A Matter of Timing…
Today in 2006, no one cares that the Methodists had segregated congregations until 1968.
No one.
Sure, older members remember the experience, and some others are aware of it and find it ‘regretable’, but as to the state of the Methodist Church today, it is a non-issue. No one has heated Internet discussions about it (nor the equivalent of threads like this). Methodist politicians in 2006 aren’t asked to account for their church’s ‘racist heritage’. Black investigators considering becoming Methodist in 2006 aren’t hurriedly told by others in hushed terms “Did you know your church discriminated against blacks until 1968?â€
Pity the poor LDS Church, then… Since being one of the more ‘progressive’ churches upon its founding in 1830 (saying slavery was wrong and that blacks were *gasp* human…with souls, even), it has now become circa 2006 the one Christian church with a ‘racist heritage’ everyone still talks about, vis-à -vis the black priesthood ban, rescinded in 1978.
Why? It must be a matter of timing…
In 2006, no one cares that Methodists (or Baptists, or Episcopalians) had segregated congregations last century because, well, virtually EVERY Christian church was segregated last century. (Many churches, from a practical standpoint, are still segregated even now…)
In 2006, no one cares that many Presbyterian and Jehovah’s Witness leaders early last century believed and taught that blacks were inherently spiritually and intellectually inferior to whites because, well, LOTS of people in EVERY church (and non-church-goers too) believed that.
In 2006, no one cares that the Baptists had more or less blocked blacks from leadership positions above the congregational level until 1968, because, well, virtually all the OTHER secular and religious organizations were blocking blacks from high-level leadership positions at the same time.
People WOULD care, however, if those churches still had those same policies now…because things are different now. What used to be ‘acceptable’ in the past, now no longer is.
Segregated churches were the norm before World War II, and not very controversial…since, of course, everything in society was segregated then. Later, in the period of time between 1950 and 1970, the Civil Rights movement took shape and many cultural changes took place, including the abolishment of legalized segregation within both church and state.
It was ‘acceptable’ at one time for a church to be segregated…then one day it wasn’t–and the churches changed, as society in general did. Now, in the 21st century, many people still remember the period when blacks weren’t allowed to meet in the same chapels as whites–and some emotional scars still remain–but no one uses the past to judge the value of any church in the present. Well…except for one.
How much more enlightened those other churches all were–in relation to those racist Mormons–by telling blacks, “Sure, you can have the ‘priesthood’…as long as you use it over there, away from us. [pause] No…over there! Keep going…â€
It seems like the Mormons’ biggest mistake was missing that window of opportunity during the Civil Rights era when racial change was chic. If the priesthood ban had ended in 1968 or 1958–during that time when everyone else was putting away old traditions and moving into the modern world–would anyone still be talking about it? Perhaps if it had been 1948 when the ban ended, people might be instead lauding the Church for being slightly ‘ahead of the curve’ when it came to civil rights. What a difference a couple of decades makes!
How odd that other churches with far more racist policies throughout history can be excused as simply a reflection of the society they were in at the time, while the LDS Church is continually held institutionally responsible for not having all its members and leaders magically removed from common and deeply-held attitudes within the culture in which they existed.
(Note that the priesthood ban made it fundamentally impossible to practice segregation within the LDS population, and shuffle blacks off into their own wards away from everyone else. Isn’t that ironic…)
Discussion questions:
- What’s the “magic year” for rescinding the priesthood ban–i.e. the year where having it disappear would have allowed the Church to better fit in amongst those other ‘enlightened’ churches in the 20th century and avoid the current level of modern-day criticism? How would modern-day discussion of the Church and race by insiders and outsiders have been affected if it was 1968 or 1948 instead of 1978? Or does the actual year not matter?
- What are the chances having no priesthood ban would have eventually resulted in official or unofficial segregation for black Mormons in the 19th century…same as every OTHER church in the country? Would black members have been better or worse off under segregation than with simply no priesthood capabilities?
- What’s the likelihood 19th century (or 20th century) white Church members would have found it perfectly acceptable confessing sins to and receiving counsel from a black bishop, having black elders lay hands and give them a blessing, or even take sacrament bread broken and passed by black hands? What would have happened if a large percentage of them did NOT find this acceptable? How does the answer to these questions affect the inevitability of either the priesthood ban or segregation within the Church in the end?
This is interesting and good to remember but I think it misses one point: we claim to be led by a prophet. If changes in our church are just the result of responding to social change, what good is that prophet? If changes in our church are based on revelation, then why didn’t God reveal it long ago?
I have answers to those questions that satisfy me, but I can understand why nonmembers ask them. If we are the true church, we should be held to a different, higher standard than those ol’ Methodists and that’s where I think your comparative history is, while certainly helpful, less than enough to put the entire issue to rest.
