Another Big Batch Of Temple Ordinance Changes

[Chum]

16 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

On 2/10/2023 at 9:13 PM, Chum said:

My mom's generation grew up in a time where women were ceaselessly pressured to be subservient, obedient, etc to men. Mom and her sisters all bore scars (many physical) of that abominable mindset.

My mother, my wife, and her sisters grew up in that generation, and what you describe was absolutely not their experience. Temple covenants did not give men the right to abuse women. Any man of earlier times who treated women that way violated his covenants and broke all the laws of the temple.

I never said or insinuated any link between temple covenants and abuse. As far as I hinted at a factor that abuse might be tied to, it was the mindset of the time.

It's fair to say that expectations of subservience and obedience to men were commonplace during my mom's generation - and that men who abused women tied their right of mistreatment to those expectations.

Are/Were there temple attending men who mistreated women? Sure. An abusive husband can get a temple recommend by believing his abuse isn't abuse. And once thru the temple, folks pretty much operate the same way as they did that morning. None of this implicates the temple.

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 hours ago, Nofear said:

This I think is the reference I used.

Above, I quoted the same thing from Pres Nelson's General Conference talk, and his footnote was to Saints.

Quote

When I first used the quote, I just did a search based on vague memory and picked one reference. https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/05/17/the-unfinished-endowment/

Despite the author's framing (which I personally dislike), this is a great source since it makes it abundantly clear that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff all saw the endowment as fluid and alterable. If anything, long periods with few adjustments might even be the exception more than the rule.

Edited February 14 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

52 minutes ago, Chum said:

It's fair to say that expectations of subservience and obedience to men were commonplace during my mom's generation - and that men who abused women tied their right of mistreatment to those expectations.

It's on my laptop at home, so I can't re-post it now, but about 25 years ago I wrote a short essay in which I explained that whether 'subservience' (and hierarchy) is seen negatively or positively is culturally determined. I based my discussion on the work of socio-linguist Deborah Tannen, who has pointed out that, in many cultures, unequal relationships are viewed as intimate and safe whereas equal relationships are viewed as competitive and therefore insecure and even stressful.

I suspect that the past 25 years have seen culturally Western constructions of power (and family relationships) colonise even more societies' cultural imaginations. Happy to post tonight if anyone wants me to.

[OGHoosier]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

It's on my laptop at home, so I can't re-post it now, but about 25 years ago I wrote a short essay in which I explained that whether 'subservience' (and hierarchy) is seen negatively or positively is culturally determined. I based my discussion on the work of socio-linguist Deborah Tannen, who has pointed out that, in many cultures, unequal relationships are viewed as intimate and safe whereas equal relationships are viewed as competitive and therefore insecure and even stressful.

I suspect that the past 25 years have seen culturally Western constructions of power (and family relationships) colonise even more societies' cultural imaginations. Happy to post tonight if anyone wants me to.

Count me in, I'm curious. 

There are few things I enjoy more than a nice round of recognizing how much I take for granted in Western culture.

[blackstrap]

Always remember the rule that anytime the Brethren say something one agrees with , then it is true and revelatory , and when they say something one disagrees with then it is, by definition, false doctrine and should be rejected. 😇

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

There are few things I enjoy more than a nice round of recognizing how much I take for granted in Western culture.

Cool. Here you go:

 

An acquaintance recently expressed the following concern about what she perceives as the inequality inherent in the endowment:  ‘Why can't I follow God directly—beside my husband? That's what I don't understand. I don't want to go through eternity being second to my husband...and from what I've heard in the temple, that's what eternity will be’ (emphasis added, ellipsis original).

A number of well-intentioned people have tried to help her in this matter by suggesting that this perceived inequality doesn’t really exist in the temple ordinances per se but rather in the way our cultural backgrounds colour our perceptions of those ordinances.  I would like to suggest here an alternative.

