For starters, I asked ChatGPT what is the purpose of religious clothing, and it came up with a pretty good list. I’m starting to think that ChatGPT is kind of like how people give talks by looking up their assigned topic in the dictionary as a jumping off point. ChatGPT is just giving the “facts” here, as applied to various types of religious clothing and without a cynical perspective (that’s where I come in).
Religious clothing serves various purposes within different faith traditions, often symbolizing spiritual beliefs, cultural identity, and adherence to religious practices. Here are some common purposes of religious clothing:
- Expression of Faith: Religious clothing can serve as a visible expression of an individual’s faith and devotion to their religious beliefs.
- Modesty: Many religious garments are designed to promote modesty by covering certain parts of the body, in accordance with religious teachings and cultural norms.
- Identification: Religious clothing can help members of a community identify one another and distinguish themselves from those outside their faith tradition.
- Cultural Identity: Religious attire often reflects the cultural heritage and traditions of a particular religious community. It can symbolize a sense of belonging and connection to one’s cultural roots.
- Spiritual Protection: In some belief systems, religious clothing is believed to offer spiritual protection or blessings to the wearer, guarding against negative influences or evil forces.
- Ritual and Worship: Certain religious garments are worn specifically during rituals, ceremonies, or worship services to signify participation in sacred activities and to create a sense of reverence and solemnity.
- Symbolism: Religious clothing may incorporate symbolic elements that hold spiritual significance within a particular faith tradition. These symbols can convey theological concepts, spiritual virtues, or historical narratives.
- Preservation of Tradition: Wearing religious attire can be a way of preserving and passing down religious traditions from one generation to the next, ensuring continuity and cultural heritage.
- Social Cohesion: Religious clothing can foster a sense of unity and solidarity among members of a religious community, reinforcing shared values, beliefs, and practices.
- Respect and Reverence: Wearing religious attire is often seen as an act of respect and reverence toward the divine, religious authorities, and sacred spaces.
- Institutional Affiliation: Certain religious garments signify affiliation with specific religious institutions, such as monastic orders or clergy roles, indicating a person’s formal commitment to religious service or leadership.
- Encouragement of Virtues: Some religious clothing is designed to encourage adherence to moral and ethical principles, reminding wearers of their religious obligations and encouraging virtuous behavior.
Overall, religious clothing serves multiple functions, encompassing aspects of spirituality, culture, identity, tradition, and community within the context of various faith traditions.
ChatGPT
So, if your name is Jack, you can probably just stop reading right now. The above description will satisfy you just fine. If you aren’t Jack, let’s dig a little deeper into the purpose of garments.
Sex Stuff. First of all, it’s pretty well known that the original purpose was to signify who was and who was not participating in polygamy, which basically functioned like one big open marriage in Nauvoo. It’s actually ironic because when I was at BYU, we all called them “passion killers” and assumed that the purpose was to encourage chastity because nobody wants to see that, but in Nauvoo they must have performed the opposite function. “Garments? Bazinga!” I have been totally shocked over the last ten years or so to learn two facts about garments that I never would have predicted: 1) that a female BYU student was raped repeatedly by a man who was wearing his garments while he held her against her will for a weekend of sexual assault, and 2) that there is garment porn because of course there is.
Verdict: I don’t think this is (currently) a very compelling reason for garments to remain as is. In fact, the “passion-killer” issue probably doesn’t do that much to prevent sex outside of marriage, and it definitely (according to many women) reduces interest in sex within marriage, something which the Church has a vested interest in promoting, at least in theory, given how the next generation of Mormons are made. Although, counterpoint, a lot of the most unsexy religions have the most restrictive and intrusive sexual practices (e.g. orthodox Judaism), and also generate large families. But Mormonism likes to at least do lip service to sex-positivity within marriage.
Modesty Enforcement. Although this was not one of the original reasons, and the design has changed in the past to accommodate changing styles, it’s nearly impossible to overlook the fact that garments (for women primarily) significantly impact one’s ability to dress normally. In fact, several cottage industry stores have popped up specifically to cater to Mormon women (and girls), selling “garment-friendly” clothing, and things like “shade shirts” to hide the garment, while looking basically like (checks notes) a garment top.
Verdict: Given the frequently reported fact that the leg length in women’s garments often exceeds their husband’s garment leg length, and the fact that after decades of requesting the cap sleeves be made compatible with sleeveless dresses, I’m going to say this one is extremely convincing to me. Controlling women’s bodies is vital to a patriarchal church, and they are deeply committed to patriarchy.
Selling Underwear: I get why people would theorize this since one pair of garments costs about the same as a package of six pairs of panties; they also probably wear out faster, although based on things I’ve seen and can’t unsee, a lot of people are wearing them well past their expiration date. But still, this is probably the least convincing idea I’ve heard. I suspect that the Church gets enough benefits from garment-wearing through the other “reasons” that they would not mind manufacturing and selling them for a loss.
