Temple prep - "Worthy to Enter"

The following text is taken from the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" (2002) and annotated by me.

Once you have some feeling for the value of temple blessings and for the sacredness of the ordinances performed in the temple, you would be hesitant to question the high standards set by the Lord for entrance into the holy temple. All the Church offers is feelings about so-called blessings and sacredness. It would really be fantastic if someone would lay it all out for us to work through. But the Church isn't doing that right now. Instead we get semi-threatening language about how we "would be hesitant to question" this whole temple thing.

You must possess a current recommend to be admitted to the temple. We know. This recommend must be signed by the bishop of your ward and the president of your stake. OK. Sounds serious... In the mission field, of course, the branch president and the mission president have responsibility for issuing temple recommends. Of course. Only those who are worthy should go to the temple. But a lot of unworthy assholes who shouldn't do too! :( Why can't the bishop and stake president sniff them out? The bishop has the responsibility of making inquiries into our personal worthiness. This interview is of great importance to you as a member of the Church, for it is an occasion to explore with an ordained servant of the Lord the pattern of your life. Ordained but untrained. Let's tell it like it is: this is an obligatory disclosure of your life to that one neighbor dude. If anything is amiss in your life, the bishop will be able to help you resolve it. Well he'll try anyway. Let's not forget that he likely has no training in counseling. Through this procedure, as you counsel with the common judge in Israel, you can declare or can be helped to establish your worthiness to enter the temple with the Lord’s approval. Bishop's approval. The Lord doesn't sign your recommend.

President N. Eldon Tanner, who served as First Counselor in the First Presidency, spoke to the general priesthood meeting about interviews. His counsel has meaning both for the Church leaders who conduct the interview and for the members who are to be interviewed. Consider carefully this counsel:

You bishops and stake presidents might approach an interview for a temple recommend something like this:

“You have come to me for a recommend to enter the temple. I have the responsibility of representing the Lord in interviewing you. What a humble approach. :S At the conclusion of the interview there is provision for me to sign your recommend; but mine is not the only important signature on your recommend. Before the recommend is valid, you must sign it yourself. Sounds tricky! :S

“When you sign your recommend, you make a commitment to the Lord that you are worthy of the privileges granted to those who hold such a recommend. When did Jesus ask us to sign a piece of paper? There are several standard questions that I will ask. … You are to respond honestly to each one.” Because you can tell? …

Now, after you have put those required questions to the applicant, you may wish to add something like this: “One who goes into the house of the Lord must be free from any unclean, unholy, impure, or unnatural practice.” Wait! What are the questions? Is this a pop quiz or can we see the questions? …

Our interviews must be conducted in love, in modesty. Try by conducting them as a friend instead of pretending you're standing in for Jesus. Ofttimes things can be corrected if you ask: “Would there be a reason you may feel uncomfortable or perhaps even dishonest to the Lord if you were to sign your own temple recommend? Dig up the guilt, brother! DIG!! You might want to start using an E-meter.

“Would you like a little time to get some very personal things in order before you sign it? Remember, the Lord knows all things and will not be mocked. YES! Scare them! Terrify them! God will smite them if they're lying! We are trying to help you. Never lie to try to obtain a call, a recommend, or a blessing from the Lord.” Excellent! Passively accuse them of lying! Very good approach.

If you approach the matter as outlined above, the member has the responsibility to interview himself. Because there's not way providing members with the questions and asking them to prayerfully consider their answers on their own would get them to answer honestly. The bishop or stake president has the right to the power of discernment. He will know whether or not there is something amiss that ought to be settled before a recommend is issued. Except when they don't (which is almost always). (“The Blessing of Church Interviews,” Ensign [November 1978]: 42–43.)

