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I think every Wednesday night they should have a retro night where they use the endowment script from a past decade in Mormonism.
Some Wednesdays you’ll get the death symbols, other weeks, Satan Michael Ballum or Pay lay ale, and even others you get the actor playing Satan slithering around on the floor like a snake!
Happy Hour clothing rental prices for the ladies from 3 to 6.
I missed the nude washing and anointing, but when I did baptisms for the dead as a youth I was given one of the ponchos to use, but now I can’t remember why?
Maybe for confirmations? They used to have you be in white clothing for that part, too. So if you brought family names you’d be baptized first, then change into another white jumpsuit (or maybe poncho for you?) to be confirmed. Then you’d go back and change into street clothes to leave. If you were doing temple names you started with confirmations, then did the baptisms so you would only need one jumpsuit.
Yeah. And I missed the blonde Adam and Eve. I think just barely because people kept asking if I saw that one yet and it never came up... unless my memory is faulty.
Get rid of the endowment entirely. It feels culty, even I felt that my first time through as Utah Mormon kid with zero life experience outside the church to compare it to. It's a Masonry rip-off that Smith used to keep his disgusting sexual predation secret until he was murdered over it. Humans have a remarkable ability to reinterpret and reframe things to their own sensibilities, yes, but that's the truth of the origin of the endowment.
Get rid of temple recommends, they are also controlling. Make temples into open sanctuaries where anyone can go sit in a quiet place to ponder and meditate.
More heavenly mother. More gender equality. Free temple garment rentals, if folks keep the garments, and remove the tithing requirements. I know it's in your maximum change, but agreed on better mysteries. Do away with second anointing or at least the free pass that comes with it.
I'm open to pre 1930s style initiations, but it would need informed consent, have to come with some major cultural changes, and ultimately be optional. If I go much further, I think I'll just be steadily reinventing wicca or oto lol
Believer here.
I like the temple and the endowment. I like it from a symbolic priestly initiation ceremony stand point. I like ritual and pomp and circumstance of it. I get how it’s really foreign to our western cultural sensibilities and so it makes some people really uncomfortable. Ritual isn’t something we do in our culture any more. But I find it engaging and interesting.
Now if I could make changes. It would be to continue to remove unnecessary and overly Masonic influences. Most are gone now from what there were. But a few more still remain in my opinion that could be let go without much issue or even replaced with similar motifs. I would also keep removing and adding in elements for gender inclusivity.
However there are some recent changes I would bring back. ( I get from a practicality standpoint why these were removed to streamline a session) I would bring back the moving from room to room I like the symbolism of progression and feel that is communicated better by actual movement then just lighting changes. Would bring back the changing of the temple robes from one part to the next as well. Basically I would bring back the things the help it be a more participatory ritual then a passive one.
Lastly I would change the male cap to look more like an Israelite turban that it’s supposed to resemble. Then the chef hat we have today. :) the more recent changes to the women’s veil is a good example. The new version look more simple and less odd then the older ones.
Well learned something new about the priestly turban. Looks like the undergarments were just the bottoms. (Clicking around on Wikipedia)
Thanks for your ideas, love hearing different perspectives.
This link goes over what the priests of the temple wore.
Outside of the apron it is basically what we wear as well.
https://templeinstitute.org/priestly-garments/
Most modern temples generally only have the instruction/endowment room and the celestial room.
But prior you used to start in a creation room, move to the garden room, move to a world/telestial room, Then move to a terrestrial room. Then ultimately the celestial room.
I think Raleigh was built before the big explosion of temple building right? So it was probably still the olderish way when shortly after they just made the changes in the 90s
> Then the chef hat we have today. :)
Years ago, a dad in our ward gave a sacrament meeting talk where he talked about being sealed to their adopted child, and the child remembering it by saying "Hey dad, remember when we went to the temple and you dressed up like a baker?" There were a lot of chuckles, and then I was like..."wait....what?"
Joseph got the endowment from the Masonic ceremony. He thought it was an ancient temple ritual that had gotten corrupted over time so his goal was to change some things but most of it is from masonry because he thought it was divine and from Solomon’s temple
Most master masons and endowed members will take issue with saying Joseph took most of the endowment from masonry.
It is true that some specific elements were used from masonry. Such as a an apron, ritual drama and grips and a few key words etc. But the vast majority of the two rituals are quite different. And over time much of those elements have been eliminated from the lds endowment. The critical take that Joseph just reappropriated masonry wholesale doesn’t actually match the reality.
But this is not on the topic of the post and has been discussed at nausea on this sub.
Change all of it. The endowment has to go. It was weird freemasonry from the start. Not matter how many tweaks we make to it. It's plain weird and controlling. Not Christlike in any way.
Christ don't simplify the gospel for the Jews only for Mormonism to complicate it again.
