Was Brigham Young Wrong? (Paul Reeve/Christopher Rich 2 of 3)

Gospel Tangents Podcast

Was Brigham Young wrong about the priesthood/temple ban? I'll ask Dr Paul Reeve & Christopher Rich, and we'll discuss the showdown between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young over whether blacks are guilty of the Curse of Cain and Curse of Ham. Check out our conversation... https://youtu.be/iofIambKwQI Don’t miss our other conversations with Paul Reeve! https://gospeltangents.com/people/paul-reeve/ Copyright © 2024 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission. Understanding Curse of Cain GT: Okay. Well, let’s dive into the 1852 legislative session when An Act in Relation to Service was passed. [There was] a big debate between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young over whether this should be passed. And it’s also where Brigham Young articulates a race-based ban for priesthood. So, I know we’ve talked about this before, Paul, but remind people that didn’t see our first interview from eight years ago, what’s the debate between Orson and Brigham? Paul: Well, so they’re debating this Act in Relation to Service and Orson Pratt is once again, if it’s not free, it’s slavery. He’s calling it this abominable slavery. He proposes that the bill be rejected outright and gives a really strident anti-slavery speech. But theologically, there’s a mixture of religion and politics in this legislative session. And Brigham Young has created, and will create in a couple of his speeches, a cursed racial identity for people of Black African descent. He will suggest that they are cursed descendants of Cain. Cain killed his brother Abel, Brigham Young says, and because he kills Abel, all of Abel’s descendants, who he presumes to be white people, will need to receive the priesthood before any of Cain’s descendants can be allowed to receive the priesthood, and he presumes them to be people of Black African descent. GT: Were they going to die out at sometime? Paul: Well, right. But those are the terms that he creates. Right? GT: I mean, it’s a strange thing to say, you know? I mean, we’re going back to Adam and Eve, basically. These kids are going to have descendants forever, Black and white, right? So how are all the white people going to get the priesthood before the Black people do? Paul: Right. And did that finally happen in June of 1978? GT: So there’s no more descendants of Cain anymore? Paul: Well, Brigham Young is borrowing from the broader Judeo-Christian tradition, this story, this notion that black skin comes from the Curse of Cain. It’s the mark that God places upon Cain and therefore his descendants. That predates the founding of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by several hundred years. Then it gets mixed with the curse of Ham/Canaan, which is later, also in the Book of Genesis. Noah is found naked and drunk in his tent. Ham supposedly makes fun of him, and then the, the curse is, servant of servants you will be to Ham’s son Canaan. Right? Servant of servants you will be to other of Noah’s children. And that is overtly stretched and used to justify enslavement of people of Black African descent because the standard interpretation is that descendants of Cain, Ham, Canaan are people of Black African descent. Brigham Young comes into Mormonism with that idea. In 1852, he then gives it theological weight in his faith. Right? So he says that’s justification for barring people of Black African descent from priesthood ordination. Paul: So he is defining people of Black African descent as inherently guilty, and Orson Pratt will describe them as innocent. Shall we take the innocent African? So, you have two theological visions of who people of Black African descent are. And in 1856, Orson Pratt will also reject Brigham Young’s notion that they are descendants of Cain. He says we have no proof that Africans are descendants of Cain. It’s the only justification Brigham Young ever gives for the racial restriction,