To begin, the assumption in the quote above is that a woman's being beside her husband (solidarity) is more equitable, more intimate, and therefore superior to a woman's being second to her husband (hierarchy). Moreover, my guess is that most if not all of us mentally nod in agreement with this sentiment when we read it.  I know I do.  What I would like to suggest, however, is that this de-privileging of hierarchical relationships (and our instinctive acceptance of this value judgment) is a culturally bound construct.

This possibility is addressed at the discursive level by Deborah Tannen, sociolinguist at Georgetown University. In Gender & Discourse (Oxford UP, 1994), she points out the assumption prevalent in the West ‘that power is associated with asymmetrical relationships in which the power is held by the person in the one-up position’—the husband to whom the wife is ‘being second’ in the context of this discussion (25).

Consequently, most of us would probably agree with the following statement: ‘Power governs asymmetrical relationships where one is subordinate to another; solidarity governs symmetrical relationships characterized by social equality and similarity’ (22).  Moreover, ‘most Americans are inclined to assume that solidarity implies closeness, whereas power implies distance’ (26).  In other words, hierarchy disunites, but solidarity unifies.

Tannen, however, attempts to reveal the fractures in this seeming dualism even within our own cultural context:

Quote

 [P]ower and solidarity are in paradoxical relation to each other. That is, although power and solidarity, closeness and distance, seem at first to be opposites, each also entails the other. Any show of solidarity necessarily entails power, in that the requirement of similarity and closeness limits freedom and independence. At the same time, any show of power entails solidarity by involving participants in relation to each other. This creates a closeness that can be contrasted with the distance of individuals who have no relation to each other at all. (22-23)

This potential for hierarchical relationships to be uniting becomes more surprisingly apparent, however, outside Western cultural assumptions. Tannen herself admits to being ‘caught up short’ by a 1993 article by Suwako Watanabe (‘Cultural Differences in Framing: American and Japanese Group Discussions’) which claims that Japanese subjects see themselves ‘as members of a group united by hierarchy’ (26, emphasis added).

Tannen then goes on to assert that ‘the anthropological literature includes numerous discussions of cultural contexts in which hierarchical relationships are seen as close and mutually, not unilaterally, empowering’ (26, emphasis added). Such a relationship is ‘a hierarchical interdependence by which both have power in the form of obligations as well as rights vis-à-vis the other’ (27).

In Slavery, Bondage, and Dependency in Southeast Asia (1983), historian Anthony Reid further explores this alternative (and very non-Western) conception of hierarchy, asserting that ‘vertical bonding is very ancient and central to almost all Southeast Asian societies’ (6). He offers the following linguistic evidence:

Quote

As soon as Southeast Asians speak, they place themselves in a vertical relationship. Diller has cited fifteen alternative forms of the pronoun ‘I’ in Thai, and in all major Southeast Asian languages the second person pronoun is even more finely graded. The assumption behind these speech patterns is that society is naturally hierarchic, like the family, so that comfort and intimacy are best achieved when one can address the other party as an older or younger brother or sister, or as father, grandfather, uncle, boss, or lord. (6)

Note that the mental model for all hierarchical relationships in Southeast Asia is the family. Note too that such asymmetrical relationships are understood to engender ‘comfort and intimacy.’ In fact, as Reid himself points out, the ‘[h]orizontal and superficially equal relations’ imposed on Southeast Asians by modern institutions typically create a sense of distance and unease (6).

This discomfort with equal and solidary relationships becomes clearer when we consider that, in the Southeast Asian mind, hierarchy ‘“is based on cooperation. The relationship between (almost) equal groups, on the other hand, is best described as opposition”’ (Chabot qtd. in Reid 7). Thus, contrary to the Western construct, equality is seen as the relationship most susceptible to and characterized by the exercise and possible abuse of power.

Like Tannen, Reid acknowledges the difficulty these cultural assumptions present those of us in the West: ‘It requires effort for modern Westerners to understand a situation where unequal relationships can be both cooperative and intimate’ (7). Nevertheless, he and other researchers affirm this reality, and, based on my own experiences living, working, and researching in Indonesia, I second it.

