Why Mormons Don’t Drink Coffee (And Other Distinctive LDS Practices)

Speaker 0    00:00:00    Okay, Ross. Today we’re gonna talk a little bit about why Mormons don’t drink coffee. You know, if, if anybody out there knows a Mormon, maybe you grew up Mormon, maybe you just, you’re listening to our podcast cuz you’re trying to understand your Mormon neighbor. That’s great. Why do Mormons not drink coffee? We’re not just gonna talk about coffee, we’re gonna talk about some other distinctive LDS practices that are out there. Because if you, if you jump on Google and you just, in, in fact, I encourage people to do this. I encourage people to type in, do Mormons and see what Google auto fills for that. Do Mormons drink coffee is gonna be one of the high ones. Do Mormons, uh, wash their hair? Do they wear makeup?  

Speaker 1    00:00:40    I’m surprised to see that one. Yeah.  

Speaker 0    00:00:41    Can’t, can they eat french fries? There’s all kinds of stuff. Now we’re gonna, we’re not gonna jump in all that, but we are gonna talk about coffee today. We’re gonna talk about undergarments. Do, do Mormons wear secret underwear? We’re gonna talk about that today. We’re gonna talk about food storage. Just to get started, there’s so much more, right. We could talk about Ross, but we’ve picked at least these three.  

Speaker 1    00:01:03    Yeah, there’s many things we could talk about because, uh, latter Day Saints, the Mormons have a whole unique culture that’s built, built around their religious beliefs. And so they do certain things distinctively based on their beliefs and based on partly on the fact that they lived in isolation from the rest of America for many years in the Utah territory, far from, uh, the mainstream. And, um, and so it’s interesting that some of the things that are unique to Mormonism, more unique practices are not bad ideas. Um, they’re a little different from maybe most of American cultures. Some of ’em are, are, are even, could even be endorsed biblically, but not all of them, of course. And there’s some, also some things that are pretty far away from the mainstream that would be, uh, most Americans would find to be odd. And so, uh, let’s explore some of those.  

Speaker 0    00:01:51    Okay. So let’s start with coffee. And the, the whole coffee thing dates all the way back to the Joseph Smith days. And it, and it has to do with something called the word of wisdom. So give us a little background on this. What is the word of wisdom? When did it come out in the Mormon church? And then how is it enforced, I guess, today in the Mormon church?  

Speaker 1    00:02:14    Yeah. The word of wisdom is actually one chapter of the Mormon scripture called, uh, the Doctrine Covenants is the 89th section of the Doctrine and covenants. And, uh, it was issued by the church, or it was Revelation by God, they would say to Joseph Smith, um, in the 1830s. And so basically it’s a, it’s a dietary code, a health code. And, um, it’s interesting that there’s stories about how it came about and those are, there’s various folklore about that. But apparently, you know, they’re, they were having meetings, the men were having meetings and, um, and, and the use of tobacco and chewing tobacco and alcohol and so forth became pretty obnoxious. And so they decided they needed to ban those substances. And some people joke that, you know, they had, they couldn’t leave the women out. Um, so they had to ban a couple things that the women would have to sacrifice too. And so coffee and tea are also on the list. Uh, so basically the whole idea is that there’s certain prohibited substances and certain recommendations for how a person ought to eat, what they ought to partake of in order to be, um, healthy. That’s the main thing in the, in the word of wisdom, but also to conform to God’s purposes.  

Speaker 0    00:03:31    Okay. I’ve got a couple of questions because people listening to this might, when they think of this concept of a word of wisdom, they might, I dunno, for me, Ross, that sounds a little bit like something maybe like a charismatic church would do, is we’d, we’d have a special word that God has for the congregation. I I, I grew up in a church like that. So someone might sort of speak out in the middle of a service. I know this is maybe weird for other, for some Christian traditions, but not for my Christian tradition to have like a special message from God. But in this case, we’re saying, when we say word of wisdom, we’re talking about a one specific thing. Like do they have continuing word of wisdoms, words of wisdom in the Mormon church? Or is this, when they say word of wisdom is, are they always talking about, uh, drinking coffee and coke and stuff like that? Right.  

Speaker 1    00:04:18    They don’t, they don’t have a sense of, what you’re talking about is rooted in First Corinthians 12, where it talks about different spiritual gifts and it says some will have, you know, knowledge, wisdom, and, and, and can offer a word. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the moment of wisdom to others. And no, this is a one-time thing. This is called the word of wisdom, and it’s basically called that because it’s, um, trying to advise with, with wise principles on how they should lead their life.  

Speaker 0    00:04:45    So if, if I hear a Mormon say to another Mormon, are you following the word of wisdom, then what they’re talking about this in particular,  

Speaker 1    00:04:53    Think about it with capital Ws, right? So it’s not generic, it’s a specific thing.  

