The long rumored temple changes are happening now?

[crossmyheart]

Saw a post on reddit that the long rumored changes to the temple are happening possibly tomorrow (and were "tested" in Nauvoo today)...

Will be curious to see what they are. Bill Reel had posted before GC that it was effectively shortening them so more people will be willing to go.

The image below is where the news came from (he apparently deleted it soon after posting it) -- gotta love that it's considered revelation to rollout something that's been rumored for a long time and has no actual revelation to it (prove me wrong, Nelson!).

How exactly is the restoration continuing? and Praise Be!

If the gospel is the same yesterday today and forever, how can they keep justifying these changes to the endowment?

All I see is more opportunities for gaslighting. All of the younger generations will go to the temple now and be less offended by the gender bias...and will be told it has always been this way.

Eurasia has always been at war with eastasia.

[wtfluff]

Church news has released a statement to alleviate any doubts about changes to the temple ceremony:

First Presidency releases statement on temples

Here's the best gaslighting I've seen in ages:

Over these many centuries, details associated with temple work have been adjusted periodically, including language, methods of construction, communication, and record-keeping. Prophets have taught that there will be no end to such adjustments as directed by the Lord to His servants.

[Red Ryder]

Fluffy beat me to it. I guess he's the link fairy for 2019.

The church news put out a statement that's says absolutely nothing except "we don't talk about fight club".

https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2 ... GFgHkKWUvU

The First Presidency has issued a statement on temples on Jan. 2, 2019:

"Whenever the Lord has had a people on the earth who will obey His word, they have been commanded to build temples. Scriptures document patterns of temple worship from the times of Adam and Eve, Moses, Solomon, Nephi, and others.

With the restoration of the gospel in these latter days, temple worship has also been restored to bless the lives of people across the world and on the other side of the veil as well.

Over these many centuries, details associated with temple work have been adjusted periodically, including language, methods of construction, communication, and record-keeping. Prophets have taught that there will be no end to such adjustments as directed by the Lord to His servants.

A dedicated temple is the most holy of any place of worship on the earth. Its ordinances are sacred and are not discussed outside a holy temple."

[wtfluff]

The church news put out a statement that's says absolutely nothing except "we don't talk about fight club".

Jinx: You owe me a mild barley drink.

[Red Ryder]

The church news put out a statement that's says absolutely nothing except "we don't talk about fight club".

Jinx: You owe me a mild barley drink.

I look forward to it next time I'm up in Utah. We'll have to make this happen for real.

[felixfabulous]

My friend who told me about the rumored changes on Monday just went and confirmed the changes posted elsewhere.

[Red Ryder]

Here's a post of the changes.

Crowd-sourced temple changes i copied from a group:

Several of our members have "returned and reported" their experience in the temple today to the Moderators of A Thoughtful Faith Support Group. We have assembled these comments together as a group, recognizing the deep sensitivity of this post. The members who reported to us spoke that these changes were an answer to prayers, they feel very positive about them. We will continue to update this post with information as we receive it.

The Initiatory

- No change to the male initiatory.

- We are awaiting any report from a female initiatory.

The Endowment

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.

Total time was between 1 hour 20 and 1 hour 22 minutes, compared to over 1 hour 40 for the prior endowment.

Sealings:

-We are awaiting any report as to if the Sealing has changed.

[Thoughtful]

Disregard: I typed basically the same thing Thoughtful said a couple posts earlier:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3837#p51834

No worries friend!

[slavereeno]

Every time this stuff happens, the response from those in my family I am out to is "Look these changes are fixing all of your complaints about the church. give it time, perhaps the brethren are doing their best (with "revelation") to fix the problems."

"Now back to church you heathen!"

[wtfluff]

This is being shared elsewhere:

8. The Law of the Gospel is now referred to as the "Higher Law".

So all of the millions of "covenants" that were made regarding "The Law of the Gospel" previously are now null and void, correct?

Edit: Seriously, if Elohim can go back and change the wording in the contract any time he gets a wild hair, it's not exactly a "contract" (covenant) is it?


Oh, and I just thought about another question no-one is asking: What about Salt Lake and Manti? Have the "live sessions" been updated? No talking now, just a bunch of folks dressed in sandwich boards to emulate the power-point movie?

[Red Ryder]

Every time this stuff happens, the response from those in my family I am out to is "Look these changes are fixing all of your complaints about the church. give it time, perhaps the brethren are doing their best (with "revelation") to fix the problems."

"Now back to church you heathen!"

I get this all the time too. I always connect the dots of their continuing revelation to reactions of social issues.

Ordain Women from yesterday was the spark for women unveiling faces in the temple today.

The brethren are old, slow, and reactionary. Revelation doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means.

[Just This Guy]

This is being shared elsewhere:

So even with the temple being "spared no expense", they cheap out and go to extremes to minimize the cost to film the new movie. Wow!

