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Temple Ceremony, Respectfully Done

Monday, 16 Mar 2009 at 3:16 pm

So here is the controversial scene depicting parts of the Mormon temple ceremony. As other ex-Mormons have said, it brings back memories. The person who posted the video titled it embarrassing. I don’t think it needs to be. Perhaps some are embarrassed by the ceremony, but I’m not ashamed to say that I once found it beautiful—when it wasn’t dry and repetitive. It embodies beautiful ideas and the fondest hopes of the LDS people.

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Mormons want to keep it secret. I understand this desire. Shared secrets can be a delicious way to bind people together. A secret loses its savor when everyone knows what’s happening behind closed doors. I would feel violated if the secret nothings that I share with my wife late at night were profaned before the vulgar world.

It has become increasingly difficult in the information age to keep secrets. Secrecy begets mistrust. The temple ceremony is only embarrassing because it is alien to our workaday lives. It may be time for Mormons to find a new way to create sacredness that doesn’t depend on secrecy. In my view, their devotion and deference sacralizes this ritual, not its secrecy.

(via Mind on Fire, Mormon Coffee, and Main Street Plaza)

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13 Comments

  1. Jonathan said,

    March 16, 2009 @ 3:19 pm

    Let me note that while the tone and presentation of the episode were respectful, I think the creators of the storyline knew that it would be a poke in the no-no place for faithful LDS members.

  2. Matt said,

    March 17, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

    I think in terms of art, the surreal and even sterile “pre-taste of what we hope for” makes a profound backdrop to the character’s sense of loss.

    Jonathan, I don’t entirely agree with you on the loss of this secret. In my mind it’s nothing like the sweet secrets of an intimate relationship–though I think the church with all its talk of marriage to Christ and whatnot would like it to be–rather it’s an unveiling of a rather profound manipulative religious right.

  3. Jonathan said,

    March 17, 2009 @ 3:55 pm

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the secrets of the LDS temple deserve the same expectation of privacy or that it is as enjoyable as having a confidant, but I use those examples as ways to sympathize. Putting this scene in the context of the show does illustrate how the church uses the privilege of temple attendance as a form of blackmail.

  4. Matt said,

    March 17, 2009 @ 5:39 pm

    Blackmail. It’s out there now.

    It also gets used as a form of social vetting. My first year at Microsoft, on an internal email alias discussing problems with Mormonism I was invited to meet some of the other guys at the temple. If you didn’t show (and I didn’t) then everyone knew where you were really coming from with your criticisms.

  5. Jonathan said,

    March 17, 2009 @ 6:16 pm

    Wow! That’s something I never encountered as sinisterly as that. Of course, I experienced and participated in vetting, much to my current shame. It’s interesting that the instruments of control are only obvious to me in hindsight.

  6. Matt said,

    March 17, 2009 @ 9:10 pm

    “Families can be together forever, through Heavenly Father’s plan … I always want to be with my own family, and the Lord has shown me how I can.”

    Didn’t this seem so beautiful? How could you ever be expected to see that what lies behind is an implicit threat against you via family? We may not always want to be with our families (as they are now) but Dawkins knows that we all want our families to be forever. Nature programmed that into us, right? We live and die to meet this end.

    Mormonism is a marriage cult that asks individuals to pay perpetual ransom or else they will be cut-off from perpetuation of seed. Hell, there’s even this idea that your wife and children might be given to another man (you know, so long as they remain loyal to the church even if this means being disloyal to you).

    Dude, we have to save the world from Mormonism and all cultish behavior.

  7. BEEHIVE said,

    March 18, 2009 @ 9:32 am

    You know, as someone who has left the church never experiencing a temple marriage, or any marriage, I have absolutely no interest in finding what goes inside the Temple. I do find these “secrets” to be of a personal matter and I believe it to be somewhat disrespectful to be showing something that means the world to so many people. But that’s just me.

  8. Jonathan Blake said,

    March 18, 2009 @ 4:05 pm

    Matt, I with you on defending the world from cultish behavior. And there’s plenty of it in Mormonism. I have realized however that I must be honest and admit that it has some good aspects. On balance, I still think all of the good is not worth putting up with the bad, but a holistic critique seems to be more effective because people realize that you’re not simply out to spread propaganda.

    BEEHIVE, where’s your curiosity? :)

    I agree that it’s disrespectful. Sometimes I think it’s necessary to be disrespectful in the bigger scheme of things, a small price to pay to speak out about a greater harm.

    I think this show (as I understand the story) illustrates pretty well how the LDS church uses it’s claim to a monopoly on salvation to keep people in line. The clip above leaves out the sister (?) begging the protagonist to leave her husband and apologize to the church to make it all OK.

  9. Matt said,

    March 18, 2009 @ 8:40 pm

    I hear you. You be the good cop. There are some things entirely too close to me to allow circumspection. This is one of them.

  10. Jonathan said,

    March 19, 2009 @ 8:35 am

    What you said about it being a marriage cult has been bouncing around in my head. It’s one of those obvious things, but until you hear it put that way, you don’t see it clearly. Interesting thought.

  11. Matt said,

    March 19, 2009 @ 1:08 pm

    Yeah, it is like flubber.

  12. BEEHIVE said,

    March 20, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

    Hmm. when I was little I accidentally opened my mother’s temple bag and being the good girl that I was, I told my mother. She interrogated me and made me feel as if I had just broken some major celestial law. I think that I may still carry those feelings of shame when looking at something that “your not suppose to”.

  13. Jonathan said,

    March 20, 2009 @ 12:33 pm

    I admit that I felt that little tightness in my stomach when the temple taboo was broken in the embedded clip. It’s all better now, though. :)

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