In case you haven’t heard, Bradley R. Wilcox, second counselor in the Young Men General Presidency and BYU professor, has been widely castigated for offensive remarks he made at a multi-stake youth fireside in Alpine, Utah, on February 6. The uproar over Wilcox’s talk is so severe that I actually…
Category: Race
Mormons Should Make Jesus Semitic Again
by Johnny Townsend Mormons have a long, troubled history of racism, well documented in Joanna Brooks’ Mormonism and White Supremacy. Feeble attempts at addressing the problem consisted mostly of changing the wording in a few Book of Mormon passages from “white and delightsome” to “pure and delightsome.” Numerous systemic problems…
Politics as Religious Conviction
by Johnny Townsend The religious right is ramping up for a modern-day crusade. That’s not a metaphor. Racially motivated killings are in the news every day. Homophobic and transphobic murders are committed regularly. Poor men and women are forced to work in conditions that will kill a significant portion of…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Hoax edition!!
OK — it was a few weeks ago now — but I think the most interesting recent bit of Mormon news was the hoax apology from the CoJCoL-dS (apologizing for the CoJCoL-dS’s history of racism), actually written by Jonathan Streeter. The go-to analysis of it is by Zandra Vranes of…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Intolerance edition!
You may have noticed that there have been some racial tensions in the United States lately. Also the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally had some problems with racism (see this helpful infographic). And, yes, there’s racism in the Book of Mormon: This scripture is important because…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: More race edition!!
The discussion of the pool party incident wasn’t even done when another racism horror story arrived on the scene. The recent tragedy in Charleston isn’t about Mormonism, but… Mormonism has such a strong historical connection with American racism that naturally we’ve been talking about it this past week. In other…
Obligatory Violence and the Book of Mormon
Like so many people, I have spent the past two days convulsed with grief and horror at the events in Charleston. Also shame: America’s latest accused mass murderer claimed he had to kill black people because they “rape our women,” and it’s as repugnant to me that anyone would murder…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Racial anniversary edition!
This past week, I kept seeing links to this article: On 37th anniversary of priesthood ban’s end, black Mormons say race issues still need attention. And I kept thinking, well duh — is there anyone who thinks otherwise? Obviously just sweeping it under the rug doesn’t suffice. (Note: Jane Manning…
Sunday in Outer Blogness:
It’s been a slow week in Mormon news. The biggest item seems to be that you can now pay your tithing online (though you still can’t keep the amount confidential from your local leaders). Remember, tithing is basically the most important thing to do. Oh, and don’t criticize the leaders,…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Who’s driving this train? edition!
True to his name, Profet anticipated this weeks hot topic in his piece highlighted last week!! In a nutshell: The CoJCoL-dS posted an article about race on its official website, and everybody is super-happy to learn that racist doctrines (like curses or restrictions based on skin color) aren’t LDS doctrines…