CV75

But in both #1 and #2, the Church was never led astray, and anyone's reaction to any prophet's fallibility is a personal choice. Life is messy. I do not think poor scholarship, poor logic and convenient theology promote saving faith in a messy world; the covenant path does.

I don't think it matters, so I don't think anyone should care, except for people who have a valid interest in quality history. The process of researching history is a worthy and helpful pursuit -- much like family history, it can help people appreciate both our roots and how things move forward in the Lord. It helps people prioritize our history with our faith in the living Christ.

I don't think the essay critiques the ban, it just states the best facts about it and disavows the theories supporting it. Which prophet started the ban and whatever they taught that was brought into justifying it is a matter of historical scholarship, and pales in comparison to the keys of salvation and exaltation they exercise to our benefit. This is why I think over the Church's history our Prophets and Apostles have leaned more and more into the covenants: that is what is most important. The Church History Office makes the world a better place much like BYU does, by carrying an authoritative voice of the Church in historical and academic matters respectively. But this is only to bring people to Christ through the covenant path, where correct doctrine distills collectively, individually, and in both cases through the keys as exercised by the Lord's authorized servants. Sometimes this distillation takes time, and the Lord is patient and graceful whether it comes fast or slow.

I joined the Church in 1975 as a college student. I can relate to what you say what was taught, mostly informally to me, but also printed in Mormon Doctrine which I studied thoroughly. However, when I studied Abraham 1, I couldn't square the "genealogy" of the curse very well with Genesis, but figured there were far more important things to figure out. Later, when I heard about two Cumorahs, it began to make sense: there were more than one of just about anything, including more than one Canaanite people, more than one curse, more than one incident and type of blackness, etc. Not to mention exceptions.

I guess that's semantics and context again. It is readily and responsibly inferred by the text of the essay that its message is that Brigham Young instituted the ban. There is no similar evidence to show otherwise, especially that Joseph Smith did what Brigham Young did; the text is based on the available good and reliable evidence. If new and proper evidence comes up, the essay text and message of the essay can be reasonably challenged. Maneuvers to justify bias and doctrinal theory and belief do not count.

The essay is just fine, then, and good, sound practices are behind the conclusions. Further research may well discover that Joseph Smith publicly announced and instituted/codified it. The cascade of increasingly extreme assumptions you listed do not reflect sound practices, as the cascade of assumptions in the OP do not reflect sound practice.

The essay does not entertain conjecture, nor should it. It is better than that. The presiding leader who publicly announces a policy is the one codifying or instituting it, and so we can trace it to Brigham Young according to the best evidence and judgement. The theory surmised by the OP is not supported by quality scholarship, too many steps from explaining doctrine to setting policy are missing, as well as primary sources for the latter.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng "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. There is no reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. In a private Church council three years after Joseph Smith’s death, Brigham Young praised Q. Walker Lewis, a black man who had been ordained to the priesthood, saying, “We have one of the best Elders, an African.”4 "In 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood, though thereafter blacks continued to join the Church through baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Following the death of Brigham Young, subsequent Church presidents restricted blacks from receiving the temple endowment or being married in the temple. 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." This is the establishment of the ban as Church policy/practice as far as it can be accurately traced.

I am waiting for your evidence that Joseph Smith instituted the ban. The essay says (with footnoted sources) that is was Brigham Young, and this my better explanation. The evidence you present pertains to what is summarized in the essay under paragraphs 3-5 and the first paragraph in "The Church Today", and does not identify who started the ban. It only offers specific examples of what Joseph taught (his primary sources representing the most reliable evidence of what he taught). You keep focusing on what he taught, not what he instituted as a policy. Let's not go back and forth, just Posted 7 hours ago

I don't have a better interpretation for who initiated the ban than the Church essay, which is clearly superior to yours. Please let me know when you show the solid evidentiary link between what Joseph Smith taught and his formalizing the ban that is stronger than that which is used in the Church essay for Brigham Young formalizing the ban. Retorts and refutations don't count.

This describes one contributing factor to bias, but does not justify poor historical scholarship as I think has been displayed here. Your penultimate paragraph is an example of an appeal to motive logical fallacy. I also see a distinction between a group of professionals who, despite their differences, create a quality essay and an individual who relies on loose possibilities an likelihoods to critique the essay in support of doctrinal bias.

Yes, this thread is about your belief, based on your treatment of what you consider evidence, that Jospeh Smith instituted the ban. Good historical scholarship is more than making interpretations based on the available evidence and asserting they are reasonable. It involves assessing the various qualities for reliability as linked to the subject event. It does not involve logical fallacies such as appealing to motive and ignorance as you have done regarding the Church essay. It also does not lay groundwork by defending a doctrinal bias based on poor scholarship. Hard work doesn’t count, either. Let me know when you've provided your direct evidence by replying to this post -- please don't bother otherwise. Thank you!

You might as well assert the ban began with God then, and skip all the middle men! But the ban as a formal policy for the Church organization is something very different from misunderstood scripture (doctrine). Drawing conclusions from loose possibilities and likelihoods is not good historical scholarship and is why your conclusions/beliefs about Joseph Smith do not appear in the Church essay.

