Archive Section II
5
CHANGING THE MORMON TEMPLE CEREMONY
The 1990 Revision
In 1990 the Mormon Church, or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, substantially changed its Temple endowment ceremony much to the suprise of many of its members who had for the previous 150 years been led to believe that it had been received by revelation and was unalterable. Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said, as recently as 1988, that:
The endowment was received by revelation and can be understood only by revelation...This temple...is a place of revelation...The laws and ordinances which cause men and women to come out of the world and become sanctified are administered only in these holy places. They were given by revelation and are comprehended by revelation [1].
Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the LDS Church, testified:
It (the Nauvoo Temple) was finished...and was dedicated unto the Lord. The ordinances were administered therein as they had been taught to the leading authorities of the church by the Prophet Joseph Smith himself. The same gospel, the same ordinances, the same authority and blessings that were administered by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and taught by him to his associates, are now being enjoyed and taught to the Latter-day Saints in the four temples...When you hear anybody say we have CHANGED THE ORDINANCES...tell them for me...that they are in error. The same gospel prevails today, and the same ordinances are administered today, both for the living and for the dead, as were adninistered by the prophet himself and delivered by him to the church [2].
LDS leaders have always maintained that the Temple Endowment Ceremony was revealed word for word by God to Joseph Smith and that it could not be changed. The LDS Church Newspaper, Deseret News, stated:
As temple work progresses, some members wonder if the ordinances can be changed or adjusted. These ordinances have been provided by revelation, and are in the hands of the First Presidency. Thus the temple is protected from tampering [3].
The LDS History of the Church further states, quoting Joseph Smith:
Now the purpose in Himself in the winding up of the last dispensation is that all things pertaining to that dispensation should be conducted precisely in accordance with the previous dispensations... He set the ordinances to be THE SAME FOR EVER AND EVER, and set Adam to watch them, to reveal them from heaven to man, or to send angels to reveal them [4].
The Book of Mormon goes further by saying that if man changes any of the ordinances of God that "Satan has great power over them" (1 Nephi 13:26-30). Numerous Mormon leaders have stressed that the apostacy of the early Christian Church was caused by "apostates" removing or tampering with inspired scriptures and revelations [5].
Faced with this contradiction -- an unchanging God giving unchanging ordinances, against a revision of the LDS Temple endowment ceremony where many ordinances have been changed or removed altogether -- LDS leaders have resorted to the peculiar "explanation" that ordinances which are given by inspiration can likewise be changed by inspiration [6].
It is interesting that George P. Lee, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, wrote in 1989:
I have heard a few of you (apostles) declare that you are greater than ancient apostles such as Moses, Abraham, Noah, Isaiah, Jacob and etc.. This reflects the attitude of you all. I have heard one or more of you declare that you can change anything Jesus had said or taught. This also reflects the attitude of you all [7].
It is not my purpose here to comment on the specific ceremony changes but to let the text of the ceremony speak for itself. But I would ask the Mormon people to seriously consider this question: If the ordinance of baptism by immersion were suddenly to be changed to baptism by sprinkling, what would your reaction be? And if, upon asking the LDS leaders, you were told: "What is given by revelation can also be changed by revelation", what would your response be then?
Why was the Mormon temple ceremony changed by the present leadership in the first place? There are, in the opinion of this writer, two reasons:
- (1) They became aware of the negative reaction of young people to the blood-curdling Masonic oaths and penalties that in turn led to a decline in temple attendance; and
- (2) They became aware that the self-same cermonies are used not only by the Freemasons (which has been well known now for a very long time) but also by SATANNIC CHURCHES.
A report prepared by Bishop Glenn L. Pace of the Presiding Bishopric to the First Presidency, dated July 19, 1990, a few months after the temple changes, which became public knowledge in November 1991 across the USA, reveals the infiltration of Satanists into the LDS Church and their ritual sexual abuse of Mormon children, and that this has been happening for many years. Many of these children, now grown up, report their horror at seeing the same rituals used by the satanists in the LDS temples which often causes them to have psychological breakdowns as they relive the horrific experiences amongst the satanists. It is these specific rituals, also used by the Freemasons (and infact lifted from them) that have been removed from the current Temple endowment ceremony.
That this is a good move is undeniable and we applaud the Mormon Church for doing it. But the fact that the Church leadership will not admit that the Church was wrong in allowing the usage of these neo-Masonic rituals in the first place by still maintaining that the original was "inspired" just as the 1990 version is, is, in our opinion, highly dishonest.
The Mormon people will, we hope, one day awaken to the enormous hoax that they have been subjected to by believing in the infallible inerrancy of some of the LDS ordinances and the pronouncements of their leaders. There is little doubt that the LDS Church leaders know that they are maintaining a religious dogma that is indefensible and which will, one day, collapse around them as spectacularly as communism has done in the 1990's.
The old addage remains true: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time. For Utah Mormonism, confronted as it is by an overwhelming barrage of contradictory historical evidence, its nemesis can only be a matter of time.
Announcing a New Restoration and Reformation!
The New Covenant Church of God has many prophecies about the Mormon Church (see, for example, NC&C 345:5-9; 370:100-106). The LDS establishment, confronted by the truth, is beginning to take the course that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints took in the 1960's in redefining the Gospel of Jesus Christ over a period of time so as to avoid exposure. A terrible conspiracy of distortion and silence has come out of Salt Lake City that has kept the people duped for a very long time. But the revelation of that conspiracy is beginning -- painfully -- to break the surface. The results are often tragic. Mormons, faced by the undeniable truth, face a crisis of testimony, and do not know what to do as they are faced by the facts that contradict their history on the one side, and threats from Church leaders of excommunication and warnings of apostacy and being driven into the arms of Satan on the other hand.
Footnotes
[1] The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 1988, pp.250,252
[2] Reed Smoot Case, vol.3, p.185
[3] Deseret News, Church Section, January 16, 1982
[4] History of the Church, Vol.4, p.208
[5] See, Religious Truths Defended by Joseph Fielding Smith, 1959, pp.175-6 & As Translated Correctly by Apostle Mark E. Petersen, 1966, p.4, to give but two of many examples.
[6] For example, Apostle Boyd K. Packer in Ensign, November 1989, pp.15-16. This talk was given just before the LDS Church made a small alteration in the Temple ceremony to include the prohibition of homosexual activities.
[7] Letter by George P. Lee to the First Presidency, as reporduced in Excommunication of a Mormon Leader, p.54. It seems that Lee knew that changes were about to be made in the Temple ceremony.
This page was created on 8 July 1998
Updated on 9 March 2001
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