Race, God, and the LDS Church

[LongJourney]

There are more ways to force issues than passing laws and aiming guns at people. Peer pressure and cultural expectations are far more effective.

Thank you for reinforcing my statement that Mormonism enforces (Anglo-Saxon) cultural homogeneity.

 

[NewSeeker]

Moving the goalposts again? What I said was that you are not entitled to define FOR US what we believe doctrine to be.

Why do you say “FOR US” when there are disagreements between church-going Mormons about whether D&C 1:39 is the defining criterion of a prophet? You only speak for your own “prophets can make doctrinal mistakes” faction within the church. There isn’t even the kind of unity you infer in the church leadership, whether today or across time. The definition of what a prophet is ebbs and flows depending on the specific Mormon you’re talking to. You should clarify your position to indicate that you are only speaking for those who agree with your own definition of a prophet. There are many who disagree with you. I know. I’ve attended Mormon wards my entire life and I hear the debates on a regular basis in Elder’s Quorum and Gospel Doctrine. The debate always emerges over how to properly interpret D&C 1:39. As pertains to the APB, those who interpreted it narrowly would sometimes point to the “in-valiant pre-mortal negro” theory propounded by Brigham Young and Joseph Fielding Smith to justify it. Others would just point to the verse and say the prophet says it was God who established the ban for whatever reason, followed by speculation about the reason. In disagreement, members of your faction would point to quotes from other church leaders that contradict the narrower view of prophetic utterances and assert that sometimes prophets can be wrong.

As to what a “prophet” is, that definition remains the same as it has always been.

Hardly. The definition of what a prophet is has changed in the LDS church. See above.

As for being 'entitled to discuss" something, true. You are entitled to say anything you like because you have the right of free speech. However, you are not entitled to have what you say be definitive.

It’s definitive for me and that’s what counts. That’s the nature of debate, trying to demonstrate that one point of view is more definitive than the other. As pertains to the APB and whether it was indeed considered doctrinal by Brigham Young and his successors, the weight of the evidence is on my side.

“former” puts him out of the running, sir. Just as I would not use a ‘former’ Catholic as any sort of primary source for Catholic doctrine or thought, a ‘former’ Mormon cannot be used as a primary source for LDS thought. The bias is too obvious, and too strong.

I hope you’re consistent in how you apply that criterion, ma’am. Do you say the same to former Catholics, or Baptists, or Buddhists who become Mormons and join your ward? Do you forbid them from presenting info on what Catholics/Baptists/Buddhists believe when the topic comes up in Gospel Doctrine or Relief Society? I’ll bet you don’t. I’ll bet you nod your head like every other Mormon with everything they say when they talk about what’s wrong with their former beliefs and share their conversion stories. “A ‘former’ [Catholic] cannot be used as a primary source for Catholic thought.” I’m sure Eric Shuster, author of Catholic Roots, Mormon Harvest, will be surprised when you tell him “sorry, Brother Shuster, but you’re a former Catholic. Your bias is too obvious, and too strong.”

I see. Then of course Moses was a false prophet when he declared that bats were birds and that rabbits chewed their cuds, and other prophets became false as soon as they spoke of 'four corners of the earth" (the world is flat…) and other false information?

According to your logic, either Moses really knew that bats were not birds and therefore he was a liar, or he DIDN’T know that bats were not birds, which made in unable to distinguish between doctrine and opinion. Which was it? Option 1 or Option 2? Ether impugns his prophetic credentials.

Unless, of course, it is allowable that prophets are men who can sometimes be mistaken, and therefore it’s important that only those things that make it into scripture be taken as true prophetic utterances, allowing for incorrect opinion at other times. You know, just like a Pope is infallible only when he is discussing ‘matters of faith and morals’ and even then only when he declares that he is speaking ex cathedra. At other times he is allowed to be mistaken.

Minor faux pas about bats=birds are radically different than prophetic assertions about the mind and will of God. You’re comparing apples to oranges. False analogy. I may have moved the goalposts, but you took careful aim and missed them entirely. The fans are irate.

Tell me…if there ARE times when a Pope is infallible, then, when he says something at other times that is in error, what about your options then? Seems to me that they would apply equally.

