Farewell to temple ordinances?

The following paper was presented as a talk by Steve Warren on Aug. 2, 2024, in a Sunstone Symposium session at the University of Utah.

Temple work: How unfirm a foundation

  

When Latter-day Saints speak of "temple work," we think of performing ordinances necessary for exaltation or eternal life for ourselves and for the dead, especially our ancestors. The work is carried out by faithful members who follow modern prophets.

Nevertheless, close scrutiny of the Scriptures, Church history and teachings shows that temple ordinances are not necessary for eternal life, that the work is vexed by perplexing questions, inconsistency and theological problems, and that, if true, would tend to divide families rather than unite them. This paper will show that temple work came to us neither through visions nor through the voice of the Lord but instead originated from well-intended thoughts of Joseph Smith that have enjoyed confirmation bias but very little due diligence in a church that stresses "follow the prophet."

The shaky pillars upon which temple work is built include a poorly understood revelation process, a "revelation" document that Joseph Smith authorized his wife to burn, two writings of Joseph on proxy baptism that even the Church doesn't regard as revelations, uncanonized "night visions" of Wilford Woodruff about impatient Founding Fathers, and a 1918 vision of Christ in which the recently crucified Lord visited spirits, "preached to them the everlasting gospel," and promised them they would all promptly resurrect into "eternal life," which isn't supposed to happen unless each one was previously endowed and sealed to a spouse.

Let us briefly look at a straightforward story on eternal life from the Book of Mormon. Then, we'll contrast it with how we might tell that same story today.

When Aaron preaches the gospel to the king of the Lamanites, the king, who is near the end of his life (Alma 24:4), wholeheartedly believes him. He asks “what shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? . . . that I may be born of God . . . that I may receive this great joy?” Aaron tells him he must bow down before God and sincerely repent (Alma 22:15,16, italics added). The contrite king immediately falls to the ground and soon is reborn spiritually; he converts his whole household.

In today's Church, however, if the king had asked "what shall I do that I may have this eternal life?" a modern Aaron might have responded, "We'll first need to set up an interview with the bishop; then, after you're baptized and have been on the covenant path for a while, you'll need to receive the priesthood, followed by a temple recommend to receive your endowments. Eventually, you'll need to be sealed to someone for time and eternity, so we'll send the missionaries to teach your wife. If she says no, that's bad. Exaltation is straight couples only. You'd be looking at divorce and perhaps joining an online LDS dating service."

Proof-texting — 3 examples

How did we get to this point? Let's return to Square One and review the three passages of ancient scripture that the Church most often turns to in support of temple work.

The best-known, of course, is 1 Corinthians 15:29, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”

We cite this verse often as it is the only passage either in the Bible or Book of Mormon to mention vicarious ordinances. However, when we assume that it shows Christ's church advocated baptisms for the dead, we are leaping to a conclusion. The passage has significant problems. 

First, Paul in this verse may not be eager to be connected to those who are baptized for the dead; he twice calls them “they.” Of course, “they” may very well refer to members. It may mean Paul was using the pronoun to indicate only that he himself either hadn't been baptized for the dead or that he wasn't among those who often did so. But it is worth noting that Paul routinely describes believers in this chapter as “we,” “ye” and “us.” Paul's primary purpose here seems to be to assert that any members who don't believe in the resurrection of the dead are at odds with those who are baptized for the dead, whether they be members or nonmembers. By the way, if Paul had said baptizers of infants believe in the Resurrection, we'd never say he believed in baptizing infants. 

The second problem closely relates to the first. Although Paul mentions the existence of baptism for the dead, there is no evidence in Corinthians or anywhere else in the Bible or Book of Mormon that such baptisms were advocated by apostles or prophets. It's baffling that the writers of more than 2,100 pages in the Bible and Book of Mormon didn't set aside a verse or two to tell us in clear, unambiguous terms that proxy baptisms and other ordinances must be performed for huge numbers of dead people. 

