Last year I wrote several posts about the LDS dating crises (you can read them here and and here) These posts were about how difficult it was for sealed women that found themselves single by divorce or death of a husband, to date and find a worthy LDS man. The impetus for these posts was my daughter that lost her husband to cancer. She was thrust into this dating pool and found that single LDS men wanted to marry a woman they could get sealed to. (where did they get a crazy idea like that???)
Well, it’s now time to write on another topic, since my daughter is now married. She found an LDS man who was sealed to his wife, and also lost her to cancer. They both have a lot in common, and married civilly this last year, bringing together a blended family from both sides.
But since she is already sealed to her deceased husband, she can never be sealed to her current husband in this life. The church has allowed women to be sealed to all husbands that they were legally married to in this life, but only if all parties are dead. What if my daughter does not want to wait until she is dead? This is not the case for men. They can be sealed to as many women as they want, kind of like serial polygamy.
Pres Nelson and Pres Oaks are both on their 2nd sealed wife. Both 2nd wives had never been sealed before, so there was none of this awkwardness that my daughter finds herself in, although I expect it to be quite awkward on the other side when Sister Nelson meets Sister Nelson!
The solution is for everybody, men and women, to be treated the same, and be able to be sealed to everybody they are married to. Maybe it will change when a member of the Q12 remarries a previously sealed sister. Then the heavens will open, and revelation will pour forth on this matter!
In the mean time we need to get rid of the last vestiges of polygamy that still haunt our church, and let the widowed sisters have all the blessing that a sealing brings be available in this life. You can argue that my daughter has those blessing from her sealing to her dead husband, but that is not who she is sitting by in church each Sunday while hearing “eternal families” being preached from the pulpit. In the end, she will probably be married much longer to her current husband than her deceased one. It’s time to change this.
Wheat & Tares 
I feel for your daughter and all those in similar situations. Reminds me of reading “The Ghosts of Eternal Polygamy.” It breaks my heart. There are some many permutations of pain that come from this.
I look at how the church leaders won’t even bend on allowing people to get married in a civil ceremony and then be sealed in the temple in a few days later. I and many of my family and friends have been affected by this and it has caused a lot of pain in the relationships. Petitions have been signed and delivered, but not a peep about changing. You bring up a good point, but it seems to me until it really hurts the church in some way, the leaders don’t feel any motivation to change. A few people asking might almost be creating a backfire effect in the leaders where they feel the members asking just need to have more faith. What to do about it is a huge question in my mind.
Bishop Bill,
This is great. When I was younger I was faced with an extremely difficult health situation. I was facing the very real possibility that I would die in the very near future. I was away serving in the military and had a beautiful wife and baby at home. At the time I was very orthodox TBM. I was all in. As I laid there pondering my existence, my mind was comforted as I thought about the eternal family I had created. It hit me in that moment that I wasn’t even sure I wanted an eternal family… my wife in her early twenties, would need to move on. She’d need to remarry. Probably to someone she’d have additional children with and could be married for 50+ years. When she died, what would happen? Of course she would be more comfortable in the marriage she had for 50+ years and the family she created. My heart hurt to think she’d have to break up her family to be reunited with me.
What was previously such a comfortable doctrine when it applied to my grandparents dying in their 80s, seemed destructive and unnecessarily cruel to me at that moment. The concept of Celestial polyandry doesn’t really help, why have sealings at all if in the end God reshuffles the deck to “make things right”.
Luckily I’m still here, but that experience placed a ton of weight on my “shelf.” It made me look at back at Jesus’s comments to the saducees, that tried catch him on a super complex marriage/death scenario.
It also made me question what kind of God would destroy family relationships unless sealed in an LDS temple?
It is a doctrinal concept that is comforting, but when applied to a slight amount of criticism, falls apart quickly.
As I see it, getting rid of eternal polygamy would mean that people of neither sex can be sealed to one spouse – i.e. we would be preparing for a strictly monogamous heaven. Letting both men amd women be sealed multiple times would change out the current, polygamous model for a sort of web of group marriages.
Oops, I meant to say that “people of neither sex can be sealed to more than one spouse.”
What do you envision the after life looking like?
@Wesley Stine,
I think that may be a step in the right direction (maybe), but it’s still a doctrinal and theological hot mess.
At least eternal polygamy provides some solution to a Male serving spouse (e.g., pres Oaks and Nelson). Without the prospect of those women entering Celestial marriages (required for their exaltation BTW) they have no means to obtain exaltation except to marry a young unsealed man.
I’m not trying to make a recommendation here – just saying what I think a de-polygamized version of the doctrine would look like.