Speaker 0    00:05:00    And again, if you go back and look at the word of wisdom, and again, if you, if you want to do your homework on this, we’ll put links in the show notes below. But it’s, this is from section 89 in the doctrine and covenants. Again, that’s one of Mormonism standard works. It’s not from a biblical perspective, it’s not what Christians would believe would take as scripture, but Mormons would take this as scripture doctrine, covenant covenants 89. It says at the, at the beginning of that section, revelation given through Joseph Smith, the prophet at Kirtland, Ohio, February 27th, 1833. Now Ross, there’s a lot of, there’s kind of a lot people can read this for themselves. There’s a lot of stuff in there. But my understanding is, is the Mormons today don’t really think about everything that’s in there from 1833. There’s just a few things that really they still focus  

Speaker 1    00:05:48    On today. Yeah. The majority of what’s in there, they, they focus on and e elevate. So just to make it clear what we’re talking about here, uh, the word of wisdom prohibits the use of alcoholic beverages. So Mormons not only don’t drink coffee, but they don’t drink alcohol. And many of ’em are known for that in, in the culture around us. And they’re also probably known for the fact that, um, tobacco is prohibited by the word of wisdom. So any kind of, um, smoking or, or chew or snuff or cigars or whatever. And then, um, the third thing that’s a little more ambiguous, but uh, the way it’s interpreted today is tea and coffee. Now the text of the word of wisdom itself specifically says hot drinks. And so, you know, that’s pretty broad. But, uh, LDS profits over the years have taught that that means tea and coffee. Okay. So, and, and they say that applies even if you don’t drink ’em hot. If you have a, if an of a cold brew coffee, it’s still coffee and it’s still violates the word of wisdom or iced tea still violates the word of wisdom.  

Speaker 0    00:06:55    Okay? So that’s what it prohibits. The word of wisdom prohibits alcohol. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, tobacco, tea, coffee. But, and I, this was new for me to hear too, Ross. It actually encourages some things. I didn’t realize that this was part of the word of wisdom cuz living in Utah here, we don’t hear this side of it very much. We’ll talk about that here in a second. But it actually encourages some things as well. So it discourages some of the vices, what they might call vices, but then it encourages some other stuff.  

Speaker 1    00:07:22    Yeah. It encourages fruits and wholesome herbs. That’s the language of the word of wisdom. And the, uh, leadership of Mormonism has interpreted that as including vegetables. So fruits and vegetables are good. Um, grains are good. Grains are called the staff of life in the word of wisdom meat. This is where, this is where it’s interesting, where this is not enforced. Meat is good if it’s used sparingly. And it specifically says if it’s used, it should be used in winter or in cold or in times of famine. And that’s interpreted by, by LDS people in different ways. But by and large, that’s pretty much ignored by mo most latter day saints, you know, every town in Utah has a burger joint. And so, so that’s one that it, it’s kind of interesting to see that the prohibitions are where the emphasis has been put, not on the encouragements.  

Speaker 0    00:08:15    Okay. So for you, just real quick, for you growing up Mormon, which, how did you view the word of wisdom? Which parts of it did you follow? Which parts of of it did you really kind of ignore? It didn’t really seem to apply to you.  

Speaker 1    00:08:28    Yeah. Our family and people around us in our faith community in the Mormonism, we definitely, nobody would ever, ever, uh, drink alcohol or smoke coffee was totally nobody would ever think of, of coffee. Coffee was like off limits. And, um, tea, tea was a little bit more of a gray area cuz there’s herbal tea. And because in the past it was interpreted that something, the, the thing that must be about coffee and tea must be the caffeine. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so for a long time in LDS church culture, by and large caffeinated soft drinks were also frowned upon, at least not forbidden by the church. So you go in, you know, if you, if if you’re want to become worthy of going to the temple, you have to ha be interviewed. You’re gonna be interviewed about how you keep the word of wisdom. Your bishop would say, well, if you’ve drunk coffee, then you’re not qualified to go in the temple. Your bishop would never say, oh, you’d had a, you had a caffeinated Pepsi. That, that doesn’t disqualify you. But in culture, popular culture, for example, BYU did not sell caffeinated soft drinks in their, um, in their student, uh, cafeteria or at football games or whatever. So when I was growing up, those were pretty much understood that they were kind of softly forbidden. But the the other ones were definitely forbidden. We never talked really about the positive things about how to eat healthy. And we had plenty, our, our, we, our family had plenty of meat.  

Speaker 0    00:09:57    So when you, so when you thought about growing up, when you thought about the word of wisdom, you really thought about it in terms of coffee, alcohol, maybe Coke,  

Speaker 1    00:10:07    Possibly, yeah. And definitely, uh, tobacco.  

