Race & Mormon Scripture Pt 1
Original Air Date: 2023-01-02
In this episode of the Mormon Stories Podcast, host John Dehlin and Mike from "LDS Discussions" conduct a detailed examination of race within Mormon scripture, specifically addressing how the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, and Book of Abraham codified 19th-century racial concepts into religious doctrine 1, 2. The hosts aim to present historical data and scriptural text objectively, acknowledging that the material is emotionally difficult and deeply painful for many to hear 3, 2.
The Book of Mormon and 19th-Century WorldviewThe discussion begins by establishing that the Book of Mormon is best understood as a 19th-century text that attempts to explain the origins of Native Americans through the lens of white settlers 4. Mike explains that the narrative relies on the "Mound Builder myth," a common 19th-century belief that dark-skinned indigenous people had destroyed a superior white race that previously inhabited the land 5. This worldview is reflected in Book of Mormon verses such as 2 Nephi 5:21, which states that the Lord caused a "skin of Blackness" to come upon the Lamanites so they would not be "enticing" to the white Nephites 6. The text explicitly describes dark skin as a curse or a mark of a curse intended to separate the two peoples and deter intermarriage, stating that the seed of those who mix with them would also be cursed 6, 7.
"Skin Means Skin": Literal InterpretationsA significant portion of the episode is dedicated to refuting modern apologetic arguments that claim references to "black skin" or "dark skin" were metaphorical 8. The hosts present evidence that Joseph Smith and subsequent church leaders interpreted these verses literally 9.
Racism in the Book of Moses and Book of AbrahamThe episode expands beyond the Book of Mormon to examine the Pearl of Great Price. In the Book of Moses, Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible, he introduced the concept that the descendants of Cain were cursed with blackness and were despised among all people 16. In the Book of Abraham, the text claims that the Pharaohs of Egypt were descendants of Ham and Canaan, a lineage that preserved the "curse in the land" and denied them the "right of priesthood" 17. This scriptural addition provided the doctrinal foundation for the priesthood and temple ban on members of African descent, creating a theology where the ban was attributed to God rather than the prejudices of men 17, 18. Mike also discusses Facsimile 3 in the Book of Abraham, noting that Joseph Smith identified a black figure as a slave, whereas modern Egyptology identifies the figure as the god Anubis; evidence suggests the snout of the jackal-headed god may have been removed from the printing plates to make the figure appear human and support the racial narrative 19, 20.
The Priesthood Ban and Its RemovalThe hosts challenge the narrative that the priesthood ban was merely a policy started by Brigham Young, pointing out that Joseph Smith produced three different scriptures—the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, and Book of Abraham—that codified dark skin as a curse 21, 18. A 1947 First Presidency letter explicitly stated that the ban was "doctrine" and that intermarriage was "repugnant" 22. Regarding the lifting of the ban in 1978, Mike cites an interview with Apostle LeGrand Richards, who indicated the decision was driven largely by the practical necessity of operating the new temple in Brazil, where many members had mixed ancestry, rather than a dramatic, spontaneous revelation 23.
Lived Experiences and ImpactThroughout the episode, the hosts are joined by guests Sabrina and Chanel, who share their perspectives as Black women with ties to the church.
The episode concludes with the assertion that the church's racial history is not just a product of its time, but a result of leaders who could not distinguish their own prejudices from the will of God, leading to generations of harm 28.
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hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast I am one of your hosts for today uh John delin it's August 31st 2022 and we are uh many many episodes into an amazing series on Mormon stories podcast called LDS discussions where my friend Mike uh joins with us to talk about uh Mormon church truth claims I think we're 21 episodes in or so by my count I want to just remind everybody that this entire series can be seen on or listened to on Mormon stories but we've also created um isolated or specialized feeds on Spotify on anchor and also there's a playlist um on uh on YouTube and you can access the LDS discussions stream on Apple podcast or wherever you consume your episodes but if you just want you know 15 20 episodes of digging into Mormon church truth claims where we try to be as objective and as Fair uh and as scholarly as possible while still sometimes giving emotional reactions that's what the LDS discussions project is about it's for people who are genuinely open to learning about the Mormon Church's truth claims and making and as as objective as possible decision about those truth claims or if they just want to be informed that's what this project is about today we have a super important but also um very very difficult uh subject to discuss we are going to be discussing race and LDS or Mormon scriptures uh we did we debated whether to use the word race or racism but the truth is we want people to feel comfortable uh that that we're going to do our best to not be just bashing but instead uh uh you know are trying to just be fair and balanced and so um you know we're gonna do our best I'm gonna just give a couple other quick disclaimers before I bring Mike on normally uh what we would want to do is to have maybe a member of of the marginalized communities that we might be talking about on the show uh to be a part of this Gerardo is a very easy person to bring on because Gerardo is a constant member of our team um and he obviously um is from Mexico and can speak to kind of Latin American and or Native American kind of Concepts Gerardo is in the process of moving and he's just not available for the next few weeks so that's hard but also one of the problems is that um while while you want to pass the mic and you want to uh give voice to marginalized communities you also don't want them to have to do the work for you because sometimes it's taxing or exhausting and so when we're all trying to be allies we're always trying to balance um passing the mic with also not asking marginalized people or oppressed people who already um you know are doing a heroic work to try and just survive and thrive in the communities that are in many ways are stacked against them you don't always want to add to their burden and extra burden of having to represent or educate the rest of us so the we did reach out to a few friends um we did consult with them and uh you know um we have sort of made the offer to uh to a group of people if they want to do a specialized Mormon stories episode reacting to this information we are going to do that but in addition we're gonna kind of draw a circle around what we're going to try and do today we're not going to be trying to represent um you know let's just say um black uh or African-American or Native American Or Hispanic or Polynesian experiences um that's not what we're going to be trying to do uh what we're going to be trying to do is lay out evidence or history around uh Mormon church scriptures and race and or racism and and uh just provide that information and then if we want to follow up with inviting members of various marginalized communities to comment or give reactions or provide additional Insight we we have those invitations out there and uh we're we're eager to follow up on that so that's our best attempt at being uh responsible with this conversation um we may or may not uh succeed in that um and so with that uh with that disclaimer an opener hey Mike welcome back how's it going it's still great to have you it's good to be here this one like I I said at the end of the last episode the next month are going to be a lot of rough episodes and we're going to do our best like we've been trying through the whole series one of the things I've been trying this whole time is to present the data and not to cherry pick the worst data points to make the church just look as bad as possible and also not to sugar undercoat it so we're trying to find that balance and this one's obviously just a really it's emotional I you know um was trying to listen to some stuff this past week to get ready for it and there were things I was hearing that I hadn't heard a long time and you know it would make me like audibly gasp you know when I'm more like I've mentioned previous episodes I work um I run a small business a lot of times I just kind of work on stuff with with headphones on and it's it's really difficult um it was really hard to put these slides together um but we're gonna do our best in in no way am I trying to tell anyone what their experience was and I could never do that and I could never understand that um but I just want to present what the data is and what the um what says about the church what it says about our leaders what it says about the foundational scriptures that we still uphold as Doctrine today and um and try to do it in the most gentle way we can uh but but the fact is if we don't talk about it um then people are not going to understand it's still there a lot of people and I could say this is a convert I had no idea the depth of this when I was a member and um it's it's important to know even if it is really really difficult to hear absolutely okay well let's uh let's go ahead and dive in um to our first slide and so this is kind of just talking about what we've talked about in in a lot of the episodes especially in recent weeks but these this whole series is meant to build on each other and so on the website on LDS discussions.com um it's meant to every overview project is kind of working off the last one in a way so that we can call back and to look at patterns to look at the themes of these problems and this one is going to have a lot of those as well and I just want to point out we've talked about this in a lot of earlier episodes but the Book of Mormon is written in a 19th century worldview even Richard Bushman who is a you know faithful one of the most prominent active historians um in the church he admits that this text is best understood as a 19th century text if you listen to Dan McClellan on Tick Tock he's a great follow he's an active member of the church he works with the church he says the exact same thing he says that the Book of Mormon is best understood in a 19th century context and you have to understand that for this episode because in the 19th century you had white settlers who came and and they were trying to explain why there were these dark-skinned people that were already in America before they got there and that led to um just horrible origin myths that were created to give the white settlers the justification to their to themselves is to try to take the land and we talked about that in our surrounding influences episode but the mound builder myth was that idea which is that these dark-skinned Savage people were here because they had killed off this um ancient Superior white race and taken the land and they use that as justification to take the lamb back and that is not a Mormon idea that is an idea that was all around Joseph Smith we talked about it in that previous episode we had U.S presidents who had referenced it prominent leaders that's that was a widespread prominent belief and you know just to read it I set the start this is going to be a really difficult episode and I understand it because it was difficult for me and I can't even imagine what it would be like hearing this episode if you are someone who is a Native American or African-American a Polynesian because I can't imagine I I've never lived it and it like I said it's it's hard for me I can't even imagine how hard it is for you so we're going to do our best to be as gentle as we can and just present the data and not try to um put our life experience into it because we can't and then the last point I want to make is that this episode is going to cover two different kinds of race issues within Mormon scriptures which is the Book of Mormon which has the curse of dark skin uh which would impact like the idea that Native Americans are from Jerusalem we're also going to talk about the book of Moses and the Book of Abraham which then um kind of elaborate on Joseph Smith's kind of evolving ideas that if you have black skin that is also a curse from God that he writes into the Bible into the book of Moses which leads to the priesthood band um and so we're going to jump between the two just because it's obviously kind of an all-encompassing theme as how the church presented it in their gospel topics essay so we'll be clear when we're kind of jump back and forth but it is going to have there's gonna be a lot of data here and and we'll go through like I said as gently as we can but also trying not to sugarcoat it okay well let's jump to the next slide which is race in the Book of Mormon we're going to Dive Right In yeah so we're just going to jump right in and this is obviously something that if you are familiar all with this topic you've seen these verses you've seen how they've been highlighted and I just want to read them this is from second Nephi chapter five and it says and he had caused the cursing to come upon them yay even a sore cursing because of their iniquity for behold they had hardened their hearts against him that they had become like unto a flint wherefore as they were white and exceedingly fair and delightsome that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of Blackness to come upon them and thus saith the Lord God I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto my people save they shall repent of their iniquities and cursed shall be the seed of him that mixes with their seed for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing and the Lord spake it and it was done yeah and yeah no no you go go ahead yeah I mean I wouldn't be able to do justice about all that's wrong with these quotes in second Nephi The Book of Mormon but just the association of of dark with bad or ugly or loathsome and white is being good I'm thinking about the you know autobiography of Malcolm X and uh uh just just how just how for centuries just the way that we associate good with whiteness in our culture and bad or or dirty or dark with with a darker color is problematic but then associating it with what's attractive versus not that's both wrong and ugly and offensive um the fact that God would curse someone with dark skin to make them ugly first of all it's not ugly second of all why would God ever do that make someone dark skinned so that they would be unattractive it it there's just so many ways and then that it's a curse and is a problem and then that the curse goes across Generations like it's basic Mormonism 101 that man will not be punished for their own sins but for Adam's transgressions so why is this curse lasting over multi-generations I'm guessing you're going to be covering all this in slides but this is just these are just early reactions that uh uh and it's just flat out racist and repugnant so and that's in the Book of Mormon today what I don't think a lot of people realize is that the current Book of Mormon says this in 2022 and it's never been taken out and because Joseph Smith claimed to translate this and this is why our episodes build on each other because Joseph Smith if you go to the translation episode he claimed that he saw in his Stone the words that God was sending him through the stone he would read them off the Scribe would rewrite them and read them back so according to Joseph these are literally God's words yeah and we'll get to a lot of the apologetic responses to this as we go but I think the thing is like as a convert for me this always bothered me there were two things that bothered me as as a member before I did the Deep dive and that was polygamy in this because this is something you could see in the scriptures and it was funny because I did have people I joined in the late 90s and you had people who would tell me this is the history of the Native Americans so at that point the DNA studies hadn't really impacted kind of the way the church taught it and so there was that part of me though I thought like wait a second you're tell you're going to Native Americans and you're telling them your skin is darker because your ancestors were bad people it's just a horrible message and we'll get into it obviously as we go but this is something that as you talked about earlier these episodes build on each other because it's something you would expect when you have somebody writing this text in a world view that is trying to make sense of how these Native Americans were here before they were why they have dark skin and so this is what you expect because you're trying to now write their origin story for them because once you do that once you other them you can then use that as a justification to take the land and again this is not exclusive to Mormonism this is this is something that was all around Joseph Smith that he used because this actually would make sense to people in this time frame to read because this is what a lot of people are talking about so the Book of Mormon makes a lot more sense to people from the 1830s than it does to the year 2022 and as John said this is still Doctrine this is still in the scriptures and these words the reason I highlighted some of these words is because these words are what are going to lead to some of the horrible teachings to you know some horrible ideas I mean this idea that in curses shall be the seed