The Lie of Blacks' Pre-Mortal Refrain from Christ: My Experience

As a newly baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the false notion that people of Black African ancestry did not support Christ before birth came with full satanic freight toward my fragile new faith in the validity of the Restored Gospel.

Budding hopefully in the faith that teaches where we come from, why we are here, and what happens after this life, nothing could derail my faith, I supposed. Satan would try nevertheless.

Thirsting to consume everything to do with the Restored Church of Christ, I guzzled book after book from the time I learned of the Church in 1992 forward wantonly disregarding the source of the information--not knowing detractors existed. It would not have mattered in the beginning. Missionaries had whetted my pallet for knowledge! Providence would have it that two books would pique my interest so that a divine lesson of forgiveness could occur.

I read two books reprinted in 1978 but on the library bookshelves in the 1990s:

• Mormonism and the Negro: an explanation and defense of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in regard to Negroes and others of Negroid blood by John J. Stewart
• The Church and the Negro by John L. Lund. 

It could have been both or one, but the path that the words in these books laid before me was one with upturned nails of hopelessness and shards of glass of low esteem to scrap along the edges during my walk with Christ for a spell.

Where The Books Led Me

Never before had I considered my lineage, but from the teachings in those works, I read that my heritage was through Ham because my skin was black and that I did not side with Christ in the pre-mortal life but remained neutral. 

Pre-mortal neutrality was a foreign concept to my budding spiritual system; then again,  so was the concept of pre-mortal life. Not knowing how to articulate my musings I believed life before birth personally until the missionaries who instructed me gave it a name.

Strangely enough, my Protestant background conjectured that Blacks are the seed of Cain in the most unsatisfying manners. Without delving into the false teachings I heard there, they did not affect me since I had no concept of continuing revelation and authorized oracles of God. 

Without the appellation of prophet after their names, the words of those Protestant opinionists bore little if no weight in my spiritual system of understanding.  With similar teachings added with the accusation of neutrality, during a war in heaven against Lucifer,  disadvantage destroyed my new fellowship with the Saints because I was a son of the descendant of slaves and devil worshipers! Thanks, Cain and Ham!

I was devastated. Bitter tears wet my pillow nightly for a week because the author was a leader in the Church. Having received my own personal witness that President Ezra Taft Benson was a prophet of God, I assumed that a witness of him meant that the books also spoke the truth. The first lesson that the missionaries taught me, to pray, escaped me regarding the matter. I thought that since this person was a leader in the church, those things he recorded about Blacks must be true.

Where The Books Left Me

During that week, loathing myself and disdaining my African ancestors, I went to my Bishop informing him of what I read and showing him one of the books. He tried to explain to me the difference between a prophet speaking by authority and revelation and one giving his fallible opinion. 

His words tingled in my ears like cymbals. I did not understand how a prophet could have an opinion unless it was also God's opinion. He then tried to convince me that it was false and not church doctrine, but I had received a witness that prophets lived and confused it with all church leaders at the general level being equally inspired and able to preach doctrine for the Church--at least I thought the author was a general church leader at the time and so did my Bishop.

I also lacked the spiritual maturity to understand that the 1978 revelation repudiated all the opinions related to the curse of Cain. 

When he saw I would not relent, he told me that I could prove to God in this life I would choose Christ. I accepted that compromise of the spirit for years, though it did nothing for my feelings regarding my race. The Spirit opened my mind to consider what my bishop said about the teaching being false, which came some few years after I was married.

Why do I share this? Many Black Members of the Church may have had a similar experience with finding out this malicious perspective of the fence-sitting children of God who became Black and cursed before birth. I have seven children who I do not want to feel the level of self-hate I felt because they learned about a teaching that was popular in the church among the laity, but never established as doctrine.

Where I Left The Books

The opinion about the fence-sitting pre-earth spirits becoming Blacks of African heritage is still a belief among some Saints; though it is denounced by many, and admitted by church authority as incorrect.

The is a document published on the LDS.org church site denouncing racism and such. There is no particular person who denounces the teaching. I assume the church leadership as a group denounces it, though I am not sure. It reads in part:

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life...  

I have perpetuated the false teaching until my eyes were open by the revelation included in Doctrine and Covenants as an official statement in 1978 to extend the priesthood to all worthy men.

Now I can boldly testify that all that was taught by Bruce R. McKonie and others is fallacious and unsound regarding the Black person. Many taught that the Negro would not receive the priesthood until some distant time during or after the millennium of Christ's reign. 

Since I am Black and I also am a priesthood holder, that conjecture of past is... well, conjecture! McKonie has also admitted that his best scholarship ended up being dull in comparison to revelation from God--being that Elder McKonie was present when the revelation was confirmed to all the apostles by the Holy Spirit of Promise.

Where God Has Me

Why should The Church of Jesus Christ apologize? God allowed it for a spell and ended it with revelation. 

It is of no consequence that President Brigham Young instituted it as a policy or if he received divine revelation about it. The fact that God allowed the ban is His prerogative.  For those of us who know the church is true, our question should be to God Himself. If the church should say anything, it can reaffirm the truth that Blacks of all nations are, and have always been, children of God just as any other group and are not cursed. 

Any hatred perpetuated from the past dealings of Black members of the church needs to embrace the healing balm of Jesus Christ. The church has made a statement about the ban among other things Race and the Priesthood. 

It has instituted a group called Genesis to help Utah minorities, specifically Blacks, who may feel alienated because of the so few numbers of Blacks in individual congregations in Utah.

As a Black man, I say we need to focus on putting God back at the center of life in practice and not name only. In my culture, we can sing praises all day long, but unless we keep the commandments all we are singing are slaps in the very face of God!

God has delivered my people from the wicked slavery of the White man and the oppressive hand of the racist White man. He has set His daughters free and given them a powerful voice to shape the nation independent of man. 

He has allowed laws to be passed to protect the weak and innocent from the predatory persecution of people who disdain people because of sexual preference. He has done all these things in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ so that we can truly learn to be prepared to receive His Son. 

If we are mistreating our brothers or sisters because of race, gender or sexual orientation we will not enjoy Christ coming for we will not be prepared. 

If we are harboring ill will towards those who have persecuted us because of our race, gender or sexual orientation we are not prepared. 

We will only be prepared as we love unconditionally all around us, or at least put ourselves on the path that leads to this love so that when Jesus does come He can sanctify us for our humble attempts!

Read These Things!!

Race and the Priesthood Link On LDS.org! It has come much later than many have wanted, but an acknowledgment that Blacks are not cursed or the representation of Satan on the Earth is a big step in the right directions.

• Blacks & The Curse of Cain President Brigham Young refuted the possibility of this falsehood in his support of a first presidency message declaring that all who obtained the first estate of life did so with earnest. No soul sat idly by in the war commenced in heaven
• The Truth about Being Black in America The fact that African Americans are called African at all is an indication of the limited explanation of this group's history. The nationalities of Black American ancestors are a mystery for the great majority of the group. Slavery stripped this group of the choice to decide to merge with American culture.