Verdict: I just don’t (accidental pun alert) buy it.
Symbol. The Church says that the garments are a symbol that reminds the member of covenants made in the temple, the symbolism of which is apparently in flux, but as a commenter pointed out on Elisa’s post, wearing them daily makes them less of a reminder, not more of one. When they are “special” they function as a reminder. When they are a habit, they are forgotten.
Verdict: Calling them a “symbol” feels more like a sales pitch than an actual reason for them. Also, Mormons are frankly not forgetting their covenants on a regular basis. They are keenly aware of the requirements. They couldn’t forget them if they tried, and they aren’t trying.
Access to Christ’s Mercy. This is a weird claim that was made in the instructions to be read to the members, that wearing the garments with more exactitude, church members would have increased access to Christ’s mercy. So, how is that supposed to work? Is there some kind of mathematical equation in this quid pro quo? Do you get more mercy if you wear them with a yeast infection, causing your suffering to last longer? What about if you get heat stroke from wearing them? Do you get more mercy that way? Or is the claim that Jesus just won’t give you mercy if you don’t wear them?
Verdict: This feels like a vague “get in line” threat that has not been well thought out. I don’t find it convincing. It doesn’t pass the Uchtdorf test. Feels distinctly Nelsonian (or Oaksian) to me.
Commitment. I suppose the logic follows that if they can get you to wear terrible underwear, they can get you to do just about anything. Garments are just one part of a cycle of commitment, and nobody is going through the temple just so they can get their hands on those sweet, sweet garments. On the contrary, garments are usually tolerated as something necessary but unpleasant, a Mormon hair shirt of sorts, a religious sacrifice. The temple is touted as the peak experience and ordinance: required for exaltation and to secure your family’s eternal togetherness. To go, you must pass an interview, attesting that you are paying tithing and that your food & drink choices are church-approved. Once you have attended, you must wear the garments until you die. You must continue to be a full tithe-payer, follow the word of wisdom, attest your belief, attend meetings, and pass the same worthiness interview every two years or you will be barred from socially-visible callings in the ward and hectored to come in for a worthiness interview to “become” worthy again. These are all things that exert psychological pressure to increase commitment through social pressure (fear of not belonging or being judged), family pressure (including duty & love for one’s progeny), perfectionism (fear of not being good enough), and scrupulosity (unhealthily rigid or compulsive adherence to rules). Garments make all of these psychological pressures easier to exert on the individual.
Verdict: Personally, I think increasing commitment through psychological pressure is basically what religion is, so to me, this one is fairly convincing. Now you could be cynical (as many post-Mo folks are) and believe that the increased commitment is mostly a means to extract lifelong tithing out of the members, and doubtless this is a benefit to the church. While I think that matters to the church, I’ll also assume that they are true believers who think the greater the commitment the better, because it has certainly worked out for them. These are literally their best ideas.
Looking closer at the “commitment” aspect, though, the question is when does it backfire? At what point do the “asks” become more onerous than the “rewards” feel? At what point do you lose the next generation because the requirements feel more “weird” than “special.” Trying to keep the balance between enticing people with “elitist” status that requires greater sacrifice vs. being universalist and welcoming is harder than it sounds. If you reduce the sacrifices required, psychological commitment might wane, scrupulosity is less triggered. But if you keep the sacrifices high, and they feel even higher due to ambient culture (e.g. changing fashions, global warming, increased scrutiny of organizational power, anti-patriarchal sentiment), you’ll actually break the spell and trigger cognitive dissonance, causing what is presumably worse than reduced commitment: an exodus, if not among current adults, among the rising generation.
My guess is that the percent of members with an active temple recommend peaked somewhere between 2000-2010 and has nosedived since the pandemic. You don’t have to have an active temple recommend to wear garments, but you do have to have one (due to some policy jujitsu over the last two decades) to hold just about any calling, and you will be asked about it if you don’t). Garment-wearing is one of those things that very few people prefer, but that triggers all sorts of social consequences if you don’t do it, making it a shibboleth, a loyalty or obedience test. As Glennon Doyle said (and Elisa’s excellent post also discussed), “Freedom is contagious.”
It’s also likely that the Church has more to fear from a larger membership with looser commitment than it does from a smaller membership that is more zealous. That’s one of the age old questions of religion, and I suspect that current top leaders prefer a smaller but more obedient base; that’s what I am getting from observing their actions. It’s the opposite of the approach we took as missionaries, but I can’t say that they are wrong in terms of desired outcomes. If Hinckley’s goal was to appeal to the broadest audience possible, like a journalist would, through normalization and persuasion and downplaying anything onerous or weird (e.g. the “I’m a Mormon” campaign), then Nelson’s approach appears to be to create a tightly-controlled sterile environment, like an operating room, in which everyone follows orders exactly and works together as a well-oiled machine by listening, doing as instructed, and not questioning because lives are on the line.
