The Real Story of the Priesthood-Temple Ban - Terryl Givens with Paul Reeve 

Worth the listen for any Latter-day Saint =] Thank you, Faith Matters - and an even bigger thanks to the black Saints who persevere and pioneer patiently through all of this 🙏

Thank you so much for sharing this. Helps me understand the fraught racial past of our faith, and how we can meaningfully move forward to the universal gospel restored through Joseph Smith. Let us mourn with those who mourn. May our hearts and minds be knit together in love.

Great interview. In David O. McKay’s biography he told his secretary he prayed about the priesthood ban issue three times and didn’t get an answer and he wasn’t going to change the ban without a revelation. The answer may be the Twelve were not united on this issue and God needed them to be like they were with President Kimball. He will let us have a king if we want one. But God could have changed the whole issue like he did with Peter who wasn’t praying about the Gentiles at all. So why did he let the mistake remain? After 1,500 years of separate and not equal the Lord dramatically showed Peter He is no respecter of persons. 150 year ban showed us in a dramatic way that all are really alike unto God. Also if I were God I might see an advantage of His church looking prejudiced. It would keep those who hate blacks out of His church because they are so sure they know why a false prophet would keep them out. Like plural marriage, the lustful can only see one reason for having more than one wife. So they immediately are sure we are not a true church. In 1976 in Australia we had investigators say they hated that priesthood ban and polygamy. We agreed. So they had to feel their way to the truth. And many did. Take those two things away and our church is a no-brainer. Eternal marriage, priesthood authority, prophets, our church is too perfect. The God who raised the dead also healed on the Sabbath probably to make people get on their knees and ask if He really was the Christ. If Brigham Young made a mistake and it sounds like he did, I think God used it to His advantage. I wish we would teach that Laman and Lemuel were cursed with a black skin because they were bad (see Alma 3:6). But their children didn’t get that skin because they were bad. We must disavow any assumption that they did something wrong because they inherited their father’s skin color. They got that skin because dark is a dominant gene, and probably because God wants us to learn to love those who are different from ourselves and perhaps a dozen other reasons. .

For lack of a better word: Wow! You have helped me better understand and want to do more and learn more from my past to my present.

Thank you both for your research, your faith, and your reasoning. This discussion was a delight!

This podcast reinforces my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. Indeed, the first principle is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to whom all truth flows.

Another fantastic conversation that will aid and comfort any member challenged with doubt. Thank you so very much.

I'm so grateful for this understanding of race and the priesthood. My heart has yearned to understand for decades. Well articulated! Compassion is my duty!

Spiritual synergy meets intellectual integrity. So good. Thank you.

I really enjoyed this podcast and its discussion of the cultural conditions that surrounded the ban. Joseph Smith's revelation was very inclusive. The Book of Mormon makes it clear that black and white are all accepted of God. The scriptural declarations about Priesthood are sometimes clear and sometimes veiled. It was clear at one time that Priesthood was limited (to the Levites). However, this was during a time when the fulness of the Gospel was withheld. It is also clear that later another priest would arise of a different lineage after the Order of Melchizedek from the tribe of Judah (Christ). The 1978 declaration stated "Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church. . . at some time, in God's eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood." This is a fair reading of Isaiah 66:19-21 when Isaiah prophesied of the latter-day gathering from all nations and promising that such persons gathered would be taken "for priests and Levites" (or in other words they will all receive the priesthood). So we know the priesthood was limited for a time (to Levites) and that it would go to all nations. What we do not have is clear scriptural direction for the ban. It was supported by questionable interpretations of the Book of Abraham but not otherwise. I can still remember the day in 1978 when my Mission President told us of the declaration allowing the Priesthood to go to all. I remember the overwhelming spirit that accompanied the announcement. I am settled that now we are aligned with the Lord's desires on this point.

Fantastic discussion. I wish every member would watch this.

Growing up in the Church I was never told why there was a ban in Church. Since that time I never found a source of why there was a ban. I heard theories but never heard who started the idea or the started the the ban. I grew up from the 60's

Thank you for this amazing episode! Thanks for the honest way you have dealt with such a difficult topic.

This was very good! An excellent 50 min primer on the subject.

This discussion was very helpful. A sad and complex issue.

Thank you for that insightful interview. I am grieved when I hear of racial slurs being directed at our black brothers and sisters in our schools and places of employment. We can and should be so much better. Thanks again and I will try to direct as many others as possible to this site.

Thank you so much. This was great. I greatly appreciate your facts and perspectives.

Thank - what an outstanding discussion. Thoroughly enjoy the insight and history shared.

I'm so grateful for this video!

