We were, I just thought an example on how the understanding about doctrine can be confused by some. If people know and understand the doctrine, then no problem. If someone just reads a couple anti-mormon websites without investigating the source documents for themselves, then they can be misled. A well-rounded approach to investigation may yield any number of results, but at least they be well thought out.
Sorry, Ray, it's not that simple.
The doctrine said-for many years after Joseph Smith and Brigham Young-right into our lifetimes, that blacks could not hold any level of the priesthood, including those that you may have attained as a child. I have the source documents on my desk, and frankly, the statements made by your prophets-the President at the time-and the practice, were, quite simply, racist-and no amount of equivocation can change that. While the "source documents" may have been mistransltated, misinterpreted or abused, it doesn't excuse the practice itself, any more than it excuses the Catholic Church's condoning slavery, or the Southern Baptists, or any number of other organizations that embraced racism based on such faulty translations, misinterpretations or abuse. I can accept that the doctrine can change, and that (some) people can change, but when you say that someone can be a member, but not a full member-that they'll only attain "heaven as a servant," that a 14 or 15 year old white boy is more of a man than a grown black man, then that's racist. Your church never said-"you
shouldn't let blacks hold the priesthood , or partake in celestial marriage" -like, as I think you're saying, it says that you
shouldn't drink Coke or Pepsi-it said "we shall not," and it said why, and both the practice and it's rationale were racist.
My mom's from Wyoming, and grew up with and liked Mormons, and didn't really care what they believed, since it mostly didn't effect her, or, apparently, the way they treated her. She went to college in Salt Lake City. My family and I took "the tour" when we visited back in the 70's, and the only one in the family who really seemed perturbed by your church's (then) attitude towards blacks was my younger brother-I could really have cared less at the time, but I was finishing my last "year" of my comparative religious studies degree, and was more than a little fascinated by several relatively modern religions-especially by yours. While familiar with the "Source documents" I'm also aware that it's a lot easier for me to find the direct quotes from your tradition that leant themselves to such racist doctrine on the Internet-while you can call the sources "anti-Mormon websites," the real sources are still your scripture and prophets. I'll say again that I don't have a particular axe to grind here-there was a time when it would have been illegal for my wife and I to be married-while it's no longer the law in those places, there are still many people who don't agree with it-
and I believe that's their right. Doesn't make it right or correct, but it certainly is their right to believe that, or in little pink bunnies on the moon, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or that black people aren't equal to anyone else and will only go to heaven as servants....you and Ceicei have helped explain
why[/][ your church believed as it did, to some degree, and-more importantly-why it no longer does, and how some may never have believed that tp begin with. You can't say that some "deeper understanding" is going to make past practice not be racist, though, because it was-just as the Catholics have been, and sometimes still are-just as the Hindus have been, and sometimes still are-just as the various sects of Judaism have been, and sometimes still are.The degree to which they were, and that it was part of doctrine, though, is for another thread....