Speaker 0    00:10:11    And tobacco. Okay. So I’m looking at the word of, I’m looking at doctrine covenants 89 right now, and I, yeah, I don’t see anything about caffeine in there. So that one no, was sort of an interpretation later, kind of a cultural interpretation over time that, that sort of crept into the sort of the common culture of, of Mormonism, at least Utah  

Speaker 1    00:10:30    Mormonism. Right. And it’s crept back out again. Um, so now byu you can buy a a Coke. Um, so the, the, the church has clarified that and it says when we, you know, coffee and tea is not because of caffeine, it’s just because that’s what it means. So, you know, you can, you can, you can drink your soft drinks now.  

Speaker 0    00:10:50    Okay. Let’s go back to 1833 and the years following. How was, how was this word of wisdom sort of seen back then, and how has it changed over the decades in the Mormon church?  

Speaker 1    00:11:04    Yeah, originally it was seen just as like wise advice. Okay. It was seen as a, some principles that would help your life. That would be, it would be good to em employ. So for example, early leaders of Mormonism drank alcohol. Joe Smith drank wine. It’s in his diaries that he would stop off at somebody’s house and they’d have a glass of wine. Brigham Young used snuff, which is alco, which is tobacco. And he, he drank wine at times. Um, in, so in Brigham Young’s Day, the emphasis, say for example, with alcohol was not so much on, uh, a, a pure prohibition, but it was on trying to limit the excesses of alcohol use or abuse. But over time, after say the turn of the, of the 20th century and the years following, the word of wisdom became more and more enforced as kind of, you could call it a boundary marker, that culture, cultural anthropologists talk about boundary markers as things that set us apart from them.  

Speaker 1    00:12:04    You know, that that set us apart as unique, any cultural group. And so Normans began to identify the word of wisdom as a way to say, we are distinct, we’re unique, we’re a peculiar people to, to the Lord, because we have these, we’re more scrupulous about these use of these things than other people around us. And so now it’s actually strictly enforced that, you know, nobody’s gonna, nobody’s gonna come around and, you know, confiscate your secret stash of coffee. But as I said earlier, when you want to go to the Mormon temple, you’re interviewed about your worthiness. And if you are not living up to the word of wisdom, then you don’t qualify.  

Speaker 0    00:12:44    Okay. So let’s talk about it today then some of the, some of the stats that we can pull and, you know, stats are only as valuable as, I don’t know, I don’t know if they’re valuable at all, but there are some statistics you can find on this. It’d be interesting to talk with our Mormon friends about this from their experience. But I, you know, living in Utah for over 20 years, I’ve noticed definitely a change in this. I, I’ve definitely have noticed that there’s been a loosening and a transition and, and more and more Mormons drink coffee. And so some of the statistics that we found is a third of current Mormons reported consuming coffee. Ross, do you think that sounds like a pretty accurate number from your understanding?  

Speaker 1    00:13:25    Yeah, it’s hard to note to parse that number, um, because does that mean they had one cup of coffee once, you know, or within the past year or how often or, or whatever. And so I think that the interesting thing about the statistics or the value in these is just, just to illustrate what you mentioned, Brian, is that the culture seems to be changing mm-hmm. <affirmative> with respect to the, the word of wisdom. So yeah, it used to be like, okay, if you want to go somewhere where, you know, there’s no LDS people, you just go to a coffee shop. But that’s not the case anymore because even observant Mormons will still want to get, um, maybe get a, a fr fruit drink that doesn’t have coffee in it. Um, uh, you know, or still hang out there to meet people, uh, meet friends or whatever. So there, there is a changing sense with all of these things. I think tobacco less than the rest, tobacco still has maybe a lot of stigma. Alcohol still has a lot of stigma, but less so among the younger people.  

Speaker 0    00:14:28    Yeah. So a third of current Mormons reported consuming coffee and a quarter reported consuming alcohol. So coffee is becoming more acceptable than alcohol, which that makes sense to me. And only a six reported using tobacco. But what’s interesting is the generational differences  

Speaker 1    00:14:45    Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right?  

Speaker 0    00:14:46    With alcohol, 14% of boomers compared, compared to 29% of millennials.  

Speaker 1    00:14:53    Yeah. So, so boomers people are older, their Mormonism is more traditional. One in seven would say, yeah, we’ve, I’ve tried alcohol like in the past year, but like almost a third of of the, of younger 30 something LDS people say, yeah, you know, I’ve tried alcohol. And it’s there. There’s also, along with that is, is a change not only in practice but in attitude where the boomers, if you ask them, is abstaining from alcohol essential to be considered a good Mormon. 75% of the boomers say yes, absolutely. And under 50% of the millennials would say yes, you have to abstain from, uh, alcohol to be considered a good Mormon.  

