John Sweeney has just released a BBC-based exposé of Mormonism framed around Mitt Romney's campaign for the US Republican presidential nomination. As part of his rather facile construction of Mormonism as a "cult" (a silly and mostly semantically null word the journalist has borrowed from Evangelical extremists), Sweeney emphasized certain rather striking oaths of secrecy that were once elements of Mormon temple worship.
Mormon temple worship has proved difficult for the LDS Church in its interactions with outsiders since the origins of temple liturgy in the early nineteenth century. The temple and its special pledges figured prominently in the controversy over the seating of Senator Reed Smoot in 1903-1907. The Mormon temple and its associated secrecy are controversial and often misunderstood. Mormon temple liturgy is fundamentally based on the idea that certain special acts should be shared only within a particular community and only in a specially consecrated space (notions that Mormon founder Joseph Smith modeled in part on ancient Jewish temple liturgy). Protecting that space and community -- in large part by specifically honoring commitment to God and church community -- was important to the development of the Mormon people over time.
To protect the separateness of Mormon temple worship, participants pledge not to reveal certain symbolic elements of the liturgy. In earlier versions of the liturgy, which drew directly from Masonic rituals of the era, Mormon temple worship incorporated special oaths of secrecy in which participants symbolically anticipated in vivid gestures the possibility that they would rather give up their lives than divulge the specific contents of temple worship. For both Masons and Mormons these special oaths imparted a heightened sense of drama to their initiation ritual while also speaking to the ways in which these systems provided for participants a compelling solution to the problem of death. Both Masonic and Mormon ritual were preoccupied with finding solutions to the omnipresent specter of death: they puzzled through what it meant to die, what solutions they might have available within their community to deal with that frightening event. For both Mormons and Masons these oaths of secrecy were generally understood to have exclusively symbolic significance.
Even at a symbolic level, though, such oaths are difficult for outsiders to accept. Why would anyone want to keep an element of their religion secret? Both Mormons and Masons have had to deal with anger and suspicion on the part of outsiders as a result of the secrecy surrounding their liturgies. In the age of YouTube, Twitter, citizen reportage and Drudge Report, it staggers the imagination that a group could place a premium on secrecy without nefarious intent. In general terms, secrecy can suggest bad motives or suppressed scandal, but we must simultaneously recognize that there are times and places where respectful silence is still appropriate. There are things better left unsaid, and some human exchanges require actual physical presence. Temple secrecy creates for Mormons a space separate from the ceaseless emotional exhibitionism of modern life, creates a model of sacred privacy, and emphasizes that there are certain experiences that only exist "in real life," that cannot be experienced or communicated in 140 characters from a smart phone. Such moments of sacred silence should be treasured when they occur. In terms of their actual relevance to outsiders, these pledges differ little from general pledges to one's religion and one's God, to the commitments made when Christians partake of the Eucharist or Jews honor their ancestry in a Seder meal. However much conspiracy theorists and yellow-press journalists hope against hope that Mormon temple secrecy is a front for a worldwide coup d'etat, when Mormons worship in their temples they are committing themselves to God and their church community in a context that honors the possibility that there are parts of our lives that do not belong on Twitter, that are best honored in special places, at special times in the physical presence of people to whom we are deeply committed.
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These covenants and their consequences need to be discussed and reviewed by voters. Since their inception, these covenants have resulted in killings and criminal acts. Today these oaths protect members who are sex offenders or white collar criminals. The LDS Church itself uses these oaths to control members, avoid accountability and move forward its financial and political agenda.
I am not against the Church; I just don’t think it is in the best interest of the country to have a US president who has covenanted unto death to keep an agenda for any group.
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2008_The_Israelite_Temple_and_the_Early_Christians.html
True temples are beautiful things, the rites have always pointed us to the passion, the return to the cross/tree (on the Day of Atonement anciently). This is why Jesus taught us to respect His Father’s House. Those ignorantly and dishonestly profaning the temple are ridiculing things sacred to all temple peoples (including the original Christians who practiced these rites, and the oldest surviving Christian Church: Armenian Apostolic, Mormons, and related Catholic rites, etc). As a Christian, I do not cast pearls before those who would rend. I turn my cheek, and I pray that the Love of God might one day fill misunderstanding hearts. : ) May we all follow the love of Christ, and if you want to know what He does in the lives of Mormons, go here http://mormon.org/ click "people."