Now, back to the concern that the endowment places a woman in an asymmetrical relationship to her husband: It is possible, as some mentioned above have already suggested, that this concern is simply based in misinterpretation—that there really is no inequality present in the temple ordinances. There remains another distinct possibility, however:  Perhaps our rejection of the apparent hierarchy imposed by the endowment is really just a knee-jerk reaction based upon the negative assumptions about hierarchy we've unconsciously inherited from contemporary Western discourse.

In other words, assuming for the sake of this discussion that men and women really are placed in an asymmetrical relationship in the temple, how are we to understand this manifestation of hierarchy? Is it the hierarchy of Western assumptions, characterized by distance, lack of intimacy, a non-reciprocal exercise of power, and the creation of subservience? Or, on the other hand, is it the hierarchy of Southeast Asian assumptions, characterized by unity, intimacy, a reciprocal exercise of power, and the creation of interdependence?

Having never been married, I am definitely not the expert on husband/wife relationships. However, close observation over many years has convinced me that many couples in the Church, contrary to the dominant discourse of the West, have found their hierarchical relationships to be fulfilling, empowering, intimate, unifying, and mutually beneficial.

Moreover, I sense this possibility within the Saviour's repeated references to Himself as the Bridegroom to the Church. One would be hard pressed to argue that the relationship suggested by this imagery is anything but asymmetrical, even hierarchical. At the same time, I doubt many of us find this particular instance of hierarchy to be anything but liberating, uniting, empowering, beneficial, or intimate. This, perhaps, is the model of hierarchy we are to understand, embrace, and implement in a temple-based marriage.

[Nofear]

8 hours ago, blackstrap said:

Always remember the rule that anytime the Brethren say something one agrees with , then it is true and revelatory , and when they say something one disagrees with then it is, by definition, false doctrine and should be rejected. 😇

Indeed. I pretty much know that there are things that I believe which are false. Unfortunately, nothing that I believe do I believe is false because if I believed it to be false, I wouldn't believe it.

[MustardSeed]

As a valid representative of the women who live in the world, as one who has never been “abused” by my husband, as one who is a conservative voter and as one who attends the temple for my personal benefit (not just the person I’m proxy for) - I’m very grateful the language suggesting I have to work through my husband to have indirect anything with the Savior is replaced with the reassurance of what I have always known to be true.  The temple ceremony now aligns more with equal access to God.  I think the change sends a message to the MINORITY who prefer a heirarchy for the sexes and that is hopeful for me.  It might not stop a man from smacking his wife but to me, a woman, I’ll take these changes in the spirit of being better understood.  And I confess that those who reject those changes have me wondering what it’s costing them. 

[JAHS]

On 2/10/2023 at 4:02 PM, OGHoosier said:

@Lemuel or maybe Joseph Smith got further light and knowledge that ordinances aren't some sort of alchemical incantation that must be performed uniformly lest one get turned into a spiritual newt.

If they are meant to teach things, then they will have to flex based on the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.

And whether or not they are ready to receive those things. As it has been since Jesus said to His apostles:
"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16: 12)

[Calm]

It has never bothered me about obeying my husband in righteousness because that just makes logical sense to me. First, if someone makes a righteous decision, chances are I would agree with it if I am being righteous and second, I am the one making the decision whether my husband is being righteous in his decision making or not. And if he happens to make a decision and expects myself or my daughter to obey without discussing it first or questioning him, that is not in righteousness. 

The only thing that ever bothered me about the language was how it could be interpreted to mean that I did not have direct access to God, that I would have to ask my husband to speak to God for me. That never made sense to me since I can speak to God myself and he to me right now, so why would a barrier be erected when I become one with him?  Since it didn’t make sense that way, I just assumed it meant something else and I am happy to wait to find out what it does mean. 

