How the LDS Church can change their doctrine/policy on LGBT

[green]

I was given a link to quotes from the prophets on blacks and the priesthood and I found it very interesting as it parallels what is happening right now with the LGBT issues. It's interesting to read through. Here is the link:

https://www.mrm.org/quotes-on-blacks-priesthood

Some interesting quotes:

Brigham Young, October 9, 1859, Journal of Discourses 7:290-291:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind...Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race—that they should be the ‘servant of servants;’ and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree.

Brigham Young, March 8, 1863, Journal of Discourses 10:110. See also John Lewis Lund’s The Church and the Negro, 1967, p. 54:

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

John Taylor, August 28th, 1881, Journal of Discourses 22:304. See also Latter-day Prophets Speak: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Church Presidents, p. 157, Daniel H. Ludlow, ed.:

And after the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God

Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 110. See also Milton R. Hunter’s Pearl of Great Price Commentary, 1948, pp. 141-142:

This doctrine did not originate with President Brigham Young but was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith. At a meeting of the general authorities of the Church, held August 22, 1895, the question of the status of the negro in relation to the Priesthood was asked and the minutes of that meeting say: ‘President George Q. Cannon remarked that the Prophet taught this doctrine: That the seed of Cain could not receive the Priesthood nor act in any of the offices of the Priesthood until the seed of Abel should come forward and take precedence over Cain’s offspring

Note how above, the mark of Cain, the curse was taught as doctrine. The Church now denies that it was taught as doctrine. The word doctrine is used over and over again the link. For the sake of time, I only included the one example.

Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions 4:170:

The Latter-day Saints, so commonly called ‘Mormons,’ have no animosity towards the Negro, Neither have they described him as belonging to an ‘inferior race’

If I were JFS, I'd go re-read the first quote I posted. So, here is where the tide begins to turn a little. The lying about what they said previously begins. The narrative is changing.

Oops:

Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 101:

Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race...Moreover, they have been made to feel their inferiority and have been separated from the rest of mankind from the beginning

I was taught growing up that Joseph Smith did not believe this and this was a Brigham Young policy (notice how it isn't doctrine anymore) and that it was because Young was racist. Why was Young racist? Because Smith ordained Elijah Abel, a black man, to an office in the priesthood. Then you see this:

Harold B. Lee, “Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons.” April 19, 1961, BYU Speeches of the Year, 1961, p. 7:

Some are heralding the fact that there was one of colored blood, Elijah Abel, who was ordained a Seventy in the early days... This ordination, when found out, was declared null and void by the Prophet himself and so likewise by the next three presidents who succeeded the Prophet Joseph. Somehow because of a little lapse, or a little failure to do research properly, some people reach a conclusion that they had wanted to reach and to make it appear as though something had been done way back from which we had departed and which now ought to be set in order.

Whatever you do, remember BY's quote above about marrying a person of color:

President Harold B. Lee, Decisions for Successful Living, p. 168:

Surely no one of you who is an heir to a body of more favored lineage would knowingly intermarry with a race that would condemn your posterity to penalties that have been placed upon the seed of Cain by the judgments of God”

Then we get to Mark E Petersen, who may be the most racist person ever born to this earth. I will only put one quote of his on here, but you could fill a book with his reasons why you should "Keep the Negro down".

Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems – as they affect the church,” August 27, 1954, p. 17:

In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get a celestial resurrection. He will get a place in the celestial glory. He will not go then with even the honorable men of the earth to the terrestrial glory, nor with the ones spoken of as being without law

NOW, here is the IMPORTANT part. Hopefully some are still reading this. Here comes the 180.

Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, pp. 164-165. From his address “All Are Alike unto God,” given at a Book of Mormon Symposium for Seminary and Institute teachers, Brigham Young University, August 18, 1978:

There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren that we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, ‘You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?’ All I can say is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world

So prophets of God, men who we are taught, converse with angels, God and Jesus himself, had limited light and knowledge and didn't know what the rest of the world knew, namely that racism is bad. Interesting.

Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, p. 165:

It doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June 1978. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them

Look at that! In 1978, the Lord "shed light out into the world on this subject"!!!! How glorious!!! Never mind that all the heathens, unbaptized, and unsaved people had already come to this conclusion. In 1978 the Lord spoke to the prophet and SHED LIGHT OUT INTO THE WORLD on this subject.

We now know what we already knew: Racism was wrong. The ironic thing was, we didn't need the Lord to tell us this. All the heathens already knew this. It was the righteous,chosen from birth due to being born in the Church because you were extra righteous in the pre-existence that needed the revelation. Not the evil sinners from the previous world.