The interview for a temple recommend is conducted privately between the bishop and the Church member concerned. (Or the stake president.) Here the member is asked searching questions about his or her personal conduct, worthiness, and loyalty to the Church and its officers. Searching that members could do on their own. The bishop can butt out. The person must certify that he or she is morally clean and is keeping the Word of Wisdom, paying a full tithing, living in harmony with the teachings of the Church, and not maintaining any affiliation or sympathy with apostate groups. Whoa! You basically gave us the questions! Thank you! Can we talk a bit about these topics? Does "morally clean" include faking it until we make it? Does proof that we keep the word of wisdom involve checking how much meat we eat or a test to see if we can "walk and not faint"? Is a full tithe based on gross, net or expendable income? Does these mean we have to actively oppose gay rights? Do we have to avoid our cousins and siblings who have left the Church and always attend Sunstone and Dialog conferences? The bishop is instructed that confidentiality in handling these matters with each interviewee is of the utmost importance. And we just kind of trust them.

Acceptable answers to the bishop’s questions will ordinarily establish the worthiness of an individual to receive a temple recommend. But they don't always have the power of discernment. If an applicant is not keeping the commandments or there is something unsettled about his or her life that needs putting in order, it will be necessary for that individual to demonstrate true repentance before a temple recommend is issued. Typically that demonstration takes the form of public shaming in the form of not being able to take the sacrament on Sundays or privately in the form of paying up on tithing.

After the bishop has conducted such an interview, a member of the stake presidency likewise interviews each of us before we go to the temple. Because bishops don't do a very good job. They really should get some E-meters. If we are going for the first time, ordinarily the stake president personally conducts the interview. Because... why? Is this supposed to be comforting or is it just an arbitrary rule you thought you'd share?

Surely, when you appear to be interviewed for a temple recommend you would accept the judgment of him who is designated as the judge in Israel, who is responsible to represent the Lord in determining whether or not it is proper for you to enter this sacred place. Sure, I guess. Unless he's a total idiot or complete dick. Have you ever heard of the leadership roulette?

Prosperity

If there is one reoccurring lesson in The Book of Mormon it's probably that "inasmuch as ye keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper" (1 Ne. 2:20; 4:14; 13:15, 20; 2 Ne. 1:9, 20; 4:4; Omni 1:6; Mos. 1:7, 17; 2:22, 31, 36; 7:29; 25:24; 26:37; 27:7; Alma 9:13, 22-23; 36:1, 30; 37:13, 43; 38:1; 45:8; 48:15, 25; 50:18-20; Hel. 12:1-2; 3 Ne. 5:22) or, in other words, if you do what God wants you to do he'll bless you with wealth and lots of kids. (Congratulations, God loves you!) In fact, the entire book is about two groups who were both righteous enough to be blessed with life in the Americas only to fall from grace and get wipe out almost completely by the will of God. The Book of Mormon exists to bolster the idea that God gives you health and wealth if you behave.

Take a look at how the Jaredites and Lehites "prosper", "multiply" and "wax" (often "exceedingly") every few chapters (2 Ne. 5:11, 13; Jar. 1:8; Mos. 2:2; 9:9; 10:5; 21:16; 23:19-20; Alma 1:31; 50:18-20; 62:48, 51; Hel. 3:8, 20; 4:13, 15; 6:12; 11:20; 3 Ne. 6:4-5; 4 Ne. 1:4, 10, 18, 23, 28; Eth. 6:18; 7:26; 9:16; 10:16, 28), but they're also always becoming prideful and "waxing in iniquity". That's when God has to smite them down (by the tens of thousands) to make them humble again so they follow the commandments again so God can bless them with riches again so they can get prideful again, etc. (You'd think God would catch on after a while, wouldn't you?) Within the LDS Church this cyclical narrative within The Book of Mormon is known as the Pride Cycle. I would dare say that the majority of believing Mormons are very familiar with the concept though few have probably lived the cycle, but it's supposed to be one of the greatest and clearest warnings in Mormon scripture.

Outside of Mormonism this kind of relationship with God is called the Prosperity Gospel and it was very popular with the Puritans who colonized New England.

Lucy Mack, Joseph Smith's mother, had a strong Puritan leaning, so in addition to growing up surrounded by New England's general culture of discussing and believing in the Prosperity Gospel Joseph had an earful of it at home.

