Mormons; why don't you have crosses in your churches?

[jenlovesyu]

I can hardly stand to speak to you any more, your posts are so full of poison and disdain for anything not Mormon. In fact, I think I am done speaking to you.

Jennifer, to answer your question, the Mormon prophet Brigham Young taught that African Americans were an inferior race. In the coming mormon pantheon, after death, they would be the servants of the whites who were made gods.

The Book of Mormon is nothing but an explanation as to how an advanced civilization appeared, in the midst of savage brown people. These civilization were of course, created by a white race. The Mormon prophet Spencer W. Kimball once commented on how the Native Americans who were living with white Mormon families had the obvious blessing of their skin becoming pale.

I was taught these things, the Mormons over 35 yrs or so here were taught it too. Just now, they spin it, deny it and deflect it. You will notice with Mormons that their most sacred import thing is their temples. They won’t even talk about them. A black person was not allowed to be married or do any of their temple rites. Not until 1978.

As to the deflection here. Popes from 1435 on have condemned slavery, and excommunicated those who practiced it. Some people listen to the popes, others don’t. If people were listening to the popes they would have not been participating in slavery. If they were listening to Brigham Young, they would have been anticipating having African American servants when they became gods.

God is not a respecter of persons. The concept of race is man-made. You have a Mormon prophet pronouncing race as a divine order of things, with white at the top, black at the bottom. No such thing has ever been taught by any Catholic.

As if that “revelation” in 1978 made it any better

I just don’t get it how people can feel comfortable with such beliefs. Not just the racial superiority beliefs but also the many others that just don’t coincide with the way God is portrayed in the Bible.

 

[RebeccaJ]

As if that “revelation” in 1978 made it any better

I think it has made it better for Mormons. They don’t have to believe that **** any more. They don’t have to teach it to each other any more. Which, is a good thing.

I just don’t get it how people can feel comfortable with such beliefs. Not just the racial superiority beliefs but also the many others that just don’t coincide with the way God is portrayed in the Bible.

Mormons don’t understand the way God is portrayed in the Bible.

 

[Worthy5]

Interesting information. Does anyone know where I can find out more information about the Mormon faith? I’ve recently met a friend that is Mormon and I think some of the things she says are …well, weird. I’m a recent Catholic convert from United Methodism. I’m not always sure what to say when she talks about her faith.

Thanks:

Welcome Home!

 

[Worthy5]

I have no problem with displaying “symbols” of one’s love and faith…but living the “reality” of one’s faith and love of Christ is better. The lack of an outward “symbol” of jewlery or wall decoration does not indicate a lack of faith or Godly life.

Publisher please spare us absurd reductionism. Symbols and signs do mean something for they evoke in the mind the ideas that constitute the Christian life which stimulates one to act in such manner.

 

[dianaiad]

It is a fact that the LDS church stated this through their prophets as God-given. If it was different you would be right… there is no reasonable ground for anybody to criticize… but it isn’t.

It is the hypocrisy, Janet, that annoys me the most. Joseph Smith ran for president on an abolitionist ticket. A few Mormons owned slaves–I think that there were about a dozen slaves,all told. However, all that racism was brought INTO the church by converts who couldn’t leave their bigotry behind.

The slaves who went to Utah with their owners had their servitude changed; they were no longer slaves, but by law became indentured servants, with a BUNCH more rights, nor were their children either slaves or indentured servants. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than what happened anywhere else.

We did not provide different churches for people of color the way many protestant sects insisted. We did not harry them, hang them, burn crosses on their lawns–or as the Catholics did, refuse to allow them to attend religious schools. We did not attempt to deny them their rights to vote, or live where they pleased. If it took us a hundred and fifty years to wake up and extend the priesthood (and thus everything) to them, well—that day was a day of rejoicing. From that day there has been no hint of prejudice; we live, we love, we marry, we work together, serve missions together; mine is by no means the only ‘mixed’ marriage. We realize very well that the day in June was not the church finally and reluctantly being force to extend something we would rather not; we are all very aware of the blessing it was; not a blessing to the negro, but finally, a blessing to the rest of us.

Now, after thirty years, people are harping on this as if our failure to extend the ability to hold the priesthood is equivalent to what Father Tolton received all his short life from his fellow Catholics in America. It was not. They present this lack in us as equivalent to Jim Crow laws, the KKK, burning crosses, Dred Scott, segregated schools and churches–not even close.