Speaker 0    00:15:37    Yeah, that’s interesting. Cuz that’s real. Maybe even more. That’s an maybe an even more important statistic because it does show their attitude, right? So more than 25% of these boomers are failing, but they’re saying, I, I know I’m messing up. I reckon I might have had a drink, but I know it’s wrong. And we’re seeing that percentage drop. Millennials are a lot more, uh, gray on on that. They consider it more of a gray area than a black and  

Speaker 1    00:16:02    White. Like, they wouldn’t say, oh, it’s wrong. Oh, it’s totally wrong. Yeah.  

Speaker 0    00:16:05    Yeah. Okay. What about does, does it, what about marijuana, right? This is a new thing in our culture today. Now the word of wisdom doesn’t really address marijuana. You don’t expect it to. But how do Mormons, would they categorize this, I guess under a word of wisdom?  

Speaker 1    00:16:20    Yes. So the word of wisdom cast a broader umbrella. I’m glad you brought this up, because it casts a broader umbrella to also include the way it’s applied. And understandably it would include any kind of illegal substance, any kind of illegal drug use. Um, would, so that includes marijuana, but I don’t know, you know, where, where it’s legal. I think they would still say that it’s in the category of alcohol, alcohol’s legal, but it’s forbidden. And even in states where marijuana’s legal, I think it still forbidden by the ELDs church. So they have this, this ethos that’s driven by the word of wisdom that says, well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna cast that umbrella brought more broadly over other things.  

Speaker 0    00:17:03    Okay, now I want to talk about underwear, but before we get to that, I just, I I think we have to pause a second Ross and say about this whole word of wisdom thing and coffee and alcohol and all that stuff. What does the Bible say? Like, okay, so if this is just a cultural distinctive, that’s fine. Every church, every group has cultural distinctives. Like, is is this that big of a deal? And in order to answer that, I think we need to look at the Bible. Does the Bible actually tell us anything about alcohol or coffee or what we eat or any of that kind  

Speaker 1    00:17:35    Of stuff? Yeah, the, the Bible does have some boundaries about food, but not like this. So the Bible makes it clear that with respect to alcohol, for example, it’s not right to be drunk, don’t, don’t be drunk, but the Bible doesn’t prohibit alcohol. Absolutely. Jesus turned water to wine. Um, the Old Testament says that God gave human beings wine to glad in the heart. So there’s a place for a legitimate use of alcohol, but within, within reason, cuz it, it does a lot of damage in a lot of people’s lives. And, and so, uh, biblically the boundary that set there is very clear. Don’t let it take control of you. Don’t be drunk. There’s no, there’s no biblical, uh, reference with any other kind of food that’s prohibited. Now, in the Old Testament, there were a lot of foods that were prohibited by the law of Moses that were considered unclean.  

Speaker 1    00:18:23    But when Jesus came, Jesus said, look, I’m gonna tell you that, that those foods, by imbibing or eating those foods, that’s not gonna make you wrong with God. That’s not gonna make you unclean. What makes you unclean is what comes outta your heart. So Jesus declared all foods clean or all foods acceptable or permissible in a relationship with God. And in fact, it can even become a negative. So in, in Colossians chapter three, the apostle Paul warns us about aesthetic practices, about people who say, don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t do this, don’t do that. And, and who’ve raised the bar so high that the spirituality is measured not by your relationship with Jesus, but by, you know, whether or not you’re, um, depriving yourself of more stuff than other people are depriving themselves of. So there are, okay, there are principles that a, apply broadly to different kinds of, um, food and drink.  

Speaker 0    00:19:14    Yeah. Full disclosure here, I grew up in a church that basically taught that kind of like Mormonism, they taught that alcoholism is wrong, period. All alcohol, not just having a little bit here or there, but alcohol is just wrong. So really the church I grew up in, it was a Christian Church, but it, it really took a stance, a very hard line stance like the Mormon church does. Now, it didn’t take that stance on coffee, but it, I would say, yeah, it took that stance on alcohol and cigarettes for sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so for me growing up and, and getting, moving into my, um, twenties, I had, and I, and I was a good, I was a good follower, you know, I believed it. So I was a teetotaler and I had to do this what I would encourage any Mormon listening right now, right?  

Speaker 0    00:20:02    I had to look at God’s word, which is I believe just the Bible. I had to look at the Bible and I, I had to say, what does the Bible actually say? Not, not what does my culture say, not what does my pastor say? I mean, not that I want to throw that all out altogether, I just wanna say I, I need to check that against the Bible, um, because I want to be living biblically. And I, I remember when I, when I married my wife Tracy, she really challenged me on this because she didn’t have such a hard line stance like I did. And at first I looked at her with judgment in my heart, and I had to, and then I realized she was right and I was wrong. I realized that biblically speaking what you just said, Ross, that actually the Bible doesn’t prohibit all drinking. Period, end of discussion. It says, don’t get drunk. So I, you, you know, I I always encourage people when you look at this, what’s, how do you, how do you make decisions like this? If you’re a biblical Christian, you let God’s word dictate how we should live. And sometimes that means calling into question that the stuff that you thought was true and right and biblical that maybe just isn’t, you know, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s just cultural more than anything else,  

