Gordon Monson: Are tall LDS temple steeples really worth fighting for?

Is a fight over the design of a holy place worth having? Or is neighborly peace a better course for a church bent on building big, beautiful, bulbous houses where it says the Lord can dwell?

Those are questions that appear to be rising as high as some temple steeples erected by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every time a dispute emerges over temple dimensions, pitting neighbors against neighbors and city leaders versus church leaders, resulting in antipathy, legal threats and actual lawsuits, it’s easy to wonder if such conflicts are worth it; if they do more damage than good.

Answer: They do more damage than good.

A building is a building, even a venerated one. Does God care about its exact length, width and height?

A saintly sermonizer once preached, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “blessed are the meek” — as opposed to “blessed are those who win votes in contested city council meetings” and “blessed are the powerful who grapple over square footage.”

Latter-day Saints might argue that their temples are special spaces that are drafted and depicted by divine inspiration not only to honor God and bless the lives of church members who worship there but also to shine a bright light from either a literal or figurative hill for all the world to see. The problem for more than a few neighbors, in some cases, is that the lights are a little too bright, that what might be an inspiration to some is an intrusion to others.

Why some oppose temple designs

Inspiration, then, is in one corner; intrusion in the other.

Various versions of such Latter-day Saints vs. locals showdowns have occurred in places — big and small — like Boston; Cody, Wyoming; Fairview, Texas; and even right here in the heart of Zion in Heber City. Communities from time to time have objected, wanting limits on steeple heights, building footprints and outward illumination.

Religious bias might be at play in some of these temple disputes, objectors who plain dislike Latter-day Saints or their theology, but it might also be that residents just don’t want a large building plopped down in their neighborhood.

An edifice that could be seen by Latter-day Saints as glorious and exquisite, with spires that reach toward the heavens like Rio de Janeiro’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue, with grounds that are manicured via tender, loving care in the same manner as the front and back nines at Augusta National, might not be what Jill and Joe Sixpack want to see out their kitchen window every morning. It may not be considered the ideal universal identifier or the favored architectural signature for everyone in every enclave.

Many Latter-day Saints look at temples as representing all that is good in their religion, all that’s hopeful and proper on God’s green Earth. They want to shout to one and all that God is great and that the Almighty’s truth has been restored right here, right now among all humankind. A proclamation like that deserves, they figure, a structure that matches the message. That’s one reason the church constructs massive monuments, showplaces such as the Washington D.C. Temple, a building that dramatically juts out of the woods on the Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) in Kensington, Maryland. With this landmark, subtlety is the only thing in short supply.

The eye-catching edifice, so reminiscent of Oz’s Emerald City, even inspires pranksters to put up “Surrender, Dorothy” signs on a nearby railway bridge. To some, it’s a fantastic or fantastical building; to others, it’s something out of a farcical fantasy.

Missionary messaging

Some Latter-day Saint temples are modest in size and scope — even steepleless — but enough of them are meant to stand out that they reap more than just recognition; they reap, at times, rancor.

That last reaction, of course, is the opposite of what any House of the Lord should seek. Maybe the church could be more selective and sensitive in its choice of locations for its temples. Fewer complaints might be heard on building shape and size if temples were placed in more urban settings, where other large high-rises exist.

It is understandable that the church doesn’t want to be bullied due to prejudice. Churches, chapels, cathedrals, mosques and temples of other faiths, some of them centuries old, command attention, too. In arguments like this, religious freedom issues must be considered. Latter-day Saint temples are, by the faith’s reasoning, holy grounds. But it seems, at least in some circumstances, out of sorts and counterproductive for the faith to punch back hard against communities that have concerns about what some see as excessive construction.

After all, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a missionary church, a faith that courts converts. The opponents they face in such disputes may be the same people the church wants to enlighten and inspire. Spire heights and nighttime lights probably aren’t worth ticking off community members that the faith’s temples seek to invite in or spark some level of spirituality within.

Does Jesus really care how tall the towers are, how vast the dimensions might be, how great and spacious the square footage is?

Surely, Holiness to the Lord, in modest form, is enough.

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