of him that mixes with their seed for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing that is going to be repeated by church leaders as justification for it no interracial marriage because they believed and taught that if you got into an interracial marriage the white person would then be cursed because they would then mix seeds and their children be cursed and so on and so on and it's a horrible thing um that is my understanding is to this day there's still existing uh LDS church curriculum that discourages interracial marriage there are yeah there are and I think that the excuse for that is I I brought this up a long time ago and the responses I was getting was they're not saying you shouldn't marry someone from another race but they're saying it because your life will be more difficult if you do so that you should stick to it so they'll say you know you should marry someone from the same religion same race and I think they say I think they might even have something in the in that manual it's just about like the same like socioeconomic background or something so their argument which again I'm not agreeing with I'm just saying that's their argument because they can no longer say what the real reason is for being in the curriculum and um and it's it's it's just really it's really hard to hear and what's funny about that curriculum was that one bothered me as a Believer um I came across something along those lines and it bothered me because I was a convert and I had married uh my girlfriend who was a member and you know now wife and I remember like going okay so before I before I joined the church the church would have told her don't marry this guy and then you see the interracial one you're like this is horrible like you've got all of these ways that that are are telling members who they should marry based on things that really should not be impacting to that degree and um and yeah it's still in there today I believe it's still on their website yeah it is okay let's go to the next slide taking the text of the Book of Mormon at face value yeah and I've talked about this in previous episodes and for me I always take the text of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's Revelations or anything else you produce at face value because I think the moment you start to redefine what he's saying and you redefine what words mean you are then completely changing what he was doing and I think that you would never do that unless you had to and so for me if you look at this passage of Face Value the curse from God caused a skin of Blackness to come upon the lamanites so they would not be enticing to the white and delightsome meme fights and again the Book of Mormon states that the lamanites who are the people that the church believes are Native Americans today were cursed with dark skin so that the white and delights them Nephites would not be attracted to them so they would not mix their seed and so as we talked about earlier like people apologists will say and we'll get into this a lot more as we go that the curse is entirely different from the skin of Blackness and the text they'll say the text separates Institute and I just want to point out before we get too much further if you really want to make that case how does that explain the confirmation of the curse in Alma chapter 3 and so this is again from The Book of Mormon and the skins of the lamanites were dark according to the mark which was set upon their fathers which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their Rebellion against their Brethren who consisted of Nephi Jacob and Joseph and Sam who were just in holy men and so this is confirming that having dark skin was a curse from God and that the uh you know the good people in the story are Nephi Jacob Joseph and Sam who are white I mean it's you can't really make that argument and without completely redefining what the Book of Mormon is and I think that's why this is such a tricky issue for the church to talk about honestly I think one of the biggest evidences that there's a huge race problem within Mormonism other than it being just self-evident obvious is that these verses can remain in the Book of Mormon and Your Average White Mormon doesn't think about it doesn't care doesn't object like you read those scriptures in 2022 there should be like riots during General Conference there should be I I mean this is me interjecting myself here but like it should be it should be white people that are rioting is is what I'm saying because we sh we shouldn't stand for I mean that that's honestly if I were to read those things if I were to look at those things and not know anything about about the Book of Mormon I would assume it was like Ku Klux Klan literature I would assume that it's like stuff from the 19th or 18th or 17th century the fact that that's existing in in Scripture that claims to be from God and and nobody's really concerned about that to me shows the next level of of the problem well I think too that if you think about it you have um the church will do a lot of lessons where they don't really get into the verses that are problematic and so I think a lot of people don't really think about it and I this sounds horrible to say and I think there's a lot of truth to it though which is that the Book of Mormon is talking about Native Americans and I think for some reason that is something that a lot of people in the church are almost proud of that they are bringing the Native Americans back to Christ and it's a horrible thing because it's just not true I mean it's it's this is not historical this is not why people's skin changes colors I mean all of this is just so just wrong it's historically wrong it's morally wrong yeah and I think it's just that the church tries to effectively not talk about it it's like if you don't talk about it then you know a lot of members in the church aren't really aware of it you won't make the problem worse maybe yeah I think that's a big part of it you know and I think people should demand uh better I think people should demand that either the scriptures change or the the church leaders actually you know use the revelatory powers to get Revelation to explain why it's in there because I do think that the fact that the church continues to push this off to apologists as opposed to having Russell Nelson go out there and be like this is what God is telling me is a really indicative of the fact that they don't have a good answer and they don't want the last thing they want to do is allow their leaders to go out and make a statement that can be used against them later when they're proven wrong and that's why a lot of of the leaders today don't make Revelations because if you make a revelation about something that's going to happen when it doesn't happen you've got a problem and um also if you overturn statements made by past right theorism Revolution yeah or if you start changing scripture yeah that's the problem I ask yeah if you're changing scripture I mean it wasn't a problem in our Doctrine and Covenants book of Commandments episode but generally nowadays yeah once you start changing scripture members are going to start asking are you guys just making this up as you go along yep and then we'll get to that a lot because the implications of changing it are huge and the leaders are not wanting to open that can of worm because all of that is going to come back on them and and once you start to do that you lose your power totally okay the next slide is dark skin is absolutely a curse from God in the Book of Mormon yeah and so just piggybacking off that last slide Alma 3 confirms that the skin of Blackness is occurs from God and whether you want to call it a mark of the curse or the curse the fact is it's part of the curse or the curse I mean you just can't separate the two and so for me if you take the Book of Mormon face value there's no way to get around it and that's why I really hate this idea that you redefine words and say well skin doesn't mean skin and nowhere in Alma 3 doesn't mention that the curse is strictly being cut off the Lord but it it absolutely mentions the dark skin and if that's not clear enough here's Jacob chapter 3. behold the lamanites your brethren whom you hate because of their filthiness and their cursing which has come upon their Skins are more righteous than you for they have not forgotten the Commandment of the Lord which was given unto our father that they should have save it where one wife and concubine they should have none and there should not be whoredoms committed among them and and I like that verse too because it hits unplug me a bit but the point is whether the whether the dark skin is a cur is the curse itself or a mark of the curse does not matter because either way God is absolutely putting if you believe this is from God that the curse is integral to dark skin or dark skin is integral to the curse so that the white Nephites in the Book of Mormon as they say white and Delight some will not find them attractive and so however you want to you know try to split hairs here dark skin is part of the curse or the curse and the curse is being done by God to make them less attractive you cannot get around this and it absolutely ties into how the church taught about Native Americans again you there's no getting around this redefining words as we'll talk about later only opens up more problems if you actually sit there and think about the implications of what they're doing and so to say that skin doesn't mean skin or that dark skin wasn't the curse it's just blatantly dishonest got it got it okay next Slide the church absolutely believed uh skin meant skin yeah and so these are just two pictures that are from the church so on the left you can see um this is obviously somewhat dark skin which you know look they have more like unsophisticated clothes I mean it's just very stereotypical and guess what it looks just like a Native American would look right and so this is the Book of Mormon telling us that dark skin meant dark skin and this is the Mormon Church putting out artwork that that completely backs it up and then on the right this is also published by or was published by the church and this was part of the Book of Mormon stories for children so this was an illustrated book of Mormon stories for children and the caption says other people followed another son Layman they were called lamanites they had dark skins and the picture shows three people with dark skins and as we talked about who just happened to look like Native Americans and this is I mean I don't know I don't know more to say this is the church you can blame the artist all you want the artists are only working with the scriptures they have this is what the church taught what they believed there's just no way around it I'll just I'll just say that that photo on the left looks familiar to me because as someone who's 53 years old in 2022 I was raised uh Mormon and every every Mormon you know that was kind of alive in the 70s and 80s had this collection of Illustrated stories from The Book of Mormon Illustrated stories from the New Testament Illustrated stories from the Old Testament it was a way for like families to do scripture study where there were pictures for the young kids um and so I the the these sorts of photos would have been the photos that I was raised with as a Mormon that I would have looked at and been taught as a child how to think about uh The Book of Mormon and scriptures and skin and race and all that these types of photos would have been interwoven into my childhood and they were as Doctrine without any question as to how how ambiguous things were and so you the church can't escape a couple hundred years of indoctrination of its white people to be thinking this way regardless of what apologists want to say now well and all of these are going to go through a correlation Department they're all going to be approved these are not Rogue artists that are putting stuff out these are from the church's own releases so again that whole idea that oh it's the artist having interpretations is just absolute crap because of the fact that they are being given an assignment to um basically show what the Book of Mormon looked like Illustrated which is being approved by church leaders this was something that leaders absolutely approved of because this is what they believed happened right yep okay here's another I love missed missed in Sunday um it's an amazing website shout out to them I'll put a link in the show notes yep you've got you've got a visual and some quotes for missed and Sonny's yeah and this is just a really easy way to show that the Mormon church is starting to realize that you cannot have the racism but the problem is you can't they can't change the scripture so they're changing the heading so in 2010 The Heading of second Nephi chapter five said because of their unbelief the lamanites are cursed receive a skin of Blackness and become a Scourge unto the Nephites so they changed that in 2010 to because of their unbelief the lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord are cursed and become a scourge of the nephite so right here you can start to see where the church is completely changing the story of The Book of Mormon to say that the curse is actually being cut off in the presence of the Lord because obviously you know at this point you're well past the point where it's you know extremely uh out of touch with society and and so they have they can change the heading because it's a lot easier than changing the scriptures but it does show that the church is whitewashing it are we going to talk about how they actually did change the Book of Mormon later yeah we've got a little bit in there for like the white and Delight some stuff is in there too yeah yeah well so even if it's just the introductions [Music] um you know uh the the point there is that you know like you said Church committees up you know supervised by profiteers and revelators and apostles would have both written and approved those chapter summaries and so the church doesn't get off the hook for saying it wasn't actually the text that Joseph Smith translated it was these summaries that were written later it's still written by and or supervised by Prophet series and revelators yep absolutely yeah um okay uh so um let's see really quickly I think Sabrina may want to make a comment I'm gonna so so let me just say that we um we did put out an invitation to uh some colleagues or or friends in the community to give them a chance to kind of watch and participate and but we didn't want them to feel pressured especially because it was kind of last minute but I'm super excited that a um that one of these participants is wanting to uh join us and make a quick comment um her name is Sabrina uh let's unmute you Sabrina and I just want to say you know we are so glad you are here and um we would love to hear what you have to say Sabrina absolutely can you guys hear me okay yeah we're here great if you want to turn your phone inside me it'll give us a fuller view of you just 90 degrees but you don't have to yeah you definitely don't have to okay yeah that's okay sorry I'm jumping in I'm working and then also listening to you guys in the background so it'll make it quick but just wanted to to stay specific to um any kind of artistic representation of those in the Book of Mormon those within the scriptures of themselves I always find it difficult to hear that the church is willing to speak up about the miss representation of the darker Skin Within illustrations and and um and things of that nature when in every single church house in every single building of the LDS church there are depictions of Christ with very fair skills and so we're fine with with depicting Christ in this way and and find with you know well you know making apologies about the fairness of his skin knowing full while he's a middle eastern man but we we go back on the dark skins of natives represented Within scriptures that somehow this was an artistic Liberty that was taken never to offend um it is a struggle as a black person to walk into every building and instead of seeing a man that should be similar into my skin tone seeing a very fair man that looks as of European and then in the same breath being someone that is of you know that is of a minority Community with quote unquote dark or brown skin seeing natives depicted in this way both both in regard are just complete misrepresentations and the fact that those are images that are always connected to negative things as far as like Natives and and these artistic paintings and things is it's just I can't begin to tell you how problematic it is but also how damaging it was as a child and an adult being raised in the church so I just wanted to throw that out there just a personal experience Sabrina it's so powerful to have you weigh in and I'm just going to say that if I can add the church doesn't kind of have an excuse because I remember you know even from the books that I've read that in the 60s and 70s there were let's just say progress Progressive black Christians that would have paintings and photos of black of of a of a Jesus with dark skin incorporated into their Christian worship so it's not it's not like there haven't been Decades of examples of people doing that which would then be an opportunity for the church to at least change in the 60s and 70s or 80s or even today they could still change right right absolutely totally agree yeah Sabrina agree please just text us anytime we're going to add you right back okay so yeah okay no problem thank you thank you so much thanks for being willing to to share your perspective absolutely thank you all right that was wonderful um so the next slide is this is a view you would expect from Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon is that right yeah and this is something we talked about in previous episodes