Sauce, goose, gandar, in other words,

There’s a HUGE difference between what a pope says (who doesn’t ever have a sit down with Jesus for a chat) and an LDS prophet, who does have God’s phone number (as all Mormons believe). Papal infallibility and LDS prophets speaking with God face to face are not comparable. Again, apples to oranges. Even if, for the sake of argument, a case can be made that papal infallibility has resulted in evident contradiction, that still doesn’t excuse Brigham Young and his successors for their egregious preaching and propagation of a vile false doctrine about the origin of people of African descent. Papal wickedness also does not excuse BY and the other LDS prophets who falsely taught that that particular doctrine was truly doctrinal and of God.

 

[dianaiad]

Thank you for reinforcing my statement that Mormonism enforces (Anglo-Saxon) cultural homogeneity.

And I did that, how, precisely, since I was specifically addressing CATHOLIC problems with this?

Do you understand the concept of 'taking things out of context?" Remember, we don’t have segregated congregations. You do.

 

[twopekinguys]

I don’t know where you get information that Catholics segregate. Catholicism appreciates cultural diversity, and does not pressure people to give up those differences. Separate parishes are based on language differences, because people would rather hear the Mass in the language with which they are the most comfortable. As for Latin, well-- some people are more comfortable with Latin. Especially since French, Spanish, and Italian are so closely related to it.

Mormonism is uncomfortable with cultural diversity.

Mormon’s have “singles wards”, isn’t that segregation?

 

[LongJourney]

And I did that, how, precisely, since I was specifically addressing CATHOLIC problems with this?

Do you understand the concept of 'taking things out of context?" Remember, we don’t have segregated congregations. You do.

Funny. When I go to Mass tomorrow, I will see people of all five major and visible ethnic/racial groups. Of course, all of them speak English well, and I do not live in a major urban center. Many are single, many are families, and many are elderly. It is very diverse.

Now, I would see something different if I lived in a town with many recent Hispanic immigrants. As it is, the major “segregation” that goes on is military/nonmilitary. But that is not the church’s fault.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Diana thinks a parish that is culturally something other than white-anglo-saxon-Glenn-Beck-culture, is so because of segregation.

 

[twopekinguys]

Diana thinks a parish that is culturally something other than white-anglo-saxon-Glenn-Beck-culture, is so because of segregation.

:whacky:

 

[Returning_Home]

I am? News to me. Thank you for reading my mind and telling me what I was truly thinking.

Yes, since we know that the Bible is missing many ‘plain and precious things’ and that you’re not legally permitted to print the JST, the church has settled for an erroneous Bible, full of holes that the BOM, which allegedly contains the ‘fulness of the gospel,’ for some reason doesn’t shore up because it’s a hollow echo of the KJV.

So…BECAUSE I referenced 1 Cor.15, with specific information about how Christ’s atonement provided universal resurrection, what I REALLY meant was to talk about proxy baptisms (as complete a non sequitur to this thread as if I had suddenly started discussing the care and feeding of chokecherry bushes) and that even though the 'Mormon meaning" of those verses is very literal (universal physical resurrection means universal physical resurrection–a view shared by, I understand, most Christian groups) that somehow: a: the “Mormon meaning” is different from the “Christian” one, B; you know what it is, and C; I was speaking in code?

The two resurrections in Mormonism have nothing to do with those in Christianity. That said, the temple work during the Millenium can only be geared toward baptisms for the dead. Since those would need to be done for the seed of Abel, the seed of Cain cannot yet attain the priesthood until some time after that point of finishing them. This is the only reasonable conclusion from Gospel Principles and the quotes from Brigham Young that have already been cited.

Yes, there is a Christian meaning to certain terminology followed by a Mormon meaning, such as Godhead. Christians understand it to be three aspects of the one God in singular intelligence. Mormonism, by contrast, erroneously defines it being the union of three spearate and distinct gods. That’s the point I was making and that’s also the reason that Christians get confused by Mormon missionaries, often thinking that you believe as we do.

At least own up to the fact that you believe differently. Deceit here isn’t helping your case.

Code? Perhaps you were speaking in the fictional language of Reformed Egyptian.

No, sir, the point here is that you keep making claims you can’t support, prividing references that don’t say what you insist they do, and then changing the point from post to post. Did the church rules change from JS to BY? Yep, they did.

Not only do I not have no idea what you’re talking about, I don’t think you do either. That, or you’re not paying attention. I already stated that I made no such claim and I won’t say it again.

