HBO set to air Mormon Temple Ceremony
The following represents the views of a single SSU member, and does not necessarily represent the views of the SSU as a whole
UPDATE: LDS Church Responds to Big Love
Big Love to feature the Mormon Temple Ceremony, TV Guide
Well, this is certainly unprecedented.
The Mormon temples are considered the most sacred of spaces on Earth. Within the temples, several “saving ordinances” are performed, which are required to enter the highest levels of the Celestial Kingdom, including the Endowment and marriage sealings. It is a significant breach of Mormon law to discuss details of the temple ceremonies outside of the “Celestial Room” within the temple, and the church defends the secrecy of these details passionately, claiming that they need to be confined within the temple due to their highly sacred nature.
Big Love, the HBO series about a family within a polygamous sect (an offshoot from what is known as the Mormon church), is going to be airing an episode which will show the details of the ceremony, from the ritual attire to the rituals themselves.
I’ve never watched Big Love, but I’ll be tuning in to this one. Having gone through the Mormon Endowment ceremony, I’m curious to see how accurate the portrayal is. The advertisement (link above) shows the temple clothes of a woman, and it seems spot on… with the exception that the apron ought to be green, not blue.
I have highly mixed feelings about this, however, which may be a remnant of the Mormonism I was raised with. It was this very ceremony that, due to it being almost entirely foreign in style from the rest of the church, shook my faith to the point that I was able to investigate the church rationally. It is now my opinion that the church has its members go through the ceremony either immediately before serving a mission or getting married as a retention technique.
So… how do I feel about this?
Legally:
I am definitely of the opinion that HBO and the team of Big Love are well within the law. It would be a horribly oppressive act and in complete violation of the First Amendment for the government to step in and censor the broadcast, as some LDS folks are currently advocating. The legality of the situation is hardly questionable – the right to offend is a fundamental piece of free speech.
Effects:
HBO may have awakened a slumbering giant here. In November, the US (and California in particular) witnessed the ability of the LDS Church to politically mobilize, to devastating results. Without question, this will instill vitriol within the Mormon community, the likes of which have never been seen. HBO is broadcasting one of the most sacred of Mormon rituals to a wide audience, and hardly in a sympathetic light at that.
In a sentence, HBO just “pantsed” Mormonism, and like anyone who just got “pantsed,” they’re going to be embarrassed, hurt, and pissed.
If I were still Mormon, I would find myself entrenched in a new battle. Prop 8 envigorated and energized the youth of the church politically, and that was an indirect affront. This could give the same a banner to wave, a new and more righteous cause, and will further reinforce the persecution complex that has been fostered in the church since its inception. This will further “prove” that the powers of the world, driven by mammon (Babylon, Satan, take your pick), are out to destroy the church.
Morally:
The question of the morality of broadcasting the sacred ceremony of someone else’s beliefs is a tricky one. Honestly, I have many conflicting opinions regarding it, and I’m not entirely certain where I stand. Immediately and nearly simultaneously, I can’t help but think:
- Go for it! Perhaps if the absurdity of their faith is brought to light, it’ll marginalize and retard the growth of the church.
- This is inappropriate – there’s no reason to slaughter another man’s sacred cow unless you’ll die of starvation otherwise.
I’ll expand more on this as I chew on it, but I think I’m leaning toward the latter right now.
What are your thoughts?
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March 9th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
big love temple says:[...] [1] Mormon Polygamy – Big Love and Warren Jeffs [2] HBO set to air Mormon Temple Ceremony | UW’s Secular Student Union [3] HBO Big Love Polygamy Overview [4] “Big Love” Keeps it Real? – TMZ.com [5] Big Love [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Sacred, but not so secret? « Life of Di says:[...] former LDS student at the University of Washington wrote a little opinion piece about it. At the top of the piece is a link to a TV guide pdf with a little more [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Acutally, I would question the legality of airing the Temple ceremony. I’m pretty sure that the LDS Church has it copyrighted.
March 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Two comments. First, I would agree that the temple ceremonies seemed a little strange when you consider the attire and ceremonies. However, they are true to the same sort of dress and ceremonies which are described in the the ancient biblical temples. I suppose that like most LDS in the states you and I looked at the ceremony and baulked a little because it seemed culturally out of place. However, it occured to me that it might be very different for those of other cultures, like Koreans, to whom the color white is a symbol for death. All that aside, I can at least understand why it all bothered you, but the temple is no more strange than nearly every other religion in one aspect or another.
