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Had a thought on the way to Temple the other day. Why is it that Temple work is done so inefficiently? Jesus set the pattern for vicarious work by atoning for all mankind, so why do we do one person at a time in the Temple? What is stopping someone from being baptized for all mankind who are dead in one dunk? Confirmation, initiatory and endowment could also be done in one go. Just repeat the process once a year for the newly dead.
Anyway, just a crazy thought. Maybe because the Temple would have no use if people had no reason to go back after their own ordinances are finished.
I believe strongly the temple is meant to be for the living to internalize a connection to all humanity (to be sealed to everyone in spirit) and not primarily for the salvation of the dead. I find great meaning in the symbolism there, even though I don’t believe in any literal saving through the ordinances. I also like a place of peace where I can let my mind roam without any distractions – and, having attended for almost 30 years, I include the play itself in that description most of the time.
I heard a talk once about temple work and someone counted the number of times a person’s name is said as their temple work is being completed. It was a powerful talk, and focused on how the temple gives the chance for one individual to be remembered and honored.
However, in the end, it might end up being done that way for all the billions of people that we are never going to get to.
rebeccad wrote:I heard a talk once about temple work and someone counted the number of times a person’s name is said as their temple work is being completed.
It was a powerful talk, and focused on how the temple gives the chance for one individual to be remembered and honored.
Yup. I think of temples the same way that I do of headstones. Now it would be much more efficient to just build one memorial monument for everyone that has ever died, but in doing so it might delute some of the effectiveness in honoring and remembering the individual.
For most humans – efficiency is not high on our list of priorities. I wonder if we’ll get any better at it after the resurrection? Probably not, I’m not convinced that the delegation and reporting process of God to Jesus and Jesus to Michael and then back is very efficient. Like the telephone game, I can just imagine what might happen if the instructions got garbled! “What?!?! He wants us to create fists of the sea?!?!?!”
😆 Good responses. I was wondering if anyone had some obscure quote or snippet of doctrine on hand to approach the subject. If temple work goes on for another few hundred years, I imagine things will be quite different than they are now, as available records of the deceased will eventually trail off at some point.
But hopefully they have made new films of the temple drama by then.
One nom theory is that having everyone be active temple goers increases tithing revenues…but that’s nom for ya. I had never thought of that until they mentioned it
I am sure we will find that the church will make it more efficient up to the point that it encourages more, not less, temple attendance. And in that vein, it has gotten a lot more efficient since my parents joined as adult converts in 1955:
– they had to drive from Chicago to SLC to go to the temple. Now there are temples all over the world. Even my trips to the temple from here are a 4 hour flight. They drove for 2 days with a car full of 4 kids.
– the endowment was 4 hours long when they went.
– you used to have to do the whole thing consecutively (baptism to sealing) for one name before going to the next name.
– the initiatory was not a separate ordinance when they went.
– the sessions were all live back then and took longer. They were also subject to people calling in sick or just being physically slower as they moved room to room.
– even since I was endowed we went from over 2 hours down to about 90 mins by cutting some of the dialogue people found scary.
– we further reduced it by eliminating all the stand up / sit down.
– initiatories were also shortened.
I am a huge fan of efficiency. My dad’s an engineer, and he served a temple mission. I was talking to my dad about how to make it even more efficient, and he suggested the most obvious way is to further disaggregate the endowment. When you make the pieces shorter and more repeatable, you can do them very quickly, like you can now with the initiatory. I’ll leave it to your imagination how this could be done, but it makes a lot of sense to me!
The concept of breaking it up further would make it easier for me. I do think that, as in any other assembly line system, you do reduce the personal nature of the experience while gaining efficiency. I would be fine with it as I don’t enjoy sitting in the 2 hour endowment….I would much rather they break it out so I could do some portion for multiple people…with the ability to stop when I am ready to go (like baptisms or initiatory). But I think most would agree in Baptism and intiatory or sealings you don’t get the same “I did this for you John Smith”. I think this does take away some of the spirit and thus a few folks who go there just for that would stop. To some degree I think the church has damaged itself in the pursuit of efficiency. For those of us in the sticks the removal of personal baptisms and missionary homecomings/farewells has lead to some of the loss of youth. I am sure it was a pain in the ass in Utah, a good problem to have really, but for the rest of the world it created a positive energy that helped motivate youth. Funny thing…the fact that it became a problem showed it was a success…too bad they didn’t let the rest of us suffer the same success.
My husband always argued you could make it shorter by having a beginners and experienced version. If you cut out all the explaining things (details on how to do stuff) it would save quite a lot of time.
IMHO it is all manufactured busywork. The whole salvation for the dead thing is beyond me. If we spent as much time worrying about the living as we do the dead we would have a much more vibrant church. But to answer the question it is strictly about keeping individuals tied to the church. If you keep them going to the temple they are much more likely to stay with the church status quo. If we dunked for everyone all at once what would keep anyone interested in going to the temple? It is not a matter of what can or can not be done properly, but a matter of what they want to do. The dead are individuals not just names. It is good they are remembered. For me it has great symbolic value. No one need be left behind. I think Jesus’ visit saved all dead before him.
It meant a lot to me to do work for a forgotten great uncle killed in WWI. In his early twenties, unmarried. I was able tio show a love for him. Effective? Who knows.
SamBee wrote:The dead are individuals not just names. It is good they are remembered.
For me it has great symbolic value. No one need be left behind. I think Jesus’ visit saved all dead before him.
It meant a lot to me to do work for a forgotten great uncle killed in WWI. In his early twenties, unmarried. I was able tio show a love for him. Effective? Who knows.
So what you are saying is it is really about the living not the dead. If we do work to help us remember those that have died or tie us to them in someway it is really about us needing something, not the dead getting their hall pass. If we try to impose some cosmic meaning on it all I suppose that is OK if it makes us feel better, but that is a tremendous amount of resources committed to feeling good.
I love and believe in the concept that people live on after death and that they need to be remembered and honored – even as I believe the ordinances themselves have nothing to do with salvation. I love the temple, even though I take almost nothing in it literally. The biggest difference I have observed about how the temple is seen is in the natural perspectives of the people who see it. I understand and am fine with that – as long people are charitable toward those who see differently.
Again, I will emphasize that if we want more orthodox members to respect our views, we need to respect theirs, generally speaking. That is bedrock for me.
i don’t disrespect their views…but it is hard to live by them. I think if we wanted to shorten the temple experience lets get rid of all the masonic mumbo jumbo and stick with the story. The swapping clothing thing is just a big fat distraction and sucks what little meaning there is out of the endowment for me. I think if it was the general story and making some coveneants it would be faster and more would go. johnh wrote:i don’t disrespect their views…but it is hard to live by them. I think if we wanted to shorten the temple experience lets get rid of all the masonic mumbo jumbo and stick with the story. The swapping clothing thing is just a big fat distraction and sucks what little meaning there is out of the endowment for me. I think if it was the general story and making some coveneants it would be faster and more would go.
Hmmm? I don’t know John. I was a pre-1990 temple change guy…and now that I don’t really “believe” in the temple, I find the masonry to be the most fascinating aspect of Mormonism. Had I been better educated in masonary rites, and informed and understood what it really was, and inoculated to all the symbolism…I think I would have liked it and appreciated it more.
Water under the bridge now.
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