Were we a people who had major problems with it from the beginning? Why, yes. Consider where we were at our beginnings. Consider where most of our converts came from. Consider what they brought with them…and consider that while we were not in any way perfect, we dealt with it far better than most other people of the time–and better than most other people through the decades afterward, as well. The emancipation proclamation didn’t cause US any grief.

The LDS church claims (even though I don’t think that word is used) infallibility by “receiving” their teachings from God. Even Hitler who was responsible for Millions of people getting killed (the majority of them Jews) didn’t go that far. He actually only took an idea from a British “scientist” and voila, a racial ideology… It’s all about the gene pool and the evolution of the German race. He did however not in any way state that he did this under orders of God.
A mass murderer is not that prideful…
The LDS church however, even though they “only” excluded black men from the priesthood and shunned them as bearing the mark and cursed, did claim divine authority…
That’s the difference.

Are you telling me that the Catholic church doesn’t have divine authority?

Here is another aspect of the prophet thing: racism has been, and is, so endemic in so many religious and cultures that it has taken years, suffering and bloodshed to root it out. For us, all it took was one quiet announcement from a prophet on a sunny June day in 1978, and the only thing about us that could be called racist was changed. No riots, no national guard, no guns or tears or screaming, no ‘strange fruit’ on front yard trees.

Just a sentence or two…and a great deal of joy.

Yet the Catholics were in the Americas for nearly five hundred years…almost half a millennium…before there was a black Catholic priest; and his major opponents were Catholic priests and nuns who refused to allow him to attend seminaries here. He had to go to Rome. HE wanted to serve in Africa, but was sent back to America, where he had to deal with incredible bigotry all his short life—from his fellow Catholics.

Five hundred years, Nancy.

the Baptists still have separate ‘conventions’ for people of color.

It may be a fault in us that it took us so long to do this, but for me, at least, being criticized for it is the biggest case of mote and beam I have ever come across in my six decades of living.

 

[Publisher]

Publisher please spare us absurd reductionism. Symbols and signs do mean something for they evoke in the mind the ideas that constitute the Christian life which stimulates one to act in such manner.

Friend, I would rather have someone speak to me in kindness and not wear a cross around their neck, than have someone speak to me in rudeness and have their cross hanging from their neck and a bible in their hand.

Symbols may be important…but unless those symbols are incorporated into their lives and those symbols lived as a reality, they do no one any good…except act as a piece of jewelery or a book on a shelf…or a plaque to decorate a wall.

Peace to you Friend.

 

[dianaiad]

Racism is a human frailty. Catholics recognize that, in that it is a part of original sin, the attitude that “we are good, you are evil”, and something that we must overcome. I do not deny that individual Catholics have been and are racist. The Church teaches against this. It is sin. Such a teaching is alien to Mormon theology.

And that was not a personal attack on Diana and her children. It was a speculation on her social milieu.

Sure, Jerusha, you can try that if you want.

 

[dianaiad]

And if the Mormon President/prophet is correct then God was at least a decade, if not more behind secular Europe and America.

You think racism in America and Europe was all fixed by 1968???

Wow, now that’s revisionist history at its very best.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Would you care to elaborate on this, Rebecca? (she says, sweetly…) I don’t suppose YOU have any experience with this issue? Are you African -American? Are you married to one? Are your children African American?

Well, dear, I am not African -American. I did, however, MARRY one and therefore my children are. I am not only aware of racial prejudice against people of color, I am also aware of what people think of white women who marry men of color. It can be very ugly, though it is getting much better.

The one place I never, ever received any grief about it is in the church.

My experience is as a white and delightsome mormon, growing up pre-1978. My best friend for a few years was a girl who was in the mormon Indian placement program. Do you remember this program?

I was just a young girl. Every summer, my friend would leave for the reservation, and I would be alone because there were no other kids my age. In the fall she would come back and we were inseperable. She taught me a lot about her culture, not like a school lesson, but in the things we did and talked about. We were very close, like sisters. There are things I didn’t realize she was telling me until I was much older. Like, once she told me the name she went by was not her real name, that it was really something else, and that I should never call her by that name or tell anyone what it was. I just thought, ok, no problem. Many years later another woman told me that she shared with me something that her culture only shares with the closest of family. I had no idea.

