I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will? new

thingsithink Dec. 2013

This new statement has me confused. I understand all the reasons the church now rejects for the ban - pre-existence, mark of cain, etc.

But, I don't understand if the ban was god's will. The revelation allowing blacks to have the priesthood didn't say anything about the whole thing being a mistake.

It said blacks get it going forward. That after the brethren had "pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance."

If god finally allowed blacks to have the priesthood in 1978, and there is no indication in the revelation the whole thing was a mistake, then why was it god's will to exclude blacks up until that time?

That's also what I want to ask my mormon friends. Was the ban god's will? Why?

mondaymorning
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
They'll give the incredibly insightful answer, "we don't know but we trust god."

Baarrrffff

forbiddencokedrinker
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Well, technically it was the will of bigots, plus their descendents, posing as the will of God.

forbiddencokedrinker
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
And since the church is not true, and their prophets don't receive revelation, that means it didn't come from God. What does that tell you?

ladell
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Heavenly Father is a close follower of societal trends, I clearly remember his awkward bell bottom phase.
GQ Cannonball
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
LOL...love it!
azsteve
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
If the ban was god's will then the church lied in their recent statement. If the ban was not god's will then the bigotry of Brigham young was institutionalized in the church for several decades despite what god wanted from the church. What else might the church be wrong about? What justifies their corporate empire building and tax exempt status? They bring harm to people and to families. They have no moral authority, only money, influence, and a cult following of people who are taught not to think for themselves.

cludgie
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
It was indeed God's will as spoken through his spokesperson, the Prophet Brigham Young.

Senoritalamanita
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Think of how the most "exceptional" religion on earth would look if it threw God under the bus.

want2bx
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
I think God is thrown under the bus a lot in Mormonism. Just one example: God is more responsible than Joseph Smith for polygamy. Joseph Smith was just being a faithful servant. Polygamy was a sacrifice. He and Emma didn't like it.

Finally Free!
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
This is why the church has a major problem... If the ban was "gods will"... Did god change his mind? Did he change it due to societal pressure? What about this whole "god is the same yesterday, today..." crap? So, god bows to societal pressure? What about him being the source of all morals and good? If slavery and the ban was "moral and good" why did he reverse the doctrine?

But, if it wasn't gods will... Then there are a bunch of other problems. Why did god allow the ban to be instated in the first place? Why didn't he call up his ordained prophet right away and say, "Dude? Really? You got that all wrong." He let this ban be in place for years and couldn't be bothered to fix it before thousands of people were affected? What about the whole, "prophet would be struck down before leading people astray" thing? Sounds like they are now saying that a former prophet (Brigham Young no less) led his people astray with a morally corrupt practice, shouldn't god, the all powerful, creator of the universe that takes the time to help his members find their lost keys, have fixed this right away? Nope, too busy to help keep racist policies from infecting his one and only "true" church.

This announcement causes more problems for them than it fixes. Basically, they are saying that the prophets are fallible, that they can introduce bad doctrine that may not be corrected for years. This calls into question the "truthiness" of the gospel and everything that members have been taught... Sadly, I don't think that a lot of members are going to see it that way, at least not right away.

nonsequiter
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Ideally they shouldn't just be questioning their prophets.

This should also cause them to pause and question ALL the prophets they claim to have headed their church.

What did Moses get wrong? Was he influenced by his societal norms?
What about Noah?

What about the original Apostles?

However, many Mormons will likely just sit there and gush about how great they are for not being racist anymore.

Strykary
And if Brigham Young led the church astray...
...Why did the Q12 have to supplicate themselves before the lord to change church policy?

Luis C. Ferr
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
In 1949 according to the First Presidency it was.

Now it isn't.

The sound you hear is that of a bus running over 130 some odd years worth of prophetic pronouncements.

Down the memory hole!

***Waves hands****
This is not the contradiction you are looking for.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.

goojabee
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Ironic, they have been blaming it on God as far back as I can remember. Isn't that called blasphemy?

