How Did Change In Temple Ceremony Come About?

[LifeOnaPlate]

That does raise an interesting subject. To what degree can we separate the "means" and the "ends" in the Temple? And have any of the changes to the "means" ever worked to the detriment of the "ends"? Are there changes that could be made right now that would improve the "ends", but they aren't being made?

I'm still going through what he currently have.

[kamenraider]

I'm still going through what he currently have.

What does that mean? (typo maybe?)

[Selah]

So Cinepro, let me see if I have this straight. You said that there was an in house study and a national poll taken of several thousand people? And based on it's results and how people felt towards the violent penalties and the treatment of women, it was changed in 1990?

So much for God being at the helm and being responsible for all of the changes....

[JNclone]

It is just a coincidence that you are running when you are asked to support your nonsense.

Revisiting this thread, I was amused to find the above by Juliann!

As anyone who looks back can see, the sequence of events was that Juliann said, in reference to the secrecy of Temple ceremonies:

Further, there has to be an element of secrecy to instill sacredness in anything. Without that we enter the profane.

Puzzled by this, I observed:

As I think G.K. Chesterton pointed out, one of the most striking features of the Western Latin rite is that its most sacred ritual acts are entirely open and public. And yet congregations attending mass have been in no doubt that what they were participating in was an act that is as sacred as any act can get. Where is the 'element of secrecy' here? It would seem that, contrary to Juliann's asertion, the sacred can manage to be acknowledged as such without any secrecy at all.

In response to my query as to where the secrecy was in the mass, Juliann gave me this:

Do you really not think there is an "element of secrecy" in a mass? Hint: It would be the part that you make fun of.

Still puzzled, I persisted in asking:

So what part of the mass is secret then? I am sorry to press the question so crudely, but (who knows?) there may be others as well as me who are too dense to follow your hint.

And I got back this classic piece of diversionary tactics and enraged obfuscation, which clearly points to the fact that Juliann had no way of justifying her evident position that there is an element of secrecy in the mass:

I'm not going to play your "modern" game in a restorationist church. Who do you think you are fooling with such a clumsy attempt to limit the scope of the discussion to what suits your agenda? Then tell me, in great detail, the public inner experience a partaker of the mass goes through. In great detail. Then explain to me and all of the scholars throughout time what went on in the first and second temple Holy of Holies.

Now I'm the one who won't "support [my] nonsense"? (I love "public inner experience"!)

Juliann clearly found my counter-example of a completely non-secret but highly sacred act (the mass) effective enough to be annoying. And it can hardly be dismissed as a trivial example from the doings of a tiny sect, can it? So she dealt with it by ... well let's just say she dealt with it in her own very special fashion.

Feeling that it was pretty obvious that further discussion was pointless, I said:

OK Juliann, whatever you say ... I'll just tiptoe away now, and leave you turning in the wind.

Foolish man! Never turn your back on such a doughty adversary. OK then Juliann, one more time:

Where is the secrecy in the mass?

You can't/won't answer that, I suspect. There is nothing in the mass that it is forbidden for anyone to see or hear, or to discuss outside church. You don't have to be a Catholic to be in the church while the mass is taking place and you can look and listen as much as you want. All the prayers and all the priestly acts are written down in books that anyone can buy.

And yet you said in relation to Temple ceremonies "there has to be an element of secrecy to instill sacredness in anything. Without that we enter the profane." Well, millions and millions of Catholics round the world seem to manage pretty well every Sunday with sacred acts that are not secret at all. Your claim, made in partial justification of LDS Temple secrecy, was therefore wrong.

[Doctor Steuss]

So Cinepro, let me see if I have this straight. You said that there was an in house study and a national poll taken of several thousand people? And based on it's results and how people felt towards the violent penalties and the treatment of women, it was changed in 1990?

So much for God being at the helm and being responsible for all of the changes....

Let me see if I have this straight. It wasn't until around 90 AD (after much debate) that 39 books were declared to comprise the "Hebrew Bible"? And then the Edicts of Trent in 1546 made the apocrypha into a "Deutero canon" despite that up to that time, Christians had ingnored the pronouncements from Jamnia regarding these books (yet they didn't have a problem with following what went on in Jamnia in regards to the rest of their "Old Testament" canon). And then Martin Luther comes along and has diffuculty reconciling a number of books with what he understood of the Gospel, and then all of a sudden these canonized scriptures are no longer part of the Protestant Christian canon?

So much for G-d being at the helm and being responsible for all of the changes...

[cinepro]

So Cinepro, let me see if I have this straight. You said that there was an in house study and a national poll taken of several thousand people? And based on it's results and how people felt towards the violent penalties and the treatment of women, it was changed in 1990?

So much for God being at the helm and being responsible for all of the changes....