However, I know many women who were troubled by that language, who hungered after a deep and loving connection with God and the language was taken to mean they could never really have that, either later or in this life, that there would always be a separation from God in some way.  So I am grateful the language that led to that interpretation has been removed. 

Edited February 15 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:07 PM, MiserereNobis said:

I gotta say, not knowing your temple ceremonies (a deliberate choice I made years ago) makes for fascinating reading here. Astronomical images?

I wonder if Neil deGrasse Tyson would think the images are scientifically correct. He famously wrote to James Cameron about the star scene in Titanic:

Consider this my challenge to the missionaries assigned to wherever Tyson lives. Go convert the dude, get him to the temple, and make sure all is good astronomically!

@Stargazer, want to weigh in?  

As interested in astronomy as I am, I never developed the knowledge that Dr. Tyson has about the sky's appearance. As for the astronomical images in the temple endowment, I can't say anything about their validity.  For one thing, as a practical believer, I have no doubt that the solar system's sun's fusion engine first fired 4.5 billion years or so ago. And the solar system has orbited the galactic center 16 times since then, so whatever arrangement of stars could be seen from the solar system at that time, we have no way of knowing what it looked like. Many of the most prominent stars that we see from the earth did not even exist at the time of the solar system's creation. For example, for the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, neither Sirius A nor its white dwarf companion, Sirius B, existed at that time. The same can be said of many of the other ten brightest stars in the sky: Canopus (25 million years (myr)); Vega (455 myr); Capella (650 myr); Rigel A (8 myr); Procyon A (1.9 billion years (gyr)); Achenar (63 myr); Betelgeuse (8.5 myr).

But when push comes to shove, the images in the temple endowment aren't intended to teach astronomy, they are intended to teach, among other things, God's creation of the solar system, and our connection with all His creation. But especially to offer us the opportunity to make covenants with Him as to our obedience to His will and commandments, and our relationship with our fellow human beings. As Jesus said, 

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matt 22:35-40)

 

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Cool. Here you go:

 

An acquaintance recently expressed the following concern about what she perceives as the inequality inherent in the endowment:  ‘Why can't I follow God directly—beside my husband? That's what I don't understand. I don't want to go through eternity being second to my husband...and from what I've heard in the temple, that's what eternity will be’ (emphasis added, ellipsis original).

A number of well-intentioned people have tried to help her in this matter by suggesting that this perceived inequality doesn’t really exist in the temple ordinances per se but rather in the way our cultural backgrounds colour our perceptions of those ordinances.  I would like to suggest here an alternative.

To begin, the assumption in the quote above is that a woman's being beside her husband (solidarity) is more equitable, more intimate, and therefore superior to a woman's being second to her husband (hierarchy). Moreover, my guess is that most if not all of us mentally nod in agreement with this sentiment when we read it.  I know I do.  What I would like to suggest, however, is that this de-privileging of hierarchical relationships (and our instinctive acceptance of this value judgment) is a culturally bound construct.

This possibility is addressed at the discursive level by Deborah Tannen, sociolinguist at Georgetown University. In Gender & Discourse (Oxford UP, 1994), she points out the assumption prevalent in the West ‘that power is associated with asymmetrical relationships in which the power is held by the person in the one-up position’—the husband to whom the wife is ‘being second’ in the context of this discussion (25).

Consequently, most of us would probably agree with the following statement: ‘Power governs asymmetrical relationships where one is subordinate to another; solidarity governs symmetrical relationships characterized by social equality and similarity’ (22).  Moreover, ‘most Americans are inclined to assume that solidarity implies closeness, whereas power implies distance’ (26).  In other words, hierarchy disunites, but solidarity unifies.

Tannen, however, attempts to reveal the fractures in this seeming dualism even within our own cultural context:

This potential for hierarchical relationships to be uniting becomes more surprisingly apparent, however, outside Western cultural assumptions. Tannen herself admits to being ‘caught up short’ by a 1993 article by Suwako Watanabe (‘Cultural Differences in Framing: American and Japanese Group Discussions’) which claims that Japanese subjects see themselves ‘as members of a group united by hierarchy’ (26, emphasis added).

