Temple prep - "Sacred Covenants"

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

The Lord in the revelation now known as section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants announces:

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world. (D&C 132:4–5.) This is the section Joseph "received" justifying polygamy. The new and everlasting covenant is unequivocally plural marriage. This is also the section that threatens Emma with death if she doesn't let Joseph marry the women he's already married and marry even more that he hasn't yet married.

President Joseph Fielding Smith defines the new and everlasting covenant in these words:

What is the new and everlasting covenant? I just told everyone, sorry. I regret to say that there are some members of the Church who are misled and misinformed in regard to what the new and everlasting covenant really is. Totally! Many believe it's eternal marriage. The new and everlasting covenant is the sum total of all gospel covenants and obligations. Huh? You know you didn't really say what it is, right? For those of you who missed it above, the new and everlasting covenant is heaven sanctioned polygyny. (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954–56], 1:156; hereafter cited as Doctrines of Salvation.)

This covenant includes all ordinances of the gospel—the highest of which are performed in the temple. To quote President Smith again:

Now there is a clear-cut definition in detail of the new and everlasting covenant. Let's hear the clear-cut version now... It is everything—the fulness of the gospel. That's not very clear. You've just muddled everything into one. It's almost as if you haven't read Section 132. So marriage properly performed, baptism, ordination to the priesthood, everything else—every contract, every obligation, every performance that pertains to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise according to his law here given, is a part of the new and everlasting covenant. Once again, that is not the definition the Lord gave in Section 132. I think you're probably trying really hard to downplay the importance of polygamy to early Mormonism. (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:158.)

In the verse quoted previously (Doctrine and Covenants 132:4) the Lord spoke with unmistakable plainness: “… for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.” Right. The purpose of this revelation was to force Emma into accepting her husband's sleeping around. Emma however had the good sense to burn the revelation when Hyrum brought it to her (because Joseph didn't have the balls to bring it to her himself).

Those who go to the temple have the privilege of taking upon themselves specific covenants and obligations relative to their exaltation and that of others. Please tell us all exactly what these covenants are. It would be really awkward to drag someone to the temple dress them all up and sit them down for the movie and leave them completely ignorant of the promises they're there to make. Elder James E. Talmage wrote:

The ordinances of the endowment embody certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her King,—the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you very much for the list, I just have a question for you: how are these not covered in the baptismal covenants? I think they're already covered, bro. With the taking of each covenant and the assuming of each obligation a promised blessing is pronounced, contingent upon the faithful observance of the conditions. What blessings? Tell us. Actually maybe I'll just take a moment to list them for everyone. The gods promise they "will provide a Savior for you, whereby you may come back into our presence, and with us partake of Eternal Life and exaltation". Part of this partaking of "Eternal Life and exaltation" includes "the day... when you will be... Kings and Queens, Priests and Priestesses" in heaven. It sounds impressive, doesn't it? (The House of the Lord, page 100.)

We covenant with the Lord to devote our time, talents, and means to His kingdom. Meaning what? All of our time, talents and wealth, or just 10%? Do I need to make the LDS Church the sole benefactor in my will? Can you be a little more clear?

We are a covenant people. We covenant to give of our resources in time and money and talent—all we are and all we possess—to the interest of the kingdom of God upon the earth. So I should rewrite my will. In simple terms, we covenant to do good. "Good" according to the Church means "help the Church". "Good" according to Jesus means helping the sick, hungry and downtrodden. We are a covenant people, and the temple is the center of our covenants. The covenant center, if you will. Those meeting houses where we're required to renew our baptismal covenants every week? Not so central. It is the source of the covenant. You might have been thinking Jesus was the source, but he's not. The temples that we make (and only ours, mind you) are a magnificent fountain spewing forth covenants upon the world.

Come to the temple. Don't tell me what to do! You ought to come to the temple. If you want to see the hidden side of Mormonism, then you really ought to. Here, acting as proxy for someone who has gone beyond the veil, you will have reviewed before you the covenants that you have made. This is actually the only way for you to review because the Church won't give you the text to study unless you're one of the actors in the drama. You will have reinforced in your mind the great spiritual blessings that are associated with the house of the Lord. Those blessing (eternal life with God) are what we're promised at baptism though, so feel free to stop at baptism (if you believe in that sort of thing).