In the meantime, I am going to church, and being taught that Native Americans are “Lamanites” and have “red” skin because they are cursed. Lamanites in the Book of Mormon were lazy, loathsome, evil, everything negative.

As a young girl, the two didn’t seem at odds. My friend was none of these things, and I made no connection that she was. We were just kids. Best friends. As we got older, it became harder and harder for her to come back. Eventually, she never did come back. Our friendship never left me. Those experiences never left me. Fast forward a couple of years, and my good friends are Mexican. And here I am, hearing the same thing about them.

When I was about 13 yrs old, I began to question this idea, that my best friends were these things my church was teaching me. I began to question a lot of these sort of things, and by the time I was 16, I rejected them completely. It wasn’t long after this that the priesthood ban for blacks was lifted. Everyone I knew was very happy for this, as was I. (I heard of Mormons who weren’t so happy, and left “the church”.)

I could not reconcile it Diana. I don’t know how you can look at your own daughters and think that at one time your church taught their spirits were less valiant, and so they were given a body with a cursed color of skin so that you know just where they stand in God’s eyes, before they were even born.

It is truly the most mysterious thing you have ever said. I can understand wanting to believe somethig so badly, that you white-wash things away. Pretend they didn’t exist. But this one, you have to do nothing but pretend that your church did not exist before 1978.

I would have to pretend I was not taught the things I was taught. It is not something I can do.

 

[4Squarebaby]

You think racism in America and Europe was all fixed by 1968???

Wow, now that’s revisionist history at its very best.

Not in the hearts of the people but it was in the laws on the books, except the Morman books that is.

 

[Worthy5]

Friend, I would rather have someone speak to me in kindness and not wear a cross around their neck, than have someone speak to me in rudeness and have their cross hanging from their neck and a bible in their hand.

Symbols may be important…but unless those symbols are incorporated into their lives and those symbols lived as a reality, they do no one any good…except act as a piece of jewelery or a book on a shelf…or a plaque to decorate a wall.

Peace to you Friend.

The problem is conflating the two: traditional religious practices and symbols with the behavior of a particular individual. It comes off as a veiled attempt to discount organized religion.

 

[Publisher]

Just do not conflate the two: traditional religious practices and symbols with the behavior of a particular individual. It comes off as a veiled attempt to discount organized religion.

Does it? Hmmm…I wasn’t aware of any such “veil” on my part.

Peace to you.

 

[Worthy5]

Does it? Hmmm…I wasn’t aware of any such “veil” on my part.

Peace to you.

Well you made the distinction.

 

[ParkerD]

Rebecca,
You must have had some very uninformed teachers. I was never taught the sorts of things you were taught, not once. I was always aware they were a covenant, specially regarded people who would flourish in the last days as promised by God.

 

[Publisher]

Well you made the distinction.

Since I am a member of a branch of an “orgainized religion” and we do not use symbols or rituals…I saw the distinction.

Peace Friend.

 

[dianaiad]

Thank you for making this point. The early Mormons believed in the inferiority of blacks because it was INDOCTRINATED by their prophets who supposedly received truths from God. The Catholic Church never held such doctrine.

The early Mormons believed in the inferiority of blacks because they were trained to believe so by the religions they converted from.

…and puhleeze don’t tell me that the “Catholic church never held such doctrine.” For the last few weeks it has been pounded into me that the Catholic doctrine depends upon two things: the scriptures—and Tradition.

I would call 500 years of active bigotry against people of color pretty traditional. A few weeks ago I remember a post or two about black Popes; were there any?

The only thing I got back was speculation that this man, or that one, COULD have been black because of his name, or perhaps because of his country of origin. However, nobody could come up with more than three…and even the race of those three is considered to have been as easily “Arab” as “black” given their region of origin.

Let’s give it to them, though. Three black popes. Out of, what, 265, plus or minus? ONE PERCENT? (and that’s if you allow these three to be black, which is not at all certain.)

Today less than 5% of American Catholics are black, and less than 3% of Catholics world wide are black. Why is that, do you think? According to “Roman Catholicism in America” (Chester Gillis, dean of the undergrad Georgetown College at George town University–absolutely faithful Catholic ) only about 400 priests in the USA are black, out of a population of over 40,000 priests? A little over a century and that’s all you can do, 400?