Tannen then goes on to assert that ‘the anthropological literature includes numerous discussions of cultural contexts in which hierarchical relationships are seen as close and mutually, not unilaterally, empowering’ (26, emphasis added). Such a relationship is ‘a hierarchical interdependence by which both have power in the form of obligations as well as rights vis-à-vis the other’ (27).

In Slavery, Bondage, and Dependency in Southeast Asia (1983), historian Anthony Reid further explores this alternative (and very non-Western) conception of hierarchy, asserting that ‘vertical bonding is very ancient and central to almost all Southeast Asian societies’ (6). He offers the following linguistic evidence:

Note that the mental model for all hierarchical relationships in Southeast Asia is the family. Note too that such asymmetrical relationships are understood to engender ‘comfort and intimacy.’ In fact, as Reid himself points out, the ‘[h]orizontal and superficially equal relations’ imposed on Southeast Asians by modern institutions typically create a sense of distance and unease (6).

This discomfort with equal and solidary relationships becomes clearer when we consider that, in the Southeast Asian mind, hierarchy ‘“is based on cooperation. The relationship between (almost) equal groups, on the other hand, is best described as opposition”’ (Chabot qtd. in Reid 7). Thus, contrary to the Western construct, equality is seen as the relationship most susceptible to and characterized by the exercise and possible abuse of power.

Like Tannen, Reid acknowledges the difficulty these cultural assumptions present those of us in the West: ‘It requires effort for modern Westerners to understand a situation where unequal relationships can be both cooperative and intimate’ (7). Nevertheless, he and other researchers affirm this reality, and, based on my own experiences living, working, and researching in Indonesia, I second it.

Now, back to the concern that the endowment places a woman in an asymmetrical relationship to her husband: It is possible, as some mentioned above have already suggested, that this concern is simply based in misinterpretation—that there really is no inequality present in the temple ordinances. There remains another distinct possibility, however:  Perhaps our rejection of the apparent hierarchy imposed by the endowment is really just a knee-jerk reaction based upon the negative assumptions about hierarchy we've unconsciously inherited from contemporary Western discourse.

In other words, assuming for the sake of this discussion that men and women really are placed in an asymmetrical relationship in the temple, how are we to understand this manifestation of hierarchy? Is it the hierarchy of Western assumptions, characterized by distance, lack of intimacy, a non-reciprocal exercise of power, and the creation of subservience? Or, on the other hand, is it the hierarchy of Southeast Asian assumptions, characterized by unity, intimacy, a reciprocal exercise of power, and the creation of interdependence?

Having never been married, I am definitely not the expert on husband/wife relationships. However, close observation over many years has convinced me that many couples in the Church, contrary to the dominant discourse of the West, have found their hierarchical relationships to be fulfilling, empowering, intimate, unifying, and mutually beneficial.

Moreover, I sense this possibility within the Saviour's repeated references to Himself as the Bridegroom to the Church. One would be hard pressed to argue that the relationship suggested by this imagery is anything but asymmetrical, even hierarchical. At the same time, I doubt many of us find this particular instance of hierarchy to be anything but liberating, uniting, empowering, beneficial, or intimate. This, perhaps, is the model of hierarchy we are to understand, embrace, and implement in a temple-based marriage.

I would find these ideas more profound if abuse of women, and women being seen as inherently inferior to men, weren’t so prevalent in all societies (including Asian ones) that either still believe in or had a strong history of hierarchical relationships between men and women.

I wonder if one reason that many women find hierarchical relationships with men to be beneficial is because—in such societies—women are more vulnerable to male and systemic abuse when they are without a strong connection to male protection.

