Rumors of Changes to Temple Worship

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

5 hours ago, Duncan said:

Just got off of the phone with my older sister and her and her husband are very active but they could literally care less about the changes in the Temple, "as long as you are faithful then what difference does it make?" She blasted me🙄

Does faithful = obedient to the FP in your sister’s definition?

Hamba Tuhan · January 3, 2019

11 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

Does faithful = obedient to the FP in your sister’s definition?

I read it as 'faithful to each other'.

Rain · January 3, 2019

15 hours ago, YJacket said:

Christ washing the feet has so much meaning. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of roles and relationships. It's a misunderstanding of what a role is and how to play that role.

It's a misunderstanding about relationships-especially in marriage. Having "equality" in marriage is such a flawed concept it is totally unworkable. It's amazing to me, do people even think about what they say and what they mean or do they just spout it off.

Equal how? Equal in duties-each person does 50% of the work? Well what work? Do we need to line out each aspect of a job and split it 50/50. I do laundry this week, you do laundry next week? Equal in decisions? I make this decision-you make the next decision?

Decision making requires there to be a head-it requires someone to actually be the decider. Someone to actually "lead"-lead means out in front, you can't lead if your not out in front being an example making decisions, etc. And good luck having 2 leaders . . .what happens when the leaders disagree. Yes in a perfect world we'd all make decision like the Q12-but marriage is probably the hardest long-term thing that an individual will do in their life.

It is guaranteed in marriage you will have serious conflicts, serious issues, serious problems. And I have found personally that the absolute best way for a marriage to succeed long term with minimal conflict is to have a biblicaly based marriage based upon the scriptures found in the NT/OT/DC. The more that in my marriage we conform to those standards, the smoother, easier, and happier our marriage becomes. I look at my marriage 5 years ago when it didn't conform to it and now when it does and it's night and day; from a point where I wasn't sure if my marriage would even survive to where it's pretty strong.

So that the Church is removing that framework in the Temple is quite sad, b/c it will just mean that more marriages will break up and it will mean more public shame, humiliation and calls of bigotry, misogyny, etc. for individuals who find the path to happiness in marriage as based upon the Scripture.

I realize that at 26 years of marriage my husband and I have been married such a short time compared to others, but I think we have learned a few things.

We have never had a serious conflict in our marriage. There have been quite a few trials we have gone through, but they have had less to do with our relationship and more to do with health, family members and job situations.

Equality in marriage does not mean everyone does the exact same thing. It means there is a balance between husband and wife and what that means is going to be different in every marriage.

You are projecting your experiences in marriage on everyone else by assuming that the changes mean more breakups - if the changes actually have anything to do with more breakups I see that as more of a problem with women having their eyes open to righteous dominion in marriage rather than the changes the Lord made in the temple.

The two of you should do whatever is best for your relationship, but don't assume that it will be best for everyone.

Rain · January 3, 2019

15 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

An explanation to this question would be nice: What does the LDS church teach about what God wants women's role to be in relationship to men?

I think if you listen to conference talks over the last few years you may get a lot of your answers to this. I'm glad you asked this question because it started mer thinking of some of those talks.

15 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

The church leadership answers to this question has evolved over the years (to put it mildly). One can write off (with some difficulty) those differences as the opinions of men in the context of the prejudices of their times.

But, we are taught that the temple is where we can go to find the purest doctrine. It is where we make the most sacred covenants, not with man, but with God. So - a change here carries far more weight than a remark in a sermon. On December 31, women were COVENANTING to hearken unto their husbands, and on January 1 they are not! We are talking about the very identities of womanhood!

It is interesting that you say this because I see no change in my identity of womanhood. What I see is that some will finally see in themselves and others worth that was always there. Constantly I have heard talks trying to shore up women. I never have understood why many women feel so down about themselves and why they needed these talks. I got that they needed them, just not why. I think finally, with the changes, that many will start to really understand "joy in womanhood". They will finally get doctrine that was always there about their identity.

15 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

For the FP to just proverbially shrug their shoulders and say 'hey, it's changed, let's not talk about it' seems ignorant of the whipsaw of self-identification that women will likely go through. It's been 40 years since OD2, and there is still a lack of peace in the parts of many black members (and me, and I was born post-1978).

I want to be very clear - it is way too soon to be judgmental of how 'the brethren' are handling this change. Early indicators aren't yet satisfactory to me, but I'll give it time before I get too judgmental. I'm only making the point that I think we can do better than we did in 1978 around such a key issue that we have claimed as a deep part of revelation and identity in the eyes of God.

