Scott Woodward:
 Hi, this is Scott from Church History Matters. Next week, on our final episode of this series, we will be honored to have Dr. Paul Reeve as our special guest to help us respond to your questions. He is an author and scholar on all things related to race in Latter-day Saint history, and Casey and I have drawn heavily from Dr. Reeve’s great research throughout this series. So this is our final call for your thoughtful questions on this challenging but important topic. Please submit your questions anytime up to August 10, 2023 to podcasts@scripturecentral.org. Let us know your name, where you’re from, and try to keep each question as concise as possible when you email them in. That helps us out a lot. All right. Now on to the episode. Paul Reeve recently wrote, “In June 1978 President Spencer W. Kimball received a revelation which returned the church to its universal roots and restored what was lost: priesthood and temple admission to people of African descent. This did not mark something new as much as it reestablished a commitment to the founding principles of the restoration. It reconfirmed the church’s original universalism: that the human family in all of its diversity is equal in God’s sight, that Jesus Christ claims all flesh as his own, that he’s no respecter of persons, and that all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.” In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we take a close look at the details surrounding this watershed revelation of reversion and repair. Both out on the peripheries of the church and at the heart of church headquarters within the presiding councils, we’ll see the Lord gently influencing circumstances toward the fulfillment of his purposes. Yet he waited with divine patience until all of the apostles were unified in approaching him with a desire to lift the ban. Only then would he make his will known with power. The story we trace today of how they get there under President Kimball’s gentle leadership is instructive on so many levels. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today we dive into our sixth episode in this series dealing with race and priesthood. Hi, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hi.

Scott Woodward:
Is this episode six? This is our sixth episode.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There is a lot to digest on this topic for sure. And I honestly think we could probably go six more episodes if we wanted to.

Scott Woodward:
Seriously.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But we want to resolve the plot.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We want to make sure that people know there’s a happy ending here—that it all worked out.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so we’re going to push ourselves to do that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In fact, maybe we could just plug, for all those who want more details about all the things we’ve been talking about for the last five episodes, we’re going to finish it off with six today, but highly recommend you go out to Deseret Book and grab a copy of Paul Reeve’s book called, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
It’s a short, little book. I’ve got it right here. Let’s see. How many pages is it? 133 pages. A super short read. I sat down this morning, I was reading it again. Probably got through half of it just this morning. So good. So if you’re hungry for more, if this podcast series has not satisfied your thirst for understanding on this issue, highly recommend you go out and get a copy of Paul Reeve’s book at Deseret Book. It’s, I think, the best thing published to date on the issue that deals with all the historical details we’ve been dealing with.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I endorse that as well, and I want to add for what we’re talking about today—which is really Official Declaration 2 in the Doctrine and Covenants and its background—two wonderful resources are Edward L. Kimball’s article. It appears in BYU Studies. This is free. You can just go and find it online, and it’s—it doesn’t cost anything. It’s an article that is from BYU Studies in 2008 called “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood.” And also, linked to that is Ed Kimball—Ed Kimball was the son of Spencer W. Kimball—his book Lengthen Your Stride, which was about the presidency of Spencer W. Kimball, it has some wonderful material in it too, and one of the advantages is that Ed Kimball basically went and asked his father if he could have permission to interview everybody.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so it’s hard to imagine getting that kind of access ever again—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—on such a controversial and difficult subject, and so—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
These three resources, if you’re still hungering to know more, are absolutely wonderful, and we’ll be open in saying we drew most of our material from these great scholars.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. So it’ll be our honor today to talk through the resolution of the plot. As you said, Casey, we’re going to look at President Kimball’s revelation. What led up to that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Can I back up and recap from last episode? Just get everyone up to speed?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, let’s do a quick recap.

