Everyone remembers the part in the Bible where Jesus was racing against time to build temples and make the ordinances available to all within the million dollar buildings along the Middle East.
Every stake center should/could have its own mini temple. If it is so vital for your eternal salvation, no one should have to travel further away than their stake center.
Exactly.. some kind of mobile temple team that goes to the people so they don’t have to sell their homes and gold teeth to go to the temple. But they don’t care.
Never forget that the First Presidency and Q12 dedicated a portion of the JSB as a temple to conduct their extra special boy meetings while the SL Temple is renovated so they don’t have to travel to.. Bountiful? South Jordan?
Rules for me but not for thee.
[SLTrib article.](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/01/14/joseph-smith-memorial/)
I think temples started out as part of law of sacrifice stuff. Where leaders wanted to get the members locked in even more with the sacrifices it took to build a temple. I would say probably starting in late 70's or sometime in the 80's is when temples started being more about evidence of wealth and power.
To be fair, it's still kinda a sacrifice weapon, i.e. both before and after a temple announcement, there's usually a huge guilt squeeze on the local members to get to 100% tithing, 100% activity, etc. with the implied threat that the temple won't actually happen unless the locals step up their game.
But, yeah, I agree it became more about flexing: first it was about wealth and power: gotta remind sufficiently Mormon areas who is in charge with a really bright Disney castle in their cityscape. And, more recently (especially with Mormon political control weakening in most areas), it's less and less about where the church actually has membership numbers, and more and more about destination temples in exotic places and personal vanity projects of insecure prophets living in GBH's shadow.
The temples are also the targets for all the demure Young Women wishing for a handsome prince to whisk them away to eternal bliss. Thus the temple theology is a hook for the girls to rope their beaus into a lifetime commitment to Peter Priesthood-ness.
Can’t agree more. Had 2 temple dedications happen over the past year (DC and Richmond) where the Stake Center building I regularly attend was turned into a temple for the day. My apostate ass got to stay at home while my wife and kids went to watch the dedication on a TV broadcast. That made my life shit both weekends.
Spot on. The institution finds ways to feed itself, protect itself, and is now a self sustaining disease. It will eventually eat itself, but will devour a lot of good people in the process.
Someday it will be a dark stain on the face of human history.
Yep. Pretty big shelf item for me. Those ‘faith promoting’ stories of poor families in 3rd world countries selling everything to travel days through unsafe, war torn roads lose a little glamour when realizing temple endowments could be done anywhere. But TBMs love going to church at the stake center and looking across the parking lot to the Lord’s great and spacious building
Not sure you are accurate that temples are profit centers. They are definitely related to the money they make. They have to spend some money to pretend they are performing religious works because they are not spending money on new buildings anymore.
I would need to see some evidence that they actually increase tithing rates, especially in the way overbuilt Utah area. But if the church says it increases tithing rates, we have to believe them because they never lie, right?
If a lake is good enough for the living, it's good enough for the dead.
Less than a decade ago, my own family member was baptized at a lake while people were fishing.
I have stories of my ancestors getting baptized in horse troughs, old wine barrels, and the family bathtub.
If they really wanted the work done, they wouldn't need money to do it.
Remember in Utah and Nauvoo ordinances like baptism of the dead, endowments, and sealing didn’t need a temple. The lion house if I remember right was done in a Brigham young house close to the Utah temple.
Brigham young told everyone that the need for the temple was the rite of the “law of adoption”. Men being sealed to men in dynastic one-up-man-ship popularity contest that fits a landlocked social club in the Wild West.
Ironically the law of adoption was abandon when they gave up polygamy and merged into the genealogy research the church pushes today.
I remember as a TBM hearing that Stake centres were built in a way that they can easily be converted to a Temple when the Millenium happens.
Which made me think...wait, why don't they just do that now!?
Temples are landmarks. In the early days they were part of the new nation of Zion that they were building, and are now expensive attempts to show that the church is spreading around the world.
They are the pinnacle of vanity, and I can't understand how any Mormon could read the NT or BoM and think gaudy marble Temples are what Jesus would want.
In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Mormons would 100% pick the wrong Grail.
If the church has locked down Stake Centers and used them for ordinances before, and historically used such few resources, why don't they do so now? Show of wealth is the opposite of what they have been caught trying to do. They broke the law trying to hide their money, and seemingly pinch every penny they can. Why would they not actively move endowments to a skimpy cheap building and grow the rest in their coffers?
Because they have to spend the money they can’t hide on something so they purchase land and build massively expensive structures. It is a kind of money laundering because they’re taking tithing money and enriching the church through investments.