From the Church's website right now:

There has never been a Churchwide policy of segregated congregations.

Just forget that Petersen taught segregation every chance he got. Let's keep reading:

Elijah Abel appears!

During the first two decades of the Church’s existence, a few black men were ordained to the priesthood. One of these men, Elijah Abel, also participated in temple ceremonies in Kirtland, Ohio, and was later baptized as proxy for deceased relatives in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Just forget what I quoted above about how Elijah Abel was never give the priesthood.

Finally, here is the part where members of the Church that struggle with the Church's stance on LGBT can take heart. Even though it was taught as doctrine that blacks were cursed, that you could not marry without cursing your children, that they were cursed because of actions in the pre-existence, and that black people were an inferior race...None of that means anything when a new prophet, a less bigoted prophet, takes the reigns.

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

The great thing about continuing revelation is that it allows you to toss out anything taught yesterday, so you can teach today what you want to.

The honor code at BYU? Great today. Tomorrow? Uninspired, brought about by bigotry.

The restrictions on LGBT? Great today. Tomorrow? Well, it was a rough time, and even though the rest of the world knew what was right, our leaders were still a little bigoted and they needed God to tell them that treating Children of God differently based on how they were made is wrong.

No one discriminates against the LDS Church. They do that to themselves with their stupid, bigoted, dated ways. Look around you. It's shocking that the heathens have realized it's not ok to treat LGBT people differently but the chosen of God can't see that.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I'm not concerned with LDS doctrine.

But I clicked and saw the tsunami of words and thought I'd give you a pity-post.

 

[babe]

I'm not concerned with LDS doctrine.

But I clicked and saw the tsunami of words and thought I'd give you a pity-post.

how about giving me a pity-rep for not doing an even longer post?

 

[babe]

Green, how many times can the screw turn and keep going the same direction?

every knot will turn it one side or another somehow.

 

[green]

Eh, it's alright. It's more for my mental fortitude than anything. I like to write things down and this has been on my mind with all the BYU claiming they are being discriminated against talk going on. The nice thing about message boards is that if no one cares, it will fall off the first page.

 

[b_line]

I am so disheartened about those quotes that are so racist. I know that all people learn and change, but it's so sad that they are supposed to be men of God and they are so horribly and terribly racist.


This, the gay issue and polygamy are my issues with the LDS Church. I know it's a great organization, but it's tough to take things too seriously when the professed doctrine is so far off from "love thy neighbor"

 

[Dr. Jones]

Bump

 

[babe]

OK, so I give up on the rep beg offer. here goes......

I don't think there is any actual example of any Western religion. . . that is to say, one with a rational line of exposition of belief. . . . that has remained the same for two hundred years.

The LDS tradition of preaching, which is to say extemporaneous pontifications like I habitually do, with no forethought nor second thoughts, really. . . . just free flowing euphoric "feel goodisms", is particularly vulnerable to such "drift". I listen to regular ordained, educated ministers of Bible-based ministries all the time. They are particularly adept at picking and choosing their texts and molding their preachments to their congregations. With the Mormons, there is another also-relevant set of folks whom you have to please..... The "Correlation Committee" or as it's now termed I believe, "The Strengthening Membership Committee". This little cadre of professional advertising men, Ph. D. sociologists and other social science professionals get to edit even the talks of GAs nowadays.

I think the term for it in the scriptures is "Priestcraft".

If there is a God, materially speaking or objectively speaking, you should quite readily see that God is a racist, having somehow, allegedly, created "races". Or did we create them by choosing mates whose physical characteristics and skin tones seemed oh, nicer.

If anyone believes the Bible, there is this little story about a special "covenant" people of God, the Israelites. Israelites are particularly racist. Even today, I cannot immigrate into Israel because of the "race" of my mother. It's a wise child who knows his father, they say. So Jewish DNA, or Levite DNA, won't get me in.

Green, you have bought into some kind of lie about race, some kind of theory about how people ought to be, and how God ought to be. I call you a liar. Sure you can preach your particular theory about "racism", but you are your own kind of racist. You think people who think like you do are better somehow. How is that any different from people who think skin color is meaningful?

In the Bible, marriage of Israelites with various tribes listed as descending from Ham were forbidden. The Bible termed them "strange wives", but then listed the tribes. In Genesis the same list appears as the descendants of Ham. The Historian Josephus wrote about it as late as the first century AD. But the Christians did not carry that tradition forward from that time. The doctrine of Paul explicitly stated that whoever is baptized a Christian is adopted into the family of Abraham.

