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Travel and Religion
“Stand Ye in Holy Places”

“Stand Ye in Holy Places”

Last updated on: September 15, 2025 at 4:13 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Stand Ye in Holy Places” 2025-09-15T16:13:48-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Orem Utah Temple (LDS Media Library)

The still relatively new Orem Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands across the I-15 freeway, a short distance to the southwest of the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU). That campus, of course, is where Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week. The temple is a bit of a walk from UVU, but it’s plainly visible from much of the university and there is a pedestrian walkway over the freeway that makes it reasonably accessible.

I was in Oregon at the time, but I have heard from more than one source that, in the hours immediately following the assassination, a considerable number of students (or, anyway, of those who had been in the vicinity of the Charlie Kirk event) made their way over to the temple grounds. As one account puts it, “they arrived in shorts and t-shirts, still wearing their backpacks.” They were, it seems, seeking safety and refuge and peace.

How understandable and perfectly appropriate that is! I’ve been moved by these accounts, and I thought of a passage in the Book of Mormon. It immediately follows the account of the cataclysmic destruction in the New World that accompanied the death of Jesus Christ in the Old. Where did the survivors gather after the horror and death of that event?

And now it came to pass that there were a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful; and they were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place. (3 Nephi 11:1)

I thought, too, of these words from the Doctrine and Covenants:

And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. . . .

But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved; but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die.

And there shall be earthquakes also in divers places, and many desolations; yet men will harden their hearts against me, and they will take up the sword, one against another, and they will kill one another. . . .

And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;

And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another. (Doctrine and Covenants 45:26, 32-33, 66-69)

Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved. (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8)

The Manti Utah Temple was dedicated in 1888. (LDS.org)

On a wintry Utah night many decades ago, President Harold B. Lee and a local church leader paused, gazing through snow and darkness toward the Manti Utah Temple, which stood high on the hill above them. “That temple,” the local man observed, “lighted as it is, is never more beautiful than in a storm or when there is a dense fog.” President Lee made the application: “Never is the gospel of Jesus Christ more important to you,” he said, “than in a storm or when you are having great difficulty” (see “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee“).

The Celestial Room of the Idaho Falls Temple.
Please note the heavenly reunions depicted in the mural on the wall. (LDS Media Library)

In a recent blog entry, I responded to the allegation that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that those who do not receive the gift of exaltation will be literally, physically, neutered in the resurrection. I also replied to the accusation that I take particularly gleeful delight in this supposed punishment, which I supposedly imagine will be meted out to those fail to share my religious beliefs.

I deny both claims, of course. I think both are expressly counter to scriptural teaching, and no actual evidence has been furnished by those making or defending the accusation that physical neutering in the resurrection is an actual doctrine of the Church, Nor has any evidence been provided to show that I myself believe such a doctrine to be true — let alone that I take sadistic pleasure in anticipating the neutering of anybody, anywhere, at any time.

So the small handful of dedicated obsessives in question has shifted to acknowledging the authentic doctrine of the Church, which is not one of eschatological castration or spaying but is, in fact, that only those who inherit exaltation in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom will have the privilege of “eternal increase” — of having children after the resurrection. Now, of course, grimly determined to paint this teaching in the worst possible light, this small and obsessive group of slanderers insist that it is about punishing non-Latter-day Saints with “forced” or “involuntary sterilization.” And, of course, being the cruel and depraved monster that I am, that I take particular pleasure in contemplating such punishment.

But this is a gross misrepresentation of Latter-day Saint teaching and — it scarcely needs saying, since such slanders against me are de rigueur in the precincts where they comment — a grotesquely malicious distortion of my personal beliefs.

Beyond the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a few historically-associated groups that have emerged out of the Restoration, I’m unaware of any faith that teaches any concept of having children after the resurrection. I’m unaware of any faith possessed of a doctrinal framework into which such a notion could be incorporated. In other words, there is no expectation anywhere else in Christendom (or, so far as I’m aware, beyond Christendom) that the righteous will enjoy “eternal increase” in the world to come.

Thus, the Latter-day Saint teaching isn’t that those who do not receive exaltation will be punished by being deprived of a capacity that they had expected to possess — since the universal teaching outside of the Latter-day Saint faith tradition is that nobody will enjoy such a capacity. Rather, in the Latter-day Saint view of it, the opportunity for eternal increase is a completely unexpected gift that is at least offered to everybody. (And one that, thanks to the ordinances of the temple, will be offered to everybody in the next world who did not receive the offer in this one.)

No analogy is perfect — if it were perfect, it would be not an analogy but an identity — but permit me to try to make this as clear as I can. (I have no hope that those who want to insist on viewing the matter badly will grasp the point, or admit that they grasp it. Still, I’m optimistic that normal, reasonable, people will understand.) Here’s a comparison:

Suppose that an astoundingly rich man invites everybody in his town to a lavish feast. His only requirement is that, on the day of the feast, the townsfolk enter his mansion through its door. Would it be reasonable for a critic to complain that the offered feast is all about punishing those who, for whatever reason, don’t enter through the door? That he’s depriving people of food who attempt, instead, to enter his mansion through its solid walls? That he’s attempting to starve the people in the town who, despite having received the invitation, choose on the appointed day not to come to his mansion at all?

The Oakland California Temple (LDS Media Library)

The same small group of critics who currently seek to transmogrify the offer of eternal increase into a threat of forced sterilization have also sought to portray the doctrine of eternal families as a threatened eternal divorce. (“Fork ten percent of your income over to the leaders of the Church or never see your wife and children again!”)

Again, though, neither traditional Christian teaching nor the doctrine of any other faith of which I’m aware holds out the promise that family ties — between spouses, say, and between parents and children — will continue into the resurrection. That people will recognize one another in the afterlife, of course, is allowed; short of the resurrected equivalent of a lobotomy, we will naturally know our loved ones. But you will scan the Catholic Catechism and the Qur’an in vain for a doctrine of eternal family ties. Try reading Dante’s Divina Commedia for examples of marriages persisting into the life to come. (You won’t find them. Like the damned in the Inferno and the souls in Purgatory, the saved in Paradise are individual “social atoms.”)

Accordingly, the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints isn’t that those who don’t receive exaltation will be punished by being deprived of the family relationships that they had expected to enjoy in the afterlife — since the universal teaching outside of the Latter-day Saint faith tradition is that nobody will enjoy such relationships. Rather, as Latter-day Saints conceive of it, the opportunity to dwell forever in family relationships is a wholly unanticipated gift that will be offered to everybody who has ever lived or who ever will live.

Again, and probably redundantly, I proffer an analogy: A concert is being offered, and its organizers announce that everybody who wishes to attend may do so. Moreover, if they inform the ticket office of their wish they will be seated with their family members and friends. Would it be just or fair for a critic to respond that this invitation constitutes cruel and vengeful punishment directed at people who don’t request being seated together? Is it reasonable to construe the invitation as a vicious abuse of invitees who choose not to attend the concert at all? Would it be a legitimate complaint against the concert organizer and host that people who rejected his invitation to the concert aren’t seated together at it? Would such objections make even the slightest sense?

Travel and Religion

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Utah Valley University

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