And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that, in a religion which believes in eternal marriage, a widow or widower (who is still married spiritually) would have poor marriage prospects here on earth.
I’m shocked at how much time the First Presidency, stake presidents, bishops, COB admins, etc. spend on temple sealing cancellations, special permissions for unusual temple sealing permissions, etc. They take time to figure out ugly messes- often deliberating on warring “his” and “her” sides. These aren’t exceptions any longer- but the standard. Actually, looking back even to the Nauvoo era- there have always been many “exceptions” and they were all swept together with a “sealing” default. I don’t know how SL keeps up with it all (since permissions must come from SL) and why they insist on it.
Thank you, Bishop Bill. As a (prior) young LDS widow, I have first-hand experience with how our imbalanced sealing policy hurts widows and children, the very people the scriptures admonish us to care for.
I’m a Latter-day Saint who is mostly orthodox in belief and practice[1]. I believe that leaders are called of God, and though imperfect, seek and often receive answers to questions through inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In this case, I think that leaders need to seek further guidance, and that the policy on dealings should be that anyone is eligible to be sealed to anyone to whom they were/are married in life, regardless of gender. I honestly have no idea how things will work out in the hereafter, but I believe that the sacred seeing covenants and ordinances have real blessings attached to them, and no should have to make a decision like who they want to be sealed to without knowledge of how things will work. I’m not at all bothered by the difficult questions of how family relationships will work in eternity because there are so many unanswered questions about so much about the gospel that this one seems almost trivial. All we need to know is 1. Families can be eternal, 2. We are bound to or families by God when we enter into sacred covenants in the Temple, and 3. God has provided an opportunity for all to enter into such covenants and will ensure both justice and mercy through the atonement of Christ. The details are interesting to ponder but ultimately unimportant. With that in mind, the oddball sealing policy seems to try to work out answers that we neither have nor need.
[1] I have sometimes seen people here refer to people like me as “TBM”. With respect, I would ask those who use that term to consider the Anti-Mormon origins of this term and whether it shows the kind of respect you would hope to receive. I hate the term Jack Mormon, because there is a certain amount of contempt and disrespect inherent in it, and I find “TBM” To fall in a similar category.
DSC,
Appreciate your comments. I’m also a practicing, tithe paying, member. I wasn’t aware of the history of “TBM” and refer to myself as one in reference to my previously held literal beliefs in BoM historicity and origin story, priesthood leadership quasi-infallibilty (imperfect leaders that make mistakes, just not ones that matter) etc. What term do you prefer to describe theologically orthodox members?
Related to sealings. I get it. There is a powerfully unique doctrine in our Church that our family relationships can extend into the eternities. It’s kind of like we argue both sides of this issue… God is a God of order and there are specific procedures for these things, but at the end of the day we collectively shrug and admit we really dont understand anything about this doctrine when it comes to its application…
I’m not sure if it’s just my perception as I grow older, or if it’s new emphasis from the Church, but I feel like although the Church hasn’t really backed away from the importance of having families that can be together forever, there seems to be more and more emphasis on the temporal, spiritual, and eternal blessings that come from the act and ordinance of being sealed in the first place–blessings that go beyond forever families. I think that’s probably a good thing. I obviously think who we’re sealed to is also important, but I’m sure marriages, death, remarriages, and all other nuances from mortality will be worked out in the next life. Although I don’t think our personality will be changed automatically, I do think that Heaven, by definition, is a place where all parties are happy and satisfied.
Gregggg,
To me, orthodox is a great, nonjudgmental term. It is descriptive without carrying normative implication, and I don’t think they there is any confusion as long as there is minimal context.
I think they any serious, thinking person comes to a point where they just have to shrug and accept apparent contradictions until more information becomes available. If you think about the beginning of the universe, you eventually come to a dead end where you have to shrug and say “it just is” whether you work your way back to a ball of mass or a Creator. Scientists simply have to accept quantum weirdness because although contradictory, it yields results. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t keep an eye out for answers or try to work it sensible answers, but I think accepting that you can accept something as true without having all the answers is a marker of both intellectual and spiritual maturity.
I can‘t think of any reason why the sealing policy should not be the same for men and women, and I always thought it should be limited to one person – until I read Gregggg‘s comment.
Accepting apparent contradictions could be a sign of maturity, yes, but could also be a sign of self-delusion. This particular contradiction is man-made, so I tend toward the latter view on this one.
Considering Joseph Smith most likely entered his first plural marriage before actually getting the sealing keys, I’m no longer of the opinion this “doctrine” originated from the Lord, thus saving me a lot of worry going forward. Maybe there is something to Mark 12:24-25.
