Race & Mormon Scripture Pt 2 w/ LDS Discussions – 22

Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions) Edition. I am John Dehlin, one of your hosts for today. We are in sort of the middle of what is a heart wrenching episode within the LDS discussion series. The title of today's episode is Race and the LDS or Mormon Scriptures Part two. And yeah, this is the second half of a really, really difficult piece of painful, embarrassing and heart wrenching discussion about the history of race in Mormon scripture, in LDS scripture, and racism in Mormonism, and in Mormon scripture from the time of Joseph Smith to the present. We are in part two because in part one we covered that last time to begin with. I just want to make sure everybody knows that all of this is coming from the amazing work of a man we call Mike. His website is ldsdiscussions.com and he has a series of essays there amongst other pieces of content. But in this case, the essay is ldsdiscussions.com race. That's the essay we're basing these two episodes on. And if I were to summarize what we covered last time in a minute or less, and I would just encourage everyone to please go and watch that episode before you watch this one. These episodes really do build on each other. So. But just as a way to recap what we covered last time, we talked about how three of the main examples or products of scripture that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, created, including the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses, all three rely on deeply racist narratives that fit perfectly into 19th century frontier America. And Mike and I were very committed to making episodes that aren't felt or experienced as overly angry or overly biased against the LDS Church because, because we don't want to be an echo chamber. We want sincere questioners and even sincere believers who are just interested in evidence to feel as comfortable as possible talking about really uncomfortable, difficult things. So when we say racism here, we don't say it lightly. But you know, when we talk about the racist narratives in the Books of Mormon, Abraham and Moses, what we're talking about is this main narrative that appears in all three books, which is that dark skin is, is a curse from God based on wickedness. And the main purpose of making someone's skin dark, other than to curse them for their wickedness, is to make them dark or loathsome or unappealing to the more righteous white people. And you know, our, our thesis is that's the narrative basically in all three books. So in addition to three of, I guess, four, Joseph Smith's founding examples of Scripture containing the super racist narrative. The next point is that the Mormon prophets, seers and revelators and apostles from the time of Joseph Smith to the present day have affirmed these racist teachings as doctrine, including multiple first presidency statements. And when I say a first presidency statement, that means the president or prophet of the Mormon Church and his two counselors signing a statement affirming a particular thing as doctrine. And we, we showed an example of that last episode. The next point for part one was that the Mormon Church has made some attempts over the years to alter this narrative, including slight alterations to the Book of Mormon. But those minimal alterations to the Book of Mormon still left a lot of these racist teachings in. And even though the curriculum has been updated and the Gospel Topics essay on race and the priesthood has come out trying to denounce these racist teachings or dismiss them as like opinions or as theories of men, the Church has fallen far short of correcting the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, and eliminating the racist teachings from those books. And they've even fallen far short of removing these racist teachings from their official curriculum. And we showed examples how as recently as one or two years ago, the Church was still teaching that interracial marriage is bad or evil based on these teachings and, you know, other types of other examples of perpetuating these racist narratives. And then finally we talked about, we ended last episode talking about how the Mormon Church did lift the priesthood and temple ban on Mormons of African descent in 1978, but we showed clear examples of how that was primarily driven by a concern about baptizing Brazilian members into the church. And of course, out of social pressure from protests at various universities against the BYU athletic program. And we lightly touched on that last time. That's what we covered last time. We're going to jump right in to today's episode and before I bring Mike on, I'm just going to say two final things. One is that we were really grateful to have a few ex Mormons who also identify as black or as people of color to weigh in at various points during last episode. We've invited several members of the community back into this live stream. We hope they'll join. We don't know if they will, but we were just so honored to have have them appear at various points during last episode to kind of validate and in some sense express gratitude that these things are being discussed. The only other thing I just wanted to say in this introduction is that this whole series on LDS discussions, it's now available in both audio and video form on Spotify as its own standalone podcast, so you can consume it there in succession. It's also available on, you know, itunes or Apple Podcast as its own standalone podcast, in case you want to binge listen to these episodes and wherever you consume your podcasts. And then finally, if you want to watch it on YouTube or listen to it on YouTube, you can actually listen to YouTube videos. Now if you pay for the premier subscription, you can, you can actually start a YouTube video and then do the screen lock on your on your Android or Apple phone and it lets you listen even with the screen locked and closed. Anyway, there's a playlist on YouTube of the entire LDS discussion series that you, you can access as well. So that is all the housekeeping and introduction that we have for today. Now I would like to welcome the brilliant, the amazing, the courageous Mike of LDS discussions. Hey, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 6:54 Hey, guys. How's it going?

John Dehlin 6:56 Welcome back.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 6:57 Thanks. It's good to be back. Like you said, you summarized well. And we just, we got to a point where we wanted to take a break, and that way it wasn't too long of an episode. And so, you know, this one's, as John said, is obviously a very delicate one. It's one that has a lot of emotion to it. And it's one that is, you know, it's going to get worse as we go through this. So we're going to do our best to be, you know, as gentle as we can and, you know, get through it. And it's we've talked a lot about informed consent and this whole idea of we're putting out data and people are going to do with it what they want. And I think this is a topic that needs to be discussed because for me, we talked in a lot of the episodes about putting the pieces of the puzzle together. And so I always think of it that way. Like, if you take the way the church frames the priesthood ban and the lifting of it, and it's kind of this clean thing, and it started with Brigham Young and then ends. And when you really put those pieces, you pull the puzzle apart and you look at the pieces, you can see that the way the church frames it is just not how it happened. And so these things as we talked about in the first episode, they're all in the scriptures. The priesthood ban is doctrinal from the Book of Abraham and the book of Moses. They both the book of Moses starts by saying that those with African descent and black skin are cursed by God. And then the Book of Abraham takes it a step further by saying they don't have the right to the priesthood. So this idea that it starts with Brigham Young is just patently false. It is absolutely something that is in the scriptures today. And so this episode is going to build off of that and really get more into the apologetics, a little bit more into the church's essay. And just to kind of look at how leaders have approached race and the church since the founding and how the church frames that today, to kind of look at kind of how the church tells you it happened versus how it actually happened. And it's really uncomfortable. It's really painful for a lot of people. And I just hope that those who are listening who haven't heard this before can at least understand we're trying to be as gentle as we can. And I promise you, I'm not picking the worst quotes. There are way worse quotes that I left off. I was not trying to find the most shocking, salacious quotes. I tried to pick quotes from the leaders. I mean, top leaders. We have quotes from apostles that would make your skin crawl. And so as we jump in, we're going to go through this and it's going to be. It's going to be rough, but it needs to be out there. And everyone's going to do with this whatever they want. But at least it's out there in a way that we can show is documented. These are real quotes. A lot of them were from very well covered talks, whether General Conference or with Brigham Young to the Utah legislature. So we're not making this up. And, and you can verify it and go to the website. And so I guess we'll just get going now with part two and kind of diving back in.

Apologetic Responses to Racist Scriptures

John Dehlin 9:41 Okay, so let's go to, let's go to the first slide of part two, which is apologetic responses. Skin does not actually mean skin.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 9:52 Yeah. And so this is one where we talked in the first episode about the come follow me kind of brouhaha in 2020, where the printed manual had a quote that absolutely said that skin meant, you know, human skin. And the church had to put out some quick news articles from people who are faithful to the church. They fixed it, obviously, in the electronic version, and then they reprinted the printed one to try to get rid of the quote, which is a real quote. And this is an article that came out that the church, a lot of people within the church were pushing to try to get away from this problem. And it was from Holly Richardson, it was in the Salt Lake Tribune, and that the headline of the article was called what if skin doesn't mean human skin? And it's a common apologetic, which is to say that the curse of dark skin in the Book of Mormon isn't really dark skin. It's more of like your aura or your clothes. And so this is from the article by Holly Richardson. She says, what if our interpretation was a cultural artifact of the mid-1800s when slavery was still legal in the United States? What if we have misunderstood words like skin and black and dark? Could there be another interpretation of. I believe there is. In 2015, Ethan Sprout, a professor of English at Utah Valley University, published an article in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies that explored the idea of skin or skins, referring to clothing and not to human skins. Pointing to verses in Alma 3, 5 through 6, he shows us why we can interpret skin as clothing. First the Lamanites were naked, save it were the skin which was girded about their loins, and then the, the skins of the Lamanites were dark. He asks, as we should ask, do they not refer to the same thing, clothing or garments? Surely that is a possibility. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's an argument that's being made out of necessity. We've talked about this in a lot of these episodes. This is not an argument anyone would have made until like the last, really 20 to 40 years. I would argue this wouldn't even be an argument that was made in 1978 because again, this is Book of Mormon, this is Native Americans. And so the church has always kind of had that double edged sword. Native Americans were allowed to get baptized, they were allowed to go to the temple, whereas members of African descent with black skin could not. And so there has always been this weird kind of difference between the way the church treats the two. So I don't even think this is an argument that would have been made even until maybe 15, 20 years ago. And it's just, it's a bad argument and obviously we'll go over that in a second. But I just.

John Dehlin 12:24 Yeah, and I'll just say like, oddly, if someone had tried, if someone. This argument is so bad, but what's preposterous about it is if you had gone back 50 years and tried to make this argument, you probably would have gotten in trouble. Yeah, there were multiple first presidency statements affirming the, the, the priesthood ban, you know, as doctrine based on skin color and, and unworthiness of, of black people in the pre existence and, and the Book of Mormon curse on, on the Lamanites. So, so, so the, the argument that's now offered as an apologetic to try and get the church out of a bind would have gotten you in trouble 50 years ago because you're contradicting doctrine. But it's also, it just shows, it's kind of, it's insulting and it, it takes a form of gaslighting, because when you've done something wrong, the church taught us how to make it right. You, you own up to your mistake, you admit it, you apologize for it, you do your best to make reparations, and then you don't do it again, and then you move forward. But, but this attempt to make really bad, to, to not take responsibility, to not take ownership of it, and then to make bad, bad excuses for it, it adds insult to injury and it shows a lack of contrition and responsibility. And then it adds more, more lies on top of it. And it's, it's just so disheartening to see, you know, arguments like this.

Does Dark Skin Mean Clothing or Curse

Mike (LDS Discussions) 14:00 Yeah. And before we get into the next slide, to look at her specific argument, we talked about this in the first episode. If you believe that Joseph Smith was getting revelations from God, God told Joseph Smith to have Oliver and some of the early members go preach to the Lamanites. Where does God tell them to go? Where the Native Americans are. So if you're going to say skin doesn't mean skin, then why in the world is God giving Joseph a revelation to tell Alvaren then to go find people with darker skin to go preach to? Like, you cannot have it both ways. That's what we talked in the first episode. The revelations from God confirm that skin means skin in the Book of Mormon. All the early leaders confirm that. And so to say that, and we'll get into this in a few minutes, to say that skin doesn't mean skin means that Joseph Smith had no idea what he was doing, that the Mormon framing of God had no idea what he was doing. And so you're creating more problems. And the only reason, like you said, they're doing this is because now it is so deeply racist to say that the Native Americans basically got dark skinned because God cursed them, because they were not obedient enough. And so if Holly wants to make this argument, then you have to answer, then who is God sending Oliver and them to preach to? Because if it doesn't mean skin, and you're identifying them by skin, as God does in that revelation, by telling him to go preach unto the Lamanites on the border of Missouri, you've got problems. And this is why we talk a lot in these episodes about going through them in order, because they do. They pile on top of each other. And these are common threads where you want to fix one problem with apologetics while completely ignoring the fact that you're now creating three more. And that's why apologetics is about, you know, divide and conquer, where you take one problem at a time and then just pretend none of the other problems exist. But in reality, in, in the real world, it doesn't work that way. And so that even before getting into our actual argument, that would be my first response to say, well then who in the world is God telling them to go preach to? It's a nonsensical argument.

John Dehlin 15:51 Yeah. I think it's also important just to give for those who aren't really familiar with how the Mormon Church has worked regarding apologists, you know, because this is going to be relevant to kind of today's entire conversation. What the Church has, has done at least since the early 20th century is they, they fund academics at BYU or at church headquarters and pay them for their degrees and for their reputation and for their titles and for their knowledge of academics to then put forth plausible answers. And we even have people like Down H. Oaks saying on record, we don't need good answers. We just need answers. Because if you get someone like Hugh nibley with a PhD in ancient scripture from UCLA talking a bunch of Egyptian goggles, gobbledygook, but with the church's, you know, or BYU's stamp of approval, then members who don't really want to dig into the stuff and don't really want to spend a lot of time in the history or just don't want to deal with the discomfort of the issue. They'll just go, oh, well, Spencer Fluman or John Gee or Hugh Nibley or, you know, Kerry Muhlstein or whoever the scholar happens to be, well, they're really smart, they have a degree, they work for BYU and they have an answer. And so it's okay. And so in the example of this quote, we just need to make really sure everyone understands this isn't a prophet. See a revelator making this really bad excuse that maybe skin actually means clothing. It's a paid employee of the church, in other words, or it's paid staff at BYU publishing the response. And so people who don't know. The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies is a publication provided by the Maxwell Institute at BYU to provide these sorts of non academic, specious, bad apologetic arguments. It's not prophetseers or Revelators offering the bad arguments because it makes them look dumb and because they need plausible deniability if the, if the responses are bad. But it is an academic who's faithful to the church, who publishes through a BYU publication so that then that can be cited as a source for questioning members. And so, you know, this is all a multi decade orchestrated, heavily funded, a way to deal with inconvenient, embarrassing or existentially threatening problems through paid professors, paid, you know, non profits that are shadow funded by wealthy Mormons and by staff at BYU or faithful members who call themselves academics. Okay, I just, I just want to give that context as well. The next slide is let's take a closer look at Alma 3:5 through 6.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 18:53 Yeah, and so this is the, you know, kind of the crux of her argument is if you look at Alma 3 through 6, it gives the, and I'm putting in quotes possibility that skins being worn over their loins equates to skin that was darkened by the curse. And so I want to read Alma 3. 5 through 6 in its entirety. And this is a little bit tricky, but so it says now the heads of the Lamanites were shorn and they were naked. Save it were skin which was girded about their loins, and also their armor which was girded about them, and their bows and their arrows and their stones and their slings and so forth. And the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and the rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph and Sam, who were just and holy men. And so what she's saying is when he's sorry, when she says that in verse 5 it says save it with save it where their skin which was girded about their loins, she's saying that equates the same thing as and the skins of the Lamanites were dark in verse six. And what I would point out is if you read verse five after it talks about the skin of other loins, it mentions armor, bows, arrows, stones, slings, and so forth. So you've got five other things plus the and so forth before then, it goes back to the fact that their skins were darkened. So she's trying to say the same thing. And I think if you read it and you weren't trying to impose your own view, I think to try to make that connection is kind of silly because when, why in the world would the author not mentioned, you know, the Skin that was good about their loins, and then get immediately to say that they're dark because of the curse, and then go, you know, I mean, like, it's out of order. So you would say, for example, and they were naked, save it where their skins, which are good about their loins, which were dark according to the mark, and then they had their bows, arrows, blah, blah. Instead it's talking about the skins they have which are closed because they did call that skins, because it could be like animal skins that are above their loins. And so it would make a lot more sense in that context for it to be, say, animal skins that they were wearing as clothes, and then all the other stuff they have, and then go back to say their human skin was dark because of the mark. It. This is an area where she's trying to force a meaning to the text that just isn't there even by a simple reading. I don't think they would list all these other things and go back to it if they were not different things. And so it's a little bit confusing when you read it. I just want to point out too, that this also is in Alma 3, 5 through 6. And so if she wants to make this connection, you'd have to believe they're still wearing the same skins from their fathers or that every piece of clothing that they create instantly turns dark. And so that's one of those things where this is where it gets silly, because to make the argument that it's animal skins and not their human skin means that every time they kill an animal and get the skin to make something to protect themselves, God instantly turns it dark the moment they touch it. And that is. It's nonsensical. And so she's trying to make this magical argument without thinking about everything that would take for it to have happen. And so I know this slide's a little bit confusing, but I would argue that in verse five, they are talking about the skins, about their loins, because people wore animal skins. But then in verse six, they're being very explicit to say the skins of the Lamanites themselves were dark, because that confirms the earlier texts. And so to impose a different meaning in 5 and 6, I. I really think is disingenuous to the fact that it's confirmed everywhere else in the Book of Mormon that their skin meant human skin.