Joseph Smith and the Mormons lived in a seething kettle of racism in the 1830s in Missouri. Mormons were mostly not slaveholders. That was part of the reason some folks raised terror and bloodshed to drive the Mormons out of Missouri. Mormons got sensitive to what others were saying about them, and started "fitting in" where-ever they were. In the 1970s, the Brazilian government raised a stink about the Mormon doctrine when the Mormons petitioned to build a temple there. Brazilian officials wrote to Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter wrote to Spencer Kimball. Said the LDS tax status was on the line, stuff like that. The New Republic mocked LDS "announcement" delineating this particular line of "revelation". But the LDS made a cost-benefit analysis, and did what they thought they had to do.

Green, if you want a religion that does not reflect the times, make one up yourself. See how long that lasts.

It is a mistake to hold God accountable for what people believe, think, say or preach. Whatever the source, it takes God to stand for it, or not.

I hold with the original covenant of Abraham, and I think even Paul disgraced himself straying from that. A religion that is, at its core, a racial covenant, is whatever God ever intended it to be. It's a patriarchal covenant, so even the State of Israel is apostate today, in my view. I am what I am, however God made me, for whatever God intended me to be. A hating swarm of racists chanting the meaninglessness of God's doing are just the unwashed heathen horde.

The story of Joseph Smith's ordaining a black man, Elijah Abel, was in his first edition of his Church History, in Joseph's Smith own hand. He said he ordained the man, but that an angel of God came to him in the night and said it wasn't right. The exact explanation was that the blacks were sons and daughters of God like the rest of us, and therefore have the same potential blessings for faithfulness, and can attain the fullness of the Gospel as well as any one, but that they were not to receive their endowments or ordinations to the Priesthood during their mortal lives. It was commanded, not advised, that faithful black members should have their ordinations and endowments done for them as soon as they passed into immortality. Joseph Smith called that black man back the next day, laid his hands on his head, and revoked the ordination. I don't think the LDS Church ever followed that particular practice, or doing the work for deceased black members, until 1978.

The idea of a "universal priesthood" has some historical problems. The early Christians did not have it. The Jews, the Israelites did not have it. The only priests under the law of Moses were the male descendants of Levi. It was expressly a male descendency thing from the beginning of having any "priests" at all. For all the time, 400 years in Egypt, there were no priests and no priesthood. Moses' father in law, a non-Israelite, was a "priest" of some kind, and other kinds of religions had them.

On the other hand, fathers have widely had authority over their wives and families. . . . well, in most cultures. . . . nomadic herdsment with moveable tents had to own cows and stuff to be able to keep people together in a band. Chiefs, patriarchs, are an ancient solution to the leadership question. I think a black father has more authority over his family than any Church official should have. Well, and white fathers just as well.

 

[Siro]

OK, so I give up on the rep beg offer. here goes......

I don't think there is any actual example of any Western religion. . . that is to say, one with a rational line of exposition of belief. . . . that has remained the same for two hundred years.

The LDS tradition of preaching, which is to say extemporaneous pontifications like I habitually do, with no forethought nor second thoughts, really. . . . just free flowing euphoric "feel goodisms", is particularly vulnerable to such "drift". I listen to regular ordained, educated ministers of Bible-based ministries all the time. They are particularly adept at picking and choosing their texts and molding their preachments to their congregations. With the Mormons, there is another also-relevant set of folks whom you have to please..... The "Correlation Committee" or as it's now termed I believe, "The Strengthening Membership Committee". This little cadre of professional advertising men, Ph. D. sociologists and other social science professionals get to edit even the talks of GAs nowadays.

I think the term for it in the scriptures is "Priestcraft".

If there is a God, materially speaking or objectively speaking, you should quite readily see that God is a racist, having somehow, allegedly, created "races". Or did we create them by choosing mates whose physical characteristics and skin tones seemed oh, nicer.

If anyone believes the Bible, there is this little story about a special "covenant" people of God, the Israelites. Israelites are particularly racist. Even today, I cannot immigrate into Israel because of the "race" of my mother. It's a wise child who knows his father, they say. So Jewish DNA, or Levite DNA, won't get me in.

Green, you have bought into some kind of lie about race, some kind of theory about how people ought to be, and how God ought to be. I call you a liar. Sure you can preach your particular theory about "racism", but you are your own kind of racist. You think people who think like you do are better somehow. How is that any different from people who think skin color is meaningful?

