Race, God, and the LDS Church

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dianaiad said:
that’s good, because this ‘losing their tax exempt status’ is bogus. While it is true that the CoJCoLDS is the ONLY church in US history to have American armed services after them, and the only church in US history to be threatened with having all their property confiscated, that was in the 1800’s, not the 1900’s. As it happens, there has never been a church that has lost its tax exempt status for any reason. It is unconstitutional. What HAS happened is that the IRS might rescind the ‘letter’ that is issued to non-profit organizations. This letter must be given to any non-church non-profit group, and if that letter is rescinded for them, that tax exempt status does indeed go bye bye. However, no church need apply for one in order to be tax exempt; it simply needs to exist.

Even if a church is dumb enough to apply for one (and a few are) having the IRS rescind the letter (and that’s only been done…twice, i think?) means that the church might have to pay a token (and I do mean ‘token’) excise tax–and even that’s doubtful. The following year the tax exempt status is automatically assumed to be in place because it is a church. In other words, the IRS would have to go through the process of rescinding the tax exempt letter every single year. If the church doesn’t apply for one, the IRS has no jurisdiction at all. The only thing it can do is attempt to prove that the church isn’t actually a church…that it is simply calling itself a church for the specific purpose of avoiding taxes. Since there is no chance at all of doing that for the CoJCoLDS, I think we can put this piece of stupidity to rest, don’t you?
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See Bob Jones University v. United States

law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0461_0574_ZS.html

Officially, the IRS revoked the University’s tax exempt status on January 19, 1976. The University paid $21 in unemployment taxes for one employee for tax year 1975 and then filed for a refund in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. The Government counterclaimed for unpaid federal unemployment taxes for the taxable years 1971 through 1975, in the amount of $489,675.59, plus interest.

That sets the legal precedent that the Internal Revenue Service could, without the approval of the United States Congress, revoke the tax exempt status of organizations that are contrary to established public policy.

Its now case history, and legal precedent.

Stupidity? Hardly.
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dianaiad:
I believe that we have continuing revelation; that God guides us, and if we go off the rails, He’ll pull us back on them. So, if there is a thing He doesn’t like, He will talk to the prophet and we will fix it.

Which is why we were ‘racist’ for 138 years, and then instantly, at the word from a prophet, were not. Just think: if Catholics had continuing revelation where God …<edited for sanity’s sake>
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A big fat “tu quoque” argument.

Are you capable of honest debate? You’ve been told time and again that these acts were NOT part of Catholic DOCTRINE, yet still seem incapable of grasping this fact. And even if what you propose is true, Catholic atrocities do not somehow override the racist doctrinal past of the LDS faith.

On a side note, I wish I had $1 for every time you said “Crusades”, or used the tu quoque fallacy.
 
MelanieAnne said:
OK, let’s pretend all that is true.
How do you explain the rest of the “doctrine” elucidated in the past? Because racism was taught as doctrine by Mormonism.
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Actually, Mormons were no more “racist” than the surrounding white American populations. The African priesthood ban itself was not “racist”, because it did not posit that Africans were inferior to Europeans. (And we all know that just because someone is ‘banned’ from being a priest, does not mean that that person is deemed ‘inferior’.) Can you show me any LDS scripture/revelation that says Africans are inferior to Europeans?
 
Ahimsa said:
Actually, Mormons were no more “racist” than the surrounding white American populations. The African priesthood ban itself was not “racist”, because it did not posit that Africans were inferior to Europeans. (And we all know that just because someone is ‘banned’ from being a priest, does not mean that that person is deemed ‘inferior’.) Can you show me any LDS scripture/revelation that says Africans are inferior to Europeans?
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These things have already been cited in this and other related threads on this subject. Rather than repeat them here, you simply need to read what has already been presented. The facts are that racism was taught as doctrine in the LDS church. The same cannot be said of any Christian faith.

The fact that PEOPLE might have racist opinions is not comparable. We are talking about religious DOCTRINE here. Mormon DOCTRINE had racist aspects at one time. The same cannot be said about the DOCTRINE of Christian faiths.
 
MelanieAnne said:
Mormon DOCTRINE had racist aspects at one time. The same cannot be said about the DOCTRINE of Christian faiths.
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If you mean many Mormon leaders have said some pretty bad things about Africans, then, that is true. But you fail to distinguish the APB, on the one hand, from the surrounding theological speculation used to support it, on the other.

For instance, the APB, in itself, is no more racist, than a “female priesthood ban” is sexist. Would you agree?

Theological speculation about what Africans did in their pre-mortal existence that justifies the APB, is another story, and such speculation (as far as I’ve seen) has never been deemed “doctrine” in the LDS, as measured by evidence from LDS scripture/revelation.
 
Ahimsa said:
If you mean many Mormon leaders have said some pretty bad things about Africans, then, that is true. But you fail to distinguish the APB, on the one hand, from the surrounding theological speculation used to support it, on the other.

For instance, the APB, in itself, is no more racist, than a “female priesthood ban” is sexist. Would you agree?

Theological speculation about what Africans did in their pre-mortal existence that justifies the APB, is another story, and such speculation (as far as I’ve seen) has never been deemed “doctrine” in the LDS, as measured by evidence from LDS scripture/revelation.
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“Priesthood” is not a Catholic sacrament required for the “highest” salvation. Not so in the LDS. The LDS “priesthood” is required for the higher LDS “saving ordinances”: Endowment, marriage and sealing to a spouse, sealing to parents, and second anointing. What it said, essentially, was that a black person could not attain “exaltation”, become their own “god”, etc, at least in this life. False analogy.