No, David Buerger reported the survey in his book. And while the survey discussed the Temple and took place shortly before the changes to the ceremony, we still have no way of knowing how many of the changes were affected by the survey or direct revelation, or some combination of both. I only provided that information because it could be pertinent to the original poster's questions.

And it is entirely possible for God to still be "at the helm", but not be involved in changes to parts of the ceremony that He didn't care about in the first place.

But the timing of the survey and the nature of the changes do lend themselves to a naturalistic conclusion to those who are so inclined.

[Baurak Ale]

My earliar question about the Law of Common Conscent, I have not looked too much into this law. However I asked the question earliar of why it was bypassed in temple alterations has come up in some anti material. Which decisions need the vote of common conscent and which do not? I am not yet to be personally convinced of the efficacy of the vote of common conscent, I wonder if it would make any difference if it was removed, not sure?

p.s. A copy of the temple film is NOT in the Library of congress.

[cinepro]

My earliar question about the Law of Common Conscent, I have not looked too much into this law. However I asked the question earliar of why it was bypassed in temple alterations has come up in some anti material. Which decisions need the vote of common conscent and which do not? I am not yet to be personally convinced of the efficacy of the vote of common conscent, I wonder if it would make any difference if it was removed, not sure?

p.s. A copy of the temple film is NOT in the Library of congress.

Would a change to the Sacrament Prayer or Baptismal Prayer need to be approved by common consent?

[Muc'ul Ajwalil]

About the thread and everything...the temple ceremony in part can be found in approxmiately 110 scriptures 80 of which come from the Bible. I will not cite the scriptures here just yet, unless anyone wants some examples. But only the temple going members are going to understand the scriptures, those who have not been to the temple will not understand a single thing.

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

I believe so, as the Sacrament Prayers are in LDS Scripture. I don't remember offhand if the Baptismal Prayer is, but I would assume so.

[Baurak Ale]

Would a change to the Sacrament Prayer or Baptismal Prayer need to be approved by common consent?

I don't know, hence the question.

About the thread and everything...the temple ceremony in part can be found in approxmiately 110 scriptures 80 of which come from the Bible. I will not cite the scriptures here just yet, unless anyone wants some examples. But only the temple going members are going to understand the scriptures, those who have not been to the temple will not understand a single thing.

I would have to disagree, there is no further explanation in the temple of verses in the bible. The esoterics locked up in the bible and in the creation account, and the garden narratives receive no further explanation in the temple, they are only added to. People who have no priesthood, no temple endowment have unlocked the secrets of creation account and the garden narrative through exploration of Kabbalah. The word that was lost has been reclaimed by a few. ie, the devine Holy name, Tetragammaton.

[Pahoran]

So Cinepro, let me see if I have this straight.

There's always a first time...

You said that there was an in house study and a national poll taken of several thousand people? And based on it's results and how people felt towards the violent penalties and the treatment of women, it was changed in 1990?

Since there were never any "violent penalties," and since no honest person has ever described anything therein as such, your information clearly comes from faulty sources.

So much for God being at the helm and being responsible for all of the changes....

So much for your faith being based upon superior logic or better information....

Regards,

Pahoran

[jadams_4242]

Did it start with the desire of the First Presidency then prayer. Or...was there a revelation out of the blue.

SNIP, I hope it won't get edited.

Play nice

Your hope was in vein. Temple content, past or present, is not allowed on this board. And although you apparently knew this before you posted temple content (hence your comment "I hope it won't get edited"), we won't ding you this time. But don't do it again. =Mods.

Probably for the very same reason animal sacrifices were become nill and void. As man becomes more knowledgeable about Gods revealed work which he told us would happen over time because we were not able to bear all the info at once, The lord changes things now,then and will forever, not to be confused with "HIM" changing. becsause he does not. practices and such for us do change because we gain in knowledge.

[jadams_4242]

I don't know, hence the question.

I would have to disagree, there is no further explanation in the temple of verses in the bible. The esoterics locked up in the bible and in the creation account, and the garden narratives receive no further explanation in the temple, they are only added to. People who have no priesthood, no temple endowment have unlocked the secrets of creation account and the garden narrative through exploration of Kabbalah. The word that was lost has been reclaimed by a few. ie, the devine Holy name, Tetragammaton.

So what yer trying to say is that the jewish faith has much more knowledge of the temple ordinances than L.D.S Do?

[maxrep12]

Since there were never any "violent penalties," and since no honest person has ever described anything therein as such, your information clearly comes from faulty sources.

Regards,

Pahoran

Does anyone else find this statement evasive?

Pahoran,

do you feel comfortable saying "Never any violent penalties" simply because we cannot discuss the specifics here? Are you also attempting to slander anyone("since no honest person") who disagrees with you? How do you ascertain the honesty of those you mentioned?

