Original title: Racism: Cultural or Doctrinal?

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the thirtieth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (July 17-23) is titled "The Word of God Grew and Multiplied" and covers Acts 10-15.

We invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

Pastor Brendon's sermon on Colossians 1.9-14

Seminary Manual

2 Nephi 5.21, Alma 3. 6-9, Abraham 1. 24-27

The New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges

Brigham Young: JD 2.143; 2.268; 7.290-291; 10.110; 11.272

Official Declaration 2

"All Are Alike Unto God" (Bruce R. McConkie)

• The same General Authority who wrote: "Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty." Mormon Doctrine, p. 527

"Race and the Priesthood"

• Interview on Ancient Paths TV
• The LDS Gospel Topics Essays: A Scholarly Engagement, edited by Matthew Harris and Newell Bringhurst

First Estate; Second Estate

"Fourteen Fundamentals to Follow the Prophet" (Ezra Taft Benson)

"Let God Prevail" (Russell Nelson)

Brad Wilcox fireside: here

Joseph Smith told Alexander Neibaur that he saw Jesus with a light complexion (white skin) and blue eyes (A.N. Journal, May 24,1844) - thus, looking a lot like...Joseph Smith. Whiteness is also true of Mary in 1 Nephi 11.13-15, who is even claimed by some LDS to actually be from England, based on legend.

The First 2,000 Years by Cleon Skousen

The Church and the Negro by John L. Lund

Prophets, Principles and National Survival compiled by Jerreld Newquist

• "Given the LDS notion that Ham was the one through whom the 'Negro lineage' continued after the flood, some Mormon critics have considered it ironic that Joseph Smith, whom Brigham Young called a 'pure Ephraimite,' would not have also been cursed as to the priesthood since, according to LDS scholar Hugh Nibley, 'Joseph [of the Old Testament] married Asenath [an Egyptian], who was the daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis and a direct descendant of Ham.' This would make both Ephraim and Manasseh - from whom the majority of church members have been told they descend - half Hebrew and half Egyptian, carrying the blood of Ham." ("This Is My Doctrine": The Development of Mormon Theology by Charles R. Harrell, p. 388)

The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a "Lost White Race" by Jason Colavito

Mormonism - Shadow or Reality by Jerald and Sandra Tanner (esp.ch. 21)

"Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview" by Lester Bush

Religion of a Different Color by W. Paul Reeve

The Mormon Church and Blacks; Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right; Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics by Matthew L. Harris

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory Prince

Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables by Russell Stevenson

Banishing The Cross by Michael Reed

The Doctrine of the Word of God by John Frame

The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards

From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race by J. Daniel Hays

Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us by Michael Horton (also here, and here)

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

• Defending the Faith by D.G. Hart
• The Presbyterian Controversy by Bradley Longfield
• Also see here, and here

Fault Lines by Voddie Baucham; also see here, here, and here

The Vanishing Lamanites; Mormonism's Changing "Revelations" on Blacks; The Atheist Illusion (Jason Wallace)

American Awakening by Joshua Mitchell

Union With Christ by J. Todd Billings

More Than A White Man's Religion by Abdu Murray

Michael Heiser; Gospel Coalition

Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery; The Last Segregated Houir: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation by Stephen R. Haynes

The Curse of Ham by David Goldenberg

"Noah's Nakedness and the Curse of Canaan" by John Bergsma and Scott Hahn

Gregory of Nyssa, Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes (here, here and here)

The First Thousand Years by Robert Louis Wilken

Granville Sharp (also here); also did some groundbreaking work in Greek grammar (see The KJV Only Controversy by James White)

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Dominion by Tom Holland

Destroyer of the Gods by Larry Hurtado

All Mankind Is One by Lewis Hanke

Columbus and the Crisis of the West by Robert Royal

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches; Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne

Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era by Thomas Leonard (also see here)

Intellectuals and Race; Black Rednecks and White Liberals; Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell (also see here)

The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy by Stephen F. Knott (esp. the chapter on Civil Rights)

Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning

Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is the "father of modern theology".

• "[He] found the church's confession of Jesus Christ, as articulated by the Definition of Chalcedon, to be illogical. Christ, he said, cannot be God the Son in and as man. He must be man like all others, distinguished only 'by the constant potency of His God-consciousness, which was a veritable existence of God in Him.' Christ's God-consciousness should not be confused with divine self-knowledge, for that it is not. Yet the ideal God-consciousness that Christ possessed and exhibited suffices for what Christians have called his 'divinity'. Moreover, Christ's ability to model his fully realized God-consciousness for others, and summon forth the latent God-consciousness of others, constitutes his redemptive activity. Schleiermacher's Christ signals the prospect of human ascent without the paradox of divine descent, man's coming of age without God's coming in the flesh." (The Incarnation of God by John Clark and Macus Peter Johnson, p. 108)
• see here and here for this influence today
• see Contemplating God with the Great Tradition by Craig Carter