This is the second part of scene 2 from the performance piece I have written. To start at the beginning, click here. To start at the top of scene 2, click here.
[F exits]
Allan: From all accounts, my grandfather was a great man:
kind, giving, a devoted husband and father, a loyal friend. However, I also
know that my grandfather was very much a man of his time, a man that grew up in
Georgia and northern Florida in the mid-twentieth century. That is basically to
say that he was pretty racist. I don’t really know the extent, but I certainly
remember growing up hearing the terms “nigger-rigged” and the rhyme
“Eeny-Meanie-Miney-Mo” including the hauntingly violent image of “catch[ing] a
nigger by the toe.” And for the most part, there’s a simple narrative you come
to learn in the South—even the arguably pseudo-South of Northern Florida—that
lets you reconcile yourself to this messy racial family history: “they’re from
an earlier generation, they didn’t know better.” But something about that is
not enough; I still struggle with what exactly I am supposed to do with this
strain of mortal imperfection that disrupts the vision of familial sainthood.
To be honest, I much prefer whitewashing the memory of my grandfather’s racist
convictions—it’s just more pleasant to remember the nicer, more uplifting
qualities of the man, of which there were plenty. I mean really, don’t most of
us want in some way to redeem our ancestors or loved ones as we try to make
narratives of their past? How many eulogies tend to erase flaws, errors in the
past, ironically in honor of memory? And I know I am not alone in this. How do
you deal with your progenitors own falls from grace? What’s your story of
Garden when you are a son of Adam or a daughter of Eve? You don’t have to
actually answer; that was pretty rhetorical. We’re not getting that
participatory in the performance today. At least, not yet.
Growing
up in the South provided me some sense of how to address my messy racial family
history, but you know for some haunting reason, something I just can’t quite
put my finger on, this logic does not quite work when you throw Mormonism into
the mix.
[Projection: YouTube Clip of“I Believe” from The Book of Mormon, stanza that includes the line “And I
believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people.”]
Allan: Oh yeah, that’s the reason. And let’s be honest, that’s
a funny ass joke. I laugh every time I hear it. For those of you that do not
know, despite the fact that Joseph Smith ordained a black man to the priesthood
while Mormons were living in Illinois in the 1840s, for some reason and at some
point that is historically unclear, while in Utah the LDS Church banned the
ordination of black men. There was never a decree or a revelation indicating
this was policy but it was the practice and when ordination was requested, the
requests were denied. And that ban lasted from the nineteenth century through
the twentieth up until 1978. This priesthood ban is increasingly significant
when you consider that priesthood ordination works differently in Mormonism
than most other Christian faiths. Rather than priesthood being conveyed on
those that have attended a seminary or lead a congregation in a ministerial
role, in the LDS Church, all men over the age of 12 are ordained to the
priesthood. It is a general and universal vision of the power of God being
delivered into the hands of all men. Now, obviously, there is a whole issue of
gender to consider in relation to this universal vision of priesthood authority
and power in the church, but for now it is worth saying as is consistent with
most extensions of Western European institutions of religious or social
organization, “universal” in Mormonism has often meant “white” and “male.”
[Enter A, B, C, D, E, and F
for choreographed movement inspired by the gestures and physicality of
ordination and ministration of various Mormon ordinances: baptism, sacrament,
blessings, ordinations, temple endownments and sealings. Music: “Summer 78”from Good Bye Lenin! soundtrack. This
will happen concurrently with next part of the monologue, though I’m not sure
where things will end.]
Allan: So while black men and women could be baptized into
and confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, men
could not be ordained like their male counterparts, which meant they could not
serve in most ecclesiastical or leadership positions at local, regional, or
general levels; could not represent the church by serving missions; perform
baptisms, bless or pass the sacrament, ordain others, provide blessings of
healing or comfort; or most significantly, participate in any temple rituals
for themselves or as proxies because you have to hold the priesthood to enter
the temple. This temple ban also prevented the participation of black women in
such rituals despite the fact that their white female counterparts are also
ineligible for priesthood ordination but do participate in temple rituals. In
the 1950s and 1960s, some prominent church leaders discussed how they asked for
revelation to change the policies; others taught it was the order of heaven and
that it would never change.
