The Anchoress is one of my favorite bloggers, because she manages to mix pointed political commentary with pointed spiritual commentary.  She takes her religion (Catholicism) very personally and very seriously, and I gain insights every time I read her thoughts.

Today, she talks a bit about Adam, Eve, and the Fall and puts forth the following observation (emphasis mine):

Their awareness of their vulnerability might have led to their excuse-making, too. Until that point they had enjoyed a blissful relationship with the Creator – there would have been no reason to fear and yet, suddenly attuned to their vulnerability, they feared enough to hem and haw and blame anyone else around, and aside from the serpent there was only each other.

Was the first sin, then, simple disobedience? That doesn’t really seem likely. Obedience, like anything else, must be learned.

Rather, I think the first sin was humanity not trusting in God but trying to guard themselves by hiding from him; humans covering themselves up both physically and metaphorically – with fig leaves and with the sloughing off of blame onto others – rather than revealing themselves and taking responsibility for their actions.

The taint of Original Sin: God has been trying to get us to trust Him, to reveal ourselves to Him and to be vulnerable (open) to Him ever since.

For those who have been through the temple, this observation carries even more weight in light of who makes the suggestion.  Food for thought; read the whole thing.  ..bruce..

UPDATED: OK, since I’m getting a lot of web hits, here are some more details from this Deseret News article :

The 12th European temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be built in Rome. . . .

The Rome Italy Temple will be the first to be constructed near the worldwide headquarters for the Roman Catholic Church. It will serve church members from a variety of countries and greatly reduce travel time and expense to the Latter-day Saints living in the area, the release states. . . .

Reaction was emotional. Italy Rome Mission President Jeffrey Acerson, who has been in Rome sine July 2007, was moved by the news.

“The Saints in Italy have waited a long time,” Acerson said, his voice cracking. “We ‘re excited, we’re anxious and we’re very humbled by the decision of a prophet of the Lord to move forward with a temple in Rome.”

When he heard the news, Acerson said at first he wanted to react like Italian soccer fans, who take to the streets when their teams win.

“I felt like all the Saints here in Italy wanted to go into the streets to let everyone know a temple is coming,” he said.

The LDS Church has more than 22,000 members in Italy, where preaching first began in 1850 by then-Elder Lorenzo Snow, who later became president of the church. The first congregation of Latter-day Saints in Italy was organized in Brescia on March 20, 1966. The first Italian mission was opened in August that year, but the church didn’t have formal legal status until 1993.

Though a temple site hasn’t been announced, many Italian church members think a location on church-owned land on the northeastern side of Rome would be a perfect fit, Acerson said.

Tullio Deruvo, church spokesman in Italy, said the site many members speculate about is typical Roman countryside adorned with Mediterranean pine trees. The land is located with easy access to a freeway on the outskirts of Rome, Delruvo said.

And Rome is likely to be closer for Saints in Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, members who currently travel to Bern, Switzerland, for temple work. Though the Rome temple is likely to draw Church members, who coordinate temple service with vacation time, from all over Europe.

Go read the whole article.

The LDS Church newsroom has given information on the history of the LDS Church in Italy , but no real details on the temple itself.

[UPDATE] And here are some interesting thoughts on Temple Square vs. the Vatican, as well as some suggestions for the architecture and interior artwork for the Rome temple.

[UPDATE]: Here’s a Google Maps link showing the location of the temple in Rome (hat tip to Temple Study). ..bruce..

For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.

– Doctrine & Covenants 128:18

Forty-one years ago — in the spring of 1967 — my friend Andrew Bos introduced me to the LDS Church by asking me to go to Mutual with him, then to Sunday School, and then to Sacrament meeting. After a few months of that, Andrew prodded me to ask my parents if I could have the missionary discussions. To my surprise, it was my father — a Navy man since age 17 who smoked Marlboros, drank martinis, inhaled coffee, and swore, well, like a sailor — who was enthusiastic about my doing so. He said that he could think of no other church that he’d rather have me join (we were all inactive Episcopalians) and that he thought the Mormon Church was “the one church that would save Christianity” (his exact words).

Having received a powerful testimony of the reality of the Restoration during the missionary discussions and my own study and prayer, I went back to my parents some weeks later to get permission to be baptized (I was only 14). Again, it was my father who signed the slip, saying that if he could ever give up his cigarettes, liquor and coffee, he’d join the LDS Church himself. He never won that battle, though — in fact, it was his earlier failed attempt in 1967 to give up smoking that led to my own decision never to start — and he died a little over 10 years ago. But through the years he and Mom were always supportive my Church involvement, including paying for my entire mission.

