Delbert L. Stapley plays a pivotal role in my family narrative. To be honest, I’m not sure how we are related. I think he was my Grandpa’s cousin, which really means I have no substantive claim to his legacy. Still, he called my father on a mission on-the-spot, set him apart and later sealed my parents. He proved most influential over my parents’ early family. Though I never met him, I love him, deeply respect him and believe he was an inspired servant of God.
The Boston Globe’s publication of a private letter from Elder Stapley to George Romney, as part of a week-long series on Mitt, highlights false beliefs regarding civil rights. From a technical perspective, I understand that this letter is crafted with an attorney’s skill (Delbert wasn’t an attorney) and really should not have been published (it is a private communication). I don’t particularly have any expertise in those arenas. But I do know what it is like to hold many feelings for single individuals.
In some measure, we all ultimately deal with conflicted feelings when we study history. We read that John Taylor said something horrible about black people and we wonder how a prophet of God could say something so hurtful and simply wrong. The more I have read, however, the more compassion I have. When I was a child, I believed all grown-ups were perfect. The transition from that perspective was painful and disillusioning. After praying for the ability to forgive and understand, there is one moment in my life that I will always regard as a miracle — as a child and for a moment I saw some grown-ups as God saw them.
Good people are flawed and even though I will always weep when I tell Jane Manning James’ story and even though I flinch when I read the interactions of Delbert and Juanita Brooks and even now as I am saddened having read the letter to George Romney, I truly believe that these men were God’s anointed. And I hope that in one hundred years, I will be looked at charitably by my people and the public, if I am looked at at all.
June 25, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Good post, J. It’s a horrible letter, no bones about it, but this is our past, and in your case, these are your relatives. You cannot sever them from your life any more than you could lop off your arm. What then to do with these skeletons? Perhaps your answer is best — realize that we’re all flawed, make a personal commitment to fix your own flaws, and move forward.
June 25, 2007 at 4:10 pm
We have discussed the ban and prophetic fallibility extensively in other threads, so I will not comment on those issues here. In that light, I will echo Steve.
Good and very mature post, J, on a very sensitive topic.
June 25, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Yikes, that letter really is awful. It’s a good reminder, however, of how strongly felt and uncontroversial noxious beliefs in racial hierarchy were prevalent among many (most?) of the Brethren back in the day.
I did have to chuckle at one line though. At page 2, first sentence of third full paragraph:
“The statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith have been a helpful influence on me because they accord with my own understandings regarding the Negro.”
Elder Stapley probably didn’t mean this quite the way it sounds. Taken at face value, I guess we learn that the helpfulness of the Prophet’s words is directly proportional to the extent to which those words accord with our prior understandings. I’ll be sure to remember and quote this, next time I’m arguing about the nature and authoritativeness of prophetic speech.
In any event, most of us can bemoan the racial content of the letter, while perhaps Jettboy can take the quotation at face value and condemn Stapley as an apostate for his unprincipled and merely conditional acceptance of the Prophet Joseph.
Aaron B
June 25, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Well written J. – I think we do all need to look to people as people and accept them for who they are.
The people I am interested in are those who leaked this letter of Brother Stapley’s to the press. I had to be a conspiracy theorist, but it seems the main point of this letter in this context is to show the a Romney in the past did what he thought was best (backed up civil rights) despite the council of the Church.
If then, this is a pro-Romney piece, then can we assume that Romney is intentionally releasing this on the public arena to further his own ends?
June 25, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Well, what can you say? It was painful to read. To Romney’s great credit, the Globe notes that he became even more visible in his promotion of civil rights after receiving this letter.
Even very good people can sometimes have big blind spots. I hope that, fifty years from now, people are not going through the digital archives looking for idiotic statements by me, because I don’t think they will have far to look.
June 25, 2007 at 4:46 pm
To put things in perspective, most Americans in 1964 felt the way Delbert Stapley did about civil rights for blacks. Stapley was just using the non-canonized statements of previous Church leaders to support his views.
The fact is we just have further light and knowledge now than we did then (which is a good thing).