Be faithful to the covenants and ordinances of the gospel. Give the Church EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT and DON'T TELL ANYONE your secret name or passwords and shit! Qualify for those sacred ordinances step by step as you move through life. Don't we have to qualify before we go to the temple? Isn't that what all the interviews were about? Honor the covenants connected with them. Or be prepared to excuse yourself from the endowment when they ask if anyone wants to leave. Don't be nervous - no one ever dares leave. Do this and you will be happy. Unless you're still deeply unsatisfied with things.

Your lives will then be in order—all things lined up in proper sequence, in proper ranks, in proper rows. We have to rank something and put stuff in rows? What? Is this a military analogy? Your family will be linked in an order that can never be broken. On second thought it can still be broken, like in the case of temple divorce, deceased family potentially rejecting the temple ordinances done on earth, living family members abandoning ship, future family members choosing not to do the Mormon thing, or someone like Joseph Smith being sealed to your wife and thereby eternally inheriting all your kids.

In the covenants and ordinances center the blessings that you may claim in the holy temple. No, the blessings mentioned in the temple, with the exception of "protection" thanks to garment wearing, are blessings you can only receive after death. Surely the Lord is pleased when we are worthy of the title: A keeper of the covenants. You know what? I'm not at all sure he is.

Temple prep - "The Power to Seal"

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

If we would understand both the history and the doctrine of temple work we must understand what the sealing power is. I'm pretty sure chemists and physicists are working on that right now. We will crack the code! We must envision, at least to a degree, why the keys of authority to employ the sealing power are crucial. Self importance, perhaps?

Nearly nine hundred years before Christ, the prophet Elijah appeared in the court of the king of Israel. He carried with him a sacred authority: the power to seal. You don't think this story's made up?? I mean, it's from the Old Testament for crying out loud.

Elijah worked out his ministry, ordained and anointed Elisha to succeed him, and then—and this is important—he did not die. Like Moses before him, he was translated. Could he also fly and see through walls?

After that, his name appears only once in the Old Testament, in the next to the last verse of the last chapter of the Old Testament. It is here that Malachi prophesies that Elijah would return and that he would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,” lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse. (See Malachi 4:5–6.) I really and truly hate curses. Please tell me Elijah flew back in from wherever he flew off to.

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:13–19.)

You didn't transition at all to these verses. How did you get from Malachi talking hearts to Matthew talking stones and keys so fast?

When Peter, James, and John went with the Lord to the Mount of Transfiguration, there appeared with the transfigured Lord two personages. It's all true, isn't it? Please tell me there are dead people that can come back and float in the air as we levitate. They recognized them to be Moses and Elijah, who had come to convey to that presidency the sealing power. (See Matthew 17:1–8; note that Elias is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Elijah and is often used in the New Testament to designate Elijah, the prophet of the Old Testament.) If only Joseph Smith knew what you just shared with us he wouldn't look like such an ass today.

Peter was to hold the keys. Is that a euphemism for touching one's cock and balls? Peter was to hold the sealing power, that authority which carries the power to bind or seal on earth or to loose on earth and it would be so in the heavens. He could make thinks in the sky the same as on the ground? You need to explain this better. Maybe what you mean is that he had a special glue for his model rockets so they wouldn't fall apart in the air.

In A.D. 34, after His crucifixion, the Lord ministered to the Nephites. That's miraculous because the Nephites are a fiction. He dictated to them—and this is remarkable in scriptural history—the last two chapters of Malachi (which contained the prophecy that Elijah would return), caused them to write them, and then expounded them. What's truly miraculous here is that the Lord dictated from the King James Bible, which was still about 1600 years in the making. Or Joseph just copied them down from his Bible at home and threw in his preferred interpretation.

When the Angel Moroni appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith to tell him of the plates, he quoted Malachi’s prophecy that Elijah would return. According to one version of the story. This quotation is now section two of the Doctrine and Covenants. So thanks to Joseph Smith, Malachi is now canonized in Jacobian English in 3 different books of scripture. Impressive.

Thirteen years after Moroni appeared, a temple had been built adequate for the purpose, and the Lord again appeared and Elijah came with Him and bestowed the keys of the sealing power. He returned again? That's dedication! Unfortunately he got back too late to help Joseph authorize his first plural marriage. Oops.