John Dehlin 22:13 Yeah. And I think it. I think just. It reiterates why we have to watch these episodes in succession. Because if you just watch part one, we showed instance after instance where you just can't make the argument that they're saying other, anything other than dark curse on skin because of wickedness. So it ignores all the scriptures and all the prophetic utterances of modern day Mormon prophets that make it really clear we're talking about skin. Really skin. Number two, this type of research is funded by the Mormon Church. So it's not objective research or analysis. It's literally funded by a billion dollar organization trying to protect it and defend itself from embarrassing prior positions. And then it. So it's clearly motivated reasoning where there's a scholar trying to come using their credentials, using their reputation, using the academic process to just try and make a religiously motivated argument. So it's motivated reasoning. And then finally it. The reason why sometimes I've gotten mad at apologists and neo apologists in the past is, is they are enabling the Mormon Church to not have to take responsibility for their past racism by making such terrible arguments. Okay, so let's go to the next slide. The idea that black clothes makes one unattractive is also nonsense.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 23:37 Yeah, so I just want to point out, and this is something that never occurred to me as a believing member because like I mentioned the first episode, that this was one of the first things I came across because it was just made no sense why God would curse people with dark skin and that that would be held against them throughout the generations. And so Holly Richardson in this article talks about how, you know, they're talking about it being their clothes, that skin means clothes. And I think it's. First of all, it's insulting to tell members that God would curse the clothes as a way to not be enticing to other white and delightsome people. And just think about this for a split second. Have you ever found someone in your life to not be attractive because they were wearing black or dark red clothing or something like that? It's so stupid to make that argument. And all you need to do is go to a lingerie store and look at how many of the different varieties they sell that are in black, in dark red, in dark colors. Because if, if dark clothing made people unattractive, then you would see that today in some possible way and it is just not the case. And so you would. I don't know how to say it. It's insulting to just common sense. It's insulting to reading the Book of Mormon. It's insulting to looking at the teachings of the early leaders all the way up until it became so toxic to say it publicly. Now they're trying to change course and the problem is they know all this. I don't have to sit here and tell you guys or tell everybody listening how black clothes would not make someone unattractive. Yet we've got these articles because they're trying to. In a lot of ways, it's almost like a thought stopping technique, because I think they feel like if they can make that argument to you before you think a little bit below the surface, you'll put it on the shelf or you kind of just set it aside and I don't know how else to say it, this argument is, is nonsensical because we can see every day in our lives that people with dark clothing are just as attractive as people with white. It's, it's, it's almost so ridiculous.

John Dehlin 25:27 We probably don't need to spend too much time on it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 25:28 No, that's all I need to say. It's just, it's so stupid. And, and, and I know people, I don't want to be loaded on these terms, but that argument is just, it's ridiculous. And so then Holly Richardson in her article, basically asks members to reinterpret the Book of Mormon. And so she says, for Latter Day Saints who truly believe that God is no respecter of persons, doesn't it make sense to ask ourselves if there could possibly be other interpretations from a translated record written over 2,000 years ago than the one passed down through the lens of Civil War and then civil rights culture, that perhaps our lens of white privilege has colored our view? I believe we can and should be asking those kinds of questions, especially as members of a church that began because of a countercultural question asked by a teenage boy. And this ending is so ridiculous to me because Richardson is actually making the point we've been making in a lot of these episodes and critics have been making. The Book of Mormon is written as if the author is only familiar with 19th century ideas. And so as we talk about in the first episode, this is what you'd expect. And so what she's saying is, you know, is it, is it possible that we're viewing the text through a 19th century lens? Well, yeah, because that is the lens it was written in. So there's nothing in the Book of Mormon that matches ancient history. There's nothing, there's nothing that matches any future events unknown to the author. We talked about that in the last episode. There's no revelations that go beyond the Revolutionary War, Columbus and all that. Everything tells us this is a 19th century text. Richard Bushman tells us it's best understood that way. Dam McClellan says the same thing. A lot of the scholars are out there saying, yes, you need to read this as a 19th century text. So for her to say, you know, could there be other interpretations? No, because once you get the context of the text, which is that it's a 19th century text incorporating 19th century ideas, that is why critics of the Church are saying that this is a 19th century idea of racism. Because that is what all of this text is, is taking ancient writings from the Bible and from Christianity and then reinterpreting it through a 19th century Christian lens of white settlers in America. And so, I mean, in a lot of ways she's making the point for us. But I just also want to point out that you see this in the DNA episode, DNA essay as well, where the Church is kind of telling you, like, if you just reinterpret what the Book of Mormon is actually saying, you can make this work. But once you reinterpret what the Book of Mormon is saying, what are you left with now? Because now all of a sudden everything that you were raised to say is ancient text kind of falls apart if you have to reinterpret it to make it work, work. I hate these arguments because it's always like, you'll always see those weasel words like possibly, could be, maybe, perhaps against all the evidence that's saying, yes, this is why this is DNA. Studies show this. All of the leaders are confirming it in the early days, all of those things are data points that are confirming it. And now we're being told, well, if you just maybe ignore all those and maybe possibly could be, it's frustrating because it's so misleading. And I really believe they know full well that the argument against them is overwhelming. And so that's why they use those words, because they know, they know that they can't say this is what it is. So they have to use these words so that the reader who is a believing member almost takes it as if it's truth, while the writer knows full well it is the most unlikely possibility.

John Dehlin 28:39 Yeah, yeah. And if you can redefine what skin means, can you redefine what sin means? Can you redefine what atonement means, what belief means, what faith means? As soon as you, as soon as what you know, what apologists do is they're reduced to redefining words. And it's actually one of the signs of a high demand religion. When you have to develop your own meaning of words and your own vocabulary for it all to make sense. That's a red flag. If you go to Luna, Lindsay Corbden's book on, On On High Demand Religions within a Mormon Context. You'll see that that's one of the, one of the flags, one of the triggers because. Because what apologists do is they, they make the English language pretty useless and they, they reduce to almost eliminate the value of scripture because all of a sudden translation doesn't mean translation, skin doesn't mean skin. And once you're there, what's the value of scriptures at all? Yeah, and that's not to mention what we've covered in past episodes, but which is, you know, we've got this tight and loose translation. Tell us about how this applies to that conversation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:53 Yeah, and this is why that episode is so important, because we did the episode on like the arguments about the tight translation of the Book of Mormon versus the loose translation. And so we've discussed this in a lot of episodes, but this creates problems on both sides of the Book of Mormon. And so Holly Richardson now wants to say that skin doesn't mean skin as Joseph would understand it. And so she's saying that skin means this ancient version of skin, which is animal skins and clothing. And so if you want to then do that, you now have to claim it's a tight translation, which now all of a sudden opens up all sorts of other issues. As we talked about anachronisms using the King James Bible in there, all of the references to things that happened to Joseph Smith personally, whether it's the Charles Anthon visit in the Book of Mormon, his father's dream. And so we talked about that in the episode, because now all of a sudden, to get around this dark skin problem, they're trying to go with the tight translation because they're trying to say, well, it's actually an ancient meaning that we just don't understand through a 19th century context. But now if you want to claim it's a loose translation, as most apologists will do, because we talk about this, Michael Ash has a book about Joseph Smith basically being a co author. Terrell Givens calls it bricolage, where Joseph Smith is taking all the surrounding ideas. So if you want to go that route, then absolutely Joseph would use the word skin as he knows it, which is human skin. And so this creates another tight versus loose translation problem. It's like pick your poison, because either way you go, you're opening up other problems. And so that's why I keep saying, when Holly Richardson, in this article, I know she's citing other writers, wants to say, perhaps we're looking at the word Skin wrong. If you really want to go down that route, you then have to go with a completely tight translation method and then you've got all sorts of other issues that tell you the Book of Mormon isn't true. So either way, here, you're going down a road that is going to lead to us knowing that the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be. And so this is why they try to keep you on the surface. It's just a really bad, bad faith argument they're making.

John Dehlin 31:41 And it's why this series, it's why this series is so important, because you have to be able to see the forest. You can't just see the individual trees, you got to see the whole forest. Another word that is coming up more and more these days is pseudepigrapha. And that's a fancy way of saying you create writings of an ancient person as if you're that person, and then tell everyone that the writings aren't yours, but they're the writings of that ancient person. Because for some reason, writings of an ancient person that's already accepted as a prophet is way more likely to be respected than if just some 19th century farm boy who's, who's in some ways not super literate writes it. And so I just saw recently a clip with Dan Vogel saying, you know, if I had to summarize what Joseph Smith did, he basically liked to write, write his own ideas into allegedly historical figures. Some of them actual, like Abraham. Well, some would argue Abraham never existed, but right, the Christian world Moses existed, and to the Christian world, Abraham existed. So in the cases of the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham, that's pseudepigrapha. Joseph writing as if he were Moses or Abraham so that he could inject new ideas into Christianity. And then with the Book of Mormon, he's come up with some new historical figures like Alma, Mosiah, Nephi, Benjamin, etc. But then he's also putting Jesus into the Book of Mormon. And so that way he's doing what's called pseudepigrapha all across the board. And, and, but as soon as, but as soon as you go there and you hear Richard Bushman using the term pseudo, pseudo pseudepigrapha, you'll hear Terrell Givens and others use it. Then, then it starts, it starts to beg the question, what's the difference between pseudepigrapha and just outright fraud? When we know Joseph claimed that these were ancient records. And then we actually apply scientific scrutiny to whether or not the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses and the Book of Mormon were indeed ancient records versus plagiarisms and works of, you know, inspired Christian fan fiction or Bible fan fiction. That's when all of a sudden this house of cards potentially collapses. And I'm just going to ask one question, Mike. We're giving Holly Richardson a lot of time, and you probably sensed with me a little bit of impatience for giving her so much time. And I guess, I guess I need to ask because I, I haven't been an actively participating Mormon since 2014. Are you, are you doing this because within the modern Mormon LDS Church consciousness that these arguments are having, are being used a lot and are having traction.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 34:40 Yes.

John Dehlin 34:40 This is just a dumb, isolated, bad apologetic excuse published in a, in a journal article that's sort of obscure. I don't want to spend any more time on it. But if you're saying to me that this is what the church is advancing in the membership to help them make sense of it all, then I can see why you're spending so much time.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 35:00 Yeah, no, this is one. If I post something like on Twitter, I will get responses all the time that says skin doesn't mean skin. So this is absolutely a response that is getting mainstream traction from the church. I don't think I've seen like an apostle say that because they're. The apostles are so guarded that they don't want to go out there and talk when they are going. Me saw the Q and A with I think Bednar at the Washington Temple press conference. I mean, they're very careful when they go out because they know these questions are going to come up with people who know what they're talking about and it's really difficult for them. So, no, this is a definitely a mainstream, you know, 2022 response. And in 2020, it was this, this argument was being written by, about. By other people. It's being. Trying to think of the names. I'm drawing a blank. But there's a few people that have written about it extensively. So, yeah, no, this one needs to be covered because of the fact that a lot of members are absolutely going to come across it as they're, as they're going through and trying to figure out why the Book of Mormon is telling us that.

John Dehlin 35:59 What about the argument that skin means clothing? Is that an argument that's got a lot of traction?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 36:05 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So they'll say, they'll say this, that he actually cursed their skin. So basically everybody was the same race. So it'll Be like, if you and I. If you're a Lamanite, I'm a Nephite. All of a sudden my skin is pure white. And all of a sudden God makes your shirt black. So I know you're a bad guy. And that's why I was talking about the lingerie things. It's like, it's stupid to think that that would make you unattractive. It's just, it's. It's really. It's a bad argument and it's. But it is one that's being. It's being pushed by a lot of people. So, I mean, it's not. It's certainly not just one person writing an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. It's. It's more. Much more established than that.

John Dehlin 36:41 So the argument that I'm more familiar with, and maybe we'll be getting to this, is the curse of darkness is on their countenance, on their spirit, not on their clothing. Are we going to be talking about that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 36:52 I think so. I think we've got some slides on that, too.

Speaker C 36:54 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 36:54 I mean, that's what that.

John Dehlin 36:56 Skin doesn't mean skin. It means countenance.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 36:58 Yeah, I've heard that. But again, that's one of those things where it's like, was. Well, we'll go through the verse too. It's just countenance.

John Dehlin 37:04 Like he's. Joseph's looking at a rock.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 37:06 Yeah.

John Dehlin 37:07 It's telling him what's on the plates.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 37:09 Y.

John Dehlin 37:10 God could have just put countenance on the rock, not skin, and solved this entire problem. But skin a gazillion times. And then prophet seers of revelators use skin a gazillion times to then change it. In 2022, when the Internet makes things convenient to either clothing, changing skin to clothing, or changing skin to countenance, that's. That's just ridiculous. Okay.

