�鶹��ý

In 1968 Moses Mahlangu, a Black South African man, knocked on the back door of the mission home in suburban Johannesburg to request baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was an unusual request, which left the missionaries wondering how they should proceed. In part because of the Church’s policy regarding priesthood ordination and temple participation for those with Black African ancestry but more especially because of concern for the political and social conditions in South Africa, circumstances forced Mahlangu to wait until September 6, 1980, before his request was granted.[1]

When Mahlangu arrived at the mission home, South Africa was two decades into its policy of apartheid, or what the government euphemistically called the “separate development” of its racial groups. In defiance of domestic and international pressure, the White minority government held its grip on power by implementing measures that curtailed human and civil rights until the system began to be dismantled in the early 1990s and a more democratic interim constitution was implemented in 1994.[2] If religious freedom is defined by the Latter-day Saint canonical standard—that is, the “privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of [the individual’s] own conscience” and the right of all persons to “worship how, where, or what they may” (Articles of Faith 1:11)—members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not enjoy religious freedom in apartheid-era South Africa. Nor were they alone. Most religious groups experienced at least some limitations, but in comparison to the gross violations of human rights that were the lot of millions of South Africans, the treatment of Latter-day Saints and would-be Latter-day Saints was relatively mild.[3] Opposition to the government was silenced—often brutally, through a system of house arrest, imprisonment, and state-sponsored murder and terrorism. As the South African theologian Willem Saayman has argued, “Where no justiciable Bill of Human Rights exists, the claim that there is freedom of religion is a contradiction in terms.”[4] Whatever apparent religious freedom may have been practiced was more a product of toleration than true freedom.[5] The South African government showed that it was willing to deprecate natural human rights to the de jure rights of White South Africans to discriminate against the majority of their fellow citizens. For Moses Mahlangu, the right to affiliate with the church of his choice was one more right among many denied to him by the apartheid state.

The Church was circumscribed in its actions by a persistent and not unfounded fear that the government would put a complete stop to the Latter-day Saints’ ability to preach the gospel in South Africa, particularly by refusing missionary visas. Sometimes the Church faced explicit legal restrictions that curtailed its operations. At other times they were limited by fears that the technically lawful actions of missionaries or Church members in South Africa or abroad might aggravate government officials who had the ability to seriously impede the Church’s activities. Many major decisions were affected, including the calling of missionaries and mission presidents, the areas where missionaries were assigned to labor, and with whom they worked. A notable result was the delayed baptisms of Moses Mahlangu and others.

Throughout the apartheid period, the Church held a position that the gospel of Jesus Christ was the only real solution to South Africa’s problems. President David O. McKay told South African reporters in 1954 that the gospel was the only way to peace.[6] In 1969 and 1970 Elders Boyd K. Packer and Marion G. Romney went so far as to say that the gospel was South Africa’s only chance of survival.[7] Local members echoed these statements as well. Isaac Swartzberg told a Canadian visitor in October 1986, “We know we could solve the problems in our land if everyone would join the church.”[8] In pursuit of that peace and security, Church leaders maintained a long-term vision, adopting a cautious compliance in hopes of carrying out their commission to preach the gospel, attempting to establish a foothold for Zion in Africa.

Christianity, White Settlement, and the Beginnings of Apartheid

In a country so concerned with classification, the place of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is difficult to pin down. Much of the historiography of Christianity (like everything else) in South Africa is divided into a multiplicity of categories. The first of these is race, and within White Christianity the primary divisions are the Afrikaans- and English-speaking churches.[9] Especially as it relates to issues of race, those who write about this period often highlight the English-speaking churches as champions of the Black community and sworn enemies of apartheid. On the other hand, they cast the Afrikaans-speaking churches as the drama’s antagonists, tragically backward and deluded in their commitment to apartheid.[10] Of course, neither group was entirely monolithic in opinion. On one end of the spectrum were the vocally anti-apartheid Anglican clerics, such as Trevor Huddleston, Michael Scott, and Ambrose Reeves. But even they did not represent the entirety of Anglican opinion; Geoffrey Clayton, the Anglican metropolitan archbishop of Cape Town, saw their activism as a misguided extremism. Some on the more radical end of the spectrum have even criticized the English-speaking churches as having “a dominant theology of moderation, formed by a history of compromise” which weakened their anti-apartheid witness.[11] The Baptist Union of South Africa has been shown to be one example of a Christian church whose internal disagreement prohibited raising a strong voice in opposition to apartheid.[12] The Seventh-day Adventists have also been criticized for being “more passive than average” in their response to South Africa’s racial order.[13] On the other side of the issue, the Dutch Reformed minister Beyers Naudé was forced from his pulpit for his anti-apartheid work.

Most often left out of this story (perhaps because it does not fit easily within either category) is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which at times had both Afrikaans- and English-speaking congregations. In the 1960s, when the South African Mission was officially categorized as a “foreign speaking” mission, South African Latter-day Saints were almost evenly divided between White Afrikaans and English speakers.[14] A few congregations also included members the state officially classified as other races, but they were a small minority. Eventually, after 1978, congregations were established in Black and Indian areas, with predominantly Black or Indian congregants; however, a core of White leadership and other members buoyed up the branches, teaching them the procedures by which they would eventually run the congregations on their own.[15] Still, the numbers of non-White Latter-day Saints were relatively small, and the Church could be classified as a “White church” during the apartheid era. One generalization about the churches that does fit the Latter-day Saints during this period is John de Gruchy’s observation that those churches with fewer Black members were less vocal in their objections to apartheid.[16]

Latter-day Saint missionaries had baptized South Africans with Black ancestry since the earliest days of the mission in 1853, but the priesthood and temple restriction led to a primary focus on the country’s White residents. Even then, the missionaries’ efforts were short lived. The Church made three abortive attempts at establishing a mission in the mid-nineteenth century, and after an absence of nearly four decades, missionaries returned to South Africa in 1903. At the beginning of this latest effort, the restriction was reiterated to Warren H. Lyon, the new president of the South African Mission, by Francis M. Lyman, the president of the European Mission with supervisory responsibility for the mission at the Cape of Good Hope. In a letter to Lyon on October 2, Lyman wrote, “In the Southern States we have been shy about baptizing Negros. If a negro brings forth the fruits of the gospel as required, . . . I see no reason why he may not be baptized. . . . It will be well to let them know that their condition will prevent them from receiving the Priesthood. This is all who have nogro [sic] blood in them.”[17]

Notwithstanding the restrictions placed upon them by the Church, Lyman rejected contemporary arguments that Black Africans were not fully human or entitled to salvation through Christ. He wrote in theLatter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, which was published in Britain and widely read by missionaries and members in Africa, “We look upon the negro as a human being, a child of Adam, who with all other members of the human race will be resurrected from the dead. Like his white brother the negro is capable of having belief in the Lord and has a consciousness of sin. Where sincere faith and repentance are manifested and all conditions are proper, negroes may be baptized and receive the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”[18]

