Ordinances Have Changed

Joseph taught,

Now the purpose in Himself in the winding up scene of the last dispensation is that all things pertaining to that dispensation should be conducted precisely in accordance with the preceding dispensations....He set the temple ordinances to be the same forever and ever and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from heaven to man, or to send angels to reveal them. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 4:208.)

From the preceding we see that: 1) the ordinances of this dispensation must remain the same as those in prior dispensations,¹ 2) the temple ordinances are to be “the same forever and ever,” and 3) when God gives these ordinances, he does so by sending Adam or other angels to reveal them to men. Furthermore, we can conclude that the temple ordinances prescribed by Joseph were received from angels—perhaps even Adam himself—with precisely the same format and content of prior dispensations.

Although these expressions by Joseph may seem contradictory to understandings today, it should be noted that Joseph’s positions were echoed by some early church leaders. Over 50 years after Joseph’s death, apostle Reed Smoot reported to Congress that “...the endowments have never changed and can never change; as I understand it; it has been so testified, and that Joseph Smith Jr., himself was the founder of the endowments.”² The idea that Joseph was “the founder of the endowments” originates from our scriptures. The Lord told Joseph that “all things pertaining” to the temple would be shown him.³

Since Elder Smoot’s comment in 1905, there have been significant changes to the temple ceremonies in the 1920s and again in 1990, with many minor changes before, during, and after that interval. The task of listing all changes since Joseph’s death is impossible since not all changes have been recorded.⁴ Still, the publicly documented changes would necessitate an entire book.⁵ Instead of listing out every documented change to temple ordinances, we will here highlight only a few to demonstrate the degree of changes made to the temple ordinances and the process by which these changes have occurred.

Of principle interest are the following questions: What portions of the ceremonies have been changed? Were these segments superficial, or did they concern the core of the ceremony (such as the covenants)? On what authority were the changes made? Did the changes come as a result of revelation, opinions from the brethren, or social pressure? If revelation, of what degree? Joseph taught that the manner in which God reveals the temple ordinances is through visitation of angels under the supervision (or participation) of Adam. Did an angelic visitation precede each change to the temple? If not, did an angelic visitation precede any of the changes?

The changes encompass almost every aspect of temple worship. For example, the gradations of the priesthood, robe dressing order, fashion, and timing, wording of the ordinances, and wording of the lecture were all changed in the 1920s.⁶ Before, during, and after those changes, covenants have been added,⁷ removed,⁸ and modified.⁹

Although changes to the temple ceremonies began immediately upon Joseph’s death and have continued thereafter, the scope and frequency of changes did not increase substantially until the passing of the generation that knew Joseph. Contemporaries of Joseph attributed the temple ceremonies to God. It was seen as a one-time dictation, never to be changed. Brigham Young, for instance, felt the need to cast his changes as reversions to what Joseph had originally received in order to be credible.¹⁰ Wilford Woodruff said,

I consider that if there ever was any man who thoroughly understood the principle of the Endowments it was Brigham Young. He had been with Joseph Smith from the beginning of the Endowments to the end; and he understood it if any man did. And before his death he required me to write in a book every Ordinance in the Church and Kingdom of God, from the first to the last...and President Young corrected it all until he got through. Then he said to me, 'Now, there you have a pattern of all the Ordinances and Endowments for every Temple we shall build, until the coming of the Son of Man.' Now if I ever have anything to do, or to say, in any Temple on the earth, concerning Endowments, I would say: follow the pattern that President Young has set us; and not deviate from it one iota....While on the other hand, if every man...introduces his own form and ceremonies, our Temple work would be as diverse as the sectarian world and God would not appro[ve] it. (Wilford Woodruff, June 8, 1887.)

In time, the effort to cast changes as restorative was dropped. Instead of claiming changes restored the ceremonies to what was revealed to Joseph, changes were made to bring align the material with shifting doctrines and sensibilities. Ironically, it was President Woodruff—the same who earlier testified of President Young’s revisions having brought the material into alignment with Joseph’s instructions—who later made perhaps the first significant change to the temple ordinances dissociated from Joseph’s original instructions. By changing the sealing process from a link between living Saints and the exalted fathers (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others known to be saved) to links with genealogical fathers (father, grandfather, etc.), Woodruff obliterated the original doctrinal significance of sealing—a process that was intended to provide access for living members to the covenants made to the exalted fathers.

In his provided reasoning, we have a case study for how subsequent changes have and do come into play. In General Conference on April 8, 1894, President Woodruff stated:

I have not felt satisfied, nor has any man since the Prophet Joseph Smith who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt there was more to be revealed on this subject than we have received...and the duty that I want every man who presides over a Temple to see performed from this day henceforth, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is let every man be adopted to his father.

