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In another thread, I mentioned the one year waiting period for worthy couples who want a civil wedding to include their family as a form of compulsion and unrighteous dominion. The conversation risked derailment in this sub-thread, so I post it here in case anyone is interested. Curtis said: Quote:
SD, fwiw, I don’t like the one-year waiting period as a universal requirement (since I think there are lots of situations now where it would be just fine for people to get sealed earlier than one year after a civil marriage), but I don’t think it was instituted as a motivation to try to force temple marriage rather than civil marriage. I think it was instituted as a “repentance period” for members back in the day who had to get married civilly due to pregnancy (which, frankly, was the vast majority of cases with most members who couldn’t get sealed right away) and as a way to make sure new converts understood enough to make the commitments in the temple.I understand those situations, so I don’t oppose a “waiting period” – but I would like a much shorter period in many cases.
In those situations, I’m not in full
disagreementfor the policy. Allowing people time to understand the church, and to repent for wrong-doing seems perfectly reasonable. However, I do think that when church leaders make policies like the one year waiting period mandatory for all people in all situations within a certain country, the motive shifts from ensuring repentance and understanding, to forcing compliance with a temple marriage or suffer consequences (such as all the speculating and shaming that goes along with the repentence reasons for waiting).
No one could explain a defensible reason for this policy when I learned about the policy when I was about to get married. Myself and my wife were worthy at the time — there was no reason for it except to meet the church’s interest in seeing people show the commitment of temple marriage from day 1.
Members were famous for speculating reasons that I know have been discussed over and over again — but if the church really wanted to be fair and inclusive, they would allow a civil and temple on the same day. This would help stitch in non-member family.
But they refuse to — I feel that this represents a form of compulsion on the souls of men to serve organizational interests at the expense of a person’s well-meaning and deserving non-member family who deserves the privilege of seeing their son get married.
It qualifies as unrighteous dominion. I know this has been discussed before, but I mention it here for further discussion if people wish. I would argue that we should stay focused on whether it is a form of unrighteous dominion though, and leave other unrighteous dominion comments not related to this topic in the other unrighteous dominion thread.
SD…I agree a 100% that the one year waiting period is a form of unrighteousness dominion! There are very very few events in a persons life that come only once or a handful of times. Seeing your children married and being apart of that sacred and amazing moment is what most parents dream of!! For the church to deny people (members or non members) the opportunity to see their children married is horrendous! How can we claim family to be one of the most important parts of our religion while denying parents,grandparents,siblings, and all non-members the ability to see their loved ones married. I would say that the seeing a child get married is right up there with giving birth to said child in the first place. The only thing worse would be if the church came out and said that after the birth of a grandchild, all non-temple recommend holding adults would have to wait a year before being allowed to see and hold the baby. Yes I know an extreme example but for most nonlds Americans a child’s wedding is a HUGE event in everyone’s life. Also a reception for non temple goers is NOT the same as being there and apart of the actual event. There were 43 family members that could not attend my wedding and to this day that fact still causes pain to all of us. I wish I had been strong and mature enough to have bucked my indoctrination that the temple was more important than my family.It is unrighteousness dominion in my view. Like I mentioned in the other thread… civil marriages outside the temple followed immediately by a temple sealing was the standard operating procedure in the country where I served my mission. The country didn’t recognize marriages performed in the temple so an additional step of a civil marriage was a requirement. Couples got married civilly and went inside the temple to perform the sealing immediately afterwards. A special case to be sure but it does show that the church can be flexible. Edit: Then again that sealing took place before the relationship was consummated… perhaps that is the issue at hand. An orthodox TBM might see it as black and white. The civil marriage doesn’t count in the eyes of the lord or some such, the couple consummates the civil union, and it’s a sin??? Really trying to dig deep to come up with reasons here.
I see it as being similar to what Curtis said… the one year waiting period becomes a repentance period because I think the prevailing perception is that civil marriages only happen in the church when a couple is not temple worthy. That does a few things:
1) Members assume sin when they see a couple getting married civilly, which is all kinds of wrong. Even if the couple was living together or engaging in premarital sex before a marriage wouldn’t the marriage itself be evidence of repentance? Maybe there is a period of time assigned as penance, maybe not, but a year?
2) It sets a precedent for situations other than cases where a couple isn’t worthy to enter the temple – like in cases where a convert or even a pioneer stock member wants non-temple recommend holding members of their family to attend the marriage. The policy becomes wait a year because that’s what it was for all those other couples.
The policy does have a less than righteous feeling to it. I understand how it can be seen as another form of control that the church imposes upon members. Want to participate in your family’s life events? Well make sure you pay tithing and toe the line. I think it’s more the case that it was a repentance period thing for couples that were previously sinning but then grew a life of its own as a blanket policy that applied to all cases of civil unions. Something that needs to be reevaluated IMO.