By 1908 interest from Black South Africans was sufficient that Lyon’s successor as mission president, Ralph Badger, asked Church leaders in Salt Lake City for clarification of the policy. On August 28 the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles decided that if Black Africans should “apply for baptism themselves they might be admitted to Church membership in the understanding that nothing further can be done for them,” but that missionaries “should not take the initiative.”[19] Decades later, Church president David O. McKay affirmed that Black Africans had a right to Church membership. In a 1962 discussion among the First Presidency about the possibility of expanding Church operations in Africa, he told his counselors that Africans “are entitled to the gospel.”[20]

Mahlangu’s request came by his own initiative, rather than the missionaries’, but apartheid meant there were other considerations. As Hugh B. Brown noted in another meeting of the First Presidency in 1962, the Church’s hands were tied in South Africa. First counselor Henry D. Moyle noted that the plans being considered for proselytizing and establishing congregations in West Africa could not be carried out in South Africa. Brown responded, “That is not our fault. It is the government’s fault. The government in South Africa would not permit us to do it.”[21]

Apartheid Politics and Policies

South Africa’s White voters had shocked the world in 1948 by handing a plurality of seats in the National Assembly to apartheid’s architects and supporters in the National Party, primarily made up of Afrikaners. The National Party (NP) had campaigned on their policy of apartheid and there was no question that their ruling coalition with the even more nationalist Afrikaner Party would mean a hardening of South Africa’s existing racial divides and a further codification of its systemic racism. One Latter-day Saint missionary, writing in his journal three days after the polls closed, noted an emboldened Afrikaner population and concluded, “This new election business is causing quite a stir.”[22] It would have serious consequences for the Church.

The newly elected Parliament sat for the first time in August and apartheid was on everyone’s agenda. Former prime minister Jan Christian Smuts, now leader of the opposition, pressed the new government to define their signature policy, criticizing it as vague propaganda. But the new prime minister, Daniel Francois Malan, replied that apartheid was fully spelled out in the party’s election manifesto. They had been presenting their apartheid plan to Parliament and the electorate for years. Malan himself had told the House of Assembly in 1944 of apartheid’s aim to “give the various races the opportunity of uplifting themselves on the basis of what is their own.”[23] The promotion of one’s “own,” or eie in Afrikaans, was fundamental to apartheid ideology. In particular was the volkseie, or that which was intrinsic to the Afrikaner volk (people) by divine decree, especially their language and their (Dutch) Reformed faith.[24]

Apartheid had deep roots in Christian soil. In 1857 the Cape synod of the Dutch Reformed Church allowed for the creation of racially defined congregations when White Christians objected to attending services with Black Africans who had been converted through a series of evangelical revivals. The word apartheid, with its currently understood meaning, entered the Christian lexicon in 1929, when Dutch Reformed mission theorists in South Africa proposed it as a means of allowing Black Christians to develop their own Christian faith and institutions free from White interference. In both cases the decisions were made in recognition of a Christian ideal of unity with an implicit criticism of the racism at root. However, Dutch Reformed thinkers in South Africa continued to develop a theological justification for ecclesial and eventually political apartheid based on the idea of the volkseie.[25] Convinced that it was the only way to allow Black Christians to develop authentically African churches, similar ideas were propounded by some American, English, and Scottish missionaries as well.[26]

But these debates held little interest for Evan P. Wright, who arrived in South Africa as the new Latter-day Saint mission president six months after the election that brought the Afrikaner Nationalists to power. He presided over a largely White church that had no program or ambition for proselytizing anyone other than the country’s White residents. Nevertheless, he noted concerns arising out of the country’s new direction. Wright had served in the mission as a younger man and returned to open a chain of restaurants. He had lived in the country on and off in the interim and had strong ties with the White business community. The mission president downplayed initial reactions to the unfolding apartheid regime and later defended apartheid in public fora and private correspondence, but during his service in South Africa, Wright worried about the government’s attitude to the rest of the world and how it may affect the Church.[27] In November 1949, he wrote to the First Presidency that he “view[ed] the future with some concern unless there is a change of government.”[28] His concern remained, and he wrote about it again in June 1950: “Conditions for missionary work are still favorable in South Africa although I have more concern about the future of this country than I have had in the past. The Nationalist Government in power is quite unpredictable, and they appear to have the philosophy that has been traditional with the Afrikaans people in wanting to divorce themselves from contact with the rest of the world including social and cultural benefits.”[29]

South African historians Rodney Davenport and Christopher Saunders have called this period of Afrikaner withdrawal from the world stage a “trek into the wilderness.”[30] Living through it, Wright reported “serious import restrictions” and that despite what he called “very cordial relations with the Immigration Department,” the mission was experiencing a minor issue arising from the pre-apartheid Aliens Act of 1937. Though he wrote that “this matter isn’t very important,” he tellingly informed the First Presidency that he was “anxious not to offend [the government] or to give cause for any irritation.” Expressing what would become the Church’s de facto policy, he stated that he believed it was better to comply with burdensome regulations “rather than cause any difficulties.” He worried the situation “may be an indication of their attitude and it could be that conditions will not be quite so favorable for us in the future.”[31] Wright’s caution continued, and he reported the next year that he felt it necessary to be “very careful in all dealings so that we do not offend [the government] in any way.” The strategy seemed to be working, insofar as keeping Church operations running smoothly; the government had “granted [the mission] import permits when the permits have been denied to the Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, and other groups.” Nevertheless, Wright believed that it would not be wise to “push this matter” of raising the quota of missionary visas at the present time.[32] The issue of visas persisted as a primary consideration throughout the apartheid period.

The NP-led government had gone to work immediately after their election to defend their idea of the White South African (specifically Afrikaner) volkseie. The Aliens Act of 1937 was intended to curb increasing immigration from Jews fleeing the Nazi regime in Germany. The act barred anyone from immigrating who was deemed unlikely to effectively “assimilate” into White South African culture. The tightening enforcement Wright noted evidenced the emboldened Afrikaner Nationalist government using the vague criterion of “assimilability” to limit immigration from anyone they found potentially undesirable. Latter-day Saint missionaries were notably alien and made no attempt to assimilate. Not only did they not speak Afrikaans, they were not Reformed and were actively trying to dissuade others from the Reformed faith seen by many as central to Afrikaner identity.[33]

Not content to merely reinterpret existing laws, however, the government introduced a bevy of legislation intended to protect the Afrikaner volkseie. The Population Registration Act of 1950 was the lynchpin of the apartheid system. It required that all South Africans be classified and registered according to their race. This was no easy task. In most cases, racial identity might appear somewhat obvious, but a long history of interracial relationships had produced a sizable community of mixed-race South Africans known as “Coloured,” as well as some families generally passing as White but in which some family members displayed features considered indicative of other racial classifications. Once a person’s race had been determined, it was officially registered, and individuals were required to retain proof of their classification. Racially based population registration then facilitated other apartheid legislation, including the previous year’s Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act of 1950, which outlawed interracial marriages and extramarital sexual liaisons between “Europeans” and “Non-Europeans.” Population registration also facilitated the Group Areas Act, which created separate racially defined residential and business areas.

