Race and the Priesthood

A Long-Standing Ban

For over a century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denied priesthood ordination to men of African descent and barred Black members from temple ordinances. This priesthood and temple ban was not merely a policy but was taught as doctrine—rooted, leaders claimed, in the pre-mortal existence, the curse of Cain, and the will of God.

In 1978, church president Spencer W. Kimball announced a revelation extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy male members regardless of race. This reversal was welcomed but left profound questions unanswered: Why had the ban existed? Were the theological justifications ever true? What does the reversal mean for prophetic authority?

The History of the Ban

Origins

The priesthood ban did not exist from Mormonism's beginning. At least two Black men, Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis, were ordained to the priesthood in the 1830s. Abel was ordained an elder by Joseph Smith himself and later a seventy. He served faithfully until his death in 1884.

The ban emerged under Brigham Young in the 1850s. In 1852, Young announced that Black members could not hold the priesthood, linking this restriction to the "curse of Cain" described in Genesis. The ban was extended to temple ordinances, meaning Black members could not receive their endowment or be sealed in temple marriage—ordinances considered essential for the highest degree of salvation.

Theological Justifications

Church leaders developed elaborate theological justifications for the ban:

The curse of Cain. According to this teaching, Cain's murder of Abel resulted in a curse—dark skin—passed down to his descendants. Black people, as descendants of Cain, inherited this curse and were therefore ineligible for priesthood.

The curse of Ham. This teaching, common in nineteenth-century American Christianity, held that Ham's son Canaan was cursed with servitude (Genesis 9:25) and that this curse applied to African peoples.

Less valiance in the pre-existence. Uniquely LDS was the teaching that Black people had been "less valiant" in the pre-mortal war in heaven. While they had not followed Satan, they had not been fully committed to God's plan. Their birth into Black bodies was a consequence of this pre-mortal fence-sitting.

The 1978 Reversal

On June 8, 1978, the LDS church announced Official Declaration 2, extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy males regardless of race. President Spencer W. Kimball described receiving revelation after long contemplation and prayer in the temple.

The declaration was welcomed by most members and by outside observers. It allowed the church to grow in Africa, Brazil, and other regions where the ban had created enormous difficulties. Black Latter-day Saints could now participate fully in church life.

But the declaration did not explain why the ban had existed or whether the theological justifications had ever been valid. It simply announced the change without addressing the past.

The 2013 Disavowal

A Significant Statement

In 2013, the LDS church published a Gospel Topics essay titled "Race and the Priesthood" that went further than any previous official statement. The essay disavowed the theological justifications for the ban:

"Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form."

This statement acknowledged that past teachings were wrong—not merely incomplete or misunderstood, but actually false. The theological justifications that prophets and apostles had taught for over a century were disavowed.

What the Essay Did Not Do

The essay did not explain how prophets could have been so wrong for so long. It attributed the ban to Brigham Young, influenced by the racist assumptions of his era, but did not address how a prophet supposedly receiving divine guidance could institutionalize racism as doctrine.

The essay also did not constitute an official apology. The church "disavowed" past theories but did not apologize for the harm caused by those theories—the generations of Black members denied full participation, the families unable to be sealed, the pain of being told they were cursed or less valiant.

Implications for Prophetic Authority

The Core Problem

The priesthood ban creates a profound problem for LDS claims of prophetic authority. The ban was not presented as policy but as doctrine—revealed truth about the nature of reality, rooted in the pre-mortal existence and the curse of Cain.

Prophets and apostles taught these doctrines explicitly and repeatedly over more than a century. They claimed divine authority for these teachings. Bruce R. McConkie, after the 1978 reversal, admitted that he and other leaders had spoken "with a limited understanding."

But this raises the question: How do members know when prophets are speaking with understanding and when they are speaking with "limited understanding"? If prophets can be wrong about something this significant for this long, what confidence can members have in current teachings?