Scott Woodward:
OK, so let’s see: Last time we discussed what happened after the 1907 solidification of a church policy on black African participation in priesthood and temple. Just for reference, again, there was a longstanding tradition from 1852, but the first time it becomes codified as, like, a church policy is 1907 from the First Presidency, who stated that “No one known to have in his veins negro blood, it matters not how remote a degree, can either have the priesthood in any degree or the blessings of the temple of God, no matter how otherwise worthy he may be.” So that was the official 1907 policy from the First Presidency. If you jump to today, by the way, President Nelson is saying the color of your skin doesn’t matter at all. What matters is your devotion to God and his commandments.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so what happens between these two points? So we talked about from 1908 to the 1960s, there were no deliberate efforts, really, to bring the gospel to blacks, right? It was a semi-official soft policy not to make any special effort to convert them. If they reached out, if they wanted to join the church, they could, but you needed to let them know that baptism was basically where their ordinance privileges would end, and in spite of that, blacks continue to join the church during that time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In fact, we’ll talk more about what happens in Africa without any missionaries whatsoever, but let me continue to review here. The idea that priesthood and temple privileges were restricted from the very beginning with Joseph Smith by God’s will became more and more entrenched during this time period. We cited a 1949 letter from the First Presidency saying as much, and again, a 1969 First Presidency letter saying the same thing.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so during this time period that was that—the entrenched story was that this ban began in Joseph Smith’s day by God’s will. It’s always been this way from the beginning. Priesthood holders like Elijah Ables and Q. Walker Lewis had essentially been either forgotten from memory or seen as an aberration to the original will of God that occurred because they hadn’t figured things out quite right yet. That was the story. Now, during this time period, things start to shift and change, though, right? We get the Civil Rights movement that begins really in full swing in the ‘60s.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And there’s disunity among the Twelve, in many regards, to this issue with blacks, some about the Civil Rights movement itself, and certainly about the policy barring blacks from priesthood and temple privileges. So we compared and contrasted, for instance, Hugh B. Brown, who was very pro-Civil-Rights-movement, with Ezra Taft Benson, who felt like this was maybe a communist ploy to try to infiltrate America. Hugh B. Brown thought that the priesthood ban was simply a policy that could be changed by vote, and so he actually put it to the Twelve to have them vote, and then Harold B. Lee really pushed strongly back against that. He wasn’t in the meeting. When he found out about it, he pushed back and said, “Listen, this is a doctrine. This is not a policy. This is a doctrine from the beginning. You can’t just vote on it. This would take a revelation from heaven.” And so we have this—different apostles seeing this differently, not seeing eye to eye. And so when President Kimball becomes president—I think we ended our last episode with him becoming president in 1973, that at the beginning of his presidency he wrote to his son Edward, saying, “Revelations will probably never come unless they’re desired.” You’ve got to want the revelation. And he said, “I believe most revelations will come when a man is on his tiptoes, reaching as high as he can for something which he knows he needs, and then there bursts upon him the answer to his problems.” So today we want to talk about that. What does President Kimball do to begin reaching for a revelation, which we know comes on June 1, 1978, at least to the whole First Presidency and Twelve. So should we pick it up right there, Casey?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So our burning question is “What led to the apostles overturning the priesthood policy?” And just like you mentioned, our key figure here is going to be President Spencer W. Kimball.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I want to mention one thing, too. You did a lovely job contextualizing everything. It’s clear when you look at this story that the Lord is working among the highest councils of the church, but he’s also working on the periphery of the church, too.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Like you mentioned, the church didn’t make an especially great effort to reach out to people of African ancestry, but they start to come into the gospel anyway. A couple years ago, for a project I was working on, I went to the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, and they brought out a statue of the Angel Moroni that had clearly been modeled on that old, powder-blue Book of Mormon that was so common in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this angel had been sculpted and placed on top of a church in Ghana.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And nobody that attended the church was officially a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Joseph Johnson, who was the leader of the congregation, had gotten a copy of The Book of Mormon and read through that and a variety of other church publications and really fell in love with the restored gospel. And he was one of those people who were waiting, writing, submitting patiently for the church to change, for the Lord to speak to the church for the policy to be relaxed. And that’s just one example. There’s a lot of others that we could cite in a number of different places where the Lord’s working on the outer edges of the church, and sometimes the outer edges of the church and the hierarchy of the church are going to touch base with each other, and that moves things forward as well. So those are the two poles of our story today, I think.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. And that was in Ghana? Is that right? Joseph Johnson?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah, he’s in Ghana.

Scott Woodward:
Paul Reeve points out that similar congregations formed in Nigeria. He says the—I’ll quote from Paul here: “The Holy Spirit converted over 15,000 people in Africa without missionaries or administrative oversight from Salt Lake City.” So that’s going on in the 1960s. Like, you can’t stop—but they’re just getting access to LDS books and pamphlets, and the Spirit is moving on their hearts.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And 15,000 people in Africa are claiming to be quasi-latter-day Saints. They’re not even baptized, but they’re followers of Christ, and they try to emulate the examples of early church members, especially the pioneers in the United States, so pretty inspiring stuff. Yeah. The Lord’s going to be moving in multiple ways during this time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
 Yeah. And if we’re trying to connect those two dots, there are a couple things that happen. For instance, another place is Brazil, where Brazil has a large black population.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it’s clear that, you know, the church is growing rapidly in the—in Brazil and in Latin America in general, and there’s going to be a need for a temple there. The hierarchy of the church recognized a need for the temple there, and they also recognized that there was a large population down there of people of African ancestry that might not be able to attend the temple, and this is one area where the hierarchy and the periphery come together.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And a few key experiences happen there.

Scott Woodward:
So let’s, yeah, let’s talk about his process, then, President Kimball. And Brazil’s going to play into this, Africa’s going to play into this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Outside scholarship is going to play into this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So for President Kimball, he begins reaching almost as soon as he becomes prophet in 1973, which is going to include work of studying out the issue in his own mind. He wanted to learn the history of the restrictions for himself. President McKay had done a similar research that had concluded similarly, that there was not a scriptural basis for the restriction.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
President Kimball wanted to understand the various justifications that had been offered over the years. He wanted to dig into this issue in depth. But he said that one of his biggest obstacles was overcoming his own preconceived opinions and understanding his own assumptions, as well as trying to work behind the scenes to build consensus among other church leaders.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
About himself, he said, “I had a great deal to fight: Myself, largely, because I had grown up with this thought that Negroes should not have the priesthood, and I was prepared to go all the rest of my life until my death and fight for it and defend it as it was.” So there’s an internal battle—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
—in terms of his own prejudices. And I think he’s so humble to admit that and to say that’s what a large part of what he was trying to fight. It’s interesting to consider his life. I made a little timeline once just to say, OK, what was it like being Spencer W. Kimball growing up in the church? And this is not going to be very complete at all, but he was born in 1895. When Spencer W. Kimball was three years old, it was already believed in the minds of—like, church leaders were already teaching that the priesthood restriction on blacks was a doctrine of the church that came from Joseph Smith and was therefore from God.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
He was 12 years old in 1907 when the policy became official. He’s 13 years old when early black priesthood holders are essentially forgotten from church memory with the memory slip of Joseph F. Smith we talked about, which happened that same year. So all during his impressionable teenage years, his young adult years on into adulthood, there weren’t really any competing narratives on this issue.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so when the issue comes up, which is not very often, but when it does come up, all Spencer Kimball had heard and learned were the false doctrines about the curse of Cain and the premortal less valiancy and the false history that this ban could be traced back to Joseph Smith and the beginnings of the church.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so I can appreciate, at least just to try to empathize as I read this history. Like, when he says, “I had to fight and overcome my own understandings, my own prejudices,” that had been taught from his youth, I think that was actually quite real, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
To paraphrase Yoda, he had to unlearn what he had learned, right? There was some unlearning that needed to happen for Spencer W. Kimball, and so he’s going to model what needs to happen for the whole church and which will happen gradually after the revelation. But anyway, any thoughts on that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You’re exactly right that he’s fighting against his tendency that he’s had his whole life to defend the teachings of the church and not to question them or submit to the need for change. There’s a letter that he writes to his son, I think we quoted part of this last time, where in 1963, he says, “The conferring of priesthood and declining to give the priesthood is not a matter of my choice, nor of President McKay’s. It’s the Lord’s program. When the Lord’s ready to relax the restriction, it will come whether there’s pressure or not. This is my faith. Until then I shall try to fight on.” And then he said, “I’ve always prided myself as being about as unprejudiced as to race as any man. I think my work with the minorities would prove that, but I’m so completely convinced that the prophets know what they’re doing and that the Lord knows what he is doing that I’m willing to let it rest there.” And that work with minorities that he mentions there has to do with his background. He grows up in Arizona—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—fairly close to the Navajo Indian reservation, and he spends a lot of his ministry—he’s a stake president there before he’s called as an apostle—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—ministering to people who are of different races and integrating them into the church and working with them. So you could see a lifetime of preparation for him to be the person that receives the revelation, but there’s also his own personal choice. I mean, he could have gone either way based on his upbringing, but when he becomes president of the church, the issue kind of lands squarely in his lap. He has to finally deal with it. And he really does want to know the Lord’s will on it. You shared that lovely quote from him, “Revelations rarely come unless they’re desired,” and it seems like this is a person who really wanted to know the Lord’s will on the matter.