However, the issue here is not whether the temple ceremony needs to be shown, it’s weather it is appropriate. Did you know the Catholic church refuses autopsy on a dead pope? Or that the Jewish funeral ceremony is the origin of the vulcan “live-long-and-prosper” hand signs? Or that no non-muslim is even allowed within the city limits of Mecca? There are a multitude of things which others consider sacred and we should respect those beliefs. It would be enormously inappropriate for me to become Muslim, travel to Mecca, engage in the Hadj and then renounce Islam to do an expose on the sacred city. I’m sorry, but I feel this is much the same. It’s a shame that anyone would want to participate in this sort of event.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Hi Friends, I appreciate the tone of yur message and consideration of our feelings. I am LDS and the temple ceramony was different but I did not think it would be a thing that represents anything of this world. I guess you can go to to Las Vegas if you want something of this world. But when I went to the Temple I expected something that would resemble more the realities of Heaven. Giving myself over fully to the Lord and Keeping sacred covenants and obtaining through faith great and eternal blessings of an eternal nature was not a surprize. I didn’t go their thinking I would understand it all at once any more than when I joined the church I thought I had to know every thing. I Joined the church by way of strong and heartfelt penitrating revelation to my soul that the things that have transpried in these Latter Days was of God. I then trusted God that I would learn and understand more as I grew in faith and maturity in his gosphel. The problem with many I believe is that they have a hard time letting go of their own will and giving themselves over to God. It really is a defining moment in one’s life. I have never regreted it. I feel very blessed with a loving wife and chidren and a hope and a faith that God our father will allow us to share in his kingdom – that is much bigger and grander than we would ever know. Most lds folks would not be offended as much if the Movie Makers allow the beauty and spirit of the temple and the sacredness of the temple be felt. I have never watched Big Love so I can’t judge what they have done. I’m to busy serving my neighbors and sharing an awsome story of the return of Christ’s Church to the earth and all the splended blessing that come from it. God Bless you all for your goodness.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
For those who have interest in grappling with the issues of the LDS temples it might be of interest that this is not unique.
by FARMS
Do Latter-day Saints believe that men and women can become gods?
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that human beings can grow and progress spiritually until, through the mercy and grace of Christ, they can inherit and possess all that the Father has-they can become gods. This is taught in revelations given to modern prophets (see D&C 76:58; 132:19-20), as well as in sermons delivered by Joseph Smith.9 A couplet written by Lorenzo Snow, fifth president of the LDS Church, states: As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.10
This doctrine is generally referred to as deification, and the LDS expression of this doctrine is often misrepresented and misunderstood. Latter-day Saints do not believe that human beings will ever be independent of God, or that they will ever cease to be subordinate to God. They believe that to become as God means to overcome the world through the atonement of Jesus Christ (see 1 John 5:4-5; Revelation 2:7, 11). Thus the faithful become heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ and will inherit all things just as Christ inherits all things (see Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:7; 1 Corinthians 3:21-23; Revelation 21:7). They are received into the “church of the firstborn,” meaning they inherit as though they were the firstborn (see Hebrews 12:23). There are no limitations on these scriptural declarations; those who become as God shall inherit all things. In that glorified state they will resemble our Savior; they will receive his glory and be one with him and with the Father (see 1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 3:18; John 17:21-23; Philippians 3:21). Ancient Doctrine
The doctrine of the deification of man is not an exclusive teaching of the restored Church of Jesus Christ. Rather, it can be found in early Christian history. In the second century, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (about a.d. 130-200), the most important Christian theologian of his time, said much the same thing as Lorenzo Snow: If the Word became a man, It was so men may become gods.11
Further, Irenaeus asked:
Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods? Although God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence, that no one may charge him with discrimination or stinginess, he declares, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High.” . . . For it was necessary at first that nature be exhibited, then after that what was mortal would be conquered and swallowed up in immortality.12
At about the same time, Clement of Alexandria (about a.d. 150-215) wrote: “Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.”13 Clement also said that “if one knows himself, he will know God, and knowing God will become like God. . . . His is beauty, true beauty, for it is God, and that man becomes a god, since God wills it. So Heraclitus was right when he said, ‘Men are gods, and gods are men.’”14
Still in the second century, Justin Martyr (about a.d. 100-165) insisted that in the beginning men “were made like God, free from suffering and death,” and that they are thus “deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest.”15 Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (about a.d. 296-373), also stated his belief in deification in terms very similar to those of Lorenzo Snow: “The Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods. . . . Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life.”16 On another occasion Athanasius observed: “He became man that we might be made divine.”17 Finally, Augustine of Hippo (a.d. 354-430), the greatest of the early Christian Fathers, said: “But he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. ‘For he has given them power to become the sons of God’ [John 1:12]. If then we have been made sons of god, we have also been made gods.”18
All five of the above writers were not just orthodox Christians, but also in time became revered as saints. Three of the five wrote within a hundred years of the period of the apostles, and all five believed in the doctrine of deification. This doctrine was a part of historical Christianity until relatively recent times, and it is still an important doctrine in some Eastern Orthodox churches. One writer states that a fundamental prin-ciple of orthodoxy in the patristic period was recognizing “the history of the universe as the history of divinization and salvation.” As a result the early Christian Fathers concluded that “because the Spirit is truly God, we are truly divinized by the presence of the Spirit.”19
The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology contains the following in an article titled “Deification”:
Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is ‘made in the image and likeness of God.’. . . It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both OT and NT (e.g. Ps. 82 (81).6; II Peter 1.4), and it is essentially the teaching both of St Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (cf. Rom. 8.9-17; Gal. 4.5-7), and the Fourth Gospel (cf. 17.21-23).