The Church Attempts to Remain above the Fray

The NP’s ambitious agenda was not universally supported, leading the government to enact measures to silence the growing number of critics. The Church did its best to carry out its mission while remaining aloof from politics while organizations such as the African National Congress led a vocal and sometimes violent opposition. The multiracial (but White-led) Springbok Legion and the War Veterans’ Torch Commando, known for their torchlight processions, mobilized significant public demonstrations. On May 28, 1950, twenty thousand Black, Coloured, and Indian South Africans gathered in protest against a proposed Unlawful Organisations Bill, which was eventually withdrawn and replaced with the notorious Suppression of Communism Bill.

The new, revised bill became law on July 17, 1950. In addition to outlawing the South African Communist Party, it broadly defined communism to include “any doctrine or scheme . . . which aims at bringing about any political, industrial, social, or economic change within the Union [of South Africa].” Especially anathema were connections to foreign governments or other organizations (including churches) which promoted such change.[34] Any organization that the government determined supported communism thus defined could be declared unlawful, disbanded, and its property liquidated. In addition, the minister of justice could direct the liquidator to compile a list of the organization’s members.[35] Anyone so listed that was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act or (without trial) declared by the government to be furthering the aims of South Africa’s idiosyncratic definition of communism could be “banned,” which prohibited them from traveling outside a defined area, holding public office, publishing their views, or attending public meetings (which was sometimes defined as meeting with more than one person at a time). Even quoting a banned person was an offense. Non-South Africans (most Latter-day Saint missionaries in the country) could be deported.[36] The sweeping nature of the government’s application of the act was apparent in the banning orders placed on peaceful non-communists, such as Albert Luthuli. The subject of multiple banning orders, in 1960 Luthuli became the first African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent role in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Luthuli, like many other prominent anti-apartheid activists, was a committed Christian. With many of the most vocal protest movements banned by the government, the churches became important opposition voices. Notwithstanding apartheid’s origins among Christian missiologists and the ongoing support of the Afrikaner-dominated Dutch Reformed Churches, many saw opposition to apartheid as a Christian imperative. In contrast were Latter-day Saints who sought to avoid difficulties with the government by scrupulously complying with government regulations. Evan Wright even tried to distance the Church from politically active Christians, especially missionaries. He observed that for “the average European living on the African continent, a missionary was a person from overseas who went to Africa and interfered with natives and native policies.” Consequently, while he presided over the mission, he instructed missionaries to refer to themselves as “official representatives.”[37] If someone as prominent as Ambrose Reeves, the Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, could be deported for publicly opposing apartheid, the far less numerically significant Latter-day Saints could be expelled very easily. Without an established stake staffed by local members, the expulsion of the missionaries could be devastating to the Church.

Theoretically, the Church in South Africa could be administered by local members without the missionaries, but the number of priesthood holders was severely limited by a strict adherence to the priesthood and temple restriction under Wright and further compounded by the heightened racial awareness under apartheid. Before his departure for Africa, Wright told the First Presidency of his long-standing concern that many men in South Africa had been, as he said, “thoughtlessly ordained” without consideration for the centuries of interracial relationships which had endowed many seemingly White South Africans with unknown or unacknowledged Black African ancestry.[38] It was to that meeting Wright traced his authority to withhold all priesthood ordinations in the mission until genealogical research proved lineage outside of Africa.[39] In service of this policy, he initiated a robust genealogical program in the mission, even adding two rooms to the mission office to accommodate missionaries diverted from proselytizing to genealogy as well as the records they used and produced.

Notwithstanding Wright’s efforts to help by providing assistance with genealogical research, the overall policy and enforcement of it were met with derision in the context of the increasing racial awareness of the early apartheid era. Many South African Latter-day Saints were unable to meet the requirements and resented Wright’s strict enforcement. In some cases, when members suspected further research would reveal what were called “restricted lines,” they simply stopped researching, fearing confirmation more than the presumption of a theological blackness at a time when political blackness was becoming more and more undesirable. Although Latter-day Saints were a religious Other within South Africa, their whiteness afforded them a privileged position relative to adherents of other minority religions. Hinduism and Islam, which were primarily practiced by Asian and Black South Africans, received a lesser status.[40] Acknowledging anything other than a White European heritage jeopardized both social and political standing. As a result, many men were not ordained, causing a shortage of available priesthood holders to administer the Church and its programs. Wright described the situation as a “very serious problem.”[41] In January 1954 President McKay visited South Africa to “observe conditions as they are” and announced an end to the policy requiring South African Latter-day Saints to prove an absence of Black African ancestry to be ordained to the priesthood or participate in temple liturgies.[42]

At the same time Latter-day Saints in South Africa rejoiced over the relaxed policy regarding priesthood ordination, the government responded to the domestic and international anti-apartheid and civil rights movements with ever more restrictive legislation and enforcement. The civil rights movement in the United States was gaining momentum, scoring an important victory on May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ending the “separate but equal” doctrine. In November that same year, the ardent White supremacist and Afrikaner nationalist Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom became prime minister and moved South Africa further toward a complete withdrawal from the world community and its increasing commitment to racial equality. Parliament passed the Customs Act in 1955, allowing authorities to keep out publications considered to be indecent, obscene, or otherwise objectionable (which often meant they advocated for racial equality and integration). Foreign publications were thus tightly controlled at the border while unacceptable domestic publications were banned under the Suppression of Communism Act.[43] For the Church, this could mean restrictions on curriculum and other printed materials being imported into the country if the government did not approve of their content.

