I live in East­ern Wash­ing­ton. The Bundy’s mis­guid­ed and atro­cious take-over of a Fed­er­al vis­i­tor’s cen­ter in East­ern Ore­gon has got me think­ing on one of the most fun­da­men­tal issues of the Book of Mor­mon, that Native Amer­i­cans are some­how sup­posed to be con­nect­ed to the awful God of the Old Tes­ta­ment through Israelite blood­lines, were cursed with dark skin (but now Sem­i­nary Teach­ers call it a “mark” not a “curse”, but a rose by any oth­er name still smells the same in my book), and that Christo­pher Colum­bus was a God-inspired hero and Amer­i­ca is the Promised Land. No won­der Bundy is doing what he’s doing; he’s fol­low­ing the Book of Mor­mon! I am sor­row­ful because I believed in and helped with that awful racist part of Mor­mon cul­ture, the Indi­an Place­ment pro­gram. I loved and revered Spencer W. Kim­ball dur­ing that time, and did what I was told to help the local Indi­ans at our Rich­field, UT, place­ment pro­gram, which includ­ed a dor­mi­to­ry of “Indi­ans” as well as many place­ment stu­dents at indi­vid­ual homes in our town. What awful racists we were (and are, since we still haven’t dis­avowed the Book of Mor­mon where the teach­ings orig­i­nat­ed), inspite of our recent “essay” on racism. We’re still racist, and I say, “we” even though I’m com­plete­ly out of Mormonism.


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9 responses to “America, Chris Columbus, The Bundy’s, and Sorrow”

  1. Dave Mack
    Dave Mack

    Kevin
    I think you and many lds mem­bers mis­un­der­stand what the curse is. The curse has noth­ing to do with phys­i­cal skin color.The curse is sep­a­ra­tion from God and becom­ing a wicked peo­ple and com­mit­ting all kinds of atroc­i­ties. The mark as men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon is also men­tioned which does refer to phys­i­cal appear­ance but the mark is neutral.

    In the case of the Amlicites they were once Nephites and rebelled and became wicked. They were wicked and cursed. It does not say god changed their skin col­or. But in order to dis­tin­guish them­selves from the Nephites they put red on their foreheads.

    Alma 3:13
    13 Now we will return again to the Amlicites, for they also had a mark set upon them; yea, they set the mark upon them­selves, yea, even a mark of red upon their foreheads

    By mak­ing this phys­i­cal mark on their fore­heads. They ful­filled the oth­er part of the promise the mark, but notice that it was not a change of skin col­or but the mark on the fore­head that ful­filled this part. Which a mark can be any­thing that dis­tin­guish­es them­selves from Gods people.
    Alma 3:18
    18 Now the Amlicites knew not that they were ful­fill­ing the words of God when they began to mark them­selves in their fore­heads; nev­er­the­less they had come out in open rebel­lion against God; there­fore it was expe­di­ent that the curse should fall upon them.

    In this next vers­es it talks about the curse which is sep­a­ra­tion from god spir­i­tu­al­ly and becom­ing in the words of the Book of Mor­mon a dark and loath­some peo­ple. Used in ref­er­ence to Laman­ites and Nephites for both groups became cursed. I think with­out excep­tion any­time dark or black­ness or skin is men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon it refers to the spir­it not phys­i­cal skin col­or . For one I don’t believe god over night mag­i­cal­ly changed their phys­i­cal skin col­or to black nor are there black Native Amer­i­cans. This would be a obvi­ous error made by Joseph.

    In one case the anti Nephi Lehis. (Laman­ites) become a right­eous peo­ple and it states that the curse was lift­ed but it does not say that their skin col­or changed.
    18 And they began to be a very indus­tri­ous peo­ple; yea, and they were friend­ly with the Nephites; there­fore, they did open a cor­re­spon­dence with them, and the curse of God did no more fol­low them.
    The curse was lift­ed but the mark stayed.
    My per­son­al opin­ion is that the curse as already explained is only wicked­ness a dark­ness of the spir­it. It went to all groups Laman­ites and Nephites alike.

    The mark to the Nephites would have been through inter­mar­riage of Asian eth­nic tribes and dis­tin­guish­ing them between Nephites and Laman­ites or in one case rebel­lious Nephites mark­ing them­selves with red paint.
    The prob­lem is that the mark is always asso­ci­at­ed with wicked­ness but it is neu­tral nei­ther bad nor good. As the Book of Mor­mon explains it peo­ple who had the mark from the per­spec­tive of the Nephites were most­ly bad but there were Laman­ites who were more right­eous than the Nephites.

    1. Wes T
      Wes T

      Your expla­na­tion, while being the “offi­cial” church answer, is a labored one. It is also a fair­ly new expla­na­tion that took hold after the priest­hood change in 1978.

