023 The 1978 Revelation of Reversion and Repair

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Woodward (00:00):
Hi, this is Scott from Church History Matters.
Next week, on our final episode of thisseries, we will be honored to have Dr.
Paul Reeve as our special guest tohelp us respond to your questions.
He is an author and scholar onall things related to race in
Latter-day Saint history, and Caseyand I have drawn heavily from Dr.
Reeve's great researchthroughout this series.

(00:21):
So this is our final call foryour thoughtful questions on this
challenging but important topic.
Please submit your questionsanytime up to August 10, 2023 to
podcasts@scripturecentral.org.
Let us know your name, where you're from,and try to keep each question as concise
as possible when you email them in.
That helps us out a lot.

(00:42):
All right.
Now on to the episode.
Paul Reeve recently wrote, “InJune 1978 President Spencer W.
Kimball received a revelation whichreturned the church to its universal

roots and restored what was lost: priesthood and temple admission (00:59):
undefined
to people of African descent.
This did not mark something new as muchas it reestablished a commitment to the
founding principles of the restoration.
It reconfirmed the church's originaluniversalism: that the human family in
all of its diversity is equal in God'ssight, that Jesus Christ claims all flesh

(01:23):
as his own, that he's no respecter ofpersons, and that all men are privileged
the one like unto the other, and none areforbidden.” In today's episode of Church
History Matters, we take a close look atthe details surrounding this watershed
revelation of reversion and repair.
Both out on the peripheries of the churchand at the heart of church headquarters

(01:45):
within the presiding councils, we'll seethe Lord gently influencing circumstances
toward the fulfillment of his purposes.
Yet he waited with divine patienceuntil all of the apostles were
unified in approaching himwith a desire to lift the ban.
Only then would he makehis will known with power.
The story we trace today of howthey get there under President

(02:09):
Kimball's gentle leadership isinstructive on so many levels.
I'm Scott Woodward, and my co-hostis Casey Griffiths, and today we dive
into our sixth episode in this seriesdealing with race and priesthood.
Hi, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths (02:26):
Hi.

Is this episode six?
This is our sixth episode.

There is a lot to digest on this topic for sure.
And I honestly think we could probablygo six more episodes if we wanted to.

Seriously.

But we want to resolve the plot.

Yeah.

We want to make sure that people know there's a happy
ending here—that it all worked out.

Yeah.

And so we're going to push ourselves to do that.

Yeah.
In fact, maybe we could just plug, forall those who want more details about all
the things we've been talking about forthe last five episodes, we're going to
finish it off with six today, but highlyrecommend you go out to Deseret Book and
grab a copy of Paul Reeve's book called,Let's Talk About Race and Priesthood.

Mm-hmm.

It's a short, little book.
I've got it right here.
Let's see.
How many pages is it?
133 pages.
A super short read.
I sat down this morning,I was reading it again.
Probably got through halfof it just this morning.
So good.
So if you're hungry for more, if thispodcast series has not satisfied your
thirst for understanding on this issue,highly recommend you go out and get a
copy of Paul Reeve's book at Deseret Book.

(03:27):
It's, I think, the best thingpublished to date on the issue
that deals with all the historicaldetails we've been dealing with.

And I endorse that as well, and I want to add for what
we're talking about today—which is reallyOfficial Declaration 2 in the Doctrine
and Covenants and its background—twowonderful resources are Edward L.
Kimball's article.
It appears in BYU Studies.
This is free.
You can just go and find it online,and it's—it doesn't cost anything.
It's an article that is from BYUStudies in 2008 called “Spencer W.

(03:59):
Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood.”And also, linked to that is Ed Kimball—Ed
Kimball was the son of Spencer W.
Kimball—his book LengthenYour Stride, which was about
the presidency of Spencer W.
Kimball, it has some wonderful materialin it too, and one of the advantages
is that Ed Kimball basically wentand asked his father if he could have

(04:20):
permission to interview everybody.

Yeah.

And so it's hard to imagine getting
that kind of access ever again—

Mm-hmm.

—on such a controversial and
difficult subject, and so—

Yeah.

These three resources, if you're still hungering to
know more, are absolutely wonderful, andwe'll be open in saying we drew most of
our material from these great scholars.

That's right.
So it'll be our honor today to talkthrough the resolution of the plot.
As you said, Casey, we're going tolook at President Kimball's revelation.
What led up to that?

Mm-hmm.

Can I back up and recap from last episode?
Just get everyone up to speed?

Yeah, let's do a quick recap.

OK, so let's see: Last time we discussed what happened
after the 1907 solidification ofa church policy on black African
participation in priesthood and temple.
Just for reference, again, there was alongstanding tradition from 1852, but
the first time it becomes codified as,like, a church policy is 1907 from the

(05:16):
First Presidency, who stated that “No oneknown to have in his veins negro blood,
it matters not how remote a degree,can either have the priesthood in any
degree or the blessings of the templeof God, no matter how otherwise worthy
he may be.” So that was the official1907 policy from the First Presidency.
If you jump to today, by the way,President Nelson is saying the color

(05:39):
of your skin doesn't matter at all.
What matters is your devotionto God and his commandments.

Mm-hmm.

And so what happens between these two points?
So we talked about from 1908 to the 1960s,there were no deliberate efforts, really,
to bring the gospel to blacks, right?
It was a semi-official soft policy not tomake any special effort to convert them.
If they reached out, if they wantedto join the church, they could, but

(06:05):
you needed to let them know thatbaptism was basically where their
ordinance privileges would end, andin spite of that, blacks continue
to join the church during that time.

Mm-hmm.

In fact, we'll talk more about what happens in Africa
without any missionaries whatsoever,but let me continue to review here.
The idea that priesthood and templeprivileges were restricted from the
very beginning with Joseph Smithby God's will became more and more
entrenched during this time period.
We cited a 1949 letter from theFirst Presidency saying as much,

(06:35):
and again, a 1969 First Presidencyletter saying the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

And so during this time period that was that—the entrenched
story was that this ban began inJoseph Smith's day by God's will.
It's always been thisway from the beginning.
Priesthood holders likeElijah Ables and Q.
Walker Lewis had essentially beeneither forgotten from memory or seen as
an aberration to the original will ofGod that occurred because they hadn't

(07:01):
figured things out quite right yet.
That was the story.
Now, during this time period, thingsstart to shift and change, though, right?
We get the Civil Rights movement thatbegins really in full swing in the ‘60s.

Mm-hmm.