Speaker C 37:32 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 37:33 And again, I'll hammer this one more time. If. If skin does not mean skin, why is God telling Joseph Smith to go preach to the Lamanites exactly where the Native Americans are? It. There is absolutely no way around this. And. And so I. I don't even know. You know, like you said, it's. I feel bad giving this much time, but it is an argument here. So just to hammer this home, here's a few more verses from First Nephi and Second Nephi. And it came to pass, I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief, they became a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of Abominations. So there they would say, dark meaning countenance. But again, we. We know the skin issue. And then it says, and I beheld the Spirit of the Lord that was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance. And I beheld that they were white and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. And then, second Nephi 36, this is the original 1830 edition, before they change it. And then shall they rejoice, for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God. And their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes. And many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delight some people. And so this is an argument where they'll say that it means countenance, because they'll say the scales begin to fall from their eyes. So it's like their eyes, their countenance is falling away. But again, this is one where you take this verse and you compare it to the quotes we had last episode when church leaders were talking about literal pigment changing as the Native Americans joined the church. So it's one of those areas where if you really want to make the argument that it means countenance, you have to answer for all of these verses. Then you have to answer for all the prophets who were talking in the name of God about how these Native Americans were getting whiter after joining the church.

John Dehlin 39:11 There's just too much like pigment, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 39:13 Yeah, they usually use. They usually showed. They literally said that the pigment was changing. And so I don't know how to get around it. And so this is one we'll just spend one slide on. This is one. Jim Bennett wrote a reply to the CS letter, which I think is a lot better than Fair's reply, although it still has a lot of issues. But it's one that gets talked about a lot. And he was on with you and Bill Real. And he will freely admit that the priesthood ban was wrong, but he'll say is that the reason it took so long is because the prophets were racist and they just weren't asking the right questions. So effectively, what he was saying is the early prophets believed that people with black skin were cursed, and so why would they ask God to remove it because they thought it was right. And so I just want to point out, when you make this argument, then you have to ask yourself, what in the world is the point of having a prophet to receive revelation? It really goes to show you that this argument, I think is a lot, in a lot of ways it's basically trying to preserve the fact that God isn't telling them that this is wrong and to preserve them as prophets because they can only get answers to what they're curious about. But that would then mean that like in today, in 2022, when you have Russell Nelson in 2015 saying that they felt the revelation of God, say that, you know, those who are in same sex relationships are apostates. And then three and a half years later say that God gave another revelation saying that they're not apostates, that their allowing those policies to come in because that's their worldview. And at some point this episode is showing that the leaders of the church, the prophets, seers and revelators of the church, they cannot tell what is. Basically they cannot discern what is from God versus what they already believe. And so if prophets can only get revelation to what they already believe, what they already think about those with dark skin or those who are LGBT or women and the priesthood, all of these different things, if they can only get what's in the worldview, then what is the point of having a prophet? Because clearly they can't tell what's coming from God and what's coming from their own beliefs. And if they can't tell, then they're no better to follow than any other person on average. And these episodes are showing us without any question that they cannot tell what is from God versus what is coming from them.

Can God Command Racist Policies Through Prophets

John Dehlin 41:24 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If prophets can tell us, don't drink tea and don't drink coffee, which are beverages that are at minimum benign if not healthy for you. If they'll tell you, you know, don't, you know, like Mormon prophets don't have more than one ear piercing. Don't show your shoulders if there can be such a level of specificity to what profits are telling us, you know, don't, don't watch rated R movies, don't drink caffeinated beverages. If they're going to tell us with that level of control and specificity. But then on the really, really big issues like systemic racism, slavery, the treatment of LGBT people and gender identity, war, famine, you know, if they're going to be silent on the big stuff, but like super controlling, including telling Joseph to have 30, 30 wives and 14 year old girls like it, it really does, it really does challenge the model that these men actually speak to God. And if they do actually speak to God, well then I've got a problem with God. Because the things that God is telling Joseph Smith to focus on, go sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon. You need to go make some money. And then he tries to sell it and he can't. Why is God that specific? But. But he can't even get the skin color and racism thing right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 42:49 Yeah, I mean, I should say it. It comes down to the fact that, you know, we want to throw. We want to preserve God, we want to preserve the framing of God, but we also preserve the leaders. And so they'll say, well, the leaders just weren't asking the right questions. But if they're not asking the questions that are the hot topic of the day, this is not some small thing. During the time when Brigham Young was prophet, and we're going to kind of get to him in a minute. The Civil War was about to happen. Obviously, slavery is becoming a boiling point for the whole country. And you're going to tell me that Brigham Young isn't praying to God to know what to do. So the fact that Brigham Young is going to come out and say he knows these things because of God tells you that either he doesn't actually have a connection to God, which is what I would agree with, or that God just confirms that Brigham Young wants to hear. And I think either way you want to go with that is horrible. Or the third option, as you said, is that God really did condone these policies and really did confirm to Brigham Young that Utah should be a slave state and that they should believe in slavery and that they should preserve this ban. And in that case, first of all, God's changing then, because God apparently would change because of social pressure, which is something that I don't think anybody would agree with in any form of Christianity, or he's just really bad at what he's doing. And so when I say that, I'm talking about the Mormon framing of God, not God in general, but the Mormon framing of God is one that is very indecisive, confused, at times inconsistent, and a lot of times uncaring because you have society taking care of certain groups of people before the church does, especially when it comes to lifting the priesthood band so that families with dark skin could be with their families together. It's just all of these things point to the fact that prophets, seers, and revelators cannot tell what is from God versus what is from them, which to me tells me that none of it is from God, because if it was from God and they did not understand, God would send an angel with a drawn sword and say, I don't know how many times I Have to tell you this, slavery is wrong. And what in the world are you doing? Banning members with black skin from being able to come back to me. Are you crazy? But instead, the only time the angel is sent down is when Joseph Smith is trying to get women to accept his proposals. And we'll get into that with polygamy. But when we talk about pseudepigrapha, Joseph Smith's revelations are pseudepigrapha. Because you have to remember, think of all of the revelations we've already talked about in these episodes. 116 pages. Getting Martin Harris to finance the Book of Mormon. All of those revelations are getting people to do what Joseph needs to get done. Because if Joseph Smith went to someone and said, Hey, 116 pages lost. But I think I have a plan. There's actually the second set of plates I forgot to tell you about. Everybody would be like, yeah, sure, Joseph. But if you say God told me this, it gives it more credibility. So it's not just the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, that are pseudepigrapha. The revelations are because he's speaking in the voice of God in order to give what he's saying enough credibility so that the followers will go with what he says. And so, yeah. And so just basically, if. If Joseph Smith can't tell what's from God and what's from himself and none of the other leaders can, then why in the world in 2022 should we believe a word that the leaders are saying?

John Dehlin 45:53 Yeah. Let me ask you a question that I don't know you planned on discussing here, but it's also. It's another apologetic that I'm hearing, and just stop me if we're already going to talk about this, but one of the more nuanced, sophisticated apologetics I've heard recently is that Nephi was racist and King Benjamin was racist and Alma was racist. That they were also products of their time. And that even though they say in the Book of Mormon that God cursed the skin, you know, based on wickedness, that that wasn't actually God doing it. That was just God allowing the racism of the Book of Mormon prophets to come through. And that that was done by God so that we today could look at not just the modern racism, but the racism of ancient Mormon prophets and I guess of Abraham and of Moses and the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses. And that would be a catalyst for us working through our own problems. This is the same sort of apologetic that is applied to the old Testament, when all the genocide happens, that instead of it being God that commands the genocide, it's tribal warfare that attributes the genocide to God. But that's part of scripture. God lets scripture be messy. He lets scripture be a reflection of the culture of the day so that. So that we can learn. And because he lets mention see through a glass darkly. And he lets men and women, you know, have their messiness and bigotry and biases spill out into Scripture. Are we going to talk about that? And do you have an answer to that?

Evaluating the Argument That God Was Racist

Mike (LDS Discussions) 47:36 Okay, so I don't have any slides for that. I've heard the argument. I think it's really, really bad. And the reason is because if you want to make the argument that it was really the racism of the early prophets, then you kind of almost have to go to a tight translation, because the loose translations where Joseph is kind of being filtered in this information then can apply it. And then again, if you go to a tight translation opens up to all those other problems. The bigger problem, though, for me with that argument is you are now claiming that the Book of Mormon is historical, which we know is not the case. We could show with every field of study that the Book of Mormon is not historical. And it has to be historical for that to work, because it just happens to line up with the revelation Joseph Smith is getting from God about where to go to preach. And so to say that Nephi is just being racist and that God wasn't really changing the skin color. Then again, I'm going to keep pointing. This leaves open the real simple fact that God is telling Joseph Smith to go where there are people with darker skin to go preach to him and calls them the Lamanites. And so I don't think you could make that argument without reconciling how in the world the revelations just happen to line up with. With where the people with dark skin are, the Native Americans, as to where God is telling him to go preach to the Lamanites. You know what I mean? Like, I can understand the argument that, like, the leaders like Spencer W. Kimball was just a guy who had no idea what he was saying. But you are taking direct revelation from God to Joseph Smith saying, go preach the Lamanites on the borders of Missouri, which is where the Native Americans were. There's no way to separate that because we have the idea that dark skin is what identifies the Lamanites being cemented by revelation. I don't see any way around that, unless you want to say Joseph Smith was getting the revelation wrong, which as we've already talked about. I don't know what you're left with at that point.

John Dehlin 49:22 Yeah, yeah. If all of a sudden prophets. God is allowing prophets to encode deeply harmful bigotry into the scriptures as God's will as scripture. You've really lost me on the value of scriptures at that point. Okay, so we referenced this last time. There is one really good verse in the Book of Mormon about, you know, God loving everyone and God being no respecters of persons. And this seems to be the number one go to for people trying to explain Book of Mormon or explain away Book of Mormon racism.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 49:58 Yeah, and so you hear this all the time. And this is from the essay that the Church put out which says the Church proclaims that redemption through Jesus Christ is available to the entire human family on the conditions God has prescribed. It affirms that God is no respecter of persons, and emphatically declares that anyone who is righteous, regardless of race, is favored of him. The teachings of the Church in relation to God's children are epitomized by a verse in the second book of Nephi. The Lord denieth none that cometh unto him. Black and white bond and free, male and female, all are alike unto God, both Jew and gentile. And as we just said, this quote is used all the time to deflect from the entire Book of Mormon story, being one that is incredibly racist to try to explain the origins of the Native Americans. But this quote is in no way speaking about the curse. In this verse, God is saying that anyone can come back to Christ even if the. Even if you happen to be a filthy, loathsome person with dark skin as the Book of Mormon says. I'm using quotes. Remember that the Book of Mormon claims to be written to bring the Native Americans back to Christ. So of course this verse needs to be in there to tell the Native Americans, even though you're dark and you're filthy and you're savage, you could still come back to Christ and God will welcome you. The Book of Mormon is creating a problem for Native Americans by giving them their origin story in order to sell them the solution, which is to join the Church. And so of course this verse is in there. I always kind of laugh when I hear it because of course they're going to tell you that God welcomes anyone because they want the Native Americans to join the Church to come back to Christ. But it does not in any way excuse or remove or explain away the fact that the entire Book of Mormon narrative is racist in the sense that it's trying to explain why there are people with dark skin living in the 1820s. I think that it's such a misleading verse to use because it's two completely separate issues. This is an issue of who God welcomes. This has nothing to do with the curse whatsoever.

John Dehlin 51:52 Yeah, because even if you stipulate that the Book of Mormon God says that he loves everyone equally, you've still got Mormon scripture that says things like blacks won't receive the black people won't receive the priesthood until all the whites have received it in the millennium. And so it's kind of like the George Orwell animal speak. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. Because saying that the Book of Mormon God says that all are alike unto God and that all are welcomed by God still doesn't explain why curses are being given. Right. Dark skinned by God is being viewed as loathsome, why priesthood and temple blessings are being denied, why salvation is being denied until the very, very end. It's kind of like, okay, God loves everyone, but he's certainly gonna favor people who are white or have white skin. So it doesn't remove the racism. It just says everyone ends up equal. But there was a lot of racism and bigotry along the way, which, which it doesn't solve the problem. And you just have to scratch a centimeter down to see that this is just, it's a PR attempt to whitewash the Mormon God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 53:08 Yeah, and it's just like I said, this is just, it's to use this verse as if it somehow is answering about the curse of dark skin is just. Is nonsensical because this verse is saying that anybody can come back to God. Anyone can believe in God. So as I said earlier, it's like the Book of Mormon is telling Native Americans, hey, your ancestors were really wicked people and because of that, their skin was dark and that's why your skin is dark. But guess what? We're going to sell you the solution with this Book of Mormon. And if you join the church and you do what we need you to do, your skin's going to turn white again. And that sounds horrible, but that's what they taught. That's literally what we mentioned in the first episode where the prophet of the Mormon Church in General Conference was talking about how they were doing the Indian placement program where they were pulling Native Americans into Mormon families and was saying their skin was turning whiter than the other Native Americans on the same reservation. And so the Book of Mormon here, this quote has nothing to do with the Curse it is just saying that anybody can come to God. And so they're using a really bad deflection here to try to get away from the fact that the Book of Mormon's racism is still there, no matter who can go back to God. It's a really bad argument, and it's one that, as we'll get into later, I think I have their, their quote on honesty later. It doesn't match their own definition of honesty, and it's frustrating when you hear it.

Everyone Was Racist in the 19th Century Argument

John Dehlin 54:24 Yeah. Okay, so the next slide is everyone else was racist during those times too.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:29 Yep. And this is more from the Gospel Topics essay. So this is a long chunk and it says this is.

John Dehlin 54:33 This is basically another apologetic response that they offer. And if I had to summarize, it's basically, hey, yeah, Mormon prophets were racist in the 19th century and 20th century, but so was everybody else. Right? Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:49 This is the product of their time argument that you hear all the time. So from the essay, it says, in 1850, the US Congress created Utah Territory and the US appointed a Brigham Young to the position of territorial governor. Southerners who had converted to the church and migrated to Utah with their slaves raised the question of slavery's legal status in the territory. In two speeches delivered before the Utah Territorial legislature In January and February 1852, Brigham Young announced a policy restricting the men of black African descent from priesthood ordination. At the same time, President Young said that some future day black church members would have all the privilege and more enjoyed by other members. And I'm putting that in yellow because remember that line. The justifications for the restriction echoed the widespread ideas about racial inferiority that had been used to argue for the legal legalization of black servitude in the territory of Utah. According to one view, which had been promulgated in the United States from at least the 1730s, blacks ascended from the same lineage as the biblical Cain, who slew his brother Abel. Those who accepted this view believed that God's curse on Cain was the mark of dark skin. Black servitude was sometimes viewed as a second curse placed upon Noah's grandson Cain Canaan, as well as, or as a result of Ham's indiscretion towards his father. Although slavery was not a significant factor in Utah's economy and was soon abolished, the restriction on priesthood ordinances remained.