There was no “thus saith the Lord” and no claim of angelic visitation.¹¹ The motive was that he thought it didn’t seem right to seal a person to the fathers. His willingness to change the ordinance without even a minor attempt to review his own diary containing Joseph’s words on the subject¹² suggests a shift from the opinion that Joseph was the authority on the subject of the temple ceremonies. Had he bothered to review Joseph’s teachings, he would have seen that sealing an individual to a father who does not possess the covenant of eternal life is as effectual as a freefalling man grabbing another who does not possess a parachute.

Like President Woodruff’s changes to sealing, subsequent changes (as far as documented) came as the result of individual ideas and council votes without deference to Joseph’s teachings. When historical transcripts of the endowment disagreed with modern innovations, concerns were addressed with claims to authority, not with claims to revelation, and without one reference to angelic ministration.¹³

Temple changes seem to have been motivated by a limited set of factors. Many temple changes came because the brethren felt the changed material did not make sense. The temple ordinances written by Brigham Young and featuring an hour long lecture at the veil on Adam God doctrine were not in accordance with the more recent changes to the doctrine of the Godhead.⁴³⁷ Perhaps motivated by this inconsistency, Elder George F. Richards spent years of the 1920s revising the temple ceremonies. He made clear that the changes were his “own suggestion”⁴³⁸ as a result of careful study identifying areas that he thought needed changing.⁴³⁹ This was not a case of carefully studying historic manuscripts to detect deviations from Joseph’s endowment. As with President Woodruff’s changes, this was wholesale revision. After changes were suggested, they were discussed as a council, and unanimously approved. The pattern continued. Years later,

President McKay indicated that he thought his own modifications would make the temple easier to understand:

[The endowment] is seldom, if ever, really comprehended by our young folks when they first go through the Temple. I think the ceremony can be presented more effectively, but before any changes are made they will be presented to the members of the Temple Committee. (David O McKay Diary, Oct 6, 1957.)

President McKay made no mention of angelic visitation or revelation. By his time, the pattern of changing the temple ceremonies to accord with the contemporary wisdom of men was well established.

Other changes were proposed to ease administrative burden. For example, on Jan 1, 1965, the church announced that patrons would no longer each be given a new name by revelation, but that the new name would be the same for each individual attending the temple that day in order “to facilitate record keeping.”¹⁴ In another example, it was proposed that ceremonies for the dead be shortened to decrease the time needed for an endowment.¹⁵ In 1989, the church stopped recording the names of proxies, witnesses, and officiators of ordinances to ease record storage requirements.¹⁶

Still other changes have come as a result of surveys of member opinions. The most substantial of these were the 1990 changes to the endowment. In 1987, the church issued a survey to 3,000 members to ascertain their opinion on the endowment ceremony. As a result, the temple ceremonies were overhauled in 1990. Large swaths of the ceremony that were offensive to modern sensibilities were removed, such as a Protestant minister who is paid by Lucifer to preach false doctrine and the penalties associated with revealing the things patrons promise to keep secret. Covenants were changed, such as that made by women to their husbands. Elements of the ceremony, such as the physical exchange at the veil, and the words used in the true order of prayer, were changed. In 2005, the initiatory was further modified to remove any touching of the body of the patron by the worker, except on the head. The most recent set of films further de-emphasize the transgression of Eve.

In no case, it seems, were changes motivated by the suspicion that perhaps the ceremony had somehow deviated from the first written record from 1877 (which the church still possesses). In no case, it seems, were decisions made based on an assumption that the historical endowment was revealed by God. Changes were made without historical study or reference to the 1877 temple book. For example, President McKay observed that when considering whether

...the procedure which has been followed over the years as to the manner in which the garment should be placed on the individual, one leg at a time, etc., is a part of the ceremony. The brethren did not feel that this is a part of the ritual. It was agreed to announce this new policy regarding the garments to the General Authorities in their meeting on Thursday, March 27th. (David O McKay diary, Mar 18, 1969).

Instead of obtaining God’s word on the subject, or withholding changes until an angel visited to indicate the way to proceed, or even bothering to check the historical record, the brethren have made changes based on their own feelings, wisdom, and contemporary societal pressure.

Through frequent small changes, tremendous differences have accumulated in the ceremonies. For example, it was by small changes that the initiatory washing was changed from the literal bathing of a participant in a bathtub¹⁷ as done in the Old Testament and Nauvoo to what is done today, where the patron receives merely a reference to the real thing. If it is sufficient to symbolically summarize multiple rites into one gesture, why not condense the whole endowment into one symbolic gesture? Obviously, that would not be valid. Who is to say, then, what degree of symbolic revision and condensation is valid?

