The Church Acquires the Kirtland Temple and Nauvoo Properties

Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.

Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. We had another episode that was scheduled to drop today, but we are nothing if not a news breaking organization.

Gerrit Right. Yeah, I mean, I think we've demonstrated to our listeners that we will bring them information several years, if not hundreds of years after it happened. And with the incisive commentary that will help them to decide whether they're going to take the over-under.

Richard In fairness, this is a church history podcast primarily. And so I feel like talking about things 150 years later is actually very on brand.

Gerrit Well, that's the thing, right? Everyone feels really, really smart when they study history, because you always know what's going to happen. You're always like, I'll bet the pioneers get there in 1847, not in 1846. Yeah, really? Where'd you put your money on that one? I mean, it's easy to be right when you study history, despite the difficulties involved in getting those sources.

Richard Well, so Gerrit, yesterday, well, yesterday was Tuesday, recording on Wednesday here, June 6th, your phone blew up because of...

Gerrit Well, I received somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 text messages.

Richard Not an exaggeration.

Gerrit No, no, no. I was in a meeting when it happened, and it was a fairly sensitive part of said meeting, so I didn't feel like I could just whip my phone up, and be like, hold on, hold on, let me take this, let me take this, let me take this. And so by the time I was done with that, about an hour later, I had over 400 at that moment that had not been responded to.

Richard And this is all...

Other Four and 16, actually.

Richard This is all relating to the release of Dune II, or what was...

Gerrit No, no, they were all just my wife saying, why don't you clean the house more? What is it gonna take for you to be a better husband? They were all just that. No, it was because of the announcement of the... I mean, when you say historic, when you say big, I honestly can't think of anything bigger than this. That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was acquiring from the community of Christ many, many, not only properties, but also items. And of course, the biggest on that list is the Kirtland Temple, which we go to every year when we go on our tours there. I've gone through it many, many times, but is such a sacred and holy place for Latter-day Saints. And one of those things that people for years have said, well, will the Church ever get it back? Will the Church ever get it back? And so that was a big deal, but it's not just that.

Gerrit It's properties in Nauvoo. It's other things. It is a massive thing. In fact, to me, it's probably a bigger announcement than when President Hinckley announced they were going to rebuild the Nauvoo Temple itself. I mean, it's on par with that, that it is an incredible thing. Really, when you talk about something historic, I mean, for a historian, historic sites and historic documents are, I mean, they are our Christmas time. They are the physical connection to the past that allow us to tell the stories of history that we tell. And I mean, it is just such an incredible thing. I mean, frankly, the closest thing that would come to it outside of the building of the Nauvoo Temple itself would be the back in the early 1900s when the church acquired the lands that did in Palmyra, in order to start again in this journey of historic sites.

Gerrit So even then though, acquiring the Hill Cumorah is a big deal. Acquiring the Joseph Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove is a big deal. But those places don't have the temple that was erected by those early believers in the church. The Sacred Grove certainly has the place where the father and son appeared, but the multiple appearances in the Kirtland Temple, exactly in that temple, in that space is an incredible thing. And so, I mean, we decided, well, Richard decided that we should record a special podcast to talk about it. You know what? I might as well just tease and say, actually, we had multiple podcasts on plural marriage that were queued up and ready to go.

Gerrit We were finally going to talk about it. Yeah, it was like 17 parts. We're going to shelve those now in order to talk a little bit about this. So I'm sure everybody listening has heard. So, I mean, as Richard said, it's on brand for us to talk to people about things when they don't care about them anymore and they already know. But we can maybe discuss a little bit of some of the import or some of the things there that are part of this transfer. And so I'll pass the baton to you, Richard.

Richard Well, so, Gerrit, we wanted to start by reading the Joint Statement, the official statement from the Church and from the Community of Christ Church, and then talk about some of the items or talk about some of the sites and some of their import. I did, yes, I did. I was calling Gerrit after last night as we were going through things about our big live event that the live recording or every recording is live, but in front of the studio audience that we're going to be doing on March 16th, which is going to be a lot of fun. So we were at the site, the venue, and going through some different things. And so when I said, you know, we really ought to. This is a pretty exciting deal. Everyone's pretty excited about it, as is evidenced by the 800 texts you received. So we'll start here, and then, Gerrit, you just start chipping away as we talk about all these different items and properties and how important they are, both today as well as in history.

