The Multiracial Activist Newsletter
Special Alert 07 – October 1998
The Multiracial Activist Newsletter is an informational digest of news, events, new websites and other information of interest to the Interracial/Multiracial community. Published monthly, with special editions as news items warrant. Past newsletters and alerts are archived at https://www.multiracial.com/newsletter.html.
Special Alert – 07
October 1998
Good morning, afternoon, evening, etc:
Religious Organizations Ban or Discourage Interracial Marriage/Dating
Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
Bob Jones University issues letter to James Landrith, Editor & Publisher of The Multiracial Activist regarding their controversial ban on interracial dating between students at Bob Jones University.
https://www.multiracial.com/letters/bobjonesuniversity.html
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT
Official Church dotrine does not ban interracial marriage, but does discourage it. Church leaders use the old “what about the children” argument as well as describing interracial couples planning to marry as thinking “selfishly of themselves”.
http://www.mormons.org/basic/family/marriage/interracial.htm
Yours in Struggle,
James A. Landrith, Jr.
Editor & Publisher
The Multiracial Activist
https://www.multiracial.com
{jos_sb_discuss:6}
In regard to the views of Bob Jones University and the Mormon Church regarding “interracial” marriages, you should ask them exactly how they define the various “races.” Do they condemn interracial marriages between “whites” and “American Indians,” for example? I’m betting that they don’t define intermarriage between “whites” and “Indians” as “miscegenation.” I’m also betting that the Morman Church is easy on white/Asian marriages – especially if the groom is “white” and the bride is a pretty, petite and not too dark Asian. I’m betting that, in both churches, “interracial” is defined mainly in terms of “white” with “black.” By the way, the Mormon Church’s (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) theology once condemned (until the 1980s) blacks as accursed “children of Ham” who were not entitled to full membership in the Church or marriage with other “races.” What changed that was the Church’s expansion into Latin America. They were confronted by thousands of Latin American converts who happily assumed the duties of the Mormon priesthood (mandatory for all males – at the time, all non-“black” males) even though they were obviously of Negroid ancestry. They knew they were part “black” but they were not “blacks,” so obviously the Church’s prohibition didn’t apply to them. The Church couldn’t very well tell all these Latin Americans that they were “black,” so their Prophet or supreme leader annnounced that he had had a revelation from God taking away the curse from blacks. That solved the problem – anything to avoid dealing with the reality of racial intermixture.
A.D. Powell
October 17, 1998 at 6:56 am
I think the position of the LDS Church is a bit overstated here. All I know is that I’ve been LDS all my life and I’m (as a Caucasian) in an interracial marriage (with an Asian). I’ve never caught any flack for it and am quite happy. Both my wife and I attend church together every Sunday and feel pretty comfortable there. This entry is from years ago but since I was looking for Mormon blogs and came up with this on a search, I thought I’d leave a comment in response.
As a long time member of the LDS Church, I am not impressed with the lack of facts in the post. The revelation was in 1978 (not the 1980’s) Also, the Church is one of the few who never segregated. Anybody could, however, receive full membership into the Church – including African Americans. African Americans could not hold the priesthood until 1978, which has nothing to do with the Church’s expansion. Why, then could blacks not hold the Priesthood? The answer is, I don’t know. The Priesthood does not belong to the Church, nor the Prophet, nor the members. It is the Lord’s Priesthood, in the Old Testament, even though there were 12 tribes of Israel, only the Levites held the authority. God created races, not racism.
8/26/2004 1:35:27 AM
How did the LDS church define “black” or “African American”? The “revelation” that “blacks” were entitled to the priesthood happened to coincide with the church’s expansion into Latin America – where Negro blood is common among people who DON’T identify as “black.”
Also, the LCS practice of encouraging people to research their genealogy in order to baptize dead ancestors would put many white LDS members in danger of finding black ancestry.
8/26/2004 11:29:29 AM
First, back then “black” was defined as having ancestors from subsaharan Africa. Skin color had nothing to do with it. And again, the doctrine was that blacks could not receive the priesthood in this life, but would receive it in the afterlife.
Second, did Spencer Kimball’s 1978 revelation coincide with the LDS church’s expansion in Latin America? Well, the revelation did facilitate missionary work, particularly in Brazil. But LDS missionaries had been in Brazil since 1928. If the church had decided in 1930 to allow black men to hold the priesthood, the church’s Latin American growth spurt might have come in the thirties instead of the eighties. So the timeline does not support your argument. LDS missionaries were “confronted” by mixed-race converts and potential converts for FIFTY YEARS before the revelation came. Hardly a convenient way to “avoid dealing with the reality of racial intermixture.”
11/12/2004 11:44:10 AM