I’m not so sure that this policy will change “when a member of the Q12 remarries a previously sealed sister.” First, I’ve heard a lot of rumors that members of the Q12 who lose their wives are very strongly encouraged to quickly find a new wife who has never been married. Second, Howard W. Hunter did marry a previously married woman (Inis) as his second wife, and the policy didn’t get changed even when he became president of the Church. From what I understand, Inis had been divorced, and they simply got married “for time” in the temple, possibly against the wishes of some of the other Brethren. I’m just repeating a lot of rumors that I’ve heard, so if anyone has any better information on this, I’d like to hear it.
“…a powerfully unique doctrine in our Church that our family relationships can extend into the eternities ” Unique?
Original lyrics here .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_the_Circle_Be_Unbroken%3F
Wait a minute, did they borrowed that song from Emma Smith’s first hymnal?
If you pay any attention to what is going on in evangelical churches, it is impossible to get around the fact that they believe in eternal families. The unbroken circle is the family.
What is unique about us is that we are one of the few churches which excludes people from the unbroken circle in the next life. Because they didn’t go to the right, secret, church meeting or wear the right underwear or some other reason that smells like a Pharisee. This is the fecund soil in which the weedy questions mentioned above sprout.
My wife left the LDS faith years ago. She has not abandoned hope for our eternal marriage. However, it was my former bishop who told me that I must leave her and find a woman who is temple worthy, if I wanted to be sealed in the eternities. My wife would lead my children astray also. This, in a state that strongly favors women in custody battles.Family-centered church my ass.
That which is unique about our version of this common hope is twisted and hurtful. Needs changing more than the name of the church.
Just saying.
@Mike,
Eternal families in the Mormon sense “worlds without end” is a very unique Mormon belief.
I agree with your basic sentiment. I’m curious where the belief that family relationships were dissolved at death came from. Husband and wife outside of LDS sealings just become “friends” in the next life?
President Bush passed this weekend and I heard from multiple non-LDS news sources that he was now reunited with his wife Barbara. It’s kind of a universally accepted concept among people of faith. The becoming Gods stuff is uniquely Mormon, but I’m not even sure that’s appealing to most LDS people…
“If you pay any attention to what is going on in evangelical churches, it is impossible to get around the fact that they believe in eternal families. The unbroken circle is the family.”
I used to share that sentiment, and in many ways still do, although it may depend on the denomination and any number of other variables. I think LDS are still rather unique in these regards. I can remember attending the evangelical wedding of a best friend. Just before their vows the minister basically told them (almost word for word) to “Enjoy this while it lasts. Once this life is over, this is over.” I was floored by this at the time. Some years later, I saw this same friend explaining to another that although he and his wife would no longer be married in the next life, that because all those in Heaven would be so much closer to each other by virtue of being closer to God, he and his wife would know each other much more intimately than they do now. I’m not how I’d feel about that as to the other ramifications it presents, but I thought it was definitely an interesting view.
My only complaint about “TBM” is that it is too simplistic. I have never met two Mormons with the same belief set. I don’t have exactly the same beliefs as any other Mormon that I have any knowledge about.
But as a comparison word it’s okay. It’s a bit like being “left” or “right”, depends a lot on the point of view of the observer. Consequently anyone that’s a bit more respectful or trusting or less complaining about church, as compared to another, is “TBM”.
As an epithet it conveys un-woke, a primitive, trusting state of mind like a child.
But of course, depending on the scripture chosen, that is exactly what God wants. Matthew 18:3
Yeah “TBM” does imply a level of blind obedience, naivete and/or ignorance. When I look back to my “TBM” days I was all of those things.
Of course no two “TBMs” are the same. Also true of Americans, Women, Men, Children, Latrer-day Saints, Utahns, Idahoans, or ANY description applied to any group of people.
Autumn says, “First, I’ve heard a lot of rumors that members of the Q12 who lose their wives are very strongly encouraged to quickly find a new wife who has never been married.”
I’ve heard that, too. I didn’t want to say anything until someone else brought it up. This kind of rumor (if it is only a rumor) has the potential to inspire behavior in men to follow suit. Now men may see it as a duty to marry only an unsealed woman: any man who marries a woman who is already sealed is depriving a single woman of the chance to be sealed in this life.
I don’t know if this actually happens, but it is a logical result of the rumors about apostles being encouraged to marry never-sealed women.
