This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I love City Creek Center, Utah's fashion HQ. I like that Nordstrom and Macy's carry high-end brands unavailable elsewhere.
Yet, due to Pat Bagley's March 22 cartoon contrasting the LDS Church's mall and Temple Square, as I walked through on opening day I pondered the Book of Mormon's warnings about exquisite clothes.
The scriptures' ideal is a classless, equalitarian society, and it damns things that divide us:
• The evil antichrist Nehor "began to be lifted up in the pride of his heart, and to wear very costly apparel, yea, and even began to establish a church after the manner of his preaching" (Alma 1:6).
• "The people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning" (3 Nephi 6:12).
• Moroni warned our day: "For behold, ye do love money … and your fine apparel … more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted" (Mormon 8:36–37).
• "And thus there became a great inequality ... insomuch that the church began to be broken up" (3 Nephi 6:14).
Heathen that I am, I worship at City Creek Center, which undermines the mission of its owner.
Jeff Palmer
Park City