Thank you for hitting publish! I resonate with so much of what you said. The big exception is that for most of my adult life I have found the temple a to be a holy sanctuary for me. I have felt the spirit there very strongly, perhaps more strongly than just about any where else.
My faith journey started about 20 years ago, but has had a couple of major shifts. One about 7 years ago and another about 2-3 years ago. Last year my recommend was up for renewal and for the first time I struggled with the decision to renew it. I did nuance my way through the questions because I have a son who is likely getting married this year. I have 3 other kids. My oldest is gay and no longer attends church. My 2nd is married - in the temple but only occasionally attends church, the 3rd one is the one about to be married and my 4th is 14 and still finds value in attending church.
After I renewed last year I decided not to go to the temple except for weddings of family members and such. I felt a lot of peace in this decision. A couple of months ago I got curious about the shortened endowment session and also about how I would feel going back so in January I did go.
To understand that experience it might be helpful to know that, like I mentioned, I have almost always found a lot of peace and clarity in the temple. After my husband died seven years ago it was literally a refuge for me. I went weekly for about 6 months. I have almost always felt close to God there. I went to the temple twice a month for a few years. When I moved to CA three years ago as a single mom it became more difficult to find the 3 hours it would take so I was going only once a month for a while. I had struggles with the church for years but I couldn’t really understand why people had a hard time going to the temple. In my narcissism I wondered what they were doing wrong.
As I’ve learned more and understood more about the harm that patriarchy does, as I’ve come face to face with the unchirstlike way the church behaves and treats people, and as I’ve understood myself better I’ve not been comfortable attending the temple.
As things changed with my son who no longer attends church I have become much more aware of how the temple separates us and hurts people.
So going in January was an interesting experience. I did feel the spirit. I did find clarity for somethings I was struggling with AND I was disgusted by the idea that people like my son could never go into the temple. I’m disappointed that the church spends so much money on these buildings and restricts entrance. I hate the emphasis on obedience and shame and the misunderstanding of God’s love that is found there. So much is wrong with the temple that how could I possibly feel the spirit and find clarity for myself? It feels selfish. I have had this strange mix of confusion about the temple but also confidence in my approach. I do think God is found in those walls, but just as God is found everywhere in the world.
I have thought a lot about my experience in January and why I felt everything I felt. I haven’t gone back and don’t plan to anytime soon, but I’m also open to the idea if that’s where I feel led to be. It’s a very weird but peaceful space to be in and I have no idea how to explain it to anyone. The TBM’s don’t understand but neither do those who see all the problems. I’m not sure what to do with that but I have learned to be very comfortable living in ambiguity, so I guess that’s ok for now.
Susan, my spirit knows what yours does: that we are ALL unclean, and therefore “unworthy” to enter God’s presence without the atonement. The temple does not change that.
Rather, in the temple ordinances, amongst many things that give me massive and unnecessary existential dread, there are some beautiful moments in where we are taught that going through a very messy mortal existence prepares us to enter, through Christ, God’s presence. So much bathwater. But also a baby right there in it. At least, that’s one baby I can see amidst the significant amount of 1800’s secret club stuff thrown in. So, I feel like refinement continues to be necessary until we get to a place where the most important principles can be most readily taught to all.
I feel like leadership has a huge blind spot when it comes to how many real human experiences are being called less valid and less worthy of entrance to the temple, and then prioritizing which sins matter most in temple recommend interviews…..getting caught in the semantics of worthiness as a separator! And I agree with you. It feels wrong.
I taught RS a couple of years back and was assigned to teach using Pres. Nelson’s “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation” from October 2021. In it, he pleads with people to seek the temple to help them understand priceless gospel principles the Lord is teaching there.
He also talks about the Lord as our spiritual foundation.
While prayerfully preparing to teach this lesson, I received a powerful spiritual impression that I had sisters in that room who would be heartbroken to listen to the words of this talk for precisely the reasons you describe in your essay. The most powerful confirmation of spirit came over me that I should not focus on the temple part, but rather, the savior and those quotes about him as our foundation. I had just moved into the ward, and I knew very few people, and none intimately, but I KNEW somebody sitting in that room that day would be crushed by that talk and discouraged into thinking they did not belong.
So, I couldn’t deny it, and I went forward and just taught the pieces about the Lord. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I’ve ever had as a teacher. And I’ve had many. But very few where I was told specifically NOT to focus on some of the quotes.
I feel like President Nelson had a blind spot while crafting this address and that is that there are “worthiness” policies that prohibit willing children of the Lord from gaining a recommend and receiving the healing in the temple that they so desperately need and the Lord so desperately would like for them to have. He knows they would like to have it, but he seemed to be saying “come on buck up, get there!” That’s very easy for certain people to be able to do and very difficult for others with the current temple recommend questions.