And there's disunity among the Twelve, in many regards,
to this issue with blacks, some aboutthe Civil Rights movement itself, and
certainly about the policy barring blacksfrom priesthood and temple privileges.
So we compared and contrasted,for instance, Hugh B.
Brown, who was verypro-Civil-Rights-movement, with
Ezra Taft Benson, who felt likethis was maybe a communist ploy

(07:35):
to try to infiltrate America.
Hugh B.
Brown thought that the priesthoodban was simply a policy that could
be changed by vote, and so heactually put it to the Twelve to
have them vote, and then Harold B.
Lee really pushed stronglyback against that.
He wasn't in the meeting.
When he found out about it, he pushed backand said, “Listen, this is a doctrine.
This is not a policy.
This is a doctrine from the beginning.
You can't just vote on it.

(07:56):
This would take a revelationfrom heaven.” And so we have
this—different apostles seeing thisdifferently, not seeing eye to eye.
And so when President Kimball becomespresident—I think we ended our last
episode with him becoming presidentin 1973, that at the beginning of his
presidency he wrote to his son Edward,saying, “Revelations will probably

(08:16):
never come unless they're desired.”You've got to want the revelation.
And he said, “I believe mostrevelations will come when a man is
on his tiptoes, reaching as high ashe can for something which he knows
he needs, and then there bursts uponhim the answer to his problems.” So
today we want to talk about that.
What does President Kimball do to beginreaching for a revelation, which we
know comes on June 1, 1978, at least tothe whole First Presidency and Twelve.

(08:42):
So should we pick itup right there, Casey?

Yeah.
So our burning question is “Whatled to the apostles overturning the
priesthood policy?” And just likeyou mentioned, our key figure here
is going to be President Spencer W.
Kimball.

Mm-hmm.

But I want to mention one thing, too.
You did a lovely jobcontextualizing everything.
It's clear when you look at thisstory that the Lord is working
among the highest councils of thechurch, but he's also working on
the periphery of the church, too.

Hmm.

Like you mentioned, the church didn't make an
especially great effort to reach outto people of African ancestry, but they
start to come into the gospel anyway.
A couple years ago, for a project Iwas working on, I went to the Church
History Museum in Salt Lake City, andthey brought out a statue of the Angel
Moroni that had clearly been modeledon that old, powder-blue Book of Mormon

(09:32):
that was so common in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

And this angel had been sculpted and placed
on top of a church in Ghana.

Mm-hmm.

And nobody that attended the church was officially a
member of The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints, but Joseph Johnson,
who was the leader of the congregation,had gotten a copy of The Book of Mormon
and read through that and a variety ofother church publications and really
fell in love with the restored gospel.
And he was one of those people whowere waiting, writing, submitting

(10:03):
patiently for the church to change,for the Lord to speak to the church
for the policy to be relaxed.
And that's just one example.
There's a lot of others that we could citein a number of different places where the
Lord's working on the outer edges of thechurch, and sometimes the outer edges of
the church and the hierarchy of the churchare going to touch base with each other,

(10:25):
and that moves things forward as well.
So those are the two polesof our story today, I think.

That's right.
And that was in Ghana?
Is that right?
Joseph Johnson?

Yeah.
Yeah, he's in Ghana.

Paul Reeve points out that similar congregations formed in Nigeria.

He says the—I'll quote from Paul here: “The Holy Spirit converted over 15,000 (10:40):
undefined
people in Africa without missionaries oradministrative oversight from Salt Lake
City.” So that's going on in the 1960s.
Like, you can't stop—but they're justgetting access to LDS books and pamphlets,
and the Spirit is moving on their hearts.

Mm-hmm.

And 15,000 people in Africa are claiming
to be quasi-latter-day Saints.
They're not even baptized, but they'refollowers of Christ, and they try to
emulate the examples of early churchmembers, especially the pioneers in the
United States, so pretty inspiring stuff.
Yeah.
The Lord's going to be moving inmultiple ways during this time.

Yeah.
And if we're trying to connectthose two dots, there are a
couple things that happen.
For instance, another place is Brazil,where Brazil has a large black population.

Right.

And it's clear that, you know, the church is growing
rapidly in the—in Brazil and in LatinAmerica in general, and there's going
to be a need for a temple there.
The hierarchy of the church recognizeda need for the temple there, and they
also recognized that there was a largepopulation down there of people of African
ancestry that might not be able to attendthe temple, and this is one area where the

(11:52):
hierarchy and the periphery come together.

Yeah.

And a few key experiences happen there.

So let's, yeah, let's talk about his process,
then, President Kimball.
And Brazil's going to play into this,Africa's going to play into this.

Mm-hmm.

Outside scholarship is going to play into this.

Mm-hmm.

So for President Kimball, he begins reaching almost as
soon as he becomes prophet in 1973,which is going to include work of
studying out the issue in his own mind.
He wanted to learn the historyof the restrictions for himself.
President McKay had done a similarresearch that had concluded
similarly, that there was not ascriptural basis for the restriction.

Mm-hmm.

President Kimball wanted to understand the various justifications
that had been offered over the years.
He wanted to dig into this issue in depth.
But he said that one of his biggestobstacles was overcoming his own
preconceived opinions and understandinghis own assumptions, as well as trying
to work behind the scenes to buildconsensus among other church leaders.

Mm-hmm.

About himself, he said, “I had a great deal to fight
largely, because I had grown up withthis thought that Negroes should not
have the priesthood, and I was preparedto go all the rest of my life until my
death and fight for it and defend it asit was.” So there's an internal battle—

Mm-hmm.

—in terms of his own prejudices.
And I think he's so humble to admitthat and to say that's what a large
part of what he was trying to fight.
It's interesting to consider his life.
I made a little timeline once just tosay, OK, what was it like being Spencer W.
Kimball growing up in the church?
And this is not going to be verycomplete at all, but he was born in 1895.
When Spencer W.
Kimball was three years old, it wasalready believed in the minds of—like,

(13:27):
church leaders were already teaching thatthe priesthood restriction on blacks was
a doctrine of the church that came fromJoseph Smith and was therefore from God.

Mm-hmm.

He was 12 years old in 1907 when the policy became official.
He's 13 years old when early blackpriesthood holders are essentially
forgotten from church memorywith the memory slip of Joseph F.
Smith we talked about, whichhappened that same year.
So all during his impressionable teenageyears, his young adult years on into
adulthood, there weren't really anycompeting narratives on this issue.

Mm-hmm.

And so when the issue comes up, which is not very often,
but when it does come up, all SpencerKimball had heard and learned were
the false doctrines about the curse ofCain and the premortal less valiancy
and the false history that this bancould be traced back to Joseph Smith
and the beginnings of the church.

Mm-hmm.