John Dehlin 56:14 Okay, yeah, and so do you want to give there.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:17 You know, let's just go to the next slide because. Okay, yeah, that, that part of the essay is just. It's so bad and.

John Dehlin 56:24 Well, just if you had to give a one sentence summary. What's your one sentence summary?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:28 That the church is supposed to be led by God, the church made choices and the church chose wrong. I mean, you can, you can't blame the racism. Everybody else in this day, it would be like saying today that everyone in the church drinks coffee because most people drink coffee or everyone. You know, I mean, like, you can't say. It's the whole thing that I heard growing up, you know, when you'd say, I want to do something, My mom would say, no, you can't do that. And they'd say, oh, I really want to do. And she go, if everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you? And I'd go, no, I guess I wouldn't. I mean, it's just, it's so we're supposed to expect better. When I was a convert, I was told, these are the leaders that can lead us through the latter days because they speak directly to God and they know how to deal with these problems. And we're showing time and time again that they cannot do it. And when they have to make choices, when they are able to make the choice between right and wrong, they choose a side of wrong just as much as anyone else does, because they are. It's not just that the men are products of their time. The church is a product of his time and it always will be. And that's why, yeah, we're going to see in 30 to 40 years they'll soften up in some way on same sex marriage, but it'll be 50 years after the country did and it'll be, will be. Because the church is effectively a product of its time in order to survive. This is the same thing we're seeing here.

John Dehlin 57:34 Yeah, it's just, yeah, it undermines the entire value proposition of Mormonism because what Mormonism is supposed to give you is better than what the world has. Yeah, because the prophets are speaking to God and because the scriptures come from God. And so if you're not, if you're not only not getting better from the church leaders and the church of scripture, you're actually getting worse. You know, in the cases of like 1960s apostles fighting the civil rights movement, condemning Martin Luther King as a communist, if you're actually, or Brigham Young, you know, bringing slavery to the Utah territory when there were several slates that had abandoned or abolished slavery, when you get prophets and Mormon scripture, Mormon prophets, Mormon scripture, doing worse than the average, it just simply undermines the entire value, value proposition of Mormonism. And so your summary slide here, let's go to that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 58:32 Yeah, it just says, you know, to me, this sums up the problem for the church's claim to being led by God. So. Well, Brigham Young was the first leader of Utah territory, and he made a deliberate choice to make it a slave state. As a living prophet of God, Brigham Young chose to make Utah a slave state. So apologists can argue that Brigham was a product of his time all they want, but the fact is that his decisions had tremendous impact on the church. And almost every one of his major contributions to the doctrine of the church have been proven horribly wrong, including the Adam God doctrine, blood atonement, and the ban on members of African descent. And what I want to point out is, again, this is something. This was a decision made in what, 1850 or 1852 to make Utah a slave state. Slavery is going to end 13 to 15 years later. You would think that if you're a prophet of God, you'd get a revelation from God and says, you know, my servant Brigham, slavery is going to end in this country in the next 13 to 15 years. Do not make this state a slave state, because you're going to be on the wrong side of history. This is not what how it should be. And instead, Brigham Young, gung ho slave state, and no angel with the drawn sword saying, don't do this. No visitation from an angel. Or if there was, Brigham apparently didn't listen. So we have all of these issues of inconsistencies between how God acted with Joseph Smith, with Brigham Young, with today's leaders. And that inconsistency tells you it's because the leaders are acting within their own worldview, within their own set of beliefs. There's no leadership from God here because they could not see 13 years out to know slavery was going to end anyways. It's just a really easy way to show there's no foresight.

John Dehlin 1:00:06 Yeah. Okay. So this is going to be probably a really powerful and impactful part of the interview for people who are interested or paying attention. We're going to now share an actual. An audio recreation of a Brigham Young address that he gave in Utah. Do you want to set it up?

Brigham Young and the Priesthood Ban Origins

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:00:27 Yes. So in the. Up in the slide, a couple slides ago, I read the quote, and I'm going to read it again. And. And there's a part in yellow. I'm going to emphasize it again because this is from the church's essay. In two speeches delivered before the Utah Territorial legislature In January and February 1852, Brigham Young announced a policy restricting men of black African descent. From priesthood ordination. At the same time, Brigham Young or President Young said that at some future day, black church members would have all the privileges and more enjoyed by other members. And so that's the quote they're pulling from the speech. And what we're going to play for you is like the first five minutes or so of this recreation from Jonathan Streeter. And I want you to understand this is the same talk that this quote is from. And we're going to basically play it until that quote happens. So you could see all of the things that the church is not telling you about what Brigham Young said here. Because when you listen to these first five minutes, the context of what Brigham Young is saying here is 100% different than what the church is portraying it as. And they know the speech exists because it's obviously well documented.

John Dehlin 1:01:29 Yeah. And I'm just going to give a shout out to Jonathan Streeter. He has an amazing YouTube channel called Thoughts on things and Stuff or Totas t o t a s. And he's just a brilliant thinker and content creator that has done so much amazing work. So, yeah, he's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:01:45 His stuff's amazing. If you. If you've never come across his channel after this episode, go to his channel. He has so much good stuff. Lots of videos of old members talking or leaders talking. He has a lot of videos where he talks about some of the issues he came across. And he does it in a very, I would argue, a very gentle way. He's got a really good way of processing this information, how we think about things. So, yeah, absolutely love the work he does.

John Dehlin 1:02:07 Okay, so let's roll the clip of Brigham Young speaking at an address in 1852 to the Utah Territorial Legislature about. About people of black African descent about the priesthood. And is. Is it. Did you say slavery as well?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:02:26 Yeah. So he. This basically is about slavery and kind of why he believes in slavery.

John Dehlin 1:02:31 Okay, so this is a audio recreation of Brigham Young talk.

Speaker C 1:02:43 I rise to make a few remarks. The items before the House. I do not understand the principle of slavery. I understand at least I have self confidence enough and confidence enough in God to believe. I do. I believe still further that a great many others understand it as I do. A great portion of this community have been instructed and have applied their minds to it. And as far as they have, they agree precisely in the principles of slavery. My remarks in the first place will be upon the cause of the introduction of slavery. Long ago, Mama Eve, our good old mother Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. And this made a slave of Her Adam hated very much to have her taken out of the Garden of Eden. And now our old daddy says, I believe I will eat of the fruit and become a slave too. This was the first introduction of slavery upon this earth. And there have been not a son or daughter of Adam from that day to this. But what were slaves in the true sense of the word, that slavery will continue until there is a people raised up upon the face of the earth who will contend for righteous principles, who will not only believe in, but operate with every power and faculty given to them to help to establish the kingdom of God, to overcome the devil and drive him from the earth. Then will this curse be removed. This was the starting point of slavery. Again, after Adam and Eve partook of the curse, we find they had two sons, Cain and Abel. But which was the oldest I cannot positively say. But this I know. Cain was given more to evil practices than Abel. But whether he was the oldest or not matters not to me. Adam was commanded to sacrifice and offer up his offerings unto God that placed him into the Garden of Eden. Through the faith and obedience of Abel to his heavenly Father, Cain became jealous of him and he laid a plan to obtain all his flocks. For through his perfect obedience to Father, he obtained more blessings than Cain. Consequently, he took it into his heart to put Abel out of his mortal existence. After the deed was done, the Lord inquired to Abel and made Cain own what he had done with him. Now, says the grandfather, I will not destroy the seed of Michael and his wife and Cain. I will not kill you, nor suffer anyone to kill you, but I will put a mark upon you. What is that mark? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see upon the face of the earth or ever will see. Now I tell you what I know. When the mark was put upon Cain, Abel's children was in all probability young. And the Lord told Cain that he should not receive the blessings of the priesthood, nor his seed until the last of the posterity of Abel had received the priesthood until the redemption of the earth. If there never was a prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before. I tell you this people that are commonly called Negroes are the children of old Cain. I know they are. I know that they cannot bear rule in the priesthood, for the curse on them was to remain upon them until the residue of the posterity of Michael and his wife received the blessings the seed of Cain would have received had they not been cursed and hold the keys of the priesthood until the times of the restitution shall come and the curse be wiped off from the earth and from Michael's seed. Then Cain's seed will be had in remembrance and the time come when that curse should be wiped off. Now then, in the kingdom of God on earth, a man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of priesthood. Why? Because they are the true eternal principles the Lord Almighty has ordained. And who can help it? Men cannot, the angels cannot, and all the powers of earth and hell cannot take it off. But thus saith the Eternal, I am what I am. I take it off at my pleasure. And not one particle of power can that posterity of Cain have until the time comes. He says he will have it taken away. That time will come when they will have the privilege of all we have the privilege of and more in the kingdom of God on Earth.

John Dehlin 1:07:59 Okay, so I just want to say, number one, that was so deeply disturbing and number two, it's mind boggling to me that, that the lds, the Mormon Church's flagship universities, Brigham Young University Provo, Brigham Young University, Idaho, Brigham Young University, Hawaii, that they still bear his name, given that he held beliefs like this. It's just, I, I can't believe that 30, 40 years ago they didn't rebrand the universities, you know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:08:31 Yeah. And, and so this is, I don't mean to.

John Dehlin 1:08:34 How are you gonna.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:08:35 And it's. No, it's true. I mean, that's the thing. Like this one of the things I, you know, we all have our opinions on the leaders and what they know, what they don't know, what the old leaders were with the, you know, how they were. Brigham Young to me, was a monster. And Lindsay Hansen park had put together this thread a while back and just detailed it. He said horrific things. And this episode or the speech that Jonathan streeter talks about 17 minutes, we played about five. So if you want to go back, go to his channel, listen to this. It gets worse. I mean, like, what he says is horrific. He talks about blood atonement, and if you mix seeds, you'd be better off, you know, being killed. And, you know, those are things we'll talk about in future episodes. We talk about prophets and all that, but it just shows that either you believe this is what God told him because he speaks directly to say that God has, this is what God declares, this is what God wants. And this is the prophet of God on earth. So either God believes this or these men don't speak for God. And you can't say, well, Brigham didn't Speak for God, but Russell Nelson does today. You can't have it both ways. Either both of them did or neither did, because we are told that God will not suffer the prophets to lead the church astray. So either Brigham Young was approved by God because he lived to a very nice old age, or these men are making it up. And this is a horrific speech. It gets worse. And to me, you know, the biggest takeaway is just the fact that the church cites this speech to make it sound so prophetic and so positive. And, you know, you listen to it in context, it is horrible. And the Church is lying about what Brigham Young said. And so if you've got any. I don't know if you have any other thoughts otherwise.

Why the Priesthood Ban Was Instituted

John Dehlin 1:10:12 Let's go to the next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:10:13 Yeah. So as I said earlier from the church's essay, it says in two speeches delivered before the Utah Territorial legislature in January and February of 1852, Brigham Young announced a policy restricting men of black African descent from the priesthood ordination. At the same time, President Young said that at some future day, black members would have all the privilege and more. And I'm not going to read both paragraphs of speech because you just listened to it.

John Dehlin 1:10:37 This is the church trying to explain away the talk we just heard, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:10:42 Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're basically saying.

John Dehlin 1:10:46 All they mention is that the Brigham Young is saying that at a future day, the blacks would. Would have all the privileges and more black church members, not. Yeah, black church members.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:10:55 Yeah. And so the church's essay is basically saying Brigham Young gave these two speeches to explain why they're doing slate, why Utah was a slave state. But he's also prophesying that at some future day, they'd have all the privilege and more enjoyed by other members. And what they don't tell you is that Brigham Young specifically says that the time will come when they have all the privilege of more. When every white person on earth has the priesthood. So he's not saying 1978. He's saying when every single white person has had their chance, then people with black skin will have their chance. It is so different.

John Dehlin 1:11:25 This is so important, because if you think about it like. Like the. The church, why in the world. The civil rights. You know, the civil rights. Some attribute the civil rights movement to sort of beginning around the 1850s, 1855. Well, some say it began really heavily in. In the 1940s when. When, you know, black black Americans were integrated in the military with white Americans. And so it starts with World War II and then the Korean War, but then there's the Emmett Till stuff that happens in the mid-1950s, and that's when Martin Luther King starts emerging. But of course, it culminates in the Civil Rights act of 8 of 1964. And then of course, all the 1960s, it gets picked up by the Kennedys and by Lyndon B. Johnson. And so like, why in the world would the Mormon Church wait until a full like two decades later, 1978, to lift the the priesthood and temple ban on black members? And the answer is it's talks like this.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:12:30 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:12:31 When it's in the Mormon scripture, when it's in three of the four unique Mormon scriptures, Book of Mormon, Moses and Abraham. And when you've got prophets, here's a revelators like Brigham Young saying, written down, that no black man, no black Mormon will receive the priesthood until all the whites receive it. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:12:49 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:12:49 Where can the church go? And that is why they, it took them so long to change it. Because you can, you can say Mark E. Peterson was a monster. You can say Joseph Fielding Smith was a monster. You can say, you know, Ezra Tab Benson and Harold B. Lee were super racist, but really all they were doing was exhibiting their belief in Mormon scripture and in the prophets that preceded him. So in some sense, they're all victims of believing the religious teachings that are as core to Mormon doctrine and theology as anything could be.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:13:31 Yeah. And that's why in the last episode, I was talking about how the thing you're going to hear over and over again when you talk about the problem with race in Mormonism is they'll say it started with Brigham Young. And I always say, no, it didn't. And the five minutes we just played for you, Brigham Young specifically mentions that Cain was told that they would never have the priesthood because of this. Well, that's in the Book of Abraham. And so Joseph Smith puts into the scriptures in the book of Moses that the curse of Cain is black skin, and he puts into the book of Abraham that that's the lineage that can't have the priesthood. And so to argue that Brigham Young implemented the ban. Yeah, he's the one that formalized it. But it's off of scripture. It's not like he created out of thin air.

John Dehlin 1:14:11 We've already completely proven that. Okay, so the next slide says follow the footnotes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:14:16 Yep. And so on the website I had, I did a page a while back, like a year or so ago called follow the Footnotes, because one of the problems I have with the gospel topics essays are when they have these citations that leads you to believe one thing and then you read the actual citation and it's completely different. And so we just showed you that saying that Brigham Young was prophesying of the time when the priesthood ban would be lifted is beyond misleading because Brigham Young was saying it would not be lifted until every single white person had it. And so I would just say, when you're done with this, check out Jonathan Streeter's YouTube channel. Subscribe to it because it's awesome. But then listen to that full 17 minute speech because it gets a lot worse. And I was listening to it last week when I was getting ready for this and I was gasping out loud. It is horrific. And it's worse as you get through this, the episode, that speech includes Adam, God references blood atonement. And if the church wants to then cite this as a source that it's a prophecy, you also have to then accept everything else in that speech as well. You can't just pick this one sentence which doesn't even say what they say it does without accepting the rest. And we've talked about this a lot in previous episodes, but this is in the Church's official manual how they describe being honest. And it says, when we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by only telling part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest and they are not being honest. This is a pattern in the essays. It's a pattern with apologetics. In this case, they are being blatantly dishonest with members to try and scrub and whitewash the horrific beliefs that Brigham Young had and that early leaders had and the absolutely damaging policies and doctrine and positions they took regarding members with African descent or dark skinned. Because it's just. Yeah, yeah, it's so frustrating to watch that.