Many years ago, I was walking with one of my friends, a spiritually insightful and very valued friendship much like yours and Cynthia’s. She told me she had a friend who had substance abuse issues and whose Bishop had said he couldn’t think of anyone who more needed or deserved to be in the temple so he approved the recommend. Even though that member was perhaps, in the eyes of most, NOT obeying the word of wisdom. They were definitely in a place of clarity and cleanliness Even though the handbook wouldn’t approve. Now there is a bishop who understood the principle of what the temple is for.
If only people without those issues (I’m guessing many in leadership positions) could realize they may have a blind spot in regards to what the temple could mean to so many if there was no worthiness piece attached to things that are diseases.
I do believe there will always be people who take advantage of a system and there’s probably no avoiding that, and I do agree we should respect the temple. BUT it has long been my opinion that there are probably many liars in the temple and many honest people not in it because of these temple interviews.
My dad had chosen not to congregate by the time I was married, and neither he nor my father-in-law were able to attend our sealing. It definitely felt like a public shaming for each of them not to be there and I was actually grateful they had each other to sit outside with, since they couldn’t be there, but what a terrible moment….
Could we not center our worthiness on willingness?
I have three children. None of them hold a recommend at this time. None wouldn’t have been willing to enter, but when they sniff out hypocrisy, they have no patience for it like I seem to! And because they are who they are, they all just say “well that doesn’t seem fair or right.” One has some mental health challenges and doesn’t feel comfortable in any interview setting at this time but they’re working on it, so they’re not going to get one just based on that, one thinks the word of wisdom stuff is silly should have nothing to do with worthiness, since everyone’s basically breaking it in one way or another, And one has a really hard time with the publicity associated with holding a recommend and doesn’t feel comfortable with the “alms in public” aspect of church life so that is why they don’t really love any of it and thinks the best people are probably not attending church. As a parent, I almost feel like the church’s policies are sometimes biased and hypocritical so I’m just letting them have their journeys I guess it is not easy to be a parent right now. Probably never was.
A closing quote for this little rambling comes from President Nelson’s October 2021 talk that I mentioned above:
“President Harold B. Lee explained why procedures, policies, and even the administration of temple ordinances continue to change within the Savior’s restored Church. President Lee said: “The principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ are divine. Nobody changes the principles and [doctrine] of the Church except the Lord by revelation. But methods change as the inspired direction comes to those who preside at a given time.”
Couldn’t methods change???? Please?!!!
Oh how I wish we could really look at how these policies for temple entry are hurting people and promoting the wrong things in our congregations. (Lots of alms in public, but how are our private souls doing?) They’re certainly wounding my soul. As a woman, I could go on about the different ways I feel the temple is an inaccurate reflection of our theology on God.
Only time will tell, and I would never want to diminish anyone’s experience in the temple that has been life-changing. I believe the Lord can reach us in many ways. And I have had some very powerful spiritual moments in the temple as well.
That’s just my two cents (more like 20)! I look forward to your episode!
Thanks Susan. I don’t think you realize how much you have helped me over the past five years to get through some things and to be stronger in my faith. I wish I could be as articulate as you are in expressing what I feel! I could go on for hours about this topic in particular. Your essay was like a revelation and a gut punch all at once! I really have never felt the temple was my own personal best portal to be close to God, especially when compared to many other places. I did it because I was told it was the right place. I did it because I wanted to give the gift to whoever wanted me to be there or whichever ancestor might have needed vicarious work, I did it because it was work, but not because it was healing for my soul personally. President Hinckley once talked about the work of the temple. I think he understood that for many it wasn’t something they got a lot out of personally, Just work. And I remember finding that piece of his wisdom oddly comforting. But, as I unpack it now that I’m a middle-aged woman, I certainly know there’s so much about our mother missing so much about Eve we’ve misconstrued, so much about polygamy, so much of an early profits, trying to understand, but maybe not getting all the way there, and while we will always buck up against tradition when we are trying to restore and receive new revelation, I feel like the temple is one of those places where we’ve really got to do something fast! I may have hung on in this church, but I do know people who left after their first temple experience. That’s how traumatizing it was for some.. It’s just really hard as a woman to sit in an endowment session. I’ve never asked my husband how he feels about it regarding those things, but I know he has a lot of test anxiety and has dyslexia, and doesn’t like being in the endowment for that reason. I’ve always always felt the love of my Heavenly Parents and a thin veil in other places, but not necessarily in an endowment. I actually really enjoy initiatory because it is intimate and quiet. To me, there’s just so much anxiety that accompanies an endowment session, so much separation, so much gobbledygook to sift through, and I just never feel in tune there. So to me, it’s almost its own separator, as well as all of the other things that you mentioned in the essay. Thanks. I didn’t mean to go on again! But there I went!