I think that the term “TBM” is doomed to be used in a derogatory way by those that have disdain for believers even if many or most originally used it in a positive way. I have lived in the south and seen a few descriptions move from being the accepted an non “loaded” terms morph into people assuming one is racist if they use it. Even if another term is found, I would predict over time the same thing will occur.
I find it interesting that the church changed their policy from getting married first and sealed after. My parents married in 1963 and they were civilly married by my grandpa who was a bishop at the time. So they got married civilly and a week later they went and were sealed in the temple. I think it’s time they change it back.
I’m living that situation now. My current wife and I are both widowed, and sealed to our first spouses. My wife hates the policy (is it really something other than policy?) that I can be sealed to both my wives but she can’t be sealed to both her husbands until we are all dead. She keeps her recommend current but will not do an endowment ceremony because of the policy.
I admit that the fact that we couldn’t be sealed was a major cause for hesitation on my part. The answer I got when I prayed about being married to someone I couldn’t be sealed to was “Don’t be afraid to do the right thing.” While we were able to be married civilly in the temple, there was a real difference.
Y’all are so good at changing the subject. (Me too)
We jump from the idea that being together in the next life with your family to being gods. It is not the same topic except in the Mormon mind.Additionally, we don’t agree about the definition of god. One supreme creator of everything else? Or some counsel of gods we might get to join along with a gazillion others? Is the promise of godhood another bait and switch? Or yet another slippery definition?
Obviously some of you didn’t read the link to the original lyrics. I think they paint a beautiful picture of a widely-shared hope of family togetherness in the next life.
CHORUS:
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, by and by?
Is a better home awaiting
In the sky, in the sky?
There are loved ones in the glory
Whose dear forms you often miss.
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?
(Chorus)
In the joyous days of childhood
Oft they told of wondrous love
Pointed to the dying Saviour;
Now they dwell with Him above.
(Chorus)
You remember songs of heaven
Which you sang with childish voice.
Do you love the hymns they taught you,
Or are songs of earth your choice?
(Chorus)
You can picture happy gath’rings
Round the fireside long ago,
And you think of tearful partings
When they left you here below.
(Chorus)
One by one their seats were emptied.
One by one they went away.
Now the family is parted.
Will it be complete one day?
Those last two verses almost bring me to tears.
I happen to have inherited a rather common looking nearly-indestructible metal table from my great grandfather. Nobody else wanted it. The table was used mostly to eat daily meals. This originally was in a small rock house where food was cooked in a fireplace and eaten right next to it. I image all the people who once sat around it. And all the interesting friends I have invited to dinner eaten on it over many years, which has been a family custom across generations. The most famous people I was told to have sat at that table were J. Golden Kimball and Richard Lyman, last apostle to be excommunicated. I went to some of their funerals, or tearful partings. (Not the apostles). Only 2 of my dad’s 8 sibling are currently left, in their late 80’s, who once sat around that table during their childhood. Those who sit around it most often now will probably go to my funeral.
The last question in the hymn above applies to all the people who sat around the figurative family fireplace at my old table. The answer is obvious. You don’t need a prophet to tell you that. Neither do people in other churches.
***
Sprouting weedy questions (dedicated to Eli):
The minister who told the couple at their wedding to enjoy it while it lasts would probably be viewed as real jackass by most ministers. Aside from that, we changed the subject again, to sex in the next life. if everyone is so much more in love in the next life, will they all be having sex with anyone constantly? Like those Bonobo chimpanzees who have sexual intercourse at every social encounter and use more tactics and positions than were once allowed in marriage by LDS church policy? Are the counsel of gods more like a troop of bonobo chimps and humans are the failed experiment to create beings in their own images? (Abr. 4:26)
Exactly what is a resurrected body like? We do not know. We have one hint of a resurrected Jesus eating. Does that imply that he also poops? Do the future gods of Mormondom have sexual intercourse in the next life, or do they produce spiritual children in some other way? Do they ejaculate and make messes? Do resurrected women menstruate? Do their breasts make milk? Do their bellies swell and do they birth in the same painful and embarrassing way?
Will we have spleens and lymph nodes needed to fight infections? A mechanically compromised lower back that is somewhat trapped in the transition to upright locomotion from knuckle walking? Do we have an appendix, the evolutionary vestige of a more complex gastrointestinal tract of far remote plant-eating prehuman ancestors? If the lion lies down with the lamb together and eats grass like an ox, will there be a Maddox steak house in the heavens? A chick-fil-a, closed on Sundays.? How do the things of this earth and the things of heaven differ with a literal resurrection?
Does the answer to any of these rabbit-hole questions of post- eschantological physiology jeopardize the basic and wide-spread idea expressed in that hymn – we will be together with those we love?
