LDS: Why are your "secret" temple ordinances not secret anymore?

[Esdra]

Hi folks,

from another thread:

Two unmarried people being married after death is not the norm, from what I understand. There might be an exception in the case of celibates.

The confusion for some is that the Mormons have two forms or levels of marriage. The first is just a regular marriage, done civilly or in a park or religious center or hotel or such. That is a marriage “till death do us part” like the rest of us have. But the higher level of marriage is a temple marriage which is a sealed marriage in the temple (sorry if I’m not getting the words right). THAT kind of marriage extends after death.

So if a couple was married in life, but it wasn’t a temple marriage, LDS belief is that they can seal that marriage after death.

They also believe they can baptize after death, which gets them into a lot of hot water as they don’t always bother to get permission from families. There was much furor when it was discovered that thousands of Jews, holocaust victims included, were being baptized as Mormons after their death. The LDS church promised to stop the practice, but then there was some scandal that it was still going on?? Not sure if that was true or not.

But if some Mormon wants to submit the name of a distant relative, say a Catholic priest or bishop, and ask they be married after death to some woman, maybe a 4th cousin in the same family, also dead… well, that’s pretty creepy. A new one on me, for sure.

I heard of one temple that was having trouble recruiting enough people to do the proxy baptisms. The local teens reportedly were getting tired of giving up their day to get dunked over and over and over and over, and the whole ritual sort of lost its spiritual gleam.

Temple sealings are very interesting, and there’s a lot of information on the web now to research. When I was a kid, it was all very hush-hush, secret, and of course it made it much more titillating.

But from the Church founders Joseph Smith Jr. and Co. it was intended to be secret.
Why then do we know all of sudden so much about it?
We know how the sealing of marriages to eternity work as well as baptism for the dead. What other ceremonies are done in the LDS temples?
Wouldn’t Joseph Smith Jr. and the other “Church Fathers” roll over in their graves if they knew that the temple ceremonies are no longer secret?

in Christ,

 

[xixxvmcm85]

The fact that eternal marriages and posthumous ordinances have been and are performed in LDS temples I don’t think has ever been secret. Mormons openly talk about having eternal families and going to do temple work on behalf of the dead. What’s not spoken of are the details of the rituals, and even then I’ve found this only to be technically true for the Endowment since it’s the only one in which a specific oath of secrecy is made.

For example, I already knew what to expect for baptisms for the dead before even doing them (they’re no different than , but prior to my Endowment all I was told was that I’d obtain “knowledge” concerning my purpose, and I’d make very important covenants with God. I had no idea that I was going to washed by a temple patron, be taught signs and tokens necessary for exaltation, and sit in on a recreation of the LDS version of the Genesis account. I had no idea what the temple clothes would look like. I actually left my Endowment more confused than when I went in.

 

[TheBibleAddict]

WOAH!

My stepmother is a Mormon, and I lived in Utah for a while so I knew a bunch of others - but I was not aware of such practices! Esdra, could you please give me the name of that other thread? I want to research more about this! Thanks!

 

[Esdra]

WOAH!

My stepmother is a Mormon, and I lived in Utah for a while so I knew a bunch of others - but I was not aware of such practices! Esdra, could you please give me the name of that other thread? I want to research more about this! Thanks!

You are new here I see.
Just click on the blue arrows behind my name or that of sojo in the OP and this will lead you directly to said post.
It’s a long thread in the meantime - with a Mormon answering patiently!