Brigham Young, in an unsourced photograph from ca. 1850
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his important book Religion of a Different Color<\/em>, Paul Reeve recounts an interesting episode involving Brigham Young:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
An early mixed-race (Black and American Indian)\u00a0member of the Church named William McCary \u2014 a rather tenuous and somewhat erratic and even unbalanced fellow, as it turned out, who ultimately didn\u2019t endure faithfully to the end \u2014 had encountered racial prejudice among some Church members.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to this, President Young counseled the Saints to \u201cuse the man with respect.\u201d \u00a0(The verb to use<\/em>\u00a0is employed\u00a0here in a somewhat archaic sense common in Shakespeare. \u00a0See below. \u00a0In today\u2019s English, we would use the verb to treat<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But some problems persisted. \u00a0And he continued to complain.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Was he in some way sub- or even non-human?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIts nothing to do with the blood,\u201d replied President Young, \u201cfor of one blood has God made all flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Professor Reeve comments on this exchange:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an echo of the same New Testament verse (Acts 17:26) that [Joseph] Smith quoted in his presidential platform three years earlier. \u00a0Both drew upon the Bible to assert a broad commonality among humankind and were simultaneously acknowledging a wider racial debate then animating the scientific and Christian communities. \u00a0In paraphrasing Acts 17:26, Young and Smith were referencing an important verse then commonly cited among nineteenth-century Christians. \u00a0Believers used the verse to defend against a polygenesis theory then stirring scientific arguments about the origins of the various races. \u00a0Scientists who promoted the polygenesis theory believed that there were multiple independent creations rather than just a single biblical creation. \u00a0Each creation gave rise to a new race, which meant that whites and blacks were in fact from different species. \u00a0Even though the two species could biologically reproduce, one argument was that an innate repugnance against interracial mixing was intended to preserve \u2018species distinction.\u2019 \u00a0Those who violated the innate repugnance were really violating nature, which was a sure sign of their moral degradation. \u00a0Physical degeneracy followed and within a few generations the offspring of such unions would be sterile.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
See W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness<\/em> (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 128-131.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been fashionable in recent years to demonize Brigham Young as a racist, even a vicious one \u2014 and, in some cases, essentially to forget that there was anything else<\/em> to the man.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I resist this.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t perfect, of course.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nor has any subsequent apostle or president of the Church been. \u00a0Nor am I. \u00a0Nor are his critics.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUse every man after his desert,\u201d wrote Shakespeare (in Hamlet<\/em> II.ii), \u201cand\u00a0<\/span>who should<\/span>\u00a0\u2018<\/span>scape whipping<\/span>?\u201d \u00a0Or, to paraphrase: \u00a0Treat everybody purely according to his or her merits, and who wouldn\u2019t<\/em> be worthy of censure or even punishment?<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In racial matters, Brigham Young said some things that jar us today, and that we cannot endorse. \u00a0There\u2019s no denying this. \u00a0He was, as we all are \u2014 even the prophets among us \u2014 a man of his time and culture and background.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he was a good man, a remarkable man, indeed a great man, a sincere disciple of the Lord and a prophet who sought to do God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I choose to stand with him. \u00a0\u201cThe soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes.\u201d \u00a0And, on the specific racial issue described above, President Brigham Young was \u2014 notwithstanding the dismissive stereotype of him that\u2019s currently in vogue \u2014 on the side of the angels.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And now, on a very different note, some thoughts in the general area of science and religion, culminating with a quotation from, well, Brigham Young:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cScience has faith. We make postulates. We can\u2019t prove those postulates, but we have faith in them.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nCharles H. Townes (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1964)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr.\u00a0Townes believed that \u201cscience and religion [are] quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge.\u201d \u00a0\u201cScience,\u201d he wrote, \u201ctries to understand what our universe is like and how it works, including us humans. Religion is aimed at understanding the purpose and meaning of our universe, including our own lives. If the universe has a purpose or meaning, this must be reflected in its structure and functioning, and hence in science.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was one of the most important experimental physicists of the last century,\u201d remarked Dr. Reinhard Genzel, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, upon the death of Dr. Townes. \u00a0\u201cHis strength was his curiosity and his unshakable optimism, based on his deep Christian spirituality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. . . . \u00a0We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sir John C. Eccles (1903-1997), neurophysiologist<\/span><\/div>\n1963 Nobel Laureate in Physiology<\/span><\/div>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cScientific progress is the discovery of a more and more comprehensive simplicity. . . . \u00a0The previous successes give us confidence in the future of science: we become more and more conscious of the fact that the universe is cognizable.\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0(Father Georges Lema\u00eetre [1894-1966], Belgian astronomer, physicist, and priest, and, arguably, originator of the theory of the \u201cBig Bang\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is\u00a0comprehensible.\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0(Albert Einstein, German-American physicist [1879-1955])<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0(Sir Arthur Eddington, British astronomer, physicist, and mathematician [1882-1944])<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe origin of life, whether human or inferior, must be lodged in some character whom I have not seen! Follow it back, no matter whether it be for six thousand years, six millions, six million millions, or billions of years, the figures and numbers are immaterial, I must have come from some source; my natural philosophy teaches me this. But, leaving the natural philosophy of the child free from false tradition, let us inquire. What does the philosophy of the Christian sects, or many of them, not all, teach? \u201cGod made the world in six days, out of nothing!\u201d This is very wrong; no child should be taught any such dogma. God never did make a world out of nothing; He never will, He never can!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nBrigham Young,\u00a0Journal of Discourses<\/i>, 13:248 [25 September 1870])<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 In his important book Religion of a Different Color, Paul Reeve recounts an interesting episode involving Brigham Young: \u00a0 An early mixed-race (Black and American Indian)\u00a0member of the Church named William McCary \u2014 a rather tenuous and somewhat erratic and even unbalanced fellow, as it turned out, who ultimately didn\u2019t endure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8463,12152,13807,19472,4291,7872,12143,292,27777,1158,1809,27774,132,12017,27783,27780,2905,1812,1815,7113,1140,788,55,1667,27765,11471,12194,1260,4147,27762,27771,27768],"class_list":["post-93914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-african","tag-african-american","tag-african-americans","tag-albert-einstein","tag-arthur-eddington","tag-black","tag-blacks","tag-brigham-young","tag-charles-h-townes","tag-charles-townes","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-eddington","tag-einstein","tag-georges-lemaitre","tag-john-c-eccles","tag-john-eccles","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-latter-day-saints","tag-lds","tag-lds-church","tag-lemaitre","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-mormons","tag-paul-reeve","tag-race","tag-racial","tag-racism","tag-racist","tag-reeve","tag-religion-of-a-different-color","tag-w-paul-reeve"],"yoast_head":"\n
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