In this environment, the issue of visas for the Church’s foreign missionaries reached its apex in 1955. Within two months of Strijdom’s ascension to the premiership, the mission history begins to note difficulty obtaining visas for foreign missionaries. Mission president Leroy H. Duncan made frequent attempts to get answers from evasive government officials. On April 1, Duncan was finally informed that “the conditions under which representatives of all churches [enter the country] were being revised and it would be several weeks before a decision would be announced.”[44] The review lasted more than three years.[45] In the meantime, the last American missionaries called before the freeze on visas were released and set sail for the United States on April 19, 1957.[46] The visa moratorium, however, did not apply to native South Africans and Commonwealth subjects, so the Church of Jesus Christ sent Canadian missionaries—including a Canadian mission president—to the South African Mission. During the review period, Church members reported being visited and questioned by government security officers. Among other questions, members said they were always asked about the Church’s policy toward proselytizing Black South Africans, demonstrating officials’ concerns that Latter-day Saint missionaries would live up to stereotypes of missionaries stirring up Black South African discontent. When mission president Glen G. Fisher (a Canadian) and Harold B. Lee, the apostle then responsible for South Africa, visited with the secretary of the interior to discuss matters on October 6, 1958, they were told that changes were on their way after the death of Prime Minister Strijdom a few weeks before. Satisfied that the Church was not actively proselytizing Black South Africans or openly criticizing apartheid, the government granted sixty visas for foreign missionaries. It was fifteen fewer than they were granted before, but Lee and Fisher were advised not to press for more.[47] To keep a sufficient number of missionaries in the country, Canadians continued to make up a larger than usual component of the missionary force in South Africa, though in 1966 officials threatened to include them in the quota granted to the Church as well.[48] It is unclear if the threat was a response to repeated statements from the Church on civil rights, including one made the previous year in the March 9 issue of the Deseret News.[49]

There was good reason to be wary of upsetting the government when Moses Mahlangu arrived at the mission home in 1968. When mission president Howard C. Badger introduced Mahlangu to Marion G. Romney a few months later, the visiting apostle charged Badger to make sure there were no government objections before baptizing Black South Africans. The Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957 allowed the minister of native affairs to forbid Black South Africans from attending worship services in White areas if he deemed their presence to be disruptive.[50] However, this prohibition was rarely enforced and interracial church services were common.[51] Government permission was given for Mahlangu to be baptized, but with the caveat that Black Latter-day Saints could not meet with White congregations.[52] This was beyond what a strict reading of the law required and before 1978, Black-only Church meetings would have been impossible for Latter-day Saints. In a December 27, 1968, letter to Romney, Badger reported that the government required “we do not have the natives meeting with European congregations.” He did not say anything about White priesthood holders presiding at meetings for Black members.[53] Nevertheless, Church leaders in Salt Lake worried the South African government would proscribe any service in which a White member officiated in an ordinance for Black South Africans, effectively forbidding their baptism despite official permission being granted. President McKay’s diary notes that at a meeting of the First Presidency and Twelve Apostles on January 13, 1969, “The brethren mentioned that baptized negroes [in South Africa] couldn’t hold a sacrament meeting without white men holding the priesthood being there to bless and administer the sacrament, that as a matter of fact they couldn’t have baptismal services without a white man doing the baptizing, and other meetings likewise.”[54] The First Presidency and Twelve Apostles decided that Mahlangu and his associates who also wished to join the Church should be told they were welcome to join the Church but that the government’s position may make it inadvisable.[55] Badger was not eager to make waves. A former member of the Utah House of Representatives, he was familiar with the political art of the possible. Despite having received written approval, he feared the government would see the move as antagonistic and would renege on a supposed agreement that the government would allow missionaries to enter the country and proselytize so long as the Church confined its activities to White South Africans.[56]

Subsequent mission presidents also wrestled with the issue of baptizing Black South Africans and noted the difficulty of the circumstances. Mission president Harlan W. Clark wrote to William H. Bennett, an Assistant to the Twelve with responsibility for Africa, on December 4, 1970. It is clear from the letter that Clark had previously asked Bennett what should be done about Mahlangu and Philip, the mission gardener. The mission president suggested Bennett contact Howard Badger and provided him with his phone number in Salt Lake. Bennett’s conversation with Badger revealed the latter’s concern that any appearance that the Church was working with Black South Africans would prompt the government to deny missionaries permission to enter the country.[57] Meanwhile, the government reminded them that they were watching. From time to time, immigration officials would contact the mission office to inquire about the actions of specific missionaries.[58] This was a frequent tactic by the government to keep individuals and organizations in check.[59] Clark told Bennett he believed that work among Black South Africans “would be impossible under present conditions.”[60]

The infamous “church clause” in the 1957 act brought the government and the churches into direct conflict for the first time. Even moderates like Geoffrey Clayton, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, felt compelled to speak out. Clayton had previously been critical of the vocal opposition which had gotten Huddelston, Reeves, and Scott expelled from the country. But the government had gone too far even for him. He wrote to J. G. Strijdom on March 6, 1957, while the bill was still under consideration by Parliament, calling it “an infringement of religious freedom.” Further, he informed the prime minister “that if the Bill were to become law in its present form we should ourselves [the Anglican bishops] be unable to obey it or to counsel our clergy and people to do so.”[61] The executive of the Baptist Union also made a rare statement pledging civil disobedience in the face of the proposed law.[62] A slightly modified version passed which, though rarely invoked, remained in effect until 1978, when it was relaxed at the request of the Dutch Reformed Church.[63]

It was not the last time the churches stood up to the government. When White police killed 69 protestors and wounded 186 others in the Black township of Sharpeville, Geoffrey Clayton’s successor as archbishop of Cape Town, Joost de Blank, blamed the Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa for their complicity in apartheid. He wrote to the World Council of Churches demanding they be expelled or South Africa’s Anglicans would be forced to withdraw. In response, the WCC called for a consultation in which South Africa’s churches could “seek under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to understand the complex problems of human relationships in this country.”[64] Eighty delegates from South Africa’s eight member churches and five delegates from outside the country met in Cottesloe, outside Johannesburg, December 7–14, 1960. Not a member of the WCC, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not participate, but echoes of the Consultation’s decisions would later be heard in a statement Hugh B. Brown read in general conference. Working from documents prepared by theologians from the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK, the largest of the Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa), the group produced a statement “rejecting all unjust discrimination” and issuing an “appeal to our Churches and to all Christians, calling on them to consider every point where they may unite their ministry on behalf of human beings in the spirit of equity.” They rejected South Africa’s practice of restricting jobs to specific races and the right to purchase property in racially defined areas.[65] All the delegations agreed to the statement except the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, another of the Dutch Reformed churches.

In the end, the Consultation failed to bring the Afrikaans- and English-speaking churches together, and the government proved its willingness to interfere with the churches on even the most fundamental level of doctrine. Prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd was reportedly livid at the Consultation’s final report, calling the exercise “an attempt by foreigners to meddle in the country’s internal affairs.”[66] The government and the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond lobbied elders sent to the churches’ synods. Despite its origins with their own delegates, the NGK’s synods refused to endorse the statement and left the World Council of Churches in protest. Cottesloe thus further entrenched the divide between Afrikaans- and English-speaking churches while cementing the bond between the English-speaking churches in their combined efforts against apartheid. Many of them came together in 1968 to found the South African Council of Churches, which became a major anti-apartheid voice to the point that the security police bombed its headquarters in 1988. The government sent a more subtle but no less clear message to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regarding political involvement. If they wished to continue sending foreign missionaries into the country, they would have to steer clear of politics.

