{"id":46675,"date":"2024-03-05T14:23:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T21:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=46675"},"modified":"2024-03-05T18:42:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T01:42:25","slug":"the-church-now-owns-the-kirtland-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/03\/the-church-now-owns-the-kirtland-temple\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church Now Owns the Kirtland Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46676 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/KirtlandTemple_Ohio_USA.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/KirtlandTemple_Ohio_USA.jpg 220w, https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/KirtlandTemple_Ohio_USA-160x213.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;m sure everybody is now aware, the Church now owns the Kirtland temple. A few drive-by-thoughts.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I looked at the Community of Christ&#8217;s financials and posted about what I saw as the inevitable result of their situation (selling off additional properties, perhaps including the Kirtland temple)\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/archive.timesandseasons.org\/2021\/09\/are-we-going-to-be-able-to-buy-the-kirtland-temple\/index.html\">back in September of 2021<\/a>, and that\u00a0was shortly followed by a Salt Lake Tribune piece on the issue. Unbeknownst to either of us, apparently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/faith\/2024\/03\/05\/church-announces-purchase-of-historic-kirtland-temple-other-historic-sites-and-manuscripts\/\">negotiations had started several months earlier in June of 2021. \u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I questioned whether they were going to rededicate it as a functioning temple or dedicate it as a historical site, seeing it as a sticky issue. It appears they have chosen the latter, which I think is a smart move. The fact is that the temple ceremony was not completely revealed at that point, and architecturally it was not designed as a functioning Nauvoo-era temple. In order to make it one, it would require gutting a lot of historically significant elements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Besides the basic revisions, keeping it as a historical site and not a temple will help assure that the 19th century workmanship won&#8217;t be gutted later down the line (cough, Logan and Salt Lake, cough).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Besides, the Cleveland Temple is nearby, so I doubt there&#8217;s a geographic need for a temple in that location.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anecdotally in the past it seems like the CoC sites were struggling with manpower, and you had to hit them at the right time to be able to do the tour thing. This move will presumably make them more available.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;m trying to think about which properties or artifacts we still don&#8217;t own, since those were the major ones. Of course we don&#8217;t have to own all of them, and it looks like they will keep the Smith family cemetery. The main temple lot is not owned by them (and seems like an exponentially more complicated situation), and their headquarters is on their portion of the broader temple lot, so I think we basically have all the major structures and properties we can expect to have? Am I missing something?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wow, that is a lot of money. However, the Venn diagram of their loss is our gain is so incredibly tiny in the year 2024 that I am quite happy for the Community of Christ. As a fan of religiosity in general, not just ours, it saddens me to see religious institutions struggling, and I am happy that the CoC will have enough money to keep paying their bills for the foreseeable future. That might even be enough for a perpetual endowment that could keep them going for some time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I second what everybody has been saying about gratefulness for their impeccable stewardship of our collective holy sites.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in more information about the Kirtland Temple, check out the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/kirtland-temple\/\">Kirtland Temple<\/a> page at the Latter-day Saint history blog,\u00a0 <em>From the Desk<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;m sure everybody is now aware, the Church now owns the Kirtland temple. A few drive-by-thoughts. I looked at the Community of Christ&#8217;s financials and posted about what I saw as the inevitable result of their situation (selling off additional properties, perhaps including the Kirtland temple)\u00a0back in September of 2021, and that\u00a0was shortly followed by a Salt Lake Tribune piece on the issue. Unbeknownst to either of us, apparently negotiations had started several months earlier in June of 2021. \u00a0 &nbsp; I questioned whether they were going to rededicate it as a functioning temple or dedicate it as a historical site, seeing it as a sticky issue. It appears they have chosen the latter, which I think is a smart move. The fact is that the temple ceremony was not completely revealed at that point, and architecturally it was not designed as a functioning Nauvoo-era temple. In order to make it one, it would require gutting a lot of historically significant elements. &nbsp; Besides the basic revisions, keeping it as a historical site and not a temple will help assure that the 19th century workmanship won&#8217;t be gutted later down the line (cough, Logan and Salt Lake, cough). &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":46676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2900],"tags":[2977],"class_list":["post-46675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-temples","tag-temple"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/KirtlandTemple_Ohio_USA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46675"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46692,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions\/46692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}