Those keys belong to the President of the Church—to the prophet, seer, and revelator. Today it's a man who has neither prophesied, seen or revealed anything on behalf of the Church. Despite those shortcomings, don't doubt that he is definitely holding fast to those keys. That sacred sealing power is with the Church now. Says the Church. Nothing is regarded with more sacred contemplation by those who know the significance of this authority. What is that significance? You haven't really said. Nothing is more closely held. Because of greed or fear? What would happen if those keys were conferred on an evil man? Would God help you find these keys again if you accidentally lost them?  There are relatively few men who hold this sealing power upon the earth at any given time—in each temple are brethren who have been given the sealing power. Our holy chefs of the original recipe... No one can get it except from the prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or from those he has delegated to give it to others. This is why you have to go with LDS Mormonism. Don't settle for anything less than the most powerful sealing contractors in the business!

Crucible of Doubt

A kind and well-intentioned couple, Terry and Fiona Givens, both scholars and both active, believing members of the LDS Church, has written a book for me. It comes several years too late, but I'm still a little bit interested. Mormonism is so completely shattered, in my opinion, that when I hear a claim that I can once again fit all the pieces together again my morbid curiosity is piqued. Additionally I've heard enough positive things about the Givens that I felt it only polite to listen to their 3 hour and 15 minute sales pitch.

Unfortunately I couldn't buy the Givens' arguments and won't be buying the book, which was the result of a recent fireside tour, which was the result of reasonable success from a previous book they had written.

After having listened to the entire Mormon Stories interview my main questions are:

1. If prophets are just like the rest of us then why should we look to them for answers concerning God's will? (I love how they insist on ignoring John Dehlin's question about whether or not it's okay to criticize our upper management.)

2. How do we have any trust in the Gospel text as being valid Jesus material? If we're going to undermine the spoken and written words of imperfect prophets what are we to do with the teachings of Mr. Perfect? Do we take them with a grain of salt because they were written by a bunch of assholes and corrupted over time? Do we only accept the teachings and events described by at least two of the Gospel writers (you know, that whole "by the mouth of two or three witnesses" thing)?

3. In all Fiona's admonishing against hero worship she fails to mention even once our worship of a heroic character named Jesus. How is she so sure that we haven't overblown the case for Jesus the same way we have for our various prophets, especially in light of the fact that our basis for turning Jesus into a mighty hero worthy of our worship are the less than reliable words of prophets, who are pretty much just like us?

4. Why should anyone take the Givens' approach seriously when it directly contradicts our Mormon canon?

5. Terryl Givens bases his entire argument on some kind of bizarre dichotomy between "the heart" and "the intellect". How is anyone supposed to take that seriously? We are not divided up between this mysterious heart and a non-mysterious, logical brain. "The heart" works for Terry the same way the sky worked for early belief in God. It's the only place to hide (as long as you continue to ignore science).

So the book comes out soon. Maybe it has answers to all of these questions, but admittedly I have my doubts.

Meeting Mormons

Everyone is so eager to meet the Mormons and the missionaries are so overbooked that the Church has decided to turn their "I'm a Mormon" campaign into a super-spiritual full-length feature film called "Meet the Mormons" (not to be confused with "Meet the Mormons," a documentary the Church would probably like to bury)! Be prepared to feel the Spirit. And brace yourselves for the flood of new converts.

HeartSell (TM)

Church-owned Bonneville International has done it! They've found a way into your heart! Not only can they get in there, they know how to move and motivate you to action. They've even given this communication strategy a creepy, trademarked name.

It's almost like you don't even need the Holy Ghost to feel the truth anymore.

Presendia Lanthrop Huntington Buell (Smith) Kimball - wife #6

Zina's older sister, Presendia Huntington (September 7, 1810 - February 1, 1892), also married Joseph Smith about two months later. Like Zina, Presendia was already married. She and her husband Norman, with whom she would have seven children, had been following Joseph Smith since joining the Church together in 1836.

Again, Joseph deserves a little credit for being upfront with Presendia about plural marriage (even if he was going behind Emma's back). To his discredit, it seems as though this marriage was likely part of a salvation bargain with Dimick Huntington, the brother of Zina and Presendia who officiated the marriage. That's right, Dimick gave off his sister in exchange for a place with Joseph and the Smith family in the Afterlife.

Dimick Baker Huntington, brother.

After the marriage Presendia continued to live with her first husband, Norman, until 1846 when he couldn't handle the Mormons anymore. She left him and one of her two surviving children, 16-year-old George, and took the other child, six-year-old Oliver, to go live as Heber C. Kimball's plural wife (his sixteenth at that point).

"I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." (actual quote!)

Heber Chase Kimball, good man

Unaware that she had already married Heber, Norman tried to get back with Presendia only to be denied. Presendia and Heber had two children together: Presendia Celestia Kimball and Joseph Smith Kimball.