Assiduously attempting to stay out of South Africa’s racial politics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was being drawn into the civil rights issue in the United States, which had implications for the Church and racial issues worldwide. In 1963 Church leaders learned of a plan by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to demonstrate at the October general conference in hopes of pushing the Church to use its influence to pass civil rights legislation in Utah. Further subtext was the Church’s priesthood and temple restriction. The NAACP agreed to call off the march if the Church would make a statement. Before delivering a talk titled “The Fight Between Good and Evil,” Hugh B. Brown, first counselor in the First Presidency, read a statement approved by President McKay. “We would like it to be known,” the statement said, “that there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.” Echoing Francis M. Lyman’s words from sixty years before, the statement continued, “We say again, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God, and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny any human being the right to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.” The statement finished with a universal call to action: “We call upon all men, everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God’s children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man.” [67]

Despite the statement’s unequivocal language, the Church’s position appeared ambiguous, with conflicting messages coming from senior leaders. Use of the phrase “moral evil” seemed to bring civil rights into the Church’s sphere rather than mere politics. Nevertheless, two years later, and again under pressure from the NAACP to support civil rights legislation in Utah, the First Presidency was reluctant to get involved. Despite his participation in drafting the 1963 statement, Elder Tanner told representatives from the NAACP that civil rights was not a moral question. President McKay felt the Church had said all that needed to be or should be said on the matter. He did not feel it needed repeating, but he reluctantly approved Deseret News’s reprint of the 1963 statement.[68] Other leaders took a more definite stand on the other end of the question. Then-apostle Ezra Taft Benson, for example, publicly argued that the civil rights movement was a communist plot.[69]

Nevertheless, Brown’s statement in 1963 had at least the appearance of an official position of the First Presidency and some may have read into it the South African situation. The apostle had visited South Africa in 1961 and publicly described the political situation as “highly explosive and volatile.”[70] As it did elsewhere, South Africa featured on the front page of Utah’s newspapers, including the Church-owned Deseret News.[71] Three days after Brown read his statement, Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists would stand trial, leading to decades of imprisonment. South Africa’s state security apparatus may have taken note of what was happening in Utah. In 1965, after the statement was reprinted, South African transport minister B. J. Schoeman made a detour from his official visit to the United States to Utah, where he met with Brown and future Church president Harold B. Lee, who had met with government officials about the visa situation in 1958.[72] According to the South African Mission magazine, which reported the visit, the minister “invited Americans to South Africa to see for themselves the strides being made in that country.”[73] Inviting others to see apartheid for themselves was a frequent refrain of South African propaganda.[74] Other South African diplomats, with specific responsibility for issuing visas, were also sent to Utah to meet with Church leaders.[75]

New Problems and New Opportunities

The government’s close observation of the Church meant that when the revelation was received in June 1978 extending the full blessings of the priesthood and temple to Black Latter-day Saints, the attitude in South Africa remained one of caution. In fact, the mood may have shifted toward a greater anxiety. Mission president E. Dale LeBaron (another Canadian) met with a government secretary on August 7, 1978, in hopes, once again, of raising the cap on missionary visas. In what began as a contentious meeting, the secretary asked LeBaron; Louis Hefer, the country’s only stake president, and Isaac Swartzberg, an attorney and Church member; why the Church had lifted the priesthood and temple restriction and how it would affect the work in South Africa.[76] The potential reaction of South Africa’s government had been a consideration in the Church’s decisions to initiate and subsequently suspend efforts to establish the Church in other areas in Africa even before the revelation.[77] LeBaron’s answer is not included in his journal, but it must have been satisfactory to the questioning official.

The meeting was successful and the quota was lifted, but there were still restrictions and reasons to be cautious. Most Black South Africans lived in areas off limits to Latter-day Saint missionaries. Such was the case with a man who approached missionaries in Uitenhage on August 24.[78] To avoid problems with the government and local Church members, LeBaron instructed his missionaries to teach Black South Africans on a referral basis only, seeking out leadership for future Black branches. The missionaries were not to baptize more than a few Black families in each congregation.[79] Twenty years after visas had been again granted in 1958, fears remained that they could be revoked at any time.[80] The recent deportation of foreign missionaries from other churches was noted in correspondence between Bennett and Apostle Spencer W. Kimball as late as 1971.[81]

Additional background on the lifting of the visa quota as well as a related episode that illustrates the Church’s relationship to the government was provided by Robert P. Thorn, who served as mission president just before LeBaron from 1973 to 1976. In 1974, at detachment of Brigham Young University’s Young Ambassadors performing troupe toured Southern Africa. Thorn recalls, “They were called, for overseas purposes, the Sounds of Freedom, and we even abbreviated that, because of South African politics, to the Sounds. We left off the freedom part.” When the tour was finished, the mission was left with ten thousand South African rand from the ticket sales in excess of the costs of renting the concert venues. Thorn decided to give the money to the government. To receive the money, he selected Jimmy Kruger, who was minister of justice, police, and prisons. “I just thought that we may have an incident occur where I’d want to pick up the phone and call the minister to have him push the magic button that would release two of our missionaries that had been . . .” The ellipses are in the original typescript, indicating some implied predicament. Kruger and his wife, Susan, accepted an invitation to dinner at the mission home, where they were entertained with singing by the missionaries and a screening of a film on the Book of Mormon.

The mission president’s cordial relationship with government minsters did not end there. About a month later the two men encountered each other on a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Kruger invited Thorn to his official residence for “tea,” though he knew about the Word of Wisdom’s prohibition of tea and had something else prepared for his guests to drink. Thorn mentioned he needed to meet with Cornelius Petrus “Connie” Mulder, the minister of interior affairs, whose department was responsible for the visa quota imposed on the missionaries. Kruger arranged a meeting, which ended in Mulder telling Thorn the quota would be lifted, though he did not give a specific date. Thorn traced the end of the quotas in 1978 to this meeting.[82]