John Dehlin 1:16:16 Yeah. And even in the Gospel Topics essay and in apologetics since 2014 to present, they will say things like, well, sometimes, like we just said in a previous slide, prophets are people of their time or they're products of their time, or these were just theories of men, not doctrine. Not only have we shown that that's not true, but they still won't say Brigham Young. We condemn the things Brigham Young said. We condemn the things in the Book of Mormon, Books of Mormon, Abraham and Moses that are racist. We condemn what Spence W. Kimball said about, you know, about interracial marriage. We condemn what Markey Peterson said. They won't condemn actual Statements made by actual prophets. There's a revelators though closest they'll come when full forced is to make these generic statements about men's theories, about products of their time, about the difference between policy and doctrine or culture. And it's all dishonest, but. But it's also just trying to escape real accountability. And we get why we've already. You've already said it several times in this series because once you start admitting that prophetess are revelators, not only get it wrong, but get it wrong sometimes worse than on average.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:17:37 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:17:37 And the whole Mormon priesthood authority and prophet speaking to God narrative comes collapsing down like of cards. Let's go to the next slide, which is the fact that not everyone during. During the 1900s or the 1800s, not everyone was racist. Right.

Abolitionism and Race Within Early Mormonism

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:18:00 Yeah. And there were a lot of people fighting against slavery. And I want to stick with within the church because I think we always are told, oh, they're a product of their time. Well, so here's a really cool thing I came across. And this is from the. Was it keep. Like, I can't remember the name of the blog. It's like keep a catching on or something like that, but keep a pitching in. That's the one. Yes. So I found this. And I heard about this a long time ago. I googled it and I found it. And so Orson Pratt was fighting against slavery. He didn't want to make slavery, didn't want to make Utah a slave state. And so in 1852, they've got this debate in the Utah legislature, and Orson Pratt actually argues against passing this bill to make it a slave state. And he says that legally legalizing slavery in a territory where it did not already exist was enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush. And Pratt argued in favor of black males voting rights in 1852. And Brigham Young soundly rejected Pratt's arguments. We, we just as well make a bill here from mules to vote as Negroes or Indians. Young said, what we are trying to do today is to make the Negro equal with us in all our privileges. My voice shall be against it all the day long. Young insisted. Now he's acting as governor, but he's also the prophet of God fighting against people who are trying to do the right thing. Because remember, Utah was not a slave state originally. So they're going out of their way to make it a slave state. And Orson Pratt is right to say that this is bad enough to make, you know, to cause the angels and heaven to blush. And Brigham, I was like, no, Nope. We're doing it. And I'm going to keep doing it until, you know, for all day. And so.

John Dehlin 1:19:28 And for Brigham Young to compare black Americans to mules y as a way to justify not letting them vote y shouting down one of his own leaders that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:39 I don't.

John Dehlin 1:19:40 I don't know, the more condemning slide that you've shown in the. In this, you know, last episode in this than the slide that's just. Yeah, it's unsafe.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:48 We've got a prophet of God. I mean, I just.

Speaker C 1:19:51 It.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:51 Like I said when I was doing these, it just. You read that and you're like, this can't be real. And it is, because that's. That's who Brigham Young was. And, you know, furthermore, the Strangites, which was an offshoot of what we consider the mainstream LDS Church, they allowed those who have black skin to be ordained in 1849, and the RLDS did that in 1886. So we have two different offshoots of the Mormon Church who did it long before the mainstream LDS Church finally reversed course. So to say they're a product of their time ignores the fact that there were people fighting against it and there were people within the church or within kind of the. The universal Mormon, different branches doing it long before them. And these are. If we believe this is the church that has the. The true prophet of God, why in the world are we lagging behind the offshoots?

John Dehlin 1:20:37 Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that when I found out that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I didn't know about the Strangites doing it, like in 1849, but when I found out that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now called Community of Christ, got it right, I don't know, 90 years before we did, I was just like, wow, that's really compelling. Okay, next slide is the curse of Cain and the church's framing of it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:05 Yeah. And so this is again from the church's essay, and I think I had read this earlier, but this is a curse of a quote from the essay. It says, according to one view, which had been promulgated. Promulgated in the United States from at least the 1730s, blacks ascended from the same lineage as the biblical Cain, who slew his brother Abel. Those who accepted this view believe that God's curse on Cain was the mark of a dark skin.

John Dehlin 1:21:25 Can I for just a second. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Something that I have just learned in the past year that I did not know is that using. And I know you were quoting. So I'm just going to make, make it clear. Saying the term black, like, as you know, blacks. The blacks.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:41 Right.

John Dehlin 1:21:41 Is deeply offensive to black people. Yep. And I, I, I've made this mistake. We probably have made this mistake on this episode, but I'm gonna just take a moment to share what I've learned. Don't say the blacks.

Speaker C 1:21:55 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:21:56 Don't say blacks when you're referring to people. You can say black people, but not the blacks or blacks. And I'm not calling you out, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:07 Right.

John Dehlin 1:22:07 I'm sharing something that I didn't know until recently.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:10 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:22:10 Was considered deeply racist. Okay.

Speaker C 1:22:13 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:13 No, it is weird when you read the essay and you see that. And, and so what I want to point out is this is not just one view. This is the view and doctrine of the church. They literally teach in their scriptures in the Book of Moses that those with people with black skin descended from Cain and thus had dark skin. And so I don't know how else to phrase this, because they're sitting here saying according to one view, as if that's not what the church's view was. And so this also, as I've been saying over and over, the church is telling you right now that this view started in the 1730s. What in the world is it doing into the Book of Moses, which is supposed to be this ancient writing of Moses? How is Moses incorporating ideas that were in the United states from the 1730s on in an ancient text as the Book of Moses? This is a huge admission by the church. Even if they didn't want to make it that these scriptures by Joseph Smith are modern, they're not ancient, because what in the world is this doing in an ancient text? And so the Church is being dishonest by saying it's just one view when the church has it in their doctrine, but it's also admitting the fact that the church is writing doctrines or Joseph Smith was writing ideas that started in the 1730s into ancient scriptures. So, you know, apologists, when they say that prophets were a product of their time, they have no idea how accurate they're being.

John Dehlin 1:23:26 Yeah, yeah. And I never thought of the, the, the Cain doctrine, the Curse of Cain doctrine as being grossly and wildly anachronistic. So we talk a lot about horses and steel and chariots in the Book of Mormon being anachronistic, but this idea that, that Cain was cursed with black skin, that's not in the Bible. And it's, yeah, completely anachronistic for, for the times when Abraham would have lived or Moses would have lived or, you know, up until a relatively modern era.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:24:00 Yeah. And that's just it. And we. In the first episode, I think it was Sabrina Myven Chanel, and she talked about the fact that, you know, when you walk into church and you see the photos of Jesus or you see artwork of the Bible, they're always like, super white. In reality, they would have been darker skinned. And so the fact is they wouldn't have probably viewed people with dark skin as being cursed because they all had dark skin in the Bible because they were, you know, from the Middle East. And as we talked about in the first episode, a lot of scholars would argue that the way we view race today was not how they thought of it back then. So the fact that the modern kind of way we look at races in Mormon scriptures tells you it's a modern text and not an ancient text. I mean, we've talked about this so many times, but there's so many different ways to show that these scriptures of Mormonism are not ancient. And at some point, there's just an abundance of evidence that tells you there's no way.

John Dehlin 1:24:54 So let's go to the slide. The scriptures that led to the priesthood ban being viewed as doctrine.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:25:00 Yeah. And so we mentioned these in the first episode. But the book of Abraham is what creates the justification for the priesthood ban and is still doctrine of the church today. So these two verses are going to be what basically allows the Brigham Young to create the ban and do it in the name of God. So Abraham 124 says, when this woman discovered the land, it was underwater, who afterwards settled her sons in it. And thus from Ham sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land that's saying that that preserved the curse of Ham, which is obviously, as we've talked about, having dark skin. And then Abraham127 says, Now Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of priesthood notwithstanding, the Pharaohs would claim it.

John Dehlin 1:25:39 Would.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:25:40 Would fain claim it from Noah through Ham. Therefore my father was led away by their adultery and idolatry. And so these two verses are in the book of Abraham. And Joseph Smith took a very racist idea that was used to justify slavery and wrote it directly into the scriptures through the gift and power of God. And I'm just pointing out you cannot have it both ways. Either this is from God or it's not. And if it's not from God, then as I've said before, we talk about in the pre setup. So once you realize that this stuff is not what it claims to be. It's a house of cards. There's nothing left. This is the foundational. These are the foundational scriptures of Mormonism. And we're showing, without any question, they're using modern racism because it's being written in a time where that was the belief of the time. And so you can't have it both ways. Either this is from God or it's not. And if it's not from God, we don't. We don't need to be a part of this. You know what I mean? They have no authority if this is not from God. And we could show over and over and over again. These are not ancient, ancient scriptures. They're modern creations.

John Dehlin 1:26:41 Yeah, absolutely. So it starts with Joseph. It always starts with Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:45 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:26:45 Yep. Okay, this. The next. The next slide is the scriptures of Mormonism and white supremacy. Which is.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:52 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:26:52 Which is a strong word. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:54 This is a super strong phrase. And I was going back and forth on whether or not to include it, but I'm going to do it, and we're going to do it in the most technical sense. And so if you look up the definition of white supremacy in the Oxford dictionary, it says the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society. And I just want to point out it is incredibly difficult to come to terms with this, but the Book of Mormon holds a white supremacist belief. It teaches that white skin is delightsome, while those who have dark skin is considered filthiness. It's considered loathsome. And so while we're going to also say that God loves everybody equally, as you mentioned earlier, God absolutely, in the Book of Mormon favors those who have white skin because those with white skin are the righteous ones. And those with dark skin, as we learn in the Book of Mormon, will have their skin turn white when they turn back to God. And so the Book of Mormon is absolutely using skin color as the delineation between those who are good and those who are not. And the books of Moses and Abraham set the priests of ban emotion by declaring that black skin is a curse from God. Which, as we've just mentioned, that's a textbook way to show that God is favoring those with white skin, because if you don't have white skin, you cannot be with your family together forever. You cannot get sealed in the temple, you cannot get saving ordinances, you cannot hold the priesthood. And so I don't know what more to say outside of just, you know, if you Want to make the argument that it's anything besides the textbook definition of white supremacy, you're going to have to show me how their, none of the, all of these textures are telling us that. And the fact that in the Book of Mormon they teach if you turn on to Christ, your skin will turn white again, I think is a pretty good way to show that this is what the church's doctrines are, which is that white skin is favored of God.

John Dehlin 1:28:41 And we've discussed this in past episodes with Thomas Murphy and others. If you actually study our history objectively. And this isn't to sort of get into like white hatred or white self loathing, but, you know, Western European countries have been colonialistic, whether it's Portugal or Spain or the, you know, England, you know, we, you know, those countries sent out explorers all throughout and colonized Africa, colonized Asia, colonized, you know, north and Central and South America. That's just a fact. And when you're colonizing people of darker skin or when you're in the case of the, the slave trade in the United states in the 16, 17 and 1800s, when you're taking ships to Africa, literally enslaving Africans and then bringing them back to do forced labor, you, you need some sort of justification for treating humans this way. And so this is where these racist doctrines are always born. It's, it's recognizing that you're doing something super wrong to an entire race of people based on their skin and then feeling bad about it and then feeling like you need to justify it. And so whether it's, whether it's the mound builder myth that we've talked about in past episodes, both with Simon Southerton and with you, whether it's the, the, you know, Cain curse of Cain theory, it's what humans do, colonizers do, and largely white colonizers do when they're trying to justify displacement, genocide or slavery. And that's where this comes from. Yeah. And that's why calling it white supremacy is 100% accurate.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:30:40 Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, but technically it's right. And, and so we're going to look at some quotes here and these are really not great, but this is from the improvement era, which is a church run magazine. This would be like getting it, this would be like getting something in the Liahona today or the enzyme up until a couple years ago. So this is in there and it says this is an entry kind of in this section of the magazine, which is just a bunch of like random tidbits. And it says Indian Turning white. A Winnebago Indian, Louis Armel, living on the reservation is said to be the object of scientific observation because for many years his skin has gradually been gradually turning white. He is now 54 years old. He still has pop copper patches, but physicians believe that he live. If he lives a few more years, he will become entirely white. So this is of interest.

John Dehlin 1:31:24 Sounds like the skin condition that Michael Jackson had, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:27 It does, but within the.

John Dehlin 1:31:29 Yeah. What's like alopecia?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:30 Yeah, I think it's alopecia. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:31:31 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:32 And so I think that's what it is. But this is in the context of Mormonism. This would be like what they believed in the Book of Mormon, which is what, as he turned to Christ, your skin begins to turn white again. And so this is like. Again, this would be like receiving this in the Liahona today. If you read that, you'd be like, this is insane. This is what they were publishing from the church in 1928.

John Dehlin 1:31:53 Okay, I'm sorry, I got that wrong. It's called the alopecia, I think might

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:58 be the hair thing that vitiligo. Okay.

John Dehlin 1:32:02 Vitiligo is a long term condition where pale white patches develop on the skin.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:07 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:32:08 Caused by the lack of melanin, which is the pigment in skin. Vitiligo can affect any area of skin, but is common. But. But it commonly happens on the face, neck and hands and in skin creases. So clearly this, this, this gentleman, Louis Armel, I'm theorizing, had the skin condition of vitiligo. And then Mormon prophets and revelators, through their own formal church publications, were erroneously attributing Book of Mormon prophecies as the explanation of Lamanite skin turning white. As they blossom as a rose. They're attributing that later becomes known as a skin pigment disease.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:57 Yes, yep.

John Dehlin 1:32:59 And that's awful. And it makes perfect sense.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:33:01 Exactly. That's just it. So this is another publication through the Mormon Church. This was from 1868. And this is an article, you know, as you can see on the left, the Negro race with a horrific drawing. And it says, we understand that when God made man in his own image and pronounced him very good, that he made him white. We have no record of any of God's favored servants being of a black race. All his prophets and apostles belong to the most handsome race on the face of the earth. That's why it's like. That is literally the textbook definition of white supremacy. We showed you a few slides ago, and this was going out to the church through a publication that was sanctioned by the church. And I believe by. This is from 1968, and I think by the late. Yeah, or, sorry, 1868. I think by the late 1860s, it was, like, almost overseen by the church, whereas I think it started out as a group of members. So this is just. It's horrible.

