Imagining Different Temple Recommend Questions
If I could make any changes of my own to the temple recommend questions, what would they be?
- Change the language from referencing God, the Eternal Father to Heavenly Parents.
- Ask specifically if the individual sustains the female leadership and membership of the Church.
- Rewords questions 6 and 7, and ask if the person strives to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, rather than the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Return to the original practice of making the Word of Wisdom optional.
- Add unresolved criminal conduct that should be reported to legal authorities, especially in relation to appropriate physical conduct towards children and minors to question 14.
- Remove any understanding that the Law of Chastity limits marriage on the basis of sex or gender. We would hold the same standard of monogamy and premarital sex for everyone, regardless of their sexuality or gender.
While the idea of having no questions at all is appealing to me on the surface, the idea of setting people up for failure when they're making covenants during the endowment does not. I don't think the problem is in being strict. It's in being strict about the wrong things.
As the questions read now, they measure compliance with and conformity to the Church and its leadership. I've always felt that was inappropriate. That is not the defining feature of what makes me a moral person worthy of God's presence.
The emphasis, in my mind, should be on how we strive to follow the perfect example of Jesus Christ. That is the only standard by which we should measure ourselves, or submit to be measured by anyone else.
