The Definitive Guide to "Sacred, not Secret"

Imagine a religion in which there are no scriptures. Absolutely no discussion of ordinances like baptism, confirmation, sacrament, priesthood advancement, baptism of the dead, initiatories, endowments, sealings. No explanations of garments. Imagine zero evidence of spiritual gifts and personal revelation. No testimonies. No personal inspirational stories. In fact, imagine a theology banning all discussion of the creation of the earth and mankind, the atonement, the resurrection and any appearances or dialogues of God to man. What you’ve just read about is a religion which places a paramount importance of sacredness over secrecy. After all, isn’t the atonement sacred? Of course. The First Vision? Definitely. Aren’t families sacred? Marriage? Freedom? Justice? The U.S. Constitution? When you stop and look at the list of things we consider sacred, it can get pretty long: * The Sacred Grove’s a sacred place. But anyone can visit it. * The same holds true for our temples. We invite anyone -- anyone -- to pass through them during Open Houses. In fact, we allow into our temples members who are later proven, in courts of law, to have been conducting evil, criminal actions while holding temple recommends (and presumably using said recommends). * Baby blessings, baptisms, confirmations, sacrament meetings and priesthood blessings are sacred, but can be attended by anyone (believer and non-believer) as well. * Our garments are sacred, hidden and not discussed. But on October 22, 2014, the church posted the video “‘Mormon Underwear’ is the Temple Garment and is Sacred to Latter-day Saints”. * People continue to post sacred testimonials to open Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, blogs and podcasts. Thus, we have a situation where the most sacred events in history are freely discussed, our most sacred places are visited by some who may not match the sacredness of the property, our most sacred clothing is freely publicized and our most sacred thoughts and dreams are freely bandied about on social media for anyone to mock and denigrate.