Church Publications and White Supremacist Teachings

John Dehlin 1:33:56 And. And a shout out to Missed in Sunday.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:33:59 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:34:00 Missedandsunday.com or mistin Sunday School project. We referenced it last time, but it's this amazing project where images are shared with just a few sentences to really drive home key points. And one of the attributions is really critical because. Because apologists are going to say, well, that's just a publication. You can't put that on the leaders of the Mormon Church. But in the. In the subtitle on this image, it says the Juvenile Instructor was published and edited by Mormon Apostle George q. Cannon in 1868. So again, it's always prophet seers and Mormon prophets and revelators who are behind these church publications. They edit it, they approve it, oftentimes they direct it. And so you can't write this off as just the opinions of some random member.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:51 Yeah. And so when I was looking at those missing Sunday things, I was trying to make sure I was looking at the source because I wanted to make sure I didn't pull something that was out of context. And so I read this article. It gets a lot worse. And so I want to read you this article because this is where that last slide is from. And this just shows kind of where the church's views were on race in 1868, which again, is when the Civil War is happening. You know, slavery just ends. All that stuff is happening all at once. And so this is from the full article I just read from. It says all his prophets and apostles belong to the most handsome race on the face of the earth. Israel, who still, as represented in the scattered tribe of Judah, bear the empress of their former beauty. In this race was born his son Jesus, who we are told was very lovely and in the express image of his father's person. And every angel who ever brought a message of God's mercy to man was beautiful to look upon, clad in the purest white and with a countenance bright as the noonday sun. When God cursed Cain for murdering his brother Abel, he set a mark upon him that all meeting him might know him. No mark could be so plain to his fellow men as a black skin. This was the mark God placed upon him, which his children bore after the flood. This curse fell upon the seed of Ham through the sin of their father, and his descendants bear it to this day. The Bible tells us but little of the races that sprung from Ham. But from that little and from the traditions of various tribes we are led to believe that from him came the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Egyptians, and the most and most of the earliest inhabitants of Africa. We are told in the Book of Abraham, in the Pearl of Great Price, that Egypt was discovered by a woman who was the daughter of Ham, the son of Noah. This was probably the first portion of Africa inhabited by men after the flood, it being the nearest to the land where the ark rested and the children of Noah first settled from Egypt. The families of men gradually spread out to the southward, up the Nile river and along the borders of the Red Sea and westward by the shores of the Mediterranean. The pure Negro as represented by the people of guinea and its neighboring countries, and is generally regarded as the unmixed descendants of Ham. Our engraving of a Negro is of this type. Their skin is quite black, their hair, their hair woolly and black, their intelligence stunted, and they appear never to have arisen from the most savage state of barbarism.

John Dehlin 1:37:07 So that's in again, a Mormon Church publication.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:10 Yeah. Edited by an apostle.

John Dehlin 1:37:12 It just sounds like eugenics, kind of.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:14 It does. And I feel so bad saying this over and over again. This comes from Mormon doctrine. He even references the fact that this comes from the Book of Abraham, which is to say that, you know, Egypt was originally populated from someone who was cursed by God with, with black skin. So it's, it's horrific. It's not something that originated with Brigham Young. Brigham Young didn't write the Pearl of Great Price. He didn't write the Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith did. So you could say that people took it too far. Go ahead and do that if you want. Doesn't excuse the fact that the foundation of this doctrine, the foundations of these horrible ideas, began with Joseph Smith, either by himself or through God. So as I said earlier, you either have to believe this is from God and God didn't bother to correct the prophets, or that Joseph Smith made it up and people took it too far. And I think the evidence is very heavily telling us that Joseph Smith made it up. But either way, you're really in a no win situation here because either it's from God and God was okay promoting this kind of racism through his prophets and through his scriptures, or these people were making it up with a 19th century worldview of race.

Dark Skin Scriptures Remain Official Doctrine

John Dehlin 1:38:22 Okay? We've got another quote here or image from mistinsunday.com yeah, the Scriptures that say dark skin is from God are still doctrine.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:38:33 Yeah. And we covered this earlier. I just wanted to show this because I love how miss And Sunday does these graphics because it shows shows the gospel topic quote on the top which says today the church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse. And then right below it it has second Nephi 5, 21, which says, and he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint wherefore, as they were white and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And it just shows like the essay is telling us that they disavow these theories, but they're not telling us that they're still in the scriptures today.

John Dehlin 1:39:15 They're still in your scriptural canon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:17 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:39:18 Then you haven't disavowed it unless you remove it. And thanks to this series with you, we've we know that, that the scriptures can be, things can be removed, things can be edited, things can be added to. So there's ton of precedent for scripture being changed in all sorts of bad ways. Why wouldn't you know, if the church wants to say in a, in a Gospel topics essay that it's been fixed now, we've disavowed it. They haven't done that until they fix the scripture. And they haven't fixed scripture. And we've said this a million times because if they did, then Mormons would say, well, if we're going to throw out major passages in the Book of Mormon that literally are foundational to the entire narrative of the Book of Mormon, well, let's throw out the law of chastity, let's throw out the word of wisdom, let's throw out anything that's inconvenient, and let's throw out prophets, ears or revelators and the value of Scripture. And because Mormon leaders can't have the whole house of cards collapse, then they feel like they can't actually disavow the things that they claim to be disavowing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:40:22 Yeah, and we, we, we played this video in the DNA episode, but I wanted to play it again because the idea that Native Americans or Polynesians have anything to do with the Book of Mormon has been disproven by DNA studies, migration studies, archaeology, and as I mentioned earlier, just about every area of study tells us the Book of Mormon is not historical. And yet the church is going to use these racist teachings that we just showed in the last slide that people with dark skin are cursed by God and that they are the today's Native Americans are the descendants of these Book of Mormon people. They steal the identities of Native Americans and Polynesians because they have darker skin. And I just want to play this video. This is from a church video, I think, called like some Something of Destiny or something we play in the DNA episode. And this is a woman talking about joining the church and. And what the church has told her about her ancestors.

John Dehlin 1:41:11 So this is from your YouTube channel?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:13 Yeah, I just clipped the. It's. It's. I'll look it up while the video is playing. I'll look up the title.

John Dehlin 1:41:18 It's. I'm reading it right now. The Mormon Church's People of Destiny.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:22 Oh, yeah, it's on there. Okay, good. Yep.

John Dehlin 1:41:24 Taking away the identity of Polynesian population.

Speaker C 1:41:26 Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:27 So it's called People of Destiny.

John Dehlin 1:41:28 Okay, I'll play it now. We sit around the kitchen table every morning and read from its pages. As a family, we have learned about a man named Lehi, about his son Nephi and Jacob. We have grown to love these men very much and learn from the Book of Mormon that we are their descendants, that we come from them. And because we love them so much, we have named our sons after them. This is Lehi. He is a very special young man. And this is Nephi. We are grateful for these men because we have given their names to our sons so that our sons can remember them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty significant.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:42:17 Yeah. We talked about a lot in the DNA episode. We don't have to go through it all here. But I just. I feel like using these ideas that are bad from a historical standpoint and obviously from a moral standpoint, to tell people this is your true history is really bad. And it's, it's. If someone had done that to. You know, if you go to people that have pioneer ancestry and you try to tell them what their pioneers are really like, and, you know, you take away their history and say, no, the pioneers were actually these savage barbarians. They would never have it. And it's just one of those things where nobody would like to have their. Their history and their identity taken from them, especially in a way that is demonstrably false.

John Dehlin 1:42:53 Yeah. So it would be, it would be like, basically. So is, is my understanding the politically correct term for people that are born, let's just say far shorter than average. My understanding is the politically correct term for that is little people. And so I'm going to use that term as my best understanding for, you know, a group of people that previously maybe were referred to in other terms that are now considered derogatory, like let's say dwarfs, as a bad example of what to refer to these people. So calling telling Native Americans or Latin Americans that their Lamanites or Nephites would be akin to teaching little people since childhood about the wizard of Oz and the fact that they were Munchkins and teaching them that they are the descendants of the Munchkins from the, the wizard of Oz and that they should be proud to be a Munchkin because the Munchkins were instrumental in in defeating the Wicked Witch of the West. I mean, that's the best it's taking fiction. Right. It's kind of insulting if you apply it to real life people and then teaching people that they're actually literally descendants of these fictional stories instead of whatever their actual inspiring, courageous, authentic history might be. I don't want to beat a dead horse.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:23 Yeah, no. And the thing is, what you said to a believing member will come off as such a loaded thing and such a. I mean, I'm assuming I would have as a believer. I would have thought that's the most mean spirited thing to compare the Book of Mormon to the wizard of Oz. But the reality is neither of them are historical. So using that to tell somebody that that is their, their lineage, that that's their, their ancestors, history is just, it's, it's wrong. And these are prophet seers and revelators that did it for, I mean they've been, we have in the DNA episode, we have quote after quote from them doing it up until like 15, 10, 15 years ago. So I think they even still do it now when they have like leaders go do it like area talks and they'll refer to the fact that they can see Lamanites or, you know, this is the people, you know, it's just, it's bad.

John Dehlin 1:45:03 If you go to Latin America right now or Polynesia and you ask your average Mormon, you know, in the pews, you go to Peru or you go to Guatemala.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:45:14 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:45:15 Or you go to Samoa and you say, are you a Lamanite? They would say, absolutely, I'm proud to be a Lamanite. And the church is still, they're teaching it privately they're teaching it locally, but stop mentioning it publicly because they're trying to do that dance of, of not disrupting what's been taught throughout the church, but not saying what's. What's politically, let's just say, socially repugnant today. And the other, only other thing, again, I'm going to call attention to don't trust us. I did an entire series called Losing the Lamanites on Mormon stories where we interview formerly believing Native Americans or Latin Americans about how they feel having been taught that they were Lamanites or descendants of Lamanites. Trust them. You don't need to trust two white guys. Just go watch those episodes to get a really good point of view of how awful this is. Okay, the next slide is. Look at how the essay frames the abolition. The abolition of slavery.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:18 Actually. Go, go back one slide, I think.

John Dehlin 1:46:21 Sorry. Okay. Today the church wants to have their cake and eat it, too.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:25 Yeah. And so this is in 2020. There was a, you know, the Mormon Church did a partnership with the naacp. It was highly publicized, and they released a statement. And in the statement, Russell Nelson said the following. Prejudice, hate, and discrimination are learned. And I just. Again, what I want to point out is that what he doesn't mention here is that those ideas are learned through the scriptures of Mormonism and the prophets of the Mormon Church and are still doctrines today. So not only are those ideas learned, but they are taught by the very church making the statement. And then Nelson later in the statement says, any of us who has prejudice towards another race needs to repent. And so my advice to the church is to take its own command and do the right thing and actually repent and apologize for the racism that's in their scriptures and make those changes. And finally, just do what they ask every member to do, which is to make a actual statement of contrition and take the steps needed to fix the problems. The foundational reasons that this racism existed through the early leaders, because it's in the scriptures. And so if Nelson wants to get up there and release a statement telling people to repent, they need to be the leaders. Don't tell people to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

John Dehlin 1:47:37 And I, and I've spoken with, you know, friends who are either black members of the church or former members of the church. And it's hard, my understanding, is it's hard for them to conceptualize the LDS Church's outreach to the NAACP as anything other than sort of purchasing good pr. In other words, donate a bunch of money to the naacp. And in exchange for the NAACP doing a few photo opportunities or photo ops with top church leaders to be able to then send those photos all around the church and say, hey, see, we're. We're good now.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:18 We've.

John Dehlin 1:48:18 We've kind of. We've kind of figured. We've figured it. We've solved our racist problems without actually changing the scripture and denouncing past prophetic utterances. And it's window dressing. It's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:30 It is. Well, and I don't want to. We don't need to do too much of a tangent here, but the church did that big announcement, I think it was last year, might have been this year, where they announced they were doing this $10 million donation to the NAACP to create scholarships. I believe it's $1 million a year for 10 years. And you think, wow, that's amazing. That's $10 million. The church's investment fund, the Ensign Peak Investment Fund, averages $24 million per day in gains. So the church puts out this massive PR campaign about this partnership with the naacp, but the reality is they're not even donating half a day's worth of gains from their investment fund. And so if you really want to make amends, you first need to fix the scriptures. But if you want to make these PR statements about these donations you make, they should be, I would say, a lot more generous, considering the fact that the church, on average, makes $24 million a day from their investment fund alone. So I just want to point out how the PR statement is put out there as this massive grand donation. But in reality, for the church, it's be the equivalent of the average worker donating something like 80 bucks. It's nothing.

How the Church Essay Frames Abolition and Disavowal

John Dehlin 1:49:45 Okay, the next slide is. Look at how the essay frames the abolishment of slavery.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:50 Yep. And so this is from the essay. Again, it says, although slavery was not a significant factor in Utah's economy and was soon abolished, the restriction on priesthood ordinations remained. And so this is again, something that people might say, you're splitting hairs a bit. But the reason slavery was abolished had absolutely nothing to do with the Mormon Church, Utah, or Brigham Young. It was soon abolished because the US Government abolished slavery. And we mentioned earlier, the Utah government was where Brigham Young was the leader, and. And he made the choice to bring slavery to Utah. It was not a slave state. And I believe a lot of the states that were around Utah, if not all of them, did not do slavery. So they were uniquely racist. And this is another area where the Church is going to put out this vague statement that kind of is technically true and almost makes it sound like, you know, slavery wasn't a big deal. It was soon abolished. But they're not really giving you the fact that the Church went out of their way to make slavery, make Utah a slave state, and had absolutely nothing to do with the removal or abolishment of it.

John Dehlin 1:50:48 Yeah. By saying that it was quickly abolished is deceptive because, number one, it wasn't a. It was abolished by the government, but, you know, through the Civil War and the sacrifices of the millions of people who died in the Civil War. And it succeeded or was abolished, you know, not. Not only not because of the Mormon Church, but probably in spite of the Mormon Church, because if Brigham Young or his successors had been allowed to continue slavery, given Mormon scripture, Mormon racist Mormon Scripture, and the subsequent racist prophetic utterances, they probably would have continued it for as long as they could have. So it was abolished in spite of Mormon prophets, seers and revelators, not in any way because of them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:51:36 Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

John Dehlin 1:51:38 I think that's. So that makes this essay extra, extra deceptive. Okay, the next slide is the Church disavows the theories of racism in the past.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:51:50 Yeah, so this is just. We've talked about this a few times now, but they say from the essay today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions and a premortal life, that mixed race marriages are a sin, or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form. And we've been saying this throughout these two episodes, but the Church will never move on until they remove the racism from their scriptures, because those are not theories, those are doctrines. And so this is another one of those word games. Sorry, excuse my dog for a second. Yeah, they're the gatekeepers here. But anyways, this is a word game that they play, which is to try to say that these racist ideas are merely this kind of like. I don't want to say casual, because it's obviously not casual. I don't think the Church is trying to make it sound like a casual thing, but the way they frame it is almost like, oh, it's just a few people with a few bad ideas. These are racist ideas that are doctrine today because they're in the scriptures. And as we talked about earlier in this episode and Last episode, the First Presidency called it doctrine because they believed as prophet seers and revelators that God declared it to be doctrine.

