by Dan Riley
The gravity of the Church and its message was never lost on me: if this was truly the way and path that would define my ultimate destiny and the fate of the world, nothing could be more important. Recognizing that I would need to take my own journey to realize my faith, I paid close attention to my lessons, talked with and asked questions of my teachers and leaders, and prayed diligently.
In Mormonism, the first Sunday of every month is called “Fast Sunday.” Members are encouraged to fast for 24 hours if they are able, take the money that they would have spent on their meals, and donate it to their church in the form of Fast Offerings, which ostensibly is used to feed the poor. Also, as part of the Sacrament Meeting on that Sunday, members can choose to go to the pulpit and “bear their testimony” before the congregation, publicly declaring their faith. Frequently, children will go to the pulpit as well, wanting to be like the adults. Because they may not know the right words to speak, a parent often accompanies them and whispers in their ears what to say. While adults try to speak about their own experiences, children often say the same thing: “I’d like to bear my testimony. I know the Church is true. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. I know that the living prophet is a prophet today. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love my family. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” Looking back, I find this to be rather disturbing, but growing up, I felt that it was well-intentioned and endearing.
The first time that I recall going to the pulpit on Fast Sunday, I must have been six or seven years old. I didn’t feel it was honest for me to proclaim that I knew the truth of something that I was in the process of investigating, so I declared, “I’d like to bear my testimony. I don’t know that the Church is true, but I’d like to find out.” It was an unusual thing to hear from a child, and I realized that I suddenly had the attention of everyone in the congregation. “I believe in this church,” I continued. “I know that I love my family, and I know that it has brought good things into my life, but I don’t know that the Church is true just yet, and I mean to find out.” After closing in the name of Jesus Christ, I returned to my seat and was commended with smiles and hugs by everyone around me. Because of their faith that the ultimate truth was within Mormonism, my family believed that my honest inquiry could only lead me to the same conclusion. They encouraged me down that path. I was baptized by my father not too long after at the age of eight, still not quite willing to state that I knew the Church to be true but hoping that it was.
Around this time, I began to have recurring nightmares of standing paralyzed at the bottom of long flights of stairs, with various monsters slowly making their way toward me. I hated these nightmares and decided that the only person I knew who could help me was God. I decided to strike a deal with Him: if He would guarantee that I would not have nightmares, then I would pray and read three pages of Scripture every night. That fear of nightmares made me a diligent reader and scholar, having now read the Book of Mormon cover to cover upwards of 15 times and the entire Bible several times. Though I’ve long ceased reading and praying, I have not had a nightmare since.
As a young student of the Church, I found the Book of Mormon to be largely boring and textually dry. There would be times when I would forget to read my Scriptures before bed, and I would feel particularly guilty, so I would make it up the next night by reading six pages, which always felt like a daunting task. Mark Twain once called the Book of Mormon “chloroform in print,” and I would tend to agree — and not solely because one of the books is named “Ether.”
Far from boring, however, were the prophecies regarding the end of the world. As described by the Book of Mormon, the end of the world will feature skeletons thrown out of their graves and entire cities sinking into the sea or being swallowed by the Earth to a soundtrack of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Mormonism frequently focuses on the Apocalypse, and I was often told that my generation might be the very last before Christ returns. Having an active imagination as a child, whenever there would be a particularly violent storm, I would be absolutely terrified, thinking that the end might be near. I would spend hours on my knees crying and praying to God, “Please, don’t let the world end, but if it does, please spare me and my family, and my dog, and my friends.” On several occasions, I found myself waking up in the morning prostrate, having fallen asleep in prayer the night before.
As I got older, I began to notice odd things in the Book of Mormon and would discuss them with my leaders and teachers. At one point, for example, it condemns polygamy and later, in the Doctrine & Covenants, condones it. My teachers explained that polygamy was a policy that God would choose to implement from time to time — and during the times of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the early saints, it was allowed. In modern times, it was not. Knowing that they loved me and wanted the best for me, I had no reason to doubt the explanations of my leaders. As a result of those discussions, Scripture reading, and my own independent research from other Mormons regarding topics such as the archaeology of Mormon civilizations in Central America, I considered myself a budding apologist.
My freshman year, I attended a Jesuit high school. Being one of few Mormons at the school, I took it upon myself to represent the Church and tried to convert all that I could. I read from the Book of Mormon aloud and volunteered to pray in my required Catholic Scripture course. I wasn’t terribly popular. Later, I attended my local high school, where I began dating a beautiful and brilliant girl who lived nearby. She was Lutheran, but I hoped that through my example and influence, she might ultimately convert. I also attended Mormon seminary classes all four years in high school. All of this led up to my attending Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
At the time, BYU was the perfect fit for me. It has an outstanding Middle Eastern Studies program, many of my friends were also going, my dad was an alumnus, and I had been awarded a full-tuition scholarship due to my grades and test scores. Every student at BYU, Mormon or otherwise, is required to live in Church-approved housing. There are a number of requirements to meet Church approval, such as having segregated genders and well-defined visiting hours during which members of the opposite sex are able to have supervised visits. I decided to live in the dorms with the majority of the other incoming freshmen. Each dorm has a dorm mother and father, an elderly couple that lives in the dorms to oversee the students living there. The residential advisors are highly engaged in the lives of the students on the floor, having mandatory weekly meetings and other activities.