About ten years ago I asked to be a temple worker here in Las Vegas. It is a lovely temple and I appreciated sitting in the celestial room, once people left. I had a fantasy of turning the lights off, lying on one of the gorgeous couches, closing my eyes, and sleeping in my Father house. I hoped that serving in the temple would bring me closer to God but in the back of my mind, there was the concern that it would become 'rote', something that would become memorized. I was sick and tired of thinking I was just a lazy member, not diligently (frantically?) searching for something I was missing, that was in the temple and no where else. Tired of spiritual self flagellation. Unfortunately it became something that I just did every other Saturday. I did enjoy assisting patrons with real problems, but in the end it became memorized words spoken in a beautiful building. I stopped attending church 8 years ago. First year I kept waiting for the 'other shoe to drop'. Still no shoe dropping and if anything I feel more confident and at peace because God doesn't require a specific address or words to meet me. I cannot abide the idea of a middleman, human or ritual, required to have my creator's attention. I reach out, I am met.
I also had a horrible mission memory pop up after reading this. In my first area we had an awful stake president. I had an investigator at church in a nice pantsuit and he dedicated 5 minutes of his talk to women shouldn’t wear pants to church. I imagine I looked much like Marco Rubio body language in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. Anyhow this stake president added more rules for the missionaries in his stake (as if the the white handbook didn’t provide enough 🙄). He decided that the missionaries could only have members come to lessons with us if they had a current temple recommend. At first we all just blew it off. Then our mission president found out and made us follow it. But he didn’t announce it to the members and we weren’t really supposed to explicitly state the rule. I had to sit in a meeting with the ward mission leader where he told me which members did and did not have temple recommends. He told me some I may be surprised by and told me personal situations of why some ward members didn’t have their recommends. There were people we had a weekly setup with to go to dinner and have them come to lessons with us. But they weren’t on the approved list. We had to awkwardly make up lies of why we couldn’t do lessons after the dinner each week. It still puts such a bad taste in my mouth. Talk about making the temple a separator. And this stake president went on to be called as a mission president. Ugh.
I relish the article and all of the comments. They reflect so many of my own feelings. From walking out of my endowment in 1977 and going directly to my mother and asking, "How do feel about this as a woman?" I couldn't believe what I felt. Or my wedding day, and feeling incredible angst over what my wife to be was being asked to do in her own endowment. Taking her through the veil was not a cherished moment. Knowing her new name and her not knowing mine. The covenants she made to me and the penalties... 43 years later, I love that she loves the temple and finds peace and answers there. I never have. And stopped getting a temple recommend in 2015 when I found that I could not answer the call to be Bishop. I just couldn't see myself sitting on the other side of that desk upholding Senior Leadership policies on LGBTQ+ and the patriarchy. If I could not feel right about being a Bishop, how could I feel right about the temple and sustaining. It was the best decision I made to our marriage. I accept my wife's feelings, and she has accepted mine. I have four daughters and they have all left the church. Patriarchy being the number one reason. I understand that completely and I am happy they have found their own happiness. Please know that I cherished these comments. Having served in the three Bishoprics, I saw the pain...and had so many conversations with women who felt they could not speak to the Bishop or their Husband about these concerns. That always troubled me greatly. I guess I was seen as an open ally and supporter? but with little power to do anything but listen, support, and love.
Susan - this is such a powerful essay! Thank you so much for expressing so succinctly the thoughts and feelings that so many of us experience. It truly is annoying to be constantly admonished to worship in a temple that is off limits to me (as a trans member) and off-putting to so many others.
Such a great piece that encapsulates so much of my own feelings about the temple. My main reasons for rejecting temple worship is the way that it others and separates us rather than bringing us together. I have a distrust for people who claim how much they love temple worship. Like really? Let’s just admit that there’s a lot about it that is just off and weird. And it’s only recently that they have inserted Jesus in so many parts of it. I think if we were to ask Jesus what he’d like us to be doing with our time that it would look like something quite different. One commenter talked of how she is no longer allowed to hold important callings because she no longer attends temple - that is so wrong. My mother had all the important callings and was a member for over 30 years before she was able to go to the temple because my dad wasn’t a member. That was in 1986 when they changed the policy for women married to non members. Talk about othering! I was young and didn’t give it much thought at the time. My husband and I drove off to get married at the closet temple 1800 miles away. No family with us, and I felt quite saintly that we were doing the right thing and what our leaders advised us to do. Now it just annoys me and there will be some awkward moments of not attending any future family temple endowments and sealings.
