Mormons to mark 30th anniversary of revelation on blacks

Thirty years have passed, but Heber G. Wolsey still cries when he recalls the day the Mormon church abandoned a policy that had kept black men out of the priesthood.

Read full story from Dallas Morning News

[James Winter]

who is Heber G. Wolsey????

[MiddleWay]

Good thing heavenly-man changed his mind...

[Christ Follower]

I agree with the previous writer, Lafe, that Mormons are not Christian. African Bad Boy said, "Mormonism is a joke." I know that his intended message is that Mormonism is a false religion. But, you know, it isn't a joke when you have friends and loved ones caught in Satan's snare, as they faithfully serve the Mormon Jesus. The reason the Mormon church forsake their prior teaching of not allowing blacks priesthood, was that it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to explain. So, one of their "prophets" had a word from God, that all of a sudden, God decided blacks could enter priesthood.

Come on you people. If a mormon happens to be reading this, you are so deceived. Please read the Holy Bible. You will find proof throughout the Bible that you are caught up in a man-made, false religion. The LDS has all the earmarks of a cult and a false religion. I pray for all who are blinded by the mormon lies. May all that don't know the real Jesus, know him today. Read I John, Gospel of John, and the last scripture in the Bible. It is not by works that you get to heaven, it is by the grace of God, thru faith. And, nowhere in the Bible does it say you can be God of a planet. Oh, there are so many lies. Wake up.

[Keith Walker]

thirty years later and still no apology from the LDS Church? Sad.

To read some interesting observations on the black issue, visit Mormon Coffee.
http://blog.mrm.org/

[larry]

I see Keith is still passing of his half truths and trying to get people to rise against the LDS. Yet he does not hold the same standard for the rest of Christianity. He has not said they must apologize for teaching that there are two heavens one were God lives for whites and one were God does not live for blacks. Still trying to raise an Army against the LDS I see.

[Fernando Rodriguez]

Morman smorman, what ward do you belong to? 5th ward son! Or is that the 8th ward? Where is Joseph Smith in all this? Read the book of Alma. Was added later too? Let me see, I'll have to add the book of Fernando Rodriguez Homestyle later.

[DUCK]

African-MadBoy wrote:

Mormonism is a joke

ACTUALLY IT IS A CULT GOT 10% BROTHER

[RAP]

Hey, mormons had the magic golden plates - How can you mock that? And the old boys wanted the young girls, many of them. And the mormons hired out their members as mercenaries in the frontier and dressed up like Indians to attack that infamous wagon train of settlers. I don't know if it's actually a cult or what, but it certainly is preposterous and hypocritical... Imagine not letting a black kid be an Eagle Scout in Utah... and thinking that flouridation is a terrible government plot... sorry to be mean to those who belong - you deserve more sympathy than we give you (for being so dumb...)

[saviorself]

I LOVE political correctness. How long until there is a black person as President of the Mormon Church, do you think?

[MiddleWay]

larry wrote:

I see Keith is still passing of his half truths and trying to get people to rise against the LDS. Yet he does not hold the same standard for the rest of Christianity. He has not said they must apologize for teaching that there are two heavens one were God lives for whites and one were God does not live for blacks. Still trying to raise an Army against the LDS I see.

LDS needs no help, they bring it upon themselves...

[larry]

MiddleWay wrote:

<quoted text>
LDS needs no help, they bring it upon themselves...

You mean like being kind to others, being charitable, living what we teach, helping people lift themselves out of bad cercomsatnces, providing aid for disaster areas. Need I go on? As Jesus said by their fruits ye shall know them. Our fruits are those of the Spirit. So you are right we do bring it on ourselves by being Christ like.

[Yeahsure]

Awesome! Now, when is the 30 year celebration of permitting women in the priesthood?!

[Bubba Naess]

Of course the Mormons didn't want a black man to have any kind of position of power. Mormonism IS a cult, invented by white men who wanted to make up their own religion where they could justify, among other things, sexual relations with girls and young women. Then, over the years, they've had to bow to political pressure - first they had to give up polygamy and all that business...then, they had to concede to be all "benevolent" and dare to let a black man have a little power. They can shove it!

Matthew 24: 4-11 "Jesus answered:'Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming,'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people."

[LArry]

with all the claims that we LDS are nothing but a bunch of racists lets look at an early statement on blacks. I am quoting from Genreal Smiths Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United states published in 1844
"Born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the sirocco of barbarous climes, I never feel a double anxiety for the happiness of all men, both in time and eternity. My cogitations like Daniels, have for a long time troubled me, when I viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where the Declaration of Independence "holds these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but at the same time, some two or three millions of people are heldas slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with darker skin than ours;"
Now does this sound racest? No. Then as I have pointed out before in the "Secret Constitution" which was the reason for driving the LDS out of Jackson county Misouri the main reason was that the LDS were inviting free blacks to come and live among them and worship with them. And the "old citizens" could not tolerate the way the LDS treated blacks as equales while their own churchs taught that God had two heavens one for whites were he lived and one for blacks were he did not live.