Speaker 1    00:21:10    Right? And, and you know, that that raises a great point because there are substances that are available to us today that weren’t available in the first century. The first century world that Jesus lived in. Uh, they didn’t know tobacco. And so tobacco’s introduced around the world later. But, um, so, so that’s where we have to have these, these underlying biblical principles. So in, like in first Corinthians 10, there’s a couple principles that says, it says, everything is permissible for me, but not everything, uh, is beneficial. So I’m gonna ask, wait, is this is using tobacco beneficial for me? Probably not, probably gonna get lung cancer or, you know, yellow teeth or whatever. Um, and then, and then in the same passage he says, everything is permissible for me, but I don’t want to be mastered by anything. So is it is something that I am free to use, is it gonna create an addiction or a habit? Is it habit forming? Is it gonna become a, a master over me? Which is where tobacco or alcohol or other things for many other people, chocolate, um, could become that for, for other people. So there’s these larger principles that apply that help us to apply scripture to things that aren’t specifically even spelled out in the Bible.  

Speaker 0    00:22:24    Okay, enough about coffee. We could talk about that all day, but we’ve gotta talk about tidy whitey because, because Mormons have special undergarments. Now some people might know that, some people might not know that. Again, if you’re listening to this in your lds, uh, it’d be super interesting to know if you wear these and why you wear these. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about that here. But, but the, for the non-Mormon listeners, they’re probably saying, what in the world are you talking about? So Ross, tell us about special undergarments. Tell us if you ever wore them as a Mormon, and if you did, do you still wear ’em today? All these, so many questions.  

Speaker 1    00:23:01    <laugh>. Yeah, this is an intriguing thing because it’s one of the things that sets LDS people apart is different from in a everybody else. Let me give give you some background on this. Uh, worthy Mormons go to the temple to participate in sacred rituals that they look at as essential to salvation. And we’re going to, we’re gonna talk more about the temple in a future episode. And, and so we’ll unpack a lot of that. But once a person’s been initiated into the temple, so these are the, these are the cream of the crop. The Mormons who are most invested in it, who are, who are living up to the standards more than others, once they’re in initiated into the temple ritual, they start wearing this temple garment, it’s called a, it’s called a garment of the holy priesthood or the temple garment. And it, it’s seen as a sign, a daily sign that reminds you every single day of, um, the, the covenants that you made to God in the temple. And so it’s, it’s this kind of a constant way to like, I don’t know, Christians do that in other ways. They might wear a cross around their neck. Most of us don’t, uh, uh, like put on a whole set of clothing that reminds us of our relationship with Jesus. But in their mind, that’s the, that’s the function of this special temple garment that it reminds them of who they are, of their, um, experiences in the temple and of what those mean to them.  

Speaker 0    00:24:30    Okay. Well, I’ve got so many questions for you, Ross. Okay. So first of all, this is only for Temple worthy Mormon. So like, if I became a Mormon next week, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t issue me, uh, a set of undergarments to start wearing immediately. I’ve gotta sort of earn them. Is that the right way  

Speaker 1    00:24:49    To think about it? Well, you have to, you have to be initiated into the ritual. And to be initiated into the temple ritual, you have to, uh, have proven yourself worthy at, at some basic level. So you could go to the temple as a brand new Mormon, you’d probably take you a year before you were given a permit to go to the temple, as long as you lived up to all the expectations that you have to keep the word of wisdom, for example, as we said before, and some other things too. A number of other things to get checked off to go to the temple.  

Speaker 0    00:25:18    So where do I get, where do I get these undergarments? Let’s say I, I do the thing, I check it off. Do I jump on Amazon? I can I get ’em at Target? Where do I buy these?  

Speaker 1    00:25:27    No, you have to get ’em from authorized, um, LDS church distributors. And you have to be able to demonstrate you have the, when you’re, when you’re worthy to go to the temple through the interview process, they’ll issue you a temple recommend card that’s like your past to get in. You’re gonna, they’re gonna card you at the door of the temple. And, and that’s also required for you to be able to buy the temple garment.  

Speaker 0    00:25:53    Okay. Can you buy these at the temple?  

Speaker 1    00:25:56    No, it’s at the distribution center, I think. I don’t know that you can buy them at the temple. I think you have to go to the distribution center.  

Speaker 0    00:26:02    Okay. All right. Is, is it a onesie? Are they, there’s two parts, tops and bottoms. Okay.  