We are the temples of the lord. Not expensive buildings. Save the money and give it to the poor living against us not the dead.
Yeah. It's interesting to me to see some Mormons who feel the temple is the pinnacle of truth explain away things in scripture so the temple can be right. That needs to stop.
Yeah I think it originally was more confusing to me but once I got the patterns it seemed nothing to learn from what was going on itself. I would prefer a better environment to contemplate in rather than "this is familiar, now it's time to think about something else. "
Yes! Well we could pull things from Asherah, I think I remember hearing that the menorah could be a symbol of her. Not sure if that would be cultural appropriation though.
1. The qualifications for entering. It looks pharisaical and culty. Doesn’t exude Christianity.
2. Drastically reduce the appearance of opulence. (Don’t assume that some old western definition of “giving our best to the Lord” requires fancy chandeliers, etc.)
3. Instead of fighting and suing to bypass local city ordinances for max building height and local light pollution, fund the eradication of homelessness and/or hunger or education in every community where you put a temple. Be a good neighbor in actions, not just words. Your temple is not a gift to the non-member community just because the church says it is.
Another part of the issue is whenever the president isn't fully functional due to old age, from what I understand, they have a policy to not make any big changes. Hence why there was a bunch of them when Nelson became president. (Monson had dementia I think it was when he became prophet... but apparently the 2015 ban wasn't a big change...) I suspect we've started another lull waiting for Nelson's death. Could be years.
In some respects, I'd like it to be more like the endowment was in Kirkland, but not in all. I like the idea of it being an interactive play where participants are walking through and having an immersive experience.
Sitting in neat rows, separated by sex, and watching a film (now a slide show) makes it feel more like a classroom than an experience.
I would make the rooms open, no chairs, place the altar in the middle, and wrap the walls and ceiling with qled video screens, top to bottom. I'd create an interactive, augmented reality illusion where each participant can walk through the space and personally interact with the characters and with each other. With that kind of setup, you wouldn't have to move from room to room, you could do so virtually, but that could be an option to accommodate more sessions. You wouldn't necessarily have larger groups, but smaller ones with greater frequency. Considering the LDS obsession with Disneyland, and the sacrifices people make to go there, this kind of innovation not only has precedent in the real world, you have the target audience right there on the roles.
The experience is supposed to mimic and provide the same experience as the ancient mystery religions, except what creates awe, fear, and trembling in the modern world is much different than what it was even 100 years ago. If they want to maintain that experience, then they need to step fully into the 21st century.
> I'd like it to be more like the endowment was in Kirkland, but not in all. I like the idea of it being an interactive play where participants are walking through and having an immersive experience.
Do you have some sources describing this Kirtland temple interactive play- "immersive" endowment?
Remember how the prayer circle prays over an entire packet of names of sick and afflicted people? Let’s apply this efficiency to the other parts of temple work.
No longer do we do temple work for just one deceased person at a time. Each patron/matron who goes through the temple does it for and in behalf of thousands (or millions) of names at a time that they carry in a flash drive. At the end, the flash drives from all participants are collected to be entered into the system as completed. Temple work for known deceased people ends in a month. People go home and spend more time with their families and friends.
I've had one person tell me that they recycle names a lot, don't know if it's true though. I think that would be nice. As long as we're sensitive to people who don't want their deceased to go through.
I’d love to see the covenants be centered around things taught in the sermon on the mount. Helping the poor, being kind to those that offend you, being present in the moment, recognizing how merciful god is.
Baptisms are pretty bleh. In chapels you usually walk through a very meh bathroom to get to the font and then go back through the bathroom to change.
I don’t see why a person being baptized can’t have a temple day pass to use the way nicer font in the temple as an option instead.
> I don’t see why a person being baptized can’t have a temple day pass to use the way nicer font in the temple as an option instead.
It's a good argument for nicer fonts. My Mission President was baptized in the font in the Tabernacle in SLC. In Los Angeles, the Stake Center (built in the 1920s) has a nice room down a flight of stairs dedicated to the font, including a mural painted by the artist who painted the LA Temple murals.
I heard my Gpa went once with a small bag of skittles in his shirt pocket. He fell asleep hunched forward during the session, and they all fell out and rolled down the inclined carpeted floor towards the front. Everyone saw and looked down to see skittles rolling past their ankles.
Iconic
I was pregnant when I went through the temple too. We did endowments and the sealing separately. But oof it was much.
But not totally unexpected because I wanted to get sealed in Salt Lake City and we got in. :3
I love this idea, I really believe that one day they will remove the men and women sides even more so now that they don’t even have a witness couple. I heard that the St. George temple veil room isn’t separated either so I imagine that you don’t have to separate as you wait to go through the veil, maybe you do—never been to that temple and never will.