However it happened, the Church had an even more delicate balancing act to perform. LeBaron had multiple discussions with visiting General Authorities and local leaders about what should be done with a now potentially expanded missionary force but worsening political tensions and government restrictions. Under the Affected Organizations Act of 1974, for example, Parliament gave the government power to shut down any organization that was “in consultation with or under the influence of an organization or person abroad” if it was believed “that politics are being engaged in.”[83] A student protest in Johannesburg’s Soweto township on June 16, 1976, had resulted in 176 deaths and widespread unrest lasting until 1980.[84] When Spencer W. Kimball and other Church leaders arrived in South Africa to create the country’s second stake in 1978, LeBaron asked Neal A. Maxwell, then a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy, how they should move forward in South Africa’s unique circumstances. President Kimball instructed a special meeting of missionaries on October 23 to move ahead immediately but cautiously in baptizing Black South Africans.[85] LeBaron also met with Louis Hefer, by then a regional representative and the two stake presidents, Olev Taim and Johann Brummer, about the same issue on multiple occasions.[86]

It would take another mission president (yet another Canadian), Lowell D. Wood, to really push for active proselytization of South Africa’s majority population. He was also cautious but determined to push the envelope. One missionary remembers him saying, “Excuse me, wasn’t there a revelation given about a year ago about the Priesthood? Why are we not teaching these people?”[87] He asked a local attorney to review all relevant laws that could be an obstacle to welcoming Black investigators and members into the Church and its buildings. He found none.[88] The stake and mission presidents decided that the Johannesburg Stake would work to establish Black congregations in Soweto and that the Sandton Stake would work in Alexandra.[89] The baptisms of Black South Africans began at least as early as January 1980.[90] Around that same time, missionaries began working with government leaders to allow the elders to enter Black areas and permits were issued.[91] In June Black converts outnumbered Whites for the first time.[92] The first Indian South Africans were baptized in June as well.[93]

With Black, Coloured, and Indian South Africans joining the Church, some wished to serve missions. The matter of their assignments was carefully considered. Church leaders had learned that there was no prohibition against different races meeting together in worship, but the laws restricting living conditions remained. Missionary companions of different races could not live together lawfully.[94] In October 1984 Sipho Moses Khomo became the first Black South African to be called on a full-time mission, accepting an assignment to the England London Mission. Other Black South Africans called on missions were also assigned outside the country.[95] Their assignments to foreign missions avoided the issues of apartheid in their own country but robbed South Africa of local missionaries who were fluent in the languages and customs of their people. The situation was not ideal. Both mission presidents and General Authorities had expressed a preference for White South African missionaries being assigned to their own country because of their linguistic and cultural facility.[96] But this was not then possible for Black South African missionaries under apartheid.

Nevertheless, the Church was moving forward to fulfill its mandate in South Africa even if it had to make some accommodations for the circumstances in the country. While calls to boycott and disinvest from South Africa spread, the Church continued its policy of a spiritual activism. Church leaders were becoming more confident in their ability to move forward without the reprisals they feared previously. The surest sign of the Church’s confidence came on April 1, 1981, when President Kimball announced the Church would build a temple in Johannesburg. It was a concrete statement of the Church’s long-term intentions in the country. Church spokesman Heber Wolsey told reporters at a press conference in Salt Lake that all races would be welcome in the new temple. When asked about the South African government’s potential reaction, Wolsey replied that it would be “inappropriate for us to speculate.”[97] The situation was changing in South Africa. Bowing to international and domestic pressure, the government was then turning a blind eye to thousands of Black South Africans living in areas near the temple in open defiance of the Group Areas Act.[98]

Things, however, would get worse before they got better, which forced a temporary contraction of what had been the Church’s expanding efforts in Black areas. A new constitution entrenched racial separation, sparking more vigorous opposition and a tough government response. Due to the increasing violence, mission president Maurice Bateman withdrew missionaries from the areas experiencing the most violence, such as Soweto.[99] A boycott of businesses in White areas forced Julia Mavimbela, a Black Latter-day Saint woman who wished to attend events surrounding the construction and dedication of the temple, to find creative solutions. Afraid of violent reprisals from those who would think her presence in the White area around the temple was evidence of collaboration with the government, on one occasion she wrapped her grandson’s arm in a bandage and planned to tell anyone who asked that she was taking him to the hospital (conveniently located a short walk from the temple).[100] She became one of the first Black women to serve as a temple worker and likely said a silent “amen” as Gordon B. Hinckley, then second counselor in the First Presidency, included in his dedicatory prayer a plea “for peace in this troubled land” and implored God that “those who rule in the offices of government be inspired to find a basis for reconciliation among those who now are in conflict one with another. May the presence of Thy house on the soil of this land bring blessings to the entire nation.”[101] President Hinckley told the South African Saints that with the temple in their midst, God would watch over and bless their land. Indeed, one popular online reference work calls 1985, the year of the temple’s dedication, “the beginning of the end of apartheid.”[102]

Conclusion

From its beginnings in 1948 until its systematic dismantling in the 1990s, apartheid presented a challenge to religious freedom in South Africa. This chapter has explored some issues and inherent tensions the Church faced in the context of apartheid South Africa, where a sustained fear of government reprisal limited the Church’s ability to operate freely. Owing to the priesthood and temple restriction in place for much of the apartheid period, there was little effort to proselytize Black South Africans. However, those who sought out the restored Church on their own initiative could not be taught and baptized as they would have been in other countries and as several mission presidents would have liked. While it was technically not illegal to teach and baptize them, the Church was ever aware of its precarious position regarding missionary visas, the right to speak openly, and peaceably assemble. The situation required even more consideration and adaptation after 1978. Former mission president Robert Thorn, who served in the mid-1970s, later summed up the difficult position in which the Church found itself, recalling that apartheid “was a troubling thing to me personally. It was. But we believe in honoring, obeying, and sustaining the law of the land. . . . I hope the Lord understands.”[103]

Notes

[1] For more on Mahlangu’s story, see Richard E. Turley Jr. and Jeffrey G. Cannon, “A Faithful Band: Moses Mahlangu and the First Soweto Saints,” BYU Studies Quarterly 55, no. 1 (2016): 8–38.

[2] The apartheid system, which was made up by several different laws enacted by successive White governments, began to be dismantled in the early 1990s, with the transition to a democratic South Africa.

[3] David L. Mosoma, “Religious Liberty: An African Perspective,” in Religious Freedom in South Africa: A Collection of Papers Presented at the Seventeenth Symposium of the Institute for Theological Research (Unisa) Held at the University of South Africa in Pretoria on 1 and 2 September 1993, ed. J. Kilian (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1993), 57.

[4] Willem A. Saayman, “Religious Freedom in Apartheid South Africa,” in Kilian, Religious Freedom, 43.

[5] Gerrie J. A. Lubbe, “Reconciliation and Construction between Different Religions in South Africa,” in Reconciliation and Construction: Creative Options for a Rapidly Changing South Africa, ed. W. S. Vorster (Pretoria: Unisa, 1986), 116–17.

[6] South African Mission Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Volume 3: 1926–1958, Part 3: 1953–1958, LR 8452 2, Church History Library, Salt Lake City (hereafter CHL).

