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I’m trying to wrap my head around this. On one hand, this seems to be what the church has always done.
On the other hand, they are asking LDS current CES employees to “voluntarily” opt in. How can you opt in if this was the CES policy/practice all along?
https://www.abc4.com/news/church-schools-will-require-temple-recommends-for-latter-day-saint-hires/ I think that it will be an indirect weeding out of faculty who drift through a faith transition after being hired – the Honor Code and the Temple Recommend questions do not have the same scope. So if you manage to get a job there, then have a faith transition, you now know that you have whatever time is left of the 2 year temple recommend duration (maybe +6 months) to find a different job. Looks like a BCC blogger had similar thoughts Quote:Recently the Church Educational System (CES) announced that “all new employees who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be required to hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend. Church members already working at CES institutions will be invited to adopt this standard voluntarily.”
In one sense, this doesn’t change anything. CES employees have long been required to have an “ecclesiastical endorsement” to hold a job. The standards for an ecclesiastical endorsement are the same as the standards for a temple recommend, and a local leader—usually a bishop—can grant, or revoke, either. The new requirement does not demand any standards in belief or behavior that were not already in place.
From another perspective, however, it changes everything. The ecclesiastical endorsement process was informal—something between a bishop and an employee that was created specifically for this purpose. The temple recommend process is highly formal, with a prescribed list of questions, and it requires the involvement of priesthood leaders at both the ward and the stake level. The process of getting a temple recommend, and going to the temple, should be part of a pastoral relationship between a minister and a congregant. It was never designed to be an employment evaluation.
Along with the obvious fact this new policy creates a transactional employment relationship in what should be an opportunity for counseling and spiritual growth, it also deepens the already existing problems that come from giving fallible ecclesiastical leaders near-total power over the employment of the people who look to them for spiritual guidance.
The problem is abuse. Abuse happens, even in the Church. And the potential for abuse grows when the power that an abuser has over a survivor increases. Numerous CES faculty have experienced misconduct or abuse by priesthood leaders, who have unchecked authority to extend or withhold temple recommends and ecclesiastical endorsements. Lavina Fielding Anderson documented cases in which “the clash between obedience to ecclesiastical authority and the integrity of individual conscience” resulted in punitive action for church employees. [fn1] Ironically and famously, she was shortly thereafter excommunicated as one of the “September Six” due to her writings on the subject.
In summary, before now the CES employees had to maintain an ecclesiastical endorsement. Now they have to maintain a temple recommend.
Disclaimer, I do not have any window into the real motivation behind this new requirement. This is pure speculation on my part. I suspect an administrator somewhere feels that a “religious freedom” challenge is on the horizon and this requirement is in an effort to get out ahead of that perceived challenge.
Hypothetical example:
A law is passed stating that employers cannot discriminate against people in a same-sex marriage in their hiring practices. The church could point to this requirement and claim that a person in a same-sex marriage wasn’t hired because they don’t have a temple recommend, not because they were in a same-sex marriage. The issue becomes a failure to meet a religious requirement.
My first thought was that this would be horrible if it applied to student employees at BYU. Luckily, it doesn’t: Quote:The standard will apply to student employees who work at the Missionary Training Center and who work at the Church of Jesus Christ’s FSY programs.
All other student employees will not fall under this standard. All students will continue to need an annual ecclesiastical endorsement.
Also, it seems like they’re trying to make it sound like it isn’t much of a change from requiring an ecclesiastical endorsement, but there is a huge difference. The ecclesiastical endorsement (at least for students) does not technically require you to have a testimony or believe in the church’s truth claims. The temple recommend interview on the other hand has several questions dealing with belief.
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