Theology & The L D S Temple – Now That They Know, How Will You Answer?

[The Nehor]

i suggest we burn those who reveal the temple ceremony as heretics and problem solved.

[Buckeye]

The point of this thread isn’t to discuss the particulars of the LDS temple and the practices therein.  And I’m not generally in favor of people being recorded without their knowledge.  But whether content is secret (e.g., government documents disclosed via “WikiLeaks”) or sacred (temple content, in the eyes of believing LDS)—the internet seems an irresistible magnet that sooner or later makes pretty much everything accessible on the broadest imaginable scale.

 

I recently watched a video recorded inside an LDS temple on YouTube (I’ve watched a few things related to LDS, mostly debates between LDS and evangelical Christians & its all-knowing algorithm made a recommendation).  What struck me most were the theological implications of the content I was hearing.  Having never been “endowed” it quickly became evident to me that there’s a bit more to LDS doctrine than what gets discussed in church or on message boards.  There appears to be another layer to it I really don’t know much about.  But perhaps if I did understand it better--it would help me to better understand extended family members who carry a “temple recommend card.”

 

So I’d like to ask some questions about it and have dialogue with those who adhere to such things.  Obviously I can’t do it here.  But the bigger question (and no doubt better discussion) is this: Thanks to the internet, lots more people are going to get familiar with temple content, including investigators and membership candidates.  They’ll have questions about what they’ve seen & heard.  There will need to be answers.  Simply condemning the posters (or the viewers) of such content will be inadequate.

 

What should the response be?

 

--Erik

 

 

 

Erik,

 

If you're really interested in the LDS temple ordinances (and especially changes to the ceremonies over time), I recommend this volume from an LDS scholar. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Devery%20Scott%20Anderson.  Note that the kindle price is only $9.00.

 

My views are different from most here. I really believe that the temple ceremonies are "sacred, not secret." So apart from the few things I expressly covenant not to reveal, I am willing to discuss anything - provide that the situation is one of respect because the ceremonies are very sacred to me. But I don't treat temple ordinances any differently than ordinances outside the temple. The sacrament, baptism, father's blessings, and many other church ordinances are just as sacred to me as what goes on in the temple. Investigators are told of the covenants they make a baptism before entering the water. I can't see why members should be treated any different when they prepare for the temple. That's why I plan to teach each of my children exactly what they will covenant and what the ceremonies entail prior to their entrance (omitting, of course, the few things I cannot reveal).

 

That said, unfortunately this forum is not a place I consider to be appropriate for such discussions. If we were neighbors I'd invite you over for dinner and a discussion, but alas. Just know that there are some members like me who are happy to discuss sacred things.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Buckeye

[Ahab]

Sorry. This seems like a total cop out. Although I see how this approach could get me out of doing missionary work. "The gospel is just too personal and is so sacred to me that I can't put it into words, so I'm not going to try."

Ahab, I like you, but this is taking the easy way out.

I was very clear in what I said about why I do not feel comfortable or even capable of sharing something so personal and sacred to me, and yet from you I got this kind of response.

Do people ever mistake you for a highly sensitive, compassionate, empathetic person?

I feel like I may be talking to a wall even now.

[JLHPROF]

We don't talk about the temple enough???? What church are you going to?

 

Well, our approach to temple doctrine has definitely changed over the years, as has our view of the significance of the ceremony.

We talk a lot about how wonderful the temple is, but we say almost nothing about the usages and knowledge gained there.

[JLHPROF]

While I don't condone secret recordings of sacred rituals being put out on the interwebs for anyone to view, listen to or read, it strikes me that we are entirely too afraid to talk about the temple. There are very few things we covenant not to talk about in the temple. The rest we avoid because we're so nervous about crossing the line we stay a mile away from the line. We do a poor job preparing people for the temple even though the vast majority of the information there can be taught directly from the scriptures. 

 

The implication that a person who asks questions about the temple isn't ready for that or is like a 5th grader is condescending and counterproductive. We can talk about a lot that happens in the temple. We just don't and its too bad.

 

Once again, it's NOT condescending.  If you don't like my analogy then don't use it.

How about, it's like a student with a pre-med degree just starting medical school being expected to perform a triple bypass.

 

It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has to do with progression.

[Stargazer]

When the young Gershom Scholem arrived in Jerusalem, he already had an impressive command of kabbalistic texts. He decided to study Kabbalah under a living master, though he had probably read many manuscripts that no Jerusalem Kabbalist had ever seen. He went to the Beit El yeshiva (the name is not without relevance to the topic at hand) which had been in existence for two hundred years. Scholem spoke with the venerable master Gershon Vilner who agreed to accept him as a student under one condition: that he ask no questions. Scholem could not do that. He left, and never learned to experience Kabbalah as a living phenomenon. The reason I share this story is that some forms of learning are experiential, and the meaning cannot be conveyed otherwise. The same with the temple. You can read the endowment script all you like, but if you miss the experiential, parabolic aspect, then you are left with nothing more than a few superficialities. We can tell you that there is an experience, but we cannot convey the content of the experience to you. There are no words capable of doing so. What we can say about the temple is that we set ourselves apart from the mundane and worldly through a deepened baptismal ritual. We then continue to a higher plane of holiness by washings and anointings. The endowment uses a symbolic account of the creation and the fall of Adam and Eve to teach us how to discern between good and evil, and darkness and light, and how to recognise God's revelation from counterfeit revelations. It is more or less a mystery play, and you can read plenty of those. The clothes we wear are symbolic, and entirely different to anything we wear day to day. A higher degree of holiness requires a higher degree of commitment, so we make covenants, and we receive signs and tokens as part of the process. That, I think I both detailed and vague enough.

 

You seem to turn up here only somewhat rarely, but when you do, you do so with a vengeance. Thanks for this post.

 

There is a saying in Taoism that I have taken to myself as a truism with respect to the temple endowment, or for that matter, the Atonement, and that saying is:

 

"The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao."

 

Keeping in mind that "Tao" is "way" or "path."  There is also this, which I gleaned from the Wikipedia article:

 

The Tao is the intuitive knowing of "life" that of which cannot be grasped full-heartedly as just a concept but known nonetheless through actual living experience of one's everyday being.

 

Or, in other words, to know God, one must know God through one's experiences of God.  There is no other way, and no-one else's explanation will suffice.

 

This is also stated as: "No man can stand on borrowed light."

[ERayR]

You seem to turn up here only somewhat rarely, but when you do, you do so with a vengeance. Thanks for this post.

 

There is a saying in Taoism that I have taken to myself as a truism with respect to the temple endowment, or for that matter, the Atonement, and that saying is:

 

"The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao."

 

Keeping in mind that "Tao" is "way" or "path."  There is also this, which I gleaned from the Wikipedia article:

 

 

 

Or, in other words, to know God, one must know God through one's experiences of God.  There is no other way, and no-one else's explanation will suffice.

 

This is also stated as: "No man can stand on borrowed light."

 

I am out of rep points.  I really should have saved a couple for this.

[strappinglad]

FYI, there are doctrines within the Catholic Church that are not taught to the average member but presented to those who prepare themselves well beyond the ' normal' levels.

   There are levels of understanding within the Native tribes/First Nations that are only give to members who are mature enough and experienced enough to appreciate the ceremonies etc.

  I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about other religious traditions, but I suspect there are also areas extended to only the highly faithful in most other traditions.

Edited August 25, 2015 by strappinglad

[mfbukowski]

You seem to turn up here only somewhat rarely, but when you do, you do so with a vengeance. Thanks for this post.

 

There is a saying in Taoism that I have taken to myself as a truism with respect to the temple endowment, or for that matter, the Atonement, and that saying is:

 

"The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao."

 

Keeping in mind that "Tao" is "way" or "path."  There is also this, which I gleaned from the Wikipedia article:

 

 

 

 

Or, in other words, to know God, one must know God through one's experiences of God.  There is no other way, and no-one else's explanation will suffice.

 

This is also stated as: "No man can stand on borrowed light."

IOU several more points for this one

[Five Solas]

Whoa, you've done some serious gauntlet-throwing-down there, Brother Christensen.  I wonder, is Erik/Five Solas gonna pick up that gauntlet and run with it?

I actually spent some time with Nibley's work, back in the day (when I was still LDS).  His rebuttal to Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History was particularly memorable.  Among other things, he referred to the author as the "young woman"--as though her age and gender were sufficient to indict her work.  While I wasn't impressed, I none-the-less took for granted Brodie had no credibility outside the "anti-Mormon" set.  So imagine my surprise when I read David McCullough's brilliant biography John Adams and saw her name as one of his sources for her work on Thomas Jefferson.  No doubt if McCullough was familiar with Nibley, he wouldn't have touched Brodie with a 10 foot pole.

;0)

 

"Pick up that gauntlet" & spend more time with Nibley?  Thanks but no thanks, Kenngo and Brother Christensen.  If I had a block of time as implied above and could choose to devote it to fiction I've read already, I'd revisit Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN collected series. 

 

No contest!

 

--Erik

[saemo]

FYI, there are doctrines within the Catholic Church that are not taught to the average member but presented to those who prepare themselves well beyond the ' normal' levels.

Such as?

There are levels of understanding within the Native tribes/First Nations that are only give to members who are mature enough and experienced enough to appreciate the ceremonies etc.

I experienced this at a Pueblo in NM. Their reasoning, though, differs from LDS. After hundreds of years of white suppression of their religion, they just don't allow anyone outside their tribe to view what they don't want suppressed.

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about other religious traditions, but I suspect there are also areas extended to only the highly faithful in most other traditions.

I don't think it is unusual for what is considered sacred to be hidden from outsiders. It is the hiding from one's own members that I think is odd. Edited August 25, 2015 by saemo

[The Nehor]

I don't think it is unusual for what is considered sacred to be hidden from outsiders. It is the hiding from one's own members that I think is odd.

 

The temple is like the things Jesus taught in the Book of Mormon that tongue and word could not convey. The Temple ceremony divorced from the Spirit is off-putting or even silly or boring. Spilling the beans is not revealing our secrets anymore then handing a document containing secrets in an unbreakable code would be.

 

The Temple secrets are safe. I have known people who had some of them who apostasized and lost them. It was strange to realize the first time I saw it happen but they kind of had the sense they once understood but now do not. I have had the same thing happen in my own life to a lesser degree when I allowed my mind to become darkened and lost some of the enlightenment I had received.

 

We keep the temple from the world to avoid having people ask us questions who do not have the ability to understand the answers and in some cases we have not received all the answers yet ourselves.

[saemo]

The temple is like the things Jesus taught in the Book of Mormon that tongue and word could not convey. The Temple ceremony divorced from the Spirit is off-putting or even silly or boring. Spilling the beans is not revealing our secrets anymore then handing a document containing secrets in an unbreakable code would be.

The Temple secrets are safe. I have known people who had some of them who apostasized and lost them. It was strange to realize the first time I saw it happen but they kind of had the sense they once understood but now do not. I have had the same thing happen in my own life to a lesser degree when I allowed my mind to become darkened and lost some of the enlightenment I had received.

We keep the temple from the world to avoid having people ask us questions who do not have the ability to understand the answers and in some cases we have not received all the answers yet ourselves.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

I have always got the feeling, that this dangling of carrot , is done purposely to make others curious. I find it endlessly, offputting. Sorry, I'm not trying to be insensitive or rattle any cages. It's just how it is.

Edited August 25, 2015 by saemo

[thatjimguy]

The point of this thread isn’t to discuss the particulars of the LDS temple and the practices therein.  And I’m not generally in favor of people being recorded without their knowledge.  But whether content is secret (e.g., government documents disclosed via “WikiLeaks”) or sacred (temple content, in the eyes of believing LDS)—the internet seems an irresistible magnet that sooner or later makes pretty much everything accessible on the broadest imaginable scale.

 

I recently watched a video recorded inside an LDS temple on YouTube (I’ve watched a few things related to LDS, mostly debates between LDS and evangelical Christians & its all-knowing algorithm made a recommendation).  What struck me most were the theological implications of the content I was hearing.  Having never been “endowed” it quickly became evident to me that there’s a bit more to LDS doctrine than what gets discussed in church or on message boards.  There appears to be another layer to it I really don’t know much about.  But perhaps if I did understand it better--it would help me to better understand extended family members who carry a “temple recommend card.”

