I apologize for having to ask ESO, but are you man or woman? If you are a man, you should totally run for Scoutmaster. We make stuff up ALL THE TIME.

I agree with Ron – if you want to make up doctrine and scripture, you really need to get to get called to the Young Men or Young Women…

You guys are right–the environment in youth classes is prime for twisted doctrine. But this was a class of adults; not only the YSA, but also their branch presidency. Why didn’t someone ask him about this?

I think the temple president was wrong. There are around 13.000.000 members. There are probably 5-6.000.000 active members. There are probably 1.000.000 TR holding members. This represents a minuscule portion of the billions of people on the earth, or less than 0.02% of the people current living on the earth.

I think God is more successful than 0.02%, so assume that the vast majority of the people who end up in the Celestial Kingdom will NOT have a temple marriage in mortality anyway, male or female.

His best support is D&C 132:17, by the way, but it doesn’t make any distinction between men and women, and of course the subject is exaltation.

DKL – I agree. I am from the generation where girls were taught the story of Pres. Kimball counseling a BYU girl to “Put a pretty ribbon in your hair” and badda-bing, badda-boom, the boys noticed her and she got married.

I wore all kinds of silly ribbon dodads in my hair, trying to follow the counsel given. Obviously the secret to getting married (back in the day when the only reason a girl went to college was to get a man – DUHHHHHHH) was awesome hair accesories.

I haven’t heard such drivel quoted in at least a decade.

#12, times change. Prophetic counsel changes from generation to generation. You can’t expect the old ribbon trick to work through the ages. But really, I suppose it’s no sillier than washing in a dirty river to get rid of a bacterial infection in located in the respiratory track.

ESO, from my point of view, I’d like to see the whole emphasis where one “earns” her eternal family done away with. If we’re going to emphasize the doctrine of eternal families, then it should be taught as something that God wants us to have. The church places too much emphasis on the idea that it’s our church with our beliefs and our ordinances that makes an eternal family possible. It’s quite enough that our church believes in the possibility of an eternal family and emphasizes it.

The notion that people earn their place in an eternal family is destructive on several levels, not just the one that isolates women who are deceitfully taught that marriage to a priesthood worthy male is the end-all-be-all. It also tears apart families, because it creates anxiety among believers that the non-belief (or even unorthodoxy) of relatives or spouses will destroy their prospects for an eternal family.

So I don’t like the idea that any specific ordinance is necessary for eternal salvation.

Mark D, I think that’s one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is like this: The notion that specific ordinances are necessary to the salvation of adults creates a checklist of such items. Even if items on the checklist can be completed in the afterlife, completing them puts an adult closer to salvation (other things being equal). Thus, having certain ordinances performed becomes a de facto benchmark against which to measure salvation.

The bottom line is this: if adult women must be sealed to obtain ultimate salvation, then (other things being equal) single women are further from salvation than their married coreligionists. This distance causes the cultural marginalization of single women. Claiming that this is an artifact of culture separate from doctrine is an out-and-out deception, if not a lie. On the contrary, it is a direct result. The only thing that can be done is to dispose of the doctrine that women must be sealed, which appears to be the measure taken by this temple president. I applaud that.

Going further, to the extant that the church makes worthiness a part of the salvation checklist, and to the extant that salvation is necessary to realize the eternal family, the church actively promotes a doctrine that divides families out of fear of familial discontinuity brought on by the unworthiness of family members. This transforms the beautiful doctrine of an eternal family into a filthy and ugly doctrine that causes fear and anxiety and can lead (and has led) to the destruction of earthly families.

DKL, I agree with you there. Personally I have never thought that a relatively immature person who is married in the temple is somehow ahead spiritually of a more mature person who is as yet single, but I can see how people (especially married people) would be inclined to see things that way.

My own personal doctrine is taht SP’s that close sessions of stake conference and other meetings early are exalted

I think he is correct to say that some women will never get married through no fault of their own and that some will marry outside of the Church, what I wish for too is that some guys will not get married through no fault of their own and some guys will or should get married out of the Church. I think some of it has to do with where you live. I live in an area and I can’t think of anyone my age pr any even close to my age and I can’t move so someone telling me to get a move on I would ignore and filter out and not feel guilt.

Cameron,
You could always try “Flirt to Convert”.

Seriously, I think that D&C 123:17 was written just for you.
“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.”

You know if you’re doing everything in your power. If you are, then don’t sweat it. Unless of course you’re over 25. Then you’re a “menace to society [Ron rolls his eyes dramatically]“.

So, I was at said fireside, and can give you the doctrinal foundation that the temple president used, e.g. D & C 131: 1-4. I note also that he did distinguish between entry into the celestial kingdom and exaltation, too.

1 In the acelestial glory there are three bheavens or degrees;
2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this border of the cpriesthood [meaning the new and deverlasting covenant of emarriage];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an aincrease.

Essentially, he makes the argument that these verses should be read litterally, with man referring to men and not as a generic for “human.” Part of what led him to do so are some statistics (which may nor may not be outdated, he seemed to suggest that they were at least a decade old and therefore, we may reasonably judge, they may have changed) that around 65% of young women are temple worthy and prepared for a temple marriage, but in the neighborhood of half that is true for young men.

Incidentally, I thought it was a very good and powerful talk, and while perhaps on the controversial side, I’m pretty ok with controversial. I’ll further add that I think people are sometimes too solicitous of these issues with YSA’s, to the extent that in my experience (in eastern wards, only) years may go by between talks that explicitly address marriage, etc.