Terryl and Paul, when I read “The Real Story of ...”, as a professional, a red flag went up: “diametrical language.” Real implies “of God” (Alma 32:35). So the following response I gave to Darius, applies even more so to your presentation; but don't judge or “kill the messenger!” I commend you Darius for your extensive research and study, but at the same time, as a leading expert, I judge your Partial Chronology to be just that, partial, incomplete, & thus subject to providing biased observations. So please forgive me if I misunderstood several premises presented, which I consider to be invalid: 1. You said something like, “I agree. It took revelation by God to set right, something that has gotten somehow misplaced.” Thus, implying that apostles and prophets of the Church in denying the priesthood was not providential. 2. Individual Blacks receiving valid priesthood ordinations in Joseph Smith's day, etc., is evidence that the Lord did not withhold it from them as a people. (Implied?) 3. They were not “less valiant” in the pre-mortal life. (You may not have implied this as it seems.) Pres. Harold B. Lee in a BYU devotional warned us to not interpret the Church and the gospel in terms of history, but instead, interpret history in terms of the gospel. Since yours is a historical presentation, I shall add a touch of the reverse. I will mention only a verse or event or two; for all of these concepts are only fully understood in the Savior's way using 3 Nephi 17:2-3, to obtain the FULL story. 1. Abraham 1:26-27; plus Official Declaration 2, “by revelation...the long-promised day has come” [underline added], for them to receive the priesthood. So the Blacks were denied the priesthood by the Lord for an eternal purpose, until prophecy (“long-promised”) was to be fulfilled. And thus it was not a matter of something wrong being righted, but a matter of prophecy being fulfilled. Since several presidents of the Church had inquired of the Lord, hoping the prophesied time had arrived, for the Blacks to receive the priesthood in the last days, but each, until Pres. Kimball, received the revelation that the time had not yet come, it was providential. Plus the wording in Official Declaration 2 is evidence that previous denial was providential, and not inappropriate. 2. Although Blacks as a people were denied the priesthood by the Lord, “for their sakes,” prophets giving specific individuals the priesthood was not evidence that the Lord had not denied it to them as a race. Since Pres. McKay was one who was told by the Lord, that the time had not yet arrived, he serves as a good example. And yet as the prophet, he sent a signed First Presidency letter, to certain mission presidents in the Pacific Islands (when I was in the New Zealand mission presidency in 1957-58) giving the authority for them to ordain specific worthy Blacks to the priesthood, on a limited bases where needed; but not for all Blacks. Since both the denial and the exception were providential, they were not in contradiction, but by the word and ways of the Lord. 3. In certain ways, we were all less valiant in the pre-mortal life (Abr. 3:17-19), except perhaps celestial children who die prior to the age of 8, etc. (Mosiah 15:25 & Moro. 8:17-22). I do not know about you, but I for one was less valiant than my daughter who died at the age of 5, a celestial child. Less valiant does not mean less valuable to God, but less obedient; yet we all are equal in our own uniqueness. Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith in The Way To Perfection, indicated that we each chose in the pre-mortal life that which we were born to, as our Father in Heaven provided, by our choice and for our sake, the unique life of trials and afflictions, the most possible conditions by which we could overcome all things, to obtain eternal life. Thus equally, it was uniquely tailored specifically to us, and we shouted for joy, for the chance to become humble enough to put off the natural man in our less valiant state, and become a new creature in Christ, that He may seal us His, each to their own. [The same was the case with the house of Israel, in the wilderness, with the temple ordinances and the Melchizedek priesthood (D&C 84:20-25 ), but for a different reason.] The unique providential (of God) practice of denying the Blacks the priesthood, and/or certain ordinances, is of the same category as the unique providential practice of certain limited saints practicing plural marriage, and of the same category of Abraham offering up Isaac as a sacrifice-the same category as Nephi cutting off Laban's head. All were unique providential practices in relation to the laws of obedience and sacrifice. Thus, it is not necessary for me to practice plural marriage in some future date, nor to be denied the priesthood, etc., for me to gain eternal life; for I have my own unique tests and trials (practices) which are as hard for me to overcome my less valiant state, as it was for those with their unique providential practices. Nephi said, “mine afflictions were great above all.” (1 Ne. 15:5). [And reasons for the race, are entirely different than the reasons for individual blacks.] Then, we can now ask, to what extent are we taking quotes out of context, or applying them to things which ought not to be applied, or wresting (twisting) the scriptures or quotes of the prophets? For it is as possible on one hand as it is on the other, if we do not use 3 Nephi 17:2-3.

Excellent work!

This is outstanding

Thank you very much

Not to take anything away from Lester Bush, Paul Reeve's foregoes any acknowledgement of Dr. Lowry Nelson's challenge what George Albert Smith call doctrine. He beat Lester Bush by 20 years and published his position that its a Church Policy in The Nation by over a decade before Lester Bush.

Though I appreciate this video, it completely leaves out the discussion of the issue of skin color in the Book of Mormon and how that played into these doctrines. I understand the motivation for leaving this out, but it is not a complete discussion of these issues if you leave out this important aspect of what went on -- and still goes on.

Mr Meadow’s Massacre? How does that fit in again???

CES manuals state there will never be a majority of the Twelve on the wrong side of an issue. No wonder none of CES teachers didn’t raise their hand. I thank that you didn’t give enough emphasis on the power of the 1978 revelation. Many rated it the most spiritual experience they ever had. They learned that: Now was the time for the blacks to receive the priesthood. In David O McKay’s lifetime, he answered a letter from an African saying it was not yet time to take the Gospel. Did you say something about Abraham 1 as misinformation? If not, what was that chapter telling us including Joseph Smith?

My brother in law is black, non-member, my sister is inactive because of the church's racist past. How do we fix this? How can I help my family? How can I help myself as a brown man living in rural Utah? Sometimes I feel everyone is cursed in Utah, if you're brown, you're a cursed lamanite, if you are black, you are cursed from the pre-exitence, how do we fix the racist mindset of many Utahns?

A painful and tragic story of racism. Like all history, we may not ever know the full story. But this podcast shines a great light on the subject. It seems to me the church is progressing from childhood to adolescence. So now we are like children learning that our parents (leaders) are not perfect and the world is more complicated that we thought. Thank goodness for this podcast to help us move forward. History is messy because it's acted out by imperfect humans. What else did we expect? We are right to judge the actions of history according to eternal principles. But if we want to also *understand* history we need to learn about how the world was at that time and what people's worldviews were. It's clear to me that just because this is God's true church doesn't mean the leaders will be perfect or that the organization will be perfect. Line up on line. The church and its members will continue learning and improving. Ultimately, in the long run, all men will have the opportunity to have the priesthood in the next life. That doesn't justify past racism, but it's important to keep in mind. (Ultimately, all women will have the full priesthood too, if you listen carefully to sacred teachings in our church.) Personally, for me this story is also a warning against a certain variety of conservative thinking that is based on ignorance and delusion. That can really hinder us as a church. This podcast has another episode that relates very well to this one: Can I Trust and Sustain Fallible Leaders? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-75juRaDzHGw.html

I’m becoming a rather big fan of Orson Pratt.

The book of BOM is still filled with racist teachings and sayings. They still believe that the Lamenites are native American even though genetics says differently.

Was Jesus and the early church members prejudice against the gentiles for not letting them join the church until Peter’s vision?

I am so grateful for this interview. I am also very disheartened at the outset that we have two white, Mormon academics talking about the "real" story of the priesthood-temple ban. This feels like another example of the white-centeredness of the church. I simply cannot think of a sufficient reason not to invite one of the many black, Mormon priesthood holders who have been living this "real" story for their entire life. Does Faith Matters have a response to this?

I still struggle with God, that “His” prophets would be permitted to commit such damaging atrocities as keeping our African brothers and sisters from the blessings of the temple, priesthood, falsely using their Prophet pulpit to perpetuate such erroneous claims as their skin color should prevent such blessing for one reason or another. It means there could be other ideologies that will fall, be claimed to not have come from God rather the bumblings of fallible men that God allows to act in His name? Will it come out that The Plan of Salvation is also horse manure? That now, Hinckley was just anti-homosexuals and it is fine to turn the page and allow these struggling brothers and sisters (is the binary gender theory also another false teaching from anti queer men led by God and I’ll be in trouble for referring to the two genders)? Do you guys see where this leads? God should have acted in my opinion. Sigh. Also a side note. Racism of any sort is evil. Whether it’s whites against blacks. Blacks against whites in retaliation. Asians against all other races, or any other race against Asians or anything like until these. Most people view thug or criminal culture from any race as evil. Most people in the world today do not focus on race as being anything of importance to decide how you treat them. Why does it seem that what is being said here in this discussion by the historian that racism is somehow worse now than it was 100-200-300-400+ years ago? I’m sorry, maybe I’m ignorant, but what is going on because that’s a lie. (Unless we’re talking outside the US, which I doubt was happening in this discussion) Lastly, the bottom line, focusing on Christ and obeying His commandments has always been the key. If followed as written, as stated, as advanced, the word of God the world would be a better place, dare I say an almost perfect place? This being said, the US Constitution that I doubt lasts another decade, when followed 100% in its current form with all of the amendments is the most perfect and all accepting documents ever to have existed. The fragiles of the world are distracting us all from those two documents. God, because his people are desiring it, is about to let the greatest nation on earth become ruled by a system of the adversary. Let’s have a king, let’s suffer. Let’s do it because Satan has slipped into everything we do, IGNORE what things say, don’t get back to basics, follow me and my new doctrine. Sadly, retaliation is coming, not equality. Violence is coming, not peace. Free agency is ending, force is about to become our guide. I’m so confused right now.