Speaker 1    00:26:07    There’s two parts. Both men and women have a top and a bottom. Um, they’re white. They have certain, um, little symbols stitched in, embroidered into, in certain places that are supposed to remind you of the temple ritual. And, um, you would wear, you wouldn’t, if you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t if you’re, let’s say guy for example, okay, I’m not gonna wear my temple garment over or under my boxers, it’s gonna be my underwear. Right? And so, so women have, you know, their own way of trying to figure out how that works. It’s basically replaces or becomes my under my undergarment for everyday use by and large.  

Speaker 0    00:26:47    And do you wear it all the time? Like what’s the, what’s the rule? Am I supposed to wear it 24 7? Do I wear it all the time? How does that work?  

Speaker 1    00:26:55    Yeah, it has been in the past, it’s been 24 7 now, there’s a dis uh, the church just came out with a change on this very, very recently, just within the last, uh, couple of months. And that is, they now, they’ve stopped emphasizing day and night, and now they’re emphasizing continuously for the rest of your life. So they’re making some allowance for that. Now, historically, the temple garment used to be seen as sort of a protective amulet, um, that, you know, it’s gonna protect me from demonic attacks and spiritual forces. But a lot of, there’s a lot of folklore and Mormonism about the, how the garment protects people from injury. So Bill Marriott, the who’s in charge of the restaurant, the fam the hotel chain, is a Mormon. And he tells a story about how, um, he was on a boat and he was boating and the boat caught fire, and his, his body was burned, his clothes were burned off him, but, but the parts that were covered by his temple garment were not burned.  

Speaker 1    00:27:54    And the temple garment itself was not burned. And so there’s a lot of lore like that, that, that circulates in Mormonism about how the temple garment has these, uh, folkloric powers. Now, that’s not a lot of Mormons would say that’s just superstition. And the Mormon church doesn’t officially, um, endorse that or encourage that. But my point is in bringing that up is that in the past there would be people who would never want to take their temple garment off ever and hear stories about grandma who, when she was young, she, in her temple garment, when she took a bath, she would take it off except she would leave like one arm in, you know, outside of the bathtub, one arm was in the temple garment, and then she’d bathe the rest of her whole body and then dry off and then put the temple mar the garment back on. So she never took it all the way off. Well, that, that’s changed a lot in terms of the way people practice, uh, their use of temple garments, um, today, but it, it, it’s encouraged to be worn continually for the rest of your life.  

Speaker 0    00:28:57    Okay, so can you see this, like if I’m, if I’m going out to a business lunch with somebody, will, could I, would I be able to spot if they’re wearing their temple garments?  

Speaker 1    00:29:10    Uh, yeah, once you’re, once you know what you’re looking for, you know, in general. So,  

Speaker 0    00:29:16    So what are you looking for?  

Speaker 1    00:29:17    Um, there’s a certain neckline that men, men have. I don’t know about women, but there’s a certain neckline in the men’s t-shirt under there that is like a little bit lower than a t-shirt that I would wear. Yeah, I mean sometimes like, okay, so I was traveling on airplane, uh, a couple months, couple weeks ago. And, uh, there was a family that we are, were traveling like, like from Utah to Florida. This family was on the plane. They, I thought they looked like a Mormon family, a big family and all clean cut and everything else. But they were talking about the chosen, you know, that’s a Christian thing. A lot of Mormons like it. And then they, he had a ww j d bracelet on and he had an anti-porn t-shirt on. I thought, well, maybe they’re Christians, you know, maybe they’re like, not really Mormons, maybe they’re, you know, traditional Christians. And until, like I saw him like bend over to pick up something that his daughter dropped, and I could see the gap between the top of his pants and the bottom of his shirt. And so there was revealed that he’s wearing the temple garment. Hmm. So, you know, that’s neither here nor there. That’s no big deal. Um, but, you know, well,  

Speaker 0    00:30:26    But is it, so here’s my question and may, I dunno if you can answer this, but I’m just kind of putting two and two together cuz I’ve noticed living in Utah for over 20 years, I’ve noticed, I, now I don’t, I’m not very observant, but my wife is observant and my wife always can tell if someone’s wearing their undergarments cuz she knows what they look like again. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you can see the outline of it, right? Like you said, for guys it’s lower cut. So,  

Speaker 1    00:30:48    And for girls, for women it might be, uh, like it would be hard to wear like a sleeveless  

Speaker 0    00:30:54    Right?  