I’m a convert so 100% of my family wasn’t able to attend the wedding. We had a ring ceremony a week later with everyone present. Those days are past so now the concern is how the policy could harm people yet to be married.
I apologize if this is a common metaphor. I am relatively new to this forum but when I read posts related to behavior within the church that seems strange or old fashion, I can help but think about this story (which verily likely never actually occurred). Quote:A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on the top. Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, every time a monkey went up the ladder, the others beat up the one on the ladder. After some time, no monkey dare[d] to go up the ladder regardless of the temptation. Scientists then decided to substitute one of the monkeys. The 1st thing this new monkey did was to go up the ladder. Immediately the other monkeys beat him up.
After several beatings, the new member learned not to climb the ladder even though he never knew why. A 2nd monkey was substituted and the same occurred. The 1st monkey participated in the beating for the 2nd monkey. A 3rd monkey was changed and the same was repeated (beating). The 4th was substituted and the beating was repeated and finally the 5th monkey was replaced. What was left was a group of 5 monkeys that even though never received a cold shower, continued to beat up any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder.
If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they would beat up all those who attempted to go up the ladder … I bet you the answer would be … “I don’t know — that’s how things are done around here” Does it sound familiar? Don’t miss the opportunity to share this with others as they might be asking themselves why we continue to do what we are doing if there is a different way out there.
I think that mormons try their best to live the sprit of the law, but love the letter of the law and can’t help but cling to it. I think people in the church try to ‘out-righteous’ each other and they do that by inventing commandments to follow (facial hair as a sin and coca-cola as a forbidden fruit).
I wonder if this whole 1-year waiting period could fall under this category. It seems like there should be more room to interpret the spirit of the law but local church leaders are products of their training and their upbringing by the hands of their predecessors who, like the monkeys, are just doing what was done before them.
Great story! I don’t see the waiting period as unrighteous dominion – and I think if we define unrighteous dominion to include it, we have stretched the definition so broadly that it includes ALL religious ceremonies that have any hint of importance or eternal result / theological “pressure” associated with them. Personally, I just can’t do that, because: Baptism becomes unrighteous dominion; taking the sacrament becomes unrighteous dominion; prayer becomes unrighteous dominion; asking for God’s grace to be saved becomes unrighteous dominion; reading the Bible becomes unrighteous dominion; missionary service becomes unrighteous dominion; etc. I just see a huge difference between unrighteous dominion and policies intended to keep something sacred – even when I would have no problem making changes to the policy.
Also, the waiting period is a completely different issue than excluding people from a wedding. Conflating the two clouds the central issues involved with each.
Curtis, I disagree that the waiting period and excluding people from the wedding are two separate things. If I had been in a different country ALL of my family could have participated in the civil wedding which was of extreme importance to them and I would not have face the extreme cultural pressure to exclude them in favor of a temple marriage first.The sealing was not what they were interested in as it meant nothing to them personally as non-members. The same could be said for lds non temple recommend holders who could at least permitted to witness their children be married first if not able to attend the sealing. A ring ceremony after the sealing is simply a after thought as everyone views the couple as already married. There is no reason that people could not be married civil first if not a new convert followed by a sealing the next day. Also the one year waiting period is not the same as baptism pressure or sacrament pressure, those are public events that even non members can attend and view. They are not potentially once in a lifetime events that carry such cultural importance and weight in the non lds and lds world as a child’s marriage. Sorry but the one year waiting period does lead to the exclusion of members and nonmembers alike with the cultural THREAT and control that is emphasized by the church. Relevant info from lds.org: https://www.lds.org/new-era/1971/06/information-for-brides-and-grooms-planning-a-temple-marriage?lang=eng ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.lds.org/new-era/1971/06/information-for-brides-and-grooms-planning-a-temple-marriage?lang=eng Quote:Less than a Year. The general rule of the Church is that a person may not apply for a temple recommend until he has been a member of the Church for one year, unless he receives written permission from the First Presidency granting permission for his sealing and/or early endowment. This letter must be presented with the temple recommend. Also, if a couple are civilly married and then decide later that they wish to be sealed in the temple (in contrast to special conditions, such as those in New Zealand, as noted above in number five), the general rule of the Church is that they may not apply for a temple recommend until one year from the date of their civil marriage. Any exception must be in writing from the First Presidency granting permission for the sealing. Permission in both instances is received through priesthood channels that begin with the bishop. Quote:5.
