Blacks and the Priesthood in the LDS Church
Last Sunday, Lawrence O’Donnell, a guest panelist on the McLaughlin Group, unleashed a furious and libelous attack on Mitt Romney, the LDS Church and Joseph Smith regarding racial prejudice. He had almost every fact wrong.
My purpose here is not to explicitly address his remarks, but to discuss my personal journey in understanding the LDS Church regarding blacks and the priesthood. I do, however, want to throw in one comment about O’Donnell’s attack. Joseph Smith and the Mormons were not pro-slavery. In fact, the major reason they were driven out of Missouri was because they were an anti-slavery voting block in a pro-slavery state. They were violently kept from voting booths, some tarred and feathered. There are many beautiful stories about Joseph Smith’s treatment of blacks and his feelings toward slavery.
Prejudice
When I was seven, a close friend of the family came to visit. As she was leaving, she made a disparaging remark about “colored people”. I was completely stunned. Coming from a family with no racial prejudice, I had assumed that hatred against another for the color of their skin had died with the Civil War, almost as if it was a law since the South lost. For the life of me, I could not grasp how this woman could hate a person because they were black. Looking up at this very tall, rather imposing woman, I said, “you must hate yourself then because you’re colored”.
I can still recall her gasp of shock and eyes going wide as she stared down at me. She demanded to know what I meant by that comment. Holding my arm next to hers, I said, “look, your skin isn’t white, it’s like mine, kind of a peach color.”
She had the grace to blush and mumble something about being taught by children. Ever since that episode, I have been fighting prejudice. I never saw being LDS as a conflict of those feelings. I learned early about the great love Joseph Smith had for the black community, especially loving the story of his selling his favorite horse to buy the freedom of a slave so a family could be together. I did not understand why they could not yet have the priesthood, but I knew that God had a reason and whatever that reason was, it would be out of love and with an eye to laying the foundation so that the fullest blessings available to any of His children would one day be available for black people. I kept this issue setting on a back shelf in my mind, waiting and seeking for understanding, and as I continued to study scripture. After a great deal of study, the time came when the facts easily fell into place and I want to share those thoughts with any who feel concerned about a seeming dichotomy.
The three points I will be making concern: 1) the Levities, 2) the emotional ravages of slavery, and 3) Christ being sent to the House of Israel.
1) Any who study the Bible understand that the tribes of Joseph and Judah were the favored tribes, so one begins to wonder why God would have favorites. I do not believe He does. I will address this point more fully later but want to establish now that those two favored tribes were not allowed the priesthood. When a group is allowed to have the priesthood, that is not necessarily a mark of favoritism, it simply means that that particular social order is ready for a difficult responsibility. What can be a great blessing, if one is not ready for it, turns to be a terrible curse if we do not live up to it. After 400 years of slavery, a step-by-step schooling in the desert had to take place and only the tribe of Levi had emerged from slavery with the stability to handle the priesthood. It would have been cruel to give such a responsibility to the other tribes who were not ready for that step. Did that mean they were lesser people than the Levites? No, it was not their fault that they had been crushed into subservience as slaves.
Some believe this life is as all that matters in eternal progression. They do not understand that if we are trying our best and moving forward, then God will not show favoritism to those who had an easier time on earth. He would be guilty of favoritism if this life was all the mattered. How fair would a God be to consign someone to hell because he/she was born in a time or place where they had no chance to hear of Christ?
Heavenly Father sent the flood, not because He hated His children, but because He knew that negative world circumstances made progression impossible. His children had a far better opportunity of being taught and accepting the gospel in the next life as Peter explained (1 Peter 3:19-20). Likewise, those other eleven tribes of Israel would have, (because of the history of slavery which was not their fault), a better chance of progressing without backsliding if they waited until the next life before receiving the priesthood. Heavenly Father is far more concerned with the final outcome. Therefore, a methodical progression gives the best chance of success, rather than a race to see who can get the priesthood first. It is a terrible responsibility that becomes a curse, not a blessing if one is not ready for it.
2) The black people have come from a history of slavery. I have studied histories which show how prevalent slavery was in Africa. Those histories are not popular because scholars want us to believe that only the whites were evil enough to engage in the practice. I am not prejudice against blacks, and likewise, I do not approve of prejudice against whites, and the world view that whites are the cause of all problems. People are people, black or white. There is irrefutable and overwhelming evidence that most of the tribes in Africa were in the business of slavery against other tribes. Of course, this crime against humanity was greatly acerbated by the white slave traders and a white society that allowed such an abomination to go on. The result of this was a social situation among the black victims of this evil that was similar to the Israelites who came out of Egypt. A loving, patient Heavenly Father, through people like Abraham Lincoln and many strong, visionary black and white leaders since, have helped His black children progress as a society and begin to throw off the emotional ravages of slavery. Continuing prejudice makes this hard but many wonderful black people that I’ve known have put aside resentment and hatred toward those who hate them.
