Jesus Christ denounced Pharisees for wrongheaded strategies that sound eerily similar to the garments mandate of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), especially in the midst of a recent retrenchment campaign by church leadership.
Adult members of the LDS Church are required to buy long underwear from the Church called garments and wear them under their clothing every day, in every climate, during virtually every activity. In 2019, church leaders quietly rolled out a kinder, gentler approach to the longstanding garment mandate, removing the requirement to wear garments “night and day” and suggesting members might “seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit” to determine how and when to wear garments.
But in Spring of 2024, church leaders made a hard U-turn on garment policy. The “day and night” language came back and “seek[ing] the guidance of the Holy Spirit” was deleted in favor of inflexible rules. President Dallin H. Oaks announced during General Conference that LDS people would be required to “wear temple garments continuously, with the only exceptions being those obviously necessary” and condemned anyone who would “take a day off to remove one’s garments.”
Much like the First Presidency’s efforts to ramp up the rules around garment-wearing, the Pharisees would “reduce religion to the observance of a multiplicity of ceremonial rules.” Enforcing a bunch of rules did not help Biblical people remember Jesus Christ, which is the stated intention of recent efforts to enforce stricter garment-wearing rules, but rather, “they were a major obstacle to the reception of Christ and the gospel by the Jewish people.” (Pharisees, Bible Dictionary, LDS Gospel Library)
7 Reasons Biblical Pharisees Would Love Latter-day Saint Garments
Pharisees wore garments as “an outward expression.”
In the latest version of the garment statement, we are told that “wearing the garment is an outward expression of your inner commitment to follow Him.” But based on what Jesus said about the Pharisees, wearing garments to show off your religiosity outwardly is inappropriate. Jesus said of the Pharisees, “But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments.” (Matthew 23:5)
Jesus pointed out that displaying their religiosity by garment-wearing did not actually cause the Pharisees to be more righteous: “Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” (Matthew 23:28) Why would the modern church choose a strategy that Jesus Christ has already condemned as a failure?
By the way, that bit about “enlarging the borders of their garments” particularly bites for short women. There are recurring reports of church garment designers lengthening petite garments, possibly motivated by a desire to thwart tall women from getting away with wearing stylish shorts by buying petites but simultaneously making garment-wearing even harder for short women, who find themselves wearing ever longer “petite” garments that fall well past their knees.
Pharisees placed burdens on people’s shoulders. Garments do that literally and figuratively.
Jesus said the Pharisees “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders.” (Matthew 23:4)
Depending on body type, activity levels and climate, 24/7 garment-wearing can be a heavy burden for many people. And while Jesus was referring to figurative burdens Pharisees placed on people’s shoulders, it’s interesting that our modern church has a literal requirement to cover the shoulders with a bulky garment.
Pharisees barred people from entering the kingdom of heaven, like the garment mandate is used to bar people from entering modern temples.
Jesus said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13)
Likewise, modern LDS church leaders have set up an enforcement system for the garment-wearing mandate that bars noncompliant LDS people from entering the temple and participating in ordinances that, according to LDS doctrine, are required to enter the kingdom of heaven.
LDS church members must report their compliance at temple recommend interviews with male priesthood leaders, a particularly distressing requirement for women, who must disclose their underwear choices to someone of the opposite sex. The temple recommend script devotes 144 words to garment compliance, compared to an average of 25 words for each other topic addressed. If the interviewer stays on script, nearly a third of the temple recommend interview is devoted to listing, explaining and enforcing rules about garments, which leads me to the next item on this list.
Pharisees created burdensome extra rules that went beyond the commandments. The LDS mandate to wear garments “day and night” is an extra rule never mentioned in temple ceremonies.
Unsatisfied with simply keeping the commandments as written in the scriptures, Pharisees “made a fence or hedge about the law by adding numerous rules” that made “the wholesome requirements of Mosaic law…burdensome.” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, chapters 6 and 15)
Jesus responded to the Pharisees’ fence laws with a targeted campaign of civil disobedience. (Matthew 12:10-13; Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 11:38-42; John 5:1-16) When Pharisees accused him of breaking the Sabbath because he was ignoring their rules, he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)
LDS Church members are told to wear garments as part of the temple initiatory ceremony, with wording indicating that garments, like the Sabbath, are made for man: “Wear the garment throughout your life and it will be a shield and a protection to you.” How to wear garments “throughout your life” could be as open to interpretation as how to keep the Sabbath day holy. “It’s good to exercise throughout our lives, but that doesn’t mean we exercise 24/7.” (Jana Reiss, Religion News Service)
The words “day and night” do not appear anywhere in the temple ceremonies (as of the time of this writing. I hope this article does not give church leaders any ideas!) Neither do the temple ceremonies include any other rules about how and when to wear garments, but LDS church leaders have built a Pharisaical fence around garment-wearing, adding rules about garments to the temple recommend interview script, the General Handbook of church policy, General Conference talks, and church magazines.