“Separation” was the one concept I returned to over and over when I finally told my husband that I had no plans to renew my temple recommend. I’m not sure why I found it so shocking to see that word and the shared feelings and experiences mirrored in this article and many of the comments here. I should know by now that there is good company out here on the fringes.
Though I had felt this way for years, the notion of the temple as a separator absolutely crystallized after my older sister - who was not a member of the church - suddenly, tragically died last year. In the space of a breath, I knew with certainty I would be with her again, not because of a complex, problematic, changeable collection of moving parts involving the temple, but because of LOVE, the most powerful, most divine sealing power there is.
For now, I continue to attend church and engage with what feeds me. This means tuning out a LOT of talks, lessons, and discussions about temples and the “Covenant Path.” Does that make me feel like I’m not part of the club? Not necessarily. You mentioned this as the centerpiece of President Nelson’s time as a prophet; it feels like every Prophet, every Stake President, and every Bishop has some centerpiece. I feel like I’ve lived through seasons where my salvation was supposedly tied to everything from food storage to member missionary work to family history work to Family Home Evening or whatever a leader’s pet mission was at that time. The goal post is constantly moving, and what I decide to engage with is continually changing, with the one rule being that it must feed me. As long as I can still find some nourishment and remember whose “club” it is anyways, I will consider that I belong.
This really articulated some of my inner feelings of why I feel discombobulated around so much emphasis on the temple and covenant path at church. I even used to love the temple. I figured all the sexist stuff in there was just wrong and felt peaceful and close to god and ancestors and had revelatory experiences there often. But I let my recommend lapse a little over two years ago and didn’t go much the last year I had it. And it really hit when you mention that the temple is the great separator. I still feel like a good person who focuses my morals around Christ’s teachings. But I stopped believing and lost all trust in church leaders. I can’t bring myself to pay tithing to the church. It’s something that I didn’t want to happen or ever anticipate happening to me but it did and I can’t go back. My youngest sister is getting married this month and it will be the first sealing that I’m missing out on. And it seems so ridiculous to have the separator there. I feel like the temple separates me from ward members and there’s the fear of eternal separation from my believing husband and parents. It’s even so interesting to me because my mom has a much easier time with my gay brother who has left the church than she does with my sister and I who are in the process of leaving. In one of my chats with my mom she said she’s had revelation that my brother will be fine in heaven and doesn’t think the church is right in everything they do with our lgbtq members. But she hasn’t had that same spiritual assurance for my sister and I and it totally manifests in our here and now relationships. I really feel like all the checklist things for the temple makes me focus less on Jesus.
You are not alone, sadly. And what just doesn't sit right is that our church is ALL ABOUT FAMILIES! It's just so sad how many hearts have been broken throughout the years.
Susan, yes THANK YOU for hitting publish! All of this is me - ALL of it. I continue to reel from the religious trauma I’ve endured, and a result I simply don’t have the emotional and mental strength to dig up and through the thoughts and feelings you expressed perfectly. Thank you again — I needed to hear myself say it. ;) 💕
Spiritual separators that we facilitate. What a gut punch. Looking back 38 years when naive little me married in the temple without my “unworthy” parents, without one of my four sisters…it breaks my heart now to realize I chose to marry in the only place on earth where my entire family of origin was excluded. And I went along with it. 💔💔💔 Spiritual separators no longer feel like God to me. What a powerful and vulnerable share your writing is (exquisite as always) and I know it will resonate deeply with so many of us 💝
Is there a growing number who intentionally and with hearts turned to God do not renew their recommends? The temple brought me so much solace in my youth. But it is our faith community that taught me to take spiritual truth seriously, to ponder, to seek the Divine, to study it out. And the temple holds less and less of that for me. I can’t unsee the “Ghost of Eternal polygamy” that walks it’s halls. Or the absence of God the Mother in the creation of Adam and Eve. Or the divide in our congregations and families you point to here. I can’t unsee how unlike my mother love for my own children the temple recommend questions feel.
Beautifully put! “Intentionally and with [a heart] turned to God” is almost exactly how I would describe my decision to not renew my recommend, for all the reasons you mention here and more. It’s truly a matter of living in harmony and integrity with the witness I’ve received on different principles.
Than you so much for writing this and hitting publish. You’ve articulated so many of my feelings about the temple with clarity and heart. I didn’t renew my recommend either.
Thank you for hitting publish! I resonate with so much of what you said. The big exception is that for most of my adult life I have found the temple a to be a holy sanctuary for me. I have felt the spirit there very strongly, perhaps more strongly than just about any where else.