I think that the story of Ruth in the Bible is a good example of what I’m talking about. Because of the inherent abuses of women in the societal system that she lived, Ruth needed that hierarchical relationship with a man to survive and be safe.  In a less misogynistic society though such a relationship would be unnecessary for her safety and social standing.

Often (not always) it’s the systemic abuse of the powerless by the powerful that makes power hierarchies attractive. Those prone to being abused without some kind of protection will benefit from such a relationship.

But remove the need for protection from other powerful people, and the need for a voice to speak on your behalf because your voice is seen as inferior, and hierarchical relationships lose most of their meaning and attraction.

[Stargazer]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:37 PM, JLHPROF said:

My grumbling is all a moot point anyway.  I don't believe we've given the actual endowment in decades, and even less so now.  We stopped giving patrons many things they used to be given.  It's like trying to ordain to priesthood or give the gift of the Holy Ghost without actually conferring or laying on hands.

I don't believe the current endowment is valid and fully expect all ordinances to be redone in the Millennium.  And luckily we'll have all the records to work from.

So honestly any of my grumbling about new changes really doesn't mean anything.  It's not like there are degrees of validity. 

I disagree, but that's OK. I was endowed in 1972, so I am well aware of all the changes you speak of.

To too many people, the Endowment includes all the fluff of astronomical images, personages walking on golden floors, not-yet-incarnated-let-alone-resurrected persons physically interacting with mortals, and a clergyman in an 1840s vintage starched collar trying unsuccessfully to teach the Nicene Trinity to Adam and Eve. These were all teaching aids used to help recipients to remember the covenants which they were making, by giving the participants a narrative hook, but that's all they were. And we are well rid of some of them, in my opinion.

The Endowment is intended to lead to the Celestial Kingdom, nowhere else, and I believe that all the necessary essentials to accomplish that purpose (those things which we are specifically instructed to not reveal) are still present.

[Stargazer]

On 2/12/2023 at 2:34 AM, Peacefully said:

My husband went to the temple today and I queried him on changes. Everything pretty much lined up with all of the comments except he said there was a witness couple. They didn’t do the demo but they did kneel at the altar. Maybe our temple didn’t get the memo? 

Until just a couple of weeks ago I was a temple ordinance worker, and last time I looked the witness couple continues to be present, as is the demo at the altar.

Edited to add: I note that the changes seem to be effective as of the beginning of February, and I've been absent from the temple since mid-January due to illness, so there may have been something I missed.

Edited February 14 by Stargazer

[MustardSeed]

37 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

, so there may have been something I missed.

Yes quite a bit! Looking forward to going soon, saturday

[BlueDreams]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

It has never bothered me about obeying my husband in righteousness because that just make logical sense to me. First, if someone makes a righteous decision, chances are I would agree with it if I am being righteous and second, I am the one making the decision whether my husband is being righteous in his decision making or not. And if he happens to make a decision and expects myself or my daughter to obey without discussing it first or questioning him, that is not in righteousness. 

The only thing that ever bothered me about the language was how it could be interpreted to mean that I did not have direct access to God, that I would have to ask my husband to speak to God for me. That never made sense to me since I can speak to God myself and he to me right now, so why would a barrier be erected when I become one with him?  Since it didn’t make sense that way, I just assumed it meant something else and I am happy to wait to find out what it does mean. 

However, I know many women who were troubled by that language, who hungered after a deep and loving connection with God and the language was taken to mean they could never really have that, either later or in this life, that there would always be a separation from God in some way.  So I am grateful the language that led to that interpretation has been removed. 

I came to a conclusion that was fairly similar to what ended up changing in the temple around gender the last round there were major dialogue shifts well before the actual change. So for me the changes weren't "new" per se...but things I'd already seen or assumed via consistent study of the temple were being made more explicit. 

