It is written:
“Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman. 2 So they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.). 4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of meeting!” So the three came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in the pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both went forward. 6 Then He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. 7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. 8 I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?” 9 So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. 10 And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper.” (Numbers 12:1-10)
Many are taught that black skin is a curse from God, a judgment on sin. In fact, I have been told this by several Christians throughout my life.
But this is a lie, one that has often been perpetrated by false religions in our world.
For example, one of the teachings of Mormonism is that there was once a race of people on the American continent who were cursed with black skin as a punishment for sin.
According to the book of Mormon:
2 Nephi 5:21-23-And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. 22 And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. 23 And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.
Sadly, this history of racism in Mormonism is very extensive.
“One of the most disconcerting aspects of the Mormon doctrine of pre-existence is the racist concept that black people are dark-skinned because God is punishing them for wrong choices they supposedly made before they were born. In the 1966 edition of Mormon Doctrine, Bruce McConkie commented on the pre-existence as it relates to black people: In the pre-existent eternity various degrees of valiance and devotion to the truth were exhibited by different groups of our Father’s spirit offspring. One third of the spirit hosts of heaven came out in open rebellion and were cast out without bodies, becoming the devil and his angels (D& C 29: 36–41; Rev. 12: 2–9). The other two-thirds stood affirmatively for Christ; there were no neutrals. To stand neutral in the midst of war is a philosophical impossibility. The Lord said: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Mt. 12: 30). Of the two-thirds that followed Christ, however, some were more valiant than others. . . . The whole house of Israel was chosen to come to mortality as children of Jacob (Deut. 32: 7–8). Those who were less valiant in the pre-existence and who thereby had certain restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain, the mark put upon him for his rebellion against God and his murder of Abel being a black skin. (Moses 5: 16–41; 7: 8,12,22.) Noah’s son Ham married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain, thus preserving the negro lineage through the flood (Abra. 1: 2–27.) 5 What implications did the curse of dark skin have in regard to entering the Mormon priesthood? Prior to 1978, the situation was as follows: Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty (Abra. 1: 20–27). The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them (Moses 7: 8,12,22), although sometimes negroes search out the truth, join the Church, and become by righteous living heirs of the celestial kingdom of heaven. . . . The present status of the negro purely and simply rests upon the foundation of pre-existence. Along with all races and peoples he is receiving here what he merits as a result of the long pre-mortal probation in the presence of the Lord. . . . The negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow therefrom, but this inequality is not of man’s origin. It is the Lord’s doing, is based on his eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of spiritual valiance of those concerned in their first estate. 6 Pre-existence, then, has a great deal to do with a person’s present lot in mortal life. A person’s behavior in the preexistence determines whether he is born with advantages or disadvantages in this life. The late apostle Mark E. Petersen explained it this way: Is there reason then why the type of birth we receive in this life is not a reflection of our worthiness or lack of it in the pre-existent life? . . . Can we account in any other way for the birth of some of the children of God in darkest Africa, or in flood-ridden China, or among the starving hordes of India, while some of the rest of us are born here in the United States? We cannot escape the conclusion that because of performance in our pre-existence some of us are born as Chinese, some as Japanese, some as Latter-day Saints. These are rewards and punishments, fully in harmony with His established policy in dealing with sinners and saints, rewarding all according to their deeds. 7 Similarly, in Doctrines of Salvation, we read, “There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who where faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less.” 8 With such blatant racism at the heart of Mormon doctrine, it is not surprising that the Mormons came under severe criticism in the 1960s and 1970s. The LDS church was brought under tremendous pressure by people both inside and outside the church—including those involved in the civil rights movement. On June 9, 1978, the late Spencer W. Kimball—then President of the Mormon church—received a convenient “revelation” from God that said all worthy male church members were eligible for the priesthood, regardless of race. Therefore, in the next edition of McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine, the above-quoted information about black people was excised.” (Ron Rhodes & Marian Bodine, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons, 4761-4800 (Kindle Edition); Eugene, Oregon; Harvest House Publishers)
Black skin is not a cruse from God for sin, and the Bible is remarkably clear on this subject.
