The Pan-Restorationist Temple

I love the temple. I always have. I remember going to the temple as a teenager to do baptisms for the dead. It was always a lovely experience for me. Receiving my endowment was exponentially more profound. It was the capstone of my personal conversion experience. I was born in the covenant, and I grew up in the LDS Church. My parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple. After I graduated from high school, my parents encouraged me to consider going on a mission, but they did so by encouraging me to seek a witness of the truthfulness of the Gospel. That sent me on a months-long period of reading the Book of Mormon, fasting, and prayer. I had repenting to do, something not uncommon for teenagers.

My earnest search for truth was answered by a powerful spiritual experience. I gained a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and decided to seek a calling to go on a mission. At the time, my parents were separated, and my father was not eligible for a temple recommend, so my bishop at the time, a fine gentleman who has since passed on to the next life, stood in for my father when I received my endowment. It would prove to be one of the pinnacles of my spiritual life. I took it very seriously, and, oddly enough, I did not respond negatively to the ritual and symbolism of the temple. My mother had forewarned me that the temple was "different," but I think she over-stressed that point to the extent that I was comfortable with the actual experience.

The experience of receiving my endowment was for me truly transformational. When I emerged from the temple, I felt like a new person. A change that was much more profound than my experience of baptism at the age of eight had occurred. I no longer felt any desire to sin. I had a real sense of mission in my calling to serve as a witness for Christ for two years in the Western United States. From that point on, I always viewed the temple as being a sacred place, a House of the Lord. And I would go on to have many other sacred experiences in the temple thereafter.

By the time I returned from my mission, the endowment had changed. I was a little jarred by that, as I, not knowing my Mormon history very well at the time, had assumed that the endowment was exactly as it had been performed in Nauvoo. It would be some time before I found through my study that the endowment had changed a number of times over the years, and the changes in 1990 would not be the last I would see happen. I did not feel that the changes invalidated the endowment, but I did miss the endowment as I knew it before I left the Provo Missionary Training Center. Especially after some post-mission study, during my BYU years, I came to understand better elements of the endowment that had been taken out. I could see, on the one hand, why those elements had been removed, but they also seemed significant to me in other ways. I saw the changes more as a response to our changing culture than anything else.

Now that I no longer affiliate with the LDS Church, I miss the temple. Once I left, I believed there were no other options. I was not aware that other branches of the Restoration have temples. I was not aware that other branches of the Restoration perform the endowment. Most that do also practice polygamy, a testimony, I think, to the historical connection between the two institutions. I do not practice polygamy, and I will not practice polygamy in the future, so I also have no plans to join another branch of the Restoration that currently offers the endowment in its own temple. I admit that this does make me sad. My choices would seem to be, if I want to go to the temple again, that is, either to swallow my moral and ethical objections and rejoin the LDS Church or to join another branch of the Restoration that offers the endowment. None of those options look good to me right now.

My fantasy solution would be to see the establishment of an indepedent Pan-Restorationist temple--a House of the Lord that does not belong exclusively to any single group but that could be used by members of any Restoration group. It could be a "gathering place" and a temple of peace like the Community of Christ's temple, but it could also be a place where endowments and other ordinances could be performed. It would bring together Restorationists of all kinds and allow them to mingle together. It would allow people to check their particular affiliations at the door and fellowship with all different kinds of Restorationists. No one would be obliged to participate in anything that they do not resonate with, but no one would be barred from doing so either.

Imagine ex-LDS people who have joined the Community of Christ but miss the LDS temple being able to go to a Pan-Restorationist temple to participate in its ordinances. They would not have to rejoin the LDS Church, and they would not have to be left without any resources because the Community of Christ, although possessing all of the keys through William Marks, stopped performing the rites of the temple. I am not criticizing the Community of Christ for not doing so. That is their tradition. That said, there are plenty of Restorationists out there who have left a branch of the movement that offers the temple rites who would love to be able to go back to the temple. Why should they not have that opportunity?

Some might object by pointing out that only one person (fill in the name of their leader) holds the keys to authorize the performance of a proper endowment. Those who think that need not participate, certainly. No one could force them to, and no one would want to do so, as that goes against the principles taught in the endowment anyway. As I argued in my recent post about the priesthood, however, there are keys to be exercised through Joseph Smith, keys that can be traced back to those who received their second anointing during the life of Joseph Smith or in the early years after the assassination, that could be the basis of authority for operating such a temple. That temple need not be a huge edifice. The smallest operating LDS temple is only a little over 6,000 sq. ft. The Cutlerite meeting houses where "upper-room work" was done were even smaller. So what would prevent independent Restorationists from establishing their own place--their own temple--for performing the endowment and other temple ordinances?