Barbara's comments on Blacks and the priesthood

Blacks and the Priesthood

I do not know or will even pretend to know why the blacks were denied the priesthood for so long. I had not heard the quote of John Taylor from Darius Grey on the documentary. I would hope John Taylor had said it in a context of, “Some people say......., but.....” so that it was taken out of context. For those who didn't see the PBS or can't remember, John Taylor is quoted as saying something to the effect that it is through the blacks that Satan has influence, that basically, they are children of the devil. However, John Taylor may have said something like that. I am not familiar enough with his writings and teachings to be able say he didn't. There was considerable prejudice in that day. At a meeting with missionaries here, Elder Bednar opened up the discussion for questions. One young Dominican sister (you need to realize, all Dominicans have black blood) talked about these attitudes of prejudice and said how it hurt and she asked Elder Bednar to clarify the church's position. Elder Bednar said that if it is not taught in the scriptures and from the pulpit, it is not the church's official position and not to trouble herself with what others may have said unofficially.

The way I reconcile myself to the doctrine is this: In Christ's day, the church was not taken to all of the world. That doesn't seem to bother other Christians. It was just as hard for Peter to think of taking the gospel to gentiles as it was for many to think of giving the blacks the priesthood in the midst of prejudice. The point here was there was a time to do it and before the time, it wasn't done.

I think timing has a lot to do with when blacks received the priesthood. Really, until after World War II, the church was very much a Utah/Idaho/Arizona church. That was where the strength was. New members still immigrated more than building up the church where they were. After World War II, the Utah/Idaho/Arizona members had seen the world and they became more mobile in going out in the world to live and the church became stronger throughout especially the United States. In a sense, the church started to grow up, to be able to take on the significant challenge of becoming a world-wide church.

This is very important because one of the greatest challenges the church faces today is training its leadership in far flung places quick enough. You have places where no one was a member three to five years ago where they are trying to implement the programs of the church. There is a significant church culture which has to be transmitted. I've heard said that a baptism doesn't make a Mormon but years and years. That's true but throughout the world, you have people running the church who haven't been members for years and years. They barely know what the church is all about. It is amazing they do as well as they do. For instance, when they open a new temple like the one here, people are endowed in the morning and set apart as ordinance workers before evening. You can see the possibility of drifting from the teachings. This is one of the major jobs of the senior missionaries is to teach how to be members of the church.

With the above in mind, we need to think of the explosion of black membership since the 1978 revelation of the priesthood. There is a fascinating book by Glenn L. Pace called (I can't remember the name—someone help me here) about the church in Africa. As the documentary pointed out, there were entire congregations teaching the doctrines of the church, trying to be Mormons and no one was baptized, no one had the priesthood.

In a recent article in the Ensign announcing the availability of scriptures online in French, German, and Italian, it said that 125,000 members speaking those languages could now access that resource. I found that amazing. John Taylor took the gospel to France. Growth there has always been extremely slow. The first missionaries came to the Dominican Republic about 28 years ago. Today there are over 100,000 members. In other words, in 28 years, this small country has almost as many members as three major language groups throughout the world (there are several places in the world where French is the major language. I don't know of places other than Germany and Italy where German (other than Austria and parts of Switzerland) and Italian (again parts of Switzerland) are the major languages. But at any rate, I don't know what we are comparing in absolute population numbers, but in membership numbers, the Dominican Republic is an explosion just like Africa.

Maybe the blacks are so receptive to the teachings of the church because they have been down-trodden for so long throughout the world. One thought, if the church had gone to the blacks in the early days with those of that race being able to hold the priesthood and they would have accepted it as they do today, we would be a black church. With no intent to show prejudice but just to state it as it seems to me, I think “the world”, meaning the parts of the world where the people are not black, would have a harder time listening to and accepting the gospel if we were known as a black church. In today's world, it is more acceptable to give credence to the teachings of a black person than it was in the days of the early church.

In summary, to fill the church's role of taking the gospel to the world the denial of the blacks the priesthood actually facilitates this in two ways:

1. It allowed the church to “grow up” enough to handle the increase in membership. One of the general authorities has said that China may be ready for the church but are we ready for China just for this reason of having adequate numbers to be able to go teach them how to be members of the church.

2. Not having a large black membership at a time when prejudice existed against the blacks throughout the world were the population was not predominately black made the church more “acceptable” to the non-black world.  I wonder how acceptable it would have been for white congregations of predominately white protestant churches to have a black minister in 1978, in 1950, 1900, 1865, 1850.  I wonder even today how many predominately white congregations have black ministers.  Conversely, I doubt many predominately black congregations have white ministers.  They are very willing to point fingers but not apply the same measuring stick to themselves.  It is only because we have a lay leadership that they think our rules need to be different than theirs.