      Let’s look at some of the key vers­es where it is first dis­cussed by Nephi and Jacob:

      And he had caused the curs­ing to come upon them, yea, even a sore curs­ing … where­fore, as they were white, and exceed­ing­ly fair and delight­some, that they might not be entic­ing unto my peo­ple the Lord God did cause a skin of black­ness to come upon them (Book of Mor­mon, 2 Nephi 5:21).

      and

      Behold the Laman­ites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filth­i­ness and the curs­ing which hath come upon their skins … (Book of Mor­mon, Jacob 3:5).

      The “sore curs­ing” was not being cut off from God. Nephi clear­ly states the curse is a change in skin col­or because of their wicked­ness. At least, that is how Nephi and Jacob appar­ent­ly under­stood the curse. Per­haps they were wrong in their under­stand­ing, but the vers­es are con­cise in defin­ing the curse.

      1. Dave Mack
        Dave Mack

        The verse you quote says they were cursed with a skin of black­ness but there are no native Amer­i­cans in north and south Amer­i­ca that have black skin.

        Also using the word black­ness or black to describe ones demeanor as a phys­i­cal appear­ance is not out of of place in a scrip­tur­al con­text. Here are some exam­ples from the old tes­ta­ment. Nephi and Jacob would have been famil­iar with the old tes­ta­ment and this way of describ­ing a dark­ened spir­i­tu­al appear­ance as a out­ward manifestation.

        Lamen­ta­tions 5:10
        10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the ter­ri­ble famine.

        Job 30:30
        30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

        Song of Solomon 1:5,6
        5 I am black, but come­ly, O ye daugh­ters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the cur­tains of Solomon.
        6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s chil­dren were angry with me; they made me the keep­er of the vine­yards; but mine own vine­yard have I not kept

    2. Kevin Rex
      Kevin Rex

      David: I am not an LDS mem­ber any longer. One very promi­nent LDS mem­ber, a for­mer prophet of your church, “mis­un­der­stood” with the fol­low­ing idea, and that is what I grew up think­ing because of his sta­tus as apos­tle and then prophet dur­ing my youth. I like your expla­na­tion, but it is not the expla­na­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion that is plain and sim­ple from Alma 3:6 or from for­mer prophets. Blame me for fol­low­ing the prophet of my era, and not chang­ing to today’s more mod­ern think­ing in LDS cul­ture, that’s OK, but please at least acknowl­edge the my under­stand­ing was­n’t just me and some low­ly LDS mem­bers’ mak­ing our own inter­pre­ta­tions. I also noticed that you did­n’t say any­thing about the Indi­an Place­ment Pro­gram? What do you remem­ber about that era, if any­thing, or what do you know about it?

      Prophet Spencer W. Kim­ball, Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence, Oct. 1960

      The Lord has nev­er indi­cat­ed that black skin came because of being less faith­ful. Now, the Indi­an; we know why he has changed, don’t we? The Book of Mor­mon tells us that; and he has a dark skin, but he has promise there that through faith­ful­ness, that they all again become a white and delight­some people.”

      1. Dave Mack
        Dave Mack

        I can cer­tain­ly under­stand why mem­bers would believe that it refers to phys­i­cal skin color.

        I don’t know any­thing about the Indi­an Place­ment Pro­gram are there a lot of Indi­ans who have been placed in this pro­gram who are com­plain­ing about how hor­ri­ble it was.

      2. Dave Mack
        Dave Mack

        By the way every­thing I post­ed con­cern­ing skin col­or being an out­ward spir­i­tu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion was done by my own research. Until now I did not the church had a stance on the subject.

        1. Kevin Rex
          Kevin Rex

          David: I sense a great dis­par­i­ty in our ages. The arti­cle “tapir rid­er” post­ed should be help­ful in explain­ing the Indi­an Place­ment Pro­gram. I am 52, and I came out gay and left the church 2 years ago. Your phras­ing just above scares me, “skin col­or being an out­ward spir­i­tu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion” does­n’t sound much dif­fer­ent than racism. Where do you stand on the idea that God is no respecter of per­sons, that all are alike unto Him, both bond and free, etc., and in that same verse from the Book of Mor­mon, the state­ment that God does­n’t do any­thing except it is PLAIN. Your expla­na­tion of the “curse” or “mark” is not very plain at all. When a sup­posed prophet of God, many of them, plain­ly read the Book of Mor­mon and plain­ly tell the saints that the curse is dark skin and that the Indi­ans will be made “white and delight­some”, I am glad you can under­stand why we might think so. Now, onto the oth­er ques­tions about why con­nect Native Amer­i­cans to the God of Israel of the Old Tes­ta­ment any­way? The God of the Old Tes­ta­ment is a creep-a-zoid.

          1. Dave Mack
            Dave Mack

            Kevin
            You are right you are much old­er than me.

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