Yesterday, I was able to return the favor to my dad, doing his baptismal and initiatory work in the Denver Temple. In fact, my sweet wife Sandra and I together did that work for a total of 40 of my ancestors, the majority of them within four or five generations. That work included six relatives whom I knew personally — my dad, my uncle Jimmy, Grandma and Grandpa Webster, and Grandma and Grandpa Fickes (my mom’s adoptive parents) — as well as my mom’s birth father (Grandpa Wiren), most of my great-great-grandparents along all lines, and some even further back than that.

While the temple is a sacred place for me, I am not prone to having ‘thin veil’ experiences. That was different yesterday. At the start of my initiatory session, I organized the 22 male names I had by lineage going back. For example, the six Websters were done sequentially (uncle, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather); I organized the other lines the same way, as far as possible. As I went through the round of initiatory work for each of these men, I felt a deep and increasing soberness at the literal nature of the authority being conferred and the blessings being unlocked; I also repeatedly felt love and gratitude from specific individuals as the work for them was done.

As importantly, I realized that by doing this work, I had opened the door for them to turn again and bring blessings into my life. Pres. Kimball famously said that when the Lord seeks to bless us or answer our prayers, He usually does so through other people. What struck me at the temple yesterday is that the “other people” aren’t limited to those of us on this side of the veil. By doing temple work, particularly for our close ancestors, we multiply those whom God can use to bless us.

There is another blessing, too. I was the only member of my family to join the LDS Church 41 years ago, and through that time I have remained the only member in my immediate family (meaning my own parents and siblings, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and all my ancestors). Through all those decades, I have felt the responsibility of being the first in all my ancestral lines to be a member of the Church and to hold the Priesthood, of having to set an example while lacking one of my own to draw upon, and I’m well aware of how often I have fallen short.

Leaving the temple last night, however, I felt a weight had been lifted. I have company, now — others in my family and family lines who have embraced the Gospel and accepted its blessings. I no longer feel like such an odd duck — at least, not for that reason — and it’s nice to know I have patriarchs in my own line who now hold the Priesthood. I have a compelling reason to go to the temple frequently — we’ve got 38 names cleared for endowments (we did my Grandma & Grampa Webster in an endowment session last night), as well as lots of subsequent sealings. And I’ve got hundreds of more names to submit once we’ve gotten these done.

And that sounds just wonderful. ..bruce..

In a Catholic Mass, a congregation sits facing a priest, in a symbolic space, with an altar at the front, and participates in a standardized ceremony in which their spiritual relationships with one another and with God are symbolically represented and (re)affirmed. The priest leads the ceremony, with others assisting at various points. There are things the priest says, and responses by the congregation. The congregation stands and sits at various points, as part of this response, corresponding to whether they are praying or listening or reciting a creed or what have you. The Gospel is taught, and actively received. At the climax of the ceremony, each member of the congregation goes forward for a symbolic reunion with God, in this case represented by the priest and the Eucharist, in which God is said to be present.

The same basic format applies to the Mormon endowment. A congregation sits facing an officiator, in a symbolic space, with an altar at the front, and participates in a standardized ceremony in which their spiritual relationships with one another and with God are symbolically represented and (re)affirmed. The officiator leads the ceremony, with others assisting at various points. There are things the officiator says, and responses by the congregation. The congregation stands and sits at various points, as part of these responses. God’s plan of salvation is taught, and the teaching is actively received. At the climax of the ceremony, each member of the congregation goes forward for a symbolic reunion with God, in this case represented by entry into the Celestial Room, representing the presence of God.

Be sure to read not just the whole post, but also the comments, which are not only thoughtful but contain some links to additional analysis.

[UPDATED 01/25/08 - 1512 MST] You might also want to read this article (“Knocking Three Times on the Holy Door“) over at the excellent Temple Study blog. ..bruce..

The temples detailed in the Bible (Moses’s Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, and what is generally called Herod’s Temple [New Testament era]) all had restrictions on who could enter where and when — and restrictions far more strict than the LDS Church has for its temples. Let me focus on Herod’s Temple for now.

Herod’s Temple had a series of increasingly sacred spaces[1]: the Court of Gentiles (with the Royal Porch and Solomon’s Porch), the Court of Women, the Court of Israel, the Priests’ Court (with altar and laver), the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Anyone (in theory) could enter into the Court of Gentiles, so one might think this doesn’t qualify as “sacred space” — but this is the very area from which Christ cleared the moneychangers and livestock vendors, stating that they had made the temple “a cave of robbers” (σπήλαιον λῃστῶν).