His other ear was full of his father's Universalist tendencies and his grandfather's adherence to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Predictably enough Universalism and rational skepticism are also extremely prominent in The Book of Mormon (though always as opponents of truth).

It's almost as though The Book of Mormon was written specifically for Joseph Smith's father and family members...

Could Joseph Smith have written The Book of Mormon? I mean, it just happens to be full of the very religious education he received at home! Let's hope he didn't, though. It would be extremely inconvenient for our testimony of The Book of Mormon. Maybe we shouldn't think about it too much after all.

Johnny Rotten's thrown overboard

John Dehlin didn't make it. His court of love has sentenced him to spiritual death. He's been amputated from the body of Christ. He's finished. An apostate. Illegitimate.

If only he had doubted his doubts harder. He succumbed to the wiles of the Devil. He became prideful. He waved his dick in God's face and got fucked. Sorry, John, but because of you so many of us now have full faith in everything again.

God is great, Jesus saves, Mary was a chosen vessel, Joseph was a chosen instrument, Tommy's got the direct connection, in the holy name of Unctuous Josh, amen!

Self-censorship

The third family of groupthink symptoms covers "Pressures toward uniformity". One of those pressures is the impulse to self-censor. "Ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus" are kept to oneself.

In the Mormon world fear of expressing a dissenting opinion comes from a few places, I'm sure. A few might fear the wrath of God, some might fear Church discipline, most seem to fear confrontation within the ward or branch, and all probably fear disapproval from family members.

Mormons don't want to appear to be out of touch with the Spirit, they don't want to be contentious, and they don't want to take heat for stepping out of line. So what do we do? We keep our iffy thoughts to ourselves and toe the line. At least when people are watching.

Heavenly fatherliness #24 - Rewards

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not reward his children for actions that are expected of them, such as helping with chores or performing well in school.

Does this mean that Heavenly Father should not reward us for doing his will and obeying his commandments because that's exactly what he expects of us? Does that mean that offering an eternal reward is a mistake? It looks like God's really missing the boat on this one.

Then again, if we look at the real world, it's impossible to know if we're being disciplined or rewarded at all, so much so that the very existence of earthly and heavenly rewards is debatable. We have to rely on faith. 
  
Maybe God's doing okay after all.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #23 - Peace talks

According to popular wisdom, a good father is a supportive and active disciplinarian through the power of his words, not his fists.

When it comes to words, nothing gets more ink than religious writing. Everyone, even non-believers, have a copy or two of books filled with holy writ, so I should probably concede that God and his fans are doing what they can to "discipline through the power of his words." If only those words made more sense. 

When it comes to fists, sure God's had to do some smiting from time to time, but we're adults, we can deal with it.  

Besides he seems to be done with the whole smiting thing for now. He seems to be content sitting back and watching his children following his earlier example.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #8 - Discipline

According to popular wisdom, a good father waits for privacy to administer discipline.

Does God wait for that private moment to discipline? If we are to believe the scriptures this answer is OF COURSE NOT. Your sins will be shouted from the rooftops, your punishments will be public, your shame will be for all to see. The Father of Humanity doesn't give two shits about your personal pride, dignity, or physical well being. If you don't do what he says, he'll tromp your guts no matter where you are. He's prepared a torture chamber for you if you disobey.

Even excluding his torture chamber, God's disciplinary tactics are really odd. He's extremely indiscriminate in meting out discipline. (It rains on the good and the bad, right?) If God actually dealt out punishment exclusively for wickedness and blessings exclusively for righteousness we might actually be more inclined to do good and be good people because we would all see and seek the immediate rewards God has for us. But He doesn't. Instead God loves to give everyone a hard time regardless of our behavior just to confuse us and make us mad. It almost seems evil.

When it comes to discipline, God's the Biggest Fatherly Fuckup I can think of. The Dude's a total mess. We should probably talk to him about it.

