In Mormonism, the endowment is a two-part ordinance (ceremony) designed for participants to become kings, queens, priests, and priestesses in the afterlife. As part of the first ceremony, participants take part in a scripted reenactment of the Biblical creation and fall of Adam and Eve. The ceremony includes a symbolic washing and anointing, and receipt of a "new name" which they are not to reveal to others except at a certain part in the ceremony, and the receipt of the temple garment, which Mormons then are expected to wear under their clothing day and night throughout their life. Participants are taught symbolic gestures and passwords considered necessary to pass by angels guarding the way to heaven, and are instructed not to reveal them to others. As practiced today in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the endowment also consists of a series of covenants that participants make, such as a covenant of consecration to the LDS Church. All LDS Church members who choose to serve as missionaries or participate in a celestial marriage in a temple must first complete the first endowment ceremony.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, an ordinance is a sacred rite or ceremony that has spiritual and symbolic meanings and act as a means of conveying divine grace. Ordinances are physical acts which signify or symbolize an underlying spiritual act; for some ordinances, the spiritual act is the finalization of a covenant between the ordinance recipient and God.
In the Latter Day Saint movement the second anointing is the pinnacle ordinance of the temple and an extension of the endowment ceremony. Founder Joseph Smith taught that the function of the ordinance was to ensure salvation, guarantee exaltation, and confer godhood. In the ordinance, a participant is anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and is sealed to the highest degree of salvation available in Mormon theology.
The Latter Day Saint movement is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s.
Washing and anointing is an ordinance of ritual purification, similar to chrismation. It is a key part of the temple endowment ceremony as well as the controversial Second Anointing ceremony practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon fundamentalists.
FAIR , formerly known as FairMormon and the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR), is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that specializes in Mormon apologetics and responds to criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FAIR comprises volunteers who seek to answer questions submitted to its web site. It was founded in November 1997 by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who wanted to defend their faith on AOL message boards. The members of FAIR are international volunteers. FAIR holds an annual conference where topics of current apologetic issues are presented. The organization also publishes a monthly electronic newsletter and a daily news-clipping service.
Evergreen International, Inc. was a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization located in Salt Lake City, Utah whose stated mission was to assist "people who want to diminish same-sex attractions and overcome homosexual behavior". Evergreen supported the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Founded in 1989, Evergreen closed in 2014.
The Pearl of Great Price is part of the canonical Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some other Latter Day Saint denominations.
Grant Hart Palmer spent thirty-four years in the LDS Church Education System, teaching institute and seminary, and served as a chaplain at the Salt Lake County jail for thirteen years. In 2002 Signature Books published Grant’s book, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, in which Grant scrutinized many of Mormonism’s foundational stories. Grant went on to publish two additional books, The Incomparable Christ in 2005, and Restoring Christ: Leaving Mormon Jesus for Jesus of the Gospels.
The Tegucigalpa Honduras Temple is the 141st temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is the first to be built in Honduras and the sixth in Central America. The Tegucigalpa Honduras Temple serves Latter-day Saints in Honduras and Nicaragua. There are 168,000 Latter-day Saints in Honduras and Nicaragua in 302 congregations.
John Parkinson Dehlin is an American podcast host. He holds a PhD in psychology. Dehlin founded the Mormon Stories Podcast, as well as several other podcasts, blogs, and websites. He was an influential early participant in the "Mormon blogosphere," and blogs at Patheos.com. He advocates for LGBT rights and other views outside mainstream religious culture. In January 2015, Dehlin was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a temple is a building dedicated to be a House of the Lord. Temples are considered by church members to be the most sacred structures on earth.
In the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, an endowment refers to a gift of "power from on high", typically associated with the ordinances performed in Latter Day Saint temples. The purpose and meaning of the endowment varied during the life of movement founder Joseph Smith. The term has referred to many such gifts of heavenly power, including the confirmation ritual, the institution of the High Priesthood in 1831, events and rituals occurring in the Kirtland Temple in the mid-1830s, and an elaborate ritual performed in the Nauvoo Temple in the 1840s.
Mormon Stories Podcast is a podcast principally hosted by psychologist John Dehlin featuring interviews with individuals and occasionally scholars on Mormon topics. The podcasts are noted as a platform for individuals critical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, skeptic and dissident individuals.
John C. Hamer is an American-Canadian historian and mapmaker. His research has focused primarily on the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, authoring several books on the topic. Hamer is a leading expert on various schisms within especially non- far-Western (U.S.) portions of the Latter Day Saint "Restoration" movement. Raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hamer left the religion before joining Community of Christ in 2010 and now serves as Pastor of its Toronto Congregation.
Don Ray Clarke has been a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 2006.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been in Sweden since 1850.
Exaltation is a belief in Mormonism that after death some people will reach the highest level of salvation in the celestial kingdom and eternally live in God's presence, continue as families, become gods, create worlds, and make spirit children over whom they will govern. In the largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, top leaders have taught God wants exaltation for all humankind and that humans are "gods in embryo". A verse in the LDS Church's canonized scripture states that those who are exalted will become gods, and a 1925 statement from the church's highest governing body said that "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother ... [and are] capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God."
Jeremy T. Runnells is a critic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and author of the book titled A Letter to a CES Director. Runnells grew up as a seventh-generation member of the LDS Church with pioneer ancestry. He served a mission for the church in New York and graduated from church-owned Brigham Young University. In 2012, he began to experience doubts over his faith. A director of institute of the LDS Church's Church Educational System (CES) asked him to write his concerns, and in response Runnells sent an 84-page letter with his concerns.