I mentioned at the start of this episode but as we've talked about in the overview so far the Book of Mormon is a uniquely 19th century text which holds a lot of uniquely 19th century ideas um such as the Native Americans were originally from Israel a lot of people believed that dark skin was a curse that was used to or a lot of people then believe that the dark skin was because they were a Savage Race that killed off the initial whites people and that was like their early ancestors which gave them deeper you know they gave themselves the justification um and then we also had people that believed that their dark skin was a curse um for people that were from with African-American descent because that gave them the justification to do slavery and so you could see these ideas um in the view of the Hebrews which was written before the Book of Mormon and as I've said before I don't believe Joseph Smith plagiarized it but I think it shows that those ideas of this ancient lost tribe of Israel was percolating in his area and that is a really important footnote to show that basically that this is what you would expect to see in the Book of Mormon knowing that the Book of Mormon was produced in 1829 so if you had told a scholar like what would you expect from someone writing in 1829 about how to kind of actualize religion into you know Frontier America I think they would they would tell you that these are the ideas you'd see because they are so prominent um to trying to um basically make the you know 1820s America give it a Christian biblical worldview and this is the kind of stuff that would be incorporated into it because unfortunately the white settlers were trying to try to figure out why these people have different colored skin and ultimately do it in a way that privileges themselves over the other people who they're now going to give in origin story to that is extremely really Incorrect and also just you know to flam you know defamatory and and horrific and all that stuff so this is it's just this is what you'd expect to see so if you're watching our overviews in order at this point you should go yeah this is what you this is what you expect to see that's the pattern yeah it fits the pattern yeah yeah uh and and maybe the flip way of saying that is this is a great opportunity if if the Book of Mormon is the most correct book ever written if it's the pure if it's better than the Bible because it's pure in its translation and isn't been corrupted by Catholic priests or whatever it is that we were taught monks over the centuries and and corrupt Kings then this was God's opportunity to say things like for behold we all know that Jesus the son of man had dark skin and that's awesome or for behold I mean there is a there is a verse in the Book of Mormon that's often quoted saying that God something like God is no respecter as a person right or people the same I'm guessing you're going to cover that later yeah well just say we have to give the Book of Mormon a little bit of credit there but at best it's contradicted by all the racist narratives and instead this would have been a great place to say for behold slavery of any type especially in the 19th century in in this Choice land should be abolished you know there are all sorts of ways God could have communicated with us in our time through prophets through modern day Revelation to kind of like really help even just 19th century Mormons get ahead of the race and slavery problem instead of like be average or in many cases worse and I just never that never happens yeah we talk about this in the word of wisdom episode where we said wouldn't it be amazing if God had said boil your water which would have saved lives in the early church and it's the same thing here you have a book of Mormon that talks about Revelation and it talks about Christopher Columbus it talks about the Revolutionary War it talks about the colonies wouldn't it be amazing if the Book of Mormon then said and soon after um there will be slavery and there will be people that are in bondage but behold uh soon will come a time when this when this land will be free for all and there will be no slavery I mean just something that would actually give a nod you know you're talking just what 35 years later so the Book of Mormon can't even see what's going to happen 35 years later those are the things that are The Telltale sign of trying to date when something is written when it knows about all these things are happening up until like 1790 I guess and then all of a sudden the prophecies I mean really the prophecies actually go all the way to 1829 because he's prophesying about the Charles Anthony visit and all that but I mean from a world perspective he's giving all these prophecies about what's going to happen in America until basically Joseph Smith's Lifetime and then it's just nothing yeah maybe would it have been for there to be a scripture for behold if my nation ever if this nation ever puts people in bondage and there's ever an opportunity to choose a side for behold slavery and racism is evil and you get on the right side and oppose slavery and if there be a war where the nation shall go against itself over the matter of slavery for behold that my people will choose the side of fighting against slavery like please that's something yeah and that's just it it's absent because of the fact that he's writing it before all of these events transpire and and so that's why all of these things are exactly what you expect to see it's just it's hard to read it because it's you know damning to the Book of Mormon and to the fact that this was the belief in the 19th century but this is what you'd expect to see there's no surprise here yeah okay the next slide is quotes from church leaders confirming the Book of Mormon so it adds prophetic authority to these characters right yeah yep so this is Joseph Smith in 1831 in a letter to W.W Phelps he says verily I say unto you that the wisdom of man in his Fallen State knoweth not the purpose is and the Privileges of my whole priesthood but ye shall know when ye will receive a fullness by reason of the anointing for it is my will that in time ye should take upon unto you wives of the lamanites and Nephites that their posterity may become white Delights and just for even now their females are more virtuous than the Gentiles and what he's saying here now we'll get into this a lot more in the polygamy episode but what this at this point Joseph Smith is almost teaching almost like a concubine kind of setup where he's saying to these people that are going to Missouri you could take these wives of the Native Americans because you will help make their posterity more white and delights them because they'll come unto Christ and so this is Joseph Smith telling them that basically the lamanites are dark skinned and you need to take take them as wives or concubines so that you can make their skin more white and we'll get into that a lot more in the polygamy episode um and then the second one is Orson Pratt writing about Joseph Smith's teachings from 1840 and he says but on the other hand the lamanites because of the hardness of their Hearts brought down many judgments upon their own heads nevertheless they were not destroyed as a nation but the Lord God sent forth a curse unto them or upon them and they became a dark loathsome and filthy people before the Rebellion they were white and exceedingly Fair like the Nephites but the Lord God cursed them in their complexions and they were changed to a dark color and they became a wild Savage and ferocious people being great enemies to the Nephites whom they saw it by every means to destroy I mean yeah that's pretty that's pretty rough stuff I'm not going to really make comments on that it no and we don't yeah and that's the thing we don't need to and the point I'm trying to make with these quotes is and we've got another more of them but these quotes are showing you that Joseph Smith and all the early leaders of the church never ever ever ever ever ever made any attempt to say skin doesn't mean skin and instead went the other way to say oh yeah it absolutely means skin and if you want to go further look at the the I didn't cover this in these slides but look at the um doctrine of covenants and look at the early Revelations when God is telling Oliver to go preach unto the lamanites and sends them to the um where the Native Americans were living like that's how you know their lamanites because you look at the color of their skin so he's not telling them go and look for people that have dark auras or you know dark demeanors he's saying God is telling Oliver through Joseph go preach to the lamanites and basically telling him go here because that's what the Native Americans are living it there's no confusion here yeah I'm just gonna call out the word filthy like I can't think of a more repugnant word to use like dark and loathsome we've already said how horrible that is yeah and Pratt's adding filthy and I'm just I'm disgusted by that along with wild and Savage and ferocious like think about just you know go watch exterminate the brutes you know just learn about colonialism just to adopt that Colonial mindset that native peoples are are brutal and Savage thinking about the ways that we the the call colonizers um literally committed genocide on entire millions of groups of people uh it's just so problematic yeah and again this is perfectly 19th century this is how people describe the Native Americans as these wild dark-skinned some of calm red Savage people who were unsophisticated like they were and so to see it in what is supposed to be in ancient text is another easy tell that this is not an ancient text but it's just incorporating the 19th century mindset it's just it's it's nothing not an ancient text if this is of God then I'm not that's not a God I want anything to do with personally yeah that's right and that's what it comes down to too and so this is um this is a a quote from Spencer Kimball that was given at General Conference in 1960 so this is not from 1840 I know it's still like 60 years ago but it's just a general conference and he says the day of the lamanites is nigh for years they have been growing delightsome and they are now becoming white and delightsome as they were promised in this picture of the 20 lamanite missionaries 15 of the 20 were as light as anglos five were darker but equally delightsome the children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the Hogans on the reservation at one meeting a father and mother and their 16 year old daughter were present the little member girl 16 sitting between the dark father and the mother and it was evidence that she was several Shades lighter than her parents on the same reservation in the same Hogan subject to the same sun and wind and weather so I'm just going to do a quick stop there and he is literally saying that this girl is turning whiter because she's a member and it's absolutely her skin so I just throw them but back to the quote there was a doctor in a Utah City who for two years had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation these young members of the church are changing to whiteness and delightsomeness one white Elder jokingly said that he and His companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated so yeah this is a prophet of the Mormon church at General Conference showing pictures and pointing to the whiter or the lighter Native Americans and saying the reason their skin is turning lighter is because they are turning into the church turning to the church and because they're turning to Christ and turning to the church their skin is turning whiter and lighter and delights of us he said in front of our eyes this is 1960 this is still what the church believed and that's why you're singing all the artwork because this is what the church absolutely believed and this is again a prophet a self-proclaimed prophet of God getting him and telling people in the name of God as Prophet that this is what is happening there is no way around it that this is what skin meant skin and I'm just gonna you know we did an entire series on Mormon stories podcast called losing the lamanites where we interviewed several Native Americans to talk about their experiences with the church we're going to include that in the show notes one of the most powerful episodes we have is with Sarah Newcomb who uh is a dear friend and she talks about how as The because of teachings like Spencer B Kimball's as a um as quote a quote lamanite or Native American Mormon youth she would avoid ever being in the sun because she felt like there was a cultural expectation to for her skin to get lighter and that all the white Mormons were looking at her expecting her righteousness to lead to her skin getting lighter which is its own form of self of like indoctrinating and encouraging self-loathing but it led her to do things like rub lemon on her skin lemon juice because she felt like maybe that would make her skin lighter and to like even in hot summer months to wear long sleeve shirts and long pants so that she wouldn't ever have her skin turned darker so that then you know maybe she could help fulfill the prophecy maybe to make her white Mormon counterparts feel better but I'm going to include links in the show notes because that teaching that Spence W Kimball helped perpetuate in the modern era has just caused so much pain and hardship for our Native American uh brothers and sisters so yeah so here's a couple more quotes just I want to make sure this is clear that this is not people kind of trying to like a lot of times the church will say skin doesn't mean skin and you're trying to read into it it's not there I want to make clear this is absolutely what what the the prophet seers and revelators believed and so this is Apostle Le Grand Richards and he said this we'll actually talk more about Legrand in the later in this episode but he was giving this interview after the church removed the priesthood ban and so that's important context of this quote too he says the Lord has never indicated that black skin came because of being less faithful now the Indian we know why he has changed don't we The Book of Mormon tells us that and he has a dark skin but he has promise uh there that through faithfulness that they all again become a white and Delight some people and the reason this quote is so important is because this is after the priests of bandage is is removed and so the LaGrange Richards is saying basically look the Lord never said that black skin say from African Americans came because of being less faithful but we do know why the Indians Native Americans skincare color change and so this is absolutely confirming that again these Apostles of the Lord believe that skin meant skin and then uh Wilford Woodruff also a prophet said the lamanites now a downtrodden people are a remnant of the House of Israel The Curse Of God has followed them as it has done the Jews though the Jews have not been darkened in their skin as have the lamanites so it's just more quotes just telling us the same thing that the Book of Mormon absolutely is believed to be literal skin color and that's why they preach to who they call the lamanites which they believed were the Native Americans yeah yep okay not good yeah and so the final quote for now we'll get more quotes later obviously actually we'll give them a couple couple slides but um this is something that the church had a Pam a church published pamphlet 1974 that they were giving to the Native Americans and the Polynesians and it says you Native Americans who are called Indians your ancestors were once a mighty nation upon the American continent the best source of true information that tells who you are where you came from and what you can achieve is found in an important book The Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a history of your people The Book of Mormon tells how your forefathers came from Jerusalem about 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ the lamanites were marked with by the Lord with a darker skin so this is the church published pamphlet in 1974 telling Polynesians and Native Americans that this is a history of your people and this is why you have dark skin I mean it's explicit as can be here yeah and I don't think a lot of white people probably you know we're all proud of our heritage we're proud Mormons are proud of their Pioneer Heritage we're proud of our you know if we date back to founders of the United States I just remember like how many Mormons in the 70s and 80s would Flex that their genealogy charts included Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington just think about how proud you can be about your heritage your culture your identity um you know when you know it and then think about telling entire groups of people uh giving them a false sense of of their identity it's not only telling them that their their identity is wrong their Heritage is inaccurate but it's it's it's giving them a false and a shameful Heritage that's actually likely complete Fiction it's a travesty that I think is is probably a stretch for many privileged I'll just say white people to even understand how violent and awful uh you know a teaching and a set of quotes like you just read really really yeah yeah not only is it not only is it historically wrong not only is it just stealing their identity and we'll touch upon that more towards the end of the thing so not only you're stealing their identity by telling them this is your real history but you're you're you're creating this version of this particular person that you're preaching to and telling them that they're broken in order to sell them the solution I think that's just as vile a thing to say oh you come from this mighty nation but you have dark skin because your your forefathers you you know fell away from Christ and if you come back by joining