Churchwide Sunday School Manual Revives Mormon Racial Concerns

A recent blunder with a Sunday school manual for use by all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could set back progress the Utah-based faith has made on the issue of racism in the past few years — and alienate people of color.

Last year, the church produced a new manual for its 2020 curriculum, which will be a study of the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, which Latter-day Saints believe tells the religious history of peoples in the ancient Americas.

Several passages describe a “dark skin” descending on one of the clans, and for much of the faith’s history that has been seen as a racial “curse.” These days, though, that interpretation is no longer part of church teaching.

That is why several early readers of the 2020 “Come, Follow Me” manual were troubled to see a note in one lesson that is a throwback to previous thinking.

“The dark skin was placed upon the Lamanites so that they could be distinguished from the Nephites and to keep the two peoples from mixing,” the book explains, citing a statement made some 60 years ago by then-apostle and future church President Joseph Fielding Smith. “The dark skin was the sign of the curse. The curse was the withdrawal of the Spirit of the Lord. … Dark skin … is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse.” (Read more from “Churchwide Sunday School Manual Revives Mormon Racial Concerns” HERE)

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