Scott Woodward:
And this is from Ed Kimball’s book, Lengthen Your Stride. He says, “When President Kimball became a church president, few people expected any change.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
“Probably President Kimball himself did not. But one huge factor was different. Now the ultimate responsibility for the policy fell to him. His duty was no longer to be a loyal supporter,” which he was very good at. He said, “He had the direct personal responsibility to discover the Lord’s will by study, faith, and prayer, and he was determined not to be motivated by earthly pressures.” And then one more: He says, “President Kimball said in a news interview that his predecessors had sought the Lord’s will about the priesthood policy, and for whatever reason, the time had not come. But now that the ultimate responsibility was his, it was no longer enough to rely on the understandings of previous prophets or to wait for the Lord to take the initiative. He said he wanted to “find out firsthand what the Lord thought about it.” I think he’s quoting his father there. He wanted to find out firsthand what the Lord thought about it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so he was very orthodox. He was always orthodox. When people would push him on it, he always gave the answer that “At some point blacks will get the priesthood. We don’t know when that is. That’s the Lord’s business. It’s the Lord’s program.” He always used the word program. It’s the Lord’s program, and the Lord will be able to work that out, whenever that time may be. He was always loyal to that, right? And he was never—he was never trying to agitate for change as a member of the Twelve. But once he becomes the president, once the buck stops with him, once it actually is his legitimate right to find out the Lord’s will—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
—he’s set to the task.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And you mentioned by study and also by faith. We ought to talk about some of the study.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s some scholarship that’s influential in leading President Kimball down this road, too. Probably the biggest thing is a 1973 article by Lester Bush, who is a member of the church, also black member of the church, writes an article called “Mormonism‘s Negro Doctrine: A Historical Overview.” We’ve talked about this, but a lot of the perpetuation of the policy had been based around the idea that it originated with Joseph Smith.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A lot of people basically said, “Yeah, this has been something we’ve done from the beginning.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Lester Bush’s article basically traces the sources available and points out that it didn’t start with Joseph Smith, that—exactly what we outlined in one of our earlier episodes, that Joseph Smith didn’t really seem to have any kind of policy when it came to temples and when it came to race or anything like that, and that article starts to circulate among the leaders of the church in particular. Hartman Rector told Lester Bush that he believed many of the general authorities had read the article, and Marion D. Hanks, who’s another general authority at this time—he’s a member of the Seventy—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—on multiple occasions said the article had far more influence than the brethren would ever acknowledge. It started to stir the pot and change things.

Scott Woodward:
He says it started to “foment the pot.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, yeah. Started to foment the pot. It started to stir up their thinking as to, “Have we been resting on some assumptions that might not be accurate?”

Scott Woodward:
Yes. And challenging those assumptions of the origins, which nobody seems to have been doing very seriously.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Sorry. Continue.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Mark E. Petersen, for instance, called President Kimball’s attention to an article that proposed the priesthood policy had begun with Brigham Young and not Joseph Smith, and told President Kimball that maybe that’s a factor that they should take into account, too. Because I think the two things that are pushing and pulling the leaders of the church here are they don’t want to seem like they’re abandoning the previous leaders of the church, especially Joseph Smith, but they also want this to change.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so Lester Bush’s article seemed to open up a little bit of a gap for them to start thinking in different directions about how the policy had been put into place and therefore how the policy could change.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and if we can get a copy of that, I’ll link Lester Bush’s article to our show notes. It’s actually fantastic. That was 1973, and it still holds up under historical scrutiny.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I mean, it is—and he was not even a professional historian. I think he was an army medic, if I remember right. But he did some phenomenal scholarship. Actually, he was responding—as kind of interesting backstory—to a guy named Steven Taggart’s 1970 article, where he hypothesized that it started in Joseph Smith’s day in Missouri as a result of the Missouri persecutions, that the church backed off on blacks having full participation in the church due to the persecution in Missouri, and that it had begun in Joseph Smith’s day. And so this is Lester Bush saying, “I don’t think so.” So Lester Bush was not targeting the leadership of the church. He wasn’t trying to say, “Hey, you guys should change. Look at this scholarship.” What he was saying was a response to a 1970s hypothesis that he felt did not hold up under close scrutiny. And so he just wanted to lay the whole story bare, and it’s phenomenal. So we’ll link that to the show notes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now that’s the historical boundary that they’ve got to cross. We talked about how the other major compelling thing was scripture. Do the scriptures say this is something? You mentioned that little discussion that we sometimes miss the nuance on as to, “Is this a doctrine, or is it a policy,” doctrine is generally found in the scriptures. Policy is extrapolation from the scriptures. And another thing that happens is that President Kimball approaches the scriptures. Now, this has happened under President McKay, too. President McKay asked several apostles to study the scriptures and say, “Is there justification for the policy?” In 1977, Spencer W. Kimball asked at least three general authorities to go back and read the scriptures and write a memo. In his article, Ed Kimball names these three general authorities as Boyd K. Packer, Thomas S. Monson, and, here’s a surprise, Bruce R. McConkie.