I suspect that in 40 years, people will look back at some of the beliefs and interpretations we hold today and be embarrassed.
June 25, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Could someone please link to the letter? I just looked at Boston.com and I could not find it.
June 25, 2007 at 4:51 pm
On a side note, one of the major boulevards in Mesa, Arizona is “Stapley” Blvd or St or whatever. J. Stapley, maybe you’re related to its namesake.
June 25, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Mike Parker: “To put things in perspective, most Americans in 1964 felt the way Delbert Stapley did about civil rights for blacks.”
Really? What makes you say this, Mike?
June 25, 2007 at 4:57 pm
The link to letter at the Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/24/delbert_stapley.pdf
June 25, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Re # 4, Matt W., the way I read the letter is that it was expressly NOT counsel of the Church. D. Stapley specifically said that he was not speaking for the Church nor as an Apostle but rather as a friend and brother.
Also, I notice the gloss at the top of the letter which indicates that despite this letter, George Romney increased his advocacy in favor of Civil Rights, rather than abandoning it as urged by the letter.
June 25, 2007 at 6:01 pm
The leftover racism in the LDS Church is not passed along over the pulpit but instead via ‘private communications.’
This racism tends to exist as leftover but sometimes still strongly held beliefs in LDS folklore about Cain, Ham, pre-existence “fencesitters”, etc.
Somehow, at some point, the Church has to publicly denounce these teachings. Otherwise there will still be members of the Church who believe in them.
I’ve heard some very gritty and painful personal stories from someone who is a member of the church today and has lived with remaining LDS beliefs in these stories and folklore.
One thing – if you ever want to take LDS racism out of remission, just have a white family’s son or daughter contemplate bringing a black boyfriend/girlfriend home to meet the parents.
June 25, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Wow. Advance civil rights and meet an untimely (but apprently deserved) end (drowning, assassination, etc). I have to say I had never heard that particular logic used before.
June 25, 2007 at 6:16 pm
danithew, stereotypes might have a basis in reality, but that reality is an old one that no longer exists in most Mormon families – at least in areas that are not 100% white and in certain sections of the deep south. Also, the racial integration in my area (Mid-West, conservative) is MUCH more advanced in our congregations than in about any other denomination in the area. Do we have more to do? Of course. Is it as bleak as you picture it? Not even close.
I have numerous Black friends in the Church, and every single one of them thinks it is much better now than even just a few years ago – and getting better every year.
June 25, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Here is the link.
I hate to tell you guys this, but that letter could have been written by almost any one of the apostles in 1964. It is indeed a wretched letter, but this was the way most of the senior leadership of the Church thought at that time. Hugh B. Brown was the exception, not the rule. Those of you who are younger and may not recall those days yourselves may find this difficult to believe, but that’s just the way it was back then.
(I personally think that our official attitudes towards homosexuality will be on the list of things that seem embarrassing in 40 years’ time.)
June 25, 2007 at 6:51 pm
“And I hope that in one hundred years, I will be looked at charitably by my people and the public”
Since history moves on, and public sensibility inevitably shifts, I wonder what commonly held views of ours will, in fifty years, be seen as bigotries and flaws. Any person is so much a product of their time.
~
June 25, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Ray, I’m generally optimistic – but there are certain aspects of life where change is happening very slowly. It doesn’t mean no positive change is happening at all – but I am completely convinced that black people can often feel very lonely in the Church.
I’m not just speculating. Just this week I had conversations with someone (who would know) on exactly this topic.
June 25, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Kevin,
I looks to me our collective attitudes towards homosexuality, including the disposition of the GAs, are already shifting, and very quckly, too. I think it may always be considered a sin. The rapidity of the shifts we’ve seen in the last decade won’t neccesarily continue. You can walk half way to Tacoma, and be glad of it, without walking all the way to Tacoma. I’m moved but ultimately agnostic on the issue. I would wish that someday we’ll beleive in a special corner of the Celestial Kingdom for Gay relationships – but, OTOH, I only want to beleive that if such a corner actually exists.
I think eventually we will see our attitudes towards and feelings about polygamy as being very time-bound, as well.
