Jul 7, 2020
Latter-day Saints who are experiencing shifts in their faith and spiritual understandings often begin to ask questions about religious practices, including ordinances that we are taught as being essential to our salvation. Here is an important group of D&C verses that seems to suggest just that:
And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live. (D&C 84:19–22)
This passage can be read at different levels. Is it actually
saying that participation in Mormon ordinances are an essential
requirement for us if we want to gain the deepest kinds of
spiritual insight and empowerment? The panel in this podcast seeks
to broaden that idea. If we can learn to view ritual in other than
purely transactional terms—“If I do this, then I will get
that”—are there affirming ways we can view ritual
participation and priesthood ordinances and how they can be
important aids for our spiritual journeying? Can we imagine
different ways we might interpret “the mysteries of the kingdom,”
“the key to the knowledge of God,” and “the power of
godliness?”
In this episode, LDF host Dan Wotherspoon calls on
his friends Mark Crego and Lindsay
Pulsipher to have a discussion of these things, and more!
In the early going, they discuss the nature and structure of
rituals of various types and from many wider cultures, and point to
what they have in common with each other. They discuss what ritual
"is trying to do" and why, to use Wotherspoon's phrase, "ritual
makes sense" even as it appeals to something deeper in us than what
our minds can work out by themselves. In other sections the panel
speaks about the transformational qualities of rituals rather than
their being something that we must "do" in order to gain salvation
or simply as part of "making and keeping covenants." They dial in
on how ordinances and ritual, when seen correctly, expresses the
key aspect about God's covenant with us, which is that God invites
us into full relationship and will always welcome us no matter how
far we stray. (And, like the chosen people in the Hebrew Bible,
stray we will!) In the final portion, they each share
ritual moments they've had and offer final reflections on what they
understand as going on within them during such times.
It's a terrific discussion with much to chew on! Please listen
in!