The “TL;DR” version of my “take” on the Temple/Priesthood restriction is that it was not inspired by God; it was founded, among other factors, in 19th-century American racism, and I believe God allowed it to continue from 1852 to 1978 as a type of “divine chastisement” (pun unintended: it [correctly] serves as a “black eye” for the Church). For more on the Temple/Priesthood restrictions, I would suggest starting with the following excellent resources:
Gospel
Topics Essay: Race and the Priesthood
Russell
W. Stevenson, For
the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013
Other useful resources include:
Ethan Sproat, "Skins as Garments in
the Book of Mormon: A Textual Exegesis," Journal of Book of Mormon
Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 135-65
David M. Belnap, “The
Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message of the Book of Message,” Interpreter:
A Journal of Latter-Day Saint Faith and Scholarship 42 (2021): 195–37
Adam Stokes, "The
People of Canaan: A New Reading of Moses 7," Interpreter: A Journal
of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 47 (2021): 159-180
An example of this can be see how J. J. Strang’s group was more
progressive and (I know it is abused by progressives, so using it in the proper
way) “Christ-like” (cf. 2 Nephi 26:33; Matt 28:19; Gal 3:28):
When Strang arrived in New York
City on October 7 of that eventful year, shortly after reuniting with
Elvira Field in Buffalo, he found his followers torn over the issue of whether
to admit a black man to the priesthood—a title normally conferred on all male
members of the Mormon Church.
The late Joseph Smith had sent
mixed signals on the status of African Americans. In the Book of Mormon, for
example, dark skin is a sign of God’s curse. That text tells the story of the
Lamanites, members of a lost tribe of Israel who hardened their hearts against
God, and “because of their iniquity . . . the Lord God did cause a skin of
blackness to come upon them.” But Smith’s views had evolved over time. Although
he remained an opponent of interracial mixing, he came to believe that African
Americans “have souls * are subjects of salvation.” At his death in 1844, he was
campaigning for president on a platform of emancipation, in which freed slaves
would be sent to Mexico.
Brigham Young, by contrast, had
taken an increasingly racist position. In 1847, for example, upon receiving a
report about a black man being married to a white Mormon woman—a union that
resulted in a child—he had responded, “If they were far away from the Gentiles
[i.e., non-Mormons], they would all have to be killed.” The farther into the
wilderness Young and his flock traveled, the more hardened his views on race
became. An outsider who spent the winter of 1849-50 in Salt Lake City reported
that church leaders were assuring followers “the Negro is cursed . . . and must
always be a servant wherever his lot is cast.” According to this same witness,
a system of black “involuntary labor” was already in place in Utah. In 1852, Young
declared himself “a firm believer in slavery” and officially banned African
Americans from the priesthood, proclaiming that “negroes shall not rule us.”
But in practical terms, that ban was already in place when Strang arrived in New
York in 1849.
Perhaps it was no wonder, then,
that Strang’s followers in New York were unsure what to do about a black man named
Moore Walker who had applied for ordination in the church. This was apparently
the same Moore Walker who had long been active in abolitionist circles, serving
on the board of the American Moral Religion Society, a group of black leaders
devoted to boycotting goods produced by slave labor and employing all other
available means in the struggle for emancipation. During its existence, from
1835 to 1841, this organization was “visionary in the extreme,” in the phrasing
of one contemporary—so much so that it had passed a resolution (seconded by
Walker) denouncing any reference to a person’s skin color as a gratuitous form
of racial discrimination. The group had also worked to promote equal rights for
blacks in white-dominated churches, leaving open the question of whether
Walker, who later joined a Protestant congregation, was a true believer in
Mormonism or had come only to see if the sect would grant a black parishioner
membership.
Whatever the case, Strang rose to
the occasion/ According to minutes of the conference—apparently written by the
capable Charles J. Douglass—the prophet began by noting “the impression had
gone forth that a colored man could not hold the priesthood.” But this he said,
was “not true.” While conceding that Mormon theology taught that “color was a
curse,” he insisted that this fact posted “no bar” to admitting blacks to the
priesthood. Then, in a display of his rhetorical powers, he asked followers to
look inward, “Who is there that does not labor under a curse?” he asked. “Death
is the fate of all men, and is a curse incurred by sin.”
So it was that Strang’s wing of
Mormonism ordained an African American elder—a full 129 years before Brigham
Young’s branch finally lifted its ban on blacks in the priesthood and 164 years
before the Utah-based church offered a full disavowal of “the theories advanced
in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse.” (Miles
Harvey, The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers,
True Believers, False Prophets, and The Murder of an American Monarch [New
York: Back Bay Books, 2020], 110-12)
Sad to see a false claimant to being the successor of Joseph Smith do a better job towards blacks than the true claimant thereof.
