In the psychology of perception, there’s the idea of a just-noticeable difference (JND) in some stimulus. For example, if a person is looking at a light, a JND is the smallest change in light that they’ll notice.
Some of the discussion around the changes that were just made in the temple ceremonies has made me think that we could define a parallel idea for how meaningful a change is: a just-meaningful difference (JMD). A JMD would be a change in something that’s just small enough to be meaningful.
To me, the changes the Church just made are far, far beyond the JMD threshold. The fact that women’s and men’s covenants are now parallel to each other rather than having women covenant to hearken to their husbands and men covenant to obey God is, I think, huge. The hearken covenant (and its even harsher predecessor, the obey covenant) have been the source of so much pain to so many Mormon women over the years. Similarly, the changes that have Eve no longer be silenced for the latter part of the endowment, and dropping the requirement that women be veiled are also very big. All these changes signal a fundamental reorganization of how women and men are though of being in relation to God. Instead of a hierarchical view where God presides over men, and men preside over women–one that Paul and Brigham Young would have preferred–we’ve taken some steps toward one where God is over all, regardless of their gender.
I’m flabbergasted, then, to learn that some men (friends of friends) are waving these changes away as just minor adjustments to the endowment. To use my term, they’re saying that these changes are below the JMD threshold. They’re not big enough to be meaningful.
I know it’s the height of arrogance to tell someone what they really believe, but I’m going to go there anyway. I don’t think these people actually believe this. Here’s a thought experiment that I think will make my point. What if instead of moving to an arrangement where everyone just covenants with God directly, we just flipped the script from the old version and had women covenant directly with God, and men covenant only to hearken to their wives? Also, how about if we have Adam be silenced after this covenant, and require men to veil their faces for the end part of the ceremony?
I’m guessing that people who wave these changes away as minor and not really meaningful would recoil at my proposed alternatives. Because it’s obvious that these would be meaningful changes, isn’t it? It would be totally out of line with all the patriarchal preferences that the LDS Church is so fundamentally built on. But if it were truly the case that moving from the hierarchy of God-man-woman to God-people isn’t enough to cross the JMD threshold, it must also be the case that moving from God-people to God-woman-man also isn’t enough to cross the threshold.
Here’s what I think is going on when people assert that these changes are minor. Being Mormon involves picking up many skills, and one of the most important is to learn to pointedly ignore many blatant inequalities, particularly those that fall along gender lines. Kids learn early that their parents or teachers or other Church members do not respond well to being asked straightforward questions like why it’s always the boys blessing and passing the sacrament, or why it’s always the men running sacrament meeting or why General Conference speakers are overwhelmingly male. To borrow a bit from President Oaks, we Mormons learn that it is good to claim that inequality doesn’t matter, it is better to claim that you’ve never actually noticed inequality, and it is best to pretend that the inequality doesn’t exist at all. What I think is happening when people assert that the changes to the temple ordinances are minor is that they’re figuring (correctly, I think) that to acknowledge that the changes are meaningful would be to implicitly acknowledge that the gender inequality existed in the first place, and of course as good Mormons, they’ve learned that only wicked people notice things like gender inequality in the Church, so they conclude that to show that they’re still righteous Church members, they must argue that the changes are minor.
I think you’ve hit on truth, Ziff. Thanks.
Thanks for the info most useful
Brilliant (best?) use of good, better, best. You are not wrong. Thanks for this!
There is a point of confusion around your claim that the covenants are now equal since women no longer hearken to their husband (and their husband hearken to God). Most people who haven’t been (and some who have) are claiming that women now covenant to hearken to God, and that is not accurate. There is no hearken covenant for either men or women. The hearken covenant is portrayed in that Eve is depicted as making a covenant to hearken to her husband, and Adam is depicted as making a covenant to hearken to God, but the people participating in the endowment are not asked to make the same covenant.
This choice is significantly different since a covenant has been removed, but it’s worth discussing: why is it portrayed still? What are the implications of portraying it but not transferring it beyond Adam and Eve? How will rank and file church members interpret that? How will church culture change (or not) as a result of women not being asked to covenant to their husbandgod? Do the women of the church still have a husbandgod?
Have I ever (or lately) said how much I appreciate your participation in our little bloggernacle?
It is so useful to examine this aspect of The Changes. And it meets a “righteousness” threshold as well— it’s very circumspect about specific temple information that might be condemned as disobedience to the newsroom guideline that we don’t discuss the temple in public. It’s brief, and clear, unlike some of the comments.
Before my mother died, we both talked about how we hated being veiled. I am an only daughter and I knew my TBM brothers would fight me about my mother wearing temple clothing to be buried in so my mother and I agreed there would be NO viewing and a closed casket. She wore only her white temple dress and no veil, apron, etc. It was something I lost sleep over until things were worked out. Does this mean that LDS women will not have their face veiled before the coffin is closed for the last time?
