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One member is examining the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson my colleague are M.
Today we want to begin a discussion about a trip that Eric took to Memphis Tennessee for the reopening.
I guess you could say right. It was a reopening of the Memphis Tennessee temples actually located in Bartlett, Tennessee. But the reason why this temple was re-open for public viewing is because after 17 years of being in existence. It was dedicated in the year 2000.
But Eric, you learn while you were there that one of the problems this building had was a serious mold problem explained to us why that became important for I guess the reason why this temple has been rededicated. We normally don't see temples as young as 2017 years of age being close to be redone. They'll do this with all her temples. They'll put in new wiring for the electric called output, and communication systems and other things like that so I was really amazed because I had not heard why this one was close down to be able to be reopened in 2019. I talked to some of the leaders there and they said that there was a mold problem because of the marble they used did not breathe. And so what was happening in the humid area of Tennessee mold was growing behind the marble so when they close in 2017. They actually thought that they could just take out some walls and take care of that mold problem, but it wasn't the case they had to raise the entire building and take it down to its foundation. I was told and I asked how much that costs, and even the PR director of the temple in the whole area. Said he didn't know he knew it cost millions of dollars because you tore down a building that was just built in 2000, but because the lack of foresight by the architects the builders. It was beautiful. In fact, some of the residents I talked to said they really thought it was much more pretty with the marble. Now it just has stucco on there and they were kind of disappointed even though they were in LDS because of how beautiful that was. And yet it costs them down the road. Because of that terrible problem you don't want mold and imagining that that's a bad thing.
And this isn't a huge building, folks.
It's in a residential area. It's not like some of the larger temples that are built on the side of freeways that are easy to see. It's kind of difficult to find it. I mean I remember when you and I had speaking engagements in Mississippi and in Tennessee a few years back we had a look for this thing coming. We need a GPS to find it. It's 10,900 ft.², so that's not a a large temple as temples usually are for those who have been in temples, you know that usually they have multiple floors and there's multiple rooms will this one you walk past the recommend asked right to the right is the baptismal font area were baptisms for the dead take place. Then you go down the hallway and you're going to enter into the different rooms, including the celestial room and I can't imagine the celestial room being more than maybe I don't know 800 ft.². 1000 ft.². It was so small, it just felt like the walls are closing in it and so I just I think this might be the smallest temple that I have ever been. It was only open for a week and that was kind of a last-minute announcement wasn't.
They initially announced that there would be no temple open houses for both this temple and the one that was opened up a week later in Oklahoma City and that's also a renovation project. Oklahoma City is not a new temple. It's been around for a while as well.
So with that idea that there would be no open house. It was swell. I guess were not gonna have any outreach there like we like to do. I I have been to. This is my 22nd Temple open house event that I've attended and so I thought well I have contacts in Memphis is too bad that they're knocking to do one because that would've been a great outreach. Well, a month before they actually had the open house they announced on their website that they would have a special one week. Temple open house event. I had to scramble to get over there and it's interesting that they were scrambling because the leaders only had one extra month before that to be able to put this together and so they were not able to do what they normally could do. He said 6 to 9 months typically is how long they get to prepare for this to invite all the local pastors to special events. All the different things that they have to do for this they were not able to do, and they even said when they opened it they were worried that not everything was going to be done because they did not have enough time and so they were putting sod down just the day before the event took place know this temple was not open all day. Normally, when you and I have been to Temple open houses they start like early in the morning and the go late at night explained how how long was the temple they actually did not have enough help. There are three states involved in the open house.
Here you have Arkansas you have Alabama and you have all you have Mississippi in the part of Tennessee so actually for states Mormons from those states were supposed to volunteer. They did not get enough to volunteer so Saturday the first date was open. It was open 12 hours. Typically, the members will will volunteer for six hour shifts so you have the 8 to 2 and 2 to 8. That's how they were doing the Saturday but Monday through Thursday of the next week, there were only open 2 to 8 and Friday and Saturday again. They were open 8 to 8.
The parking lot was never really full. They never had to use a bus that they had rented for the Saturdays they thought maybe there would be more people, but there were always at least 4050 60 spots available in the parking lot. They have a very large parking lot. There they had a total of 11,000 visitors over the seven days of this Temple open house, relatively speaking, that's not really a lot of people as you just explained it's completely rebuilt, but it was already there for several years so I guess the novelties were awful long time and I would say on the average between 80 to 90% of everyone who went was a latter-day St.