Did the rules change? I agree with you here, too. This shows that they couldn’t possibly speaking for the same god because it would imply he has autism or ADD since his opinion changed dramatically from 1844 to 1846. Why can’t your god keep his own scriptures straight? Why can’t he seem to remember what he said from prophet to prophet?

However, YOUR claim was that it was JS who started the whole thing…then when you couldn’t provide any quotes from him, you claimed that he MUST have felt that way, because BY had to have followed his lead, and now you are claiming that the church changed policies. First you claimed that Elijah somehow fooled people and ‘passed’ (people who are 1/8 black generally can…shoot, my own children are at least 1/4 black, and though they don’t care one way or the other, most people don’t look at them and see ‘black’) and THAT’S why he got the priesthood, and then you claim that his priesthood was made ‘null and void’ (it never was, though he certainly was discriminated against).

There’s no other explanation for all of the mistakes, errors, and contradictions in Smith’s story. He indeed made it all up, possibly with help from his cronies.

I don’t know how to make this any clearer: I’ve already backed away from the claims that Abel’s priesthood was taken away. I said it at least twice so far and I won’t say that again either. There’s enough reasonable doubt on that point to safely assume, for the sake of argument, that he maintained it through his life. That presents a major problem because Young made it clear that blacks were not to have the priesthood in any way, shape, or form in this lifetime.

Since that was the case, Abel probably did indeed look white enough to fool the church because I haven’t seen any indication that Young or any subsequent church elder knew otherwise until long after his death.

So now you are falling back on "the church changed policies.’ Well, yes. it did; quite obviously. But then, I’ve never said otherwise.

That’s not a fall-back position; it’s a fact. Also fact is that by doing so, Mormon 9:9 and Alma 41:8 have been violated: “Now the decrees of God are unalterable…” Oops.

 

[Returning_Home]

First, you are quoting the JOD as if it were a scriptural prooftext. You know better than that. However, think about this: Christ Himself restricted the gospel first to the Jews. The Jews were/are God’s chosen people–and Christ came first to them. The idea was that only after the Jews had the priviledge and chance to hear of Christ could the gentiles be given the opportunity.

This has no bearing on the matter. Jesus started with the people that were of his own kind, his own culture, and language. Since God Almighty is far beyond mere human divisions, assigning such silly characteristics to him, your point just sprung a leak.

And in spite of what you think, I’ve already proven that the JOD calls itself one of the standard works. That’s not going away, I’m sorry to say.

Yet the gentiles WERE given that opportunity, and countless generations of Jews have been born since that time. Were the gentiles supposed to wait for the gospel until after every single Jew to ever BE born WAS born? Obviously not, since here we all are, Christians, knowing of Him–and we are not Jews.

Your point is getting pretty diluted here because comparing Christians to Jews in this aspect is meaningless; Jesus said that no man may get to God but through him, and yet Jews don’t accept Jesus for whom he said he was, do they? No, they reject him even still, though we know they have a very important role yet to play. Their salvation is different from ours for reasons that are God’s alone.

Therefore the meaning isn’t that all of the ‘children of Abel’ were to be born and personally be given the priesthood. It could very well mean simply that the opportunity is there for every son of Abel who would be born.

I agree; the temple work would then complete that work, which can’t occur until the Second Coming, which means that the church jumped the gun and contradicted what God supposedly said through Brigham Young.

Or…we could have been going on a mistaken church policy for 138 years, and God, through a prophet, having figured out that we weren’t going to fix it our selves, told us to cut it out and straighten up.

Nice sentiment, I suppose, but as usual, wrong. There’s no way that the prophet can be wrong according to your own works and we know it.

Or…we as a people WERE becoming uncomfortable with this policy and were praying really hard (well, I was, as was everyone I knew) to God to give us an answer to it, and God decided that we were ready for it, fixed it.

Mormons were becoming uncomfortable because of the negative attention the policy drew to the church. It ultimately embarrassed them publicly and hurt their missionary work.

We also have yet to see any such revelation. All we ever saw was a press release and the simple reversal of something the church help near and dear to its heart for many years, just like polygamy. In short, the church rolled over and played dead a second time.

