Introduction to the Series and Guests

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hi everyone, this is Dr. John Dehlin of Mormon Stories podcast. I want to thank you for joining us today on this epic 17 part series featuring Dr. Matthew Harris and his amazing book, Second Class Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. This series has been groundbreaking. We've never had the response so far that we've had in terms of people really valuing our in depth coverage. This groundbreaking book that's talking about the Mormon Church's priesthood and temple ban against black people and then the dynamics, the inner workings, the political machinations of how the sausage gets made in terms of lifting the priesthood ban in the aftermath. So we have some good news and bad news about this series. The good news is thanks to the generous donations of those who have been watching it so far, we've been able to, I believe, more than generously compensate Dr. Harris for his contributions. That's the good news. The bad news is, you know, because we made the promise that 100% of the donations would go to Matt, we have not received any compensation for about the $20,000 of production costs that we incurred to produce this series and that that sort of imbalance would make it so we wouldn't be able to produce series like this going forward. So. So if you value this series, if you want to see the Open Stories foundation also be compensated for its production cost for this series and if you want to see series like this with Matt and with other people, continue, we kind of need you to step up and donate to cover our production costs. And it's really easy to do that. All you have to do is go to mormonstories.org donate or go to mormorstories.org and click on the donate button and you can do a one time donation, a recurring donation, and if you want to, you can type Second Class Saints or Matt Harris in the description and that will hopefully allow us to cover our production costs for this epic series. Regardless, we want to thank Dr. Matt Harris for his generosity in doing this series. We want to thank all of you who have supported us. Please go buy this book, Second Class Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. And again, if you're wanting, if you're grateful for this series and you haven't donated and you want to see it continue, please please donate to Mormon Stories Podcast. Thanks again to everyone who donated to make the series possible. Thanks to Matt and we hope you enjoy this next episode in the series. Take care. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is 6-7-2024. And this episode is part now part four of what I think is important series on this brand new book, Second Class Saints by Matthew L. Harris. Dr. Harris. The subtitle is the Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. We've done four episodes now. This is. Sorry, this is the fourth episode that we've been doing and we're talking about the Mormon Church's history on banning black people, black members from both black men from holding the priesthood and black men and women from what the Mormon Church calls temple blessings. This is an depth dive that not only understands the history of racism and white supremacy within the Mormon Church, in my words, I'll let Matt use his own words, but it also is an inside view of how the Mormon Church makes decisions, how it deals with problems, how it achieves consensus, how the leaders work, how it does damage control. But it's for sure one of the top three most important books I've ever read on Mormonism. So please buy it now. Go to Amazon, buy, buy it, support Matt, get a phenomenal book and check it out. So far we've talked about the sort of the history of race in the Mormon Church and how Joseph Smith did ordain black men to the priesthood, but then how Brigham Young brought his own racist ideologies to Mormonism and instituted what was called the priesthood ban, temple ban, and the this one drop rule where if you had even one drop of blood, you couldn't get the priesthood. From there. We Talked about late 19th and early 20th century dynamics with the church, how early 20th century church leaders grappled with the legacy of Brigham Young and how they slowly sort of eventually, in part three, we talked about how they just, by the late 1940s, threw down the gauntlet and said this is doctrine, and came up with a statement in 1949 saying this is definitely doctrine. And that's kind of where we left things. And we did a full episode on Lowry Nelson, who's a real hero opposing the church's ban from the start. So today we're going to be talking about what's called racial passing and we're going to be talking about the church attempting to expand into foreign countries, including South Africa and Brazil.

Matt Harris [00:05:07] And.

John Dehlin [00:05:07] And with us, we're very thrilled to have back Dr. Matt Harris. Hey, Matt, welcome back.

Matt Harris [00:05:14] Thanks for having me back, John. It's a pleasure to be here again.

John Dehlin [00:05:17] Yeah, so great to have you. And of course, we have Gerardo Samano back. Hey, Gerardo.

Nate Bird [00:05:21] Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:05:23] And as a special guest panelist for today, we're so thrilled to have Nate Bird from the Black Menaces. And y' all will know him from his Mormon Stories interview and the few times he's appeared as well. Hey, Nate.

Nate Bird [00:05:35] How's it going, everyone? Thanks for having me on.

John Dehlin [00:05:38] So great to have you, Nate. Nate, do you just want to spend 30 seconds to tell people just a bit about you before we jump in?

Nate Bird [00:05:45] Yeah. So my name is Nate Bird. I'm a recovering Mormon. I grew up in the LDS Church, went to BYU. I graduated in 2022, and now I am just working here in Salt Lake City. So excited to be on the show.

John Dehlin [00:06:02] And we were able to get you this chapter to read before. So you're. You're. You're ready with. You're armed with questions, is that right?

Nate Bird [00:06:09] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:06:10] All right. Also, I'll just remind people that this. This podcast is meant to be viewed in sequence, so please. So you know, know that you can check it out on Spotify as its own standalone podcast. You can check it out on Apple Podcasts as well. And then we'll have a playlist on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, so. So that you can watch these in succession or refer to a friend. And this is a pilot podcast, even though we're four episodes in. To pay Matt what he needs to be able to justify this time and to pay him what he's worth for his quality work, we're asking 100 to 200 of you to sign up at 10 to 20 to 50 bucks a month. And that will give us enough to make sure and pay Matt what he needs to keep this going. If we don't get enough donations, we'll have to cut short this series, and I think that'll be sad. So to donate, become a monthly donor to this podcast series, go to donorbox.org Matt Harris and Julia will also provide those links in the show notes. All right, Matt, so we're ready to jump into chapter two of this amazing book on racial passing. What background do you want to give? And let's jump in.

Racial Passing and Church Expansion

Matt Harris [00:07:28] Well, so we left off last episode with Larry Nelson where he was asked about the church moving into Cuba. And a mission president had asked Larry Nelson, should we go into Cuba? If so, can we determine who's white, who's not? Is the island segregated? And Larry Nelson was disgusted by this. This is a sociologist who had spent time in Cuba as a researcher. So he told the mission president, a friend of his, and also the first presidency, that it wasn't a good idea to go into Cuba. It wasn't wise. There was too Much racial mixing. The island had a long history with slavery and with interracial encounters and relationships. And so they chose not to go into Cuba. But after the Second World War, or at least before and certainly after the Second World War, they start to go into other countries, including Brazil and South Africa and the Pacific Islands. And what happens is when the church starts to globalize that way under David O. McKay's leadership, it presents a whole host of problems for the church because they can't identify, they can't tell who has black blood or the curse, as it's known and who doesn't. And so what happens is it leads to this.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] Can I ask you a question?

Matt Harris [00:08:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:51] Why didn't they just avoid. There are lots of countries that they could have avoided this problem. They could have gone to China. They could have gone to India. If they didn't consider Indians being of African descent, they could have focused on other countries with big populations, maybe the Philippines. I don't know why did they really want to go to South Africa in particular and. Or Brazil? Do you even know? I don't even know if you would know that.

Matt Harris [00:09:23] Yeah. So I think the best way to look at this is that, of course, they have this scriptural mandate to take the gospel to every kindred nation, tongue and people. And in 1853, they decide to send a handful of missionaries to Nigeria, or, excuse me, to Jamaica and also to South Africa. So the previous year, as we've talked about in previous episodes, Brigham Young had established the band, announced it openly, and then a year after he establishes it, in 1852, they try an experiment by sending white missionaries to Jamaica, which is a predominantly black island population. They also send them to South Africa and Jamaica. I think they close. They send the missionaries back after a year. The missionaries, they write President Young and they say that Jamaica is not a very good place for our doctrine. And they mean race doctrine. And in South Africa, they're there a little bit longer, but there's a whole host of issues of South Africa. One would be the priesthood, the restriction that's now in place. Also, the missionaries don't bother to learn Afrikaans, which is the main language spoken in South Africa among white people. And so what they try to do is, at least in South Africa, less so in Jamaica. But in South Africa, they try to target white people. And of course, as we've talked about in previous episodes, that's impossible to do since everybody bears various drops of different indigenous and African ancestry. So they try to target white people in South Africa. It doesn't work. They send the missionaries home in the mid 19th century. They try South Africa again in 1903. And in 1903, they're there for a while and it's not going well. And then by 1929, they try Brazil. I don't know why, John, they're choosing these two very difficult biracial populations in South Africa and Brazil, but that's what they do.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] I think I'm remembering from your book that there was a German population in Brazil that they were targeting.

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:38] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] I'm thinking these are Germans that fled after World War II that were probably, maybe, possibly Nazis. Like that was a disturbing thing because. Because what I'm hearing you say is maybe they went to South Africa because they had white people and they were already in Europe, but they didn't go to Asia because Asians weren't white. Yep, yep. They were looking for whites. And that's why they didn't go to India as well, because they wanted white people.

Nate Bird [00:12:06] I was gonna say if I remember from the chapter two, like, the goal was to gather the, like the lost tribes of Israel. And so, you know, they were going wherever they could find Europeans, it sounds like. So if that was, you know, the German population in Brazil or the South Africa, or the white South African population, it sounded like they were, you know, since they believed that Europeans were the, the lost tribes of Israel, that's what they were trying to do is go gather them from, you know, all the corners of the earth.

John Dehlin [00:12:27] Dang.

Matt Harris [00:12:28] Yeah, they are. And why these difficult biracial countries, that's an interesting one. But they do, they do target, when they go into Brazil in 1929, they target the southern part of the country because as you said, John, and as I write in my book, this is where the Germans reside and their ethnic origin is certain. But the problem is that by the following decade, the 1930s, Portuguese speaking Brazilians from the northern end of the country start to migrate and move to the southern end of the country. So it makes it more complicated for the missionaries just to reach these white people, these so called white members, when Portuguese speaking members, some of whom have darker skin, are moving into the southern part and with South Africa, they target a group of Norwegian immigrants to South Africa called Afrikaners. And they don't realize, missionaries and church leaders don't realize that these Afrikaners trace their ancestry through Africa. And so they're targeting a group of people that all allegedly bear the drop, but yet they don't know this. And this is probably, this is the biggest issue they're going to face as the church begins to expand globally is they're running up against black and biracial populations.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] So it's kind of missionaries to white people, basically.

Matt Harris [00:13:53] Kind of. Yeah, that's what it is. And a lot of this is, you know, Latter Day Saints, of course. I don't want to pretend that, you know, the Saints are just clueless about racial construction. Most Americans are. Most people are at this point, and they just don't understand what we know now about ancestry and genealogy and all of that stuff. So they think they're doing the right thing by preaching the gospel to essentially white people. But it's complicated, especially when they're moving into biracial cities and communities.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] Interesting. Okay, cool. Keep going. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Matt Harris [00:14:26] No, that's okay. Can everybody see this? I'm going to put something that you guys see it. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:14:32] Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and show it. Show the screen big. Go ahead.

Matt Harris [00:14:36] Okay, so this is a book written by a Stanford scholar. It was published 2014, I think, and it's called A Chosen Exile, A History of Racial Passing in American Life. And here's another book, one more little prop to share. This one is called One Drop My Father's Hidden A Story of Race and Family Secrets. And what these two books reveal is that a number of Americans in the mid 20th century, a number of light skinned Americans with African ancestry, they're passing as white. And the reason why they want to pass as white and not reveal their African roots is because they want upward privilege and mobility in American society. They want their kids to go to the best schools, which would be white schools. They want their kids to be able to go to the movie theater or the zoo or anywhere that's not segregated. And so this is happening all over the United States in the mid 20th century. And not surprisingly, the church is not immune to racial passing. They too start to pass racially. At least the saints who are light skinned. All right, so in 1948, this is an interesting anecdote from.

John Dehlin [00:15:59] Do we even need to give the definition of the term passing? Is it pretty obvious in context or does it benefit to even define the term?

Matt Harris [00:16:07] I think it's important to provide something. So racial passing just simply means that you are a biracial person. That is, you have African ancestry, maybe your father's black, your mother's white, or vice versa, you have light skin. And rather than identify as black or African American, you choose to identify as white. And that means you get better, more privileges in American Culture. And just to recall something I said last segment, that in 1930, the U.S. census identified any American having one drop of African ancestry, they would be considered a Negro. And that's the word they used in those days. And so a lot of Americans, mid 20th century, they recognize that if they identify as being black or Negro or colored, those are the three terms they use in those days, that they would receive lesser privileges in American society, and so they would pass as white even though the government deemed them black. And this is going on all over the United States in the mid 20th century. I hope that helps.