the church giving us tithing all that stuff your Skin's going to get whiter either here or in the next life and I just I feel like it's just not only is it bad enough to give someone a bad history but it's even worse to sell them the solution to it and I think those two things combined are just so horrific when you actually know the context of the Book of Mormon and how it was used to preach to the Native Americans and to the Polynesians I just I can't even imagine because it you know like you said people are proud of their history and to be told that what they believed was their history is not true because it's This Book of Mormon history which is demonstrably not true it's just it's so bad yeah super problematic I'm not I want to rant more but I'm gonna I'm not gonna so yeah and we talked about this in the DNA episode but basically the church makes testable truth claims the Mormon church has made and Joseph Smith made a lot of Truth claims that we could test and part of that's because I think Joseph Smith you know believed the world was going to end sooner rather than later I mean they prophesied about a lot of early members living long enough to see Jesus again um so they made a lot of decibel truth claims and one of them is that the Native Americans are the principal ancestors uh of the um or that the Book of Mormon people or the principal ancestors of the American Indians which they then had to change as we talked about in that episode too among the ancestors because now DNA has shown that these truth claims by The Book of Mormon are just they're just not correct and so the church is like we talk about with changing the chapter heading this is changing the introduction so they're changing everything they can um except for the scriptures to try to account for the fact that they are absolutely on the wrong side of you know science and in history about what the Book of Mormon is and and claiming it has an ancient core and so we already talked about this in the DNA episode but it applies here as well yeah and I'm in a for everyone to the Thomas Murphy episodes if you want really good treatment of uh you know of the church's history we just did an episode with Thomas Murphy on race and it was the Book of Mormon racist but he also is a you know he's a sociologist Anthropologist expert on Native American peoples he's a legend he helped he's one of the first to uncover the DNA problem with the Book of Mormon but I I just want to recommend everyone his episodes and the only other thing I'm going to say Mike and this is why I think your series is so powerful because it builds and we just got done doing an episode on changes they made between the 1833 book of Commandments and the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants and what made me just so bewildered was to see how they like would take a single Revelation that was given in 1833 and like cut out half of its Pro text and then add have to to double the existing text completely rewriting Revelations when it's about things like Authority right yep yep but but like even though I'm enraged by you know like I said in the past that's not how Revelation works you don't get a revelation write it down and then 10 years later completely rewrite it and then tell everybody that it's the original document like that's outrageous but I would almost rather have them do that than just say oh with the racist stuff in in the Book of Mormon we're just going to kind of leave that for the most part like it's a little troubling that they didn't feel like this was a problem where the Book of Mormon needed to be Rewritten you know what I mean well and remember that you know in 1837 they're going to change the Book of Mormon to adjust to the first Vision by adding those Clauses of like the mother of the Son of God well in 1837 they could have also went into these scriptures and made some uh clarifications to say that the curse wasn't dark skin it was actually just being cut off from God like they could they had opportunities when they changed the Book of Mormon to do this us the fact is they didn't make those changes because they absolutely believe that skin means skin there's that's the problem that when you get and we'll get into this in these next few slides but yeah it's it's just it's a bad argument yeah yep it's uh it just shows their priorities you know and the Civil Rights Movement hadn't happened yet so why would they why would they have cared about changing the Book of Mormon back in the 1800s when most probably the members would have been offended so you took the civil rights movement and all the protests that Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. it took all that stuff and all the Stanford protests and the Wyoming protests against BYU it just took all those protests to make the church care but by then it was probably too late to change and that's the thing too with this we're talking about Native Americans and so we're not even talking about the priesthood stuff and what's really to me um to what you were just saying is the fact that if they were to change the Book of Mormon and say that the lamanites didn't have dark skin and it was just like a darkness of an aura or a demeanor then all of a sudden all the early members would be like well then who are we supposed to bring back to Christ because we have no idea who these people are because if we're all white then who are we because the Book of Mormon is meant to bring the lamanites back to Christ well if you then change the Book of Mormon to say skin didn't mean skin then you have absolutely no idea who you're talking to yeah I mean you know how do you know you would have no idea and so that's that and that's why you know skin means skin because the Book of Mormon this is not we talk about this in a lot of episodes this is not just the Book of Mormon so the Book of Mormon tells us that the Native Americans were cursed with the dark skin that's why we have them today to preach to the Doctrine and Covenants the revelations from God then tell us that's who you identify from God God identifies the Native Americans as dilemma it's because of the dark skin so like the the revelations confirm the fact that it that skin means skin and so all of these things are confirming each other and that's why I get so tired of people saying well skin didn't really mean skin well yes it did because God's identifying them by their skin color in the Revelation on who to preach to for the lamanites this is not this is not difficult unless you need it to be unless you're engaging in special pleading this is just is this is like something I you know that I would argue like a basic you know high school English class could could suss out and say yeah this is this is exactly what this fits the 19th century mode of believing of what the Native Americans were it all confirms each other totally and I'm going to call an audible and I'm going to share just the title page to the Book of Mormon because for me you know it was five or ten years ago that I read this really for the first time and thought about it and it was really earth-shattering to me at the time so this is from the the current Church of jesuschrist.org website this is the current title page of the Book of Mormon as it's read and I'm going to skip to the second paragraph um you know about halfway down and I'm just gonna read it and it says which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers and that they may know the covenants of the Lord that they are not cast off forever that is first and then it says secondarily and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile which is US white people basically that Jesus is the Christ the Eternal God manifesting himself unto all the nations and it wasn't until I realized holy smokes The Book of Mormon was first and foremost written for Native Americans or as we used to refer to them lamanites and if they are the men and that fits with Joseph Smith the first thing he does around 1830 1831 is sending missionaries where to the lamanites on the frontier and so they're they're you know if that's the main reason the Book of Mormon was written and again I want to refer people to the the Thomas Murphy episode on Neil fights because that idea of converting Native Americans uh to Christ was not even original to Joseph Smith it was it was part of um uh an Indian or a Native American school that Solomon Spalding Ethan Smith from from a view of the Hebrews and even Hiram Smith Joseph's brother they were all attending that school and being taught that the gospel the Christian Gospel needs to be preached to to the Native Americans that's even where the idea comes from so so it should for someone looking for evidence if if someone's gonna accept that now it's not about skin like you've already said Mike we don't know who the Native Americans are the the DNA shows that most Native Americans have blood that that um comes directly from Asia not from the Middle East then if we don't know who The Book of Mormon was written for because we don't know who the lamanites are then then we've got a really really big problem yeah and that's the and you know keep in mind again I I know we're beating a dead horse over here a bit but when you talk about DNA skin color is the identifying way to know who a lamanite is in the 1830s they don't know about DNA they don't know about any of that and so that's why I'm saying if you were to change the scripture to say that the curse wasn't skin but just like a cut being cut off from God if you are in the 1830s and 40s in your um one of the early church members you'd be like well who in the world are these laminates we're supposed to redeem unto Christ because you'd have no idea you can't you know you can't just walk down this you know down the streets of Frontier America going you look like you have a bad demeanor I bet you you're a lemonade so that it's so simple and to your point when the Book of Mormon tells you that the whole purpose is to bring them back to Christ you you just can't separate this without completely unraveling the entire Book of Mormon which is why they won't change the scriptures and it said play these word games to try to make you think that it means something different when it clearly does not yeah okay so I'm sure the 2020 come follow me manual solved this problem right yeah so I don't know for those of you who were around for this new story but in 2020 the um come follow me manuals on the Book of Mormon and so they had two different manuals they had a printed manual and they had an online one and this led to a big controversy because it went I believe in the Salt Lake Tribune or something someone noticed it in the printed manual uh the quote from Joseph Fielding Smith said the dark skin was placed upon the lamanites so they could be distinguished from the Nephites and to keep the two peoples from mixing the dark skin was the sign of the curse the curse was the withdrawal of the spirit of the Lord dark skin is no longer considered to be or no longer considered a sign of the curse and if you're watching this you'll notice there's a lot of ellipses there um for this quote and so this quote was on the printed one and this caused a lot of controversy because Joseph Fielding Smith is saying without question that skin means skin he's saying they have darker skin so that the Nephites the white and delights and Nephites new basically not to intermingual with them or you know have sex with them or have kids with them so uh they're making this clear whereas on the electronic manual they had removed this direct link between skin and you know skin and so this created quite an uproar and um what I want to point out is this printed manual this is the one that got them in trouble even this quote is incredibly dishonest so the next slide I just want to show you guys if you're watching this it's a lot more important so this next slide is a very long quote and if you look at it the parts that are in yellow is what's in the printed manual so I highlighted every word in the printed manual so I want to read it to you and I'm going to you're going to note the things that Joseph Fielding Smith said that the church did not put in the manual that's where all those ellipses were that I mentioned so he says the dark skin was placed upon the lamanites so they could be distinguished from the Nephites and to keep the two peoples from mixing the dark skin was a sign of the curse the curse was the withdrawal of the spirit of the Lord and the lamanites becoming a lotham loathsome and filthy people full of idleness in all manner of Abominations first Nephi the Lord commanded the Nephites not to intermarry with them for if they did they would partake of the curse at the time of the savior's visit to the Nephites all of the people became United and the curse and the dark skin uh was removed and which was its sign were removed the two peoples became one and lived in full Harmony and peace for almost 200 years there were no robbers nor murderers neither were there lamanites nor any manner of ites but they were in one the children of Christ and heirs to the kingdom of God and then the next subject heading is evil brought return of dark skin after the people again fought the Lord after the people again forgot the Lord and ascensions arose some of them took upon themselves the name lamanites and this dark skin returned when the lamanites fully repent and sincerely receive the Gospel the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin the Lord declared by Revelation that the before the great day of the Lord shall come Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness and the lamanite shall Blossom as the rose the dark skin of those who have come into the church is no longer a no longer to be considered a sign of the curse many of these converts are Delights them and have the spirit of the Lord perhaps there are some lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment many of the members of the church among the catoba Indians of the South could readily pass as of the white race also in other parts of the South so I just want to mentioning skin pigment yeah and lighter skin in 2022 2020. keep in mind that this quote is from Joseph Fielding Smith but what I'm saying is that the 2020. including it they're citing it but they're not they're not including that they're they cut all that out with the ellipses because they don't want members to to see the context of that quote and so now I see yeah that's what I'm saying like they're using that quote and that's the quote that got them in trouble if they put the real quote in there the one I just read you oh my goodness because this is horrific it's it's like I said it's it's it's it's like historically wrong it's scientifically wrong and it's just morally wrong and yet the church puts this quote in the compound and come following manual which is still gets even further scrubbed in the online version and they leave out all of this context to the quote to give it a completely different meaning because remember the quote in the manual says dark skin is no longer considered to be um a sign of the curse but the actual thing says the dark skin of those who have come into the church is no longer signed the cursor is a completely different meaning and this is where the church is outright lying to members because they are and we'll get into this a little bit I actually included it in this one by their own definition of honesty they're being dishonest here because they are leaving out so much context here which tells you that skin means skin all the way down to pigment all the way down to 2022 2020 until they're called on it yep and then you know that but again why is revelation happening as a response to internet outrage like isn't that why we have profits so that they're ahead of the times versus like having bloggers or podcasters or YouTubers or tick talkers being what drives correlation for the church yeah it's just and the the thing was they said that they had changed it for the electronic one they didn't realize the quote had gotten into the printed one so they stopped printing it changed it reprinted them but the point is even that quote is still a very dishonest representation of what the quote was and you cannot get around you can't get away from this because every profits here in Revelator the church confirms it um until they can no longer really talk about it and I yeah when you talk about pigment don't even try to tell me skin doesn't mean skin if you've got a if you've got the leaders of the church talking about pigment just don't even it's spiritual pigment yeah I mean just it's like don't just stop you know and and when apologists will will tell you skin doesn't mean skin they'll they'll cherry pick from some ancient sources we'll get into that bit but they don't give you these quotes because these quotes are telling you every we'll get into it but either every single prophets here in Revelator can't discern between their own personal bigotry and world view and the will of God and if that's the case why in the world would we should we believe a word Russell Nelson says today because you know it's the same thing today as it was then it's just a different person right okay now let's get through the book of Moses because we've talked some Book of Mormon what does the book of Moses have to say about skin color yeah and so now this is where we're going to kind of transition because remember the Book of Mormon is about Native Americans the book of Moses and the book Abraham are about those of African descent so that's an important distinction to make so the book of Moses is Joseph Smith when he does the Joseph Smith translation in the Bible he writes the book of Moses which he claims is basically like a revelation that kind of expands on Genesis and so this are these are two verses from the book of Moses that Joseph Smith is going to write