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BYU Studies Quarterly

BYU Studies Quarterly

Tyler Johnson

Keywords

Temple, Church Members, Worship

Abstract

I understate the matter when I say the temple strikes different Church members differently. I have friends who entered the temple for the first time many years ago and felt immediately at home. Indeed, they resonate with President Henry B. Eyring, who once said, “The first time I walked just a few feet into the temple I had the feeling that I had been here before. In an instant, the thought came to me that what I recognized was a sense of peace beyond anything I had felt before in this life, but that I seemed to recognize, and almost remember.” Some friends find in the temple an inexhaustible fount of allegorical, scriptural, and symbolic allusions. Some members—steeped in the history of the modern Church or of early Christianity—find the temple endlessly fascinating, resonating with Church scholar Hugh Nibley, who devoted a great deal of his life and work to illuminating connections between the temple and the ancient world. Still others love the temple because they do their duty in all things and understand the temple to be one such responsibility. Others find in the temple a haven from worldly concerns, going there to find peace, solace, and revelation. And, of course, any individual member may belong to one or all of these groups or may move between them throughout life.

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