Richard So the responsibility and ownership of the sacred sites and the historic documents transfer to Church of Jesus Christ. Acquisitions include the Kirtland Temple, historic buildings in Nauvoo, and manuscripts of Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible, a joint statement from the Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today, Tuesday, March 5th, 2024, the responsibility and ownership for the Kirtland Temple, several historic buildings in Nauvoo, and various manuscripts and artifacts officially transferred from the Community of Christ Church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for an agreed upon amount. Together, we share an interest in the reverence of these historic sites and items and are committed to preserving them for future generations. Discussions leading to this landmark agreement commenced in June of 2021. This exchange of assets is significant for our Church, said Stephen M. Veazey, president of the Community of Christ.

Richard Through funding from increased endowment, Community of Christ will have greater capacity to pursue our mission priorities around the world, including continuing to fulfill the divinely envisioned purpose for our temple in Independence, Missouri. We are deeply honored to assume the stewardship of these sacred places, documents and artifacts, said Russell M. Nelson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We thank our friends at Community of Christ for their great care and cooperation in preserving these historical treasures thus far. We are committed to doing the same. The Kirtland Temple will remain an historic building. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to reopen it March 25th, 2024 for public tours at no charge. Likewise, in Nauvoo, the Smith family homestead, the mansion house, the red brick store, will also reopen on March 25th, 2024 for year-round public tours at no charge.

Richard More details about the transaction assets and the other items included in the agreement will be forthcoming. The historic transfer underscores our long-standing effort to preserve religious and cultural heritage and foster respective opportunities for growth and service to the world. Community of Christ is an international faith community dedicated to fostering authentic connections with one another and with God. It strives to restore Christ's peace on earth and challenge unjust systems that diminish human worth. Community of Christ affirms the intrinsic worth of every person and provides a place to belong. Beloved and valued, grow spiritually and discover a purpose that can change lives and communities. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a worldwide faith, teaches that our Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ have in our day again called a living prophet and restored priesthood, authority and covenants to bless families, individuals with joy.

Richard Members seek to live and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, care for those in need and unite families for eternity. They cherish the Book of Mormon and the Bible as holy scripture.

Gerrit You can see that obviously this was crafted by both of them with an eye to explaining at least part of what it is that they're doing. One of the first questions people had was, well, do you think that they're going to turn the Kirtland Temple into a functioning temple again? And you have that handled pretty quickly with President Nelson going on later to teach that, well, no, we're not. In fact, if you go to the Responsibility and Ownership of Sacred Sites document, there's a link right at the very top of it that says, a frequently asked questions. And so these are questions that people might have. What was included in the transaction? And then it gives a list. It involves land, buildings, artifacts, documents, real estate, along with some artifacts that are in Kirtland, Ohio, Nauvoo, while artifacts and documents also come from the Community Christ Library and Archives in Independence, Missouri.

Gerrit What are the most significant items? So for our Church newsroom, this is what we listed as the most significant items. The most significant properties are the Kirtland Temple, the Smith Family Homestead, the Mansion House, the Nauvoo House, and the Red Brick Store. Significant documents and artifacts include manuscripts, the Bible used in the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, seven letters from Joseph Smith to his wife Emma, John Whitmer's history of the Church, original portraits of Joseph and Emma Smith portraits, paintings, not photographs. You have to make that, you got to clarify, the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House, the original door of Liberty Jail, and a document with the title characters, which may contain a sample of inscriptions from the gold plates. And then it goes on, at the end, to give a list of everything all together.

