Finding Unexpected Inspiration at my Local Oratory
On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, my family walked to the largest church building in Canada, St. Joseph’s Oratory. My brother-in-law was visiting from Utah and we were taking a break from a day of cooking and lounging before we sat down to eat.
It was one of the first wintry days of the year with rain and chilly winds. Instead of enjoying the Oratory’s lookout and walking into the woods as we planned, we decided to take refuge inside the church.
Inside the building were hundreds of visitors. They were eating in the café, visiting relics, viewing the creche exhibit, lighting candles in the grotto on behalf of loved ones, praying in the basilica chapel, and attending services in the smaller crypt chapel.
There were festive smells of bread, turkey, and pastries coming from the café. This and the nativity sets in the gift shop evoked the spirit of Christmas in the middle of October for me. Noticing several families caring for young babies made me think of the newborn Christ. As I looked at a snow globe featuring Mary with baby Jesus while peaceful music played, I realized that something different was happening in me: Being in this Jesus-focused space reconnected me with a sense of wonder at His birth in a way I hadn’t felt for years.
We entered the basilica chapel. While the exterior of the building has a Renaissance revival style, the interior is decorated in art deco and is quite modern. The immense domed space felt like an appropriate reflection of transcendent and spiritual things, like an acknowledgement that God’s love encompasses all of humanity and creation.
I noticed details I never had before. Low on the walls are quotes to ponder carved beautifully into stone. Stained glass depicts scenes of Joseph, Mary’s husband, caring for the child Jesus. I noticed semi-private spaces behind the pews where visitors ponder life-size relief sculptures depicting the stations of the cross. I noticed the beauty of mosaics depicting scenes from the life of Christ on the backdrop of the sanctuary. I felt renewed trust in the power of simple spiritual practices to bring inner peace and hope, whether memorizing a quote, lighting a candle, or gazing at art depicting the face of God.
Any cynicism toward other Christian traditions was absent. I am gradually experiencing more moments of moving from a perplexity stage of faith to a more peaceful harmony stage. In moments of harmony like I experienced that day, I feel like all of humanity’s longings, doubts, traditions, and missteps belong and will lead to wisdom, and that God’s love gives us more than enough grace to include everyone. In the words of Julian of Norwich, it seems to me at these times that: “All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceeding well.” In these moments, I also realize I don’t need to belong to other faiths to claim their spaces as sacred places to reconnect with the mysteries of God.
Although the Catholic Church has greatly decreased in membership and activity here in Quebec since the 1950’s, the Oratory continues to expand its services and activities for patrons. They are building a new visitors’ center, renovating their museum and outdoor spaces, and just built a carillon bell tower. I admire their efforts to make this free center more inviting, interactive, and accommodating to visitors who come from all over the globe. It succeeds at providing welcoming, hospitable, and interesting spaces for families (including small children), groups of pilgrims from around the globe, and whoever seeks refuge off the street.
My visit to St. Joseph’s led me to think about my concern that Latter-day Saint temples are not oriented toward outsiders, members’ or families’ needs for connection. If we’re going to build hundreds of more temples as Pres. Nelson has planned with our tithing money, I’d like to see these temples help more than just fully participating Latter Day-saints and our global dead. I dream of temples that are founded on fraternity and connectedness rather than patriarchy and exclusivity, and that integrate and celebrates both feminine and masculine hospitality, creativity, and spirituality. Temples where you could possibly bring small children and be supported if need be, where a teenager could (again) look forward to soft-serve and a fun chat at the end of a visit, or where a stranger could find refuge from the rain and have a spiritual experience just as I did at St. Joseph’s.
I dream of a temple that is more community-oriented, with spaces and opportunities for connection
Cafeterias were one of the more enjoyable parts of going to temples for many people, especially teens and young adults, but now the Church has gotten rid of them all. Patrons miss having a space to connect over food. Personally, I miss the smells of mash potatoes, pies, and gravy that once greeted me at temples not unlike coming home to my grandmother’s house. Cafeterias made the temples that had them more hospitable, more family and community-oriented and in my mind more feminine than they are now.
One of the current goals behind building many more temples at once seems to be to make temples for all members within a reasonable driving distance. I get the value of this, but it also means we’re losing traditions of traveling to the temple as communities, which only makes going to the temple an increasingly solitary experience. Reinstating cafeterias or spaces like them where it is appropriate to socialize normally, eat and connect, would be a positive move.