God’s black children are no less loved than the tribes of Joseph and Judah who also had to wait for the privilege of the priesthood. When the time was right, the Lord prompted the prophet Spencer W. Kimball to feel impressed on this subject and to pursue fasting and prayer that led to the revelation that the time had come. Those blacks who died before this time will have every opportunity to gain these blessings in the eternities.
3) Christ is the true vine and He works to bring us all to Him as the fruits of His labor. The Lord made it very clear in the New Testament that He was sent to the House of Israel. How could this be fair? I believe that Christ gives to people what they are ready to receive. The Law of Moses and great prophets like John, prepared a people to receive Jesus. When the Jews rejected the gospel, the Lord sent His apostles to the gentiles. Did He love the Gentiles less? No, but He has His reasons and what may appear as prejudice to us, certainly is not. As time went on and stories spread, eventually the gentiles were ready to hear and accept truth from the apostles.
Mormons believe we all lived with God before this life and were organized into one great family. At-one-ment, the sufferings, death and resurrection of Christ, brings things back to their original state; unity with God, with the different being that we will eventually be resurrected and have a perfected body, like He has. Choosing to follow the Lord, no matter how hard the trials that purify us, and returning home to Him as “joint heirs” is what all Christians hope to do. As part of His family, or as Isaiah puts it, the city of righteousness, Zion, this is how we will find eternal happiness. Isaiah wrote:
And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:
And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.
Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. (Isaiah 1:25-27).
The parables of Jesus show that many in the House of Israel who are called will refuse to heed that call, so the servants will be sent into the highways to bring those that will come. Many have suffered cruel oppression and hardship on this earth and this humbling of circumstance will bring about the condition of repentance so that they will be called to the feast. They will be gathered into the perfect organization that exists in heaven, the Church of the Firstborn, the city that is set on the hill to give light to all.
Many blacks have the blood of Israel in their veins, others do not. Is this the criteria for redemption? We believe that those who accept the gospel and receive the saving ordinances are spiritually adopted into the House of Israel. Simply having the blood right will not save anyone. All that matters is the gathering of Israel into the Body of Christ, as Paul puts it. This is the spiritual seed of Israel, those who have partaken of the spiritual rebirth available through the Atonement of Christ. Through proxy temple work, this opportunity will be given to all blacks and whites who have passed on and if they are pure of heart, nothing will be withheld from them. Blacks who hate whites or whites who hate blacks will have to lose that enmity before they can be spiritually gathered in to the Church of the Firstborn.
Membership in the kingdom was never denied blacks. Joseph and Brigham welcomed blacks with open arms and baptized them. Heavenly Father let them know the priesthood would need to wait until a later time. I did not understand these things as a child, but I did have faith in my Heavenly Father and I knew that if I was patient and prayerful, the day would come when all these things would be answered, line upon line. I have many more answers now, but certainly not all of them. Many things have to wait until the next life when all things shall be made known. I hope to remain humble enough to trust God and to know that His love is equal for all mankind, and that all will have the opportunity for the full blessings held within the perfect Plan of Salvation. Until then, I will hold to Isaiah’s words:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8&9)
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“You can find random, quotes by Brigham Young, which you can see he is repeating phrases as the “seed of Cain” to refer to Africans, it was hardly his original words on the subject, and is not some sort of reflection as to whether he was racist or not. The early Mormons “sounded” racist by [today’s] standards, but I’m telling you, they were probably among some of the least racist people of their time. Brigham Young said, “slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent.”
LDS befriended the Native Americans whom were regarded as enemies of the state, Joseph Smith freed slaves and some were joining the church, they were even inviting freed slaves to
In the 1960s. Were there no Christian leaders who denied Africans entrance to their churches, schools, civic centers and voting booths? I mean virtually all Protestant denominations have separate Negro churches, and thus the areas of association for religious purposes have been very small. 1963 is the same year Ferrell Griswold, pastor of the
One view I find interesting was the ban was started all because the Priesthood was to never be held in bondage. Aaron and his sons weren’t allowed to exercise the priesthood until after the children of Israel were free from Egypt. This was also the case when the nation of Israel was carried away into captivity in Babylon. And so since a certain group in modern society have been held in slavery as well, even though this condition was not their fault, were not be allowed command of the Priesthood until they were free. Even though the Civil War ended slavery, many things did not change culturally for the Blacks until the Civil Rights movement of the seventies which was when the Blacks members of the LDS Church were given the Priesthood as they could finally regard themselves as being free from bondage.”