Scott Woodward:
Why do you say that’s a surprise?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because I think there’s a popular perception in the world today that Elder McConkie was gung-ho about this policy.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And he did defend the policy, but we should note also that he was one of the three that Spencer W. Kimball asked, “Is there a scriptural barrier in changing this policy?” And I think in President Kimball’s mind, Elder McConkie was probably the most conservative member of the quorum. I could be wrong.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I’d say him and Mark E. Petersen.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
They’ve been the most vocal in, like, adamantly, like, defending the church’s position at that time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I think the thinking is if Elder McConkie is OK with this, then we’ve got a strong ally on our side, someone who is so interested in defending church policy. And apparently all three of them come back and basically cite that there’s no justification for this in the scriptures.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We went over the scriptures in one of our previous episodes, but this becomes a deep matter of discussion among the Quorum of the Twelve, and the reason why I mention Elder McConkie is Boyd K. Packer, in a talk, says specifically, “President Kimball spoke in public of his gratitude to Elder McConkie for some special support he received in the days leading up to the revelation on priesthood.” So of the three, President Kimball specifically notes that Elder McConkie was really helpful. And knowing Elder McConkie, his inclinations and his expertise, I’m guessing that has to do with going to him and saying, “Yeah, based on my reading of the scriptures, this is something that we can seek the Lord to change.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That he gave his green light. And he gives a very great talk after the revelation’s given, too, speaking of Elder McConkie.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm. I think Elder McConkie sometimes gets a bad rap. Some people don’t like how dogmatic he often was, kind of how, like, hard the line was that he toed on some issues. His tone, maybe, was really strong, maybe overbearing for some, but I think that’s a misunderstanding of Elder McConkie. I think he was actually quite humble and willing to defend what he understood was true. That’s it. Because when the revelation does come, he flips 180. There’s that great, famous line that he says in the talk he gives in August, the revelation happens in June. In August, he gives a talk, and he says, “Forget everything that I have said.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Or George Q. Cannon has said, or—“

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“—or Brigham Young has said,” yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, yeah. Here’s the quote right here: He says, “Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation.” And then listen to this humility: “We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that has now come into the world.” That’s humble. That’s not a guy who’s just—he’s not trying to be a stick in the mud. Elder McConkie would just fiercely defend what he knew to be true. And when the revelation corrected him, he flipped 180—instantly is “Listen. Forget everything. Let’s all now line up—”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
“—to be in harmony with this new revelation,” so.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Props to Elder McConkie, actually.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
All right, so President Kimball is working to build consensus among the apostles behind the scene. That’s one of his real gifts and strengths.

Scott Woodward:
OK. This is huge.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And we’ve also dealt with historical barriers, scriptural barriers. Everybody’s moving towards a point to where they feel good about asking the Lord for the revelation. There’s a couple things happening on the periphery of the church, too: 1975, we already mentioned this, but the São Paulo temple is announced. Helvécio Martins, who is a black African Brazilian, is called to be head of the Public Affairs Committee for the São Paulo Temple. Helvécio Martins and his son Marcus Martins, who used to be the head of Religious Education at our sister school, BYU–Hawaii, are both key figures in this, too. So they’re at the cornerstone ceremony of the São Paulo temple, and President Kimball actually invites Helvécio Martins to come up and sit next to him on the stand, and then they have an interesting exchange. And I think you have that right there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So President Kimball says, “Do you remember what I told you when we first met years ago?” And Helvécio says, “Yes, I remember. You told me about being faithful.” So apparently there had been a conversation about, “I’m black. What do I do?” And President Kimball just told him, “Be patient. Be faithful. Just focus on being faithful. That’s all that matters,” at that time. And so then President Kimball says, “Yeah, that’s right.” And he repeats it. He says, “Just remain faithful, and you’ll receive all the blessings.” And so this is 1977. We’re getting close.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And the São Paulo Brazil temple is going to be dedicated actually that next year. And yeah, there’s going to be many Brazilians, like Helvécio Martins, who have put a ton of effort and donation and time to help the temple get built and, under current policy, would be unable to actually attend the temple, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
LeGrand Richards actually says this was a huge, directly consequential factor in the brethren considering the removal of the priesthood-temple ban. Elder LeGrand Richards cites the Brazil temple as a major point, that in some places there’s like 80 percent of the population had some ties back to Africa, genealogically, and so there’s going to be a large number of Brazilians who will not be able to attend the temple, and that weighed on the brethren’s mind.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So 1975, the temple’s announced. 1978 the revelation is given, and it’s going to remove the ban. So at least in Elder LeGrand Richards’ mind, the temple was a huge consideration for the brethren about the removal of the ban.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s true. So let’s actually get to 1978, then.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. So first thing, a third factor. So we’ve talked about the historical boundaries, the scriptures, the peripheral events on the edge of the church.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now let’s talk about what’s happening with President Kimball—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and all his conversations with his son about this. He talks about going to the temple.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He spent many days in the temple, and “through the sleepless hours of the night,” Ed Kimball writes, “praying and turning over in his mind all the consequences, perplexities, and criticisms that a decision to extend the priesthood would involve. Spencer gradually found that all these complications and concerns dwindling in insignificance. They did not disappear, but they seemed to decline in importance,” and he’s getting to the point where he‘s comfortable with—in fact, he cites a meeting of March 9, 1978 in the temple, the First Presidency and the Twelve meet together, and the apostles unanimously say, “We would be OK with the policy to change,” but the change had to be based on revelation and announced by the prophet.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So he’s achieved unanimity, I guess you’d say, among the Twelve.