Third, even if the Corinthians who were baptized for the dead were members, the epistles show a distinct tendency for members of that era to drift away from correct principles. Just four chapters earlier (1 Cor. 11:18,19, 34) Paul tells the Corinthians, "I hear that there be divisions among you" and "there must be also heresies among you" as well as expressing a need to "set in order" the church. Was engaging in vicarious baptism an area where a subgroup of members had gone astray? It's easy to answer "yes" to that question when one realizes that often these baptisms reportedly consisted of a person hiding under the bed of a dead relative and blurting out "yes" after an officiator says to the dead body, "Do you accept baptism?"

Let's now turn our attention to Malachi 4:5,6. Here we read about Elijah returning before "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." Our LDS take on this passage is that our forefathers need vicarious ordinances performed in their behalf and that their descendants—that's us—are the best ones to do it. But this and a similar passage in Doctrine and Covenants 110, where Elijah returns in vision in 1836, never mention proxy ordinances. Why is this a problem? Because there are other ways to interpret these verses. For example, those who know the Old Testament well traditionally see "the fathers" as referring to early prophets, such as Father Adam, Noah, Father Abraham and Moses. Turning to these fathers consists of later generations learning about them and following their teachings. Another way hearts of latter-day children turn to fathers is through today's high-tech proliferation of knowledge about earlier generations. In fact, coming to a knowledge of our ancestors and their mistakes is one way to avoid repeating those mistakes, which might save the earth from being smitten with a curse at this time when lying politicians abound and conflicts can be waged with nuclear warheads rather than swords. Furthermore, the act of writing on metal plates and burying those plates in the Hill Cumorah could by itself be a fulfillment of the hearts of the fathers turning to the children. And when the children read the translated plates, we could say their hearts have turned to the fathers. Jacob 4:2 states: "we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children . . . knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers." In any event, the translated Book of Mormon plates say nothing about vicarious ordinances.

The third verse of ancient scripture the Church most often cites in connection with temple work is Hebrews 11:40: “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Based on this verse, Church speakers and lesson manuals confidently state that we cannot be exalted or made perfect unless proxy work has been performed for our ancestors. What they don't mention is that Joseph Smith in his inspired revision of the King James Bible entirely changed this verse's meaning. He wrote: “God having provided some better things for them through their sufferings, for without sufferings they could not be made perfect.” In other words, the inspired passage has nothing to do with temple work. And there's more bad news about Hebrews 11:40. Several years after completing his inspired revision, Joseph introduced baptism for the dead at Nauvoo. To stress the importance of this ordinance, he twice quotes from Hebrews 11:40 in Section 128. But he ignores his own inspired version. Instead, he quotes the original King James with its "they without us can't be made perfect." The Church so far hasn't provided a footnote in Section 128 telling us it contains defective King James wording. In fact, last week FamilySearch sent me an e-mail that prominently quoted the original King James. I replied and explained why those words shouldn't be used. They haven't responded.

The Church's interpretation of the preceding three verses could reasonably be described as confirmation bias or proof-texting—using isolated passages to support a specific viewpoint while glossing over the context. The problem with proof-texting is that someday some loser will show up at a Sunstone session and point out that proof-texters engage in spin and half-truth, which form the acronym SHT. It gives dissidents one more reason to point at Church headquarters and say, "that's an SHT factory."

Temples: Kirtland vs. all the rest

Now, let's turn our attention to important differences between the first dedicated temple of this dispensation and all other latter-day temples. The Kirtland Temple differs from other modern temples in at least two notable ways. First, it is the only dedicated temple where no saving ordinances were performed. The endowment of power at Kirtland was not a saving ordinance. The Kirtland Saints simply yearned for heavenly manifestations and more spiritual power in their lives. The actual endowment ceremony, along with sealings for the living and dead, were not introduced until several years later at Nauvoo. And proxy baptisms also weren't done at Kirtland because Joseph hadn't introduced them yet and because the temple had no baptismal font. The second notable difference between Kirtland and elsewhere is that records show that it was in this temple in the first few months of 1836 where more visions and manifestations of the spirit occurred than at any other time in Church history.

