Say More: At Last She Writes It
No. 33 | March 2025
Spiritual Separators
by Susan Hinckley
I’ve got a problem. I sat in ward conference
a few weeks ago, and listened politely as we made our way through a long list of male names for sustainings before ever getting to a woman’s name. I was prepared for that—steeled myself for it—so it only made my foot jiggle a little. Then my bishop gave a nice talk. He’s a man with such a gentle and welcoming manner, I’m happy and grateful he’s the one at the ward helm. The stake president got up to speak last, and I love this man. From everything I’ve seen, he truly walks the walk. But I had a sinking feeling the minute he stepped up to the mic because somehow I just knew: he was going to talk about the temple. My jiggling foot became full-body discomfort. It was suddenly hard for me to stay in my chair. How did I just know ward conference would be about the temple? Because it seems like everything is. His talk didn’t start out that way, but morphed into the same message I’m hearing everywhere, no matter what kind of meeting it is and no matter who’s speaking. “Go to the temple,” they tell me. “The temple is what really matters.”
Congregants are more likely to bear tearful testimony of the temple than anything else these days, in my ward anyway. And we announce and build, announce and build, generating much excitement among the members.
It’s no wonder the temple is predominant in the messaging of our church now. For President Nelson, temples have been the centerpiece of his time as prophet.
A few weeks before ward conference, I was sitting in Relief Society as they announced an upcoming activity. They said they’d been instructed that everything we do at church needs to be focused on Jesus, so they had thought very hard about an appropriate Jesus-centered activity, and decided the obvious thing would be an evening focused on—wait for it—the temple. Huh?
I came across a quote from Pres. Nelson a few days later that felt like an explanation: “Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the Church, point to the Lord and His Holy house.”1 I immediately messaged Cynthia to say, “See?! It’s explicit! THIS is why church feels like it’s only about the temple now!” What I didn’t realize when I sent that message was the quote did come from Pres. Nelson … but in 2001. So if I’d been paying attention, I should have been able to predict the experience I’m having now.
More recently, he made this promise: “Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find Him in the temple. You will feel his mercy. You will find answers to your most vexing questions. You will better comprehend the joy of His gospel.”2 It’s a beautiful promise. As a sincere seeker, I want it to be true.
But now we’re getting to the crux of my problem. Because I have found Jesus, and it has felt transformational to me—but I didn’t find him in the temple. He came to me as part and parcel of an experience I had where I came to understand God’s love for me, and by extension, for you. One day the grace I’d distrusted my whole life just lodged in my bones with a truth that refuses to bend or be diminished.
But the temple? I never found peace there, I never found testimony there, I never found hope there. I guess I found faith, because I was there and it was so miserable and difficult for me, it required some real faith to keep going for 35 years. But really that means the faith was already mine before I ever presented my recommend at the desk, anxious stomach in full-churn. That says more about my faith than about the temple, doesn’t it? To be fair, my difficulties there might just say more about me as well. Because I know other people truly love being in the temple. In the lives of many Church members, it lives up to the hype.
As I sat in that ward conference, I was thinking about my recommend, which I had allowed to lapse as a conscious choice for the first time. I don’t live in a ward where they hound you to renew as soon as—even before—your recommend expires. No one has ever asked me about it, but as I sat in that meeting feeling disengaged from the message and wondering if I even belonged there anymore, I started to focus on what I might say if someone did ask. Prior to that, I’d only thought about it enough to be prepared to say, “No thanks, I’ll let you know if I want to renew later.” After so many years of what felt like natural aversion to the temple, I hadn’t really given significant thought to what I actually feel about it now that I am no longer going, nor even engaging in the process so I could.
There’s another line from that same general conference talk given by then-Elder Nelson in 2001 that put a finger right on it for me. In talking about qualification for a recommend, he said, “Why are these issues so crucial? Because they are spiritual separators.”
Separation is what sits at the heart of my lack of desire to even carry a temple recommend now.