This resulted in laws to be enacted across Europe that banned these workers from assembling under the penalty of death. The Masons responded by creating protocols to protect themselves. These protocols were required to gain access to meetings and helped the Masons protect themselves from prosecution.
The lore was added as the group grew and the ceremonies were enhanced. As time went on, the Masons became an elite social club. George Washington was a member and so were many of our founding fathers. The secretness of the protocols were maintained and the sash, apron, compass and the square became important symbols to the organization.
It's interesting that one of Joseph Smith's wives, Louisa Beaman, was the sister of Lucinda Morgan. Lucinda Morgan was married to a very famous man named William Morgan. He was killed by the Masons because he was rumored to be writing a book to expose the secrets of Masonry.
The Mormon endowment ceremony was modeled after the protocols used by the Masons. They were updated to have a religious connotation but maintained the same handshakes and much of the same symbolism.
THE LAW OF CONSECRATION
[Peter, James, and John return to the Terrestrial Room.]
PETER: A couple will now come to the altar.
We are instructed to give unto you the law of consecration as contained in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, in connection with the law of the gospel and the law of sacrifice, which you have already received. It is that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.
People who see something scandalous or creepy are approaching Mormons from ignorance.
It never was a threat.
The literal belief among LDS that the signs and tokens given are actually keys to be given to angels guarding the path back to God following death. They are intended only for the initiated and worthy and should not be pearls before swine. As the 1853 quote from Brigham Young says:
"Your endowment is to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the keywords, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation . . . " (see Journal of Discourses 2:31)."
Historically too there have been things in the LDS temple that the Church wished kept from the general public. One example is the oath of vengeance in the temple from 1845 to the 1920s.
"You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation."
LDS Church didn't want this practice revealed to the Mormon-hostile nation. Came up during the Reed Smoot hearings (1904-1907) but not taken out of the endowment til much later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_anointing
This is a super privileged ceremony performed by general authorities with hand picked individuals. It's likely that Mitt has participated in this ceremony. The accounts of the blessings that are bestowed up the participants are incredibly interesting.
http://mormonthink.com/templeweb.htm
It's not secret. You can find full transcripts all over the Internet.
Try here: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/
If I were Mormon, I wouldn't want people going to Mormonthink.com either. It's very embarrassing to most faithful. But it actually provides information on both sides of the issue.
Your link gives the curious a bunch of glossy images and text that has been sanitized by one of the best Corporate Public Relations departments in the nation. There's very little real information there. This site seems like something you'd expect from someone advertising a car or a house.
Faith in this context is actually denial.
Why would a Church which claims to be the one & only true Church of Christ have anything to hide?
I denied the truths about the Church for many years till in the end I had to painfully accept I had been deceived & deluded.
My story on my blog: http://stevebloor.wordpress.com
http://MormonsAreChristian.blogspot.com/
According to a 2012 Pew Forum poll of members of the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) 98 percent said they believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and 97 percent say their church is a Christian religion. Mormons have a better understanding of Christianity than any other denomination, according to a 2010 Pew Forum poll:
http://www.pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx
11 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (including several presidents) were non-Trinitarian Christians. Those who now insist on their narrow Trinitarian and salvation-only- by-grace definition of Christianity for candidates for public office are doing our Republic an injustice.
I urge anyone interested in the LDS "Restoration" to check the Pure Mormonism blog: http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/. What is exceedingly disconcerting about Mormonism is the extent to which its own original "Restoration," which its founder Joseph Smith personally oversaw, has been changed to accommodate the world or the LDS church's hunger for Christian converts: surrender of polygamy, change of Temple rites that, again, originally in the 19th c. Smith had restored, changes to who can hold the priesthood, thousands of textual changes over time to the Book of Mormon ("the most correct book on Earth," Smith said).
Regardless, Mormons ARE Christians. Period. We don't need anyone to tell us who or what we are or believe. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks..well, I tell myself that ; )
I suggest that there are some nuances in vocabulary. "I don't want to hear your secret, because I don't want to be part of your secret conspiracies. However, I will listen to your confidences and keep them confidential for they are a sacred trust." These suggested nuances may not always apply because English is a sloppy language, but they are a beginning to understanding some important differences.
http://people.usd.edu/~theaton/mormon/mason.html
http://www.templestudy.com/2008/03/13/did-the-temple-ordinances-come-from-the-masons/