LDS Temples

Utah's Wasatch Front, circa 2100 (colorized)

In addition to its meetinghouses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints builds temples all over the world. These buildings are much rarer, usually larger and fancier, and closed to people who aren't members of the church. Many have wondered what goes on inside and why they exist. I'll tell you about as much as I can. Even though I'm no longer part of the church, I respect the sanctity that members attach to its temples, so I won't share the few specific details of the endowment ceremony that I covenanted not to disclose. (You can, of course, find the whole thing on YouTube if you really want to, but I honestly don't think it's worth your time.)

The Purpose of Temples

​Temples are designated as houses of the Lord, places where the stresses and cares of the world can be left outside and the Spirit felt powerfully. Though inspired by the temples and tabernacles of the Old Testament era, which were similarly set apart from the world, they serve much different functions. Many Latter-day Saints go to them seeking personal revelation and guidance. They're not primarily designed for passive meditation, however. They're designed to perform religious ordinances, including baptisms and confirmations for the dead, initiatories, endowments, and sealings for the living and the dead, and second anointings for a select few living.

Baptisms and Confirmations for the Dead

These are just like regular baptisms and confirmations, except they're performed in a font on the backs of twelve oxen (symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel), on behalf of deceased people whose names are inserted one at a time in the prayer. Each is then free to accept or reject the ordinance (but will still be judged for how they lived in mortality; this is not a free pass or second chance). Eventually this will give everyone who's ever lived a chance to accept the gospel regardless of whether they'd ever heard of it in mortality, thus removing the need for a loving God to damn most of His children. (See here for a brief biblical look at the practice.) Once, as I was being confirmed for five people I knew nothing about who had previously been vicariously baptized by someone else, I felt the presence of a spirit, presumably one of theirs. He felt like the Spirit, but instead of something inside me, I felt the shape of a person standing in front of me to the right. While three of the names were read, he reached out and touched me on the arm. Then he disappeared. Now that I've left the church, I'm not sure what to make of that experience.

Posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims have been controversial due to the long history of Christians forcing Jews to convert. They're extra awkward in light of the LDS Church's accommodationist stance toward the Nazi regime and its refusal, driven by First Presidency member J. Reuben Clark's rabid anti-Semitism, to do anything for its own ethnically Jewish members in Europe who pleaded for help emigrating to the United States before it was too late. Church policy bans these baptisms except by a direct descendant, but members find ways around its restrictions and periodically create another controversy when they're discovered. Other than that, though, I don't understand why people feel personally attacked by the practice. Properly understood, it's the textbook definition of selflessness and a legitimate source of what Church of Sweden Bishop of Stockholm and theologian Krister Stendahl termed "holy envy" for another religion's teachings. If a Muslim or a Hindu or anyone else performed a posthumous ritual that they believed would help me in the world to come, knowing that I could do nothing for them in return, I would be honored and grateful whether I share that belief or not.

Initiatories

In this brief and often overlooked prelude to the endowment patterned after the consecration of priests in Exodus 29:4-7, Latter-day Saints are consecrated to someday become kings or queens and priests or priestesses unto God. They then receive standardized blessings on their ears, eyes, nose, lips, neck, shoulders, back, breast, vitals and bowels, arms and hands, loins, and legs and feet. From this time forward, they are instructed to wear white temple garments (sometimes derisively called "magic underwear") underneath their clothing most of the time (with exceptions determined by each individual) to receive spiritual protection and remind them of these covenants. Some believe they also provide physical protection and tell apocryphal stories about people being saved from fire or bullets or whatever, but this isn't the norm. They have symbols stiched into them, again taken from Masonry but imbued with different meanings. Garments have undergone several design changes for convenience and comfort since they were introduced. They used to be one-piece and cover almost the entire body. They are still patterned after men's underwear, however, and many women find them uncomfortable or even develop health problems such as urinary tract infections and yeast infections.