Scott Woodward:
At least as to the need for revelation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
As to the need for revelation and their acceptance if the change was made by revelation.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But they’re also clear in saying, “This is such a big deal that we need a revelation to change it.

Scott Woodward:
President Kimball was well aware of how divisive this issue was under the administration of President David O. McKay, because he was an apostle during that time, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm.

Scott Woodward:
And he knew that discord does not invite revelation, so he was aiming to maintain harmony among the brethren as this question was explored. He knew that unity invites revelation, like when the Lord promised revelation to church leaders in D&C 42:3. Once they became, as he said, “agreed as touching this one thing.” So this is, no doubt, why President Kimball wisely sought to involve and include them in the process.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Like you mentioned, he reached out to them and asked them to help him in the study and application of scripture to this problem. He asked them at this very meeting you’re talking about to make this a matter of personal fasting and prayer. Specifically, he humbly invited them, saying, “Would you brethren begin to pray and fast about this with me?” Now, this is March 9, 1978. So he’s trying to foster unity on this divisive topic, right? So as to invite revelation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Because he knows that to move forward on this, we can’t have any schisms among the brethren. He can’t have, like, seven of the apostles on his side and three going rogue and two abstaining or whatever, you know, to have the best chance at success here. He needed the apostles to be as united as they could be on this issue. If they could be humbly united on this issue and then collectively approach the Lord together—ooh—then they could expect something special here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
It’s just like Elder McConkie would later describe after the fact. He said, speaking of the apostles, “When we seek the Lord on a matter with sufficient faith and devotion, he gives us an answer.” And then he says, ”You’ll recall that the Book of Mormon teaches that if the apostles in Jerusalem had asked the Lord, he would’ve told them about the Nephites. But they didn’t ask, and they didn’t manifest that faith, and they didn’t get an answer.” And then he says, “One underlying reason for what happened to us,” speaking of the June 1 revelation, “is that the brethren,” plural, “asked in faith. They petitioned and desired and wanted an answer, President Kimball in particular.” So that’s what President Kimball’s driving at. He knows what needs to happen in the hearts of each of the apostles in order for heaven to open and for this revelation to be received.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So now let’s watch this play out. About two weeks later, on March 23, President Kimball confides to his counselors that he had spent much of the previous night in reflection on this issue and that his impression was to lift the restriction on blacks. Wow. So he’s got a private, personal impression on March 23, 1978, to lift the ban.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But he only tells his counselors, and according to Ed Kimball’s account here, his counselors said that they were prepared to sustain him if that was his decision. Then they went on to discuss what that would entail and what changes would need to be made in the church, but after discussing this amongst themselves, they, the First Presidency, determined together, now catch this, “that they would need to discuss it again with the Twelve before a final decision was made.” Isn’t that interesting? His counselors say, “We’re prepared to sustain you if that’s your decision,” and he’s saying, “Mm, we need to discuss this again with the Twelve before a final decision is made.” See, President Kimball was determined that the Twelve be as united as possible on this. He wasn’t just going to try to ram this through, right? He knew that approach just wouldn’t work.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So for the next several weeks, he continues to pray for the Twelve, and he asked the Twelve to continue to personally pray and fast about this themselves. Then, on May 4, less than a month away from the big revelation on June 1, Elder LeGrand Richards said that as they were talking about this issue in quorum, that he looked up and saw who he was convinced to be President Wilford Woodruff. He’d been dead for many years.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
There was President Wilford Woodruff, at least LeGrand Richards saw him. In fact, let me quote him directly: he said, “I saw during the meeting a man seated in a chair above the organ, bearded and dressed in white, having the appearance of Wilford Woodruff.” And then he said, “I’m not a visionary man. This was not imagination. It might be that I was privileged to see him because I’m the only one here who had ever seen President Woodruff in person. Interesting. You know, and perhaps the connection with Wilford Woodruff is that it was under his presidency that plural marriage had ended, which was a major shift in terms of how things were done in the church, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So perhaps his presence there was suggestive that it was time for another major shift to happen. And as we’ll see, it’s about to. So May 4, one of the apostles, LeGrand Richards, sees President Woodruff during their quorum discussion on this topic. Then jump ahead to May 25—now we’re getting real close to that June 1 date—and Elder Mark E. Petersen tells President Kimball about what he’s noticed in an article, which we assume has to be that Lester Bush article.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
He tells President Kimball that he found in that article that the priesthood policy actually began with Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith. So that’s significant to Elder Peterson.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Then May 30, President Kimball reads to his counselors a tentative statement that he had written in longhand removing the racial restrictions on priesthood. He said that he had a good, warm feeling about it. They then reviewed past statements of previous prophets and decided to ask G. Homer Durham, who was a Seventy who supervised the historical department at the time, if he would research further the historical basis of the policy. This is May 30. Like we’re, what, one day? How many days are in May?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
One day away. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’re one day away from the actual revelation. He’s still asking for people to do historical research and try to help him out here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
OK, so then we’ve got to talk about the next day in detail here. Do you want to pick up there? So it’s Thursday, June 1, 1978. They meet in the temple. That’s their normal temple meeting day. So nobody expected anything spectacular to happen this day. They get together and have their normal meeting, which was…

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Three and a half hours long.

