President Hinckley instructed the men of the priesthood not to discriminate against people of other ethnicities in the Saturday Priesthood session of General Conference. For speaking out against racism, President Hinckley deserves praise. Was this effort, however, sufficient?
Let's consider the problem of polygamy. At one time leaders of the LDS Church taught that engaging in polygamy was necessary to reach the highest degree of exaltation. In other words, to become deified, one needed to live the law of polygamy. It took two official statements of the Presidency of the Church and decades of cooperation with local and federal authorities to marginalize polygamy in LDS culture. Generally it is only the highly dedicated person who reads a lot of the Journal of Discourses that ever considers how odd it is that Mormons think they will be exalted without living the Principle. Some of these folks join the Fundamentalists.
In other words, polygamy is pretty far behind us as a people. My wife would not tolerate me engaging in it. Few LDS women would.
Unfortunately, racism is a more persistent problem because it involves attitudes that many secretly carry in their hearts. No one has to be commanded to be a racist. All it takes is exposure to racist thought coupled with an irrational fear of those who are different to be eligible. As human beings, we are prone to stumble when it comes to reason and courage.
Unlike polygamy, which still manages to lure a few people out of the mainstream Church here and there, racist ideas and practises are very recent phenomena for Mormons. In 1978 the Second Official Declaration, which resulted from the prayers of President Kimball and the other leading authorities of the LDS Church at the time, ended the "practise" side of the equation. The LDS priesthood has been extended to peoples of all ethnicities.
The "idea" side of the equation is still sadly very present among too many members of the LDS Church. What is the "idea"? From as far back as the year after Joseph Smith's assassination, we find Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve of the day, teaching what would essentially become the normative position on race:
"At the time the devil was cast out of heaven, there were some spirits that did not know who had authority, whether God or the devil. They consequently did not take a very active part on either side, but rather thought the devil had been abused, and considered he had the best claim to the government. These spirits were not considered bad enough to be cast down to hell, and never have bodies; neither were they considered worthy of an honourable body on this earth...and hence the negro or African race."
Ordinarily I would not employ an elipsis, but the passage is so long, and the sentiments so vile, that I thought it best to truncate it.
The above quote comes from the year 1845. Essentially the very same teaching can be found in the first edition of Elder Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, which was published in 1958. I had never known where McConkie could have come up with such stuff, especially when it did not appear in the scriptures. Now I know.
I also understand better why these teachings present a real problem. Pratt, or someone else, went to a lot of trouble to come up with a mythological justification for slavery. He crafted a narrative that fit more or less into the unique theology of Mormonism about the pre-mortal existence. The significance of this fact cannot be overstated. The power of creating such narratives was the gift and responsibility of a seer, and it was exercised mostly by Joseph Smith. His successors exercised it rarely, Joseph F. Smith being the last president of the Church to provide a major narrative about the other world.
Unfortunately, at least in this case, stories are much more powerful than the dry legalistic language of the Official Declarations. One remembers stories long after one has forgotten the wherefores and whatnots of official statements. In this case, the narrative involved is the very foundation of an LDS person's concept of personal identity. Being polluted with Pratt's racist myth as it is, something more dramatic than an Official Declaration or instruction not to be racist is required to combat it. In short, many members maintain a racist perspective because they recall easily the powerful and fundamental story at its roots, a story that continued to be told up to and after 1978.
In the case of Adam-God, the First Presidency issued a statement specifically designed to correct the teaching. At least one apostle fulminated over the pulpit about the falseness of it long after the Presidency corrected it. James E. Talmage was commissioned to write a statement on theology that directly contradicted the theology of Adam-God. It has been made clear that Adam-God is false doctrine, and that those who promote it will be subject to Church discipline.
The result of the Adam-God crackdown is pretty clear. Today, very few people even know that this was once taught by the second prophet of this dispensation as the "Doctrine of the Priesthood." Only a very small, studious minority even bothers to think about the issue in depth. Adam-God is, for the mainstream LDS Church, a dead doctrine.
Since the Church's efforts to marginalize polygamy and Adam-God were so successful, it would seem that similar efforts might be committed quite usefully to ending the widespread "folklore" that black people were cursed for their inaction in the pre-mortal conflict with Satan and his minions. We cannot simply stand on the idea that God finally decided to give these poor people a break by lifting a curse. The people are not poor but wonderful. The curse never happened in the first place.
The Second Official Declaration is inadequate to put an end to the belief in a curse. Official, and highly visible statements, along the lines of the efforts against Adam-God, are necessary to put the matter to rest. People should think that it is sinful for them to believe in the curse. There should be no loopholes. No concept of a curse that was lifted. People should be persuaded to believe that they may face Church discipline for teaching such a thing. Perhaps the matter should be incorporated into the temple recommend interview. If bishops have felt to inquire into people's soda drinking habits in worthiness interviews, why have they not felt similarly inclined on the subject of racism?
In other words, given the fact that the LDS Church, when it is really serious about stamping out something, gives real teeth to its efforts to do so, their efforts to stamp out racism in the Church do not seem to me to be very serious at all. Who has been excommunicated simply for being an unrepentant racist? Why do conservative Mormons proudly crow on the Bloggernacle that the Church is not racist, but that it was God, who could not possibly be racist, that cursed blacks and then extended his grace in 1978, all the while sincere in their conviction that they are not racist for believing such a thing?
Clearly something needs to change here.