~
June 25, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I have to say I am blown away by how easily you all seem to be able to brush this off. Hearing people who were the “Lords Anointed” say things so awful and so totally wrong makes me feel ill. I mean, hes saying his friend drowned because he was pro-civil rights! Thats insane!
June 25, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Thanks for this comment. It occurred to me that you could substitute almost any group for “black people” and the statement would be just as apt. (Yes, even “priesthood holders.”) That observation is not meant to diminish the struggle of our darker-skinned siblings, but to open my eyes to our shared experiences.
June 25, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Veritas,
I have wished a man, the husband of a woman I loved who was also a good friend – I have wished him dead – and been a bitter wretch. At that same time, the Spirit of the Lord was still striving with me, trying to help me wherever I gave it an inch. I have been emotionally violent in relationships, and have severaly hampered the progress of people I hold dear, and not without intention. And, yet, I am, though grace and only through grace, a better and better man. And I am, in my sphere, a servant of the Lord.
One time I was praying about my grandfather, who I admire very very much – but who was a product of his time, a flawed man, who served in leadership positions and had a unique and fine understanding of the gospel,- but who did cause pain to people close to him, and who died outside the church. This is only for me, but I’m going to put it out there, anyway. Anyway … I was praying to know about his condition. And the answer I got,- clear as a bell, the only time I have recevived an answer to prayer that felt like a rebuke,- do not underestimate the power of the Atonement.
We are not in a position to say. It isn’t for us to judge – it really really isn’t.
I’m not sure anyone is brushing anything off. I think we are trying, at least I’m trying, to see that both the very good and the very bad can co-exist in the same man, the same servant of the Lord. You know … look at Noah. You can go to prison for life for some of that … What’s more, how can we hope that our leaders will more and more show us their hearts, as they seem to be doing, if everytime they do we crush them for it. I’m personally very grateful that the church is not only less and less a place that covers its sins, but less a place where we feel we need to cover our own. The cover-up is one of the listed conditions that drives out the Spirit – and in my view, cover-up has to some substantial degree quenched the Spirit, in the past.
yada yada yada
~
June 25, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I met Delbert Stapley back in 1974 and had dinner with him and my mission president Oscar McConkie. After dinner we sat around and talked for a couple of hours. It was the only time I met him, but I respected him deeply and he was indeed an inspired man.
We recently had a black member of the Church, one of my former scouts, come home from his mission, and marry a very light skinned, beautiful blonde. It was discussed a little but the general consensus was that up here in Anchorage he had very little selection if he limited himself to his own race. So my observation was that there really wasn’t much prejudice in peoples reaction. They look like a happy couple.
We also had two first cousins that recently married in the temple. Now that caused some reaction. But the mixed race couple didn’t really cause much reaction.
June 25, 2007 at 8:10 pm
#16 – “I am completely convinced that black people can often feel very lonely in the Church.”
I agree and didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just said it’s better now than even a few years ago and getting better – not for every member, but as a whole.
June 25, 2007 at 8:28 pm
#20 – Thomas, thanks for your comment – particularly “both the very good and the very bad can co-exist in the same man, the same servant of the Lord.” In my experiences counseling members and non-members alike, that is one aspect that is difficult for the majority to understand and accept fully. It also is one of the central issues that keeps them from understanding and internalizing the Atonement.
This applies to church leaders, bosses, spouses, parents and any other category of person imaginable. All of us are deeply flawed; some are more obviously flawed – especially when viewed out of context of their own time and by the light of later standards.
J is in a position of conflicting emotions not just because of the family connection to Elder Stapley but also because this letter has been broadcast to the world. To echo others, I sincerely hope my ramblings here don’t come back to haunt my progeny if anyone who knows better 40 years from now cares to publish them – and I hope, speaking collectively, that your progeny don’t ridicule me for the incorrect assumptions of my unenlightened ignorance.
We need to tackle the bigotry head-on, but if we truly believe our own scriptures and understand the Atonement, we need to cut Elder Stapley and his associates a break and focus on fixing what their attitudes caused.