Scott Woodward:
Three and a half hours long. They’re not discussing the priesthood policy at that point. So, yeah. What happens after that kind of—their normal meeting there?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A couple of details we ought to add in just to fill in the story. The meeting had ended. In fact, Ed Kimball notes that two members of the quorum had already left to change out of their temple clothes, and President Kimball called them back. And also, there’s two apostles that aren’t with them. Delbert Stapley’s in the hospital. Mark E. Petersen’s in South America, so ten of the twelve are present.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You’ve got the First Presidency. Counselors have already said, “We’ll support you if you get the revelation.” And then President Kimball actually looks at them, and this surprised me, but President Kimball said, “Brethren, I have canceled lunch for today. Would you be willing to remain in the temple with us? I would like you to continue to fast with me. I’ve been going to the temple almost daily for many weeks now, sometimes for hours, entreating the Lord for a clear answer. I have not been determined in advance what the answer should be, and I will be satisfied with a simple yes or no, but I want to know. Whatever the Lord’s decision, I will defend it to the limits of my strength, even to death.” So he talks to them and says, “We’re going to fast, and we’re going to pray.” And then they start to have discussions, and he asks the Twelve to share their opinion. He notes that, notably, Bruce R. McConkie speaks in favor of the change, and he says, “There’s no scriptural reason. There’s nothing stopping us from making the decision.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Then the next one to talk is another person we sometimes associate with being a hard-line defender of the church, that’s Boyd K. Packer, quoted D&C 1:24, 49, 56:4–5, 58:32, all in support of the change, and then eight other members of the Twelve share their views, all in favor, but the discussion goes on for about two hours, according to one account that’s there.

Scott Woodward:
I love that President Packer, who was there, he said, a few weeks after this happens, he says, “One objection from one member of the Twelve would have deterred President Kimball. It would’ve made him put it off. So careful was he that it had to be right.” Like, the unity had to be there. So if even one of the apostles objected, like, he would’ve said, “All right, let’s table this.” And so the fact that he goes around, eight of the ten volunteered to say their feelings, and then the other two who hadn’t spoken yet, he asked them, and they also speak in favor. It’s all unanimous.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So now what? What happens next?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I love the language here, but President Kimball says, “Do you mind if I lead you in prayer?”

Scott Woodward:
That’s so good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So he’s the president of the church. They’ve all signaled their willingness.

Scott Woodward:
“Do you mind if I lead you in prayer?”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Do you mind if I lead you in prayer?” They surround the altar in a prayer circle. President Kimball starts praying. This is the way Ed Kimball writes it: “President Kimball told the Lord at length that if extending the priesthood was not right, if the Lord did not want this change to come to the church, he would fight the world’s opposition. Elder McConkie later recounted, ‘The Lord took over, and President Kimball was inspired in his prayer, asking the right questions, and he asked for a manifestation.’” And the manifestation is recorded by several different people. There’s a number of different voices here. I’ll just read what Elder McConkie said. Elder McConkie said, “It was as though another day of Pentecost came.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“On the day of Pentecost in the Old World, it’s recorded that cloven tongues of fire rested upon the people. They were trying to put into words what’s impossible to express directly. There were no words to describe the sensation, but simultaneously the Twelve and the three members of the first presidency had the Holy Ghost descend upon them, and they knew that God had manifested his will.” “I, this is Elder McConkie again, had some remarkable spiritual experiences before, particularly in connection with my call as an apostle, but nothing of this magnitude. All the brethren at once knew and felt in their souls what the answer to the importuning petition of President Kimball was. Some of the brethren were weeping. All were sober and somewhat overcome.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“When President Kimball stood up, several of the brethren in turn threw their arms around him.”

Scott Woodward:
It’s so fun to read the accounts of the apostles who were there. That was Elder McConkie. There’s another great one from Elder Perry, L. Tom Perry. He said, “While he was praying, we had a marvelous experience. We had just a unity of feeling,” he said. “The nearest I can describe it is that it was much like what had been recounted as happening at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.” He said, “I felt something like the rushing of wind. There was a feeling that came over the whole group. When President Kimball got up, he was visibly relieved and overjoyed.” That’s so good. President Hinckley said, “There was a hallowed and sanctified atmosphere in the room, an assurance that the thing for which he prayed was right. The time had come. Every man in that circle,” President Hinckley said, “by the power of the Holy Ghost, knew the same thing.” My favorite one is Ezra Taft Benson. He said, “Following the prayer, we experienced the sweetest spirit of unity and conviction that I have ever experienced.” And then this: “Our bosoms burned with the righteousness of the decision we had made.” I just picture the Lord on the other side of the veil here, with the petitioning prophet for the first time now with the united feeling and sentiment of the First Presidency and Twelve together, petitioning and asking the Lord, and the response was a burning in our bosoms “with the righteousness of the decision we had made.” The Lord’s saying, “Yes! What you’re asking is righteous. That is right. That is right.” That’s just so beautiful to me.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I love this little detail, too, from Elder David B. Haight: He was the closest to President Kimball when he had prayed, and he, when they both stand up, spontaneously hugs President Kimball. And Ed Kimball here says, “Elder Haight could feel President Kimball’s heart pounding in his intense emotion.” Just love that image of he hugged him right after, where he just felt his heart pounding. “The president continued around the circle, embracing each apostle in turn. Others spontaneously embraced. It’s beautiful.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I want to add, too, there’s two apostles that aren’t present and President Kimball has gone so out of his way to sort of ensure unanimity among the 12. A little detail that Ed Kimball adds: Mark E. Petersen was in South America. Delbert Stapley was in the hospital. President Kimball contacts both of them. So he calls Elder Petersen, who’s in Quito, Ecuador, and informed him what had happened, and has Francis Gibbons read the announcement. It says, “Elder Petersen later said, ‘I was delighted to know that a new revelation had come from the Lord. I felt the fact of the revelations coming was more striking than a decision itself. On the telephone, I told President Kimball that I fully sustained both the revelation and him 100 percent.” Then all three members of the First Presidency visit Elder Stapley in the hospital and inform him of the revelation as well. So they go out of their way to make sure that there’s total, absolute unanimity among the Twelve—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—including the two that weren’t able to be there when the meeting was held.

