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Kimball and McConkie
Posted: May 8th, 2019, 2:39 pm
by justme
In a recent thread about the revelation that removed the priesthood ban some of us were discussing McConkie's role. I thought it might be worth it's own thread.
The recent book "Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History" has a fascinating chapter on the revelation. Arrington was the church historian at the time.
But a more detailed account occurs in "Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball' by Edward L. Kimball. On page 216 we read
"In June 1977 he invited at least three General Authorities to write memos about the doctrinal basis of the policy and how a change might affect the Church. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote a long treatise concluding that no scriptural barrier existed to a change."
It would be fascinating to be able to read that memo.
Re: Kimball and McConkie
Posted: May 9th, 2019, 10:32 am
by inho
Some time ago MormonLeaks posted some McConkie documents. I wrote about it in another thread:
Dennis B. Horne gave some context to those documents in his blog (
"Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s Leaked Papers: a Sorry and Sad but Salvageable Situation"). He was sad that they came up like that.
This is what he wrote about the documents related to the 1978 revelation:
The memo on the Priesthood Revelation was used by Ed Kimball in his BYU Studies article and also in a chapter in his biography of his father, Spencer W. Kimball, in tracing the major historical events of the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood. It was written by Elder McConkie at President Kimball’s request. I heard rumor that Joseph Fielding McConkie tried to use it in his biography of his father, but was asked not to. This seemed strange to me because therein it would have been in context and treated with sensitivity and respect. It is true that the details given in it are very sacred and easily ridiculed by unbelievers. The posted copy has been retyped from 12 double-spaced pages to 5 single. (In fact, I think someone retyped every one of these leaked documents; they are filled with typos and their formatting is not like the originals.) After a quick comparison, it looked like all the original wording was still present.
This document mentions President Kimball asking members of the Twelve who felt so inclined to submit to him a written paper containing their personal views on the question of lifting the priesthood ban on blacks. I believe that is what the document entitled, “Doctrinal Basis for Conferring the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the Negroes” is—Bruce’s follow-up memo as requested by Pres. Kimball. I cannot say this for sure since I have never seen it, but it seems likely given the content.
Here is a link to the memo he mentions:
Doctrinal Basis for Conferring the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the Negroes.
On Dennis Horne's blog, there is also a section from his book
I Know He lives: How 13 Special Witnesses Came to Know Jesus Christ:
Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s Witness of the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood.