Moving Past Mormon Racism

I’ve always been intrigued by the Book of Mormon. From an early age I found myself repetitively drawn to the stories of Lehi and Nephi, of Enos and Alma, through the final verses of Moroni.

Fundamentalism exists in every faith. It demands a literalistic and sometimes simplistic interpretation that is easy to accept, but easily criticized. It is difficult to move beyond fundamentalist views on scripture as a child. I moved on.

I began to examine the Book of Mormon from an academic perspective shortly before serving as a missionary. Several months of work in the neighborhoods of East Fort Worth led me to reconsider my worldviews on race, gender, and ethics and general. I came away as a very different person than who I was prior to my mission.

I always had an appreciation for the Civil Rights movement, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As a child I had friends from every race. As far as I was concerned, “all [were] alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33, Moroni 8:17). I remember well as a teen fresh out of high school reading the words of the late LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley:

“There is strength in our diversity. But there is greater strength in the God-given mandate to each of us to work for the uplifting and blessing of all His sons and daughters, regardless of their ethnic or national origin or other differences.

“We are sons and daughters of God, each a member of the divine family. As surely as He is our father, we are all brothers and sisters. We simply must work unitedly to remove from our hearts and to drive from our society all elements of hatred, bigotry, racism, and other divisive actions and words that limit a person’s ability to progress, learn, and be fully accepted. Snide remarks or racial slurs, hateful epithets, malicious gossip, and mean and vicious rumormongering have no place among us.” (Standing for Something, 55-56)

As is the case with many Mormon intellectuals, I was troubled by statements made by previous Church leaders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that by today’s standards would be considered racist. To those unfamiliar with the examination and dissemination of Victorian-era racial sympathies, their statements can be difficult to move past.

I was aware of the Church’s ban on black Africans from receiving the priesthood prior to June, 1978. I had known about it since I was in grade school, but never examined it. As a missionary (like many missionaries do), I tried to look at the ban from a doctrinal perspective, even going so far as to hold the belief that blacks must have somehow been “less valiant” in the pre-existence than others. I spoke with other Mormons who agreed with me, but one in particular changed my perspective completely.

Sister Hamblin was middle-aged businesswoman, a returned missionary, and newly married. When the subject of the priesthood ban came up during a dinner appointment, she stood firm about the fact that while church leaders had speculated about the origin and purpose of the ban, she extended the invitation to me to become more cautious about what statements I believed as authoritative, and what statements were speculative. She stopped short of telling me that as an official representative of the LDS Church, I was speaking out of line. I got the hint.

I began a journey examining why I believed certain things. I rationalized different reasons why there was a ban in the first place. Could Latter-day prophets and apostles really be “inspired” and yet make racist comments? After my mission I found a speech given by the late LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie in which he discussed the very issue that troubled me. Even more surprising to me was the way in which Elder McConkie poignantly addressed the subject. “There are statements,” McConkie noted:

“…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 how is it now that we do 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.”

It was an amazing concept for me. They spoke with limited understanding. Contrary to a very fundamentalist assumption held by many Latter-day Saints (and most critics), not everything said by a General Authority constitutes the doctrine of the Church. A fundamental tenet of the Church is the concept of continuing revelation; that God speaks to His prophets “line upon line, precept upon precept” (D&C 98:12, 128: 21, 2 Nephi 28:30, Isaiah 28:13).

As a Latter-day Saint I accept the fact that God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (A of F 9). In this sense, I view Mormonism as philosophically “progressive” in theory, though I find this less evident in actual practice among lay membership. From this viewpoint, I accept that the Church instituted the priesthood ban based on a limited understanding. As paradoxical as it may seem for some, I try to remember that it was the early Apostle Paul who noted that we “see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). Paul, probably more than most people who have passed through mortality, understood the nuances of living in a world with limited understanding. It was Paul’s letters in the New Testament that allude so much to the unknown, to the mysteries which were withheld from mankind. While I will not venture to say that Paul forbade giving the priesthood to black Africans, I believe the concept of the “mysteries of Godliness” can be applied to issues such the institution of the ban itself.

Equally valid criticisms of Mormonism rest not in the statements of General Authorities, but in Mormon scripture. Just today (MLK Jr. Day) an Evangelical associate of mine quipped:

“In honor of MLK day, here's a unifying passage from the Book of Mormon: "And it came to pass that those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites" (3 Nephi 2:14-15).”

He related further: 

“I don't think the fact that the LDS church has a history of discrimination is what's so alarming - that in itself would be hypocritical on an evangelical's part. However, there are verses in the Book of Mormon which very clearly say that white skin is superior to dark skin. Some of these verses have changed "white" to "pure", but examples such as this verse in 3 Nephi still remain. Why doesn't the LDS church take them out? What is an African American to think upon reading this?

The problem with this ordeal is not that it is proving men in LDS history to be racist - they are human, after all. The problem here is that it is indicating that God prefers white skin, which just simply is not the case. Jesus himself was Jewish, obviously. This is just another nail in the coffin proving to me that the Book of Mormon cannot not (sic) possibly be true.”

My associate’s comments stirred up a number of replies from those with views sympathetic to his own. While accusations of racism are valid, they need to be understood in their proper context. Mormon historian Richard Bushman of Claremont Graduate University had this to say regarding racism and its relation to the Book of Mormon:

“Despite the absences in the text, the Book of Mormon has been universally thought of as an attempted history of the American Indians. One of the evidences, in the critics’ view, is its blatant racism. Not far into the story, the Lamanites, the presumed ancestors of the Indians, are marked with a dark skin: “The Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” This act resembles the curse of God on Cain in Genesis, the beginning, according to later Christian readings, of the black race. In the Book of Mormon, the curse comes because of the Lamanites’ stubborn adherence to a false tradition about Nephi’s usurpation of authority. These troublesome ideas about skin color are followed with stereotypical descriptions of Lamanite savagery. The Lamanites are “an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey.” Ferocious and blood-thirsty, half-naked and garbed in skins, they launch unprovoked attacks on civilized Nephite cities. These passages sound like the Jacksonian view of Indians common to most Americans in 1830.

"But the fact that these wild people are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians’ place in world history, assigning them a more glorious future than modern American whites. All the derogatory descriptions of Lamanites notwithstanding, the Indians emerge as God’s chosen people. They are not viewed as a pathetic civilization moving inevitably toward their doom, as sympathetic observers in Joseph’s time depicted them. According to the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites are destined to be restored to favor with God and given this land, just as the Jews are to be restored to the Holy Land. A similar ambivalence about Indians runs through all Christian missionary efforts in these years, but the Book of Mormon carries it to an extreme. While the Lamanites are cursed and degraded, they are also at times the most righteous of all the Book of Mormon peoples. In one episode, as the Lamanites bury their weapons and refuse to fight, a narrator asks, “Has there been so great love in all the land? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, there has not even among the Nephites.” At one point the Nephites become so wicked, a Lamanite prophet calls them to repentance. Lamanite degradation in not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, “they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them.” In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish and the dark Lamanites remain.

"In its very nature, the Book of Mormon overturns conventional American racism. The book makes Indians the founders of civilization in the New World. The master history of America’s origins is not about Columbus or the Puritans but about native peoples. History is imagined from the ancient inhabitants’ point of view. European migrants are called “Gentiles” in the Book of Mormon and come onstage as interlopers. They appear late in the narrative and remain secondary to the end. The land belongs to the Indians.

"The primary role of the Gentiles is to serve the natives, to build them up by bringing them the Bible and the Book of Mormon. If the Gentiles fail to help Israel, they are doomed. After nourishing the remnant of Jacob, they must join Israel or perish. If they don’t choose Israel, the native peoples will terrorize the Gentiles. Christ tells the Book of Mormon people that “ye shall be among them, as a lion among the beasts of the forest, and as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he goeth through, both treadeth down and teareth in pieces.” One might expect predictions of violent retribution against whites in the writings of a black abolitionist like David Walker, who predicted the vengeance of God on slaveholders for their abuse of African slaves, but it is extraordinary coming from a white northern farmer speaking about Indians. As one scholar puts it, the Book of Mormon is a “ruthlessly tragic narrative that chronicles the destruction of the white race and foresees the fruition of the dark race.” The Book of Mormon is not just sympathetic to Indians; it grants them dominance—in history, in God’s esteem, and in future ownership of the American continent.”  (Rough Stone Rolling 97-99)

Of deeper interest to me, and to readers of this post, might be the alleged "softening" of certain passages in the Book of Mormon text in which accusations of racism often stem. Failing to acknowledge the historical and cultural motifs of these passages often leave us scratching our heads. Hugh Nibley, a pioneer in Mormon scholarship and the Church Educational System, addressed the issue for his Book of Mormon class:

"Well, I just picked up one from de Buck's Reading Book (pp. 73–74). It's called The Autobiography of Kai. He lived a short time before Nephi. He was an important man, and he gave his titles. He started out by saying, "I, Kai was the son of a man who was neḫet and s^cḥ [who was worthy and wise]." And Nephi started out saying, "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents." Then Kai goes on to talk about himself here. Incidentally, I notice he referred to himself down here as ḥd-ḥr (white of countenance), nfr bi•t (excellent of character), pḫ3 h•t (clean of body and in moral habits). And he shunned everything that was snk•wt. The word is very interesting. It means "black of countenance," and it also means "greed or anything that is evil." Notice, in the Book of Mormon, that peculiar thing: "a white and delightsome people" and "a dark and loathsome people." It doesn't refer to skin color at all, but there's a lot about race in the Book of Mormon. That comes in here already; we can see that. But here, you notice he used those peculiar terms. He was ḥd-ḥr. He has a picture of a white face (white of countenance). And he was clean of body, and he eschewed snk•wt (what is greedy or what is dark of countenance)."

In recent years I have come to the conclusion that simplistic explanations and charges of racism in the Book of Mormon narrative fail to grasp the deeper complexities and context of racial issues. From an Evangelical standpoint, accusations of Mormon racism are dwarfed in comparison to the accounts of Israelites committing genocide on Canaanite peoples, very racially motivated acts contained in what are believed to be infallibly-written historical accounts of the ancient Near East. In short, it is always wise to avoid throwing stones in glass houses.

While I could further elaborate, I feel I’ve made my point. With limited understanding we can see the world as very small. Divisive fundamentalism, as exhibited in my previous views about race and its relation to Mormonism, and further illustrated through the charges of my Evangelical associate, do not stand the tests of academia or time. Of this myopic fundamentalism, Newsweek’s Andrew Romano notes:

“…they seek refuge from the complexity and confusion of modern life in the comforting embrace of an authoritarian scripture and the imagined past it supposedly represents. Like other fundamentalists, they see in their good book only what they want to see: confirmation of their preexisting beliefs. Like other fundamentalists, they don’t sweat the details, and they ignore all ambiguities. And like other fundamentalists, they make enemies or evildoers of those who disagree with their doctrine.”

I realize my perspectives may not be accepted by all Latter-day Saints. Opposition is something I’m used to. But scholastic and theological illiteracy is never an excuse to stop seeking further light and knowledge. I’m not content with being a “Green Jell-O Mormon.” Nor should anyone else. The best thing I can do as a Latter-day Saint is further progress. 

"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.

And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come" (D&C 130:18-19).