John Dehlin [00:17:18] That's helpful.

Gerardo Sumano [00:17:19] Yep.

Matt Harris [00:17:20] Okay. So. So this is going on everywhere. It's an open secret.

John Dehlin [00:17:25] Nate, were you something. I saw your.

Nate Bird [00:17:28] Yeah, I was gonna say if I could add to that with passing.

Matt Harris [00:17:31] It's.

Nate Bird [00:17:31] It's identifying as white, but then also, like, you have the appearance of someone who is white, and so you can actually, like, pass in society because, you know, like, just. Just claiming to be white is not necessarily enough if people still view you as a black person. But if they can look at you and, like, not know for certain if you are a black person or if you're a white person, then you're. You're passing.

John Dehlin [00:17:52] Perfect.

Matt Harris [00:17:53] Yeah, well said, Nate. I mean, that's. What's going on here is you look at a person, they appear to be white. You know, genetics are a funny thing, right? You can have a black mother, white father, but yet you're. You, You, You're. You have the skin tones of your mother, let's say, or. Or vice versa. So anyway, so these are white people with African ancestry, whether their father or mother is black or. Or their grandparent is black. They're passing as white because they look white, but yet they know that they have mixed race genealogy. And so this is not going on. This is not happening in secret. The American journalists are writing about this. Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, Life magazine. They're talking about Americans passing below the color line, as they call it. And it obviously alerts a lot of Americans to this issue in the mid 20th century, including a BYU student named David Lloyd. In 1948. He reads one of these popular magazines in which he's reading that over 50,000 Negroes, as he writes, had crossed the color line. And he wrote the church president, George Albert Smith. And he said, president Smith, this is going on in the United States. I'm worried that one of my children may marry someone of African ancestry. And he asked six. The president, six really detailed questions that really speak to this idea of race construction. And how people identify.

Gerardo Sumano [00:19:26] And Matt, just so to put this letter in context, this was 1948. So if I, I have it right, this would be a year before the First Presidency. The same prophet George Albert Smith would codified the racial teachings into doctrine. Is that right?

Matt Harris [00:19:45] Yes, that is absolutely right. This is happening a year before. This is like in between the Lowry Nelson disputes right or the First Presidency lays down the gauntlet, declares the race teachings doctrine. Okay, so he writes the church president, this BYU student and he says, he, he says, asks him a series of questions. The first one is who is a Negro? The student writes, does the church accept the South's definition that a Negro is a person who has from 1 64% to 100% Negro blood? Number three, if yes to question number two, then is a person with 1 65% Negro blood a white individual? Number four, are Negroes only those persons who have been so designated by revelation. That one cracks me up. Number five, is there any explanation in the case of Elijah Abel? What about him? He's light skinned. What is he? Number six, how does the church determine who and what a Negro is?

John Dehlin [00:20:48] All fair questions.

Matt Harris [00:20:50] Actually this is when I read this letter I was just shocked because it really is a perceptive letter. It's really the student, this BYU student, I think he, he's a young married student, has one or two little babies, so he's probably been off his mission. And anyway he's putting his finger on something that's really, really troubling in the church. How do you identify somebody who's black and what do you do? He further asks if they've been ordained to the priesthood, a man, and then they, it's revealed or determined that they have a cursed lineage. How do you deal with that? Do you take their priesthood away? Do you nullify the ordinances that they had performed? If they were in a position of ecclesiastical authority, what do you do? And one can imagine that, you know, George Albert Smith, who's now in his very advanced years, he'll die four years later. One can imagine that these are precisely the kinds of questions he does not want to answer because oh good answers. So anyway, they have Joseph Anderson, the secretary respond to the questions and Anderson ducks most of them. He refuses to answer them because he doesn't know how to answer them. And the only thing he really says is is that Elijah Abel, his ordination was due to an error. That's about the only way that he can respond to each of these questions. And so but this is what's going on as the Church expands globally. They're going to come up close and personal with people who identify as white or identify as black, but yet they want the priesthood.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:29] He also says, and since then, he has never been knowingly repeated. So the First Presidency, President Secretary. Sorry, President Smith. Secretary. Is saying that it was only Elijah Able.

Nate Bird [00:22:46] Sorry, what year was it that they. That that response was sent or written?

Six Questions About Black Members and the Priesthood

Matt Harris [00:22:51] 1948. I can't remember.

Nate Bird [00:22:56] I was gonna say I can't remember the other dates, but it seems like that wasn't the case based on some of the other stuff that's in this chapter. Like it has been knowingly repeated by even some of the general authorities.

Matt Harris [00:23:06] Well, this. All right, we ready to dive into the good stuff?

Nate Bird [00:23:11] Sorry, I didn't mean to skip ahead.

Matt Harris [00:23:12] Oh, no, no.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] So can I just really quickly, these six questions, is it fair to say they didn't give an answer? Because there's no good answer. Like Negro, who is a Negro? That's a social construction. Right. Like, in some sense, none of us are and we all are. Right. It is just a matter of how much right we have of African descent. We have. We already established that in previous episodes. Is it one 64%? I mean, the church doesn't want to have to draw that line. So it's going to not want to answer that. Right. You know, is it revelation? We're going to talk about that. Does the church really want to rely on patriarchs or general authorities to have to ask God?

Gerardo Sumano [00:24:00] I mean, also a really important question. I'm sorry, John, that was not numbered. It's on the next paragraph after number six. I think that that one getting ignored was very significant to me. So it says. Lloyd also wanted to know how bishops and sick presidents dealt with individuals who cursed lineages who appeared white but were ordained to the priesthood.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:24:31] So that one seems like a very important.

Nate Bird [00:24:32] How.

Gerardo Sumano [00:24:33] How are, you know, your leadership, your local leadership supposed to be dealing with this? And that question gets completely ignored.

John Dehlin [00:24:40] So, I mean, they're ignored because there's no good answers. And to try and even wade into this rat's nest is going to be a disaster. So better punt. I mean, that's what I'm interpreting. Does that sound plausible?

Matt Harris [00:24:54] Well, what. What happens is with the priesthood ordination one. That's a really. That's a. That's a challenging question. Because if you have a bishop who was ordained, presumably because he doesn't bear a curse lineage, and then it's later announced that he did his genealogy and realized that his great, great Grandfathers from Africa or something like that, Sub Saharan Africa. What do you do? Because as a bishop, how many priesthood blessings has he given to his flock? How many ordinations has he performed to the priesthood holders of the church? Do you undo all of those ordinations? Do you release this bishop in disgrace and shame? Or do you turn the other way and pretend that you didn't hear that he has an African ancestor? And the short answer to all of those questions is they do all of the above. And let me give you one story that's not in my book that I wish it was. It got cut on the chopping room floor, but it deals with a Brazilian branch president, a man by the name of Eduardo Cantieri. And Eduardo Cantieri lives in Brazil, but he has Italian ancestry. He looks white. He joined the church in 1963. They recognized right away that Eduardo had this sort of magnetism about him. People liked him. He had this charming personality. He was just a natural born leader. And so within months, if you can imagine this, within months of his baptism, he was named the branch president in a small branch in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And within the first, oh, I don't know, year of his branch presidency, when his flock really are starting to, you know, relate to his leadership and they find him inspired and all of that, Salt Lake sends him a memo, and they basically say, we want people in your stake to emphasize genealogy. And so with the instruction of the brethren from Salt Lake, he instructs his branch to increase their genealogy work. And the branch president does it as well. Well, when he starts to do his genealogy, he recognizes almost immediately that he has an African ancestor. And he goes into the stake president and he breaks the bad news. He said, look, I have an African ancestor. And the stake president tells him that we're going to have to release you. We won't take away your Melchizedek priesthood, but you will stay your hand. That's the word they use, stay your hand. What that means is that you can no longer perform any ordinances or ordinations in the branch. You can only exercise your priesthood at home to your own family members. And of course, I'm, you know, I don't know. I don't know this to be certain, but. But think about this. If you can perform priesthood ordinances at home, giving your. Your spouse a blessing, your children a blessing, why can't you do it in the branch?

John Dehlin [00:28:09] Or you could also say that I'm sure there are a lot of black families that would have loved to have the ability to perform priesthood. You know, priesthood blessings just within their families, even if they couldn't do it broader, like, it goes both ways. Right.

Matt Harris [00:28:29] Well. So, Nate, what are your thoughts on this?

Nate Bird [00:28:36] So the thoughts on what specifically?

Matt Harris [00:28:37] Just Contieri learning that he has an African ancestor, this popular branch president, is now being released in shame.

Nate Bird [00:28:47] I mean, it's just the inconsistency throughout everything is just kind of staggering, where it's like there really was no specific answer, but they were kind of claiming to have all the answers at the same time. So, I mean, you just kind of see, like, throughout this whole chapter, like, you see some people being released, and you got some people being told to, you know, don't say anything about it. It's just the inconsistency there is just kind of frustrating to see. But it also. I mean, it kind of. It gave me more perspective on maybe what some of the brethren are going through, like today. And, you know, in this time with some of the issues that they're facing, they have to appear like they have all the answers, while behind the scenes, there's really no specific answer, no one answer.

Brazil, Biracial Saints, and Ordination Dilemmas

Matt Harris [00:29:26] Yeah. So with Cantieri, what happens is that the saints in Brazil, this is a biracial country, they're not happy that this beloved priesthood leader gets released. And to further complicate the story, Cantieri is such a loyal, devout Latter Day Saint that when white Latter Day Saint men, young men, come to his house to date his daughters, plural daughters, he tells these young men, you could date them, but you need to know something. My daughters bear the curse, and you not be able to take the temple if you marry them. And, you know, one can imagine that the daughters are like, dad, shut up. Dad, shut up. But they go along with it. They understand why their father is saying this to their suitors, but they also recognize that it's damaging their prospects for a temple marriage. And so the family agonizes.

Gerardo Sumano [00:30:28] They can't get married in the temple. Right?

Matt Harris [00:30:30] Like, married in the temple, they can't get married. Daughters understand this, and they understand why their father's warning their prospective dates, but it doesn't ease the pain that they're feeling. And anyway, so the people in the branch are upset about this turn of events. They're not happy. And so what happens is, is that Spencer W. Kimball gets word of what's going on, and he alerts an apostle, Gordon Hinckley, who's over this period of the world at this time, and Elder Kimball, who's not the church president yet, he writes his colleague, his junior colleague, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley. And he says, you should know about this faithful brother. We want you to know it's come to my attention. This is what's going on. You should know about him. He's under your purview. What can you do? And in the meantime, by 1973, so this is probably less than 10 years after he was released, another junior apostle gets involved, a guy named Howard W. Hunter. And it's Hunter that will fly to Brazil and reordain Contieri to the office. Now bishop, no longer branch Prose, but bishop, and basically knowing that he has African ancestry, reordains him. And then man will serve honorably as bishop for the next several years.

Gerardo Sumano [00:31:58] That's crazy.

John Dehlin [00:32:01] Around what year was that?

Matt Harris [00:32:03] This was. It would have been 73, and he would have lost his priesthood. Probably 63, 64.

John Dehlin [00:32:10] Wait, so Howard W. Hunter is ordaining, reordaining someone to the priesthood with black ancestry. Six years to the priesthood ban.

Matt Harris [00:32:20] Let me, let me, let me, let me correct myself. He never lost his priesthood. He's ordaining him to the office of bishop and he's allowing him to exercise those priesthood keys. Whereas before, in 1963, his stake president said, you no longer can operate these priesthood keys as the branch president, but you can still give these blessings at home to your family.

John Dehlin [00:32:46] So his priesthood's made dormant except within the home. But then later, he's knowingly ordained as a bishop, knowing that he has drops of black blood in him by an apostle. That's outrageous. Like, like Nate said, the selectiveness and randomness of all this is just mind blowing.

Gerardo Sumano [00:33:09] And connection, right? It depends on how much connection you have to a general authority to an apostle who. Can you override the rules for you?

Matt Harris [00:33:21] Yeah, I think a lot of these things, this isn't meant to be a radical statement, but I think it's a true statement. And Nate, you mentioned something about the leadership today. A lot of this is personality driven. Some of the brethren, they just don't support the one drop stuff as much as the other brethren do. And one could imagine that Howard Hunter or Gordon Hinckley would be far more permissive with this sort of ordination than say, other members of the 12 who have more frankly racist thoughts and racist feelings. But the point is, this is Brazil. And when they opened the mission in 1929, they knew. They knew it was a biracial, mixed race country. J. Reuben Clark, in 1940, in a council meeting, he stands up and he says to his fellow apostles, he said, I know we're going to ordain black people to the priesthood. That's just inevitable given the racial makeup of this country. And so one time, Mark Peterson, another apostle, returned home from an assignment in Brazil, and he argued to his colleagues, we should shut it all down. We should close the mission in Brazil because we're ordaining black men to the priesthood. And obviously, Peterson didn't get his wish, but that was his proposal. So they know this is going on all over the place. They know it's South Africa. They know what's going on in Brazil, and they're doing their best to avoid ordaining people with African ancestry to the priesthood, but they don't always succeed.

Mission Presidents Navigate the Priesthood Ban

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:55] Okay, should we go to the mission president next in South Africa?

John Dehlin [00:35:02] Right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:04] President Wright.

Matt Harris [00:35:07] Boy. President Wright. So in South Africa, as I mentioned, they opened the mission in 1853. It's an experiment. They send missionaries to South Africa. They send missionaries to Jamaica. This is under Brigham Young's tutelage. Doesn't really work. In 1853, they shut down the mission in South Africa after a brief experiment, and they reopened the South African mission in 1903. And it doesn't really work that well either, because the missionaries don't bother to learn the language like they would today. And so by the 20th century, they start to instruct their missionaries to learn the Afrikaner language. And I hope I said that right. They instruct them to learn the language. And so this. The idea would be that they can reach white people who are devoid of African ancestry. And again, in a country that's so biracial and mixed race, this is impossible. So Evan Wright, who is called to be the mission president in 1951, he's been reading up about previous mission presidents there, including a former president named Ralph Badger, who reopened the mission in 1906. Once it was closed in 1853, he had been reading Ralph Badger's correspondence to the first Presidency, and Badger was upset because he knew that there was such a strong, as he put it, mixture of blood in Brazil. And so Evan Wright knew what he was getting himself into, and he was excited for this new. This new assignment. But he was also nervous because he knew that there was no way to detect who had the blood and who didn't. And when he went, the only guidance he got from the first Presidency was a special blessing from the church president, who basically said, follow the Holy Spirit. Use your judgment, and may God bless you. Good luck. Bye. So, all right. If you guys want me to talk a little bit now about what he experiences there, I'd be happy to do that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] What could go wrong? Oh, and again, I'm just going to make the point that even if he were in Sweden, it would be impossible for him to find people without black ancestry, because we all have black ancestry. We all do. So it's an impossible task, really. The task was to find someone with undetectable black ancestry. Right.

Matt Harris [00:37:44] It's difficult. And what's further difficult about this whole process is in 1950, South Africa introduces a series of draconian laws that would parallel Jim Crow laws in the United States. This, of course, are called apartheid. Let me just read you about what apartheid means. And so in my book I write, according to the Population Registration act of 1950, South African law designated a white person as anyone who looked white, a colored person as anyone known to be colored, and a native person as anyone generally accepted as a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa. And then South Africans looked to skin tones, facial features, hair color, socioeconomic status, friends and relatives, and other factors to determine race, making it nearly impossible to classify South Africans with any degree of precision or certainty. And the church has to follow these apartheid laws. They're not supposed to be inviting people who are classified black by South African law to their worship services. They're not supposed to allow their white members to marry South Africans who are classified as black. And so that's one of the reasons that increases rights anxiety. It wasn't just the church and the church's rules. It was that he didn't want. Want to run afoul of these new apartheid laws that were in effect by 1952 when he began his presidency. So he gets to the. The presidency and he's nervous. He writes in his diary. I have his diary, it's fascinating. And I have a lot of these meeting minutes. And he's talking about the anxiety that he feels because he doesn't want to let God down. He doesn't want to let the brethren down. He doesn't want to proselytize and convert and ordain South Africans who violate the one drop rule because he God.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:41] Sorry, Matt, I just wanted to bring up. You have a really interesting quote of the patriarch particular blessing that person Smith gives even. Right. And you quote it and that, I mean, this is kind of interesting, right? Is a. It's a blessing given by a prophet to a future mission president. And he. And you quote it and he says problem of telling him that the problem of racial detection is very complex and the Lord himself must clarify it. He added that individuals with Negroid Blood are entitled to all the blessings except the priesthood. And that no man was to be ordained or advanced in the priesthood until he had traced his genealogy out of Africa. So this is being part of the blessing, if I'm, am I understanding right?

Matt Harris [00:40:30] Yeah. So in the blessing, President Smith tells this new mission president that in order to protect the purity of bloodlines, you and your missionaries must do the genealogy of a prospective convert. That is, we can't ordain them to the priesthood unless they've gone back several generations to make sure they have a racially pure bloodline. Now let's all pause for a minute. You guys, I, I don't claim to be a genealogy expert. My family members and both my side, my wife's side, they've all done genealogy back for decades. I've never really plunged myself into it, but I do know how it works. And President Wright will turn to his missionaries. These are 19 and 20 year old young men and some young women. And he will have them do genealogy when they have no idea what they're doing. And further compounding the issue would be they have spotty records, they have people who have better access to genealogy than others. And so what happens is, is that they have this profound inability to do genealogy based on their lack of records, based on the lack of knowledge of their missionaries. And also they're live, they live in Africa. Most of these people have some ancestry that runs through sub Saharan Africa, which were typically the countries in Africa that would be considered black. And so the missionaries themselves are frustrated. This tactic that they're supposed to trace their, their converts, ancestral lines out of Africa, as it, as it said. And one missionary said, quote, our greatest problem in this genealogy work is that we are amateur genealogists and our methods are primarily those of the amateur. So they recognize right away they're being essentially set up for failure. And it's, you can imagine, I mean, I served a mission. I think probably all of you guys serve missions. And I don't know, Nate, when you were on your mission, how long would it take roughly on average when you met with a convert and you, you taught them and baptized them, how long would it take for the whole thing, would you say?

Nate Bird [00:42:44] So our mission was kind of strict on that. They had to be, you know, following certain. I think it maybe took maybe anywhere from like two to three months to get someone baptized. My mission was actually pretty heavy on, on family history as well, but for missionaries. So I can't imagine, you know, I had a lot of trouble just with family search, trying to do my ancestry. So I can't imagine trying to find that in another country, you know, all those years ago. That would have been disastrous, especially with all the other things that missionaries have to do.

Matt Harris [00:43:13] Well, and of course, they don't have family search in those days either, right?

Nate Bird [00:43:16] Yeah, not even close.

Matt Harris [00:43:18] I mean, they're going to, to. I don't know where they're going. They're going. The church has some records, but. And they're writing Salt Lake for help. There's a genealogy department in Salt Lake. But the point is, if you're writing letters to Salt Lake from South Africa and they're having to do the. In Salt Lake or at least assist you or to send you records, it's just taking. Right. Anyway, so President Wright, he's, he develops this bitterness because he recognizes that other missions in the church are not asked to do this. They're not asked to trace their genealogy out of their country. And he thinks that it unfairly penalizes South Africans. And the South African saints also think that it unfairly penalizes them. And so President Wright, over the course of his presidency, will write the brethren in Salt Lake a series of detailed single space letters explaining to them the challenges of doing, of racial detection. They can't determine who's got the blood and who doesn't. And also expressing his frustration that his mission was the only one in the church that he knew of that was being asked to do this. And he came up with a solution that he thought was a solution. He said that to the first Presidency. Why don't we circumvent this cumbersome, laborious genealogy process? Why don't we have the patriarchs who give patriarchal blessings? Why don't they have. Why don't we have them determine the lineage of these people? Now, I don't know about you, if I'm a patriarch, that's a pretty tall ass. I mean, your eternal salvation's on the line here. Don't get it wrong, brother patriarch.

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:03] I mean, but if you believe in

John Dehlin [00:45:04] revelation, right, that's the whole point of a patriarchal blessing. The problem is so much of what we're told at a patriarchal blessing is kind of benign or made up, depending on your perspective. So they gave me the lineage of Ephraim and they'll give other people the lineage of Manasseh. But when does that ever really matter? The stakes are insignificant. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:31] Or sometimes like your, your children will have other lineages too. Right. Even though you're Ephraim and you're.

John Dehlin [00:45:37] They watch your lineage.

Nate Bird [00:45:39] Yeah. So my parents are both Manasseh and I'm Ephraim and all my siblings are Ephraim.

John Dehlin [00:45:45] But, but does that change anything for either of you in terms of how you would work in the church?

Nate Bird [00:45:51] No, not at this point, it doesn't.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] So I guess I'm just highlighting the fact that they'll have confidence in a patriarch when the things that they say are, you're going to serve a mission, you're going to get married in the temple, you're of the tribe of Ephraim or Manasseh, like, that's all a win for the church. But when they have to make a decision that's going to decide who literally gets to participate or not, I, I can't help but say it's telling that they're not as confident in, in the veracity or the power of the blessing.

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:24] Is that fair? I'm not expecting you to weigh in on that, Matt.

Matt Harris [00:46:29] Well, let me comment about this. That in 2018, I published a lengthy article on the church, people of African descent and patriarchal blessings. I went all the way back from 1830 to 2018. And what I it's online if you guys want to find it, if you care to study this sort of thing. It's, and I quote it in my book, too, in a few of my footnotes. But I got access to a number of patriarchal blessings from black and biracial saints over the decades. And I also had first presidency in quorum of the 12 meeting minutes. And when they talked about how to declare lineage to black and biracial Latter Day Saints. And what I found was that it was a, it was a huge problem for the church because there was never any guidelines that they gave the patriarchs about how to deal with somebody. This is before the priesthood ban or during the priesthood ban. How do you deal with a black or biracial Latter Day Saint who asked to have their priesthood or their patriarchal blessing? What lineage do you give them? And the brother in Matt many times over the 20th century to talk about this. And in the 19th century, a number of these blessings were very explicit. They would say something like the patriarch would say that you have the blood of Cain or Ham. Jane Manning James we talked about she was given a patriarchal blessing and was told that her lineage flowed through Ham and, and Ham's son Canaan. And obviously, if you're a, if you're looking for guidance from your blessing, this is not going to give you any guidance or enthusiasm about your prospects. If you're being told that you're from a biblical counterfeiter. So in the 20th century, what happens is that a number of patriarchs, they recognize that declaring the lineage of Cain and Ham is. Is deeply offensive, and they look to the Brethren for guidance in Salt Lake. And the Brethren, they meet several times in the 20th century to try to resolve this issue. And they were upset. The Brethren were upset that the patriarchs of the church were proclaiming various lineages on black and biracial Latter Day Saints. So some would be Canaan, Ham, others would be the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is problematic because those are priesthood and temple blessings, other blessings, or other patriarchs would declare Ephraim, which is also problematic. This is before 1978. It's also problematic because Ephraim is the lineage that would run the church. So the men that would have the priesthood and all of that, they would also declare Manasseh. And then finally, some patriarchs wouldn't declare a lineage at all because they didn't know what to say. And so as late as 1973. As late as 1973, so five years before the ban was lifted, the brethren meet with the patriarchs of the church. And they're trying to hash this out. And I have the meeting minutes of this remarkable meeting, and the brother, and frankly, are all over the place. They can't. They don't know what guidance to give. The only thing that by 73, they say is there's a patriarch that asks a question to the brother, and he said, I've got a Negro man that I'm going to give a blessing to week when I return home, if I feel inspired to tell him that his lineage of Cain, can I do that? Now, I know that is so profoundly offensive, but Legrand Richards, this elderly voluble apostle, he answered. He was the first to answer the question. He said, I don't think you should do that. It won't give him comfort. And so they don't resolve anything. They pretty much say, follow the Holy Spirit, use your own judgment. But that's the point. Up to that point, they had been using their own judgment. And that's why they issued a whole range of different lineages, some of which were priesthood and temple lineages that were off limits at that time. And let me say one last thing about this is that even after the revelation in 1978 is issued, they still don't know how to deal with this. And so what happens is even after 78, there are still some patriarchs in the church declaring the lineage of Cain and Ham on priesthood holders, including as late as 1987 or 1991. And the other thing that they talk about is that black people could now be adopted into the House of Israel. And obviously, if black people are singled out for that kind of treatment, that's offensive because nobody wants to be told they're adopted into a privileged lineage. And Elder McConkie, of all people who had strong views about race, he once said in the early 1980s, he gave a talk to some church educators. And he said that I believe that all people, all members, have some of the blood of Ephraim, or, excuse me, some of the blood of the House of Israel in them, except black people. So obviously that's challenging because the church is targeting a race of people for exception and exclusion. And the short answer is they just don't know how to deal with lineages because it's just. So it's all made up.

