One of the problematic aspects of Mormonism is their beliefs and practices pertaining to secret temple rituals. Lynn and her husband became very acquainted with them during their many years as temple-worthy Mormons. I appreciate Lynn’s very clear, precise explanation of these rituals.
***Please note that I have obtained written permission from the author to quote her work.
The following excerpts are from Chapter 5 of Unveiling Grace: the Story of How We Found Our Way out of the Mormon Church by Dr. Lynn Wilder:
Continued in next post.
***Please note that I have obtained written permission from the author to quote her work.
The following excerpts are from Chapter 5 of Unveiling Grace: the Story of How We Found Our Way out of the Mormon Church by Dr. Lynn Wilder:
Temple visits were also a crucial piece of the LDS activity puzzle. One could visit the temple only with a temple recommend, earned from a worthiness interview with a member of the bishopric. (Adults also had to pass a second worthiness interview — same questions — with a member of the stake presidency.) Temple recommend questions for adults include whether one sustains the Mormon prophet as the prophet, seer, and revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys.
The leaders ask whether one is a full-tithe payer, keeps the Word of Wisdom (the LDS health code), and attends sacrament and other meetings. They ask if one supports, is affiliated with, or agrees with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The three members of the bishopric and also of the stake presidency can give or refuse to give the temple recommend, based on one’s answers to the temple recommend questions or just because they feel it is Heavenly Father’s will. (8)
Priesthood leaders challenged families with a temple recommend to attend the temple twice a year, so Mike and I traveled to the Washington D.C. Temple until the Chicago Temple opened in 1985. The many church members who were not temple worthy understood that they would be relegated to the middle of three heavens, the place where the Christians also live after this life, the terrestrial kingdom. Here Jesus would visit but the Father would never go (D&C 76). For many, this sufficed. Attending the temple, however, could allow one to attain the highest celestial kingdom. And if parents were sealed together in the temple, they could go to the highest rung of that kingdom, living as families (with at least one wife) and procreating spirit children forever, even reaching godhood.
We had made our first temple visit back in March of 1979, when we received the ordinances for our own exaltation and eternal progression. That experience was quite disturbing. After entry and examination of our recommends, Mike and I were ushered to a counter where we paid to rent temple clothes. Next we were accompanied to gender-separate locker rooms. I was instructed to remove all of my clothes in an individual curtained booth and to put on the shield. The shield is like a thick white hospital gown that has a circular cutout for the head and is open on both sides under the arms.
I proceeded to the location where the ordinances would take place and entered an area partitioned into four parts approximately four feet by four feet, separated by white curtains. The first was a holding area, the second the washing area, the third the anointing area, and the fourth the area where I was to be dressed in the undergarment of the holy priesthood from my shoulders to my knees.
A female temple worker invited me from the holding area into the second partitioned area, where she touched various parts of my body with her index finger dipped in water for the washing, and then sealed the washing when she, now joined by a second female worker, placed hands on my head, repeating memorized words to seal the washing.
In the third area, the second worker dipped her finger in oil for the anointing and touched various body parts (forehead, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, shoulders, back, breast, sides, stomach, arms, hands, vitals and bowels, legs, and feet) as she repeated the scripted ordinance. (The frequent touching of body parts — which I found unsettling — was removed from the washing and anointing in 2005.) Then the anointing with oil was sealed by the second worker and a new worker who had just appeared, repeating scripted words.
Finally, I was moved by the third temple worker to the last partitioned area and told to step into the undergarment of the holy priesthood, which, if I were true to my temple covenants, would be a physical and spiritual “shield and a protection,” the ordinance proclaimed, “until my work on earth was finished.” Of course, I hadn’t received the covenants yet. They came in the ensuing endowment ceremony, so I didn’t know yet what I needed to be faithful to.
I returned to the dressing area and removed the shield but kept the garments on. Then I dressed in a long slip and a white to-the-ankle and to-the-wrist dress, socks, and slippers from my rented packet and took the rest of the packet with me for the endowment ceremony. Everything was white except for the green fig-leaf apron I would don during the endowment ceremony.
Next I moved to a booth at the edge of the locker room to receive my worker-whispered new name, the one my righteous priesthood-holder husband would have to remember so he could call me up during the resurrection of my dead body in the future. I exited to a hallway and walked to a chapel room to await the endowment ceremony. Here Mike and I sat together, waiting along with others, listening as the organist played LDS hymns.
At the appointed time, a group of about thirty of us was escorted to one of the several endowment rooms with theater-like seats. Men sat on the right side as we entered the room, women on the left. We were invited to withdraw if we did not wish to make the covenants in the endowment. The problem was we didn’t know what they were yet! Then an instructional movie was started and stopped by a male officiator and his female counterpart. We added pieces of clothing from our packets, as we were instructed, and the women veiled their faces as we learned the true order of prayer. We agreed to “suffer our lives to be taken” if we revealed the Masonic-like tokens with their accompanying names, signs, and penalties. Verbal acknowledgment of ensuing death penalties for revealing aspects of the tokens were removed by the LDS first presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) from the temple ceremony in 1990, but every time we went to the temple after 1990, we remembered them at the appropriate place in the ceremony.
The instruction included several covenants and clothing additions from the packet. With the white robe of the holy priesthood on my right shoulder on top of my white dress, with my green fig-leaf apron and white sash around my waist on top of the robe, and with a veil on my head but not over my face except during the true order of prayer, I was ready for the final covenant, called the law of consecration. A man represented the apostle Peter.
Peter: “You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the Law of Consecration as contained in this [the officiator holds up a copy], the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion. Each of you bow your head and say ‘yes.’ ”(9)
I did not realize it at the time, but I had just dedicated myself, my time, my money, my future children, and everything I had or would have to the earthly organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon Church held my life in its hands. Like the medieval feudal system, in which the master owned even one’s excrement for fertilizer, I belonged to the Mormon Church. Any good works I might do would be credited to what I believed was the Lord’s true church.
During the endowment ceremony the character playing Lucifer in the movie (in the Salt Lake Temple, the players are live) looked right at us and warned, “If they do not walk up to every covenant they make at these altars in this temple this day, they will be in my power!” I did not want that.
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