Dear God Father, 
You can take Your vengeance, scourges, and pains of Hell and shove them up Your ass. Straight up Your ass. Now if You want to be a worthwhile dad, I recommend You either develop a better disciplining strategy or lay the fuck off Your children, they're good enough at shitting all over each other and "teaching" each other lessons.
Love,
Your dear Son

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

God and the Golden Rule

GOD DOES NOT TREAT PEOPLE AS HE WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED. He doesn't treat them how they would like to be treated either. Basically God just dumps on people a whole lot and throws us a bone from time to time. But the Mormon promise is that he will treat us as equals someday if we're good enough to deserve it. Well, kind of. He'll still be our dad and demand total reverence and obedience to his rules. Good enough, right?

Nephite ward lists

To all of you out there who are struggling with the recent excommunication news, let me just say, PEACE! BE STILL! This is all part of God's plan for his church. We read in The Book of Mormon that excommunication is a divinely inspired practice that brings order. It can be very hard for the faithful, it's true, but we've got to be strong. No slipping up! Heaven forbid you lapse into apostasy too!

Now if only we could find some of these Nephite lists of believers. Wouldn't it be great to see if Nephites blotted out the names of the unrepentant completely or if they just earmarked them in their database as excommunicated so they could more easily reinstate those lost sheep once they returned like we do today? I mean the Church totally has it figured out now! Don't delete anybody! Keep them all signed up! Just hide the names of excommunicated members until they return to the fold! It might not be honest, but you have to agree it's generous and loving.

Johnny "Gone Rotten" Dehlin & Kate "Machine Gun" Kelly

Well members of the LDS Church can now officially hate John Dehlin and Kate Kelly, two horrible people advocating for the fair treatment of gays and women in the Church, because just a few days ago they were both informed via post that their heads are going to roll! That's right! Excommunication, that most glorious of loving practices!

Sorry, John and Kate, but we will not tolerate your evil liberal ways. We hope you have fun getting shit on by your family and community from here on out because you now wear the sign of the Beast on your brow. Or maybe try repenting or something. Show us how sorry you are. We love that shit!

And for all you assholes out there who actually like what John and Kate have done, REPENT YE MOTHERFUCKERS, FOR THE CHURCH OF GOD IS PISSED! You have now been given a fair warning with the examples of John and Kate that love and compassion are not enough. The same goes for you followers of brother Waterman, too! (Sister Colvin, you might be next!) Mend your ways or you might be next! (Unless you don't have enough people listening to you, in that case let all your crazy out whenever you feel like it.)

In efforts to clarify the situation the Church has released an explanation of sorts. I just have a few questions about this press release. Did John and Kate really do this to themselves or isn't it really the Church doing the excommunicating? When can we expect our leaders to clarify John and Kate's false teachings? What exactly have they said that is so horribly incongruous with LDS doctrine? And is the "door" really and truly "always open" to people who are excommunicated? I thought there was policy that getting excommunicated twice locks that door for the rest of your mortal existence. Dieter, can you help us with any of these questions and doubts? 

Truly this is God's work, I solemnly declare, in the name of Greasy J, amen.

You're out!

Excommunication is a funny thing. The Church is supposedly for everyone - as in EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING EVER BORN OR TO BE BORN ON EARTH NEEDS BOTH THE GOSPEL AND THE ORDINANCES FOUND ONLY IN THE LDS CHURCH - and yet there are those times when you just have to take your neighbor aside and say:

"Hey, Jesus loves you and died for you, but you can't be in his church anymore because we say so!"

Everyone's supposed to fit in, but apparently we need to kick some people out anyway. This is kind of the way Jesus wants it.

Let's be practical here. You can't let that new convert dude keep standing up and flipping off the first councilor whenever he takes the stand, can you? And I know there's room for the lady who likes to teach that dinosaur fossils were placed on the earth by the Devil to deceive the hearts of man, but can we honestly sit by and let a Sunday School teacher admit that she thinks green tea is harmless and that the Church should change its policy about tea drinking?

