Guest Post: Temple Recommends, Integrity, and Meaning
Guest Post by Auburn
I could never forget the variety of strong feelings I experienced before and during my first temple recommend interview. Only twelve years old, I had just spent several weeks participating in the open house and dedication of the San Diego Temple. What a profoundly beautiful experience this had been for me! The temple had come to feel like home—almost living, and like a faithful friend. I spent many hours turning that awe and peace into communion while I served, feeling seen by God and a somewhat new, maturing sense of centeredness.
Exiting the temple after its dedication filled me with bittersweet yearning. While intensely sad I would not be invited to the upper floors again for several years, I was eager to return to connect with others and God through baptisms for the dead. I hurriedly scheduled my first temple recommend interview.
I don’t think I could convey to you the sanctity, earnestness, and care with which I approached this experience. I tried to stay in a spiritual frame all day. When my appointment time came, I remember wearing a dress to honor the reverence of the moment, and I remember listening intently to each question to answer meaningfully and honestly. After all, I was answering meaningful things for a most meaningful purpose, as though to the Lord Himself!
One question was wordy and utterly confusing, and when my bishop finished speaking I had no idea—absolutely none—what I’d just been asked. Awkwardly, “Huh?,” was all I could think to say. He repeated the lengthy question, leaving me just as confused as before. I tried to ask again for clarification when, frustrated, he tersely cut me off: “No, ok?! The answer is no.”
I was humiliated and ashamed. But even more than that, I was absolutely stunned. I had come expecting this to be a spiritual, meaningful process. In that moment, it hit me this was meant to be perfunctory.
The meaning-seeker in me has never stopped wanting the recommend interview—which asks an eclectic array of questions ranging from things I hold most dear to what underwear I’m wearing—to be authentic, to be meaningful. To be good. For many years, I’ve pondered, prayed, and sought a way to engage in this process with such authenticity and goodness. I have found no good solutions.
What I have found is that I am far from the only person who feels unable to bring my authentic self to this ritual. I have talked to many, many people about this—from the most conventional, orthodox temple recommend holders to the least—and every single person has said something resembling: “Well, I know I’m good with God, so I feel ok just saying each yes or no they want to hear.” Everyone has said this.
One of fifty-six questions asked in the temple recommend interview is: “Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?” And yet, the nature of this interview—the time allotted, the frequency and repetition of it, and the fundamental problem of asking 56 questions for a most sacred purpose while looking for roughly 16 binary yeses and nos—all but requires dishonesty and inauthenticity. (Yes, there are 56 questions embedded in the 16! I will list them at the end of this post. Can you answer each of them honestly? Would you ever?) Those of us who can receive temple recommends are rewarded, even as our binary yeses and nos inaccurately reflect both our inner selves and truly Christ-centered marks of discipleship. But those whose likewise compliant yeses or nos would be visibly at odds with what can be observed about their lives are kept on the outside. Every time we go through the motions, we affirm and reinforce this tragic stratification.
I think often of the Book of Mormon with its all-too-brief descriptions of beautifully unified, peaceful times—broken, it says, when “they began to be distinguished by ranks,” or “they began to be divided into classes.” I think of people like my grandfather, who didn’t have to serve in a second war but said yes when asked, tragically found it to be far more traumatic than his first experience in war, and came home addicted to the cigarettes that had been in his rations. He had no mental health or addiction support. Though loyal to God and church, and though he’d laid everything on the altar for others, he was ever after labeled “unworthy.” I think of people suffering from generational poverty who cannot wrap their heads around or afford tithing. There are as many stories as there are people who desire to be in the temple, who maybe even know they’re “good with God,” but are not allowed. I think of this sorting, my heart broken by it, and feel complicit when I rattle off the yeses or nos—when I comply with answering a question I feel a man should never ask me, or say that no, I do not support any practices contrary to those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (of course I do, and sincerely believe the Lord does!), or even, ridiculously, that yes, I understand the Word of Wisdom (does anyone?). The most piercing answer of all is that yes, I strive to be honest in all I do.
