I pose that question because it appears my grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, didn't have a compelling or consistent answer that he could stick to when it came to secret, sacred, saint stuff. But when you think about it, what would one expect? After all, he was trying his best to defend the Mormon Church--a quivering Jell-O bowl that has historically been an ever-changing, internally-conflicted, hung-up, unheavenly hairball of mass inconsistency when it comes to its doctrines, beliefs, policies and practices.
_____


--Ezra Taft Benson: I-Won't-Talk-in-Detail-About-My-Temple-Experience-on-the- Black-Priesthood Change Because It's "Too Sacred"

Following President Spencer W. Kimball's announcement in June 1978 that worthy Black males could receive the priesthood, I asked my grandfather in his Church-owned apartment what it was like to have been in the temple with the rest of the Quorum of the Twelve when Kimball made known to them his "revelation."

Had he been so inclined, my grandfather certainly could have told me what had happened, since he had often spoken directly and forthrightly to me in the past. But in this case, he refused to offer a substantive response, saying only that it was "too sacred" to talk about and that it constituted one of the "most spiritual" experiences of his life.
_____


--Bruce R. McConkie: I Will Talk About-My-Temple-Experience-on-the-Black-Priesthood Change Because It's Not "Too Sacred"

Curiously, however, fellow member of the Quorum of the Twelve Bruce R. McConkie--who was in the same room and the same temple meeting with my grandfather when Kimball announced the change in Mormonism's anti-Black priesthood policy--did not have any difficulty talking about the experience. Indeed, McConkie spoke freely about what actually happened--in detail and in public. While he said he felt the impact of the occasion on a profoundly personal level, he admitted there was nothing "miraculous" about Kimball's announcement to the assembled Quorum members:

"The Lord could have sent messengers from the other side to deliver it, but he did not. He gave the revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost.

"Latter-day Saints have a complex: many of them desire to magnify and build upon what has occurred, and they delight to think of miraculous things. And maybe some of them would like to believe that the Lord himself was there, or that the Prophet Joseph Smith came to deliver the revelation, which was one of the possibilities.

"Well, these things did not happen. The stories that go around to the contrary are not factual or realistic or true, and you as teachers in the Church Educational System will be in a position to explain and to tell your students that this thing came by the power of the Holy Ghost, and that all the Brethren involved, the thirteen who were present, are independent personal witnesses of the truth and divinity of what occurred. . . ."

McConkie then did some more confessing. This glorious in-temple event was increasingly becoming comparable to experiencing that inexplicably happy feeling during a typical fast and testimony meeting when believing Mormons "know" that the Church is true. McConkie explained:

"To carnal people who do not understand the operating of the Holy Spirit of God upon the souls of man, this may sound like gibberish or jargon or uncertainty or ambiguity; but to those who are enlightened by the power of the Spirit and who have themselves felt its power, it will have a ring of veracity and truth, and they will know of its verity. I cannot describe in words what happened; I can only say that it happened and that it can be known and understood only by the feeling that can come into the heart of man. You cannot describe a testimony to someone. No one can really know what a testimony is--the feeling and the joy and the rejoicing and the happiness that comes into the heart of man when he gets one--except another person who has received a testimony. Some things can be known only by revelation, 'The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."

(1 Corinthians 2:11)"

(Bruce R. McConkie, "All Are Alike unto God," general assembly address to Book of Mormon Symposium for Seminary and Institute teachers, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 18 August 1978, manuscript copy in my possession)


As McConkie tells it, there were no angels; no rushing of winds; no appearance of God, Jesus Christ or Joseph Smith to make the grand announcement that the time had finally arrived for Black men to receive the priesthood of the Great White Mormon God.

It all boiled down to this: Those assembled in the temple that day to hear Kimball's announcement simply got a good feeling in their hearts--so overwhelmingly good, in fact, that apparently my grandfather could not bring himself to talk to me about it. But McConkie could talk to an auditorium crowd of Mormon educators about it, then have his comments published and distributed. Hmmm.
_____


--Will the Real "It's-Tpo-Sacred-to-Talk-About" Ezra Taft Benson Please Stand Up?

For all his protective cover on secret temple matters, my grandfather exhibited a clear willingness on other occasions to speak publicly about highly personal temple experiences. For instance, he spoke openly of the "sacred" baptisms for the dead supposedly performed for the Founding Fathers in the St. George temple, under the direction of President Wilford Woodruff.