Now there are about 123 times as many Catholics as there are Mormons in the USA. Why is it, do you suppose, that in thirty years we have managed to have 100 times as many black priests in thirty years as you have managed to come up with in 141?

I suppose it’s consistent, though. 1% of priests in America are black, and 1% of all the Popes in history might have been black…

Why am I writing all this?

Because, frankly, I’m very tired of the snide, self righteous “Mormons are racist” comments coming from people who seem to be blithely unaware of the history of their own faiths and belief systems. Go fix yours, then come back and criticize the way we fixed ours, or the timing of that fix.

The problem with all of us, Mormon, Catholic, Protestant…all of us, is, I believe, the infernal nature of slavery. Catholicism openly supported it for a rather long time. It’s very difficult to go from figuring that a certain group of people are born so much lesser than others that they can be held as less than the beast of the fields…as property…to accepting them as absolute equals in the sight of God. people don’t like admitting that sort of incredible error. Actually moving to fix it is admitting our own faults. Now, we didn’t support slavery, and had a bit less to fix, but we fixed it.

When will you?

I am one half of a ‘mixed’ marriage–and I am being called 'racist." How many of YOU are black, or in a “mixed” marriage such as mine was? Can any of you, if you honestly look at the history of the faiths you belong to, honestly proclaim that it is utterly free of racism or bigotry?

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, I think that just perhaps it’s time to put your stones down and walk away from this one.

 

[Worthy5]

Since I am a member of a branch of an “orgainized religion” and we do not use symbols or rituals…I saw the distinction.

Peace Friend.

Well let us say an attack on Apostolic Christianity by conflating the methods of Apostolic Christianity with the behavior of an individual member.

 

[dianaiad]

I can hardly stand to speak to you any more, your posts are so full of poison and disdain for anything not Mormon. In fact, I think I am done speaking to you.

I am sorry, Rebecca, but I haven’t got the patience or the character to humbly accept criticism for being a racist (ME?) or belonging to a racist group, from people whose history shows so much more evidence of racism than mine has ever done. It is not disdain for 'anything not Mormonism," far from it. It is a disdain for hypocrisy.

You only see one aspect of me or my life, and that’s right here, in a specific position; on the defenders side of the 'let’s diss the evil Mormons" discussion. If some of what I say is uncomfortable for you to hear, I’m sorry—but you know that I have never attacked your beliefs, and only point out the hypocrisy of your (general, not specific ‘your’) criticism of my faith when it comes from someone whose faith is far more guilty of the ‘crime’ being considered.

When it comes to racism, Rebecca, I think, perhaps, only Quakers have the right to criticize, and they have the right to criticize everybody. That they actually don’t DO that is very much to their credit.

IJennifer, to answer your question, the Mormon prophet Brigham Young taught that African Americans were an inferior race. In the coming mormon pantheon, after death, they would be the servants of the whites who were made gods.

Unfortunately, yes, he did…it’s one of those times in which Brigham let his mouth get away with him. He did that several times. It may be one of the reasons it took us so long to wake up.

IThe Book of Mormon is nothing but an explanation as to how an advanced civilization appeared, in the midst of savage brown people. These civilization were of course, created by a white race. The Mormon prophet Spencer W. Kimball once commented on how the Native Americans who were living with white Mormon families had the obvious blessing of their skin becoming pale.

I was taught these things, the Mormons over 35 yrs or so here were taught it too. Just now, they spin it, deny it and deflect it. You will notice with Mormons that their most sacred import thing is their temples. They won’t even talk about them. A black person was not allowed to be married or do any of their temple rites. Not until 1978.

As to the deflection here. Popes from 1435 on have condemned slavery, and excommunicated those who practiced it. Some people listen to the popes, others don’t. If people were listening to the popes they would have not been participating in slavery. If they were listening to Brigham Young, they would have been anticipating having African American servants when they became gods.

God is not a respecter of persons. The concept of race is man-made. You have a Mormon prophet pronouncing race as a divine order of things, with white at the top, black at the bottom. No such thing has ever been taught by any Catholic.

Lessee…in 1488 Pope Innocent V!!! accepted a gift of 100 Moorish (black) slaves, giving some of them to his favorite Cardinals.