Speaker 1    00:30:55    Blouse or you’d have to wear a cap sleeve or something like that to cover up the garment. But so yeah, there are clues, they’re  

Speaker 0    00:31:01    Clues. And I guess my my point is it, it to me, it would be hard for it not to turn into like a tool that I would use if I was Mormon. Like, like for example, if I’m trying to make a sale, right? I’m a salesman and I’m gonna go meet with somebody who doesn’t go to my ward, but I want a signal to him that I’m Mormon. And I don’t mean to be, look, I I’m not trying to be suspicious of Mormons here, but I’m just, I’m just trying to put two and two together. And it seems like in a community, if you had a simple way to signal that I’m lds, and not just that I’m lds, but that I’m a good LDS person, you know, I’m, cuz you have to be faithful, you have to be a card carrying, you have to be temple worthy. So it’s, you know, right. So among Christians you could wear a cross and say that, look, I’m a, this signifies that I’m a Christian, but that doesn’t necessarily tell me if you’re all in or not. Right? You might be just wearing it as jewelry for you, but am I, am I just being a little bit, a little bit too paranoid here or is that a thing Ross?  

Speaker 1    00:32:04    Honestly, it’s a thing in every group, every cultural group has its own ways of marking. Its, um, your, your status and your, um, you know, you’re, you’re, whether you’re in or out or how in you are and, and in the cu in the hierarchy of being in how far up the hierarchy you are, every culture group has that. And that could, I’m sure that can function for, for some in the LDS cultural group as a way of saying, you know, yeah, this is, I wanna make sure you know, you know who I am.  

Speaker 0    00:32:36    Well, yeah, let’s, so let’s talk about that for Christians listening, you know, maybe you’re sitting there listening in judgment, but have you ever worn something to church to try to seem more spiritual? Right. I mean, I think every, every church has its own stuff, right? So I mean, really even just dressing up for church, sometimes you have to stop and ask yourself, do, do I think that this is, do you, do I think I’m earning something with this? Do I think, am I signaling something with this? It’s not wrong to dress up for church, but what’s your motive behind  

Speaker 1    00:33:05    It? Right? And, and so this, I just think the same application would be made for like Christian t-shirts, like message, t-shirt, t-shirts are ones that have a certain logo or brand that just because I wear it doesn’t mean I am, I’m signaling anything, but I certainly could be and have to, you know, watch my heart about that.  

Speaker 0    00:33:25    Alright. One last question on this, Ross. Does the Bible require any kind of special clothing to reflect our commitment to Jesus? I mean, let’s just, let’s make sure to address that. Like, is, do the Mormons, are they onto something here or did they just tweak it a little bit? Like what, what’s a biblical answer to  

Speaker 1    00:33:42    That? There is no requirement of special clothing. Now, in the Old Testament, faithful Jews were required to wear, you know, tassels at the edge of their garments or what whatever to, for prayer for reminder. But we’re not in the old covenant period anymore. Jesus came and fulfilled all of that. And so, I mean, you do have some Christians who wear special, special clothing, like if you’re a nun or a priest and you wear the, the, like the, uh, whatever they call that robe that the, that the priest wears. And other cultures have special clothing that they wear to mark them off like the Sikhs with their turbine. But for biblical Christians, uh, there, there really is no such thing. Now the Bible would maybe tell us to address modestly. Okay. And that’s another topic we’ll get to. But, but no, there’s no sense of like, you have to have a certain kind of ratified clothing in order to somehow be right with God or to be worthy before God.  

Speaker 0    00:34:43    Good thing, good thing. All right, one last thing, we’re almost out of time, but Ross, we’ve talked about coffee, why Mormons don’t drink that and alcohol and all that stuff. We’ve talked about their, their special undergarments, they’re holy undergarments. And there’s one more thing that at least if you, if you’re in Utah, at least if you’re in Utah, that might sort of be a distinctive for Mormons. Now maybe people outside of Utah know this about Mormons, but we know this for sure living in Utah, and that has to do with food storage. Tell us about Mormon food storage and why it’s such a big deal for them.  

Speaker 1    00:35:22    Yeah, this is something, um, that I grew up, I grew up with the idea that you, we were all supposed to set aside two year supply of food. And so my dad had shelves built in the garage hanging from the garage ceiling, and we had these cans and cans of, you know, air airtight, vacuum packed, uh, wheat and rice and dried beans and stuff like that, that if in case there was ever, uh, apocalypse or some kind of, uh, calamity, then we’d be prepared. So the, the church today talks about times of adversity. If we’re prepared for times of adversity to take care of ourselves and to help our neighbor, that means we should have some food set aside. And I think it might be born out of the fact that in the early history of the Mormon Church, they were, you know, kind of ran out of a number of different places and they did face a lot of opposition and persecution. There’s also sort of, um, sort of an apocalyptic element of Mormonism. They believe that before Jesus returns again, that there could be really, really tough times in the world. Um, and so they, this is their idea of wanting to be prepared for, for those kind of things.  

Speaker 0    00:36:36    Okay. So let’s, let’s talk, we’ll talk about that part in just a minute, about what does the Bible say about the apocalypse and the end times and all those sorts of things, because I, I actually think the Mormons are onto something here in a certain sense, but I, I think it’s really interesting if you move to Utah from outta state, and a ton of people have done that recently, you’ll notice that this really impacts the way our homes are built in Utah. Ross, talk a little bit about that because people from other parts of the country might be surprised to know that the architecture in Utah generally is kind of different from the architecture everywhere else.  

