Proxy Work

The modern narrative suggests that one of the main reasons the church builds temples is to perform necessary ordinances vicariously for the dead, enabling them to progress onward. However, Joseph’s described pattern was not for endowment ordinances to be performed for the dead, as we perform baptisms for the dead, but for the living to obtain election, and then seal their kindred dead to themselves. What good does it do to seal yourself to ancestors who themselves are not saved? What good does it do to seal them to you when you yourself have not been redeemed? This is like having a group of 10 people jump off a cliff without parachutes. They can link to each other as many ways as they choose, but unless they can tie themselves to someone who is still on the cliff, they will all likewise perish.¹

Joseph Smith never performed an ordinance for the dead outside of baptism. He did, on one occasion that I’ve found, state that the ordinances for the living would have to be done for the dead, but he did not describe the mechanism for how this was to be done.² Joseph did, however, explicitly describe exactly who the work could be done for. He said,

A man may act as proxy for his own relatives; the ordinances of the Gospel which were laid out before the foundations of the world have thus been fulfilled by them, and we may be baptized for those whom we have much friendship for; but it must first be revealed to the man of God, lest we should run too far. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:366.)

Brigham Young, whose only claim of authority in temple ordinances came from his implementing what Joseph had given, began the practice of initiatories, endowments, and sealings for the dead. From the opening of the Endowment House in 1855 until Wilford Woodruff began proxy endowments in 1876, only living ordinances were allowed for all ordinances except baptisms, which resumed in 1856 after a 20 year pause. The pause began when the Lord said baptisms for the dead would no longer be acceptable without a temple to perform them in. In 1856, without a temple to perform them in, they were resumed.

Instead of building the Nauvoo temple, as God had commanded, and receiving further light and truth through Joseph on the nature and form of proxy temple work, the Saints were cast out of Nauvoo and made their best guess as to how it would work. Without instruction or permission from heaven, they multiplied temple “offerings” in the form of vicarious ordinances, with over 150 million endowments performed since 1876.³ Innovation of ordinances was not unknown in ancient Israel, but it was routinely condemned. God once said,

For I desired...the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood. (Hosea 6:6-8.)

How applicable this scripture is to the current situation. The purpose of the temple—obtaining knowledge of God through re-entering his presence—has been replaced with multiplying “burnt offerings,” strange incense that God has not commanded. As Gileadi described,

[Isaiah 1:12 reads] ‘When you come to see me, who requires you to trample my courts so?’ The question asked at the beginning of verse 11 is answered at the beginning of verse 12: God’s people go to the temple to SEE GOD. If they aren’t there for that purpose, then all else doesn’t count for much. This reveals an appalling paradox: instead of going to see God, his people resemble the dumb animals that were anciently brought for sacrifice, which were unaware of their reason for being there. Instead of making an offering of their whole souls to God—as symbolized by burnt offerings and the shedding of the animals’ blood—his people trudge about the temple’s courts defiling it. (Avraham Gileadi, http://www.isaiahexplained.com/isaiah_ch_01.html)

The focus on multiplying ordinances is not an issue of actually completing work for the approximately 70 billion dead who have never received them as much as it is a mechanism of providing ample opportunity for patrons to return to the temple.⁴ Name shortages have been a staple ever since proxy work was changed from a mechanism for “saving” individuals known by the patron to a mechanism for getting the patron back into the temple repeatedly.⁵ To alleviate the problem, the church has employed many means such as limiting ordinances,⁶ allowing work to be done for those of known sinful life,⁷ and employing teams to scrape historical records for names. The vast majority of names come from this final source (76% according to George Fudge’s 1976 report).

If the ordinances of the modern temple are essential to salvation, what of the billions upon billions who never received them? Several decades ago, the brethren were informed that temple ordinances were not even keeping pace with the current birthrate, let alone putting a dent in the estimated 70 billion people who have ever lived.⁸ Every member of the church would have to do 1500 endowments over the course of their lives just to break even with the number of people alive today.⁴⁶⁵ But because active membership is about 1/3 of reported membership, that number is actually tripled. Some contend the work will be completed in the millennium. Even if the work were conducted around the clock without any breaks for eating, sleeping, drinking, or any other work, it would require 17.5 million people to complete the endowments for all who ever lived.

