1860 Priesthood ban on Video (Transcript)

Welcome to the Mormon Guru Podcast

Today's question: Why did the church place a ban on African Americans from holding the priesthood in the late 18th century?

Slide 3:  Whether in or out of the church, We must condemn racism where ever it happens.

Slide 4: With that in mind let’s go back to Europe & America in the 1800s

Slide 5: In London 1807, The Slave Bible was published, The Slave Bible was used as missionary tool to teach Slaves to learn to read and convert to Christianity. The preaching on the curse of Ham can be traced to the early 1800s across Christian denominations. For more visit the Bible Museum in Washington DC
https://www.museumofthebible.org/exhibits/slave-bible

Fast forward to September 1832, a white Church member named Ezekiel Roberts baptized Elijah Able in Ohio, a northern state where blacks and whites interacted somewhat freely. Elijah Ables, would be then called as the first African American priesthood holder by Joseph Smith to be a Seventy.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/elijah-able?lang=engOctober 27,

testifying to the world that the restored gospel was intended for all, “black and white, bond and free” (2 Nephi 26:33).

Slide 6: On Christmas Day 1832, Joseph Smith received a revelation about a coming conflict between the Northern and Southern United States over the question of slavery. The war would begin, the Lord declared, in South Carolina, and it would eventually lead to warfare among “all nations.”¹ At that time, a crisis had arisen over South Carolina’s refusal to honor recent federal tariffs, and many Americans worried that the situation could intensify into a civil war. The government averted civil war at that time, but tensions persisted, and the social, political, and economic divide deepened between the Northern and Southern United States over the question of slavery. 

In 1838 Latter Day Saints were accused of being abolitionists in Missouri and were evicted by the Governor Liburn Boggs.

During the 1860 presidential election, politicians and voters in the deep Southern states viewed Abraham Lincoln’s candidacy as a threat to the institution of slavery. When Lincoln won the election, some Southern states immediately began forming the Confederacy with intentions of declaring their independence from the Union. After Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861, tensions erupted into armed conflict in a standoff at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, between a Confederate brigade and U.S. Army soldiers. Lincoln directed troops to suppress the rebellion, and the remaining states began to side with either the Confederacy or the United States. European nations observed the onset of this war with interest and opened diplomatic channels with both the North and the South. The Confederacy soon launched military offensives against the United States, and battles multiplied across a front separating the North and the South.

In the days prior to his death, Joseph campaigned for the presidency of the US. His platform was summarized in a pamphlet titled General Smith’s Views on the Power and Policy of Government. “Empowering the federal government to protect the rights of religious minorities was at the heart of his campaign, but he took public positions on a host of controversial issues. His platform included a call for the closure of the country’s growing prison system, decreasing the size of the House of Representatives, chartering a new national bank, and promoting national expansion conditioned upon receiving the consent of American Indians. Joseph also called for the abolition of slavery in the United States by the government using revenues generated from the sale of federal lands in the western United States to purchase the freedom of enslaved men and women.”

 

Source: https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/2836

 

Note that up to this point, the Church took an anti-Slavery stance. Then we go to the Church under Brigham Young Era. The Saints take their slaves with them to the west. Then Utah had to choose if they would support the Union or the confederacy during the civil war. At this point, there was a shift in Brigham’s political stance where he not only opposes the Federal government, he makes a political blunder by sympathizing with the confederacy by upholding slavery. And, to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine.

I suppose the Church would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and His doctrine is pure. But He works through us—His imperfect children—and imperfect people make mistakes. Brigham Young needed to be corrected on many occasions not just on his political and philosophical views but also in Doctrine, no different from the times Paul had to correct Peter. In Galatians 2:11-14 The Contemporary English Version: Paul Corrects Peter at Antioch 11 When Peter came to Antioch, I told him face to face that he was wrong. 12 He used to eat with Gentile followers of the Lord, until James sent some Jewish followers. Peter was afraid of the Jews and soon stopped eating with Gentiles. 13 He and the other Jews hid their true feelings so well that even Barnabas was fooled. 14 But when I saw that they were not really obeying the truth that is in the good news, I corrected Peter in front of everyone and said: Peter, you are a Jew, but you live like a Gentile. So how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews? There’s no doctrine as such that a Prophet or apostle is infallible. 

 

I do not doubt that The Lord preserved his doctrine through the political turmoil of Slavery and the Civil war of America. That same restoration continues today as he renews his covenants with his imperfect children and revealing his will in the latter days.

 

I will leave you to ponder on this quote from Henry J. Eyring, President Eyring’s father, where he said that “There are all kinds of contradictions that I don’t understand, but I find the same contradictions in science, and I haven’t decided to apostatize from science” In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.