What is the Mormon practice of a husband giving his wife a new name to get into heaven?

Answer 1

Your question in itself shows the lack of understanding of this Mormonism practice. Even though this ordinance (practice or ritual) is considered sacred by the Mormons, I will try to explain the reasons behind the alleged practice, without getting into doctrinal dissertations about the gospel and the life after death. The "new name" is a practice based on the doctrine of the resurrection. Whoever knows a little about the scriptures, knows about resurrection, and the Church of Latter Day Saints teaches that resurrection will happen in 3 stages, the morning, the afternoon and the evening of the resurrection, after which, judgment comes. The reference to this resurrection day is an allegation of the 1000 years of peace that will come after the advent of Christ for the last time. If we are to understand the book of revelation in the bible, when Christ comes in His power for the second and last time, He will wipe out all the iniquity and leave standing only the pure of heart and clean spirit. This coming (advent) will start the so called millennium, and whoever remains alive after this striking event, will grow old to normal age and die naturally and resurrect in the blink of an eye, without the need to be buried or anything like that. I don't know the details nor the dynamics of this doctrine, I am just laying out here what the Mormons know. Now, remember that The Bible states that one day for God is like 1000 years for men. So, once the millennium starts, the morning of the resurrection "day" starts as well. And just as is done now with any other ordinances, people with the appropriate authority will be performing all the ordinances as well during the millennium. To raise the death from their graves with immortal and perfectly glorified bodies is just another ordinance that will be performed at that time. The way this ordinance is going to be done is by calling up the name of the dead person. Now, what is going to be the criteria to chose who is going to be raised in the "morning" and who is for the "afternoon" and even at the end of the millenarian period? That will depend on the righteousness of the person being raised from the grave and the covenants they made with God and how well they kept them throughout their lives. Mormons consider marriage a key ordinance for this effect, because they sustain having the authority of God to perform wedding links for time and eternity in their sacred temples. If they summit themselves through this very strict covenant and keep it holy and sacred until death, then they know they will be raised in the morning of the resurrection day or remain alive through Jesus's coming, if it happens during their lifetimes, along with all the people with pure hearts and clean spirits. Now, the order in which people is going to be raised, is according to the bible, that is, men first by their fathers, and these men will raise their wives accordingly. This is not an antifeminist intent or anything like that, is just the order that the scriptures explain. I don't have a clear idea of why God created Adam before Eve, but that is just how it is. But the only way this ordinance will take effect is by calling the wife with the name given at the temple where they originally made the covenant. Then, the ordinance will have the power and authority to be performed and the deceased person to recognize the name with which was assigned originally in mortality, at the temple. So, I know this all could be very overwhelming, but it is what it is. Anyway, the whole resurrection process is deeply connected with the family ties and eternal links. That is, the wedding ordinances performed during mortality but with the authority to seal them for time and eternity, in contrast with our traditional "'til death do you apart" thing. The children are to be sealed to their parents and the husbands to their wives, making the whole human race a complete chain of continuous links from Adam and Eve as our original parents to the last man born on Earth. This whole task will not be completed before Christ's coming, but rather during the millennium. This ordinance is done now by the Mormons every day in every one of their temples, and even vicariously to link themselves with their ancestors trying to complete the chain links as far as possible in time. Whoever went through these ordinances before the millennium and received the new name, and kept a good life, will be raised from the tomb in the morning of the millennium by being called from the appropriate person who knows his or her new name. This name is secret and sacred, and is kept as such for that purpose only. Every person going through the temple for the first time, and doing all the ordinances thereof, will receive a new name, men and women, to hold sacred and secret until the day comes in which it will be used. But the women get to tell their husbands her new and secret name, just because he will be the one calling her out of the grave at due time. She doesn't need to know his name, because she won't be calling him. So, as you see, the statement implied in your question in wrong, because the husband never gives a new name to his wife. Instead, she reveals her new name to him. So, once all the pure of heart and clean spirit are back alive, they will be performing all the remaining ordinances for all the other people who are still dead and completing the chain up to the very last link, so everybody will have the new name and be raised as they are given their new names vicariously according to their righteousness during mortality. This subject alone has been a victim of all sorts of arguments, discussions, casuistic, hypothesis, etc, but that is how it is, and whatever I don't clearly understand now, will be answered in its respective time. I can guarantee you won't find this answer anywhere else, and if you ask a Mormon about these things, he or she will be astonished wondering how in the world you know those things. That is, if that Mormon himself knows about it. True or not, I just know that God is perfect, and as such, He does have a perfectly laid out plan for His children to go back to Him and become the best they can be, let it be angels, let it be perfect beings, let it be creators, let it be gods, I don't know. I just know that whatever I need to know, I can ask God about it, personally, and I always receive an answer. Why not you?

Answer 2

Many adult members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the "Mormon" church) choose to participate in a sacred Temple ceremony called the "Endowment". The Endowment is seen as a sort of step beyond baptism, in which an individual demonstrates their commitment to Jesus Christ by making further covenants with God. As a part of this ceremony, each participant (married or single) is given a "new name" that is used as a sort of password to enter into the Celestial Room, symbolic of heaven. They are instructed that the new name should not be told to anyone except to one certain person who stands as a kind of gatekeeper into the room. The only exception is with a married woman, whose husband will stand in that place and receive her new name only once as a part of their 'sealing' (or marriage) ceremony. The husband does not give the wife the new name, and many Mormon women receive this name years before they are married, but the wife will tell her husband the new name when they are married or "sealed" in the temple.
As the temple ceremonies are highly symbolic, and the interpretation is up to the individual and is not preached about or explained, the exact meaning and purpose of the new name is unknown. Some take it literally to mean that a husband will help his wife enter heaven through the use of her new name. However, most believe the name is symbolic, perhaps of the new or changed person one becomes when they devote their lives to God and the necessity to become such in order to enter heaven.