Response:

Rather than respond to each individual quote of Brigham Young, I’ll jump straight to answering MQ_2′s questions at the end of his comments:

1. “Why is that the Church with a prophet appointed from God to recieve direction could be so far off on Social issues?”

To ask this question is to judge Brigham Young based on our present perspective, rather than from the perspective of his time. The views Brigham Young held with regards to blacks were the dominant views of virtually all people in the United States at the time. You would have had to search far and wide to find leaders of any church who preached true equality between blacks and whites who weren’t practically regarded as being on the fringes of society. Brigham Young’s views were quite mainstream. Even Abraham Lincoln viewed blacks as inferior to whites and spoke out against intermarriage between the races. Lincoln also said that if he could save the Union without freeing the blacks from slavery, he would do so.

Does this mean Brigham Young was right? Certainly not, but it is unfair to judge his statements in a modern context, rather than the context of his own time.

2. “Shouldn’t the church be setting the bar instead of begrudgingly changing archaic discriminating practices so that BYU can keep it’s sports program. Or to stop allowing (publicly) polygamy so that Utah can obtain statehood. Why with a Prophet to lead and guide the people would we constantly be reacting to outside pressure before we do the right thing?”

It’s understandable that one would assume the LDS Church changed its position on blacks holding the priesthood and polygamy merely because of outside pressure, but if you look deeper that theory doesn’t explain everything. For example, the Church was under intense pressure in the early 1960′s because of its policy on blacks holding the priesthood, but didn’t change the policy until 1978. Its arguable they were under less pressure when the change was made than earlier. After all, most members of the Church had learned to deal with the criticism. If the only reason for the change was outside pressure, why didn’t they change when the pressure was greatest? In addition, President David O. McKay, decades before the Church came under pressure, had already made statements with regards to his desire to change the policy. If the only reason the Church made the change in policy was due to pressure, then how do we explain the President seeking to change the policy before there was much pressure, and before many other religions were ordaining blacks in their churches?

But your other question is perfectly fair–why isn’t the LDS Church leading the way, ahead of everyone else? If the church is truly guided by God, shouldn’t he be helping us avoid these problems? I mean, c’mon!

The key to understanding this conundrum is to understand how God works with us. What we’ve seen historically is that God rarely answers questions that haven’t been asked. Why didn’t God appear to Joseph Smith when he was 10, instead of 14? Because Joseph didn’t ask his question until he was 14. Why didn’t Joseph Smith receive the priesthood sooner than he did? Because he didn’t ask earlier. Virtually every revelation in Doctrine and Covenants is in response to a question Joseph asked. It would appear that God answers the questions we ask, but is perfectly content to led us struggle through an issue that could easily be resolved with His timely answer until we ask him. Brigham Young’s views on slavery and blacks appear to have been mainstream for the day, and apparently Brigham and many of his successors never saw fit to ask God about them. Evidently David O. McKay did, but couldn’t get the rest of the Apostles on board. Again, the practice of the LDS Church at that time was in line with most other churches and society in general. From what I can tell (bearing in mind I’m no expert on all this and may be wrong) it wasn’t until President Kimball took on the issue that there was sufficient consensus in the leadership of the Church to even ask the question. Maybe God was ready to answer the question 100 years before, but he was patiently waiting for church members and the leadership to get themselves ready to ask it.

3. “Shouldn’t we be the beacon by which the rest of the world follows suit on these issues? After all we have a prophet to tell us God’s will.”

I think there are broad misconceptions, both in the Church and without, about how revelation is received, which leads to a lot of misunderstandings about Church actions. But if it’s understood that the leaders of the Church are men, with shortcoming and failings, and that they only receive revelation when they ask for it directly, then a lot of things start to make more sense.