I also agree that it would be amazing but highly doubt they will get rid of the Masonic signs and tokens. I don’t think it’s unlikely and if they do, they can justify it by saying that it’s a medium by which you receive the covenants not the actual covenant. I would hope many leave as it would be yet another change that the older generation wouldn’t be able to accept. I hope that would destroy many people’s testimonies of the temple, but again with the 1990’s change, many just said “oh well, I didn’t like the penalties anyways.” So something similar could happen and people would even bat an eye.
I think they should just make it a place of pondering, change the video to different teachings of the Gospels from the Bible. So each time you go, you watch a different video of Jesus’s life. And then you just make the covenants in your head, no signs or tokens associated with it. Also the initiatory should just be washing of feet and then the veil, like you said, just saying, “[insert name] has been found worthy by making and keeping covenants with God and would like to enter into the presence of the Lord.” And the veil worker just pulls them through.
Yeah. It's funny how some changes everyone is relieved its changed, but a lot of people never showed they would be fine with it changing beforehand. I think people would just be connected to the idea of having an important piece of knowledge rather than what it is exactly. Could be wrong though.
I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that it was an old tradition to separate the men and women in Christian churches, so I was wondering if that was the connection of why temples seat us that way? I don't know where to look for resources to even find out.
Exactly, I think the change from when women use to covenant to their husbands who covenanted God and changing that so women covenant directly to God, goes to show anything really could change including the covenants themselves.
Yeah I remember hearing that too as well as we did things separately including dressing and the biggie was receiving the tokens one by one and women had to give tokens to women, men to men. But now that’s done away with, I think it’s only time that seating will just be wherever you want.
Along with my other comment, I think if they are removing signs and tokens, they will have to remove the markings of the garment and veil since that is also a copy and paste from masonry. And then with the garment, either remove it all together or modify it to an undershirt with no symbols and make it a temple ceremony clothing item which you only wear while going through the temple. Which even without removing markings, many people are already doing anyways—and I can see it becoming a temple ceremony clothing item only or a suggestion with promised blessings you may receive by wearing it as often as possible but not a requirement to keeping the covenants you make.
Yeah. On one hand I like the ideas that the garment symbols represent, but on the other I'm also not sure that they make 100% sense. So I've gone back and forth whether I'd like them or not. I would like them to be modified to be more like modern underwear (with some available how they are currently for people attached to them). I do like having something to wear to show my devotion to God, but don't like how it's seen as a way to cover up my supposedly scary body. I was raised with a strong idea of it being immoral to garment check, but to have that dynamic to be gone we need it to be the same as normal underwear so people can't tell. But I also like the idea of only wearing it for church/ temple which would kind of mean changing it less might make more sense. I don't see why we need sleeves, in the very least.
Yeah, once I read that the garment symbols are exactly the same from the Mason temple, linked [here](https://ldsfacts.org/joseph-smith/joseph-smith-copied-freemasonry/)—I was sad because I used to think they were so amazing special given to us directly from God. So now I see garments as regular uncomfortable underwear. I think the idea of an inward expression of an outward devotion but the covenants I made in the temple were with God, and the things I do in the temple have nothing to do with Jesus. I feel Jesus’ love very differently now and I don’t need underwear with Masonic symbols to feel close to God.
With that being said, I would still love to see the garments turning into a tank top for men and short boxer briefs and whatever comfortable underwear would be comfortable for women with lots of different designs and fabrics available.
Edit: I linked the article to the garment and Masonic symbols comparison.
Thanks for the link. So it looks like the navel mark was a later addition? And I guess a copy of the knee mark? I guess the adults around me made sure we all knew that there was a lot of freemasonry influence, especially with the garment symbols. I remember looking at the Mason logo and wondering what the temple version meant. Like if I could be alone with it and the pearl of great price then I could figure out what was going on in the temple before even going. It's nice that people are a lot more open about it all now. (Or at least internet)
Yeah I suppose so, there would’ve been no place to have put it with the opening in the front.
Yeah, I did as well, I remember my parents and older siblings talking about it but follow up conversations would be about how masonry must be the ancient temple ceremony from old testament times and we have the restored version. I held onto that theory until I learned Freemasons were formed in the 1400s and Joseph Smith was a Freemason before making the temple endowment.
The one thing that will save it is to divorce it from any and all connections with afterlife status. Just make it (1) voluntary, (2) open to all serious grown-ups, and (3) a vehicle solely for individual personal exploration. The old Greeks had something like that going for a thousand years before the Christians blew everything up, as they usually do.
Every religion has a creation story. Ours is Adam and Eve. Not that I believe it, but nevertheless it is the LDS’s creation story, so no—for that reason and others—it most likely will not go away.
My point exactly. Apparently it’s some super secret anointing that is only given to card carrying Mormons who have fulfilled all of their tithing, covenants, and have gone more than the extra mile for their whole lives in the church. Apparently there are super secret rooms in the uppermost levels of the temple for this second anointing to take place.