Civil Ceremony Preceding Temple Sealing. Marriages in temples in the United States and Canada are recognized by the law of the land as approved marriages, but laws in London, Switzerland, and New Zealand require persons desiring to be sealed in these temples to be married civilly first. In New Zealand, for example, the law requires that all marriages be performed in a place that is open to the public. Consequently, couples are generally married civilly first in the visitors center chapel or one of the ward chapels, following which they go immediately to the temple for their sealing. Obviously, all this influences somewhat your plans for your wedding day. I don’t see the country I served in on that list, perhaps they changed their laws or perhaps the list is not comprehensive and is just meant to illustrate the point.
I really don’t get the one year waiting period for a couple that had a civil marriage in cases where neither person is a recent convert and the couple obeyed the law of chastity before the civil marriage. I suppose those are the cases that can trickle up to the first presidency. I have witnessed one case where a letter from the first presidency was obtained to grant permission to do an ordinance, so it’s not impossible. I think it would just take a couple that wanted to earnestly explore that route. It’s policy, people shouldn’t be scared off because they think the task daunting, still waiting certainly seems to be the path of least resistance. That and most couples are probably fine with it.
Just shooting from the hip here… perhaps opting for a civil marriage is seen as an act of defiance by people that are otherwise worthy to be sealed in the temple? Like a person knows god’s way but willfully opts for something lesser.
I think it all boils down to perceptions. They’re getting a civil marriage? Oh, it’s a law of chastity issue.
We’d do well to advertise reasons to cast doubt on established perceptions. I want my non-member friend to be my best man. I want my parents to be there. Those desires come from a place of love and unity, they are not governed by sin.
As you might expect, I don’t think that calling the one-year waiting period a form of unrighteous dominion calls into question the righteousness of other areas of dominion, such as other polices — baptism, sacrament, etcetera. In all these other cases, there are WORTHINESS or LACK OF PREPARATION issues at the heart of excluding people from those ordinances. When the church enforces the one-year waiting period, in the absence of sin or lack of preparation, they are exercising a form of compulsion on the souls of “men” [people] to provide them with two alternatives — get married in the temple like the Church wants you to, or — get married civilly, wait a year, be perceived b the culture as having broken the law of chastity, and be shamed — be lumped in to the category of people who have only developing knowledge of the gospel, or who have sinned.
The waiting period in this case is wrong It destroys non-member family relationships. It hurts the only people in your life poised to be loyal to your through your eartlhy life if they are non-members. My wife and I listed the people who attended our temple sealing — NONE of them are part of our lives now. Yet I still deal with the after-effects in my non-member family after all these years.
And its not good for the church either. The exclusion of my non-member family from my wedding due to the one-year waiting period strengthened the idea that Mormonism is a cult. Before this, they had only heard it, after the exclusion of a civil wedding, they believed it.
The waiting period epitomizes church egocentrism and compulsion in my view. It is definitely a form of compulsion that has nothing to do with worthiness, readiness, or sufficient knowledge in certain cases. I consider it institutionalized unrighteous dominion of which the leaders are largely unconscious.
How do you stay LDS admidst this? If you want to get married civilly first, then petition to get your endowments first. Go have your civil wedding, and then do a temple session in a week or right after. Invite the whole Ward. If your wife can’t get hers due to not serving a mission and being too young (not sure if that is a policy anymore — that women 18 or 19 can’t get endowments unless going on a mission or getting married– a whole other story)….then get married, and go yourself for a session and invite the whole LDS world. Have your bride waiting for you outside to welcome you without shame. And then get married in a year in the temple.
In many countries you must be married civilly. Plus I don’t think that they have registrars in temples outside the USA. One of the usual reasons for this is that in some places, there must be a space for people to object to the wedding (remember the
Graduate?), in case the marriage is inappropriate for some reason – bigamy and incest for example. I’m sure there’s a fundy joke in there somewhere. I’m asking in all honesty, but I have heard that the reason the lds church required marriages to be performed in the temple only was so that those practicing polygamy could be married in secrect and in safety? Is this true? Is that were the origins of excluding nonmembers originated? Dax wrote:Curtis, I disagree that the waiting period and excluding people from the wedding are two separate things. If I had been in a different country ALL of my family could have participated in the civil wedding which was of extreme importance to them and I would not have face the extreme cultural pressure to exclude them in favor of a temple marriage first.The sealing was not what they were interested in as it meant nothing to them personally as non-members. The same could be said for lds non temple recommend holders who could at least permitted to witness their children be married first if not able to attend the sealing. A ring ceremony after the sealing is simply a after thought as everyone views the couple as already married. There is no reason that people could not be married civil first if not a new convert followed by a sealing the next day. Also the one year waiting period is not the same as baptism pressure or sacrament pressure, those are public events that even non members can attend and view. They are not potentially once in a lifetime events that carry such cultural importance and weight in the non lds and lds world as a child’s marriage. Sorry but the one year waiting period does lead to the exclusion of members and nonmembers alike with the cultural THREAT and control that is emphasized by the church.
