A reader quotes me:
I have no interest in judging Romney's faith. The only legitimate criticism of the Mormon Church in terms of its public identity is the secretness of its Temples and some of their ceremonies. I think voters have a right to know what a candidate does in those ceremonies.
I understand where you're coming from, but I think it will be too bad if (when) the Mormon temple ceremony is dragged out into the light. It is WEIRD, believe you me, but not in a threatening way. It is weird like the magic underwear, if you will, not like a Masonic-assassin-CIA-Bilderberger-banker-Mormon conspiracy.
When I first went through the temple, just before my mission at 19, I was thrown for a serious loop. The typical neighborhood Mormon church is plain in an almost-Amish fashion (not the cars in the parking lot … just the church itself). Austerity and moderation characterize most aspects of Mormon life. But the temples have all the decorative restraint of a Vegas casino. The rituals that take place in the temple are similarly overdone. They involve a fair bit of chanting in unison, secret handshakes, funny costumes, and more than a little gesticulating as the initiates progress symbolically from an Edenic state, through life, and into death
The temple rituals look ridiculous from the outside and they would make any candidate look ridiculous. But they are not sinister in the slightest and the secrecy around the temples does not strike me as sinister either, although I left the church long ago.
In fact (and this is the thing that would bother me most about seeing the temple stripped naked in our notoriously ungentle excuse for a national conversation), one of the best things about the temple is that not even Mormons are allowed to talk about it amongst themselves. The wonderful, wonderful effect of this ban on speaking is that it is the ONE aspect of Mormon life where the individual truly is allowed to define the meaning for themselves. No one can tell you what to think about the temple because no one can talk about it.
My fear is that, if the temple became fodder for public debate, the church authorities would issue some bland public statement that would essentially bind all interpretations of the temple to a single, ecclesiastically approved interpretation. And their interpretation would be, needless to say, no fun.
Another Mormon writes:
I have a couple of points: First, Hitchens seems to be a bit loose in his understanding of Mormon doctrine. No, Mormon doctrine does not state that Jesus will return to Missouri instead of the generally accepted Armageddon. It does say that Christ, once He returns, will establish another center of governance in the American continent somewhere around Missouri after He returns to Jerusalem/Armageddon and establishes himself there. I could go through the other inaccuracies of what he claims is Mormon doctrine in that piece and yet never cites a single official source of those beliefs from the Mormon Church or books of scripture. It's always interesting to hear what one is supposed to believe from people who learn about those beliefs from second- or third-hand sources.
Second, and my main reason for writing, was your citing of the secretness of the temple ordinances as something that should be brought to light. To be honest, those ordinances are not all that secret. There are many places on the internet that you can find those ordinances and the accompaning promises discussed, if so inclined, but none of those are official. In addition, from what I have read about what is known from early, pre-Catholic Christianity and other ancient civilizations the ordinances that the Mormon Church does in the temples is similar to many of those. Check out the book by Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley called Temple and Cosmos for other examples. The point is that these are not secret rites, they are sacred and shouldn't be discussed lightly. There is precedent for this as the ancient Jews had rites that were not discussed much in open company or with "Gentiles", as did the ancient Christians. But none of it is secret, as you wrote, because everything is available for those that want to look into it.
Another:
If you're really curious, there are many accounts of the temple rituals on the Internet, such as here and here.
Another:
For a well-written, first-person account of some temple ceremonies, try Secret Ceremonies by Deborah Laake.
(Photo: "Albuquerque New Mexico Temple, Entrance" by Michael Whiffen)
The Dish 