Presendia is yet another example of someone who according to the rules of polygamy should never have taken on a second husband. In the case of her marriage to Joseph Smith, she was not a virgin and the two never produced children; in the case of her marriage to Heber Kimball, she still wasn't a virgin and she was definitely sealed to another man.

But you don't need the rules to get a sense of how messed up the marriage game was in Nauvoo. If there is any righteousness in Presendia's story, you'll have to help me find it.

Getting into the Bible

Here are a couple of insightful comments about the Bible.

Haven't we all felt at least a little that way? It's probably just Satan trying to keep our eternal spirits down.

Door to door

After spending a summer as a salesman in high school I began to have doubts about how well I'd like being a missionary. Being a salesman was possibly the worst job experience I've ever had and I've had a lot of jobs. 

I hated putting people on the spot, I hated asking for referrals, I hated the false enthusiasm, I hated that I couldn't just give it to people straight and let them make up their mind instead of running them through a gauntlet only to redirect them back through if they seemed unmoved. I also hated that people migh genuinely not want what I was selling. I was showing some seriously awesome stuff! Everybody would benefit from what I had to offer. Everybody.

I calmed my fears about hating missionary work as much as I hated door-to-door sales by telling myself that (1) the Gospel is FREE so I don't have to worry about that awkward moment when I try to close the deal and make the sale, (2) the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate product because it is without a doubt the very most important thing on Earth and literally everyone needs it, and (3) God's on my team! Sharing the Gospel couldn't be easier when you have the Holy Ghost testifying all over the place!

As it turned out, the two years I spent on my mission felt a lot like being a salesman and it was, for the most part, absolute torture. We put people on the spot all the time, asking if they had read, inviting them to church when they very clearly didn't feel comfortable enough to do so, "challenging" them to be baptized, and even asking them to pay the Church 10% of their income as tithing. I made plenty of sales, so to speak, but the memories of my interactions with the people in my mission still haunts me to this day. We pestered members for referrals, we plastered permanent smiles on our faces in effort to always exude the Spirit, we gave runaround answers to simple questions. We were salesmen.

The good news is that there was a lot more to my mission than just testifying and pushing scriptures on people and consequently I was able to learn a lot about the world and the ways we human beings try to make sense of it.

I can't say I regret going on a mission for the Mormon Church, but I know I would never do it again. After I came back home I had a number of dreams that I had been sent back to my mission to do more missionary work, and in every single one of those dreams I resented being back. I would wake up wondering what was wrong with me. Why would I resent being a missionary again? Didn't I have the time of my life? Weren't they the "best two years" of my life? Isn't the work of the Lord simply wonderful?

The Family (A Proclamation)

When I was a mere Aaronic Priesthood holder something very exciting happened: the prophet made a proclamation!

I can't make it through the whole thing either, but that's Gordon Hinckley, a prophet, solemnly proclaiming stuff! Why was this an exciting event at all, you might wonder.

This wasn't just another General Conference talk, this was a written document signed and endorsed by the fifteen men that I, my family, my friends, my community at large sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators. The thing was they hadn't prophesied, seen, or revealed anything since 1978 when they announced that the ban keeping men of African decent from holding the Priesthood had been lifted. I had always been told that prophets speak to God on our behalf and God responds directly to them giving them answers and guidance for the entire human population. The words of the prophets are sacred and holy because they are the words of God and that's why we write them down as scripture to read and study. Mormons believe that God is busy revealing and that He has a lot more to reveal later on, and yet I often wondered where all the revelation in the Church was. I for one sincerely hoped that God would finally give us the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon in my lifetime. 

So now we had new text coming straight from the Top! I figured it was as good as canonized and the Church would be issuing a new edition of Doctrine & Covenants with the family proclamation right behind Official Declaration 2. Instead "The Family" ended up for sale in frames to hang around your house.

Why was this not canonized? I couldn't figure it out. Wasn't this God's word with regards to what a family is and what it's for? Was it more of an opinion piece by God's groupies? 

At the time I didn't have what it took to recognize "The Family" as the unenlightened piece of conservative, reactionist tripe that it is. Instead I took it as God's word given through His prophets collectively but somehow not scripture, but pretty close to, or at least as good as scripture, probably, I couldn't quite tell, but I was for sure going to believe it because how can you doubt something as solemnly proclaimed by living prophets as was this particular proclamation? Whatever. It will sort itself out later.