Mormon Studies Commons^™

"Dark And Loathsome": The Construction And Persistence Of Racial Theology In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Margaret Phillips

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints banned Black men from holding the priesthood until 1978, a policy many mistake for the whole of the faith's engagement with race. This thesis argues that the priesthood ban was only a symptom of a far deeper theology of race, one built into Mormonism's broader theology from its founding. Two intertwined beliefs anchor this theology: the default whiteness of the human body and soul, and twin curse narratives that mark Black and Indigenous peoples alike as bearers of a divine curse— dark skin read as the visible penalty for their ancestors' sin. …