My faith journey started about 20 years ago, but has had a couple of major shifts. One about 7 years ago and another about 2-3 years ago. Last year my recommend was up for renewal and for the first time I struggled with the decision to renew it. I did nuance my way through the questions because I have a son who is likely getting married this year. I have 3 other kids. My oldest is gay and no longer attends church. My 2nd is married - in the temple but only occasionally attends church, the 3rd one is the one about to be married and my 4th is 14 and still finds value in attending church.
After I renewed last year I decided not to go to the temple except for weddings of family members and such. I felt a lot of peace in this decision. A couple of months ago I got curious about the shortened endowment session and also about how I would feel going back so in January I did go.
To understand that experience it might be helpful to know that, like I mentioned, I have almost always found a lot of peace and clarity in the temple. After my husband died seven years ago it was literally a refuge for me. I went weekly for about 6 months. I have almost always felt close to God there. I went to the temple twice a month for a few years. When I moved to CA three years ago as a single mom it became more difficult to find the 3 hours it would take so I was going only once a month for a while. I had struggles with the church for years but I couldn’t really understand why people had a hard time going to the temple. In my narcissism I wondered what they were doing wrong.
As I’ve learned more and understood more about the harm that patriarchy does, as I’ve come face to face with the unchirstlike way the church behaves and treats people, and as I’ve understood myself better I’ve not been comfortable attending the temple.
As things changed with my son who no longer attends church I have become much more aware of how the temple separates us and hurts people.
So going in January was an interesting experience. I did feel the spirit. I did find clarity for somethings I was struggling with AND I was disgusted by the idea that people like my son could never go into the temple. I’m disappointed that the church spends so much money on these buildings and restricts entrance. I hate the emphasis on obedience and shame and the misunderstanding of God’s love that is found there. So much is wrong with the temple that how could I possibly feel the spirit and find clarity for myself? It feels selfish. I have had this strange mix of confusion about the temple but also confidence in my approach. I do think God is found in those walls, but just as God is found everywhere in the world.
I have thought a lot about my experience in January and why I felt everything I felt. I haven’t gone back and don’t plan to anytime soon, but I’m also open to the idea if that’s where I feel led to be. It’s a very weird but peaceful space to be in and I have no idea how to explain it to anyone. The TBM’s don’t understand but neither do those who see all the problems. I’m not sure what to do with that but I have learned to be very comfortable living in ambiguity, so I guess that’s ok for now.
Susan, my spirit knows what yours does: that we are ALL unclean, and therefore “unworthy” to enter God’s presence without the atonement. The temple does not change that.
Rather, in the temple ordinances, amongst many things that give me massive and unnecessary existential dread, there are some beautiful moments in where we are taught that going through a very messy mortal existence prepares us to enter, through Christ, God’s presence. So much bathwater. But also a baby right there in it. At least, that’s one baby I can see amidst the significant amount of 1800’s secret club stuff thrown in. So, I feel like refinement continues to be necessary until we get to a place where the most important principles can be most readily taught to all.
I feel like leadership has a huge blind spot when it comes to how many real human experiences are being called less valid and less worthy of entrance to the temple, and then prioritizing which sins matter most in temple recommend interviews…..getting caught in the semantics of worthiness as a separator! And I agree with you. It feels wrong.
I taught RS a couple of years back and was assigned to teach using Pres. Nelson’s “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation” from October 2021. In it, he pleads with people to seek the temple to help them understand priceless gospel principles the Lord is teaching there.
He also talks about the Lord as our spiritual foundation.
While prayerfully preparing to teach this lesson, I received a powerful spiritual impression that I had sisters in that room who would be heartbroken to listen to the words of this talk for precisely the reasons you describe in your essay. The most powerful confirmation of spirit came over me that I should not focus on the temple part, but rather, the savior and those quotes about him as our foundation. I had just moved into the ward, and I knew very few people, and none intimately, but I KNEW somebody sitting in that room that day would be crushed by that talk and discouraged into thinking they did not belong.
So, I couldn’t deny it, and I went forward and just taught the pieces about the Lord. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I’ve ever had as a teacher. And I’ve had many. But very few where I was told specifically NOT to focus on some of the quotes.
I feel like President Nelson had a blind spot while crafting this address and that is that there are “worthiness” policies that prohibit willing children of the Lord from gaining a recommend and receiving the healing in the temple that they so desperately need and the Lord so desperately would like for them to have. He knows they would like to have it, but he seemed to be saying “come on buck up, get there!” That’s very easy for certain people to be able to do and very difficult for others with the current temple recommend questions.