 

So I’d like to ask some questions about it and have dialogue with those who adhere to such things.  Obviously I can’t do it here.  But the bigger question (and no doubt better discussion) is this: Thanks to the internet, lots more people are going to get familiar with temple content, including investigators and membership candidates.  They’ll have questions about what they’ve seen & heard.  There will need to be answers.  Simply condemning the posters (or the viewers) of such content will be inadequate.

 

What should the response be?

 

--Erik

 

 

 

Before I was a convert, I really spent a year investigating the church. I mean really investigating it. I'd spend a good amount of hours a week seeing what I was getting myself into.

 

So yeah, even though the vidz on youtube were not there as of yet, there was information (most bad, but some accurate) about the whole temple ceremony. I was baptized so it worked out for me.

 

That being said, I guess it depends mostly on who the viewer is. Some people will just make knee jerk reactions to it. No explanations will work.

 

However, if they are investigating in the truest sense of the word, then a cautionary advance is probably called for. Of course, don't break a covenant or get too detailed, but I think you can talk carefully about it and not break a covenant.

 

From LDS.org

 

You can talk about what the interior of the temple looks like, and you can freely share the feelings you have in the temple. However, temple covenants and ordinances, including the words used, are too sacred to be discussed in detail outside the temple. By avoiding discussion of these sacred things outside the temple, we protect them from mocking, ridicule, or disrespect. Do not be casual when talking about your experiences in the temple.

 

Now mind you, this is about talking with someone about it, that I would assume, has no clue what goes on.

 

People that see the videos and such have found out much of what goes on.  I'm not saying break covenants and talk about it in detail as the church says, but something tells me you just shouldn't get fully away from the subject either.

[mfbukowski]

Such as?

I experienced this at a Pueblo in NM. Their reasoning, though, differs from LDS. After hundreds of years of white suppression of their religion, they just don't allow anyone outside their tribe to view what they don't want suppressed.

I don't think it is unusual for what is considered sacred to be hidden from outsiders. It is the hiding from one's own members that I think is odd.

Ah, I have wondered why there are no Mormons in Mormon temples! Perhaps you should do some research on the Mass of The Catechumens, as performed anciently in baptistries instead of the cathedral.

[Kevin Christensen]

I actually spent some time with Nibley's work, back in the day (when I was still LDS).  His rebuttal to Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History was particularly memorable.  Among other things, he referred to the author as the "young woman"--as though her age and gender were sufficient to indict her work.  While I wasn't impressed, I none-the-less took for granted Brodie had no credibility outside the "anti-Mormon" set.  So imagine my surprise when I read David McCullough's brilliant biography John Adams and saw her name as one of his sources for her work on Thomas Jefferson.  No doubt if McCullough was familiar with Nibley, he wouldn't have touched Brodie with a 10 foot pole.

;0)

 

"Pick up that gauntlet" & spend more time with Nibley?  Thanks but no thanks, Kenngo and Brother Christensen.  If I had a block of time as implied above and could choose to devote it to fiction I've read already, I'd revisit Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN collected series. 

 

No contest!

 

--Erik

And reading Gaiman's Sandman comics will increase your understanding of the Temple how exactly? (I've read and admired several of Gaiman's novels, and found that none of them handicaped or canceled out or rival what I read in Nibley.)And McCullough's biography of John Adams not only refutes Nibley's studies of the Temple but also those of Eliade, Barker, Welch, and Ostler?

If that is no contest, I'd be most interest in seeing the rules that govern such a contest.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

Edited August 25, 2015 by Kevin Christensen

[Stargazer]

And McCullough's biography of John Adams not only refutes Nibley's studies of the Temple but also those of Eliade, Barker, Welch, and Ostler.

 

Wait...  what? 

Edited August 25, 2015 by Stargazer

[Five Solas]

And reading Gaiman's Sandman comics will increase your understanding of the Temple how exactly? (I've read and admired several of Gaiman's novels, and found that none of them handicaped or canceled out or rival what I read in Nibley.)And McCullough's biography of John Adams not only refutes Nibley's studies of the Temple but also those of Eliade, Barker, Welch, and Ostler.