John Dehlin 1:53:08 Yeah, yeah. If you want. If, you know, you don't disavow the theories of racism in the past until you've altered your scripture.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:17 Yeah. There's no way around it.

John Dehlin 1:53:18 And denounce the specific statements by specific people.

Speaker C 1:53:22 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:53:23 You haven't done it. Nope. Haven't done it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:25 No. They haven't gone through the same steps of, you know, making things right that they would expect out of us. And so this, this is another mist and Sunday slide. And basically it is.

John Dehlin 1:53:39 Don't worry about it. The dog.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:41 Okay. Okay. I don't know if it's loud. Okay. So, you know, basically it's just showing the juxtaposition between the church's essay talking about how it says church leaders believe that a revelation from God was needed to alter the policy of the ban and that they made ongoing efforts to understand what should be done. And then, you know, the statement we just talked on the last slide, this is the First Presidency saying the attitude of the church with reference to the Negroes remains as it always stood. It is not a matter of the, of the declaration of a policy, but of direct commandment from the Lord. And I know the church would say that these leaders kind of got it wrong, but when you have prophets, ears and revelators calling it direct commandment from the Lord and they're wrong, how do you believe any leader today?

John Dehlin 1:54:22 And we talked about this yesterday, but there's. The church has admitted today that it doesn't know what doctrine is anymore other than God and Jesus and priesthood authority and obey the prophet kind of thing. But anyone who's been raised in the Mormon Church knows that one way in the past we've all been taught to identify true Mormon doctrine is when there's a signed First Presidency statement. And my understanding is there are two, not just the one we're showing here, but there are at least two signed statements from first presidencies reaffirming the priesthood temple ban and the black, you know, the curse on black Mormons based on the curse of Cain. And so when the. When the Gospel Topics essay does this kind of like hand, wavy marketing, sleight of hand, saying it's just a policy, that. That doesn't, that doesn't apply anymore. It's a discarded policy, basically, they are not being honest that this was affirmed as doctrine by prophet seers and revelators multiple times. It's totally dishonest.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:55:31 Yeah. And you know that letter, it's caused

John Dehlin 1:55:36 tens of thousands of modern LDS Church members to leave the church and to lose their faith because hundreds of thousands or millions of Mormons went out to North Carolina, went out to Africa, served their missions, and when they were asked, even Brazil. And when they were asked, gosh, Mormon missionary in the 1970s or 80s or 90s, why is it that you had a ban on black members both for the priesthood and temple, they would say, well, it's hard, but that's the doctrine that the scriptures and Mormon prophets have always taught us. And so when these members are taught this as doctrine and they go turn around and teach it as doctrine to the world, to then be told in a Gospel topics essay that it was never doctrine all along, that causes shelves to break in one moment. And I would say the, the, the, the Gospel Topics essay on race in the priesthood has probably been responsible for more Mormons losing their faith than any other Gospel topics essay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:56:47 That's my, I can see why. Yeah. And you know, the thing I would point out, and we'll move on because we're, you know, we're kind of reiterating some of the stuff. But take the. Now the, the Lowry Nelson letter from 1947, the one the First Presidency sends where it calls it a commandment. I would love to go on a time machine, take the church's Gospel Topics essay and send it to that First Presidency, because they would absolutely disavow that Gospel Topics essay and you'd be considered an apostate for basically taking the stand that the church takes in 2022 because this was considered doctrine. I'm going to say it as many times it needs to be said. Until it's removed from the Scriptures, it is doctrine today. Everything that led to the justification is still there in the scriptures. And so I just, like you said, there's a reason shells break over this because you're not taught it. And once you realize how entrenched the history is in the actual Scriptures and in the early leaders, the essay becomes incredibly disingenuous and dishonest quickly.

John Dehlin 1:57:46 Yeah. The next slide is Dallin H. Oaks, current member of the Mormon Church First Presidency. He puts the blame solely on God for the priesthood ban. This is a really disturbing technique apology, Mormon apologetic technique these days.

Dallin Oaks Attributes the Priesthood Ban to God

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:58:01 And so this is Dallin H. Oaks, who is the next in line to be prophet right now. And he said, if there be one event which was celebrating 40 years of the church, not banning members of black skin to the priesthood and to having saving, saving ordinances saving ordinances done in the temple, he said. I observed the pain and frustration experienced by those who suffered these restrictions and those who criticized them and sought for reasons. I studied the reasons then being given and could not feel confirmation of the truth of any of them. As part of my prayerful study, I learned in general the Lord rarely gives reasons for the commandments and directions he gives to his servants. I determined to be loyal to our prophetic leaders and to pray as promised from the beginning of these restrictions that the day would come when all would enjoy the blessings of priesthood and temple. Now, on June 8, 1978, that day had come and I wept for joy. So not only is Oaks putting the blame on God by saying I didn't understand it, but that's what God wanted. He tells us that he was determined to be loyal even though he knew it was wrong. And that is a horrific and it's a cowardly thing to do. You know, we're told all the time in the church, choose the right, let the consequence follow. Dallin Oaks put his ladder to the top of the church ahead of the fact that he knew it was wrong. He is first of all misusing the line about that the day would come when all the enjoy the blessings because we talked about that earlier, but he's telling us all he's a coward because he would not stand up for the right thing because he did not want to jeopardize his position in the church.

John Dehlin 1:59:30 It's also, you know, just look up the Stanley Milgram experience on obedience to authority and the shock, you know, the shocks that were given as part of an experiment out of Yale University to show how far people will go to just to obey authority. Just as a total side note to me, it's super disturbing for him to reinforce this idea that you override your own conscience, that it's a virtue, that it's a virtue, that it's virtuous to override your own conscience if you're obeying your priesthood leadership.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:00:08 And this is really self serving for Oaks to say as well because he's the next prophet. And so he's saying at an event knowing he very well may be profit soon, basically, hey, even if you disagree with all the crap I've said and Oaks has a lot of horrible things he said, stick with it because if you don't then you're going to jeopardize your spot in the church. And this is, you know, one of the things I've, I've, I've heard a lot and you just basically reference is that high demand religions can make really good people do really bad things, and high demand religions can make the best people believe in really horrible things because they believe that the need to obey leadership overrides their own moral, moral conscience, their own moral compass. And this is Oaks basically telling the membership just that. And as you said, you know, to me, this, to me, this tells me that Down Oaks is a coward because he knew it was wrong and he stood by because he didn't want to jeopardize his spot. And the fact is, you know, in his mind, he made the right choice because now he's going to be the next prophet if the time comes. But if he had done that, then he might have been ostracized and risked it.

John Dehlin 2:01:10 Yeah, there's, there's that quote that, you know, people, good people will usually do good things, bad people will often do bad things, but sometimes it takes religion to make good people do bad things. That's, that's what we're seeing here. And we're seeing Oaks kind of reinforcing that mindset. Yeah, but I'm also going to speak out on behalf of my, you know, faithful Christian and even, you know, people of other faith, they get really angry when God is blamed for Mormon racism or for Mormon polygamy or other sorts of things because they feel like God's name is being stained, that God's reputation is being stained. And I don't think it'll be lost on our listeners that over half of the people who leave the Mormon church oftentimes end up identifying long term as atheist or agnostic. And it's many of my Christian friends who feel like the staining of God. Blaming God for racism, blaming God for sexism, blaming God for homophobia, for transphobia, blaming God for genocide is a key reason many people who leave Mormonism just decide I'm leaving faith altogether because if this is what God does, then I'm not interested.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:02:27 Yeah, the one thing I'll, the last thing I'll say about that slide is because that event really bothered me because that was right when I first started reading about church history and stuff. It was right when I got into it, I saw this. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. This is such a self serving event for the church. And so you've got Dallin Oaks and he's willing to throw God under the bus because he knows that the moment you admit that church leaders cannot discern between God and their own prejudices is the moment that your obedience to leaders is going to fizzle away, because once you realize that they can't tell what's from God and what's from themselves, I don't need to obey Russell Nelson because he clearly can't tell what's from God and what's from him, as evidenced by the revelations he's claimed with regards to both LGBT and the whole, you know, course correction on the name. So Dallin Oaks knows full well that the moment he allows for leaders to be wrong, he is jeopardizing everyone in the church obeying him. And so he, he would rather throw God under the bus than water down his own authority. And I think that's one of those things you see from certain leaders in the church, not all of them, where they will absolutely throw God under the bus before they will do anything that will jeopardize the obedience that they can get from members because of their high position in the church. And as I said earlier, I cannot tell you how cowardly of a statement this is from Oaks.

John Dehlin 2:03:43 Yeah. Yep, yep. So the next slide is the priesthood band gives a glimpse into. I don't want to say God's priorities. I'm going to say Mormon God.

Implications for the God of Mormonism

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:03:51 Yeah. And I think I say that somewhere, but yeah, if I didn't, I mean the God of Mormonism. So for me, the biggest takeaway of all of this is that in the Mormon Church, we are told that God sent an angel with a drawn sword to tell Joseph Smith to practice polygamy. And I quote fully, which he told teenage girls in order to get them to subject to his command in the Mormon framing of God. We then have to accept that God was willing to send an angel down to make sure Joseph Smith could marry and have sex with other women, but was okay allowing prophets to propagate horrific racism for over 120 years. And so it also tells us that God's revelations within Mormonism always seem to fit the needs and worldview of the people who claim to receive them. Which becomes incredibly problematic when you realize that today's leaders will be disavowed in the decades to come. And so, and then the final point I'll make on this is we're taught in the church that if you get bad feelings reading something, it's from the devil. So what does it say when you read the scriptures that include this racism, or you listen to the quotes, or you read the quotes that we showed today and you get bad feelings and they're from the people who claim to be the prophets of God?

John Dehlin 2:04:52 I'll add to that. What does it do when you read the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham or the Book of Moses. Because the beginning of my faith crisis, like my serious faith crisis was when I was a Mormon seminary teacher. And I'm asked to read the Book of Mormon and teach the Book of Mormon to all these students. And so I'm, you know, working for Microsoft, studying my seminary, you know, lessons to prepare to teach it. And, you know, I was. I was having questions about my faith pretty seriously. And of course, we as Mormons are always told, hey, one of the best ways to strengthen your faith is read the Scriptures. Well, you read the Book of Mormon where you're actually paying attention to the words, and you read about Lamanites being cursed with dark skin. Once you care about issues like systemic racism and colonialism and genocide, you read those Book of Mormon verses and you feel sick to your stomach. The last thing you want to do is go teach it to high school kids. And if the holy. If the whole. If sick feelings are the Holy Ghost, then that condemns the Book of Mormon. However, what that also condemns is Mormon epistemology. Because Mormon epistemology, good feelings equals the Holy Ghost, bad feelings equals Satan. Yeah. That just shows that you can't trust feelings as a way to discern truth. Which again, becomes a house of cards where Mormonism collapses. Because so much of Mormonism these days is built on feelings.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:15 Yeah. And so I wanted to kind of. As we start to wrap up here, I just want to show there's four quotes we're going to show. They're all from General Conference. And so Russell Nelson in 2019 got up and he said, we may not always tell people what they want to hear. Prophets are rarely popular, but we will always teach the truth. And I'm going to read you four quotes from Mormon prophetseers and revelators from General Conference. And I want you to see if they're teaching truth. So this is from. Actually, you know what? There's three quotes from General Conference. This one is the quote we'd already talked about before, which called it a direct commandment from the Lord. So Russell Nelson is saying, prophets are rarely popular, but they always teach the truth.

John Dehlin 2:06:54 And.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:54 And a prophet in 1949 said, the attitude of the church with reference to the Negroes, remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy, but of direct commandment from the Lord which is founded, which. On which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization. Then we have Spencer W. Kimball, who is a Prophet of the Mormon Church saying, the little member girl, 16, sitting between the dark father and mother and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents. And these young members of the church are changing to whiteness and delightsomeness. Let me go to the next slide. There's just two more. And then these are two other quotes from General Conference. This is from Apostle George F. Richards. He says, I cannot conceive our father consigning his children to a condition such as that of the Negro race if they had been valiant in the spirit world in that war in heaven. And then Spencer W. Kimball again from General Conference said the day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome and now they are becoming white and delightsome as they were promised. And so if Russell Nelson is right and that prophets only can speak truth, then these quotes have to be true. Otherwise Russell Nelson is saying that in a self serving way because he wants people to believe and privilege what he has to say. And just with Alan Oaks he is not willing to do the work he expects members to do when it comes to making amends for past mistakes.

John Dehlin 2:08:17 So just to, just to clarify or just to reiterate, if Russell M. Nelson, who's the current prophets here in Revelator, is saying that prophets will always teach the truth, we've got, you know, we've got the Mormon Church First Presidency saying that basically the priesthood ban is doctrine. That's the first one.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:38 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:08:38 Second one is we have Mormon prophet Sierra and Revelator Spencer W. Kimball teaching that when you get more righteous your skin turns from dark to light. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:49 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:08:50 Then you've got Mormon Apostle George F. Richards saying that, you know, basically I cannot conceive our Father consigning his children to a condition such as that of the Negro race if they had been valiant in the spirit prison. So basically Apostle George F. Richards just saying what so many other prophets have said, including the first edition of Bruce Armaconkey's Mormon doctrine that that, that that black more black people were, were less than valiant spirits in the pre existence and that's why they were assigned black skin. And then finally, yeah again Spencer B. Kimball saying that Lamanites will become white and delight some someday. It can't be that. That basically shows Russell M. Nelson is lying because he's saying they always teach the truth. Yeah, we know they don't always teach the truth because now the church is denouncing what they taught in the past. So basically shows Russell Nelson as he's undermining himself.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:55 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:09:55 Showing himself to be not honest or not truthful.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:58 Yeah. And Russell Nelson's playing that game where basically he's trying to privilege. He wants everybody to listen what he has to say. He wants. Russell Nelson wants everyone to. And I know members are going to be upset by this, but he wants everyone to obey him. He wants everyone to be loyal to him and love him and adore him. And the only way you could get people to believe in you is if you can make sure you establish that authority. That's what we talked about in that precinct episode where Joseph Smith constantly did stuff to make sure his authority couldn't be questioned. And the problem is Russell Nelson wants you to believe that prophets are only capable of speaking truth. There's a really kind of creepy video where he's talking to some young kids in the church and he's like, prophets can only speak the truth. And he talks in that really grandpa y way. They have spoken untruth since the day this church started. We have documented it over and over. These are not my opinions. These are well established facts. We could show it through history. We could show it through their own words. We could show it through, I mean, the fact that they disavow these earlier teachings. So Russell Nelson is playing this game in 2019 where he's saying we can only speak truth because he wants you to listen to him. But what he doesn't want you to know is every prophet before him has been shown to be speaking untruth, which means his statement is false. And once you realize his statement is false, you realize. And we'll get into Russell Nelson a lot more in a future episode. He's made up some miracle stories on his own. He's lied quite a bit. And once you realize that they don't teach the truths, their authority crumbles. And once their authority crumbles, then you have no reason to give them your tithing. To where the church required underwear to do all of the work. Cleaning the churches, all these things.