To be fair, the whole 'return and report' section was really annoying and anti-dramatic. I would be glad to see that gone if I ever attended.

Sounds a lot like a powerpoint presentation.

That's what I was thinking.


That, or one of the old "slide" films the church used to do like Tom Trails. Will they include a beep to manually advance the film after each slide?

[oliblish]

This is being shared elsewhere:

So even with the temple being "spared no expense", they cheap out and go to extremes to minimize the cost to film the new movie. Wow!

To be fair, the whole 'return and report' section was really annoying and anti-dramatic. I would be glad to see that gone if I ever attended.

Sounds a lot like a powerpoint presentation.

It sounds like these changes were done very quickly - no time to make new movies, or maybe the new movies will come out in the next year or two. It feels like a desperation move.

[Brent]

Sounds like an ambitious PowerPoint circa 2000

[alas]

Sounds like a lot of the changes feminists have been asking for. Either someone keeps track of the feminists blogs and reports to the prophet, or Aunt Wendy really is a feminist. I put my money on the idea that the upper group of men has been briefed on the idea that several of the feminist blogs have gone silent because the feminists have given up on real change and started leaving the church instead of just griping about it.

One of my big issues was the endowment. I came out of it sure that God did not love his daughters, only his sons. Or maybe it is more like God only has sons and daughter in laws and he isn’t about to put the in laws in his will.

The second issues I had was that God needs secret handshakes to recognize his own children, but it sounds like that hasn’t changed any.

Third, fourth, and fifth issues I had with the temple have already been changed and they were the penalties and insulting the Roman Catholic priest as preaching for Satan. And I hear that the creepy initiatory was changed so there is less touching of your naked body.

NOW, they still need to change (1) the wording of the sealing so that women are not “given” as property to husbands, who receive them as property, even if it is that they give themselves. (They had the woman give herself because fathers might refuse to give their 14 year old daughters away in polygamy) (2) they need to change so women are not priestesses unto their husband and queens unto their husband and make us priestesses unto the most high God and queens in our own right (3) They need to change the veil so husbands do not take wives through, but Heavenly Father takes everyone through. And (4) they need to get rid of all secret handshakes and any other sign of being a secret combination. And finally, they need to make the vows Christlike rather than having us devote everything to the institution of the church and instead have us giving all that we have to the poor.

When all they have left of the endowment makes no distinction between God’s male children and His female children and when all they have left is a beautiful description of the creation and a description of our progression as gaining knowledge and experience and returning to God’s presence, without any secret combinations, and when the vows are based on love of God and mankind rather than duty to church, maybe I will consider the temple God’s house instead of a cult initiation.

[Thoughtful]

Sounds like a lot of the changes feminists have been asking for. Either someone keeps track of the feminists blogs and reports to the prophet, or Aunt Wendy really is a feminist. I put my money on the idea that the upper group of men has been briefed on the idea that several of the feminist blogs have gone silent because the feminists have given up on real change and started leaving the church instead of just griping about it.

One of my big issues was the endowment. I came out of it sure that God did not love his daughters, only his sons. Or maybe it is more like God only has sons and daughter in laws and he isn’t about to put the in laws in his will.

The second issues I had was that God needs secret handshakes to recognize his own children, but it sounds like that hasn’t changed any.

Third, fourth, and fifth issues I had with the temple have already been changed and they were the penalties and insulting the Roman Catholic priest as preaching for Satan. And I hear that the creepy initiatory was changed so there is less touching of your naked body.

NOW, they still need to change (1) the wording of the sealing so that women are not “given” as property to husbands, who receive them as property, even if it is that they give themselves. (They had the woman give herself because fathers might refuse to give their 14 year old daughters away in polygamy) (2) they need to change so women are not priestesses unto their husband and queens unto their husband and make us priestesses unto the most high God and queens in our own right (3) They need to change the veil so husbands do not take wives through, but Heavenly Father takes everyone through. And (4) they need to get rid of all secret handshakes and any other sign of being a secret combination. And finally, they need to make the vows Christlike rather than having us devote everything to the institution of the church and instead have us giving all that we have to the poor.

When all they have left of the endowment makes no distinction between God’s male children and His female children and when all they have left is a beautiful description of the creation and a description of our progression as gaining knowledge and experience and returning to God’s presence, without any secret combinations, and when the vows are based on love of God and mankind rather than duty to church, maybe I will consider the temple God’s house instead of a cult initiation.

And when they do all that, is anything at all left of Mormon theology?

[alas]

Sounds like a lot of the changes feminists have been asking for. Either someone keeps track of the feminists blogs and reports to the prophet, or Aunt Wendy really is a feminist. I put my money on the idea that the upper group of men has been briefed on the idea that several of the feminist blogs have gone silent because the feminists have given up on real change and started leaving the church instead of just griping about it.

