#milkbeforemeat

BRIGHAM YOUNG: 

I made a post about the concept of milk before meat on the the r/cults subreddit. I thought I'd post it here too.

This is the content of my post:

"I was raised Mormon. You might have seen Mormon buildings before. Mormon temples are separate from Mormon chapels. Chapels are for Sunday worship. Temples are for performing baptisms for the dead, endowments, sealings, etc. during the week. They encourage you to ask questions about it at their visitors centers.

If you're curious, go to the YouTube channel NewNameNoah to see videos of what happens in Mormon temples and you can see the things that they won't tell you when you visit the visitors center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cGi_tP_YjU

What they won't tell you about in the visitors center is that secret handshakes are a part of Mormonism and the temple. I didn't know this until after I graduated college and resigned from the church. I felt betrayed and horrified when I looked up the YouTube videos of the Mormon temple endowment.

Not because they do anything illegal, to be clear.

Betrayed because some of it was contradictory to what I was taught (for example, I was told that everyone wears all white in the temple. I had no idea that they wore green aprons) and horrified just because there was so much that was kept a secret.

I don't think they should have held back so much information from a young person like me who was being taught that the temple was the most important thing in my religion. As a child, I was taught songs with lyrics like "I love to see the temple/I'm going there some day", I was taught to pay tithing to the church (paying tithing, or 10% of your income for life, is a requirement to enter the temple), and I was always taught to listen to my priesthood leaders (there are other songs like "Follow the Prophet" that still get stuck in my head), who have control over whether or not members receive a temple recommend and are allowed to go into the temples. It makes me feel very manipulated, like they were trying to control me, now that I know how much they weren't telling me.

It was very much a "milk before meat" situation. We are taught that some things about the temple have to be a secret because they are too, I don't know, sacred? Special? Too important? to know about until you are actually going through the temple for yourself.

The more I read about cults, the more culty this aspect of Mormonism seem. It seems it's a common aspect of cults to have "special" doctrines, the "meat", that you don't talk about with recruits or children. The "milk" I was given in temple prep class was hardly sufficient to explain the actual temple experience. In the temple prep class, I was taught that the temple was about making sacred covenants. That made sense. Mormons consider weekly partaking of the sacrament to be a sacred covenant. But it's a covenant that you know about before hand. You can read about it. You can talk about it.

In the temple, the covenants you make include promising to give everything to the church, and for women, it includes promising to "hearken" to their husband. These are much bigger and scarier promises that you don't know are going to happen and you aren't allowed to talk about afterward (it's too sacred to talk about what happens in the temple in Mormon culture). It's like a bait and switch. They try to get you to think that temple covenants are as tame as taking the sacrament, but it's not! Even the rituals surrounding the covenants (like the handshakes, and some of the chanting that is done), are much more extreme than any of the other rituals that take place in Mormonism, and again, no one tells you what it's going to be like before you are already committed to going through for yourself.

That leads me to the most important point. There is no legitimate way to say no to the promises you are required to make in the temple. It's like once they offer you the meat, you have to eat it or face huge consequences. Usually, people are going through the temple in their late teens or early twenties as they prepare to leave on a mission or are getting ready to be married. Both of these events are huge milestones in a young persons life, and choosing to not go through with the temple is like cancelling the whole event. It brings so much shame and guilt if you don't go through with it, no matter how uncomfortable you feel about the promises you are required to make.

Have any of you ever been in a group like that? A group where the "meat" of the organization is not presented in an upfront way to new or young members, but instead they are given "milk" that is easier to swallow?

There’s an old story about a frog. So many people have used it in so many situations over the years that it’s become a bit of a cliché. Still, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’ll tell it and then get to the point. 

It’s said that if you drop a frog into boiling water (ostensibly, to eat it, I guess), it will leap out. The frog will squirm and fight and thrash - anything, everything, to avoid the clear and immediate danger. 

It’s also said that if you set a frog in a pot of lukewarm water and then turn up the heat slowly, just a little by little, the frog won’t move. Instead, it will sit still, it’s body acclimating to the rising temperature. And soon enough, comfortable in the supposition that there’s nothing at all wrong, the frog will boil to death. 

Ironically, I first heard this metaphor at church. I’ve heard it many times over the years, and so I can only assume I’m not the only one. I’d be wiling to bet nearly every mormon/ ex-mo has heard this exact parable. 

In church, the frog story was tailored to many contexts, all of which boil down to the idea that a little sin can lead to more and more, and eventually to spiritual death. I’ve heard this used to scare the youth away from gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, lapsing church attendance, whatever. And you know what - it worked. I know kids who were terrified of the idea that their tiny habits would lead them down paths to unpardonable sin. 

Now, my problem isn’t with the story. It’s a fine metaphor (if, as I said before, perhaps a little worn out with overuse). Problem is with the MESSAGE. 

Yes, addiction can be a serious issue. But none of us needs a church to tell us the drug use can lead to a drug addiction. That’s just basic education, if not common sense. One can also read a more cynical intent behind the LDS church’s strict guidelines about “sins of habit”: anything that takes your time, attention, and money away from the church is a SIN. 

I would offer this: the LDS church “works” on the slow-boiled frog principle. I’ve spoken to many people throughout the years - ex-mormons, TBMs, and investigators - who have remarked on how odd they find some the church’s more, shall we say, esoteric teachings. And history. The thing is, no one finds out about some of the weird shit - dangerous, illegal, and just down-right cruel and evil and fucking crazy shit - until LONG after they’ve been baptized.  

Mormon missionaries are taught to focus on “the Plan of Salvation.” It’s their sales pitch: we have the one true path of god that will give you happiness now and glory ever after. They focus on the family. They espouse the virtues of their activities for kids and charity programs. BUT they steer VERY clear of topics like Joseph Smith marrying, or at least fucking, a 14-year-old girl. OR, the temple rituals that include a mason-inspired ritual death and (used to include) an oath of vengeance against the United States government. And if you mention the Adam-God Theory, they’ll turn white - try it, it’s fun. 

The mormon church introduces itself as good and wholesome and easy, even fun. But the long you’re in, the deeper you go, the more you learn - the heat begins to turn up. Soon enough you find yourself having to reconcile the crazy things you’re learning in seminary or Gospel Doctrine class with the happy, smiling faces you meet at sacrament meeting every week. You start to square those conflicting ideas, rationalizing them, even defending some pretty batshit stuff just to make it fit. When what’s really happening is that you’re being boiled. Congrats, frog-friend: you’re dead. 

They will serve you “milk before meat” because the “meat” is a closet full of more skeletons than most of us can possibly imagine. 

So Please. DO NOT FALL FOR THE SMILES. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE DROPPED INTO WATER AND WAIT FOR THE HEAT TO TAKE YOU.  

DO YOUR HOMEWORK. RESEARCH. READ. TELL ANYONE WHO’S INTERESTED IN THE CHURCH THAT THERE ARE FACTS THE ELDERS WON’T TELL YOU. DO NOT ACCEPT THE EVASIVE NON-ANSWER THAT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND IN TIME, OR THAT THOSE ARE DEEP PRINCIPLES THAT WILL REQUIRE MORE FAITH AND PRAYER.