- What do you think is the purpose of the current retrenchment on exact obedience with garments is?
- What do you think will be the outcome?
- Do you think a smaller, more zealous membership vs. a larger, more diversely believing one is the goal?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Excellent post, hawkgrrrl. I think you’re spot on in highlighting modesty enforcement for women and promoting commitment as top reasons. I think another reason that came up on Elisa’s thread was signaling. The clothing choices you make, again especially if you’re a woman, show whether you’re wearing garments or not, even if the garments themselves can’t be detected. I think the GAs love the visibility of this, where you can see who’s on the committed team and who isn’t just by a quick glance. The Lord may not care about the outward appearance, but the Church sure does!
The outcome is….for the first time ever I am hearing from more TBM folks (like my husband) who are very disturbed by the emphasis on garments and even more so by the special access to mercy promise.
Mt husband didn’t have any personal issues with garments until now.
They are going to alienate people.
Also, apparently unless I sign my full name to this comment, I lack integrity /s
Hey I’m jealous…how come Jack gets his own specific shout-out in your post?
More seriouslly, I think your above list is pretty complete. I’d like to add the phrase “virtue signaling” to the list. The Brethren love it when we (members) can signal to each other that we are the righteous ones. Granted, I just saw a pic in the paper of a guy arrested here in Utah the other day for pedophilia and he was in his garment shirt. And granted, we all have neighbors who mow their lawns topless (usually men) and are the nicest guys. But you know what I mean: the Church loves virtue signaling.
PS: BYU just hired a new basketball coach — Phoenix Suns assistant Kevin Young. He has a beard. Has had one for years. He’ll have to shave it off as part of the BYU virtue signaling 101 class.
ZIFF: sorry I should have read your comment before posting mine — you are absolutely right about signaling
No worries, josh h! Great minds think alike!
Josh H: Your comment about the pedo reminded me of the guy who shot an arrow at BLM protesters in downtown SLC who then appeared on a news interview literally wearing just his garments. Weirdest thing I ever saw.
I think this retrenchment has Nelson’s fingerprints all over it. He seems prone to magical thinking, about the benefits of wearing garments, and that there will be enough people to staff all of those temples. The magical thinking about garments has clearly shifted over time. The initiatory ordinance still includes the language about a “shield and protection”, but the church seems to be backing away from the idea of it protecting against physical harm. Probably there are too many people who have suffered physical harm while wearing garments, so there’s a shift to a concept of spiritual protection. Conceptually that’s fine as long as it’s relatively vague, but I think they got a little too specific in the language of the latest statement without considering all the implications and we ended up with this “added measure of mercy” bit. It seems to be bugging a lot of people, me included. I doubt it will have the intended effect. Probably a few who were slacking will go back to wearing them more, and a whole lot more will question how important it is to have a temple recommend anyway.
Quentin: Agreed, and here’s the only way I think the church could win this one: if garments were actually superior to underwear that’s widely available through retail channels. Younger people, raised on Harry Potter, are not persuaded by appeals to authority. That ship has sailed. It has to actually make sense, and it doesn’t. Given the current design, the decades of ignored feedback, and the unwillingness of leaders to listen, their loss on this one is inevitable. I think you are right that a whole lot of people will just say “Eh, the temple’s not important to me.” And that’s the handful of younger people who choose to stay.
Great post! I agree with other the OP and other commenters that the Church wants to preserve the original symbolism of the garment (the 4 symbols Mormons straight up copied from the masons that are on the garment), LOVES the modesty that is enforced through garment wearing (especially for women), and appreciates the virtue signaling and commitment that garment wearing provides. However, I would like to point out that all 3 of the other benefits of garment wearing–namely, symbolism preservation, virtue signaling, and deepening commitment)–can be still be easily achieved with a modification, whether it be small or large (and large changes have happened in the past, so it can be done), to the current form of the garment that would allow members to wear modern clothing more easily. What’s the one thing that would be lost if the form of the garment were changed? Answer: modesty enforcement. I’m convinced modesty enforcement is the biggest reason that garments haven’t yet changed and that Church leaders want people, especially women, to wear them.
Hey, I got a shoutout in Angela’s post! It’s not exactly the same tier as showing up in Ziff’s annual bloggernacle’s funniest comments, but I’ll take it 😉
That’s a good list from CHATGPT. I would add: Sign of a Covenant Relationship as a purpose that’s more specific to restoration theology.
Jack, you managed to hide your true identity for a long time. However, it’s pretty obvious that only Russ Nelson himself would have made your most recent “yada yada..covenant relationship…yada yada…purpose…yada yada…restoration” comment. Welcome to W&T, Russ (or, I guess, an AI bot programmed to comment like Russ)!
I really like your “Utchdorf test.” And saying that somehow we earn more mercy or lose it because of garment wearing really smacks of a God who would fall for forgiving that child molester who proudly shows off his garments. Boy, that God really looks on the outside rather than the heart.
