Dealing with "I don't know"

Of all the classic anti-Mormon stuff out there, this is the hardest one for me. This is the one where the only answer I have found is “I don’t know.” So what’s the point of this post, then? Well, it’s how I learned to be OK with that answer.

The thing I have the hardest time with is race in Church history. The first thing you hear about race in the Church is that black men were not able to hold the priesthood before 1978. While I don’t know a good reason for that, there is historical precedence for it. For a long time, I accepted that as a complete answer. God gives His priesthood power to whomever he chooses. In the Old Testament, he gave it only to Levites. There were plenty of worthy men within the covenant who didn’t hold the priesthood. So, while the specific division in modern times didn’t make sense to me, the idea of God giving the Priesthood to only certain male members was not repulsive to me.

Why wasn’t it repulsive to me? For the same reasons that I don’t feel like a second-class member of the church. I don’t hold the priesthood. But I fully receive all the blessings of the Priesthood. To be ordained to the priesthood is to be called to serve in God’s kingdom in a specific way. Being called to serve in other ways is not a problem for me. It isn’t lesser. It does seem odd that the division of callings would be made along racial lines, but some people think it’s odd that other callings are divided by gender. So I can deal with it. If I can receive exaltation without ordination to the priesthood, so can anyone else who isn’t called to serve in the priesthood.

But that leads us to the part that I do have a hard time with. Like I said, I fully receive all the blessings of the priesthood. But “for much of its history—from the mid-1800s until 1978—the Church did not ordain men of black African descent to its priesthood or allow black men or women to participate in temple endowment or sealing ordinances.” (www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood emphasis added).

And that’s what I have a hard time with. I had always thought about the structure of priesthood ordination impacting certain men being called to Priesthood offices. When I thought about it impacting temple blessings for all persons of African descent, that was much, much harder to understand. In fact, I’ll just say it: I don’t understand that.

There are partial answers. During the great apostasy, God let several of his children live on the earth when there were no temple blessings available to anyone. And there were times when God gave only the Aaronic Priesthood and not the Higher Priesthood, which is basically what persons of African descent had access to: Ordinances of the Aaronic Priesthood, but not the Melchizedek.

So the idea of not providing full priesthood blessings to everyone in this life is not one that particularly bothers me. But the racial divide doesn’t make sense to me. Ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood are essential to salvation. And I just don’t understand why, when the power is on the earth, access would be based on anything other than worthiness.

But here are some things I do know. For one, God is not racist. I know God. And He isn’t. Second, I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s church. That same priesthood power at the source of this controversy is real. And it flows in God’s church. Otherwise, none of this would matter anyway. How do I know it’s real? I’ve felt it in the ordinances. I’ve felt it when I’ve been set apart for church callings and the endowment of love and discernment that comes with the stewardship changes me. I’ve felt it in the Sacrament when my guilt was washed away. I know God wants all of his children to fully receive the blessings of His power. I know because I’ve sat in the temple, pouring out my heart for people who could not attend at the time, and I’ve felt how desperately God wanted them to get there.

There are blessings of the priesthood that I crave for myself. I don’t have the highest blessings of the temple myself right now. I’m worthy. But I’m single. I cannot receive exaltation this way. I want it. He tells me not to worry, that the timing isn’t right yet. I believe Him. Do I feel incomplete at times without it? Yes. Have I ever felt forgotten or abandoned? Of course. But mostly I feel His love. And most of the time, I see purpose and meaning in the pain of waiting. Right now I can say that I’m grateful for what I’ve experienced. It has brought me closer to my savior.

But that’s my experience – my experience as a white woman born a decade after the revelation on the Priesthood. And that’s another thing I’ve come to realize: I didn’t live before 1978. I don’t understand what it was like before the revelation. I don’t understand the cultural context. I have never experienced the Church with any other policy than the current one that “all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood.” So why would I expect God to give me an answer that I would have needed if I had lived a couple decades earlier? I didn't live then. I live now and I need to understand current revelation.

There are many people who lived in the church without full access to priesthood blessings because of their race. They got answers. They got personal answers as to what to learn, and what to do, and how God still loved them. God isn’t going to give me their answers. I have more than enough of my own to seek.

There are things in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that some people find discriminatory or unfair today. I don’t. God has answered the questions I have today. I feel His love in the doctrines. I also feel it in the organizational structure of the church as directed by His living prophet today. I feel that love more strongly in the doctrine than in the principles, but I suspect that’s as it should be. Many of the principles have helped me to understand the doctrine.

I’ve discussed this issue with multiple friends. Many of them can give me answers as to why they don’t worry about it. For the most part, their answers don’t mean a thing to me (other than that I’m glad they’ve found their answers). My answers are my answers, based on my own experience. That’s enough for me right now.