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A new item went up today on the still completely dead and perpetually unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u201cCome, Follow Me \u2014 Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps (2026): April 20-26: Exodus 19-20; 24; 31-34 \u2014 \u201cAll that the Lord hath spoken we will do\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n And don\u2019t forget to stay current with, or to catch up on, the series of weekly Becoming Brigham<\/em> mini-documentaries that the Interpreter Foundation is producing in cooperation with Redbrick Filmworks. \u00a0All of the currently available episodes are accessible free of charge at becomingbrigham.com<\/a>. \u00a0And if, as my mother used to say, you\u2019re a real glutton for punishment, you can watch my thirty-seven-minute debacle at Informed Saints<\/em>, with Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot: \u201cScholar DEBUNKS the Biggest Lies About Brigham Young\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Incidentally, the interview that I did with Rappleye, Rappleye, and Smoot has generated considerable hostile response from vocal haters of Brother Brigham. \u00a0One repeated accusation has been that Brigham Young favored slavery and\/or owned slaves and\/or advocated that Latter-day Saints own<\/em> slaves and\/or pushed a bill through the territorial legislature making chattel slavery the law of the land. \u00a0Such misconceptions might once have been pardonable, but no longer. \u00a0I set forth my reasoning on the matter (and I suggested a book that puts my conclusion beyond any trace of reasonable doubt) in a presentation to FAIR last August: \u201cBrigham Young and Slavery.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 And, coincidentally, the Becoming Brigham<\/em> crew (Mark Goodman, James Jordan, Russell Richins, John Donovan Wilson, Camrey Bagley Fox, and I) will be filming on the subject of Brigham Young, race, and slavery most of next week.<\/p>\n Oh, and one more note regarding Becoming Brigham<\/em>: The principal purveyor of the theory that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered by Willard Richards and John Taylor, acting on orders of Brigham Young, has surfaced in the comments to the interview. \u00a0Among other things, he accuses me and Mark Goodman (the director of Becoming Brigham<\/em>) of \u201cmanipulat[ing] and gaslight[ing] Cambry\u201d \u2014 plainly, he intends Camrey Bagley Fox \u2014 and pronounces our behavior \u201creprehensible.\u201d \u00a0Although, of course, he expects<\/em> such behavior from me, he says that he had thought Mark a good guy and expected better from him. \u00a0(He wants me to pass his comment on to Mark.) \u00a0My question: Can anybody who has watched Becoming Brigham<\/em> explain to me what on earth he means<\/em>? \u00a0Mark and I (and the other members of the team ,James Jordan and Russ Richins and John Donovan Wilson) like and respect Camrey. \u00a0We\u2019ve all spent a lot of time together and have become almost family. \u00a0What is he talking<\/em> about? \u00a0How are we supposed to be \u201cmanipulat[ing] and gaslight[ing] Cambry\u201d?<\/p>\n The location and construction of the Cody Wyoming Temple, which is nearing completion but not yet dedicated, was strenuously opposed (including in the courts) by some residents of the area. \u00a0The massive 9,950-square-foot temple would, they predicted, hide the local mountains, block the night sky, loom threateningly over the town, and so forth. \u00a0I\u2019ve had some fun here, from time to time, checking on the fulfillment of those prophecies, which I regard as having been wildly sensationalized and alarmist.<\/p>\n Ten days or so ago, a thread erupted on the Peterson Obsession Board (POB) about the new exterior lighting at the temple in Cody. \u00a0This thread included a nighttime photograph of the new temple that does, indeed, make it look uncomfortably bright, obtrusive, and disturbingly garish. \u00a0The photograph was taken, on the POB, as evidence that stargazing in the Cody area is now dead, that the dire jeremiads issued by the temple\u2019s critics have been fulfilled, and that promises made by the Church can never be trusted. \u00a0My supposed prediction that the temple would be \u201cas inconspicuous as possible\u201d (which, needless to say, I never actually made) has been revealed, they say, as at best disingenuous.<\/p>\n Here are three additional articles on the topic<\/p>\n And I throw this little item in as a bonus freebie:<\/p>\n Now, admittedly, I\u2019m not there in Cody. \u00a0(Neither are the folks at the POB.) \u00a0I haven\u2019t myself seen the Cody Wyoming Temple. \u00a0Not now, not previously. \u00a0Not during the day, and not during the night. \u00a0So I can\u2019t really judge the lighting from my current very distant vantage point. \u00a0(As my father used to point out when we were watching the Dodgers play on television and we questioned an umpire\u2019s call on a pitch, the umpire was observing things from right behind the plate, while we were at least twenty miles away \u2014 and sometimes almost three thousand<\/em> miles.)<\/p>\n But I do note that the temple\u2019s lighting looks much more chaste and restrained in the first photograph given by the Cowboy State Daily<\/em><\/a> than it does in that article\u2019s second photograph, which seems to be the same one that was weaponized on the POB. \u00a0(Also notice how bright the lights are that surround the commercial area to the left of the second photograph\u2019s center.) \u00a0So, too, with the photograph that accompanies the first Cody Enterprise<\/em> article<\/a>. \u00a0(For example, compare the outdoor parking-lot lights for the temple in the latter article with the similar but apparently much more glaring outdoor lights shown in the former article.). \u00a0And here are some recent photos of the temple in Cody from the website Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<\/em>. They were taken by several different photographers, but none of them appears to show the temple looming monstrously over the city, obscuring views of the mountains, or blocking the night sky. \u00a0And, notably, in the nighttime photographs that were taken on 31 March 2026, the illumination seems again to be rather chaste, relatively subdued and modest, and somewhat restrained: \u00a0https:\/\/churchofjesuschristtemples.org\/cody-wyoming-temple\/photographs\/.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to bear in mind that the articles and complaints \u2014 and the POB thread \u2014 about the temple lighting appear to center on a test of the temple\u2019s lighting that occurred on the above mentioned 31 March, when everything appears to have been ramped up to maximum strength for at least a while. \u00a0So, anyway, says the second Cody Enterprise article<\/a>, which also appears to depict low storm clouds for that evening \u2014 something that would clearly have affected the temple lights\u2019 impact on the night sky. \u00a0So the lighting shown in the most offensive photograph may or may not represent the final status of things. \u00a0Moreover, according to that article it appears that the Church agreed to reduce the intensity of the temple lights by 50% after the last person leaves the temple around 11 PM every night, the brightness being controlled by timers.<\/p>\n In other words, it may not yet be time to pronounce the Church guilty of gross dishonesty, shameless contempt for its neighbors, and aggressive imperialism. \u00a0Give it a few days.<\/p>\n<\/a>\n
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