The preceding thoughts are worth summarizing: No saving ordinances were performed in the Kirtland Temple, yet spiritual manifestations were more abundant there than in any other latter-day temple. Was the Lord sending us a message about the true purpose of his temples? 

Of course, the Kirtland Temple experience was far from perfect. The Saints were in a learning curve. For example, no one there ever said, "I'm on the covenant path." Also, brethren participated in washings and anointings that included washing each other's whole body and bathing bodies with whiskey perfumed with cinnamon. Today, that kind of activity might draw the attention of the vice squad.

The many visions of Joseph Smith that are best known in the Church occurred between 1820 and 1836, with his final canonized visions occurring on April 3, 1836, at the Kirtland Temple and recorded as D&C Section 110. The April 3 date is significant because the prophet didn't begin revealing ordinances for the living and dead until more than four years later in Nauvoo. In other words, the process after Kirtland through which the Prophet introduced temple ordinances was a revelation process rather than a vision process.

Let us examine this revelation process.

The first-person voice of Jesus?

The Church's Web site and publications say that most of Joseph Smith's revelations consisted of him hearing "the first-person voice of Jesus Christ." Credible descriptions about how those revelations occurred do not support this claim.

Matthew Godfrey, managing editor of the recently completed Joseph Smith Papers Project, said: “for the vast majority of the revelations that are in the Doctrine and Covenants, they came to Joseph Smith the same way the Lord reveals things to us. It was through inspiration that he received [from] his heart into his mind.” (Church News, Feb. 10, 2021, italics added) In other words, he had impressions. Historical records have shown that he might write down thoughts or would often dictate them to scribes, and that getting them into a printed form involved changing his bad grammar, polishing the text, standardizing language and making deletions and additions, including adding expressions such as “Verily, thus saith the Lord” and "Hearken, O ye people of my church."

The text of the Joseph Smith Papers states: "Editors of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants were influenced by multiple source texts and in some cases made significant changes to the revelations." (italics added)

Orson Pratt's words on the subject are fairly well-known. Elder Pratt assisted Joseph Smith in this work and reported later in life that the revelation process consisted of Joseph receiving "ideas" from God and then clothing those ideas "with such words as came to his mind."

On the other hand, historian Richard Bushman suggests that Joseph wasn't one to sit around waiting for the Lord to reveal ideas to him. Instead, Bushman observed that the prophet “had a green thumb for growing ideas from tiny seeds.” (Bushman, Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling, p. 449.)

Sometimes we get a hint that a revelation may not have come through the direct voice of the Lord simply by how Joseph Smith treated the hard copy. Consider Section 132 on the eternity of the marriage covenant and plural marriage. Joseph cringed at the thought of showing the manuscript to Emma, so he handed off that petrifying task to Hyrum. It went poorly. Later, Joseph gave Emma permission to burn the original of Section 132 (William Clayton, affidavit, 16 Feb. 1874). He didn't tell her a copy had been made. Still, prophets don't normally advocate burning original copies of words if they were spoken directly by the Lord.

Here's an even better reason not to routinely say Joseph's revelations on temple work and other subjects consisted of him hearing the Lord's spoken words: They sometimes went awry.

At this point we could review lots of failed prophecies, statements and revelations. We could talk at length, for example, about banking in Kirtland, but in the interest of brevity, let's quickly look at one bad prophecy and one bad revelation and move on. In the April 1843 conference, Joseph prophesied, “There are those of the rising generation who shall not taste death till Christ comes.” As far as a bad revelation, how about Section 111? Here, Church leaders visit Salem, Massachusetts, where "I, the Lord your God" tells them that "it shall come to pass in due time that I shall give the city unto your hands, that you shall have power over it . . . and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours.” They didn't find a dime. Section 111 has an entertaining aspect. Today, apologists insist it most certainly is not a failed revelation because converts in Salem qualified as "treasures." We can almost picture an apologist going up to a newly baptized Salem member and saying, "Oh, you're just such a treasure."

Let's put these revelation problems aside and say that most of us agree that Joseph Smith was called of God, experienced visions and was often inspired. The fact that he made mistakes makes him no different from other legitimate prophets. But the above statements about the rather mundane revelation process and the fact that some revelations were uninspired means we need to stop routinely saying his revelations came from hearing the first-person voice of the Lord.

Temple-work blunders

Of course, our best-known temple-work blunder doesn't involve Joseph Smith at all. For 126 years the Church prohibited Blacks from receiving temple ordinances. Not only was this false doctrine, but while it was in effect top leaders called it a revelation, a doctrine and a commandment. To have made just one such monumental temple-related screw-up forces us to entertain the possibility that we might also be mistaken today when we insist that no one can be exalted unless their "temple work" has been done. Also pointing to the fallibility of our temple-work claims is how certain aspects have evolved in a hit-and-miss process.

For more than a year, only men were endowed. After prominent sisters complained, they were included. Endowment ceremonies once included an oath of vengeance in which participants made promises related to heart and tongue removal, disembowelment and throat slitting. “The law of adoption” was abandoned. For several decades, members were rebaptized prior to temple ordinances and new covenants. Polygamous aspects included a father "and all your house both old and young” (Rough Stone Rolling, page 439) being promised exaltation by Joseph Smith after the father granted permission for a daughter to enter into plural marriage with Joseph. In 1894, Jane Manning, a Black woman, was sealed by Church leaders for eternity as a “Servitor” to the Joseph Smith family. In the early 20^th century, leaders deleted many Freemasonry-connected segments from the endowment. Early on, some leaders thought it was up to them to determine the worthiness of dead people to receive proxy baptism. Ceremonies have become more female-friendly, etc. One thing remains constant when a change occurs: The Church News never runs this Joseph Smith quote: "The order of the house of God has been, and ever will be, the same . . . "

The Church's preferred term for these various changes is "adjustments." Leaders assure us these adjustments are to be expected as the Lord reveals line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. However, when lines or precepts are flat-out wrong from Day One, we normally conclude that it wasn't the Lord who revealed them. Let's face it, a heavenly math teacher wouldn't prepare students for trigonometry by first teaching that two and two are five.

When we have an impression, we may later view ourselves as inspired if we take action and it turns out well. Alas, impressions often turn out poorly. America's gambling industry bets on it. One reason prophets make mistakes on revelations is that heartfelt impressions that they incorrectly assume to be revelations may result from a prophet combining a correct thought—that he is the Lord’s anointed—with an incorrect assumption: that thoughts that linger in the mind of the Lord's anointed surely must be there because the Lord put them there.

This might be a good point to review the sequence of events that led Joseph to reveal the endowment ceremony. On March 15 and 16, 1842, he spent a number of hours both days attending Masonic ceremonies and rose to Master Mason status. He and others believed these ceremonies to be corrupted versions of priesthood rites and of great antiquity. They included elements that endowed Latter-day Saints will recognize, such as the wearing of robes and aprons, hand grips, three raps with a gavel, a segment called the five points of fellowship, a new name given, the use of square, compass and level, an all-seeing eye, similarities in wording, etc. We earlier cited Richard Bushman in saying the prophet “had a green thumb for growing ideas from tiny seeds.” Well, only seven weeks after the Masonic ceremonies Joseph introduced the endowment ceremony. Incidentally, secret, often mystical, initiation ceremonies were quite common in American life in the 1840s.

Whether it's Joseph Smith or others, some thoughts, impressions and dreams may be upgraded to revelations or visions with the passage of time. On that note, let us consider Wilford Woodruff's visions of the Founding Fathers and Joseph F. Smith's vision of Christ in the spirit world.

