The Mormon Church’s Etch-a-Sketched Doctrine on Blacks

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:25 am

God is That You? Or the IRS?

So which was it? A direct message from God to the President of the Church of Latter Day Saints? Or – and far more likely – a direct message from the Internal Revenue Service by way of then U.S. President Jimmy Carter threatening to revoke their non-profit status if they continued to discriminate against blacks? 

In order to go forward with this discussion, we must first learn the origins of this discrimination against all people of dark skin in the world by Mormon's founding fathers. They call it the Curse of Cain…and there are writings from the founder Joseph Smith, Presidents and Apostles for decades supporting the belief that blacks are born of an evil seed and are not worthy of co-mingling with, let alone allowed in their church.

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be" (ibid., 10:110; emphasis added)

“But let them apostatize, and they will become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 332

Had I anything to do with the Negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species, and put them on a national equalization" (Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 270; History of the Church, 5: 218; emphasis added).

These are strong and definitive statements without leaving any room for equivocation. A Mormon member asked the question as to whether the Church's position on banning blacks from the priesthood was opinion or doctrine and he was answered by the leadership through an official statement" stating in part….

"From the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith even until now, it is has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel. "Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now. God's rule for Israel, His Chosen People, has been endogamous [meaning ‘marriage within a specific tribe or similar social unit’]. Modern Israel [the Mormon Church] has been similarly directed.

"We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this are, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine. "Faithfully yours,

[signed]

George Albert Smith

J. Reuben Clark, Jr.

David O. McKay

The First Presidency

Summary of the Curse of Cain Doctrine and Priesthood-Ban Policy

For 130 years (1848-1978), Mormon Church leaders taught the following:

• All human spirits were born sons and daughters of God and one or more of His wives, on the planet that God lives on, which is near a star named Kolob (koe-lawb)

• Adam and Eve were white people, living in the Garden of Eden in what is now Jackson County, Missouri, who looked like Anglo-Saxons (like 19th century Mormons).

• Cain was a white man until he killed Abel, so God changed him into the first Negro.

• Also, the "seed of Cain" would also inherit his "cursed" and "mark" and also they would be deprived of the Priesthood until the LORD removed the Curse of Cain sometime after Abel was resurrected, had children, and all of Abel's male descendants received the Priesthood first, then the Curse of Cain would be removed.

• The Mark of Cain was a black skin, flat nose, and kinky hair. Cain, a white man, is "changed" by the LORD instantly into the first Negro.

• Cain married his sister, and she became the second Negro ever because the Lord also "changed" her from a white Anglo-Saxon looking woman into a Negro.

• All the spirits who fought for Jesus against Lucifer in the War in Heaven, before this Earth was formed, but who were "less valiant"–were punished by being born into "the lineage of Cain" as Negroes, and thus "deprived of intelligence", with "mis-shapen" and "ugly" bodies, and destined to be "servants" of the white man, their superiors, until the Curse of Cain was removed by the LORD sometime after the Millennium was over.

• Canaan and his descendants went into Africa, and a few to India and Australia and New Guinea.

• All Negroes inherit the "Mark of Cain" which is a black skin, flat nose, and kinky hair.

• Negroes are banned from the Temple and the Priesthood until the Curse of Cain is removed by the Lord sometime after the Millennium (1000 year reign of Christ on Earth) is over.

• This doctrine was known as The Curse of Cain Doctrine. Because of this doctrine, all black Mormons, and anyone with "one drop of Negro blood" was banned from the Mormon Temple and the Mormon priesthood. All male Mormons over the age of 12 hold the Priesthood, and they must have it in order to get into the highest heaven. All Mormons must be "Endowed" and "Sealed" in a Mormon Temple in order to get into the Celestial Kingdom (highest heaven). Without the priesthood and Temple endowments and sealings, a Mormon male can, at best, become a sexless and eunuched "eternal servant" of the Gods in the Celestial Kingdom.

Weyrich in an interview in the early 1990s said, "What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation." What caused the [Religious Right] movement to surface," Weyrich reiterated,"was the federal government's moves against Christian schools." The IRS threat against segregated schools, he said, "enraged the Christian community."

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Leah L Burton

Activist, Researcher, Writer against extremism of any kind. An advocate of Separation of Church & State and everyone's right to have freedom of faith or non-faith.

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