Just six months after he had refused to share with me what it was like to be told behind temple walls that Black men could now wield power and authority in God's name, my grandfather was freely talking about famous disembodied spirits appearing in the House of the Lord:

"When I became President of the Twelve and Spencer W. Kimball became President of the Church, we met, just the two of us, every week in our Thursday meetings in the temple, just to be sure that things were properly coordinated between the Twelve and the First Presidency.

"After one of those first meetings, we talked about the man sacred documents in some of the older temples. St. George was mentioned in particular . . . and it was agreed that I would go into the archives 'the walk-in vault' of that great temple and review the sacred documents that were there. . . .

"And there in the St. George Temple I saw what I had always hoped and prayed that someday I would see. Ever since I returned as a humble missionary and first learned that the Founding Fathers had appeared in that temple, I wanted to see the record. And I saw the record. They did appear to Wilford Woodruff twice and asked why the work hadn't been done for them. They had founded this country and the Constitution of this land, and they had been true to those principles. Later the work was done for them."

(Ezra Taft Benson, address delivered in Sandy, Utah, 30 December 1978, reprinted in Benson, "The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1988], p. 603)


And that was not the whole of it. In earlier remarks at the re-dedication of the St. George Temple entitled "Our Founding Fathers Stood in This Holy Place," my grandfather again spoke openly of these "sacred" experiences in the temple vault.

(Ezra Taft Benson, "Our Founding Fathers Stood in This Holy Place," St. George Temple Re-dedication, 12 September 1975, LDS Church Archives; see also, Benson, "The Faith of Our Founding Fathers," in Faith [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1983], pp. 21-22).
_____


--ETB: I Can't Talk About What Went on in the Temple Regarding Blacks But I Can Talk About What Went On Regarding My Parents "Sacred" Temple Underwear

Now it gets even more personal--this time with ETB's apparent willingness to have the Mormon temple garments openly talked about in (of all things) a children's book about his own life. Not only did my grandfather talk uninhibitedly about spirits of the Founding Fathers materializing in sacred LDS temples, he also spoke openly of watching his mother iron Mormonism's secret temple clothes.

His account of this event was published during his lifetime--accompanied, no less, by an illustration depicting his mother pressing this intimate apparel as a young Ezra stood by watching and asking questions. The book in which this tale appeared was eagerly distributed among members of the Benson family with no one complaining that publishing a story about ironing your secret, sacred Mormon underwear was going too far.

From the book:

"With the Benson parents, religion was of highest importance. One day when just a young boy, Ezra was coming in from the field, and as he came close to the old farm house, he could hear his mother sing, 'Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?' She was bending over the ironing board, papers spread over the floor around it. It was very warm and beads of perspiration stood on her forehead as she ironed long strips of white cloth.

"'What are you doing, Mother?,' asked Ezra.

"She answered, 'These are temple robes, son. Your father and I are going to the temple in Logan.' Then she put her old flatiron on the back of the stove and said, 'Sit here by me, Ezra. I want to tell you about the temple.' She explained to him the importance of the temple and the blessings of the sacred ordinances there. She said, 'I hope and pray with al my heart that some day you and all your brothers and sisters will enjoy these priceless blessings. I pray for this not only for my children but for my grandchildren and even my great-grandchildren.'

"Ezra Taft Benson later remembered his mother's words as he performed the temple marriages of each of his own children, who were, of course, his mother's grandchildren, and later, the great-grandchildren."

(Della Mae Rasmussen, "The Illustrated Story of President Ezra Taft Benson: Great Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" [Provo, Utah: Eagle Systems International; Steven R. Shallenberger, publisher, 1987], pp. 14-15)
____


Despite my grandfather's willingness to publicly reveal the details of certain personal temple experiences, he abruptly refused to give equal time to describing what it was like to receive word in the temple from God's prophet on equal rights for Black men.

I think I know why.

Ezra Taft Benson (a man who made a religious and political career out of bashing uppity 'Negroes' whom he claimed were part of Communist-inspired global conspiracy supposedly puppetering the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s in order to destroy America) did not like talking about the so-called temple "revelation" reversing the Mormon Church's long-running anti-Black doctrine.

