There is a moment early in the endowment ceremony where we are told that if we choose not to make any temple covenants, we should make it known to the temple workers (despite not being told what these covenants are.) Do you think we should at least know these covenants before being given an opportunity to refuse them? Have you even been in a session when someone refused? If so, was it awkward?
LDS, Mormon, Mormon Belief, Mormon Culture, Temple
Refused Covenants?
Wheat & Tares 
Yes.
No.
N/A
Similarly, yes, no, n/a. Would love to hear if anyone’s seen it in action!
Aren’t we taught the types of covenants in temple prep? We should be.
I’ve seen someone refuse before. It wasn’t interesting. They just got up and walked out. Presumably, they talked to temple workers out of the room. The session went on as normal. I don’t think many people in the room even noticed.
Yes, No, NA. When I do temple prep, I read a portion of a book by (if I remember right) Brother Lund that walks one through the whole initiatory and endowment process. He doesn’t give every detail, bu certainly enough for the average reader to understand the covenants that will be made. I figure if Deseret Book is okay with the book, so am I.
My temple prep class didn’t talk about anything that happens in the temple other than to say, “just read the Pearl of Great Price.” And I’ve never seen someone withdraw.
It was a long time ago when I took temple prep, but it seemed like a waste of time. I was totally shocked at how foreign the temple seemed to me. It was nothing like church. I was confused, and didn’t understand what was going on. I remember being congratulated in the Celestial Room as if I’d just completed a major accomplishment, and I felt like “For What? What did I do?”
There was NO discussion of temple covenants. My teacher followed the standard temple prep manual to a T, which was completely worthless. I could learn more in a Gospel Principles class. I don’t know what book IDIAT is referring to, but I’d have loved to have a real discussion about the temple. ANYTHING has to be an improvement on what I learned. I’d love to hear more about that book.
I didn’t know what I was covenanting too, everybody was dressed weird, I didn’t know how to put the clothes on right, it was all very confusing, and I was active my whole life. Temple prep is HORRIBLE. Here’s my old post about Temple Prep Suggestions.
I didn’t go to temple prep since I was just going through to go on my mission. I definitely think it’s weird to be told to withdraw when you don’t really know what’s going on yet, and when you’ve been told this is the pinnacle of your life experience. I suspect that the invitation to withdraw was more due to the original penalties that used to be included in the ceremony. That was some serious business, and I could see withdrawing, but I don’t know whether earlier forms of the endowment made it clear just what would happen if you broke your covenants later.
MH – “Principles and Practices of the Restored Gospel” Victor L. Ludlow (ebook at this point on DB)
Yes, No, N/A.
It’s probably worth noting that the temple prep teacher’s manual, Lesson 4 (https://www.lds.org/manual/endowed-from-on-high-temple-preparation-seminar-teachers-manual/lesson-4-receiving-temple-ordinances-and-covenants?lang=eng), includes a Talmage quote that pretty much spells the covenants; and the manual even suggests that the teacher break the quote down on the chalkboard and come out with a list of the temple covenants.
The trouble is that that part of the lesson is, at most, five minutes out of a seven-week course that is largely full of fluff.
Yes. No. N/A.
Not only were the terms and promises new to me, but I recall having about 5-to-10 seconds to think about it. And there were about 50 family members and friends were standing behind me, fully expecting that I would agree to everything.
We conceptualize the baptismal and temple covenants as being the most binding obligations we will ever accept. I recognize that religious covenants are not restricted by worldly contract law. But I find it interesting that many who talk about covenants this way would insist on having greater disclosure and an environment free of social coercion before making a major purchase. And they certainly would never let their child enter a contract with permanent, real-world consequences–much less an 8-year-old who still believes in Santa.
I think one of the reasons they don’t tell people about their covenants in advance is that because then they’d have to field questions from very confused young women about that whole hearken business. Your baptismal covenants certainly don’t prepare you for that!
