Latter-day Saint temple worship reveals a highly dynamic, evolving canvas. Rather than a simple vertical hierarchy of ecclesiastical power, the early liturgy introduced what historian Jonathan Stapley termed a “cosmological priesthood.” I prefer to use the term “temple-relational priesthood.” Under this framework, salvation is not an individual post-mortal reward, but a collaborative, relational climb back into the divine presence—a network of family relationships actively welded over the temple altar. Over two centuries, this liturgy has systematically streamlined its exoteric physical format to survive modern pressures while preserving this esoteric relational core.

Ancient Precedents

Spurred by Joseph Smith’s therapeutic 1836 vision of his deceased brother Alvin, early Saints plunged into the Mississippi River to perform spontaneous, unrecorded proxy baptisms for about 5 months before this was codified in 1841 in the Nauvoo Temple’s temporary wooden font. Early saints could be baptized for either gender before Joseph established strict gender rules and record-keeping. These rituals drew on deep, ancient templates. Book of Mormon narratives like Helaman 5 map to ancient esoteric liturgies, and the Sermon on the Mount functioned as a progressive, three-tiered temple drama. This early theology emphasized the Sôd Elohim (Divine Council), requiring a co-equal divine man and woman side-by-side. Lacking deceased ancestors in the faith, early converts forged lateral networks of eternal kinship using plural marriage and the Law of Adoption, sealing adult converts to apostles to build lateral dynastic power chains.

Abandoned Temple Ceremonies

Joseph’s Temple network culminated in the Second Anointing (1843), a confidential capstone ordinance that anointed couples as kings and queens. It guaranteed exaltation and established a co-equal partnership by requiring the wife to anoint her husband’s feet. In the 1920s, President Heber J. Grant restricted this celebrated public aspiration to a silent, private ordinance.

Cutlerites Lost Polygamy, Then Eternal Sealings

Alpheus Cutler abandoned polygamy in 1851. Two years later, he established the Church of Jesus Christ, complete with Nauvoo-style endowments. The church he organized subsequently lost their sealing theology entirely, showing how doctrinally inseparable these practices were. The church continues today, just a few blocks south of the Community of Christ’s Independence Temple. They still perform temple endowments, but no longer believe in marriage sealings.

Pruning and Retiring the Pioneer Liturgy

Transitioning into the 20th century, leaders systematically pruned several frontier ordinances to focus on the biological nuclear family. Between 1893 and 1923, the Church discontinued rebaptisms for repentance, posthumous ordinations, and baptisms for health—the latter historically administered by female temple healers. This simplified the liturgy, reserving fonts exclusively for proxy work. Political survival also forced changes: in 1927, under pressure from the Reed Smoot Senate hearings, President Grant removed the Oath of Vengeance (Law of Retribution), which required initiates to pray that God would avenge the martyred prophets.

Adaptation and Digital Homogenization

The material culture of temple clothing and presentation underwent similar adaptations. The sacred undergarment shifted from a full-length, single-piece pioneer design (1840s) to Heber J. Grant’s shortened modifications in 1923, and eventually to a two-piece design in 1979 developed with swimsuit designer Rose Marie Reid to accommodate modern clothing. Concurrently, the endowment shifted from a live theatrical ceremony where patrons moved through a sequence of decorated rooms, to a filmed presentation introduced in Bern in 1953 for multiple languages. This culminated in 2023 when remaining live-acted portions in Utah were retired, completing the transition to a synchronized global digital broadcast.

Shifting Boundaries and the Relational Core

Recently, President Russell M. Nelson enacted rapid policy adjustments to dismantle historical disparities. In 2019, the Church permanently retired the veiling of women’s faces, allowed women and youth to act as official witnesses in baptisms and sealings, and abolished the civil marriage waiting period. Over a century of correlation, the exoteric physical vehicle of temple worship was completely overhauled to survive modernity. Yet, its esoteric core remains unbroken. Within the temple, salvation is never an individual triumph, but an interconnected, co-equal network of cosmic kinship designed to bind the human family across the eternities.

What do you make of the evolution of temple ordinances and removal of pioneer temple practices?