And so I can appreciate, at least just to try to
empathize as I read this history.
Like, when he says, “I had to fightand overcome my own understandings,
my own prejudices,” that had beentaught from his youth, I think that
was actually quite real, you know?

Mm-hmm.

To paraphrase Yoda, he had to unlearn what he had learned, right?
There was some unlearning thatneeded to happen for Spencer W.
Kimball, and so he's going tomodel what needs to happen for the
whole church and which will happengradually after the revelation.
But anyway, any thoughts on that?

You're exactly right that he's fighting against
his tendency that he's had his wholelife to defend the teachings of
the church and not to question themor submit to the need for change.
There's a letter that he writes to hisson, I think we quoted part of this
last time, where in 1963, he says, “Theconferring of priesthood and declining
to give the priesthood is not a matterof my choice, nor of President McKay's.

(15:05):
It's the Lord's program.
When the Lord's ready to relaxthe restriction, it will come
whether there's pressure or not.
This is my faith.
Until then I shall try to fighton.” And then he said, “I've always
prided myself as being about asunprejudiced as to race as any man.
I think my work with the minoritieswould prove that, but I'm so completely
convinced that the prophets know whatthey're doing and that the Lord knows

(15:25):
what he is doing that I'm willingto let it rest there.” And that work
with minorities that he mentionsthere has to do with his background.
He grows up in Arizona—

Mm-hmm.

—fairly close to the Navajo Indian reservation, and he spends a
lot of his ministry—he's a stake presidentthere before he's called as an apostle—

Mm-hmm.

—ministering to people who are of different
races and integrating them intothe church and working with them.
So you could see a lifetime ofpreparation for him to be the person
that receives the revelation, butthere's also his own personal choice.
I mean, he could have gone either waybased on his upbringing, but when he
becomes president of the church, theissue kind of lands squarely in his lap.

(16:06):
He has to finally deal with it.
And he really does want toknow the Lord's will on it.
You shared that lovely quote fromhim, “Revelations rarely come unless
they're desired,” and it seems likethis is a person who really wanted to
know the Lord's will on the matter.

And this is from Ed Kimball's book, Lengthen Your Stride.
He says, “When President Kimballbecame a church president, few
people expected any change.”

Mm-hmm.

“Probably President Kimball himself did not.
But one huge factor was different.
Now the ultimate responsibilityfor the policy fell to him.
His duty was no longer to be a loyalsupporter,” which he was very good at.
He said, “He had the direct personalresponsibility to discover the Lord's
will by study, faith, and prayer, andhe was determined not to be motivated

(17:02):
by earthly pressures.” And then onemore: He says, “President Kimball
said in a news interview that hispredecessors had sought the Lord's will
about the priesthood policy, and forwhatever reason, the time had not come.
But now that the ultimate responsibilitywas his, it was no longer enough
to rely on the understandings ofprevious prophets or to wait for

(17:23):
the Lord to take the initiative.
He said he wanted to “find out firsthandwhat the Lord thought about it.” I
think he's quoting his father there.
He wanted to find out firsthandwhat the Lord thought about it.

Mm-hmm.

And so he was very orthodox.
He was always orthodox.
When people would push him on it, healways gave the answer that “At some
point blacks will get the priesthood.
We don't know when that is.
That's the Lord's business.
It's the Lord's program.” Healways used the word program.
It's the Lord's program, and theLord will be able to work that
out, whenever that time may be.
He was always loyal to that, right?
And he was never—he was nevertrying to agitate for change

(17:56):
as a member of the Twelve.
But once he becomes the president,once the buck stops with him,
once it actually is his legitimateright to find out the Lord's will—

Mm-hmm.

—he's set to the task.

And you mentioned by study and also by faith.
We ought to talk about some of the study.

Yeah.

There's some scholarship that's influential in leading
President Kimball down this road, too.
Probably the biggest thing is a 1973article by Lester Bush, who is a member
of the church, also black member ofthe church, writes an article called

“Mormonism‘s Negro Doctrine (18:27):
A Historical Overview.” We've talked about this,
but a lot of the perpetuation of thepolicy had been based around the idea
that it originated with Joseph Smith.

Right.

A lot of people basically said, “Yeah, this has been
something we've done from the beginning.”

Mm-hmm.

Lester Bush's article basically traces the sources
available and points out that it didn'tstart with Joseph Smith, that—exactly
what we outlined in one of our earlierepisodes, that Joseph Smith didn't really
seem to have any kind of policy whenit came to temples and when it came to
race or anything like that, and thatarticle starts to circulate among the

(19:07):
leaders of the church in particular.
Hartman Rector told Lester Bush that hebelieved many of the general authorities
had read the article, and Marion D.
Hanks, who's another general authority atthis time—he's a member of the Seventy—

Mm-hmm.

—on multiple occasions said the article had
far more influence than thebrethren would ever acknowledge.
It started to stir thepot and change things.

He says it started to “foment the pot.”

Yeah, yeah.
Started to foment the pot.
It started to stir up their thinkingas to, “Have we been resting on some
assumptions that might not be accurate?”

Yes.
And challenging those assumptionsof the origins, which nobody seems
to have been doing very seriously.

Yeah.
Yeah.

Sorry.
Continue.

So Mark E.
Petersen, for instance, called PresidentKimball's attention to an article
that proposed the priesthood policyhad begun with Brigham Young and
not Joseph Smith, and told PresidentKimball that maybe that's a factor that
they should take into account, too.
Because I think the two things that arepushing and pulling the leaders of the
church here are they don't want to seemlike they're abandoning the previous

(20:08):
leaders of the church, especially JosephSmith, but they also want this to change.

Mm-hmm.

And so Lester Bush's article seemed to open up a little
bit of a gap for them to start thinkingin different directions about how the
policy had been put into place andtherefore how the policy could change.

Yeah, and if we can get a copy of that, I'll link Lester
Bush's article to our show notes.
It's actually fantastic.
That was 1973, and it still holdsup under historical scrutiny.

Yeah.

I mean, it is—and he was not even a professional historian.
I think he was an armymedic, if I remember right.
But he did some phenomenal scholarship.
Actually, he was responding—as kind ofinteresting backstory—to a guy named
Steven Taggart's 1970 article, where hehypothesized that it started in Joseph
Smith's day in Missouri as a resultof the Missouri persecutions, that

(20:57):
the church backed off on blacks havingfull participation in the church due to
the persecution in Missouri, and thatit had begun in Joseph Smith's day.
And so this is Lester Bush saying, “Idon't think so.” So Lester Bush was not
targeting the leadership of the church.
He wasn't trying to say,“Hey, you guys should change.
Look at this scholarship.” Whathe was saying was a response to a
1970s hypothesis that he felt didnot hold up under close scrutiny.