John Dehlin [00:52:01] It's all made up.

Theological Justifications for the Ban

Nate Bird [00:52:03] On that, I wanted to comment. I remember listening to a McConkey talk on my mission where he talked about how when you're baptized, the blood inside of you literally changes and you become a member of the House of Israel. So I just thought that was interesting given what you just talked about.

Matt Harris [00:52:18] Yeah, Nate, that's exactly what he says. And when we get to the priesthood revelation chapter, I'm going to go through that talk and it. Before it becomes a talk, it's a private memo that he writes to President Kimball and the show. I just. I'll give you a 30 second teaser.

John Dehlin [00:52:36] The.

Matt Harris [00:52:36] The memo is that McConkey says, I know this has never been the doctrine of the church that black people could be adopted, but if we're going to lift into the House of Israel. But if we're going to lift this ban, we need to create new theology. And this is how we're going to do it. And so in 1977, Elder McConkey gives a rationale that had contradicted all other first presidencies. They were quite explicit in claiming that black people could not be adopted into the House of Israel before the priesthood ban. And so by, by 1977, when Elder McCaughey knew the ban would be lifted, he produced new doctrine on the subject, and President Kimball allowed him to do it. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:53:16] Dang

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:20] laughing. Because I'm seeing John's face, like, going like, what is going on?

John Dehlin [00:53:27] I mean, on the one hand, I mean, on the one hand, you know, we've talked about this already, Matt. Like, people just shouldn't expect too much from leaders of any organization. Adjust your expectations everyone's imperfect. Organizations are imperfect. And this is just how humans work. That's kind of one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is we're taught that these men speak for God, to God, for God, that their words are as if God is speaking. And then it's not just that. It's number one, the fact that they're really apparently just making it up as they go along, covering up problems, redefining terms if they need to, to try and create the appearance of this being divinely mandated when it's obvious that it's just humans just doing what they do and then justifying it religiously. But then I don't like how they push it down to President Wright in the missionaries under him to have to figure it all out. How stressful, how kind of unfair that it's the members, the lay members who are volunteers mostly, who have to deal out all the difficulties. But then there's the whole human side of the racism. Like, Nate, what would it be like to be told you're of the lineage of Cain or Ham because they were cursed, because what, Ham saw his dad naked and so God cursed him or Cain killed his brother? So something that has something to do with you in 1950, and how humiliating is it to then be given this sort of damaged lineage or cursed lineage that means you can't participate in stuff like. But then plenty did. Plenty were grateful to get. I'm remembering Spencer Nugent talk about his dad having to sit outside of elders quorum as a black man pre1978 in Jamaica, and he was proud to do it. And that's almost more sickening than the cluster F that is this whole thing, because he has so much internalized racism that he's eager and he considers it a privilege to sit in a chair outside of elders quorum because at least that's a way to show devotion. Nate, I shouldn't be speaking for you, but that's an invitation for you to respond in any way you want.

Nate Bird [00:56:02] Yeah, I think it's tough because obviously, you know, the church provides a lot of ideas that make sense, and then it also, you know, the ideas that don't make sense, you don't tend to hear about as much. So, you know, when. When hearing stories like that, you know, the one with Spencer or, you know, even seeing, you know, experiences in my own family where the church was held up on a very, very high pedestal and we were taught to be, you know, very. What's the word? Like, just enthusiastic about living the gospel it was almost like a. A way to. To prove that we were worthy of those blessings, you know, and obviously I was, you know, born and my parents joined, you know, after the. The ban was lifted. But growing up, there was always this desire to prove myself as a black member of the church. You know, in. In the black community, there's a saying you got to work twice as hard to get half as much. And that. That probably was double in the church. You know, I was extremely devout, extremely faithful. You know, I did all my home teaching as a freshman in college. And, you know, underlying all of that zeal was this desire to prove that I was, you know, a good Mormon or to prove that I was worthy of that. And so, you know, to. To hear something like that or to be told that, you know, you're part of this cursed lineage, especially during that time, I think that that requires incredible resilience and, like, fortitude of mind to be able to hear something like that and still press forward with something that you believe, you know, wholeheartedly to be true. I think that just goes to show the dedication of those, you know, those saints. And, you know, I think there's also an element of internalized racism there and running away from some of the negative aspects of blackness or these aspects that are portrayed about blackness and kind of running towards whiteness. I think there's. There's an element of that in there as well, but it's. It's definitely damaging to the psyche. And a lot of the black people that I see in the church tend to be struggling or tend to be, at least in my experience, tends to have, like, a loss of identity in. While trying to pursue that Mormon identity.

Matt Harris [00:58:02] Well, stuck.

John Dehlin [00:58:03] Thank you. Thank you, Nate. I'm also reminded of an interview I did with Darren Smith where I'm like, why would any black person ever join the Mormon Church before 1978? And Darren Smith's response was, if we as black people, we're only allowed, or only allowed ourselves to join organizations that weren't racist, we would never be a part of any organization. So you have to pick and choose, and you have to always tolerate a certain amount of racism. So why should religions be any different anyway? Matt, I just wanted to try and bring a little bit of the human emotional element, because to just talk about this clinically, it's just too much sometimes.

Archival Research and the Scope of This Work

Matt Harris [00:58:40] Yeah. I think that one of the things I learned in my research, it took me 15 years to do this book, and I went through dozens and dozens and dozens of archives throughout the United States, many of which were restricted collections that I got access to see. And one of the things that struck me with seeing all of these new materials that nobody else has ever seen before is the emotional side of all of this. We tend to think that the brethren are just a bunch of machines and they're just kind of cold and heartless and this and that. That's not entirely true. Some of them are, in terms of. They're just sort of immune to suffering with. Among black people and how this policy affects them, but others are not. And the patriarchs who were given these blessings, I mean, they agonized over this. Some of them were tone deaf and would just do, you know, bless Canaan ham and. And then they'd get pushed back and, huh, what? But others knew that it would be offensive. And that's why they pleaded. They pleaded for guidance. And they became frustrated when the guidance wasn't forthcoming because the brethren, they just. They boxed themselves into a theological corner, didn't know how to get out. And, you know, if you, if you believe, if the church teaches, if it's the doctrine of the church that there is a biblical curse, then how do you pronounce lineage? Because these biblical cursed figures, they're outside of the house of Israel. And, you know, it probably never occurred to any of the patriarchs that, or at least a number of the patriarchs that if you proclaim these cursed lineages, it's going to be deeply offensive to people, particularly when they're seeking guidance about their life and they're being told that they come from a cursed lineage. So this is a problem in the church. And some of the leaders recognize it in intuitively. And some of the leaders, as we'll talk about, I'm certain at greater length, they recognize that some of these black and biracial saints. Nate, you. You said it nicely that they want to. They're struggling with their identity. They're struggling to be good Latter Day Saints. They're struggling to do all the things that they need to do to advance in the church, to serve in church missions, if you're a man or I guess a woman too, to get sealed in the temple so their heart's in the right place, but yet they're told they can't because they bear this curse. And Spencer Kimball and some other church leaders, they meet with some of these saints in Brazil and elsewhere, and they write in their diaries, my heart bleeds for them. They want to serve the church, they pay tithing, but yet our policies prevent them from church service. And so they do have this Emotional response that the policy is harming people. And it does bother them really quickly.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] And this is a little bit out of sequence. But since we're talking about patriarchal blessings and lineages, one of the most shocking parts of this chapter for me was to learn that the answer that they gave about patriarchs not being able to declare lineage in Africa, South Africa, was exactly the opposite in Brazil. Do you mind just talking about that while we're on the subject?

South Africa, Patriarchal Blessings, and Ancestry

Matt Harris [01:01:49] Yeah. So, as we mentioned a moment ago, in South Africa, President Wright, tired of doing the genealogy, knows that it's an imprecise practice, recommends to the first presidency, let's allow the patriarchs to determine lineage. And the first presidency writes him back and says, no, that's not. We're not going to do that. And what was interesting about that is, is that as far as I can tell, at least the evidence that I have, only one apostle agreed that patriarchs should be able to declare lineage as they were inspired, and that was Joseph Fielding Smith. He says this in private quorum meetings, and he also says it in a book called Answers to Gospel Questions that he would publish in the early 60s. So he goes public with it, that he. He's okay with patriarchs declaring lineage. And in Brazil, they're also told that patriarchs should not declare lineage, but the patriarchs do it anyway. And so. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:50] Are we still talking about the letter response from the first presidency to write? Because they say they don't. They not only say, no, this is not going to work, I believe they also say that it's not sufficient that even if they are given, I don't know, like the tribe of whatever, that doesn't. That doesn't have anything to do with them being able to have the priesthood. They have to be determined. It has to be determined by genealogy. Is that right?

Matt Harris [01:03:19] Yeah, that's right, Gerardo. And that's just another way of saying we don't trust the patriarchs.

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:25] Yeah.

Nate Bird [01:03:27] Yeah.

Matt Harris [01:03:27] And so in the patriarchs, I, when I did this article in 2018, I looked at this issue from any number of angles. I looked at it. Obviously, I wanted access to Latter Day Saints, black and biracial Latter Day Saints. I wanted access to their blessings, and I got a number of blessings. I wanted access to the first presidency and quorum of the 12 meeting minutes when they talked about lineage. So I looked at that. I wanted access of the patriarchs. The patriarchs were really critical in all this. What did they think about this? And I got access to several. The journals of several different patriarchs. I'm thinking of a man in Canada named James Wallace who wrote the Office of the first presidency in 1934 and bearing his soul. I just can't do this. I've been ordaining or I've been given blessings to black people. I have another one coming up. What do I do? And he recognizes. He spells out in great detail to the First Presidency. He's writing this in his diary. He said, I told the First Presidency that I'm proclaiming lineages that don't make black people happy and obviously curse lineages. And I don't feel good about this. It doesn't feel right to me. And so he writes the brethren asking for guidance. And they write him back, and they basically say, you know, follow the Holy Spirit. And so he's not satisfied with this. I look also looked at the. The manuals of the church. What do the manuals say? So if you guys don't know this, there are manuals. The church has lots of different manuals, one of which is geared specifically for church patriarchs.

John Dehlin [01:04:59] Yeah.

Matt Harris [01:05:00] And I looked at the sections where it said lineage, and the only thing it said was that the patriarchs could. Well, it doesn't say anything about black or biracial. They ignored it. So. Yeah. Anyway, so in Brazil, though, in contrast to South Africa, the patriarchs in Brazil are ordaining. They're announcing lineage and their blessings, even though the first presidency doesn't support it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:27] I'm sorry, Matt. So before the Patrick preacher blessing idea came up there that you have you quote a letter from the brethren to present Wright that I thought was really interesting. John, do you wanna. Do you want to maybe read some of the quotes? Uh, on page 31 is page 31. It's our. The paragraph says with the brethren wrote back. And this is when Wright is to ask, telling them about all the problems with genealogy. And actually he invites them to come and visit South Africa to see the. The problem for themselves. Is that right, Matt? I think. I mean, they end up rejecting the invitation.

Matt Harris [01:06:09] Yeah, yeah. He said, look, this is so difficult. You come see for yourself.

Gerardo Sumano [01:06:13] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] So you want me to read it?

Gerardo Sumano [01:06:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:16] All right. The brethren wrote back and counseled right to, quote, to be quote, most careful and discreet. Close quote. In how he evaluated prospective converts who might have, quote, the blood they didn't agree to visit. A few weeks later, they followed up with a letter reaffirming church dogma. They told him that the priesthood band came from, quote, the Lord and that it applied, quote, to every person whose veins are but Slightly tainted with the blood of Cain as well as to the full blooded Negro. That I just have to say editorially, that idea of tainted blood polluted is just aversive to me now. Goes on, they told him, quote, people whose veins are but slightly tainted with the blood of Cain must be classed as Negroes for the reason that while they may distribute the taint and in their blood among the white races, by intercourse with them, it never can be eliminated while the curse placed on Cain stands unsatisfied. Again, total white supremacist language there, really loathsome to me. Goes on to say, the brethren further explained that dark skin by itself was not a determining factor in priesthood eligibility. It was only African lineage that mattered. Quote, a person's complexion has no bearing upon his standing in the church, except where that color is the result of an intermingling of Negro blood. The American Indian, Hawaiians, Spaniards of dark complexions and other Orientals, his word, not mine, such as Chinese and Japanese, are entitled to hold the priesthood. And this takes us to another part of this chapter. Before we jump to that, is there anything else you want to say about lineage in Brazil, Matt? And then I want to talk about Joseph Fielding Smith going to Encyclopedia Britannica to try and figure all this out. Are we done with the Brazil lineage thing? Because I just want to make sure we know that point, that what was forbidden in South Africa of patriarchs declaring lineage, I guess, was allowed even though it was discouraged in Brazil. Is that right?