Or…some other reason. What I DO know is that, like every other group of people in America, we struggled with racism, and unlike the vast majority of other groups, it didn’t require riots, demonstrations or violence to fix it. One announcement on one sunny summer morning and it was done. God spoke to a prophet, the prophet spoke to us…and that was that.

Since you’re trying to use the prophet angle here, I’ll parry: “But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or shall speak in thename of other gods, even that prophet shall die…When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumpuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Deut 18:20-22)

No, Mormon prophets offer me nothing to be afraid of since all of their prophecies have always been of the false variety.

You guys are still having problems with this issue, and we…aren’t. That’s pretty simple.

You’re right here, too. The reason is because you’re content to simply take the church’s word for it, in spite of having consistantly lied to its membership over the course of its history. If you’re handed a pile of horse dirt every day for 10 years, don’t expect a handful of roses on the first day of the 11th. It’s always the same old same.

 

[dianaiad]

Funny. When I go to Mass tomorrow, I will see people of all five major and visible ethnic/racial groups. Of course, all of them speak English well, and I do not live in a major urban center. Many are single, many are families, and many are elderly. It is very diverse.

Now, I would see something different if I lived in a town with many recent Hispanic immigrants. As it is, the major “segregation” that goes on is military/nonmilitary. But that is not the church’s fault.

Yes, and when I go to Sacrament meeting tomorrow, I will see African Americans, Hispanics, singles, people of many different ethnicities…but I have been told right here that because this is what I will see, that Mormons are intolerant of diversity.

I wonder if you are going to be told the same?

The fact is, we still do not have congregations that are specifically for one racial group, and Catholics do. It is a fact.

 

[dianaiad]

:whacky:

Diana is right about that, too. Segregation is the separation of groups. It doesn’t have to be LEGALLY enforced to be segregation. If you have a congregation that specifically caters to one group or culture to the marginalization of another, then you have segregation.

It doesn’t matter whether the members of that congregation like it that way or not, it’s still segregation. After all, back when racial segregation was legally enforced, the white folks liked the results just fine. IT was still segregation, and it wasn’t good for them.

 

[dianaiad]

RH, I’ve tried here, but you are still insisting that you have the right to define my beliefs for me. You have back tracked and waffled, and I’m done.

plonk.

 

[Returning_Home]

RH, perhaps (she is trying to say very gently) it would be a good idea to ASK THE MORMON before you go to the anti-Mormon sites. You know, do some original research of your own and stop believing the CARM version of Mormonism?

Since you’re convinced that I go to ‘anti-Mormon’ sites, please enlighten all of us which ones I frequent most. I didn’t think that FAIR, FARMS, and LDS sites were considered ‘anti-Mormon,’ but I’ll just take your word for it.

That’s a start. BYU has a great data base of original documents, and most of it is online and free to use. Just–stay away from the anti-sites. Or at least, double check the sources that you get FROM those sites. As you can see, they tend not to be very reliable. As in…downright wrong, out of context, incorrect, misleading, non-existant…like that.

I’m quite certain that you would be just as irritated with me if I decided to start criticizing Catholicism because of the stuff I found in Jack Chick and CARM sites, right? How accurate are those people about Catholicism and Catholic history?

I’m interested in accuracy, be the topic Mormonism or Catholicism; I know that the RCC has blood on its hands and hasn’t handled the recent scandals well very well. That’s neither here nor there, however.

What you continue to ignore here is that my source was pro-Mormon and an attempt to defend the church’s then-current priesthood ban for blacks, He cited spurious sources that may not even exist which means that he could’ve possibly (gasp!) lied to defend the church’s reputation.

That is…hmn. Well, conceding the point is very gracious of you; frankly, I don’t see that a lot. As to your accusation that I am a “poor winner…” I didn’t win anything. You did. You won something important; at least I hope you did. I hope you won an important insight into religious criticism: that it is far better to understand and criticise reality than it is to go after strawmen, even strawmen that you did not construct. I don’t think that I have, in this conversation, accused YOU of being hateful or of being an ‘anti’ (and believe me, when I call someone an anti, it’s a deliberate and calculated judgment of extreme fault on their part; mere critics don’t qualify). I have simply asked you to get your information from better sites. It’s obvious that your sources are suspect, RH. It’s not your fault that your sources are screwy. The fact that you are willing to concede that they ARE screwy shows that one. Just…use better sources from now on.

