THE PRIESTHOOD REVELATION: 35th anniversary commentary

For people of my generation, the announcement made on live TV and radio by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints public communications department spokesman on 9 June 1978 is called simply The Revelation.   The Church’s ban on ordaining men of black African racial genetic heritage started becoming a public image problem of the first magnitude with the rise of racial desegregation and the American Civil Rights Movement.   The end of it came like the proverbial bolt out of the blue and was a welcome bolt at that.

The spokesman made the announcement at 11:00 a.m.   On that Friday afternoon, which was my birthday, I was on the Brigham Young University Campus for work at the BYU Writing Lab, then located on the main floor of the library.    It was the only time I ever saw a news story traveling through crowds of people.   Those who had not heard the report could tell at a glance that something big had happened just watching the ripple effect through the crowd of college students.   When someone told me in the writing lab about the announcement, I frankly wanted to believe it, but I would not let myself believe it without a second confirmation.   I got that from my father over the phone a few minutes later. 

In the 2013 LDS Scripture edition, The Revelation is prefaced in this way.   I add my commentary.

   The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.  [Comment:  history seems clear enough.  In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.]  [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.]   [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.]   The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
This rewrite makes the situation more clear.  I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.    

The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).

The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout. 

Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.

During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood.  In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.

Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.  They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century.  The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.  A general conference sustained it in September 1978.


COMMENTARY

Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.  

Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife.

The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch"  which implies loud complaining.  Griping. 

 Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban.   However, the implications of the wording “Church leaders believed” remains very interesting to contemplate. . . .
 
One of the lesser known facts surrounding the priesthood ban situation is this:  the ban never actually worked.   Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it.  Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better.  It would have also been more clear than the  prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That definition turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.   

Research done for Michael Quinn’s Elder Statesman: the expanded biography of J Rueben Clark seems to suggest that the church leadership reviewed the ban in 1939, 1947, and 1955 with an eye to abandoning it – but the Church leadership never quite did.  Its research also found the First Presidency made some informed exceptions in temple and priesthood regulations for people with a black ancestor way back amid a family history of whites.  

Had the church lifted the ban in 1939, by the time the Civil Rights Movement got its first starts in 1948 the LDS Church could have helped lead the movement with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference.  History, though, is always a mess despite the best intents of humans to stage manage it.   On this 35th anniversary of opening the LDS priesthood to all worthy males, the Church still has some public relations mopping up still to do.