Matt Harris [01:08:38] Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, the brethren knew about it, but they didn't come. They didn't crack down on that.

John Dehlin [01:08:44] They didn't stop it.

Matt Harris [01:08:45] They didn't stop it, but it was going on all over the place.

John Dehlin [01:08:48] Okay, so that's one of those huge disparities that I couldn't believe. Do you want to talk about Joseph Fielding Smith's and other people's attempt to figure out Fiji? No, Fiji. I couldn't believe this.

Matt Harris [01:09:00] Yeah, it's. So as a historian, you know, these. I have lots of questions going on in my mind. And obviously when I read other scholars about their work about the church and race, I was curious, you know, how do they deal with blessings, paper blessings? Well, they didn't deal with it. And so that's what led to my research in the article that I published. And the other thing that I had, a big question that I had as I engaged in this research, was how did they determine who was black and biracial? How did they know? Racial construction. And of course, we've Been talking about it. Sometimes they use Patrick Blessings, sometimes they use genealogy. Sometimes they would just pray. And so the other thing that I wondered about is why did they go in some countries and not others? And how do they know, particularly with indigenous populations, how do they know if they derive from Africa? We have to just stop and pause for a moment and recognize that this is the mid 20th century when the church is starting to globalize after the Second World War. They don't have the technologies that Nate, you had on your mission. And so genealogy in those days was just really, really difficult. And they didn't understand the anthropology research wasn't as strong then as it is today. And so they just didn't have a strong understanding of, say, the, you know, Aborigines in Australia or in Fiji or the Philippine Negritos. They just didn't understand their origin, their derivation. And so questions came in to the brethren when they talked about expanding the church into black and biracial countries. The questions came in that they had to look at and see if these countries had cursed ancestry. And of course, the person that they looked to for guidance on this was the church's doctrinal expert, Joseph Fielding smith. And in 1951, as the church was considering expanding its missionary efforts in the Pacific Islands, Stephen L. Richards and Reuben Clark of the First Presidency received a letter asking about Latter Day Saints in the Micronesian islands. And anyway, did they have the seed of Cain? That's the language of the letter. Did these people have the seat of Cain? And they turned to Smith. They gave the letter to President Smith, who was then the president of the quorum of the 12, and actually was a senior apostle just at that point. But anyway, they turned to Smith and he looked into the Encyclopedia Britannica to see where the people of Micronesia derived from. And that's about as good as it gets. And so he looked at the Encyclopedia Britannica that he had in his office, and he wrote President Richards and President Clark back. And he said, it's not conclusive. I don't know. What you see happening is that the church is trying to determine ancestry to the best available methods they have of this day, including the Encyclopedia Britannica. But they also ask the missionaries and mission presidents to consult local museums. Anything you could learn in, let's say, Fiji, go to a local museum and see if Fijians have ancestral ties to Africa and talk to the natives, somebody who's lived in that area for a long time, a Latter Day Saint, for example, maybe they know where their ancestral Ties are from. And so what happens is, is that this is an imprecise thing. There's nothing certain about any of this stuff. And so David O. McKay allows himself to change his mind when the evidence arrives before him that some of these people in these various countries don't come from cursed ancestry. So for example, at first he said that people in Fiji had African ancestry and then he reclassified them Israelites when he learned that they didn't have ties to Africa. He does the same thing in the Philippines and he does the same thing in Australia with the Aborigines.

John Dehlin [01:13:05] And that was David O. McKay.

Matt Harris [01:13:06] Right, David O. McKay. So he's changing his mind.

John Dehlin [01:13:09] Yeah. So like Fiji's out, but then doesn't he like have a conversation with a guy and then all of a sudden Fiji's in,

Matt Harris [01:13:18] Fiji's out, and then Fiji's in. And remember what the first Presidency said. Evan Wright and a lot of Latter Day Saints don't understand this, which is that it's not based on skin color, it's based on, on lineage. And so in Fiji, McKay just automatically assumed because Fijians have darker skin that somehow they were cursed. And then he realized that wasn't the case. Think about, think about the case with Eduardo Contieri. He's a light skinned Italian dude who lives in Brazil, but yet he bore the curse because he had an African ancestor.

John Dehlin [01:13:59] So yeah, like Matt, that's one of the frustrating things is again on the spectrum, members think that God is directing this work and that these men are speaking to and for God. And you've got David O. McKay making a decision based on a conversation he had with some guy and Joseph Feeling Smith going to Encyclopedia Britannica trying to figure it out. Like it's, that's why seeing behind the curtain and how the sausage gets made is really informative and informs to what extent we take super seriously any of the mandates or rules that they, that they might give today. Another example of really kind of outrageous disparity in treatment is in what happens when they start discovering, specifically in South Africa, what happens when they start discovering that long standing members of status, and particularly men have been serving in high levels of the church in South Africa when they had the blood of Cain all along. Do you mind sharing a couple of those stories?

Ordaining Black Men Despite Known Uncertainties

Matt Harris [01:15:04] Yeah, so, so they're ordaining black men to the priesthood. They're, they're doing the best that they can with these limited tools and yet they know they're ordaining people of African ancestry. And President Wright was told by the First Presidency to make sure that nobody would be ordained to the priesthood, no man would be ordained to the priesthood, no family or no couple could go to the temple to be sealed unless they had successfully traced their genealogy out of Africa. And President Wright, this policy hits him up close and personal because he's established friendships with people in the local war boards and stakes. And in one instance, there's a young woman who left South Africa, she went to Utah. She knew that she had a cursed lineage, although, but she's white, she's light skinned. And nobody ever questioned it in Utah because she just blended in. She passed below the color line as we've been talking about. And so she gets sealed in the temple. Her parents, of course, back in South Africa, they're happy for their daughter, but on the other hand, they're told that they can't go to the temple and the dad can't hold the priesthood because they can't successfully trace their bloodline out of Africa. And so this is a clear double standard that they pose to President Wright, who then in turn poses it to the First Presidency. If the woman or the daughter can get sealed in the temple, why can't the parents? And this is what's going on all over the place in South Africa. And a number of people, when they run into either, when they run into slave lines and they get discouraged because they can't progress in the church, they then just simply leave and go to Canada or Salt Lake or if they can't find the records to prove their racial purity, they just simply pack up and leave and go to Salt Lake. Where they pass below the color line.

John Dehlin [01:16:58] Yeah. So that ability to just go to Canada or go to Salt Lake and then they're not testing people's bloodlines in Salt Lake or in Canada. And so they, they have a lower burden of proof than the members in South Africa. That was outrageous, for sure.

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:16] Well, not just that, but the, I mean, these are not just hypotheticals that Wright is telling the First Presidency.

John Dehlin [01:17:25] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:25] Like he's literally writing them. I have good friends who literally did this. Who, like who, who just moved to Salt Lake and now they're, they have the priesthood and I, we know these women who did this and how, I mean, is the First Presidency responding to this? Matt, do we know?

Matt Harris [01:17:47] Well, so they don't know the extent to which the racial passing is occurring. They know what's going on, but they really don't know the numbers involved. And there is a very popular institute teacher at the University of Utah. His name is Edgar Lyon. And Edgar Lyon. I quote this in my book, this letter. He writes to a friend. He said, we know that people of African ancestry are living in Salt Lake, passing below this color line. And I know of at least one instance of a person with African ancestry who's a member of a bishop work bishopric. This is happening all over the place. And so Edgar Lyon is acknowledging that this is an open secret that I know this is happening. Other people know this is happening. And of course, the general authorities don't know what to do about it. And you know, when it is called to their attention, as we mentioned, sometimes they would ask the priesthood holder to stay their hand. Other times they would just simply turn the other way and let him practice his priesthood and continue on.

John Dehlin [01:18:50] Tell the story of, of when one of these, when the story with T. Edgar Lyon raises an issue to Joseph Fielding Smith where he's got to make a decision.

Matt Harris [01:19:01] This is, this is, I think this is one of the most extraordinary things in, in at least this chapter, I think, and that is that there was this young man who had served a mission, and he lived in Norway. After his mission, he had immigrated to the United States with his family. So he's Norwegian, he's blonde haired, blue eyes, his entire family, they're light skinned. And the young man, so he's probably early 20s.

John Dehlin [01:19:28] And hadn't his dad or granddad served in priesthood callings?

Matt Harris [01:19:32] Oh, his dad had served in a priesthood calling. So he's about your age, Nate. And this young man's father served in a priesthood calling. His older brother was a stake president. His other older brother was a bishop. His other older brother was a high councilman, and his sister had been married in the temple.

John Dehlin [01:19:56] And so again, was it south? He was from South Africa.

Matt Harris [01:20:01] No, no, he's from Norway.

John Dehlin [01:20:03] Okay, from Norway.

Matt Harris [01:20:04] Okay, he's from Norway.

John Dehlin [01:20:06] Right. And names not used for this family in the book.

Matt Harris [01:20:10] No, I didn't, I didn't get their name. I wish I had. But Edgar Lyon, I have two or three sources for this story, and none of these sources use the name they just described.

John Dehlin [01:20:21] That's why I didn't have a name. Okay, keep going.

Matt Harris [01:20:23] So Edgar Lyon, the young man, a week before his temple wedding, the young man learns that he has a relative from Africa. And he's absolutely startled by it, much as Cantieri was when he learned that he had a relative and he would have to be released from his calling as branch president. Well, what this meant was to the young man that if he disclosed this new discovery to his priesthood leader, that he would be prevented from marrying this white woman in the temple. And so bothered by all of this, he reached out to Edgar Lyon, who was a one time mission president in Norway. So they got to know President Lyon from that capacity. And the young man confessed to President Lyon what was going on. And Lyon was a liberal. He didn't like the race policy, as we'll learn soon in this episode series, Lyon will ultimately get released, fired from his teaching position because of his activism on the band. But nonetheless, Lyon is deeply sympathetic to this young man's plight. And Lyon went to a priesthood meeting with the presiding officer, Joseph Fielding Smith there. And at the beginning of the meeting, he decided he wanted to ask President Smith about this young man and what to do. Now, I'm sure Lyon wasn't very happy when the presiding authority is the church's most, you know, encrusted hardliner on this topic, but that's what he had to work with. So at the beginning of the meeting, he goes up to Joseph Feeling Smith. He said to President Smith in private before the meeting started, he said, look, I've got this former family of mine from Norwegian Norway that I met and the young man's gonna get married in the temple. Just determined that he had just accursed ancestry. He's got brothers who are faithful priesthood holders. His father was a faithful priesthood holder. What do I do? What do I tell him? What counsel do I give him? And President Smith, without batting an eye, he said, what do you mean? What do you tell him? Tell him the truth, that he can't get Mary in the temple. And so that was it. And then after the meeting was over, Joseph Fielding Smith had a change of heart. He motioned for President Lyon to come to the stand. They had a private meeting. And he said during the meeting, I've rethought everything I told you. At the beginning of the meeting, he said, the, the, the son who's planning on getting married and the three older brothers, the priesthood holders, it will trigger a release from their callings if this young man discloses his cursed ancestry. Tell this young man to keep it to himself. Don't tell his fiance, don't tell his bishop, don't tell anybody. Let him go on. Because if the Lord has ratified the older brother's priesthood service, who are we to stand in the way? And I'm telling you, when I read these three accounts of this meeting, they basically all say the same thing. I absolutely froze. Because this is a different side that one typically sees of a church leader like Joseph Fielding Smith. This is his way of internalizing the harm that this doctrine is causing this young man. And I really, really wish I could have followed up and interviewed this young man or read his diary, but sadly, he's been lost to the annals of history.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] Nate, why are you shaking?