June 25, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I think you are correct, Ray. Part of the reason this letter is so disturbing is because of the raw humanness that it displays. It is disturbing and shocking precisely because I can recognize part of myself there. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his Nobel address, One Word of Truth, said:
:
June 25, 2007 at 9:03 pm
My first reaction, in reading the letter, was shock. This is even more amazing than Ezra Taft Benson’s general conference teaching that the civil rights movement was a communist plot to bring about revolution in America.
Then came my second thought…and I see a few here shared that thought. The same letter could have been written six months ago, by a current LDS apostle, to Harry Reid—the LDS senator who dared to keep his oath to uphold the Constitution, rather than vote to support an amendment to prevent equal rights for homosexuals.
June 25, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Nick I never understand how people equate homosexual rights with civil rights. What exactly do you think they have in common? And when you suggest that the Church is going to eventually embrace homosexual rights are you suggesting that the current teaching is not inspired? If you are not suggesting that the Church will eventually embrace homosexual rights please ignore the second question.
June 25, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Interesting that people read racist writings like this and want to talk about how our leaders are only human, flawed, often products of their culture, etc. I take these observations as given, and don’t see them as the discussion-worthy issue.
The real issue, IMO, is that many historical LDS leaders fervently believed that their flawed views were consistent with (or are even the embodiment of) certain gospel doctrines, and that they apparently didn’t have the ability to spiritually discern the difference between a gospel truth and a nefarious departure from that truth.
To me, that’s the real issue we need to grapple with: not so much the mere fact that the LDS leadership can be limited or culturally-influenced in their personal views, but that they actually understand those views to be central to a proper understanding of Gospel doctrine.
Aaron B
June 25, 2007 at 9:52 pm
It isn’t just the racial attitudes, Aaron. Apparently an apostle actually believed that God caused Lincoln’s and JFKs assasinations. I find that view just as disturbing as the racism.
June 25, 2007 at 10:12 pm
*resisting urge to answer and derail the thread*
*resisting*
*resisting*
*resi…
June 25, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Also interesting: in the first full paragraph on page 2, Stapley expressly rejects the “pleading with the Lord” model of institutional change that has been bandied about the Nacle much recently. Apparently Elder Stapley thought it unwise and even to some degree blasphemous to ask the Lord if or when the ban might be removed. This makes me wonder how secretive McKay was about his prayers on the subject that the Prince bio has revealed. Also, what Stapley thought about Kimball’s actions – I believe he lived just long enough to see the ban revoked.
June 25, 2007 at 10:29 pm
CW:
In the 1950s and 1960s, would the equivalent question have been this?
“I never understand how people equate intermarriage between blacks and whites with civil rights. What exactly do you think they have in common? And when you suggest that the Church is going to eventually embrace the ability of people of different ethnic backgrounds to marry, are you suggesting that the current teaching is not inspired?”
June 25, 2007 at 10:44 pm
re: 6, 15
In 40 years, God willing, Pete and I will be nearing our golden anniversary. Everybody here is cordially invited to our celebration. Maybe our grandchildren will hit it off. Maybe we’ll even all be members of the same Church then.
re: 27 Time for another post, greenfrog?
Here’s a question that’s more on-topic: Is there any extant correspondence from that era which expresses a different view? Did any LDS leaders echo MLK’s dream?
June 25, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Which apostle believed this, Mark IV?
June 25, 2007 at 10:46 pm
From #s 6 and 9: “To put things in perspective, most Americans in 1964 felt the way Delbert Stapley did about civil rights for blacks.â€
A 2003 Gallup report on American attitudes towards marriage between persons of different ethnic backgrounds included a summary of some data from 1958 and 1968 polls.
“The positive views [of intermarriage] today are in stark contrast to the views measured by Gallup in 1958, when only 4% of whites approved of inter-racial marriage. The trend among the general public since 1958 shows increasing acceptance of inter-racial marriage, with a plurality in favor for the first time in 1991 — 48% in favor, 42% opposed. It wasn’t until 1997 that Gallup first measured a majority in favor, by 64% to 27%.
This poll marks a continuation in the growth of acceptance.