However, it is very true that the popes condemned slavery in no uncertain terms…and one of them made owning slaves grounds for communication. However, NOBODY LISTENED to them, and y’know what? The conquistadors who invaded the Americas practiced very real slavery by the millions, with the church’s full support. There were remarkable stories of Catholic protection of the natives in spite of this (the Jesuit Republic of Paraguay) but the fact remains (speaking of Jesuits) that in Maryland during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Jesuits owned slaves. One Dominican father, Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566) faught very hard against enslaving Indians–proposing that they solve the problem by importing African slaves, instead.

…and the fact is, the Catholic church never excommunicated a single American slaveholder. Not one. Southern slave owners were in full fellowship–allowed to take communion–throughout the Civil War. The attitude of the church, as evidenced by Cardinal Hyacinthe Gerdil, was this: “Slavery is not to be understood as conferring on one man the same power over another that men have over cattle…For slavery does not abolish the natural equality of men…[and is] subject to the condition that the master shall take due care of his slave and treat him humanely.”

Pope John Paul issued an apology for the church support of slavery in 1993 (note; that’s FIFTEEN YEARS after that 1978 June morning)

It is true that Popes have been preaching against slavery since 1435, but it took Catholics over five hundred years to actually pay attention, including the priests and Cardinals. It is also true that Brigham Young and the early Mormons were bigots, even as all the people around them (slave owners mostly) were…and that bigotry may well have tainted the Mormons for a hundred and fifty years. However, when another prophet asked for guidance from God, received it and proclaimed it one sunny summer morning, we all listened, found joy in the listening, and everything changed in an instant.

Which group is most worthy of criticism? Both? Neither?

One final note, regarding ‘disdain,’ Rebecca. I did not bring this issue of Catholic racism up, nor would I ever have done so; I understand the history and struggle of racial equality and how hard many Catholics have fought for it. There are many, many Catholic heroes in the history of blacks in America, and I honor all of those individuals.

However, you have attacked MY people over this issue, and are claiming that our refusal to allow blacks to hold the priesthood proves that we are not ‘true.’ The problem with that, of course, is the mote and beam thing. Or ‘he who is without sin,’ and all that. If you will condemn the Mormons for racism, then you must leave the Catholic church for the same reason.

 

[dianaiad]

Publisher please spare us absurd reductionism. Symbols and signs do mean something for they evoke in the mind the ideas that constitute the Christian life which stimulates one to act in such manner.

You are quite right. Symbols mean things…and they mean what the user says they mean.

So, if you want to wear a cross or a crucifix, and use them properly (according to your faith) then you should.

but you should NOT criticize those whose symbols are other, for they are equally meaningful. Just not yours.

 

[javise01]

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior. He didn’t receive revelations. He GIVES them. He never wrote a word to us. There is no “Book of Jesus” written by Him. The men who wrote about Him were apostles and prophets–all of whom were told what to write and to whom to write, by Christ. That is what made them prophets, and why what they wrote is scripture. Paul is the most classic example; he received direct revelation from God on that road to Damascus, exactly the sort of revelation the OT prophets used to have, and the sort of revelation Christ’s apostles had after His resurrection, when He appeared to them, and walked with them, and allowed them to touch Him.

…and THEY wrote the bible. Jesus did not. That’s how revelation works.

Do you put Paul on the same level as Christ?

You will have to ask your friend why she does things. I am not her, and Parker is not her. We believe that our doctrine is not contradicted by the bible anywhere. Our beliefs may be best supported by scripture we find in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price, but we can find biblical support for all. It may not be primary support, but support it is.

dianaiad,

Thanks for trying to answer for ParkerD but I think he did well on his own and he didn’t try to use my words out of context.

No, I don’t put Christ on the same level as Paul. Christ is on the same level as His Father, and the Holy Spirit. **We call it the Holy Trinity.
**
Here is a quote I found on a Mormon website from Joseph Smith…

 "Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning
 mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast
 of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole
 church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by
 me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such
 a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never
 ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History
 of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409) [Whole sermon click here.]

- Joseph Smith: founder, prophet, seer, and revelator of The Church of Jesus Christ of
  Latter-day Saints.

So, it appears as if I were incorrect. Joseph Smith, by his own words, didn’t put himself on the same level as our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, he thought he was better than Christ!! ??? !!

Hasn’t the church Joseph Smith started has splintered also? I also think it curious that he says, “When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go.” Did he just call himself the devil? Maybe it’s poorly quoted, I don’t know.

I rest my case. May God Bless you.