Top Ten Most Offensive Statements By LDS Church Leaders
 

Saw this list on another forum and thought I'd throw it out to CG to get some reaction. Obviously, the level of "offensiveness" is relative and many of these statements are antiquated:

1) "It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this ‘church which is the most abominable above all other churches' in vision. He ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it' and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization.(Bruce R. McConkie. Mormon Doctrine [1958], 130.)

2) "I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Twenty Seventh Wife, Irving Wallace, p. 101.

3) "Brethren, I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake." - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp

4) "You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation ...When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:336).

5) "The day of the Lamanites in nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome. . . The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation. . .There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. Spencer W. Kimball; The Improvemant, Era, Dec. 1960, p. 923)

6) "You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind....Cain slew his brother. Can might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, page 290).

7) "Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110.)

8) "Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race." (Tenth LDS President, Joseph Fielding Smith The Way to Perfection, p.101.)

9) "Let us consider the great mercy of God for a moment. a Chinese, born in China with a dark skin, and with all the handicaps of that race seems to have little opportunity. but think of the mercy of god to Chinese people who are willing to accept the gospel. In spite of whatever they might have done in the pre-existence to justify being born over there as Chinamen, if they now, in this life, accept the gospel and live it the rest of their lives they can have the Priesthood, go to the temple and receive endowments and sealings, and that means they can have exaltation. Isn't the mercy of God marvelous?

Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood... This Negro, who in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in the lineage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in darkest Africa--if that Negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincerer faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessing of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory. (Race Problems--As They Affect The Church, An address by Mark E. Petersen at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College level; Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954.)

10) "We do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals. If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly.... We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence." (Ernest Wilkinson, president of Brigham Young University, in a 1965 lecture to the BYU student body, titled: "Make Honor your Standard."

That's a great top ten list. One quibble. I'd probably move your no. 1 to no. 10 and shuffle the rest of them a bit. I think the racism is far worse than calling the Catholic Church the GAAB. One religion should be free dismiss another as false or spawn of Satan, unless you're going to dismiss the whole enterprise on all fronts as irresponsible (which is not necessarily unreasonable but requires some mental gymnasics in terms of disenaging yourself from thousands of years of ingraining by religions that religious hatred is dandy if done in the name of God). Calling yourself the one true Church and path to something called "eternal life" or "salvation" is nothing if not religious bigotry, but they all do it to one another. Good work, Taq.

I predict this thread will be a virtual non-starter.

Yawn. These have already been posted on this site and discussed ad nauseum.

Taq?

Whether it be by my voice, or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.

I tend to get more white and delightsome in the winter. Summers are the opposite. Modest clothing that covers my legs and arms also helps me get more white and delightsome.

I've noticed that Michael Jackson must be living right as well.

That's an interesting point. I wonder if we missed a revelation about wearing Hijabs/Burqas, as we're obviously being punished in the summer.

Still, McConkie's statement totally deserves to be in the Top 10.

My biggest problem with the GAAB=Catholic Church viewpoint is it's ahistorical in the same way the Great Apostasy is. The Catholic Church is just the primary stuff of Western culture for most of the last 2000 years for better and worse. It's sad that a man as aged as Bruce R. McCaonkie was when he said what's quoted above was so ignorant as to not see that the Catholic Church was a but for cause for the good life that he lived. Yes, about myself, I can say that about Mormonism as well as the Catholic Church. McConkie's (and the rest of these gentlemen's) ignorance, their myopia, their historical chauvenism, is absolutely staggering.

And this is one of the primary evils of religion, and Mormonism may bee the biggest offender. All of these men were ill-bred, uneducated men. I challenge any one of you to go to the Vatican or visit the Gothic cathedrals in Northern Euope and do a serious study of the artwork including the stained glass and see if you can still be as dismissive as McConkie. If you could, I would feel sorry for you because it would mean you are clueless about what you are and where you came from.

just to clarify
 

I didn't compile the list. I just saw it on another forum and pasted it here. I think if I were compiling a list it would have to include the following statement which JS wrote to 19 year old Nancy Rigdon after she rebuffed his marriage solicitations in 1842. I've seen this quote used by present leaders regularly out of context, but in its historical context, I find it offensive:

"Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received. That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another." (Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon, 11 April 1842)

Sorry Jim/Taq. Nice threadjack try, Lebowski.

Clearly the Catholic church has been, and still is, wrong about almost everything, but at least their leadership is generally very educated. It's easy to see why there are so many absurd statements coming from the 15 when their training is either poor or useful only for running a bureaucracy rather than knowledge of the world. There are exceptions to this, Holland perhaps being one, but it's a pretty big problem.

You too missed the point, almost as badly as McConkie, I'm afraid.