Elder Wilford Woodruff stated that the Founding Fathers and others appeared to him two straight nights in 1877 to “demand” ordinance work be done for them. As we examine his assertions, however, a glaring omission arises. Although Woodruff, a meticulous journal keeper, made several entries in his journal at the time he said these “visions” occurred, he wrote nothing about any visions. His journal entry for August 19, 1877, does indeed mention the Founders but simply observes: “I spent the evening in preparing a list of the noted men of the 17 century and 18th, including the signers of the Declaration of Independence and presidents of the United States, for baptism on Tuesday the 21 Aug 1877.” Let's face it: If the Founders were on his mind when he retired at night, we'd find it perfectly normal that he'd dream about them, but if he had an actual vision, we'd expect him to say so at some point in his journal. Additionally, an account has circulated that James G. Bleak, a church clerk and historian in the St. George area, wrote in his journal that he also saw the Founders with Woodruff. However, the Church Historian's Office advised me on March 25 this year that it "cannot verify that James saw the signers." Part of the problem is that Bleak's presumed 1877 account quotes words of Woodruff written 21 years later.

Moreover, Woodruff’s subsequent actions do not inspire confidence that he was involved in a revelatory process. It's impossible to tell, for example, if he knew that his proxy baptisms were  rebaptisms—the Founders had previously had baptisms performed in their behalf, sometimes multiple times. In any event, it wasn't until about a month later, after he'd returned to Salt Lake City from St. George, that Elder Woodruff first said he had experienced visions. These visions and a couple of other "miracles" aren't the only miracles often shared by Woodruff that have never been canonized. ("Wilford Woodruff's Pants Are On Fire," Pure Mormonism, April 14, 2013)

Second thoughts on Section 138

Joseph F. Smith’s 1918 vision of the redemption of the dead is Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Many see it as notable divine confirmation of temple work. A closer look suggests something rather shocking: It seems to say temple ordinances are not necessary for exaltation.

Section 138 tells of Christ visiting the spirit world between his crucifixion and resurrection. There he preaches the gospel to a receptive and “innumerable company” of spirits, including ancient prophets and other faithful, and tells them that they will all “come forth, after his resurrection from the dead, to enter into his Father’s kingdom, there to be crowned with immortality and eternal life” (verse 51). The vast majority of these spirits lived in Old Testament times where baptism apparently wasn't too common—it is never mentioned in the Old Testament. (However, our LDS Standard Works do say it was performed anciently.)

Even if many were baptized, Christ says nothing to them about temple ordinances. Instead, he simply promises them that after his resurrection, which occurred a day or so later, they would all be crowned with “eternal life” in “his Father’s kingdom” (verse 51). We can conclude from Section 138 that these spirits resurrected promptly into the promised eternal life because Christ’s resurrection ended “the long absence of their spirits from their bodies” (v. 50).

Christ's preaching the gospel to these spirits and then promising them eternal life is similar to the account of Aaron and the Lamanite king discussed earlier. Like Aaron, Christ says not a word in Section 138 about any need for various temple ordinances to obtain eternal life. Joseph F. Smith's mention in Section 138 of "the building of the temples and the performance of ordinances therein for the redemption of the dead" are his words—they come after his vision of Christ—and reflect what he and other latter-day leaders believed about temple work.

An additional serious problem with section 138 is that the day after President Joseph F. Smith received this “vision,” he stated in a brief general conference message only that he had been in communication with “the Spirit of the Lord.” True, the published version describes it as a “vision”—but only once. Twice we are told that the prophet “saw,” perceived or beheld things through “the eyes of my understanding” (verses 11, 29). [If a person ignored the section heading and began reading Section 138 in verse one, he'd be entirely uncertain if a literal vision had occurred until arriving at the final verse, where the word “vision” first pops up. Words of Section 138 were written down by Joseph Fielding Smith, the prophet's grandson, and the final version, containing the word “vision” only at the end, was presented to church leaders by his grandson alone, as the prophet's weakened condition—he died the following month and had long been in poor health—didn't allow him to be present.] Nevertheless, as noted above, Section 138 may be a greater problem for our temple theology if a vision did occur because it tells of spirits resurrecting into eternal life with no mention of temple ordinances.