Perhaps part of the disconnect between comparing the Methodist experiance and the Mormon experiance is that the Methodist actions were practice, and the Mormon actions were doctrine. Now of course this is argued extensivly, with many pointing to Hugh B. Browns statement saying it was a practice, but when one reads much of the folk-doctrine that surrounded the issue it’s pretty clear that we had built up an ecclestiastical edifice around the inferiority of africans.
Perhaps then it is less the timing and more the protestations of how we are undeniably right…
to your questions.
1. 1830
2. I found this an interesting and compelling point, but have a itty bitty quibble. The Church does seem to encourage segregated wards for language and marital status.
3. This one I have a bigger quibble with. Are you saying that God allowed the True Church to be false for a time because “every one else” was doing it? Why wouldn’t he allow the Catholics to be false for a time then?
These are sincere questions and not rhetorical.
Matt, to answer your number 2, the segregation is not forced. If Hispanic members don’t want to attend a Spanish ward/branch, they don’t have to–nor do singles. And as far as language goes, D&C tells us that everybody has the right to hear the Gospel in their own language.
Kevin, I would basically agree with Julie’s comment #1 above. I thought long and hard about this issue before getting baptized seven years ago, and basically came to the conclusion that, for reasons I will probably not completely understand in this lifetime, we have been saddled with this additional burden to bear as members of the Church. By this I mean the burden of having to explain our history regarding African-Americans and the priesthood. I would agree that having comparative information helps, and certainly it is worth remembering that other churches that now claim moral superiority were even more segregated than we were until the 1960s. But at the end of the day, you have to answer the question: “are we guided by prophecy and revelation or not?” The answer for me is a resounding “yes,” a testimony that increases every year.
I really like these talking points, Kevin, and intend to hold onto this information for future reference.
Julie is right to point out the flaw in the argument that it doesn’t work for LDS because we believe in a prophet, but this isn’t an argument to hand to members. I think it will be especially effective to point out to outsiders criticizing the church from their Stone-Campbell inspired Christian “non”-denomination, like my boss, who is so proud that his church isn’t racist like the Mormon church. Thanks for posting this.
1. 1830
Well, sure. But a more realistic answer is 1962 or whenever it was that we were preparing to send missionaries to Africa in response to requests from Africans. The spotlight was not shining nearly so brightly on the Church then as it was later in the 60’s, and the African angle would have given plenty of cover against the charge of responding to political pressure.
Why wouldn’t he allow the Catholics to be false for a time then?
Perhaps he did, but lost his patience when it didn’t reform after 1000+ years.
Okay, let’s define “guided by revelation”…
It’s *supposed* to mean “God speaks through prophets, man obeys”
In practice (in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and modern Church history) it becomes for all practical purposes: “God speaks through prophets, man sometimes obeys and sometimes shuts his ears and doesn’t listen. God then tries again with a lower law until He finds a standard where His people can reach some minimum level of obedience where progression can continue to some future point where the higher law will be once again given.”
Isn’t that what the Law of Moses was? Why didn’t God tell Moses to have the Israelites “turn the other cheek” and make them live with it? Why aren’t we living the Law of Consecration today?
Being a progressive in terms of race in 1830 meant you opposed slavery, period. It did not mean you believed blacks should be able to vote, or own land. It did not mean you would find your daughter marrying a black man perfectly acceptable. And it did NOT mean that white Church members would be perfectly fine with having to confess their sins to a black bishop as above.
The people (like Matt #3 above) who say the ban should never have happened seem to be idealistically thinking blacks and whites would have then been happily dancing together in complete fellowship within the restored gospel from 1830 on, if only the ban had never happened…as if being baptized means a Church member gets magically transformed through the Spirit and leaves all cultural prejudices behind. Doesn’t work that way…
If we go back in time and ask Moses “should women have the right to vote?” would we expect him to answer “Yes, of course”…otherwise he’s “proven” that he’s not God’s prophet? Give me a break… Prophets are products of the society they live in, just like everyone else…
I am serious in suggesting that without the priesthood ban, the Church would likely have become segregated like every other church. In my opinion, a lot of members may have *conceptually* accepted that blacks are the same as everyone else in terms of eternal potential, but there is *no way* the vast majority of members were ready to accept black priesthood holders into their personal lives in terms of counsel, blessings, and every other element in which they’d be called upon to serve intimately amongst white members. And if they *don’t* accept black priesthood holders, then what happens? Members leave en masse and the Church collapses? Segregation? Are you *sure* blacks in the Church would have been better off without the priesthood ban, given the society they lived in?
If the Word of Wisdom was God’s will, why didn’t He reveal it before 1833? Maybe because that’s when Joseph Smith prayed about it and asked. God gives light and knowledge when *we* are ready for it…
I think this leads to the following question.
