Opinion: Hiding the ball on the second anointing?

The Christus...

By Gregory Knight

"There is no exaltation in the kingdom of God without the fulness of the priesthood. . . . Every man who is faithful and will receive these [temple] ordinances and blessings obtains a fulness of the priesthood, and the Lord has said that "he makes them equal in power, and in might, and in dominion." Joseph Fielding Smith, 1956 (Doctrines of Salvation, 3 :132) (Mosiah 5:13)

It's no secret that that the mainstream LDS Church has had a rocky and tenuous relationship with academic researchers and journalists since even before the formation of Christ's Church in 1830. The dogged and biased reporters and editors of the time tried in various and sundry ways to slander the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., the new and everlasting covenants, and even basic, common sense doctrines which we, as fundamentalists, abide by today.

In 1844, Joseph had endured enough and, with the assistance of the Nauvoo Legion, destroyed the printing press of the Nauvoo Expositor. It was a newspaper that only ran one issue before running afoul of the prophet, and it can be dare said that it was a work of the devil on earth trying to foment discord among the Saints. I can also dare say that, as a journalist that is not only a fundamentalist, but one that works to tell the truth in every story, I'd probably have helped Joseph torch the press as well.

The church of that time was able to overcome some of the external bad press it was getting by starting its own periodicals, namely The Evening and the Morning Star, Messenger and Advocate, Elders' Journal, Times and Seasons, and Millennial Star. 

Moving on to modern times, one of the greatest examples of just how stodgy and bereft of the truth the LDS Church really is came along in 1987, when the church shut down access to documents that many researchers relied on for true studies of our history, our present, and what could be our future as restorationists.

Salt Lake Tribune, January 3, 1987

"Mormon Church authorities have banned a researcher from church archives and have closed church presidential collections, including papers dealing with Utah territorial history in what some fear are attempts to limit access to historical documents. Church officials say new procedures at the LDS archives improve security and help preserve documents and are no different from policies of archives across the country.

Researchers say that while beefed up security may be necessary, the new policies suggest a new wave of hostility directed against historians examining sensitive Mormon topics.

Mormon author David Buerger said he has talked with LDS authorities several times since this summer to reverse a decision banning him from church archives. Mr. Buerger believes the ban apparently stems from an article he wrote on Mormon "second anointings.”

Second anointings, fairly common in the 19th century and done infrequently today, are ceremonies in which a Mormon is promised that he'll achieve the highest degree of heaven under all conditions, unless he commits murder or denies the Holy Ghost..."

Buerger's essay in Dialogue was scholarly in nature, not offensive to Mormons in any way, and presented the second anointing as a necessary to reach the highest levels of glory.

Yet, the LDS Church apparently had problems with this prickly issue getting out to world, writ large, as seen in the above news story in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Parts of Buerger's research follows:

"The importance of the endowment and such temple-associated rituals as washing, anointing, and sealing has been widely addressed by Church authorities and others in official Church publications. The endowment in particular has been called the temporal steppingstone through which all people must pass to achieve exaltation with God the Father and Jesus Christ. Yet despite the attention given temple work in the Church press, most Mormons, even faithful temple-goers, know little of the capstone of the endowment: receiving the "fulness of the priesthood" through the "second anointing," an ordinance also sometimes referred to as the "other endowment," "second endowment," "second blessings," "higher blessings," etc. A surprising amount about this little known ordinance can be learned, however, through a careful examination of those sources published and unpublished, which discuss it. This essay attempts to bring many of these sources together, placing them in the more general context of developing Mormon theology."

"For Joseph Smith and his successors, the temple clearly stood at the heart of the restoration. Both in Kirtland and Nauvoo, Joseph Smith labored continuously to complete holy edifices where the Saints might be "endowed with power from on high." Washings, anointings, and sealings were first administered in the Kirtland Temple in 1836. Other temple instructions and rites were added in Nauvoo in 1842 and 1843. These have been continued to the present day. Not unexpectedly, given the generally progressive nature of other early concepts within Mormonism, these early rituals also moved through a preliminary stage. The significance of what followed can best be understood in the context of the changing Latter-day Saint concept of salvation. 

Prior to mid-1831, Mormon theology was clearly not predestinarian. The Book of Mormon, for example, contains no mention of terms such as "calling and election," "elect," "destined," "predestined," or "predestinate" in respect to mankind's afterlife, judgment or salvation. The Doctrine and Covenants' sole use of the phrase "calling and election" came in a June 1831 revelation (D&C 53:1, 7) that similarly avoided eschatological implications. At some point between June and November 1831, however, LDS "salvation theology" changed. A precipitating event seemed to be the 3 June 1831 conferral of the "High Priesthood" on Church elders. According to testimony in 1887 by Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer, the introduction of high priests, an event he considered to be an unfortunate aberration from scriptural sources, "all originated in the mind of Sidney Rigdon"; "Rigdon finally persuaded Brother Joseph to believe that the high priests which had such great power in ancient times, should be in the Church of Christ to-day. He had Brother Joseph inquire of the Lord about it, and they received an answer according to their erring desires."

Official Church histories contain no record of disagreement or controversy, and the significance of the event may have been perceived differently as time passed. The new office of high priest quickly came to be regarded as different from and greater than those of priest and elder because a high priest could "seal," that is, perform earthly ordinances which were ratified in heaven. Joseph Smith spelled out this crucial function on 25 October 1831, when he is reported to have said at a conference in Far West: "The order of the High Priesthood is that they have power given them to seal up the Saints unto eternal life And ... it was the privilege of every Elder present to be ordained to the High Priesthood.