From the Court of Gentiles, you had to be an Israelite to enter to the Women’s Court; you had to be an Israelite male to pass from there to the Court of Israel; you had to be a Levitical priest (ritually clean and w/out physical deformities) to enter into the Priests’ Court; you had to be a priest designated for specific duties to enter into the Holy Place, which itself was hidden from view; and you had to be the High Priest to enter the Holy of Holies, and even then you could only do it once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Paul had other Jews seek to kill him for allegedly having brought Greeks into the temple, presumably into (at least) the Women’s Court (cf. Acts 21:26-31).

temple – The place of the sharing of gifts. The Saints offer to the Lord their time and service in helping those who cannot help themselves. In exchange, the Lord gives the Saints a retreat from the world, a place where time slows down and familiar rituals teach the body what the mind may not yet be able to learn.  — Orson Scott Card, Saintspeak: A Mormon Dictionary (Orion Books, 1984).

In LDS practice and doctrine, modern temples are considered just as sacred, though not having as many layers of restriction. Anyone, Mormon or not, is welcome to wander around the temple grounds, and in fact the Church often builds ‘visitors centers’ on temple grounds for just that purpose. Also, anyone (Mormon or not) can walk in the front door of the temple and even remain there; there is usually a small waiting room off to one side. At that point, however, is what is called the ‘recommend desk’ — if you want to go further in, you must show a current temple recommend. Once past the recommend desk, you are generally free to go wherever you want, though of course you are expected not to barge into ceremonies in progress, wander through administrative offices, and so on.

All those officiating in the temple (with two possible exceptions) are local lay LDS members, male and female, working on a volunteer basis and called and set apart for that work. The two possible exceptions are the temple president and his wife (the ‘temple matron’), who serve for a limited (3-5 years) period of time. Usually they are also local lay volunteer members, but occasionally they are from another region (or even another country) and, if necessary, receive financial assistance in relocating and living near the temple for the duration of their service.

LDS temples serve two major functions: ordinances for the living, and ordinances for the dead. The ordinances for the living are the temple endowment and family sealings (temple marriages, as well as sealings of children to parents where the children were born before the parents received a temple marriage). The endowment is a ritualistic setting for making additional covenants with God (beyond those made at baptism). It is a prerequisite for a temple marriage, a marriage that is intended to last not just for time but for all eternity. However, getting a temple marriage does not guarantee anything; like all covenants (baptism, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and the endowment), it is conditional on our keeping our part of the covenant. Grace is certainly involved, but it is not irresistible grace.

As noted, the other function of temples is to perform ordinances for the dead — that is, vicarious ordinances for those who died at age 8 or later and never received them. These ordinances include baptism, confirmation, ordaining of deceased males to the Melchizedek Priesthood, the endowment, husband-wife sealing (if marriage existed in mortal life) and child-parent sealing. Contrary to some anti-Mormon literature, these ordinances do not “compel” or “force” the deceased spirits to somehow become LDS; they instead unlock the door for those who may accept the Gospel in the next life.

We as Latter-day Saints believe in a literal second coming of Christ, to be followed by a millennial period; we also believe that the great work of that millennial period will be to finish up the vicarious ordinance work for all those who lacked the chance to have it done (by appropriate authority) in this life. Given the ~100 billion people who have ever lived upon the earth, it’s clear that we’ll need all the time we can get.

Millennium – A thousand years of genealogy, temple work, proselytizing, and filling out reports, a prospect that can make wickedness and destruction look downright enticing. — Orson Scott Card, Saintspeak.

Note that the whole concept of a ‘temple recommend’ does not apply to vicarious work; that is, there is no effort made to somehow ascertain ‘worthiness’ of the deceased prior to carrying out these ordinances. And, as noted, we do not perform these ordinances at all (except for sealing of child to parents) for those who died before 8 years of age.

Instead, the temple recommend applies only to living Mormons and is done to preserve the “sacred space” of the temple. Here is one site that has the current temple recommend interview questions. To receive a temple recommend, you go through these interviews twice: first, with your bishop (congregational leader) or one of his two counselors; and then with your stake president (who presides over a set of congregations) or one of his two counselors. The temple recommend is then good for two years.

If the bishop has any direct knowledge or well-founded suspicion that your answers are not honest, he may withhold issuing you a temple recommend or seek a more comprehensive interview. Generally, however, the person being interviewed is taken at his or her word, the basic idea being that God knows whether you’re being honest or not, and He’ll take that up with you Himself at a later date. As the saying goes, God will not be mocked.

The LDS Church emphasizes to its members that we should seek to obtain and keep current a temple recommend, regardless of how often we actually go to the temple. Because the LDS Church sees the family as the basic unit of the Church, the bi-annual temple recommend interview becomes in effect a stewardship reporting to the bishop and stake president. The goal is not to control or exclude; it is to set the bar for us and challenge us to rise up to that level.

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[1] Cf. Parry, Donald W. “Demarcation between Sacred Space and Profane Space: The Temple of Herod Model.” Found in Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism (Deseret Book/FARMS, 1994), pp. 413-439.