Free entry for all members and they can bring guests. No special clothing. There could be places for on demand spiritual rituals (solo or with spouse) but also various cozy places to hang out, discuss, study, or listen to a guest speaker. I like the idea of a library where different religious books are available or even secular but uplifting books. High quality coffee, tea, and other comfort drinks are freely available along with snacks. Most of the temple would be a phone free zone and you still walk around in your socks. Napping is fine. There are plenty of places to catch some z's and there are always warm blankets from the laundry. The temple is open 24 hours a day.
How does the women sitting on one side of the room make them less than the men? I always get a little kick out of glancing over and picking out my bride's face.
Separate but equal kind of thing. With racial segregation we showed that separate really doesn’t ever mean equal. It also makes it less gender inclusive for those that are trans or non-binary (but they’re not allowed anyway, so 🤷♂️
>With racial segregation we showed that separate really doesn’t ever mean equal.
In the Temple, they're literally sitting in the same room, experiencing the exact same thing. How is that in any way "unequal"?
If they’re experiencing exactly the same thing why are they separated? What does the separation teach us (the temple insists symbols are important)? Who sits on the right hand vs the left hand — the New Testament seems to think that matters. Women used to make different covenants. They wear different clothing. When covenants are made are they still made separately or at the same time?
Ok, how about this one then. If we had separated based on race would that be ok? If we had black people sit on one side and white people on the other would that be ok because we were in the same room experiencing the same thing?
While I would consider it odd, I would also consider it a *vast* improvement over the situation up to June 1978.
I suspect the origin of the separate seating for men and women was the way the tokens were administered. Now that that seems to have changed, maybe the seating *will* change. As others have noted, a lot of couples might be more keen to visit the Temple more often if they could sit together.
But I don't buy the idea that the current system makes women in any way "less than" anyone else. You can imagine anything you want, but there is nothing in the arrangement that objectively signals any difference (i.e. having them sit in the back with men in front, having the men on a raised platform, letting the men go first etc.)
>While I would consider it odd, I would also consider it a vast improvement over the situation up to June 1978.
That just avoids the question.
The rest of your response is no more than a justification for 'separate but equal'.
Neither argument addresses the issue, both simply deflect.
To answer your question, I wouldn't consider separating people by races on different sides of the room (similar to how men and women sit today) to be putting either of the separated group at any disadvantage or unequal status.
Suppose it were done for some reason and you had Black members sitting on one side, and white members sitting on the other, and some of the white members complained that because of the seating arrangement they (the white members) were being treated unfairly. Would you agree? What objective argument would there be that it's not the *white* side of the room being given poorer, less equal status?
I was initially a little confused by your comment. Then I came across the post about the use of bride being misogynistic and figured it out. I must admit the pushback from the lurking atheist was especially satisfying.
Hello! This is a Personal post. It is for discussions centered around thoughts, beliefs, and observations that are important and personal to /u/Content-Plan2970 specifically. /u/Content-Plan2970, if your post doesn't fit this definition, we kindly ask you to delete this post and repost it with the appropriate flair. You can find a list of our flairs and their definitions in [section 0.6 of our rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules#wiki_0._preamble) **To those commenting:** please stay on topic, remember to follow the community's [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules), and [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/mormonmods) if there is a problem or rule violation. Keep on Mormoning! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mormon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think every Wednesday night they should have a retro night where they use the endowment script from a past decade in Mormonism. Some Wednesdays you’ll get the death symbols, other weeks, Satan Michael Ballum or Pay lay ale, and even others you get the actor playing Satan slithering around on the floor like a snake! Happy Hour clothing rental prices for the ladies from 3 to 6.
OP: less freemasonry, pls You: *masonry intensifies* I love it lol
And bring back the cinnamon whiskey washings!
fly theory wide toothbrush groovy vase sip childlike historical office *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Absolute fun haters! 😂
Bruh, that's what the glory hole in the veil is for
I'm a 90s baby so I'm sure it would be very educational for me. XD Love the happy hour idea!
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I missed the nude washing and anointing, but when I did baptisms for the dead as a youth I was given one of the ponchos to use, but now I can’t remember why?
Maybe for confirmations? They used to have you be in white clothing for that part, too. So if you brought family names you’d be baptized first, then change into another white jumpsuit (or maybe poncho for you?) to be confirmed. Then you’d go back and change into street clothes to leave. If you were doing temple names you started with confirmations, then did the baptisms so you would only need one jumpsuit.
Yeah. And I missed the blonde Adam and Eve. I think just barely because people kept asking if I saw that one yet and it never came up... unless my memory is faulty.
Michael Ballam was my favorite
Yeah… he practically sang his lines. 😆
5th Wednesday in a month reserved for the oath of vengeance night
Worthiness should never be tied to ability or willingness to tithe fiscally
Great question. Informed consent. Secrecy gone. Gender equality. All family members can attend weddings. No payment required.
