Priesthood timing

[laronius]

Brigham Young: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

I had heard that first part before and there are differing opinions as to whether he was just expressing opinion or not. But the second half about when the blacks would receive the priesthood is new to me. Is that how it happened? Did they not receive the priesthood until it was deemed fulfilled that the priesthood had been sufficiently offered to non-black races first? I don't know how that would be measured but I thought it was interesting, in lieu of no official answer.

[zil2]

37 minutes ago, laronius said:

Brigham Young: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness?

skin?

38 minutes ago, laronius said:

But the second half about when the blacks would receive the priesthood is new to me. Is that how it happened? Did they not receive the priesthood until it was deemed fulfilled that the priesthood had been sufficiently offered to non-black races first? I don't know how that would be measured but I thought it was interesting, in lieu of no official answer.

I heard this growing up (tween-teen years).  Actually, I also heard that until those who would have been Abel's descendants had all had the chance to receive the priesthood, or until Abel's would-have-been seed mixed with Cain's, Cain's would not receive the priesthood.  Pure speculation, as far as I know (on multiple fronts).

[LDSGator]

I think the church wrote an essay on this, if that helps:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

 

 

[laronius]

15 minutes ago, zil2 said:

skin?

I heard this growing up (tween-teen years).  Actually, I also heard that until those who would have been Abel's descendants had all had the chance to receive the priesthood, or until Abel's would-have-been seed mixed with Cain's, Cain's would not receive the priesthood.  Pure speculation, as far as I know (on multiple fronts).

That's a correct quote, but I can't guarantee the original transcription is correct. JD 11:266

[CV75]

55 minutes ago, laronius said:

Brigham Young: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

I had heard that first part before and there are differing opinions as to whether he was just expressing opinion or not. But the second half about when the blacks would receive the priesthood is new to me. Is that how it happened? Did they not receive the priesthood until it was deemed fulfilled that the priesthood had been sufficiently offered to non-black races first? I don't know how that would be measured but I thought it was interesting, in lieu of no official answer.

If the first part is subject to differing opinions, the second part would be too, so "how it happened" becomes indeterminate and a matter of opinion. But his statement is internally consistent from start to finish, so if you ant to believe it, as many did and do, it just needs to be squared with what modern prophets have said and done with the keys of the kingdom.

[zil2]

16 minutes ago, laronius said:

That's a correct quote, but I can't guarantee the original transcription is correct. JD 11:266

Huh.  Yeah, that's what's in my version, too.

[laronius]

3 minutes ago, CV75 said:

it just needs to be squared with what modern prophets have said and done with the keys of the kingdom.

That's the trick, isn't it. So very little has been said by the brethren, past or present, that definitively addresses the question. Here's two quotes from the essay @LDSGatorreferenced:

"None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church."

"...the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past..."

Disavowing and not accepting falls short of saying it's not true. In the absence of an official doctrine I think they are going out of their way to not put revelatory words into the Lord's mouth. But it doesn't mean it's true either. Just a lot of theories.

[Just_A_Guy]

IIRC, Paul Reeve has pointed out that by “priesthood” Young is probably referring to the patriarchal order—that what changed Young’s mind about blacks and the priesthood (he was initially in favor of it) was coming to understand the importance of the temple sealing, developing a horror that righteous Abel’s line of posterity had been cut off, and concluding (via inspiration or otherwise) that Cain ought not to have priesthood-bearing seed until Abel did.  So . . . maybe 1978 was the year Abel finally finally attained his exaltation, took his place upon a throne (as, IIRC, we are told that Abraham and some other patriarchs already have), and—presumably—attained godhood.

Of course, in modern times we’ve been asked not to speculate about this.  But since so many disregard that counsel by speculating—even arguing—that the ban was spurious, I don’t know that there’s a lot of harm in pondering the possibility that maybe BY was, to some extent, right.

[mirkwood]

disavow: deny any responsibility or support for

[NeuroTypical]

15 hours ago, laronius said:

Brigham Young: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

14 hours ago, laronius said:

That's a correct quote, but I can't guarantee the original transcription is correct. JD 11:266

 

Call for sources, please.  When I go to the scanned digital copy of JD 11:266 located here, I do not see that quote or anything like it.  

https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/4493

Where does BY say what you say he says?

[CV75]

14 hours ago, laronius said:

That's the trick, isn't it. So very little has been said by the brethren, past or present, that definitively addresses the question. Here's two quotes from the essay @LDSGatorreferenced:

"None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church."

"...the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past..."

Disavowing and not accepting falls short of saying it's not true. In the absence of an official doctrine I think they are going out of their way to not put revelatory words into the Lord's mouth. But it doesn't mean it's true either. Just a lot of theories.

We are going to find many quotes on this topic. I take the living prophets’ disavowal and lack of acceptance a solid form of doctrine.

