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Interesting interview with Paul Revee, head of Mormon studies at the University of Utah and author of Deseret Book published, “Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood,”

In 1833, a leading Latter-day Saint, William W. Phelps, published a column under the headline “Free People of Color,” making it clear that, since its founding three years earlier, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exercised no racial barriers.

Black members were not only welcome in the fledgling faith but also eligible for all of its rites and privileges.

It was a stance that did not sit well with many Missourians at the time and with the racist views scarring much of America in those pre-Civil War days. It’s also a position that did not last inside the church itself.

The faith’s second prophet-president, Brigham Young, eventually departed from the ways of founder Joseph Smith and instituted a ban barring Black Latter-day Saints from priesthood ordinations and temple ordinances.

That prohibition endured for nearly 130 years, a racist stain that the global faith and its members grapple with to this day.

In his new book, “Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood,” from church-owned Deseret Book, W. Paul Reeve, head of Mormon studies at the University of Utah, relies on historical records and scriptural passages to examine how and why the Utah-based church shifted from an inclusive approach on race to a restricted one and, ultimately, back to its original universalist theology.

In this week’s show, Reeve, who flatly states that he doesn’t believe the former priesthood/temple ban was of “divine origin,” discusses the faith’s evolution on this sensitive topic and the challenges that still lie ahead.“

How do you root out racism if you don’t understand it’s roots?
How do you Abandon actions and attitudes of racism, when Mormon scriptures are full of racist views. That didn’t come from Brigham Young, or God, it was a common 19th C racist myth used to dehumanize blacks to justify enslaving them and Indians to justify genocide and stealing their land. Yes Brigham Young was a racist pig, but so were the 130yrs worth of so-called ‘Prophets’ who continued his racist policies, in clear violation of Christs main commandment to love our fellow men as ourselves. And they are still racist for not rooting out the racism from Mormon scriptures.

William Phelps wrote that before JoJu translated the Book of Abraham, specifically, 1:26-27.

What did he say on that issue after 1835?

Also, Phelps was excommunicated three times, although he did die in the faith.

The church certainly hasn't said JoJu didn't get it right about Lamanites when he wrote the BofM.

Exactly.

JS taught that blacks were inferior and hence denied equal eternal rights. Racism stems from him and his God.

We know that JS made all sorts of exceptions for himself, as for Laban, and for many of his friends. He made an exception for his African American housekeeper. But exceptions are what Mormonism is all about. Cue: second anointing.

BY eliminated the exceptions. He was a cold bastard lacking empathy even for his friends. So he emphasized the priesthood ban and refused to allow any deviation therefrom.

Black people and brown people were cursed from the days of the BoM and then the PoGP. Joseph did those, not Brigham.

The 3 Mormons having the discussion, the Author, Peggy Fletcher Stack and the MormonLand Host, all completely failed to mention the fact that Joseph Smith is the one who decided to incorporate those now completely debunked racist 19th C myths into ‘Revelation From God’ and Mormons still revere them as such today. Mormons don’t just ‘struggle with that stain of racism’, believing in a cruel God of vengeance, justifies Mormon cruelty towards ‘others’.
And he didn’t just do it once, he did it twice, in two separate mythical histories of two separate mythical people, he decided to cast his God as a cruel God of vengence who punished two entirely separate races with dark and black skin as a curse on them and their posterity.
It seems the aim of Deseret Books is to ‘Talk About’ ‘difficult topics’ with faithful Mormon ‘scholars’ who have managed to rationalize maintaining the facade of faith in a deeply racist doomsday CULT that worships a cruel God of vengeance, as a way to inoculate believers against critical, rational thought. Because if Mormons were really honest, they’d quit confusing blatant white supremacy for ‘revelation from God’.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2023 04:29PM by schrodingerscat.

I’m wondering if any of the Asian (Chinese) people who labored in the West ( building railroads, etc.) ever wanted to join ChurchCo during those years..

O my, what shall BY & his followers do ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2023 04:26PM by GNPE.

The only racism towards Asians in Mormonism that I’ve seen was on my mission. We had a ton of Vietnamese and Cambodian members on our rolls but none of them ever showed up to church so we got to go find out why. They were always afraid of us. Turns out the Missionaries under the prior high pressure MP traumatized the SE Asian immigrants, Cambodians and Vietnamese, who literally already survived lived through hell, by telling them they needed to get baptized or they’d burn in hell. Their favorite object lesson was holding up a napkin, lighting it on fire and pointing at the genocide survivor and saying,”You, if you don’t come with me to get baptized.” Can you imagine being in their shoes and having huge Americans in official looking CIA suits tell you you’re going to burn if you don’t come with them and get dunked in some water?
They’d get lots of baptisms this way but the Vietnamese and Cambodians never forgot their last visitors from that crazy American CULT.
And they never returned after getting dunked.
But at least the misshies had some impressive stats and that’s what it’s all about! Amiright?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2023 04:45PM by schrodingerscat.

My active lds mom said that Brigham Young said some bad things when he was speaking as a man. The church is perfect the members are not. The lds church is not racist my mom says because during Joseph Smith’s time blacks had the priesthood. Brigham Young messed things up my mom said but now we are all equal again.