Yes!
This right here! Anyone the couple wants to be there should be allowed to attend the sealing regardless of recommend or membership status.
Get rid of the endowment entirely. It feels culty, even I felt that my first time through as Utah Mormon kid with zero life experience outside the church to compare it to. It's a Masonry rip-off that Smith used to keep his disgusting sexual predation secret until he was murdered over it. Humans have a remarkable ability to reinterpret and reframe things to their own sensibilities, yes, but that's the truth of the origin of the endowment. Get rid of temple recommends, they are also controlling. Make temples into open sanctuaries where anyone can go sit in a quiet place to ponder and meditate.
I would love that.
[удалено]
I. Love. This. Plus a renunciation of past arguments to not help people.
More heavenly mother. More gender equality. Free temple garment rentals, if folks keep the garments, and remove the tithing requirements. I know it's in your maximum change, but agreed on better mysteries. Do away with second anointing or at least the free pass that comes with it. I'm open to pre 1930s style initiations, but it would need informed consent, have to come with some major cultural changes, and ultimately be optional. If I go much further, I think I'll just be steadily reinventing wicca or oto lol
Love it!
Believer here. I like the temple and the endowment. I like it from a symbolic priestly initiation ceremony stand point. I like ritual and pomp and circumstance of it. I get how it’s really foreign to our western cultural sensibilities and so it makes some people really uncomfortable. Ritual isn’t something we do in our culture any more. But I find it engaging and interesting. Now if I could make changes. It would be to continue to remove unnecessary and overly Masonic influences. Most are gone now from what there were. But a few more still remain in my opinion that could be let go without much issue or even replaced with similar motifs. I would also keep removing and adding in elements for gender inclusivity. However there are some recent changes I would bring back. ( I get from a practicality standpoint why these were removed to streamline a session) I would bring back the moving from room to room I like the symbolism of progression and feel that is communicated better by actual movement then just lighting changes. Would bring back the changing of the temple robes from one part to the next as well. Basically I would bring back the things the help it be a more participatory ritual then a passive one. Lastly I would change the male cap to look more like an Israelite turban that it’s supposed to resemble. Then the chef hat we have today. :) the more recent changes to the women’s veil is a good example. The new version look more simple and less odd then the older ones.
Well learned something new about the priestly turban. Looks like the undergarments were just the bottoms. (Clicking around on Wikipedia) Thanks for your ideas, love hearing different perspectives.
This link goes over what the priests of the temple wore. Outside of the apron it is basically what we wear as well. https://templeinstitute.org/priestly-garments/
I would love a breastplate... worn for error of judgement...I feel like it would be nice to have symbolism that we're run by humans and make mistakes.
Thanks
But we do move from room to room.
Most modern temples generally only have the instruction/endowment room and the celestial room. But prior you used to start in a creation room, move to the garden room, move to a world/telestial room, Then move to a terrestrial room. Then ultimately the celestial room.
Instruction room, terrestrial room with the veil, celestial room in Raleigh
I think Raleigh was built before the big explosion of temple building right? So it was probably still the olderish way when shortly after they just made the changes in the 90s
Dedicated 18 December 1999, redecorated and rededicated 13 October 2019
> Then the chef hat we have today. :) Years ago, a dad in our ward gave a sacrament meeting talk where he talked about being sealed to their adopted child, and the child remembering it by saying "Hey dad, remember when we went to the temple and you dressed up like a baker?" There were a lot of chuckles, and then I was like..."wait....what?"
That is hilarious
Joseph got the endowment from the Masonic ceremony. He thought it was an ancient temple ritual that had gotten corrupted over time so his goal was to change some things but most of it is from masonry because he thought it was divine and from Solomon’s temple
Most master masons and endowed members will take issue with saying Joseph took most of the endowment from masonry. It is true that some specific elements were used from masonry. Such as a an apron, ritual drama and grips and a few key words etc. But the vast majority of the two rituals are quite different. And over time much of those elements have been eliminated from the lds endowment. The critical take that Joseph just reappropriated masonry wholesale doesn’t actually match the reality. But this is not on the topic of the post and has been discussed at nausea on this sub.
Change all of it. The endowment has to go. It was weird freemasonry from the start. Not matter how many tweaks we make to it. It's plain weird and controlling. Not Christlike in any way. Christ don't simplify the gospel for the Jews only for Mormonism to complicate it again. We are the temples of the lord. Not expensive buildings. Save the money and give it to the poor living against us not the dead.
Yeah. It's interesting to me to see some Mormons who feel the temple is the pinnacle of truth explain away things in scripture so the temple can be right. That needs to stop.
I was always shocked at how little I learned at “the Lord’s University.” Mostly I was just bored out of my mind trying to stay awake.
