Talk:1978 Revelation on Priesthood

Last sentence of the lede is confusing

> In 2013, the LDS Church posted an essay stating that the ban was based more on racism than revelation and disavowed racist theories for the origin of the ban

What is this saying? That the Church thinks the ban WAS racist? or WASN'T racist? And what does the Church claim that the origin of the ban was? Was it from the Lord being racist, was it from the Lord for some other reason, or was it from racist people?

I'm confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:79E1:ABC:1A0A:F5A5:CBEB:EC68:A0AF (talk) 14:01, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

That seems to be based on this cited article in the Salt Lake Tribune, which says "The reason [for the ban], according to a newly released explanation from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is rooted more in racism than revelation." So that article is saying the ban was racist. The church publication itself is available and linked in that article. To try to improve the clarity, I changed "racist theories" to "other explanations". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:09, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how a vague phrase like "other explanations" provides more clarity. The source itself is clear enough, stating: "The justifications for this restriction echoed the widespread ideas about racial inferiority that had been used to argue for the legalization of black “servitude” in the Territory of Utah." I'm going to revert this latest edit accordingly.--Jburlinson (talk) 23:48, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, perhaps you changed your mind, since it looks like you didn't actually revert that edit. Instead you just removed the second part of the sentence, starting with "and", which is another way to deal with the clarity question about what that phrase meant. In addition to what you quoted, a couple of key sentences in the church document are "Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church." It also includes "Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form." Those sentences seem to support the basic idea of the phrase about "theories" or "other explanations" (i.e., other than racism), but I think just removing that part of the sentence is also OK. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:08, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

On merging

According to a talk banner on the article (permanent link), this article has been slated for merging with Black people and Mormon priesthood (since renamed Black people and temple and priesthood policies in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) since 2021.

That was three years ago. The article is still here, and I think the article should stay here. A rough copy-paste word count indicates Black people and temple and priesthood policies is approaching 10,000 words, about the upper limit of length recommended for Wikipedia articles, but there is much more citable material about this event/text/concept (more global perspective, more cross-denominational perspective, etc.) than would be able to fit or would be WP:DUE in the article about policies more generally. I'm thinking it's time to remove the banner. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)