In this dispensation, the first ordinances that we typically call "temple work" occurred after Joseph Smith stated in an Aug. 15, 1840, funeral sermon in Nauvoo that members could be baptized for deceased relatives. It seems quite likely that he had been pondering his 1836 vision wherein he saw his deceased but unbaptized brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom. In that vision, which became Section 137, Joseph tells of his great surprise at seeing Alvin in celestial glory. After all, John 3:5 declares, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Several Book of Mormon verses say essentially the same thing. Perhaps the Prophet, noting this discrepancy, felt impressed to offer proxy baptism as a way to reconcile conflicting scriptures. After his funeral sermon, Joseph further advocates baptism for the dead by writing letters that became sections 127 and 128.

Here's the problem: Sections 127 and 128 are simply his thoughts—he calls them letters; the Church upgrades them to epistles—but Section 137, in which many attain celestial glory without baptism or other ordinances—is described as a vision. It states clearly: All those who don’t receive the gospel only because they died first "shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom" (verse 7). Furthermore, those words are introduced with this phrase: "Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying . . . "

Eternal life without baptism

Yes, several passages of scripture say baptism is necessary to inherit the kingdom of heaven. But far more suggest it is not. Following are various examples that tell of receiving celestial glory or eternal life with no mention of baptism or any other ordinances.

Mosiah 15:24: " . . . these are they that have died before Christ came, in their ignorance . . . and they have a part in the first resurrection, or have eternal life . . . "

D&C 59:23: "he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come."

John 3:36: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life . . . "

Mosiah 27:24,25, Alma 36:28: The younger Alma, a backslider, was struck dumb and weak for two days and nights and, after repenting of his sins, was immediately “redeemed of the Lord,” being “born again,” becoming one of “his sons and daughters.”  

2 Nephi 9:26: "For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them . . . and they are restored to that God who gave them breath . . . "

 In Alma 14:11 after righteous women are burned to death, Alma says, “the Lord receiveth them up unto himself in glory.” (italics added) 

Helaman 12:26: "They that have done good shall have everlasting life . . . "

Moroni 7:47: "But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him." (See also verse 48.)

D&C 20:14: "And those who receive it (the Book of Mormon) in faith, and work righteousness, shall receive a crown of eternal life."

Matthew 19:29 contains eight categories of people who apparently inherit eternal life without ordinances: "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." 

On the other hand, if water baptism is indeed required, the fact that recipients of vicarious baptism remain entirely dry opens up the possibility that water baptism is available in the next world.

Temple work—one problem after another

Let's take a few moments to look at other problems with temple work. Then, we'll focus on the No. 1 problem.

The requirement of proxy work clearly violates the second article of faith; namely, "We believe men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression." Temple ordinance requirements mean that the vast majority of humanity, even if they have been forgiven of sins, are held back from celestial glory unless someone else performs ordinances for them. Perhaps a temple fixation even caused Joseph Smith himself briefly to turn against the second article of faith when he told members in 1841 that if they didn't get moving on building the Nauvoo Temple, the Lord would reject them along "with your dead." (D&C 124:32) By the way, those dilly-dalliers took five more years to finish the temple.

It also cuts the other way. Orson F. Whitney said, “The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity” (Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110). In other words, if you have faithful, sealed parents, you've got it made! It's proxy work in reverse, with one difference—the posterity have no choice—those lucky suckers will all be exalted! Speaking of suckers, that sucking sound is the second article of faith going down the drain.

If the dead are “held back” because their work hasn’t been done by someone else, some might reasonably conclude that our LDS God is unjust and that he embraces “cutting in line.” After all, most vicarious ordinances have been performed for comparative youngsters: people born after 1600 AD. As if to confirm God's unfairness, Elder Dale L. Renlund, speaking of proxy ordinances in 2020, said: “Without these blessings, these deceased individuals are profoundly disadvantaged” (italics added). Speaking of unfairness, if the Founding Father youngsters did indeed cut in line to have their temple work done, imagine how furious long-dead "disadvantaged" people in the spirit world would have been to hear about that. For example, think of good people who lived and died in central Africa 2,000 years before Christ.