You could tell by the way they dressed in the way they reacted in the parking lot to us to because that a lot of people driving past us. They had to drive past us and we would stand on the public sidewalk with the newspaper that we have designed that can actually be seen on our website sacred or secret.com.
If you go to sacred or secret.com you can go and click on the PDF and see what it is we were handing out is a lot of information we want, especially people who may not know a whole lot about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What they do really teach to be able to have access to this information, and so on for pages.
We think we have done everything possible. Plus we hold up these website signs sacred or secret.com and we would average 60 sometimes 70 unique visits every single day. So we knew that that was productive as well because were talking about it. We were out there for maybe six hours on the weekdays, and on the Saturdays we were trying to stay out there longer. We were getting a pretty good response. I think from just being there at the exit. There was only one way to enter and only one way to exit so worked out really well for us as far as our week of ministry another website sign. That of course directs people to the URL that we own is a ministry sacred or secret.com. The reason why we chose that URL is because secret or secret is a phrase that we hear often from Latter Day Saints when they're asked about the temple endowment ceremony. At least the intricacies of the temple endowment ceremony. If you ever talk to a latter-day St. about the temple ceremony you're going to find that they don't really want to share a lot of the details of what goes on inside these buildings and many times they will excuse that by saying well. We look at the temple is being sacred, though it's not secret. They always want to make sure you understand that it's not secret. Now folks we know for a fact that in the earlier ceremonies prior to 1990. The ceremony itself said it was secret and patrons as they are called and those are participants that go through the temple endowment ceremony, the patrons are warned not to talk about it. They make an oath, vowing not to talk about it.
That would be one of the biggest complaints people would roll down their windows who were Latter Day Saints and they would say it sacred and then I would say as they were trying to drive away. Well, it's also secret or come out and tell me all about it, but we have in our newspaper. A quote from Richard bushman who said in the desert retinues March 6, 2008, he said while some members will claim that Mormon temples are sacred, not secret. Bushman said that temples are secret, plain and simple, noting that even members don't speak to each other about it and we should mention that Richard L. Bushman is a Mormon historian he's very well respected Mormon historian. I kind of appreciate Richard bushman, but he is a faithful latter-day St.
Here he is admitting that yes they are sacred, but there also secret and I would agree with him there, both okay. They are sacred to the latter-day St. Ike I can appreciate that coming from their worldview. But let's be serious if you're told not to talk about something, doesn't that tend to lend itself to being something that is leased to the latter-day Saints is being somewhat secret.
I would say yes it is that response that we would get from the Latter Day Saints driving bias was that was a second biggest response. The first response when people roll down their windows and that didn't happen all the time because it was cool but when they would they would ask this question. Do you do this at the mosque. Why are you at our church doing this we don't do this to you and the response. Quite simply, if I only get 10 seconds to explain. I say well I actually believe in sharing the gospel with anybody, but this is a public venue. This is an open house and so we want to make sure that people have full access to the information that is out there.
Not everybody going through. Here is latter-day St.
I would say and I want to make sure that they can hear the other side of the story so they can fully practice what would they call agency and I think agencies a good thing.
While they should know the other side and then make the right choice and and then I also would explain that were not going to be at their privates, dedication ceremonies, we are only there because it's a public event and I think we have every right to do so and that's always been our policy ever since we started doing outreaches temples as you said, they are public events. There are going to be a lot of people who were not LDS that are going to go through these buildings and as I mentioned earlier, they are not going to get a lot of detailed information.
It's going to be very vague things like well we do sacred ordinances and we do works for our dead and we are sealed for time and eternity in a marriage relationship.
Very basic but they're not going to get into, say, for instance, the tokens that are exchange and I can get into the keywords that they are supposed to say and all these things are necessary for the Latter Day Saints if they hope to be exalted as they understand it in the next life in order to become a God it's necessary that a latter-day St. go through the temple endowment ceremony. That's absolutely essential, and if they are not going to give full disclosure as to what goes on in the temple. I don't think they should be angry with us merely because as you said, we want these people to have all the information so that they can make a decision based on as much information that they can possibly have tomorrow to talk about this some more, but there's so many things that went on while Eric was there in Memphis and I hope you'll tune in to tomorrow's broadcast. Thank you for listening you would like to make this research ministry.
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