I know my experience is hardly universal, but it is also not all that uncommon. That “garments wearing earns you mercy” right there is part of why many child sexual abuse survivors can’t wear the garments. It is all surface. And forgive me but I am going to distance myself emotionally and talk about my sexual abuse clients, rather than my personal experience because right now I can’t deal. But they are the same, and I am by no means alone with this. so, take a sexual abuse victim who observed their abuser remove his garments and careful fold them and reverently put them where they would not touch the floor or otherwise be defiled. Before. Raping. A. Child. Sometimes if the child resisted it got violent. Yet the church is quick to forgive the abuser, give him tons of help in repenting with his restitution all directed to the church, not his victim. And restore his temple blessings and sealings (often sealing him to his victim) When I was therapist in an abuser’s support group one guy proudly worship his “families are forever” T-shirt over his garments. His daughter meanwhile was still trying to slit her wrists. But he had done his time in prison, with a reduced sentence because his bishop was a character witness and swore what a good kind man he was, and been rebaptised and totally forgiven by the church. Meanwhile his daughter was such a terrible person because she was trying to drown her pain with alcohol.
So, telling hypocrites that wearing garments earns them brownie points and earns them mercy is just going to make this all so much worse. The church really needs to emphasize full repentance with restitution to the person harmed by the sin as what earns you mercy. Not one more thing that doesn’t help out those harmed by sin, but only benefits the institutional church. Right now the church has mercy robbing justice blind. They bend over backwards extending mercy to hypocrites who are willing to follow church orders, but throw innocent children under the bus. They protect abusers, extend them mercy and forgiveness at the expense of those who have been or are being harmed.
When a person commits a sin, they need to repent and give restitution to the one harmed. That is the way to obtain mercy. Wearing garments doesn’t do a thing toward that goal. It only signals cultural conformity. This not only doesn’t pass the Utchdorf test, it totally fails the Jesus test.
(This is embarrassing because it shows just how orthodox I was as a teen, but I really was happy). As a priest I heard a story of an LDS college basketball player who kept a penny in his shoe, and every time he stepped on the penny he thought of the Savior. I thought it was a cool story, so I decided to try it out, and I really liked it. It was this little thing that I had that was between me and God that reminded me of the Savior and it was meaningful to me.
If I’m being generous, I think this is how the leaders want the garment to be (and for some people it is). But I’m reminded of an episode from the tv show Brooklyn 99. The precinct is going through a tough time and morale is low, so the Captain orders a mandatory work party. He shows up and there’s balloons and cake, but everyone is still bummed out. In sincere confusion the Captain asks, “Why is nobody having fun when I SPECIFICALLY requested it?!” I feel like President Nelson and Oaks might sincerely ask, “Why are members not happy and drawing closer to the Savior through wearing garments when I SPECIFICALLY requested it?!”
But the thing is, just like you can’t mandate people to have fun, you can’t mandate things to be meaningful to people. It doesn’t work like that. I think the reason the penny thing worked for me, was that nobody told me I had to do it, nobody even knew that I was doing it. Agency must be involved in order to be happy and have a healthy loving relationship. To me, another example would be, I think that saying “I love you” to your spouse every day is a good way to strengthen a relationship. But mandating spouses to say “I love you” to each other just doesn’t have the same effect, and won’t strengthen relationships. Mandating people wear garments all the time, when they don’t want to simply won’t help people draw closer to the Savior.
If I’m being skeptical, I agree with the OP that “If they can get you to wear terrible underwear, they can get you to do just about anything.” It’s a reminder that, “I don’t do what I want, I do what they tell me to do.” I mentioned on the last post, that I think the psychological effect that this has is very real. To me, this is what they mean by “spiritual protection”. If you are willing to wear terrible underwear, you’re more willing to follow all of the other rules. And if you follow all of the other rules, then you’ll be “spiritually safe.” Ta-da! But I have tough time seeing the difference between “protection” and “psychological coercion” in this scenario.
What’s weird to me is that, at least ten years ago, I’d say the women in my high school, mission, and later YSA ward cared a lot more about garments (and/or modesty) than the men.
Granted there were very few temple-endowed women compared to men in my YSA, but it always seemed as though the women were the most critical when a man or woman wasn’t wearing garments or modest attire than the fella’s.
my suspicion? Women generally experience greater stigma re: lack of proprietary and purity than men, and when men do experience that same judgment, it’s usually from women moreso than men. Why? A man’s romantic and sexual prowess is thought to be aided by experience, whereas a women’s value is culturally perceived as harmed by experience. This purity culture for women heightens the internal misogyny women feel re: their sexuality.