Gerrit But you can see that's, you know, the first two questions is, what is this and why does it matter? And again, I think most people will know that the Kirtland Temple, well, that kind of matters. I mean, that's not only, yeah, it's kind of a big deal, you know. The other items, right, the Smith family homestead, that is a reference to the Joseph Smith home in Nauvoo. Now, that's actually separate from the mansion house or the Nauvoo house. For those of you who haven't gone to Nauvoo, you know, look, I know that before I started, you know, going to these places or studying and writing church history when I was younger, I mean, people would throw these things around all the time, and it meant nothing to me. It was very similar to, you know, when Richard talks to me about his business PhD stuff.

Gerrit He says words. I understand that they are words, and I understand that they're important to someone. They're just not important to me. Or apparently his dissertation advisor. But when they moved to Nauvoo, they have their own home that they build there. But then they also build this much larger home called the Mansion House. The idea of the Mansion House was to have a place for people to stay for a long time. It's where the mummies were on display that Joseph had bought from Chandler. It serves as kind of like a, you know, the same function that a tavern might function in a place where people had taverns, right? It's a meeting place. It's there on the river's edge. It's where guests and people come to stay. And maybe it's part of the inspiration for the Nauvoo House.

Gerrit So the Nauvoo House and the Mansion House are two different things. The Mansion House is the two-story, very large home, if you wanted to call it, that was built, that Joseph and Emma are at times going to live in. The Nauvoo House was designed to be a much grander structure. You know, it's not a holiday and express. It's designed to be the Four Seasons. It's given by revelation. One of the revelations that is not canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants is a revelation commanding the saints to build the Nauvoo House. And its design, its purpose is to be essentially a 19th century hotel and convention center. I mean, maybe they were going to call it the Sphere at some point, but its purpose is that it's going to be so grand that it's going to be a gathering place for people of all different religions.

Gerrit Because where are you going to stay if you're going up or down the Mississippi River? Well, the best place you could possibly stay is in Nauvoo. And while I'm staying in Nauvoo, you know what, I'm going to walk over there and see that crazy temple that those Mormons build in. Well, why do you Mormons do this? And the next thing you know, they're getting a pass-along card sent to missionaries. I mean, frankly, look, our modus operandi has been, it's been the same since Nauvoo. You know, if there had been an airport in Keokuk, we would have had free shuttles from that airport to take them to Nauvoo to be like, hey, do you want to come see the temple grounds? Do you have any questions about, I don't know, anything about God? And then the next thing you know, you're going down the line. The Nauvoo house was never completed in Joseph's time. The first floor of it was partially completed.

Gerrit It was supposed to be this huge multi-wing edifice. And so that still exists. And Emma is going to, for a time, live in the Nauvoo house. In fact, her second husband, who was bitumen, is going to add on to it and build a carriage house added on to it. So all of these things, if you were to look at a map of Nauvoo, maybe we'll include a link to a map. Should we do that? I mean, let's say that we're going to do it.

Richard Yes. Yeah, my guess was to agree that we should say it.

Gerrit So we're going to tell you that we're going to attach a map. There's no possible way we're actually going to attach a map. No, I mean, we're going to try. The way that they list out these properties is by using the lot numbers that were part of the 1842 index mapping of Nauvoo. And so if you're on your phone right now and you see that link, click it. I mean, hopefully it's not spyware. I mean, the link that we're putting in this that shows you where the gives you a map. You can then use that to look at the list of things at the end of this frequently asked questions and appendix to have an idea of where these things are. In general, most of the things that are required from the Community of Christ in this purchase are in the south.

Gerrit I mean, primarily south part of Old Nauvoo, but south and if anything to the west. Of course, Nauvoo sits on a giant, giant river bend. All of these properties, the Joseph Smith Home, the Mansion House, the Nauvoo House, they are all essentially city corner from one another. They're all in the same corner of this same block that is right up against the river if you're looking at a map. And so these are the sites that were often toured by people going to the Community of Christ Visitors Center, and then you could organize a tour to go to the Joseph Smith Home, their homestead, the Mansion House, and then also the Nauvoo House. Now, in recent years, there were very, very, very few tours of the Nauvoo House.