​Joseph Smith taught, "Ordinances instituted in the heavens before the foundation of the world, in the priesthood, for the salvation of men, are not to be altered or changed. All must be saved on the same principles." Yet the initiatory has been drastically changed since his day. Originally, Latter-day Saints were washed and anointed in the nude before putting on their temple garments for the first time. Sometime in the early twentieth century they started wearing open, sleeveless robes to protect some degree of modesty. Many people still found this very uncomfortable. In 2005, they started putting on their garments before the initiatory, and officiators just placed hands on their heads instead of touching the various body parts to be blessed. Since 2019, the washing and anointing is almost entirely symbolic, consisting of just a couple dabs of water and oil on the foreheads and scalps of fully-clothed members. Also since 2019, women are consecrated as queens and priestesses to God instead of to their husbands.

Endowments

Brigham Young said, "Let me give you a definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." Joseph Smith revealed the first iteration of the endowment ceremony in May 1842. Most of it was based on the Masonic initiation ritual that he had gone through seven weeks earlier. For example, both the signs and tokens themselves and the oath that members take not to disclose them are lifted directly from it and reinterpreted in a more religious context. Early Saints believed that Joseph was restoring the Masonic ritual to its proper form after it became corrupted. Heber C. Kimball wrote in 1858, "We have the true Masonry. The Masonry of today is received from the apostasy which took place in the days of Solomon, and David. They have now and then a thing that is correct, but we have the real thing." Masonry's ancient origins and connection with Solomon's temple were once widely believed, but scholars now believe that it only dates back to the early 1700s and Solomon's temple was only used to sacrifice animals.

Before the ceremony begins, as in Masonry, each Latter-day Saint receives a new name. They are told to repeat this at the end but never to share it elsewhere, except women with their husbands right before they get "sealed" in marriage (see below). This is widely believed to be so that their husbands can use the priesthood to call them out of the grave on resurrection morning. Everyone going through the endowment on a given day receives the same name, following a rotating schedule, unless it's too similar to their own name. All of the men's names are from the scriptures, while most of the women's names are from church leaders' wives because there aren't that many women's names in the scriptures, especially if you exclude the prostitutes.

Most of the ceremony consists of a symbolic ritual drama (originally presented as a live performance but now as a film) about the Creation of the world and the Fall of Adam and Eve, illustrating the need for the Atonement. At certain points, attendees are shown the signs and tokens taken directly from the Masonic ritual, make a covenant associated with each one, and put on symbolic clothing piece-by-piece to represent them. A covenant is a two-way promise with God, and beliefs vary as to whether it's more of a relationship or a contract, but the former interpretation leaves more room for the changes that have been made over the years. At one point several volunteers encircle the altar and pray for struggling people whose names have been submitted to the temple's prayer roll. At the conclusion they each repeat their new name and the other signs and tokens at a veil (with workers nearby to help with anything they've forgotten) and pass through it to symbolically enter God's presence, the temple's Celestial Room where they can stay and contemplate as long as they want.

Members used to be told nothing in advance about the promises they would make during the ceremony, but since 2021, the church's General Handbook has explained, "In the endowment, members are invited to make sacred covenants to:

• Live the law of obedience and strive to keep Heavenly Father’s commandments.
• Obey the law of sacrifice, which means sacrificing to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.
• Obey the law of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the higher law that He taught while He was on the earth.
• Keep the law of chastity, which means having no sexual activity except with those to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.
• Keep the law of consecration, which means dedicating their time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed them to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth."

Ann Eliza Young, Brigham's ex-wife, described the covenants she made around 1860: "The women promised entire subjection to their husbands' will; the men that they would take no woman as a wife without the express permission of the priesthood. We all promised that we would never question the commands of our authorities in the church, but would grant them instant obedience; we swore also to entertain an everlasting enmity to the United States government, and to disregard its laws so far as possible; we swore that we would use every exertion to avenge the death of our Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum upon the Gentile race, by whose means they were brought to their unhappy fate, and to teach our children to foster this spirit of revenge also; and last of all, we swore never to reveal the mysteries of the Endowment House. The breaking of this latter oath was to be followed by the most horrible penalties; torture of the most excruciating kind was to be inflicted upon anyone who should disregard this oath - his bowels should be torn from him while he was yet alive; his throat should then be cut from ear to ear; his heart and his tongue cut out; and in the world to come he should inherit eternal damnation. There should be, nor could be, no chance of salvation for him."

