The dead have more access to the temple than the living. I was married three times by the age of 32. Sealed/married at 18 at the Salt Lake Temple. Widowed at 21. Five years later, married for time in the Logan Temple to the second husband. Divorced exactly 10 years later to the day that I was widowed. Uncanny but true. Remarried now for 18 years to a man I would like the ability to be sealed to, but I'm the wrong gender? Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. This makes absolutely no sense, and shines a spotlight on the bottom-line purpose of the temple which to me looks like the literal male domination of women and children, and continued practice of spiritual polygamy in the church. Temple marriage and sealings are a system of one-sided eternal open marriage with full and eternal hierarchy locked down in what should be an equitable partnership. I will not participate in those violations of freedom and morality. The temple and the sealing were weaponized against my spiritual stability and happiness until I deconstructed and reduced the temple to its true size in my life. If I play the temple game of uncertainty, then I would have to cancel my original sealing to my first husband who died from a glioblastoma to be sealed to my third husband. If I don't do that, I must first die to be posthumously sealed by proxy to my wonderful third hubby. Heaven or hell can have the second husband. Not my monkey or circus anymore. My point is, the dead have more access to the temple ordinances than the living. Misogyny and toxic patriarchy make it so.
I was told by a President of the Seventy who was connected to my current husband what he thought of having to break the sealing to be sealed to another husband. We cited our observations and listed our questions. These cast enough doubt about the answer in his mind that he had to go ask one of the Brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve. He called us back a few hours later and said that they didn't know, and that the sealing is for the living. What. What? Do we not get sealed to continue our connection beyond the grave? Do we not do proxy sealings posthumously for the deceased? We were more confused than after we talked to him. Temple Presidents could not answer our question. Why? Because none of it makes sense because it is wrong and always has been. Misogyny is wrong and leaves no room for equity. I refused to break that covenant which my late-husband mutually exercised agency to create to bend to toxic patriarchy and be sealed to my third husband. I felt that I should be able to be sealed to both, just like the men can be sealed to an unlimited number of wives upon the death of the previous wife. If I can be sealed to two men and then sort it out after I die, then why worry about it now? Why is the only decision-related veto power a woman in the church has over a man exist when the man is dead? Why does agency suddenly end at the temple doors? Why do we claim that there was a war in heaven over the agency of man, and then subjugate one half of the people in our church to the other half? It's truly icky to the core. Deconstruction ensues when I try to find the answer to these questions and others such as why the covenants can only be witnessed on one side of a closed door by just some of the living. We literally watch as Adam and Even learn about and make sacred covenants under a canopy of trees. Why can't we? When I remind myself that there is no good answer and that it shouldn't be happening, I get grumpy. I'm supposed to make sacred covenants in a group of people I do not know like I'm a tagged cow in a herd of cattle, but my own loved ones of any belief and background who know and support me cannot share this with me? Then I have to do the same thing over again for a dead person I usually don't know? The dead, who may or may not have been "worthy" in their lifetimes can be there in spirit and witness the endowment or sealing, but my living loved ones without recommends cannot attend a living ceremony or endowment and share in my joy? Again, a dead person has more access than the living. And they don't have to get past the tithing pay-to-play paywall to receive their temple endowments. They didn't have to be a good or moral person. They could have smoked, drank, blasphemed, cheated on spouses, abused their families, cursed holy things and died, and they still have more access than my living loved ones who are wonderful people that do not attend the temple. Does anyone have a good explanation for this? I don't appreciate fear over the potential loss of eternal connection to my deceased loved ones being dangled in front of me so I will pay tithing so I can enter the temple and solve that man-made problem. No one has the authority or right to do this. It's a pay-to-play system of emotional extortion. Whatever good and holy things there are in the covenants are locked behind a paywall that I don't believe was intended to be there. You want to be with your family forever? I'm sorry, but you'll have to pay 10% of everything you earn and do a few other basic things to have an opportunity to pursue that. No thanks. Families are forever because they are. Full stop.
We shouldn't be asking if we are "worthy" to enter the temple, but if the thoughts, ideas, and influence of others are worthy to enter the temples of our minds, hearts, and homes. Good parents do not lock doors to keep children out.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is real and true. I love making and keeping covenants with God. It is my joy to live as close to the source of Love as possible and share it with others. I challenge the veracity of the policies- and I emphasize the word policies, that govern the temple experience.
Thank you so much. I am so grateful to have stumbled upon this podcast and for the strength it has given me to discover what I know. Thank you doesn't seem adequate.
This was wonderful! I have some mixed experiences in the temple, some good some bad. My recommend expires at the end of the year. I am still not sure what I’ll do, but it’s good to hear about how others have grappled in their souls with this hard decision. I’m grateful there’s a safe space to share.
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.
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.
I once had the care of a good friend in the bishopric when I was feeling dominated and disrespected by my bishop. Our regular talks made a world of difference for me.