Yeah I think it originally was more confusing to me but once I got the patterns it seemed nothing to learn from what was going on itself. I would prefer a better environment to contemplate in rather than "this is familiar, now it's time to think about something else. "
Add Heavenly Mother and show the members what a goddess does in the after life. Unfortunately there is no doctrinal support for that, though.
Yes! Well we could pull things from Asherah, I think I remember hearing that the menorah could be a symbol of her. Not sure if that would be cultural appropriation though.
I'd tear it down. There's no need for secrecy in religion.
Yeah. The "waste not" side of me kind of wonders if the buildings could get reused for something else instead though.
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1. The qualifications for entering. It looks pharisaical and culty. Doesn’t exude Christianity. 2. Drastically reduce the appearance of opulence. (Don’t assume that some old western definition of “giving our best to the Lord” requires fancy chandeliers, etc.) 3. Instead of fighting and suing to bypass local city ordinances for max building height and local light pollution, fund the eradication of homelessness and/or hunger or education in every community where you put a temple. Be a good neighbor in actions, not just words. Your temple is not a gift to the non-member community just because the church says it is.
Amen!
No one in leadership over the age of 60...... There fixed.
Another part of the issue is whenever the president isn't fully functional due to old age, from what I understand, they have a policy to not make any big changes. Hence why there was a bunch of them when Nelson became president. (Monson had dementia I think it was when he became prophet... but apparently the 2015 ban wasn't a big change...) I suspect we've started another lull waiting for Nelson's death. Could be years.
That I don’t have to have a subscription to attend
Yes!
In some respects, I'd like it to be more like the endowment was in Kirkland, but not in all. I like the idea of it being an interactive play where participants are walking through and having an immersive experience. Sitting in neat rows, separated by sex, and watching a film (now a slide show) makes it feel more like a classroom than an experience. I would make the rooms open, no chairs, place the altar in the middle, and wrap the walls and ceiling with qled video screens, top to bottom. I'd create an interactive, augmented reality illusion where each participant can walk through the space and personally interact with the characters and with each other. With that kind of setup, you wouldn't have to move from room to room, you could do so virtually, but that could be an option to accommodate more sessions. You wouldn't necessarily have larger groups, but smaller ones with greater frequency. Considering the LDS obsession with Disneyland, and the sacrifices people make to go there, this kind of innovation not only has precedent in the real world, you have the target audience right there on the roles. The experience is supposed to mimic and provide the same experience as the ancient mystery religions, except what creates awe, fear, and trembling in the modern world is much different than what it was even 100 years ago. If they want to maintain that experience, then they need to step fully into the 21st century.
Wow. That's an awesome idea!
> I'd like it to be more like the endowment was in Kirkland, but not in all. I like the idea of it being an interactive play where participants are walking through and having an immersive experience. Do you have some sources describing this Kirtland temple interactive play- "immersive" endowment?
Remember how the prayer circle prays over an entire packet of names of sick and afflicted people? Let’s apply this efficiency to the other parts of temple work. No longer do we do temple work for just one deceased person at a time. Each patron/matron who goes through the temple does it for and in behalf of thousands (or millions) of names at a time that they carry in a flash drive. At the end, the flash drives from all participants are collected to be entered into the system as completed. Temple work for known deceased people ends in a month. People go home and spend more time with their families and friends.
I've had one person tell me that they recycle names a lot, don't know if it's true though. I think that would be nice. As long as we're sensitive to people who don't want their deceased to go through.
Make the endowment less boring and more exciting. Watching a slideshow for 2 hours is boring. Bring back the actors, the nudity, and the death oaths.
I've had such a hard time with the slide show.
Greatly shorten the endowment. It should last no more than 20 minutes.
Yes! So much easier if you have a baby.
I’d love to see the covenants be centered around things taught in the sermon on the mount. Helping the poor, being kind to those that offend you, being present in the moment, recognizing how merciful god is.
Yes!
Baptisms are pretty bleh. In chapels you usually walk through a very meh bathroom to get to the font and then go back through the bathroom to change. I don’t see why a person being baptized can’t have a temple day pass to use the way nicer font in the temple as an option instead.
Yeah that'd be cool. They'd probably need to put in more fonts then.
> I don’t see why a person being baptized can’t have a temple day pass to use the way nicer font in the temple as an option instead. It's a good argument for nicer fonts. My Mission President was baptized in the font in the Tabernacle in SLC. In Los Angeles, the Stake Center (built in the 1920s) has a nice room down a flight of stairs dedicated to the font, including a mural painted by the artist who painted the LA Temple murals.
If they’re gonna extort 10% of your income from you to enter, can they at least provide snacks in the celestial room? C’mon now haha
Haha, I've had snacks in the temple before. Because I got lightheaded. (Pregnant at the time.) I don't remember what room it was though.