Locker room chat among Mormon men was pretty normal for the Mormon-dominant area I grew up and went to university near. Talk of bikini’s, sex, R-rated movies was pretty frequent among the guys. We could do that, transgress boundaries. Not so for women I bet. Expectations admittedly changed the older (and farther along in the priesthood) one got, but it always seemed as though men could be more casual on the matter.
Heck, I bet many of the YSA friend circles I once thought as exclusive might not have been based as much on beauty, wealth, or charisma as I thought.
In hindsight, they could probably discern which guys and gals in the ward would be snitches vs party mates while danc’in at the club, and I regret being so uptight and insecure as to not realize that. I was a ‘Peter priesthood’ for much of my YSA life, but still felt pressure to make straight inuendo jokes and commentary like the (actual) straight men in the ward. In terms of gender-performance, again only the men could nigh approach that same devil-may-care attitude expected outside of Mormonism, among their fellow Mormon male peers. It’s encouraged in fact, as a form of male bonding and gender conformance.
If the Brethren are making a stink of women not wearing their garments, then perhaps women in the church are now also starting to feel more liberated and casual like the men. The fact that women can receive their endowments earlier now is also telling.
Gendered garment-performance (both policing and wearing) as a social practice requires at least one of the predominant gender-identities within the community (men or women) to broadly care about and enforce such rules. This formally has been the duty of men but informally (and more broadly perhaps due to differences of internalized sexism) been the role of women, who are taught to maintain these norms by not becoming ‘living pornography’, and prioritize marrying a man of good religious standing.
Maybe I’m wrong, (tell me if I’m wrong) but most Mormon men under the age of 40 (in comparison) don’t care as much about garments or modesty as their counterparts do. Unequal standards re: modesty, sexuality, and sexual objectification, still exist among secular populations ofc- but these different standards in terms of expected vs practical behaviour within the church vs. secular societies is pretty stark.
Women in the church are just closing the gap.
Modesty enforcement = control. This is the reason in my view. If leaders can control what freaking underwear we choose they can just about make us do anything. Illogical W of W requirements, tithing, cleaning the church, who we have sex with, it’s all about getting people to obey the top male leaders.
This leads to the question *why* they want control. I think it’s money and adoration. Q15 live very comfortable lives and they are adored in their sphere. Their families are too.
It self perpetuates to a degree because the system actually works. People who play by the rules are relatively happy and healthy. Church membership will remain approximately level for a long time because it works for enough young people to allow church to survive but not thrive.
How many grains of sand are in a heap of sand? If you take away one grain, is it no longer a heap? What if you add one? What if one were to wait and extra 12 seconds before replacing the garment after bathing (you know, to air out a little bit). Has one just forfeited 12 measures of mercy? I can’t think of another religious claim off the top of my head more suspectable to the standard reducto adsurdium argument than this one.(I think I got the Latin right. Either that or it’s a Harry Potter spell). DHO went to law school. He, at least, should know better.
I think you could maybe add Special Access, more broadly to the list. Nelson and Oaks, in particular, seem to be big on that. Exact obedience to arbitrary rules now gets one special access to “blessings,” special access to this, special access to that, now special and to mercy. I imagine these are men who have always enjoyed special access in various facets of life (access to posh golf clubs, access to politicians, substantial loans at low interest, the best medical care ect.), and maybe they think, that’s what the saints want – “spiritually” speaking, that is – extra special access to God that regular folk,well as their less committed LDS peers are going to miss out on. That’ll motivate them. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what the average committed Mormon wants. It’s just very, very puzzling to me.
FWIW, when I started reading the “commitment” section, I remembered a comic strip (Calvin and Hobbes?) where Calvin asked his dad, “Why do you wear a tie?” and his dad replied, “That’s how they can tell who will do what they are told.” (or something similar. Why is it so hard to find a specific comic strip when you want to?)
One thing that I think was alluded to, but not explicitly brought out in the commitment section was this idea of a “high demand religion” and the belief (complete with data) that high demand religions retain adherents better than more laissez faire religions. Couple that with our belief that the church will grow to fill the earth (so number of adherents might be important to discerning true religion), and I wonder if this is just one more demand for a high demand religion to make that will help retain adherents. (This shows up often in conservative circles — often comparing the Salt Lake branch of the restoration to the CoC branch of the restoration). I also can’t remember, but I think I remember a post somewhere — maybe here on W&T — that took a careful, critical look at the claims of success for high demand religion and suggested that maybe it isn’t as clear cut as some want to believe.
I don’t know if that adds anything to the conversation. I think commitment is generally a virtue when it represents commitment to things that are right and good and true. Commitment to arbitrary things seems less valuable. Commitment to harmful or damaging or exclusionary things seems wrong. The hard part is knowing what kind of things we are committed to.
mountainclimber479,
I’ll take that as a compliment. 😀
I don’t know why this announcement about garments has been so hard for me and has taken up so much space in my mind.
