The scriptures in this lesson focus on how/why the gospel of Christianity was to be taken to everyone – not just the Jews that Jesus had taught. This is a great opportunity to bring in issues of race (today) in the classroom or home setting.
Before jumping into discussions, I suggest taking some time to discuss the timeline of how the gospel was taken from the Jews to the Gentiles. Review the following scriptures (if you’re doing it as a class, you may have people read the scriptures individually and then call out what stands out to them or read the Matthew verse together and then divide into 3 groups for people to go over the other three passages together. If you’re doing this with your family/individually, do it in whatever makes sense for the ages of family members):
- Matthew 28:19: Christ commanded the disciples to teach everyone the gospel
- Acts 10: The disciples are further commanded to teach everyone the gospel (including the Gentiles)
- Acts 11:1-18: Some people “of the circumcision” were confused why the Gentiles were getting the gospel, so Peter explained how he’d been commanded to do that.
- Acts 15:1-22: There are disagreements among believers about things like circumcision and they have to work through these things as the gospel is being rolled out for everyone.
Questions to ask/ponder as a class, a family, or individually regarding these scriptures:
- Why were the Gentiles originally excluded? Think about and discuss the socio-political climate of the time [for some historical context, see this post by Christian blogger John Newman: http://newhopelafayette.org/jesusandthegentiles/]
- How might it have felt for the Gentiles to be first excluded and then later included?
- How might it have felt for the Jews to have been raised to exclude the Gentiles and suddenly be asked to include them?
- What sorts of tensions might have arisen (and continued) for centuries?
Read Acts 10:34-35 again as a class/family/individually:
34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
- What does it mean to you that “God is no respecter of persons?”
- How might that have been radical at the time?
- How might that be radical now?
Something similar regarding exclusion happened regarding race during the restoration of the church. This too was largely a socio-political exclusion that we still see tensions because of. Let’s take time to thoroughly review the “Race and the Priesthood” gospel essay. This essay was designed to use in classes and homes and we do not use it enough! So taking a large chunk of class to review it with students (many of whom may have never seen it before) is crucial. If you feel that your students are not familiar with the Gospel Topics Essays, it may help to first explain the purpose of them (as written in the intro to the essays):
“Recognizing that today so much information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be obtained from questionable and often inaccurate sources, officials of the Church began in 2013 to publish straightforward, in-depth essays on a number of topics. The purpose of these essays, which have been approved by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has been to gather accurate information from many different sources and publications and place it in the Gospel Topics section of ChurchofJesusChrist.org, where the material can more easily be accessed and studied by Church members and other interested parties.”
Encourage all students or family members to open their “Gospel Library” app, then click “Topics and Questions,” then “Priesthood and Race,” then “Race and the Priesthood.” I also suggest that, if you are teaching it at church, that you pull it up on a projector so that each class member knows where you are getting the information: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng (Note: I’ve used this in Sunday School before and people asked me if it was from something really obscure or where I could have found it. It needs to be clear to students that it is not from an obscure corner of the internet, but rather is right in their gospel library app and is super easy to get online as well and that the church wants us to be reading these essays). Then, I suggest going through the essay (nearly entirely) and stopping for discussions. The essay is divided into these parts 1- Intro; 2 – The Church in an American Racial Culture; 3 – Removing the Restriction; 4 – The Church Today. You may choose to have class/family members skim on their own then discuss together, or you may choose to read certain paragraphs allowed. Here are some discussion questions for each of the sections:
1 – Intro
How did the socio-political climate impact the restoration of the church?
2 – The Church in an American Racial Culture
Read this section if you/your family/your class are particularly interested in learning more about the socio-political climate, otherwise you may choose to skip this section
3 – Removing the Restriction
Historically, Black individuals were sometimes allowed the Priesthood and sometimes not. How might that have felt for Black members of the church? How might it have felt for Black members when they were officially allowed to get the Priesthood? How might it have felt for the church as a whole?
4 – The Church Today
Though Black individuals have been allowed to hold the Priesthood and make covenants in the temple for more about 50 years, there are still repercussions of this policy that (according to the Church’s gospel essay) was largely a product of the socio-political era. Given this history, how can we create a culture of inclusion in the Church?
Important warning note: I taught this lesson (very similarly to this) 4 years ago when we were studying New Testament and I was the Gospel Doctrine teacher. An old white man came up to me afterward and railed on me for being overly critical of church leaders, etc. (even though I was using the Church’s approved Gospel essay!). I cried and was devastated. I couldn’t believe I attend a church with people who think it is overly critical to admit that there have been racist policies in the church that have impacted the way the church operates. That old white man lives a life where his racism is so much a part of him that he doesn’t see it and it scares him to talk about it. I don’t want to go to a church where people can’t talk about the existence of racism, so I’m going to keep talking about it and keep making people uncomfortable and hope that you do too and we can see some real change. But, I do want to warn you that there may be push-back from this lesson.
And, here are my white kids posing in front a Black Lives Matter sign. I talk to them about race/racism regularly. It should be something that adults can talk about as well.