I was making a point, and it's a good one unless you can explain why not. The last time we discussed the Catholic church you declared that art and music exist only because of the church and that I'm on the side of Hitler, Stalin, and kitten rapists. Forgive me if I ignore you on this topic.

Not to interject, but the phrase "kitten rapists" cracks me up.

Carry on.

lol.

I just thought it was kind of funny that subconsciously you thought it was Taq Man posting this list. As a good fiend of mine is apt to say, "speaks volumes".

A less than white and delightsome list.

That's a fascinating set of quotes. Thanks for posting. Sadly, racists quotes from church leaders are a dime a dozen.

Call me crazy, but I actually draw some hope from this list. That SWK could make a comment like #5 in 1960 and then be the instrument to reverse the priesthood ban is quite inspiring, IMO. I am optimistic for our future.

none of those comments are offensive. That is unless, of course, you are a fool.

The comments might be ridiculous, they might be unintentionally comedic, they might be ignorant, but they most certainly aren't offensive - that is unless one makes the conscious decision to take offense and I'm not sure why anybody would choose to do that.

Actually, you have it backwards. If you seriously think none of those comments are offensive, you are the fool.

Why? Because I choose not to be offended by them? It's actually quite nice to live life without having to worry about being offended by what others say. If that makes me foolish, so be it.

Yeah, I guess someone could have said that about Mein Kampf before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and got in a position to do some real property damage and bodily injury. What's so offensive about a little hate speech between ignoramuses? Not much different than a circle jerk. Makes sense.

It seems to me that one should be able to recognize a comment as offensive without actually being offended. Otherwise, you would feel no restraint in parroting any of that nonsense.

You are officially a racist. Not necessarily an aggressive "hate" racist--but a racist all the same.

Hey if you choose to take offense, that's your problem. I'm not going to let some ignorant comments made by some dude 125 years ago offend me. It simply isn't worth it.

LOL. The racists are the ones that keep trying to race bait by rehashing old quotes like this time and time again.

I would feel restraint because so many of those comments are either incorrect, senseless, ignorant, worthless, etc - they also might offend some weak-minded individuals.

Those would be some of the many reasons I would "feel restraint in parroting any of that nonsense".

that comment is just about as laughable as those made by BY, Mark Peterson, McConkie, etc.

Laughable, ignorant, stupid - but certainly not offensive. But nice try.

Those quotes are not merely lapses of manners. They do not simply evidence a lack of tact. They assert (im)moral notions and thus may be justly subjected to indignation.

Your lightmindedness regarding them is unbecoming.

Obviously one can choose not to be offended by something, but like Woot brought up that doesn't make a comment un-offensive. I'm not easily offended but much either, but I can't understand how a black or an American Indian or homosexual would feel about those comments.

So you're not offended by ignorance, falsity, senselessness, worthlessness, stupidity, racism, sexism, hypocrisy, etc? If you saw a televised broadcast of the Tanners talking about how evil Mormons are you wouldn't be offended? You have a strange concept of what it means to be offended.

These quotes are awesome because it deflates the mullahs like nothing else.

I mean, when someone says that the Brethren were very sorrowful that blacks were still not being allowed to have the priesthood by Jesus Christ himself, I only have to trot out the Delbert Stapely letter. Argument over.

You say the quotes shouldn't be offensive because they're old. Stupid defense. And defending racism makes you a racist.

Is our church and its members accurately defined by these quotes? Is it an integral part of who we are now and how we treat our fellow man now?

While I'm not a big fan of presentist judgment of the past, the 1960s aren't exactly ancient history. The effects of these beliefs and comments continue to plague the LDS church. Whether or not you believe in the LDS church, the ideas espoused in these comments are extremely offensive - especially since contemporary LDS leaders have not made a serious effort to repudiate them. That's inarguable, whether or not you "choose" to be offended.

You admit that the comments are "ignorant," but that word seems too tame to me. Would you prefer to describe this list as "extraordinarily and disgustingly repugnant" instead of "offensive"?

If I try to put myself in the shoes of a black man or a homosexual, I would certainly look at those statements as moronic and coming from a bunch of buffoons, but I hope I wouldn't take offense. It wouldn't be worth it.

Our past defines us, too. Maybe the past is less important than the present, but our racist past needs to be publicly denounced by Church leaders and also by the average member.

Maybe you can show me where I've defended racism. I'm not seeing it or remembering it.

That's not for me to say, but I assume there are at least a few people who tempered their ardor for the wisdom of the prophets after seeing how often they're dead wrong on basic moral issues. Some say that there is a significant amount of racism and sexism in the church, and there's no question there's a ton of anti-gay sentiment. Whether ignoring the heritage of your religion is wise is up to the individual, I reckon.

You said that the quotes were ignorant. They are much more than ignorant. They're racist. That kind of euphemism is a blatant defense.