Second-Class Saints Part 2/3 - Is this how God does business?
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1978. Seated: Mark E. Petersen, Ezra Taft Benson, Delbert L. Stapley. Standing: Boyd K. Packer, Thomas S. Monson, LeGrand Richards, Marvin J. Ashton, Howard W. Hunter, Bruce R. McConkie, Gordon B. Hinckley, L. Tom Perry, David B. Haight ChurchofJesusChrist.org
Part 2 of 3: “Is this how God does business?”
I was nothing short of gobsmacked to learn who was in the room and who was not when the 1978 revelation lifting racial restrictions was received. Here are excerpts from Matthew L. Harris’s book Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality:
On June 1, [1978], the Twelve and the First Presidency met in the temple. It wasn’t by accident that Apostle [Mark E.] Petersen was away on a church assignment in Ecuador, for there is no indication in the months leading up to this meeting that he consented to lifting the ban. Nor is there evidence that Apostle [Delbert L.] Stapley was prepared to accept what was coming. He was in the hospital and had given no indication that he saw a place for Black men in the church as priesthood holders.
At that moment, there appeared to be one holdout, Ezra Taft Benson, who had shown no willingness to end the restriction in previous deliberations on the subject.
McConkie spoke first, followed by Packer and Monson. These headstrong men now dominated the room as they expressed to Benson and the rest of the Twelve the wisdom of lifting the ban.
[Later] President [Kimball] telephoned Apostle Petersen, still in Ecuador, to apprise him of the revelation. With everyone on board, Petersen wasn’t going to oppose it: “I told President Kimball that I fully sustained both the revelation and him one hundred percent.”
The First Presidency visited Apostle Stapley in the hospital to give him the news. “I’ll stay with the Brethren on this,” he reassured Kimball. This was hardly a ringing endorsement, but it was the best Stapley could muster. He died two months later.
The revelation “seemed to relieve [the Brethren] of a subtle sense of guilt they had felt over the years.”
I have no way of knowing if similar deliberations are happening today around LGBTQ issues. But if they were, I wonder who needs to be sent on assignment to Ecuador and who needs to be in the hospital for a little while for the revelation to come.
This is not to diminish the lifework and ministry of those not in the room in 1978. I love those men, and have been inspired by their talks and writings over the years.
God, you can do Your work with Your stubborn children on all levels — Church leaders and lay members and everyone in between — anyway You need to. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s oft-quoted thought comes to mind: “So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work” (“Lord, I Believe,” April 2013).
Besides, God, I’m not that good at waiting, as You well know. But I will wait.
-Marci
Also see Second-Class Saints Part 1/3 - “Invisible change brewing” and Second-Class Saints Part 3/3 - “Uncounted losses”
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