Pres. Nelson’s stripping away of many Latter-day Saint traditions. programs, funds, and priorities besides temple worship is leaving many individuals and households feeling disconnected from their community roots and less motivated to stay engaged in the Church. If we want people to be motivated to go, we need to foster a more rewarding community life outside of the temple.
And while the temple is supposed to be about family connections, visiting itself isn’t very accommodating or focused on either nuclear or extended families visiting. What if the temple became oriented toward families of all sizes and age ranges visiting and having interactive experiences together?
I long for temples that are culturally vibrant and connected to our past
Church administrators have ceased live endowment sessions and gutted the Salt Lake Temple of historical artwork and architecture to modernize and standardize the rituals inside. I don’t approve of these moves. I would enjoy temples that are less sterile and white and more visibly historic and eclectic. Seeing layers of history in places of worship can play an important role in connecting us to things that are greater than ourselves and our heritage.
Administrators have also recently gotten rid of some of the historic language and concepts in the endowment. I’m on board with changing language that is sexist, unethical, or oppressive, but I’m skeptical about other changes being the best direction. I took a university course about “the art of memory,” including how communities remember that made the point that across religious cultures, ritual language is usually carefully preserved throughout time. The goal is to keep it intact to preserve the past and to preserve origin stories, etc. I’m concerned that our leaders are not prioritizing this enough. In other traditions, there are prayers that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. Our religion isn’t even two hundred years old yet, yet we have had frequent changes to ritual language recently. For some members, frequent adjustments and regular dramatic makeovers water down the impact of sacred ritual language and make the temple a disorienting moving target rather than a spiritual home to return to.
I need temples that are more more interactive and engaging
Recently, temple rituals, especially the endowment, have become more of a passive, motionless, and isolated experience. The patrons do less and less, the presentation explains more and more explicitly what temple should mean to us. I miss practicing steps ahead of time during the endowment. I miss moving and standing up. I miss viewing a film rather than still images. The films helped me engage the content and made the temple more conducive for being in touch with my emotions, noticing symbolism, making creative connections, and tapping into personal imagination. And now that the temple tells me transparently about how and why diverse things tie back to Jesus, my mind is less interested and engaged throughout. I actually thought more about Jesus during past versions of the endowment. I’m disappointed that streamlined efficiency seems to be currently treated as the top priority. And I get the idea that slides make accommodating multiple languages and temples much easier, but I find the cost outweighs the benefit. I’m pretty discontent with much of the direction we’ve been moving toward recently.
I would prefer it if we used our bodies more in the temple, and if the presented content were more spiritually, artistically and emotionally engaging. I want interaction and real opportunities for my creative and spiritual capacities to be engaged rather than what turns out to be a passive, sedentary taking in of content with pre-determined meanings. I would like a full-embodied and mentally engaged kind of spirituality to take the front seat instead of convenience.
The Springtide Research Institute recommends clergy invite youth to help create religious community rituals for better results helping them develop spiritual sensibilities. I wish I were granted space to contribute more to the content and meanings of the rituals I experience in temples. Being truly active contributors would be beneficial to patrons’ spiritual development and well-being.
We could also expand temple services to include interior spaces apart from the formal rituals to make the temple more of a place to just go connect with God. The temple could include semi-private spaces to pray, ponder, read, and write, with more diverse seating and lighting options. It would be nice to be welcomed to the temple even if you don’t have time or interest in doing an ordinance. I’d like there to be more freedom, within reason, to move around without supervision, much like at the oratory, where I can explore and experience all kinds of spaces meant for different kinds of worship and practices.
I dream of a temple with multiple Adams and Eves from many racial and ethnic backgrounds, speaking many languages
The temple presentations have never been inclusive to our ethnically and culturally diverse global church membership. Adam and Eve and God consistently being white seems to communicate some kind of racial priority or hierarchy that makes many ill-at-ease. This needs to change.
I need to see representations of the divine feminine in the temple
In the Oratory, there is a beautiful, cave-like, dimly-lit grotto in which half the walls are actually the rocky surface of Mount Royal, which often has water trickling down it. In this space, there is a beautiful sculpture of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It feels like a sacred nature and divine womanhood-focused space and I love it. I desire ways to connect with Heavenly Mother and to see Her visually in the temple, through both art and in the presentation.
I envision temples with spaces that are welcoming and open to the public.
St Joseph’s Oratory’s website explains, “Welcoming is at the heart of its mission…Everyone finds a space for reflection and an unconditional welcome.” We could create inclusive spaces in temples where all receive an unconditional welcome to spend time in the space and feel and ponder the love of God. This week I learned on Mormonland about how the secrecy and exclusivity of LDS temples can create negative feelings toward them and lead to unpleasant rumors. It’s normal across cultures for people want to understand what’s going on and be invited and included in sacred spaces. Temples could easily have spaces inside that provide something comparable to the hospitality and a religious literacy-oriented approach of Temple Square. Welcome centers, multi-faith prayer and meditation rooms, mini museums, music opportunities, free spiritual support services, art galleries–the possibilities are exciting.
I dream of changes to temple entrance requirements that would make the temple more welcoming and inclusive
So many more people could be welcomed and included if temple interview questions were kept simple and practice-based (i.e. are you following the 10 commandments?) rather than invasive or potentially shaming. The questions should exclude what we intellectually assent to and whether we sustain/submit to the clerical authority of human leaders. In the temple, the goal is to orient and commit ourselves to God, not human administrators. And, despite how chronically we get this wrong at Church, cognitive belief is not the same thing as faith. Lived practice and relational stances (e.g. trust, love, and willingness) are aligned with faith in God and following Jesus much more than any intellectual assent to ideologies. In many other religions, to enter a sacred space, what really counts is are you willing to have good manners and follow the rules; whether you want to be there is the crucial issue. Treating cognitive belief in Church dogmas as a prerequisite for worthiness/entrance is keeping many people away from temples who might otherwise benefit and want to be involved. This really needs to change!
I dream of temples where members need not pay tithing to participate in ordinances
Temple entrance requirements need reforms, especially during our current era of increasing income disparity and poverty. Ten percent of one’s income is absolutely not an equal offering among members when we compare the wealthy with the poor and disadvantaged. Even in many middle and lower middle income households today, paying tithing makes a big difference to one’s quality of life, negatively impacting flexibility and much needed emergency funds. Some families, for example, have to make choices between whether their children will participate in community activities that are much needed for their physical and mental health or to pay tithing (and accessing these activities for children is all the more needed in an era when neither the Church nor society at large are providing adequate community supports for kids). Some couples must choose between paying for things like marriage therapy, medical treatments, or other family essentials or tithing.
On the blog, one woman who identified herself as Frustrated recently shared: “Daycare and health costs have eaten into our savings such that we can no longer pay any [tithing] to anyone. Our mortgage is less than most people’s rent, so it’s not like we can downsize there, either. We are working on our spending habits re: groceries and other necessities…I’m trying to save up for a much-needed roof replacement. I will not be lectured to about giving to the Lord’s church when the Lord’s church has enough to last til the 2nd Coming (whenever that may be) and then some. What little money I can save I spend helping give Christmas presents to those in worse financial straits than us.”
When individuals make choices to prioritize meeting important needs over paying tithing, adults are then excluded from participating in important rituals and rites of passage. Dads are informed by their bishoprics they won’t be allowed to baptize, confirm, or ordain their own kids. Parents can’t benefit from time in the temple or bring teens there.
Promises of blessings in return for faithful tithing verge on magical thinking and manipulation. And as Frustrated points out, the Church’s wealth seems to be evidence to many members that it doesn’t need to take money from the poor or from anyone on a tight budget whose well-being will be negatively impacted rather than blessed by the sacrifices of tithing. These are the people the Church should be giving the most to instead of taking from. Are we being asked to buy our salvation? How much is this requirement just a way for the institution to ensure itself a steady financial intake rather than something that is pleasing to God? I believe Jesus would overturn many of the metaphorical tables of our administrator’s temple entrance requirements.