JimD, I like that Talmadge quote–if that was the content and extent of the temple covenants, I’d be a lot more comfortable with them than I am. I think it’s instructive what he leaves out altogether. He also puts an emphasis on charity and love rather than loyalty, and speaks of devoting time and talents to the cause of “truth.” To me it doesn’t read as an accurate reflection of the covenants, but actually a rather liberal interpretation of them.
5 minute discussion about covenants over 7 weeks–no wonder I missed it. Maybe they should spend a week on each covenant? After all, if we break these covenants (especially chastity) it’s usually grounds for excommunication. 5 minutes is barely 1 minute per covenant. Covenants should be the focus of temple prep, not a 5 minute flyby. (I loved the Pres. McKay quote about his daughter in the post quoted above.)
Joel, “many who talk about covenants this way would insist on having greater disclosure and an environment free of social coercion before making a major purchase. And they certainly would never let their child enter a contract with permanent, real-world consequences–much less an 8-year-old who still believes in Santa.”
Are you saying the current process is good or bad?
Choco, I think the obedience covenant can be glossed over in a Sunday School class to make it sound like both men and women are covenanting obedience to God, so I doubt a prep class would get into the sticky issues of hearkening to husband. I’ve talked to my sister, and she isn’t bothered in the least by the covenant to hearken to husband, and pretty much does what she well pleases anyway.
I’ve never seen anyone put their hand up at that point. It would just be as simple to indicate at least briefly what the covenants are at that point. I can’t really see, although I’m sure other may disagree, why the covenants really need to be secret/sacred. Perhaps the language as mentioned above might not be received too well, but they are nothing earth shattering…
Yes, by all means. Elder Christofferson has said that we must know what our choices are before we can exercise moral agency. How can we decide not to go forward in the temple if we don’t know what we are facing?
The crappy reason we don’t talk about the covenants in temple prep is because cultural Mormonism had deluded itself into thinking we have covenanted not to. In reality, we’ve only made covenants not to reveal signs, tokens, and names that go along with those covenants. We would do well to delineate between those things and talk more about the laws of sacrifice, gospel, chastity, and consecration (yep, I said them).
I had read a fair amount of freaky stuff about the endowment before I went and was prepared to walk out if certain things proved true. I remember thinking that, other than the clothing, the criticisms were blown way out of proportion (I wasn’t yet sensitized to gender inequalities)
When I was on my mission 95-97 there was an issue of Time Magazine (I think intl. edition) about the Mormons. One article specifically listed the covenants (maybe in a graphic) and I thought “Hey, that would have been nice to know beforehand.”
MH,
Fair question. (1)Temple covenants: I agree with previous comments about temple prep. While we need not discuss tokens and signs outside the temple, we should give people time
(months, not minutes) to ponder the SPECIFIC promises. (2) Baptism: That timeline is a grand tradition and I wouldn’t raise the age even if I were “prophet for a day.” We just need to be cognizant of the context in which the promise is made. (3) Perspective: In any event, we ought to be LESS HEAVY HANDED about hanging covenants over peoples’ heads, suggesting an obligation to do something for no sound, current reason other than the honoring of a previous commitment. It’s only fair to keep in mind that we’d refuse to even buy a car under similar circumstances of pressure and ignorance–and not for technical or legalistic reasons, but rather basic fairness.
In addition to the hearken covenant for women, the other one that tends to be glossed over is consecration. The expectation is consecrating to God, that’s how it generally gets described, yet the covenant names the church instead.
I’m fairly sure that the invitation to withdraw rather than proceed had more to do with the ‘voluntary’ nature of participation and NOT the ‘penalties’ that were a part of the endowment at the time (for me, 1980). That is, the endowed needed to understand that they were affirmatively making covenants as adults.
This in contrast to the baptismal covenant, which of itself is solemn enough. However, let’s face it…for those raised in the Church, it’s as much as rite of passage, and the degree to which an eight-year old is ‘volunteering’ seems quite small. What, truly, DOES an eight-year old know about life in general? However, with the temple, normally one must be an adult before experiencing the endowment. It’s not much different, in my experience, than the oath one takes when commissioned as an officer in the US military, especially the part about ‘without mental reservation or purposes of evasion (presumably includes fraud/deceit as well)’. You understand that, though in reality the odds are quite low, that you are pledging your very life in defense of the United States and will obey all LAWFUL orders of your superior officers. If you can’t uphold that, you don’t deserve to hold a commission.
Yes. I tried to leave. I stood up and about a dozen women followed me out. A temple worker tried to stop me from going into a stall in the restroom. She told me to get back in the endowment room. This group of women stood outside the stall telling me I had to go back in there. I was by myself with my fiancee and his family and two friends who I didn’t know that well. They just bullied me back in and I was too embarrassed to make a fuss. I believe I made the covenants under duress and that God understands. I have not been in about three years and I don’t think I can ever go back.
m at 3:41,
Wow.
I really wanted to make a run for it at that point, but was surrounded by friends and family. I still wish I had. I have been back countless times since and try to send supportive “you can run if you want to” thoughts to anyone going through for the first time. I would even help them find the exit.
Hedgehog, exactly! I was hinting at that with my “cause of truth” statement, but I wasn’t very clear.
m, my heart goes out to you.
I think you “refuse the covenants” when you never go again, or you simply break them. Not that difficult to comprehend. Temple experiences or adult initiation ceremonies, Mormon or not,are supposed to be earth shattering and soul crushing. Your old you is getting chewed to pieces so the new you can emerge or be destroyed.
“In reality, we’ve only made covenants not to reveal signs, tokens, and names that go along with those covenants”
These do not really exist as anything more than a representation of other parts of the ceremony. Therefore you not only covenant not to reveal them, but anything they signify. When you “reveal” them, what you are doing is giving them away improperly.
Yes. No. N/A.
SilverRain: “Aren’t we taught the types of covenants in temple prep? We should be.” Um, no, not even close. As others have commented, I was merely advised to read the Pearl of Great Price. (After years of temple attendance, all I note is that much of the creation timeline and story matches up.)
When I was endowed in 1987, I remember that part striking me funny – how can I agree if I don’t know what I’m agreeing to? – but I was exhausted, since at that time, members in my area attended the Chicago Temple, arriving for early-morning endowment sessions after an all-night bus trip, and I also figured that it wasn’t really a valid contract. None of it bothered me all that much at the time, since I was a college student bound on a mission – consecrating all of the little or nothing I owned to the Church wasn’t a big issue. (Kind of like tithing at that point – 10% of practically no income was practically nothing.)
However, I think we do owe it to our youth and our converts to explain the temple covenants clearly, ahead of time, and if they cause significant dissonance for a large number of people, maybe we’d better figure out how to teach those principles in an acceptable way. But this pig-in-a-poke business is simply not fair.
Choco, I agree that Talmage’s definition is a liberal interpretation; but I don’t think it’s wrong. (I think strict textualism is an inadequate approach to the temple ceremonies generally.) The two problems with it that I see you and Hedgehog pointing out are a) it doesn’t advise the student about the gender-role-related covenants that the temple rite entails; and b) taken together, the temple covenant/Talmage quote don’t distinguish between obeying/giving to God versus obeying/giving to the Church.
To me, it’s one thing to say that one disagrees with such concepts. But given how frequently they come up in LDS discourse, it would be awfully hard for me to say that their appearance in the temple setting was surprising. It’s just that it’s easy to condition oneself to ignore those concepts when they come up in a Sacrament meeting talk, Conference sermon, or gospel doctrine lesson–whereas, in the temple, the ideas are presented in a very in-your-face way.
(That said, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to reiterate those covenants–or at least their underlying concepts–in the temple prep course, along with the rest.)