What level of involvement does Christ have with His prophet? Does this differ for each prophet? Over time?
At one end of the spectrum, you have Christ authorizing a prophet and basically saying “I want you to run my Church, whatever you decide I will sustain. The Holy Ghost will guide you. Do your best. ” The idea here is the Prophet makes the decisions.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have Christ authorizing a prophet and basically saying “Your job is to receive my word from me and relay it to the people”. The idea here is that the Christ makes the decisions.
Surely the Doctrine and Covenants contain many examples of the latter, but the former is no less of a prophet. The authority is what matters most. Indeed, the former would probably provide the greatest growth potential for the Prophet.
Whatever the proper answers to your questions, the one thing I refuse to do is whine about the unfairness of it all.
Kevin Burtt (The Baron),
I find it hard to believe that people capable of living polygamy couldn’t have treated blacks as equals. I don’t know that I agree with ‘the ban was a mistake’ line of thinking, but I also can’t agree with what you are saying (if I am reading you correctly)–it isn’t all about the weakness of the people. Moses told the people to forgive all debts every seven years and to cut off part of their genitals but he couldn’t have had women vote? Hard to believe.
This begs the question, why haven’t out leaders learned from past mistakes of failing to embrace needed reforms in a timely fashion? Be it accepting that homosexuality isn’t a choice and blessing commited relationships, having scriptures in and praying in your own langauge (modern English), avoiding the trap of period clothing, bringing the WofW back to it’s original intent of a good practice, not a barrier to entry, etc, we just seem hell bent to be stuck on stupid.
Julie is absolutely right…what the methodists did is irrelevant, since they don’t claim to have an organization literally led by Jesus Christ through revelation.
And the argument that it was the “weaknesses of the people” doesn’t hold water, unless you’re talking about the weaknesses of the Apostles themselves.
I have no idea how Moses would have answered the question…only that (if it so happened) he didn’t support “women’s rights” (as we would define them today) that has absolutely no bearing on whether he was really a prophet of God. Being prophet is not dependant upon having the ‘right’ opinion on any given issue, any more than it’s dependant on being perfect…
I’m not attributing the priesthood ban to either the weakness of the prophet or the people, only that it doesn’t make sense to say the Church (meaning Church members, including leaders) should be expected to be completely removed from the society in which it resides (if it were truly the Lord’s Church) when every single Church member is a product of that same society, with deep cultural influences that are not immediately cleansed away when arising from the baptismal waters… Why would we expect that the Church would have been successful in integrating blacks completely into 19th century Church life among white members when integration was a *complete* failure everywhere else in the world until the Civil Rights era?
addrax, I don’t think the notion of “I want you to run my Church, whatever you decide I will sustain” is consistent with current teachings.
Church leaders (other than the prophet, ironically) constantly stress that the church is led by Jesus Christ through revelation. Last week our stake was reorganized, and the leaders repeatedly stressed that the new presidency was chosen by revelation. Elder Eyring that even every local calling comes directly from God through revelation, and not throught the judgement of local leaders.
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/2002.htm/ensign%20november%202002.htm/rise%20to%20your%20call.htm
The problem is that so many people don’t think you can have divine guidance or inspiration without there being a kind of infallibility tied to it. So if we have a mistake it is taken as evidence of a lack of inspiration. Of course it would seem to me to apply several orders of magnitude more to other organizations…
Personally I think it is just a tool our foes use. They don’t care if they are being hypocritical or not. Sort of akin to people who apply a different standard to textuality of the Book of Mormon than they do the Bible.
To add, it is a common attack by atheists on the Bible that it doesn’t condemn slavery and so forth. So saying the situation is different with methodists or baptists isn’t quite accurate. Both groups tend to suggest the Bible has the information we need as a society whereas it’s not hard to demonstrate that there are huge ethical issues it ignores. (i.e. why didn’t God have Moses completely and utterly ban slavery?)
ed johnson,
I think you have read way too much into Elder Eyring’s talk. The purpose of his talk was to inspire how the calling of members should be, and not declare how things are.
“Elder Eyring that even every local calling comes directly from God through revelation, and not throught the judgement of local leaders.”
The latter part of your statement is not supported, “and not throught the judgement of local leaders.”
What I am suggesting is “judgement of local leaders” is revelation because God has authorized people to act in his name.
Revelation - The revealed will of God
A Bishop makes a decision and presents it to the Ward - The revealed will of God for the ward?
For sure.
What if it’s a little bit astray? Still for sure.
What if it’s a lot astray? No way.
Back to the original topic, I think this scriptures says alot.
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/38/24-26#24
Christ plainly teaches the concept of esteeming your brother as yourself, repeats himself, and then teaches in parable form how far reaching he means.
Why would Christ repeat something?
Why teach something in parable form too?
How could they not get it? Wait… Am I doing any better today?