I too would love to hear more about it. I want to make sure I haven't missed things that have already been taught though so I am excited to look through the last few conferences.

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

1 minute ago, Rain said:

I think if you listen to conference talks over the last few years you may get a lot of your answers to this. I'm glad you asked this question because it started mer thinking of some of those talks.

Maybe. But how far back does one read to understand how God views women? Can I trust a statement in 1835 from Joseph Smith about the need for women to be subservient to men? Is there an expiration date on the relevancy of comments from former church leaders?

Rain · January 3, 2019

10 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

My normal reaction is to let things simmer for a while, engage in some study, discussion, contemplation, and prayer, and wait to see how things shake out. This has served me well in the past and I expect it to do so now.

From the first day, Sister Gui and I have strived to live the covenant we made as we understand it and we will continue to do so. After all, it is the covenant we made.

In our understanding there was nothing in the convent that gave license for domination, abuse, bossiness, condescension, subservience, overbearing, force, nor anything like unto them, but as a perfect vehicle for the blending of our complimenatary but imperfect natures and desires to obey God and create a family. This has kept us undividable through a lot of good and bad things. In fact, if any of that stuff snuck in, we viewed it as sin worthy of repentance and reconciliation.

Never in our marriage did we ever consider that Sister Gui had covenanted in an inferior way to obey God, nor that the specific wording in any way diminished or elevated either of us above the other in that obligation. For me, it was a profoundly awesome solemn mutual act for her to choose through her agency to give herself to me and trust that I could have her trust only as I obeyed God. That is powerful stuff. I imagine many members share(d) our views.

Given current social movements, I can see how some might perceive ours as an unequal or flawed relationship, but we reject that false and uninformed notion without debate. We are sad that so many people today apparently have that kind of attitude to the extent that the covenant maybe had to be changed to accommodate them. It is not without precedence.

Time will tell.

And I'm sad that people would suggest that the covenant had to be changed to accommadate people who are more able to follow social trends than the Lord's will.

It is interesting to me that I never caught the wording of the covenant - I had to have that pointed out to me. I feel that the Spirit always directed me that the covenant was what I understand (without having attended yet since the change) the covenant to be now.

Having has some real control issues in my family I never would have sincerely covenanted what the words were in 1989 when I went had I caught them. Now I feel like the words may be catching up to what I always thought the Spirit meant.

Duncan · January 3, 2019

2 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

Does faithful = obedient to the FP in your sister’s definition?

I'd imagine, but what that obedience looks like , apparently is different. I was excited to tell them about this and they were considerably less excited! hahahhaha!

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

1 hour ago, Rain said:

And I'm sad that people would suggest that the covenant had to be changed to accommadate people who are more able to follow social trends than the Lord's will.

It is interesting to me that I never caught the wording of the covenant - I had to have that pointed out to me. I feel that the Spirit always directed me that the covenant was what I understand (without having attended yet since the change) the covenant to be now.

Having has some real control issues in my family I never would have sincerely covenanted what the words were in 1989 when I went had I caught them. Now I feel like the words may be catching up to what I always thought the Spirit meant.

Just want to make sure I understand why you’re saying: you made covenants with God and did not pay close attention to the words, but rather understood your covenants by feel?

Nofear · January 3, 2019

5 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In the end everyone still covenants to obey God, no?

In the end, my endowment is the same ordinance as the endowment my great-grandparents received. What can (and did) change is language and instruction that makes understanding of the intent and nature of the ordinance more clear. It has long been known to me that there were imperfections in how some of our covenants were presented. These imperfections more easily allowed misunderstanding and erroneous conclusions (some quite easily, which was a struggle for many). With these changes, many of my personal interpretations of the intent and nature of the ordinance are validated. There are and still will be imperfections in how the ordinance is presented. Personal revelation and inspiration can help one see past those.

Jerry Ray · January 3, 2019

One thing that did not change is that ordinance workers still have to be clean shaven

Gray · January 3, 2019

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

No worries. I'm not surprised; as I've noted a couple of times previously, it is difficult to detect much difference in outcome between fundamentalism and secular progressivism.

There are two kinds of fundamentalism at play in this thread - fundamentalism as it relates to doctrine and fundamentalism as it relates to church authority. That's the tension between you and JLHPROF

In any case, these are welcome changes.