I became close friends with many of the other boys on my floor at BYU and had a wonderful time. It was a great environment to be a young Mormon — the BYU campus is an extraordinarily isolated place, both physically and behind internet firewalls, and thus we didn’t encounter anything from the outside that challenged our faith. Our friends all believed the same things that we did, so any conflicts we did have were often small, simple, and easy to resolve. We had good, clean, Mormon fun, such as playing video games together, going hiking, or watching movies at the local dollar theater. Sometimes we would get a little crazy and watch PG-13 movies, go to Denny’s at 3:00 in the morning, or sneak off campus to get energy drinks, as there is no caffeine sold on the BYU campus.
Not everything was wonderful at BYU, however. Since Mormon girls were taught that they ought to weigh the spiritual fitness of their potential husbands, boys at BYU tended to try to out-Mormon each other to compete for female affections. One, for example, might decide that it was not righteous to listen to music with foul language, so he would dramatically smash his explicit CDs in the hallway and challenge his floor-mates to do the same. Soon, half the dorm would be putting their similar CDs in pillow cases and smashing them against doors. Public shame and guilt were pervasive, and students didn’t hesitate to report any unbecoming behavior of others to the dorm leaders.
Though I strived to follow the rules and live virtuously, I believed that the spirit of a law was more important than the letter thereof, and I found it grating when I would bump up against some of the mor
e arbitrary ones. I was turned away from the cafeteria several times, for example, for not having shaved recently enough. I would occasionally rebel against interpretations of rules and Scriptures that I deemed to be too strict — I even made fun of those who decided that they couldn’t stay out past midnight on a Saturday, believing that to do so would violate the Sabbath.
I enjoyed having philosophical discussions with friends on how best to adhere to the ordinances and principles of the Gospel. Consequently, I began to question many of the key admonitions and rules that had been given to me. I found it interesting that other Christians saw no problem with the consumption of alcohol in moderation, while Mormonism expressly forbids all consumption. I couldn’t find a moral reason that made total abstention better than controlled and moderate drinking and ultimately determined that the only bad thing about having a single glass of wine was that it would be disobedient to what God had instructed. Being a 19-year-old boy, I also thoroughly questioned sexual morality, particularly regarding masturbation and premarital sex. Everyone wanted to know exactly how far they could go with a girl before it became inappropriate in the eyes of God, and I was no exception. For most questions, I was able to find moral justifications in the rules given to us by the Church — masturbation, I thought, must be immoral because it causes us to have lustful thoughts, which are forbidden by Jesus. I believed that it could also lead to a heightened desire for pornography, which could cause people to objectify women and might transform individuals into sexual predators.
The pinnacle of my freshman year of college was in the spring, when most of us would receive our mission calls. Like most Mormons, I had been raised with a desire to serve a mission in order to bring the Gospel to the world. Mormon men sitting around a campfire on a camping trip tell stories from their mission the way that other men discuss their days in military service or at college, calling it the best two years of their lives. I couldn’t wait for mine. As a child, I liked to spin a globe and push my finger onto the surface until it stopped, imagining that I would serve a mission wherever my finger happened to land. Nothing excited me more than the possibility of traveling to a foreign country. One by one, the other boys in the dorm got their calls. They would hold parties with all of their friends present and with their family members on the phone or connected via the internet, opening and reading the fateful letter to noisemakers and applause. My excitement was overwhelming when I received my call to the Singapore mission, which included Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and other nearby areas as well. I was to report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on June 16th, 2006!
I was scheduled to go through the Endowment ceremony on the 10th of June, six days prior to start of my mission. Many Christian sects believe that entrance to heaven requires that the baptismal ordinance is performed, but Mormons believe that baptism is but one of several ordinances that are requisite to enter the highest kingdom of heaven, the Endowment being one of them. Receiving the Endowment is a ceremony that can only take place in a Mormon temple, and most Mormons do so either immediately before leaving for a mission or immediately before marriage.
I had been aware of the existence of the ceremony, and I knew that it was at the time of the Endowment that members begin to wear garments — commonly called “Mormon underwear” by non-members. I knew that the garments were a bit odd from an outsider’s perspective, but I grew up seeing my parents and other family members wearing them, so it didn’t seem particularly strange to me. I had been taught that they are meant to serve as reminders of the covenants that are made in the temple, and that was acceptable enough. Growing up, I had occasionally heard Apocryphal Mormon folk stories about garments providing supernatural protection for, for example, people who had been lit on fire in a horrible accident, having burns everywhere but where their garments touched their bodies. I had been taught that God rewards obedience, and it seemed reasonable that He might cause miracles for those who wore the garments as they had been commanded.