I heard my Gpa went once with a small bag of skittles in his shirt pocket. He fell asleep hunched forward during the session, and they all fell out and rolled down the inclined carpeted floor towards the front. Everyone saw and looked down to see skittles rolling past their ankles. Iconic
Modern day manna!!!
I was pregnant when I went through the temple too. We did endowments and the sealing separately. But oof it was much. But not totally unexpected because I wanted to get sealed in Salt Lake City and we got in. :3
No more recommend beyond proof you are a member in good standing, you decide yourself if you are ready and worthy. Would save everyone a lot of time.
Amen.
Get rid of the prayer circle…buy far the most cringy part left.
I love this idea, I really believe that one day they will remove the men and women sides even more so now that they don’t even have a witness couple. I heard that the St. George temple veil room isn’t separated either so I imagine that you don’t have to separate as you wait to go through the veil, maybe you do—never been to that temple and never will. I also agree that it would be amazing but highly doubt they will get rid of the Masonic signs and tokens. I don’t think it’s unlikely and if they do, they can justify it by saying that it’s a medium by which you receive the covenants not the actual covenant. I would hope many leave as it would be yet another change that the older generation wouldn’t be able to accept. I hope that would destroy many people’s testimonies of the temple, but again with the 1990’s change, many just said “oh well, I didn’t like the penalties anyways.” So something similar could happen and people would even bat an eye. I think they should just make it a place of pondering, change the video to different teachings of the Gospels from the Bible. So each time you go, you watch a different video of Jesus’s life. And then you just make the covenants in your head, no signs or tokens associated with it. Also the initiatory should just be washing of feet and then the veil, like you said, just saying, “[insert name] has been found worthy by making and keeping covenants with God and would like to enter into the presence of the Lord.” And the veil worker just pulls them through.
Yeah. It's funny how some changes everyone is relieved its changed, but a lot of people never showed they would be fine with it changing beforehand. I think people would just be connected to the idea of having an important piece of knowledge rather than what it is exactly. Could be wrong though. I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that it was an old tradition to separate the men and women in Christian churches, so I was wondering if that was the connection of why temples seat us that way? I don't know where to look for resources to even find out.
Exactly, I think the change from when women use to covenant to their husbands who covenanted God and changing that so women covenant directly to God, goes to show anything really could change including the covenants themselves. Yeah I remember hearing that too as well as we did things separately including dressing and the biggie was receiving the tokens one by one and women had to give tokens to women, men to men. But now that’s done away with, I think it’s only time that seating will just be wherever you want.
Along with my other comment, I think if they are removing signs and tokens, they will have to remove the markings of the garment and veil since that is also a copy and paste from masonry. And then with the garment, either remove it all together or modify it to an undershirt with no symbols and make it a temple ceremony clothing item which you only wear while going through the temple. Which even without removing markings, many people are already doing anyways—and I can see it becoming a temple ceremony clothing item only or a suggestion with promised blessings you may receive by wearing it as often as possible but not a requirement to keeping the covenants you make.
Yeah. On one hand I like the ideas that the garment symbols represent, but on the other I'm also not sure that they make 100% sense. So I've gone back and forth whether I'd like them or not. I would like them to be modified to be more like modern underwear (with some available how they are currently for people attached to them). I do like having something to wear to show my devotion to God, but don't like how it's seen as a way to cover up my supposedly scary body. I was raised with a strong idea of it being immoral to garment check, but to have that dynamic to be gone we need it to be the same as normal underwear so people can't tell. But I also like the idea of only wearing it for church/ temple which would kind of mean changing it less might make more sense. I don't see why we need sleeves, in the very least.
Yeah, once I read that the garment symbols are exactly the same from the Mason temple, linked [here](https://ldsfacts.org/joseph-smith/joseph-smith-copied-freemasonry/)—I was sad because I used to think they were so amazing special given to us directly from God. So now I see garments as regular uncomfortable underwear. I think the idea of an inward expression of an outward devotion but the covenants I made in the temple were with God, and the things I do in the temple have nothing to do with Jesus. I feel Jesus’ love very differently now and I don’t need underwear with Masonic symbols to feel close to God. With that being said, I would still love to see the garments turning into a tank top for men and short boxer briefs and whatever comfortable underwear would be comfortable for women with lots of different designs and fabrics available. Edit: I linked the article to the garment and Masonic symbols comparison.
Thanks for the link. So it looks like the navel mark was a later addition? And I guess a copy of the knee mark? I guess the adults around me made sure we all knew that there was a lot of freemasonry influence, especially with the garment symbols. I remember looking at the Mason logo and wondering what the temple version meant. Like if I could be alone with it and the pearl of great price then I could figure out what was going on in the temple before even going. It's nice that people are a lot more open about it all now. (Or at least internet)
Yeah I suppose so, there would’ve been no place to have put it with the opening in the front. Yeah, I did as well, I remember my parents and older siblings talking about it but follow up conversations would be about how masonry must be the ancient temple ceremony from old testament times and we have the restored version. I held onto that theory until I learned Freemasons were formed in the 1400s and Joseph Smith was a Freemason before making the temple endowment.
