i realise that the LDS church didn't allow people with dark skin to recieve the priesthood until late in the piece.

But I just find it so disturbing that all the presidents/prophets today are white guys.

Surely since the 'ban' was lifted, they'd make a change and make senior leadership multi ethnic.

They may have amongst the leadership of the different 70s... im not sure, i haven't checked that out.

But isn't the racism still obvious? Don't people of other races find that offensive? (I know the LDS church is big in places like Tonga and pacific islands - much more so than amongst us 'whiteys' in Australia).

Surely, if the lord could randomly 'call' JS to be a prophet - when only a boy of 14 (depending on which version of the bullshit story you accept). But if God plucked out of nowhere an obscure teenage boy to restore the church and the gospel, why doesn't God seem to randomly choose a non-white guy, or a gay Mormon, or an elderly black/Latino/ Tongan lady to be the prophet?

"God still calls prophets today like in Biblical times" so they say. Yes, but it appears for over 150 years now God's really only been 'calling' a specific type of person to that job. The first few times we could call coincidence... but now it just seems like ye olde racism.

Any others feel this way?

JB

There are a few ethnic faces in the Seventies. The DNA pool of the top leadership is a little less diverse than you might think, though. Look up Mormon Royalty.

As it turns out, nobody can rock the boat even if they try. Any dissent at the top is edited out of conference talks, ignored or otherwise marginalized. But that's a rarity among made men.

As for putting men of color in the Q15, that would be a good PR move but the Church doesn't run on that kind of PR. It runs on "Dear Leader is always right" PR. They literally can do no wrong.

I am not arguing in favor the LDS nor their obviously racist attitudes. I am not a shill for them nor do I support them.

But:

From LDS perspective God is still "calling prophets today like He did in Biblical times". Name one OT (or NT, for that matter) prophet who was not a male. And aged. And all of the same ethnic group. (In the NT there were some ethnic Greeks who were spokespersons for God. But they were exclusively male.)

In the OT there was one female judge (I cannot remember her name at the moment, dammit) but she was not a prophet and the situation was highly unusual.

All the biblical prophets were "of a specific type". Now that may be racism, but you can't argue that it's not the biblical way. As matter of fact, the LDS allowing blacks into the priesthood makes the LDS more inclusive than the Bible. I wonder how they justify their liberalism to Heavenly Father.

The female judge was Deborah.

correct.

Deborah (Judges 5), however she DID deliberate amongst legal matters within israel and made some kid of judicial/ authoritative decisions.
The "judge" (i.e: savior figure) is actually Jael - the woman who runs the tentpeg through the dude's head. (the flannelgraph picture they did NOT show in Sunday school!).
But true, this is a rare occasion.

And I was wondering myself whether there were female (or non Israelite prophets) in the Old Test. but I think you're right, i think there isn't any.

Priests were all (Levite) males, prophets I think were all male, in the early NT church there are some key women in leadership: Junia, Priscilla, again it doesn't appear to be many. Abraham wasn't Jewish (he lived before the nation of Israel existed - in terms of salvation history). Abraham was from a pagan background.

Meh. not sure where i was going with this...

johnberwick:

I get your point, but I would argue that Abraham was the FIRST Jew. After all, it was with Abraham that God made the first Jewish racial covenant. ("I will make of you a great nation...")
"Abram" was pagan; "Abraham" was Jewish.


There were absolutely NO non-Israelite judges. That would be a serious violation of covenant. A gentile was a hell of a lot more likely to be executed in Israel than to hold as much authority as a dog catcher! (Do you have dog catchers in Australia?)

Jael was not a prophet or a judge in any legal sense. She was simply the wife of Heber, and neither were even Jewish. They were Kenish (?), an ally of Israel at the time.

Thanks for the names of the significant women in the NT. I knew there were some, but I couldn't come up with any names.

Again, my point is that LDS is no more racially prejudiced than the Bible. Not that there is a defense there!

Thanks mate,

that's helpful.

cheers


(i assume dog-catchers mean the same thing here, as in a 'person who catches dogs') if that's the case, then yes we have dogcatchers in Australia. And thus your point makes even further sense.

johnberwick, I may have disproved my own argument. I have found at least five OT women who are called "prophetess". And I haven't found a legal/religious difference between a prophet and a prophetess.

You will probably be delighted to know I intend to let this go for tonight. I know I can be something of a snapping turtle about discussions--I never know when to quit!

So MorgCo is simply perpetuating the ancient ignorant misogynistic racist attitudes of Bronze-age tribal folks making up nonsense about their god of thunder.
Got it.

Actually Abraham was...we don't know.

Abraham had Isaac, that had Jacob whose name was changed to Isreal who had 12 sons, one of which was Judah who the Jews were named after.