Other than the receiving of garments, I knew nothing of the Endowment. I took a preparatory course from the Church, but the focus of the course was to prepare me to be in the right spiritual state to receive it. The course said nothing about the actual content of the ceremony. As we drove to the temple, my parents and grandmother told me that I needed to keep in mind that what takes place in the temple is highly symbolic and that I may need to go for many years before finally grasping the true meaning of it all. I was excited and intrigued, if a little nervous, as we entered together.
To publicly discuss the ceremony outside of the temple is firmly forbidden. I know many ex-Mormons who still refuse to talk about the ceremony because of how badly it would be seen by their Mormon friends and family. What follows is my account of the ceremony — readers that would be offended by the same ought to skip this section.
Though it was over five years ago now, and the details are a bit fuzzy, I recall most of that day quite clearly. I had always liked the temple. It is built and designed for calmness and serenity — the building itself is remarkably soundproof, and the interior is designed to maintain that. Aged temple workers in white flow through the various rooms, keeping everything in order while speaking only in whispers. One temple worker sits at an elevated white desk at the entrance with a book of names before him, ensuring that only members who have been approved by their bishops — holding a card called a Temple Recommend — enter.
I entered the Spokane, Washington temple with my parents and grandmother. The man at the front desk smiled as he took my Recommend, asking, “First time?” I nodded, and he put his arm around me as we walked toward a small office behind him, where the temple president was waiting. He must have been in his sixties, and I remember him smiling warmly as he shook my hand. He explained that I would first need to go to the locker rooms to change into my temple clothes, which my parents had purchased and brought with them. I was to be washed and anointed, and then, the Endowment would proceed. “At some point in the ceremony,” he told me, “you will be asked for your second name. This second name is your divine name, your true name, and the name that you were known by before this life and will be known as after this life.” He admonished me to never share my second name with anyone, as the Lord had said that anyone who knew your true name would have power over you. He leaned over his desk as my parents turned away and whispered, “Barnabus.” As I mulled over the bitter-tasting realization that I would be known as Barney for the rest of eternity, the president offered to give a prayer before we continued.
My mother and grandmother went to the left while my father and I went to the right, heading to our respective changing rooms. As my dad started pulling the clothes out of the bag he had brought, I noticed a man walking about in what I assumed was the full temple dress. I caught my breath in surprise. The hat looked like a white, puffy beret, listing slightly to one side. He wore a white toga-like garment with a white sash running from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The most striking piece was the bright green apron around his waist. It was tied in the back and ran from his waist to near his knees and was embroidered with fig leaves. Rather surprised, I figured that the man must have been wearing something special to perform a certain ceremony. I then saw my dad pull out a set of the same clothes for each of us. As he put on the temple clothes, I put on a simple toga-like robe for the washing and anointing ceremony. The toga had no sleeves, was cut below the arms to the waist, and I wore nothing beneath it.
We walked to a small room that was subdivided into four sections by tall curtains. My dad waited near the entrance of the room, and an elderly temple worker entered with some consecrated oil. He said nothing to me but poured a little bit on my head and said a blessing. We then proceeded through the other three sections of the room. In each room, he would put a little bit of oil on different parts of my body and say a blessing. I was a bit concerned that one of the blessed parts would be my genitals and was relieved when the ceremony ended without anything of the sort.
We
entered a central room, which looked like a small movie theater with a single aisle in the middle. Facing the screen, all of the men were seated on the right, and the women were seated on the left, where I saw my mother and grandmother. Their clothes were similar to the men, but where the men wore hats, the women wore white veils that covered their faces. Temple workers stood at the corners and one, who directed the members to their seats and conducted the ceremony, stood in front.
I was utterly confused and dismayed. I had been raised in a church that eschewed silly costumes and rituals; my Mormon friends and I made fun of Catholics for all of their odd pomp and Latin. Mormonism had always seemed to me to be predicated upon the more logical Protestant notion that God really doesn’t care what costumes you wear or what motions you go through, but rather that He cares more about the substance of your heart. I believed that I knew Mormonism inside and out. Yet, here I was, sitting amidst a room full of people in bizarre costumes with secret names in a ritual that I couldn’t connect to anything familiar, no matter how I tried. As I looked at the screen before me, I hoped that the film that would be played would show that the whole thing had been an elaborate Candid-Camera-esque prank on my behalf. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The film appeared to have been made in the 80s, judging from the production quality and haircuts of the actors. It began in the heavens, showing the story of the preexistence, in which our spirits dwelt prior to deciding to come to Earth. It went on to show God and Jesus creating Adam and teaching him that there are names, signs, and tokens that he needed to know in order to return to heaven, narrating something to the effect of “and then Elohim — the name of God according to Mormon belief — taught Adam the signs and tokens of the first order of the Aaronic Priesthood.”