The trends among blacks and whites show how the “racial gap” has closed over at least the past 35 years (blacks were not asked the question in 1958). In 1968, 56% of blacks, but just 17% of whites approved of marriage between blacks and whites – a 39-point gap. Today the racial gap is just 10 points: 80% of blacks, compared with 70% of whites, approve.â€
June 25, 2007 at 10:49 pm
#28 – Aaron, I don’t think we can separate the issue as you do in the last paragraph. All of us, to one degree or another, think our views are consistent with Gospel principles. If we didn’t, we would re-evaluate them and find new views with which we are comfortable. Hopefully, we are doing that constantly, regardless of our exact views and opinions.
I put the brunt of this at the feet of Brigham Young, knowing he was representative of the overall culture of his upbringing, but recognizing that it was his proactive, strident and unyielding assertions as the President that led to the ban – and provided the foundation for its continuance. As I’ve said previously, I fully accept him as the one that the Lord needed to keep the Church together during circumstances that should have destroyed it, but the price the Church paid, IMHO, was immense. If Joseph Smith had led the migration westward and led the Church for another 20-40 years, I believe this issue might never have arisen.
I understand and share the horror over the content of the letter, but my understanding of the scriptures we have been given and the obvious flaws and bigotry of nearly all of the prophets described in any detail in them keeps me from losing my testimony of modern prophets who exhibit the same imperfections. The OT examples are perhaps the most obvious, but the NT and BofM also show deeply flawed prophets leading as best they can.
Having said what I did in my first paragraph, the most chastised and threatened person in the D&C is Joseph Smith – and it’s not very close. What was the most common reason for early apostasy among the Saints? Joseph’s weaknesses and the leaders’ inability to support him as a prophet when they disagreed with his actions and decisions. They accepted his visions of eternity, but they couldn’t accept the uneducated and flawed nature that co-existed with the visionary. I think there is a reason the chastisements were included in the canonized sections.
I often think of Lehi as I watch deeply flawed but otherwise righteous men whose children struggle to reconcile the conflict within those men. IMO, Laman and Lemuel might not have been the extreme cads that Nephi saw. They might simply have known their father before he saw a vision and made a radical religious right turn. Perhaps they had been taught to value wealth, before that foundation was yanked away by their father’s conversion and preaching. His “exhortations” might have appeared to be inspired to Nephi, but they probably seemed hypocritical and uncaring and selective to the older brothers. We don’t have the exact language, so they also might have been demeaning or sarcastic or abusive or otherwise hurtful. It’s not just the wicked who take the truth to be hard, but also those who simply don’t understand. Add to that the possibility of error in “pronouncements of truth”, since we all see through a glass darkly, and I reach the “cut them some slack” and “focus on fixing their messes as best we can” conclusion. It really is nothing more than an application of the Golden Rule, but it might be the most difficult application.
June 25, 2007 at 10:51 pm
#34: Did any LDS leaders echo MLK’s dream?
Sterling McMurrin
June 26, 2007 at 2:06 am
Ray: I live in a virtually all-white ward, and let me tell you, the things I hear on a regular basis make my hair stand on end. We have a long way to go. Please let’s not pat ourselves on the back just yet.
Not insane, just terribly wrong. But Veritas, haven’t you said something like this before? Maybe it wasn’t you, but the answer now is the same as it was then: I don’t think anyone is brushing this off. It is sad and painful to come face to face with the imperfections of our leaders. We have discussed this at length very recently. They were dead wrong on this issue. Blatantly wrong. But how that conflicts with the idea that they can still be the Lord’s annointed is the part I’m missing.
The Lord’s annointed are, sadly: human, imperfect, flawed, even sinful, yet they are what we have. The best we can hope for, I think, is that God does actually speak through them and we have the opportunity to verify their statements through personal revelation. If they were perfect, or even just right all the time, following them would be very easy, and faith quite unnecessary.
Well, yeah Aaron. But what’s the difference? When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Whether you teach racist ideas because you believe they are culturally necessary or because you believe they are part of God’s plan, you’re still a racist. You just have a different, but equally incorrect, rationale for your racism. To the persecuted, it may make some difference whether you cite God or man as you take away his rights, but not much difference.