The Pattern of Reversal

The priesthood ban joins a pattern of significant reversals in LDS history:

• Polygamy was taught as an eternal principle necessary for exaltation, then abandoned under government pressure.
• Blood atonement was preached from the pulpit, then disavowed as mere rhetoric.
• The priesthood ban was taught as divine doctrine, then reversed and its justifications disavowed.
• The Adam-God doctrine was taught by Brigham Young as revealed truth, then quietly abandoned.

This pattern suggests that LDS doctrine is not revealed from heaven but responsive to cultural pressure—changing when circumstances require, regardless of what prophets previously taught.

A Biblical Response

The Unity of Humanity

Scripture teaches the fundamental unity of humanity. All people are descended from Adam, created in God's image, equal in dignity and worth:

The gospel explicitly transcends racial and ethnic divisions:

The Curse of Cain Argument

The "curse of Cain" argument fails on multiple levels:

• Genesis does not say the mark of Cain was dark skin. The text does not describe what the mark was.
• The curse was placed on Cain personally, not on his descendants.
• All of Cain's descendants would have died in the flood; the curse could not have been transmitted to post-flood peoples.
• The argument was used to justify American slavery and segregation; it has been rejected by virtually all biblical scholars and denominations.

The Curse of Ham Argument

Similarly, the "curse of Ham" fails:

• The curse in Genesis 9 was placed on Canaan, not Ham.
• Canaan was the ancestor of the Canaanites, not of African peoples.
• The curse concerned servitude to Shem and Japheth's descendants, not exclusion from priesthood or spiritual blessings.
• Like the curse of Cain argument, this was a tool of racist ideology, not sound biblical interpretation.

Pre-Mortal Existence

The "less valiant in pre-existence" argument depends on a doctrine— pre-mortal existence—that is not taught in the Bible. Scripture presents human souls as beginning at conception, not existing eternally before birth. Without pre-mortal existence, the entire framework of pre-mortal choices determining earthly circumstances collapses.

Implications for Gospel Witness

Handling This Topic Carefully

The priesthood ban is a sensitive topic, touching on both religious and racial identity. Many Latter-day Saints are genuinely grieved by this history and are committed to building a more inclusive church. Using this issue as an attack will likely trigger defensiveness rather than reflection.

More productive approaches might include:

• Acknowledging the 2013 essay's honesty about past errors.
• Asking questions rather than making accusations: "How do you think about the fact that prophets taught these doctrines for so long?"
• Being prepared to discuss racism in Christian history—we are not without failures of our own.
• Focusing on the systemic issue of prophetic authority rather than using racism as a club.

The Deeper Issue

The deepest issue is not racism itself but what this history reveals about prophetic reliability. If prophets can teach false doctrine for over a century—doctrine that caused real harm to real people—what confidence can we have in current prophetic teaching?

The LDS system depends on living prophets who can receive new revelation and override previous teaching. But if that system produces racist doctrine for generations, finally reversed only under external pressure, then it is not functioning as advertised. The prophets were not receiving divine guidance on this matter; they were reflecting the prejudices of their culture.

Pointing to a Better Foundation

We offer not a system of ongoing revelation that can err for centuries but a completed revelation in Scripture—tested, verified, consistent across millennia. The Bible's teaching on human dignity and equality has challenged racism wherever it has been faithfully applied. The problem in Christian history has been failure to follow Scripture, not Scripture itself.

Learning from the Past

The priesthood and temple ban represents one of the most significant failures of the LDS prophetic system. For over a century, prophets taught false doctrine—doctrine that denied full participation to Black members and branded them as cursed or less valiant. The theological justifications have been disavowed; the damage cannot be undone.

This history matters not as ammunition for attacks but as evidence to be weighed. A prophetic system that produces such error for so long is not what it claims to be. Divine guidance that arrives only when cultural pressure becomes unbearable looks more like institutional adaptation than revelation.

We point to a God who does not change, whose truth does not evolve with cultural winds, who created all people in his image and calls all nations to himself. In Christ, there is no distinction—no cursed races, no less valiant spirits, no hierarchy of human worth. There is only the invitation to come, whoever you are, and find life in him.