Nate Bird [01:23:48] Well, I mean, for starters, I mean, good for, for Smith, for, you know, I guess not wanting all of this to affect that young man. However, telling someone to keep a secret from their fiance just, you know, to start off your marriage, that's a, that's a pretty significant secret, one that I can't imagine would, you know, sit well with, with that young man. You know, it might, it might be a sense of relief at first, but then, you know, once you get married in the temple and you, you start to feel that guilt or every, you know, every time you sit in a sacrament meeting or you hear a talk, that thing probably comes back up and that would just eat away at you, you know, so it might have solved the, the problem of, of him feeling bad, or it might have cleared up, you know, the guilt for Smith. But I think it might have, it could have created more problems down the line. Unless that young man just decided to keep that secret his entire life, I guess. We don't know.

Matt Harris [01:24:38] Geez, Nate. That's the million dollar question, right?

John Dehlin [01:24:42] And Nate, I want to hear what you were going to say, but I just want to follow on as well. Like, it doesn't appear as though Joseph E. Smith made that decision out of concern for the young man. It almost seemed like he was willing to throw that young man under the bus and maintain the Church's policy until he thought about the implications of denying this man, the implications of what that would have to the broader church and its reputation, having to shut down the other leaders in the church and to have word get around that the church let these people go and that a bunch of people were officiating in the priesthood, having levels of leadership with the drops of blood. And so it seems to have been motivated much more out of an attempt to protect the image of the church and to do damage control than out of true, sincere cause or care for the one or for the individual. I mean, that's how it reads to me, and you can see that when you can. Why don't you tell the story of the woman who was doing like, who had done a thousand, you know, instances of temple work and what the answer was for her to contrast.

Matt Harris [01:25:57] Right, yeah, the. The great Mormon historian Juanita Brooks tells this story that she knew of an instance of somebody in her stake that was the woman and the husband. So this is, these are a couple in Juanita Brooks estate. They were faithful temple goers. And Juanita Brooks writes that they had performed over 2,000 ordinances via proxy for their deceased ancestors and others. And when it was disclosed that the woman had a cursed ancestry, her local leaders shut it all down, told her that she could no longer go to the temple. And this is a woman, of course, who found peace and comfort going to the temple. I mean, how could you not, right? You've done 2,000 of these ordinances. That's a lot of work. And then all of a sudden she's banned from the temple. And, you know, I think that the larger point here is, is that the ban affects people in different ways. That I see a little bit differently with what you just said about Joseph killing Smith, John, is that I see an older man who had an hour to really contemplate the effect of what this ban would do to this young man and his sons. And I don't know, a counterfactual question would be, would Joseph Fielding Smith have felt the same way if three other priesthood holders were not involved, if it was just the young man? And I don't know. But I do see instances in Joseph Fielding Smith's writings where, like Spencer Kimball, he is affected by the consequences of the ban because he talks to black and biracial Latter Day Saints. He hears their stories, he hears their pain and their anguish. And you can't help but be moved by these kinds of stories. So I, I, I see that a lot in private, and obviously it didn't, didn't provoke them to change the band when they felt it in the moment in the 50s and 60s, but they are internalizing it. And you can't make changes until the seeds are planted. So I see a number of seeds planted that, that's important here. Also, one last thing with Joseph fielding, that in 1968, Joseph Fielding threw another curveball at me when I was doing my research. And a young graduate student at Stanford University, a guy named Eugene England sought a meeting with Joseph Fielding Smith, who was then the president, the quorum of the 12. And gene England had all kinds of issues with the church's priesthood teachings or race teachings. And so he had this long meeting with President Smith at his office at church headquarters in Salt Lake. And he said, do I have to believe that black people are cursed and less valiant in order to be in the good graces of the church? And this is, he asked that question after Smith had tried to defend the rationales vis a vis the scriptures. And finally, when he, when Smith realized he wasn't going to win this young liberal Mormon over, Smith said that you don't have to believe that this is doctrine in order to stay in the good graces of the Church. And I'm convinced that if that meeting with, with England occurred maybe 10, 15, 20 years earlier, Smith wouldn't have been that generous. But the reason why Smith started to soften is because he saw the pain that the church's race teachings were what they were doing to black Latter Day Saints. And also he was affected by the civil rights movement.

John Dehlin [01:29:22] Well, Smith knew there were apostles that weren't in favor. Nate, did you have a question or a comment that you wanted to offer?

Nate Bird [01:29:31] No, I think I offered my comments already. Nothing further right now.

John Dehlin [01:29:34] I'm just curious about this idea that they knew. They knew that, that that priesthood was selectively being given to people of African descent. They knew that exceptions were being made. And at that point, when you know that it's happening and when you're even at the point of approving it or, or keeping it quiet, do ethics compel you to make some sort of statement church wide or ruling church wide so that this impartial application of justice, you know, doesn't end up being unfair? I can't help but think about now how the Church has tried to stop excommunicating same sex married couples. But we know that they're allowing it quietly and that some are allowed publicly, but then they're still excommunicating others. It leads to this sort of whatever the opposite of the rule of law is, where the capricious application of justice is selectively applied based on who you know and how much damage control needs to be applied. It's just fundamentally unjust and I think you could argue unethical. And I don't mean to be too forceful about it.

Matt Harris [01:30:51] I think that there's always been a contradiction with the church leadership and the way the church functions. And the contradiction is this. On the one hand, it's a hierarchical church. It's run by the top 15 leaders in Salt Lake, the first presidency in the quorum of the 12. And then of course you get into the, the lower tier general authority ranks. So it's hierarchical in that the major policies come from Salt Lake, but it's also decentralized in that there's a lot of latitude that mission presidents and the stake presidents and bishops have. And you see this with, let's say, money that bishops dole out to needy families to Impoverished families. Right. One bishop in one stake or one bishop in one area of the church may be very generous and liberal in helping a family in need. And then 20 miles down the road, a different bishop is completely different. And it just speaks to the unevenness of. Of, of church leadership that people in Salt Lake can't always micromanage. And so that's why we get John, in my opinion, some of these uneven policies is because it's just driven by personality.

John Dehlin [01:32:02] Absolutely. Absolutely. Is, Gerardo, you had a question about some secret special committees. Do you want to ask those questions?

The Secret Committee Formed to Study the Ban

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:12] Sure. I think in. You mentioned, Matt, in your book about a. A secret committee that President McKay

John Dehlin [01:32:25] formed the.

Matt Harris [01:32:26] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:26] It says three years after he became the president, he commissioned a secret committee of apostles to investigate the problem of the color line. I just wanted to see if you. If you would be able to comment more about. About this committee, what they did and what happened.

Matt Harris [01:32:45] Yeah. Boy, that's kind of the. A fitting way to. To this story is that as the brethren receive word that people are passing below the color line, as they receive word from Evan Wright and other mission presidents that the saints in South Africa, in Brazil, are not happy with some of these designations, excluding them from the full rituals of the church. As they receive word from Evan Wright that it's not fair to make them do genealogy and nobody else. David L. McKay decides for the first time to go to South Africa and visit. He had been asked to visit the previous year and a half. He didn't do it for whatever reason. But now, In January of 1954, he decides to pay a special trip to South Africa. And when he's in South Africa, he does something entirely unexpected. He announces to the South African saints that they no longer had to trace their genealogy out of Africa. That is that the burden of proof will now shift from the members of the church in South Africa to the church itself. If it's clear that they have African roots, they'll still maintain the policy. But if it's not clear, we'll give people the benefit of the doubt and let them proceed with their ordination or their temple sealing. And the saints in South Africa. I wish I had time to tell the story in my book. It's one of those things that got cut.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] That's what the podcast is for.

Matt Harris [01:34:16] The saints are just absolutely elated because this has been a policy that's burdened them for so many years. And I know again, let me quote one great document that I found in the church history archives. It deals with an elderly South African woman woman who was at that meeting when President McKay announced the policy change. And she had sat patiently in the pews after the meeting ended because she didn't dare move. When President McKay had exited the chapel, he walked by this elderly woman and he stooped down and shook her hand. And she was absolutely mesmerized that she shook the hand of a prophet. And in my mind's eye, I've got it in my mind's eye, this woman never wanted to wash that hand again. But anyway, she was just absolutely Twitter painted that she met the prophet, shook his hand, and then she sat there in contemplation about what that new policy change meant. And back home in Salt lake, when President McKay returned, he went to Brazil after South Africa, met with mission presidents and the saints there. Then he returned to Salt Lake and he announced to the 12 what he had done. And they too were shocked. They had no idea this was coming. And in one of the things, the justifications that McKay gave to his colleagues was that, look, they don't have to do this anywhere else in the church. Why would we make them do it in South Africa? And this is precisely what Evan Wright had been reminding him of. And so in the meantime, McKay is now thinking about race. He's thinking about racial passing. And he decides to form a secret committee to look into the justifications for the ban. Is it right to deny these people the blessings of the gospel? And he asks a liberal apostle named Adam S. Bennion. He hadn't been in the quorum of the 12 very long. He's a long standing educator, he's well respected. He's one of the few people in the quorum with a PhD and he asked Adam Bennion to chair a committee of apostles to look into the feasibility of lifting the ban. This is the spring of 1954. And Adam Bennion solicits the support of his cousin Lowell Bennion, who was T. Edgar Lyons colleague at the University of Utah and who also is a staunch opponent of the priesthood ban. And so, needless to say, they're stacking the deck, if you will. And so Lowell Bennion, what he does, is he with Adam Bennion's support, or let me back up Adam Bennion with his ecclesiastical authority. He compiles a list of all of the First Presidency meeting minutes that talk about the Negro, as he puts it, that goes all the way back to 1830. And so he compiles all of the brethren's discussions vis a vis these minutes from 1830 to 1950. 4. And he wants to see what each church leader has said about this topic over the years. What did they say about the one drop rule? What did they say about ordaining biracial, or they call them mulattoes in those days? What did they say about ordaining mulattoes to the priesthood? What did they say about the curse of Cain and the less valiant position? And so they undertake this serious inquiry about the scriptural and doctrinal rationales for the ban. This is the first time this has ever been done in the history of the church. And the meeting is so top secret. I'm going to read something to people that I think is. It's in my book. It's a great quote. And when I was in Spencer Kimball's private papers, I found a lot of these meeting minutes in the notes. And Kimball, when he too received a copy of the First Presidency in Quorum of the Twelve Minutes from 1830 to 1954, talking about the priesthood ban and the rationales, he knew that it was top secret. And then one of the reasons why it was top secret because one of the things that Adam Bennion noted in the report was that there was never a revelation to support this doctrine. It was just a policy. It was a practice. Never a revelation. And so Kimball writes to his family. This is when Kimball thought that when he was going to die. This is what he told his family to do. With this particular report, the venue report, he said, quote, to my family. This is in all caps. This is to emphasize how important this is to my family and any others. Under no circumstances, none are these papers the Bennion report and this book. It was compiled into a book. And all the excerpts from the minutes of the meetings of the Brethren in the Temple or otherwise to be appropriated for the library or office or possession of any family, friends or others. These are totally personal and private and must be turned in total to the Brethren. The First Presidency of the Church or Council of the Twelve. No deletions, no copies, no Xeroxing or anything like unto it. I have pledged to my. I pledged to myself that I would hold all of these papers inviolate. And he closes by signing his full name, Spencer W. Kimball. I don't know about you, but I don't address my kids and then sign my full name to my kids.

John Dehlin [01:39:49] So, Matt, do you have a copy of the Binion report?

Matt Harris [01:39:53] I do. I Do you have access to this?

John Dehlin [01:39:56] To this?

Matt Harris [01:39:58] I can't right now because I don't have it. I don't have A digital copy?

John Dehlin [01:40:02] Oh, no, no. I just mean maybe share it with Julia later and then we could share it and you don't have to. Or not. I would understand either way. I'm just curious if it's known what's in it and if you know what's in it, are you able to theorize as to what parts of it Spencer B. Kimball was so terrified would come out and why he felt like they would hurt the church? And I'll also just say Nate had to bail. Nate Bird. So we want to thank Nate for joining us for the time that he could. But can you help us understand why Kimball was so terrified about the Benion report?

Matt Harris [01:40:37] Yeah. Let's talk about a little bit about what's in it, and then if I can come back to that question, John. And so Lowell Bennion writes it, and I'm certain that Adam, his cousin, the apostle, contributes significantly. And I'm sad to say that we don't know exactly who was on the committee. We know that Adam Bennion's on it. And I can extrapolate or at least infer that Spencer Kimball is probably on it because he had a number of the papers in his private possessions.

