[Brian]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

I have Signature's Neither White nor Black edited by Lester Bush and Armand Mauss. It's a compilation of essays by Mauss, Bush, and Bringhurst. It’s kind of dated (copywrite 1984). I read it four to five years ago. Can't recall specifics, but came away convinced that it was practice, not doctrine, and that sadly, early Church leaders were not much more enlightened on racial issues than most other white people of the times.

To me this was quite faith affirming. While a very dark period in Church history that went on much too long, I came away feeling much better that it was the bigoted beliefs of Church leaders that lead to this practice, rather than the convoluted theories put forward positing that somehow blacks are the “seed of Cain” and/or were fence-sitters in the pre-existence.

I can deal with racist Church leaders. That can be fixed. But doctrinally consigning a whole group of people to a lesser status based solely on skin color raises too many questions and inconsistencies.

I’d like to read Black and Mormon. As a warm up, I’m going to reread Neither White nor Black.

The McKay book by Price and Wright make that point as well.

Regards,
Brian