Mormon Doctrine

Race in Mormon Doctrine

Four entries, three versions of the book, and a set of teachings the church has since disavowed by name.

Mormon Doctrine explained the priesthood restriction, and it explained it in the language of pre-mortal valiance. Four entries carried the reasoning — Negroes, Cain, Races of Man and Lamanite Curse — and a fifth, Neutrals in Heaven, existed only to point at the first. The book changed twice: once in the 1966 revision, and again in the printings made after the revelation of June 1978. What follows is what each version says.

1958

The first edition's Negroes entry states the doctrine in a single sentence, at the end of a passage about degrees of valiance in the pre-existence.

Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the negroes.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Negroes”, 1958 first edition, p. 476

The Cain entry supplied the lineage, and drew the consequence for priesthood directly.

As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those spirits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born through his lineage.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Cain”, 1958 first edition

And a one-line entry, Neutrals in Heaven, sent the reader from the war in heaven straight to the entry on race: See Negroes. That entry was deleted in 1966. The Negroes and Cain entries were not.

1966

The second edition kept the doctrine and adjusted the sentences. Races of Man — an entry retitled from the first edition's Races of Men — still teaches that racial difference is degeneration and still places a person's race in the pre-existence.

Racial degeneration, resulting in differences in appearance and spiritual aptitude, has arisen since the fall.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Races of Man”, 1966 second edition, p. 436

All the spirit hosts of heaven deemed worthy to receive mortal bodies were foreordained to pass through this earthly probation in the particular race and nation suited to their needs, circumstances, and talents.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Races of Man”, 1966 second edition, p. 436

The Lamanite Curse entry, which does the same work for Native Americans, is substantially unchanged across both editions and is still the reading behind a good deal of the preaching in the Journal of Discourses.

After June 1978

On 1 June 1978 President Spencer W. Kimball received the revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy men, and the First Presidency announced it on 8 June. The printing of the second edition indexed on this site was revised to match. Its Negroes entry no longer explains the restriction; it reproduces the First Presidency letter in full and calls the revelation “one of the signs of the times”. The 1958 sentence about valiance appears nowhere in it.

Two things did not change. The Cain entry still ends with the mark:

The Lord placed on Cain a mark of a dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Cain”, 1966 second edition, p. 79

And the revised Negroes entry, announcing the end of the restriction, adds a clause of its own:

It means that members of all races may now be married in the temple, although interracial marriages are discouraged by the Brethren.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Negroes”, 1966 second edition, p. 373

Where it stands

In December 2013 the church published Race and the Priesthood, a Gospel Topics essay that takes each of these explanations and rejects it by name. It is the clearest statement the church has made on the subject, and it is worth reading against the entries above rather than instead of them.

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 actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else.

“Race and the Priesthood”, Gospel Topics essay, 2013

Each clause of that sentence has a counterpart above. Divine disfavour or curse is the Cain entry. Actions in a premortal life is the Negroes entry of 1958 and the Races of Man entry of 1966. Mixed-race marriage is the clause added after 1978. The essay does not name Mormon Doctrine, and it does not need to: the book is where most readers met the theories it disavows.