don't have an option there. If an Apostle or a Prophet presents information to me that I feel can't help me or doesn't apply, I ignore it. If they teach something I think is wrong, I appeal to higher authority. Sometimes I find out I was wrong, sometimes that they were wrong and most often that I misunderstood what they were saying and there was no disagreement. As for being blessed for following someone who is wrong I have little to say. I imagine that if you follow in honest ignorance you might be blessed. Someone who has cultivated spiritual and intellectual laziness and just rides on the coattails of the leaders of the Church are in my opinion not innocent.

The normal "Cafeteria Mormon" is one that throws out anything that at first glance they don't like and keeps what they like. If God isn't in the equation I see trouble as God's truths are eventually remade in their image instead of vice-versa.

You know, I totally expect that you use good judgment in your picking and choosing, but still it is judgment ... rationalization ... you could do just as well making your way in the world without the so-called prophetic guidance of the Mormon church, and with a whole lot less baggage and necessity to apologize for all these prophetic mis-steps along the way.

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

My father went to a meeting headed by one of the then-Regional Representatives of the area and told us that the guy had with a straight face and utter seriousness asked the people in the meeting to pray for BYU to win their next football game (it was key for some reason, I don't watch football so I had no idea how). I remember as a little kid thinking it over and deciding that God probably wouldn't cheat for me to win at soccer so why would he cheat for BYU. I went to bed that night and prayed for him not to intervene in the game at all. An example of bad, personalized counsel.

I'm not really sure which is nuttier, praying for BYU to win or praying for God not to intervene. An example of bad, personalized God.

[_Jason Bourne]

What do you think of this letter? It flabbergasted me.

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/24/delbert_stapley.pdf

This certainly would seem to undercut the constant apologist refrain that the Church always supported civil rights for blacks despite the continuing priesthood ban.

I am not sure I have ever seen such a defense. It seems pretty certian that the leaders in the 50s and 60s were not, maybe other then Hugh B Brown and a few others, pro civil rights.

[_Jason Bourne]

Why did Mitt ever run as "pro-choice"? He knew it was the only way he'd be elected, and "the brethren" gave him permission to do so.

That's why I don't have much respect for Mitt. He is now "flip-flopping" on this issue to pander to the more conservative base.

Your quote here resounds loud and clear:

Judy Dushku: I asked him the same question. And he said “the Brethren” in Salt Lake City.

And I said, Mitt, it doesn’t make me happy to hear that. What you’re suggesting is that you’re not genuinely pro-choice. It’s a position of convenience.

At least Giuliani has the guts to run on his principles.

Rudy is back peddling too. He is now "personally opposed to it." They all are political expedient dogs!

[_Jason Bourne]

As does apparently Bloomberg, who, while changing parties, hasn't changed his stand on gun control and abortion.

No he does not. He has pretended to be a republican when he really never was much of one. He is a liberal and now claims to be independent? Let him run. It will only hurt Hillary.

And Dennis Kucinich has equally been true to his principles, even when the rest of his party mocked him.

While I disagree a lot with him he has stood true to his ideals. One of the few.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

I am not sure I have ever seen such a defense. It seems pretty certian that the leaders in the 50s and 60s were not, maybe other then Hugh B Brown and a few others, pro civil rights.

It was probably on FAIR/MAD, but it may have been on this bb. Here is how Hugh Brown was able to read a statement in support of civil rights, as recounted in Prince's David O. McKay bio (on pp. 69-70):

[In September 1963], the civil rights issue in Utah came to a head. Concerned that Utah was the only western state that had not passed laws guaranteeing basic civil rights for minority groups, local NAACP officers tried without success to meet with the First Presidency and enlist their support of such legislation. As a result of the rebuff, they decided to picket Temple Square during the church's upcoming October general conference. Alerted to their plans, Sterling M. McMurrin, who had served as Kennedy's U.S. Commissioner of Education until autumn of 1962, attempted to mediate a settlement. He met with Hugh B. Brown and suggested a face-to-face meeting with the NAACP officers. The night prior to the first session of the general conference, Brown met with the officers and worked out a deal: He would read a statement of the church's support of civil rights during one of the conference sessions, in return for which the planned demonstrations would be cancelled.

Unbeknownst to McKay, Brown asked McMurrin to draft the statement. Working on a tight deadline, McMurrin wrote a document that McKay approved with only one minor change. Brown was pleased with McKay's approval but disappointed when he told Brown merely to include it in his prepared address, rather than presenting it as an official First Presidency statement. Brown read the statement on Sunday morning -- the session with the widest television and radio coverage:

"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 in the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known that there in 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.

"We again say, 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 to any human being the right to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evi to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.

"We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the United States, and as far as we are concerned that means upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.

"We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God's children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man."

McMurrin paid close attention and thought it was successful. Wishing to maximize the impact of the statement while complying with McKay's request, Brown "read it at the beginning of his sermon very much as if he were reading a separate official statement from the First Presidency. Then he set it aside and proceeded with his own address. It was most effective" -- so effective, in fact, that two years later the Deseret News reprinted it as a "statement given officially" at the 1963 conference. Albert B. Fritz, president of the Salt Lake City NAACP chapter, praised the statement, adding, "Through this statement we are asking all NAACP branches throughout the nation not to demonstrate or picket any LDS missions or churches."

