[lotharbot]

While the Bible definitely shows a pattern of preaching to specific groups, as soon as there's an organized religious system, there's a method for outsiders to receive full benefits. Moses allowed foreigners to participate in passover (Ex 12:48) and other sacrificial ordinances (Ex 22:18). While certain rites were only performed by priests, who were from a particular family, the benefits of those rites applied to everyone in the nation (see Num 15:25-26). Likewise, immediately after Jesus' resurrection, both Jewish and non-Jewish believers received the same spiritual gifts (Acts 10:45) and the same salvation (Rom 1:16, Gal 3:28).

Interestingly, the early LDS allowed blacks full membership with no limitations (for example, Elijah Abel was a black LDS priest in 1832.) The Book of Mormon describes blacks as cursed (2 Nephi 5:21) but allowed to come to the Lord just like anyone else (2 Nephi 26:33). And it makes the anti-racism statement "revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins" (Jacob 3:8-9). Joseph Smith himself was an abolitionist (D&C 101:79).

But Brigham Young declared that if Utah received statehood, it wouldn't be Congress' business whether or not they had slaves or how they treated them (Journal of Discourses 4:39-40). He also stated that the penalty for mixed marriage is death on the spot (JoD 10:110), and that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood until after all of the whites did, at which point they would actually turn white (JoD 7:290, 337). Wilford Woodruff (4th LDS prophet) said that the only way someone in a mixed marriage could have salvation was to be beheaded, and for all of his children to be killed as well; there's no "proxy baptism" option present here.

By the 1950s, the common view was that blacks were cursed because they had not behaved valiantly in the pre-mortal existence, but that they would eventually receive full blessings. Then in 1978 a "revelation" allowed blacks to hold the priesthood. There are still some vestiges of the 1950s view, though; a friend told me of someone else in his mission who, after visiting a non-committal black family, complained that "n___ers were fence-sitters in the pre-existence and they're fence-sitters now".

So, as you say, it's complex. Official LDS doctrine (specifically coming from "prophets") regarding blacks went from a little racist to extremely racist to kinda racist to not racist. Individual LDS attitudes have always had some variability.

[rmc]

The cynic & atheist in me thinks that "Mormon beliefs followed contemporary conservative US attitudes" to be a much more accurate, succinct and possibly honest description of the situation. Racist when it was common to be racist, not racist once that got politically unacceptable.

A similar timeline happened with polygamy/plural marriages. Abandoned when it became politically unacceptable.

I wonder when they'll do same sex marriages.

[lotharbot]

Your version isn't actually very accurate. In particular, note that official Mormon doctrine was at times much more racist and at other times less racist than contemporary conservative US attitudes, with significant changes from one "prophet" to the next. I wouldn't characterize it as following others attitudes, but rather as being controlled by the whims of individual men who were all over the spectrum of US attitudes, and who didn't particularly agree with each other.

Your comment on polygamy is also lacking sufficient detail. In particular, note that LDS polygamy was never convenient or accepted by outsiders; whenever it was publicly known, it led to serious community opposition, and probably contributed to their being chased out of Nauvoo [2]. They also officially denied practicing or teaching polygamy, even as Joseph Smith was accumulating a total of 34 wives [0]; he was actually killed as a result of fallout from burning the printing press that was used to expose the practice [1]. Even their "abandoning the practice" was more of a denial that it ever happened, and a weak bit of "advice" to "refrain" from violating local laws [3]. This came shortly after serious attempts by the US government to end polygamy via asset seizures and other forms of pressure; unlike in the 1850s, there were few uncolonized areas they could move to (but some LDS fled to Mexico, including some of Mitt Romney's ancestors [4]). So it would be more accurate to say that the practice was officially abandoned when it became exceedingly difficult to continue. Even so, unofficially within the main LDS church and officially within various offshoots, polygamy continues to this day [5]; official doctrine still teaches polygamy in the afterlife as well [6].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wives_of_Joseph_Smith,_Jr. - I have, in the past, found the same list on LDS-run sites like familysearch.org, but it appears to have been scrubbed

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Mormon_War#The_.22Mor...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_Manifesto#The_Manifesto

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_family

[5] My friend Doris Hansen escaped from fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, and now runs a ministry to rescue other women and children: http://www.shieldandrefuge.org/index.htm . The ministry has its own TV show at http://whatloveisthis.tv/ . The show archives contain lots of interviews with former polygamist men and women.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy#Modern_...