Gerrit It was, however, still being used for some like youth activities and reunions and stuff like that. The interior has running water now. And so we actually, when we were there for a student group, I was there with a bunch of BYU students for this, this travel study program that they do through the religion department. We would have dinner in the main floor of the Nauvoo house, is where we would all get together and have dinner after working on the archaeological digs where we were trying to dig up where the suspected site, the believed to be site of Hyrum Smith's store was. And we were doing that with students. My kids were involved in it. That, by the way, is also one of the things that was sold back to the sold to the church in this exchange was that believed to be site of the Hyrum Smith store.

Gerrit You know, if you look at the if you look at the list near the bottom of the list, it starts showing things in all of these lots and block 140. Sorry, block 149 is the one where the Hyrum Smith office site is believed to be. And you'll notice that is right up against the river. That's also the site where at one point the Times and Seasons newspaper office was. Now, when you go to Nauvoo, they do have another Times and Seasons newspaper office site because they move locations during that time. You have multiple things that are all right there, right along the river. The fact that they're all right along the river has actually made their preservation incredibly difficult in part because the river, though the water level of the river was raised when a dam was constructed across the river.

Gerrit Right across from Nauvoo, there's a dam and it made the river much higher. And so it brought that water level much closer than it would have been back in the time. And so as you might imagine, first of all, Illinois in and of itself is not exactly a super arid climate. It rains there and it rains there a lot. So already water is an issue for the preservation of these things. Now add not just a river, the largest river in North America, throw that next to it. And you can imagine that you have problem both from groundwater, you have problems from rainwater, from drainage. When the river floods, where do you think it goes? I'll tell you exactly where it goes, right into the Nauvoo house. Because I've been there before when we were sandbagging, trying to keep the water from getting in there. And Joseph Smith's, Joseph and Hyrum's graves are also there, adjacent to the Joseph Smith homestead.

Gerrit Now, the cemetery, including their graves, that did not, that was not part of this sale. Specifically states that it's not part of this sale. And as you can imagine, there are many descendants in the community of Christ, including their, essentially their head of their historic sites in Nauvoo, Lachlan Mackay, who's an apostle. He's a direct descendant of Joseph Smith. And so that cemetery isn't just a nice, historic idea for him. That cemetery is literally where his, you know, his great-grandfather's buried, right? So it makes sense to me that those stayed within the possession of the Smith family in the community of Christ. But the other things there, essentially all of them, at least the ones that I'm aware of looking at these.

Gerrit They were all part of the sale and transferred back to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this sale. The import again of all these things is massive. I mean, these are the homes Joseph lived in. Many of the revelations or inspirations that Joseph received came in these homes, came in the mansion house, came in the Nauvoo house. The Nauvoo house itself is mentioned multiple times in Revelation as being something that the Lord urges the Saints to complete. And so it's a pretty powerful thing. It's a powerful thing to have back, to have under the control of our Church, these historic sites that gratefully, the community of Christ preserved so incredibly well, as the joint statement said. Not everything historically gets preserved.

Gerrit There are all kinds of things that were once important homes lived in by most important historic people that are now a Taco Bell with a Pizza Hut attached to it. Progress doesn't care a whole lot about history. And so thankfully, Emma first by staying in those places, and her descendants maintained and preserved all of these places so that we have the ability to visit them and not just say, Oh, hey, this is probably a nice replica of what the mansion house used to look like. No, this is literally the mansion house. This is it. So let's go read from Joseph's Journal or from a letter that he writes where he talks about someone coming in the mansion house, and you know exactly where it is and exactly what he's talking about.

Gerrit Like all historic sites, you can read about them all day long, every day. But when you go to them, it is, there is a powerful connection that you just can't get otherwise, that that powerful connection to the past. I feel the same way with documents. One other major building, well, there's two other major buildings in Nauvoo that were returned. There's lots of different buildings. But one of the major buildings is the Red Brick Store. Now, the Red Brick Store is not original. The Red Brick Store is, you know, like the Joseph Smith Farmhouse, you know, the log cabin in Palmyra, is a recreation, you know, of what you think it was by the basis of images you have, by statements of it.