[Fernando Rodriguez]

Hilarious!

[Bubba Naess]

What "Larry" is saying is that the Mormons in Missouri wanted to save us poor black savages...just like when they go on missions to convert the poor and underprivileged around the world by getting them to buy into the "one true religion" of Mormonism.

See, apparently us black folks are good enough to worship your God and your prophets, to pay for your ever-expanding church, and to break our backs to help build more edifices to Moroni and the other false prophets...yet only 30 years ago did we become good enough to put on the robes and get to preachin'. Uh huh...I see how it is...Larry, you provin' my point, friend...

[Judas]

Mormons = the Antichrist

[Hannah Rebekah]

Bubba Naess wrote:

What "Larry" is saying is that the Mormons in Missouri wanted to save us poor black savages...just like when they go on missions to convert the poor and underprivileged around the world by getting them to buy into the "one true religion" of Mormonism.
See, apparently us black folks are good enough to worship your God and your prophets, to pay for your ever-expanding church, and to break our backs to help build more edifices to Moroni and the other false prophets...yet only 30 years ago did we become good enough to put on the robes and get to preachin'. Uh huh...I see how it is...Larry, you provin' my point, friend...

It's obvious you don't know to much about us Mormons from you bias and bigoted remarks. I wonder what our black LDS would say to you about what how you just condemned us? You may want to educate yourself better on this subject before you go shooting off your mouth. I know of two former Black Panthers who joined the LDS Church and I don't think if it were what you claim it is they would have bought into it...these men are very intelligent men. So get your facts straight before you try to represent what the LDS Church is all about.
Here is a little about one of the Black Panthers:

From Black Panther to Black Mormon

LeRoy Eldridge Cleaver, the Minister of Information in the early Black Panther Party, and the author of the international bestseller Soul on Ice (1968)--once considered the "Manifesto" of Black Nationalists and even white Radicals.

Cleaver was the most well-known American Black Nationalist and Radical in the 1960s. He was the most well-known Black Panther in the 1960s; the Party being a combination of Black Nationalism and Marxism. After fleeing the U.S. to avoid a manslaughter charge (he was with other Panthers in a shootout with Oakland California Police in 1969) he exiled himself to Algeria and later Cuba. He soon became disillusioned with Communism and Socialism when he saw that socialist countries were no "paradises of the workers" as he had been led to believe. He had a "born-again" experience in Cuba, and became a born-again Christian. He returned to the U.S. in 1975 and was given many years of probation (he was not the shooter). Being a famous figure for years, Cleaver was "wined and dined" by prominent Evangelicals and was offered multimillion dollar contracts to start his own Christian television ministry. He declined this, perferring to work (at a low salary) with young black men in a prison ministry. He concern was not becoming wealthy, but to work with young black men in prisons; to convert them to Christ as the way to free them from crime and gangs. By 1982 he had become disillusioned with the commercialism and showmanshipism of Evangelical Christianity, and he started looking into alternative religions. Also in 1982 he met Cleon Skousen, founder of the Freeman Institute (now called the National Center for Constitutional Studies). Cleaver gave talks for the Freeman Institute, and Skousen (a well-known Mormon author and former FBI agent) introduced Cleaver and his wife to the Mormon Faith. In 1984 he was baptized into the LDS Church. He remained a Member of it (although later not always active) until his death in 1998, at age 62, of diabetes.
http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/blackmormon/000H...

[Hannah Rebekah]

Keith Walker wrote:

thirty years later and still no apology from the LDS Church? Sad.
To read some interesting observations on the black issue, visit Mormon Coffee.
http://blog.mrm.org/

Don't hold your breath Walker...maybe it might interest you that Black Mormons are against an apology.

http://www.lds-mormon.com/lds_race.shtml
<quote>
Black Mormons Resist Apology Talk

By Bill Broadway
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 30, 1998; Page B09

A panel of five African Americans surprised members of the Mormon History Association in Washington last weekend by arguing against an effort to force an apology from Mormon leaders for the church's former racist doctrines -- an effort, the panel said, that would be a "detriment" to church work and a catalyst to further racial misunderstanding.

"There is no pleasure in old news, and this news is old," Bryan E. Powell, a mortgage broker from Suitland, said in response to a paper urging the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to rid itself of "an unresolved legacy of the nineteenth century."