My sensibilities are appalled too, LOL. But likely not at the targets you two mitts are aiming at.

Connecting Joseph Smith to the priesthood ban is illogical considering he ran for U.S. President on an abolitionist ticket.

Is the Book of Mormon prejudice? Really? JS didn’t clarify the issue of the blacks, but was then prejudice regarding the Lamanites?

When a prophet slander's God's character with lies he should be apostasize not excused and embraced and quoted in conferences and have A university named after him.

Should we change the song Follow the prophet, he knows the way … most of the time? We need to spend less time showing that prophets are human and more time showing that humans can be prophets. What does false memory of Joseph F Smith mean? He lied? The Lord has placed safeguards for example, there will never be a majority of the apostles on the wrong side of an issue.

So God let the prophet lead the church astray. That is your thesis?

The curse was them not having the priesthood. The black skin was the mark. That is a nice generalization that apologists are good at putting spins on gospel issues. Show me an example of the that. If you don’t believe believe in LDS Scriptures, such as Abraham 3:21-23, then there is no sense in talking to you about it. The bottom line is that the blacks from every African country are coming into the Church by thousands and thousands. An african American young lady just invited me to go to the temple with her. Our lives here on earth are but for a moment…. Was Jesus and were the apostles prejudice for not allowing the Gentiles to join the Christian Church until Peter received a revelation?

Interesting "HUMAN PERMUTATION". Can you see how you two are also not speaking 'thus saith the Lord', as you "reconfigure" thoughts & statements & actions PRE- 1978! And we criticize the "Nicene Creed"? The idea of the Restoration fast becomes religious Evolution, more & more like Catholic & Protestant history, for better and worse.

I think you should refer our previous life as pre-mortal experience rather than pre-existence. You lump together less valiant with fence sitters saying that there is not much difference. There is a big difference. What did you say about Abraham 3 about the great and noble ones to be our leaders? If they were great and noble, it follows that there were less valiant all with varying degrees just as there are here today. In fact a third of them who followed Lucifer were certainly less valiant. Suppose in the final judgment those who were denied the priesthood were more valiant than those who hold the priesthood, would you say that it would be racial prejudice to have those to enter the Celestial Kingdom while the previously pre-earth noble spirits who were less valiant in their mortal life to be sent to the terrestrial or telestial life? I forgot what you said about Abraham 1. Seems quite clear to me that descendants of Egyptus were denied the priesthood. Do you think the leaders of our Church were unaware of the 2nd Article of Faith?

So are you saying that just as God allowed the Israelites to have a king for hundreds of years, the Lord allowed our wonderful prophets to deny the priesthood to the blacks for over 100 years? I just cannot buy into it. The apostles,seers and revelators met once a week for years to discuss very difficult issues of the world wide church - but they messed up with the blacks and the priesthood? The Lord just didn’t see fit to tell them it was wrong until 1978?

I'm grateful for your open discussion on the church's racist history..yet there are many questions still to be explained..its a true shame that such men as Brigham Young were sustained as a Prophet ,Seers and Reverlators.

Wow, what a parade of anti-Mormon straw men, and all delivered in such a nice concerned tone. How righteous you both are, I must have missed your testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel, that Joseph Smith, Jr. was the great restorer of the truth… I also missed your acknowledgement that Joseph was running for President if the United States on a Black Emancipation platform - possibly the most plausible reason for his assassination. Great job gentlemen, may the Lord reward both of you for your works.

I am surprised that you put Out living prophets in a category with the likes of Judah lying with his daughter in-law; Peter before his true conversion etc. The black skin was not the curse but only a sign of the curse. Why no clarification of Abraham 1 of a counterfeit priesthood? You chuckle at fence sitters being equal to less valiant. Abraham 3 21-22. If there were valiant spirits, why not less valiant. In this life, which is only a speck of time in eternity, we will be judged according to how we live according to our opportunities.

It's long past time we re-named Brigham Young University after a more deserving individual.

Interesting discussion, but fraught with problems, omissions, dishonesty, further confusion & perhaps even bigger questions! So next, you will exercise your advanced educations to promulgate "evolution" over creation, that different races evolved over millions of years ...

Whether acting as governor, president, prophet or whatever the chosen mouth piece of God should always speak the words of God. Otherwise, we can only trust their words as much as any other person, since everyone at some point, if they speak long enough, has the same probability of speaking Gods truth and "prophets" are useless.

It doesn't matter what spin you put on this ... and apologists are very good at spin ... the basic fact is the early mormon church taught that blacks were cursed by god to be born with a black skin ... and I reiterate ... it was considered a curse ... also put in place so they would be undesirable to others which is in fact segregation ... no getting away from this fact

Cringe.

Josrph Smithbalso stated that if any man teach dictrine contrary to scripture, mark thst man down as an imposter, and thst is exactly what thus man us, an imposter!!! Continued...