Your church created this quandry by trying to revise their own history; I had nothing to do with it. Had the church not mislead people into believing that Abel’s priesthood was revoked, it wouldn’t have been repeated as if it were fact by at least two different Mormon authors. It seems odd that your god would permit members of his restored church to spread falsehoods in his name when Richard O. Cowan, part of BYU’s Church History and Doctrine, plainly stated that “No unworthy person was to be admitted to pollute my holy house.” (Joseph 1832-1836, BYU TV) Then again, we have the likes of Ted Bundy and Mark Hofmann polluting it already, so I don’t think Lund could’ve done any worse.

No, but it is also, not in any way, considered scripture nor official Church policy nor anything else. It is John Lund’s opinion. He’s quite free to hold one, y’know…and if we, as Mormons, allow our prophets and apostles to have opinions that might not be full on doctrine, how much more would that apply to men like John L. Lund?

By the way, I don’t have a copy of that book myself, so I can’t really look up the quotes from it. Do you have an actual copy, or are you getting the quotes from an anti-site? If it is the latter, please remember just how accurate your sources from there have been so far.

I’m aware of that, but then again, you won’t accept most of what’s in your own scripture because it’s not confirmed by the church’s current squeaky-clean image, at least not without saddling it with amendments, loopholes, and conditions that take it completely out of context and make it something that even Joseph Smith wouldn’t recognize.

I have the real deal, which I found on Ebay for $3, purchased from a Mormon in Orem, UT. There are a lot of old LDS manuals and books for sale on Ebay, many of which aren’t very flattering, the older they are.

The ironic thing is that Lund supports his arguments with quotes from Mormon prophets, apostles, and literature, and the preface states that he consulted “church leaders in high positions.” He pedigree also shows that his work was apparently approved by the church, given his position and accomplishments which I already noted.

 

[Returning_Home]

Returning Home;6828638:

RH, I’ve tried here, but you are still insisting that you have the right to define my beliefs for me. You have back tracked and waffled, and I’m done.

plonk.

And this is exactly the reason I have nothing to fear by posting on the MAD website since it seems Mormons run from the truth when it’s presented to them.

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

We claim that prophets speak as prophets when a: they claim to do so, and b: their words are canonized. Those things which are not in scripture may or may not be Truth, but we know that if it made the canon, it is.

So did Gordon B. Hinckley ever claim to be speaking as a prophet, or have his words canonized? If not, then he never spoke as a prophet, right?

Gospel Principles also tells us, in the chapter on Scripture, that-
**

" The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts four books as scripture: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. These books are called the standard works of the Church. The inspired words of our living prophets are also accepted as scripture.

In addition to these four books of scripture, the inspired words of our living prophets become scripture to us. Their words come to us through conferences, the Liahona or Ensign magazine, and instructions to local priesthood leaders. "**

So, the “inspired words of our living prophets” come to us through conferences and LDS church magazine. Does that mean that all of the words by the prophets at General Conference and in the magazines are inspired? If not, then how do you know which are inspired, since the inspired words of the living prophets are found in those venues. If it is only if those words are canonized, then doesn’t this mean that some prophets never gave inspired messages?

Well, we get our doctrine strictly from scripture. Our canon isn’t closed, as yours is, so we can point to scripture and say 'if its there, its doctrine, and if it isn’t there, YOU do not claim that it must be."

Except that Gospel Principles doesn’t teach what you just said. Instead, it states that there are 4 books of scripture, and that the inspired words of living prophets are also accepted as scripture. So the question is, where can we find these “inspired words of living prophets”, and once they are no longer living, are these inspired words still inspired?

It’s rather ironic, actually; I can point to Papal declarations that made some very nasty racist policies and outright orders to massacre church policy, the disobedience of which was often punishable by excommunication, torture and death, but y’all will say that ‘it wasn’t doctrine’ and therefore the church was innocent of the acts. Why? Because nothing that isn’t in the bible is ‘doctrine,’ according to you. You get to ignore ‘holy tradition’ in that case, I notice.

This is of course false. Catholicism is not sola scriptura, and a Catholic will never say that “nothing that isn’t in the bible is ‘doctrine’”. This is not something that the Catholic Church says. If so, then please demonstrate it. Catholicism does not ignore Sacred Tradition, and if you think that what you mentioned above is part of Sacred Tradition, then perhaps you need to read more about what that actually is.