In the Bible, marriage of Israelites with various tribes listed as descending from Ham were forbidden. The Bible termed them "strange wives", but then listed the tribes. In Genesis the same list appears as the descendants of Ham. The Historian Josephus wrote about it as late as the first century AD. But the Christians did not carry that tradition forward from that time. The doctrine of Paul explicitly stated that whoever is baptized a Christian is adopted into the family of Abraham.

Joseph Smith and the Mormons lived in a seething kettle of racism in the 1830s in Missouri. Mormons were mostly not slaveholders. That was part of the reason some folks raised terror and bloodshed to drive the Mormons out of Missouri. Mormons got sensitive to what others were saying about them, and started "fitting in" where-ever they were. In the 1970s, the Brazilian government raised a stink about the Mormon doctrine when the Mormons petitioned to build a temple there. Brazilian officials wrote to Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter wrote to Spencer Kimball. Said the LDS tax status was on the line, stuff like that. The New Republic mocked LDS "announcement" delineating this particular line of "revelation". But the LDS made a cost-benefit analysis, and did what they thought they had to do.

Green, if you want a religion that does not reflect the times, make one up yourself. See how long that lasts.

It is a mistake to hold God accountable for what people believe, think, say or preach. Whatever the source, it takes God to stand for it, or not.

I hold with the original covenant of Abraham, and I think even Paul disgraced himself straying from that. A religion that is, at its core, a racial covenant, is whatever God ever intended it to be. It's a patriarchal covenant, so even the State of Israel is apostate today, in my view. I am what I am, however God made me, for whatever God intended me to be. A hating swarm of racists chanting the meaninglessness of God's doing are just the unwashed heathen horde.

The story of Joseph Smith's ordaining a black man, Elijah Abel, was in his first edition of his Church History, in Joseph's Smith own hand. He said he ordained the man, but that an angel of God came to him in the night and said it wasn't right. The exact explanation was that the blacks were sons and daughters of God like the rest of us, and therefore have the same potential blessings for faithfulness, and can attain the fullness of the Gospel as well as any one, but that they were not to receive their endowments or ordinations to the Priesthood during their mortal lives. It was commanded, not advised, that faithful black members should have their ordinations and endowments done for them as soon as they passed into immortality. Joseph Smith called that black man back the next day, laid his hands on his head, and revoked the ordination. I don't think the LDS Church ever followed that particular practice, or doing the work for deceased black members, until 1978.

The idea of a "universal priesthood" has some historical problems. The early Christians did not have it. The Jews, the Israelites did not have it. The only priests under the law of Moses were the male descendants of Levi. It was expressly a male descendency thing from the beginning of having any "priests" at all. For all the time, 400 years in Egypt, there were no priests and no priesthood. Moses' father in law, a non-Israelite, was a "priest" of some kind, and other kinds of religions had them.

On the other hand, fathers have widely had authority over their wives and families. . . . well, in most cultures. . . . nomadic herdsment with moveable tents had to own cows and stuff to be able to keep people together in a band. Chiefs, patriarchs, are an ancient solution to the leadership question. I think a black father has more authority over his family than any Church official should have. Well, and white fathers just as well.

TLDR: If you oppose race-discrimination, then you're racist against racist people.

And yes, I read the whole ****ing thing.

 

[Siro]

I disagree with babe's whole mentality that there isn't progress, only change. I think as technology advanced and we gained more exposure and knowledge, our morals and norms progressed toward the betterment of the human condition. But then again, like babe always says, I'm a transhumanist cultist.

 

[JazzGal]

I am certain the LDS church will change their stance about allowing married LGBT couples to have full participation. Just as they did with blacks and the priesthood, they will do so when they are threatened with removal of tax exempt status. Social change in the church eventually happens, just a decade or so after everyone else.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[babe]

TLDR: If you oppose race-discrimination, then you're racist against racist people.

And yes, I read the whole ****ing thing.

Fair enough.

Once you ditch the necessity of a higher moral authority, there isn't anyone with an innate natural right to regulate society, or any community, or pass any kind of law, or teach any moral value system.

Sure we can argue about stuff, but forcing human compliance is just raw barbarism.

So FU for all your ideas of the superiority of your "progress". You're just another thug with a club, or another jackbooted army burning the global village.

You need an objective basis supported by demonstrable fact to disprove human ideas. Or support your own.

The problem not faced by the current fashion of science is by what authority can you begin to regulate or discriminate against people who have questions.