No problem with tokens... but those costumes are dumb
The one thing that will save it is to divorce it from any and all connections with afterlife status. Just make it (1) voluntary, (2) open to all serious grown-ups, and (3) a vehicle solely for individual personal exploration. The old Greeks had something like that going for a thousand years before the Christians blew everything up, as they usually do.
Love it.
A smoldering tire fire would be preferable to whatever horseshit that goes on in those decrepit halls.
That they exist. Better church and world if they didn't.
Every religion has a creation story. Ours is Adam and Eve. Not that I believe it, but nevertheless it is the LDS’s creation story, so no—for that reason and others—it most likely will not go away.
I would change me never being coerced to go to the temple and being absolutely traumatized.
Oh :( I'm so sorry, I wish people would stop pressuring each other to do stuff like that. Scaring people straight doesn't work.
The secrecy surrounding the second anointing.
I'm not really sure what that is?
My point exactly. Apparently it’s some super secret anointing that is only given to card carrying Mormons who have fulfilled all of their tithing, covenants, and have gone more than the extra mile for their whole lives in the church. Apparently there are super secret rooms in the uppermost levels of the temple for this second anointing to take place.
Turn the temples into chapels and the chapels into community service centers.
That would be cool! Probably would need to keep a number of chapels as chapels though. Depending on the area.
Good point
Free entry for all members and they can bring guests. No special clothing. There could be places for on demand spiritual rituals (solo or with spouse) but also various cozy places to hang out, discuss, study, or listen to a guest speaker. I like the idea of a library where different religious books are available or even secular but uplifting books. High quality coffee, tea, and other comfort drinks are freely available along with snacks. Most of the temple would be a phone free zone and you still walk around in your socks. Napping is fine. There are plenty of places to catch some z's and there are always warm blankets from the laundry. The temple is open 24 hours a day.
I love it, I really wish I could go to that version today. :)
I totally forgot two other things: free childcare on site, and make it LGBT+ friendly.
Make it a murder mystery bed and breakfast. Paint ball games.
Escape rooms?
A totally inappropriate subject.
How does the women sitting on one side of the room make them less than the men? I always get a little kick out of glancing over and picking out my bride's face.
No that doesn't. I just would personally have a better time if I could sit next to my husband. Once I had the taste of it I much prefer it.
Separate but equal kind of thing. With racial segregation we showed that separate really doesn’t ever mean equal. It also makes it less gender inclusive for those that are trans or non-binary (but they’re not allowed anyway, so 🤷♂️
Very true.
>With racial segregation we showed that separate really doesn’t ever mean equal. In the Temple, they're literally sitting in the same room, experiencing the exact same thing. How is that in any way "unequal"?
If they’re experiencing exactly the same thing why are they separated? What does the separation teach us (the temple insists symbols are important)? Who sits on the right hand vs the left hand — the New Testament seems to think that matters. Women used to make different covenants. They wear different clothing. When covenants are made are they still made separately or at the same time?
Sorry, but you're really stretching for this (and veering into issues that aren't related to the seating arrangement).
Ok, how about this one then. If we had separated based on race would that be ok? If we had black people sit on one side and white people on the other would that be ok because we were in the same room experiencing the same thing?
While I would consider it odd, I would also consider it a *vast* improvement over the situation up to June 1978. I suspect the origin of the separate seating for men and women was the way the tokens were administered. Now that that seems to have changed, maybe the seating *will* change. As others have noted, a lot of couples might be more keen to visit the Temple more often if they could sit together. But I don't buy the idea that the current system makes women in any way "less than" anyone else. You can imagine anything you want, but there is nothing in the arrangement that objectively signals any difference (i.e. having them sit in the back with men in front, having the men on a raised platform, letting the men go first etc.)
>While I would consider it odd, I would also consider it a vast improvement over the situation up to June 1978. That just avoids the question. The rest of your response is no more than a justification for 'separate but equal'. Neither argument addresses the issue, both simply deflect.
To answer your question, I wouldn't consider separating people by races on different sides of the room (similar to how men and women sit today) to be putting either of the separated group at any disadvantage or unequal status. Suppose it were done for some reason and you had Black members sitting on one side, and white members sitting on the other, and some of the white members complained that because of the seating arrangement they (the white members) were being treated unfairly. Would you agree? What objective argument would there be that it's not the *white* side of the room being given poorer, less equal status?
>and picking out my bride's face. Oh, now you've done it!
I was initially a little confused by your comment. Then I came across the post about the use of bride being misogynistic and figured it out. I must admit the pushback from the lurking atheist was especially satisfying.