The Church of Latter Day Saints' "god" is racist

[SirThomasMore]

“Now WE ARE GENEROUS WITH THE NEGRO. WE ARE WILLING that the Negro have the highest kind of education. I WOULD BE WILLING to LET every Negro DRIVE A CADILLAC IF THEY COULD AFFORD IT. I WOULD BE WILLING that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. BUT LET THEM ENJOY THESE THINGS AMONG THEMSELVES.” LDS “Apostle” Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems - As They Affect The Church,” Address delivered at Brigham Young University, August 27, 1954

“Those who were LESS VALIANT IN PRE-EXISTENCE and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the NEGROES.” LDS “Apostle” Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 527, 1966 edition

“Though he was a rebel and an ASSOCIATE OF LUCIFER IN PRE-EXISTENCE, …Cain managed to attain the privilege of mortal birth… [H]e came out in open rebellion, fought God, worshiped Lucifer, and slew Abel… AS A RESULT OF HIS REBELLION, CAIN WAS CURSED WITH A DARK SKIN; HE BECAME THE FATHER OF THE NEGROES, and THOSE SPIRITS WHO ARE NOT WORTHY to receive the priesthood are born through his lineage.” LDS “Apostle” Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 108-109, 1966 edition

 

[SirThomasMore]

“Negroes IN THIS LIFE are denied the priesthood; UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.” LDS “Apostle” Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 527, 1966 edition,

“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became THE FATHER OF AN INFERIOR RACE. A curse was placed upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so WHILE TIME ENDURES. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with a BLACK SKIN and have been DENIED THE PRIVILEGE OF PRIESTHOOD and the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. Moreover, they have been made to FEEL THEIR INFERIORITY and have been SEPARATED from the rest of mankind from the beginning. Enoch saw the people of Canaan, descendants of Cain, and he says, ‘and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were DESPISED AMONG ALL PEOPLE.’” LDS “Prophet” Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, pp. 101-102, 1931

 

[SirThomasMore]

Blacks will be servants to whites in heaven according to Apostle Mark Peterson in a BYU speech in 1954

“Think of the Negro, CURSED AS TO THE PRIESTHOOD… This negro, who, in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in the lineage of Cain with a BLACK SKIN, and possibly being born in darkest Africa—if that negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. IN SPITE OF ALL HE DID IN THE PRE-EXISTENT LIFE, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there AS A SERVANT, but he will get celestial glory.”

 

[SirThomasMore]

These folks were prophets and apostles of the LDS Church…they spoke for God. Only, it was not THE God.

And this is from the “true church?”

Not hardly

 

[PaulDupre]

Brigham Young second President and Prophet:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be (ibid., 10:110)

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. . . . Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which was the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another cursed is pronounced upon the same race–that they should be the “servants of servants;” and they will be until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree (Journal of Discourses, 7:290)

 

[PaulDupre]

John Taylor, third President and Prophet.

after the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God. . . . (ibid., 23:304).

So “negroes” are representatives of the devil?

 

[SirThomasMore]

John Taylor, third President and Prophet.

yikes

 

[pismopal]

LDS theology is wrong on a bunch of levels…all levels. The fact that LDS once was…or now is racist, is just one of their many problems. They have been recently working on a cure for the racism in order to help BYU in their sports program.

 

[PaulDupre]

True Christianity, by contrast, eschews all racism and bigotry:

Then Peter open his mouth, and said, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34; emphasis added)

God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean (ibid., 10:28)

 

[SirThomasMore]

True Christianity, by contrast, eschews all racism and bigotry:

Hadn’t you heard? Joe is better than Peter and Jesus, so he can change Jesus’ rules…

 

[dianaiad]

True Christianity, by contrast, eschews all racism and bigotry:

Is now when I get to start listing the Popes and the history of Catholicism and race relations?

???

Let’s put it this way; The CoJCoLDS was racist for less than 150 years. On one sunny summer morning in 1978, one declaration from the First Presidency took care of that one officially racist policy…and for over 30 years, now, there is nothing racist about the LDS policy toward anybody. Whether the original policy was the fault of the prejudice of men which was corrected by revelation from God or…whether it was doctrine that was changed by revelation from God…or, if you can’t abide the thought that revelation has anything to do with the CoJCoLDS…the Latter-day Saints simply decided that they weren’t going to be racists any more…it has to be THE quickest and most complete turnaround and change of behavior of any group, period.

Certainly Catholics can’t say that they have never had racist policies (HOW long was Catholicism in the Americas before there was a single black priest?) and unlike the CoCJoLDS, which now has a 100% priesthood rate for ‘people of color…’ (that is, all worthy male members get it, and ‘worthy’ has to do with things absolutely unrelated to skin color or ethnicity), your own organization of African American Bishops tells us that if you compare black and white church membership to black and white membership in the priesthood, the representation is still extremely lopsided, to the tune of ten to one.

In other words, if there is one white priest for every hundred white Catholics, there is only one black priest for every 900 black Catholics, in the USA. That is racism in action.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because, my friends, I, who have more African American relatives than Barack Obama does…and every one of them LDS and every male among 'em priesthood holders…am REALLY tired of Catholics getting self righteous about OUR racist past—when it was a Catholic Pope who was mostly behind the idea that ‘slave’ meant ‘black.’ It was a Catholic Pope who gave Portugal free reign to enslave Africans, and whose bull made that unholy triangle of trade possible. It was Catholics through the centuries that enslaved, quite literally, MILLIONS of people.

We denied the priesthood to blacks of African descent for 150 years, and instantly fixed it.

Y’all have been racist for considerably over a thousand years. It took you over 500 years to allow an American black man to become a priest–by the way, in case nobody has been paying attention, Father Tolton is up for canonization now. Why? In large part, because he faced such incredible persecution and opposition FROM HIS FELLOW CATHOLIC PRIESTS.

In other words, there are a few Christian organizations out there who might have the moral high ground to criticise the Mormons regarding racism; Quakers do (although I haven’t noticed that they do that much; mostly they acknowledge the progress.) Catholics absolutely do not…and here’s the thing:

If you can criticise Mormons because of our percieved racism, then you MUST accept the return volleys without getting upset. After all, as I have done many times now, I can and have proven everything I’ve said about Catholic history in regard to slavery, from Catholic sources–from quoting from the Papal bulls to absolute proof of slave ownership by American religious orders to Catholic priests supporting and giving communion to southern slave owners to…well, the idea that black people descended from Cain is a Catholic notion. Were you aware of that one?

The solution to this, I suggest, is that we both celebrate the progress, where we are and what we are doing now. Criticising the history…not a road you want to go down. It really isn’t.

 

[TikiTokiguy]

So this all changed when the Fed Gov was going to take away their tax except status or did the Government threated to do more? How fast did they change their tune on this stance?

Hmm, they were so sure of their gospel doctrine and then changed it so quick. What do they say about it? It was created by man and not God? If you can say that about a subject as important as skin color, can’t you say all their important “revelations” were made by man and not God?

 

[SirThomasMore]

Is now when I get to start listing the Popes and the history of Catholicism and race relations?

???

Let’s put it this way; The CoJCoLDS was racist for less than 150 years. On one sunny summer morning in 1978, one declaration from the First Presidency took care of that one officially racist policy…and for over 30 years, now, there is nothing racist about the LDS policy toward anybody. Whether the original policy was the fault of the prejudice of men which was corrected by revelation from God or…whether it was doctrine that was changed by revelation from God…or, if you can’t abide the thought that revelation has anything to do with the CoJCoLDS…the Latter-day Saints simply decided that they weren’t going to be racists any more…it has to be THE quickest and most complete turnaround and change of behavior of any group, period.

Certainly Catholics can’t say that they have never had racist policies (HOW long was Catholicism in the Americas before there was a single black priest?) and unlike the CoCJoLDS, which now has a 100% priesthood rate for ‘people of color…’ (that is, all worthy male members get it, and ‘worthy’ has to do with things absolutely unrelated to skin color or ethnicity), your own organization of African American Bishops tells us that if you compare black and white church membership to black and white membership in the priesthood, the representation is still extremely lopsided, to the tune of ten to one.