These small changes seemed like a good idea to those who made them, without God’s voice and without deference to history, especially to Joseph Smith’s revelations. There is no historical evidence that suggests that the brethren responsible for the changes thought they were doing anything but God’s work. Ironically, among the men responsible for the changes, we see many interesting statements about the need for the ordinances and ceremonies to remain unchanged. It is unclear how the brethren who made the changes did not feel they were usurping God’s authority or committing apostasy. The same Wilford Woodruff who replaced sealing to the fathers with sealing to genealogical fathers wrote

I consider that if there ever was any man who thoroughly understood the principle of the Endowments it was Brigham Young. He had been with Joseph Smith from the beginning of the Endowments to the end; and he understood it if any man did. And before his death he required me to write in a book every Ordinance in the Church and Kingdom of God, from the first to the last...and President Young corrected it all until he got through. Then he said to me, 'Now, there you have a pattern of all the Ordinances and Endowments for every Temple we shall build, until the coming of the Son of Man.' Now if I ever have anything to do, or to say, in any Temple on the earth, concerning Endowments, I would say: follow the pattern that President Young has set us; and not deviate from it one iota....While on the other hand, if every man...introduces his own form and ceremonies, our Temple work would be as diverse as the sectarian world and God would not appro[ve] it. (Wilford Woodruff, June 8, 1887.)

The same Elder Richards who spent two entire years transfiguring nearly every aspect of the temple ceremonies railed against Catholics’ changing baptism from immersion to sprinkling:

For a century we have tried to show to the world from the scriptures that baptism is necessary to man's salvation; that baptism signifies immersion and that immersion was the only form of baptism known and practiced in the primitive Church until several centuries A. D., and that the changing of the mode of baptism from immersion to pouring or sprinkling is apostasy and fulfils the prediction of Isaiah with respect to the last times, “The earth, also, is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” (George F. Richards, Conference Report, April 1930, p.76.)

The same President David O. McKay who made many changes to temple ceremonies through his “personal convictions” said:

...God is unchangeable, the same yesterday, today and forever... The great mistake made down through the ages by teachers of Christianity, is that they have supposed they could place their own private interpretation upon scriptures, allow their own personal convenience to become a controlling factor, and change the basis of Christian law and practice to suit themselves. This is apostasy. (President David O. McKay, The Prophet's Message, Church News, June 5, 1965.)

Through these means we have come to the point today that a temple patron from 1877 would not recognize the ceremonies as we have them today. They would not recognize the wording of the initiatory or the symbolic rituals. They would not recognize the garment. They would not recognize the wording, covenants, and symbols of the endowment. They would not recognize the sealing ordinance. In fact, it is hard to imagine just how foreign today’s temple would be to them. They would not even recognize the white clothing (an innovation of Wilford Woodruff begun on February 1, 1877).

The question is, does God recognize these changed ordinances? Apparently, Presidents Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, Wilford Woodruff, and Elder Richards would all say that he cannot, because the ordinances and ceremonies have been modified from what God gave to Joseph through Adam. Perhaps these brethren would quote Mormon 8:33, which asks “Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might bring damnation upon your souls?” The Lord has been very clear that unauthorized ordinances are an abomination to him. For instance, in Malachi 1, the Lord equates turning away from the ordinances he has revealed to despising his name. He clearly states he will not accept modified ordinances:

A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. (Malachi 1:6-14.)

The Lord makes clear that when men defile his temple by changing his ordinances, he will punish them, not bless them.

Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity. (Ezekiel 5:11.)

If temples today are meant to be a continuation of what the Lord restored through Joseph, the contents of the ordinances must remain as they were revealed to him. If they have changed, there are only two possibilities: either they are a product of man’s invention and not revelation from God, or Joseph was wrong not only in teaching that ordinances never change and temple ordinances must be revealed from an angel, but also in his original instructions regarding the temple. If the first option is true, it must be concluded that the temple work of modern Mormons is not accepted by God, for, as apostle Charles Penrose said, “Christ will not accept the devices and ordinances and ceremonies ordained of men.” (Charles W. Penrose, “Mormon Doctrine, Plain and Simple,” p. 24) If the later option is true, it would indicate not only that Joseph made a tremendous mistake in what he said on the topic, but also that he had given a false revelation when he said that God said that the Lord would show him all things pertaining to the temple. Modern Mormons must choose which of these two scenarios is true.