Saturday, October 4, 2008

A Temple in Independence?

Ok, I am speculating of course, but the announcement at General Conference that the Church will be building temples in Rome, Calgary, Cordoba in Argentina, Philadelphia and another temple in the Kansas City area, really got me thinking. The Kansas City area includes Independence, Missouri of course and we are all familiar with the divine commandment to build a temple there, despite different LDS groups already sharing the land. It's way too earlier to tell, but it would be one of the most interesting announcements of the new century if the temple was built there. There is nothing that LDS like to do more than speculate.

Take a look at what already shares the temple lot. My favorite is the sea shell.



7 comments:

Evgenii said...

And to add one point, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), who own the actual land where the temple was supposed to be built, have said they would never sell the land to another LDS denomination. The Community of Christ's land is part of the large temple lot, but not the exact position of the temple.

Jeremy said...

I didn't put the two together when I heard the announcement. I would suspect, however, that if a temple were to be built in Independence that the Prophet would indicate so over the pulpit. I see no reason why the Lord would have that a secret to his faithful.

On a separate note, when I visited the Hendrickite temple site there in Independence, I spoke with a man there who ran the visitor's center. After listening to his 20min speech regarding the temple plot and a brief history of the Hendrickites, I asked him how many remaining members there were in the church. He indicated that there were but a handful left (only around 200-300). I don't recall seeing any missionary efforts by the sect besides the pamphlet tracts placed in the visitor's center.

If they say that they won't sell the land to any LDS denomination, maybe the time will come when the land will eventually escheat to the state and go to auction. I can only imagine the $$$ that will be thrown out by both the Comm of Christ and the LDS Church to obtain that land.

Evgenii said...

Bonus points for using escheat in your comment. I wonder what will happen with it, but I agree that if a temple was going to be built at those locations (Far West, Liberty or Independence, there would be more of a large announcement than the vague one given.

Josh said...

If you look at the distribution of the members in the Kansas City area, the statistics suggest that the LDS church is probably going to build this temple in Kansas near Lenexa, Shawnee, or Overland Park along I-435 or I-35.

However, I wouldn't be extremely surprised if they decide to build this temple in Independence between Walnut and Pacific. I am pretty sure the LDS church owns a sizable piece of land right next to the visitors center.

Keep in mind that the original plans for the city of "New Jerusalem" included 24 temples in that general vicinity and those temples were to be places of education, worship, etc.

It would not be unreasonable to build one small temple that suits the current needs of the members in Independence now and others later.

As I said, I expect this temple that was just announced to be built in Kansas, mostly because there are more stakes on the Kansas side of Kansas City and that area of the City most resembles the types of neighborhoods where the church has built temples in other Metropolitan areas.

Jeremy said...

Good point, Josh. Scripture and modern-day revelation is silent as to "where" in Independence a temple will be built for Christ to return to. As you stated, at some point there will be 24 temples. These temples will be located in the same vicinity of the Hendrickite temple plot.

But who is to say that the Church can't build a temple close by for Christ's purposes, and then return at some future date and construct the remaining 23?

Does anyone know any more about that?

Evgenii said...

It looks like the official location will be in Clay County and not too far away from Liberty Jail.

As for the question about temple location, I was under the impression that the Hedrickites were on the main complex's land, or that is whay wikipedia says. Take that for what it's worth.

Jeremy said...

When I was there, they had the temple plot laid out on the grass with stones as was revealed to Joseph Smith. As I said previously, I'm not sure whether this plot was the one destined to be the temple where Christ makes an appearance before his world-wide Second Coming.