(21:22):
And so he just wanted to lay thewhole story bare, and it's phenomenal.
So we'll link that to the show notes.

Now that's the historical boundary
that they've got to cross.
We talked about how the other majorcompelling thing was scripture.
Do the scriptures say this is something?
You mentioned that little discussionthat we sometimes miss the nuance
on as to, “Is this a doctrine,or is it a policy,” doctrine is
generally found in the scriptures.
Policy is extrapolationfrom the scriptures.

(21:49):
And another thing that happensis that President Kimball
approaches the scriptures.
Now, this has happenedunder President McKay, too.
President McKay asked severalapostles to study the scriptures
and say, “Is there justificationfor the policy?” In 1977, Spencer W.
Kimball asked at least three generalauthorities to go back and read
the scriptures and write a memo.
In his article, Ed Kimball names thesethree general authorities as Boyd K.

(22:12):
Packer, Thomas S.
Monson, and, here's a surprise, Bruce R.
McConkie.

Why do you say that's a surprise?

Because I think there's a popular perception in
the world today that Elder McConkiewas gung-ho about this policy.

Mm.

And he did defend the policy, but we should note also that
he was one of the three that Spencer W.
Kimball asked, “Is there a scripturalbarrier in changing this policy?” And
I think in President Kimball's mind,Elder McConkie was probably the most
conservative member of the quorum.
I could be wrong.

Yeah, I'd say him and Mark E.
Petersen.

Yeah.

They've been the most vocal in, like, adamantly, like, defending
the church's position at that time.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.
I think the thinking is if Elder McConkieis OK with this, then we've got a strong
ally on our side, someone who is sointerested in defending church policy.
And apparently all three of them comeback and basically cite that there's no
justification for this in the scriptures.

Yeah.

We went over the scriptures in one of our previous
episodes, but this becomes a deepmatter of discussion among the Quorum
of the Twelve, and the reason whyI mention Elder McConkie is Boyd K.
Packer, in a talk, says specifically,“President Kimball spoke in public of
his gratitude to Elder McConkie forsome special support he received in
the days leading up to the revelationon priesthood.” So of the three,

(23:34):
President Kimball specifically notesthat Elder McConkie was really helpful.
And knowing Elder McConkie, hisinclinations and his expertise, I'm
guessing that has to do with going to himand saying, “Yeah, based on my reading
of the scriptures, this is somethingthat we can seek the Lord to change.

Yeah.

That he gave his green light.
And he gives a very great talkafter the revelation’s given,
too, speaking of Elder McConkie.

Mm-hmm.
I think Elder McConkiesometimes gets a bad rap.
Some people don't like how dogmatic heoften was, kind of how, like, hard the
line was that he toed on some issues.
His tone, maybe, was really strong, maybeoverbearing for some, but I think that's
a misunderstanding of Elder McConkie.
I think he was actually quitehumble and willing to defend
what he understood was true.

(24:18):
That's it.
Because when the revelationdoes come, he flips 180.
There's that great, famous linethat he says in the talk he gives in
August, the revelation happens in June.
In August, he gives a talk, and he says,“Forget everything that I have said.”

“Or George Q.
Cannon has said, or—“

Yeah.

“—or Brigham Young has said,” yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Here's the quote right here (24:38):
He says, “Forget everything that
I have said, or what PresidentBrigham Young or President George Q.
Cannon or whomsoever has said indays past that is contrary to the
present revelation.” And then listento this humility: “We spoke with a
limited understanding and withoutthe light and knowledge that has now
come into the world.” That's humble.

(24:58):
That's not a guy who's just—he'snot trying to be a stick in the mud.
Elder McConkie would just fiercelydefend what he knew to be true.
And when the revelation corrected him,he flipped 180—instantly is “Listen.
Forget everything.
Let's all now line up—”

Mm-hmm.

“—to be in harmony with this new revelation,” so.

Yeah.

Props to Elder McConkie, actually.

All right, so President Kimball is working
to build consensus among theapostles behind the scene.
That's one of his realgifts and strengths.

OK.
This is huge.

Yeah.
And we've also dealt with historicalbarriers, scriptural barriers.
Everybody's moving towards a pointto where they feel good about
asking the Lord for the revelation.
There's a couple things happeningon the periphery of the church, too:
1975, we already mentioned this, butthe São Paulo temple is announced.
Helvécio Martins, who is a blackAfrican Brazilian, is called to

(26:02):
be head of the Public AffairsCommittee for the São Paulo Temple.
Helvécio Martins and his sonMarcus Martins, who used to be
the head of Religious Educationat our sister school, BYU–Hawaii,
are both key figures in this, too.
So they're at the cornerstoneceremony of the São Paulo temple, and
President Kimball actually invitesHelvécio Martins to come up and sit
next to him on the stand, and thenthey have an interesting exchange.

(26:25):
And I think you have that right there.

Yeah.
So President Kimball says, “Doyou remember what I told you
when we first met years ago?” AndHelvécio says, “Yes, I remember.
You told me about being faithful.”So apparently there had been a
conversation about, “I'm black.
What do I do?” And PresidentKimball just told him, “Be patient.
Be faithful.
Just focus on being faithful.
That's all that matters,” at that time.
And so then President Kimball says,“Yeah, that's right.” And he repeats it.

(26:48):
He says, “Just remain faithful,and you'll receive all the
blessings.” And so this is 1977.
We're getting close.

Mm-hmm.

And the São Paulo Brazil temple is going to be
dedicated actually that next year.
And yeah, there's going to be manyBrazilians, like Helvécio Martins, who
have put a ton of effort and donation andtime to help the temple get built and,
under current policy, would be unableto actually attend the temple, right?

Mm-hmm.

LeGrand Richards actually says this was a huge,
directly consequential factor inthe brethren considering the removal
of the priesthood-temple ban.
Elder LeGrand Richards cites the Braziltemple as a major point, that in some
places there's like 80 percent of thepopulation had some ties back to Africa,
genealogically, and so there's goingto be a large number of Brazilians who

(27:40):
will not be able to attend the temple,and that weighed on the brethren's mind.

Mm-hmm.

So 1975, the temple's announced.
1978 the revelation is given,and it's going to remove the ban.
So at least in Elder LeGrandRichards’ mind, the temple was a
huge consideration for the brethrenabout the removal of the ban.
That's true.
So let's actually get to 1978, then.
OK.

OK.
So first thing, a third factor.
So we've talked about the historicalboundaries, the scriptures, the peripheral
events on the edge of the church.