YJacket · January 3, 2019

2 hours ago, Rain said:

I realize that at 26 years of marriage my husband and I have been married such a short time compared to others, but I think we have learned a few things.

We have never had a serious conflict in our marriage. There have been quite a few trials we have gone through, but they have had less to do with our relationship and more to do with health, family members and job situations.

Equality in marriage does not mean everyone does the exact same thing. It means there is a balance between husband and wife and what that means is going to be different in every marriage.

You are projecting your experiences in marriage on everyone else by assuming that the changes mean more breakups - if the changes actually have anything to do with more breakups I see that as more of a problem with women having their eyes open to righteous dominion in marriage rather than the changes the Lord made in the temple.

The two of you should do whatever is best for your relationship, but don't assume that it will be best for everyone.

Congratulations on 26 years, truly that is awesome. I agree with much of what you have said. But I'm going to say a few things. A marriage works best when both people coming into the marriage have a common understanding a common framework of what marriage is or should look like. In times past men and women had a common understanding of what kind of framework to start from. Contrary to popular opinions, difference might initially draw people together but commonalities keep people together.

It is sometimes hard to articulate what I want to say or to get across the point. But these commonalities is why for centuries people in general married other individuals who came from a common background, a common ethnicity, a common religious framework. There are fundamental underlying assumptions that are baked into the cake when one gets married. The vast majority of those underlying assumptions come from how we were raised and how we were taught.

And for individuals who have never had serious conflict in their marriage, they quite frankly take for granted so much of these underlying assumptions. Having been in a marriage where the fundamental underlying assumptions of what makes a marriage were far apart, I've seen it with my own eyes.

That is why religious individuals have the scriptures, to come to a common understanding of what the fundamental underlying basis for marriages should be. The Church taught marriage according to Scripture and now it doesn't. Ephesians 5 is a dead-letter now.

To the bold, this more specifically goes to the fundamental heart of what is occurring in today's society. I'm not doing whatever is best for my relationship-I'm following God's word. Either the Scriptures contain the keys to how to best live one's life or they don't. At some point when everything becomes "do whatever is best for you", that basically means there are no rules and best becomes whatever you think it is.

Why I say more marriages break-up, well b/c if one truly believes the Scriptures are the way to truth than deviation from the truth is going to lead to bad outcomes. So if Ephesians 5 is true, than deviation away from Ephesians 5 will lead to untruth and more broken marriages.

It is just mind-boggling to me-clearly when you look at statistics, societies which conform as a whole to Ephesians 5 have less broken homes, less divorces, less family societal problems as a whole (this is evidence in the Asian cultures which still have a heavy emphasis on the patriarchal order). Clearly when you look at today's world compared to a more structured patriarchal order 100 years ago there are MORE familial societal structural problems not less.

Ultimately it boils down to the following, can an individual athest be a moral individual-yes absolutely. Can an atheistic society be moral-no it will crumble apart.

Can there be individual egalitarian marriages that don't fall apart-yes absolutely. Can society as a whole work with egalitarian marriages-no it will crumble apart.

Edited January 3, 2019 by YJacket

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

38 minutes ago, Nofear said:

In the end, my endowment is the same ordinance as the endowment my great-grandparents received. What can (and did) change is language and instruction that makes understanding of the intent and nature of the ordinance more clear.

You think the endowment teachings are getting clearer? Not seeing this. It used to be pretty clear what would happen if one does not keep those covenants; today it's less clear.

Duncan · January 3, 2019

23 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

You think the endowment teachings are getting clearer? Not seeing this. It used to be pretty clear what would happen if one does not keep those covenants; today it's less clear.

I think it's been always clear, if you aren't faithful then you won't get into the CK, I learned that before I went to the Temple

SettingDogStar · January 3, 2019

47 minutes ago, Jerry Ray said:

One thing that did not change is that ordinance workers still have to be clean shaven

Unfortunately haha

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

6 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I think it's been always clear, if you aren't faithful then you won't get into the CK, I learned that before I went to the Temple

So the teachings in the temple provide no value to you? You knew what you needed to do before you came in? Just keep the commandments of the day? The temple is just a vehicle to make covenants and get out?

So why all the temple teachings (creation, role of men & women, eternal cycles, etc...)? Or are they in place to distract one from what's most important - just obey?

Edited January 3, 2019 by SouthernMo

halconero · January 3, 2019

Asking loaded and assuming questions has to be the lamest form of argument.