Demon of Kolob
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
It was god's will for years after the ban was lifted. It was the prays of the prophet and the mormon people that moved god to lift it. This was the story until the 90's

my2cents
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
My thoughts exactly on this. The church has created an even more difficult problem by trying to squirm out of a difficult place.

Like you, if God truly does speak through his prophets as we've been taught, then why didn't he immediately correct BY on the spot? This isn't on the same level as two piercings in the ear, folks.

The church has distanced itself from BY's Adam-God doctrine for years now (See Bruce R. McConkie vs Eugene England). McConckie tells England in a letter that Brigham taught false doctrine regarding Adam and God.

So now we have two biggies that BY got wrong. Yet the prophet will "never lead us astray", and when the "prophet speaks, the thinking has been done". Brigham himself declared that everything he said was straight from God, but now it seems he was just lying. What else did he lie about?

And then there are those 9 prophets after BY up to Spencer W. Kimball. I guess racism wasn't on God's radar so he couldn't be bothered with telling any one of those 9 to drop the racism schtick? There were members of the Q12 before Kimball that tried to reverse that priesthood ban, but were shut down because it was not yet time to lift that ban, according to other members of the Q12 and prior prophets. Were they perpetuating their own ingrained, uninspired racism? If I recall correclty, they met in the temple and prayed diligintly over the issue. It appears God wasn't listening at that moment, cause he could have answered with, "I've been trying to get through to you guys ever since Joe condoned slavery to cut out the racism, but you haven't listened for 150 years."

There are no good answers to any of the downstream questions that arise from this change in doctrine. And no, it was never just a policy, it is doctrinal since very early on, and canonized in the standard works. Brigham Young just took the racist scriptures and put his own spin on it all.

This really calls into question the authoritarian, top-down management style of the church. If we can't rely on Brigham Young being prophetic, or his successors, how can Thomas Monson claim any prophetic status? A significant erosion in prophets, seers, and revelators has just taken place. It is too bad that most members will miss it, and I'm assuming that is just how the big 15 want it to be.

hapeheretic
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Thanks websites like this, I knew about BY's racist influence over blacks and the priesthood long before this new admission came out.

Seems this board and others like it are more "divinely inspired" than BY and all his successors.

thingsithink
Re: And if Brigham Young led the church astray...
god was reluctant to correct the policy even though it was the wrong policy.

but the brethren sufficiently supplicated and prayed so earnestly that god decided they were worthy enough to correct the mistaken policy. God didn't do this because it was fair to blacks. He did it because the brethren's lengthy supplication.

Chicken N. Backpacks
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
What gets me, and pleeease correct if I'm wrong, is that for many years it wasn't called a "revelation" about lifting the priesthood, but now (of course) everyone refers to it as such, and magically it IS!

I just remember the original description of everyone sitting in the room and it "just felt like the right thing to do". Are they saying it was the "still, small voice" of the HG settling on all those guys? Every description I've read of the fasting and prayer and prayer and fasting, seeking "confirmation from the Lord" is just BS after the fact, like "Well, it seemed so speshul, it must have been a revelation!" After all that prayer and fasting, they musta been a little light-headed....

ddt
Re: And if Brigham Young led the church astray...
In god's defense he is still pretty shook up about that whole rebellion nonsense that #2 son started. He still can't figure out how, since he is perfect, that he could have created someone who would try to overthrow him. And those who stood on the sidelines playing basketball and listening to rap music just had to be taught a lesson.

He is also upset that his white skinned, valiant warriors get skin cancer at a much higher rate than the one's whose skin is supposed to be a curse. It's tough to be perfect.

That's got to be hard to correlate.

There's that word again.

Stormin
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
I really hope LDS members see what the LDS inc. SCAM is trying to inoculate them with ----- pure rubbish. I read it and it is like Church leaders are idiots ----- whoever approves this garbage. It is saying our Prophets are idiots who will go along with whatever and garbage will continue for who know how long! LDS inc has set new levels of "Open your mouth and put your Foot in it" pronouncements! We all need to email the leaders and present them with a "Foot in the Mouth" award for both their initial coming clean pronouncements!