The Bennion Report and Its Findings

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:05] And this is the secret committee. Right.

Matt Harris [01:41:08] City. I can also infer that Joseph Fielding Smith was not on it. And I. I wish I knew more details. I really, really asked the church archivists, and we. We looked at a number of. They were great, great to work with. They helped me look in some places where I thought there might be more information, but we didn't turn up anything. But anyway, we do know that Adam Bennion chairs it. President McKay asked him to chair it. We do know that Lil Benyan participated. Whether he was a quasi official member of the committee or an official member, we don't know. I'd like to think he was an official member simply because he and President McKay were close friends. And also President McKay knew Lowell Benyan's position on the band. He learned his views as early as 1943. So, anyway, lo Benyan writes the report and.

Gerardo Sumano [01:42:00] Sorry, I'm sorry, Matt, just to click, because I. I don't. I don't think I got this from the book. So that's why I have the question. So this report is the result of David O. McKay commissioning a. A secret committee to come up with this stuff, is that right?

Matt Harris [01:42:20] Yeah. So what's going on in South Africa and Brazil with the biracial stuff, with the racial construction, with racial passing? It bothers McKay.

Gerardo Sumano [01:42:31] Right.

Matt Harris [01:42:32] So he gets. He returns to Salt Lake in the spring of 1954. And he commissions this secret committee to look into the priesthood ban. And basically he's trying to lay a foundation to end the ban. That's what's going on. But he knows that he has significant hurdles because of Joseph Feeling Smith and some of the other hardliners. And so he, he forms this committee and as I mentioned, Adam Bennion chairs it and then Lowell Bennion contributes. Lowell Bennion writes the report and he goes through each of the rationales that the Church has typically used for the justification of the ban. And I'm going to paraphrase just a few, and if you guys want to read a few things, that's okay too. But he says that there's no, there's no such thing as a biblical curse. That doesn't seem right. He said this whole idea of the less valiant stuff in the pre existence. There's nothing biblical or scriptural about any of that stuff. He said that the ban is pushing away the church's best and brightest people. My students, young college students, they don't understand this ban. They don't accept it. He also dives into some theology a little bit. He said, how can we as a church believe in grace and forgiveness if we're pinning the sins of the ancestors on a certain group of people? How could the mistakes of somebody so long ago affect people in the modern era? That doesn't seem right. It seems contrary to the gospel.

John Dehlin [01:43:57] And it's one of the articles of faith that we believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgressions, which implies people shouldn't be punished for something their ancestors did, which makes the curse of Cain problematic. But then that pulls on the pre existence justifications. But then if those, you know, and that would probably cause the committee members to wonder how sound those justifications of blaming it on people's behavior in the pre existence even was. Is that right, Matt?

Matt Harris [01:44:27] Yeah, I mean, Banyan certainly felt that way because they noted as early as 1943 Lowell Banion, who's employed by the church. I think it's important to know that this is not any ordinary person. He has a position of significance as the head of the institute at the University of Utah. And he writes the church President, actually 1943 would have been Apostle McKay, but he writes Elder McKay 1943. And he writes in this lengthy letter and he spells out all of his problems with the ban and he thinks the band's immoral. That's the word he uses, it's immoral. And, man, talk about the chutzpah to be in the church employee and call it church doctrine. Immoral. I mean, wow, that's gutsy. But McKay, to his credit, allows Bennion the space to do this. And Bennion tells Elder McKay, he said that, I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, and please tell me if I'm being too, too brash with you. And Elder McKay writes him back and he says, I appreciate your thoughts. I want to hear them. I'm giving you latitude to express yourself freely. And so President McKay or Elder McKay was great that way. And anyway, so Bennion's going through, and he's talking about all the problems with. With the ban and how it violates Mormon scripture and violates Christian ethics and, and standards of decency and fairness, and it violates even Mormon theology. John, as you pointed out with the Articles of Faith. And another thing that Bennion said is, is that it even highlights that the brethren themselves have had conflicted views. BH Roberts, Joseph Willing Smith, John Widzo, they all had different views about the band. And. And so the implication, of course, is that there's three main things that come out of this report. One is that there's no scriptural justification for this ban. Number two, this ban is immoral. And number three, number three, there's no revelation to support the ban.

John Dehlin [01:46:26] That's. Those are three pretty important things. No scripture basis, no revelation. And it's immoral and it's causing the church damage. How about a fourth?

Matt Harris [01:46:36] It's.

John Dehlin [01:46:36] It's good. It has been and will continue to damage the church even after 78. It still damages the church. So I'm surprised that wasn't a fourth. It's destroying the church. I mean, I think that was in his feedback, right?

Matt Harris [01:46:49] Implicit. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you can. One can imagine why Elder Kimball wanted to protect these meeting minutes so, so badly, because it's really speaking the idea that the ban is propped up on a mound of sand. There's no foundation for any of this. And. And of course, when the meeting minutes leak later on in the early 1970s, these Bennion meeting minutes will leak. And Kimball is furious because he knows what it means, that if people read these meeting minutes, it's going to convince the Saints there's no doctrinal foundation for the band.

Gerardo Sumano [01:47:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:29] So that's it. It's that at some point they commission this report and they find out there's no scriptural doctrinal foundation, and it's harming the church and it's immoral. And they don't want that to get out because it's embarrassing. It could undermine people's confidence and prophetic authority and in the truthfulness of the church. Right.

Matt Harris [01:47:52] That's part of it. And I think another part of the story is. So this is in May of 1954, just to give a little context, the entire country is thinking about race relations in the spring of 54, because in June of 54, the Supreme Court will announce the most momentous case in Supreme Court history. And this is in the 20th century. This is Brown versus the board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, which desegregates public schools. And so In May of 54, there are a few grumblings where word gets out that there was a secret committee meeting. And Adam Bennion himself discloses that there is a meeting and that or a committee. And the committee, he. He tells some Mormon educators, he said, that there's no scriptural basis for the ban. There's no justification. There's no revelation.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:42] This is an apostle telling to church education employees there's no justification for the ban.

Matt Harris [01:48:50] That's correct.

Nate Bird [01:48:52] Wow.

Matt Harris [01:48:52] These church education employees, of course, they're absolutely alarmed by all of this. And they write their thoughts down about this in their diaries and letters to each other. And most instructively, of course, is President McKay. So he already has his heartstrings tugged from what's going on in South Africa, in Brazil. And so when Adam Bennion. We don't. I wish I knew. But we don't know what happens with the report. We don't know if he makes an official recommendation to the 12. We don't know if they discuss it, debate it, scrap it. We just don't know. What we do know, though, is shortly after Adam Bennion and Lowell and the other members finished their work, they present the results of their work in the spring of 54 to President McKay. And in March of 54, just after the committee had finished its work, they worked pretty fast. President McKay met with his friend Sterling McMurran, who was a. Who was a philosopher at the University of Utah, one time church history employee, or CS employee. His grandfather was Joseph McMurran, the presiding bishop of the church. So Sterling had roots in the church and a brilliant man, full of integrity. That's why David O. McKay liked him. And President McKay told Sterling McMurran in March of 1954, he said that I have it on good authority that there is no revelation supporting the ban and that it is not doctrinal. Now, Sterling McMurran is a liberal. He can't stand the ban. And you can imagine how Sterling's eyes lit up like Christmas trees when he heard the church president say that the ban was not a doctrine, but was simply a policy and a practice that needed to be changed. And McMurran, his first response to this is, it's a policy that needs to be changed. Is that right, President? That's what I told you. He said, President. Now, this is March, President, General conference is coming up. Why don't you announce that at conference? And President McKay said, without missing a beat, now, Sterling, you know I can't do that. And what he meant by that was that you cannot make a momentous change like this unless you get buy in from all of the leaders they had seen. President McKay knew intuitively what would happen if he didn't have buy in from the 12. The same thing would happen possibly with, with polygamy in the late 19th century, early 20th century. When you have a church prophet make an institutional doctrinal change. No more polygamy. It splits the Cormorant of the 12 right down the middle and it leads to a mass defection of Latter Day Saints from the church. And President McKay is aware that he needs to have buy in from the 12 in order to make this change, and he doesn't have it in 1954. So when he said to McMurran, you know, I can't do this, McMurray knew what he meant because he knew Joseph feeling Smith and his allies not allow it.

Nate Bird [01:51:57] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:51:59] And Matt, I just have to say I'm, you know, there are these moments in LDS Church history. Let's just say the Nauvoo Expositor with William Law. Everybody finds out Joseph's been practicing polygamy, but hiding it or, you know, another moment is the secret. Well, I mean, you could say the Post manifesto polygamy, when like the Mormon Church tells the world that it's going to stop polygamy, but then it's discovered that for the next 15 years they're secretly still practicing it. Or the secret Mormon meetings of 1922 when B H Roberts starts really looking into Book of Mormon historicity and finds all these problems and calls all the church general authorities together and has like a two or three day meeting with top church leaders discussing all the problems with Book of Mormon historicity. Like there are these moments when the church has full knowledge and awareness that there's a significant problem. And those are the moments where I Look and say, what did they do? And in this case, the narrative that I was always told was that, like, I think we talked about this earlier, that, you know, the brother. Somehow all this stuff went down the memory hole. The brethren, you know, they were busy with their colleagues, and they didn't know about Elijah Abel, and they didn't know about, you know, this stuff not being doctrinal or scriptural, and they didn't know about all the problems. But it wasn't until the 70s when Kimball, you know, started, you know, trying to baptize in Brazil, oh, some problems are coming up. What do we do? Or Lester Bush comes out with his dialogue article in 1973. It was like, oh, we didn't know that Elijah Abel had the priesthood. Huh? How do we deal with it? That was always the narrative that I was told as a Mormon, progressive, right? As a dialogue reading Sunstone, reading liberal Mormon. What I was never told was that back in the late 40s and 50s, they knew all of this stuff back then. And then what did they do when they knew then that it was a problem? And what I'm hearing you say is what they did was they said, we can't tell anybody. Hide the report, keep it secret, because it'll hurt the church. It'll hurt the church. It's tithing. It's membership, it's reputation. It'll hurt the church. And so we've got to go with the church over honestly what they taught us to do, which is do what is right. Let the consequence follow. They avoided the bad consequence. It appears as though they avoided the difficult consequences and did what? Protected the interests of the church over what maybe was ethical or good for the individual. I don't know how else to interpret this personally.

Matt Harris [01:54:56] Well, they didn't completely hide it because Adam Bennion. Adam Bennion spoke to the swearing elders. We'll talk about that group soon. But he spoke to the swearing elders in 1954 and told them what they were doing. And so in this case, Elder Bennion didn't hide it. And Lowell Bennion told all of his buddies in the church education system. And even more than that, Lowell Bennion sent all of his buddies copies of his report that he submitted to President McKay. And I, in my book, I have a big, lengthy footnote in which I note all of the archival collections in which I found the Bennion report. And even let me give you one quick example that one of the people that Lowell Bennion sent the report to was his good friend George Ellsworth a professor of history at Utah State. So it wasn't just CES people that he sent it to. He sent it to Mormon educators. And anyway, George Ellsworth, professor of history at Utah State, talked to one of his students, a guy named Boyd Matthias, about the report. And when I was going through Lowell Bennion's private papers, I saw a letter that Boyd Matthias wrote in July of 1954. So just a few months after Apostle Banion had alerted the educators to this report and Boyd Matthias's young returned missionary from at Utah State, he wrote Lowell Bennion a letter. And he said, dear, dear Brother Bennion, I've gotten word about your. Your. Your service on the Bennion Committee. I'm pleased that you're doing this. Please, please express to Elder Bennion, your cousin, that you need to find a way to give part Negroes the priesthood. That's the word he used, part Negroes. And again, this is a, this is a response to the troubles that they're having in South Africa and Brazil with biracial Latter Day Saints. And so a student gets word of what, what's going on in this committee. And I thought that was really extraordinary.

John Dehlin [01:57:03] Yeah, well, okay, so some people leaked what happened in the report, but the top church leadership punted. And they did it for very practical, human reasons. It's only a problem because that they also teach that they speak to and for God and that God is directing the church and they hold their members to a high standard of honesty and of ethics. And so there's a level of lack of informed consent, of hiding the truth, of a lack of courage and of self preservation over following what's honest or moral or ethical, in my opinion, in a decision like this.