Mm-hmm.

Now let's talk about what's happening with President Kimball—

Mm-hmm.

—and all his conversations with his son about this.
He talks about going to the temple.

Yeah.

He spent many days in the temple, and “through the sleepless
hours of the night,” Ed Kimball writes,“praying and turning over in his mind
all the consequences, perplexities,and criticisms that a decision to
extend the priesthood would involve.
Spencer gradually found that allthese complications and concerns
dwindling in insignificance.
They did not disappear, but theyseemed to decline in importance,” and

(28:42):
he's getting to the point where he‘scomfortable with—in fact, he cites a
meeting of March 9, 1978 in the temple,the First Presidency and the Twelve meet
together, and the apostles unanimouslysay, “We would be OK with the policy to
change,” but the change had to be based onrevelation and announced by the prophet.

Yeah.

So he's achieved unanimity, I guess
you'd say, among the Twelve.

At least as to the need for revelation, right?

As to the need for revelation and their acceptance
if the change was made by revelation.

Right.

But they're also clear in saying, “This is such a big deal
that we need a revelation to change it.”

President Kimball was well aware of how divisive this issue was under
the administration of President David O.
McKay, because he was anapostle during that time, right?

Mm.

And he knew that discord does not invite revelation, so he was
aiming to maintain harmony among thebrethren as this question was explored.
He knew that unity invites revelation,like when the Lord promised revelation
to church leaders in D&C 42:3.
Once they became, as he said, “agreedas touching this one thing.” So

(29:49):
this is, no doubt, why PresidentKimball wisely sought to involve
and include them in the process.

Yeah.

Like you mentioned, he reached out to them and asked
them to help him in the study andapplication of scripture to this problem.
He asked them at this very meetingyou're talking about to make this a
matter of personal fasting and prayer.
Specifically, he humbly invited them,saying, “Would you brethren begin
to pray and fast about this withme?” Now, this is March 9, 1978.

(30:16):
So he's trying to foster unityon this divisive topic, right?
So as to invite revelation.

Yeah.

Because he knows that to move forward on this, we can't
have any schisms among the brethren.
He can't have, like, seven of the apostleson his side and three going rogue and
two abstaining or whatever, you know,to have the best chance at success here.
He needed the apostles to be asunited as they could be on this issue.
If they could be humbly united on thisissue and then collectively approach
the Lord together—ooh—then theycould expect something special here.

Mm-hmm.

It's just like Elder McConkie would
later describe after the fact.
He said, speaking of the apostles,“When we seek the Lord on a matter
with sufficient faith and devotion,he gives us an answer.” And then he
says, ”You'll recall that the Book ofMormon teaches that if the apostles
in Jerusalem had asked the Lord, hewould've told them about the Nephites.
But they didn't ask, and they didn'tmanifest that faith, and they didn't

(31:10):
get an answer.” And then he says,“One underlying reason for what
happened to us,” speaking of theJune 1 revelation, “is that the
brethren,” plural, “asked in faith.
They petitioned and desired andwanted an answer, President Kimball
in particular.” So that's whatPresident Kimball's driving at.
He knows what needs to happen inthe hearts of each of the apostles

(31:32):
in order for heaven to open andfor this revelation to be received.

Yeah.

So now let's watch this play out.
About two weeks later, on March 23,President Kimball confides to his
counselors that he had spent much ofthe previous night in reflection on
this issue and that his impressionwas to lift the restriction on blacks.
Wow.
So he's got a private, personal impressionon March 23, 1978, to lift the ban.

Mm-hmm.

But he only tells his counselors, and according to Ed
Kimball's account here, his counselorssaid that they were prepared to
sustain him if that was his decision.
Then they went on to discuss what thatwould entail and what changes would
need to be made in the church, but afterdiscussing this amongst themselves,
they, the First Presidency, determinedtogether, now catch this, “that they
would need to discuss it again withthe Twelve before a final decision

(32:22):
was made.” Isn't that interesting?
His counselors say, “We're prepared tosustain you if that's your decision,”
and he's saying, “Mm, we need to discussthis again with the Twelve before a
final decision is made.” See, PresidentKimball was determined that the Twelve
be as united as possible on this.
He wasn't just going to tryto ram this through, right?
He knew that approach just wouldn't work.

Mm-hmm.

So for the next several weeks, he continues to pray
for the Twelve, and he asked theTwelve to continue to personally
pray and fast about this themselves.
Then, on May 4, less than a month awayfrom the big revelation on June 1, Elder
LeGrand Richards said that as they weretalking about this issue in quorum, that
he looked up and saw who he was convincedto be President Wilford Woodruff.

(33:05):
He'd been dead for many years.

Mm-hmm.

There was President Wilford Woodruff, at
least LeGrand Richards saw him.

In fact, let me quote him directly: he said, “I saw during the meeting a (33:10):
undefined
man seated in a chair above the organ,bearded and dressed in white, having
the appearance of Wilford Woodruff.” Andthen he said, “I'm not a visionary man.
This was not imagination.
It might be that I was privileged to seehim because I'm the only one here who had
ever seen President Woodruff in person.
Interesting.
You know, and perhaps the connection withWilford Woodruff is that it was under his

(33:33):
presidency that plural marriage had ended,which was a major shift in terms of how
things were done in the church, right?

Mm-hmm.

So perhaps his presence there was suggestive that it was time
for another major shift to happen.
And as we'll see, it's about to.

(34:00):
So May 4, one of the apostles, LeGrandRichards, sees President Woodruff during
their quorum discussion on this topic.
Then jump ahead to May 25—nowwe're getting real close to that
June 1 date—and Elder Mark E.
Petersen tells President Kimball aboutwhat he's noticed in an article, which we
assume has to be that Lester Bush article.

Mm-hmm.

He tells President Kimball that he found in that article
that the priesthood policy actually beganwith Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith.
So that's significant to Elder Peterson.

Mm-hmm.

Then May 30, President Kimball reads to his counselors
a tentative statement that he hadwritten in longhand removing the
racial restrictions on priesthood.
He said that he had a good,warm feeling about it.
They then reviewed past statements ofprevious prophets and decided to ask G.
Homer Durham, who was a Seventy whosupervised the historical department at
the time, if he would research furtherthe historical basis of the policy.

(34:53):
This is May 30.
Like we're, what, one day?
How many days are in May?

One day away.
Yeah.

We're one day away from the actual revelation.
He's still asking for peopleto do historical research
and try to help him out here.

Mm-hmm.

OK, so then we've got to talk about the next day in detail here.
Do you want to pick up there?
So it's Thursday, June 1, 1978.
They meet in the temple.
That's their normal temple meeting day.
So nobody expected anythingspectacular to happen this day.
They get together and have theirnormal meeting, which was...

Three and a half hours long.

Three and a half hours long.
They're not discussing thepriesthood policy at that point.
So, yeah.
What happens after that kindof—their normal meeting there?

A couple of details we ought to add in just to fill

in the story (35:32):
The meeting had ended.
In fact, Ed Kimball notes that twomembers of the quorum had already left
to change out of their temple clothes,and President Kimball called them back.
And also, there's two apostlesthat aren't with them.
Delbert Stapley's in the hospital.
Mark E․ Petersen's in South America,so ten of the twelve are present.

Yeah.

You've got—the First Presidency counselors have
already said, “We'll support you ifyou get the revelation.” And then
President Kimball actually looksat them, and this surprised me, but
President Kimball said, “Brethren,I have canceled lunch for today.
Would you be willing toremain in the temple with us?
I would like you tocontinue to fast with me.
I've been going to the temple almost dailyfor many weeks now, sometimes for hours,

(36:13):
entreating the Lord for a clear answer.
I have not been determined in advancewhat the answer should be, and I
will be satisfied with a simpleyes or no, but I want to know.
Whatever the Lord's decision, I willdefend it to the limits of my strength,
even to death.” So he talks to themand says, “We're going to fast, and
we're going to pray.” And then theystart to have discussions, and he asks

(36:35):
the Twelve to share their opinion.
He notes that, notably, Bruce R․ McConkiespeaks in favor of the change, and he
says, “There's no scriptural reason.
There's nothing stopping usfrom making the decision.”

Yeah.

Then the next one to talk is another person we sometimes
associate with being a hard-line defenderof the church, that's Boyd K․ Packer,
quoted D&C 124:49, 56:4–5, 58:32, allin support of the change, and then
eight other members of the Twelve sharetheir views, all in favor, but the
discussion goes on for about two hours,according to one account that's there.

I love that President Packer, who was there, he said, a few
weeks after this happens, he says, “Oneobjection from one member of the Twelve
would have deterred President Kimball.
It would've made him put it off.
So careful was he that it had to beright.” Like, the unity had to be there.
So if even one of the apostles objected,like, he would've said, “All right, let's
table this.” And so the fact that he goesaround, eight of the ten volunteered to

(37:36):
say their feelings, and then the othertwo who hadn't spoken yet, he asked
them, and they also speak in favor.
It's all unanimous.

Mm-hmm.

So now what?
What happens next?

I love the language here, but President Kimball says, “Do
you mind if I lead you in prayer?”

That's so good.

So he's the president of the church.
They've all signaled their willingness.

“Do you mind if I lead you in prayer?”

“Do you mind if I lead you in prayer?” They
surround the altar in a prayer circle.
President Kimball starts praying.

This is the way Ed Kimball writes it: “President Kimball told the Lord at (38:05):
undefined
length that if extending the priesthoodwas not right, if the Lord did not want
this change to come to the church, hewould fight the world's opposition.”
Elder McConkie later recounted, “TheLord took over, and President Kimball
was inspired in his prayer, asking theright questions, and he asked for a
manifestation.” And the manifestationis recorded by several different people.

(38:30):
There's a number of different voices here.
I'll just read what Elder McConkie said.
Elder McConkie said, “It was asthough another day of Pentecost came.”

Mm.

“On the day of Pentecost in the Old World,
it's recorded that cloven tonguesof fire rested upon the people.
They were trying to put into wordswhat's impossible to express directly.
There were no words to describe thesensation, but simultaneously the
Twelve and the three members of theFirst Presidency had the Holy Ghost
descend upon them, and they knewthat God had manifested his will.”
“I,” this is Elder McConkie again,“had some remarkable spiritual

(39:00):
experiences before, particularlyin connection with my call as an
apostle, but nothing of this magnitude.
All the brethren at once knewand felt in their souls what
the answer to the importuningpetition of President Kimball was.
Some of the brethren were weeping.
All were sober and somewhat overcome.”

Mm.

“When President Kimball stood up, several of the brethren
in turn threw their arms around him.”

It's so fun to read the accounts of the apostles who were there.
That was Elder McConkie.
There's another greatone from Elder Perry,
L․ Tom Perry.
He said, “While he was praying,we had a marvelous experience.
We had just a unity of feeling,” he said.
“The nearest I can describe it is thatit was much like what had been recounted
as happening at the dedication of theKirtland Temple.” He said, “I felt

(39:41):
something like the rushing of wind.
There was a feeling thatcame over the whole group.
When President Kimball got up, hewas visibly relieved and overjoyed.”
That's so good.
President Hinckley said, “There wasa hallowed and sanctified atmosphere
in the room, an assurance that thething for which he prayed was right.
The time had come.
Every man in that circle,” PresidentHinckley said, “by the power of the

(40:02):
Holy Ghost, knew the same thing.”My favorite one is Ezra Taft Benson.
He said, “Following the prayer, weexperienced the sweetest spirit of
unity and conviction that I have everexperienced.” And then this: “Our
bosoms burned with the righteousnessof the decision we had made.”
I just picture the Lord on the other sideof the veil here, with the petitioning

(40:23):
prophet for the first time now withthe united feeling and sentiment of the
First Presidency and Twelve together,petitioning and asking the Lord, and
the response was a burning in our bosoms“with the righteousness of the decision
we had made.” The Lord's saying, “Yes!
What you're asking is righteous.
That is right.
That is right.”

(40:43):
That's just so beautiful to me.

Yeah.

I love this little detail, too, from Elder David B.

Haight (40:47):
He was the closest to President Kimball when he had prayed,
and he, when they both stand up,spontaneously hugs President Kimball.
And Ed Kimball here says, “ElderHaight could feel President Kimball's
heart pounding in his intenseemotion.” Just love that image of
he hugged him right after, wherehe just felt his heart pounding.
“The president continued around thecircle, embracing each apostle in turn.

(41:10):
Others spontaneously embraced.
It's beautiful.

Yeah.
I want to add, too, there's two apostlesthat aren't present and President
Kimball has gone so out of his way tosort of ensure unanimity among the 12.
A little detail that EdKimball adds: Mark E.
Petersen was in South America.
Delbert Stapley was in the hospital.
President Kimball contacts both of them.