If the point of the modern temples isn’t to complete ordinances for the 70 billion dead (an impossibility due to time and information limitations), and it isn’t to see God in the temple (something not taught by the hierarchy in over 100 years), and if temple attendance does not provide an interaction with the Holy Ghost manifested by the outward signs that always follow, then what is their purpose? That only leaves the memorization of the lectures given, which simply does not require many trips to memorize and can easily be done at home. In reality, the point of attending for most people is either for service to the dead (which is not supported by scripture or Joseph’s teachings) or to receive emotional validation after being told how important it is to attend.

God Hasn’t Commanded Temple Construction When God wanted the Kirtland Temple built, he told Joseph:

...build a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein. For there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fullness of the priesthood....And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein...For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fullness of times. And I will show unto my servant Joseph all things pertaining to this house, and the priesthood thereof, and the place whereon it shall be built. (D&C 124:27-28, 40-42.)

Since Nauvoo, no revelation has been published where God commanded a temple to be built. Instead, according to the church architect, “the Church looks for sites ‘that would have prominence, be in an attractive neighborhood, a neighborhood that would withstand the test of time.’”⁹ Since Nauvoo, God has not specified the architecture of temples. Instead,

After the temple site is selected and the Church determines how large the building should be (based on the number of members in the area), a team of Church architects creates potential exterior and interior designs. [The architect] ‘want[s] to create something unique, something that has its own personality, and [Church leaders] allow us to do that’ with temples. He adds that much can be done to make a temple unique, including ‘the decorative motifs, the kind of furniture, the interior accouterments, how articulate it is. It could be anything from the modern look that you see in the Washington D.C. Temple to something like the gothic, neoclassical look that you find in the Salt Lake Temple.’ To create a look and feel that is just right for a specific temple, architects solicit a number of sources. For example, as the Church has designed its future temple in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Williams says his team met with locals to ‘understand the nature of the people, the country that they live in, the Mormons that are there and how we can better fit the temple’ to them. A critical aspect of the planning process is “sustainable design,” a concept...seeks to reduce a temple’s long-term operational cost. ‘Whatever we can do to make the environmental systems, the mechanical systems energy efficient, to make the interior materials have longevity so that they don't wear out straightaway, anything we can do to conserve water, it's great for us as the owner because it makes that long-term cost less. That's what it means to be sustainable.’465

Instead of God revealing the design in a moment, it is designed through architectural research, sustainable practice, and unique design—a process that “can take up to two years.”⁴⁶⁵ Although “the First Presidency is involved and provides final approvals,” the process is bottom up, instead of top down, and no mention of revelation is provided.⁴⁶⁵

The pattern of God specifying the location and layout of each temple he’s ever commanded built ended when Joseph died. Perhaps the most illustrative comparison is provided in the modern Nauvoo temple and the former Nauvoo temple, which was destroyed shortly after the Saints abandoned and attempted to sell it. While the modern temple is built in the same style as other modern temples, the original Nauvoo temple “contained two assembly halls, one on the first floor and one on the second, called the lower and upper courts.” It “had classrooms and offices in the attic.”¹⁰

“Observers might have difficulty detecting differences between the” current and former Nauvoo temple exteriors.⁴⁶⁸ Every effort was made to create a façade that would be indistinguishable to most laypeople: “The stone on the outside of the new temple was carefully chosen to have, as nearly as possible, the same color and texture as the limestone of the original temple,”⁴⁴ although it was from quarries states away from the original. “The new temple was not built with stone piled on stone and cemented, as was the original.”⁴⁴ Instead, the stone is a façade attached to concrete walls. Every effort and expense was taken to ensure that the temple looked the same from the outside, even if it was completely different. “The interior of the temple, however, is a different story,”⁴⁴ because it features a completely different floor plan than the one revealed to Joseph.

It is reasonable to wonder what the Lord thinks of temples built without his commandment, in forms he has not provided, with great lengths employed to lead those who don’t know any better to assume that all is as it was revealed to Joseph. Because this is a pattern that appeared with frequency in the Old Testament, there is no need to speculate.

Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. (Amos 4:4-5.)

Beth-el and Gilgal were not appointed places to sacrifice. Despite having the same form as worship at God’s authorized temple, God considered worship there a transgression. God shows us that when his people do not hearken to his words or his law, even though they engage in temple worship, it is not acceptable to him.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it...your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me. (Jeremiah 6:19-20.)

Unless temples are commanded by God, they cannot be his. Instead of worshipping him, temples built by the designs and commandments of men mock him and raise his ire.