When the Israelites left Egypt, Moses and Aaron were Levites. Then there were Judges, then Saul was from Benjamin, then David was Jewish, as was his son Solomon. Reahoboam, Solomon's son went commy, and the Israelites split, Judah and Benjamin became one group, and the rest became the Northern group.

Generally speaking, the Southern group, Jews, were more religious than the Northerns, so most of the prophets from David on were Jewish.

Jesus is a descendant of David.

So-it's-all-bronze-age-legend-ly yrs,

S

D'vorah and Yael symbolize "strategy" and "tactics"---both are necessary in any undertaking. They may both have existed...or maybe not---but in any case, together they symbolize the Jewish people successfully planning, and carrying out, military activities on the part of the Jewish people...

...and they also point out that at least some women were accepted as far more equal to men than would, in following centuries, be the case.

As a "judge" in that early time, D'vorah could also be termed what was later categorized as "rabbi"---because rabbis, by Jewish definition, "judge."

In early OT times, there was no "governing body"---no one was formally ordained, there was no Chief Rabbinate, there were no denominational bodies to confer formal credentials...just the people accepting a given person as the right person for a given position.

A person was what they WERE [i.e., what they DID]: prophets and prophetesses prophesized...rabbis/"judges" evaluated situations and made decisions...no one had any formal credentials because there was no credential-granting apparatus, and the concept of formal credentials did not yet exist within the Jewish people (or most any of the Middle Eastern tribes, to my knowledge).

Jews were those who were accepted BY Jews AS Jews---remember the story of Ruth (in the OT, the "first" "documented" convert to Judaism), who did NOT go through mikvah ("ritual bath") and Bet Din ("rabbinical court"), but instead was simply and naturally accepted into the tribe AS a Jew, upon her voluntary and unforced assertion that she was now a Jew---and thereafter, her CHILDREN were accepted BY Jews AS Jews.

In future centuries, things would change. Adoption into the Jewish people would be formalized...there would be governing bodies making decisions which would be codified...women would be (for a long period of time) sidelined.

But none of that had happened yet in the general times of D'vorah and Yael...it was just too early in Jewish history for qualifications to have been codified and qualifying bodies to have been formed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2016 12:42PM by Tevai.

There is a LDS InC myth (story) god chooses his prophets from a certain bloodline. Want to guess which one?

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/01/of-the-house-of-israel?lang=eng

Just read this one. (gets interesting about halfway through).

"... Joseph Smith was of the house of Israel so far as his family or blood lines were concerned, but he came from a Gentile nation and thus might also be considered a Gentile in the political or geographical sense"...

umm... really?

Joseph Smith is of 'Jewish' blood/ lineage?

Seems pretty Anglo- European to me.

but what do I know? I'm not a patriarch ;)

It's very noticeable. I attribute it to the enduring clannish nature of Mormon Morridor culture.

White temple clothes. White magic underwear. White to be baptized. White table cloths for Sacrament to bless white bread.

White and delightsome Nephites. God and Jesus always wear white and they are white, so white they glow, even though Jesus had to be made white later with blue eyes because he was sorta brown originally.

Lamanites could turn white if they acted white enough by doing exactly what the old white men told them to do, like wear white shirts to the sacrament meeting.

Black people could go the celestial kingdom and be servants to the whites. No one ever says anything about the Asians. Hmmmnnnn.

White old men knew they were God's chosen because well, white. And now, the world is embracing color--really embracing color, but the white old men know this is a trick of the devil. They must maintain God's will and be his valiant warriors for White. "Why can't everyone see how special we are?"

God wants his prophets to be white goddammit.

It's hard out here for a Pimp.

Where I live in South America there are few white faces in our stake--missionaries from the U.S. and Europe mostly.

Recently our good friend Jeffrey Holland passed through to spread some of his infinite wisdom. I can't remember if I've ever witnessed such condescension.

Clearly this is a white men's club and the church will do what is necessary to keep it that way as long as possible. Demographics may eventually force its hand--money talks even louder than bigotry--but we're still decades away from that point, IMO.

For me the most disgusting things are the portraits of Jesus Christ hung on the walls of our chapels. Dude looks like a young Kevin Costner who just spent two hours in the makeup trailer.

good call on the Kevin Coster reference.

I would have said 'Owen Wilson' but the point still stands.

(Look: here's a picture of Jesus of Nazareth, from Galilee in Judea... really? [whisper] But he looks so WHITE!)

Almost like a poster child for the Aryans in Nazi Germany: pale white skin, blue eyes, blonde hair.... sure, that's exactly how a Middle Eastern, Palestinian Jewish man looks!!! >:(

Ten women in the Bible held the the title of Prophetess.

Miriam, Aaron's sister - Exodus 15:20-31

Deborah - Judges 4:4-5

Isaiah's wife - Isaiah 8:3

Huldah - 2 Kings 22:14

Noadiah - Nehemiah 6:14

Anna - Luke 2:36-38

The Four Daughters of Philip - Acts 21:9