HappyJackWagon · January 3, 2019

Well, this thread has probably run its course for now. It's interesting that some of the rumors we've been hearing turned out to be true. I'll be curious to see if this was a one time comprehensive change or if more will be changing in coming months. Pres. Nelson sure has us on our toes and I think it's great as a church that we are starting to look for, expect, embrace, and even desire changes to what we have become so accustomed to. Change requires greater flexibility and more maturity as we are forced to reevaluate our current/past understanding of God and the church. I imagine that most of us will enjoy/appreciate some changes more than others, but it's nice to be in a vibrant, dynamic church.

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

18 minutes ago, halconero said:

Asking loaded and assuming questions has to be the lamest form of argument.

Comments that indicate a devaluation of the temple I think need to be clarified because I must misunderstand something.

rockpond · January 3, 2019

9 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Well, this thread has probably run its course for now. It's interesting that some of the rumors we've been hearing turned out to be true. I'll be curious to see if this was a one time comprehensive change or if more will be changing in coming months. Pres. Nelson sure has us on our toes and I think it's great as a church that we are starting to look for, expect, embrace, and even desire changes to what we have become so accustomed to. Change requires greater flexibility and more maturity as we are forced to reevaluate our current/past understanding of God and the church. I imagine that most of us will enjoy/appreciate some changes more than others, but it's nice to be in a vibrant, dynamic church.

We haven't really discussed theological implications of this.

I'm still curious how we are supposed to interpret this:

Did God want women to covenant with their husbands the way He was having them do it prior to Jan 2019? Or, does God want women to covenant with Him the way He is having them do it now? Or, did He just change His mind?

How much of what we do in the temple is eternal if it can keep changing?

HappyJackWagon · January 3, 2019

5 minutes ago, rockpond said:

We haven't really discussed theological implications of this.

I'm still curious how we are supposed to interpret this:

Did God want women to covenant with their husbands the way He was having them do it prior to Jan 2019? Or, does God want women to covenant with Him the way He is having them do it now? Or, did He just change His mind?

How much of what we do in the temple is eternal if it can keep changing?

OR... the church and its people have developed and matured enough for a higher law

OR...the church and its people have devolved enough for a lower law

ETA- IMO there is very little ETERNAL/UNCHANGING/ABSOLUTE truth. I think there are a couple of very core truths that religion is pointing us towards and most of the other details are just attempts to flesh out and understand and personalize those few eternal truths.

FYI- here's a Dialogue article about the development of the endowment ceremony https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V34N0102_87.pdf?fbclid=IwAR22K8ZUDE4o44xxxNIz0bNQryAvG9cZ1hCb61w_uK7CQPLHeTgzp8FhYRo

Edited January 3, 2019 by HappyJackWagon

Duncan · January 3, 2019

25 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

So the teachings in the temple provide no value to you? You knew what you needed to do before you came in? Just keep the commandments of the day? The temple is just a vehicle to make covenants and get out?

So why all the temple teachings (creation, role of men & women, eternal cycles, etc...)? Or are they in place to distract one from what's most important - just obey?

I don't know where you get that from, I knew that if I wasn't faithful I wouldn't be in the CK. To me the Temple is like the MTC, it should be a review but the difference is you make covenants there, not at the MTC though

let’s roll · January 3, 2019

27 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

So the teachings in the temple provide no value to you? You knew what you needed to do before you came in? Just keep the commandments of the day? The temple is just a vehicle to make covenants and get out?

So why all the temple teachings (creation, role of men & women, eternal cycles, etc...)? Or are they in place to distract one from what's most important - just obey?

There is abundant insight in the NT regarding how God teaches us and how we learn of, and from, the Divine. A commend it to you. With even a rudimentary understanding of those principles you would have the answer to the questions you pose. Godspeed.

SouthernMo · January 3, 2019

5 minutes ago, let’s roll said:

There is abundant insight in the NT regarding how God teaches us and how we learn of, and from, the Divine. A commend it to you. With even a rudimentary understanding of those principles you would have the answer to the questions you pose. Godspeed.

Completely agree. Just trying to make sure I understood @Duncan's point, which leans away from learning and development and towards obedience as the ultimate teaching God wants us to take in.

SettingDogStar · January 3, 2019

14 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

OR... the church and its people have developed and matured enough for a higher law

OR...the church and its people have devolved enough for a lower law

Both of those have very fascinating implications.

Rumors of Changes to Temple Worship

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