Interesting, and possibly correct, but a little speculative for me. Sounds like something I heard and disliked in a psycholgy class once which said that Hitler was probably just a victim of poor upbringing by his parents. Laman and Lemuel were not Hitler, but let’s remember that they saw angels and still chose another path.
June 26, 2007 at 2:08 am
Stirling: Why don’t we talk more about McMurrin and Hugh B. Brown? Someone please do a post on one or both of them for a change.
June 26, 2007 at 2:10 am
Mark, that Solzhenitsyn quote is pure gold.
June 26, 2007 at 2:12 am
#34: JW, I think Mark was referring to Delbert Stapley.
June 26, 2007 at 2:15 am
Proof that you don’t have to wait 50 years to be embarrassed by your statements, CW.
June 26, 2007 at 3:53 am
Aaron will correct me if I’m wrong, but I read his post (#28) as being not about how a wrong take on an issue is justified, but how it is arrived at in the first place. Why do they see their viewpoint as being central to a correct view of God? I can only assume they applied the same pattern to arrive at truth they teach to us.
If they can apply the pattern and arrive at such a very wrong conclusion, what does that teach us about the pattern and the nature of the knowledge it yields?
June 26, 2007 at 5:56 am
I get Lincoln and JFK, but who is the third supposed to be — FDR?
June 26, 2007 at 6:19 am
umm, Sterling McMurrin was not an “LDS leader.”
June 26, 2007 at 7:08 am
re #33, Stephen L. Richards, I believe, shared Hugh B. Brown’s and David O. McKay’s views.
June 26, 2007 at 7:09 am
J. Stapley, thanks for this post. The personal and positive view you share of Elder Stapley is moving and important.
The real issue, IMO, is that many historical LDS leaders fervently believed that their flawed views were consistent with (or are even the embodiment of) certain gospel doctrines, and that they apparently didn’t have the ability to spiritually discern the difference between a gospel truth and a nefarious departure from that truth.
Aaron, exactly right. Moments like this ought to be a powerful reminder to us that we don’t believe in the infallibility of our leaders. We’re sometimes tempted to adopt some kind of semi-infallibility; many of us would treat a personal message like this from a general authority as a divine imperative. Yet the moral vision of this letter is obscure. How unfortunate it would have been if this document had slowed the cause of equality in our country. How heroic that Governor Romney had the courage and moral vision to instead become an outspoken advocate of civil rights! May we go and do likewise.
June 26, 2007 at 8:32 am
At age 25, I just read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I knew it was a Pulitzer Prize winning novel and all that, but I didn’t expect that I would learn so much from a book that most people read in grade 10. It seems like a fairly simple thing, the idea that you don’t have to dislike or look down upon someone just because they harbour prejudices, that it doesn’t mean that they don’t have any good qualities. This shouldn’t be so hard to understand, but it struck me as very profound. Sometimes we have the inclination to be self-righteous in our “liberalness,” but really that is a reflection of how limited our perspectives still are.
June 26, 2007 at 8:40 am
#27 CW:
“Nick I never understand how people equate homosexual rights with civil rights. What exactly do you think they have in common?”
I’ll tell you what, CW. Since you’re the only one here who’s suggesting that equal rights for homosexuals is different than civil rights in general, why don’t *you* tell us what exactly you think makes them different? (Feel free to use your best Delbert Stapley impression—maybe you can find someone who encouraged equal rights for homosexuals, and then was murdered or drowned.)
“And when you suggest that the Church is going to eventually embrace homosexual rights are you suggesting that the current teaching is not inspired?”
I don’t know what the LDS church is going to eventually embrace or discard, CW. The track record thus far makes such predictions rather risky. Wouldn’t it be nice if millions of your tithing dollars went to humanitarian aid to the sick and starving, rather than to trying to write discrimination into what Joseph Smith taught was an *inspired* Constitution?
June 26, 2007 at 8:41 am
I wonder if Africans feel lonely in the Church in Africa. Maybe it’s an American thing…
June 26, 2007 at 8:45 am
Re 44, he may be referring to James Garfield, who discussed civil rights in his inaugural address.