Mormonism and the Free State of Jones

[tickingclocker]

He is talking about the chosen seed, ie the house of Israel or Jews and this passage from Deut 7
3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

The rest of your posting is just full of anti Mormon nonsense.

Well, that makes no sense, because Moses married a black woman. Moses was a Jew.

Prove what I said was "anti-Mormon nonsense"! I was just repeating what I found on LDS websites!

 

[withwonderingawe]

Well, that makes no sense, because Moses married a black woman. Moses was a Jew.

That was before the Law was given!

 

[withwonderingawe]

(Keep in mind, back then an "eye for an eye" was the standard rule, and Cain was fully aware of that.)

umm that wasn't part of any law when Cain killed his brother

 

[withwonderingawe]

Brigham Young additionally perpetuated the Ham/Canaan Curse of Genesis 9:20-27, as well as the LDS classic "war in heaven" curse mark on "unvaliant" African skin.

No I quoted BY in my answer to durangodawood;
"There were no neutral spirits in heaven at the time of the rebellion. All took sides. He said if anyone said that he heard the Prophet Joseph say that the spirits of the Blacks were neutral in heaven, he would not believe them, for he heard Joseph say to the contrary. All spirits are pure that come from the presence of God." (Wilford Woodruff's Journal, entry dated Dec. 25, 1869.)

 

[tickingclocker]

That was before the Law was given!

Was Moses still married to the black woman when this "Law was given"?

God cursed Miriam, Moses' own sister, with leprosy simply for speaking against Moses and his new black wife. He took away her leprosy (in time) only because Aaron and Moses pleaded with Him for her. Doesn't exactly indicate God didn't want Jews marrying black people, like your interpretation claims.

I think the law you are speaking of is more about pagans, who didn't accept the One True God of the Jews. God repeatedly states He didn't want Jews mingling with others who's faith wasn't focused upon Him. I wouldn't blame him, considering what all King Solomon's wives did to him. He had the kingdom ripped from him because his foreign, idol-worshiping wives turned him against God in the end.

 

[tickingclocker]

umm that wasn't part of any law when Cain killed his brother

I never said it was "part of any law". I said it was a standard rule, a social/cultural practice. Do you think everything started with a "law"? Laws, even today, can be developed from longstanding cultural practices. There are even cultural laws protecting cultural practices in place!

 

[tickingclocker]

No I quoted BY in my answer to durangodawood;
"There were no neutral spirits in heaven at the time of the rebellion. All took sides. He said if anyone said that he heard the Prophet Joseph say that the spirits of the Blacks were neutral in heaven, he would not believe them, for he heard Joseph say to the contrary. All spirits are pure that come from the presence of God." (Wilford Woodruff's Journal, entry dated Dec. 25, 1869.)

Why are you quoting from W. Woodruff's journal, when I'm quoting JS directly? Was Woodruff even alive when JS was head of the LDS? Who is "he... said if anyone"? BY? JS? Your quote is very confusing.

 

[tickingclocker]

Brigham Young, successor to Joseph Smith, legalized Negro and Indian slavery in Utah in 1850, and a number of Mormons (including Mormon Apostle Charles C. Rich) owned black slaves. Utah had many "anti-Negro" segregationist laws until the late 1960s.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I think the claim that Mormons were racist is way over blown

Many of us would prefer that our spiritual forebearers were, in fact, more enlightened then they actually were. But reality is that they were, like us, products of their times. And when the times were especially racist, so were they.

The proper path is to acknowledge the sins of the past, not try and excuse them.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[withwonderingawe]

Many of us would prefer that our spiritual forebearers were, in fact, more enlightened then they actually were. But reality is that they were, like us, products of their times. And when the times were especially racist, so were they.

The proper path is to acknowledge the sins of the past, not try and excuse them.

-CryptoLutheran

I suppose that is true, only mine only go back one generation. My mom told me the day Pearl Harbor was bombed she and her mother went to the home of a Japaneses family they knew, they sat and cried together. That's the kind of family I come from.

My husband's parents I would not consider racist they more than gladly accepted the priesthood change. But, his grandfather had a very racist little song he sang at times. First time I heard it I was surprised, not something I'd heard before. I was not use to being around things like that.

When Obama was elected there was a Mormon couple here in Utah who thought they came up with a great idea, they started making those sock monkeys and called them Obama dolls. To them they were loveable, sweet and had big ears, the thought that they were racist and degrading to a black person just never entered their heads. They didn't live around that kind of racism, it simply wasn't in the realm of their understanding.

Ya know the Bible (and the Book of Mormon) tells us all men are created equal or are equal in God's eyes. It's the doctrines of man which does not.

 

[durangodawood]

Many of us would prefer that our spiritual forebearers were, in fact, more enlightened then they actually were. But reality is that they were, like us, products of their times. And when the times were especially racist, so were they.

The proper path is to acknowledge the sins of the past, not try and excuse them.

-CryptoLutheran

1978 is way too late in the game for an institution of 'moral authority' to be abandoning racist doctrine.

What I see there is the opposite: moral laggards.

 

[withwonderingawe]

1978 is way too late in the game for an institution of 'moral authority' to be abandoning racist doctrine.

What I see there is the opposite: moral laggards.

