An Open Letter to Dr. Obery M Hendricks, in response to his article in the Huffington Post on Racism in the Book of Mormon
by Sidney Carton
Dear Dr. Hendricks,
I write this letter to you in the spirit of supreme annoyance sir, for your recent comments in the Religion section of the Huffington Post have driven me to take actions I find personally revolting: Come to the defense of Mitt Romney. You see Mr. Hendricks, unlike Governor Romney, I am both a liberal and a Democrat, who would like nothing better to see President Obama be reelected this year. That said, Brother Romney and I have one thing in common, that I cannot, under any circumstances, overlook: We are both committed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion whose beliefs you have attacked in your article. Thus your actions have put me in a most distasteful position.
You open your piece with a statement that, when read in light of the article of the rest of the article, is most disingenuous. You state “I’m pretty much a live-and-let-live guy. In fact, I don’t believe in religious litmus tests of any kind. Frankly I think they are self-righteous and insulting.” Such statements are ironic in the extreme as you follow this up with an assessment of my faith that could not be characterized as anything but self-righteous and insulting.
For the sake of brevity I will limit my criticisms to your attacks on our book of scripture, the Book of Mormon. Utilizing a method of scriptural interpretation that I believe is called “cherry picking” you pull out four verses from a book that is over 500 pages in length (in English) as indisputable proof that the core doctrine of Mormonism asserts that dark-skinned people are stupid, lazy, ugly and evil. Of all of these verses, I find your utilization of Jacob 3:8 to be the most contextually egregious. Taken out of context, as you did, the scripture reads as follows:
“O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be awhiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.”(Jacob 3:8)
From a casual reading of this scripture in isolation, one could be drawn to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon teaches that dark skin is a punishment for sin, and that therefore, non-whites are inherently sinful. But if we place this scripture into context, a very different picture appears. In this chapter, the Prophet Jacob was calling the lighter-skinned Nephites to repentance, for a number of sins, particularly adultery, using the fidelity of the darker-skinned Lamanites as an example:
“5 Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not aforgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were bone wife, and cconcubines they should have none, and there should not be dwhoredoms committed among them.
6 And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be amerciful unto them; and one day they shall bbecome a blessed people.
7 Behold, their ahusbands blove their cwives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their dunbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?
8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be awhiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye arevile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.”(Jacob 3:5-9)
What a difference a little context makes. I would draw your attention in particular to the beginning of verse 9 where Jacob issues the commandment “… that ye revile no more against them [the Lamanites] because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness;” in essence, Jacob has just issued a commandment against racial prejudice, a commandment far more direct, I might add, than any you would find in either the Old or the New Testaments. Beyond that, the Book of Mormon is replete with tales of righteous Lamanites contrasted with wicked Nephites. Off the top of my head I could mention the examples of the Anti-Nephi Lehites, (See Alma Chapters 17-27) the 2,000 Stripling Warriors (See Alma Chapters 57 and 58) and Samuel the Lamanite, a dark-skinned prophet who alone revealed the sign of Christ’s birth to the peoples of Ancient America (See Helaman Chapters 13-15). Hence, if the Book of Mormon is holds its fair share of uncomfortable passages, it’s hardly the Mein Kampf you’re making it out to be.
Which brings me to my major issue with your article, after a lengthy, if somewhat cynical interpretation of my faith’s admittedly checkered history on race relations, you close your supposedly “not a “gotcha” political ploy” of an article with the following demand:
“That is why, Mr. Romney, as an American citizen whose president you seek to become, I must insist that you honestly and forthrightly attest to me and all Americans of goodwill that you can be my president, too, fully and completely. You can accomplish this by publicly disavowing the portions of your holy book that so sorely denigrate the humanity of me, my loved ones and all people of black African descent.” (emphasis mine)
So to be clear, while you find religious litmus tests self-righteous and insulting in general, in this particular case you feel you can demand one, requiring a public disavowal of those scriptures that you find personally unacceptable. I might ask you, Dr. Hendricks, how much of the Bible would you feel comfortable, as a Christian, publicly disavowing in order to be an acceptable president for an Atheist? Or how much of the Qur’an ought Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MI) have to publicly repudiate in order to placate the religious right? Or how much of the Torah should Senator Lieberman disavow in order to make himself acceptable in a majority Christian nation? Clearly you see the problem here, right?
Having been born after the 1978 revelation on the Priesthood Dr. Hendricks, I can attest to you that I grew up in a very different church than the one you refer to in your article. I served my mission in central Brazil, serving with, and under the direction of members of African-descent and baptizing them too. The regions of greatest and fastest growth for my faith are in Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa, among the very ethnic groups once discriminated against by us. While our views on African-Americans were once prejudiced and backward, they have grown and evolved. As your Brother in Christ, and a fellow child of an all-loving God, who is no respecter of persons, nations, creeds or colors, I would invite you to allow your views of us to similarly evolve.
In disagreement,
Sidney Carton
