121425, Sunday - Blacks and the Priesthood

Daily Vitals: Wt. 234.1 GMI: 6.8, Steps (previous day): 9,114

BP: 90/56, Pulse: 76, Reported Sleep: 5:04

Journal Entry

I gave Cathy a blessing last night. She was in tears because of pain and there doesn't seem to be any solution. She will see Dr. Porter on Monday, tomorrow, and we will see what can be done. Her pain went way down after the blessing and she was able to sleep. Hopefully she will be better today. It looks like that will be the case. Thank heaven.

Come Follow Me 

"He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color."

"I was the junior member of the Quorum of the Twelve. I was there. I was there with the outpouring of the Spirit in that room so strong that none of us could speak afterwards. We just left quietly to go back to the office. No one could say anything because of the powerful outpouring of the heavenly spiritual experience...

When my plane landed in Chicago, I noticed an edition of the Chicago Tribune on the newsstand. The headline in the paper said, “Mormons Give Blacks Priesthood.” And the subheading said, “President Kimball Claims to Have Received a Revelation.”... I stared at one word in that subheading—claims. It stood out to me just like it was in red neon...I thought, Here I am now in Chicago walking through this busy airport, yet I was a witness to this revelation. I was there. I witnessed it. I felt that heavenly influence. I was part of it. Little did the editor of that newspaper realize the truth of that revelation when he wrote, “… Claims to Have Received a Revelation.” Little did he know, or the printer, or the man who put the ink on the press, or the one who delivered the newspaper—little did any of them know that it was truly a revelation from God. Little did they know what I knew because I was a witness to it."

Elder David B. Haight, Apostle 

An official essay published by the Church teaches, “Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.”

 “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays,ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

This is, naturally, a pretty sensitive topic. In the early years of the church, race was a a rather intense issue with slavery being legal in parts of the United States and strong racial biases existing in various degrees with many people. Somehow a decision was arrived at, and it really doesn't matter how, to place restrictions on black members of the Church. Men were not allowed to hold the Priesthood and according to some accounts, women were denied admittance to temples. 

My opinion is that many members of the Church were not comfortable with these restrictions but somehow the policy was enacted. I think it's important to realize that in order to change this policy, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had to unanimously agree. It's a fact that any change in church policy must be based on unanimous agreement. I think that getting each Apostle and member of the First Presidency to agree to this change was apparently difficult but finally accomplished. My opinion.

Were blacks denied the priesthood because of an inherited curse or because people misinterpreted the Pearl of Great Price or for some other reasons? In the face of unanswered questions, the restriction created tension between these truths:

• The Lord invites all to come to him, black and white, and all of us are alike to God, beloved children (2 Ne 26:33).
• Apostles are commissioned to take the gospel to everyone.
• A race-based restriction existed.

Those co-existing facts created a theological problem. “A contradictory and confusing legacy of racist religious folklore” grew up to address the problem. People are black, this way of thinking went, because they chose to be less valiant in the premortal world.[5]That satisfied some people, but mainly it complicated the problem. There was no evidence for it. It was simply a rationale to make sense of a restriction that didn’t otherwise make gospel sense.

"We had this special prayer circle, then I knew that the time had come. I had a great deal to fight, of course, myself largely, because I had grown up with this thought that Negroes should not have the priesthood and I was prepared to go all the rest of my life till my death and fight for it and defend it as it was. But this revelation and assurance came to me so clearly that there was no question about it."

President Spencer W. Kimball, Church News, January 6, 1979