[7] Howard C. Badger and Eleanor J. Badger, “Elder Marion G. Romney Visits Mission,” Cumorah’s Southern Messenger, April 1970, 87.

[8] David Bly, “Hope in a Torn Land,” This People, Summer 1988, 30.

[9] In the chronology of White settlement in South Africa, the Afrikaners’ ancestors were the first to arrive in 1652. In time, their descendants came to be called “Afrikaners” and their language, developed from the vernacular Dutch spoken in the colony, became known as “Afrikaans.” The British first took control of the Cape in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars and established the Cape Colony in 1806. Following the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, the British Cape and Natal Colonies were united with the Afrikaner South African Republic and the Orange Free State to form the Union of South Africa.

[10] See, for example, John de Gruchy, “Grappling with a Colonial Heritage: The English-speaking Churches under Imperialism and Apartheid,” in Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, ed. Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 160.

[11] Charles Villa-Vicencio, Trapped in Apartheid: A Socio-theological History of the English-Speaking Churches (Maryknoll: Orbis Books; Cape Town: David Phillip, 1988), 93.

[12] Frederick Hale, “The Baptist Union of Southern Africa and Apartheid,” Journal of Church and State 48, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 753–77.

[13] Ronald Lawson, “In the Wake of the State: Seventh-day Adventism and Apartheid in South Africa,” address at American Sociological Association, Washington, DC, August 2000, 4.

[14] Evan P. Wright, History of the South African Mission, vol. 3 (n.p., n.d.), 347. An Afrikaans translation of the Book of Mormon was first published in 1972.

[15] A notable exception is the so-called “Branch of Love,” presided over by Coloured Latter-day Saint William Paul Daniels, who served as acting branch president without being ordained. Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830–2013 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014), 45–54.

[16] For de Gruchy’s observation on public opposition to apartheid by White Christians, see de Gruchy, “Grappling with a Colonial Heritage,” 160.

[17] Francis M. Lyman to Warren H. Lyon, October 2, 1903, quoted in Evan P. Wright, A History of the South African Mission, vol. 2 (n.p., n.d.), 8, spelling corrected by Wright.

[18] Francis M. Lyman, “Editorial: Are Negroes Children of Adam?,” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, December 3, 1903, 777.

[19] Minutes, August 26, 1908, in Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Excerpts from the Weekly Council Meetings Dealing with the Rights of African Americans in the Church, 1849–1940, 5–6, George Albert Smith Papers, George A. Smith Family Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

[20] David O. McKay, diary, January 9, 1962, David O. McKay Papers, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah (hereafter McKay, diary).

[21] McKay, diary, October 11, 1962.

[22] Cal Edsel Hill, journal, May 29, 1948, in “Records from the Mission of Cal Edsel Hill,” ed. W. Tyson Thorpe, unpublished manuscript in author’s possession.

[23] Hermann Giliomee, “The Making of the Apartheid Plan, 1929–1948,” Journal of Southern African Studies 29, no. 2 (2003): 373–74.

[24] Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003), 454.

[25] Richard Elphick, The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 222–27.

[26] Jehu Hanciles, Euthanasia of a Mission: African Church Autonomy in a Colonial Context (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002) and Graham A. Duncan, “From Mission to Church: The Formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 49, no. 3 (2016): 329–60.

[27] For examples of Wright’s defenses of apartheid, see “S.A. Verdedig in Hart van Vyandige V.V. (S.A. Defended in Heart of Hostile U.N.),” Dagbreek en Sondagnuus (Daybreak and Sunday News), May 29, 1966, 9, and Evan P. Wright to Antone K. Romney, September 21, 1966, MS 3743.

[28] Evan P. Wright to the First Presidency, November 23, 1949, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:88.

[29] Evan P. Wright to the First Presidency, June 22, 1950, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:91.

[30] Rodney Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. (Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 377.

[31] Evan P. Wright to the First Presidency, June 22, 1950, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:91.

[32] Evan P. Wright, letter to the First Presidency, March 19, 1951, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:161.

[33] Wright initiated translation of Church materials into Afrikaans by May 1949 and suggested to the First Presidency that a full translation of the Book of Mormon should also be made. Evan P. Wright to the First Presidency, May 21, 1949, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:83.

[34] Muriel Horrell, ed., Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1948–1976 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1978), 412.

[35] Horrell, Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 414.

[36] Horrell, Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 419, 423 and Edgar H. Brookes, Apartheid: A Documentary Study of Modern South Africa (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 204–6.

[37] Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:96.

[38] Evan. P. Wright to the First Presidency, June 17, 1952, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:439.

[39] Evan P. Wright, “Address Delivered by President Evan P. Wright at the Cape District Conference, Mowbray, C.P. South Africa, October 24, 1952,” in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:432.

[40] Saayman, “Religious Freedom in Apartheid South Africa,” 42–43.

[41] Evan P. Wright to First Presidency, November 23, 1949, in Wright, History of the South African Mission, 3:87, and Evan P. Wright to First Presidency, April 14, 1952, in Wright, History of the South Africa Mission, 3:225.

[42] David O. McKay, “Remarks of President David O. McKay at 12.30 PM Sunday 17th January, 1954, at Cumorah, Main Road, Mowbray, Cape Town,” 2, South Africa Johannesburg Mission Office Files, CHL.

[43] John Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 193.

[44] South African Mission Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Volume 3: 1926–1958, Part 3: 1953–1958.

[45] Harold B. Lee, “A Report of a Visit Made to the South African Mission by Elder Harold B. Lee during September, October and November,” 4, in South African Mission Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Volume 3: 1926–1958, Part 3: 1953–1958.

[46] South African Mission Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Volume 3: 1926–1958, Part 3: 1953–1958.

[47] Harold B. Lee, “A Report of a Visit Made to the South African Mission by Elder Harold B. Lee during September, October and November,” 4 in South African Mission Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Volume 3: 1926–1958, Part 3: 1953–1958, and McKay, diary, November 4, 1965.

[48] James A. Cullimore to J. Golden Snow, October 7, 1966, and J. Golden Snow to James A. Cullimore, October 21, 1966, both in Mission Supervisor Records: British Isles and South African Missions, 1966–1968, CR 313 16, folder 16, CHL.

[49] “A Clear Civil Rights Stand,” Deseret News, March 8, 1965.

[50] Brookes, Apartheid, 73–74.

[51] John W. de Gruchy with Steve de Gruchy, The Church Struggle in South Africa, 25th anniversary ed. (London: SCM Press, 2004), 60. Olev Taim, who was then a member of the stake presidency, remembers inviting Mahlangu to attend services around 1974 (Olev Taim, interview, Randburg, South Africa, 2016, July 21, OH 15016, CHL).