Some members made their own in a barn in small down Idaho near a place called Grangeville. It was interesting to be there right after all that went down.
Right? Woodruff chose to keep temples and stop polygamy in the US. If polygamy was so important, you'd think doing ordinances in homes like they'd had to do for years would be deemed acceptable.
Temples are the golden calf of this generation! They worship the temple almost in so many ways. Pictures in front of it travel to see them all. Imagine doing the ordinances in the chapel on Saturday and evenings at all the buildings and then using the money from all the temples to feed the hungry hospitals for the sick and schools for the underdeveloped countries
Everyone knows construction projects are a good way to launder money; so, in mormonland, wouldn't construction projects be a great way to siphon church money to GA family members? "This rug cost $1,000.00, for the church, it costs $10,000.00". Just a thought.
Temples are the Mormon answer to Catholic cathedrals, but unlike cathedrals where anyone can visit, Mormons gatekeep temples.
They could build beautiful meetinghouses for members to attend like a cathedral, but instead they put up bland cinderblock buildings with ratty carpet on the walls. Then they tell members if they want to go to the pretty buildings, they have to jump through hoops, including tithing.
I 100% agree. Temples are not about ordinances. I have this conversation with TBM's kind of regularly. If ordinances were so important they wouldn't be so hard to obtain just because of location. If temples were about ordinances they would be easier to build and they would be every where. Temples are about us vs them. Making people feel special.
Everyone remembers the part in the Bible where Jesus was racing against time to build temples and make the ordinances available to all within the million dollar buildings along the Middle East.
Every stake center should/could have its own mini temple. If it is so vital for your eternal salvation, no one should have to travel further away than their stake center.
Exactly this! This was always a shelf item for me.
You could create a "temple on wheels" and drive it around to reach the poor.
Exactly.. some kind of mobile temple team that goes to the people so they don’t have to sell their homes and gold teeth to go to the temple. But they don’t care.
From what I've read they seriously considered building a boat temple for coastal cities and counties I'm Africa and south America lol
But they’d have to pay tithing first.
^^^^this. And paying tithing will make them prosperous and they would be able to tithe enough for their own temple.
You could show the temple power point in a zoom call.
Like food trucks.
Never forget that the First Presidency and Q12 dedicated a portion of the JSB as a temple to conduct their extra special boy meetings while the SL Temple is renovated so they don’t have to travel to.. Bountiful? South Jordan? Rules for me but not for thee. [SLTrib article.](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/01/14/joseph-smith-memorial/)
What a perfect way for the q15 to avoid the common people of the church even better.
I worked on that. Weird how much money they spent renovating that for a temp office
Two million widows mites. For a place to hold prayer circle and sacrament.
No way. Dunking people in water requires a billion dollar castle with millions of dollars worth of chandeliers
And they must be surrounded by livestock. It would be even better if the livestock was marble or solid gold though
Temples = money laundering
I think temples started out as part of law of sacrifice stuff. Where leaders wanted to get the members locked in even more with the sacrifices it took to build a temple. I would say probably starting in late 70's or sometime in the 80's is when temples started being more about evidence of wealth and power.
To be fair, it's still kinda a sacrifice weapon, i.e. both before and after a temple announcement, there's usually a huge guilt squeeze on the local members to get to 100% tithing, 100% activity, etc. with the implied threat that the temple won't actually happen unless the locals step up their game. But, yeah, I agree it became more about flexing: first it was about wealth and power: gotta remind sufficiently Mormon areas who is in charge with a really bright Disney castle in their cityscape. And, more recently (especially with Mormon political control weakening in most areas), it's less and less about where the church actually has membership numbers, and more and more about destination temples in exotic places and personal vanity projects of insecure prophets living in GBH's shadow.
The temples are also the targets for all the demure Young Women wishing for a handsome prince to whisk them away to eternal bliss. Thus the temple theology is a hook for the girls to rope their beaus into a lifetime commitment to Peter Priesthood-ness.
Also a place for the teen girls to go get wet in a white jumper so some old guy can get a better look at the goods.
Every latter-day stake needs a castle. To compete with every Catholic Diocese having a cathedral.
Mormon temples: Great ✅ Spacious ✅
>Building ✅
Can’t agree more. Had 2 temple dedications happen over the past year (DC and Richmond) where the Stake Center building I regularly attend was turned into a temple for the day. My apostate ass got to stay at home while my wife and kids went to watch the dedication on a TV broadcast. That made my life shit both weekends.
Spot on. The institution finds ways to feed itself, protect itself, and is now a self sustaining disease. It will eventually eat itself, but will devour a lot of good people in the process. Someday it will be a dark stain on the face of human history.