The temple is a separator. In my ward conference, I felt the sting as it drew its line right through the congregation, peeling me off from so many people I love in the pews. We all showed up at church because we wanted to feel part of something special on a Sunday morning. To sing and commune, to talk and pray, willing to turn our collective hearts toward Jesus Christ and each other. But rather than finding a lifeline of connection and grace, what we got was a talk about finding God in a different place, one that comes with a lot of conditions.
“Such requirements are not difficult to understand,” Pres. Nelson explains.“Because the temple is the house of the Lord, standards for admission are set by Him. One enters as His guest. To hold a temple recommend is a priceless privilege and a tangible sign of obedience to God and His prophets.” I understand what he’s saying, but for me it’s become increasingly hard to accept that after Jesus extended the invitation, “Come unto me,” God added quite so much fine print.
Is it possible to belong in this church but choose not to have a temple recommend? Why go to club meetings week after week for a club you’re clearly not in? These are the questions I continue to ask myself. It’s a problem.
I don’t like thinking of church that way, a club with ins and not-ins. Our ward puts out signs on the sidewalk each Sunday morning, pictures of Jesus that promise things like, “You belong here.” With His name on the front of the building, if you were walking by and decided to step inside you might not be expecting the sermon to mostly focus on the part where terms and conditions may apply.
I remember the first time I glimpsed the ugliness of the temple-as-separator, and it quite literally knocked me flat. I couldn’t stop the tears no matter what I did. It was at the Nauvoo temple dedication, when for the first time one of my daughters was excluded from attending with the rest of us. I never quite recovered from that, but tucked it away in the place I keep my hardest truths. But here is a related, maybe even harder one that came into stark focus for me as I shifted in my chair through my stake president’s talk, trying to tune in to how I really feel about the temple now. What I only brushed up against at the Nauvoo dedication expanded to become one of the biggest regrets in my life: One of my beloved daughters was excluded from attending the weddings of both her sisters. I allowed and facilitated that. How could it have EVER seemed like the right thing to do? How do we recover from that kind of line being drawn through the middle of our family? How could I possibly have prioritized a ritual over a person I value above anything else in this world? All these years later, how will it ever be okay? That’s a truth that makes me feel sick to look at.
And now this: why would I spend one second of my remaining life in a place where my beautiful, remarkable, deeply good daughters are deemed unworthy to be?
Cynthia has pointed out to me that we are the only religion that prevents nonmembers (and many members) from simply observing a religious ceremony. In a case like a sealing, the people in the room are not defiling any sacred thing as they sit reverently witnessing an ordinance in which they are not the participants, but brothers and sisters who love the couple or family. How is showing up to willingly show love and pledge support not inherently worthy?
And now this: why would I spend one second of my remaining life in a place where my beautiful, remarkable, deeply good daughters are deemed unworthy to be? Why would I step up to be judged myself, only to sit through rituals over and over that have never had much meaning for me, and have at times been truly miserable?
When I took out my endowment as a teenager, I wanted to run away the moment the stern narrator warned me that I should pause to doubt myself because god will not be mocked. Was I sure sure SURE I was worthy to be there? From then on I heard no welcome, felt no love anywhere in it. Those words come from Galatians 6:7, which says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Now I ask myself, are the seeds we have sown in using the temple to sort and separate bringing forth good fruit? Not in my life, or my children’s lives. I don’t think I’m taking much of a leap to assume that other families have also felt the sting of having beloved children peeled away from their most sacred experiences. Jumping down to verse 10, it says, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” How is it that not everyone who shows up in love and willingness is part of our household of faith? How is it possible that our household does not hold my family?
I may have doubted myself at 18, but the closer I get to old age, the more I am convinced there is no room built by men on this earth that our loving God considers too special for any children in the household who desire a place there.
