What it costs people
Worthiness Interviews
Children answer questions about the law of chastity, alone with an adult, with belonging on the line.
The point in one sentence
From age eight onward, a Latter-day Saint child’s standing runs through private interviews with an untrained lay leader whose published questions include sexual conduct, and the 2018 reforms changed where the parent stands, not whether the interview happens.
What the interviews are
Baptism at eight requires an interview. Youth are interviewed regularly by their bishop or his counselors, and the published questions include living the law of chastity. Temple recommends, mission calls, and callings all run through the same room. In 2018 the Church published the youth interview questions so parents could see them.
What changed in June 2018
The First Presidency updated the guidelines. Verbatim, from the Church’s release:
First Presidency guidelines, June 20, 2018, Church Newsroom
When a member of a bishopric or stake presidency or another assigned leader meets with a child, youth, or woman, he or she should ask a parent or another adult to be in an adjoining room, foyer, or hall.
And: “If the person being interviewed desires, another adult may be invited to be present during the interview.” Bishops were also told to share the interview questions with parents and youth in advance.
The full releaseWhat is true on the other side
The 2018 changes were real improvements, and the Church made them publicly. The questions are no longer a surprise, a child can now ask for another adult in the room, and most bishops are decent men doing an unpaid job with care. This page is not a claim that abuse is the norm. It is about the structure that remains even when every person in it is good.
What did not change
The default interview is still one adult and one child behind a closed door, with the parent in the next room. The adult is still untrained in child development or forensic interviewing. The subject can still be the child’s sexual conduct. And the outcome still carries consequences a child can feel: baptism, the temple, a mission, standing in front of everyone they know.
The man who campaigned to end one-on-one interviews entirely, Sam Young, a former bishop, delivered petition signatures and staged a 23-day hunger strike. The Church excommunicated him in September 2018 for conduct contrary to its laws and order, a verdict he announced publicly himself.
The reform moved the parent to the next room.
The interview itself, an untrained adult asking a child about sexual conduct with belonging on the line, stayed.
Why this should make you question
Ask the question this site keeps asking, one layer down: what would the practice look like if the institution’s protection mattered more than the child’s? Then ask what it would look like the other way around. Then look at which one the current guidelines more closely resemble. You do not need my answer. You were the child in that room once. You already know how it felt.