I served a mission inNew Zealand where, as mentioned above, people had to get married in a public place first, then go to the temple. It was the usual way of doing things for members there so it wasn’t weird or anything. In the case where people were a long way from the temple, they had a certain amount of time after the marriage to get there if they didn’t get married at the temple chapel (three days, maybe?). I do agree dax that this could be done elsewhere, I don’t see the harm in it and I don’t know why the insistence on doing it differently.
That said, I don’t believe this is unrighteous dominion. It is a matter of policy that could be changed. Organizations need policies. Missionary age is another policy (which has changed), and I don’t believe it’s unrighteous dominion in that case either. Unrighteous dominion might be telling someone they can’t marry someone else simply because he/she doesn’t like that person. That’s only my opinion, and I’m gathering here that this is one of those areas where peopel are on one side or the other and we’re going to end up agreeing to disagree (something we seem to do well here, I might add).
Dax wrote:I’m asking in all honesty, but I have heard that the reason the lds church required marriages to be performed in the temple only was so that those practicing polygamy could be married in secrect and in safety? Is this true? Is that were the origins of excluding nonmembers originated?
Dax, well, the way I look at it is that the Church doesn’t perform marriages in the temple… you can be married in the chapel or at the justice of the peace’s office. The ceremony performed in the temple is a sealing. We use the term marriage in our vernacular, but that confuses rather than clarifies the issue. The distinction is that a marriage is for this life and a sealing is a superset of marriage, being for this life and the next. You can’t be sealed outside the temple, and non-members and non-TR-holding members cannot go into the temple beyond the vestibule. I do certainly believe that privacy was paramount when it came to plural marriages, but I don’t think that was the driving force. I don’t think non-members were present in early endowment rites in the Red Brick Store, and weren’t there for baptisms by proxy in the Nauvoo Temple basement.SilentDawning wrote:they are exercising a form of compulsion on the souls of “men” [people] to provide them with two alternatives…
I don’t believe that the intent of the policy is to compel people to make this hard choice. I think that is an unintended and unfortunate side effect. I think that the Church believes it is simply protecting the sanctity of its highest rite.I completely agree with your assessment that the policy is not a good one. I think, as you do, that it hurts our perception with the outside world. It also hurts innocent individuals. I have missed out personally, so I am very aware of that. I hope for a distant day, in which the temple rites will be modernized by removing secret elements, and that that might provide an opportunity for people to visit the temple in the same way they can visit our chapels.
But I believe that for unrighteous dominion to happen there has to be intent. I just can’t accept that people like TSMonson, HBEyring, DFUchtdorf, and JRHolland sit meetings where they plot to coerce members of the Church to be more faithful by punishing them, their families. and their friends in this way.
Remember, I have said I would love it if the policy of allowing a civil marriage followed as soon as possible by a temple sealing was world-wide. However, the wording of the handbook is interesting. It says those who CHOOSE to marry civilly and then, later, “decide they want to be married in the temple” generally must wait a year from the time of their civil marriage. This wording says to me that it is addressed at people who could have gotten married in the temple but just didn’t want to at the time. They said, “Nah, we’ll do it later at some point.” This simply sets that “later at some point” one year from their civil marriage. It doesn’t address those who want to get married in the temple. For them, there are other options – but local leaders often don’t realize that and work with them.
My second son is getting married in March. His finance’s family is not LDS, and her mother, especially, is close to being anti-Mormon. They attend a college in the Midwest where, right now, they are the only Mormons on campus – meaning almost ALL of their closest friends also are not LDS. Thus, they are getting sealed and then, two days later, they are having a ring ceremony for her family and their non-LDS friends. They aren’t asking permission to do it, since there is no LDS involvement in the ring ceremony. There is no Bishop presiding. It is completely irrelevant to their sealing and to those who can attend the sealing. It’s like a 25th anniversary re-commitment ceremony that just happens to take place two days after their sealing.
The issue in this case is that many local leaders would have told them they shouldn’t or even couldn’t have such a ceremony – and that is a real issue. However, it illustrates a huge difference between what I read as the intent and focus of the handbook wording (“Eh, we’ll get sealed at some point.”) and my son’s situation (“We are going to arrange things so that everyone can be as happy as possible.”). Again, I think we ought to remove all issues in this regard and let everyone marry civilly and then get sealed ASAP, but I get it that the current policy was intended to discourage a cavalier, we-will-get-to-it-whenever-we-feel-like-it mentality.
Thus, I just don’t see it as founded in or constituting unrighteous dominion.
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