Inoculation

On Sunday, I taught some 9- and 10-year-olds about the creation of the Doctrine and Covenants. We talked about how almost all of the revelations in it came through Joseph Smith, although there are also sections by John Taylor, Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith. I also took the liberty (sorry/not sorry, Curriculum Department), of directing their attention to the Official Declarations at the end, regarding the cessation of polygamy and the extension of the priesthood to blacks.

“Wait, so we used to be racist?”

Well, of course they didn’t know.

I kept my explanation short. I told them that Joseph Smith had actually allowed ordination of a few blacks, but that Brigham Young had forbidden it. I pointed out that it was never made clear whether the Lord had actually said that blacks were not to receive the priesthood, or if this was simply a Church policy, but the Lord revealed through Spencer W. Kimball that blacks should receive the priesthood.

I did not attempt to morally justify the policy. I did, however, allow myself a single…let’s call it a harmonization of Church history. I pointed out that Moses had originally received a higher law that the Israelites were not yet worthy or prepared to receive, as shown by their behavior with the golden calf. Sometimes the Lord allows us to live a lower law until we are prepared to live the higher. And perhaps the members of the Church, like most whites in their time, simply were not prepared to regard blacks on equal terms.

And that was that. There was no awkwardness or uneasiness, like there would have been for teenagers learning it for the first time. This won’t be the last time they hear about this, but the important thing is that the next time they hear about it won’t be the first time.

When the Church published its essay on Joseph Smith and polygamy in 2014, I was simply floored at how many Church members claimed that they had no idea that Joseph had multiple wives. I think a handful of them were trolls, using their feigned shock as an angle to attack the Church, but I take most at their word. While I can’t really remember not knowing that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, I must admit that this fact would be hard to discern from most Church lesson manuals. And if you always stick to the manual…

There’s really no reason to hold these things back. Kids are far more open-minded than adults in such matters. I have resolved with my kids to tell them everything that they are capable of understanding. My oldest is 6, and already knows that Joseph Smith would sometimes translate the Book of Mormon by looking at a seer stone inside a hat. Why wouldn’t he? We’re alright with John the Baptist on the Susquehanna River, or golden plates buried in a hillside, but seer stones in hats give us the willies? Seems a bit like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Will this work? I don’t know. But I can’t abide the alternative: that he’ll go on a mission, talk to an anti-Mormon, and return home asking, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

P.S. After completing this essay, I searched for an appropriate photo and ended up stumbling upon a good post by Clark Goble from a few years ago on roughly the same topic. Trigger warning: antiquated notions of Mormon Stories not being an anti-Mormon site.