(41:33):
So he calls Elder Petersen, who'sin Quito, Ecuador, and informed him
what had happened, and has FrancisGibbons read the announcement.
It says, “Elder Petersen later said,‘I was delighted to know that a new
revelation had come from the Lord.
I felt the fact of the revelations comingwas more striking than a decision itself.
On the telephone, I told PresidentKimball that I fully sustained both the

(41:55):
revelation and him 100 percent.” Thenall three members of the First Presidency
visit Elder Stapley in the hospital andinform him of the revelation as well.
So they go out of their way tomake sure that there's total,
absolute unanimity among the Twelve—

Yeah.

—including the two that weren't able to be
there when the meeting was held.

And he doesn't stop with the Twelve.
He then, before this is announced tothe world, he wants to make sure that
all general authorities are on board,
and so at that point, he calls ameeting for all general authorities to
come to the temple—that he would liketo talk with them about something.
Nobody knew what it was about.
There was lots of speculation.
And so into the temple they went.

(42:36):
Elder Maxwell, at the time hewas a Seventy, he said, “I had
no inkling what was going on.
And as we knelt down to pray,” ElderMaxwell said, “the Spirit told me what
it was going to be, and after thatprayer, President Kimball began the
description, and I began to weep.”
And there were many general authoritiesthere that started to pick up
on where he was going with this.
As he starts to talk about the ban andhow he had always heard all of his life

(42:58):
that the ban would be lifted, “My fathertold me that one day it would be lifted.
When I was a stake president, an apostletold me it would be lifted,” keeps
quoting prophets who keep saying it.
“One day it will be lifted,”and the feeling in the room
starts to build and grow.
And then he announces to that group,he says, “Now the Lord has answered
me, and the time has come for allworthy men to receive the priesthood.
I shared with my counselors, I've sharedwith the Twelve, and I've gotten their

(43:21):
response, and now after having theirresponse, I want to turn it over to you.
I want your response.
How do you feel about it?

I won't—” He says this (43:27):
“I won't announce it to the world without
first counseling with you.
We're not in a hurry.
I want to hear from you.” Andso he listens to anybody who
has any objections or just wantsto know their feeling about it.
There were no objections.
One general authority said, “I would'vevoted against such a proposal, until
I experienced the feeling that Idid in this room this morning.”

(43:48):
He had stood up and said that.
Another had just said, “Ichanged my position 180 degrees.
I'm not just a supporter of this decision.
I'm an advocate.” So once it was clearthere was unanimity among the general
authorities, one of my favorite linesis he then turns to his counselor N․
Eldon Tanner, and he says, “Eldon, gotell the world.” So he slips out and

(44:10):
tells the press about this and then—ooh.
So awesome.
Just that dogged determinationto make sure there's unanimity
before this goes out to the world.
We can have no schisms on this.
The Lord loves unity, that's for sure.

And that announcement is now canon.
It's Official Declaration 2in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Yeah.

I'd love to read the whole thing, but here's the most important

part (44:42):
“He has heard our prayers.” This is in Official Declaration 2.
“By revelation has confirmed that thelong-promised day has come when every
faithful, worthy man in the church mayreceive the holy priesthood with power
to exercise his divine authority andenjoy with his loved ones every blessing
that flows therefrom, including theblessings of the temple.” There's the
priesthood and temple mention right there.

(45:03):
“Sincerely yours, the First Presidency.”And If I can, we've been bouncing
between the periphery of the churchand the headquarters of the church.
Let's bounce back to the periphery and—

Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths: —go to Helvécio Martins. (45:13):
undefined
You can find this material on Doctrineand Covenants Central, under Official
Declaration 2, but Helvécio was inBrazil when the announcement came.
His wife, Ruda, was with him.
This is what he says when heheard the announcement: “I
could not contain my emotions.
Ruda and I went into ourbedroom, knelt down, and prayed.
We wept as we thanked our Father in heavenfor an event we had only dreamed about.

(45:37):
The day had actually arrived in ourmortal lives.” So he might not have been
expecting it to happen in his lifetime,though he thought it was going to happen.

Yeah.

Two weeks after that, Helvécio Martins is
ordained to the Aaronic Priesthoodwith his son, Marcus, who we've met.
A week later he receives the MelchizedekPriesthood, and then he ordains his son,
and he later said, “I felt I would explodewith joy, happiness, and contentment.
What an incredible experiencefor me and for Marcus.”
And then flash forward a coupleyears, Helvécio Martins is the first

(46:07):
general authority Seventy who's aperson of black African descent.
He's made a general authority.

And his son's the very first black missionary, correct?

I believe that's right, yeah.

Yeah.
So here's a wild backstory I just heardabout that is that he had received in
his patriarchal blessing—this is the son.
This is Marcus.
Marcus had received a patriarchalblessing that said that he would
serve a full-time mission, whichyou have to be an elder to do.
This was before the revelation.
His parents, fully understandingthe implications of that, cautiously
but, like, optimistically begana mission savings fund for him,

(46:41):
which is such a cool expression offaith in that patriarchal blessing.
And then Marcus had actually gottenengaged to get married, and then when the
revelation came, he postponed his marriageso he could go fulfill his mission.
And yeah, he's the very firstblack missionary since Elijah Abel.
Super cool story.

Yeah.

The Martins family's awesome.

Wonderful stuff.
And I want to share an excerptfrom when Helvécio Martins
became a general authority.
He's passed away now.

Mm.

But he spoke in general conference, and in his talk he
said, “I was not called by the Lord torepresent any specific race, nationality,
or ethnic group of his children.
I was called by prophecy, revelation, andthe laying on of hands to represent God's
children, be they white, black, or anyother color, wherever they live on earth.
Less than 13 years earlier Ihad been given the priesthood.
Now I stand at the pulpit [that] someof the greatest men of all time had

(47:29):
occupied, with the living prophets andapostles seated directly behind me.” So
that's the power of the revelation, right?
This humble church member, less than13 years later, is now in the leading
councils of the church, directing thework and receiving revelation, just as
the prophets and apostles before him.

Wow.
So Casey, what are your major takeawaysfrom all of this history that we've
talked about throughout this whole series?
We talked about a lot.

Mm-hmm.

What are your therefore-whats that you kind of distill
and walk away from all this history with?

I think I can be open here and say this is the
hardest topic that we've tackled.

For sure.

It's tough, and you know, you and I, Scott, have had
a lot of back and forth behind thescenes about the right way to approach
this, the right way to talk about it.
I have to admit that part of my anxietycomes from the fact that I'm a white male.

Yeah.

And I feel like I'm tiptoeing into someone else's
sacred history here, but I'm also abelieving Latter-day Saint, and so
it's my story on that level as well.
It's tough.
It can be tough to confront imperfectionsin men and women that I love dearly,
and I still love them all, you know?
I still think Brigham Young'sa prophet, and Joseph F.