Scott Woodward:
And he doesn’t stop with the Twelve. He then, before this is announced to the world, he wants to make sure that all general authorities are on board, and so at that point, he calls a meeting for all general authorities to come to the temple—that he would like to talk with them about something. Nobody knew what it was about. There was lots of speculation. And so into the temple they went. Elder Maxwell, at the time he was a Seventy, he said, “I had no inkling what was going on. And as we knelt down to pray,” Elder Maxwell said, “the Spirit told me what it was going to be, and after that prayer, President Kimball began the description, and I began to weep. There were many general authorities there that started to pick up on where he was going with this. As he starts to talk about the ban and how he had always heard all of his life that the ban would be lifted, ‘My father told me that one day it would be lifted. When I was a stake president, an apostle told me it would be lifted,’ keeps quoting prophets who keep saying it. ‘One day it will be lifted,’ and the feeling in the room starts to build and grow. And then he announces to that group, he says, ‘Now the Lord has answered me, and the time has come for all worthy men to receive the priesthood. I shared with my counselors, I’ve shared with the Twelve, and I’ve gotten their response, and now after having their response, I want to turn it over to you. I want your response. How do you feel about it? I won’t—” He says this: “I won’t announce it to the world without first counseling with you. We’re not in a hurry. I want to hear from you.” And so he listens to anybody who has any objections or just wants to know their feeling about it. There were no objections. One general authority said, “I would’ve voted against such a proposal, until I experienced the feeling that I did in this room this morning.” He had stood up and said that. Another had just said, “I changed my position 180 degrees. I’m not just a supporter of this decision. I’m an advocate.” So once it was clear there was unanimity among the general authorities, one of my favorite lines is he then turns to his counselor N. Eldon Tanner, and he says, “Eldon, go tell the world.” So he slips out and tells the press about this and then—ooh. So awesome. Just that dogged determination to make sure there’s unanimity before this goes out to the world. We can have no schisms on this. The Lord loves unity, that’s for sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that announcement is now canon. It’s Official Declaration 2 in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’d love to read the whole thing, but here’s the most important part: “He has heard our prayers.” This is in Official Declaration 2. “By revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the church may receive the holy priesthood with power to exercise his divine authority and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple.” There’s the priesthood and temple mention right there. “Sincerely yours, the First Presidency.” And if I can, we’ve been bouncing between the periphery of the church and the headquarters of the church. Let’s bounce back to the periphery and—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—go to Helvécio Martins. You can find this material on Doctrine and Covenants Central, under Official Declaration 2, but Helvécio was in Brazil when the announcement came. His wife, Ruda, was with him. This is what he says when he heard the announcement: I could not contain my emotions. Ruda and I went into our bedroom, knelt down, and prayed. We wept as we thanked our Father in heaven for an event we had only dreamed about. The day had actually arrived in our mortal lives. So he might not have been expecting it to happen in his lifetime, though he thought it was going to happen.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Two weeks after that, Helvécio Martins is ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood with his son, Marcus, who we’ve met. A week later he receives the Melchizedek Priesthood, and then he ordains his son, and he later said, “I felt I would explode with joy, happiness, and contentment. What an incredible experience for me and for Marcus.” And then flash forward a couple years, Helvécio Martins is the first general authority Seventy who’s a person of black African descent. He’s made a general authority.

Scott Woodward:
And his son’s the very first black missionary, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I believe that’s right, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So here’s a wild backstory I just heard about that is that he had received in his patriarchal blessing—this is the son. This is Marcus. Marcus had received a patriarchal blessing that said that he would serve a full-time mission, which you have to be an elder to do. This was before the revelation. His parents, fully understanding the implications of that, cautiously but, like, optimistically began a mission savings fund for him, which is such a cool expression of faith in that patriarchal blessing. And then Marcus had actually gotten engaged to get married, and then when the revelation came, he postponed his marriage so he could go fulfill his mission. And yeah, he’s the very first black missionary since Elijah Abel. Super cool story.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
The Martins family’s awesome.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wonderful stuff. And I want to share an excerpt from when Helvécio Martins became a general authority. He’s passed away now.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But he spoke in general conference, and in his talk he said, “I was not called by the Lord to represent any specific race, nationality, or ethnic group of his children. I was called by prophecy, revelation, and the laying on of hands to represent God’s children, be they white, black, or any other color, wherever they live on earth. Less than 13 years earlier I had been given the priesthood. Now I stand at the pulpit [that] some of the greatest men of all time had occupied, with the living prophets and apostles seated directly behind me.” So that’s the power of the revelation, right? This humble church member, less than 13 years later, is now in the leading councils of the church, directing the work and receiving revelation, just as the prophets and apostles before him.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. So Casey, what are your major takeaways from all of this history that we’ve talked about throughout this whole series? We talked about a lot.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
What are your therefore-whats that you kind of distill and walk away from all this history with?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think I can be open here and say this is the hardest topic that we’ve tackled.

