Of building temples

Almost a week ago, posting from Mexico City, I wrote that

One of the high points for the day was visiting the Veracruz México Temple.  In outward appearance, it’s very similar if not identical to several of the other small temples that were built in México and elsewhere during the rapid flurry of temple construction that was undertaken during Gordon B. Hinckley’s tenure as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  However, I very much liked its unusually visible location in an attractive, upscale area of the city, and its grounds were beautiful and exceptionally well maintained.  It’s a nice advertisement, as it were, for the Restoration and the Church.

I came under attack for that comment on the Peterson Obsession Board.  I was, you see, “bragging” about the temple’s upscale location.  Jesus, if he wanted to build temples in the first place, wouldn’t put them in exclusive, expensive areas where impoverished people don’t dare to come.  So I was, the criticism has it, being unchristlike in boasting of the temple’s posh neighborhood.  Unlike me and my church, Jesus cares about the poor and the needy, the downtrodden and the oppressed.  And, anyway, temples are a waste of money.  They serve no useful purpose.

I’ll leave that last objection alone.  All it really means is that those complaining about Latter-day Saint temples don’t share the faith of believing Latter-day Saints and don’t view temples as Latter-day Saints view them.  But that’s both obvious and trivial.  It’s of no more interest than the fact that non-Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation or that non-Muslims don’t believe the Qur’an to be the infallible and literal Word of God or that Flat Earthers don’t believe Earth to be a sphere or that atheists deny the existence of the divine — and it would be silly for unbelievers to expect believers to behave in conformity with the unbelievers’ rejection of the Mass or of the Qur’an or of a spherical Earth or of God.

Not to be churlish, however, I do still want to correct the record.  First of all, I agree that the Saints and the Church need to care for the impoverished and the disadvantaged.  And, in remarkable ways, they do.  (I actually post on this topic several times in any typical week.  My position on the matter is scarcely secret.)  Secondly, I wasn’t “bragging” about the temple’s location.  I was simply saying that it was very nice and very visible.  My main focus was on the immaculate, manicured, and beautiful grounds of the temple, which I admired.

We saw several temples while I was down in Central America, and the temple in Veracruz was the only one of these that I would characterize as being in an upscale neighborhood.  A gas station stands across the street from the very small Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.  The Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple, which is still under construction, is three times the size of the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple but stands on a postage-stamp-sized plot of land in a quite busy and crowded area that no reasonable person would never call “upscale.”  The Villahermosa Mexico Temple is surrounded by a jumble of what look like small businesses.  Finally, the Mexico City Mexico Temple, which is part of a large complex of chapels and Church offices and a visitors center, faces a number of not-very-elegant business establishments, and I’m told that the area directly behind it is quite poor and even somewhat dangerous.

But, in any case, the Lord doesn’t seem to oppose making his temples nice.  Exodus 25–31 and 35–40, which describe the Israelites’ portable tent shrine, the Tabernacle, were (according to mainstream Jewish and Christian belief) given by divine revelation, and they depict the use of the very best craftsmanship and the finest materials available.  The Tabernacle was the forerunner of Solomon’s temple (on which, see 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles), which itself employed imported woods and gold and precious stones and the best manner of construction that the kingdom could muster — and the biblical accounts say that God explicitly accepted the building.

Now, of course, the predominantly atheistic folks on the Obsession Board are free to disdain and reject what the Bible says about the tabernacle and about the temple of Solomon, but they can’t reasonably expect people who accept the biblical accounts to act as if they don’t.  They are free to create their own god or non-god to their own liking, but nobody else is obliged to follow them in that.

One final matter: An Obsession Board critic faults me for supposedly bragging about locating temples in expensive areas where impoverished Saints dare not venture.  But this is absurd.  We tend, it’s true, not to put temples in dangerously run-down areas suffering from high crime rates and urban decay and no garbage pick-up and no public transportation.  But there is no bar against poor Latter-day Saints entering our temples, where everyone dresses alike and class distinctions are invisible and the covenants and promises are the same for all.  Isn’t it wonderful that even the poorest are welcomed into the House of the Lord if they keep their covenants and obey the commandments?  Isn’t it wonderful that they are welcome in such serene and beautiful places?

While I’m on the subject of temples, by the way, I note with great satisfaction that construction has now commenced on the long-delayed Cody Wyoming Temple.  Readers may recall that there was vociferous and highly-organized opposition to that temple.  The building would, the critics said, loom over the city of Cody, blocking views of the mountains and obscuring the night sky, ruining their rustic rural paradise.

Candidly, such objections always seemed disingenuous to me.  The temple will be less than 10,000 square feet in size, and it will be set apart on its own nearly five-acre site. Look at the first dozen or so construction photographs, including some from the groundbreaking ceremony.  Look at the landscape around it.  Does it really appear as if the temple will loom over Cody, dominating the town and wiping out views of the sky and the mountains?

As political as I’m likely to become here:  Am I happy with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election?  No, I am not.  But then, I also wouldn’t have been happy with the results had they gone the other way.  Furthermore, the election isn’t really over yet:  If Vice President Kamala Harris has the, umm, courage to do what should be done to protect our country and our constitution, she’ll refuse to certify the election.  Right?  At least (mercifully!) I’m hearing no complaints about the 2024 election having been stolen — although the inimitable Kari Lake remains to be heard from.  Based on current figures, it appears that Ms. Lake may be fraudulently denied her seat in the Senate of the United States just as she was fraudulently denied the governorship of Arizona in 2022 and just as she will be fraudulently denied the papacy following the pontificate of Pope Francis.