Gerrit It shares the same space. It's on the same foundation, and they even try to use some of the same materials. But it is a recreation. The Red Brick Store, of course, incredible because this is where the Relief Society is organized. This is where the Relief Society is going to meet at times. This is where Joseph Smith is going to begin giving the Holy Endowment to a very select few people at first, long before the Nauvoo Temple has its roof closed in and the ordinance room is ready to roll. Joseph is passing on this higher level understanding and temple ordinance privately there in the Red Brick Store. And we have multiple people who talk about that experience, like Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, talking about the receipt of their temple endowments outside of the temple there in that Red Brick Store.

Gerrit So that replica store is also part of this purchase, as well as the visitor center that is there in Nauvoo. Although it appears that this agreement, for whatever legal reason, it's being leased at first with kind of an option to buy. So I think that that will still technically belong to the community of Christ, but our church will have possession of it. Have I been boring enough for you yet?

Richard No, that's good stuff. It is pretty cool to have been at those places and now to have them back in position. It was interesting as we read the statement. The community of Christ has kind of shifted and changed a little bit, or quite a bit actually, as it relates to some of the things that they believe. I don't look at this as being a sad thing for the community of Christ. They don't look at it that way either, as it allows for them to use that money to focus on the things that are important to them now. And they know that we're going to be a good caretaker of these places.

Gerrit Yeah, and the price tag, $192.5 million for everything altogether, and that wasn't broken down by property. People ask, what do you think of that cost? If anything, I think that it's low. The Kirtland Temple alone probably could have garnered somewhere in that neighborhood.

Richard That's a steal of a deal, man.

Gerrit Especially to people who are wishing someday to break that six-figure salary themselves. I like to talk about $192.5 million as being almost nothing.

Richard That's funny. One of the questions that I know that we received from friends of the show about the Joseph Smith translation, well, now that we have ownership of that, is that something that you would foresee us using more? I thought you gave a really good answer to that.

Gerrit Well, so the Joseph Smith translation has a really long, complicated history, just like our history with the Community of Christ is really long and really complicated. I mean, as you might imagine, this was not always a good relationship. I mean, one of the frequently asked questions was, what's the relationship between the Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Well, it's a really, really, really good relationship right now. But, you know, it's a really good relationship right now. It tells you something, right? I mean, look, France and England have a really strong alliance right now. But there was also the Hundred Years' War, which lasted longer than a hundred years, where they were fighting one another, right? So, you know, the reality is, because different people were claiming that they had the authority to lead the church after Joseph's death, you understand how it would end up being a kind of acrimonious relationship, with our church claiming that the keys and power and authority go with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Gerrit And of course, not only was it the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, but the majority of the membership, the majority of the church records, I mean, the majority of the church moves to Salt Lake. And there, of course, after years and years and years of horrific persecution, undergoes unprecedented and remarkable growth to the point where you have, you know, roughly 17 million Latter-day Saints today worldwide. So my guess is for most Latter-day Saints over the last 25 years or so, they don't have a ton of ill feelings towards the community of Christ. Mainly, they probably don't ever think about it at all, actually. That's what I would guess the majority is. I mean, your average member of the church probably goes the entire, they certainly think about the Roman Empire more often than they think about the community of Christ, especially if it's a man.

Gerrit And I think that that's very different than what it would have been at the turn of the 20th century. I mean, at the turn of the 20th century, I mean, when you have Joseph F. Smith, the son of Hiram, as the head of our church, and Joseph Smith III, the son of Joseph Smith, as the head of their church, you can see how those competing truth claims led to a great deal of acrimony. And, you know, the reorganized church would send missionaries out to Utah to try to convert people to the true way. And I mean, much of their claims rested on the argument that Joseph had never taught or practiced polygamy, and so that was an easy argument to win with most people. And of course, our church sent missionaries out there to try to sway people back to our church.