In addition to my sorrow for the marginalized and my complicated feelings of complicity, I feel deeply uncomfortable ritually affirming my honesty in the same interview that seems to systematically disallow it. I cannot escape the feeling that the purposes of this interview are not centered in our intimate relationship with God and our integrity as described. Rather, this ritual feels to me a conditioning exercise—a repetitive, meaningless process of going through compliant motions again and again, affirming in our minds the authority of church hierarchy and the conflation of the Church/priesthood with God. Not only do we train ourselves to perfunctorily tell priesthood leaders what they want to hear instead of considering our true thoughts, feelings, and experiences, we also exercise through ritual the centrality of their authority. We affirm in a ritualized way—to be granted access to an infinitely meaningful space—that belief in their (and prophets’) authority is necessary for worthiness, their assessment of worthiness is sacrosanct, they have correctly determined worthiness is indeed a valid concept, they have correctly determined God protects [His] temple from contamination by the “unworthy,” and they alone hold the keys to our desired spiritual access points. This is all further emphasized by the number of questions asking you to affirm you follow the teachings, practices, or doctrines—in other words, are disciples—of the Church of Jesus Christ rather than simply, fundamentally, of Jesus Christ.
(Allow yourselves the beauty of imagining: What might a truly Christ-centered temple admission process look like?)
In the process, we create strata—insiders and outsiders—the antithesis of the unity Jesus Christ modeled in life, embodied in Atonement, and calls us to lovingly create together. What would happen if we all took the time to honestly consider and answer every question—fifty-six thoughtful responses instead of 16 predetermined yeses and nos? What would this reveal about the process, about ourselves, about the meaningfulness (or not) of the questions asked? (Might these revelations change our hearts and, eventually, the recommend process itself?) Are we brave enough to actually “strive to be honest in all we do?” Could priesthood leaders learn to be patient enough to accept honest answers to the 56 questions they insist on asking? Might they learn to receive our grand variety of thoughts, feelings, and experiences with affinity and compassion, like Christ? How might this practice shift unhealthy assumptions and relationships?
How does it feel to consider—really consider—the meanings of and your answers to these questions?
1. Do you have faith in God, the Eternal Father?
2. Do you have faith in His Son, Jesus Christ?
3. Do you have faith in the Holy Ghost?
4. Do you have a testimony of God, the Eternal Father?
5. Do you have a testimony of His Son, Jesus Christ?
6. Do you have a testimony of the Holy Ghost?
7. Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ?
8. Do you have a testimony of His role as your Savior?
9. Do you have a testimony of His role as your Redeemer?
10. Do you have a testimony of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
11. Do you sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the prophet?
12. Do you sustain him as the seer?
13. Do you sustain him as the revelator?
14. Do you sustain him as the only person on the earth authorized to exercise all the priesthood keys?
15. Do you sustain the members of the First Presidency as prophets?
16. Do you sustain them as seers?
17. Do you sustain them as revelators?
18. Do you sustain the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets?
19. Do you sustain them as seers?
20. Do you sustain them as revelators?
21. Do you sustain the other general authorities of the Church?
22. Do you sustain the local leaders of the Church?
The Lord has said that all things are to be “done in cleanliness” before Him.
23. Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts?
24. Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your behavior?
25. Do you obey the law of chastity?
26. Do you follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in your private behavior with members of your family?
27. Do you follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in your public behavior with members of your family?
28. Do you follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in your private behavior with people outside your family?
29. Do you follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in your public behavior with people outside your family?
30. Do you support any teachings contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
31. Do you support any practices contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
32. Do you support any doctrine contrary to that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
33. Do you promote any teachings contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
34. Do you promote any practices contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
35. Do you promote any doctrine contrary to that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
36. Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy at home?
37. Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy at church?
38. Do you [strive to?] attend your meetings?
39. Do you [strive to?] prepare for the sacrament?
40. Do you [strive to?] worthily partake of the sacrament?
41. Do you [strive to?] live your life in harmony with the laws of the gospel?
42. Do you [strive to?] live your life in harmony with the commandments of the gospel?
43. Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?
44. Are you a full-tithe payer? [For new members: Are you willing to obey the commandment to pay tithing?]
45. Do you understand the Word of Wisdom?
46. Do you obey the Word of Wisdom?
47. Do you have any financial obligations to a former spouse?
48. Do you have any other obligations to a former spouse?
49. Do you have any financial obligations to children?
50. Do you have any other obligations to children?
51. If yes, are you current in meeting those obligations?
52. Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple?
53. Do you honor your sacred privilege to wear the garment as instructed in the initiatory ordinances? [Listen to priesthood leader read you a lengthy statement about wearing the garment.]
54. Are there serious sins in your life that need to be resolved with priesthood authorities as part of your repentance?
55. Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord’s house?
56. Do you consider yourself worthy to participate in temple ordinances?