Scott Woodward:
For sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s tough, and you know, you and I, Scott, have had a lot of back and forth behind the scenes about the right way to approach this, the right way to talk about it. I have to admit that part of my anxiety comes from the fact that I’m a white male.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I feel like I’m tiptoeing into someone else’s sacred history here, but I’m also a believing Latter-day Saint, and so it’s my story on that level as well. It’s tough. It can be tough to confront imperfections in men and women that I love dearly, and I still love them all, you know? I still think Brigham Young’s a prophet, and Joseph F. Smith and Eliza R. Snow—but I think this is maybe the ultimate story problem for a Latter-day Saint as to do we believe in infallibility in our leaders, or do we think that they’re humans that can make mistakes?

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is a tough one, and then the length of time is tough for us to manage, too, but in the grand scheme of things, I still think that this is an uplifting story that shows how the Lord can reach down and help people overcome their prejudices and their environments that they’re born into.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A few years ago, in 2018, was the anniversary of the revelation. They had a big celebration. The entire First Presidency was there. I loved this quote that Dallin H. Oaks shared at that time. President Oaks said this: “Whether we look on the revelation as the end of the beginning of the Restoration or the beginning of the end of what it portends, it is difficult to overstate its importance in the fulfillment of divine command that the gospel must go to every nation, kindred tongue, and people. And I loved that way he phrased it, that maybe we’ve tended to think of the Restoration as something that happened in the past. In fact, I had someone criticize one of my books the other day, saying, “It’s not about the Restoration because they talk about stuff after Joseph Smith.” President Oaks is saying, “Oh, no, no, no. The 1978 revelation is the end of the beginning of the Restoration. Now the really amazing stuff is going to happen.” And seeing temples rise in places like South Africa and Ghana and Nigeria and all over the place just shows us that, yeah, we really have only turned the first page in the story of the Restoration and this beautiful, uplifting revelation marks the end of the beginning. Not the beginning, not the beginning of the end. The story has a long ways to go.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I’m so excited to see what the centuries before us will tell us about new revelations from God and new groups of people that can come to experience God’s love.

Scott Woodward:
Mm. That’s awesome. Thank you, Casey. You know, as we wrap this all up, my mind goes back to where we began in this series. I mean, we were pretty up front right at the beginning about the fact that studying this history carefully will forcefully require us to confront our comfortable assumptions about prophets and about God. And I trust our listeners know a little more now what we meant by that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Regarding prophets, for instance, if there was any question in your mind before we began this series that prophets are fallible and can make real mistakes. Well, now you know. We trust that point has been settled for you. I mean, as we’ve surveyed this history, we’ve seen several prophets and apostles make unfortunate decisions to exclude blacks from full participation in the church based on false doctrines, bad science, discriminatory social norms, unfounded fears, and false memories, right? And those decisions, however well intentioned—I don’t think any prophet was trying to be malicious—still actually hurt people. So we’ve got to learn to sit with that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And maybe we’ve learned the important lesson that God’s prophets are not God’s puppets. They are fully independent, and he allows them to make costly mistakes. It’s absolutely stunning to me to consider the Lord’s patience and longsuffering in all of this history. I mean, he’s not intrusive or forceful. Yeah. Like, until there was a prophet and apostles willing to humble themselves and unitedly study this out and seek his will, he never forced the issue. He just didn’t speak directly on the issue. But the very first time the apostles unitedly approached him on this topic, the revelation came with great power.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
In the meantime, however, he was content to gently work on what you’ve called the peripheries. You know, pouring out his spirit upon thousands in Africa, in spite of the ban; working through patriarchs to give seemingly impossible blessings; working, no doubt, through the Civil Rights movement; prodding Lester Bush’s scholarship; guiding church leaders to build a temple in Brazil—all things that eventually converge to persuade the apostles to keenly feel a need to draw near unto the Lord on this issue so that he could draw near unto them. So I guess this history helps me understand that prophetic fallibility is always tempered with both the mercy and the wisdom of God. Like, the good news for those who made mistakes is that God is merciful, and he forgives. And the good news for the innocent and faithful who were hurt by those mistakes is that when the Lord is involved, nothing can ever go permanently wrong. Working within the constraints of man’s agency, the Lord eventually got us back on course, right? I love this quote from Paul Reeve in his Let’s Talk About book that we’ve been recommending. He said, “In June 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball received a revelation that returned the church to its universal roots and restored what was lost, priesthood and temple admission to people of African descent. This did not mark something new as much as it reestablished a commitment to the founding principles of the Restoration.” So this is kind of, like, a mini Restoration, right? It’s a restoration back to what was originally intended. I like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
This June 1, 1978 revelation is God correcting what had come into the church through human error. So we can think of it as a revelation of reversion and repair.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, my final thought is, although I’m a white guy, born in 1980, and so I didn’t experience any of this history directly, I do remember some church members telling me things like blacks were from Cain’s cursed lineage, or that they were less valiant in the premortal life, and I’ve seen up close that racism is still a disease in need of eradication in the church. And so we’ve still got work to do.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Now, considering where we’ve come from, I can say we’re better collectively than we have ever been, so that’s good. But there is still work to do, and I hope all of this history inspires us to join church leaders today in unequivocally condemning all racism, past and present, in any form to really lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of racial prejudice.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so my prayer for all of us, for what it’s worth, is that we will never be complicit with the scourge of elitism that has plagued many good men and women of the past and continues to be a problem in some parts of society and even in our church today. So let’s be part of the solution to the love and the healing that is still so desperately needed in the world today. That’s my prayer for all of us.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Amen.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Join us next week as we wrap up this series by responding to your questions about all things related to the racial restriction in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We will be blessed to have with us Dr. Paul Reeve as our special guest to help us respond to your questions, so you’re not going to want to miss it. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.