On Racism and the Mormon Church and Response
August 22, 2012Early this week, scholar John Turner presented an opinion piece in the New York Times on “Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons.” Turner, who has a new biography out on Brigham Young, says “The church could begin leaving those problems behind if its leaders explained that their predecessors had confused their own racist views with God’s will and that the priesthood ban resulted from human error and limitations rather than a divine curse. Given the church’s ecclesiology, this step would be difficult. Mormons have no reason to feel unusually ashamed of their church’s past racial restrictions, except maybe for their duration. Their church, like most other white American churches, was entangled in a deeply entrenched national sin. Still, acknowledging serious errors on the part of past prophets inevitably raises questions about the revelatory authority of contemporary leaders….