The legacy, recounted in a 45-minute presentation at the association's annual meeting, was a onetime belief that blacks were spiritually inferior to whites and should be excluded from priesthood, a position achieved by most Mormon men. Mormonism has no paid clergy and relies on a laity with broad-based powers to lead worship and perform such sacraments as baptisms, ordinations and infant blessings.

"What the brother read here is a detriment to my race and to my church," said Theodore Newkirk Jr., a "high priest" of the church and first president of the recently organized Capitol Hill Branch. "We must put an end to this information fast."

Like other denominations, Mormonism -- organized in 1830 -- once taught that blacks were descendants of Cain, Adam and Eve's son who was banished after murdering his brother Abel, and of Ham, Noah's son who broke a taboo when he looked at the nude body of his drunken father. In what became known as the "curse of Ham," Noah condemned to slavery the descendants of Ham's son Canaan.

Mormon theology added the belief that blacks embodied spirits that had fought on God's side in a celestial battle of Good vs. Evil but had performed "less valiantly."

Powell said that the church, which has about 48,000 Washington area members, rejected its earlier teachings on race two decades ago, when leaders proclaimed that "all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color."

But as the June 6 anniversary of that proclamation approaches, some white and black Mormons have pressed for an outright admission that past teachings on race were erroneous.

Tensions increased last week after an unnamed source leaked documents to the Los Angeles Times, which reported that "key leaders" at the church's Salt Lake City headquarters were debating a proposal on whether to publicly disavow the church's earlier teachings on race. The office of President Gordon Hinckley, whom Mormons consider a prophet, released a statement denying that he and his counselors are considering such a proposal.

"Since the 1978 revelation granting the priesthood to all worthy males, millions of people of all races have embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ," the statement said. "[That] declaration continues to speak for itself."

But Armand L. Mauss, a sociologist from Pullman, Wash., who is president of the Mormon History Association, said in an interview that he has talked with dozens of black Mormons who believe that some Mormon leaders and laity still view blacks as inferior.

[Hannah Rebekah]

(continued)

Mauss said that some of the teachings did not originate with Mormons but with the Protestant groups from which Mormons converted. "Every major Protestant denomination in history has taught that blacks are descendants of Cain and Ham," he said.

Yet teachings that "died a natural death" over time among Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and others, he said, have lingered in Mormonism as indicated by books published as recently as 10 years ago.

"The only way to neutralize what's out there is a public repudiation" of earlier doctrines, said Mauss, who is white.

Lawrence Mamiya, professor of religion and Africana studies at Vassar College, agreed in a telephone interview with most of Mauss's assessment. "All white denominations" at some time have used the curse of Ham to justify slavery or racist attitudes, Mamiya said. "It's not so much that it was officially preached but that it existed in the culture."

This "mythology has never really disappeared," Mamiya said. It resurfaced during the unrest of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and "is still alive today, particularly among many fundamentalist groups."

Mormon arguments over race come at a time when church membership is blossoming in Africa and other developing areas that have predominantly nonwhite populations. Spokesman Don LeFevre said the 10 million-member church does not identify members by race and has no idea of the racial breakdown of its constituency.

In February, Hinckley completed a six-day tour of Africa, where the church has 112,000 members in 32 countries -- most of whom have joined since 1978, LeFevre said. More recently, Hinckley addressed a regional conference of the NAACP -- a first for a Mormon leader.

But last weekend's panelists, meeting at the Washington Marriott, said some issues are better left alone, including trying to squeeze an apology from the church hierarchy. "I would like to erase the past 200 years of racism in this country, but no, I can't do it," Powell said, adding that he had a personal revelation of the church's validity when he converted in 1993. "Regardless of past policy, this is a true church."

Gladys Newkirk, Theodore's wife and a pharmaceutical representative from Suitland, said she has seen numerous cases of the church helping unemployed African Americans find and keep jobs since she joined 10 years ago.

As an African American, "I've never experienced any problems in this church," she said. "I don't need an apology.... We're the result of an apology."

Cleeretta Smiley, a doctor of holistic medicine in Kensington and a Mormon since 1975, three years before the church's race declaration, was the only panelist to directly address the church's old teachings on race, calling them "damnable heresies." But she said that any generation of believers is capable of "misinterpretations" of scripture and revelation and agreed that it's time to put the matter to rest.

"We are all speaking from our hearts," she said.

Gregory Prince, a medical researcher in Rockville who helped plan the four-day conference, said he gave the panel no guidelines other than to speak about their experiences in the church. He looked perplexed when asked after the session about the panel's position on the question of retracting old doctrines.

"I was surprised at how strongly they articulated their feelings," said Prince, who read a paper by Lester Bush, a longtime advocate of racial equality in the church who was unable to attend. Theirs, he said, is "one voice we need to listen to."
<unquote>