Consider this:
“Some modern theologians teach that it was a curse that caused black skin. I have never heard this explicitly spoken to me, but it is subconsciously understood to be so. Is this because theologians and scientists of the 16th century and up to today used the person of Ham (in Genesis) to symbolize the African race, which was supposedly lesser than? Upon reading the pages of the Bible, the truth is exactly the opposite. In Numbers Chapter 12 verse 10 we see the truth: “And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.” Question: what color was Miriam before she received the curse? Answer: could not have been white. Common sense teaches me that only a person who has been indoctrinated in the lies of the European racist thinking patterns could not read verses like that and still walk away with a false understanding that this lady was white to begin with when she got cursed to be white as snow. That doesn’t make any type of logical sense, but because psychological oppression is so strong and has a mental grip on our logical understanding we cannot even apply common sense. Some of you are even mad at me for telling the body of Christ and the world the truth of how far and deep racism has affected our mental capacity to rationalize. To take it even further Miriam was put outside the camp for seven days, it was over 600,000 men not including women and children which means that the sight of a white person was so strange and abnormal that for seven days Miriam was put outside a camp of over a million people. Nevertheless without becoming decaucasianized you’ll never get the logicalness of the revelation that back then having white skin was something totally abnormal this is why GOD chose whiteness as a curse to show His disdain for Miriam challenging Moses. Okay need another witness? I am not going to stop there! In 2 Kings Chapter 5 verse 27 we see a generational curse given to a man, and he also became white as snow. “The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed forever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.” Now again these are not my words, but the Word of God. This particular verse represents a truth that is avoided in black and white circles. This verse is avoided because it is so hard hitting that many dismiss what it really means. But it is in the Bible, and this is another witness to a person being cursed with whiteness. Notice that the bible says ‘Shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed forever’. This verse declares that whatever happened to this one person is going to happen also to his seed forever. Some have said that this verse does not really mean what it says, but my question is; “What does it mean then?” And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow. My other question is, “What color was this man before he was cursed and became white?” And from this verse I receive great understanding of the truth. It is normal to have black skin; white skin is an abnormality. The truth is that, at least in this situation, it was a curse that caused white skin. You don’t have to agree with me, but the truth makes common sense. To say that black skin is a curse does not make sense, because black skin was created with the ability to receive the rays of the sun and gain vitamin D. That is normal. White skin can not properly receive the rays of the sun because a lack of melanin; now that’s abnormal.” Jason Farr, Jesus Is A Black Man: A Decaucasianized Truth, 362-415 (Kindle Edition): Xlibris Corporation)
Skin color (of any variety) is not a punishment from God! It is simply a result of a substance in the blood, called melanin.
“Yes, Jesus loves us all, but believe it or not, all human beings are basically the same color. Every human being has the same basic pigment in the skin (there are other pigments that are inconsequential in regard to one’s skin color); it’s called melanin, and it’s basically a brown color (there are a couple of forms of this pigment). Melanin protects the skin against damage by ultraviolet light from the sun. If you have too little melanin and you live in a very sunny environment, you will more easily suffer from sunburn and skin cancer. If you have a great deal of melanin and you live in a country where there is little sunshine, it is much harder for your body to get adequate amounts of vitamin D. Your body needs sunshine for its production of vitamin D and melanin filters it out. If you don’t get enough vitamin D you could suffer a bone disorder such as rickets….“We are not born with a genetically fixed amount of melanin, but rather with a genetically fixed potential to produce a certain amount. In each of us this amount increases in response to sunlight and some of us are more responsive to the sunlight than others. That’s why some people seem to tan more than others even though they’re exposed to the same amount of light. Surprisingly, we all start with about the same amounts of pigment cells. Stem cells at the inner layers of your skin and other cells called melanocytes have melanin granules. The stem cells go and sort of bite off packages of these granules and they use them to protect the nucleus of their cells. Once that cell moves to the surface as a skin cell, it can lose melanin, causing the skin to be lighter (usually such people are called “white”). If more melanin makes it to the surface skin cells, the skin is darker (usually such people are called “black”)….Amazingly, we find that an entire range of skin tone, from very light and very dark, can result in only one generation! Beginning with two middle brown parents, you can see how it is possible to get all the possible shades of melanin….“Do you realize that the majority of the world’s population is middle brown? What do you think Adam and Eve most likely would have been? Would they have been what we call Caucasian “white,” with aabb genes (as most children’s books paint them to be)? No, because then everyone would be. What about what we call “black,” with all AABB genes? No, because then everyone would be. But if they were middle-brown with AaBb, then their children could have been light, dark, and every shade in between in one generation.” (Ken Ham & Charles Ware, One Race One Blood, 94-99 (Kindle Edition): Green Forest, AR; Master Books)
The solution to racism is Jesus Christ and His Word.
Leave a Reply