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 💝
The dead have more access to the temple than the living. I was married three times by the age of 32. Sealed/married at 18 at the Salt Lake Temple. Widowed at 21. Five years later, married for time in the Logan Temple to the second husband. Divorced exactly 10 years later to the day that I was widowed. Uncanny but true. Remarried now for 18 years to a man I would like the ability to be sealed to, but I'm the wrong gender? Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. This makes absolutely no sense, and shines a spotlight on the bottom-line purpose of the temple which to me looks like the literal male domination of women and children, and continued practice of spiritual polygamy in the church. Temple marriage and sealings are a system of one-sided eternal open marriage with full and eternal hierarchy locked down in what should be an equitable partnership. I will not participate in those violations of freedom and morality. The temple and the sealing were weaponized against my spiritual stability and happiness until I deconstructed and reduced the temple to its true size in my life. If I play the temple game of uncertainty, then I would have to cancel my original sealing to my first husband who died from a glioblastoma to be sealed to my third husband. If I don't do that, I must first die to be posthumously sealed by proxy to my wonderful third hubby. Heaven or hell can have the second husband. Not my monkey or circus anymore. My point is, the dead have more access to the temple ordinances than the living. Misogyny and toxic patriarchy make it so.
I was told by a President of the Seventy who was connected to my current husband what he thought of having to break the sealing to be sealed to another husband. We cited our observations and listed our questions. These cast enough doubt about the answer in his mind that he had to go ask one of the Brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve. He called us back a few hours later and said that they didn't know, and that the sealing is for the living. What. What? Do we not get sealed to continue our connection beyond the grave? Do we not do proxy sealings posthumously for the deceased? We were more confused than after we talked to him. Temple Presidents could not answer our question. Why? Because none of it makes sense because it is wrong and always has been. Misogyny is wrong and leaves no room for equity. I refused to break that covenant which my late-husband mutually exercised agency to create to bend to toxic patriarchy and be sealed to my third husband. I felt that I should be able to be sealed to both, just like the men can be sealed to an unlimited number of wives upon the death of the previous wife. If I can be sealed to two men and then sort it out after I die, then why worry about it now? Why is the only decision-related veto power a woman in the church has over a man exist when the man is dead? Why does agency suddenly end at the temple doors? Why do we claim that there was a war in heaven over the agency of man, and then subjugate one half of the people in our church to the other half? It's truly icky to the core. Deconstruction ensues when I try to find the answer to these questions and others such as why the covenants can only be witnessed on one side of a closed door by just some of the living. We literally watch as Adam and Even learn about and make sacred covenants under a canopy of trees. Why can't we? When I remind myself that there is no good answer and that it shouldn't be happening, I get grumpy. I'm supposed to make sacred covenants in a group of people I do not know like I'm a tagged cow in a herd of cattle, but my own loved ones of any belief and background who know and support me cannot share this with me? Then I have to do the same thing over again for a dead person I usually don't know? The dead, who may or may not have been "worthy" in their lifetimes can be there in spirit and witness the endowment or sealing, but my living loved ones without recommends cannot attend a living ceremony or endowment and share in my joy? Again, a dead person has more access than the living. And they don't have to get past the tithing pay-to-play paywall to receive their temple endowments. They didn't have to be a good or moral person. They could have smoked, drank, blasphemed, cheated on spouses, abused their families, cursed holy things and died, and they still have more access than my living loved ones who are wonderful people that do not attend the temple. Does anyone have a good explanation for this? I don't appreciate fear over the potential loss of eternal connection to my deceased loved ones being dangled in front of me so I will pay tithing so I can enter the temple and solve that man-made problem. No one has the authority or right to do this. It's a pay-to-play system of emotional extortion. Whatever good and holy things there are in the covenants are locked behind a paywall that I don't believe was intended to be there. You want to be with your family forever? I'm sorry, but you'll have to pay 10% of everything you earn and do a few other basic things to have an opportunity to pursue that. No thanks. Families are forever because they are. Full stop.
We shouldn't be asking if we are "worthy" to enter the temple, but if the thoughts, ideas, and influence of others are worthy to enter the temples of our minds, hearts, and homes. Good parents do not lock doors to keep children out.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is real and true. I love making and keeping covenants with God. It is my joy to live as close to the source of Love as possible and share it with others. I challenge the veracity of the policies- and I emphasize the word policies, that govern the temple experience.
Keep preaching, ladies. You're doing God's work. Hugs.
Thank you so much. I am so grateful to have stumbled upon this podcast and for the strength it has given me to discover what I know. Thank you doesn't seem adequate.
All I can say is Thank you. At last she writes it.
This was wonderful! I have some mixed experiences in the temple, some good some bad. My recommend expires at the end of the year. I am still not sure what I’ll do, but it’s good to hear about how others have grappled in their souls with this hard decision. I’m grateful there’s a safe space to share.
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.
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.
I once had the care of a good friend in the bishopric when I was feeling dominated and disrespected by my bishop. Our regular talks made a world of difference for me.
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 💝