The language of II Peter is taken up by St Irenaeus, in his famous phrase, ‘if the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods’ (Adv. Haer V, Pref.), and becomes the standard in Greek theology. In the fourth century St Athanasius repeats Irenaeus almost word for word, and in the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria says that we shall become sons ‘by participation’ (Greek methexis). Deification is the central idea in the spirituality of St Maximus the Confessor, for whom the doctrine is the corollary of the Incarnation: ‘Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfillment of all times and ages,’ . . . and St Symeon the New Theologian at the end of the tenth century writes, ‘He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.’ . . .
Finally, it should be noted that deification does not mean absorption into God, since the deified creature remains itself and distinct. It is the whole human being, body and soul, who is transfigured in the Spirit into the likeness of the divine nature, and deification is the goal of every Christian.20
In short, whether one accepts or rejects the doctrine of the deification of man, it was clearly a part of mainstream Christian orthodoxy for centuries. Joseph Smith obviously did not make it up. Instead, Latter-day Saints believe, it is an eternal truth restored through modern prophets.
Modern Statements
In the LDS view, those who are worthy will receive the full divine inheritance only through the atonement of Christ and only after having received a glorious resurrection. Closer to the Latter-day Saint understanding of the doctrine are the views expressed by C. S. Lewis, whose genuine Christianity is virtually undisputed: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”21
In a fuller statement of this doctrine of deification, Lewis explained:
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him-for we can prevent Him, if we choose-He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.22
God and Christ are the objects of LDS worship. Even though Mormons believe in the ultimate deification of man, nothing in LDS literature speaks of worshipping any being other than the Father and the Son. Latter-day Saints believe in “one God” in the sense that they love and serve one Godhead, each member of which possesses all of the attributes of godhood.
Since the scriptures teach that those who gain eternal life will look like God, receive the inheritance of God, receive the glory of God, be one with God, sit upon the throne of God, and exercise the power and rule of God, then surely it cannot be un-Christian to conclude with C. S. Lewis and others that such beings as these can be called gods, as long as we remember that this use of the term gods does not in any way reduce or limit the sovereignty of God our Father. That is how the early Christians used the term; it is how C. S. Lewis used the term; and it is how Latter-day Saints use the term and understand the doctrine.
NOTES
9. See Joseph Smith, comp., Lectures on Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 5:3; and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 346-48.
10. President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly, 3 November 1894, 610; Deseret Weekly, 8 October 1898, 513; Deseret News, 15 June 1901, 177; and Journal History of the Church, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, 20 July 1901, 4.
11. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, preface.
12. Ibid., 4.38 (4); compare 4.11 (2): “But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God.”
13. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
14. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See his Stromateis, 23.
15. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
16. Athanasius, Against the Aryans, 1.39, 3.34.
17. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54.
18. Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
19. Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156, emphasis in original.
20. Symeon Lash, “Deification,” in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 147-48.
21. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), 18.
22. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 269-70: “For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood.”
Copyright by FARMS
________________________________________
(See Basic Beliefs home page; Teachings the Godhead home page; The Doctrinal Exclusion by Stephen E. Robinson; Biblical Support for Deification)
All About Mormons
March 10th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Mormon Endowment Ceremony | Today's Hot News says:[...] HBO set to air Mormon Temple Ceremony [...]
March 11th, 2009 at 8:13 am
mormon endowment ritual | video and pics about mormon endowment ritual says:[...] been about. Its producers and writers, who hired an “ex-Mormon consulhttp://www.templestudy.comHBO set to air Mormon Temple CeremonyThe following represents the views of a single SSU member, and does not necessarily represent the [...]
March 11th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Another user commented that the Mormon church has a copyright on the ceremony. The fact is they do not. The reason being that any of their most “sacred” ceremonies are not to be discussed outside that room – to anyone. If you can’t discuss and describe it, you can’t copyright it. There is no way that I can conceive of the Mormon church taking legal action against HBO for this.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
mormon endowment ceremony | 4blogger.com says:[...] HBO set to air Mormon Temple Ceremony UW's Secular Student Union [...]