Maksutov wrote:It's good and bad, Reverend. Mormonism teaches that the inferior races can be redeemed, so it's not as vicious as the views of Christian Identity, where blacks and Jews are "mud people" that are the hybrid offspring of demons. But it still allows for the kind of smiling, gentle bigotry that has become the hallmark of the LDS. I'm sure that many apologists can't see why the Book of Mormon is offensive to other races, any more than many wavers of the Confederate flag don't see it through the eyes of the descendants of slaves. It's the pious version of the "white man's burden".
It seems to me that there is more to it than that. If it were all a simple matter of who is white and delightsome and who is dark and loathsome, I would have no trouble agreeing with you 100%. The problem is that the issue of identity in the Book of Mormon is not so straightforward as all that. Are the usual interpretations that simplistic? Yes. But it seems to me that ethnicity does not matter that much in the end. Lamanites are righteous; Nephites are wicked. The white and delightsome Nephites are in fact so wicked that God allows them to annihilate themselves. It is the so-called Lamanites who survive to be gathered as Israel. The whole idea of people becoming white is silliness, and I don't know that there is consistent support for this idea in the Book of Mormon itself.
Take this passage, 1 Nephi 13:15:
And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.
Nephi is commenting upon whiteness of skin, but notice how he prophetically sees that his people were "white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful" before they were slain. Well, when were they slain and why? They were slain for being wicked, for not repenting, and for not hearkening to the prophets. So where is the simple equation of skin color and righteousness there? Why did God not adjust their skin color in order to reflect their wickedness? If he could do that for the Lamanites, why did he not do it to the late Nephites?
Now, this part of the Book of Mormon was translated after the end, so Joseph Smith well knew what the end was (for a variety of reasons), so if he simply wanted to equate skin color and righteousness, why has he drawn our attention to the end of the book, where that simple relationship between skin color and righteousness utterly fails? Why does he make a point of talking about their whiteness? Why does he say that the Genitles are white and fair but then proceeds to warn that God will allow them to be destroyed by the Lamanites if they are not righteous? Does he warn that the skins of the Gentiles will become dark?
Why is it that after the Gentiles receive the Gospel, the Great and Abominable Church rises up, and yet the Gentile possessors of their bowdlerized Gospel with its Satanic Church are yet allowed to remain "white and delightsome"?
It seems to me that "white and delightsome" is more of a warning sign than it is a simplistic, racist view of blessings. The apostate Gentiles and the wicked, later Nephites are white and delightsome, and a lot of good it does them (not). In fact, I would place "white and delightsome" against "plain and precious," with the latter being what is truly valorized in the text. The Gentiles can be fair, beautiful, and white, but at the same time they lack the plain and precious truths that were removed from the Gospel. God seems less concerned about being white than he about being plain.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist