{"id":107040,"date":"2024-09-21T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T19:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=107040"},"modified":"2024-09-21T15:13:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T21:13:37","slug":"changes-in-the-interior-of-the-salt-lake-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/09\/changes-in-the-interior-of-the-salt-lake-temple.html","title":{"rendered":"Changes in the interior of the Salt Lake Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Preparing to film the experience of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon
(A 2019 still photograph by James Jordan, taken on the set of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s 2021 theatrical film \u201cWitnesses.\u201d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My wife and I attended Scripture Central\u2019s annual \u201cMoroni Day\u201d dinner and program last night in the Hyatt Regency in Salt Lake City. \u00a0We enjoyed it (not least for the conversations with friends there both before and afterwards), and we were impressed \u2014 as we were intended to be! \u2014 by the scope of what our colleagues at Scripture Central<\/a> are doing. \u00a0Out of the wreckage of the old Maxwell Institute some wonderful things have emerged. \u00a0It\u2019s very possible, in fact, that they would not have emerged had it not been for the events that occurred at the Maxwell Institute somewhat more than twelve years ago.<\/p>\n

Given \u201cMoroni Day,\u201d this article, written by Scott Raines, is very timely. \u00a0It appeared yesterday (Friday) in the Deseret News<\/em>. \u00a0\u201cThis Saturday\u201d is today: \u00a0\u201cPerspective: Billions shall know \u2018Brother Joseph\u2019 again:\u00a0201 years ago this Saturday, an angel told a young boy about a book buried in the ground \u2014 but not before warning him that his name would be \u201cboth good and evil spoken of among all people.\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Next item: \u00a0How did I miss this? \u00a0I don\u2019t know, but I did miss it. \u00a0I watch for articles by Jacob Hess<\/a>, but somehow I failed to see this one, which appeared on the anniversary of the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and which touches on a subject in which, I think I may honestly say, I have a demonstrably strong personal interest. \u00a0Heck, the article even cites<\/em> me, and it mentions our 2021 movie, Witnesses<\/em><\/a>: \u00a0\u201c195 years later, the witnesses of the Book of Mormon are receiving more attention than ever:\u00a0These events, which took place 195 years ago this week, have been dismissed by some who are ignorant of the long precedent in human history for the significance of a group of consistent and enduring eye witnesses to establish the truth of any important occurrence.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Amerikastan\"<\/a>
In this Wikimedia Commons public domain map of the United States \u2014 which I am posting in Arabic (though it\u2019s an oddly Persianate or even Urdu font) as a favor to the scores of millions of Muslim immigrants who, I\u2019m assured, are taking over our country \u2014 Arizona is located in the southwest, bordering Mexico (where scores of millions of Hispanic immigrants, I\u2019m told, are illegally entering our country in order to vie with the Muslims [and the cat-eating Haitians] for control of it).<\/figcaption><\/figure>As I\u2019ve mentioned here before, I no longer publicly hold political opinions. \u00a0Publicly, I couldn\u2019t care less whether the Whigs or the Federalists or the Social Democrats gain a majority in Parliament in Washington DC, nor who is elected federal Chancellor next April (or whenever it is that the election is to be held). \u00a0But it\u2019s still within the allowed purview of this blog to notice when Latter-day Saints factor in political discussions. \u00a0So here is a sextet of related articles that have caught my attention over the past several months:<\/p>\n

Arizona Republic<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cOPINION: Donald Trump is driving a wedge in the LDS church:\u00a0Donald Trump is a turn-off to many LDS people, who highly value tolerance. But how worried should Republicans be about losing Mormon votes?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Associated Press: \u00a0\u201cKamala Harris steps up outreach to Mormon voters in battleground Arizona\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Axios: \u00a0\u201cMormons are organizing for Harris \u2014 and they could swing the 2024 election\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cMormons Could Help Kamala Harris Win Arizona\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

National Public Radio (five-minute audio recording): \u201cThese Mormon women are rejecting Trump, fraying GOP support in a key state\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em> (three-minute video, including very brief clip of Elder Patrick Kearon of the Twelve): \u00a0\u201cArizona\u2019s Mormon Voters Are Divided on Trump\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Somebody will need to explain to me, though, what this \u201cKamala Harris\u201d thing is. \u00a0It sounds to me as if it might be the name of a pharmaceutical company.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Salt Lake Temple from the southwest. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two articles were released this morning on the subject of the architectural and design changes that are occurring at the Salt Lake Temple. \u00a0The first, issued by the \u201cNewsroom\u201d of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, is entitled \u201cHarmonizing Sacred Past and Future: A Look at the Salt Lake Temple\u2019s Interior Renovation:\u00a0The renovation project honors history and better accommodates sacred worship for generations.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 The second appears in the Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, and readers who are able to gain access to it will quickly notice that it takes a somewhat different approach: \u00a0\u201cLost in transformation: Preservationists lament the \u2018gutting\u2019 of the Salt Lake LDS Temple: Church officials insist the renovation \u201chonors the past\u201d while looking to the future.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Many people care deeply about the Salt Lake Temple. \u00a0My wife and I are among them. \u00a0Although neither of us grew up in Utah, that is the temple in which we chose to be married. \u00a0As I write, looking up, I see a very large framed photograph of the Salt Lake Temple hanging on the wall opposite me, showing it on a winter night with snow. \u00a0The temple in Salt Lake has long been an iconic image of the overall Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it has richly merited that status: When my wife and I lived in Egypt shortly after our marriage, we had a beautiful photograph on our living room wall of the Salt Lake Temple. \u00a0It was a view from the south southwest, showing the temple all aglow in the rays of the setting sun. \u00a0One day, a little boy whom we knew and who had been born and raised there in Cairo came to visit us. \u00a0Wordlessly, he stood and looked up at that photograph. \u00a0We hadn\u2019t told him what it was. \u00a0Allahu akbar<\/em>, he said. \u00a0\u201cGod is most great!\u201d<\/p>\n

We mourn some of the aspects of the Salt Lake Temple that are now irretrievably lost. \u00a0But we felt the same way about the Logan Utah Temple when it was renovated quite a number of years ago. \u00a0Once, during that renovation, my wife and I stood by it and realized, to our shock, that it was literally hollow. \u00a0There was, so far as we could see, nothing whatever within its walls. \u00a0Looking through the window nearest us, we could see up through a window at a higher level on the opposite side of the building and toward its further end. \u00a0And, when the temple was re-opened, we were disappointed to see that its interior looked much the way other temples of the 1970s and 1980s looked; very little was left of its 1880s flavor.<\/p>\n

Later, though, I happened to be speaking with a member of the Logan temple presidency. \u00a0In the course of our conversation, I lamented the gutting of the building. \u00a0But he told me something then that really helped me: \u00a0When they began their renovations, he said, they discovered that the floors of the temple were literally dangerous. \u00a0It was something of a miracle that they had not collapsed. \u00a0They had<\/em> to be replaced. \u00a0It had<\/em> to be hollowed out and re-reengineered.<\/p>\n

The unavoidable fact is that the Salt Lake Temple is going to be very different inside (and outside, and in important ways that won\u2019t be visible) from what it was. \u00a0In some respects, people who knew it before and who remember it may find it unrecognizable. \u00a0And that is indisputably a loss. \u00a0Many will no doubt regret that more could not be preserved or, at least, restored to what they recall, and that so much history will have vanished. \u00a0A renovation on this scale does damage. \u00a0There\u2019s no question about that.<\/p>\n

But a few key points should be kept in mind by faithful Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n