As with the initiatory, both the format and the content of the endowment have been changed many times through the years in response to member feedback (without acknowledging the member feedback). Originally an all-day affair, it now takes less than two hours. Parts that people found tedious, redundant, or uncomfortable have been changed or removed altogether. The oath of vengeance was removed in 1927 and the penalties were removed in 1990. Eve's role was expanded and portrayed in a more positive light. Most significantly in my view, before 2019, a few of the covenants women made were to their husbands (whether they had husbands yet or not) instead of directly to God like all of the men's covenants. While most women apparently just didn't care or explained it to themselves in a way that satisfied them, a significant minority were deeply troubled by it. When a friend from high school asked me "why women in your church have to promise to serve their husbands in heaven as kings" I had no idea what she was talking about, so I told her it wasn't true. I felt punched in the stomach years later when I learned what she must have been referring to.

I believe that covenant was just sexist and wrong, and I'm not convinced by any of the apologetics that some members have used to explain it. For one thing, none of these explanations were ever so much as hinted at in the temple itself. For another, Brigham Young, who led the all-male committee that put the endowment into writing thirty-five years after it was created, clearly taught that women were dependent on their husbands for salvation. Brooke R. LeFevre coined the term "salvific coverture" for this sexist teaching. Ann Eliza Young explained in 1876, "I had been taught to believe that my sex was inferior to the other; that the curse pronounced upon the race in the Garden of Eden was woman's curse alone, and that it was to man that she must look for salvation. No road lay open for her to the throne of grace; no gate of eternal life swinging wide to the knockings of her weary hands; no loving Father listened to the wails of sorrow and supplication wrung by a worse than death-agony from her broken heart. Heaven was inaccessible to her, except as she might win it through some man's will. [Outside of the LDS Church] I found, to my surprise, that woman was made the companion and not the subject of man. She was the sharer alike of his joys and his sorrows. Morally, she was a free agent. Her husband's God was her God as well, and she could seek Him for herself, asking no mortal intercession."

​The endowment ceremony often comes as a shock to first-timers because while the church has rather plain meetinghouses and uses limited symbolism in Sunday worship, the endowment is almost pure symbolism. David O. McKay once remarked, "There are two things in every Temple: mechanics, to set forth certain ideals, and symbolism, what those mechanics symbolize. I saw only the mechanics when I first went through the Temple. I did not see the spiritual. I did not see the symbolism of spirituality... How many of us young men saw that? We thought we were big enough and with intelligence sufficient to criticize the mechanics of it and we were blind to the symbolism, the message of the Spirit. And then that great ordinance, the endowment. The whole thing is simple in the mechanical part of it, but sublime and eternal in its significance." Greg Kearney said, "I draw a bright line between the temple endowment and the temple ritual. The endowment is revealed doctrine necessary for the salvation of the Saints. It teaches us God’s relationship to man; our duties and our responsibilities. The endowment has never changed and if you think about it, what the endowment is are commitments to the law of sacrifice, to the law of consecration, to the law of chastity. These things are fixed and these things can be found throughout every dispensation of time. That is the endowment. It’s revelatory in nature and content, it’s a restorationist view of religion, it offers universal salvation – Latter-day Saints are Universalists as I always say which always makes everybody shudder." Indeed, like baptisms, endowments are also performed for the dead.