into the Bible so Moses 7 8 is there was a Blackness Came Upon all the children of Canaan that they were despised among all people and then Moses 7 22 says they were a mixture of all the seed of Adams save it where the seed of Cain for the seed of Cain were black and had not placed among them and so Joseph Smith is going back into this Bible revision and writing into the Bible that people with black skin are cursed just as he did with the Book of Mormon and as I have talked about in previous episodes the church has called this Joseph Smith translation divinely commissioned and Apostle John wisso called it a remarkable evidence of the prophetic power of Joseph Smith and so this book of Moses was claimed to be given like through pure Revelation and in that pure Revelation it just happens to match that 19th century view of the curse of Cain being black skin and this is going to lead to all of the issues that we see with the priesthood ban because it's in LDS scriptures today yeah and a lot of I don't know people that really haven't read the Bible closely don't realize that the Bible never says that Cain's curse was dark skin right it talks about a mark but it doesn't say what that Mark is it was Joseph Smith that made in a way the Bible or the biblical story explicitly about racism and dark skin in a curse in Cain that comes from Joseph Smith's Legend Revelations yeah and and we uh have talked about this in previous episodes too but Joseph Smith takes stuff from the Bible and he cements it into his own Doctrine by reinterpreting them putting it in as directly from God and when he does that he's misusing a lot of the Bible we talk about that with you know Adam and Eve Tower Bible um Global flood long-ending remark some of all that stuff but now and if you listen to Bible scholars they'll tell you that in the ancient times they did not look at race the way we did in the 1820s or 1830s and so Joseph Smith is misreading the Bible putting it through his modern 1830s worldview and then cementing it into the Bible in his revisions uh and and so now we're believing that this is coming from the gift and power of God that black skin is a curse from God and that's a problem because Jesus was dark-skinned surely he and all those people around him weren't racist against dark skin and Egyptians Egyptians were dark-skinned and clearly they're not running around thinking they're cursed yeah it's just anyway I'm super excited that we have another um another who wants to join us her name is Chanel hey hell we are so happy that you uh offered to jump in of course yeah I'm listening to you you guys and I'm just like oh my gosh like wow I was a member for 30 plus years and so to hear this being addressed now I really don't know how I'm supposed to take that you know it's you know from a person that's been trying to address this for years and being told hey we're not talking about that and then hear people talking about it I'm not really sure well um I I don't I really don't know how to respond to that so oh we feel we feel sad that we have to even be having this conversation yeah and it's not it's got to be hurtful for you to even have to hear this type of stuff that's why I was torn about even including uh marginalized groups or just because it's got I I can't imagine what it would feel like to even see these words up on the screen you know what I mean yeah I'm so sure John I appreciate that and the thing that people I hope people understand hearing hearing you guys talk and share those words is one thing but you're correct feeling it from the hands uh from members uh was hard because I love these people and to sit in congregations and soccer meetings and different Institute and then they hear people say something especially when it came to black people in the priesthood and to sit there and with my eyes big like you guys are talking about me and to be stared at it's like okay I'll just take it because it's for the better good ride you said God is that I chose this in the pre-existence and God is going to bless me for going through this child that I chose so you kind of go okay you know so yeah and that's and that's why we struggle because I didn't even know if I wanted to do we didn't even know if we should do this episode because I'm we're we're sadly we're not even at the University of this episode yeah and but like there are slides where I was typing these slides up and I was copying and pasting quotes and I'm like I don't want to read this because I feel awful even reading them me verbalizing him it's just it's horrific and and um and and I look at that and I'm like I've obviously have never had to experience that and so it's hard for me to even read them because I know that as much as I find them to be just horrible I can't even imagine what it's like for anyone who has family especially if you had family who went through it before 1978 but even after to hear those words I it sucks because I feel like it needs to be out there and I feel like this is a really important aspect to understanding um the foundational stuff within Mormonism but at the same time it's just it's really difficult because I know how how much it was just made me feel sick to to listen to some of the stuff and then type it up but I can't even imagine what it'd be like to hear it because it you know it didn't impact me well I didn't join until the 90s but even if I had it didn't impact me in the same way and I that's it's just it's rough and that's why we didn't know if we should even do the episode but we wanted to get the info out there thanks Mike I'm so glad you you did it's it's important awareness is everything awareness of being able to discuss these things is important I mean I always say 20 things could be true at once and members have to understand you need to know your history because you've got these missionaries going on missions that may deal with a person like me that can have a conversation with them about these issues you're going to get other people that aren't going to be nice they're not going to be pleasant and they're not going to have good conversations and it's going to be right for your children so you at least need to let them know their history but they don't want to let them know the history because some of them don't know it and the ones that do know it don't want to talk about it because it makes them look a certain way and then they'll have to act so if you know these things about a church that you support now you may have to act and a lot of people aren't ready to act because it requires a lot yeah Chanel let me just ask you really quick were you born born in the church or were you a convert to the church the convert um I joined in 1990 when I was 18. and I I there different people answer different ways of this question I'm about to ask you were you taught and how were you taught kind of some of this more harsh stuff in your lessons with the missionaries before you joined and if if the answer is no to Summer all of that I'm just I'm dying to hear if you think you might have still joined if you had been because we'd try and talk about informed consent on Mormon stories a lot so I'm curious if you were taught this is an investigator and if you would have joined you think if if you had known and you may not know so I'm asking you to speculate a little bit well I can tell you right now there's no way I would have joined because what they sold me and talked to me about was not um it was not anything about race nothing about black people only about that a restored gospel is here there's a book that confirms that and that's it nothing my first experience with hearing about the things you guys are talking about now was actually at a get together with a bunch of members so what happened was um I was with some members they love balmy told me all these great things I'm 18 you know and so uh I go to this members dinner and just out of the blue they start telling black jokes and I'm I'm like okay you know I don't know what to say I'm uncomfortable and then just she just says hey did you know you were cursed and I was like what oh did you know you were cursed I'm like what do you mean like I was thinking werewolf like what what do you mean and she's like so in the pre-existent you guys didn't choose God you didn't choose Jesus Christ and you didn't choose Satan you didn't choose anybody so now you're here to put yourself and she said it very sweetly she wasn't trying to hurt me she was giving me information that she thought I should have known and I was like uh what and so these people that I love and that have loved bombed me are now telling me these things about myself and my family and I was the only one that joined but to hear these things I didn't know what to do I was already a member it was it was about maybe two or three months in and I'm sitting here going uh wait what and so I believe them because I believe the feelings I had when I joined right you know they tell you it's the that feeling you get so if the feeling I get is true then what they're saying has to be true and that's what God wants and I have to accept that it was painful and uncomfortable but who am I to question God right you know yeah who am I yeah you're reminding me of an episode I did with Darren Smith early on in Mormon stories where I'm like why has any person of color ever joined Mormonism ever and Darren's response was if you want to find a church that isn't racist in America you're probably not going to find a church at all and that so that idea of you having to sit with that racism knowing that especially if you aren't in certain let's just say Southern Southern State you're not going to have the option of attending a non-racist Christian Church you won't even have the option I'm just I'm fitting with how heavy it is that you had to experience that in a place that you would have assumed would be safe um you know in representing Christ right or God that that's just it just I'm just feeling heavy for you you know and I'm respecting you you know appreciate that yeah I think John I think the hardest thing for me is when I try to ask questions I remember I have an 18 year old brain and I'm trying to ask people that I trust because I couldn't ask my family they weren't having it and I would say hey bishop I have a question so they said I'm cursed and they said this is going to happen and this and that so what like is it true or and then I would get told you know Spirit of contention don't ask those questions you've already know the answer you've already had a witness and so I would back down I would I stopped asking and then as years went on with dating and being told hey you're great and you're wonderful but you can't date our sons and then asking the bishop like is this true are we not supposed to mix like I don't know any black people you tell me you need to marry a black man and they would say you know you need to go find a black man I'm like from where they're like well you can have a black man uh you know baptized into the church or I'm sure there's words out there that have black people and I'm like okay where so I need to leave where I'm living to go find somebody because you said to get into the social Kingdom I have to be married in the temple you're telling me I can't marry your sons your uncles your brothers whoever and I gotta go find somebody okay what is wrong with me just dating somebody in the church you said if they're a member I'm a member then why isn't that enough yeah well man I'm telling you I don't I don't think people understand I Loved These people but they're telling me every time I turn around that you're less sorry but you're less we love you but you're less how do you love me if I'm less how do you love me if you keep telling me that everybody at the party can have a piece of cake and I can't because they're all wearing red shirts and I have a green shirt and I can't help it because that's the only shirt that I have and you're telling me I'm sorry green shirts you can't have cake we can and we're gonna eat it in front of you and then not only that they're saying you have to have cake but you can't have any so I'm like what do I do and I don't have any support because I'm 18. I don't know anybody else my age that understands what I'm feeling but I've Been Told more and more and more that the pie might have one sliver that's bad you're not going to throw away the whole pie are you and I'm like well no and they said you just take the bad part out and throw it away and you eat the rest of the pie so I don't know yeah well Chanel this episode is just infinitely better because you uh are willing to join and share a lift experience and Mike we talk about these scriptures and these quotes and these doctrines but if we don't share the lived experience of how it filters down to the to the member yeah then then it just doesn't it doesn't really reach the ground so no I agree oh Chanel listen stay on as long as you want and anytime you want to join back in you just make a make a chat there same with inner Sabrina or anyone else who's joined we want you we want you all to join us uh and to keep providing commentary is that all right Chanel anything else you want to say for national what's that anything else you want to share for now what'd you say Johnson anything else you want to share for now or uh one last thing and then I'm gonna go get my grandson what I think is important for people to understand first of all skin is skin has nothing to do with countenance that's been proven over and over number two I couldn't understand for the life of me how members were so blatantly racist in the beginning and then I thought part of it I'm not excusing them but part of it is not their fault between Ezra Taft Benson and Kimball and Joseph Fielding Smith and Brigham Young the worst pushed it and pushed it and blatantly taught it how could they get away from it and it trickle down from generations to Generations to Generations what are they supposed to do what like how how they can't get away from it and then you have Ezra tab Benson who was against civil rights he said civil rights equate it to Communism so it under I understand why people don't like black lives matter and why they don't like civil rights or they think these things their leaders have been telling them for years to think these things so I hope that as you guys continue to make awareness videos and people are able to actually have conversations about this then then we have a chance so I appreciate you having me on and I I'm looking forward to listening to more thank you so much thank you very much for being here no we are so honored that you joined us and yeah thank you maybe we'll have you back up Mormon stories to tell you full story but we could talk about that let me know all right thank you thanks Chanel okay um Mike uh I feel like I cut her off right at the very end there I forgot about that yeah so I know it's always tricky when you're trying to transition and um but yeah and it's tough because you know that's that's the whole thing like we're talking about these these issues and these quotes and and it's gonna it's gonna get a lot worse uh in a bit and and I remember I'm putting these slide when I it's funny when I done the website I knew this was a very emotional topic but for some reason doing that like with just text is a little bit easier but like knowing that we have to actually recite these quotes is just so tough because they're horrible and and and I know that things were different then but it also as we talked about already this was a chance for the church to to rise above that the the milieu they were in and they didn't do it and and they actually were much worse than a lot of people so it's not even just that they just went along with it they actually made it worse and um and they made choices and we're going to go through those because they made choices that they could have gone either way on and they chose the the wrong way and and those have implications you cannot just say that it was you know the mistakes I'm in and um so let's jump to the book of Abraham yeah so we talk about the book of Moses and so the book of Abraham was written after the book of Moses and in the book of Abraham Joseph Smith is now going to kind of use we talked about the curse of Cain that Joseph Smith writes into the book of Moses the book of Abraham he's going to write the curse of ham and those were two different kind of theories that were used in Joseph Smith's lifetime basically to justify slavery so in the book of Abraham um it starts in chapter 1 verse 24 it says when this woman discovered the land it was underwater who afterwards settled her sons in it and thus from Ham spraying the race which preserved the curse in the land now Pharaoh being a vet lineage by which he she could not have the right of priesthood notwithstanding the Pharaohs would feign claim it from Noah through ham therefore my father was led Away by their adultery so this is this is the justification for the priesthood ban is written into the book of Abraham because Joseph Smith is saying that those people that are of African descent which in the book of Moses was kind of the curse of Kane now we're seeing curse of ham he's saying that that group of people with black skin is going to settle be the first settlers into Egypt After the flood after the global flood and again we realize that this is not historical in any way but then he's going to write into it the priesthood Band by saying Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of priesthood is making it Doctrine in the church this is doctrine that those that the church said were cursed with dark skin um through the curse of ham or the curse of Kane uh could not have to write a priesthood so this is your priesthood band that is still Doctrine today this is where it comes from yeah and and you think about like in Mormonism there's the standard