Here’s the quote from Elder Eyring’s talk (emphasis mine):
there is, i’d point out, a difference between having segregated congregations (at least the ‘minority’ congregation gets a say in its leadership, etc.) and denying any leadership position to blacks at all. i would say that, while both are regrettable, the lds example is moreso.
The current interest in the Church’s previous priesthood ban is due to it being an issue 30 years ago, before it ended. Agendas are set, and then they perpetuate.
I beg to differ. “Folk-doctrine” is by no means backed up by revelation, and is therefore not at all the word of God. Indeed, a major problem with Mormon culture is that it often has its own doctrines (some spoken, many unspoken). A good example of this is Bruce R McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine”. As you may know, this book stated very clearly that blacks possessed a curse and were less faithful in the preexistence. Mormons readily accepted just about everything McConkie said in the book, including this. The reasoning behind this I encountered recently in a conversation with another member. “Is [book they quoted by a GA] official doctrine?” “It was written by a prophet of the Lord, what do you think?” This attitude (that GA’s are incapable of possessing opinions seperate from God’s), and the extreme amount of embelishment and/or literalism applied to scripture, doctrine, and everything the GA’s say creates a vein of psuedapigriphal Mormon “doctrine” accepted as the absolute, unchanging word of God. It is reminicent of the Pharisees and Saducees of old, who both misinterpreted and even fabricated doctrine, each in their own way. Culteral “doctrine” does not qualify as True doctrine in any way. Just because a practice was interpreted as such does not qualify it as a doctrine from God.
The Church will never put this behind it until it formally apologizes. But as somebody pointed out, that’s problematic when LDS cultural tradition perpetuates a belief in de facto Church infallibility.
I’m may be alone here in believing that GBH’s equivocation on TV (”Oh, that’s behind us!” or some such) only makes it worse because it just reminds thoughtful viewers that in fact there has been no apology. I really wish Larry King would have pushed a little harder on that question, because I think in his heart President Hinkley knows it was wrong and could apologize. Can you imagine if he had said that??!
Nobody outside the Bloggernacle cares whether the ban was a “doctrine” or a “practice” or whatever. All that matters is that the Church leadership has never just said “This was wrong and we apologize.” Until that day, critics will rightly question whether there remains a core of racism. I personally don’t think there is, but I certainly understand why the situation is fundamentally different from that of the demoninations listed at the beginning of this thread.
Honestly, I had no idea that any US churches other than us were practicing racial policies beyond co-whatsits (biracial marriage? it has a better name…) Bearing in mind that I grew up a Unitarian Universalist (which church has a legitimate claim to hard-core premature racial sensitivity and gender equality stances) and then spent my late teenage years in Ohio, dreaming of attending Hillsdale (the first American college to be chartered on the principle of nondiscrimination, admitting blacks in 1844 and second college in the nation to give bachelor’s degrees to women) or Grove City (which was also one of the first colleges in the country to admit women.) I honestly thought, between all of that and the religious background of so many Civil Rights, Prohibition, Suffrage and Anti-Slavery activists, that most US churches were on the forefront of, for lack of a better term, “all that stuff,” and that we were one of the few that was behind the times, as it were.
Is there, like, a list of churches with formal (or effective, but unwritten) policies of racial/ethnic segregation or discrimination, and when those policies or practices ended? I’d be really curious to see when these things took effect and stopped.
As far as I’m concerned, in order to have avoided any serious questions about God’s intentions re: racial segregation or discrimination, we’d have to have ended such practices before the commencement of US involvement in WWII. On the other hand, in much of the US it’d be tough to have pulled something like that off before 1960. I’d say 1968 is on the absolute outside edge (I’m shocked at the Methodist segregation date, especially given their New England background.) From any time after the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X, we could have waited till pretty much as late as whenever that “Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City” song was released without any change in how people view the situation today.
Re Julie’s comment:
I find it hard to believe that people capable of living polygamy couldn’t have treated blacks as equals. I don’t know that I agree with ‘the ban was a mistake’ line of thinking, but I also can’t agree with what you are saying (if I am reading you correctly)–it isn’t all about the weakness of the people.
Actually, I find that easy to believe. My ancestors’ journals and oral histories how great they thought polygamy to have been (my mother’s line were examples of polygamy practiced in the optimal state, and how most of them believed the folk doctrine surrounding blacks and the priesthood. My grandmother still espouses certain beliefs and isn’t afraid of sharing them.
MikeInWeHo says that this won’t die out until the Church apologizes. I think that it will follow the path of most US-based racism — it just takes a few generations. I don’t expect my grandparents’ or parents’ generations to fully lose their inbred racism. I look at my children and I see no racism in their generation. I think that when my children’s generation is running the Church, we’ll look back at 1978 as a curious moment in antiquated history.