In
1954, however, at a convention of instructors in CES, Bennion found himself at
odds with two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Mark E. Petersen
and Elder Joseph Fielding Smith. Peterson elaborated on a rationale basis for
banning the priesthood to all men of African descent that was based on the
presumption of a sin committed by black people in the premortal existence. As
early as 1849 to fellow church leaders and later in 1852 before the Utah territorial
legislature, Brigham Young departed from Joseph Smith’s view that the potential
of African Americans was determined more by environment than by inherited
essence and offered a belief in the black race as cursed, which justified
racial hierarchies and the ban from the priesthood than he eventually instituted
for all men of African descent in the LDS Church (Reeve [Religion of a
Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness] 2017, 146).
By the time David O. McKay assumed the presidency, it was clear that he and
others did not feel authorized to overturn the ban without a revelation. The explanation
of a premortal judgment had gained popularity among some leaders and members,
even though it was unscriptural. In Bennion’s judgment, the theory of premortal
judgment was morally repugnant because it took a policy that had unclear
origins in revelation and that went against the grain of accepted doctrines about
the equality and dignity of all God’s children and added insult to injury by
blaming the victims of white supremacist attitudes for those attitudes.
The ban may have needed a revelation to be overturned, but for Bennion, as long
as justifications continued to sound quasi-revelatory and until and unless
prejudice abated in the church, the revelation would never come.
Lowell
rose to speak and shared the story of a student who had asked him a question
that he now posed to Elder Peterson: “If Negroes sinned, what sin could they
commit for which a merciful God—as you speak of, Brother Peterson—would not be willing
to forgive if they repented? (Bradford [Lowel L. Bennion: Teacher,
Counselor, Humanitarian] 1995, 132). He may have felt emboldened to ask this
question because he had similarly asked President McKay in the private meeting
described earlier in this chapter what justice there was in a punishment for a
sin of which someone could never be cognizant. His lifelong impression from his
conversation with McKay was that the prophet was sympathetic and that strong
difference of opinion among the church hierarchy was the chief obstacle to overturning
the ban. Although Peterson dug in on his position, Bennion’s questions had
exposed the weakness of the ban’s justification.
Later
at the same CES gathering, Joseph Fielding Smith spoke about science and
insisted that the earth was only six thousand years old, and again Bennion
spoke. He asked if he could explain his own method of teaching on such questions to see whether Smith would agree it was sound. He said that instead of putting
science against religion, he had opted to speak fervently and openly of his own
spiritual convictions about God, Jesus Christ, and Joseph Smith’s role in the
Restoration. He added that when science engages in overreach and tries to deny
the existence of God, he will defend religion, “but when it comes down to
details like the exact process of how God created Adam on this earth and
brought forth things on the earth, I say in the name of religion we don’t know,
and also that science has not come far enough along to be convinced either. . .
. From either standpoint we don’t have the final answer. However, I try not to
get the student agitated against science, get him prejudiced against geology,
and get him to feel that he has to choose between some science and the gospel
of Jesus Christ” (Bradford 1995, 133). Bennion referred to his own, whose
interest in geology should not pit him against the gospel (Bennion [“Lowell L.
Bennion Oral History”] 1985b, 95). Smith remained firm in his stance. Bennion’s
questions led to further discussion at the CES meeting about when church
leaders were speaking authoritatively and when they were expressing opinion, a
discussion that did not result in a clear answer. (George B. Handley, Lowell
L. Bennion: A Mormon Educator [Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2023],
20-21)