(48:45):
Smith and Eliza R.
Snow—but I think this is maybe theultimate story problem for a Latter-day
Saint as to do we believe in infallibilityin our leaders, or do we think that
they're humans that can make mistakes?

Mm.

This is a tough one, and then the length of time is tough
for us to manage, too, but in the grandscheme of things, I still think that
this is an uplifting story that shows howthe Lord can reach down and help people
overcome their prejudices and theirenvironments that they're born into.

Mm.

A few years ago, in 2018, was the
anniversary of the revelation.
They had a big celebration.
The entire First Presidency was there.
I loved this quote that Dallin H.
Oaks shared at that time.

President Oaks said this (49:31):
“Whether we look on the revelation as the end of
the beginning of the Restoration orthe beginning of the end of what it
portends, it is difficult to overstateits importance in the fulfillment of
divine command that the gospel must go toevery nation, kindred tongue, and people.
And I loved that way he phrasedit, that maybe we've tended

(49:53):
to think of the Restoration assomething that happened in the past.
In fact, I had someone criticize one ofmy books the other day, saying, “It's
not about the Restoration because theytalk about stuff after Joseph Smith.”
President Oaks is saying, “Oh, no, no, no.
The 1978 revelation is the end ofthe beginning of the Restoration.
Now the really amazing stuff is goingto happen.” And seeing temples rise in

(50:13):
places like South Africa and Ghana andNigeria and all over the place just
shows us that, yeah, we really have onlyturned the first page in the story of the
Restoration and this beautiful, upliftingrevelation marks the end of the beginning.
Not the beginning, notthe beginning of the end.
The story has a long ways to go.

Yeah.

And I'm so excited to see what the centuries before us
will tell us about new revelationsfrom God and new groups of people that
can come to experience God's love.

Mm.
That's awesome.
Thank you, Casey.
You know, as we wrap thisall up, my mind goes back to
where we began in this series.
I mean, we were pretty up front right atthe beginning about the fact that studying
this history carefully will forcefullyrequire us to confront our comfortable
assumptions about prophets and about God.

(51:05):
And I trust our listeners know alittle more now what we meant by that.

Yeah.

Regarding prophets, for instance, if there was any
question in your mind before webegan this series that prophets are
fallible and can make real mistakes.
Well, now you know.
We trust that point hasbeen settled for you.
I mean, as we've surveyed thishistory, we've seen several prophets
and apostles make unfortunatedecisions to exclude blacks from full

(51:31):
participation in the church basedon false doctrines, bad science,
discriminatory social norms, unfoundedfears, and false memories, right?
And those decisions, howeverwell intentioned—I don't think
any prophet was trying to bemalicious—still actually hurt people.
So we've got to learn to sit with that.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe we've learned the important lesson that
God's prophets are not God's puppets.
They are fully independent, and heallows them to make costly mistakes.
It's absolutely stunning to me toconsider the Lord's patience and
longsuffering in all of this history.
I mean, he's not intrusive or forceful.
Yeah.
Like, until there was a prophet andapostles willing to humble themselves

(52:13):
and unitedly study this out and seekhis will, he never forced the issue.
He just didn't speakdirectly on the issue.
But the very first time the apostlesunitedly approached him on this topic,
the revelation came with great power.

Yeah.

In the meantime, however, he was content to gently work
on what you've called the peripheries.
You know, pouring out his Spirit uponthousands in Africa, in spite of the
ban; working through patriarchs togive seemingly impossible blessings;
working, no doubt, through the CivilRights movement; prodding Lester Bush's
scholarship; guiding church leadersto build a temple in Brazil—all things

(52:49):
that eventually converge to persuadethe apostles to keenly feel a need to
draw near unto the Lord on this issueso that he could draw near unto them.
So I guess this history helps meunderstand that prophetic fallibility
is always tempered with boththe mercy and the wisdom of God.
Like, the good news for thosewho made mistakes is that God

(53:10):
is merciful, and he forgives.
And the good news for the innocent andfaithful who were hurt by those mistakes
is that when the Lord is involved,nothing can ever go permanently wrong.
Working within the constraintsof man's agency, the Lord
eventually got us back on course.
Right?
I love this quote from Paul Reevein his Let's Talk About book

(53:31):
that we've been recommending.
He said, “In June 1978,President Spencer W.
Kimball received a revelation thatreturned the church to its universal
roots and restored what was lost,priesthood and temple admission
to people of African descent.
This did not mark something new asmuch as it reestablished a commitment

(53:51):
to the founding principles of theRestoration.” So this is kind of,
like, a mini Restoration, right?
It's a restoration back towhat was originally intended.
I like that.

Mm-hmm.

This June 1, 1978 revelation is God correcting what had
come into the church through human error.
So we can think of it as arevelation of reversion and repair.

Mm-hmm.

Now, my final thought is, although I'm a white guy, born in
1980, and so I didn't experience anyof this history directly, I do remember
some church members telling me thingslike blacks were from Cain's cursed
lineage, or that they were less valiantin the premortal life, and I've seen
up close that racism is still a diseasein need of eradication in the church.

(54:34):
And so we've still got work to do.

Yeah.

Now, considering where we've come from, I can say
we're better collectively than wehave ever been, so that's good.
But there is still work to do, andI hope all of this history inspires
us to join church leaders today inunequivocally condemning all racism,
past and present, in any form toreally lead out in abandoning attitudes

(54:56):
and actions of racial prejudice.

Yeah.

And so my prayer for all of us, for what it's worth, is that
we will never be complicit with thescourge of elitism that has plagued
many good men and women of the past andcontinues to be a problem in some parts
of society and even in our church today.
So let's be part of the solution to thelove and the healing that is still so
desperately needed in the world today.

(55:20):
That's my prayer for all of us.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters.
Join us next week as we wrap up thisseries by responding to your questions
about all things related to the racialrestriction in the history of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We will be blessed to have with us Dr.
Paul Reeve as our special guest tohelp us respond to your questions, so

(55:47):
you're not going to want to miss it.
Today's episode was produced byScott Woodward and edited by Nick
Galieti and Scott Woodward, with shownotes and transcript by Gabe Davis.
Church History Matters is a podcastof Scripture Central, a nonprofit
which exists to help build enduringfaith in Jesus Christ by making
Latter-day Saint scripture and churchhistory accessible, comprehensible,

(56:09):
and defensible to people everywhere.
For more resources to enhance yourgospel study, go to scripturecentral.org,
where everything is availablefor free because of the generous
donations of people like you.
Thank you so much for beinga part of this with us.

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