The Lord’s servants often fall short of some people’s expectations on these and other points. That doesn’t man those expectations are correct, or correct for now. Perceived ambiguity can drive us to become as a little child as the Book of Mormon teaches in several places ("submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."). It can help us understand the Book or Mormon’s counsel to do all things in wisdom and in order, and to be charitable toward our prophets’ weakness. Some wonderful godly traits can be developed within us in the perceived, so-called “absence of official doctrine.”

 

ETA: I was just reading in John 7 that many people in Jesus' day insisted He was not the Messiah because they assumed (incorrectly) that He was from or born in Galilee, not Bethlehem. Nicodemus tried to reason with them with a more open-minded, "let's see" attitude. I would bet that those who leaned toward Nicodemus' understanding of the way God works were closer to conversion than the ones who held to their incorrect assumptions.

Edited January 29 by CV75

[zil2]

9 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Call for sources, please.  When I go to the scanned digital copy of JD 11:266 located here, I do not see that quote or anything like it.  

https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/4493

Where does BY say what you say he says?

In my digital version of JoD, it's in volume 11 and says it was on page 272, was written/said by Brigham Young on 19 August 1866.  It's on page 255 of the PDF I created when I exported this volume out of the Win3.1 "LDS Infobases" software.

When I search your link for "sin of blackness", it takes me to page 272, which matches up with what my version says.

Edited January 29 by zil2

[Vort]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

I take the living prophets’ disavowal and lack of acceptance a solid form of doctrine.

You can, of course, take whatever you want in whatever way you see fit. But a disavowal is not a reproof. Saying, "We do not now accept this as revealed teaching" is much different from saying, "This is false." So in point of fact, the supposed falsehood of Brigham Young's teachings is not itself a teaching (aka doctrine) of the Restored Church of Christ. Those who say "Brigham was wrong" are expressing nothing more than an opinion—and I think that accusing a prophet of heresy is an unwise and dangerous thing to do in most cases.

Edited January 29 by Vort

[LDSGator]

No matter how we try to spin it, it’s obvious the church has drastically changed from the prior stance. I vaguely remember last year* when Brad Wilcox got himself in hot water for saying something racially “questionable”. The church made him issue an apology several times! 

*my bad, it was 2022. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_R._Wilcox

Edited January 29 by LDSGator

[MrShorty]

Speaking of speculative speculations... I recently came across a new one (at least to me). It was in a youtube video put out by some seminary teacher or similar grass roots CES person. I doubt I could find it again (you are welcome to search if you want). In a nutshell, this theory alleges that this prophecy is fulfilled by Patriarch Eldred G. Smith, the last Smith (and, allegedly, a descendent of Abel) to hold the position of church-wide patriarch. The theory claims that, when the church decided to discontinue the position of church patriarch in '79, that was the point when Abel's descendants had fully received their portion of priesthood and so the curse on Cain's descendants could be lifted. As noted in the church essay, the church has disavowed (whatever that really means) the theories proffered to justify the ban -- including theories based on ancient Biblical lineages -- but these theories persist.

I think I've said before that perhaps the most interesting part of the history of the priesthood and temple ban is what it shows us about how the church receives revelation. In this vein, I find Elder Petersen's '54 talk to religion teachers (available from Fair, if interested) an interesting data point. In this talk, Elder Petersen expresses the belief that any of these "prophecies" about the removal of the curse were pure speculation unsupported by scripture. A quarter century before the lifting of the ban, one of the apostles who would live to see it seemed skeptical that the ban could ever be lifted, based on his understanding of scripture and these alleged "prophecies." Clearly something changed in that quarter century, and I'm unaware of anything that details how Elder Petersen's opinions changed, but Ed Kimball's history (focused on Pres. Kimball) provides insights into when and how his views might have changed. Whatever conclusions and speculations there are about the priesthood and temple ban, I find it interesting that somewhere in the process of revelation to the church is a process where an apostle can be skeptical of "prophecies" given by "early brethren" to later change and be part of fulfilling those same prophecies he was so skeptical about years earlier.

[LDSGator]

I wasn’t even born yet in 1978, much less was I a member. How did the membership take it when the policy changed was announced? 

[CV75]

39 minutes ago, Vort said:

You can, of course, take whatever you want in whatever way you see fit. But a disavowal is not a reproof. Saying, "We do not now accept this as revealed teaching" is much different from saying, "This is false." So in point of fact, the supposed falsehood of Brigham Young's teachings is not itself a teaching (aka doctrine) of the Restored Church of Christ. Those who say "Brigham was wrong" are expressing nothing more than an opinion—and I think that accusing a prophet of heresy is an unwise and dangerous thing to do in most cases.