Do we believe in a god who considers their house to be more special than the people in it? One who can’t allow a single unclean thing to enter, yet created a whole world of unclean children as the center of their plan? Who designates some sinners to be separators, and other sinners to be the ones who are separated? If these words sound cynical to you, please know that they are heartbreaking to write. Even now, I’m not sure I will hit publish.
But what I am sure of is that, for now anyway, no. I find no good fruit in spiritual separators. As much as I love this church and the people in it, as much as I value the goodness it has brought me, as much as I seek relationship with God and Jesus Christ, as much as I actively pursue my faith and try to live every day attuned to the Spirit and embracing the bright hope of grace … I will not renew my temple recommend.
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Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings, by Russell M. Nelson, 4/2001
The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again, by Russell M. Nelson, 10/2024
Oh Susan, thank you for being brave enough to share your feelings about the temple! I have had a temple recommend for 55 years and have tried so very hard to feel what I am supposed to feel there. After my husband died I even became a temple worker, hoping a thinning of the veil there would help me feel his presence. But I’ve never felt the presence of loved ones there, never received answers to prayer, never had any kind of revelation except that maybe the temple isn’t the place for me. Of course, that comes with massive feelings of being “less than” and wondering what’s wrong with me. Am I a spiritual Pygmy?
These past weeks I have loved the sense that it is a refuge from the chaos of the world and it can be a place for me to serve. But last year I asked to no longer be assigned to be an officiator in the Endowment ceremony because so much of it is problematic for me. And even though I love the feeling of women administering ordinances to other women, I feel like a hypocrite reminding other women that the garment is to be worn throughout their lives when I continue to struggle with wearing it. And sometimes don’t.
Your post has given me permission to validate my feelings and ask to be released from being a temple worker after contemplating it for months. I am a good person who sincerely tries to live my life in accordance with the teachings of the Savior but if I haven’t found what the temple promises in 55 years, it’s doubtful that I will now. But you are right about the feeling of separation, the dividing line between those who hold a recommend and those who do not. That will be hard. I already feel like I don’t fit because of my feminist and LGBTQ+ views. Being a temple worker gave me some legitimacy. But if I don’t trust my own authority and feelings at this stage of my life, when will I? I’m happy that the temple is a place of spiritual enlightenment and peace for many people. I wish with all my heart that it was such a place for me. But I know there are other paths to God and each of us has to find the one that’s best for us.
Susan, I could have written much of this article. Our last relief society lesson was on the last conference talk President Nelson gave that you mentioned with the “sincere seekers” promise.
I am the first counselor and adore our teacher (which is why I submitted for her to lead discussions). I tried to go into the lesson with an open heart for those who find meaning and value in the temple. When she asked us, “How has the temple helped you in your efforts to make discipleship your highest priority?” I bit my tongue—I had considered discussing the potential landmines in this talk with the teacher when I saw what talk she selected, but did not.
As we sat in silence, I chose to speak up and said that I didn’t intend to detract from anyone who finds the temple to be valuable in their discipleship, and that I wanted to remind us that many tremendous disciples of Jesus chose not to attend or are not part of our religion. I was met with my fellow relief society presidency members commenting directly after that: 1. One of them has never failed to feel the spirit in the temple and 2. The other suggested a comment by a general authority that, if the temple is hard for you, attend more.
I went home and cried to my husband (who has been out of the church for years) about how my comment seemed to have fallen on deaf ears and an unwillingness to make space for diversity of experience in the church. I wanted to shut down, but had been thinking about how patriarchy encourages us to avoid vulnerability and authenticity to protect us from loss, so
I wrote in our presidency’s text message thread how I have been in the Perplexity stage for quite some time and want to make sure that our relief society discussions make space for those who may be there. I was met with a testimony of how the goal of relief society is to strengthen testimonies, to distinguish messages that are evil parading as good. I had tried to choose connection over silence and was met twice in one day with intolerance.
Anecdotally, I am being released from my calling (in part because I am not renewing my temple recommend). The effort it requires to try to hold and create space against the dominant narrative is exhausting.