Reader comments
Atonement deters hurt of priesthood restriction

I really enjoyed Brother Corbitt's advice and experience in dealing with the issue, however. I disagree on a few points:

I don't believe that bringing people back to the basics itself is always enough. I think this approach tends to be circular, cautious and stale, for some people this is not enough, and can actually make it *harder*. I believe that we must always make sure that we teach that we never have to or never should give up any of the good in our cultures in order to live the Gospel. Even though we live on Earth at this time, for some, people ethnic identity is sacred and will continue forever. Its rather unfortunate that so many people in the Church don't value diversity or marginalize it. Part of building Zion is bringing beauty to it. I agree we can go to the other extreme, however I feel that at this point we do a mediocre job with diversity in the Church. Im happy to see more discussion of this issue.

Thank you for your testimony and love of Jesus Christ. We are all brothers and sisters, and that makes me glad.

Brother Corbitt, thank you for your wonderful testimony! You are amazing! What a great example you are to all of us...

Thank you, Brother Corbitt. I grew up in a family who was involved in the civil rights movement for many generations--my great grandfather ran a station on the underground railroad. My southern granny's family were of Quaker background. At a time when all kindergartens were private and expensive, she started the first free kindergarten for black children in southern Indiana. I was never more thrilled at anything than when the Priesthood was given to all worthy male members!
We forget that one of the reasons the Saints were driven from Missouri was that they were anti-slavery and there were desperate attempts to bring Missouri into the union as a slave state at that time.
As Al Cherry told me once "It's the Lord's Priesthood and when He is ready, I'll get it."
Thank God for our patient brothers and sisters. Would the rest of us have been as faithful?
Arthur Henry King used to say that we should keep all the truth from our prior cultures and establish not a late 20th Century Western American culture but a Gospel culture. I think he was right.

Thank you, Brother Corbitt, for your eternal perspective. Our ethnic cultures are man-made and therefore imperfect. Sometimes they include elements that are hostile to the Gospel, such as the "macho" culture of some Hispanic nations and the gang culture that has been adopted by many racial minority groups in America. Professor Thomas Sowell (who is black) has explained how many features of urban "black" culture today are actually adoptions from the worst of "white trash" culture in the South, which in turn was adapted from the violent Border culture of North England and South Scotland. It is a culture that is self-limiting.

In contrast, the cultures of many Asian nations have led to the success of Asian immigrants and their descendants. The original immigrants from Japan were farmers and farm laborers, not scholars, but they believed in a culture of education and self-discipline. Asians are not genetically smarter, but inherited a smarter culture.

Harvard has noted that blacks from Jamaica and Bermuda and elsewhere outside the US have a different culture that leads them to succeed on par with whites and Asians in the competitive Harvard environment. Worshipping a man-made culture instead of God is idol worship.