Besides, when it comes to describing what went on that day behind those thick granite Mormon temple walls, there was really nothing of substance to talk about. As McConkie himself publicly confessed, little of any real magnificence or spectacle occurred in the Salt Lake temple that day, when Kimball told assembled members of the Twelve that it God had told him it was finally time to give Black men the priesthood. No wonder my grandfather didn't want to go into any detail--since no "sacred" details took place. In other words, "there was not 'there' there."

And, besides, they were "just" Black people--you know, those who the Mormons thought made good chauffeurs on earth and good slaves in heaven but who had been cursed with a black skin by Mormonism's Great White-Supremacist God for not being as righteous as the White people.



Edited 11 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 01:32PM by steve benson.

I'm not sure of the timeline on Woodruff , but why did Wilford deny the so called manifestations that supposedly occurred in the temple to Edward Tullidge ? Wasn't this guy known for his creative imagination to his contemporaries ?

I think I rember that book (the one with the garments story). My parents bought it for us one Christmas (we weren't excited about it). My favorite part was the story about ETB declaring "the onion is the most neglected vegetable in the world" while taking a bite of a raw onion. We had the accompanying cassette tape, and it was the only media we were allowed to listen to on the sabbath. My dad would play the recording of ETB's testimony that was at the end of the tape every few months during family home evening.

"Carnal people?" That's a hell of an indictment of non-LDS (or does he mean people who are not GAs like he is?) by a "Christian" man.

He definitely was a man of his convictions....
Not like a true weasel Hinkley who changed his color faster than a chameleon.....

. . . and would have, I think, been even more expressive had he not been suffocated by the Mormon Cult.

He did, however, have some rather rigid elements to his personality and viewpoints that I found troubling:

--He was racist

--He was not open to criticsm of Mormonism, however mild it might be (or how I conveyed it in my editorial cartoons).

--He was strict, authoritarian and doctrinaire on religious and political matters.

--He saw the world in black and white.

--He was sexist and patriarchal.

--He evidenced an anti-science bent when it came to the realities of organic evolution.
_____


On the positive side:

--He and I had long, informative and pleasant face-to-face conversations over the years.

--He wrote me often.

--He offered me access to his library, from which he lent and gave me books.

--He showed genuine appreciation and interest in my life and activities.

--He gave me lots of advice from his own life and experience.

--He used his connections in positive ways to provide me access to the top hierarchy of the Mormon Church, where I went to ask questions about the history and doctrine of Mormonism.

--He was absorbed in the political world and current events.

--He was interesting to talk to.

--He loved his family.

--He was a man of the land, farming and nature.

--He was instinctively friendly.

--He was genuine.

--He had an affinity for the nations and peoples of Asia (and got me assigned to my own Japanese mission).

--He was generous with his time and in sharing his possessions.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 01:24PM by steve benson.

I think the bad outweighs the good.

And, I think his "affinity" for Asia is from Asians' general submissiveness in relations to "the West."

Boy, would his attitude change if he was living today with a black president and a church changing to conform to society through abolishing racist practices.

Oh boy did he get his when he realized there was no afterlife.

These posts are great! I love reading about these glimpses into the inner-workings of the over-secretive cult for which I wasted so much of my life/money/time.

Keep 'em coming!

It seems from all appearances it was not too sacred when needing material to write a children's book that could bring in the $$$.

IMHO

It's interesting that TBM's think the secret handshakes the Free Masons invented are more sacred than the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, more sacred than God the Father and God the Son appearing to Joseph smith in the sacred grove, more sacred than the sacrament etc... Those Free Masons sure were some sacred people!

A very nice look at ETB's strengths and weaknesses as you saw him' Steve. Nice that you shared the positive he brought into your life for us all to understand and know. And, also that you shared the negative.

Humans are interesting and so complex. This much I believe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 01:54PM by presleynfactsrock.

Dangit. Even with his own family, he didn't feel strong enough to voice his real opinion on the blacks-and-priesthood issue. Doesn't sound like a loving guy IMO. Or maybe he was the politician 100%, even amongst family

When I look at my bookshelf and see my copy of "An insider's View" by Grant Palmer, I also think of Steve Bensen. He has a unique insider's view that is appreciated by many.

Not sacred, scared.