I Dream of the Church Giving Back to Members in More in Ways than Just More Temples
This Fall, Church funds were withdrawn and cut off in my stake. Suddenly, we had a $0 budget for the rest of the year, and no one seems to know why. My ward has a large population of humble asylum seekers and immigrants from all over the world who offer a lot to the Church. It seems to me it is an unwritten rule that if you belong to a Christian church, that church will provide a Christmas meal that will be a free gift. Yet our ward has no hope of a Christmas celebration unless we require the members to bring the equivalent of what their entire family would eat for Christmas dinner to the party themselves. My recent Christmas party experiences with the Church are something straight out of a Dickensian dystopia. Last year, we didn’t have enough food at the dinner (due, I assume from what I know, to budget cuts and just never having enough money) and many went home hungry. Our party this year is, by necessity, a potluck with anxious leaders spending time contacting everyone trying to get them to sign up for as much food as they can spare. It seems to me that the church isn’t giving much of anything substantial back to the members of my ward, many of whom are paying tithing at great cost. Where is the reciprocity? To be frank, the deprivation of funds to my ward and stake upsets me immensely and I consider it unethical. Inspiration to build more temples, however legitimate, is no excuse for Scrooge-like, penny-pinching actions in the face of the social needs, monetary offerings, and free labor contributions of members. If the celestial kingdom has no resources for Christmas parties, barbecues, craft nights, or talents shows, I’m not interested. If all we do together is have sterile, white, quiet spaces with chandeliers, count me out! The current administrations’ fixation on investing in temples becomes neglectful and oppressive rather than a blessing whenever they fail to show hospitality to ordinary members and other guests. In preparation for Jesus’s coming, we need to respond to his commission to feed his sheep rather than ignore human needs and strip religion down to temple worship.
Final Thoughts
I dream of temples that are more inclusive and welcoming to both our own members and to the world, where all pilgrims could benefit from coming to in their search for connection with one another and divinity. I think this kind of temple would do a better job strengthening our struggling LDS communities, helping us retain more of our young people, and strengthening people outside the Church and on its margins. How we do temples and Church has changed many times before and it will change again. I’m holding out hope that things could be much better–more hospitable, more inclusive, more interactive, and better at meeting our needs and desires. In the meantime, I’m going to keep trying to learn from other places of worship, and reclaiming them as my own sacred spaces.
30 Responses
This is such a well-written piece, and so cogent, given the current surge of Mormon temple-building. It is also a piece that should be much more widely circulated so that a general discussion can be engendered. Is there a chance that it be offered to Peggy Fletcher Stack or Jana Reiss for wider re-publication (or at least be referenced by those worthies), so that those whose sensibilities are piqued might be roused to find it and study it?
Thanks for this essay.
Raymond, thanks for this feedback and encouragement. I think it’s a good idea to send this to Peggy and offer to rewrite it for her if she’d like.
I have recently been seeing much more of the divine feminine in temples, in the floral centerpieces of the celestial rooms, trees, paintings of water and nature, circle symbolism, stained glass images, chandeliers, and bridal rooms
This is a beautiful experience and perspective, I’m glad it helps brings meaning in the temple.
Ditto to all of the above. I’m appalled that a stake budget was zeroed out. Ours was similar last year. Women, please don’t give more money to the “church.” Thus is a real estate corporation disguised as a church in order to keep its tax-free status. They have to keep building in order to maintain their tax-free status. We are being punked when we’re taught that the ordinances are necessary. They are the requirements of men, and don’t seem to have anything to do with the Lord, despite the new language in the rituals. There are approximately 3 million active members in the church now, a large number of whom don’t qualify to go to the temples (newly baptized and children). There is no need in the church for more temples, and no need for the majority of the ones already built. You are spot-on with your description of other religions being inclusive, beautiful , welcoming, and interesting. Let’s not forget that the endgame of the New and Everlasting Covenant is polygamy and that we currently have a polygamist president, as is his first counselor. There is no apparent reason for women to go to the temple. Spiritual peace and connection are available elsewhere and to all.
Thanks for your support with this piece, Beth. Personally, I’m not comfortable with seeking to influence other women to go or not go to the temple, same with tithing. I see both as valid choices. Depends on personal meaning-making and experiences and whether they find it beneficial. It’s a wonderful idea to enjoy other religions’ places of worship.
Temples are not the religious experience or community space I wish they would be. I have no desire to go to a place that requires me to purchase my salvation while the church hoards over $200B in funds but refuses to help the needy in meaningful ways. I’m tired of pretending that the temple is a meaningful experience when it treats women unequally, is solitary and sterile, and presents no opportunity for true community. I can’t get behind building hundreds of temples that won’t ever welcome the needy and the destitute but instead require a strict loyalty test to enter. I won’t prioritize serving the dead over the living. I wish my church would use their vast funds to be more like Jesus, rather than building colossal white buildings that less than 1% of the population will ever be allowed to enter. I want to welcome and love all, for that is true sacredness and worship to me.
Beautifully said, Linda. I have a lot of friends and family who increasingly feel the same way about the direction the Church has taken and are experiencing the same discomfort about the temple, when in the past it wasn’t this way for them. I feel really uncomfortable at this point with the lack of agency I have as a member in what direction we take and how the money is used. It can really feel like a huge personal moral dilemma.
I feel the same about the moral dilemma of the church not helping the living, but instead spending ridiculous amounts of money on audacious buildings so few can use. I recently learned from someone that one chandelier for a new temple in her area cost 800k!! I just cannot get behind that—it’s wrong. Jesus doesn’t care about fancy buildings. He cares about the people of this earth. My husband still wants to pay tithing on his income but I put it in the humanitarian aide category and hope that that is where it actually goes.
I love this post. Thank you for your insight and beautiful words!
The farther I move in my deconstruction journey, the more I wonder why our church insists on gatekeeping the temple. Wouldn’t a radically loving, inclusive God want us to invite ~all children into what is supposedly our most heavenly space?
Even if that is not an option – even if we insist on sacred-not-secret rhetoric – why not make the temple more warm and inviting to those that CAN attend? I love the point you made about feminine feeling of the cafeterias. I miss them, too!
The answers I suspect to these questions make me very sad. I think it comes down to control, efficiency, manipulation, patriarchy.. The bottom line.
The sterile exclusivity of our temples is another reminder to me of what we lose when we don’t embrace both faces of the divine: masculine and feminine. I, too, crave something more.
I resonate a lot with these thoughts and feelings. It’s perplexing. One thing I noticed lately in the 4 stages of faith doc I reference in the post is how when we’re in the “perplexity” stage of growth, we tend to perceive authority figures as “Manipulators who control the naive and trusting,” and as we continue and move to the “harmony” stage, we have more grace and see them as “Fallible people like you and me.” (https://brianmclaren.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Four-Stages-1.pdf) I vacillate between a lot of darker fears about leaders’ intentions and having more patience for their blind spots and missteps. I think believing in the righteousness and divinity of patriarchal authority sincerely impedes, thwarts, and blinds them to the ways they exclude, oppress, and mistreat people, and they haven’t managed to break out of this framework. Not an easy thing to do as older people born in the first half of the 20th cen. I love the independent thinking about God’s love you mention here, for me that is so valuable and liberating.
Yes! So many of your points are ones I have been formulating and thinking about these last 2-3 years. Thank you for putting them together so well. This piece will be a re-read for me.
Thank you for your support, Ruth! I’m so glad this piece spoke to you.
As I was reading this, I was saying, “Yes!” over and over again in my mind. I would love to see changes like these as well. It strikes me as poor form and illogical to keep people out of temples because they can’t pay their tithing or can’t honestly say they cognitively believe in certain truth claims. I think a loving God would want saving ordinances more widely available to people everywhere, not locked behind closed doors that are only opened after passing rigid loyalty/payment tests. Additionally, I would also love temples to become more community-centered and open to the public to enjoy., as you described so well. I know some people love the peace and quiet of the temple, but I think the silence, emptiness, and sterility is sad. I’d like them to be more centered around life and community and welcoming people. Thank goodness for these wonderful churches and cathedrals that welcome strangers to their sacred spaces.
So well said, Caroline. I love how you word them as “only opened after passing rigid loyalty/payment tests.” I’m really uncomfortable with the loyalty I recently had to assent to to get a recommend. It felt icky.
I also like how you say: “some people love the peace and quiet of the temple, but I think the silence, emptiness, and sterility is sad.” I agree!
Thanks for engaging this and for your support!
Mormon “worship” is extremely passive compared to other Christian religions. All members do is sit, sit, sit whether it’s sacrament meeting, SS, RS or the temple. Hymns are sung at funereal tempos, and the only real physical activity is taking the sacrament. I was going to add singing the hymns, but most congregations sound like a closet full of mice. In the temple we used to stand up several times during the endowment. Not anymore. Let’s face it, our worship is mind numbingly boring. How can you say that you truly participated in worshipping our Heavenly Parents and Jesus when all you actually say is “Amen” or “yes”?
