Much has been written about the difficult racial history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Only in June of 1978, in an Official Declaration, did the Church declare that “all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.” This difficult racial history is not unique to the Church. I graduated from a Cleveland Public High School in 1983, during a period of forced busing for desegregation. In my opinion there are very, very few, if any, American institutions, whether political party, governmental entity, business or labor organization, or religious denomination, of any appreciable size and length of years, that do not have a difficult racial history. My goal here is not to summarize, or even to minimize, the Church’s difficult racial history, but to reflect upon one aspect of it.
The Church itself, in 2013, published on its own website an essay entitled “Race and the Priesthood” which acknowledges that “for much of its history—from the mid-1800s until 1978—the Church did not ordain men of black African descent to its priesthood or allow black men or women to participate in temple endowment or sealing ordinances.” This essay highlights that during the early years of the Church at least some men of African descent where ordained to the priesthood. Under the leadership of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the available evidence demonstrates that the Church did not have a discriminatory policy against those of African descent, and that the Prophet Joseph Smith himself was towards the end of his life openly opposed to slavery. Only under the leadership of the subsequent Prophet, Brigham Young, did the policy of the Church become one that discriminated against those of African descent.
That the policy, whether official or not, was racist on its face is to me undeniable. That the Church policy reflected the times does not make it any less racist. That most within the Church, both the members as a whole and it’s leaders, have worked diligently to overcome this difficult racial history since the 1978 Official Declaration officially ending discrimination against those of African descent is also undeniable, as is the need for more work to be done.
My reason for writing this essay is just to reflect upon one small aspect of this difficult issue for members of the Church. Consider that Joseph Smith is universally acknowledged within the Church as the key figure in its foundation and restoration. What was the essential character of Joseph Smith that allowed so many to be drawn to him and truly believe that he was a prophet of God? Thinking theoretically, what would you expect God to say about his chosen messenger? Would God simply praise his messenger, be critical of him, or both? Consider Hebrews 12:5-11.
My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peacable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
In light of the preceding, consider now what Joseph Smith, all the while claiming to be a prophet of God, says God is saying to him in Doctrines & Covenants 3:4-7.
For although a man may have many revelations, and have power to do many mighty works, yet if he boasts in his own strength, and sets at naught the counsels of God, and follows after the dictates of his own will and carnal desires, he must fall and incur the vengeance of a just God upon him. Behold, you have been entrusted with these things, but how strict were your commandments; and remember also the promises which were made to you, if you did not transgress them. And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men. For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words— Yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary; and he would have been with you in every time of trouble.
In the Doctrine & Covenants, which members consider to be revelations from God, Joseph Smith publishes to the world that not only has he, as a prophet of God, boasted in his own strength, set at naught the counsels of God, followed after the dictates of his own will and carnal desires, and often transgressed the commandments and laws of God, but Joseph Smith tells the world that God has told Joseph Smith that Joseph Smith should have been more faithful.
If one would say that Joseph Smith’s failings, whether in this instance or at other times, proves he was not a prophet of God, remember the example of the Apostle Peter, the rock. Peter walked with Jesus and his disciples and was a literal personal witness in this mortality of much of Jesus’ ministry. Yet Peter, in the pride of his heart and with faith in his own strength and courage, sought to rebuke Jesus for questioning Peter’s faithfulness. Peter then proved Jesus prescient by denying even knowing Jesus, three times, in Jesus’s hour of need. [Matthew 26:26-35, 69-75] But Peter did not justify his own failings by saying “other men would have done likewise” or “I needed to save myself for the work for which I was chosen.” Peter wept, and bitterly.
Contrast God’s rebuke of Joseph Smith as relayed by Joseph Smith and Peter’s account of being rebuked by Jesus, on one hand, with the words of one of the foremost and noted proponents of the Church’s policy toward those of African descent prior to the Official Declaration of June, 1978, the apostle Bruce R. McConkie, on the other hand. I write of Elder McConkie acknowledging that I never met him, spoke with him, know little other than what I have read, and the few recordings of his talks I have viewed. I am not a student of Elder McConkie’s teachings. Nothing that follows is intended either to imply that Elder McConkie was a singular figure in the Church, alone in his views. And my reactions to his words are necessarily the reaction of a member of the Church in 2020, not 1978.
A few months after the Church’s Official Declaration on the Priesthood Elder McConkie spoke at BYU, the Church’s most noted school of higher education, during a CES [Church Educational System] Religious Educators Symposium, and gave a talk entitled, “All are Alike Unto God.”
Elder McConkie began his talk by quoting 2 Nephi 26:33, which states that Jesus “inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.” Elder McConkie then adds, “Many of us never imagined or supposed that [these words] had the extensive and broad meaning that they do have.”
Elder McConkie continues later on, “There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren which we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, You said such and such?” And all I can say to that is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.” And then later, he repeats this idea of simply forgetting the past, “As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them.”
One can almost hear in Elder McConkie’s voice the words, “I literally wrote Mormon Doctrine, do not doubt me.”
When speaking of the revelation preceding the Official Declaration to end the denial of the full blessings of the Gospel to those of African descent, Elder McConkie states, “I cannot describe in words what happened; I can only say that it happened and that it can be known and understood only by the feeling that can come into the heart of man….I think I can add that it is one of the signs of the times…It is one of the signs of the times….And we are doing the right thing where this matter is concerned….This race and culture now is going to be one with us in bearing the burdens of the kingdom.”
To me, the contrast between the accounts of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Apostle Peter, on one hand, and Elder McConkie words in reflecting upon the Official Declaration, on the other hand, are striking. No where in his talk does it seem that Elder McConkie considers that he himself needed to undergo a change of heart. If he considered the Official Declaration a rebuke to those, like himself, who propounded views directly contrary to the spirit and word of that Official Declaration, he does not indicate so. No where does he seem to consider that he himself has denied Jesus by propounding the denial of the full blessings of the Gospel to so many of God’s children, and reserved the same blessings to those like himself on the self-serving notion of “our premortal devotion and faith.”
Elder McConkie seems not to have considered in his talk that he received God’s rebuke, as did the Prophet Joseph Smith, or he should weep, as did the Apostle Peter. This certainly does not mean that the rest of us, as members of the Church, can not accept the rebuke, if need be, and weep.