The Bible Belt Blogger (Frank Lockwood) has the story:<\/p>\n
DES MOINES, Iowa \u2014 Forty years ago, while Mitt Romney served as a missionary in France, black men were not allowed to set foot in a Mormon temple.<\/p>\n
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred black men from the priesthood, which is conferred on virtually all faithful white Mormon men and boys ages 12 and up.<\/p>\n
As a result, blacks were not allowed to become missionaries, to distribute the Lord\u2019s Supper, to have their marriages \u201csealed for time and eternity\u201d or to serve as elders, bishops, apostles and prophets.<\/p>\n
It abandoned those policies in 1978, but not the scriptures that undergirded them. Its teachings will likely become a thorny campaign issue if former Massachusetts Gov. Romney becomes the Republican presidential nominee, Mormon America author Richard Ostling predicted this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be used in some way by the Democrats, whether it\u2019s a full-force public argument or whether it\u2019s a whispering campaign or whether it\u2019s something in between,\u201d said Ostling, a former Time magazine and Associated Press religion writer. \u201cI have to believe the Clinton apparatus has a bulging file on Mormon racial history.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Democratic National Committee spokesman declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n
The church\u2019s racial doctrines could alienate core Democratic constituencies, in addition to some conservative Catholics and evangelicals, Ostling said.<\/p>\n
Passages in the Book of Mormon say dark skin is a sign of divine disfavor and a punishment from God. The church\u2019s sacred writings describe mixed-race offspring as accursed and portray dark-skinned American Indians, for example, as \u201cloathsome\u201d and \u201can idle people full of mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mormons believe that these passages are the word of God, as sacred as the Bible itself.<\/p>\n
Good Mormons do not believe the ban on blacks was immoral, Brigham Young University religion professor Robert Millet said, adding, \u201cIt isn\u2019t something we\u2019re ashamed of. It isn\u2019t something we feel was inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mormons, Millet said, believe they were obeying God by barring blacks. Precisely why God wanted the church to discriminate is not clear, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a forward-looking church, and we don\u2019t look back around that period. We look forward,\u201d Millet added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read Frank Lockwood’s full story here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bible Belt Blogger (Frank Lockwood) has the story: DES MOINES, Iowa \u2014 Forty years ago, while Mitt Romney served as a missionary in France, black men were not allowed to set foot in a Mormon temple. The Church of … Continue reading