{"id":47665,"date":"2024-08-30T08:19:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T14:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=47665"},"modified":"2026-02-19T11:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:41:20","slug":"on-premortality-and-the-priesthood-and-temple-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/08\/on-premortality-and-the-priesthood-and-temple-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"On Premortality and the Priesthood and Temple Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

When I was a priest, the adult advisor was excited to teach us a lesson about the premortal existence. He bounded up, grinning from ear to ear as usual, and said \u201cI\u2019ve been doing lots of reading, and I have some great stuff to share,\u201d and he did. For the most part, it was an excellent lesson. Then, suddenly, he pulled out a quote from some obscure seventy back in the 1950s that said that we were blessed according to how we had lived in the premortal existence, and we must have been pretty awesome to have been born into the One True Church, as opposed to the Blacks who were denied the priesthood because they were all less-faithful prior to being born.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I was disturbed to hear someone classifying who had been good and who had been evil in a prior life based on their skin color and ancestry. I said, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t seem right. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what we believe any more.\u201d The advisor shrugged and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m just quoting the Brethren.\u201d At that time I still believed everything a General Authority said must be the Gospel truth, so I grudgingly backed off and slumped down in my seat for the rest of the lesson.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The next day, I was carpooling with another quorum member to high school and asked him why he hadn\u2019t said anything about it as well. He responded that it just seemed like such an obviously wrong statement that it was a dead issue to him. The fact that it came up, however, would indicate that it isn\u2019t a dead issue. Though less likely to be believed in the Church today than some of the narratives about cursed lineage from Ham<\/a> and Cain<\/a>, it is still part of the legacy of historical anti-Black teachings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and worth addressing.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In this post, I will explain why Latter-day Saints should not embrace, teach, or repeat the idea that Black individuals were less faithful in the premortal existence. I will do this by examining the historical development of the doctrine, parse the scriptural canon of the Church that relate to premortal existence, and discuss why this idea doesn\u2019t fit into the broader canvas of Latter-day Saint doctrines.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Development of the Premortal Theory<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The earliest indications of a priesthood ban beginning to take shape were some statements of Parley P. Pratt in 1847, with the ban being officially announced by Brigham Young in 1852. Rationales for the ban mirrored the rationales given for the enslavement of Black Africans. The idea that people with Black ancestry were born into a cursed lineage because of poor choices in the premortal existence is more unique (Christians from the Orthodox-Catholic tradition have regarded premortality as a heresy since the sixth century), but developed as a corollary to those justifications.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The earliest mention of the idea was from Orson Hyde. In 1845 (two years before the earliest known mention of a priesthood ban), he suggested the idea in a March meeting of the Council of Fifty,[2]<\/sup><\/a> and then reiterated it in late April in a general meeting:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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At the time the devil was cast out of heaven, there were some spirits that did not know who had the authority, whether God or the devil. They consequently did not take a very active part on either side, but rather thought the devil had been abused, and considered he had rather the best claim to the government. These spirits were not considered bad enough to be cast down in hell, and never have bodies; neither were they considered worthy of an honorable body on this earth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But it came to pass that Ham, the son of Noah, saw the nakedness of his father while he lay drunk in his tent, and he with “wicked joy,” ran like Rigdon, and made the wonderful disclosure to his brethren \u2026 The conduct of [Ham] brought the curse of slavery upon him. \u2026 Now, it would seem cruel to force pure celestial spirits into the world through the lineage of Canaan that had been cursed. This would be ill appropriate, putting the precious and the vile together. But those spirits in heaven that rather lent an influence to the devil, thinking he had a little the best right to govern, but did not take a very active part any way were required to come into the world and take bodies in the accursed lineage of Canaan; and hence the negro or African race.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Note that the priesthood ban was not what Hyde\u2019s theory justified\u2014it was developed to explain and justify the enslavement of Africans.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

President Brigham Young opposed the idea. He may have been responding to Orson Hyde when he said that<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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the Spirits of the Chil[dren] of Men are pure & holy without transgress[io]n or any curse upon them\u2014& the diff[erences] that you see around you is on acc[oun]t. of the circumstances that surround them \u2026 some have taught that bec[ause] persons are poor that it is on acc[oun]t. of transgress[io]n. it is false doctrine\u2014from beginning to end.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

President Young, instead, focused on the curse of Cain to justify slavery and\u2014later on\u2014the priesthood ban, on account of his view of innocence at birth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After Brigham Young announced the priesthood and temple ban officially in 1852, however, Elder Orson Pratt began to revive the theory that Orson Hyde suggested in relation to slavery and applied it to priesthood. In April of 1853, Pratt wrote that \u201cif rewards and punishments are the results of good and evil actions, then it would seem that the good and evil circumstances under which the spirits enter this world must depend upon the good and evil actions which they had done in the previous world.\u201d Applying this to the ban, he added that \u201csome spirits take bodies in the lineage of the chosen seed, through whom the priesthood is transferred, others receive bodies among the African negroes or in the lineage of Canaaan whose descendants were cursed, pertaining to the priesthood.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> This was an alternative approach to the way Young justified the ban, and it would prove persistent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

President Young would once again come out and denounce the idea. In 1869, he stated that<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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there was No N[e]utral spirits in Heaven at the time of the Rebelion[.] all took sides. He said if any one said that He Herd the Prophet Joseph Saiy that the spirits of the Blacks were Nutral in Heaven He would not Believe them for He herd Joseph say to the contrary all spirits are pure that come from the presence of God.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/quotes-by-brigham-young\/<\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Despite these protests, the idea outlived Brigham Young. In the 1880s, for example, B. H. Roberts incorporated the idea that Blacks were less valiant during the war in heaven into some of his influential and widely-read writings, and (while not specifically aimed at Blacks) Wilford Woodruff speculated that some people had been neutral in the war in heaven, and were \u201castride the fence.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> Later on, Joseph Fielding Smith enshrined the teaching that those who were born with Black ancestry were less valiant in premortal existence in his writings, which were extremely influential in the Church throughout much of the 20th century.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The ban was lifted in 1978, though it took time for the belief to fade in the consciousness of Latter-day Saints. President Spencer W. Kimball seemed uncomfortable addressing the doctrines that had supported the ban, though Richard Ostling did report a conversation about the topic: \u201cMormons \u2026 have long taught that people are born into the black race because they somehow failed God during the pre-existence. [Spencer W.] Kimball says flatly that Mormonism no longer holds to such a theory.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> In 2013, a document published under the First Presidency\u2019s direction addressed the theory forcibly, stating that:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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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 unrighteous 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. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

That statement alone should give faithful Church members pause about the theory of premortal sins resulting in being born into \u201ccursed lineages,\u201d as it signals that the idea is condemned at the highest levels of the Church\u2019s hierarchy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lack of Scriptural Support<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Having addressed the history of the theory from its inception to death-knell, I will now turn to discussing scriptures that have been used to support the theory to show that they do not actually support it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Over the years that the premortal existence theory was in use, several high-ranking Church leaders observed that the theory was not rooted in scripture but was speculative in nature. A few examples:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n