After working for eleven years in ministry to the Mormons I have learned how not to get my feathers ruffled over trivial matters that keep popping up.  For instance I have learned that the LDS Church will forever and always skirt issues to make them seem more credible to the public.  They will twist the truth just a half fraction in order not to raise too many eyebrows. Their terminology differences are just once example of this.

However, this time an article that has been posted on a pro-Mormon website has caught my full attention and has definitely ruffled my feathers.  The issue?  The LDS Church is now denying that they have ever taught the Doctrine of the Curse of Cain. 

I left Mormonism for a handful of reasons but the subject of racism was at the top of my list.  The reason why?  While I am considered to be “caucasian” to everyone in the world (with the exception of Utah), I do have olive skin, dark eyes and hair.  My father’s family is considered to be “black Welsh”.  My great-grandmother was born in Wales, didn’t speak English and was a convert to the Church. To the reader who isn’t aware of the Curse of Cain Doctrine this seems to be a menial thing, but to the Utah Mormon it is huge. 

I was born in the early sixties in Northern Utah, a sixth-generation Mormon on my mother’s side and fourth on my father’s.  There was still enough “darkness” left in the lineage to make an impact on me while sitting through hundreds of Sacrament meetings and listening to the bishop tell the congregation that having dark skin was a sin.  I remember looking around me through my dark brown eyes at a sea of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people and wondering how in the world I could have denied Jesus in the pre-existence. 

The websites for these articles will be posted at the end of this article for your perusal and for my proof of their denial.  Here is just a little bit of what this pro-Mormon website had to say:

“To whom it may concern:  You should be aware that Don Jesse, official spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is telling journalists and non-mormon inquirers that the Church "has never taught that black people were cursed nor the descendants of Cain. Some members of the church may have held that view in the past, but it was never sanctioned by church leaders." When asked why black men could not hold the Priesthood before 1978, Mr. Jesse responded:  "Now that's a good question! We really don't know the answer. Many people have speculated or tried to provide answers, but we really don't know the reason."

When asked, "Did it have anything with the Curse of Cain doctrine?" Jesse responded: "No! There was never any 'Curse of Cain' Doctrine. There was never any such doctrine in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at any time."”

There isn’t one single verse in the Bible that sanctions bigotry or racism of any kind.  We see just one example of how the Lord abhors pride of the heart in Obadiah 1:1-4; “The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle.  Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised.  The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?  Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.”

The Edomites were descendants of Esau and filled to the brim with all types of pride.  The Lord subjected them to the ultimate doom they deserved for their sin against the people of Israel.  They were destroyed and their lineage is no longer in existence.  Verses 10-14 in Obadiah show us a list of each of the grievances the Lord had against them for their prejudice against God’s people.

The pastor J. Vernon McGee once said: “Pride of the heart is having the attitude of life that you can live without God”.  I don’t think it could have been said better!  While doing a Bible study on the ‘color issue’ years ago I finally learned the truth about the races and I challenge every single Mormon to do the same study.  It’ll only take a day for a brief overview, but at least get going on it to know the real truth about the colors of people.  The people of the biblical times typically gave names to their offspring that described their hopes or circumstances for the child.  The first mention of different races comes to us in Genesis 5:32; “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”  The key words here are Shem, Ham and Japheth. 

In Hebrew Shem means; name, honor, and it also means “dusky”.  He received the great blessing of having Abraham born through his lineage.  Ham means hot or burnt.  It was because of Ham’s sin of seeing his father Noah naked that his son Canaan had a curse pronounced upon him.  As you can see, this took place well after the time of Adam’s son Cain.  Japheth means expansion, ‘may he have space’, and it also means fair.  History points us to the fact that Japheth was the progenitor of the Indo-European peoples who lived the furthest from Israel.

I was 32 years-old and getting ready for work one morning when I realized I was sinning.  The pride of my heart had kept me from the simplistic truth of history and the truth of God Himself.  I had been saved for two years by then but still couldn’t look myself in the mirror and feel okay about my own coloring.  That morning I was convicted by Jesus to really look at the color of my eyes, skin and hair.  He then reminded me of where He was born and what lineage He came from.  For the first time in my life it dawned on me that He probably wasn’t white!  I know this sounds silly to many of you out there that are reading this, but it was monumental to the dark girl from Utah that was still a baby Christian.

I began employing my word studies to the study of the names of people beginning in Genesis 5:32.  The truth changed my life; it convicted me of my own pride that was buried deep in my heart.  You see, while I’ve never held the view of non-whites being inferior, that is exactly how I thought of myself.  This is sin, plain and simple.  Not accepting that God created us and not believing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made is the sin of unbelief.  God hates pride so much because pride leads us down the road of so very many other sins; unbelief is just one of the symptoms of pride.

This is also just one of many examples of how Mormonism seeps into every pore of your soul.  The exodus from this false church takes time and for every person coming out of Mormonism, there are as many new lessons to learn, truths to be heard and lies to be exposed.  Each of us has different stories and subjects that spark our interests so if you’re the one mentoring a Mormon or ex-Mormon, or if you are the ex-Mormon grant as much grace upon them as the Lord Jesus would give to you.  These things don’t happen overnight.  I was in the Church for 30 years and it took me about five years before I felt like all the lies had been exposed.

I thank God for His blessing of opening my ears during those lessons in the Mormon Church.  However I see it as a mixed blessing at times because of the response I received from my own mother when I told her this was one of the reasons I got out of the Church.  She replied by telling me she had never heard of any of these doctrines and believed that I had misunderstood the Pearl of Great Price where it states this: Moses 7:22; “And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them.”

In other words, it was my own imagination again and why did I spend so much time questioning the leaders of the Church?  My mother obviously didn’t hear the same message from the bishop even though we sat side-by-side in those Sacrament meetings.  To be fair to her I must admit that if I didn’t feel so ashamed by something I had supposedly done then I don’t think I would have listened to that part of the meeting either, so now I am thanking Him for the blessing of dark hair!  And I found myself hearing from Him also for having the spirit of mistrust against all those that aren’t dark.  I encourage all Mormons to honestly ask God to search your heart and be willing to allow Him to cleanse it from all unrighteousness.  Ask Him if there is the sin of pride for your own coloring and then ask Him to forgive you and cleanse that from your heart.  I know from experience He will do this for you.

For more information and countless references to the Church’s teachings on race issues:

Curse of Cain doctrine/Priesthood-ban please go to:

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/blackmormon/SAQ.html

For quotes from Mormon leaders about blacks please go to:

http://www.geocities.com/promormon/0curseofcain.html

Or for more information on this or other subjects on Mormonism please contact us at Life After Ministries.  Please know that we don’t write these articles or post information for the purpose of bashing the Church members.  We do, however, know that we are commissioned by God to expose the truth because of our love for the Mormon people.