Word: mormons
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...word came suddenly in June: after more than 100 years of barring blacks from its priesthood, the Utah-based Mormon Church was reversing its stand. Spencer Kimball, 83, the church's leader, had experienced a revelation. For 4 million practicing Mormons, a period of anxious waiting followed as Kimball refused to elaborate publicly on his moment of epiphany. Finally TIME Staff Writer Richard Ostling broke through the wall of silence to interview Kimball for this week's story on the Mormon Church...
...inconceivable, even with the most naive faith, to accept the fact that God sold out the black race until the year 1978. It's far easier to believe that the Mormon creed did just that...
...Mormon Church never found it easy to deny the priesthood to blacks. The revelation extending this privilege brought joy to the entire church. Such a reaction is hardly that of a group of racists "abandoning racism...
...Mormonism is by far the largest of the made-in-America religions. But its drive for respectability has had a major impediment: Mormon insistence that blacks could not be priests. The policy was sweeping, because in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "priesthood" is not a clergy rank but a status achieved by nearly all male members...
...historic moment for Mormons, who believe that the prohibition against blacks as priests goes back as far as the sons of Adam. It is taught in the Book of Abraham, one of three scriptures revealed to Prophet Joseph Smith and accepted as holy writ only by Mormons. According to the key verse, descendants of Cain (identified elsewhere in Mormon scripture as blacks) are "cursed as pertaining to the priesthood." Because of this the racial bar could only be lifted by a "revelation" direct from God. The church leaders said they had spent many hours in the Upper Room...