Many years ago, I was walking with one of my friends, a spiritually insightful and very valued friendship much like yours and Cynthia’s. She told me she had a friend who had substance abuse issues and whose Bishop had said he couldn’t think of anyone who more needed or deserved to be in the temple so he approved the recommend. Even though that member was perhaps, in the eyes of most, NOT obeying the word of wisdom. They were definitely in a place of clarity and cleanliness Even though the handbook wouldn’t approve. Now there is a bishop who understood the principle of what the temple is for.
If only people without those issues (I’m guessing many in leadership positions) could realize they may have a blind spot in regards to what the temple could mean to so many if there was no worthiness piece attached to things that are diseases.
I do believe there will always be people who take advantage of a system and there’s probably no avoiding that, and I do agree we should respect the temple. BUT it has long been my opinion that there are probably many liars in the temple and many honest people not in it because of these temple interviews.
My dad had chosen not to congregate by the time I was married, and neither he nor my father-in-law were able to attend our sealing. It definitely felt like a public shaming for each of them not to be there and I was actually grateful they had each other to sit outside with, since they couldn’t be there, but what a terrible moment….
Could we not center our worthiness on willingness?
I have three children. None of them hold a recommend at this time. None wouldn’t have been willing to enter, but when they sniff out hypocrisy, they have no patience for it like I seem to! And because they are who they are, they all just say “well that doesn’t seem fair or right.” One has some mental health challenges and doesn’t feel comfortable in any interview setting at this time but they’re working on it, so they’re not going to get one just based on that, one thinks the word of wisdom stuff is silly should have nothing to do with worthiness, since everyone’s basically breaking it in one way or another, And one has a really hard time with the publicity associated with holding a recommend and doesn’t feel comfortable with the “alms in public” aspect of church life so that is why they don’t really love any of it and thinks the best people are probably not attending church. As a parent, I almost feel like the church’s policies are sometimes biased and hypocritical so I’m just letting them have their journeys I guess it is not easy to be a parent right now. Probably never was.
A closing quote for this little rambling comes from President Nelson’s October 2021 talk that I mentioned above:
“President Harold B. Lee explained why procedures, policies, and even the administration of temple ordinances continue to change within the Savior’s restored Church. President Lee said: “The principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ are divine. Nobody changes the principles and [doctrine] of the Church except the Lord by revelation. But methods change as the inspired direction comes to those who preside at a given time.”
Couldn’t methods change???? Please?!!!
Oh how I wish we could really look at how these policies for temple entry are hurting people and promoting the wrong things in our congregations. (Lots of alms in public, but how are our private souls doing?) They’re certainly wounding my soul. As a woman, I could go on about the different ways I feel the temple is an inaccurate reflection of our theology on God.
Only time will tell, and I would never want to diminish anyone’s experience in the temple that has been life-changing. I believe the Lord can reach us in many ways. And I have had some very powerful spiritual moments in the temple as well.
That’s just my two cents (more like 20)! I look forward to your episode!
I love this comment so much. Thanks for sharing your heart and your real experience with me. It's all complicated, isn't it? Thank you, Shelley! —S.
Thanks Susan. I don’t think you realize how much you have helped me over the past five years to get through some things and to be stronger in my faith. I wish I could be as articulate as you are in expressing what I feel! I could go on for hours about this topic in particular. Your essay was like a revelation and a gut punch all at once! I really have never felt the temple was my own personal best portal to be close to God, especially when compared to many other places. I did it because I was told it was the right place. I did it because I wanted to give the gift to whoever wanted me to be there or whichever ancestor might have needed vicarious work, I did it because it was work, but not because it was healing for my soul personally. President Hinckley once talked about the work of the temple. I think he understood that for many it wasn’t something they got a lot out of personally, Just work. And I remember finding that piece of his wisdom oddly comforting. But, as I unpack it now that I’m a middle-aged woman, I certainly know there’s so much about our mother missing so much about Eve we’ve misconstrued, so much about polygamy, so much of an early profits, trying to understand, but maybe not getting all the way there, and while we will always buck up against tradition when we are trying to restore and receive new revelation, I feel like the temple is one of those places where we’ve really got to do something fast! I may have hung on in this church, but I do know people who left after their first temple experience. That’s how traumatizing it was for some.. It’s just really hard as a woman to sit in an endowment session. I’ve never asked my husband how he feels about it regarding those things, but I know he has a lot of test anxiety and has dyslexia, and doesn’t like being in the endowment for that reason. I’ve always always felt the love of my Heavenly Parents and a thin veil in other places, but not necessarily in an endowment. I actually really enjoy initiatory because it is intimate and quiet. To me, there’s just so much anxiety that accompanies an endowment session, so much separation, so much gobbledygook to sift through, and I just never feel in tune there. So to me, it’s almost its own separator, as well as all of the other things that you mentioned in the essay. Thanks. I didn’t mean to go on again! But there I went!