JimD, I think you’re right about the consecration covenant not being surprising in the context of the rest of our church discourse and expectations. It is probably only disagreeable to a minority of temple-going Mormons, too. But I stand by my claim that the hearken covenant is not only disagreeable, but incredibly shocking. It probably wasn’t all that surprising a generation or two ago, but both American culture and church culture have shifted towards describing marriage as an equal partnership in the last few decades especially. While many of the practices of the church point to the inequalities in the temple, they do so subtly and almost completely invisibly for most young women, who, in my experience, manage to conceive of themselves as autonomous, spiritual, equal beings despite occasionally being put off and shunted aside at church. I for one never got the impression growing up that I would be expected to make a covenant in the temple to hearken to my husband, or that my promised blessings would place me in relationship to him rather than God. It’s clear to me that the wording is a legacy of polygamy, and it’s my belief that it persists in part because we never talk about it openly. We really would have some ‘splainin’ to do if we disclosed those aspects of the covenants to young women in temple prep.
Regarding the covenant of consecration, I think it would be incredibly helpful to talk about in a temple prep course. In the days of Brigham Young, consecration literally meant you turn over everything you posses to the Church, and then they give you back what you need. But with the polygamy persecutions, what people don’t seem to recognize was the government’s attempt to ELIMINATE consecration and the United Order (which are not the same thing as many erroneously think.) The polygamy raids were as much about US government economic interests in Utah as they were about getting rid of polygamy. That’s the real reason we don’t practice consecration or United Order any more.
We are now, unlike in the days of Brigham Young, merely agreeing that we will agree to it in the future, we are not practicing it. Now some may disagree with my characterization, but I’d really like to discuss what consecration means in the year 2015, and contrast that with 1860. The covenants are not really the same, and I think this would be a VERY interesting temple prep discussion.
Choco, I really like your analysis in #28 about how the surrounding culture has shifted to make the hearken covenant more jarring than it used to be.
In case you haven’t already seen it, you might like Sara Katherine Staheli Hanks’s series “When the Temple Hurts” over at Feminist Mormon Housewives. Many of the people who share experiences in the series had bad experiences with the hearken covenant.
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/category/temple/when-the-temple-hurts-series/
Excellent callout of SKSH’s series, Ziff; I hadn’t quite thought of it like that but I think Choco has an excellent point. Either there are a great many young LDS women swallowing their dissonance, or they’re not paying close attention for whatever reason – but sooner or later that covenant difference will become clear.
Much as I would like to see the covenant changed (and retroactively at that), it’s yet another issue where an ounce of inoculative prevention could potentially save a pound of painful disillusionment cure.
Let’s borrow a 1500 year old solution from our brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith. We can adopt a musical recitation of the Jewish ‘Kol Nidre’ at the beginning of the temple service. It is a beautiful and haunting plainsong which (in so many words) pleads to God to forgive us in advance for the vows with him we don’t understand, that we have or will break as we are humble and imperfect. Think of it as a Jewish version of ‘Come thou fount of every blessing’ wherein we beg that we are:
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above”
Anon #32, I wish temple liturgy was from “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Words are so powerful and for me, too much in the temple makes me feel uneasy or hurt. The harkening covenant hurt for a while, but both my husband and I heareken to each other while both of us imperfectly try to hearken to the Lord. I just wish both husband and wife so coveted the way my husband and I do, as do so many members.
I also remember feeling a strong unease my first time through when asked to covenant to give all, including my life to the church. I grew up LDS and had a very happy, rather awe-inspired view of the church and its leaders, so it troubled me to feel so uneasy about that wording. I came to realize I wanted to covenant all my things and my life to God, not necessarily a church, even if it is His church. But over time, I realize I’ve given my food away during times of forest fires and floods, I’ve housed strangers, housed friends in times of need, fed missionaries, housed missionaries, clothed missionaries, and funded missionaries, funded struggling youth trying to go to college or trade school, helped build buildings back in the day, taken care of ward landscaping, planted temple flowers, made countless meals for the sick, for funerals, for Twelve Days of Christmases, and always tried to magnify my visiting teaching assignments and callings. So, in a small way, I have consecrated my life or given of it, anyway.
