Tag: racism

Consistently Inconsistent

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June 30, 2015

10:37 am

1 Comment on Consistently Inconsistent

Atheism, LDS Church, LGBT Issues

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“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” – Bernard Berenson

In response to a statement regarding same-sex marriage issued by The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), which is required to be read aloud, from the pulpit, to each Sunday congregation, church member Paul Malan scribed and open letter to his local Bishop.

https://medium.com/@ungewissen/missing-church-in-july-928e90931ee1

The letter rightly, via the Church’s own essays, condemns previous LDS racism:

When our culture began to recognize the nonsense of racism, N. Eldon Tanner assured Church members “that no matter how convincing an argument might seem to be,” our prophets and apostles were “powerless to change God’s unchanging laws when it comes to the color of our skin.”

Thankfully, God’s laws may be unchanging, but our understanding of them is not. The Church recently approved an essay in which they “unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.”

Mr. Malan then goes on to draw the comparison between that needless, erroneous bigotry and the ongoing bigotry toward LGBT people:

There is nothing new or surprising in the wording of the letter you’ve been asked to read, but, as with past statements on race, it perpetuates misunderstanding and reinforces the “otherness” of our gay brothers and sisters. As a father, I hope our church can become a welcoming, safe place for my children to learn from Christ’s loving example within the context of their Mormon heritage. This letter makes that connection less likely.

As I am an atheist, I assume that Mr. Malan and I disagree on almost everything, though on this particular point we may find common ground; If a church celebrates that it receives modern-day revelation from its prophet, if that prophet speaks directly to The LORD, and if the church has received many, many, many documented revelations that have reversed previous practices*, how is it surprising or shocking to imagine that God may issue new commandments at any moment? Many LDS members believe that God will one day call them back to Independence, MO. Others believe that God will eventually call women to hold The Priesthood. Maybe God will even allow decency toward LGBT members.

As Dr. King said, “The arc of the  Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  So too does the will of benevolent LDS believers like Mr. Malan, Kate Kelly, Douglas Wallace, and others like them who drag a stubborn, intolerant institution with them into a future of equality and morality.

But no one wants to go back to Missouri.

* Polygamy, Law of Consecration, Blacks in the Priesthood, Word of Wisdom, “White and Delightsome”, Law of Adoption

Ignorance is Strength

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May 6, 2015

6:26 pm

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LDS Church, Secularism

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“Mormonism is truth; and every man who embraces it feels himself at liberty to embrace every truth: consequently the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance, and priestcraft, fall at once from his neck.”
— Joseph Smith

 

In 2013, the LDS church posted an essay to it’s official website (www.lds.org) denouncing many of their previously official, semi-official, and non-official racist teachings. Previous church leaders had claimed that people born with black skin were less faithful in The Pre-Existence (a spirit world where all souls existed before being born into physical bodies). The 2013 essay also reiterated the church’s 1978 policy of including persons of all races and colors in full church membership, which had been previously restricted to white members.

When Sunday School teacher Brian Dawson, who is married to a woman from Nigeria, was asked by one of his students about the 1978 change, he used the official essay to explain the polices and beliefs of the Mormon church.

For this, he was released [fired] from his position. From The Salt Lake Tribune:

    After the class, students told their families about the conversation. One parent complained to Dawson’s bishop.

“Anything regarding black history before 1978 is irrelevant,” Dawson recalls his bishop saying, “and a moot point.”

Then, the former teacher says, his bishop insisted during a February interview that Dawson agree never again to bring up the essay or discuss “black Mormon history” in the class.

Dawson declined — even after believing he would be “released” from teaching the class for disobedience.

“If the [Holy] Spirit guides me in a way that involves these multitude of documents,” he asked the bishop, “who am I to resist the enticing of the Spirit?”

The bishop replied, according to Dawson, “The Spirit is telling me to tell you not to use those documents.”

According to the Tribune article, and my own experiences, many current members are ignorant to the existence and content of recent essays written and approved by the LDS Church. These essays attempt to explain some “difficult” areas of Mormon history and belief, including race, polygamy, The Book of Abraham, and Book of Mormon archaeology.

The attitude toward these essays seem an anomaly for a population that usually hangs on every word of their prophets, seers, and revelators. Their existence and publication has been noted in local and national media, but remains an open secret among members. In addition, these essays are not directly navigable from the LDS website itself; one has to use specific search terms to find them.

For me, growing up as a Mormon, LDS Church history was critically important. My family read the official Church history at the breakfast table. I knew, or thought I knew, all about Joseph Smith, Kirkland, Governor Boggs, Haun’s Mill, The Pioneer trek, the founding of Salt Lake City, etc. Each piece of minutiae was a new faith-building anecdote. That these new essays are unintentionally and/or wilfully ignored seems telling that their contents are troubling and embarrassing. One might question why The Church has written them at all. Of course, if the “approved” versions can be this disturbing to members, what might unapproved sources have to say about these topics?

Imagine What You’ll Know Tomorrow

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November 2, 2014

1:30 pm

2 Comments on Imagine What You’ll Know Tomorrow

Gender Equality, LDS Church

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“Fifteen-hundred years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. Five-hundred years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”

Continuing on some of the thoughts I had in my last post, I can’t help but wonder what will change in The LDS Church tomorrow.

From Brigham Young to Spencer Kimball, every president of the church, countless apostles, members of The Seventy, and lay leaders prophesied and testified about “negros” and the priesthood.

Brigham Young claimed that a white man who “mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” When did this change? Does God have a different definition for ‘always’ than we do?

John Taylor taught “Cain and his posterity must wear the mark which God put upon them; and his white friends may wash the race of Cain with fuller’s soap every day, they cannot wash away God’s mark.”

Speaking at BYU, Apostle Mark Petersen stated, “it is the decree of God that the mark should remain upon the seed of Cain, until the seed of Able shall be redeemed, and Cain shall not receive the Priesthood until the time of that redemption.”

But, in 1978, for whatever reason you may believe, The Church changed direction, and allowed Black members to become full members, receiving the priesthood and temple rights. They did not, however, disavow their immense collection of racist teachings. Black members had to wait until 2014 to learn that they were not cursed with the “Mark of Cain” and that they were not punished for unrighteousness in the preexistence, and that these discriminatory policies were just an artifact of the commonplace racism prevalent in The United States when the church was founded. How is it that God let so many spiritual giants like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, Mark E. Petersen, lead his chosen people down the wide and curved path of bigotry and abject racism within the confines of His restored gospel?

Today, though I am allowed to remain a member (in name only), faithful, diligent believers like Kate Kelly are excommunicated for essentially asking, “What if you’re wrong about something else? What if the male-only restriction of The Priesthood is just another artifact of our time? Perhaps the sexist nature of society has seeped into gospel teachings as racism did before?”

The Church claims today that homosexuality is still a sin, but in 1959 David O. McKay, Spencer Kimball, and Mark Petersen also saw it as a disease that needed curing. How many good people were harmed and injured by the despicable practice of reparative therapy? But, no more. In the 1990s, The Church learned that same-sex attraction was a “tendency”, to be worked through. And, today, The Church knows that it is not a disease, nor a tendency, but a test; a moral challenge to be faced.

It is odd that the omniscient God and His spiritual representatives have so much that they must learn as society advances. Today they know that polygamy is wrong. Today they know that racism is wrong. Today they know that reparative therapy is wrong.

Imagine what they will know tomorrow.