[_moksha]

There is a thread on MAD right now on this topic. Here are some of the responses: http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... opic=25796

Katherine the Great responds:
I think that the problem most people have with it (and I admit that I struggle with it as well) is that we do claim to be the one true church and our prophets claim to be God's mouthpiece on earth. From that perspective, we would expect our church to lead the world when truth is manifest, not be among the last to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, our leaders are human and subject to very human flaws, but I don't think it unreasonable to have the basic expectation. Those are my thoughts anyway.

Right on for Katherine the Great. She is right about this basic expectation.

Katherine's response is so good that Mr. Scratch should add her dossier to his Blog.





(by the way, this isn't the method by which George Romney was brainwashed on Vietnam, was it?)

[_Sethbag]

Reading the letter, here are some thoughts.

I don't know much about George Romney, but I do very much like that this letter "had to be written" by Stapley. Stapley's attitudes were clearly racist, and contradicted the attitudes (or at least the actions) of Romney, and I think that speaks well for George Romney. I'm glad he apparently saw the light. I'm going to speculate that perhaps George Romney was more into practical matters of humanity and less concerned with divining God's attitudes towards black
people by reading between the lines of things Joseph Smith had said. It's too bad the Prophets, Seers, and Revelators of the day couldn't see with George Romney's "worldy" vision in this matter.

Don't we hear the mopologists saying that the "curse" against the black people had nothing to do with the priesthood? Well, Apostle Delbert Stapley apparently believed otherwise. Mopologists certainly attempt historical revision by cherry-picking some quotes from here or there which seem to show a less certain attitude and less well-defined belief or doctrine with respect to black people. But they do this cherry-picking from amongst a virtual ocean of quotes and writings demonstrating exactly the contrary, which is that in the highest echelons of the Mormon hierarchy the belief of the black priesthood ban being the result of a curse on black people was widespread and firmly entrenched, and only evolved into "we don't know" in relatively recent times.

After reading this letter, I find it hard to understand how a man with such attitudes could be viewed as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator for Jesus Christ. Did Jesus Christ forget to push his "stupor of thought" button when his own personal deputies on Earth talked this kind of crap? Where's the inspiration? Where's the credibility?

[_Seven]

There is a thread on MAD right now on this topic. Here are some of the responses: http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... opic=25796

Katherine the Great responds:
I think that the problem most people have with it (and I admit that I struggle with it as well) is that we do claim to be the one true church and our prophets claim to be God's mouthpiece on earth. From that perspective, we would expect our church to lead the world when truth is manifest, not be among the last to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, our leaders are human and subject to very human flaws, but I don't think it unreasonable to have the basic expectation. Those are my thoughts anyway.

Right on for Katherine the Great. She is right about this basic expectation.

Katherine's response is so good that Mr. Scratch should add her dossier to his Blog.

I second that! "Katherine the Great" is one of the few believers I have any respect for on MAD and is one of my favorite posters.

[_Seven]

Reading the letter, here are some thoughts.

I don't know much about George Romney, but I do very much like that this letter "had to be written" by Stapley. Stapley's attitudes were clearly racist, and contradicted the attitudes (or at least the actions) of Romney, and I think that speaks well for George Romney. I'm glad he apparently saw the light. I'm going to speculate that perhaps George Romney was more into practical matters of humanity and less concerned with divining God's attitudes towards black
people by reading between the lines of things Joseph Smith had said. It's too bad the Prophets, Seers, and Revelators of the day couldn't see with George Romney's "worldy" vision in this matter.

Don't we hear the mopologists saying that the "curse" against the black people had nothing to do with the priesthood? Well, Apostle Delbert Stapley apparently believed otherwise. Mopologists certainly attempt historical revision by cherry-picking some quotes from here or there which seem to show a less certain attitude and less well-defined belief or doctrine with respect to black people. But they do this cherry-picking from amongst a virtual ocean of quotes and writings demonstrating exactly the contrary, which is that in the highest echelons of the Mormon hierarchy the belief of the black priesthood ban being the result of a curse on black people was widespread and firmly entrenched, and only evolved into "we don't know" in relatively recent times.

After reading this letter, I find it hard to understand how a man with such attitudes could be viewed as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator for Jesus Christ. Did Jesus Christ forget to push his "stupor of thought" button when his own personal deputies on Earth talked this kind of crap? Where's the inspiration? Where's the credibility?

Well said. Apologists will cherry pick quotes that contradict "a virtual ocean of quotes and writings" on almost any issue or doctrine that paints their leaders in a negative light. Not only do I find such racist attitudes to be in opposition of a true Prophet, Seer and Revelator for Jesus Christ, but I also find it impossible to understand how TBMs can defend these men as "good."
The only "good" people are those who abhorred those wicked teachings about our brothers and sisters.

What I detest today is the belief that still exists among Chapel Mormons and fanatics in the church on the pre existence.
There are too many LDS that believe we are placed in our white skin and cozy life because we were more faithful in the pre existence than the innocent children and people in less fortunate circumstances. It makes me sick to me stomach when I hear members use this belief as the reason for suffering in the world. It makes them feel so special.