I think there are two groups of people who say the revisions are minor. There are those who say the temple was problematic before the changes, and these “very minor” revisions are insufficient to change that, and there are those who say that the temple ritual was just fine, and these “very minor” revisions haven’t changed that. In the bloggernacle, most of the people who say the revisions are minor seem to be in the former group.
I suggested to our ward newsletter editor that there be a mention of the new endowment with most of the sexism removed, and to check with bishop first.
Bishop had me in on Sunday upset that I would use a negative word like sexism about the church, and the temple.
He is a school teacher, but could/would not believe that sexism could be applied to the church. I was amazed, and he was not impressed. He thought my saying the new endowment was less sexist could cause people to leave the church.
I think this is a variation on what you are saying.
Is there still the ceremony at the veil prior to a sealing, where the husband stands in the place of the Lord for the wife? I’ve read elsewhere that the new sealing script strongly emphasizes ‘presiding’ for the husband. Have the sealing policies (men can be sealed to more than one living woman, women must be dead before they can be sealed to more than one man)?
Does anyone have updated information they’re willing to share?
I’d like to see these changes made in the temple; women stand when the man is introduced to her as her husband. The women proclaim the man as the father of all living, and Satan is now a female. Also the second Article of Faith should read that man will be punished for their own sins, and not for Eve’s transgression. I know a lot of men go through years of pain seeing how much we are maligned, and made the scapegoat for all the evil in the world.
So many questions, et al.
May I suggest we all do several things:
1. Men and women should both perform an initiatory. Sisters should note some changes. The men’s has not changed. Husbands and wives should quietly discuss the wording inside the temple. They are different for each gender.
2. Enjoy a session of the Endowment, discuss the new aspects inside the temple.
3. Watch both a sealing for the living and a sealing for the dead. There have been changes.
IMO, temple worship has never been clearer. But detailed discussions should remain inside the temple.
Thanks, Ardis, Hans, and Laura. MDearest, thanks in particular for your kind words. I very much appreciate your participation here too!
Left Field, sorry I wasn’t very clear, but I’m not responding to discussion I’ve seen on the blogs, but just discussion I’ve seen some of my feminist friends saying they’ve had with friends of theirs who pooh-poohed the importance of the changes and said that there are not substantial differences.
G of A, I think you’re exactly right. It sounds like the same phenomenon that you experienced.
Descent, Nancy, and So many questions, sorry, but I haven’t seen the updated ordinances myself, so I don’t know that I can speak to your questions.
Mr. Grabby, interesting turnabout!
Segullah, I’d prefer that you not try to police what we discuss here. Thanks!
I’m not sure I have the right to tell someone whether the changes are meaningful to them or not. I remember what a change it was when “obey” was removed. I imagine that these changes will make an even bigger impact. I haven’t been yet since the changes–I plan to go Thursday. I am looking forward to what I see.
The first thing that comes to my mind every time I think about the, ummmm, lack of recognition of the changes, is the phrase, “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.”
[So, for context, and because not everyone on the internet lives in my pop culture bubble, this is a line from the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. When the phrase is first used, Our Heroes are in a city that’s surrounded by an invading army, and has been for decades. But the city’s government forcefully ignores the war that’s going on right outside their walls, and anyone who brings it up is arrested and reconditioned, because there is no war in Ba Sing Se.]
A very Mormon thing to do is to act like we’ve always been right, even after we’ve done an about face on whatever doctrine or practice is called into question. There’s no apologizing, let alone recognizing that some action or change constitutes a theological shift of any magnitude. We’ve always been this way and if you’d been faithful enough you would’ve realized it.
It’s frustrating because I want to be able to wholeheartedly celebrate this doctrinal shift. But the hierarchy continues to act like all is well in Zion and that everything has always been well in Zion. It’s two steps forward, one step back. And yes, that means one step forward, and I am ecstatic about that one step forward, but the longer these wounds go unaddressed, the more they fester so instead of being Zion we’re instead Zion’s festering abscess.
There is no sexism in the Kingdom of God.
I agree, Ziff.
I will add one thing: waving away these changes as just “minor adjustments” also has to do with upholding our love affair with the notion that doctrine is eternal, unchanging. We think the Restoration happened (past tense), we think doctrine is pretty much all revealed, we think the nature of doctrine is clear and concise, easily understood. So, along comes a pretty dramatic shift to the temple ceremonies, our highest ordinances and most important covenants. How to square such a big change to matters doctrinal? We downplay the changes as something little more than window dressing. And then we can sit back and say that all is well in Zion, and that we still have it all figured out. Phew!