I Don’t Like the Temple. I’d Appreciate It if the Church Would Stop Gaslighting Me About It.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

The morning after I received my endowment in the temple, I woke up sweaty from the double layers of my new garments and nightgown. Memories from the night before floated to the surface of my murky consciousness: the hours I’d spent in the beautiful white building and all of the panic I’d felt leading up to the experience dulled by numbness once the day finally arrived. But that survival mechanism had switched off overnight, and something inside me fractured, and I felt my previous panic turn into despair, and I curled up in the large chair in my parents’ bedroom and cried.

I was inconsolable for hours. My memory consists more of emotional impressions than a hard timeline, but I remember my mom seeing my anguish, talking to me for a few minutes and giving me the equivalent of a brief “there, there” before she had to leave. I remember she was kind, but she did not validate what I was feeling. My pain was a physical thing, a hard shape varnished with shame.

I’d been as prepared for my endowment as I could possibly be: I’d read Boyd Packer’s The Holy Temple (spoiler alert: it contains no spoilers or anything remotely informative for novitiates), taken two temple prep classes, studied through the Pearl of Great Price twice on the advice of my dad, fasted and prayed, and consulted with leaders and my parents about my extreme anxiety around going through the temple (what if everything I’ve ever believed in is a lie? What if, after the temple, I can never look at my parents or loved ones in the same way again?). If I could have gone on my mission without going through the temple, I would have, but that wasn’t an option, so I threw myself into doing everything I could to ensure it would be a positive experience.

I made it through the ordinances and the ice cream with extended family afterward without any major hiccups. The experience wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, either. The morning after, though, I was filled with spiritual malaise. The misogynistic aspects of the ceremony had disturbed me, but since I wasn’t getting married, I felt like those parts didn’t apply to me, and it was easy to wave them away.

I went into the temple confident that Heavenly Father knew me and loved me. My relationship with God felt personal and intimate and comfortable. But the God represented in the endowment was not the Father I knew. This God was aloof, removed from me by a two step, two way relay system of male messengers. This God required secret passwords given to third parties before I was allowed to be in his presence. The God of the endowment was not a loving father; he was a bureaucratic CEO. It was a profoundly devastating bait and switch. 

I forced myself to go back to the temple again and again, trying to find enlightenment and peace. Some sessions, I literally shook with anger. Some, I cried in frustration or despair. Some, I sat through numb and bored. Occasionally, I felt a glimmer of what I’d been taught the temple was supposed to be like, but it was rare and small. It took a decade for me to realize that the temple just wasn’t my spiritual language. God came to me in music, in writing, in nature. Not liking the temple didn’t mean there was something wrong with me.

In Church talks, manuals and culture, the temple is only ever presented in a positive light. Experiences like mine are never represented, not even when they have a “faith promoting” ending (i.e. “Sister X used to struggle with the temple, but she has since gained a testimony of it and now loves attending!”). I felt embarrassed, like I was an anomaly, like the fault was mine, like if I just tried harder I would find peace and inspiration in the temple like everyone else. Every strong exhortation and tender anecdote in General Conference about the peace and blessings found in the temple added another layer to my shame.

Nothing has made me question my worth or my sanity more than institutional gaslighting from the Church, whether about sex, the temple, gender roles, valid reasons to stop attending church, or patriarchy. When key parts of my lived experience were not only not validated but never acknowledged at all, I felt aberrant and alone. 

I started tentatively speaking up about my experience with the temple in small ways, slipping admissions into conversations with friends, comments in church lessons, or my own sacrament meeting talks. “It’s not really my thing,” I’d say; or, “I really used to struggle with the temple.” And every single time I did, someone would seek me out afterward. “I thought I was the only one,” they’d say, intense relief apparent in their voice. “That was my experience, too.”

Pretending that things don’t exist outside of the prescribed narrative makes those whose lived experience contradicts that narrative feel broken and ashamed, but the gospel of Jesus Christ draws a circle wide enough to hold the whole of us, contradictory and conforming parts alike.