so instead of the "overzealous staffer" defense they're going with the "i don't know that we teach that" defense?

"It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine. "


i hope this statement of theirs really bites them in the ass - all it'll take is some journalist to juxtapose the above with some "doctrine"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 04:03PM by grubbygert.

Uh, did you bother looking in Mormon Doctrine?
It couldn't be more clear.
How about the "Pearl of Great Price"

No other religion has the misfortune of having incorporated naive 19th Century racist myths into their scriptures and called it 'the word of God'.

What in insult to the intelligence of those of us who grew up being indoctrinated with bogus 19th Century racist myths which were used to justify slavery, like the Curse of Cain myth, which is still, to this day contained in The Book of Moses.

Moses 7:22
"And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them."

And the discrimination didn't end with denying black men the priesthood, they denied ALL blacks from entering the temple to receive the same privileges as everybody else.

when something doesn't fit into the churches plan/mission (PR), it's dis-owned.


Is their dislike of racism retro-active? Say, back to BYoung?

THAT would be news!

That is the thing though. If you read the official statements carefully, you will see that they disown "racism" in one paragraph.

Then they will talk about removing the priesthood restriction in a separate paragraph. The priesthood restriction is never equated with institutional racism.

So they can disavow and condemn racism. But because they do not admit that the restriction was racism, they never actually backtrack on this doctrine.

The doctrine stands. Blacks were indeed assigned to Cain's cursed lineage. For whatever reason the Phood restriction on Cain's line had ended, in the same fashion that the restriction to Levites only ended.

(I was told the last of the "less valiant" had come through Cain's line and good guys were now coming through that line).

Statements by individuals get the same old treatment any embarrassing comment does - not church doctrine.

Someone should try to pin down a GA on whether the Phood restriction was actually institutional racism, or whether it was a divine doctrine which has served it's purpose, just like the Levitical restriction.

1. The "restriction" is not called racism, there is no apology for it, it is not considered "wrong". The restriction "ended" - it was not over-turned, or rescinded or acknowledged as wrong at all. Institutional racism was a part of God's plan all along.

2. While condemning "racism" the church maintains support for its racist doctrine.

Classic double-speak.

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/24/delbert_stapley.pdf

Elder Stapley seemed fairly sure he knew where the doctrine came from, and he felt perfectly secure saying so on Church letterhead. He even said that he had a friend who had died by drowning because he opposed the doctrine. Stapley also included a copy of "Mormonism and the Negro" with his letter for Romney.

http://saintsalive.com/media-library/online-books/mormonism-and-the-negro



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 04:12PM by Makurosu.

Not one line of that book has been over-turned, denied, or retracted since General Authorities were handing it out in the civil rights era.

For all the rationalizing that goes on in Brother Stewart's evil little book, it all comes undone with the prohibition against intermarriage.

If not getting the priesthood was actually a 'good' thing as one could not become a son of perdition, and you get judged on your progress in this world and get the Phood later on anyway, then who would not want that for their kids?

Why expose your kids to the risk of outer darkness unless there was some bonus...?

...and ding ding ding, that is it. Without temple marriage in this life, there is no exaltation/godhood for yoooou!

I would be quite interested to know if any Black members have had their second endowment.

That exclusive little club of gods is off limits to most schmucks who can't claim several generations BIC and a couple of polygamists in the family line. Has anyone ever seen any black members sneaking into the temple on a Sunday?

No priesthood --> No temple marriage --> No exaltation

It's more than just not holding the priesthood. They're still lying about it.

I wonder what the poor sap in the ABC-4 news clip would say if they told him that. "I don't know where people get these ideas." Uhh.. from D&C 131?

Thanks for the link to that letter. Classic stuff, including the "I am not racist - some of my best friends are black" approach:

"Now, don't think I am against the Negro people, because I have several in my employ"

It's really deplorable stuff. I'd give $10,000 of Mitt Romney's money to know what George Romney said in his handwritten letter back to Stapley, because GR didn't change his views, to his credit.

The part that really dropped my jaw though, again, was where Stapley said that he knew a guy who opposed the doctrine and that guy died of drowning. Was that a threat? It's just unbelievable. At least leaders of the Church don't go around saying things like that anymore.

I didn't think it was a threat the first time I read it, but now you mention it, it just might be...