Speaker 1    00:37:12    <laugh> Yeah, it’s, uh, well, in a number of ways for nu for one, there’s a lot of bedrooms, but the other thing, what you’re referring to is like, there are special places that are commonly built into homes that are designed for food storage. So for example, a lot of places, if you have a front porch, the basement area underneath the porch, which is kind of enclosed in the foundation walls. So it’s cool, cool down there. It’s, it’s cool and dark. And so that becomes like your food storage room. And it’s often called that, you know, by people instead of just like, Hey, this is a corner of the basement that’s under the porch. This is the food storage room. Yeah. And so there are elements like that, you know?  

Speaker 0    00:37:52    Yeah. When we first started looking for a home more than 20 years ago in here in Utah, every home we went into, they made sure the realtor made sure to show us the cold storage. Oh, and here’s your cold storage. And finally, after two or three homes, you were like, what is cold stor? What are you talking about? What is this? Right? Because this isn’t, I mean, certainly some homes might have that in other parts of the country, but it is kind of a must. It’s a selling point if you want to be able to sell your home to a Mormon, which of course in Utah, most home buyers, at least back in the day, were Mormon home buyers. So you’d be foolish to build a home without cold storage and meeting these needs because it was, it was a spiritual thing, right? You’re trying to be a good Mormon by having ample storage  

Speaker 1    00:38:34    To be prepared. And I think it’s rooted a lot in the, the Mormon culture coming across the plains and establishing a new homeland in the middle of the desert. There’s this Mormon culture of self-sufficiency. And I think it plays into that idea that of self-sufficiency. We want to be able to take care of ourselves in each other.  

Speaker 0    00:38:54    Yeah. So I would, I would categorize the first two things. The coffee, don’t drink coffee or don’t drink, you know, alcohol. I would categorize that along with the undergarments. I would categorize that as I think legalistic. I would, that’s what I would say that that comes across as legalistic and sort of righteous. You’re trying to be righteous in your works. But the food storage one, I’m, I would put in a little bit of a different category. It, to me, it seems a little bit weird, but I can understand why, why people would want to do it. I, I actually think there’s some wisdom to having some to be prepared emergency preparedness. I think there’s some wisdom to that. It’s not just, to me, it’s not just, uh, paranoia. I think there’s some wisdom, but what does the Bible say, Ross? What does the Bible say about the apocalypse and the end times? And yeah, should we do something like this?  

Speaker 1    00:39:43    The biblical idea is that things will get tough, uh, before that, before Jesus comes back and he’s coming back and things could get really rough. There’s a, a times of persecution and tribulation and so forth, but honestly, that the Christian Church has been subject to persecution for 2000 years. Just depends on the time and the place. And so, you know, it is prominent, the Bible has like two things that, that are kept in, in kinda tension with each other. One is in the proverbs that says, like, learn the lesson of the ant. The ant sts away food, you know, for the winter. It stores away food for when food’s not available. But then on the other hand, Jesus says, oh, hey, consider the lilies of the field. Consider the birds of the air. They don’t worry about what they’re gonna eat and God provides for them.  

Speaker 1    00:40:28    And so, somewhere in the middle, there’s a place where, yeah, we should take some thought to being well prepared for, for things that might happen, realistically might happen. But ultimately we’re, we’re just, we need to really be trusting God, honestly, you might have a year’s supply of food and the apocalypse hap you know, something calamitous happens in our, in our culture and society. You know, your, your neighbors who have firearms are gonna come take your food <laugh>. You know, uh, I mean, real realistically, how, how much is that your supply of food going to help? You still have to trust God. You still have to, to really rely on God’s provision, because if things are bad, you know they’re gonna be that bad. So it’s a balance between taking meaningful preparatory action versus ultimately, you know, I can have all the money in the bank. I can have all the food stored away, and, and that could, I could lose all that too. So I really have to trust God.  

Speaker 0    00:41:26    Here’s how Jesus said it in Matthew six. So don’t worry about these things saying, what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers. But your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. And then he says this, seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. Man, that’s wisdom. That is just timeless. Jesus spoke those words 2000 years ago and they really resonate today and in any culture, because every single one of us really needs to, like you said, Ross, we need to learn to trust in the God of the universe cuz we’re not in control. We never, we never have been, and we never really will be at the end of the day. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:42:10    And God’s promise to take care of his people.  

Speaker 0    00:42:14    Well, that’s why Mormons don’t drink coffee and some other distinctive cultural beliefs of the Mormon Church. If you wanna learn more about this, if you wanna read the discussion questions, have this conversation with a family, small group of mentor, you can find these resources all online, su god.org/mormonism. We’ll see you next month.