At the same time I knew most people wouldn't have the same degree of access to the temple as I did. As a temple worker I knew all the initiatory and veil ceremony by heart, talked and was instructed on most the diffs in the male side, was very familiar with most the wording in the endowment, and would spend much of my free time in the temple looking up passages and wording that connected to the temple. Outside the temple I could study more than most because I was single with no kids for most of the time that I served (ending about a month before I gave birth). By the end of that, the words meant something different than what I'd heard from both those with concerns and at times those without. So to me those changes made it more accessible for others to see what could be learned if one had an excessive amount of time and curiosity on this topic. 

 

Personally it's one thing I'm really grateful for in our church...that there is this space for continuing revelation and expounding that allows for us as a whole to better understand the scriptures, and our covenants in the gospel in terms that makes more sense to our current cultural lens and this era's needs. It's not done perfectly obviously, but it's truly a gift. 

 

I hope I can go next week or two for an endowment session... it's been quite a while since I could (pre-2020). So it'll be fun to be surprised by some of the other changes I've heard mentioned. 

 

With luv, 

BD 

Edited February 14 by BlueDreams

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I disagree, but that's OK. I was endowed in 1972, so I am well aware of all the changes you speak of.

To too many people, the Endowment includes all the fluff of astronomical images, personages walking on golden floors, not-yet-incarnated-let-alone-resurrected persons physically interacting with mortals, and a clergyman in an 1840s vintage starched collar trying unsuccessfully to teach the Nicene Trinity to Adam and Eve. These were all teaching aids used to help recipients to remember the covenants which they were making, by giving the participants a narrative hook, but that's all they were. And we are well rid of some of them, in my opinion.

What you describe here is the presentation, and other than a few doctrinal parts can be changed and has changed since the very beginning.

Quote

The Endowment is intended to lead to the Celestial Kingdom, nowhere else, and I believe that all the necessary essentials to accomplish that purpose (those things which we are specifically instructed to not reveal) are still present.

No.

The necessary essentials have mostly been altered or removed along with presentation changed.  Which demonstrates the danger of making any changes.

• Placing of the garment - gone
• Actual washing and anointing - mostly gone
• Covenants - almost all elements changed
• Penalties - gone
• Robes and garments - completely changed and key elements identifying bestowed authority removed.
• Tokens - priesthood authority no longer actually given to patrons.  Like ordination without laying on hands or baptism without water.
• Key words - removed
• Temple prayer method - taught with altered steps and prohibited from being used for personal prayer.
• Veil ceremony - revealed method of being taken through the veil basically eliminated.

These are NOT presentation.  These are the ordinance because these are where eternal elements are taught and priesthood authority conferred.  These are where we are endowed with power and authority.

"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs, and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." Brigham Young 

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

But remove the need for protection from other powerful people, and the need for a voice to speak on your behalf because your voice is seen as inferior, and hierarchical relationships lose most of their meaning and attraction.

Look, I share your personal preference. As I man, I have zero interest in the responsibility, pressure, and stress of a hierarchical relationship. At the same time, it's important to realise that, within other cultural frameworks, people see us choosing the relationship structure that is 'most susceptible to and characterised by the exercise and possible abuse of power' and blame all our woes on that, in a mirror image of what you have done above. I've literally heard it: 'Western women wouldn't experience so much abuse if ...'

And most important for this topic of conversation is to remember that every time we demand that God alter how He says or does things to better match our cultural sensibilities, we are simultaneously and inevitably demanding that he discomfit those with different/competing cultural sensibilities. If the end result brings us closer to the 'culture of Christ', then it's worth it, but we simply cannot assume that our cultural preferences are His in every instance without some serious examination. One more reason I'm grateful for prophets!

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

What you describe here is the presentation, and other than a few doctrinal parts can be changed and has changed since the very beginning.

No.

The necessary essentials have mostly been altered or removed along with presentation changed.  Which demonstrates the danger of making any changes.