...that President Lincoln was assassinated, not because a crazy southerner hated him, but as a punishment from God for the abolition of slavery?

Holy crap! Ho-ly CRAP!!!

They have dates listed all through the BoM telling you when things happened. But when it comes to current events, "It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church...."

Because from the point of view of "the church" the restriction was instituted sometime in the pre-mortal existence.

The average reader will have a timeline in mind that starts in 1831ish (or 1826 if you think that is when Sydney started plagiarising Spalding).

But from the point of view of the Church, they really don't know the exact sequence of events in the pre-existence that led to the restriction, the exact time Cain killed Abel and got cursed etc etc.

So they can sit there and plead ignorance, telling the truth from their point of view and reaffirming the doctrines in the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses; but allowing the listener to interpret their statement as they will.

Black members will interpret the statement in such a fashion as to strengthen their own faith - human error/the culture at the time prevented their forebears from getting the Phood or whatever. If they don't think too carefully they can pretend that getting sealed postmortem is the same as getting married in the temple during life.

Reporters will draw from the example of other churches with racist doctrines, and assume the church is rectifying a past wrong.

But the church is rubbing their noses in it - there has been no change of heart, mind, or doctrine. Faithful LDS blacks who died pre-1978 are denied exaltation and godhood. But they can be servants to gods. Nyah, Nyah, Nyah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 06:24PM by spanner.

Just change a few words...

"For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of non-Levite descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended centuries ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine."

See?

It was as doctrinal as the Levitical priesthood was, back in the day.

You could get killed for ordaining a non-Levite too.

So can Blacks who died before 1978 be ordained to the priesthood by proxy in the temple, and then sealed up to exaltation? Or is that not how it is done?

Are they really barred forever from exaltation?

(not only blacks, but anyone who didn't marry in the temple during life - the point is that faithful TBM Blacks didn't have the opportunity at all pre-1978)

This is what I was taught:

Temple marriage is needed for exaltation in the CK:

http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-59,00.html
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/131?lang=eng

Not only that, for exaltation (godhood), the marriage had to be done while alive:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132?lang=eng

e.g. D&C 132
21 Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.

22 For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.

23 But if ye receive me in the world, then shall ye know me, and shall receive your exaltation; that where I am ye shall be also.

Those who received posthumous ordinances get to the CK, but not exaltation, godhood and "increase":
e.g.

16 Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.

17 For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.

There are other references that enlarge on this that are not technically scripture. As I understand it, JS was "explaining" the New Testament verses which state that there is no marriage after death. He clarified it to state that there can be no contracting of a marriage after death.

So the sealing etc confers the unification of the family in the celestial kingdom for spirits who accept the ordinances after death, but, bearing in mind that there are 3 degrees within the CK, only those who married in the temple while alive get exalted.

That is why there is so much pressure - otherwise, may as well life large, and rely on post-mortem ordinances.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 07:32PM by spanner.

Poor Randy Bott got thrown under the bus.

How can they live with themselves.

I assume they know people like me who were around in the 60s are dying off, and they can just change the doctrine and no one will notice.

Well, I guess that's happening.

They just leave everything out of the seminary manuals and put in new "stuff" and "fluff."

If there is a God, he/she will surely judge the leaders of the mormon church as LIARS!

"For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine."

Am I to understand this to mean the "restriction" WAS doctrine...it's just the "reason" that isn't doctrine?

Yup, that's what it means.

And, "decades ago"? Pull-eez. 3.4 decades ago that is, after over 13 decades of the ban.

And, HE (Bott) brought it up, not the rest of us, so why the too-bad-we-didn't-get-a-fair-chance pout? And, why the church-employee-paid-to-teach-religion-doesn't-speak-for-the-church alibi...How many thousands of BYU students who were taught falsely in his class should get a tuition refund?

Who do they think they're fooling?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 06:02PM by amos2.

Dateline March 22, 2087

In a press conference today, Mormon Church president Joseph F. Smith Smith Smith IV sought to clarify church doctrines and teachings.

"I want to make this perfectly clear. We don't know when, why, or how anything we now believe or anything that we may have previously believed or may eventually believe has or will come to be believed. And anything we currently believe is not necessarily bound to conform with anything that we previously believed or will eventually believe.