Speaking of Christ, we don't even ask anymore if he's married because there's no good answer. If he has just one wife, then we're forced to ask why other "holy" men get multiple wives and, in some cases, concubines. But if he has multiple wives, we must ask is plural marriage coming back? Or if he has no wife, then what's this about exaltation being for couples only? Let's not even bother talking about the second anointing or females limited to one husband or about the complex future of never-marrieds and the divorced or whether there's some heavenly program where perfectly happy gays take a straight pill to qualify for a temple recommend.

Enough of the lesser problems. The major defect of our temple doctrine is that, if true, it will mostly divide rather than unite families of active LDS couples in the hereafter. It asserts that only temple-endowed and sealed members can go to the highest part of heaven. This means that the straight couples who are exalted will be separated for eternity not only from all nonmember relatives and friends but also from most LDS kin and friends. Remember, most members are either “less active,” are single or divorced, are LGBTQ or are otherwise unqualified to dwell in celestial glory. And when they die, they don't suddenly yearn for temple activity because as Alma says: "that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world" (Alma 34:34).

Temple doctrine suggests that less-faithful members in the hereafter will have larger extended families than exalted couples because they can dwell with other less-faithful family members and with nonmember relatives. In fact, our degrees-of-glory theology seems to confirm this. It asserts that inhabitants of the telestial and terrestrial glories far outnumber the celestial.

Our temple dogma, if true, would be divisive not just in heaven but also in the spirit world for most married parents. Writing in The Holy Temple, Elder Boyd K. Packer quotes an October 1908 general conference talk by Elder Rudger Clawson saying that all married parents in the spirit world who haven't been sealed will live “separate and apart” in an “enforced separation” (Conference Report, Oct. 1908, p. 74).

We also teach that small children who die will be raised to adulthood in the celestial kingdom.  ("The Salvation of Little Children Who Die: What We Do and Don’t Know," Liahona, July 2021, Mark A. Mathews) That sounds family-friendly, right? Nope. In effect, here's what we are saying to all nonmembers and to less-faithful LDS: Your small, dead children will be raised in the celestial kingdom, but you aren't allowed there. Guess who will be raising them?

Heaven—without the check list

Our heavenly parents and Christ are more loving than that. I much prefer the heaven seen by a member of the board of directors of the Deseret News when I worked there. LDS poet Emma Lou Thayne Warner, after her death experience, didn't tell of temple ordinances or degrees of glory but instead wrote: “How to tell even my closest family that I had died and yes, gone to a heaven so lovely and full of light and great affection? So different from scriptural descriptions and my learned concepts. So unlike a dream, as real as my mother and father's presence at the table. There never could be any denying of what I now knew had happened. . . . No judgment. No echelons, only loving acceptance and that world beyond bliss, beyond joy, beyond ecstasy, a new life—childness.”  (Italics added. From The Place of Knowing, pages 25, 28, 67.)

Have we as a people given due diligence to temple work's origins, practices and teachings? Or, have we merely green-lighted them because they came from Church leaders? History has shown that errors in presumed revelations and accepted teachings can get a long lease on life when Latter-day Saints believe it is their duty to follow, not to ask questions. This problem is aggravated when top leaders and members, including writers and scholars, engage in spin, half-truth and confirmation bias. We can do better than this.

Yes, the Lord asks mortals to repent, be baptized and unite with his church. But it's hard to see him as a Savior who creates a checklist to keep us out of heaven. Instead, the Scriptures say "the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). They say if we have charity, it will be well with us (Moroni 7:47,48; John 13:34,35) and if we do well, we will be accepted (Genesis 4:7).

That British fellow, Elder Patrick Kearon, might even agree. In the April 2024 general conference, he said, "Jesus . . . wants to make it possible for every last one of His Father’s children to receive the end goal of the plan—eternal life with Them. None is excluded from this divine potential. . . . Infinite means infinite. Infinite covers you and those you love. . . . The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is "not willing that any should perish . . . No, He does not put up roadblocks and barriers; He removes them. He does not keep you out; He welcomes you in."

