35 years ago today -- Revelation makes change in Mormon view of Black LDS standing of elders

from Religion News. com June 8, 1978, was a sacred, momentous event — a revelation — that catapulted Mormonism into a new era of global growth. On that day, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended its ban on blacks in its priesthood, opening ordination to “all worthy male members,” including those of African descent. “For me,” former church President Gordon B. Hinckley said on the day’s 10th anniversary, “it felt as if a conduit opened between the heavenly throne and the kneeling, pleading prophet of God who was joined by his brethren.” In the 35 years since the announcement, Mormonism has spread exponentially in areas formerly off-limits, especially Africa. There now are nearly 400,000 Mormons in Africa, two missionary training centers, three working temples (South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria), with two more planned (Democratic Republic of the Congo and another in South Africa). Brazil, with its heritage of mixed races, has been especially fertile territory, with 1.2 million Mormons. In Europe, many of those willing to listen to Mormon missionaries are African immigrants. And the church is growing steadily in urban America, home to millions of African-Americans. For most white Mormons, the historical controversy is over. “It’s behind us,” Hinckley told “60 Minutes” in 1995. But the ban still haunts many African-American members. They frequently have to explain themselves and their beliefs to non-Mormons, other black converts, even themselves. They occasionally hear racist comments from fellow believers, such as “black skin is cursed” or “when you become more righteous, your skin will grow lighter.” Some report being called the “N-word.” Such racist remarks exist in every faith and group, of course, but some Latter-day Saints see the persistence as troubling. “Thirty-five years after the end of a racial restriction that had so burdened the church,” said Armand Mauss, a pre-eminent Mormon sociologist, “the old racist folklore that came with it has still not been formally repudiated” by top church leaders. Most Mormons did not challenge the ban on black males in the priesthood, but they did want to know why God would institute such a policy. Various explanations, many culled from American culture at the time, emerged. Some LDS leaders, including then-apostle Bruce R. McConkie, taught that black skin was “the curse of Cain,” an allusion to the biblical figure who killed his brother Abel. Others added the notion that blacks were “less valiant” in Mormon theology’s “premortal existence.” The official position is that only God knows the reason for the 125-year ban, and only a revelation from God could end it. The blacks-as-cursed belief continues to be circulated at the grass-roots level and supported in publications such as McConkie’s “The Mortal Messiah” and former LDS prophet Joseph Fielding Smith’s “Doctrines of Salvation.” www.religionnews.com/ (June 7, 2013)