And
then in 1978, it did. Now taken in a broader cultural context of US American
religious—particularly Christian—history, Mormonism’s ban of priesthood
ordination based on race is sadly representative of the rule rather than the
exception. That’s not to excuse what was undeniable a racist practice, but just
a means to indicate Mormonism was by no means special. For example, Southern
Baptist Conventions addressed similar changes around the same time. Both
religious communities were a just bit late to the Civil Rights Dance. But I
must confess there are other elements going into why that joke in that song in
that musical is so damn funny. And part of that is based in some nineteenth
century racist logics that The Book of Mormon both archives and functions on,
as the musical goes into. The decision and the change in 1978 was arrived at
not because a faith community necessarily worked through its theological and
social concerns regarding race (say like other Christian denominations and
eventually the Southern Baptists did), but rather because leaders said God
revealed it was time to change … and so they did. There’s no sense of struggle;
no real consideration of the racist work the ban did in Mormon culture or
theology; no apology for the discrimination that many men and women faced.
Everything just changed and that was it.
And
the thing is, my grandfather did struggle with the 1978 revelation. For me, I
look at 1978 as this step forward for the institutional LDS Church where it
ended its discriminatory practices—perhaps not thoughtfully, but it did stop
discriminating at least. And as a gay progressive heterodoxical Mormon, 1978 is
this representative watershed moment of potentiality—where everything you
thought was impossible could become thinkable, reality, and the order of God.
So as I stand alongside Mormon women seeking equality in the LDS Church through
true universal priesthood ordination, it’s not like there isn’t precedent. And
as I move forward with other LGBTQ Mormons who envision a day where they do not
have to choose between their religious and their sexual identities, it’s not
like there isn’t precedent. Because of the belief in ongoing, modern
revelation, God can change his mind about a lot of things. But that’s how I see
1978: more than a joke: it’s hope.
That’s
not how my grandfather saw 1978. For him, it was a Church he converted to
asking him to do and believe something really hard. My mother has told me it
did not make sense to him, he didn’t like it, it made him question his decision
to join the Church. He thought about leaving the faith. Besides the family he
was raising, none of his family was part of the LDS Church. He did not have
deep generational roots. And remember, he was a convert that spent a lot of
time looking for what he felt was God’s one correct church on the earth and
just 14 years in, it changed on him in a pretty fundamental way. And in terms
of an on the ground application of the revelation, it did so far more in
northern Florida than it did in Utah. As an ecclesiastical leader that served
at the regional level, my grandfather would be responsible for ordaining black
men to the priesthood, preparing black men and women to go to the temple. He
would be laying his hands upon their heads conferring authority. He would be
the very instrument of the thing he could not agree with. The 1978 revelation
asked him to confront his convictions head on and sacrifice his own pride or
way of seeing things for the building up of the kingdom of God and the
establishment of Zion. See I think 1978 is great because it asked the Church to
change and start believing what I believe; for me it’s easy. But when have I
been asked to repent so fundamentally?
That
song from the musical is a funny joke, but behind it there are people. The ones
who suffered discrimination for generations; the ones who benefited from
discrimination; the ones who are left to figure out what exactly to do with the
grizzly past; and the ones who lived in the transition and struggled to figure
out what to do while it wasn’t the past.
[Enter A, B, C, D, E, and F.
A and C enter font]
Allan: And I think I will never stop struggling to make
sense of it and his complexity because he never stopped struggling. But that’s
the curse of Adam, right? “The earth will produce thorns and thistles for
you…By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the
ground.”
[Projection
reads baptismal prayer]
C: Brother
Zachary Harris, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and
in behalf of William Coleman Crews, who is dead, in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
