Gospel Topic Essays: 009: Race and the Priesthood

We continue our tour of the Gospel Topics Essays and with the essay Race and the Priesthood. The Goal – To share the LDS Church’s Gospel Topic Essays and help the both the believing member and the non-believer get a sense of the why these essays were written, who the intended audience is, whether these essays resolve the concerns of the faithful and non-believer and why they perhaps these essays even add to the disbelief of those who skeptical of the issues they find in Mormon History.

Co-Hosts of this episode

Allan Mount is Co-host of the Marriage on a Tightrope podcast with his wife Kattie. After 35 faithful years in the church, it was the Gospel Topic Essays that acted as a catalyst to his faith transition. He is a sales director for a technology company in South Jordan Utah. Kattie and Allan have 4 children.

Anthony Miller is an entrepreneur and education enthusiast in Billings, Montana, with Masters degrees in Business Administration and in Financial Services. After a lifetime of faithful membership in the church, he experienced a faith transition after he stumbled across the Gospel Topics Essays and similar materials in 2016, while he was searching for resources to support his adult gay son. Anthony blogs at UnpackingAmbiguity.com and is a frequent contributor to post and progressive Mormon support communities.

Ryan de Roque lives in Houston, Texas with his wife and two sons. He grew up in Arkansas and was raised in the Mormon church, serving as a missionary in Venezuela. He got his degree from BYU in Spanish Translation, and currently teaches High School Biology. He went through a faith transition and left the Mormon church in 2017 after studying concerning historical and doctrinal information about Mormonism that he had not been exposed to previously. Part of this transition was learning through genealogical work that he had African ancestry, which motivated him to look further into the pre-1978 priesthood and temple ban against those with African ancestry.

Julienna Viegas was born and raised in Belgium. She served a mission on Temple Square. She has a B.A in International Politics from Brigham Young University. She published several Op-eds in the Salt Lake Tribune in regards to changes needed in the Mormon Church. She works and lives in Texas with her three children. She can be found on the “Faith Transition Podcast”

RESOURCES:
Mormonthink article
Wikipedia article on Blacks within Mormonism
Dr. Paul Reeve – The Long Promised Day
Wikipedia article on Jane Manning James
Wikipedia article on Elijah Abel
Article on Priesthood of Elijah Abel
Religion of a Different Color
Saints, Slaves, & Blacks
Mormonism and White Supremacy
Jane and Emma
Brigham Young’s speech as read by Jonathan Streeter
Dr Darron Smith and Marvin Perkins on Thinker of Thoughts
The Stewart Udall Sequence
The Lowry Nelson Exchange
Lowry Nelson correspondence
Podcast delving into some of the facets of Race and Priesthood
Podcasting dissecting the crux of truth issues within Race and Priesthood
Follow up podcast on the crux of these same issues