In other words, if there is one white priest for every hundred white Catholics, there is only one black priest for every 900 black Catholics, in the USA. That is racism in action.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because, my friends, I, who have more African American relatives than Barack Obama does…and every one of them LDS and every male among 'em priesthood holders…am REALLY tired of Catholics getting self righteous about OUR racist past—when it was a Catholic Pope who was mostly behind the idea that ‘slave’ meant ‘black.’ It was a Catholic Pope who gave Portugal free reign to enslave Africans, and whose bull made that unholy triangle of trade possible. It was Catholics through the centuries that enslaved, quite literally, MILLIONS of people.

We denied the priesthood to blacks of African descent for 150 years, and instantly fixed it.

Y’all have been racist for considerably over a thousand years. It took you over 500 years to allow an American black man to become a priest–by the way, in case nobody has been paying attention, Father Tolton is up for canonization now. Why? In large part, because he faced such incredible persecution and opposition FROM HIS FELLOW CATHOLIC PRIESTS.

In other words, there are a few Christian organizations out there who might have the moral high ground to criticise the Mormons regarding racism; Quakers do (although I haven’t noticed that they do that much; mostly they acknowledge the progress.) Catholics absolutely do not…and here’s the thing:

If you can criticise Mormons because of our percieved racism, then you MUST accept the return volleys without getting upset. After all, as I have done many times now, I can and have proven everything I’ve said about Catholic history in regard to slavery, from Catholic sources–from quoting from the Papal bulls to absolute proof of slave ownership by American religious orders to Catholic priests supporting and giving communion to southern slave owners to…well, the idea that black people descended from Cain is a Catholic notion. Were you aware of that one?

The solution to this, I suggest, is that we both celebrate the progress, where we are and what we are doing now. Criticising the history…not a road you want to go down. It really isn’t.

Nice try at the typical Church of Latter Day Saints deflection. You won;t find any popes making the comments about blacks that YOUR “prophets” did. The statements they made are DISGUSTING and pathetic and show your church is not led by the TRUE God.

Nice try, Diana. I do not blame you for trying to deflect. It shows you are just as ashamed of your “prophets” as I am

 

[TikiTokiguy]

… now, there is nothing racist about the LDS policy toward anybody.

I don’t know. I think it’s racist or prejudiced against single people. But that’s a totally different topic.

 

[dianaiad]

So this all changed when the Fed Gov was going to take away their tax except status or did the Government threated to do more? How fast did they change their tune on this stance?

Hmm, they were so sure of their gospel doctrine and then changed it so quick. What do they say about it? It was created by man and not God? If you can say that about a subject as important as skin color, can’t you say all their important “revelations” were made by man and not God?

That has been charged…that our tax exempt status was in danger. However, the results of that simply aren’t as horrendous as you might consider–and was never seriously considered. It looks really good for the anti’s to say so, but in fact, no church has ever lost its tax exempt status. There is a difference between the tax exemption granted to non-profit organizations is a matter of assumptions; a non-profit organization must file an application for a tax exempt letter before it can be considered AS ‘tax exempt.’ Churches don’t need to file for one; they are presumed to be tax exempt as per the constitution. There was a recent case where, because it supported a specific political candidate, a church (the church at Pierce Creek) had its letter rescinded–but that’s only because it had applied for one in the first place. It didn’t need to, and the loss of that letter meant absolutely nothing to its tax exempt status as a church. As full of angst as all the media coverage was, neither it, nor its contributors, lost a penny as a result of the IRS ruling regarding the letter.

In other words, the CoJCoLDS was never in any danger of losing a penny. The pressure was PR, but not real–and we’d been dealing with negative PR for a very long time. That wasn’t new.

I believe, personally, that the reason things changed when they did is because we, as Mormons, were ready for the change and we asked for it. I know I was praying about it. A lot…and frankly, the measure of true moral courage isn’t whether one can hold one’s own opinion in the face of opposition. It’s whether one can do the right thing even when doing so makes your enemies think they won.