Yes, I suspect this Kearon fellow doesn't think that those who long ago died without temples remain "profoundly disadvantaged." He does not appear to believe that only a tiny fraction of mortals will inherit eternal life. Maybe he sees temples as places that can draw us closer to the Lord as houses of prayer, worship and inspiration. I believe temples shouldn't be ordinance factories that turn the Lord into a clerk who checks boxes. So to Elder Kearon's view that the Lord doesn't put up roadblocks but removes them, here is my last word: Amen!

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The above comprises the entirety of the paper presented Aug. 2, 2024, at Sunstone.  Comments below have been added since Aug. 25, 2024.

As noted in the paper, Elder Dale L. Renlund says deceased individuals without proxy baptism “are profoundly disadvantaged.” The Book of Mormon views this capricious favoring of one person over another, through no fault of their own, as evil.  Speaking of infant baptism, for example, Mormon states, "For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must perish because he hath no baptism. Wo unto them that shall pervert the ways of the Lord after this manner . . . " (Moroni 8:15,16)  Alas, such fickleness is a cornerstone of vicarious temple work.

Here's another verse that suggests eternal life is achievable without baptism or temple ordinances: "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day." (Alma 37:37, italics added)

Concerning the statement above by Elder Orson F. Whitney that the sealings of faithful parents would automatically save their posterity, Elder David A. Bednar provided this "clarification," which is on the Church's Web site:

The following quotation appears in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith during his service as Church historian and recorder: “When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures their posterity, so that they cannot be lost, but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father and mother.”

A similar teaching, apparently based on the statement by the Prophet Joseph, was made by Elder Orson F. Whitney . . .

The statements by Joseph Smith and Orson F. Whitney are construed by some members of the Church to mean that wayward children unconditionally receive the blessings of salvation because of and through the faithfulness of parents. However, this interpretation is moderated by the fact that the most complete account of the Prophet’s sermon was not available to Church historians at the time they compiled an amalgamated version of his teachings from the notes of Willard Richards and William Clayton. In the more complete set of notes recorded by Howard and Martha Coray, Joseph Smith is shown to have qualified his statement to make the promised blessings conditional upon the obedience of the children:

“When a father and mother of a family have [been sealed], their children who have not transgressed are secured by the seal wherewith the Parents have been sealed. And this is the Oath of God unto our Father Abraham and this doctrine shall stand forever.”

This clarification is more consistent doctrinally. Except for the additional information contained in the Coray records, the concept of unconditional salvation for disobedient children would contradict many foundational teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, including the second article of faith that “men will be punished for their own sins.”

Elder Bednar's attempt to finesse defective teachings has two significant flaws. First, saying "sealings" of faithful parents secures their posterity "who have not transgressed" is as meaningless as saying if incarcerated felons can prove their parents were faithful, they will be released from prison—provided that can also prove they are not guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Second, his correctly stating that giving power to parents to save their children would be contrary to the second article of faith does nothing to alter the fact that the entirety of work for the dead is based on someone doing something for someone else, rendering most of humanity "profoundly disadvantaged" because of the inaction of others—thereby creating the sucking sound noted above in which the second article of faith goes down the drain.

By the way, the following sentence from the original paper above is another example of temple work's assault on the second article of faith: Polygamous aspects included a father "and all your house both old and young” (Rough Stone Rolling, page 439) being promised exaltation by Joseph Smith after the father granted permission for a daughter to enter into plural marriage with Joseph.

Note: The main article cites the appearance of Elijah in Section 110 as being used by the church to advocate vicarious ordinances. It should be noted, however, that neither Joseph Smith nor Oliver Cowdery ever mentioned or wrote of visitations by Moses, Elias and Elijah in the Kirtland Temple. Section 110 is based on the handwriting of Warren Cowdery. (See Passing of the Heavenly Gift, by Denver Snuffer, p. 74-75.)