About ten years ago I asked to be a temple worker here in Las Vegas. It is a lovely temple and I appreciated sitting in the celestial room, once people left. I had a fantasy of turning the lights off, lying on one of the gorgeous couches, closing my eyes, and sleeping in my Father house. I hoped that serving in the temple would bring me closer to God but in the back of my mind, there was the concern that it would become 'rote', something that would become memorized. I was sick and tired of thinking I was just a lazy member, not diligently (frantically?) searching for something I was missing, that was in the temple and no where else. Tired of spiritual self flagellation. Unfortunately it became something that I just did every other Saturday. I did enjoy assisting patrons with real problems, but in the end it became memorized words spoken in a beautiful building. I stopped attending church 8 years ago. First year I kept waiting for the 'other shoe to drop'. Still no shoe dropping and if anything I feel more confident and at peace because God doesn't require a specific address or words to meet me. I cannot abide the idea of a middleman, human or ritual, required to have my creator's attention. I reach out, I am met.
Absolutely incredible, every word!!
I also had a horrible mission memory pop up after reading this. In my first area we had an awful stake president. I had an investigator at church in a nice pantsuit and he dedicated 5 minutes of his talk to women shouldn’t wear pants to church. I imagine I looked much like Marco Rubio body language in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. Anyhow this stake president added more rules for the missionaries in his stake (as if the the white handbook didn’t provide enough 🙄). He decided that the missionaries could only have members come to lessons with us if they had a current temple recommend. At first we all just blew it off. Then our mission president found out and made us follow it. But he didn’t announce it to the members and we weren’t really supposed to explicitly state the rule. I had to sit in a meeting with the ward mission leader where he told me which members did and did not have temple recommends. He told me some I may be surprised by and told me personal situations of why some ward members didn’t have their recommends. There were people we had a weekly setup with to go to dinner and have them come to lessons with us. But they weren’t on the approved list. We had to awkwardly make up lies of why we couldn’t do lessons after the dinner each week. It still puts such a bad taste in my mouth. Talk about making the temple a separator. And this stake president went on to be called as a mission president. Ugh.
I relish the article and all of the comments. They reflect so many of my own feelings. From walking out of my endowment in 1977 and going directly to my mother and asking, "How do feel about this as a woman?" I couldn't believe what I felt. Or my wedding day, and feeling incredible angst over what my wife to be was being asked to do in her own endowment. Taking her through the veil was not a cherished moment. Knowing her new name and her not knowing mine. The covenants she made to me and the penalties... 43 years later, I love that she loves the temple and finds peace and answers there. I never have. And stopped getting a temple recommend in 2015 when I found that I could not answer the call to be Bishop. I just couldn't see myself sitting on the other side of that desk upholding Senior Leadership policies on LGBTQ+ and the patriarchy. If I could not feel right about being a Bishop, how could I feel right about the temple and sustaining. It was the best decision I made to our marriage. I accept my wife's feelings, and she has accepted mine. I have four daughters and they have all left the church. Patriarchy being the number one reason. I understand that completely and I am happy they have found their own happiness. Please know that I cherished these comments. Having served in the three Bishoprics, I saw the pain...and had so many conversations with women who felt they could not speak to the Bishop or their Husband about these concerns. That always troubled me greatly. I guess I was seen as an open ally and supporter? but with little power to do anything but listen, support, and love.
Scott, I can't thank you enough for sharing your perspective with us here. —Susan
Susan - this is such a powerful essay! Thank you so much for expressing so succinctly the thoughts and feelings that so many of us experience. It truly is annoying to be constantly admonished to worship in a temple that is off limits to me (as a trans member) and off-putting to so many others.
Such a great piece that encapsulates so much of my own feelings about the temple. My main reasons for rejecting temple worship is the way that it others and separates us rather than bringing us together. I have a distrust for people who claim how much they love temple worship. Like really? Let’s just admit that there’s a lot about it that is just off and weird. And it’s only recently that they have inserted Jesus in so many parts of it. I think if we were to ask Jesus what he’d like us to be doing with our time that it would look like something quite different. One commenter talked of how she is no longer allowed to hold important callings because she no longer attends temple - that is so wrong. My mother had all the important callings and was a member for over 30 years before she was able to go to the temple because my dad wasn’t a member. That was in 1986 when they changed the policy for women married to non members. Talk about othering! I was young and didn’t give it much thought at the time. My husband and I drove off to get married at the closet temple 1800 miles away. No family with us, and I felt quite saintly that we were doing the right thing and what our leaders advised us to do. Now it just annoys me and there will be some awkward moments of not attending any future family temple endowments and sealings.