If that is no contest, I'd be most interest in seeing the rules that govern such a contest.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

You don't give Gaiman enough credit, Kevin.  And yes, there are a few temples along his stories, ancient ones mostly, but I digress.

;0)

 

I have some specific questions about words used and a particular question about something I always assumed was done in such settings--but I was wrong, it wasn't.  It's not just me, others will see it and want to discuss too. 

 

Assigning someone a pile of reading that is highly unlikely to have anything to do with the questions at hand--well, that's just not very helpful is it?   

 

--Erik

Edited August 25, 2015 by Five Solas

[thesometimesaint]

The temple is like the things Jesus taught in the Book of Mormon that tongue and word could not convey. The Temple ceremony divorced from the Spirit is off-putting or even silly or boring. Spilling the beans is not revealing our secrets anymore then handing a document containing secrets in an unbreakable code would be.

 

The Temple secrets are safe. I have known people who had some of them who apostasized and lost them. It was strange to realize the first time I saw it happen but they kind of had the sense they once understood but now do not. I have had the same thing happen in my own life to a lesser degree when I allowed my mind to become darkened and lost some of the enlightenment I had received.

 

We keep the temple from the world to avoid having people ask us questions who do not have the ability to understand the answers and in some cases we have not received all the answers yet ourselves.

 

To be fair every doctrine of the Church concerning the Temple is in our scriptures. You just have to know where to look for them.

[BlueDreams]

I have some specific questions about words used and a particular question about something I always assumed was done in such settings--but I was wrong, it wasn't.  It's not just me, others will see it and want to discuss too. 

 

Assigning someone a pile of reading that is highly unlikely to have anything to do with the questions at hand--well, that's just not very helpful is it?   

 

--Erik

 

Which is probably more similar to an LDS experience then you realize (particularly for the bolded area). Most LDS who do attend the temple have questions about specific words used and most have at least a few not fully answered.

 

Though I do feel there is more wiggle room to discuss the temple than most give, I strongly agree with the many who noted the temple as a form of experiential knowledge. Sans the difficulty you've noted at finding the "right balance" per se to those who may have seen video or read a transcript. In an LDS perspective about the purpose, focus, and methodology to learning in/about the temple it's already out of balance. Because not only is is experiential, but it's one you can't entirely learn by yourself (there are male/female parts to each ceremony) and it's also something that you would learn differently from differing roles in the temple (patron/temple worker, for example), differing times (first time going/weekly goer/50 years of service), different temples, and differing life events, etc. Basically if one thing is different about the experience, your experiential knowledge about it could shift.   

 

What you've alluded to having questions about is not easy to answer because a lot of the specific wording and such aren't meant to receive a wiki version answer to. There may not be just one answer to it...in fact for almost everything in the temple, there isn't just one answer. It's not a static learning process, but is dynamic and malleable. 

 

So to the person who's seen, I'd probably tell them that your putting the cart before the horse. I would probably tell the story of myself and my little bro when he went in for the first time. At that point I had been in the temple for a few years. I had begun collecting scriptures/verses that tied to the temple ceremony/language and felt fairly confident in my knowledge. For him, everything was new. When we sat in the celestial room together I showed him one of these passages in the OT about Noah's re-established covenant after the flood, expecting him to see immediately what I saw. Not only did he not see it immediately, he pointed to something that I had never noticed that also tied into the temple.

 

Then I would tell them, I can't give you all the temple answers, or even most of them, because they're based on years of personal growth in the Gospel, a deep love of my religion, and my personal experiences. In order to understand the temple as I do, you would have to live my life. But if you want to understand the temple, honestly the best place to start is the basic parts of it: Faith, Christ, Creation, the Gospel, sacrifice, submitting to the will of the Lord, etc. The temple may seem new or foreing, but it moves and reiterates the basic pattern to our purpose of life in God....in that way it's intrinsically found in all the scriptures and the basic tenets of the Gospel and LDS beliefs. 