Personal Faith Journeys and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin 2:11:25 Two year mission service.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11:26 Two year missions. Giving two years of your life. Yep.

John Dehlin 2:11:29 Coveting the law of consecration, of obedience, the law of sacrifice, all the hours of service to the church. You, you basically, you know, getting married young when you don't really know your spouse and deciding to have more kids than you might, and foregoing your education if you're a Mormon woman, to be a stay at home mom when maybe you wouldn't choose that. All that. That's critical to why we're doing not just this LDS discussion series, but also Just that's core to the Mormon Stories podcast project and to the entire mission of the Open Stories foundation is if people are going to give their lives, their time, their money, their reputation, their marriages and their children, if they're going to build all of that around and on the doctrines and the, and the theology and the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they deserve to know the truth. Then they can make an informed decision.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:12:21 Yeah, like we've said this so many times, these episodes, you listen to this episode, if you're not a believer, would you ever join the Mormon Church? And for me, I was a convert, if I knew this stuff, there's no way I'm joining because I can see just by looking at the data that this is absolutely ridiculously bad. It's horrifically bad from a moral standpoint. And as we know, it's historically just incorrect. And so when you see that, and then you compare to the leaders today constantly working more to establish their own authority than to correct the problems of the, of the church, that tells you where the priorities are. And once you know the priorities are about establishing and maintaining authority over members, then I don't see any value in the church. They do good things. There are members, the members of the church do good things. But the problem is they also do a lot of things that cause harm. And a lot of the things, as John just said, that you have to do to maintain good standing in the church are things that are all foundationally on incorrect scriptures, on non historical scriptures. And so yeah, just view this as you would a church you didn't belong to and tell me that this is from God.

John Dehlin 2:13:27 And Mike, I think this is personal to you. You know, the amount of effort you've put into LDSDiscussions.com is massive. And someone would ask, why is Mike doing this? I think it, I think, Mike, my psychoanalysis of you is that you converted to Mormonism without all the information and now in your life that has significant implications for you. And so you, number one, feel that it was wrong that you were converted without all the information. And so now you want to make sure this doesn't happen to other people.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:14:00 Yeah. And to be, I think we talked about maybe in the first episode, but is a really short way to frame it. The website started because I was going through, so I was at my in laws house and everybody was talking about going to BYU or missions. And that was the first time that really I was in that position where I'm looking at my kid and going, you're going to be there someday. And I really need to know one way or the other. And so I had my work computer with me. I went to the other room, I opened the laptop and I had always had a problem with polygamy and the ban on the priesthood because those are the only two things I really knew about as a member. And I was too afraid to look elsewhere because you're told not to. And so I hopped on. I googled polygamy first, I think. And after a page or two I came across a CS letter. And then I brought that up to my wife and I made all of the mistakes everybody makes, which is to just machine gun everything, emotional, angry, all that stuff. And she asked me to read the Fair Mormon response, which I did. And I thought, well, that that makes some sense. And then I read the CS letters response to the Fair Mormon response and then the Fair Mormon response to the csutter's response to you get the idea. And I kept going back and forth and I started taking notes because I was trying to figure out how to get to the bottom of these issues. And then I started sharing what I had put up at these bullet points with people. And people were like, you should put that together because it would be helpful because of the fact you get lost between the critical material and the apologetic material. And so that really is what started the website. And then the essays happened because I came across somebody through a family member who had done the four on the website that I would argue by far the best Book of Abraham, DNA, polygamy and Book of Mormon translation. Then that opened up a whole new worldview. And so then it was about putting the data together in a way that made sense to me. And my. I had a family member ask me. They said, you really believe you can prove the Mormon Church is false? And I said, I believe you could prove the truth claims are false demonstrably. So they said, put it all together, I want to read it. I said, it's going to take me months. They said, put it all together, I want to see it. If you think you can do it, I want to read it, I want to know. So that is really what led to the overview project. That's why I tried to do it in a way that was chronological, that had callbacks to the previous one so that you just make clear this is not a one issue thing. This is not something where one prophet did something and it was an outlier. This is something that's foundational. And so that's really what led to the website being the way it is. It's just I was asked to do it, and so 40 pages later on the overview project, that really is what led to it. And doing the series with you, I kind of held back on it for a while because I just felt kind of awkward doing it. But I had a lot of people who reached out and said it was helpful to them, and they asked if I'd ever considered doing a podcast, and I said no, not by myself, because I'd feel really weird. And I reached out to you because we had talked over the years about maybe doing something. And so, yeah, it's really about. This is how I was able to make sense of it all for me, and this is how I hope it can make sense for other people. And if you want to take all this and say, you're full of crap and I don't believe you, I can't do anything about it. If you want to read it and say, I still believe, that's your choice. But to me, this is what the data shows. This is what the abundance of accounts and history and science and all of the shows. And to me, it's so overwhelming to show that this is not what it was claimed to be. That I believe fully that if you were to give this presentation to somebody who was not involved in the church, or even somebody who was, and you could frame in a way that didn't make them know it was the church, they would tell you without any hesitation that this is not from God, because there's so many inconsistencies and problems. It's overwhelming. It's not just one thing. And, yeah, it's. So, yeah, I guess the main reason to do it was because I'd put the work in, and then I wanted to make sure it was available to people. And so we're doing this series, so it'll be there for people when they get to it. Maybe it's next week, maybe it's in five years, but it'll be there. And hopefully it helps people in the way that I wish it had been there for me. And the last thing I'll say is so many people have done things like this. Not just the CES letter, not just you, but there's some of Dan Vogel, John Hamer, you know, John Larsen, all of these people. And I'm going to forget a whole bunch of people. Lindsay Hannah Parker. Yeah, go ahead.

John Dehlin 2:18:14 Yeah, so there's actually. There's actually an amazing resource called Letter for My wife. Yeah, let. Letterformywife.com that's a great one. That some like better than CES letter in terms of a more gently written, you know, more comprehensive, more thorough, more well designed PDF. Now, I love Jeremy Reynolds and I love CES Letter and he's a legend and it's a classic. But Letter for My Wife is amazing. There's also the Mormon Think website, which is, which inspired CES Letter. There's also the Mormon Stories Truth Claims essays. If you go to mormonstories.org truth claims. Mike Brown put together a series of essays. There's the Mormon Expression podcast with John Larsen. There are so many of these, you know, repositories of, of sort of like Mormons synthesizing their experiences and their discoveries with the truth Claims. There's probably hundreds of these.

Speaker C 2:19:15 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:19:15 Because this experience just keeps get repeating over and over and over and over again. And I think Year of Polygamy is Lindsay Hansen Park's attempt at doing the same thing through the lens of polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:19:25 Yeah. And all of those, everything you mentioned were things that for me were so helpful. And so for me, it was about trying to piece it back together in a way that made sense to me because there are areas of the Overview project that are not in the CS letter or letter from my wife, because I found out about them later. Like Anthony Miller was the one who kind of turned me on to biblical scholarship and Mormonism. I was like, this is hugely important and something I never thought of. And so to your point, it's like there are all these repositories all over that most members don't know about. I had no idea they existed. And once you find them, it's like it becomes almost overwhelming at first. And so for me, I was hoping the overview project would be something where if somebody came to me and I've had people who've come to me and said, you know, how do you approach this? And I'd say, read the overview project, go topic by topic and hopefully take it slow. And hopefully it'll help to make more sense as you go through the topics like they do build upon each other. And when you're ready to talk to your family, when you're ready to talk to your loved ones about the problems you're having, you'll have a resource you can show them that is. I really try to make it gentle. I don't want it to be antagonistic. I don't want it to be, you know, I know a lot of people don't like the CS letter because it does come off antagonistic at points. And so I want it to be like blunt, but not, you know, I want it to be as gentle as I can without sugarcoating it. And I know a lot of people have been helped. I also know it's a very small, like the CS letter is going to always be the go to document. And you know, Mormon stories, all the, so LDS discussions is way down there on the list. But hopefully with it being there kind of as a, you know, just a database of information will be helpful, going, going through it and it's not, you know, if I was trying to destroy the church or burn it to the ground, I would take a much different approach. This is like, this is what the info says. This is where I'm at. Do with it what you will. You could do a lot of different ways if your intention was to just basically try to take people away from the church and to destroy the church. Trust me, there are a lot of. I, I have a lot of better ways to do it than this. This is more, this is, this is for people who want it. This isn't for people who aren't looking for it. I'm not trying to go around yelling at people online saying you believe in something that's factually untrue or if they, if I see a post on Facebook about a quote from church, I don't reply and say, did you know what this quote really means? This is about if you're ready for it. Here it is. If you're not ready for it, don't even bother.

John Dehlin 2:21:44 It's for people who sincerely want to learn the facts, learn the, review the evidence and decide the truth.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:21:53 Yeah, and these episodes are really, as we've talked about, they're really sensitive, they're very delicate. The polygamy ones are going to be as well. So we're trying to do it in a way where we're not like picking the most salacious details and then saying, oh, all these are horrible people. Is, this is like, this is, this is what it is. And like I said at the start of the episode, Marky Peterson has quotes that are horrific. I didn't use one of them because I'm not trying to just pick the worst things. I'm trying to pick the ones that are the most important. So.

Final Reflections and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin 2:22:21 All right, well, let's come to the final slide because we've. This is the end of a two part series on race or racism and the LDS or Mormon scripture. And so what's, what's the summary?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:22:33 Yeah, to me, I think the big takeaway is like I said, we could spend 10 hours probably more going over all the quotes from church leaders that explicitly state that dark or black skin is a curse from God and that it leads to the ban on priesthood and all that. And these episodes were difficult for me to put together just because I know how sensitive it is to hear myself. And I cannot even imagine how much it could be painful to those who are, you know, either African American, Native American, Polynesian. And you know, to me, this shows that the leaders just do not have the power of discernment because they cannot tell what God wants against what they want. And I think once you start to see that pattern, we've started to show it and we're going to continue to show it through these historical different episodes. Once you realize they can't tell what they want versus what God wants, there is no reason to believe that it's any different today with Russell Nelson or Dallin Oaks. And these scriptures are still doctrine today. We've talked about that a lot. And Dallin Oaks made clear that obedience to leaders should always override your own conscience. And that, to me is a very dangerous thing. And it's a very unhealthy thing that we still see happening today. We still see it in talks, especially to the youth. And that drives me insane because it leads to very bad beliefs. It leads to excusing bad behavior. And one thing we've talked about a lot is these problems in the scriptures of Mormonism and the way the early leaders talked about it. This is exactly what you'd expect to see from a church founded in the 19th century. And so everything here screams out that these are not ancient scriptures, but 19th century ones. And so just as with the Word of Wisdom, the Book of Abraham translation, this is another chance that the church could have shown it was truly led by God. And once again, they, they failed to get it right. And they actually made deliberate choices that we now know were horribly wrong. And so it just shows we don't expect the leaders of the church to be perfect, but you expect them to at least be better than average. And instead they are just like every other person from their milieu, from their time frame, making the wrong choices that other people made. And at some point that's a big red flag that this is not a church led by God.

John Dehlin 2:24:41 I love it. All right, Mike, this has been epic and amazing. I'm also just going to throw in there. There's been a new series of channels that have come out recently from some, some black BYU students who are, who are Mormon. They're called the Black Black Menaces. And you can find them on Instagram with the handle Black Menaces. You can find them on TikTok. Black menaces. And there's even a podcast for the Black Menaces where we will include a link to them as well. But they're doing some really interesting and powerful work in the short video, and they've gotten national coverage over the past several months. So just as a, As a. As a way to kind of pass the mic, check out Black Menaces. I also want to say my. My friend Spencer Nugent, he's got an amazing. He does. He has a. A handle called Sketch a Day, I think on YouTube. But do you know his handle on TikTok? Do you know Spencer's handle?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:37 I know Spencer. He. It's like. It's Blacksmo. It's like. But I don't know how it's spelled. It's like Blaxx mo, I think, but I'm not positive.

John Dehlin 2:25:46 All right, we'll. We'll, in the show notes, we'll put a link to Spencer.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:50 Spencer's. Spencer's awesome.

John Dehlin 2:25:51 So Instagram as well.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:53 Definitely check him out because he's a legend.

John Dehlin 2:25:55 All right, Mike, great job today. Thank you so much for all your work. And I guess next we're going to be doing, I. I guess it's temple endowment and masonry.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:07 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:26:07 Then we're going to go into polygamy. Is that right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:09 Yep. Yeah. So it's going to get even. You know, this was an uncomfortable series episode. I think the next batch will be uncomfortable, too. But like I said, we'll do our best to be gentle and to be respectful, but to also lay out the data and lay out the facts, and people can do what they want, but, yeah, it doesn't get any easier from here.

John Dehlin 2:26:25 All right, Mike, thanks. Thanks so much. You're a legend.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:27 Thanks, everybody.

John Dehlin 2:26:28 All right, the website is ldsdiscussions.com you can check out this series either on Mormon Stories podcast integrated into the regular feed, or you can go to Spotify for LDS discussions podcast, audio and video. On Spotify, you can go to the Apple podcast app or wherever you consume your podcast by audio, and you can consume it there in sequence. And of course, we have a YouTube channel where on Mormon Stories podcast, YouTube channel, we have a playlist that is that aggregates all the LDS discussions episodes into a single feed. Thanks for your support. Thanks for making this possible. Please share this with everyone you can. Thanks for your donations and your support that makes everything possible. Again, we're grateful to Mike and we're grateful to all of you. Please be good to each other, be kind to each other, love each other. Send us your feedback@mormonstoriesmail.com comment subscribe on all the socials, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, et cetera. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast.

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