I haven't seen anyone accuse Brigham Young of heresy, not in this thread and in fact, I can't think of ever hearing anyone do that. Reproof is another example, in my mind, of living prophets not being bound to anyone's heavy expectations for doctrinal expositions on their policy or other pet peeves.

[LDSGator]

3 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I haven't seen anyone accuse Brigham Young of heresy, not in this thread and in fact, I can't think of ever hearing anyone do that. Reproof is another example, in my mind, of living prophets not being bound to anyone's heavy expectations for doctrinal expositions on their policy or other pet peeves.

I remember a GC talk where someone said the words of a living prophet mean more then the words of a dead one-I think this is an example of that, isn’t it? 

[CV75]

8 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

I wasn’t even born yet in 1978, much less was I a member. How did the membership take it when the policy changed was announced? 

I joined the Church in 1975, and I recall a mixed bag of reaction (I lived in New York), but the vast majority welcomed it as a sign that the Restoration was advancing and a sign of the times, maybe "end times" even. I think most members at the time pretty much believed in / accepted the curse of Cain explanation and saw this as a positive sign.  At no time did I hear anything like, "The Church isn't bigoted anymore." And I never heard the removal of the ban being touted as a social justice victory within the Church.

This confirms to me that there are fundamental principles founding our Church and religion, and policies like the ban aren't one of them. But we live with them and are patient with them.

[CV75]

2 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

I remember a GC talk where someone said the words of a living prophet mean more then the words of a dead one-I think this is an example of that, isn’t it? 

Absolutely, which doesn't mean the dead one was a bad guy, just a prophet for his times whose views did not interrupt the kingdom moving forward in the least (and may have even averted unintended disaster!).

[LDSGator]

1 minute ago, CV75 said:

I joined the Church in 1975, and I recall a mixed bag of reaction (I lived in New York), but the vast majority welcomed it as a sign that the Restoration was advancing and a sign of the times, maybe "end times" even. I think most members at the time pretty much believed in / accepted the curse of Cain explanation and saw this as a positive sign.  At no time did I hear anything like, "The Church isn't bigoted anymore." And I never heard the removal of the ban being touted as a social justice victory within the Church.

This confirms to me that there are fundamental principles founding our Church and religion, and policies like the ban aren't one of them. But we live with them and are patient with them.

Thank you. I’d like to hear what our African-American brothers and sisters have to say about too, if anyone can find out what their response was. 

 

2 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Absolutely, which doesn't mean the dead one was a bad guy, just a prophet for his times whose views did not interrupt the kingdom moving forward in the least (and may have even averted unintended disaster!).

Oh, agree fully. I never said Brigham Young was a bad guy either. 

[Vort]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

As noted in the church essay, the church has disavowed (whatever that really means) the theories proffered to justify the ban -- including theories based on ancient Biblical lineages -- but these theories persist.

This is all interesting on a sort of academic level, I suppose. On a personal level, I am curious why the Priesthood ban was in place—especially since it's obvious that a man of black African descent could hold the Priesthood before 1978, as demonstrated by Elijah Abel and others. The video you reference suggests a fascinating possibility, one I'd like to investigate.

But curiosity notwithstanding, my main personal concern is the increasingly common belief that the Priesthood ban itself was some sort of horrible mistake, an unqualified evil that somehow infiltrated the Church under Brigham Young. This belief I consider to be tantamount to apostasy. It is not merely disloyal (though it is quite clearly that). It is pandering and obsequious, a capitulation to political correctness and an open demonstration of shame at the mockery from those in the great and spacious building.

We should be better than that. Nephi showed us the correct response to such mockery. It's high time we started to engage more actively and regularly in "heed[ing] them not".

Edited January 29 by Vort

[Vort]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

No matter how we try to spin it, it’s obvious the church has drastically changed from the prior stance. I vaguely remember last year* when Brad Wilcox got himself in hot water for saying something racially “questionable”. The church made him issue an apology several times! 

*my bad, it was 2022. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_R._Wilcox

Nothing Wilcox said was offensive, unless you're looking for a reason to be offended. The fact that Jana Reiss found Wilcox's words offensive is pretty good evidence that Wilcox said nothing wrong.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

Thank you. I’d like to hear what our African-American brothers and sisters have to say about too, if anyone can find out what their response was. 

 

Oh, agree fully. I never said Brigham Young was a bad guy either. 

You can Google Darius Gray for more details on his experience and reaction, and his collection of reactions from other Black members. But here's an intro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_Gray

[Vort]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

I wasn’t even born yet in 1978, much less was I a member. How did the membership take it when the policy changed was announced? 

On the whole, people were very excited and happy about it. I was told by a sister who was a missionary in the US South in 1978 that many Southern members were unhappy about it. Don't know if that was a widespread feeling in the South or just in her area, or perhaps just her perception.