I had a similar experience once, and we dealt with it in a much healthier way. I worked for the Anchorage School District in Alaska. In Alaska, people don’t take themselves too seriously, and people generally don’t “dress up”. Wearing jeans is considered dressing up, (and is very practical with the weather conditions there.) Most educators wore jeans to work.
Well, we got a new superintendent who came in from Florida. One of the first things he did when he arrived was to outlaw wearing jeans to work. He made the announcement in a large back to school meeting with all the educators. He talked about looking professional and ended his lead up with, “There will be no jeans allowed at work!” Initially there was a collective gasp. The gasp was then followed by audible laughter. The superintendent insisted that he was serious, and he expected us not to wear jeans to work anymore. Everyone still just laughed, and rolled their eyes. And everyone continued wearing jeans to work. It was beautiful. Nobody that I know of got in trouble for wearing jeans, and the superintendent left Alaska about 6 months later.
I’ve been trying to remind myself of Alaska, and not to take things too seriously and not to get too upset. I gasped when I heard about the new temple recommend question and paragraph, and I feel like many others did as well. I want to remind myself that it’s okay to laugh as well. And it’s okay to make your own decisions about your most personal clothing. Do what works for you. They may have taken the statement about personal revelation out of the paragraph that they read, but I believe you can and should, connect with God and make your decision with God about how and when you’ll wear your garments. I’m betting that the paragraph about how to wear your garments is temporary and will change again in the future. Mortal men only have the power that we give them.
There was an article on SL tribune, written by Special to the Tribune Stuart Reid (Feb 7 2022 if you want to find it) that I think opens up some behind the scenes info about what the church is doing and why.
Reid makes the claim that the church grew faster during the years when it emphasized it’s unique beliefs (pre ’91) and that growth slowed when the church’s marketing tactics shifted to align themselves with the general Christian marketplace (his words). In his bio, Reid identifies himself as a “former public affairs professional who regrettably helped develop the 1990s marketing strategy shift away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ successful niche market.”
Based on this article, it would seem that the strategy the church followed in the Hinckley era was driven more by marketing consultants than revelation. Probably this recent retrenchment is as well.
The unashamed use of industry terms struck me as distasteful. I would be surprised if the church would green light an article like this. While it’s mostly obvious that the church is run like a corporation, the church still uses careful language to avoid such comparisons.
Among Reids other recent articles in the Tribune are “privacy of the confessional is a God given right” and “Holland was right to urge BYU to stick to it’s mission and God’s laws”
If this is who the church has building their strategies behind the scenes, it’s no wonder things have gone do far awry.
this funny thumbs up/down system – I appreciated the last entry from CosmoTheCat, and decided to give it an upvote, but my shaky octagenarian finger touched the downvote first, giving him his first ‘unliked’ indication – and I can’t figure out how to remove my misvote (sigh).
They’re not, but then again, the ancient Israelites who had to strap boxes to their heads probably weren’t forgetting them either.
Nah, I wear them every day and never ‘forget’ them.
If you constantly look for ways to attack the church, you’re going to find them. If you think garments are oppressive, and that church isn’t necessary, then don’t wear them and don’t go to church. Sheesh. You know you don’t have to go to church, yeah?
The constant antagonistic tone and attacks on everything about the church here gets exhausting. Doesn’t anyon on this site have anything good to say about the church/faith they supposedly believe in?
Sea Urchin: This site includes authors from across the belief and non belief spectrum, including from the Community of Christ. If you want a correlated discussion, that’s easy to find. This isn’t church, and some of our authors do not attend. I suspect that if discussions within the church were allowed to be authentic, sites like this would never have been started.
Like CosmoTheCat, the garment talks and recommend interview changes have really rattled me. Until now, I saw myself functioning pretty well with my private beliefs and visible/“public” activity at church. I attend every week and hold a calling. But now? It’s just so clear that I’m considered inferior, vain, misguided, you name it.
Like aporetic1 said, you can’t mandate things to be meaningful. They can say in ten different places in the recommend interview that the garments are about Christ and our commitment to Him. And for so many people I love, it is. But for me, garments now bring to mind a lot of unsavory people and practices of the early church. Not wearing them helps me function at church with a mind to serve God by serving others, and to not dwell on the disappointment I feel for early leaders and current leaders who defend them in all things.
Regarding virtue signalling and garments. When I was on my mission in Cache Valley, Vaughn Featherstone was the president of the Logan Temple. He very kindly took our zone on a tour of the temple one p-day and then gave us a little talk in his office. I can remember him saying essentially “If someone came into my home with a gun told me to put my garments on the floor and stand on them, or get shot, I’d take the bullet.” I can remember thinking at the time that was a bit extreme 🙂
I think social cohesion (or alternately put, social isolation) is a huge component. I think Church leaders want Church members–especially women–to be “different.” Partly because they think that signals righteousness, sacrifice, setting oneself apart from the world. Partly because I think it reinforces psychological control. I think Church leaders think it’s quite threatening when members get too cozy with “the world.” Dressing in a somewhat uniform way (I mean, uniform when it comes to garments but the garments themselves impose limitations on the visible clothing) is a big part of this.