One of my big issues was the endowment. I came out of it sure that God did not love his daughters, only his sons. Or maybe it is more like God only has sons and daughter in laws and he isn’t about to put the in laws in his will.

The second issues I had was that God needs secret handshakes to recognize his own children, but it sounds like that hasn’t changed any.

Third, fourth, and fifth issues I had with the temple have already been changed and they were the penalties and insulting the Roman Catholic priest as preaching for Satan. And I hear that the creepy initiatory was changed so there is less touching of your naked body.

NOW, they still need to change (1) the wording of the sealing so that women are not “given” as property to husbands, who receive them as property, even if it is that they give themselves. (They had the woman give herself because fathers might refuse to give their 14 year old daughters away in polygamy) (2) they need to change so women are not priestesses unto their husband and queens unto their husband and make us priestesses unto the most high God and queens in our own right (3) They need to change the veil so husbands do not take wives through, but Heavenly Father takes everyone through. And (4) they need to get rid of all secret handshakes and any other sign of being a secret combination. And finally, they need to make the vows Christlike rather than having us devote everything to the institution of the church and instead have us giving all that we have to the poor.

When all they have left of the endowment makes no distinction between God’s male children and His female children and when all they have left is a beautiful description of the creation and a description of our progression as gaining knowledge and experience and returning to God’s presence, without any secret combinations, and when the vows are based on love of God and mankind rather than duty to church, maybe I will consider the temple God’s house instead of a cult initiation.

And when they do all that, is anything at all left of Mormon theology?

No, nothing will be left of Mormon theology, which is what would make it so much better. But just think, a five minute temple ceremony.

[Linked]

Every time this stuff happens, the response from those in my family I am out to is "Look these changes are fixing all of your complaints about the church. give it time, perhaps the brethren are doing their best (with "revelation") to fix the problems."

"Now back to church you heathen!"

It's really annoying. In some ways the better things get at church the more frustrating it is to be a non-believer among believers. When there are more harmful things there is more to point to as a problem. If the church gets less-misogynistic and less-racist and less-homophobic and less-abusive of the members and less-self-serving and more kind then all I have left is that I just don't think that what the church teaches is true.

If it got to the point that relationships weren't damaged when someone stops believing then I guess it would make the improvements more palatable.

Hopefully these changes make life better for many people.

[Reuben]

Every time this stuff happens, the response from those in my family I am out to is "Look these changes are fixing all of your complaints about the church. give it time, perhaps the brethren are doing their best (with "revelation") to fix the problems."

"Now back to church you heathen!"

My response will be the same as my response to the publication of Saints. "When will the church reach out to reconcile with the members who were hurt by how it used to be?"

Ceasing bad behavior doesn't restore trust.

The problem here is that church leaders require trust based on members' expectations that leaders receive revelation and represent God. But disaffected members will only trust leaders based on normal expectations, such as dealing honestly, preserving dignity, and working to restore trust when it's lost.

So church leaders tout revelation, which increases believers' trust. But to us, touting revelation is both beside the point and overclaiming, which was a big part of losing our trust in the first place.

[GoodBoy]

This is being shared elsewhere:

These changes seem like changes that both make sense and seem reasonable, so I am inclined to believe this report.

The Initiatory

- No change to the male initiatory.
- We are awaiting any report from a female initiatory.

Wouldn't expect changes since lots of other changes have recently already been made to initiatory.

The Endowment

1. 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 First Presidency is still under the impression that they can keep things under wraps when they want to. So naive. I'm sure they would like to keep it secret, I mean sacred, because it looks terrible for them that God keeps changing his mind, especially when we are so critical of people who changed the baptismal ordinance from immersion to sprinkling "for convenience."

2. 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.

Goal of this is probably just to shorten it without the long scenic shots.

3. Much of the repetitive "return and report" was eliminated.

So glad to see this go. It was so tedious. Again the goal was probably to shorten it.

4. God no longer speaks just to the man, but to both Adam and Eve equally.

5. 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.

Despite silence from the Q15, the feminists have definitely had an impact on them. Mormon feminist activism has made the world a slightly better place for Mormon women and I applaud them!

6. 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.

This is a pretty fundamental change to the ordinance. But again... good riddance. I bet the slippers thing is because the Q15 are old and bending down to make this change was difficult for them individually... especially when the seat in front of you doesn't give you much room.

7. Instead of "That will do" after covenants, the text now says 'Thank you'.

Language update. Great!

8. The Law of the Gospel is now referred to as the "Higher Law".

There is nuance here that is interesting.

9. The Law of Chastity is expressed with more equality.

10. At the end of the dramatic / movie section, BOTH Adam and Eve direct comments to the audience, and Eve has the last word.

11. No veiling of women.

I applaud the improved equality being shown here.

12. Total time was between 1 hour 20 and 1 hour 22 minutes, compared to over 1 hour 40 for the prior endowment.

Sealings:
We are awaiting any report as to if the Sealing has changed."

I doubt this will change.