Earth tones, golden ceilings grace
temple
TOWN AND COUNTRY, Mo. Motorists zipping along
Highway 40 near St. Louis can't miss the
nation's newest Mormon
temple. The large white building is poised
above the highway, its 150-foot spire topped by
a golden angel.
For most Americans, that's the only view
they'll get of a Mormon
temple. For a few weeks, though, the public is
getting a rare chance
to satisfy its curiosity about the temples and
The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are
known as Mormons.
An open house began last weekend and runs
through May 24, a week before the temple is
dedicated and closed to all but church
members.
More than 300,000 visitors are expected to don
white plastic shoe coverings and traipse across
the thick, beige carpets. They will
glimpse richly furnished rooms where Mormons
perform ceremonies for the living and the
dead.
"We have no intent to be secretive about what
goes on in here, but
we are trying to preserve what is sacred,"
Elder J. Richard Clarke
says.
Mormon temples are unlike any church, synagogue
or mosque in the world. There are no grand
meeting spaces or sanctuaries. They are
not even used for regular weekly worship.
Instead, believers meet Sundays at local
chapels for receiving the sacrament,
instruction and worship.
The St. Louis temple resembles a luxury hotel.
The style of the sofas and chairs is
"transitional," between contemporary and
classical.
Domed ceilings are decorated with gold.
The earth-tone color scheme becomes lighter
toward the upper
floors, symbolically representing progress
toward heaven. As always,
the baptismal pool is on the bottom floor. The
Celestial Room, representing the highest degree
of glory in heaven, is on the top floor.
Mormons undergo sacred ceremonies in their
temples, including baptisms for the dead.
Weddings, called "sealings," also are
performed there. And Mormons exchange promises
with God in
rituals called endowment ceremonies.
Mormons, who wear white inside the temple to
symbolize purity and
equality, believe these ceremonies are
necessary to reach the highest
degree of glory in heaven.
After performing them once for themselves in
the temple, they stand in
many more times for deceased ancestors. Mormons
believe it is up to
the immortal spirits to accept or reject the
ceremonies performed for
them.
"These temples are symbolic centers of what it
means to be Mormon," says Jan Shipps, a
Methodist scholar who has studied the church.
There are 50 Mormon temples worldwide; the St.
Louis temple is considered a medium-size one.
Fifteen more are planned, including six
in the USA, to accommodate the church's fast-
growing and far-flung membership.
Most temples have a spire topped by the angel
Moroni (moh-RHON-eye). Moroni was said to have
appeared to church
founder and prophet Joseph Smith, then a New
York farm boy, in
1823 and told him where to find engraved plates
that became The
Book of Mormon.
Sitting in the gold and white Celestial Room,
under a crystal chandelier, Elder Clarke is
momentarily at a loss for words.
A floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window bathes
Clarke in light. Its
panes are shades of gray and white except for a
few clear prisms that
bend the rays into colorful sparkles. It is not
a window for seeing out.
Mormons go to the temple to get away from the
world.
In this room, Clarke says, believers try to get
very close to heaven, to
review promises they've made and the lives
they've led. "I'm not
generally an emotional man," Clarke says, "but
the temple always
melts me."
By Lori Sharn, USA TODAY