As for whether they want a large diverse church or a small zealous one — well, I think they want a large zealous one :-). I suppose they don’t so much mind diversity of belief as long as you don’t actually speak about your diverging beliefs. But they care more about the performance of belief, and wearing garments is a big part of that. I think if someone said “I hate the temple and I personally disrespect the idea of garments but should I wear them anyway” they might actually say yes just wear them anyway.
The whole thing about garments now being symbols of Christ is disingenuous, because they really aren’t and never were. It sounds like another attempt to shoehorn Jesus into parts of the temple where He wasn’t before. For example, the most recent update to the endowment film added a briefly-shown portrait of Jesus, possibly in response to member concerns that Christ and His atonement were mostly absent from temple rites. Now, I would normally welcome a “more Jesus, less Joseph” approach to doing things in the Church, but retconning Jesus into the narrative in such an awkward way doesn’t work for me; it feels too artificial. Because garments are really about institutional power and control, which Jesus was very much opposed to. I wonder if this is another effort by the Church to appease evangelical frenemies who are quick to accuse Mormons of not being “true Christians”. And they aren’t completely wrong; the Church bears the name of Christ and leaders like to praise Jesus in public, but our most sacred ordinances have little or nothing to do with Christ. And we haven’t seen a GC talk that analyzes Christ’s ministry or atonement in any substantial way in decades.
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. One could easily extrapolate the spirit of this teaching to apply to garments; that underwear is made for the wearer, and not the other way around. But we have it backwards with garments, as faithful members are making unnecessary sacrifices to wear them in accordance with wild interpretations, convenience and physical/mental health be damned. This is why garment-judging and enforcement usually comes from devout members who, deep down, are bitter about the sacrifices they made to wear garments constantly for their whole adult lives, and are even more upset that the empowered younger generations are exercising more nuanced self-determination about when and how to wear them. RMN and DHO are simply doing this at the Big Church level.
I don’t necessarily think the goal is a smaller, more zealous membership. We still send out missionaries by the thousands, whose stated goal is to baptize (and often manifests as baptizing vulnerable people who are less likely to remain active), not weed out the less-committed, or focus on quality retention. And RMN’s temple building spree demonstrates that he is absolutely counting on massive membership growth just over the horizon. I think RMN, in all his privilege and hubris, considers temple ordinances/covenants (and all that comes with them, including a commitment to wearing sacred underwear for the rest of your life) to be the most attractive, enticing part of Church membership, and just doesn’t understand why most rank-and-file members don’t love it as much as he does.
Fantastic essay. Thank you!
As one who grew up in a home with devout LDS parents, I was familiar with garment wearing. My preferred summer attire as a kid was shorts (John Stockton, 1980s style) and a t-shirt and so I was not enthusiastic about going to the temple and taking on the commitment of garments. However, I received my endowment in the winter and immediately left on a mission so that solved the problem of transitioning from a carefree teenager to an adult male.
I have always felt that the wearing of the garment was a personal matter. It is a sacrifice and so my choice to wear it is a demonstration to myself that I am willing to make a commitment to God, over and above my personal desires. I do believe garments provide a blessing of personal protection. I can’t say the protection is universal or perfect – certainly people who wear garments have been mortally injured. In any case I will choose to wear the garment and it is a part of my religious commitment.
I don’t care for leadership making a public ordeal about garments. I find it off-putting. To me, public coercion about the garment is similar to people making a big deal about punishing flag burning. I don’t like flag burning. Not for the American flag. Not for any flag. Flags are a symbol and we should respect that symbol. In the case a flag represents something objectionable, we should simply ignore it and not draw more attention to it.
Yet while I don’t care for flag burning, I am especially opposed to punishing flag burners. I am all for persuasive argument why something is for good or bad. However, I am opposed to coercive tactics to make me or others feel compelled to do good as others see it. In a religious setting, coercion to compel adherents to do the right thing is especially corrosive to faith as the compulsion robs the person of the pleasure of choosing for themselves to do something good.
The LDS leadership in general, and President Nelson specifically, are overzealous. They think they have a good idea and instead of making a sound argument for the idea, they rush to make the hard sell. They exaggerate the benefits of the idea, they disrespect concerns about the idea and they justify coercion and compulsion to make the membership accept and practice the idea. The consequence being that zealous members embrace the idea as the new best thing, but many others are not only unpersuaded but find the exaggeration of the idea and the manipulation of it to be repulsive.
Another reason is superstition. Good things will happen if you wear them and bad things will happen if you don’t. In my life I’ve heard at least a dozen stories from people in church about how garments saved people from physical injury. It’s always hearsay stuff and never accompanied by hard evidence.