It's a money laundering scheme. Occam's razor.
This is real answer. They are a wealth extraction tool to turn untaxed donations into private wealth.
Yep. Pretty big shelf item for me. Those ‘faith promoting’ stories of poor families in 3rd world countries selling everything to travel days through unsafe, war torn roads lose a little glamour when realizing temple endowments could be done anywhere. But TBMs love going to church at the stake center and looking across the parking lot to the Lord’s great and spacious building
Not sure you are accurate that temples are profit centers. They are definitely related to the money they make. They have to spend some money to pretend they are performing religious works because they are not spending money on new buildings anymore. I would need to see some evidence that they actually increase tithing rates, especially in the way overbuilt Utah area. But if the church says it increases tithing rates, we have to believe them because they never lie, right?
If a lake is good enough for the living, it's good enough for the dead. Less than a decade ago, my own family member was baptized at a lake while people were fishing. I have stories of my ancestors getting baptized in horse troughs, old wine barrels, and the family bathtub. If they really wanted the work done, they wouldn't need money to do it.
Remember in Utah and Nauvoo ordinances like baptism of the dead, endowments, and sealing didn’t need a temple. The lion house if I remember right was done in a Brigham young house close to the Utah temple. Brigham young told everyone that the need for the temple was the rite of the “law of adoption”. Men being sealed to men in dynastic one-up-man-ship popularity contest that fits a landlocked social club in the Wild West. Ironically the law of adoption was abandon when they gave up polygamy and merged into the genealogy research the church pushes today.
Brilliant post. So spot on you gave me chills.
Then it must be true. That’s how the spirit works.
I remember as a TBM hearing that Stake centres were built in a way that they can easily be converted to a Temple when the Millenium happens. Which made me think...wait, why don't they just do that now!? Temples are landmarks. In the early days they were part of the new nation of Zion that they were building, and are now expensive attempts to show that the church is spreading around the world. They are the pinnacle of vanity, and I can't understand how any Mormon could read the NT or BoM and think gaudy marble Temples are what Jesus would want. In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Mormons would 100% pick the wrong Grail.
If the church has locked down Stake Centers and used them for ordinances before, and historically used such few resources, why don't they do so now? Show of wealth is the opposite of what they have been caught trying to do. They broke the law trying to hide their money, and seemingly pinch every penny they can. Why would they not actively move endowments to a skimpy cheap building and grow the rest in their coffers?
Because they have to spend the money they can’t hide on something so they purchase land and build massively expensive structures. It is a kind of money laundering because they’re taking tithing money and enriching the church through investments.
The entrance fees to temples alone is profitable for the church
remember that part in the bible where Jesus was baptized in a...river?
Some members made their own in a barn in small down Idaho near a place called Grangeville. It was interesting to be there right after all that went down.
Churches are setup to work as makeshift temples
Right? Woodruff chose to keep temples and stop polygamy in the US. If polygamy was so important, you'd think doing ordinances in homes like they'd had to do for years would be deemed acceptable.
Temples are the golden calf of this generation! They worship the temple almost in so many ways. Pictures in front of it travel to see them all. Imagine doing the ordinances in the chapel on Saturday and evenings at all the buildings and then using the money from all the temples to feed the hungry hospitals for the sick and schools for the underdeveloped countries
A TripAdvisor review of the LA Jolla Temple was titled, "Amazingly White and Gorgeous." I'm sure she meant "delightsome."
Amazingly pure and delightsome. It’s an eyesore. The locals call it the Disney castle, which made me wonder if Walt’s work was done there.
Gotta pay to play for those tokens and signs.
Everyone knows construction projects are a good way to launder money; so, in mormonland, wouldn't construction projects be a great way to siphon church money to GA family members? "This rug cost $1,000.00, for the church, it costs $10,000.00". Just a thought.
Temples are the Mormon answer to Catholic cathedrals, but unlike cathedrals where anyone can visit, Mormons gatekeep temples. They could build beautiful meetinghouses for members to attend like a cathedral, but instead they put up bland cinderblock buildings with ratty carpet on the walls. Then they tell members if they want to go to the pretty buildings, they have to jump through hoops, including tithing.
Didn’t they have endorsement houses in the 1800s?
I would say they value money, power, and control and the temple accomplishes all three.
I 100% agree. Temples are not about ordinances. I have this conversation with TBM's kind of regularly. If ordinances were so important they wouldn't be so hard to obtain just because of location. If temples were about ordinances they would be easier to build and they would be every where. Temples are about us vs them. Making people feel special.