I, too, used to long for some color inside the temple. Having visited churches of different faiths here in the US and abroad I find that my senses want and need to be awakened and involved in order for me to feel the Spirit. I love stained glass windows and beautiful murals, statues and paintings. However, just having real windows that bring in sunshine and allow us to see the beauty outdoors helps me to feel more worshipful. When I was in college my ward met in the banqueting hall of the old Joseph Smith Building at BYU, and on the east side of the room we had nearly floor to ceiling windows the entire length of the wall. I could look out the window and see the beautiful mountains (except for the ugly Y on the mountain) East of campus. There was also a long bank of windows on the south side. Being able to see the sunshine and the beauties of nature during church definitely made me feel much more connected to the Divine. Temples and churches feel so much more like warehouses than places of worship and contemplation. Science and psychology have both proven time and time again that the more senses that can be used during a particular event the more pleasurable and memorable it is, especially in a learning environment. The old Mormon churches and temples had stained glass, murals and/or paintings plus unique architecture. Now they’re just sterile, cookie cutter style boxes. I for one cannot effectively worship in such soul sucking places.
Thank you, there are so many good points here. I love this image of seeing nature’s beauties while worshipping at BYU. And the point we should seek to engage multiple senses and capacities during worship. This is an apt description of LDS worship– pretty much just saying yes and amen. It’s not satisfying to many people.
I agree that we could use so much beauty and windows in both temples and our chapels.
This post was inspired partly by a recent temple trip when I happened to feel as you say “mind numbingly bored.” I had been for awhile, and recent changes had made things yet more sedentary, transparent in meaning, and passive.
Brenna, I’m in a similar place right now. I don’t own a car. I’ve never purchased a home. I’m not wealthy. I don’t want my money to go toward chandeliers that cost the same as a really nice house. That chandelier won’t help my kids stay in the Church or help any of us connect with God. Most younger people conndct more with God through nature and the arts rather than these old fashionef things. It’s hard to stay invested in donating when temple construction seems to be the major place the tithing is going.
Thank you for your insights. Jesus told us where we could find him. I look for him in the spaces where the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the imprisoned are visited. I look for him in the hospitals where the sick are treated, those with mental afflictions are stabilized, and the innocent are birthed, I look for him in the schools and universities where those hungering for knowledge are fed, those seeking questions to the larger questions are nurtured and those seeking the most effective ways to help the vulnerable are supported. I look for him in the trade schools where those seeking independence are empowered with skills so they can provide. And yes, I look for him in the publicly available spaces where those seeking spiritual sustenance can find it. Both I and some others I have come across have noted that some of the most powerful spiritual experiences have occurred both in nature and when we were welcomed into spaces created by followers of other religions. I think the are temples all around if off only we will open our hearts and eyes and see them.
I see a massive temple building effort in our pioneer forefathers and foremothers who built hospitals, high schools, colleges, universities, vocational rehabilitation spaces (Deseret Industries), and food production spaces focused on feeding the poor. Yes they built beautiful spaces for worship, but they did not stop there in their efforts to worship a god who had declared that “All things unto me are spiritual” (D&C 29:34).
I love your thoughts. They are powerful. This makes me think about how when temples and temple work were more balanced out by other community efforts and experiences at Church in the past, the temple didn’t feel dull or oppressive to me. Now that it has become our major investment and focus and other things that gave me a sense of purpose as a Mormon have greatly diminshed, it does. I’d love for the Church to focus much more on the works of Jesus through charitable projects and providing facilities that feed, clothe, educate, and empower those in need rather than build more temples. I sense sacredness in a local Catholic parish’s grassroots-run foodbank, located in their old, very humble basement space. I wish our wards and stakes had license to do such creative compassionate projects in our bldgs.
OMG – I think MadiW has just alit on a Fantastic Perspective regarding the LDS temple-building wave !! A century ago, the Church was truly building TEMPLES, in the spirit invoked by Madi W and by Caroline; but somebody has possibly jumped the rails, and now they think that ‘building temples unto the Lord’ involves sterile buildings which they call ‘temples’ . .