 

[babe]

I disagree with babe's whole mentality that there isn't progress, only change. I think as technology advanced and we gained more exposure and knowledge, our morals and norms progressed toward the betterment of the human condition. But then again, like babe always says, I'm a transhumanist cultist.

Transhumanism is already institutionalize in our medical practices in some respects, like artificial appendages, hearts, joints, and such. It's just a matter of degree, really, as more stuff becomes possible and affordable. And yes, enthusiasts for this stuff sometimes rise to the level of devotion thar qualifies them as cultists of a sort.

Some very rich dudes are pretty hot for it.
But you're not that rich, you're a technology buff. Probably with a real soul.

 

[Tom Pitt]

I am so disheartened about those quotes that are so racist. I know that all people learn and change, but it's so sad that they are supposed to be men of God and they are so horribly and terribly racist.


This, the gay issue and polygamy are my issues with the LDS Church. I know it's a great organization, but it's tough to take things too seriously when the professed doctrine is so far off from "love thy neighbor"

Well, at the very least, The LDS faith has been better than the early days of Catholicism... Like say the Spanish Inquisition.

 

[RJF]

I didn't even make it through the first Brigham Young quote. Disheartening to say the least.

 

[Tom Pitt]

I am certain the LDS church will change their stance about allowing married LGBT couples to have full participation. Just as they did with blacks and the priesthood, they will do so when they are threatened with removal of tax exempt status. Social change in the church eventually happens, just a decade or so after everyone else.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using JazzFanz mobile app

I don't think the LDS Church will ever sanction gay marriage. Blacks and the priesthood was one thing. But gay couples marrying in the temple. I don't see the Church going in that direction but I guess you never know.

 

[JazzGal]

I don't think the LDS Church will ever sanction gay marriage. Blacks and the priesthood was one thing. But gay couples marrying in the temple. I don't see the Church going in that direction but I guess you never know.

It would be quite a shift. Time will tell.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[Dr. Jones]

My take...

I don't condone "sin" but I have never understood why religion, throughout the eons, has seemed to "pick a sin" that is the flavor of the month/year/decade.

Church officials seem scared to support gay living because it's sin.. right?

Well then we should just close the church, lock the doors, and never return if the prerequisite for "belonging" and being accepted is to be sinless.

I don't condone my own behavior (just drinking, really) but I've never had a church tell me I'm not worthy to be amongst them. Bible teaches sin is sin (aside from blaspheming of the Holy Spirit), so why do church orgs deny that premise and seemingly take political stands against "certain" sin?

I think the answer is simple. Human flesh. (No, I don't mean they're eating it.)

Blacks being denied was much more about racism and whites being uncomfortable... so there's your doctrine. It's now that with gays. Whitees are much more uncomfortable, today, with LGB (whatever) than adulterers, alcoholics, and even murderers.

So there's the position, again. Religious doctrine to suit the soul.

 

[NAOS]

My take...

I don't condone "sin" but I have never understood why religion, throughout the eons, has seemed to "pick a sin" that is the flavor of the month/year/decade.

Church officials seem scared to support gay living because it's sin.. right?

Well then we should just close the church, lock the doors, and never return if the prerequisite for "belonging" and being accepted is to be sinless.

I don't condone my own behavior (just drinking, really) but I've never had a church tell me I'm not worthy to be amongst them. Bible teaches sin is sin (aside from blaspheming of the Holy Spirit), so why do church orgs deny that premise and seemingly take political stands against "certain" sin?

I think the answer is simple. Human flesh. (No, I don't mean they're eating it.)

Blacks being denied was much more about racism and whites being uncomfortable... so there's your doctrine. It's now that with gays. Whitees are much more uncomfortable, today, with LGB (whatever) than adulterers, alcoholics, and even murderers.

So there's the position, again. Religious doctrine to suit the soul.

One of the foundational roles of Church (like State) is to code behavior. In order to have the force to code behavior, Church has to be regarded as having a mandate over important questions. Since 'important questions' are under constant variation due to forces way beyond Church's control, Church is always reacting. This has been the way of it. I'm not sure if you've been holding out hope for something else, or misrecognizing Church, but... yeah.

 

[Dr. Jones]

One of the foundational roles of Church (like State) is to code behavior. In order to have the force to code behavior, Church has to be regarded as having a mandate over important questions. Since 'important questions' are under constant variation due to forces way beyond Church's control, Church is always reacting. This has been the way of it. I'm not sure if you've been holding out hope for something else, or misrecognizing Church, but... yeah.

Church is man. So, no, I wasn't expecting to see things done any differently than it has for centuries.