Gerrit Once the church began to get much, much larger and globalized, the kind of, you know, fraternal fighting that's going on between brothers, it matters a lot less. In part because our churches, its scope was so much larger given the millions and millions and millions of members, that it was no longer concerned that a couple of reorganized missionaries showing up in Salt Lake is going to be the death knell of our religion, right? Eventually just demographics matter, numbers matter. You're thinking, why in the world did I make that?

Richard Way to avoid the question.

Gerrit So what I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to become the new White House spokesperson. And I figure whoever wins the coming presidential election, they'll have listened to this podcast clearly. And they'll think, you know what? I need someone who can talk for 20 minutes, say nothing, provide no information, and unless it's about Augustus Gloop. But even that will come from Richard. That will be the deputy press secretary that will give us that information. If you're wondering what that's about, you need to listen to the premium content because we have a lot of Augustus Glooping going on in the most recent premium content. So because the reason why I talk about the history, the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon was in the possession of Oliver Cowdery when Oliver Cowdery dies. And he dies at his brother-in-law's house in Missouri and his brother-in-law is David Whitmer because Oliver is married to David's sister.

Gerrit So that manuscript wasn't in the possession of the community of Christ at first, but eventually one of David Whitmer's grandsons sells it and it's purchased by them and they own it. And then several years ago, as this release talks about, that was purchased. The Bible manuscript, these are the Joseph Smith translation manuscripts. So these are him going through the Bible with Sidney Rigdon, with Frederick G. Williams, making alterations to the King James Bible text. Those manuscripts not only stayed with Emma. Emma had them and so she kept them and they're part of their family property, their family papers. But for the longest time, we didn't have, you know, Latter-day Saints in Utah, Mountain Saints, didn't have any access to them.

Gerrit Meaning when the reorganized church published their Bible that they called the inspired version that incorporated all of Joseph Smith's changes to the Bible, it was at a time when our two churches were at their most acrimonious basically. And so we didn't have a way of actually seeing the manuscripts to know what was included and what wasn't. It wasn't until the 20th century that we were able to do that. And then, of course, eventually we start incorporating parts of the Joseph Smith translation into our King James version of the Bible and the version of footnotes. And then, of course, you have Joseph Smith Matthew, right? Because Joseph makes so many changes to Matthew that we create its own book, basically, rather than have a million footnotes there. Well, the question of, well, now that we have the manuscripts, will we incorporate more?

Gerrit I actually don't think the possession of the manuscripts has a whole lot to do with it, because we already had scans of it. And if you'd like to see what those manuscripts look like, they are all available on josephsmithpapers.org. You can go there. Under revelations and translations, you can see these original Bible manuscripts. Now, it might seem like a little bit paranoid, the fact that they didn't incorporate more of this until they were able to see the original copies. But as I said before on the podcast, there's actually one place that I know of in the New Testament where the edition that's listed as a Joseph Smith edition is actually in the handwriting of Joseph Smith III. And so therefore, maybe that's the reason why, because they continued to revise it as well. I think in future editions of the King James Bible, there may be more attempts to put more Joseph Smith translation into it.

Gerrit But much of the Joseph Smith translation is not terribly substantive. You know what I mean? Like there's a few places where a couple of words are added or changed, but they don't change the meaning of the verse at all. And so it's hard to believe that whatever all be ultimately included in there. Again, you can always go check that. There are multiple books that have been published that show them in comparison side by side. And then you can always, without buying a book, you can go to josephsmithpapers.org and you can see both the Old Testament and New Testament manuscripts and see the alterations that are made. But I don't think this will change. This won't be a driving force in whether or not more of the Joseph Smith translation is included in the footnoting. I think we've already made the decision as a church and this could change tomorrow because I have no ability to make decisions or have any keys or anything like that.

Gerrit But we've already kind of made the decision as a church that we're not going to use as our Bible, a Bible that has all of Joseph Smith's changes incorporated directly into it. That's not because we don't believe that Joseph Smith was inspired to make them. My guess is it has a lot more to do with the fact that already the biggest problem we have as Latter-day Saints is convincing people we believe in the Bible. Handing them a Bible that's different than any other Bible they've ever seen is not a very good way to win that argument. No, no, we totally believe in the Bible. What's this? Let's Joseph Smith's Bible. I knew it. I knew it. You're not Christians. I would guess that those things will go differently at pace through the Scripture Committee, but it won't be terribly affected by that. But it is pretty awesome that we have those manuscripts, that those will be in the Church Archives.