Works Bible Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants and pearly Grace price which is made a book of Moses and book of Abraham we've already you know and of course Joseph we can't make him responsible for the Bible but the Bible's more racist than the others first of all it seems or at least in some ways but then we've got the Book of Mormon you know if I'm counting Book of Mormon book of Moses and book of Abraham Joseph is writing explicit racism dark-skinned curse language and all those three the only one that I'm waiting to hear about is the Doctrine and Covenants and I don't know if you're including that but I don't know if we do actually yeah okay so three out of four it you know Joseph is is writing dark skin curse into Mormon the Mormon Canon yeah I mean it's just it is one of those things where it's like you know we talk about this with the Book of Mormon this is what you expect from somebody who's writing a religious theology in the 19th century because the curse of Cain and the curse of ham are both very hot topics because they're being used to justify slavery to justify the harsh treatment of those that are coming uh with African descent I mean this is exactly what you'd expect and as I said they made choices Joseph Smith made choices when writing these these out and he chose to go with what was kind of the common belief which was that those um slaves and those um well I mean they weren't really coming here on I mean some probably were coming here on there but a lot of people that were coming here on these slave ships were that the the people who own them were Justified because he's writing into the Bible that that they their forefathers had a curse which can goes against the whole problem of you know sins of the father but I'm just it this is 19th century yeah right into what he's claiming our ancient scriptures and and as we've talked about when once you can show they're not historical which we've done over and over again and as I've said Richard Bushman Dan McClellan a lot of people will say these are these are best understood in 19th century context this makes a lot more sense it doesn't make it any easier it just makes more sense because this is what you expect right and and I think if you try and make an explanation for why it took the Mormon church until 1978 to make the changes part of the explanation has to be that three out of four of the scriptures that Joseph produced codified the the ban and that's probably why there's at least two signed first presidency statements in the mid 20th century calling the the priesthood the priesthood ban on and the temple ban on you know black members of the church doctrine yeah and it is that's got to be why there were so many so much resistance and so many first presidency utterances they knew that they were dealing with Joseph Smith produced pure scripture yeah because we'll see it when we go through the Apologetics they want to tell you to start with Brigham Young it did not this is these quotes and these verses in the book of Abraham are outright saying that Pharaoh is because he has African descent or the curse of dark skin the lineage by which he could not have the right of priesthood I mean it's in there and so yeah it just shows and so these next two slides are also kind of a little bit on the book of Abraham and just to further illustrate that Joseph Smith is incorporating the ideas around him with regards to the fact that skin men's skin um this is the facsimile three of the book of Abraham and obviously we'll go into this in so many more details in the book of Abraham episodes but figure six is on the right and this is uh what Joseph Smith translate is alum law a slave be belonging to the prince in the actual translation of this the real translation is Anubis guide of the Dead with literal Egyptian characters above the head that confirms that this is Anubis so this is Anubis the guide of the dead but Joseph Smith sees a figure with as black and assumes it's a slave because that's the mindset he had that's the world view he had I mean it's just it's just what it is it's kind of hard to get around that and um the next slide and I have to shout out to Robert Ritner there's a review series on Mormon stories podcast where we where we interview the late Dr Robert Ritner who was the only I think endowed chair of egyptology in the Western Hemisphere he's a legend he needs apology and in commentary on the book of Abraham and I'm just going to include that in the show notes for anyone who wants to see it because it's legendary but what's the second site about so the second slide we'll just do real quick and this is something that Paul Osborne found and so if you look at the original woodcut of the facsimile 3 plate it really looks like the original woodcut had the snout of Anubis which is how Anubis would have been drawn on these these facts only would just kind of have like a snout and it looks like they chiseled off the snout in order to make it look human and it just shows that Joseph Smith is calling this figure a slave even though it had the snout of Anubis and it looks like he had the woodcut changed uh to make it look more human to me to meet his translation of it being a slave and so it's just all of this stuff fits into this 19th century idea that black skin is um Justified and that this would be a slave if it was not an ancient papyri and um yeah and sometimes you can't see imagine imagine kind of Egyptian an Egyptian figure of like a jackal yeah so like a dog it should be a dog head yeah from the human body that in you know that doesn't really have color right it's like a gray image but but Dr rittner talked about how somebody must have chiseled off the snout of the Daw of the of the Jackal dog Anubis so that they could make it look like a black slave so then they could have a justification for writing the curse of Kane into the book of Abraham it's just it you just you can't make this stuff up yeah it's just like you know this is something where and I guess you could never prove for sure but it looks if you look at the wood cut and I have higher resolution on the website and there's links to more higher resolution uh those markings match perfectly where the snout of Anubis would be because it should have a jackal head and it doesn't and that change to the wood cut allows it in the printed version to match Joseph Smith's translation which obviously goes in the book of Abraham and so all of this stuff is just showing that Joseph Smith is willing to change material around him to fit the theology he's presenting but unfortunately in this case it's a really harmful one that is going to have implications for you know well even through today really so I mean it's just this is problematic super problematic okay next slide and so we talked about this a little bit earlier um you know how they they made some some kind of artificial changes to the Book of Mormon um in that chapter heading for a second Nephi They removed the phrase skin of Blackness and then they change it to the lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord and are cursed we talked about that earlier uh in Mormon chapter five they changed the chapter heading from the lamanites shall be a dark filthy and loathed some people to because of their unbelief the lamanites will be scattered and the spirit will cease to strive with them because obviously got too offensive to basically say that that's how they describe Native Americans and then in 1981 three years after the ban on blacks was lifted um uh for the priesthood the church quietly changed the phrase white and delights them to describe what would happen to dark-skinned people who came unto Christ who pure and delights them and so these are changes that are being made to try to soften uh the ex you know what I would call explicit racism in in the Book of Mormon uh to try to make it a little bit more palatable and the last one I believe apologists will say that Joseph Smith had made some of those changes in the European version of The Book of Mormon but then there's other references that weren't changed so in 1981 the U.S Church finally got around to making that change and I'm just gonna you know I'm just gonna say Obviously two things number one is why why in the heck this is an obvious point if Joseph read the stone and the stone said word for word why would there ever be need to be changes to the Book of Mormon yeah but there's also another question that's just as outrageous why did they change some of the super racist passages in the Book of Mormon and then leave a bunch of others that were super racist like if you're gonna If You're Gonna Change some change them all don't leave still all the damning ones that you mentioned earlier and I just I would love to talk to somebody on the inside about why they didn't take it all away but they didn't yeah no it's true and I think um I think John Larson made the point once because he was talking about how you know you go back in the Book of Mormon they make some of the changes to try to um separate the godhead and it's almost like at some point Joseph Smith just got tired of making the revisions and they just kind of stopped it's one of those things where they made some changes here or not in other places it almost feels like there's just too much racist stuff here I don't have time to fix it all well yeah because you know the thing is that you know they're trying to soften the racism they're trying to soften or they're trying to split God and Jesus into two separate beings as we talked about in the first Vision episode you have a lot of changes and it almost seems like that project was pretty cumbersome and it's almost like they made some and then just didn't get done with it and that's why you have those because apologists will say see they made these changes like well they didn't change you know they made some but not not most of them and so you're still leaving the underlying problems in there right okay so uh so the next one is about like if if we have profit series and revelators surely they're ahead of the times on slavery because yeah enslaving a human it has to be one of the most detestable things other than murder genocide that we've ever experienced right yeah and this is one of those things you know you hear all the time the church will say well Joseph Smith actually came out against slavery and what they neglect to mention is that Joseph Smith actually kind of took both sides at different times and so this is another graphic from mrsunday.com which just highlights it all of these prophets of the church all believed in slavery and all Justified it and it just shows that for over 120 years the gift of discernment failed every single Mormon prophet and once you realize that there is no difference between discernment and personal worldview of these prophets you can kind of understand why they make so many mistakes but you also can understand that this is not coming from God and so what they're pointing out in this graphic is DNC it says whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants it is the same so what he's saying is these prophets speak for God and so you've got Joseph missing the first mention we have of slavery is found in the Holy Bible pronounced by a man who is perfect in this generation and walked with God so they're justifying slavery by saying it's basically a perfect man so you know it's good or at least it's Justified Brigham Young of course is famous for saying in as much as we believe in the Bible in as much as we believe in the ordinances of God in the priesthood in order and decrees of God we must believe in slavery David L McKay says the seeming discrimination by the church towards the Negro is not something which originated with man but goes back into the beginning with God so he's putting all of the racism directly on God and that is a prophet and George Albert Smith says from the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now it 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 and so you've got four prophets all telling you that this is doctrine that this is the belief that this is Justified and it just shows you that discernment if discernment is real then one of these prophets would have gotten the message from God and said guys this is this is horrible we got to change change course and they don't do it I'm guessing you're going to mention and maybe you won't that that Brigham Young when he's over the Utah territory not only are slaves brought here but I think slavery is legalized when young could have outlawed it yep I will yeah it's definitely in there yeah sorry that's just no it's fine it's a good it's something we need to keep mentioning so okay next slide and so this is we just referenced on the last page but I just want to read this because this is in 1947 and this is a letter from the first presidency of the church with President George Albert Smith and he would they were doing uh a back and forth of correspondence with Dr Lowry Nelson who had issues with the um the ban on those with black skin to the priesthood and temples and exaltation and this letter says from the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now it has been the doctrine of the church never questioned by any of the church leaders that the Negroes are not entitled to to the full blessings of the Gospel furthermore your ideas as we understand them appear to contemplate the inner marriage 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 ignominious and uh I don't know say that uh modern Israel has been similarly uh directed we are not unmindful of the fact that there is growing tendency particularly among some Educators as it manifests itself in the area toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of inner inner marriage between whites and blacks but it does not have the sanction of the church and is contrary to church doctrine endogamous endogamous yeah I don't know how that goes I should know what that word means yeah dogamus I probably How It Go but yeah so this is just saying the priesthood band they're calling Doctrine and the um Church's stance against inner interracial marriage is also church doctrine and this is from the first presidency so this is another area where you know we have the there's a quote from down uh Oaks where he says something like you know in a church of ongoing Revelation I don't know that we can distinguish between policy and Doctrine this is showing you that if you want to start saying that the church leaders can't understand what his Doctrine versus what is policy you've got bigger problems you can't just say these are just imperfect men doing the best they can and then ignore the fact that they're doing it in the voice of God I don't know how I I can't say that strongly enough and and for those who weren't raised Mormon or don't understand the subtleties here for 150 years it was very clear what Mormon Doctrine was and wasn't and you would have books like doctrines of salvation or Mormon doctrine that was read by every Mormon family and in every Mormon household where all of these things were taught as Doctrine it was just it was just never a question yeah and but but then as these with modern sensibilities with the Civil Rights Movement with the internet you know with just Progressive movements you see the church being shamed for being behind the times on on women on on people of color on LGBT people or even on polygamy and so so you'll see the church needing to change and all of a sudden what was completely understood as Doctrine by Generations all of a sudden is downgraded to like policy or the opinions of prophets but what uh but what also I think a lot of people don't understand is is that when apology just have tried to kind of do the the Brethren's heavy lifting for them and and characterize what's Doctrine there's always this kind of hierarchy where it's like well if it's just an opinion given not a general conference well that's for sure not Doctrine you know even if it's an apostle or a prophet but then it's like well if it's if it's a statement made in general conference that's kind of published by the church well maybe that's inching inching more close towards Doctrine and then but then you would get well a statement that isn't signed by the first presidency well but if it's signed by the first presidency that's for sure Doctrine um and then of course if it's in the scriptures by definition that's Doctrine and in in this case the reason why this quote is so significant is because it is literally a sign statement by the first presidency which by all accounts makes it Doctrine it says it's Doctrine and now and when with the race and the priesthood essay in 2014-2015 the church wants to say it was the opinions of men but that's just a bait and switch that is it's outrageous and and unacceptable yeah it's just dishonest and it's obviously dishonest yeah that's a little context and and we've had episode we recently had there was an episode on on Remy umpter ruminations which is a podcast supported by the bill real Network where an Insider to the church just acknowledged that in 2022 the Mormon the the top Mormon church leaders have almost no idea what is Mormon Doctrine anymore obviously God Mormon Doctrine Jesus is Mormon Doctrine The Book of Mormon is is Mormon Doctrine in some way maybe not historical Joseph Smith is the prophet the only thing that's truly Mormon Doctrine these days is the Mormon Church's claims to Authority um and God and Jesus and almost everything else is negotiable and um and uh we'll try and Lead uh leave a link to that episode so anyway yeah and so this is um one of those things we we mentioned this we kind of hinted at this and talked a little bit earlier but you know the church wants to always talk about it as a priesthood ban and I understand that it was you know technically a priesthood band but the problem is the the