I agree, it’s a brilliant, inspired reframing!
This article hit on so many areas of growing disappointment and isolation that I’ve been feeling over my 54 years in the church. I was a convert from an ecumenical background and the first things I missed were stained glass windows and church bells. (Not even small, slender stained glass windows, unless it was an occasional acquired building.) The church was so determined to be unique that it tossed out almost everything of beauty, overpriced chandeliers notwithstanding.
We were indeed told fairy tales about most of the benefits of paying tithing, though even my soon-inactive husband wanted us to pay tithing because it was “fire insurance.” As a widow, it’s difficult to pay it and I’m sometimes “late” because of the hard demands of living. It also annoys me that the church sends millions of dollars to disaster areas but does not help members who are struggling financially without highly invasive questioning and long lectures, which most of us don’t need to hear, along with requirements to do something in exchange for that help. This is true regardless of how many church callings you’re already trying to hold down. I don’t find this Christlike.
I forget the year now but the Brethren took away Relief Society’s independence, along with their budget. And that broke the sisters’ hearts, though I don’t think it suddenly made them obedient. If anything, it made us more angry than before. In my younger years, I served in a RS Presidency four times, twice as 1st Counselor and twice as Secretary. We’ve lost our sense of community by trying to cram a RS meeting into 40 minutes on two Sundays per month. There is no time to chat or make friends.
Firing all the janitorial workers (who need jobs!) because they could get free labor from the members irked me no end. I had to stop helping with cleaning the building because of a bad back I’d already injured when I was 27. The vacuum cleaners are still monstrous and not self-propelled, even in the 2020s. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
I didn’t often eat at temple cafeterias because I disliked going in by myself, but I always enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and the food!. My best friend and I had fun memories when we could go together. I think the Covid-19 pandemic was used as an excuse to slash these latest “expenses”. but at what cost? I agree that the endowment sessions are now sterile and boring. I really miss the videos which didn’t last that much longer than the still images. And, yes, it would be so nice to make them more inclusive places. In fact, I can’t even walk .to the chapel to look at artwork without a temple worker hissing at me, “Sister! Sister! Not that way!” and wagging her finger “No.”
We do next to nothing in our communities, leaving all that for the Salvation Army and other organizations that try to shelter the homeless and the unloved. Mormon Helping Hands was created as a “photo op”. I’m glad to see our members still offer “Helping Hands” to communities when disaster hits but the lives of thousands are a daily crisis. The Church has the money and needs to spend it, in fact, must spend it, if they want more. Actions have consequences, and likewise, non-actions. When we share, we reap additional blessings. When we don’t, we don’t.
It has always bothered me that the Church doesn’t building safe retirement communities for our seniors, then staff and maintain them without irksome church regulations and requirements. The notion that .families take care of their own doesn’t apply in today’s world. Some of us have no family to speak of. and others suffer great divisions, political and otherwise. They simply won’t do it and no one can force them to do so. Again, where is Christian behavior on the part of the Church?
I think it’s a great idea to present all of our ideas to Jana Reiss and Peggy Fletcher Stack. I’ve read and admired their work for many years.
Two thoughts –
1 – when I was RS President, I was told confidentially that a couple of people were not allowed to have ministering assignments or callings, etc … Obviously they were also not allowed to go to the temple. I never knew why they were in church “discipline” (and never wanted to know, none of my business) and I had never considered the full ramifications of that situation before. It struck me that no matter what they did, if we want someone to repent of anything that draws them away from God, why on earth would we WITHHOLD things that could BRING them to God? Such as service, or attending the temple? Wouldn’t we want them to do those things MORE rather than completely ban them? That completely turned things around for me in a new way.
2 – My husband and I had so many beautiful experiences in the Washington DC Temple while we were engaged, and early in our marriage 20 years ago. Then the temple was closed and had renovations, and we made a special trip back to DC from New England to attend the open house in May 2022. We were so excited for it. It’s very pretty and well appointed, but it is so PLAIN now. Everything is just white. Everywhere. The only breaks of color are the occasional painting. It’s not what I remembered, like everything I loved about it got painted over or something. It doesn’t feel the same there anymore. Maybe that’s because of ME and not the paint, but I suspect it’s a bit of both.
