Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Will there be people of different race in heaven?
I have often wondered if there will be people of different race in heaven. My first initial thought was "yes, of course". But then I started thinking about how Joseph Smith said that they were brilliantly white, etc. and how one of the apostles said that the "official" picture of Christ did in fact look like him (and thus Heavenly Father looks like that). So, if we are created in the image of God, and he looks like that picture, then can there be race in heaven? The other thought is that darker skin is the sign of the curse that came upon the posterity of Cain for his sin (the actual curse was the removal of the priesthood from his line), so could there be dark skin because that was essentially a deformation?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Actually, the issue of comments by Church leaders is not very clear. First of all, no artistic representation of Christ is anything other than the artist drawing inspiration from the subjects around him or her. This is why Italian representations of Christ look Italic, Danish representations look Nordic, and LDS representations could best be classified as "Wasatch Jesus" or "Malibou Jesus", that is, most definitely Western US (as opposed to Canada, Australia, England, etc.).
As for the rumored comment by an Apostle, this is uncredible. Even if the claim were substantiated, this Apostle or Prophet did not make his statement cannonized scripture, which shows that even he did not put such trust in the assessment.
Secondly, a careful reading of LDS scriptures, including the Bible, shows that "skin darkness" is a metaphor the ancient Hebrews used to mean "out of the presence of God, fallen, or fallen into disfavor with God." This usage appears a few times in the OT, in particular in Lamentations. The Lamanite curse is a perfect example. The Americas were populated long before Lehi arrived here, and the skin color was already brown in most instances, black in some, red in others, yellow in yet others. When the "curse" fell upon the Lamanites, nothing physical happened--a careful reading will show this, and reference can be made to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS) for further research on the scriptural fine points.
The ancient Israelites were brown skinned, much like the average Latino, the moccha brown. Joseph Smith, who saw Paul, said he was "brown-skinned." Samuel the Lamanite was so righteous that he was one of the prophets the Savior himself quoted from when He visisted America, yet Samuel looked "different" enough from Nephites to stand out from them--no physical change to "whiteness" apparently. The only cases of brown or black going white in the Book of Mormon are the offspring of Lamanite-Nephite intermarriage, as in Third Nephi, when the two groups joined as one and their sons and daughters became exceedingly fair--though even this may be spiritual rather than cutaneous.
Moreover, current science says that the earliest humans were brown-skinned, brown/black-haired, and brown-eyed. In the weak-sunned north, white skin and blond/blue eyes evolved, in the deep sun-rich south, black skin afro-hair evolved. Neither of these two extremes were in the Covenant, so righteousness was not the cause of modern whiteness anymore than unrighteousness the cause of blackness. Maybe the question to ask is whether we will look in Heaven as we do now or as we did before we were born? Or will re-birth (resurrection) bring yet another metamorphosis? Note, when Joseph Smith was shown the vision of the Celestial Kingdom, he saw and recognized his deceased brother Alvin, suggesting Alvin will look then as he did in life, but when Abraham saw the vision of the premortal world, the Lord had to point out to Abraham which being was premortal Abraham, suggesting that Abraham did not recognize himself. So, maybe the question to ponder is whether we will look as we do now or differently. Personally, I lean towards as we do now. Variation is not evidence of defect.
Post a Comment