Chapter headings in the online version of the Book of Mormon have been changed by LDS Church officials, eliminating vestiges of racist theology that linked dark skin to spiritual accursedness.
One changed chapter heading appears in 2 Nephi, chapter 5:
* Old version: “Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed, receive a skin of blackness, and become a scourge to the Nephites.”
* New online version: “Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord, are cursed, and become a scourge unto the Nephites.”
A second changed chapter heading appears in Mormon, chapter 5:
* Old version: “The Lamanites shall be a dark, filthy, and loathsome people. . .”
* New online version: “Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites will be scattered, and the Spirit will cease to strive with them . . .”
The Book of Mormon follows groups of migrants from ancient Israel to the Americas, focusing especially on the experiences of rival peoples descended from the same family: the Nephites and the Lamanites. LDS people of my generation were raised to understand that the indigenous peoples of North and South America are the descendents of the Lamanites, a belief that has been challenged by anthropologists. The Book of Mormon taught that the phenotypical features of Lamanites—their dark skin—came about as a consequence of unrighteousness. Unsurprisingly, the outlines of this story resembled general American Christian folk theology which attributed racial variation to Biblical curses, specifically identifying African-descended peoples as heirs to curses imposed on Cain or Ham.
The Book of Mormon, however, also showed that all civilizations—Nephites as well as Lamanites—were vulnerable to pride, apostasy, and collapse and capable of spiritual rededication and regeneration, regardless of skin color. The LDS Church never withheld priesthood from members of indigenous American descent; in fact, outreach programs were specifically designed to recruit and support American Indian and Latino Mormons, and the Church has enjoyed tremendous missionary growth in Mexico, Central, and South America.
Over the years, some American Indian and Latin American indigenous Mormons have actively claimed a “Lamanite” identity and positioned themselves as the direct heirs of the Book of Mormon. (I have heard Navajo LDS friends tell me that what they read in the Book of Mormon resembles stories they’ve heard from their grandparents.) Today, the Church’s greatest convert growth in the US is among Latino communities.
The earliest editions of the Book of Mormon did not feature summary chapter headings. Headings were added in the 1920s and revised in the 1980s by Bruce R. McConkie, author of Mormon Doctrine (now out of print), a compendium of Mormon theology controversial both for its explicit anti-Catholicism and its promulgation of adoctrinal racist folklore, as we covered here at RD. In 1981, the Church changed the language of 2 Nephi 30: 6 to remove the statement that Lamanites who repented would become a “white and delightsome” people, substituting instead the phrase “pure and delightsome.” The above-referenced changes to the McConkie chapter headings were quietly implemented in some print editions of the Book of Mormon beginning in 2004, though they remained in the online text.
The present change is very much in keeping with a strong LDS institutional preference for quietly leaving historical missteps behind as it matures from an American faith with ties to a complex of Anglo-American folk beliefs into a global religion.
The "vestiges of racist theology" may have been edited out, but the attitudes and world views remain. Changing out "cursed and received a skin of darkness" for "cut off from the presence of the Lord, and are cursed" is still racist. Calling one group a "scourge" to another group is still bigoted. I can't give accolades to the Mormon Church for these recent edits because the underlying bigotry, or us versus them, still remains.
Get Your Racist LDS Action Figures Here!
The Book of Mormon teaches us what happens when we do not choose the right, which is why Latter-day Designs sells both light and dark versions of their Laman and Lemuel figurines.
What's in the Book of Mormon is doctrinal and it's explicitly racist still. Try this that I pulled off the LDS.org website:
Alma 6 And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.
7And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.
8And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.
9And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.
Dark = cursed.
Book of Mormon (off official church website) 1 Nephi 12:23 And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.
Who cares about chapter headings when it's Mormon doctrine that dark skin = loathsome, filthy, idle unbelievers.