Strykary
Re: And if Brigham Young led the church astray...
You'd think an omnipotent and all powerful deity would be above all the red-tape!

Orlando
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Here's my best attempt at apologetics (please note, the historical things mentioned in this post about Brigham Young's teachings, schools boycoting BYU sports, and Brazil are true):

See, the ban itself was god's will until 1978. The actual reasons given for the ban, i.e. curse of cain, were not necessarily god's reasoning, just the reasoning of imperfect men who were not speaking as prophets at the time. How do we know they weren't speaking as prophets? Well, it's because in hindsite what they said was terribly wrong and racist. If what they say eventually turns out to be correct (as shown by science and/or history) then clearly they were speaking as prophets. See how nicely that works? .

We begged and pleaded the lord to stop being a racist, but that guy is really hard core. Beginning in the late 1960's several universities, including Stanford, refused to play atheletics against BYU due to god's racist doctrines. There were numerous protests. People threw things on the courts. Fights broke out. Our lily white members were very frightened! After that, we really increased our begging and pleading of the lord. Again, that cracker would just not budge!

Around the same time, our leaders were having a heak of a time telling who had the "seed of cain" in their blood and those who were white and delightsome. This was especially hard in Brazil where most of our new members were of mixed heritage. It was a very difficult situation. Of course, all of this could have been avoided if people had just followed B. Young's advice and not inter-married or had been put to death when they did. Anyway, with the new temple going up in Brazil, we needed to figure out a way to tell who was white enough to get in and who wasn't. We didn't have those quick DNA tests back then.

Some of our leaders resorted to prayer and inspiration to discern the racial background of potential priesthood holders. The prayers, we suspect, went something like this, "Dear Lord, please tell us if Bro. Phillips has the seed of cain in him. Is he black, a little black, or not at all? If you could just use your super powers to check the appropriate box on his membership records, that would be great. Or just give us a feeling, that will work too. By the way, are you still racist? Because if you're not anymore, that would make things a lot easier for us."

As you can tell, things were getting a little crazy. People were writing mean things about us in the national press. Calling us the "last holdout of bigotry." Of course we knew, thanks to Spencer W. Kimball and his John Birch Society, that the so-called civil rights movement was just a communist conspiracy to overthrow America, so we weren't that concerned. Still, we don't like bad press, even if its true. It affects our conversion rates and tithing receipts.

Anyhoo, after several more years of denials, lawsuits, protests, bad press, political pressure, and name-calling, our leaders again petitioned the lord. This time, God realized his only begotten, yes even Jesus, probably had a bit of the seed of cain in him. God thought, "hey, if its good enough for my boy Jebus, its good enough for me." God was no longer racist! He told our leaders as much and the revelation was announced! Our people rejoiced. We let a couple sons of cain, er, I mean african americans, sing in our choir and hold token leadership roles.

It's now 2013 and see how far we've come! We now have 3 african americans in the mo tab. We have a press release proving we are not racist anymore! I've heard we even have Gladys Knight. It's a new day. Praise Jebus.

Senoritalamanita
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Although God has his faults, he is still good natured at heart, don't-ya-know?

After all, didn't he promise that "eventually" all brown, black, red (and non-whites) will be blessed, or have their skin whitened, or have the priesthood or other blessings restored if they are only patient and compliant?

Isn't that such a great comfort to African American or Lamanite members of the church? What a blessing! After all, you are so spesh-ul in the eyes of the Lard.

All people of color have to do is to learn to "Relax." Relax and have faith. Be long suffering, humble and submissive.

That old adage applies:

You'll get pie in the sky when you die, bye and bye. (As long as you're not "uppity" in this lifetime -- and you know your place in LDS society.)

thingsithink
Re: I'm confused. Was the Ban on Blacks god's will?
Thanks for clearing that up for me.

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