Quick update
Apologies, I have spent the last two weeks manically working on renovating a very old and horrible bathroom. It is one of those projects where everything seems to go wrong and end up costing more time and taking longer to finish. Anyways, progress is being made and I will be back to normal next week.
I have several great stories to share with you from across the world over the next few weeks. As ever, feel free to comment on them or share them with others.
The Manacled Mormon
A few months ago a member of my branch gave me a page of a newspaper that he discovered as he was renovating his bedroom. This brother has been gradually working through his house and underneath the carpet and underlay of where his bed is positioned he found this article from 1977 about Latter-day Saint temple garments.
This brother had been living at this house for a few years and it is ironic that he had slept on top of this article for all of that time, and even more so that it was more than 45 years old.
Interest in Latter-day Saint temple garments was heightened in 1977 on account of the so-called "‘Manacled Mormon case’. A Latter-day Saint missionary serving in Kent, England, had been abducted, tied up, and raped by Joyce McKinney, a former Miss World USA participant, and an accomplice. McKinney had developed an infatuation with the missionary and had gone to criminal lengths to seduce and win him over. All of her efforts failed and her life since her crime has followed a sad and tragic course.
The interest in temple garments spewed a whole series of misconceptions and falsehoods. According to a somewhat disaffected member of the Church interviewed for the article some fervent believers in the Church and the temple garments bathed in their garments.
The article also features a quote from British Latter-day Saint Michael Otterson who had recently left journalism and become the director of the Church’s London Public Affairs Office. He was also serving as the Stake President of the Liverpool Stake which had been established a year earlier. Otterson was firm and practical in his statement:
“The garment is not a chastity belt. It is a reminder to the wearer to keep away from immoral situations. In no sense is it a physical barrier.”
The article recognised that the garment in and of itself would not be an effective barrier on account of “practical openings”.
One of the journalists, Dan Wooding, was a devout Christian who later founded a Christian news service, and no doubt had his own personal misgivings about Latter-day Saints. Nonetheless, the Manacled Mormon case generated ridicule and interest in temple garments given the sexual nature of the crime. Articles such as this one took a practice and religious rite that was considered sacred and sought to expose it to the world.
The sure thing is that this was not the first or the last time there would be popular curiosity with Latter-day Saint temple garments.
More information about temple garments can be found here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/garments?lang=eng