What are the limits of heterodoxy and heteropraxy? What are the Church's limits? Who's out? We can't all be in.

Court of Love

Church discipline is an interesting thing. Typically it involves an offending member and the offender's bishop working things out as quietly as possible. There might be a temporary probation enacted on certain types of participation, but the idea is that the offender has time to work through the repentance process fully and arrive at a good place spiritually. The works of God and His Church are sacred and not to be defamed by those who cannot or will not respect them.

Disciplinary councils, or "courts of love" are much more serious. They typically address weightier matters that might warrant excommunication. Typically those matters have to deal with sexual indiscretion, apostasy, and occasionally the mishandling of tithes.

Coming down hard on local leaders embezzling tithing funds seems appropriate. No one should be taking monies intended to assist in the cause of Jesus and use them for personal or worldly gain. (Then again, we have no idea what the LDS Church is actually doing with the money even when it does make it past the local leadership.)

Matters of sexual indiscretion come in all shapes and sizes so it's hard to come up with any single example that can fully illustrate all of the issues at stake. I'm all for finding out who in the Church is sexually abusive, who is offending the law (as in the case of child porn), and getting the right counseling for anyone seeking to overcome hurtful sexual practices. Where courts of love become questionable lies more in the nature of the court itself. You have the offender facing off alone to a bishop, a stake president, and fifteen high counselors (all of whom are men). That's one against seventeen. Often an unknowing spouse is involved, in which case there could very well be an unpleasant surprise in store - a surprise that the spouse gets to sort out in front of eighteen people who know more about the matter than he or she does. Sexual matters are delicate and can contribute to deep embarrassment and shame. Does a wife hearing about her husband's sexual escapades for the first time deserve to hear it in front of nearly twenty men, some of them neighbors?

Potential apostates are another tricky matter. You have all kinds of unorthodox thought and practice to address from something people who think the Church has derailed to self-proclaimed prophets who are seeking followers. You also have people who run into difficult problems with what the Church claims and are asking for answers. Asking hard questions doesn't go over well in disciplinary councils. You're supposed to be humble and let the Church remold you.

I think the only reason I didn't have a problem with this in the past was because 1) I believed in keeping the Church safe from apostates and 2) I didn't know what kind of shit went down in these disciplinary councils. In my mind, anyone dragged into a court of love was going to get what they deserved! Nearly twenty inspired men can't be wrong, can they? How often do these courts turn around to blame the victim? You should have learned to be more sexually satisfying! You shouldn't have started investigating Church history! You should have doubted your doubts, not your faith!

Spying for the Lord

I think it's safe to say that there are a number of things going on in the Church that members don't know about: the general membership has only the vaguest of ideas about what's going on with Church finances, most members have never heard of the Second Anointing, the majority of members do not have access to the first volume of the Church's Handbook of Instruction, and very few members have ever heard of the Strengthening Church Members Committee. I'll let Jake over at Wheat & Tares explain it to you.

Recently the topic was brought to public attention by John Sweeney's interviews in the sensationalist BBC documentary The Mormon Candidate, in which Jeffrey Holland makes a total jerk of himself on camera. But Holland does manage to fain ignorance and provide only the most vague of explanations as to what the SCMC is or does. Instead Lynne Whitesides, one of the September Six, offers a much clearer (but no less sensationalistic) explanation in the book Latter-Day Dissent describing the SCMC as "a Gestapo-like group which press-clipped everything anyone said who might be considered an enemy of the Church, meaning one who disagreed with Church policy"

Sensationalism aside, let's face the fact that the Church has an unpublicized, undiscussed program dedicated to rounding up dirt on potential "enemies" to assist in the process of excommunication. Isn't that wild?

I have to doubt that Jesus would be into this sort of thing. I could be wrong, but the only time he had the opportunity to excommunicate someone (Judas, who was about to betray him) his reaction was something along the lines of "knock yourself out!" or "get 'er done!" No spying, no collecting evidence, no "court of love," no defensiveness, no blaming, no fear tactics.

Libido

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