implication of that is much more broad because it was also banned on receiving uh what we were told that we need the saving ordinances that every member of the church has told from the time they're born that they need to do get married in the temple um hold the priesthood or if you're a woman marry a priesthood holder and then by doing all those things getting sealed in the temple you could be with your family to get together forever when you make the priesthood ban on members with with black skin or African descent you are taking away their chance at exaltation you're taking away their chance of being together you know after we die and they even taught that if you were to get to the Celestial Kingdom it would only be as a servant so these are horrific um implications and one of the things that I find really frustrating is that in the church essay they kind of talk about how there were people that were getting the priesthood before uh while Joseph Smith was alive and that is true um but there's the story of Jayne Manning James that they use a lot to talk about how you know she was a daughter of a free slave it's from Russell uh Russell Ballard he said among those first Saints who arrive in Utah was Jane Manning James the daughter of a free slave a convert to the restored church and a most remarkable disciple who faced difficult challenges and but what they don't tell you is that they treated her like crap so um she was a faithful member and then what happened was she wanted to be sealed um in the church and they wouldn't let her do it so then she wanted to be sealed to Joseph Smith um as like a polygamous wife so that she could be at least sealed to him to get to the Celestial Kingdom and then they met and they said the only way they would do it is to seal her to attorney for Joseph but as a um basically as a um a servant you know and so um this is from the Salt Lake Temple adoption record book and it says Jane was attached as a servitor for eternity to the Prophet Joseph Smith and in this capacity be connected with his family and be obedient to him in all things in the Lord as a faithful servator So Not only would they not let her get sealed you know to someone may she loved they would only seal her to Joseph but only as a servant and then on top of all of that they wouldn't actually let her go into the temple to do it they had a white proxy go in for her and so it's just it's a horrific story and yet you won't see that in church records because it's just it just shows you that even though they they gave her this little bit of something to to just to seal to Joseph as a servant they wouldn't even let her go in to do it it's just it's a horrible story that is so badly uh you know Miss Miss represented by the church today and and it's just it's a really difficult one because you know she was very faithful but at the same time this should not have happened yeah and It's Tricky for the church because they don't have a lot of faithful black early church members that they can reference right um and so you know how do you mention Jane Manning James in a glorified laudable way um without mentioning the fact that she was literally sealed in a Mormon temple of or through Mormon priesthood power to Joseph as a slave it's like you if you pick up one side of the stick you have to pick up the other side of this and it's ingenuous to try and pick up half the stick you know yeah it is when you just want a PR moment to kind of say hey we're not racist look yeah we have Pioneers who were faithful um tell the whole story right yeah I feel the whole story and like this is one of those things you see often with the church which is where they'll throw Brigham Young directly under the bus they'll run him over 50 times before they will let that bus get to Joseph Smith and so they're doing this to privilege Joseph Smith to say hey Joseph allowed them in the church so it really wasn't a Joseph smithing but the problem is we talked about Joseph Smith is the one that whether you believe it was through God or through Joseph produced the scriptures that ultimately were the foundation for the band so you can't have it both ways on that and yeah you know it's just it's like you said it's it's a you know they had that Emma and Jane movie which I never saw so I can't really speak to it but the church has I've seen a lot of articles about how faithful she was but they don't tell you you know what they you know made her go through just to be sealed as a servant to Joseph which you know is a something that I would have never known as a member yeah absolutely all right the lifting of the priesthood band is next yeah and so this is one of those areas where this was for me as a member uh I was one of the first things that bothered me was was polygamy in this and I remember I asked a question about this because it bothered me and I'm like why in the world did they did they ban people with black skin from the priesthood and I was told the church wasn't ready for it yet and that God knew that if he allowed them to have the priesthood when he did at that time it would have basically been the downfall of the church that's what I was told and um and then they they describe the the lifting of the banister's grand Revelation and so this is from the church's essay on race and priesthood this Revelation on the priesthood as it is commonly known in the church was a landmark Revelation and a historic event those who were present at the time described it in reverent terms Gordon B Hinckley then a member of the Quorum of The Twelve remembered it this way there was a hollowed and Sanctified atmosphere in the room for me it felt as if a conduit opened between the Heavenly throne and the kneeling pleading prophet of God who is joined by his Brethren every man in that Circle by the power of the Holy Ghost knew the same thing not one of us who was present on that occasion was ever quite the same after that nor has the church been quite the same and so keep that in mind because these next a couple slides we're going to go over what led to the lifting of the ban and what the Revelation actually was okay yeah so for those who don't know in 1978 the church reversed its Temple and priesthood band so let's hear the explanation so why the ban was lifted yeah we mentioned a quote from like Apostle Le Grand Richards earlier about the Book of Mormon and in that quote he had talked about how um we they never said that um black skin for those of African descent was because of you know Disobedience to God and this is from that same interview and so I'm going to read you the transcript because this is really important and so the interviewer is I don't know if it's Wes Walters it might be but it's someone named Walters and he says on this Rebel it could be Barbara Walters I don't think I don't yeah I don't no it's definitely not barbell it's definitely a guy yeah definitely a guy b-a-x she could play yeah she could have done yeah it's only like 20 uh 40 years ago but um so he says on this revelation of the priesthood to the Negro I've heard all kinds of stories I've heard that Christ appeared to the apostles I've heard that Joseph Smith appeared and then I heard another story that Spencer Kimball had had a concern about this for some time and simply shared it with the apostles and they decided that this was the right time to move in that direction now are any of those stories true or are they all and this is Apostle Le Grand Richards well the last one is pretty true and I might tell you what provoked it in a way down in Brazil there is so much negro blood in the population that it that it's hard to get the leaders that don't have negro blood in them we just built a temple down there it's going to be dedicated in October all of those people with negro blood in them have been raising the money to build that Temple and then if we don't change then they can't even use it so brother Kimball worried about it and he prayed a lot about it he asked each of us of The Twelve if we would pray and we did that the Lord would give him the inspiration to know what the will of the Lord was and then he invited each one of us into his office individually because you know when you were in a group you can't always express everything that's in your heart you're part of a group you see so he interviewed each of us personally to see how he felt about it and he asked us to pray about it and then he asked each of us to hand in all of the references we had for or against the proposal see he was thinking favorably towards giving the colored people the priesthood so if you go to the next slide okay and then he says then we had a meeting where we meet every week in the temple and we discussed it as a group together and then we prayed about it in our prayer circle and then we held another prayer circle after the close of that meeting and he President Kimball uh LED in the prayer praying that the Lord would give us the inspiration that we needed to do the thing and that would be pleasing to him and for the blessing of his children and then the next Thursday we meet every Thursday the presidency came with this little document written out to make the announcement to see how we feel about it and present it in written form well some of the members of The Twelve suggested a few changes to in the announcement and then in our meeting uh there we all voted in favor of it the 12 and the presidency one member of The Twelve Mark Peterson was down in South America but brother Benson our president had arranged to know where he could be reached by phone and right while we were in that meeting in the temple brother Kimball talked with brother Peterson and read in the article and he approved of it and then Walter says now when President Kimball read this little announcement of paper or paper was that the same thing that was released to the press and Richard says yeah well culture says there wasn't a special document as a revelation that he had and wrote down and then Richard says we discussed it in our meeting what else should we say besides that announcement and we decided that was sufficient that no more needed to be said and so effectively what LeGrand Richards is saying here is that it wasn't really like a revelation like we're always taught in the church this was about a bunch of meetings and then they finally wrote a statement down and then all the apostles got to make some changes if they if they felt like it was necessary and then they basically voted on it approved it and then released it and so it's not to say that you can't say there's any Revelation there could be inspiration that led to writing the statement but there was no Grand Revelation where it said you know I god um Now command you to you know remove the Restriction none of that this is a basically a statement that was created to solve a problem with the Brazil Temple and so outside forces forces change but you know this just is not when you call it a grand Revelation you think of it as the same way as the DNC Revelations this is not that this is a statement that is being edited by people over a course of a few weeks voted on and then released and I think that's a much more watered-down version of the way we're taught that it that the way the church teaches it happened is a much grander um way of framing it yeah and you just have to you know again like it's so important for the church and its leaders to dispel any opinion by the members that that you know Prophet series and revelators first presidency members Mormon apostles are influenced by social social progress or activists you know protesters Progressive agendas Etc um you know the the polygamy the polygamy ban was from God it wasn't because our assets were being seized and we were being incarcerated uh and and you know it wasn't Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and you know her you know um Rosa Parks and in in all the all the courageous protesters and and civil rights leaders who helped make the change uh you know because the Brethren don't cave to the to the wills or the the protests of the common people but but here they're saying oh you know we were bothered by by the band for 150 years and the fact that an entire continent almost an entire continent of Africa was excluded you know along not to mention with all the African-Americans in the United States that being excluded wasn't a problem people you know you know black Americans in Alabama and Mississippi and Florida in Louisiana you know that's not a problem but dang it we just had all these Latin American you know saints that incidentally they believe were lamanites that were getting baptized in Africa and I think they realized that they had dipped their toe too deeply in the water because once you start baptizing Brazilians you know it was an opinion that if they even had a drop of African blood they could never um have the priesthood but you start baptizing um Brazilians let alone pretty much all humans once you read the DNA and and then you give them the priesthood there was some point where they realized holy smokes we've already given people with African blood the priesthood and by that point they had dipped their toe too much in the water and there was no turning back but but you know it's kind of outrageous because number one they're clearly caving to social pressure number two um they they weren't disturbed until they were there's no explanation for why you know the band didn't bother them for other reasons and then they're just like all agreeing and praying about it and you've got you know there's an amazing book by David O McKay called David O McKay in the rise of modern Mormonism and what you find out in that book is that Hubie Brown who is the first presidency member slash Apostle in the early 1960s he was like hey we need to change this come on guys we need you know the New York Times is writing embarrassing opinion pieces about us there are problems coming down the pike and so Hubie Brown was putting pressure on it on David O McKay the prophet to make these changes but then there was Marky Peterson and Ezra Benson and Joseph Fielding Smith and others that are Harold B Lee they're like no way you're not making any of these changes and it would just get voted down and voted down and you know you get the sense of David O McKay part of him wanted to make the changes other parts of him agreed with the band and the racism but most importantly he couldn't get consensus in the quorum to make the change and that's one of the main reasons why it wasn't until 1978 the right people died Marky Peterson was out of town which probably made it harder for him to protest Harold B Lee had died by then and so and so yeah finally he finally Spence W Kimball has the votes and because he has the votes then he sits them all down and makes them pray about it and of course voila a magical you know Revelation occurs but this is this is if this is revelation if this is the benefit that we have of modern day Prophet series and revelators that it takes them 10 to 20 to 30 years after the rest of you know the majority of the country moves on an issue when the right ones die that then they can have meetings to finally reach a super late consensus on a change I it really begs the question of what's the value of these men and I that was a little bit of a rant but it's a tiny bit of an area where I know a little bit about the history where I just wanted to throw that in so please forgive me Mike no that's you covered a lot of what I was gonna say actually because it you know for me I'm sorry no no it's fine it's just it to me it was interesting that you know um the main reason the you know wasn't the Civil Rights Movement it wasn't the fact that it was morally wrong it wasn't the fact that it was causing a lot of pain and harm to members in the U.S or really around the world that had African descent it was because they built a Brazil Temple and they wanted to make sure that it had a good attendance and and that is what triggered it and to me that goes you know it's like if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt on some of these things but it there are so many opportunities for them to to change course and they never did until something like that you know the Brazil temple being being built and them needing to make sure it was full you know because of course it looks much better if it's full I think that's problematic and um and then I think one of the other ones I put yeah so uh and then the other thing I mentioned you mentioned too is it's really interesting that they sent Mark Peterson away because he was I do not include Mark Peterson quotes in this episode because I did not they're they're horrible but Mark Peterson is as racist and hateful as you could get and it's funny that they he just happened to be out of town so they could get consensus on this Revelation to sign off on and as I will note we'll get into this in a while from now we're gonna do some episodes in Revelation but the November 15 policy of exclusion had some similar things where they had to make sure uh I believe one or two of the Apostles was gone when they passed it um because they would not have approved and so you know when you compare the way the way the church presents this Grand Revelation kind of like what Joseph Smith would have gotten but the reality is this is like a corporation that's having a boardroom meeting to release a statement and they go through some individual meetings and they create the statement then they go through another one more group meaning to get everyone approve it and they send it it's just it's not this is just them solving a problem this is not coming off as Revelation in any way um comparable to the early days yeah and I love what you right there that like there are so many instances where God could have used an angel with the Flaming sword yep to kind of intervene you know he did it to force Joseph to marry teenagers