And while we are changing topics, lets explore our feelings about the term TBM, and emotionally manipulate each other’s feeling of guilt, over something that trivial (instead of my sprouting weeds) What does that have to do with sealings or ceilings? We won’t need a ceiling if it doesn’t rain or snow there.
Mike,
I made absolutely no mention of sex. While I’ve heard both some LDS and non-LDS describe a potentially intimate Heaven as you have, I see intimacy as far more encompassing than just sex. And just because everyone could be more intimate with each other doesn’t mean that intimacy with everyone is sexual in nature. Maybe it’s just the sci-fi geek in me, but by “ramifications” of being more intimate with each other I was actually thinking of something along the lines of telepathy or something. That’s currently one of the only ways I can envision my wife and I being closer to each other than we already are. Obviously we don’t know for sure, just as you’ve mentioned we can’t know all the aspects of a resurrected body. Additionally, although offering an opinion of my friend’s view of Heaven, it was his view, not mine. Knowing him, I can’t honestly say with certainty that his view was entirely sexual in nature either.
I’d concede that minister was probably what you say he was. Aside from what ministers and churches might officially say, I personally think the Light of Christ is alive in much of humanity, sparking the hope or certainty that families will be together forever someday, somehow, even if all the details are fuzzy at the moment.
Bringing it back around, I’d reiterate that just as much of mankind has the Light of Christ pushing the idea of forever families, I think many LDS have assurances from the Spirit that the complexities from various sealings will be worked out to everyone’s satisfaction.
If we are lucky enough to make it to the celestial kingdom only to discover there is no sex or steak, are we allowed to go somewhere else?
Eugene, A yes answer might not be helpful. Ask an authority — maybe Joseph Fielding Smith. See Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 2, p. 288, on what has been known as the TK Smoothy doctrine:
“Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be – neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.”
But he, like others, has been known to have changed his mind. This one he at least couched as speculation.
BTW, if there were steak in the CK, would there also be gout?
Notice Eli, I did not (intend to) quote you, only dedicate the remarks to you. 🙂
Maybe those Bonobo chimps are blessed with telepathy and have it both ways, eh?
After 30+ years of marriage, I think telepathy in this life would push us both over the edge. I am glad I don’t know what all my wife thinks about me.
JFS needed psychotherapy. I am trying to get my mind around the Freudian symbolism of this TK Smoothie doctrine and other comments he made in that trilogy of idiocy referred to above- that was one of only 6 sources (beyond scriptures) we were allowed to read on our missions. According to my mother who was a secretary in the church office under Miss Middlemis in the early 1950’s: President McKay disliked him because he was kniving and deceitful and petty. His wife Jesse Evans domineered and nagged him merciless.(“Had her pantyhose tied around his neck and led him around like a little jackass.’) It was said that in her case, the women already held the Priesthood. (She might drive any man to “self abuse.”) I doubt he had personal visitations from Jesus or Joseph Smith. He probably had it in the back of his mind that he might be unfit for exaltation. Was this remark above veiled self-hatred.? The same kind of twisted thinking that pushed some young women (and men) to cut themselves?
i consider his books as of little use to me and as a form of biblio-therapy for his deep sychological dysfunction. Too badf it was so widely read and believed.
Mike, I don’t doubt your report (see I’m doubting my doubts here). In fact, I laughed a lot. But, as one southern opposing counsel once asked me, “Can’t you say that no nicer?” I guess I’ll wait to find out about steak and gout. Cheers. 🙂
Many patriarchs of the Old Testament as well as the founding fathers of the LDS movement practiced polygamy. While there were excesses in the early days, it’s time to bring well-regulated polygamy back into the church. Polygamy is the natural order in the United States, and cowardly disavowal of the practice causes great suffering. Enough is enough.
Well if the lds doctrine is that you will make eternal lives with your spouse or spouses in eternity, it does not make sense biologically that a woman would be sealed to multiple men. It takes one man to make a village, but multiple women to make a village. That is probably why we see all ancient civilizations built on polygyny rather than polyandry. Also this Church is pointing to their revelation in section 132. They believe it is literally the voice of the Lord. So section 132 would have to be uncanonized in order for this to change and to also change their doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Again, it seems that these two doctrines regarding marriage and plural marriage hinge on biology. Marriage is only between a man and a woman in the eternities because that is the only way to propagate children as done on earth. And that a man is married to multiple women to procreate and exalt their children. And that the opposite (a woman sealed to multiple men) makes little sense if they are going to populate kingdoms in the eternities. It seems the whole theology is making parallels to what make sense on earth.