 

 

 

With luv,

BD

Edited August 25, 2015 by BlueDreams

[Kevin Christensen]

You don't give Gaiman enough credit, Kevin.  And yes, there are a few temples along his stories, ancient ones mostly, but I digress.

;0)

 

I have some specific questions about words used and a particular question about something I always assumed was done in such settings--but I was wrong, it wasn't.  It's not just me, others will see it and want to discuss too. 

 

Assigning someone a pile of reading that is highly unlikely to have anything to do with the questions at hand--well, that's just not very helpful is it?   

 

--Erik

I've read the pile, and much more, which means it is highly likely that I know what relevance they have to the LDS temple experience. Gaiman's Anansi Boys is a wonderful book, better, IMHO, than American Gods, but I'd not use either of them to answer questions about LDS temples.

But non-LDs writers such as Joseph Campbell, and Mircea Eliade, and Margaret Barker can be surprisingly helpful, even when they had no idea themselves.

And there is a difference between calling a building a temple, or mentioning a temple in passing, and comprehending "What is a Temple?" which happens to be the title of an important essay by Hugh Nibley.

Where the temple is the context for particular set of words, then that context is important in dealing with those words.

Just saying.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

[rpn]

 

I have some specific questions about words used and a particular question about something I always assumed was done in such settings--but I was wrong, it wasn't.  It's not just me, others will see it and want to discuss too. 

 

Assigning someone a pile of reading that is highly unlikely to have anything to do with the questions at hand--well, that's just not very helpful is it? 

There have been some here who offered to consider answering questions if you would post them.   What else is someone supposed to do?

[Russell C McGregor]

I actually spent some time with Nibley's work, back in the day (when I was still LDS).  His rebuttal to Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History was particularly memorable.  Among other things, he referred to the author as the "young woman"--as though her age and gender were sufficient to indict her work.

Yes, that's what all the most determined fault-finders say.

In reality he merely referred to her as the "young woman" because she was, at the time, young, and a woman.

Gasp, shock, horror!

 

While I wasn't impressed, I none-the-less took for granted Brodie had no credibility outside the "anti-Mormon" set.  So imagine my surprise when I read David McCullough's brilliant biography John Adams and saw her name as one of his sources for her work on Thomas Jefferson.  No doubt if McCullough was familiar with Nibley, he wouldn't have touched Brodie with a 10 foot pole.

;0)

 

"Pick up that gauntlet" & spend more time with Nibley?  Thanks but no thanks, Kenngo and Brother Christensen.  If I had a block of time as implied above and could choose to devote it to fiction I've read already, I'd revisit Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN collected series. 

 

No contest!

 

--Erik

But it's Nibley who was merely dismissive.

Got it.

[hagoth7]

Therein lies a huge difference between your example (Catholic practice) and mine (LDS practice).  You're Catholic friends would be more than happy to discuss with you whatever it was you saw at Mass or read in the Catechism.  My LDS friends and relatives will be aghast to know I'd watched a video recorded in their temple--and the contents therein would be the last thing they'd be willing to discuss me.  Indeed, if I were to bring up details on this very board--I wouldn't have posting privileges for long. 

 

Seems like a funny comparison you've made.

 

--Erik

Hi Erik,

 

There are actually few things related to the temple that are too sacred to discuss.

 

Just as with the Old Testament events which were documented in considerable detail, there are a number of things in our day that can be answered and discussed, when appropriate.  However board rules, if I recall, preclude such things.

I might be willing to discuss a few such things if you'd like. Feel free to PM me, and I can provide an email.

[The Nehor]

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

I have always got the feeling, that this dangling of carrot , is done purposely to make others curious. I find it endlessly, offputting. Sorry, I'm not trying to be insensitive or rattle any cages. It's just how it is.

 

There is nothing wrong with honest curiosity but I don't think a faith needs to tell all to all. I know that anything untold can lead to a kind of mania to find out "what they are hiding". I am nosey myself.

 

To be fair every doctrine of the Church concerning the Temple is in our scriptures. You just have to know where to look for them.

 

I don't know about all because I do not know all the doctrines yet but God can definitely use scripture to reveal most of it to those who are ready.