Consecrate means to set apart unto holiness. Maybe that covenant is more about our heart than our time, talents, and means. Maybe all covenants are….
Anyway, it still hurts my heart every time I attend a temple sealing and hear the words women commit to, but men do not reciprocate. Both spouses ought to give and receive. Words seem to really matter to God. I wish He would guide the rewording in a few places of hurt in the holiest places on earth. We should have no sorrow in temple experience. We need strength and joy when we go there.
Sorry to hear of your pain and unease. I in no way discount those feeling, quite the contrary, they are real and echo my own feelings.
That being said…
I agree that some rewording would and should continue . . ., but at the same time I disagree that the temple should be only a happy place, a “Disneyland” of sorts where we lap in endorphins and ignore the most challenging aspects of life and the eternities. The temple must be more complex, more nuanced than that. Is it so bad that people wrestle with making covenants with The Lord and feel uneasy grappling with the magnitude of it? Something would be wrong if they didn’t! Culturally, we are made to feel guilty in this realm in the temple because everyone tells us that the temple is a Shangra-la of happiness. It can be, but it can also be more intense and complex, and that’s ok too. isn’t the temple a place of learning, and can much learning take place without moments of angst and struggle? Yes, we could reduce temple liturgy to a Disney worry-free experience, but that hardly would empathize with a God who weeps or our hellish and traumatic existence, the struggle of mankind and the requisite resistance and charity to rise above it.
Leave the correlated white-washing out if the temple.
Reading through the new Old Testament seminary manual’s treatment of the Adam and Eve narrative I see that there is nothing that even hints at what will be asked of women in the temple. Only a doubling down on the “equal partners” rhetoric. They don’t even mention the “men preside” language in the proc. I wonder if this will only cause more young women to be blindsided in the temple? Women who go in expecting an “equal partners” experience but walk away with an “Ephesians 5” taste in their mouths.
https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testament-seminary-teacher-manual?lang=eng
So, on the consecration thing, I had heard a lot about consecrating to the church per se growing up. It wasn’t a surprise to me, but it is something I have become increasingly uncomfortable with, particularly since with the films previous at least that part of the ceremony was heavily over-emphasised with an increase in volume that really made me wince, compared to the rest of it. I was alarmed reading this Ensign article (Understanding our covenants with God) July 2012, when it came out, that there has been a shift of emphasis in the way we talk about consecration, and I haven’t heard it talked about much in the way it was when I was growing up for quite a while now, such that the expectation is of consecration to God for newer members and the generation behind me:
“Temple ordinances and covenants are so sacred that they are not discussed in detail outside of the temple.”
and
“Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has taught that the key to receiving divine power to overcome opposition and move the Church forward “is the covenant we make in the temple—our promise to obey and sacrifice, to consecrate unto the Father, and His promise to empower us with ‘a great endowment.’””
[https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/07/understanding-our-covenants-with-god?lang=eng]
The Elder Holland quote comes from this New Era article – January 2012 (Keeping Covenants: a Message for those who will serve a mission), which is itself taken from a satellite broadcast (from 1997):
“This work is so serious and the adversary’s opposition to it is so great that we need every divine power to enhance our effort and move the Church steadily forward. The key to that for us as individuals is the covenant we make in the temple—our promise to obey and sacrifice, to consecrate unto the Father, and His promise to empower us with “a great endowment.””
[https://www.lds.org/new-era/2012/01/keeping-covenants-a-message-for-those-who-will-serve-a-mission?lang=eng]
I’d say looking at this we’ve been moving away from talking about consecrating to the *church* specifically for quite a while.
My wife and I had no idea what we were supposed to be coventing, so we stayed. We were shocked by the whole process. We need a password to get into heaven? God knows so little about us that without these crazy grapples and words we can’t get into heaven – does a singe person actually believe this stuff. We left the church never to return. We know nonsense when we see it, and this was spiritual nonsense. Until that moment we loved everything LDS as well as loving God. After the temple – just God thanks.