I give up. And it makes me not a little sad.
For the last few weeks, I have been thinking a great deal about the following quote from Brigham Young out of "The Journal of Discourses," one with which a great many ex-Mormons have become familiar, and one that I thought was simply impenetrable by any apologist standard:
"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 so."
I began thinking that this quote was all a logical mind needed to come to the only conclusion possible: that Brigham Young was an ordinary man and not a prophet.
Think about it. Young entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Just two years prior, Frederick Douglass published "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave." The reader should be mindful of the appeal to logic, since everything I have outlined above is factual, and not in dispute, either from within the church or without.
It is a fact that Brigham Young stated the above. It is a fact that "The Journal of Discourses" is still being printed. (Just go to Amazon and take a look at the publishing dates for this multi-volume work. The whole thing is available online, for free.) It is a fact that Frederick Douglass and Brigham Young existed, and lived in America at the same time. It is a fact that Young arrived in Utah in 1847. It is a fact that Douglass printed a seminal work of anti-slavery in 1845.
Therefore, any member who still believes, after considering the above facts, must include the following logical conclusion as part of a testimony: that Heavenly Father could do no better than a bloody-minded bigot to lead His church to safety at the same time that Douglass was pouring his heart and soul into eloquent words meant to convince a largely white populace of the atrocities committed against black people in the South. Furthermore, the statement seems to do away with habeas corpus and trial by jury for what, in modern times, is not even considered a criminal offense.
I honestly thought that this conclusion was inescapable. How could anyone, after reading those horrible words, get around, past, through, above, under, or beyond those awful words?
Well, I stand corrected, amazingly. An apologist named W. John Walsh has printed an explanation. At lightplanet.com (and here is the link:
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/blacks_chosen.htm), Walsh begins his defense of the indefensible by stating three false ideas:
1. “[T]he Journal of Discourses is not a source for official Church doctrine…”
2. “[P]rejudice against Blacks, or anyone else for that matter [including homos like me?] is strictly against the teachings of the LDS Church…” and
3. “[T]his 1863 impromptu discourse [is taken] out of historical context.”
The arguments against his first two defenses, in my view, are so plainly obvious that I won’t bother to get into them. Thanks to the Internet, we now know that a great many leaders of the church have been contradicted by leaders that preceded or followed them, rendering most of church doctrine “unofficial” as ongoing arguments permit; and that they have held and continue to hold deep prejudices of all sorts. As appalling as those two statements are, I think that the third assertion is the most egregious. It becomes more so as Walsh explains.
He begins his defense of Young by stating: “[I]n this same discourse (on the very next page), President Young said: “For their abuse of [the Black African] race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent.” He then says that “Young is not even talking about intermarriage between whites and blacks. In 1863, there were few, if any, places where whites were free to marry blacks in the United States. Therefore, President Young is talking about sexual relations outside of marriage.” After these absurd points, Walsh asks the reader to “[p]lease note that President Young refers to a penalty of ‘death on the spot’ to the ‘white man of the chosen seed’ and fails to mention any penalty applying to the black woman involved.” And what does “death on the spot” mean, according to Walsh? It is nothing more than “a form of spiritual death.”
I suppose, then, that when Young stated, in Volume 3, that a man would be “justified” if he “found [his] brother in bed with [his] wife, and put a javelin through both of them,” and the adulterers “would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God,” that he was only speaking metaphorically. Did Douglass use these types of violent metaphors, I wonder, when he spoke of slave-owning whites? Metaphorically speaking then, Young himself “would at once do so in such a case; and under such circumstances, [he had] no wife whom [he loved] so well that [he] would not put a javelin through her heart, and [he] would do it with clean hands.” Is this a metaphor for “spiritual death”? “On the spot”? I feel it is incumbent on Young to clarify, given his “metaphorically” violent words in other sermons, that he is talking of spiritual death only in the above phrase, and not an Olympic event.