“Separation” was the one concept I returned to over and over when I finally told my husband that I had no plans to renew my temple recommend. I’m not sure why I found it so shocking to see that word and the shared feelings and experiences mirrored in this article and many of the comments here. I should know by now that there is good company out here on the fringes.
Though I had felt this way for years, the notion of the temple as a separator absolutely crystallized after my older sister - who was not a member of the church - suddenly, tragically died last year. In the space of a breath, I knew with certainty I would be with her again, not because of a complex, problematic, changeable collection of moving parts involving the temple, but because of LOVE, the most powerful, most divine sealing power there is.
For now, I continue to attend church and engage with what feeds me. This means tuning out a LOT of talks, lessons, and discussions about temples and the “Covenant Path.” Does that make me feel like I’m not part of the club? Not necessarily. You mentioned this as the centerpiece of President Nelson’s time as a prophet; it feels like every Prophet, every Stake President, and every Bishop has some centerpiece. I feel like I’ve lived through seasons where my salvation was supposedly tied to everything from food storage to member missionary work to family history work to Family Home Evening or whatever a leader’s pet mission was at that time. The goal post is constantly moving, and what I decide to engage with is continually changing, with the one rule being that it must feed me. As long as I can still find some nourishment and remember whose “club” it is anyways, I will consider that I belong.
This really articulated some of my inner feelings of why I feel discombobulated around so much emphasis on the temple and covenant path at church. I even used to love the temple. I figured all the sexist stuff in there was just wrong and felt peaceful and close to god and ancestors and had revelatory experiences there often. But I let my recommend lapse a little over two years ago and didn’t go much the last year I had it. And it really hit when you mention that the temple is the great separator. I still feel like a good person who focuses my morals around Christ’s teachings. But I stopped believing and lost all trust in church leaders. I can’t bring myself to pay tithing to the church. It’s something that I didn’t want to happen or ever anticipate happening to me but it did and I can’t go back. My youngest sister is getting married this month and it will be the first sealing that I’m missing out on. And it seems so ridiculous to have the separator there. I feel like the temple separates me from ward members and there’s the fear of eternal separation from my believing husband and parents. It’s even so interesting to me because my mom has a much easier time with my gay brother who has left the church than she does with my sister and I who are in the process of leaving. In one of my chats with my mom she said she’s had revelation that my brother will be fine in heaven and doesn’t think the church is right in everything they do with our lgbtq members. But she hasn’t had that same spiritual assurance for my sister and I and it totally manifests in our here and now relationships. I really feel like all the checklist things for the temple makes me focus less on Jesus.
You are not alone, sadly. And what just doesn't sit right is that our church is ALL ABOUT FAMILIES! It's just so sad how many hearts have been broken throughout the years.
Susan, yes THANK YOU for hitting publish! All of this is me - ALL of it. I continue to reel from the religious trauma I’ve endured, and a result I simply don’t have the emotional and mental strength to dig up and through the thoughts and feelings you expressed perfectly. Thank you again — I needed to hear myself say it. ;) 💕
Spiritual separators that we facilitate. What a gut punch. Looking back 38 years when naive little me married in the temple without my “unworthy” parents, without one of my four sisters…it breaks my heart now to realize I chose to marry in the only place on earth where my entire family of origin was excluded. And I went along with it. 💔💔💔 Spiritual separators no longer feel like God to me. What a powerful and vulnerable share your writing is (exquisite as always) and I know it will resonate deeply with so many of us 💝
I agree with every part of this. Thank you for saying more. I appreciate your voice.
Is there a growing number who intentionally and with hearts turned to God do not renew their recommends? The temple brought me so much solace in my youth. But it is our faith community that taught me to take spiritual truth seriously, to ponder, to seek the Divine, to study it out. And the temple holds less and less of that for me. I can’t unsee the “Ghost of Eternal polygamy” that walks it’s halls. Or the absence of God the Mother in the creation of Adam and Eve. Or the divide in our congregations and families you point to here. I can’t unsee how unlike my mother love for my own children the temple recommend questions feel.
Beautifully put! “Intentionally and with [a heart] turned to God” is almost exactly how I would describe my decision to not renew my recommend, for all the reasons you mention here and more. It’s truly a matter of living in harmony and integrity with the witness I’ve received on different principles.
Than you so much for writing this and hitting publish. You’ve articulated so many of my feelings about the temple with clarity and heart. I didn’t renew my recommend either.