And I bear you my testimony that this is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. And I say this in the name of something we used to believe. Amen.

haha - looks like we were up to the same shenanigans at the same time...

press release from TSCC in 2112:

"For a time in the Church there was a restriction on temple marriage for gay couples. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine."

similarly:

"For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for female members. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine."

"For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine. The Church is not bound by speculation or opinions given with limited understanding."


So I assume that this means then that the 1949 First Presidency Statement that gives specific reasons for the ban is no longer binding.

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/blackmormon/FP.html


"The First Presidency Statement on the Negro Question

August 17, 1949

THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH WITH REFERENCE TO NEGROES REMAINS AS IT HAS ALWAYS STOOD. IT IS NOT A MATTER OF THE DECLARATION OF A POLICY BUT OF DIRECT COMMANDMENT FROM THE LORD, ON WHICH IS FOUNDED THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH FROM THE DAYS OF ITS ORGANIZATION, TO THE EFFECT THAT NEGROES MAY BECOME MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH BUT THAT THEY ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THE PRIESTHOOD AT THE PRESENT TIME. THE PROPHETS OF THE LORD HAVE MADE SEVERAL STATEMENTS AS TO THE OPERATION OF THE PRINCIPLE. PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNG SAID: "WHY ARE SO MANY OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH CURSED WITH A SKIN OF BLACKNESS? IT COMES IN CONSEQUENCE OF THEIR FATHERS REJECTING THE POWER OF THE HOLY PRIESTHOOD, AND THE LAW OF GOD. THEY WILL GO DOWN TO DEATH. AND WHEN ALL THE REST OF THE CHILDREN HAVE RECEIVED THEIR BLESSINGS IN THE HOLY PRIESTHOOD, THEN THAT CURSE WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE SEED OF CAIN, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: "The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."

THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH REGARDING THE NEGRO MAY BE UNDERSTOOD WHEN ANOTHER DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IS KEPT IN MIND, NAMELY, THAT THE CONDUCT OF SPIRITS IN THE PREMORTAL EXISTENCE HAS SOME DETERMINING EFFECT UPON THE CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THESE SPIRITS TAKE ON MORTALITY and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. UNDER THIS PRINCIPLE THERE IS NO INJUSTICE WHATSOEVER INVOLVED IN THIS DEPRIVATION AS TO THE HOLDING OF THE PRIESTHOOD BY THE NEGROES." (emphasis mine)


Last time I checked official statements for the First Presidency were not something to be easily dismissed.


This also mean that God discriminated by and bestowed Priesthood based on race......specifically, the color of someones skin. No way around that.

Great minds!

He's the official spokesperson and can't answer a simple question.

The obivious reason for racism, sexism, and homophobia is that the mormon church is racist, sexist, and homophobic. If they can't explain it, they have to live with it.

kinda like they 'ended' polyg/polyandry with the 1890 'Declaration', only .... they needed a Second One!

I love this line in the press release:

"We condemn racism, including any and all past racism by individuals both inside and outside the Church."

In other words, the church condemns every prophet and general authority who has ever lived. Find me one who has not parroted the official line at some point regarding denial of the priesthood, Lamanite curse, etc.

I just heard a a comment on KSL news on the radio from a member of the Genesis group who was aghast! Shocked! I tell you that anyone would insinuate that the LDS church EVER said or taught that black skin was ever called the curse of Cain. "And he knows this because he reads his scriptures every day and it's not in there."

Well, that settles it. I couldn't help wondering when he joined the church as a Black man, before or after 1978.

Moses 5:36
36 And now thou shalt be cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.

Moses 5:41
41 And Cain was shut out from the presence of the Lord, and with his wife and many of his brethren dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Moses 7:8
8 For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people.

Moses 7:22
22 And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them.

Abraham 1:24
24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

Abraham 1:26
26 Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

"Style Guide Note: When reporting about The Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-day Bank fraudsters, please use the complete name of the Church in the first reference. For more information on the use of the name of The So-Called Church (TSCC), go to our online style guide: http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-church-of-joseph-smith-of-latter-day-saints-58591/ AKA The Church of Joseph Smith."

(Please note: The above site in linked to solely because it contained the term: The Church of Joseph Smith.)