Walsh ignores this when he talks of spiritual death, and waters down the first quote from Young above by pointing out that on the next page, Young says that whites will be cursed for their treatment of blacks. He can only point this out by ignoring yet another statement by Young immediately after: “I am neither an abolitionist nor a pro-slavery man.” Get that? Remember that Douglass is alive at the same time, a man who experienced first-hand that for which the white slave-owners will be supposedly cursed. The best that Heavenly Father could do, then, was a man who refused to take sides on an issue that directly threatened another man whose writings helped to change white people’s minds about a crime against humanity. The best that Elohim could do was a man fond of violent “metaphors” in his sermons.
Finally, in perhaps one of the most bizarre interpretations of Young’s statement, Walsh insinuates that “many such unions were the result of rape. It was very common for biracial children born in 1863 to be the product of a forcible union. Since President Young does not mention any penalty to be applied to the black woman, it is unlikely that he is talking about a consensual union.” Oh, for crying out loud. If Young was talking about “rape” or “forcible union,” why would he say “mixes his blood” instead?
But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that Walsh is correct, and that Young only used the above phrase because the word “rape” was too indelicate for a sermon. (Javelin throwing, however…) If Young was talking about rape and not consensual sex, then it seems to me that Walsh destroys a significant part of his own argument with his printed rebuttal to an accusation at the end of the article:
"I find that, generally speaking…society was very protective of the virtue of white women. If a white woman was raped, her family often killed the attacker and faced no punishment. While technically it was illegal to kill a rapist, no court would convict a white man who defended the honor of his wife, daughter, sister, or mother. In fact this attitude had prevailed in the United States until only recently…
"Upon further investigation, I found that in 1863 the virtue of black women was not protected by society to the same degree, if at all. Black men were not given the same prerogative to protect the sanctity of their homes. Furthermore, people in some areas of the country actually encouraged 'virile' unmarried men to satisfy their physical urgings with Black women. Many people felt such actions would help protect the white population. To them, Black people were simply animals. They were not human beings. Needless to say, the rape of black women was almost never prosecuted."
Walsh argues that since raping a black woman was not taken seriously, while rape of a white woman was taken deathly seriously, and since he implies elsewhere in his article that prophets are little more than products of their time, that Young would not be expected to take the rape of a black woman any more seriously (meaning execution “on the spot”) than anyone else. Hence, the phrase “death on the spot” means “spiritual death” only. If this is true, then how is Young anything more than a standard bigot of his time? Beyond that, how is Young justified in the least degree if he “metaphorically” speaks of javelin throwing and throat slitting in other sermons for offenses less awful than rape, but is supposed to be speaking in this sermon of the far gentler “spiritual death” for raping a woman against whom he was allegedly not prejudiced?
Young could be talking about rape; about premarital sex; about spiritual death; about priesthood holders only; anything other than what is plainly obvious in the phrase itself. He couldn't have meant what is plain to the reader, because he was a prophet of God. And the god that Walsh believes in is not prejudiced, does not order executions willy-nilly, and still despises all sexual activity outside of monogamous (and occasionally polygamous), heterosexual marriage, including 12-year-olds masturbating. Take away Young’s prophetic calling, and what can you read into the original statement? Very, very little. Please remember, if you haven’t been reminded enough, that Douglass was alive at the same time, and never once mentioned javelin throwing. Heavenly Father was watching the entire time. He put enough of the Holy Ghost into Young to allegedly have elevator shafts installed in the pre-elevator Salt Lake temple, but not enough to clarify a violent-sounding phrase in a well-published sermon. A lot like the god of the Old Testament obsessed with the number of tent stakes for the tabernacle, but no mention of penicillin.
I have to admit that I’m perplexed, to say the least. I had actually fantasized about getting my own copy of the unofficial-by-church-doctrine-standards "Journal of Discourses," just so that I could highlight that passage and destroy anyone’s testimony in one fell swoop. Not that I’m interested in destroying anyone else’s religion. Far from it; just in case any fanatical believer ever gets in my face. Walsh has proven that effort to be useless, so I don’t think I’ll bother.
I also think there’s a message in all of this for any so-called New Order Mormon: You’re a part of the mess in that argument. You are not part of any solution that humanity needs, because humanity doesn’t need a religion with that sort of rhetoric as its base, or with apologists who don’t run from the church they’re defending when they read it.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2012 11:22AM by Mr. Neutron.