Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship, by Jonathan A. Stapley, is a rich exploration of the history, symbolism, and function of Latter-day Saint temples. The book traces temple development from the earliest Kirtland and Nauvoo structures to present-day edifices. Each chapter addresses both the physical details—materials, floor plans, artwork—and the spiritual purposes, including covenant-making, ordinances for the living and the dead, and temple dedication practices. The author contextualizes temples within broader Church history. The text draws on official Church statements, historical documents, and personal accounts, blending narrative history with doctrinal commentary in an accessible style.

The book demonstrates a high level of cultural and religious sensitivity toward Latter-day Saint beliefs. Jonathan Stapley has worked with the Church History Department and wrote in a style that was designed to share what is possible to share in a way that does not provoke defensiveness among Latter-day Saints. My understanding is that he even ran parts of the book past general authorities of the Church to make sure it wasn’t transgressing boundaries. Sacred ordinances are referenced with care, avoiding explicit descriptions of temple ceremonies while still explaining their importance. The tone is respectful and affirming, emphasizing the temple as a place of divine instruction and personal revelation rather than as a topic for outsider scrutiny. He steers clear of sensationalism or speculative interpretation. Photographs and illustrations are chosen with similar care, staying close to the types of images the Church itself publishes on the topic.

I would highly recommend this book to instructors of temple preparation courses in the Church and maybe even to people who are preparing to enter the temple. For the latter, a particularly notable chapter is the first one, which offers a nice overview of the temple and its rituals. The subsequent couple of chapters offer a fantastic overview of the development of temple worship in the Church. Some of the latter chapters aren’t as directly relevant to temple preparation so much as to historical and scholarly concerns (i.e., there is a chapter about race and the temple, which is an important topic, but not for that setting). It offers a nice complement with more rigor and depth to the discussion than the official church manuals on the topic.

Compared to Boyd K. Packer’s Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple, Holiness to the Lord is much more focused on historical and architectural details, while Preparing is primarily devotional and preparatory. Packer’s work speaks directly to individuals approaching their first temple experience, emphasizing personal worthiness, covenant responsibility, and spiritual readiness. In contrast, Holiness to the Lord functions more as an informative resource for a general audience, including both members and respectful non-members, offering context on temple history and symbolism without assuming the reader is about to attend for the first time. Where Preparing uses scriptural and prophetic exhortation, Holiness often uses historical narrative and visual storytelling.

The Church’s Endowed from on High manual is a doctrinal and instructional resource intended for those learning about priesthood ordinances and the temple endowment in a classroom setting. It contains concise explanations, lesson outlines, and scriptural references meant to support formal gospel teaching. Holiness to the Lord, by contrast, is not structured as a manual but as a thematic book, weaving doctrinal discussion into broader historical and artistic analysis. Both works avoid disclosing sacred details, but Endowed from on High is overtly prescriptive—teaching what should be understood and done—while Holiness is descriptive, explaining how temples have evolved and what they represent.

Coming from a more intellectual perspective, as someone who has studied temple history and liturgy extensively, I found that there was a lot I learned in the process of reading Holiness to the Lord. And at a couple of points, Stapley tackled some of the big questions that float around about temples in the Church. For example, in one section, he discusses the claim that temple rituals should not change and that changes to them indicate apostasy. He looked at the original sources to the June 11, 1843, sermon by Joseph Smith that usually undergird such accusations, and concluded that “The ‘not to be altered or changed’ quotation … was from a reconstruction of the sermon made years after Joseph Smith’s murder.” After examining the two primary sources behind the reconstruction, he concluded that “Joseph Smith’s logic here is clear. All people need the ordinances of faith, repentance, and baptism, regardless of whether they are living or dead,” rather than the specifics of the rituals remaining static. “Thus Latter-day Saints and their antagonists today often conflate Smith’s statements with a type of cosmic fundamentalism. Joseph Smith did not leave any specific teachings about the acceptability of changing the ceremonies that Latter-day Saints now call ordinances. What he left was a history of regular revision to the rituals of the church” (p. 75).

Another major question he tackles is whether Latter-day Saints consider plural marriage to be essential for exaltation. “While there was no doubt that temple marriage was necessary for exaltation, a vital question for many Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century was whether plural marriage was technically necessary.” He noted that it was often during “moments of extreme pressure” when Church leaders “emphatically declared that exaltation was only possible for those who practiced polygamy,” but that “sometimes the same leaders who asserted the requirement for plural marriage, also made statements that were more nuanced, and Latter-day Saint communities debated a diversity of views.” Brigham Young, for example, repeatedly responded when asked that monogamists could obtain Celestial Glory. Even John Taylor left room open for the idea that monogamists could be exalted if they were unable to practice plural marriage (see pp. 100–103). It’s an important discussion in a Church that is still enmeshed in a history of polygamy.

Holiness to the Lord offers rich historical depth and visual appreciation, making it both a valuable resource for Latter-day Saints and an accessible introduction for interested outsiders.

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For more book reviews and forthcoming books, see Mormon Studies Books in 2025