This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

By Aaron Harris

The cat is out of the bag, thanks to comments by a Brigham Young University religion professor, Randy Bott, in the Feb. 28 Washington Post. Bott rehashed a position once taken by early LDS Church leaders that blacks were barred from holding the priesthood because they were cursed with the seed of Cain.

Seizing the moment, Matthew L. Harris, professor of history at Colorado State University at Pueblo, pounced on the church with an op-ed in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 7, claiming that the church was now attempting to "sweep its racial history under a rug" ("Why is LDS Church denying past doctrine?" Opinion, March 10).

Harris contends that the divine-curse theory meets Mormon purity tests for doctrinal qualification as recorded by early church leaders and that Bott's view was merely reflecting a once-commonplace doctrine. This predicament, Harris argues, places the LDS Church in a PR pickle. He presumes to know the answer to the faith's quandary by offering this advice: "LDS leaders would be well-served to acknowledge this doctrine, apologize for it and move on."

In other words, Harris accuses the current LDS leadership of covering up the significance of the divine-curse "doctrine" before the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978 by downgrading it to mere speculation. This may seem like splitting hairs to a casual observer, but the differential significance is not lost on the astute Mormon.

LDS theology places a high premium on doctrinal teachings and far less value on opinion. Furthermore, the issue for the astute Mormon today is not whether Brigham Young or another dead Mormon prophet said the divine curse was doctrine, but what interpretation the current living prophet gives it.

The pre-eminence of a living prophet interpreting and establishing doctrine goes back to church founder Joseph Smith and has been reaffirmed by nearly every successive prophet. The living prophet has the right and prerogative, if so inspired, to disagree, and, yes, even amend, modify, or revoke a prior doctrinal claim — making Harris' premise moot.

This is precisely what church President Thomas S. Monson and his counselors and apostles have done. They insist that no direct revelation was ever given to any LDS prophet explaining the reasons for the priesthood ban. Therefore, any reason given for the ban is speculation. Nevertheless, Mormon doctrine gives leeway for prophets to be fallible, with the promise that "they also that erred in spirit, shall come to understanding" (2Nephi 27:35).

Rather than offer apologies for the speculations — or perhaps prior doctrinal claims of prior LDS leaders — as Harris opined, the current church leadership rightfully focuses its attention on what matters most: that racism is bad and "all are alike unto God" (2Nephi 26:33).

This truism reflects well on LDS humanitarian projects in Africa and elsewhere, as well as its zeal to win male converts and then prepare them to receive the priesthood they once were barred from. Two months after the ban was lifted in 1978, a senior apostle, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, who once advocated the divine-curse theory, dramatically changed his view:

"We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter any more."

Aaron Harris is a chiropractic physician with the U.S. Army in El Paso, Texas.