The Four Mormon Temples in Utah

Abstract

IN THE MINDS of most who know of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the temple in Salt Lake City stands as the culminating achievement of a hardshipwracked but industrious people who overcame their early experiences in the East and founded a vigorous Utopian society in the Great Basin. Even today this building, with the solidity and authority of its battlements and towers, seems to symbolize the most important aspects of Mormonismmoral and political conservatism, a strictly patriarchal pantheon, and a simple, early Christian type of worship. It is important to remember, however, that Mormonism is a religion which has only recently arrived. Although it is one of the wealthiest of American institutions, and one which already views its theology and ritual as dogmas reinforced by the weight of history, Mormonism's acceptance into the mainstream of American life is a phenomenon of fairly recent date. Mormons officially rejected the doctrine of plural marriage only eighty years ago, and the troublesboth external and internal-which nearly destroyed the church before it had gained much momentum had occurred a mere thirty-five years earlier. It is clear that the Mormons at one time did not blend in as well with their surroundings as they now do, and it was only through a series of dramatic concessions made to the expanding United States government late in the nineteenth century that Mormonism became the acceptable sect that it is today.' As a corollary to this distinction between the church then and now, it must be concluded that the Salt Lake City temple does not mean the same thing today that it did when it was built, a fact which we hope to establish with certainty.