In this case, it was obvious that there was no decision we could make that would be seen as good in the world’s eyes; if we continued to withold the priesthood, we would be seen as racist. If we changed the policy, we would be seen as racist AND 'flip-floppers" who bent to public opinion. Since there was no way we could please anybody else (as this thread certainly illustrates) then we should simply please God.

So we did.

…and as I mentioned, it took us a lot less time to do that than it took Catholics. In fact, Catholics are still dealing with the problem of racism and the priesthood. We aren’t.

 

[SteveVH]

…and as I mentioned, it took us a lot less time to do that than it took Catholics. In fact, Catholics are still dealing with the problem of racism and the priesthood. We aren’t.

That’s quite a statement to make when we have been around for 2000 years and the LDS just popped on the scene with racist policies from the start. Please back up your statement that “Catholics are still dealing with the problem of racism and the preisthood”. By far, the greatest number of men becoming priests in the Catholic Church today are right out of Africa. If the Church is racist, how can this be?

 

[why_me]

Racism is certainly an interesting topic. Coming from a catholic boyhood, I can say that many catholics in the USA were racist, especially the Irish and Italian catholics. I don’t remember one catholic in my neighborhood that wanted african-american neighbors. And many african-americans can testify to this. And as a teenager I do not remember the local catholic churches doing much about it either.

However, at the age of 18 when I met the mormons out west, I did not see much racism among them, at least not with the group that I knew. Everyone was a brother or a sister. Now of course, there were racist mormons. But I never heard a racist comment. And I think that that was across the board.

I often find it amazing that catholics can be critical of the lds church over race. In america, all churches were racist and that would include the protestant churches. Just ask the poor native americans or the african americans about racism and you will see all faiths have a racist problem. The poor indians were murdered by protestant and catholic christians. And africans were enslaved by protestant and catholic americans.

So, will that faith without sin please step forward…

 

[why_me]

That’s quite a statement to make when we have been around for 2000 years and the LDS just popped on the scene with racist policies from the start. Please back up your statement that “Catholics are still dealing with the problem of racism and the preisthood”. By far, the greatest number of men becoming priests in the Catholic Church today are right out of Africa. If the Church is racist, how can this be?

She was speaking about the past. As an Irish-American, Polish-American, I can tell you that I knew many catholic racists. Where did their racism stem from? I don’t remember a single catholic white family wishing that Blacks would be their neighbors. And I often heard racist jokes from catholics. Where did catholic racism stem from?

So, to call mormons racist, would be a laugh if such an accusation would come from a catholic.

 

[PaulDupre]

I think the point has been completely missed by our LDS friends. Perhaps we assumed they would see it and so did not express it clearly enough.

The point is not simply that LDS General Authorities have believed and taught viciously racist doctrines. Most of us, myself included, understand that these men were a product of their times. It is folly to judge men of a past time by the standards of our time. I think we all get that.

The point is, rather, that these were men who claimed to be prophets, seers and revelators - claimed to know the very mind of God and to receive frequent revelation directly from God. These men should not have been able to teach such disgusting doctrines and racist caracatures of black people and claim they were from God if they were truly in intimate contact with God, either through the Holy Ghost or with Jesus Himself. To do so declares that they have branded God himself a hateful racist.

The point is that these racist doctrines, taught for the first 150 years of the LDS church and still enshrined in their scriptures, prove that LDS leaders are neither prophets, seers, nor revelators.

 

[why_me]

Nice try at the typical Church of Latter Day Saints deflection. You won;t find any popes making the comments about blacks that YOUR “prophets” did. The statements they made are DISGUSTING and pathetic and show your church is not led by the TRUE God.

Nice try, Diana. I do not blame you for trying to deflect. It shows you are just as ashamed of your “prophets” as I am

Diana’s position is clear: lets those churches without sin cast the first stone. And she is right. To stir the racist pot would not be the way to go. You will need to see that the catholic church was also racist, not to mention the protestant churches, especially in the south. America was a racist country and all faiths were infected by racist actions and words.