My take is that the ultimate remission of sins comes when the Lord first forgives them and remembers them no more. This can only happen once it is established that the former sins do not return after they have been forgiven (D&C 58: 42 and 82:7). The repentance mentioned in the "Remission of Sins" in the Guide to the Scriptures has to involve the ordinances (which are intended to lead one on the path to the Holy Spirit of Promise): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/remission-of-sins?lang=eng Remission of Sins "Forgiveness for wrongdoing upon condition of repentance. Remission of sins is made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. A person obtains a remission of his sins if he has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, receives the ordinances of baptism and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and obeys God’s commandments (A of F 1:3–4)." Of course there is a stepwise process to this, and divine grace involved, so we can taste a bit and have a more excellent hope as we head toward that final state of perfection.

Now you're making it weird. And still full of logical fallacies according to these three lines. Clearly you don't know any better. Your understanding of evidence reminds me of the kindly elderly gentlemen, ostensibly a tour guide at the Conference Center in SLC, who followed me around with his loose-leaf book of photos of showcasing Nephite petroglyphs, including Moroni's signature: the letters "M-O-R" engraved above an etching of a human eye: Mor-on-eye, Moroni. Clear as the nose on your face. I will reply when you post proper (by scholarly standards) historical evidence that Joseph Smith instituted the ban. Why don't you send your collection and treatise to the Church History Office and ask them to comment on how the evidence reasonably proves that Joseph Smith instituted the ban?

I am taking these sources at face value. They are not reliable for the essay to state that Joseph Smith instituted the ban. I don't think you know what you're doing. Attaching a bad motive is a logical fallacy, and you continue to commit several.

You need to understand that these sources are not reliable for the purpose you wish to use them, and why they are not reliable. Knowing what they do, capable and intellectually honest historians and scholars who wrote the essay cannot with integrity draw the conclusion you do from these evidences. ...and I didn't read ahead because I'm impatient, but to do you a favor.

I keep pressing you for this because you keep saying tangential stuff already addressed broadly in the essay that warrants the refocus. Impatience has nothing to do with it. You should have had this at the ready, holding yourself to the same standard of diligence you suggest for the essay writers, instead of belaboring the soapbox.

1. Being at ease with members believing different things on one topic or another is a matter of personal tolerance. The world or the Church isn't going to end just because members have differing views. In this topic, there are many more than just two "sides" also. 2. For this reason, I don't think it important that the covenant-keeping members unite on much more than the Lord and the choice to remain members of the Church on that basis.

So why should the essay use what the scholars considered unreliable evidence or make an unsubstantiated declaration about Joseph Smith based on absence of proof? The essay is built on better scholarship than what you are proposing. But most significantly, you haven't provided the reliable evidence that Joseph denied black men the priesthood in practice (the ban), or that he started the practice.

You are conflating again: what you need to show is whether Joseph Smith implemented the ban, and not Brigham Young as the essay says, which is your claim. Your evidence needs to be stronger than the evidence used in the essay. I think that "what he taught on the matter" -- why do you use such vague terms? -- was given him by the Holy Ghost. He had the gift and companionship of the Holy Ghost and the keys and gift of translation. But that still leaves room for good-faith personal interpretation that reflects the disavowed theories advanced in the past.

More accurately, Joseph espoused a faulty interpretation of scriptural history which prevailed in his day, which turns out to be unsupported. No "reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime" at Joseph Smith's behest and doctrinal exposition has yet been brought up in this thread.

But all the quotes in your OP are about Joseph Smith's understanding of scriptural history, not his institution of a ban. The Church's view today is addressed in the section, "The Church Today." By conflating the teachings you chose to post with his beginning the ban, you seem to be misled in at least this one area. This is an example of faulty scholarship justifying faulty conclusions. Do you have any "reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime" -- at Joseph Smith's behest and doctrinal exposition? Please share if you do, and the essay might be updated.

Simply put, I said nothing about “the doctrinal accuracy of the teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.” Believe whatever you want, and however strongly, but turning this into a disagreement is unwarranted. But thank you for seeking clarification. Belief is not necessarily rational, but then again it is not always supposed to be. My original point (first post) is that even a prophet can deploy incomplete scholarship while indubitably holding the keys of the kingdom. That kind of error, if you want to call it that (I didn’t; I called it fallibility), isn’t important to me. Nor is it important to me who started the ban or why, which is why I didn’t comment on either. The only error I called out is modern saints pushing lesser understanding contrary to improved scriptural and historical scholarship. My second post comports with my first post, only wordier. “These kinds of teachings” pertains to the historical interpretation and commentary you posted, not the ban. The “failures/failings” are described as “real or imagined,” so no need to make them about the ban.

You are misrepresenting what I said and how I said it, which displays how you are in far greater error than they, and their successors if you take exception to their management of this matter. As far as what you believe, “It doesn't prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine" (Joseph Smith). Keep the faith!