The leaders are smart people and know how to capitalize on superstition to keep their organization vibrant. They repeatedly emphasize the elements that members are superstitious about to keep energizing their commitment to the church and stoking their fears if they lessen that commitment or leave altogether. It’s all “the church is a ship keeping you safe from the raging sea, leave it and you’ll drown.” Then when you step off it you realize you’re on dry ground and that it’s all one big ol’ game of pretend. I’ve been garment-free for 10 years. During that period my wealth has grown, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve had two great kids, and my marriage has grown stronger. I guess my punishment is coming and at that point some believing family member might rub it in my face.
Thank you, Jack Hughes, well said. The next way that Jesus will be shoehorned into our liturgy will be the garment marks. One will represent Christ kneeling in Gethsemane, another will be his body lying in the tomb, or perhaps the wound in his side, another his rising, and so forth. And you know what? I would be here for it. I gladly accept more Jesus in our church, and would consider these kinds of changes a form of institutional repentance and acceptance of Christ’s higher ways and severing the links to masonry. It would be nice if the leaders would acknowledge it as such but that would be unlikely.
The LDS Church is a conservative institution, in the literal sense of conserving tradition, changing things only slowly and reluctantly. This certainly applies to the activities and rituals (word used by Sister Dennis) performed in the temple. Some things may have had a specific purpose or symbolism or meaning when first put in place, but it may be forgotten now. Or it may be a purpose or symbolism that current leaders would rather not use anymore. When needed, they just make stuff up.
So to the question, “What is the purpose of garments?” the relevant question is what purposes are the current leaders grafting onto the traditional LDS practice of wearing garments? Or what purpose do individuals come up with to justify or fortify or bring meaning to their own practice of garment wearing? As ChatGPT shows, there are lots of possible purposes. It’s a tricky project to come up with criteria for labeling some purposes as valid or correct and rejecting others as invalid or wrong.
I live on the border of Salt Lake and Utah counties – I’m going to start wearing a Hanes white undershirt around town (with crocs and sweatpants) just for giggles or as a social experiment to see what kind of looks I get.
This was a really interesting twist in the garments story that I didn’t expect to see (and that the comments on this and Elisa’s post have also highlighted): the non-compliance is not gendered so much as generational, and I’m happy to see that Gen X is acquitting ourselves as well as the youngsters (in terms of questioning authority), despite being, well, middle-aged. Among Boomers, 80% are compliant with garment wearing (having been worn down to a nub?), and for Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z, the compliance is HALF that level, with women actually being slightly *more* compliant than men, (so take that and stuff it in your yoga pants, E. Hamilton).
Here’s the article Jana Reiss put together on it, from her research for volume two of her Next Mormons series: https://religionnews.com/2024/04/18/its-not-mormon-women-who-have-a-problem-with-wearing-garments/
Angela, I wonder if that survey if off on how many boomers went through the temple and no longer wear garments because after so many years, you are just too “out” to even be affiliated with the church. my siblings all got out of the church and no longer have any thing to do with it. Me, I held out and only stopped attending and wearing garments maybe 10 year ago, but my brother just older than me has been out for 50 years and would not have had enough interest to answer questions if asked. My kid brother would have shouted to leave him the blank alone to any survey about the church. So there is no way the boomer who got out in their 20 are even in Jana’s survey.
@Anna:
I wondered the same thing, so I read Jana’s article again, and noticed this statement: “As a reminder, these percentages don’t include people of any generation who hadn’t been anointed and endowed in the first place — only those who had participated in temple rituals and were therefore expected to wear garments. They also don’t include any former Latter-day Saints, or people who no longer self-identify as Mormon. These respondents all say they still affiliate with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
So, if Jana is correct, she has limited this analysis to those who currently identify as LDS and indicate that they have been through the temple. Any who no longer affiliate would not have been included in this analysis.
Without having access to the raw data, we kind of have to trust that Jana has done here analyis correctly without including information that would skew the results. It appears to me that she has at least tried to limit this analysis to those who are currently affiliated with the church who would be expected to wear garments.
Mr shorty, yes, I read all that. so, you are repeating stuff I knew, that doesn’t change what I am saying.
The survey shows that if you stay in the church until you are 50, you are less likely to leave/stop wearing garments than if you are only 20. *because* it has the requirement that you consider yourself “affiliated.”
But it says nothing about the total number of boomers who stopped wearing garments, because those who stopped 50 years ago most likely do not consider themselves affiliated, even if like my brothers, their names are still on the records.
@Anna, I am not following your point. The survey’s interest in is people who affiliate with the Church but choose not to wear garments.
Obviously people who don’t affiliate with the Church are unlikely to wear garments (although that would be hilarious and interesting in its own right).
The survey still shows that of those who affiliate with the Church, younger people are less likely to wear garments. They are choosing to opt out of that particular requirement even if not opting out of Church altogether like all the people not included in the survey.