CONCLUSION: THE IMPLICATIONS OF A NEW ERA OF MORMONISM

     When the First Presidency under David O. McKay issued the 1969 statement, the reasons for the Priesthood curse and the timing for its fulfillment were utterly discarded and replaced by official ignorance. No doubt, many in the church were unsettled by this new position of uncertainty, especially the old guard that had grown up hearing all the reasons for the ban and had likely formulated hypotheses of their own based on the extensive commentary. For progressive members, this statement was an enormous intellectual and emotional god-send, right on the heels of a civil rights movement that was forcing radical, societal changes all around them. It conveniently placed the burden of racism squarely in the realm of faith, and served to suggest that the Church and its people were just as confused about the issue as everyone else - that the Lord had spoken, and like it or not, reason or no reason, he must be obeyed.

   For Mormons that either joined the church or were born into it after this statement, this would be the standard – the safe, simple, definitive position on an otherwise eternally complicated issue. An increasingly diverse and racially-tolerant generation has now come of age in the Mormon Church – one that is completely ignorant of the fiery, racially-charged rhetoric of the past. They are a group that comforts one another with sincere but simplistic reasoning, saying that the ban was necessary because White America simply wasn't ready, or that Blacks weren't ready. It just wasn't time. Their disassociation with the monochromatic world of Mormonism-past makes it unlikely that they will ever grasp how utterly unorthodox this new position really was when it appeared in 1969.

   From a historical perspective, this new policy was very problematic. If ignorance was the new revelatory truth, what did this say about all that was uttered before? Was it all opinion? Conjecture? When does a man speak as a prophet, and when does he merely speak as a man? Could it be that Brigham Young, John Taylor, Orson Pratt, and other key leaders didn’t really know what they were saying when it came to an entire race of God’s children? Where is the operation of continuous revelation – the assurance that God has revealed his will, line upon line? By all appearances, God worked backwards in 1969, revealing concrete truths in the beginning and then replacing them with virtually nothing. 

    If ever there was a need for divine clarification on a doctrine, it was this one. Though this 1969 statement referred to “revelation” as the source for the development of all principles and doctrines, no Prophet in church history had yet claimed to be the recipient of such a revelation on the priesthood ban. Moreover, not a single 20^th century Church President up to this point seemed to be looking forward for an answer – the record shows them looking back to earlier authorities for wisdom. Would it have been unreasonable to expect some sort of revelatory “update” during a century-long stretch of conjecture and opinion? Whatever their personal thoughts may have been, later general authorities were, by all accounts, just as officially confused as the lay members of the church were.

     The days of uncertainty came to an end, however, with the “revelation” in 1978 that ended the ban. This new position, in my opinion, was even more radical than the previous one in 1969! While the proclamation lifted the church from world-wide scorn and shame, it ironically undermined all the previous prophets and apostles who vehemently declared that a such a development would be utterly impossible until all the other children of Adam had claimed their rights to the Priesthood. To be more specific, that day would not happen until the end of the Millennium, and the year 1978 certainly didn't mark the end of the "reign of peace."

    Many rumors have circulated in the Church about the miraculous, Pentecostal-like manifestations that accompanied this momentous event in the Holy of Holies room in the Salt Lake Temple. Many believe that Christ, Himself, appeared and announced the news in person. But these kinds of ideas don't appear to emanate from those that actually took part in the meeting. In an interview included in the PBS series, "The Mormons," President Hinckley remarked that there "was something of a Pentecostal nature," but that it was mostly a quiet, somber, peaceful kind of atmosphere - hinting that nothing transpired that could be considered expressly supernatural. 

   History suggests that the process for lifting the ban was anything but supernatural. The minutes of meetings before the June decision make it apparent that President Kimball and other general authorities were already in support of the new policy before they ever took it to the Lord. As stated in the Deseret News article previously cited, Kimball indicated that their prayers were offered to ask the Lord if it was NOT his will to renew Priesthood blessings to Blacks. In the absence of divine objection, they were intent on going forward. It is certainly no surprise, then, that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve’s decision to move ahead was met with a solemn, spiritual outpouring. Whether or not one would call this “revelation” is a matter of perspective. Perhaps it is fitting that this entire ordeal, having no clear revelatory genesis, would come to a close in an equally subjective manner.

   While this official new policy of 1978 extricated the church from the civil rights stone age, the years would not easily forget or forgive. Sadly, our past still comes back to haunt us, though most members of the church are more than ready to let it slip away into historical oblivion. We’re now left with the million-dollar question: Was this ever an inspired doctrine, or did this 1978 decision/revelation essentially abolish an uninspired, racist policy hatched by Brigham Young in the mid-19^th Century? After considering the preceding statements, I think any reasonable person would conclude that it was not, in fact, an inspired policy. The story from start to finish reads like a doctrinal train wreck. 

    It may be helpful for a moment to take a step back from the quagmire of quotations and ask a very simple question: Does the idea of a loving Heavenly Father cursing and withholding critical blessings from one man’s entire posterity, for sins they didn’t commit, sound consistent with what we know God to be, namely a compassionate, fair, and merciful being? Perhaps that’s the question we should be starting with.

    I vividly remember TV journalist Mike Wallace asking President Gordon B. Hinckley about the ban many years ago on 60 Minutes. I remember how nervous and excited I was as I listened. At last, I was about to hear what I expected to be an inspired, profound, and definitive explanation from the mouthpiece of the Lord. To my disappointment, I heard the Prophet reply that it was “in our past” and that he’d like to “move on.” As I reflected on that answer over the next few days, I concluded that there must have been an inspired reason for evading the question. Perhaps the doctrinal implications were too sacred to be “cast before swine,” or the ideas were too complicated to explain on national television. 

    As I look at things now, I wonder if he simply didn’t have the real answers, as seemed to be the case with so many leaders of the church before him. Apparently he really didn’t. In an interview during the 2002 Olympics, a German reporter asked the Prophet why the Church ever instituted the priesthood ban, to which a slightly exasperated President Hinckley replied, “I don’t know…I don’t know.” As one of the most interviewed Prophets in church history, surely he was tired of the question; many members of the church are too. But for those that are well informed about our history, the question is not nearly as disturbing as the answer.