Latter-day Saints typically receive their endowents as a prerequisite to going on a proselytizing mission or being sealed in marriage, but any adult who feels ready can do so with approval from local leaders. ​I was endowed on April 30th, 2019, after the women's covenants were changed but before the Church Handbook said anything about what the covenants were. Beforehand, at least a dozen people told me, "Don't try to remember everything, just focus on feeling the Spirit," and I was then almost disappointed by how simple and repetitive most of it actually was. I also found it a bit disturbing that I covenanted to consecrate everything not to God or to Jesus, but to the church. But for the most part it was an okay experience. Here I am standing outside the Logan Utah temple with relatives and friends (most of whom went through it with me) immediately afterward. On the far right is my bishop at the time, and next to him is the senior missonary couple that encouraged me to do this and helped me prepare for it.

Sealings

The LDS Church teaches that all marriages performed without its authority will end at death. In brief and simple ceremonies, it seals heterosexual couples together for eternity, not "till death do us part." Depending on local laws and the couple's preferences this may be done in lieu of or in addition to a civil wedding. Like the endowment, eternal marriage between a man and a woman is considered an essential ordinance for living in God's presence. Couples must be endowed first, and they wear their symbolic clothing from that ceremony during the sealing itself, but exchange it for more typical suits and dresses to take pictures outside the temple afterward. Eternal marriage is explained in a few cherry-picked verses of Doctrine and Covenants 132, the same section that explains polygamy in much greater detail, and for nineteenth-century Saints the two doctrines were one and the same. Modern church policy only permits one living man and one living woman to be sealed in marriage, though a man who remarries after his wife's death is sealed to both women (creating anxieties for many women about having to share their husbands in heaven). A woman can be sealed to multiple men after she's dead. Sealings are also performed on behalf of deceased families after their vicarious baptisms and endowments.

The sealing ceremony, like the initiatory and endowment, was changed in 2019 to be more egalitarian, although in this case the difference in wording has little or no effect on the actual meaning of the ordinance. Originally the woman "gave" herself to the man, and he "received" her. This wording arose in a cultural context where women were traditionally "given" to their husbands by their fathers, so in my view it empowered women as it emphasized their autonomy in giving themselves instead. Of course, culture evolved (for the better) to the point where it had the opposite effect and should have been changed a lot sooner.

Children born to a sealed couple are automatically sealed to their parents, but if they are adopted or if they were born before their parents were sealed, they also need to be sealed in a special ceremony. This is the only time children under the age of eleven are permitted in the temple. My father's parents converted in Hudson Falls, New York in 1970, and at that time there were no temples in the United States east of Utah. In order to get endowed and sealed they drove with their five children across the country to the Logan temple, only to find it closed. (In those days you couldn't just check the internet to find out when it was closed.) So they headed up north to Idaho Falls. My grandfather got sick and had a bad expeience on the trip, and he left the church soon after. My mother's parents were born into the church in eastern Idaho, so they got sealed in that temple too, as did my parents and my first sister.

Second Anointings

An ordinance given to some married couples recommended by the church's highest leadership to "have your calling and election made sure," meaning that their place in the Celestial Kingdom - the highest level of heaven - is guaranteed regardless of anything they do. The husband and wife are both anointed, then give each other blessings and wash each other's feet. It isn't considered necessary for salvation or exaltation like the other ordinances, and is shrouded in far more secrecy (see this article). It's pretty much reserved for people who are personally acquainted with apostles.

Temples to Dot the Earth

As of the latest revision of this writing, there were 189 completed temples throughout the world, with scores more in planning or construction stages. Prophecies call for hundreds, and construction will supposedly accelerate into the Millennium after the Second Coming. Temple announcements used to be my favorite part of General Conference, as they were tangible proof of the church's global expansion. Sometime around 2020, though, my excitement began to fizzle out as they just became tangible proof of Russell M. Nelson's ego. As the church's growth rate continued to decrease every year, he continued to announce dozens of temples for areas that didn't need them and/or wouldn't even be able to staff them without lots of help from American missionaries. In 2022, the last year I was a member, he announced thirty temples so the church would have an even three hundred temples in various stages, while it only had a net increase of twenty-two stakes (thirty-two created and ten dissolved).