In theory, it seems like Mormons should be leading the rest of the world in every facet of life. We should have the best artists, musicians, writers, sports teams, politicians, business men, auto mechanics, etc. But of course, we don’t. What we’ve got is a bunch of imperfect people bumbling along and occasionally getting it right. Although God has told us we’re supposed to be a light and a beacon, and many of us try to be, he doesn’t prevent us from failing at it. But that’s ok with me. I don’t look for perfection in LDS Church members, leaders, or even in the system of the Church itself. There are some people who say “The members of the Church aren’t perfect, but the Church is.” I’m not sure I even believe that. What I do believe is that it is the only church with the authority of God, and the only church with a prophet. That’s enough for me to know, and I can deal with all the other imperfections.

By the way, many of the questions above with regards to blacks and the priesthood and Brigham Young’s statements are answered much better than I could do it by Armand L. Mauss in his article The LDS Church and the Race Issue: A Study in Misplaced Apologetics. I can’t vouch for everything he says because I haven’t researched it all, but most of it sounds pretty good to me.

A: Yes, Brigham Young did say a lot of interesting things, although much of what he said is often taken out of context (not just the context of his own remarks but also out of the context of his time), his opinions are often taken as church doctrine, and sometimes people attribute things to him that it’s doubtful he ever said In the LDS Church we don’t see our leaders as infallible, we see them as human beings who made mistakes just as everyone but Christ has made mistakes, but nevertheless were called by God to do certain things.

Regarding blacks in the LDS Church, I don’t have a quick answer for this topic although there’s a good talk here by a black member of our church on the subject – http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2002_Dispelling_the_Black_Myth.html.

I also looked up the book Mormonism and the Negro (which I had never heard of before) and it appears to have been written in the 60′s by a member of the church in the who was putting forth his own opinions. I don’t know of any doctrinal basis for what he was saying nor have I ever heard anything like that taught in the LDS Church.

What I do know is that in 1978 when blacks were granted the same privileges as every other race in the LDS Church some authorities in the church repudiated statements they had made in the past with regards to blacks and admitted they were wrong. It would appear that many members of the church, including some high-up leaders, in the absence of any concrete answer for why blacks weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood in our church, publicly speculated upon the reasons why, which led to some of the statements enemies of the LDS Church commonly latch onto.

The way I look at it is to say sure, some things said by church leaders were racist in any reasonably sense of the word. In 1978 God spoke to the prophet and in effect said “Blacks are just like anybody else and should have all the same privileges in the church,” and that’s it. I think the reaction of the vast majority of members of our church in 1978 was one of joy and relief.

Are there some members who still don’t get it? I’m sure there are, although I’ve never met any. I’ve been in this church for 33 years and have attended it in California, Utah, Brazil, and many other parts of the United States. During that time I’ve never encountered anything the least bit racist in any member of the church nor have I ever heard anything taught by the church that is anything but completely against racism. My brother who is a Mormon is married to a girl of another race. I have a nephew who is black and was adopted by Mormon parents. If there’s racism in the church today it only exists in a member here and there who is probably old and mentally stuck in 1965.

Q: Seems like some prewssure from the NAACP may have prompted that “revelation from God” about the Blacks

Albert B. Fritz, NAACP branch president, said at a civil rights meeting Friday night that his organization promised not to picket the 133rd Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church on Temple Square. He added, however, that the NAACP will picket Temple Square, next Saturday if the Church does not present an ‘acceptable’ statement on civil rights before that day.” Deseret News, Oct. 5, 1963.

A: I don’t think the church cared very much what the NAACP thought. After all, we’re talking about people who were forced to flee the United States to preserve their lives because the governor of Missouri had created a law that said it was not a crime for people to kill Mormons. After being killed and driven from one home to another until they finally had to come out to the empty wilderness of Utah do you think they’d change church policy because of being picketed?

The truth is that the leaders of the church had been praying and asking God for quite some time about the ban on blacks holding the priesthood and the answer they kept getting was “not yet”. Removing the ban wasn’t something that was done begrudgingly, it was something most leaders and members of the church were anxiously waiting and praying for, but it wasn’t something the leaders of the church were willing to change without getting the go-ahead from God himself.