Thank you Joanna for writing on this subject and new development. It is much needed. Thank you to each who have left comments that are critical of the LDS Church's institutionalized racism. I applaud every effort in the right direction, which may seem small to our critics, but significant to those within our walls. We don't have to address this issue in the manner that others think we should, however we should be anxiously engaged in stopping all of the racist teaching and mindsets that are allowed to continue, even down to the Primary children, who because of the Children's Book of Mormon reader, and misinformed teachers and parents, are telling other children that they are cursed because of their dark skin. The racism is at epidemic levels partly because even the "good-guys" within the church still don't understand that the references to "skin" actually mean spiritual, the references to "dark" actually mean "spiritual darkness" and not related to literal skin. They don't understand that a curse is a separation from God because of one's choice to sin. Many have learned these truths through the Blacks in the Scriptures firesides and DVD series and the changes to the chapter headings a few weeks ago only confirm these very scriptural teachings.
So to those of you outside of the LDS church, know that the scriptures don't need to be changed, only understood that they don't refer to race at all. There is only one race, the human race. For those inside the LDS Church, this change is a wake up call to many of you and a confirmation to others of you.
Black in the Scriptures, while you make an acceptable argument to the LDS use of darkness, the fact remains that this level of intellect and understanding doesn't translate for the vast majority of common Mormons. Institutionalized racism will continue for many decades yet. Until the Church and its members are willing to do an honest exegesis of the BOM and take an honest look at its origins through Joseph Smith, it will remain a manual for justified bigotry.
After X-number of thousands of revisions, will the Mormons ever get it right to be delcared an omnipotenct God-based faith. Not hardly!
It's good to see the Mormons have come to the same realization that the other evangelistic religions have. Money is colorblind.
I guess their prophet wasn't so all-knowing otherwise he could have seen into the future!
I suppose Mormon's are proud of their new enlightenment. How big of them to finally let blacks become real people.
In the Book of Mormon, there are about a dozen verses in which righteousness seems to be correlated with skin color. These are probably not metaphorical, so yes, the Nephites were undoubtedly racist by modern American standards. It's easy to pull out these verses as prooftexts for LDS racial attitudes (though as Joanna notes, Book of Mormon attitudes are a separate issue from the practice of banning blacks from the priesthood; American Indians were never under the same restrictions), yet in the Book of Mormon as a whole, skin color gets less attention as an ethnic marker than cultural and religious differences. If one were to read through the Book of Mormon, as opposed to just picking out a few verses here and there, it would become apparent that some of the heroes of the narrative--from Enos to the sons of Mosiah to the Anti-Nephi-Lehies to Samuel the Lamanite to Moroni--were able to transcend racial divides. Indeed, racial differences don't seem to have mattered at all during the two centuries of righteousness after Christ's visit to the Nephites. There are still vestiges of racism/ethnocentrism toward the end of the book (e.g. Mormon 5:15), but I would say that a major message of the Book of Mormon is how the gospel can help overcome prejudices, even if it will always be a challenge to eliminate them entirely (some nineteenth-century Christian abolitionists held views of African-Americans that would be considered racist today, but they were nevertheless on the right side of history). Perhaps the example of Book of Mormon will help us contemporary Latter-day Saints learn to see beyond our own prejudices as we try to become better followers of Christ.
Most of you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! The mark was a darkened skin and the curse was a separation from God. Its about one family through the centuries. How can it be racist seeing they are the same family? Don't superimpose modern values over an ancient culture. Have you read the Book? Have you asked of God if it is true? I have. I will not apologize for it's content nor equivocate it's message. But you won't, most of you will stay in your ivory towers smug in your supposed superiority content to throw rocks.
The commenters have not read the 1949 "Proclamation on the Negro" signed by the first presidency of the Mormon Church, where they state that black people misbehaved in the preexistence and so are cursed. It's never been denied or overrided (overrode?) The Book of Mormon is explicitly racist. Deal.
The comment system won't let me leave a link, but you can look it up.
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