The Lifting of the Priesthood Restriction

In a previous post a couple of months ago I addressed the topics of whether Mormons were/are racist. In that post I quoted Harold B. Lee who in answering a question from the press regarding the priesthood restriction against men of African descent said the following:

For those who understand revelation, there is no problem. For those who do not, there is no answer.

That is the point that I have been trying to make in these recent posts covering the religious history of priesthood restrictions. It is a matter of faith, not race.

In 1977 when I was investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I was greatly troubled by this priesthood restriction. It bothered me so much that I almost wasn't baptized because of it. I had the same reaction of many people; that it was racist. The young missionary who was teaching me explained it something like this.

If the Mormon Church truly is divine then it has the priesthood, and God who decides who can hold it. However if the Mormon Church is false, then its priesthood is also false, and we are denying those of African descent nothing. If true, then God has His reasons; if false, then we are sparing these men the indignity of ordaining them to a false priesthood.

I found his reasoning to be persuasive. We were denying these men nothing if the Church isn't truly divine. However, if the Church is truly the Kingdom of God on the earth; then the Lord is free to do as He sees fit.

I took comfort in the teaching that the day would come when all men would be eligible to hold the priesthood if they simply met the worthiness requirements. At the time we didn't know that the promised day would come in less than a year. Wikipedia tells of the events leading up to the revelation.

In the early 1970s, LDS Church president Spencer W. Kimball announced the construction of a number of new temples to be built both in the United States and abroad. On March 1, 1975, he announced plans to build a temple in São Paulo, Brazil.

The problem of determining priesthood eligibility in Brazil was thought to be nearly impossible due to the mixing of races in that country. When the temple was announced, church leaders realized the difficulty of restricting persons with black African descent from attending the temple in Brazil.

According to first-person accounts, after much discussion among the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on this matter, they engaged the Lord in prayer. According to the writing of one of those present, Bruce R. McConkie of the Twelve: "It was during this prayer that the revelation came. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon us all; we felt something akin to what happened on the day of Pentecost and at the Kirtland Temple. From the midst of eternity, the voice of God, conveyed by the power of the Spirit, spoke to his prophet. The message was that the time had now come to offer the fullness of the everlasting gospel, including celestial marriage, and the priesthood, and the blessings of the temple, to all men, without reference to race or color, solely on the basis of personal worthiness. And we all heard the same voice, received the same message, and became personal witnesses that the word received was the mind and will and voice of the Lord."

Gordon B. Hinckley, a participant in the meetings to reverse the ban, said, "Not one of us who was present on that occasion was ever quite the same after that. Nor has the Church been quite the same. All of us knew that the time had come for a change and that the decision had come from the heavens. The answer was clear. There was perfect unity among us in our experience and in our understanding."

Saints throughout the world rejoiced that the final priesthood restriction was finally lifted. None celebrated quite so much as the faithful in Africa.