according to Joseph but he didn't do it to make the Mormon Church get ahead of the curve on on slavery or on the civil rights movement or on lifting of the band again it just begs the question of who is this God you know what I mean yeah and it just shows that again that the the revelations that Mormon leaders get always tend to back up what they were always teaching you know that's why you have Russell Nelson the moment he lives long enough to be Prophet says God's offended by the name Mormon even though he had asked for that 20 years earlier and was basically rebuked by two prophets who launched multi-million dollar I'm a Mormon campaign to Meet The Mormons every time with Joseph Smith almost every time he got Revelation it basically benefited him in some way and so you ask why did an angel with a drawn sword go and tell Joseph Smith to participate in polygamy fully and yet that same Angel decided to take a break for 120 years of just a horrible treatment of those with black skin and that's something everyone has to answer because you have to then reconcile what God is in the Mormon framing of God yeah so what do we conclude about the implications of the lifting of the priesthood bin so I kind of referenced a second ago but to me the implications here are really good as to what a profit is and so this is what Wendy Nelson said about Russell Nelson after he became Prophet she said it is as though he has been Unleashed he's free to finally do what he came on came to Earth to do and also he's free to follow through with things he's been concerned about but could never do now that he's president of the church he can do those things and so that's what I would just say is if you want to claim that these men's are the all of these men throughout the church history of the church are products of their time as apologists constantly do um you're really admitting that the church is a product of its time because everything we're talking about as I've mentioned over and over in this episode this is what you'd expect from a church founded in the 19th century and it speaks so loudly to the fact that these leaders of the church from the beginning until today cannot discern between their personal prejudices is their personal opinions and the mind and will of God and if they can't tell the difference then why in the world should we give them any respect with regards to getting prophetic Revelations if they can't tell themselves which is which yeah powerful well Mike I'm going to call a little bit of an audible if it's okay we're about this episode and I think it might make sense to just split this episode in two not because you know we're always torn because on the one hand we feel like keeping it in one episode allows everyone to just conveniently check out the whole thing but it's likely we're gonna hit four hours with this yeah we might and and so I think it would be best so that we don't scare people off it's like yeah I'm not gonna watch a four-hour thing so viewers and listeners if you guys hate that we split this up just let us know we'll find a way to name them so that they get you know maybe it's part one part two maybe with your names but we just uh we we don't want to do anything to make people scared away from checking out these episodes and no I agree we've tried to promise them that they'll be kind of more bite-sized chunks so well I think that what we've covered so far is just super powerful Mike and uh and I'm so glad that we had the participation of of the members of kind of the Mormon slash ex-mormon uh I'll just say uh you know Africa African-American Community joining us uh that those were some special treats that make this episode just extra special so yeah I think I think it's helpful because we cannot possibly put it into the experience of others and so all we could do is kind of show what the data is and show what the quotes are and the scriptures are but to actually show how that impacts people something we can't really do because we didn't live through it so I think that's really helpful and I'm glad too because I want that feedback because I don't want to do something that is going to hurt people but I also know this is part of the history that needs to be told so it's it's a really hard Palance and I I feel so uncomfortable doing this and so um yeah I'm really glad to have their not just their feedback but to have them so that they can tell us when we're not doing it doing this right or not doing it justice because I want to make sure we do it in a way that that is respectful to them while also making sure we're getting the data out yeah so I just want to personally give a thank you to Sabrina for joining us to Chanel for joining us and to Spencer Nugent who's been on Mormon stories podcast his family was the first uh I think black Jamaican family to join the church in Jamaica Spencer's got a great story um and just so thank you Spencer for making this possible and I uh I am so delighted that Sabrina wants to come on and make a final uh thought for this episode like it's running too long so let me jump it no you're good knows I just wanted to to say and um because I I just obviously know firsthand um I know that it's easy to think about when we're going and reviewing these these points of History that it's easy I guess as members to think oh this is just affecting the white members we're just bringing awareness to them and the truth of the matter is is that this is also bringing awareness to members that are so very much active that are also minorities and this all they're getting a double fool they're they're getting you know uh a revolution no pun intended of sorts of things that are atrocities within the history of the church in which they are members and they're also having to hear it and it's very traumatic and so I just wanted to throw that out there that you know as we're having these discussions just being very mindful of that that this audience is you know that's included in this discussion and and learning of these things they're not just white um as as you know I'm going through my own deconstruction because it's always an ongoing process I'm learning new things as well and it's difficult to think about the fact that I stood by a church who I had to combat my own culture and say they're not as racist as they used to be and then you think about all the things that went down and all the things that can turn continue to go down and it's just it's really difficult to manage so I just wanted to throw that out there that that is a reality um that some who are listening might be experiencing right now could I ask you a question yeah from your experience how many members do you think are aware of this stuff who are of African descent like I don't know how to frame it like do a lot of them eventually hit it because I never came across any of these quotes until I had already kind of left the church like oh I knew about the band I asked about the band but I never came across any of this stuff until I finally hopped on Google after I'd already kind of left the church do you know if that's something that people talk about or is that something that just isn't talked about in the church between members because I I don't really know if that's something that people are comfortable even bringing up to each other yeah I know that's a good point and I'll give the disclaimer that I obviously don't speak for every minority or black member right or Mormon Community right um but as far as like my experience goes I have seen that there's Nuance in in the minority you know member Community as well and and like your experience where these things were not talked about or brushed over very lightly that's the same experience for a lot of black members because we're taught so often to not go digging too far um because it's best to be left alone right and so there are many black members that that do just the same we talk about the church band but it's always talked about in this positive light that new revelation came out so members were allowed to you know black members were allowed to participate so that's at least been my experience I'm sure it's different especially in areas that might have more of a minority work specifically like a black population areas like Georgia things of that nature more on the East Coast um but I'm from Central Florida and that was certainly not something oh thank you yeah I was I was curious on that one yeah absolutely thank you so much we're so thrilled you joined us I I try periodically to just uh continue the tradition of having um minorities members of color on Mormon stories and I I uh if it you know I said this to Chanel uh I'll say it to others I'll say it to you that like if any of you are interested in a in a full Mormon stories episode telling your story let's talk because it's time for me to to do it again yeah no I uh speaking on behalf of a black uh xmo Slash Mormon whatever I am right now um would love to see more people um on the podcast that look like me just to let others know that hey just as your white counterparts are experiencing these things what you're going through can be normalized as well so really appreciate that well let's uh let's let's email afterwards I would love to make that happen okay thanks so much thank you so much so grateful you joined us today thank you yeah absolutely I really appreciate it thank you so much yeah definitely bye and uh and again thanks to thanks to Spencer that uh that made all of this possible Spencer you're great yeah all right Mike well uh that's it for this episode this is just part one come right back everyone for part two any final words you want to say no I mean just this this these episodes suck in the sense of they're so just hard and like even you know I know um a lot of people will say like oh you know you're when you leave the church and you talk about it you're just trying to make fun of it you're my this is just this is what it is and and it just it I'm having a hard time reading some of these quotes because I just feel so uncomfortable and um I just I hope they're helpful to people that maybe happen to come across them and when we get to the next episode we'll talk a lot more about the Apologetics of it and I think I hope that helps people because you do you you get this this uh very correlated clean version of Mormonism and it's just not the case and um the only thing I'll say is just the next episode is going to get even worse when you when you start getting into this stuff as far as comfort level goes so I hope everyone did okay with this one we're gonna do our best to continue to be gentle and um you know I just I think it's important that everyone knows it and then at that point you you're gonna do what you want with that information but everyone should have the full information here and because the church won't give it to us because it took me digging through and listening to podcasts and researching online to find that I think it should be out there for people who want to hear it and then like I said you do with it what you want yeah um and because we haven't called it out and for some reason it wasn't visual on these slides I'm just gonna let people know this full essay is available at ldsdiscussions.com race and I'm showing a visual of it here but you can read this entire episode in text form if you're not really into podcast form if you're not into audio and visual learning and instead you'd rather just read it that's what LDS discussions is all about and it's got that there I'll also just again throw in a plug for uh you know we're on YouTube we've got a dedicated YouTube playlist so you can watch these episodes in succession if you want we'll include a link to that in the show notes we're also available on Spotify both in audio only format and in video format and we're available um on Apple podcast app audio and wherever else you get your podcasts uh just because um oh and and I'm also if if uh we haven't been blessed enough Chanel is uh is wanting to give us also her final perspective so I'm just gonna Chanel to turn on her camera and unmute her her um phone and uh Chanel we would love to have you share with us any final thoughts uh you want to share thing with my computer or my phone but I can you hear me though yeah we hear you yes first of all I wanted to say you're doing it right you're absolutely doing it right and for a person who's Now 50 and have been silenced for the past 30 years being able to say my truth and have you have the facts to back up what I've been saying I I got nothing like that is priceless it is so Priceless because and you don't need to be delicate you just give the facts and let people decide what they need to do with that these are facts I've been telling them it's Doctrine it is not policy and it really doesn't matter because the members responded based on policy or doctrine they acted a certain way and that is what that is the why yeah you know and to hear you guys talking about this and I'm sitting here going oh my gosh oh my gosh I've been telling you I've been telling you that people telling me be quiet be quiet be quiet be quiet be quiet this isn't true it's not true you're lying you're lying what what can they say to you too you've got you've got the receipts and I'm telling you I'm here for it and yes John I would love to talk to you so email me let me know but this is great you know you're doing good keep doing it thank you so much thank you very much yeah like I said I feel so uncomfortable doing this so I'm glad that you're listening along because I don't want to do something that is going to come off as offensive or I've had people tell me before that um with the website they'll say well you're you're exploiting people with black skin to make the church look bad I'm like I'm not trying to I'm just trying to put out there what's there I'm really never ever trying to in any way impose my own experience onto anyone else um but I also understand that it can feel like that and I don't want to to do anything that would feel like I am taking advantage of anyone else's experiences so I'm so glad you were able to kind of listen and watch with us and and talk with us because it helps me to kind of know that at least I'm not doing something wrong because I I do I feel so uncomfortable going through this stuff so so thank thank you so much for your feedback and for your experiences because it means so much to me to be able to help do better in the future too when I'm talking about this stuff because like I said it's such a delicate thing and to your point there are times where I want to be more blunt and I'm just a little bit timid to do it because I don't want to come off like I'm trying to you know exploit um those who went through really bad things within the church to make the church look bad what I'm just trying to do is put it out there and people are going to do with it whatever they're going to do I can't I can't do anything with regards to how people are going to process it all I can do is just put it out there correct thank you so much I appreciate you both thank you so much thank you very much yes I I thank you I can't thank you enough thanks Chanel thank you so much to be in touch okay bye bye Chanel thank you all right um all right Mike well great job and uh this is heavy dark stuff yeah uh but you've you've pulled together some really really great info and uh I just can't wait well I don't want to say I'm excited for part I know it's that's why these episodes are so important and I hate like it's polygamy the same way polygamy at least for me just from my you know these these episodes are so difficult because it's just such a a really difficult thing to talk about and they're so important and so like from a historical perspective it's kind of exciting because you could show how all the like with the scriptures out like I love how all the pieces fit that it's a 19th century text and the 19th all these things fit together perfectly but on the other hand it's just horrific when you actually talk about what that leads to and so um it's important I think everyone should know it but it's you know it's not fun for us and I don't think it's gonna be a fun frame when listening and um I just hope it's helpful and I hope for people that haven't really listen to some because I think some of the podcasts I've listened to cover different aspects I'm trying to do it in a little bit of a different way to try to tie it together into what we've already talked about which I think will be a little more helpful to understanding where these came from uh how the priesthood band started like being able to tie it into the book Abraham I think is really important because it didn't originate with Brigham Young And so as we go into the next episode we'll try to tie that with the Apologetics and it won't get easier or any less uncomfortable but we need to get through it so we'll get through it and I just hope it helps some people out there it will all right Mike you're a legend thanks for all you do and uh we'll see you soon thank all the viewers and listeners who join us today please share this episode with anyone you can um please be kind to each other let's work on dealing with systems not people and let's just all try and do our work because just because you leave the church doesn't mean you uh have figured out how to root out racism and sexism and homophobia and all the different transphobia all the different ways so let's just keep doing the work and realize that seeing the church clearly for what it is as an example is is just a beginning step and Progressive Mormons post-mormons the church we've all got work to do so uh be kind to each other be good to each other thanks for your support everybody um and uh come right back for part two of this series and we've got much more to come we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon stories podcast take care