Like the Pharisees, the LDS Church has even institutionalized an oral tradition for passing down additional unwritten rules. When church members complete the temple initiatory for the first time, they attend a learning session where temple workers speak off script about garment-wearing rules they may have heard throughout their lives. Some members never realize they are strictly obeying garment-wearing rules that do not apply to other church members who heard a different speech from a different temple worker.
By the way, whether garments are also “made for [wo]man” is more of an open question, since they are patterned after men’s underwear and may negatively impact gynecological health. Speaking of the impact of garments on women…
Pharisees took advantage of women in poverty. The financial burden of garment compliance also disparately affects women.
Jesus condemned Pharisees for taking advantage of financially vulnerable women. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses,” he said. (Matthew 23:14)
Garment wearing is expensive for women. Most female garment wearers, unlike their male counterparts, must layer secular underwear with garments (bras to support breasts and panties to secure winged menstrual pads), so garments may more than double a woman’s total underwear budget. Garments are designed to accommodate most styles of men’s outerwear, but are incompatible with many styles of women’s clothing, so women also shoulder an additional financial burden for buying and tailoring custom clothing to cover the garment.
The LDS Church has imposed ethically questionable rules mandating that members purchase garments from a monopoly supplier, which happens to be owned by the LDS Church itself, ensuring that revenue derived from enforcing a garment mandate makes its way back into the church’s own coffers. Arguably, the monopoly may be more about controlling clothing choices than about money, but even if so, that leads me to another point Jesus made about the Pharisees.
Pharisees really liked to be in charge of other people. Through the garment mandate, LDS leaders demand authority over some of the most intimate and private aspects of life.

Jesus chastised Pharisees for their addiction to power. He said Pharisees “love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.”(Matthew 23:6-7)
It seems like LDS church leaders love power, too, because with the 24/7 garment mandate they’re imposing their authority over some of the most intimate and private aspects of daily life. Going well beyond requiring garments as a uniform members wear during religious ceremonies in temples and churches, they extend their authority into the privacy of church members’ bedrooms by regulating daily underwear. Church leaders thus exercise authority over church members while they are asleep in their own beds or even engaging in foreplay with their spouses.
Pharisees focused on the wrong things. Likewise, focusing on garments distracts from “weightier matters” of the gospel.
According to LDS church leaders, the purpose of garments is to remind us of our temple covenants and Jesus Christ. Ironically, for many people, wearing garments all day everyday leads to health problems, psychological distress and logistic challenges, distractions that may make it harder to focus on gospel principles.
Jesus condemned Pharisees for focusing on distracting minutia instead of gospel principles. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24)
In the first few months after LDS Church leaders announced intentions to strain at the gnat of garment compliance, I counted seven local church meetings where underwear was a main topic of discussion. Then I quit counting.
But hear me out, what if we remembered Jesus by actually talking about Jesus, instead of diverting worship time away from Jesus Christ and His gospel to focus on rules about underwear?
7 Responses
I have a friend who struggles financially, and buying new garments is too much of an added burden although she would like to comply. Seems like at each temple recommend interview, you could be issued a dozen credits in your church account to buy new garments in the upcoming two years you are eligible to wear them.
Your are eligible to wear them even if you do not have a current recommend.
I definitely hear you about the financial burden. On the other hand, free underwear is such a strange perk to offer for…anything really, but especially being eligible to attend a holy place. Commune with God: Get free undies!
On a more serious note though, maybe your friend could be reimbursed by the ward for purchasing garments. It seems like that should be something most bishops ought be okay helping with given how much the church pushes temple attendance. Although frankly I’d hate to have to ask a man to help me out financially in that way. Or a workaround could be that she could get groceries from the store house and use the money she would have spent on food to purchase garments. General leadership roulette rules apply as to how hard it is to go through the hoops to get financial assistance.
Why not just make garments free? It’s not like the church is strapped for cash. Also, they kind of already cost 10% of your income.
I am definitely no fan of garments (they’re gross! they’re controlling! they look awful! they’re culty!) but a friendly note that negative comparisons to Pharisees is often seen as a supercessionist anti-semitic trope. Here’s a good conversation with Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish New Testament scholar, on the issue: https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-278-amy-jill-levine-who-are-the-pharisees-actually/
The Pharisees are largely the predecessors to contemporary rabbinic Judaism so it’s better to talk about them as “religious leaders that Jesus criticized,” since the kind of behavior Jesus is critiquing isn’t just found in Judaism. We see it in all kinds of faith traditions and even in cultural / political in-groups and out-groups.
Your broader point, that garments are antithetical to Jesus’ message, is very well taken, however 🙂
Thank you for your insights. It made me realize that at the heart of the issue is whether we are focusing on garment wearing or on clothing the naked. Jesus was clear on what our priority should be.
How would you feel about garments if you didn’t have access to a washing machine or clean water? I’ve seen women washing them on a rock in a river in an undeveloped country where many of our converts are from.. We need small stretchy bands with symbols to wear around our waist under clothing.