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SpencerMarsh (talk | contribs) (→Question: What circumstances preceded the 1978 revelation which ended the priesthood ban?) |
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===In 1954, after visiting the struggling South African mission, David O. McKay began to consider lifting the ban=== | ===In 1954, after visiting the struggling South African mission, David O. McKay began to consider lifting the ban=== | ||
− | In a conversation with Sterling McMurrin, President McKay said, "It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed."<ref>{{RMM|start=79|end=80}}</ref> This was a departure from a 1949 First Presidency statement defending the ban as doctrinal, indicating a shift in his opinion. Leonard Arrington reported that President McKay formed a special committee of the Twelve that "concluded there was no sound scriptural basis for the policy but that church membership was not prepared for its reversal."<ref>{{Book:Arrington:Adventures of a Church Historian|pages=183}}</ref> However, David O. McKay felt that only a revelation could end the ban. Sometime between 1968 and his death in 1970 he confided his prayerful attempts to church architect, Richard Jackson, "I’ve inquired of the Lord repeatedly. The last time I did it was late last night. I was told, with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone."<ref>Gregory Prince and | + | In a conversation with Sterling McMurrin, President McKay said, "It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed."<ref>{{RMM|start=79|end=80}}</ref> This was a departure from a 1949 First Presidency statement defending the ban as doctrinal, indicating a shift in his opinion. Leonard Arrington reported that President McKay formed a special committee of the Twelve that "concluded there was no sound scriptural basis for the policy but that church membership was not prepared for its reversal."<ref>{{Book:Arrington:Adventures of a Church Historian|pages=183}}</ref> However, David O. McKay felt that only a revelation could end the ban. Sometime between 1968 and his death in 1970 he confided his prayerful attempts to church architect, Richard Jackson, "I’ve inquired of the Lord repeatedly. The last time I did it was late last night. I was told, with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone."<ref>Gregory Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, ''David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism'' (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 104; Russell W. Stevenson, ''For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism 1830-2013'' (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014), 120; W. Paul Reeve, ''Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 259: "In contrast, McKay, as president, believed divine intervention necessary regardless of the restriction's origins, something he reportedly sought but did not receive."</ref> |
===As McKay's health declined, his counselor, Hugh B. Brown, attempted to lift the ban as an administrative decision=== | ===As McKay's health declined, his counselor, Hugh B. Brown, attempted to lift the ban as an administrative decision=== |
In a conversation with Sterling McMurrin, President McKay said, "It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed."[1] This was a departure from a 1949 First Presidency statement defending the ban as doctrinal, indicating a shift in his opinion. Leonard Arrington reported that President McKay formed a special committee of the Twelve that "concluded there was no sound scriptural basis for the policy but that church membership was not prepared for its reversal."[2] However, David O. McKay felt that only a revelation could end the ban. Sometime between 1968 and his death in 1970 he confided his prayerful attempts to church architect, Richard Jackson, "I’ve inquired of the Lord repeatedly. The last time I did it was late last night. I was told, with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone."[3]
However, it became even clearer that a century of precedent was difficult to reverse without a revelation, especially when some members and leaders—echoing George Q. Cannon—felt there might be a revelatory basis for the policy.
President McKay reportedly told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."[4]
Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban [5]:204-205 though Church Historian Leonard Arrington
...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.[6]
Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks....It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."[7]
The late 1960's gave, as Latter-day Saint Historian Russell Stevenson has expressed, "a groundswell of scholarly interest in the history of the priesthood ban...and it won the attention of top-level Church leaders."[8] In 1973, Dr. Lester Bush, an army physician stationed in saigon, wrote the first schlolarly analysis of the Church's racial restriction based in primary source documentation. As Stevenson has written concerning bush:
Elijah Abels was not the exception, Bush argued; indeed, Ables had been the rule. Joseph Smith had not implemented the priesthood ban, contrary to accepted wisdom. That distinction belonged to Brigham Young. Perhaps the Church could start asking new questions, he hoped, about why it was following the course it was when Church leaders apparently did not fully understand why they were doing it.[48] [Grant Shreeve's] fear-based wailing had fallen on deaf ears, but Bush's arguments received widespread attention at [Church headquarters in Salt Lake City].[49] Marion D. Hanks, then Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, later observed that Bush's article "had far more influence than the Bretheren would ever acknowledge and that it 'started to foment the pot.'" Edward Ashment, then employed by the Church Translation Department and a scholar of the Book of Abraham, observed Bruce R. McConkie reading the article. [Spencer W. Kimball] himself also highlighted several sections of the piece.[50][9]
As the church expanded its missionary outreach and temple building programs, leaders continued to run into problems of black ancestry preventing the building of local leadership in certain areas, most notably Brazil. The prayerful attempts to obtain the will of God intensified. Finally in June 1978, a revelation that "every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood" was received and later canonized as Official Declaration 2.
Notes
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