Trina, I really appreciate these thoughts. Sometimes I think we shouldn’t have temple entrance interviews at all, partly because those who are struggling the most/are the most wounded or vulnerable need sacred spaces the most. I wrote a section about that but edited it out to focus on other ideas like making questions practiced based and simple. I believe in Hebrews there are teachings about how Jesus made needing the intervention/intermediary of a priest not needed any longer, and I like to think that should apply to these buildings.
I was sad to hear about the Provo Temple’s big renovation. I had a lot of memories there from my student days. Haven’t been back there. I resonate with the idea of my experience in the temple changing both because I have changed and grown and because the temple has changed. I used to find a lot of meaning in the temple, back when people weren’t pressuring me to do so the way they are now!
Thank you thank you for this beautiful article.! My family has never quite fit in to the temple attending vision of our leadership. I have disabled children at home (now adults). At those times I have attended the temple I have been bored and also felt the pressure of knowing that things at home might not be okay without me. I do not feel the need to be purified or made more holy by attending the temple. To me this is a self focused effort. I feel deeply convicted that what brings me closest to following Christ, and what makes me more pure and holy, is serving the living.
I am glad the temple provides a beautiful connection to the dead for many. However I see our first obligation as to the living.
As my children have gotten older I have had to face the fact that they may never be independent and that I will die and leave them behind one day, possibly helpless to care for themselves adequately. They may be homeless.
Meanwhile I have friends with disabilities that have become homeless due to circumstances beyond their control. I have tried to help them ask for help from their bishop and seen them turned down. They are faced with the choice of breaking up their family between the men’s shelter and women’s shelter and putting their kids in foster care. And the transitional bishop could only offer one night in a hotel.
I can no longer bear to send my money to a church that doesn’t need it. My children will not be helped by this church. They are not welcomed in it’s temples. It’s church buildings will not keep them warm at night. If only we could reorganize our worship spaces to help the helpless. To me this would be the truest worship of God, to help his children.
My children cannot meet the loyalty test to even enter the temple. My oldest decided at age 14 that he didn’t believe. He wanted to continue attending. However the bishop felt the temple was a reward for believers only.
I agree with your post. I think it would be better for the church and our missionary efforts to include the community rather than creating in and out barriers. If we made more room in our temples and churches for full community involvement without the barriers that are currently in place, this would be more in line with the Christ of the gospels which I follow with deep commitment.
Again, thank you for lifting your voice up on this issue.
Lisa, I appreciate everything you share here very much. And I really admire all the service you are giving your children and others. I also believe that our priority as a church should be serving the needs of the living, esp. those in need. Another woman pointed out to me that maybe the Church focuses so much on serving the dead because they are the ultimate passive recipients. They don’t have a say, and the efforts to help them are pretty easy. It’s just routine, and puffs our egos because we have a heroic sense of saving people. In saying all this, I don’t mean to imply that there is nothing true or of spiritual value in work for the dead, it definitely provides a lot of meaning and spiritual experiences and hope, but when the temple takes over everything, it can seem to become an idol, something that detracts from other important parts of the gospel, and that grows to be resented by members.
Your comments raise a really good point– how well are we doing at accomodating the needs of those with disabilities in their lives outside Sunday services?
I also really long for temple entrance to not be a loyalty test. Even very devout members tell me they have to “interpret” the questions in their own personalize way to answer in an affirmative way. So many of us are uncomfortable with them and feel a bit violated by what we have to answer.
Bless you for your strength, faith, courage and insights. I could not agree with you more on every single point that you have raised. I would also advocate for the inclusion of LGBTQ members. My immediate Utah Pioneer family have left the Church because my brother and I are Gay and unashamed. Thank You so very much for for wisdom and forthought.
Brad, thank you so much for this kind response. It touched my heart. I agree with you that we need to include Gay couples and should move toward inclusive sealings. I’m sorry I didn’t include that in this piece. Personally, my vision for that is for the Church to go full throttle with monogamy and fidelity being what God cares about when it comes to marriage. They know the polygamy doctrine is abusive to lots of people, they know excluding Gay couples is leading to a great deal of abuse and suffering too. So I propose they move on from caring about the polygamy doctrine (which increasing numbers of members don’t believe in today), and lean into God’s standard law made clear in the B of M and the Bible: monogamy/fidelity to one partner, making space for same-sex couples to have their needs met within the faith community and the temple.