However, when Mormons claim the same exact thing, that if its not in the scriptures, it’s not doctrine, then you dismiss it saying that every word out of a Prophet’s mouth is him 'speaking as a prophet."

The problem is that you are ignoring the words of the “living prophets”, since Gospel Principles teaches that those words are scripture in addition to the Standard Works. So the question is, where can we find those inspired words, and how do we know when they are inspired?

The problem is this incredible double standard you are pulling. I can understand it, because if you use the same standard for yourselves as you use for us, you lose this debate no matter which standard you use.

Catholicism teaches that public revelation is found within Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Infallibility can be found in multiple places, such as Papal Infallibility, as well as the infallibility of Ecumenical Councils. Mormonism teaches that scripture is found in the 4 Standard Works, as well as in the “inspired words of our living prophets”. The question is, where can we find these “inspired words”.

If you use the 'If it’s not in the scriptures, it’s not doctrine" standard that you hold for yourselves, then you must stop insisting that every word out of the mouth of every LDS church leader imposes doctrine upon the church, so that you can criticise everything said as if it were official doctrine.

Sorry, we don’t use the “if it’s not in the scriptures, it’s not doctrine” standard, since we are not sola scriptura. If a Catholic does do that, then they are not following authentic Catholic teaching. This is especially true when we realize that the Church came before the Bible, and not the other way around. We don’t depend on the Bible for our doctrine, since our Church came before the Bible was compiled.

If, on the other hand, you use the standard you want to impose upon US, that is…doctrine is set by the leaders of the church and the policies announced from the highest level, then you have to admit that racism in some of its nastiest forms has been doctrine for Catholicism for a very, very long time…and if it isn’t any more, then it’s still a practical result of church policy.

The problem here is that you seem to be using a definition of “doctrine” that Catholicism doesn’t use to define its own doctrines (I seem to remember you saying that we should let members of a religion define the beliefs of that religion, or something like that).

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

Either way, you have to stop attacking the LDS church for a racist policy that was completely ended over thirty years ago, because your arguments regarding a racist policy in the CoJCoLDS somehow proving that it is false also proves Catholicism false–and for precisely the same reasons–if you use the same standard for both beliefs.

The problem here is that you can’t use the same standard for both beliefs, because they come out of two different contexts, with two churches that function differently.

The Catholic Church has never had a policy that blacks are not to be ordained to the priesthood. The Mormon church did have a policy that blacks are not to be ordained to the priesthood, right from the top of your church. There is no equivalent in the Catholic Church. You will find no doctrinal statements by a Pope or Ecumenical Council that blacks are to not be ordained to the priesthood, and that this is a “direct commandment from the Lord”. We do find a First Presidency statement that says just that.

The Catholic teaching has always been that the priesthood is open to men of all races. If a segment of the Church, such as USA Catholics, impeded blacks from being ordained, they were obviously going against the teaching of the Catholic Church. In fact, you yourself have brought up the fact that the first black American priest had to go to Rome to enter seminary. This clearly shows that the Church had no policy equivalent to the Mormon practice.

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

Wow, you are fast; the above qoute ‘so knock it off,’ I went back and edited out of my response less than a minute after I hit the ‘send’ button, because I thought it was out of line.

Ah, well.

Never mind…I didn’t side step a thing. I called your premise into question. If your premise is that BY taught false doctrine as YOU think doctrine should be, as a Catholic, then you are correct. They did not teach ‘true’ doctrine as you understand it.

However, I can claim that the Popes all taught false doctrine, too, and be just as justified. They all have, according to what I believe ‘true’ doctrine is.

However, your claim is that you get to decide FOR US what LDS doctrine is, and you use a set of logical steps that begin from a false premise, and that is that everything that a church leader says is doctrine that must be seen as such by the church body. Sorry, but no.

In one way, Mormons are the ultimate ‘sola scripturians.’ It’s just that our canon is still open, so that it IS possible that a prophet can add to scripture and thus declare doctrine. Since he CAN, then it follows that if he does NOT, then what he has said isn’t necessarily doctrine.

On the other hand, Catholics have a closed canon; no more scripture. Yet you do have a provision whereby a Pope can be infallible–that is, there are times when something that he says MUST be taken as absolute Truth, certainly equal to scripture in authority; assured that when he says this infallible thing, that God meant it. Infallible.