[52] Howard C. Badger to Marion G. Romney, December 27, 1968, First Presidency Miscellaneous Correspondence, CR 1 44, CHL.

[53] Howard C. Badger to Marion G. Romney, December 27, 1968.

[54] McKay, diary, January 13, 1969. The “Branch of Love,” composed of the Coloured Daniels family, which predated apartheid, still required White missionaries or other priesthood holders to attend their meetings for ordinances, such as the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, to be administered.

[55] McKay, diary, January 13, 1969.

[56] William H. Bennett, “Telephone conversation with President Howard C. Badger, former mission president of the South Africa Mission, Thursday, December 17, 1970,” in Mission Supervisor Records, CR 313 10, box 3, folder 15, CHL.

[57] Bennett, “Telephone conversation with President Howard C. Badger.”

[58] William H. Bennett to Spencer W. Kimball, memorandum, April 12, 1971, 3, in Mission Supervisor Records, CR 313 10, box 3, folder 15, CHL.

[59] Brookes, Apartheid, 208–9.

[60] Harlan W. Clark, letter to William H. Bennett, January 11, 1971, in Mission Supervisor Records, CR 313 10, box 3, folder 15, CHL.

[61] Geoffrey Clayton to J. G. Strijdom, March 6, 1957, in Charles Villa-Vicencio, ed., Between Christ and Caesar: Classic and Contemporary Texts on Church and State (Cape Town: David Philip; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), 209–10.

[62] de Gruchy, The Church Struggle, 59.

[63] de Gruchy, The Church Struggle, 60n20.

[64] Cottesloe Consultation, statement, in Villa-Vicencio, Between Christ and Caesar, 211.

[65] Cottesloe Consultation, statement, in Villa-Vicencio, Between Christ and Caesar, 211–13.

[66] Peter Randall, “Not without Honour: The Life and Work of Beyers Naude,” in Not without Honour: Tribute to Beyers Naude, Peter Randall (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1982), 22.

[67] Hugh B. Brown, “The Fight Between Good and Evil,” Improvement Era, December 1963, 1058; see also Sterling M. McMurrin, “A Note on the 1963 Civil Rights Statement,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 2 (Summer 1978): 60–63.

[68] McKay, diary, March 8, 1965.

[69] Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church & Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 77–78.

[70] “Elder Brown Reports: Baptisms up This Year in South African Mission,” Deseret News, Church News section, week ending May 6, 1961, 15.

[71] For example, “U.S. Criticizes South Africa for Race Policy,” Deseret News, October 24, 1961, 1, and “U.S. Stops Selling Arms to S. Africa,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 3, 1963, 1.

[72] Schoeman also met with David O. McKay in Pretoria, South Africa on January 11, 1954. McKay, diary, January 11, 1954.

[73] “S.A. Officials Visit S.L.C.,” Cumorah’s Southern Messenger, December 1965, 327.

[74] Former mission president Evan P. Wright, who hosted Schoeman on his visit to Utah, described one of the propaganda tours provided by the South African government in a letter to BYU professor Antone K. Romney. Evan P. Wright to Antone K. Romney, September 21, 1966, MS 3743, CHL.

[75] “S. African Official Confers,” Deseret News, Church News section, March 18, 1967, 4.

[76] Elwin Dale LeBaron, journal, September 6, 1978, Journals, 1955–1958 and 1972–1979, MS 10060, CHL (hereafter LeBaron, journal).

[77] McKay, diary, November 4, 1965.

[78] Daniel Cuny, “An Expansion on the Mission Journal of Danile John Cuny: The Revelation on Priesthood,” 1, MS 26519, CHL.

[79] Daniel Cuny, journal, September 14, 1978, MS 26519, CHL.

[80] Douglas P. Ridge, “Learning to Breathe Easier: My South African Mission,” Sunstone, July 2001, 72; William H. Bennett to Harlan W. Clark, December 29, 1970, in Mission Supervisor Records, CR 313 10, box 3, folder 15, CHL; and Donald L. Hilton reminiscence and Afrikaans government document, 1980, 2013, MS 26479, CHL.

[81] William H. Bennett, report to Spencer W. Kimball, April 12, 1971, 3, in Mission Supervisor Records, CR 313 10, box, 3, folder 15, CHL.

[82] Robert P. Thorn, oral history, February 20, 2003, 23–26, OH 3200, CHL.

[83] Affected Organizations Act no. 31, 1974, Section 2 (1), Republic of South Africa, Government Gazette, March 15, 1974.

[84] Davenport and Saunders, South Africa, 449–54.

[85] LeBaron, journal, October 29, 1978.

[86] LeBaron, journal, December 5, 1978, and January 2, 1979.

[87] Dean Kaelin, “Memories of South Africa, Nov. 1978–Sep. 1980,” typescript, 3, Lowell D. and Lorna C. Wood Papers, 1947–2005, MS 25532, CHL.

[88] Lorna Wood, “Sister Lorna Wood, Wife of Mission President Lowell Wood (1979–1982),” in “Witnesses to the Moment: Accounts of the Missionaries in Africa around the Time of the 1978 Revelation Extending Priesthood Blessings to All,” ed. Wesley Stephenson, typescript, CHL.

[89] Olev Taim, interview, Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, February 13, 2014, OH 10142, CHL.

[90] Cape Town 1 Branch, Historical Record, 1980, LR 11059 2, CHL.

[91] Cuny, “An Expansion on the Mission Journal of Daniel John Cuny,” CHL and Donald L. Hilton reminiscence and Afrikaans government document, 1980, 2013.

[92] South Africa Johannesburg Mission, Historical Record, 1980, LR 8452 3, CHL.

[93] South Africa Johannesburg Mission, Historical Record, 1980.

[94] Robert M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 118.

[95] Brenton Salvesen, interview, Lindon, Utah, May 2, 2019, OH 14013, CHL.

[96] William H. Bennett to Spencer W. Kimball, memorandum, April 12, 1971, 3, Mission Supervisor Records, CHL.

[97] “Mormons Planning Nine New Temples,” Fort Walton Beach [FL] Playground Daily News, April 2, 1982, 3F.

[98] Price, The Apartheid State, 118.

[99] Arlene Bateman to family and friends, May 15 and August 1, 1985, Maurice Bateman letters, MS 17672, CHL.

[100] Julia Mavimbela and Laura Harper, “‘Mother of Soweto’: Julia Mavimbela, Apartheid Peace-Maker and Latter-day Saint,” 96, in Julia Mavimbela collection, 1958–2001, MS 29551, CHL.

[101] “Dedicatory Prayer Asks for Peace in South Africa,” Church News, week beginning September 1, 1985, 5.

[102] “State of Emergency—1985,” South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985.

[103] Robert P. Thorn, interview, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 20, 2003, OH 3200, CHL.