Matt Harris [01:57:48] Well, I think so. A couple thoughts. I would disagree with a little bit of that. That's just the way I think and read sources. I'm, I'm more. I. I look at this as just more pragmatic. And as a historian, I'm always interested in context. And this is on the cusp of a civil rights era. And the church is going to come under tremendous fire for both their inability to support civil rights and their racial teachings. And it serves them no good purpose to announce this Bennion Committee report in general conference or to publish it in the improvement era. They absolutely don't want to call any attention to the church's race teachings during the civil rights movement. And that's one of the way ways I read this. The other way I read this is that a lot of people express themselves differently, as we all know, right, as humans. And some of the agitators who want to end the ban will do it publicly, publicly, others will do it privately, and they'll just kind of work with people one by one to win them over. David O. McKay was a private person. He knew that if the ban were to end that they would have to, you know, work one by one with various apostles. And he was absolutely skeptical, and he was justified that he would never be able to win over Joseph Fielding Smith. And so David O. McKay was not a contentious person. He was not one to go into Fielding Smith's office and lay down the gauntlet. And I'm the prophet and you're not, and this is what we're going to do. That was not his modus operandi. And in fact, he was one of those guys. Some of my McKay Scholar friends may disagree with me, but after having read hundreds of his diaries and letters, I think I'm justified in the following. He was one of those guys that wanted to bury his head in the sand, didn't want to deal with controversy. And so McMurran, though, when he confided to McMurran that this was a policy and a doctrine, McMurra now has a secret that the highest governing officer in the church has just confided in private that this has no doctrinal support. It's merely a policy. And the logical implication of that is pretty clear. Right. If it's a policy, then it could be ended by executive decree. You don't need a revelation. You don't need the unanimity of the quorum to get rid of a silly policy. And so what happens is, over the course of the 1950s and 60s, Hubie Brown and Sterling McMurran and Lowell Bennion and other liberals, they'll pester President McKay, and McKay will confide to them in private that even though it's a policy, I still need to have the unified consent of the 12. And McMurran sits on this secret for nearly 18, nearly two decades. He won't tell anybody that the church president said it was a policy, not a doctrine. And by 1968, after two decades later, Sterling McMurran will let it be known that this was what Joseph or David O. McKay told him in 1954. So he sits on this for a long time because he doesn't want to embarrass his good friend. Friend, the church president.

John Dehlin [02:01:01] Well, there's a degree at which I totally get the pragmatics of it. It's just the disparity between how the sausage really gets made and the perception that's created amongst the members about how the Church is run. And then the level of, the lack of informed consent and the level of devotion and sacrifice and the harm that comes basically under false pretenses. Gerardo, you get to say the final word on this point. Am I being too harsh on the Brethren? Is Matt right or is it somewhere in the middle? Especially? Gerardo, as you think about how the LDS Church deals with LGBTQ people today, do you see this as something that's relevant or applicable or frustrating or inspiring? Yeah, from your perspective.

Gerardo Sumano [02:01:46] Yeah, definitely applicable. I, I would add another element, which is the, the Brethren are really believe in this cause. They believe in the Church's cause of saving people and allowing them to go back to, to, to the presence of God. And they know they are really wary of anything that could cause controversies, that could cause the Church not to have a good reputation in society and therefore harm their ability to convert people. And so I think, and also weakening the faith of the members. So I think a lot of this, the things behind their decisions is, is always going to be the idea of protecting the church because in their mind that means they're protecting the salvation of potentially millions of people. Right? So that, that's also another element probably that's in, in their mind. Well, I, I, it's hard for, I, I can't comment on the dynamics of the Brethren back at this time. By reading Matt's book, it seems to me that President McKay was a lot more weary about making decisions without the knowledge of the Brethren. The rest of the Brethren, I see different dynamics with different prophets at times. For example, today. And I know Matt can comment about this because, I mean, he's a historian. He, he, he's not to comment here about the present times, but, but I see President Nelson, for example, take a, A, a different approach. Right. It seems like he's the one who's making the decisions. Who, who comes to the Brethren, tells them, I woke up last night and, and Jesus inspired me to write in my, in my changes that we need to make. And it seems like all the Brethren just align behind him on, on those things. I'm not sure what the dynamics are about that, how true that that is, but that seems to be the impression they're giving. And if you just listen to the talks today, General Conference, which is very different from the time I was growing up in the church, you know, every single apostle that, that, that talks at General Conference today seems to really want to. To be on the good side of President Nelson by quoting him all the time, by appraising him all the time, by, you know, talking about how inspired he is and, and all this, which seems a little different than what was going on here on David MK's time, but I could be wrong, and, and maybe Matt can tell us a little bit more about. About it, but it seems like the Brethren at the time, at this time, they had a little bit more of their individual kind of thoughts and an ability to. To not be so. While they respected the, The. The position of the. For, of the President of the Church, they were not all necessarily kind of like hiding behind the presence of the church. But, But I could. I could be wrong.

McKay's Private Views and Institutional Inaction

Matt Harris [02:04:59] Well, Gerardo, I don't. Those are all great thoughts. I don't. I haven't found any evidence that President McKay disclosed his views to the 12th. And I. You know, we got to remember something that, that Joseph Fielding Smith's the Way to Perfection was being used in adult new Sunday school programs.

Nate Bird [02:05:22] Right.

Matt Harris [02:05:23] And he wrote other books reaffirming the rationales for the band. So McKay knew what his colleague felt about these things. And, you know, I have letters between McKay and Smith, but they've never, he's never talked about the band becoming a policy. And the only person that I know of that McKay shared his views with, or a few, one would be Sterling McMurrant, one would be Hubie Brown, and the others would be the McKay sons. And I think McKay didn't share his ideas with the 12 because they knew they weren't popular.

Gerardo Sumano [02:06:01] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So he was a little bit more careful. Right. Of bringing up, like you said earlier, anything that could be controversial, anything that could be like, could cause any kind of confrontation.

Matt Harris [02:06:17] It's true. He was not a confrontational kind of guy. And this, the Sunset, said something differently. Sterling McMurran and both the McKay boys, all three of them said the same thing, which was, David O. McKay would have lifted the ban in spring of 1954 if he could have. If he could have, but he just didn't have the support. And just to give listeners a juxtaposition here, that Spencer W. Kimball, the 1970s, is faced with the same things. He's got numerous holdouts within the 12, and obviously he's able to do what David O. McKay couldn't do. But to be fair to Kimball, or I should say to be fair to McKay, that McKay would have had the difficult task of ending the ban during the civil rights movement. Kimball didn't have that challenge yeah, yeah, it's true.

Gerardo Sumano [02:07:13] Maybe something that we can talk about, Matt, if that's all right, is the Wilkinson report. There seems to be like a report made by Wilkinson to the First Presidency about a number of t. About the teachers in. Sorry, go ahead, John.

John Dehlin [02:07:32] Well, we could do that next time. I, I know we're kind of up on two hours, so if there's enough there, it's probably something worth punting on, but, but it could be a teaser for next time, too. So. What. However you want to answer that, Matt, I just want to be respectful to your time.

Gerardo Sumano [02:07:46] Yeah, for sure.

Matt Harris [02:07:47] Maybe we can talk about this next time. The teaser would be that during the 1950s, there is a growing chorus of LDS intellectuals who both of they work for the church and they work outside of the church and they are making their voices known, sometimes publicly, mostly in private. And it gets back to Ernest Wilkinson, the BYU president who's also the chancellor of the church education system. So he wears two hats. And it gets back to him that a number of our teachers within the system, he says, oppose our doctrine on the Negro. And obviously this presents a huge problem for, for the church because these are people, most of these people work for the church. They teach LDS youth, but yet they don't sustain a major doctrine of the church. And I, I mean, one can't imagine today that a number of CES and BYU religion faculty oppose a major doctrine of the church. They wouldn't be employed very long, but that's what's going on in the 50s, and Ernest Wilkinson is absolutely startled by it.

John Dehlin [02:08:51] Well, that's a good, that's a good teaser for next time. And we're going to be what, what, what's your sense of what comes next in the book? Just to give people a teaser of what, of what, what comes next besides the descent? Matt.

Episode Wrap-Up and Panel Reflections

Matt Harris [02:09:07] So we ended today with the Bennion Report in the spring of 1954. And the next time that when we our next episode, we'll deal with segregation, the Supreme Court's famous decision in Brown. And we'll look at how the Brown decision affects the church and church owned properties, attitudes of members about racial segregation, critics of the church like the naacp, a black civil rights group, how they pressure the church. We'll also look at a civil rights report that is issued about the state of race relations in Utah. The short answer is it's not good. And we'll look at how church education system employees are trying to navigate these larger societal currents that seem to contradict church doctrine.

John Dehlin [02:09:58] Love it, Nate. We're glad you're able to jump back on. We want to give you a chance to give any final thoughts or impressions you had from reading this chapter, and then, of course, we hope to have you on again in future episodes. But any final impressions, summative thoughts or feelings you wanted to express after reading Matt's chapter?

Nate Bird [02:10:18] Yeah, just after reading the chapter, I really appreciated all of, like, the information that was in the book, the sources that it came from, and also I appreciated that it kind of showed a different side of church administration. You know, a lot of times we hear the horror stories, but we don't necessarily get, like, the. The full context behind it. And so I feel like the. The chapter that I read does a really good job of humanizing, you know, the mission presidents, general authorities who are. Were involved in this process, and then kind of like showing the process behind their decision making. That doesn't excuse it. It's still, you know, wrong. But I appreciate the. The efforts put in there to. To humanize the people involved in these stories.

John Dehlin [02:10:52] Brilliant. Well, we loved having you, Nate. Thanks so much. And thanks to you, Gerardo. You make this all possible.

Gerardo Sumano [02:11:00] Thank you. Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [02:11:03] All right, any final words before I close, brethren? We need to get some women on this panel every once in a while, too.

Gerardo Sumano [02:11:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:11:12] Matt, any final thing you want to say?

Matt Harris [02:11:15] I appreciate your thoughts, you guys. Each of you guys have different perspectives that you bring, and I love hearing different perspectives, how people see my work. And we read. We can read sources differently and read people's stories differently, and that's the beauty of a lot of this. And anyway, I like the engagement, so I. I want to thank each of you guys.

John Dehlin [02:11:35] All right, well, I know that there's probably some people frustrated that I'm expressing frustration or anger or even criticism. I'm trying to put voice to the emotions that I know many felt, and it's. It's weird that I'm acting more outraged than Nate, so I don't know. I don't know how to make sense of that. So, Nate, you're more mature, you're more healthy than me, which I respect, sadly, John.

Nate Bird [02:11:58] I'm just more used to it, that's all.

John Dehlin [02:12:00] Oh, my God, it's dark. Okay, that's. Ouch. Yeah, that's dark humor, but it's powerful. Anyway, thanks to have you all today, Matt. I'm looking forward to the next part. So thanks for this wonderful book, everyone. I'm going to go ahead and close if that's all right. And I'm just going to say here's the book Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. There's truth bombs in every. On every page so far. Dr. Matthew Harris, please buy this. Please go to Amazon Benchmark Books. Wherever you buy your books, buy this book for you. And because Matt and scholars like him deserve our support, I also want to remind everyone that this is a pilot podcast. We Hope to do 10 to 20 episodes, but we need your support to do that. So if you value this content, please go to donorbox.org Matt Harris, become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month. Whatever you can afford. The money goes to Matt. We're not skimming any money off and it's going to purchase additional episodes. It's like a network renewing a. A series. But we, you know, if. If just 100 to 200 of you become. Become donors, we'll be able to retain Matt for the time and the number of episodes that this deserves. Again, we want to remind you that this episode, this series can be found standalone on Spotify, can be found standalone on Apple Podcast, and we'll have a playlist on Mormon Stories so you can watch these in sequence. These episodes best build upon each other, so we want to encourage you to consider consuming it in that way. Also, please like this episode, please like these episodes, comment on them, and subscribe to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, because that helps with the algorithms and will help share this far and wide. And also, this book is a great gift for friends and family and church leaders. You know, if somebody is trying to figure out how to navigate current church policies and practices, especially as a leader, but also as a member of. I think this book provides invaluable insight. And honestly, what's more important than applying history to how we're living today? So, again, Matt, thanks for allowing me to do that a little bit in Gerardo and Nate as well. All right, you guys take care. Thanks for everything and we'll. And thanks to Julia, Maven and Brooklyn for all that they do to make this possible. We couldn't do it without you, so be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

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