The institution

Doctrines That Changed

Adam-God, blood atonement, the temple ceremony, and a God who does not change.

Start here, in their own scriptures

Mormon 9:9: God is "the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing."
Moroni 8:18: "God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being."
Malachi 3:6: "I am the Lord, I change not."

What changed, and when

Each change is documented by the Church. Read the right column against the decade it arrived in.

1852-1978

The priesthood and temple ban on Black members. Ends after the civil rights movement.

1852-1904

Polygamy taught as required for exaltation, then banned. Now grounds for excommunication.

1852-1976

Adam-God, taught in General Conference by Brigham Young, denounced as "false doctrine" by Spencer W. Kimball.

1923

Temple garments shortened, sleeves to the elbow and legs to below the knee, by First Presidency letter.

1990

The throat slitting and disembowelment penalty gestures removed from the endowment, along with the scene featuring a Protestant minister paid by Satan.

2012

Missionary age lowered from 19 and 21 to 18 and 19.

2018

The three hour Sunday block cut to two hours.

2019

The covenant requiring women to hearken to their husbands removed entirely. Women now covenant to God directly.

Sources: Church Gospel Topics Essays and history pages; University of Virginia temple archive; General Conference records

The pattern worth naming

If these changes come from an unchanging God, why do they always arrive shortly after the surrounding culture changes, and never before?

Masonry and the temple

Joseph Smith was initiated as a Freemason in March 1842.
Roughly seven weeks later he introduced the temple endowment to nine men, all Masons, with matching grips, tokens, and penalty gestures.
The Church's own page frames it: "Joseph's encounter with Masonry evidently served as a catalyst for revelation." Church page
FAIR itself concedes Freemasonry "can only be reliably traced to medieval stone tradesmen." If there is no line back to Solomon's temple, there is nothing to have been corrupted.

When they say

"God does not change. His dealings with people change. Line upon line." This works for gradual development like meeting schedules. It works much less well for reversals the Church now calls wrong. The priesthood ban is not framed as right for its season. Its justifications are disavowed as false theories. That is a correction.

"Those are policy changes, not doctrine." Defensible for garment length. Not for the priesthood ban or polygamy, both taught as doctrine tied to eternal principles. You do not excommunicate people over policy.

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