Monday, November 8, 2021

Some Excerpts from Newell G. Bringhurst, Harold B. Lee: Life and Thought (2021) on the Priesthood and Temple Restriction

  

Lee’s third trip abroad, in October 1958, took him to South Africa. His assignment involved assessing LDS progress in that country since McKay’s own visit some four years earlier. In the wake of McKay’s 1954 visit, the church had eased somewhat on its policy requiring that any LDS male seeking priesthood ordination provide genealogical evidence that he had no black African ancestry. After 1954, any LDS male who did not physically exhibit black African ancestry could be ordained to the priesthood. (The racist LDS policy regarding blacks and the priesthood and temple participation was abandoned in 1978.) South African church membership more than doubled during this period, from 1,372 in 1950 to 2,901 by 1960.

 

Despite this, as Lee discovered, South African Latter-day Saints continued to grapple with race—exacerbated by the apartheid policies imposed by that nations’ white minority on its black majority. Black were “becoming more and more vocal and sometimes violent in their opposition to Apartheid” (Gibbons, Harold Be Lee: Man of Vision, Prophet of God, 364). Church members in Durham expressed fears that the black population, which far outnumbered whites, would one day unite under Communism to take control of the country. Alarmed church members discussed with Lee the possibility of emigrating, en masse, to the United States and/or Canada (Goates, Harold B. Lee: Prophet and Seer, 266).

 

Lee confronted a different racial problem upon visiting port Elizabeth where he presided over the dedication of a new meetinghouse. He was approached by three young Latter-day Saint women with “mixed blood” who asked him “what the Lord would have them do about marriage and having children.” After giving the three members priesthood blessings, Lee wrote in his journal, “The Spirit seemed to indicate that they [the young women] should seek for a husband who likewise has mixed blood.” He further added, “I gave them assurances of their eternal blessings if they would live up to all they are permitted to do in their present state.” The visiting apostle, in fact, talked with “many members of mixed blood who came to discuss this problem” with him (as stated by Lee, in Goates, 269). Thus, Lee returned to the United States with a greater awareness of the consequences of Mormonism’s racist policy. (Newell G. Bringhurst, Harold B. Lee: Life and Thought [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2021], 81-82)

 

Standing in stark contradiction to Mormonism’s expansion as a world re[li]gion was the church’s ban on black priesthood ordination and temple participation, which Lee continued to defend.

 

In a September 1972 newspaper interview, however, Lee appeared to soften his resistance, albeit ever so slightly, proclaiming that it was “only a matter of time before the Negro gets full status in the Church” (Daily Heald [Provo, Utah], Sept. 26, 1972, 10). (Ibid., 134)

 




 

. . . the majority of LDS Church members accepted the ban’s legitimacy. A 1972 Louis Harris Poll found that 70 percent of Utah-based Saints opposed granting blacks the priesthood. This same poll found that a significant percentage of church members believed opposition to the ban represented a “black conspiracy” to destroy the church (one third of Utah-based church members affirmed this to be the case. See New York Times, Apr. 6, 1972). (Ibid., 135)

 

. . .Lee found himself confronting the ban on a personal level. A young LDS woman, Rula Jorgensen Sargent, had recently married Carols Sargent, an African-American non-member. The young woman’s mother, Margaret Jorgensen, the daughter of Hugh B. Brown, whose family Lee knew on a first-name basis, sough Lee’s counsel in a September 1973 letter.

 

In her letter, Jorgensen acknowledged her family’s dismay upon first learning of Rula’s involvement with Sargent, urging her to end the relationship. But Rula persisted. As Margaret and the rest of the family got to know Sargent, they were soon won over by his demeanor and moral character. Rula’s grandfather Hugh Brown upon learning of their engagement, asked Margaret, “Can he [Carlos] make her [Rula] happy?” when his daughter replied yes, Brown simply stated, “Give Rula my love, tell her as long as they love each other they will work things out.” Thus, the young couple married with the approval of the family (Margaret Brown Jorgensen to Harold B. Lee, Sept. 12, 1973, courtesy of Reid Moon).

 

However, Jorgensen was perplexed by their son-in-law’s reluctance to become a Latter-day Saint. Informing Lee of this, she stated: “Carlos is eager to join the Church but he is deeply disturbed, bewildered, and depressed because as he tells his wife, ‘I’m cursed—I’m one of the seed of Cain—I have the Devil in me, Therefore I am not worthy to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.’” She further informed Lee that her son-in-law was “not rationalizing” and added, “He has no bad habits to give up—he is simply overcome by a feeling of inferiority. To him, he has been dealt with the ultimate blow—being rejected by the Lord, himself!” (Jorgensen to Lee).

 

Lee, in responding to this “very serious problem,” asked, “I am not sure just what you had in mind in writing me.” He ignored the anguish and instead lectured Jorgensen about the ban itself: “Now, Margaret, this is something that the Lord has not made known to anyone. The early Brethren have said that if those who were presently denied the Priesthood were to be true and faithful as Church members, the time would come when they would receive the blessings of the Priesthood. Until that time comes, we have no answer. But . . .The Priesthood is not given to those who are restricted for reasons that are known only to the Lord” (Lee to Margaret Brown Jorgensen, Oct. 1, 1973, courtesy of Reid Moon).

 

Lee’s response is revealing for what it said and what it omitted. Clearly stated was Lee’s affirmation of the ban. The letter also affirmed Lee’s long-standing opposition to interracial marriage. Finally, Lee’s letter showed that he had no intention of lifting the ban. (Ibid., 137-38)