Popular BYU Randy Bott Takes Heat for Comments

[_maklelan]

malkie and maklelan will you please reload your avatars.. I would be so grateful. :)

Mine isn't having any problems in my browser like it was before, but I reloaded it for you.

[_just me]

malkie and maklelan will you please reload your avatars.. I would be so grateful. :)

Mine isn't having any problems in my browser like it was before, but I reloaded it for you.

You're a peach! I can see it again.

malkie, I still no C U!

[_SteelHead]

Isn't there a pesky 1930 something first presidency letter talking about less valiant in the pre-existence and all that. Guess it ruins Maklelan's argument.

[_Doctor Scratch]

In my mind, trying to paint Bott as a sacrificial lamb or a modern day John D. Lee is rather weak rhetoric that serves only to spin the church's response into an opportunity to further rail against it for not offering a formal and official mea culpa. I would personally like to see the church do just that, but I don't think this is a productive way to try to twist the church's arm.

And what *is* your idea of a "productive way to try to twist the church's arm"? Most any movement on the part of the members to get the Brethren to admit to anything is seen as "ark-steadying." Thus, your comments here are awfully hollow.

[Guest]

As one might have expected, DCP has arrived on the scene to manage damage control among the faithful.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/57105-an-unfortunate-attempt-to-explain-the-pre-1978-restriction-on-priesthood/

Good luck, Dan. This one is a real stinker, and from a learned colleague at BYU, no less.

He should probably sit on the bench for this one. It was DCP, after all, who once admitted that he has personally warned interracial LDS couples about all the "problems" they'll face on account of "cultural differences" and what have you if they decide to get married. It was my taking issue with that kind of advice-giving that first got me disciplined on the old FAIR board.

[_maklelan]

And what *is* your idea of a "productive way to try to twist the church's arm"?

I don't think there is one.

Most any movement on the part of the members to get the Brethren to admit to anything is seen as "ark-steadying."

I disagree entirely. It's movements on the part of members to usurp their authority that is seen as "ark-steadying." Keeping this issue at the fore in order to catalyze a more definitive response is nothing of the sort.

Thus, your comments here are awfully hollow.

You're lecturing me about hollow comments? That's rich.

[_SteelHead]

Here it is.

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.

Pesky thing, that.

[_malkie]

malkie and maklelan will you please reload your avatars.. I would be so grateful. :)

Mine isn't having any problems in my browser like it was before, but I reloaded it for you.

You're a peach! I can see it again.

malkie, I still no C U!

Hey, give me a moment to find it again! I might have to load a temporary one - hope u don't mind.

[_Doctor Scratch]

And what *is* your idea of a "productive way to try to twist the church's arm"?

I don't think there is one.

Exactly my point.

Most any movement on the part of the members to get the Brethren to admit to anything is seen as "ark-steadying."

I disagree entirely. It's movements on the part of members to usurp their authority that is seen as "ark-steadying." Keeping this issue at the fore in order to catalyze a more definitive response is nothing of the sort.

What is it then? Just mindless fomenting that has nothing to do with Church authority?

Thus, your comments here are awfully hollow.

You're lecturing me about hollow comments? That's rich.

It sure is. You can take it straight to the bank.

[_maklelan]

Isn't there a pesky 1930 something first presidency letter talking about less valiant in the pre-existence and all that. Guess it ruins Maklelan's argument.

There was a 1949 statement that quotes Brigham Young saying "It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God," but this has nothing to do with the pre-existence. It has to do with Cain's own sin during mortality.