What are the new changes to the Endowments?

[_Maksutov]

There's buzz about changes to the Temple ordnance but nothing specific. This must be the wild and crazy stuff Rusty told us to buckle up and eat our vitamins for.

I've heard there is no veiling and no covenanting to husbands now.

What have you got?

[_Fence Sitter]

Rumor mill over at MAD has it that it will be shortened.

[_Shulem]

Well, I guarantee they won't be bringing the penalties back! Those blood oath penalties of having your life taken by an imaginary blade are a thing of the past. Those things will ever haunt the Mormon temple.

The penalties will never truly go away. They were practiced and performed. I did them myself. The Internet and everyone in the world needs to know about the Mormon Cult Penalties that were regularly practiced and required by all temple patrons prior to 1990.

THIS IS NOT A TOPIC THAT CAN BE DISCUSSED IN THE TERRESTRIAL FORUM

JUST SAYING.

[_Mormon Think]

The biggest, most positive impact the church could do to the current temple endowment process is to get rid of garments. Young people and those recently married would rejoice. It is still one of the most awkward and totally unnecessary things the church does. Does God really care what underwear you use? I suspect they will be changed some day, probably reduced in length and less bizarre when people change into them at the gym (I still see how awkward it makes members at my local gym). Eventually they may go the way of the penalties in 20 years or so. Nothing now but some day they will change or be gone as the church listens to its surveys and PR departments and pretends they are revelations to the current prophet overriding decades of doctrine and practice.

[_Shulem]

The biggest, most positive impact the church could do to the current temple endowment process is to get rid of garments. Young people and those recently married would rejoice. It is still one of the most awkward and totally unnecessary things the church does. Does God really care what underwear you use? I suspect they will be changed some day, probably reduced in length and less bizarre when people change into them at the gym (I still see how awkward it makes members at my local gym). Eventually they may go the way of the penalties in 20 years or so. Nothing now but some day they will change or be gone as the church listens to its surveys and PR departments and pretends they are revelations to the current prophet overriding decades of doctrine and practice.

I still have memories of my Dad undressing at the public pool locker room in those horrible and ugly one-piece baggy looking garments. OMFG, they were the ugliest undies under the sun. Thank goodness they had two piece garments by the time I went to the temple. I just don't think I would have fared well wearing onsies. I hated how the garment bottoms would creep up the leg throughout the day. I've spent (wasted) countless hours of my life having to covertly roll the garments back down my legs after having crept back up like a spider.

I hate temple garments! I was happy to finally throw them in the trash and break my covenants. I covenant and solemnly swear that I will never wear Mormon temple garments ever again.

[_Fence Sitter]

Looks like they shortened the endowment and changed how women covenant to their husbands to covenanting with God. In gaming terms female chars got a boost and they nerfed Male chars.

[_RockSlider]

Looks like they shortened the endowment and changed how women covenant to their husbands to covenanting with God. In gaming terms female chars got a boost and they nerfed Male chars.

I wonder if there is a reverse 'GrandMother' clause?

[_Meadowchik]

BCC posted an opinion piece on it and then almost immediately took it down. Here's the text that is no longer there:

For as long as there has been temple ordinances, women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have borne the brunt of covenanting and acting in a way that seemed contrary to much of what she was taught outside of the temple about her relationship with the divine and the eternities.

This has now changed. If you attend the temple starting today you will find that the endowment has been shortened. There are portions regarding women, including the wording of a covenant, that are no longer included.

We have to acknowledge the change. Because if we do not, we as a Church will continue to force women to bear the burden of wondering if they were wrong.

Some women may wonder if they were wrong when they received strong testimonies about the specific way the temple, until today, taught them about their divinity. Or, if they questioned the temple but stamped these doubts down in honor of being obedient so they could receive future blessings for themselves and their posterity, some women may now feel the whiplash of their decades of unnecessary, soul-rending sacrifice.

Women for generations have told their daughters and granddaughters, who looked at them with questioning eyes as they first went through the temple, that the specific form of the ordinance was necessary for their salvation and worth it. That it was worth doing something that felt wrong to ultimately gain something right, in a similar way it was worth it for Eve and the choice she made in the Garden of Eden. These women will now wonder whether they were wrong.

Still others will wonder why the temple is changing now, after causing them and other women so much pain for decades.

Some might ask President Nelson or other members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve to acknowledge the temple changes and discuss the implications. But considering that the changes lift a unique covenantal burden on women, I believe the Priesthood should deliberately step aside. The Sister Presidents in the various organizations should be the ones who describe in detail to the endowed members why this change was made and what it means going forward. The Sisters should prepare the descriptions as deemed necessary to educate those not yet endowed.

I refuse to just be grateful that these changes were made. I refuse to be told by men in the Church that they always understood the temple to be symbolic when it comes to gender issues so of course this change is welcome and we should just blithely move along. So many times women and concerned members have been told “if only you understood the true meaning of the temple, you wouldn’t have these doubts and questions.”

Now is the time we must discuss the “true meaning” of the role the temple theology has in our questions about the gospel.

[two Mormonads about the temple]

Every. Single. Woman in this church has repeatedly been taught that their pinnacle of existence is revealed in the temple. They have been taught to find a righteous man who can take them to the temple. When entering the temple, they have learned that the same man had the obligation and power to take them to the celestial kingdom. Woman were told that their covenants, including ones with which they were perhaps uncomfortable, were the single most important thing they would do in this life.

Women are spiritual auxiliaries to men in the Church because of temple teachings. In some marriages women are treated as auxiliaries to their husbands because of temple teachings.

Is it any wonder that changing the wording of those covenants will have a widespread and lasting impact?

There are going to be repercussions. If you know the history of the temple, you know other changes have been made. But nothing, save the inclusion of Black members into the temple, has been this theologically jarring.

Today, the temple teachings have changed. And we have to talk about it.

And the dead link:
https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/01/02/ ... -on-women/

Apparently temple patrons are being told to not discuss the changes, so maybe this OP was considered too rebellious even for BCC.

[_Fence Sitter]

Here is a list of changes posted elsewhere. I have no idea how accurate it is.


It begins with a short, two minute message from the First Presidency, explaining that at times we update the endowment, that this came by revelation, and that members should not talk about any aspect of it, or even that there have been changes to the endowment. This explanation is not part of the Endowment, per se, but will play for a temporary period to explain.

• The movie is new, consisting of little live action at all, mostly still pictures, even of Adam and Eve, with voice-over narration.
• There is new music, beautiful and appropriate.
• Much of the repetitive "return and report" was eliminated.
• God no longer speaks just to the man, but to both Adam and Eve equally.
• The separate covenants of obedience for man and woman are integrated into a single covenant for all, with new language to obey god, which this temple worker found to be very uplifting.
• The robes are no longer applied for the Aaronic Priesthood, but rather, only done once for the Melchizedek/Terrestrial Kingdom. Slippers are no longer considered part of the robes and thus are not removed.
• Instead of "That will do" after covenants, the text now says 'Thank you'.
• The Law of the Gospel is now referred to as the "Higher Law".
• The Law of Chastity is expressed with more equality.
• At the end of the dramatic / movie section, BOTH Adam and Eve direct comments to the audience, and Eve has the last word.
• No veiling of women.

[_Shulem]

I'd like to THANK Mike Norton for his dedicated service in documenting the Mormon CULT temple endowment.

Thank you, Mike.

NewNameNoah YouTube

Is there anyone else here that also appreciated the fact that he took the effort to record and document the temple rites?