You seem convinced that LDS somehow “misinterpreted” their own scripture. This is fine, as your personal opinion, but it doesn’t change the fact that this was accepted LDS doctrine for some time.
 
scipio337 said:
What it said, essentially, was that a black person could not attain “exaltation”, become their own “god”, etc, at least in this life.
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Well, no one becomes a “god” in this life, but, even during the period of the APB, there was also the belief of Africans being able to receive saving ordinances in the afterlife.

APB and the Curse of the Curse of Cain legacy are unfortunate incidents in the life of the LDS. But that’s what happens when people try to use religion to support secular racial attitudes. Luckily, the APB and the Curse of Cain (as applied to specifically Africans) were never included in the core LDS scriptures/revelations.
 
CatholicGuyNY said:
Was the priesthood ban really going “off the rails” when it was a commandment from the Lord?

And it’s certainly odd that the original church (or churches in the case of Mormon belief, in the Americas and the Middle East) somehow didn’t get this continuing revelation to keep it from going “off the rails” into Great Apostasy.
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The difference is this:

we listened when He spoke.
 
Ahimsa said:
Well, no one becomes a “god” in this life, but, even during the period of the APB, there was also the belief of Africans being able to receive saving ordinances in the afterlife.

APB and the Curse of the Curse of Cain legacy are unfortunate incidents in the life of the LDS. But that’s what happens when people try to use religion to support secular racial attitudes. Luckily, the APB and the Curse of Cain were never included in the core LDS scriptures/revelations.
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Accepted as servants = receiving saving ordinances? And that’s supposed to be equivalent to the attaining highest degree of glory, becoming a god and having your own planet? How so?

As for “never included in LDS scripture/revelations” ~ what about the Book of Mormon passages that disparage those with dark skin and favor those with light skin? Because that’s what they said. Isn’t the Book of Mormon still scripture for Mormons? And what about all the policies that were taught as doctrine, and published as doctrine, in books with titles like “Mormon Doctrine”, by the so-called prophets and apostles of the Mormon church? If what they taught was not doctrine, even tho’ they said it was, then they must not be prophets.

You can’t have it both ways. It can’t sometimes be doctrine and not be doctrine other times. The leaders can’t sometimes be prophets and later, when what they taught as doctrine becomes politically unsupportable, they cease to be prophets.
 
MelanieAnne said:
Accepted as servants = receiving saving ordinances? And that’s supposed to be equivalent to the attaining highest degree of glory, becoming a god and having your own planet? How so?
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Saving ordinances can be accepted in the afterlife. That’s pretty basic LDS doctrine.
As for “never included in LDS scripture/revelations” ~ what about the Book of Mormon passages that disparage those with dark skin and favor those with light skin?
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Notice that the skin color differences are within one basic ethnic group, the Laman/Nephi lineages, which are brother-lineages. A difference of skin-color is not a difference in “race”.

To extrapolate from skin-color differences in the BoM to the morality or immorality of different races or ethnic groups (like European and African) is to use the BoM to support American racial notions of European superiority. The Southern Baptists did the same thing regarding the Noah curse. I know it’s easy to read “European/African” into the BoM “white/black” model, but such a reading is a result of racist ideas already present in American culture, and not explicit in the text.

In other words, Europeans are not simply “white” Africans, and Africans are not simply “black” Europeans.😃
 
MelanieAnne said:
Accepted as servants = receiving saving ordinances? And that’s supposed to be equivalent to the attaining highest degree of glory, becoming a god and having your own planet? How so?

As for “never included in LDS scripture/revelations” ~ what about the Book of Mormon passages that disparage those with dark skin and favor those with light skin?
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And what about the passages in Abraham and Moses in the Pearl of Great Price? Have the Mormons suddenly forgotten those passages?
 
PaulDupre said:
And what about the passages in Abraham and Moses in the Pearl of Great Price? Have the Mormons suddenly forgotten those passages?
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Do those passages explicitly connect Cain and Ham, with Africans overall, or West Africans? Or is the African-connection something read into the text, by those who wish to justify their own prejudices against Africans?
 
Ahimsa said:
Saving ordinances can be accepted in the afterlife. That’s pretty basic LDS doctrine.
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This is non-responsive to what I wrote.

Originally blacks were admitted only as servants in the celestial kingdom. Exaltation was reserved for others. I’m waiting to hear how that’s equivalent.
 
What is being described is that the LDS “prophets” are sometimes in tune with the mind of god and other times not. So even when they SAY that this DOCTRINE is from god, if it turns out that later this is not acceptable, they were not prophetic at the time. The problem is, as I pointed out to Dianad, there is NO precedent for a “sometimes prophet”. Any Biblical prophet used as an example never mis spoke about the will of God or God’s attitude towards His children and creation that would later have to be deemed as his “opinion”. If all the LDS presidents, back to JS, were not prophets, then who really cares if they were banned from their clubhouse? It was all pretend anyways.
 
Ahimsa said:
Actually, “originally”, Africans were allowed to be priests.
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OK, I’m joining the others in the opinion that this is pointless. There can be no dialog when one party just plays word games.

Have a nice life. CLICK.
 
dianaiad said:
The difference is this:

we listened when He spoke.
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Who exactly is doing the listening, and what exactly did they not listen to anciently? Basically, what is your evidence that the ancient Church did not listen to God when He spoke?

And again, are you saying that the priesthood ban was your church going “off the rails”, even though it was a commandment from the Lord?
 
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