Given this, then we have a problem; it seems to me that while I might have a case for figuring that the Popes can and do declare doctrine without their words being put into actual scripture–since of course you have this closed canon BUT a doctrine of Papal infallibility, YOU can’t make the same claim for us, because a prophet CAN write scripture when required, for us.

The upshot is this: you are certainly entitled to claim that the LDS prophets teach false doctrine; after all, if you thought they taught ‘true’ doctrine, I’m sure you would instantly contact an LDS missionary and set a baptism date.

You are NOT entitled to define what WE think ‘true doctrine’ is. If you can tell me that Papal infallibility does NOT mean that Papal declarations of racist policies make racism church policy/doctrine, then don’t you think you should listen when a Mormon tells you that not every word coming out of the mouth of a church leader is official (or even unofficial) church doctrine?

As I already said, Gospel Principles states that in addition to the Standard Works, the inspired words of living prophets are also scripture. So, when can we know when the living prophets are giving “inspired words”? And once they are no longer living, are those words still inspired?

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

The fact is, we still do not have congregations that are specifically for one racial group, and Catholics do. It is a fact.

You have Singles wards, Spanish speaking wards, there’s also a Korean ward in my area according to LDS Maps. You don’t have to go to these wards if you’re Single, Spanish speaking, or Korean, but it may make you feel more comfortable for various reasons.

Similarly, we have Spanish parishes, Creole parishes, etc. You don’t have to go to these parishes if you’re Spanish, Haitian, etc., but it may make you feel more comfortable for various reasons.

 

[zaffiroborant]

He went on to say this:

" In a 12 year-old national poll, over 89% of the Black Catholics who responded, felt that racism is alive and well in the Catholic Church (Lehmann 8). The Church has often been accused of being almost exclusively Eurocentric. “It prays White, worships White, and thinks preeminently White” says Reverend Lawrence E. Lucas, of New York (Lehmann 1). “Roman Catholicism is so European and White orientated that it can’t help but fail the spiritual, cultural and social needs of its minorities Black in particular” (Lehmann 1)"

He went on to praise the final solution to the above problems: not to make their ‘white’ congregations more accepting of black culture and needs, but to convert St. Ailbe’s into a black only congregation, joining the other black only congregations that are in and around Chicago. He, like you, thought it was a great idea.

What it is, is segregation pure and simple.

As for Mormons ‘not liking diversity,’ I submit that you don’t know what you are talking about.

Could you explain what the LDS church does so this doesn’t happen in their churches? How are many cultures incorporated in the sacrament meeting so your worship is not considered “white” and your prayers not considered “white” (I would think this could be tough with the the thee, thou etc. “language of prayer” espoused by the LDS church) from this man’s point of view? Because I’m a little bit lost over how drawing geographic boundaries enhances cultural diversity in a ward more than it does in a parish. Quite frankly I believe this gentleman would find the same problem in the LDS church.

I also don’t see why voluntary attendance at parish that suits you is so awful, I live in a suburb with a lot of Polish families. Their kids participate in the same school and area activities, we soccer, dance, cheer, baseball, softball, boy/girl scout (and so on and so forth) together. We are together on the PTA, volunteering at schools, the library, raising money and food for our local food bank, we see each other at all kinds of birthday parties, graduations, block parties. Some are members of the school, library, park and, village boards. But when it comes to church some of these families drive 45 minutes into the city to attend the churches they grew up in, in Polish speaking communities. Others attend Mass here but when it comes to baptism, First Communion and Confirmation they celebrate them at their old parish, while some simply attend here. What’s wrong with them choosing as they see fit? are LDS members allowed the same freedom?

 

[zaffiroborant]

You have Singles wards, Spanish speaking wards, there’s also a Korean ward in my area according to LDS Maps. You don’t have to go to these wards if you’re Single, Spanish speaking, or Korean, but it may make you feel more comfortable for various reasons.

Similarly, we have Spanish parishes, Creole parishes, etc. You don’t have to go to these parishes if you’re Spanish, Haitian, etc., but it may make you feel more comfortable for various reasons.

For some reason I’ve been under the impression that if you are single and of a “certain age” you must attend the singles ward if there is one in your area. Also under the impression the “singles wards” are more common in heavily LDS areas.