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Are our temples ugly eyesores?

Are our temples ugly eyesores?

Last updated on: February 10, 2026 at 8:23 pm by Dan Peterson

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Are our temples ugly eyesores? 2026-02-10T20:23:07-07:00 Dan Peterson

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John Donovan Wilson as Brigham Young, on the set of Six Days in August (2024)

Becoming Brigham, Episode 3—Shorthand & Bloodstains, Part Two is up, and I hope that you’ll watch and enjoy it and pass the word along. And a videotape of the small Becoming Brigham fireside that we held on 31 January 2026 is also now up online.

The previous episodes of Becoming Brigham — there are two prior installments, thus far — are available for viewing on the website of the Intepreter Foundation, here.

And, while I’m at it, yet another item has also appeared on the notoriously immutable, never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: Come Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps (2026) February 1-22: Genesis 12-17; Abraham 1-2 — “To Be a Greater Follower of Righteousness”

The Kirtland Temple as it appeared in 1971. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

At one point during the sojourn of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, Brigham Young encountered a group of apostates who were plotting against the Prophet Joseph Smith within the very walls of the temple. He later recalled of that meeting that “I rose up, and in a plain and forcible manner told them that Joseph was a Prophet, and I knew it, and they might rail and slander him as much as they pleased, they could not destroy the appointment of the Prophet of God, they could only destroy their own authority, cut the thread that bound them to the Prophet and to God and sink themselves to hell” (“History of Brigham Young,” Deseret News Weekly, 10 February 1858, 386).

A few have voiced the complaint about our new Becoming Brigham series that it focuses too much on a fringe theory about the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, blaming their deaths on a conspiracy led by Brigham Young and put into action by Elders John Taylor and Willard Richards. The complainers should wait and see, though. We discussed the question of which episodes we should choose to launch our series, and we settled on the Who Killed Joseph Smith? one for our opener as a somewhat cheeky attention-grabber. But there will be roughly seventy to seventy-five of these episodes, and we’re not going to spend an inordinate amount of time on a conspiratorial fantasy that, frankly, I regard as borderline crazy and lacking any value as actual history.

We’ll be discussing a whole host of issues, including controversial topics such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Latter-day Saint relations with Native Americans, Brigham Young and slavery, Brigham Young and women, Brigham Young’s rhetorical style, Brigham Young and violence, Brigham Young and race, Brigham Young and authoritarianism, and etc.

Brigham has been criticized on all of these (and many other) fronts, and we intend to address as many of those criticisms as we can. (In fact, I invite readers here to suggest issues that they believe we should address. Within reason, we’re trying to be as comprehensive as possible.) Some formerly faithful members of the Church have even been led into apostasy by the way they’ve chose to respond to these matters.

But I would like to say, in the most forcible and Brighamesque way that I can, that Brigham Young was a prophet and the divinely chosen successor to Joseph Smith. I know it, and I know that, while others may rail and slander him as much as they please, they cannot destroy the appointment of a prophet of God. They can only destroy their own authority, cut the thread that binds them to the prophet and to God, and sink themselves to hell.

An artist’s conception of the completed Cody Wyoming Temple as envisioned in an official rendering for a public meeting before construction began. Fair use, I hope.

A critic of the Church, very possibly reacting to my tongue-in-cheek comments yesterday about the nearly-completed Cody Wyoming Temple, doesn’t approve of its architecture. Well, the design of the temple in Cody isn’t my favorite, either. As one of his respondents observes, it’s not likely to appear on lists of architecturally distinguished buildings.

Of course, nominating the Cody Wyoming Temple for recognition as a peer to the Pantheon, the Taj Mahal, and the Cathedral of Chartres wasn’t the point of my comments yesterday. Rather, I was poking fun at the predictions of the feverish critics of the building, who really did claim that it would block views of the sky and the mountains and that it would loom massively and menacingly over the other buildings in the town — which claims are transparently false.

When I was very, very young, I dreamed of becoming an architect and creating dramatically beautiful structures. I soon decided against it, though, largely because I realized that I lack any trace of the relevant talent — something that, I note in passing, hasn’t prevented a fair number of notable architectural careers. Even my teenage reading (and really liking) Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, which appears to have been inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright (which I love), didn’t tempt me to pursue that path.

But I can’t share the pity that some people responding to the first critical post claimed to feel for the poor residents of Cody, who will be forced to gaze upon this “eyesore.” It’s not that bad, and — I haven’t been to Cody for several years, and I was there only briefly during my most recent visit — but it could well be that the new temple will be the most beautiful building in Cody. I gave no particular attention to the quality of the town’s architecture when I was last there, and I don’t remember anything about it, which may well be a salient fact.

Some critics of the Church, I’ve noticed over the years, like to dismiss every one of its temples as a tacky monstrosity, an eyesore, comparable to a Taco Bell franchise, and etc. and etc. I don’t really see why rejection of the Church’s doctrines and historical claims should necessarily entail contempt for the architecture of the temples it erects, but, for some at least, it does. Not everybody shares such aesthetic judgments, though.

Just last night, by sheer coincidence, I came across a ten-minute video that I enjoyed. (Despite my architectural disability, I still retain my interest in beautiful buildings.) I don’t know, off hand, who created this video, but I note that he includes several Latter-day Saint temples in it. Some of the non-LDS choices puzzle me a bit — they wouldn’t have been on my list — but I’m really a fan of several of them, including especially the Bahá’i House of Worship in greater Chicago, which has long been a particular favorite of mine: “The 25 Best Looking Religious Buildings in North American Cities”

The poster for the currently-running production of Forever Plaid (Fair Use)

As is our wont from time to time, my wife and I met for dinner last night with several of our neighbors — it was a taco place; my wife and I shared a plate of nachos — and then on to a play at the Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater in Pleasant Grove. The play was the musical Forever Plaid. Not an especially deep work of dramatic literature, not among my favorite plays, and the songs are from a bit before my time. But it’s a pleasant piece, the music is enjoyable, and they did a superb job. Please note, though, that no Interpreter Foundation funding was provided for either our nachos or our tickets to the performance.

Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater

temple

The Ruth

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February 9, 2026

Episode Three!

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February 11, 2026 Did Brigham Young forge Doctrine and Covenants 132?

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