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Volume 12, No. 2

Summer 1979

Articles/Essays

Introduction

Lester E. Bush Jr.

Saint Without Priesthood: The Collected Testimonies of Ex-Slave Samuel D. Chambers

Editor

Dialogue 12.2 (Summer 1979): 13–21
The editors of Dialogue in 1979 compiled the testimonies of a former slave, Samuel Chambers, who was a member of the church.

Elijah Abel and the Changing Status of Blacks Within Mormonism

Newell G. Bringhurst

Dialogue 12.2 (Summer 1979): 22–36
Elijah Abel, a black man ordained to the priesthood, was restricted in his church participation starting in 1843, even though he was well respected by both members and leaders. Newell G. Bringhurst discusses why the priesthood and temple ban might have occured. One of the reasons was when the pioneers were crossing the plains, a man by the name of William McCary, who had Native American and African American ancestry, caused a lot of grief and trouble for both saints and the leaders of the Church.

A Priestly Role for a Prophetic Church: The RLDS Church and Black Americans

William D. Russell

1979: William L. Russell, “A Priestly Role for a Prophetic Church: The RLDS Church and Black Americans,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 12 No. 2 (1979): 37–50. In recent years many RLDS Church members have been proud of the fact that the church has been ordaining blacks into the priesthood since...

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Notes

A Note on the 1963 Civil Rights Statement

Sterling M. McMurrin

The Negro Doctrine — An Afterview

George D. Smith

When Are the Writings or Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?

J. Reuben Clark Jr.

Women Under the Law

Susan Taylor Hansen

Dialogue 12.2 (Summer 1979): 82–91
Any constitutional amendment unavoidably casts a shadow of uncertaintyover its future interpretation and implementation. The Fourteenth Amendment, for example, has far exceeded the originally perceived purpose—elevating thestatus of blacks—and has come to serve as a tool of justice for many oppressedpersons and groups.