Well believe what you want if that's convenient for you.

 

[durangodawood]

Well believe what you want if that's convenient for you.

It doesnt change my life either way.

Now, what is convenient for you?

 

[withwonderingawe]

Noah And BIG T 009

• withwonderingawe
• Sep 15, 2016

Thurl Bailey and Noah

My Grandson and his namesake Thurl Bailey, look at the size of those hands.

 

[smaneck]

Blacks were not considered fully human by the Church until 1978???

That simply invalidates the whole religion in my eyes: that the official church could hold to such an abomination until so late in the day.

Not what was said. Blacks were not allowed into the priesthood until 1978. Does your church allow women to be pastors? Does that mean your church does not consider women fully human? Would this not invalidate your religion?

 

[smaneck]

4, Now was the black skins of African people really the mark placed on Cain? I really don't know however there is a story line which follows that belief

If you read Genesis carefully you'll see the mark placed on Cain was not a curse at all. It was to protect Cain from being killed if he obeyed God's order to wander the face of the earth. He doesn't, of course. The Bible goes on to describe Cain as founding the first city. In other words, Cain is depicted as the founder of civilization. Not exactly the narrative which racists seek to follow!
The story of Cain and Able, IMO, is the story of the age-old conflict between herders and farmers. Normally ancient texts depict herders as savage barbarians. The Bible is unique among ancient texts in giving us the herders side of the story. Cain, the farmer and Abel, the herder both give offerings to God. God readily accepts Abel's offering but makes it clear to Cain He is no vegetarian! Cain kills Abel and as a consequence told to become a nomad (who are herders.) Instead, he founds the first civilization (which grow out of agriculture.) The moral of the story is that civilization is founded on sin. The virtuous nomad (Abraham) versus corrupt civilization (Sodom) is a theme we find throughout Genesis.

Cain's blood line was carried through Ham's wife (see our Book of Abraham), Ham also sins against his father and his priesthood is taken away. His children go into Egypt and then Africa.

In the 19th century the Hamitic language group referred to the non-Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic family. They were spoken primarily in North Africa and included Berber and Egyptians. While the people who spoke them were Africans they generally were not black. ain's children. In doing that they would now be responsible for their own sins.

And so because of sin, not the Black's sin but the sins of white America the priesthood was withheld again for a space of time.

That's an argument that would make a lot of sense if you could show me where the Mormon leadership was saying this prior to 1978.

8, The Blacks still struggle with racism and didn't achieve full real freedom until the 1970s with Johnson's civil rights bills, when they finally obtain the right to vote in some states.

But doesn't your president at the time oppose the Civil Rights Movement? My recollection is he condemned MLK as a communist.

 

[smaneck]

Then "out of the blue" during the Civil Rights Movement, the assorted LDS curse "marks" on African, brown, and Native American red skin were "lifted/forgiven"... without explanation... by the Mormon god in 1979.

The Civil Rights Movement was a decade earlier. I don't think what happened in 1978 had anything to do with changing race relations in the US. What happened is that the LDS church was enjoying tremendous success in Brazil. Practically everyone in Brazil has at least some African blood. If they excluded blacks from the priesthood there they would have no priesthood. I've found that missionaries often end up converting themselves as much as converting others. And given the fact that nearly all males in the LDS become missionaries at some point, that left the Mormon Church open to a tremendous transformation. It is no accident that people like Scott Card (the Mormon Sci Fi writer) has his hero married to a black Brazilian and that his novels are so multi-cultural. He himself was a missionary to Brazil.

I haven't seen the movie, and honestly don't intend to. However, I would be interested in knowing where the OP got their statistics from for a heavy Mormon population within Jones County, NC.

I saw it in NPR's write up on Newton Knight's descendants.

That is interesting that Jones was a polygamist and one of his wives later became a Mormon. Did she stay with Jones afterwards? Did she leave him and go to Utah? If he never joined the LDS, I wonder what happened to her if she left Jones. The LDS would never have let her marry another white man.

Obviously we know Jones was unsuccessful in his endeavor, although the county was named after his family.

Except his name is not Jones, his name is Newton Knight. And Jones was the name of the county long before Newton Knight came along. And he was a bigamist, having two wives, one white named Serena and one black named Rachel, although he also has relations with Rachel Knight's daughter who was born to her from another Knight while she was still a slave. It is Rachel who became a Mormon. Mind you, he was already married to a white woman, Serena Turmer when he married Rachel Knight. She does visit Utah at some point but found it too cold. Apparently the LDS proselytizing in Jones County occurred in the 1880's.

Rachel and her children successfully operated a 180 acre farm next to Newt Knight's property. She died when she was forty nine.

 

[smaneck]

The poster was asking a question, not making a statement.
Notice the question marks after the first sentence? They give a "if then" statement after this. IF. Not IS.

You are being disingenuous. That's called rhetorical question and the poster follows up with a statement of condemnation, one which violates the rules of this forum. There is no "if" or "then" in the followup statement.

 

[smaneck]

I thought black people werent considered fit for all positions in the Church until 1978...?

They could probably hold any position a woman could hold.

 

[smaneck]

1978 is WAY late for any organization claiming a both a special connection to truth and moral authority.

And when did your church start having female pastors?