• Placing of the garment - gone
• Actual washing and anointing - mostly gone
• Covenants - almost all elements changed
• Penalties - gone
• Robes and garments - completely changed and key elements identifying bestowed authority removed.
• Tokens - priesthood authority no longer actually given to patrons.  Like ordination without laying on hands or baptism without water.
• Key words - removed
• Temple prayer method - taught with altered steps and prohibited from being used for personal prayer.
• Veil ceremony - revealed method of being taken through the veil basically eliminated.

These are NOT presentation.  These are the ordinance because these are where eternal elements are taught and priesthood authority conferred.  These are where we are endowed with power and authority.

"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs, and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." Brigham Young 

 

Wow!

[JLHPROF]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Wow!

Yup.  Wow.

[ttribe]

4 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

What you describe here is the presentation, and other than a few doctrinal parts can be changed and has changed since the very beginning.

No.

The necessary essentials have mostly been altered or removed along with presentation changed.  Which demonstrates the danger of making any changes.

• Placing of the garment - gone
• Actual washing and anointing - mostly gone
• Covenants - almost all elements changed
• Penalties - gone
• Robes and garments - completely changed and key elements identifying bestowed authority removed.
• Tokens - priesthood authority no longer actually given to patrons.  Like ordination without laying on hands or baptism without water.
• Key words - removed
• Temple prayer method - taught with altered steps and prohibited from being used for personal prayer.
• Veil ceremony - revealed method of being taken through the veil basically eliminated.

These are NOT presentation.  These are the ordinance because these are where eternal elements are taught and priesthood authority conferred.  These are where we are endowed with power and authority.

"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs, and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." Brigham Young 

 

Time to start a new church, JLHPROF?

[JLHPROF]

Just now, ttribe said:

Time to start a new church, JLHPROF?

Nah... I'll just wait patiently on the Lord to correct these mistakes of men in his own Church.  I believe that's what scripture and prophecy indicates will happen.

I only hope it happens within my lifetime.  A thousand year reign filled with temple work will absolutely guarantee the ordinances will be restored to their former correctness, and probably even better in the presentation area.

Maybe something like Moses and Abraham received...

[ttribe]

5 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Nah... I'll just wait patiently on the Lord to correct these mistakes of men in his own Church.  I believe that's what scripture and prophecy indicates will happen.

I only hope it happens within my lifetime.  A thousand year reign filled with temple work will absolutely guarantee the ordinances will be restored to their former correctness, and probably even better in the presentation area.

Maybe something like Moses and Abraham received...

Well, you wouldn't be the first to try to 'Restore' the Restoration. Just sayin'.

[JLHPROF]

10 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Well, you wouldn't be the first to try to 'Restore' the Restoration. Just sayin'.

Anyone expecting another restoration doesn't understand scripture.  But yes, there are many out there.

We just need to read the scriptures and prophecies to know we'll get ourselves off track and get a major course correction just prior to the second coming and the millennial reign.

But save me from all the ridiculous sagebrush prophets, davidic servants, and other nonsense.

[pogi]

4 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

These are the ordinance because these are where eternal elements are taught and priesthood authority conferred.  These are where we are endowed with power and authority.

What priesthood authority is actually conferred upon the patrons in the temple?   I always viewed the temple as symbolic and not an actual bestowal or endowment, but is the path by which such an endowment is possible - like the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is not the actual bestowal or the Holy Ghost or baptism of fire, but is the means and invitation to receive it.  In the same way, the temple is the means and invitation to receive the endowment and become  priests and priestesses, etc.  as we evolve spiritually through the different stages.    It is a pattern of stages and symbols of actual endowments  that we will receive as we follow the covenants and grow in the different stages in our lives.   The tokens are meaningless in and of themselves, I think.  Tokens, by definition, are signs or symbols for something else that I think we will have to be in possession of or present.

That is why the endowment doesn't guarantee us exaltation, but only qualifies us for it - we have not yet received the full endowment, that comes only as we keep the covenants and progress through the different stages and accept the actual spiritual endowments that are associated with the tokens, etc.   That's my take anyway.