[LifeOnaPlate]

Does anyone else find this statement evasive?

Pahoran,

do you feel comfortable saying "Never any violent penalties" simply because we cannot discuss the specifics here? Are you also attempting to slander anyone("since no honest person") who disagrees with you? How do you ascertain the honesty of those you mentioned?

I suppose violent is in the eye of the beholder, in this case.

[Hammer]

Where is the error in those statements?

When we try to explain away the to and fro, and every wind of "doctrine" that changes, thinking that God is changing and that man heard the message perfectly every time. We will be cursed by the trusting rather than blessed by the Spirit.

I know my errors, do the leaders know theirs?

Wrong answer.

[Anijen]

Critics like Ed Decker and others will often use the temple to slam the church knowing full well that we as temple going LDS will not rebuttal in any detail because of the sacredness of it.

If this was said previously my apologies I did not read all the postings.

Anijen

[Baurak Ale]

So what yer trying to say is that the jewish faith has much more knowledge of the temple ordinances than L.D.S Do?

Hmm. . . no, I am not saying that as far as I know my faith is largely jewish and so are lds temple ordinances in origin.

Elijah the Prophet is responsible for giving the endowment to Joseph Smith, I wish I could find more out about this, as apparently he was the one that delivered this devine mystery to the prophet.

[Aquilifer]

Revisiting this thread, I was amused to find the above by Juliann!

Where is the secrecy in the mass?

You can't/won't answer that, I suspect. There is nothing in the mass that it is forbidden for anyone to see or hear, or to discuss outside church. You don't have to be a Catholic to be in the church while the mass is taking place and you can look and listen as much as you want. All the prayers and all the priestly acts are written down in books that anyone can buy.

And yet you said in relation to Temple ceremonies "there has to be an element of secrecy to instill sacredness in anything. Without that we enter the profane." Well, millions and millions of Catholics round the world seem to manage pretty well every Sunday with sacred acts that are not secret at all. Your claim, made in partial justification of LDS Temple secrecy, was therefore wrong.

Your problem is a comparison of the Endowment to Mass. We have an equivalent to Mass every Sunday, and it is every bit as open as what one would find in a Catholic church. I've been to plenty of both.

When you and "millions and millions of Catholics round the world" start getting invitations to some of the rituals quietly performed within the walls of the Vatican, you might find an apt comparison.

Mormonism defines itself in large part by a focus on creating sacred space. We don't want to profane that space, and I think that's a position that finds ample support in the histories of the Jewish Temples and in the NT wrt the teachings that Christ gave only to his inner circle, the washing of feet, and the like, not to mention the "secret" gospels existing outside of the canon that focus on inner mysteries for those prepared to receive them.

[Lightbearer]

As for the question, the First Presidency made the changes, it was actually stated in each endowment session when the change first came out, I know because I was there. I fail to see why common consent has anything to do with it. As for the Lord being able to "change things" and people trying to accuse the Lord of not being consistent, I refer to the following:

(D&C 58:32-33) "I command and men obey not; I revoke and they receive not the blessing. Then they say in their hearts: This is not the work of the Lord, for his promises are not fulfilled. But wo unto such, for their reward lurketh beneath, and not from above."

Also as far as secrets and being sacred this is one small reference:

(2 Corinthians 12:4) "How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

Now why would these words be unspeakable or unlawful for a man to utter them unless they were sacred?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Mormonism defines itself in large part by a focus on creating sacred space. We don't want to profane that space, and I think that's a position that finds ample support in the histories of the Jewish Temples and in the NT wrt the teachings that Christ gave only to his inner circle, the washing of feet, and the like, not to mention the "secret" gospels existing outside of the canon that focus on inner mysteries for those prepared to receive them.

You know if are cirtics would just understand this one point. That the Jews had sacred temples and you had to be, thats right, a jew to go to the temple. I dont see how this is any diffrent than today. I have no probalem with God setting up a standard. Obviously I dont becuase I am LDS.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Did it start with the desire of the First Presidency then prayer. Or...was there a revelation out of the blue.

SNIP, I hope it won't get edited.

Play nice

Your hope was in vein. Temple content, past or present, is not allowed on this board. And although you apparently knew this before you posted temple content (hence your comment "I hope it won't get edited"), we won't ding you this time. But don't do it again. =Mods.

I just thought it was time for a change.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Elijah the Prophet is responsible for giving the endowment to Joseph Smith, I wish I could find more out about this, as apparently he was the one that delivered this devine mystery to the prophet.

I see the temple endowment itself as an amalgamation of many experiences the Prophet had, including encountering the adversary, among other things.

[cinepro]

I suppose violent is in the eye of the beholder, in this case.

If the penalties in question were ever to be carried out on someone, I'm fairly confident they would behold them to be "violent".