The far-reaching implications of this teaching went well beyond the biblical precedents which used sealing in a seemingly related sense. In the New Testament, for example, the terms "to seal" and "to place a seal on" metaphorically reflected the ancient practice of placing a wax or clay seal to close and protect a document from misappropriation. The confirming effect of a "sealing" is seen in several Pauline passages where God "seals" Christians by giving them the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit of promise as a ratification of future blessings and promises to come. The Revelation of John graphically depicts the servants of God receiving the seal or imprint of God in their foreheads. In all pertinent New Testament references, however, it is God who applies the seals; there is no clear reference to a human intermediary as part of the "sealing" function." 

The sixteenth-century Reformation used many of these "sealing" passages to support a belief in predestination. Liberal reaction to this Calvinist doctrine arose early in the seventeenth century when Armenians rejected this view, asserting that God's sovereignty and man's free will were compatible, and that such "sealings" depended upon choices of the individual believer. The Armenian doctrines of free will and individual works continued to be propagated on the American frontier through such nineteenth-century groups as Alexander Campbell's followers and other primitivist "seekers." In 1829, when Joseph Smith was working on the Book of Mormon manuscript, these same issues were discussed throughout the Burned-over District of western New York state. Aside from obvious nonmetaphorical usages of the term "sealing" (e.g., "sealing up" a book or plates, or hiding an object), the Book of Mormon employs the term much like the New Testament. Mosiah 5:15 (1st ed., p. 167), for example, closely followed New Testament usage, but extended the meaning by clearly emphasizing works: "I would that you should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to Heaven." Alma 34:35 (1st ed., p. 321) further counters predestinarian ideas by warning: "If ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance, even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the Devil, and he doth seal you his; ... and this is the final state of the wicked." 

The most significant development in Book of Mormon sealing theology was God's sealing power granted to Nephi, the son of Helaman: "Whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." (Hel. 10:7, 1st ed., p. 435)." This passage parallels Christ's injunction to Peter in Matthew 16:17-19 : "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona . . . Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The shift from bind to seal — probably to remove "papist" associations with the text — does not carry the soteriological and eschatological overtones which "seal" had as a New Testament metaphor. Instead, Nephi can perform miraculous physical events such as commanding a drought that will bring about a famine (Hel. 11:4) to bring people to repentance. Thus, the Book of Mormon modifies seal to allow a human agent (Nephi), to seal metaphorically as well as a demonic agent (the devil), whereas the New Testament has only God sealing, and then strictly in an extended sense of the term. Associating a human with this power allowed Joseph Smith to introduce a whole set of theological innovations. In this context, the 1831 ordination of high priests becomes such an innovation. In November 1831 these various concepts were transformed into a priesthood ritual allowing ordained high priests to "seal [persons] up unto eternal life" (D&C 68:2,12; D&C 1:8-9). Thus, Mormon priesthood bearers themselves could perform a ritual (no specified ceremony is mentioned) paralleling what strict Calvinists, for example, reserved solely to God. Zebedee Coltrin's 1831 missionary diary provides evidence that Mormon elders wasted no time in implementing this ordinance: "Tuesday came to Shalersville held a meeting in the Evening with the Br and after laboring with them some length of time Br David seeled them up unto Eternal life." 

Whatever form the ordinance took at that time, an empowered priesthood bearer could thus simultaneously seal a whole group of people up to eternal life; this seems to have been a spoken ritual. No physical contact between the officiator and the recipients is mentioned. A second precursor to the Kirtland Temple's endowment came in an 1832 revelation (now D&C 88) commanding that a "School of the Prophets" be established to instruct various Church leaders. After describing a format for greeting members of the School, the revelation added that no one was to be admitted unless he was "clean from the blood of this generation."

To read more on how the LDS Church tried to strongarm Buerger and others when it came to their research and writings, click here. 

According to Buerger, as the Church and its members adjusted to their new environment in Salt Lake City, initial emphasis on physical survival shifted to more spiritual activities, such as completing personal and Church histories and doing temple work. The Endowment House was dedicated by Heber C. Kimball and endowments were first administered there on May 5, 1855:

"Another decade would pass, however, before second anointings were resumed. The explanation for this continued hiatus is unknown. Unquestionably the general subject continued to be discussed. On 26 November 1857, for example, Wilford Woodruff recorded in his diary that, "In company with G A Smith I called upon President Brigham Young and asked council about publishing the endowments or an outline of it telling the time when the Twelve received their 2nd Anointing & about the organization of the Council of 50 He gave his consent for us to publish an account of it so that the Saints might understand it." 

A few weeks later, on December 18, as he worked to update the official history of the Church, Woodruff recorded a few relevant procedural comments by George A. Smith who noted "that Joseph taught that but one king & Priest could be anointed at one meeting in a private room dedicated by permission to anoint in, but one person could be anointed in a day but in the Temple several could be anointed in a day. But at each anointing the meeting was dismissed and then came together." 

In Brigham Young's view, however, "When the Temple is finished & a place duly prepared we should not be confined to any particular Number in sealing and anointing." Whether President Young initially intended to await the completion of a new temple before reinstating second anointings is not clear. However, by early January 1867, ten years before the Saint George Temple was dedicated, he decided to resume this highest ordinance of Mormonism. 

On 26 December 1866, President Young met in council with the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in a session which touched on the subject of endowments and second anointings. In this meeting he clarified several procedural issues before reinstituting the ordinance of the second anointing. Wilford Woodruff's diary for that procedural meeting on 26 December reports that President Young described "the order of the 2d Anointings"; the initiates would be dressed in temple clothes while "the Administrator" could wear street clothing or temple clothing."

The only question I have is, why is the LDS Church continuing to hide this most elemental of ordinances from the masses of the membership? While we all may not be called to a second anointing, whitewashing the truth serves no purpose in the annals of history.

You can reach me at fundamentalistmag@gmail.com.