Lifting of the priesthood ban for black males

[_harmony]

Hi Phaedrus...
You bring up a great point.

I have asked before,(never received an answer), why black women were not allowed to get their endowments during the ban for black men.

I mean this seriously makes NO sense whatsoever... actually none of it ever did but still.. ;-)

So, black men can't have the priesthood but what has that got to do with a woman getting her endowment?

Black women who couldn't have the priesthood anyway due to their body parts, were not allowed to marry a white man because they were not allowed to go through the temple due to their skin color.
~dancer~

It wasn't just the endowment it was all temple work. I bring this up when people go off on some priesthood lineage explanation about the priesthood ban. From the treatment of both black men and women it's clear that it was a racial policy not some contrived biblical pedigree.

Adding to the evidence is the specific language of the 1978 "revelation". All worthy males Where is the revelation for the ban on black women ending?

Phaedrus

Where is Coggins on this? Loran? Loran! What do you have to say about this?

[_truth dancer]

Hi Phaedrus... :-)

It wasn't just the endowment it was all temple work. I bring this up when people go off on some priesthood lineage explanation about the priesthood ban. From the treatment of both black men and women it's clear that it was a racial policy not some contrived biblical pedigree.

I had the impression that black men and women could perform baptisms for the dead... am I mistaken?

Not that it makes much of a difference... (sigh).

~dancer~

[_Trevor]

Nice try trevor, fumes have gotten you this far, but not farther. The whole concept might be implicitly racist were it not for the fact you conveniently overlooked that many people as dark skinned as many black Africans in the South Pacific were being ordained to the Priesthood from the very outset and continued to be right up to the ending of the ban. If it was traditional white racism, than it would have extended out to traditional boundaries. But it was confined to blacks and blacks only because of the lineage restriction, not because they were black per se. Again, I'm not saying that culture did not influence early GAs, only that, from a theological perspective, the ban, whatever else it might have been at the periphery, was not at the core racial in nature.

Coggins, I am unimpressed with your mental gymnastics.

It is difficult for me to read your "it was confined to blacks and blacks only because of the lineage restriction, not because they were black per se" without shaking my head and chuckling ruefully. How can you not see that in this statement you reveal the racism, try to flee it, and end up right back in the same racist quagmire?

And this idea that "if it was traditional white racism, than [sic] it would have extended to traditional boundaries" has no traction whatsoever. Just because the boundaries of LDS racism were configured differently from those of other communities does not change the fact that it is racist. Whether one is fetishizing Native Americans because they were "children of Lehi" or discriminating against blacks because they were heirs of a curse with regard to priesthood, one is dealing with racism here.

It is the concept of race that informs lineage, not the other way around. It is therefore racist at its core.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Style Guy... :-)

Do you agree that the Bishops, Stake Presidents, Apostles and President of Mormon Church had one wife and many mistresses. Do you agree that every marriage after 1862 was illegal and therefore void from the beginning and therefore they committed adultery - In which they were prosecuted. Over a thousand went to Federal Prison.

You are correct!

These men didn't have multiple wives, nor is the term celestial marriage even remotely appropriate.

These men had a wife and a harem.

The women (with the possible exception of the wife), who were attached to various males were part of a harem

A harem lifestyle has nothing whatsoever to do with a true marriage, (which is different than ownership as in days of old). It is a primitive, animalistic method of sperm donation along with the male sexual use of females.... nothing more.

;-)

~dancer~

Dfn from dictionary.com....

Harem: Animal Behavior. a social group of females, as elephant seals, accompanied or followed by one fertile male who denies other males access to the group.

[_Phaedrus Ut]

Hi Phaedrus... :-)
I had the impression that black men and women could perform baptisms for the dead... am I mistaken?

Not that it makes much of a difference... (sigh).

~dancer~

I had heard that too but never seen any direct evidence that that was the case. I recall a quote from Gordon B. Hinkley regarding the difficulty in building a temple in Brazil where so many members gave financial support to the temple but never expected to enter the building themselves.

One case of a Black woman having a ordinance in the temple I'm familiar with is that of Jane Manning James. She was the first free black woman to join the church. However her repeated petitions to take our her endowments and be sealed to her family were denied. But because of her faithfulness Church officials allowed Jane to "be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant" through a "special" temple ceremony prepared for that purpose.


Phaedrus

[_karl61]

Hi Style Guy... :-)

Do you agree that the Bishops, Stake Presidents, Apostles and President of Mormon Church had one wife and many mistresses. Do you agree that every marriage after 1862 was illegal and therefore void from the beginning and therefore they committed adultery - In which they were prosecuted. Over a thousand went to Federal Prison.

You are correct!

These men didn't have multiple wives, nor is the term celestial marriage even remotely appropriate.

These men had a wife and a harem.

The women (with the possible exception of the wife), who were attached to various males were part of a harem

A harem lifestyle has nothing whatsoever to do with a true marriage, (which is different than ownership as in days of old). It is a primitive, animalistic method of sperm donation along with the male sexual use of females.... nothing more.

;-)

~dancer~

Dfn from dictionary.com....

Harem: Animal Behavior. a social group of females, as elephant seals, accompanied or followed by one fertile male who denies other males access to the group.

Hi truth dancer: I was talking to my friend the other day at lunch and he pointed out that acutally a woman with a lot of males to choose from is a lot better for the world and mankind not the other way around. The strongest, best looking, smartest, fastest etc, is the one who she will choose to sire her children. In Polygamy, any misfit can create 50 other little misfits who can each create 50 other little misfits etc. Polygamy is not the best for mankind or the planet in the long run.

regards,

thestyleguy

[_Runtu]

As the ban itself was unofficial (no records exist of any actual official action regarding the ban, nor is there any official proclamation or declaration on the subject) in the first instance, becoming an official policy only over time (and we know some black males were indeed ordained to the Priesthood in Joseph Smith's life time), consequent GAs were left to speculate as best they could upon the actual reasons for the restriction.

This statement is either born of ignorance or dishonesty. Cogs may be many things, but I don't believe he's dishonest. But here's the official First Presidency statement on this issue.

August 17, 1949
The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: “Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.”

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: “The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.”

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, 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 and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

While there's nothing canonical about this practice (which is I think what Coggins was getting at), the church stated its position repeatedly over the years.

[_Chap]

August 17, 1949
The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time.

That is absolutely clear, surely?. The First Presidency said that the exclusion of blacks was a "direct commandment from the Lord".

In LDS thinking, can the First Presidency be wrong about a thing like that (i.e., the exclusion being a direct commandment from the Lord), and if they were, would the Lord permit them to mislead the people in a public statement that went uncorrected for years thereafter?

I am sure there is an ingenious way for an apologist to get off this hook - there always is - but I should just like the see how much logical limbo-dancing is required to perform the escapology in this case.

[_harmony]

Do you agree that the Bishops, Stake Presidents, apostles and President of Mormon Church has one wife and many mistresses. Do you agree that every marriage after 1862 was illegal and therefore void from the beginning and therefore they committed adultery - In which they were prosecuted. Over a thousand went to Federal Prison.

No, I don't agree, because Utah didn't' become a state until 1896, and so the marriages performed there under the auspices of the LDS Church were valid in that territory, under LDS authority and LDS law, which was not officially under legal constitutional authority until nearly the turn of the century.

They were a territory of the US, and therefore subject to US law. Your basic premise is flawed.

[_Runtu]

They were a territory of the US, and therefore subject to US law. Your basic premise is flawed.

Correct. That's why church leaders went to jail and church property was nearly confiscated. The Utah Territory was formed in 1850, and after that date, its citizens were subject to US law.