Can you identify this church?
Okay, I am a weird, weird tourist. While I’m not a big fan of religion, I am always amazed when I run across “world headquarters” in unexpected places. When I was a kid, for instance, my school bus went by the headquarters for EWTN (i.e., Mother Angelica Land) every day. Later, when I was doing an internship in Louisiana, I came across the world headquarters for the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries in Baton Rouge. For some reason, this second feat humored me so much that I made the Coach stop the car so I could take a picture of the sign.
So, imagine my surprise when the Independence, MO, entry in my guidebook included a listing for the world headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What? At first, I was confused. I always thought that the LDS were located in Salt Lake City. Then I remembered a term paper I wrote on “cults” when I was senior at a Catholic High School.* “Oh,” I said to the Coach, “I think the Mormons actually had some kind of schism back in the day.” Anyhow, we went to take a picture of the temple — and that’s what you see here.
I was even more confused when we took the picture. You see, the signs out front said “Community of Christ” on them. “What the hell is that all about,” I said to the Coach. I had to go back to the hotel and Google the group. Apparently the RLDS is now the Community of Christ. They changed their name back in 2001 — which means the editors of my 2007 guidebook were not paying attention to their fact checking! The former RLDS decided to downplay the Mormon connection and play up the Christian angle. Of course, their membership numbers have dropped since the name change … and apparently another schism occurred!
Anyhow, this is something I didn’t expect to learn on vacation. As for the church above, it really looks more like an attempt to communicate with space aliens. Oh well.
* Before you give me any shit about this you should know that the priest who taught our class considered the Mormons to be a cult.
i never knew the mormons had a schism.
it is a beautiful building though