Here's an interactive map of all the temples in the world - red dots are operating temples, green dots are under renovation, blue dots are under construction, and yellow dots are in the planning stages. Here's a map of temples that are likely to be announced in the near future (it's done a good job at predicting so far because Matthew Martinich is some kind of tactical genius, though there are always a couple of surprises). ​Of these, I've been inside the ones in Palmyra, New York and Montreal, Quebec which I alternated between while growing up; Logan, Utah, Brigham City, Utah, and Ogden, Utah after I moved for college; Idaho Falls, Idaho for my sister Heather's wedding, and Indianapolis, Indiana for my sister Melanie's wedding.

Palmyra New York Temple

Montreal Quebec Temple

Logan Utah Temple

Brigham City Utah Temple

Ogden Utah Temple (after renovation to no longer look like a birthday cake)

Idaho Falls Idaho Temple

Indianapolis Indiana Temple

Going to Palmyra was always fun. We got together youth from all over the Potsdam New York District and set out on a bus (usually a school bus, but we got a tour bus a couple times and that was awesome). I still cherish my memories of flirting and having tickle fights with one of the girls on the bus floor. We rode for about three and a half hours before arriving at the Palmyra Inn and staying the night. The next morning after breakfast we walked over to the temple and did baptisms. After that we ate lunch, looked at the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center and Joseph Smith's family farm and the Sacred Grove, and got on the bus and went home. The temple in Montreal was actually closer to those of us in the Potsdam Branch itself (the district is geographically very large, and prior to its creation the namesake branch was a ward in a Canadian stake) so we also took trips there as a branch or smaller groups. This one is exactly the same design as the Palmyra Temple, but it's in a city and not as prominent or easy to find (not to mention it's actually in Longeuil, not Montreal proper). One time we had to stop, find some English-speaking people, and ask them if they knew where to find a church building with a gold angel statue on top. Both temples figured prominently in my life, but I prefer the Logan Temple because it's more unique and much bigger, and obviously bigger is better when it comes to worship. (Joking but serious at the same time.)

Older temples tend to be bigger because they had to serve more people from wider areas. For example, the entire state of Utah was served by only four temples for several decades, and for a long time the Mesa Arizona Temple serviced everyone in Latin America (requiring great sacrifice on their part). But as time went on and the membership grew in more diverse places, it became a higher priority to build more temples so they would be more accessible. Temple building spiked dramatically in the last quarter of the twentieth century, culminating in about fifty small temples being dedicated within a couple years, and then settled down to a steady but quick pace. The small temples were built to serve areas with membership bases far from existing temples and too small for a normal one. That's obviously the only way upstate New York or Quebec ever got one.

After a temple is built there follows an open house period of a few weeks when anyone can enter and tour it, although free tickets are usually required in advance to avoid crowding. After the temple is dedicated to the Lord it can only be entered by Latter-day Saints who possess temple recommends, which are acquired after passing an interview with the bishop. The temple recommend questions do not require perfection, or even orthodoxy in most respects, but focus on basic core beliefs such as Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the authority of the current prophet, and practices such as keeping the Word of Wisdom and paying tithing (ten percent of their income). This is meant to ensure that the temple remains a sacred space and that attendees are prepared for the covenants they enter into.

Sometimes people question why the LDS Church spends so much money and effort building temples instead of helping the poor. I will always agree that it can and should do much more to help the poor - its current humanitarian aid in comparison to its wealth is pathetic - but in fairness, that isn't actually the reason religions exist. Any secular charity can do that. The LDS Church, like most religions, is more concerned with people's eternal well-being than this life alone, and the purpose of temples is to make that available to millions of people and eventually the entire human race. You may not believe that eternal well-being is a thing or that temple ordinances have any relevance to it, but others' religions aren't based on your beliefs. If you're concerned about the poor, it's usually more productive to try and do something yourself than to just complaining that others aren't doing enough.