Resources on The Church and Race

I want to keep a link to these Church resources on race policy and doctrine --

Race and the Priesthood:

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

Very thoroughly annotated summary of the Church's history with regard to racism, with background and discussion of policy and what little relevant actual doctrine there is, and some discussion of folk doctrine within the church.

Official Declaration 2:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/od/2

The revelation in June 1978 which altered the Church's policy on blacks and the Priesthood, and the announcement thereof in September of the same year.

McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, and White Supremacism (my personal blog post, not a Church resource)

https://guerillamormonism.blogspot.com/2023/04/mcconkie-mormon-doctrine-and-white.html

A blog post I wrote summarizing what I understand about Elder Bruce R. McConkie's changing approach to blacks and the priesthood. In it I reference

All Are Alike unto God

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie/alike-unto-god/

which, as far as I know, is Elder McConkie's definitive words on the topic, in a speech to the Church Education System in August 1978, which would be shortly after the revelation and before it was accepted in General Conference as canonical and binding on the Church.

If you are inclined to believe that Bruce R. McConkie remained dedicated to things he had published earlier which appeared to some to define doctrine that the Blacks should not or could not be given the Priesthood, you might find my blog post on it persuasive otherwise. Or you might disagree with me. But if you are, I would appreciate you allowing me to argue with you about the question, and read my blog post linked above, if you will.

Ahmad Corbitt's four part Personal Essay on Race and the Priesthood --

Part 1, Revelations in the Summer of 1978

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/perspectives-on-church-history/revelations-in-the-summer-of-1978

A little background from his life during 1978, and his conversion in 1980.

Part 2, Seeing as We Are Seen: Gaining Perspective through the Atonement of Jesus Christ

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/perspectives-on-church-history/seeing-as-we-are-seen

A little doctrinal background and his personal testimony.

Part 3, “He Denieth None That Come unto Him”: The Role of the Book of Mormon in Unifying Our Heavenly Father’s Family

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/perspectives-on-church-history/he-denieth-none-that-come-unto-him

A moderately comprehensive overview of doctrine on race in the Book of Mormon. He goes well beyond scratching the surface.

Part 4, “Till We All Come in the Unity of the Faith”: The Role of Living Prophets and Apostles in Unifying Our Heavenly Father’s Family

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/perspectives-on-church-history/till-we-all-come-in-the-unity-of-the-faith

A forward-looking witness of the coming unity of the human race.

Elder Corbitt's essay is probably as good a discussion of race in the restored Church as I have read. I think he is quite persuasive on the subject, and if you think the Church retains -- or should retain some segregational or discriminatory doctrines, please let him persuade you that it does not.

I plan to add more resources here as I find them (or, in some cases, dig them back out).

Someday I hope I will have a chance to write a discussion of my understanding of why the Church's ban from 1852 to 1978 came about and what it means, but I don't have the required time or other resources for now.

 

Helaman 12: 15 -- "... for surely it is the earth that moves"

Aristotle was one of the early Greek philosophers who calculated the circumference of the earth. But he apparently thought the earth was at the center of everything.

Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric view. This proposition was influenced, it is said, by Philolaus, who is said to have proposed that there was a big burning fire at the center of the universe, and that the sun was just one of many stars moving around that fire.

Can you imagine that Philolaus might have somehow been shown something like one of our artists' renderings of the galaxy, and given a description of the intense radio source at the galactic center?

I can imagine that, and I think I have reason. 

The ancient prophet Helaman, in the Book of Mormon, understood that the earth moved in relation to the sun.

Helaman 12: 15 --

And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun.

I wonder, if Joseph Smith had had the phrase "frame of reference" in his vocabulary, and the semantic "relative to the sun", might he have read that, instead, as 

... for surely it is the earth that moves relative to the sun.

"Relative" does not seem to be a word much used in the Book of Mormon, although the concept can be read in some scriptures.

As I understand it, many of the ancient philosophers were shown such things by angels. The Pearl of Great Price describes such visions given to Moses and Abraham, although their reporting of the visions is not very instructive relative to modern astronomy -- beyond our the general interpretation that the sun is a star and that there are worlds in orbit around other stars. 

It is difficult for us to find a meaningful interpretation of Abraham's reporting of suns as planets, partly because of linguistic issues, and partly because we keep trying to fit it all into the frame of our modern understanding of astronomy. (In particular, we don't have anything in our astronomical catalogues to associate directly with Kolob.) But we can see that he was shown that there are stars and planets orbiting them.

And this is what I'm getting at here. If I understand it correctly, God reveals to us what we ask. In the days before modern astronomy and the Internet, God should people who were prepared visions of His creations. Now we have the Internet and youtube and astrophysicists doing the math and the videos, so we don't need that. We don't go to the effort of asking.

Asking takes effort. It takes preparation, and it takes homework.

God still reveals things to us when we ask.