Priesthood Ban
Current Race Relations Within the LDS Church
Armand Mauss is an LDS sociologist from Washington State University. Â He wrote a chapter in the book Black and Mormon, where he discusses race relations within the church. Â He has both positive and negative things to say about race relations. Â I’ll start with the positive. Â Mauss notes that the LDS church has been involved in […]
Using Scriptures to Debunk the Priesthood Ban
Alma Allred wrote a chapter in the book titled Black and Mormon. On page 37, he states: I don’t believe that LDS scripture allows for a restriction against blacks’ holding the priesthood. Nor do I think that LDS theology can reasonably maintain that today’s blacks are descendants of Cain or that ancient intermarriage with Canaanites perpetuated […]
Scholarship History of the Priesthood Ban
The Priesthood ban for black members of the church is a pet topic of mine. I have previously discussed Early Black Mormons who held the priesthood, as well as a long 10,000 word article discussing events leading to the ban. Newell Bringhurst and Darron Smith have put together a list of 9 essays highlighting different […]
Stapley/Wright Discuss Healings by Mormon Women
Last October, I wrote a post titled, Mormon Women Blessing the Sick, as a follow up to my post on Women with Priesthood in Ancient Christianity. Jonathon Stapley was the first to comment, saying Equating early Mormon female healing with evidence of female priesthood is folly. Kris’ and my paper on female ritual healing is […]
Women with the Priesthood in Ancient Christianity
I attended Sunstone back in August. Bridget Jack Jeffries (who runs a blog called Clobberblog), gave a fascinating presentation on female priesthood holders in the ancient Christian church. Bridget is a “never Mormon” that attended BYU, graduating in 2005. She “seduced” (her words, not mine) and married a BYU priesthood holder while there, and she is […]
Helvecio Martins: First Black General Authority
Mark L Grover gave a fascinating biography on Helvecio Martins, the first black general authority in the LDS church in the latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History (Summer 2010.) Elder Martins was ordained to the Second Quorum of Seventy in 1990 under President Ezra Taft Benson. In 1995 he was released, and he […]
Sunstone Recap 2010
I wanted to get this post up sooner, but I’ve been really busy correcting final exams. I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there. Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words. […]
Mormons and Indians in the Great Plains
I have some good news, and some bad news. First the good news–I got a new job! Now the bad news–my new job will interfere with my frequent blogging, so there will definitely be a decrease in activity. My book club has been reading a book called Establishing Zion by Eugene Campbell. I couldn’t find […]
Women and the Melchizedek Priesthood
I was first introduced to the idea of women holding the Melchizedek Priesthood in the book called Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess by Richard Van Wagoner. Sidney claimed that Emma Smith was the first woman to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood (as I blogged about in Part 5). The current book I’m reading, The Mormon […]
Mormon Heretic 