Gerrit In part, I mean, not just to be able to say, oh, let's spike the football, but because these are brittle and old manuscripts, the care and preservation of some of these things is incredibly expensive. There are entire rooms in the Church Archives dedicated to preserving things properly, at the proper humidity, at the proper light, at the proper temperature. And so the nice part is, is that not only having these documents, it's great to be able to see them and have access to them, which you already do through the Joseph Smith Papers, but you know that they're going to be preserved. That's one of the things you talked about, Richard, that these sites, on the bright side, those of the Community of Christ, to whom these sites really mattered still, it's not like they no longer have access to go to them.

Gerrit They're still open, and we have all of our sites open to everyone. As I said, the Nauvoo House already, you generally couldn't get a tour of. That was a very special request if you were going to get a tour of it, and it wasn't really set up for tours. Maybe with our church taking over, there will be an attempt to have tours there. My assumption is there's going to be many, many, many more missionaries in the next couple of months that are being called to the historic sites in Nauvoo or to the historic sites in Kirtland, because you now have many more things that you need to, because, you know, this is right on the heels of the church opening as a historic site, the Joseph Smith Home in Kirtland. Now that was something we had gotten as well from the Community of Christ a while ago, but we've, you know, renovated it and made it available for tours, and that's starting this year as well.

Gerrit So there's going to be a bigger footprint of historic sites for our church in those places, not just from the acquisitions, but also from the other places that we are bringing online as they are being rebuilt, rediscovered, and that goes along with the planned major, you know, renovation, expansion, changing to the Nauvoo Visitor Center, that that's going to be a very big deal as well. So it certainly seems that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints has made a decision to be very committed to historic sites and this type of public history that allows believers and non-believers alike to go and view these things. But the reality is the vast, vast, vast majority of people who go to these things are believers, right?

Gerrit I mean, sure, there's the occasional like, all right, what is there to do? I took a wrong turn out of Chicago and I drove for four hours and I ran into the Mississippi River. What is there to do around here? Looks like there's corn and maybe I can go to this Mormon handicraft place. I mean, so there's certainly some non-Latter-day saints who go to these venues, but I think the purpose they serve primarily is their pilgrimage sites for us. These are the places, these are the buildings that our revelations are connected to. These are the places that our doctrines are connected to. And when you have a history like the Latter-day saints do, that is one of oppression and persecution and being driven out of the places that you live, being able to go back to those places in a way connects us to those who came before us.

Gerrit I know that Becky had told us, she probably won't be happy we say this, but luckily she usually listens to this pretty delayed. So by the time she hears about it, maybe she'll be mad at Richard for something else.

Richard I do a lot of stupid things.

Gerrit Well, my hope is that I'm going to need you to come through with something just to distract her. She talked about how when she first heard the announcement that she really felt the spirit of all of her ancestors who on both sides of her family, who helped build the Kirtland Temple, that it brought that to mind to her in a very powerful and spiritual way.

Richard Yeah, I will say it was actually, she was so excited about the Kirtland Temple specifically as she had ancestors that were part of the building of that Kirtland Temple. I come primarily from recent converts. I don't have as much of a connection to the Kirtland Temple that my wife does, but it was a powerful thing, nearly emotional for her to be able to have that connection. We've been to the Kirtland Temple several times as a family. My favorite time is when we went. It was a smaller group. We had a little bit more time, and my son was able to play the Spirit of God on the piano as we sung the first verse altogether. Sometimes they let you do that. It was incredible. My wife got emotional about that. It was an incredible thing, and it is very exciting. I mean, one of the things that was really fun about the announcement is all the excitement from members of the Church about these things and this connection to these places.

Richard As we, as the community of Christ has had adjustments and changes to doctrine and beliefs over the past, you know, several years, these places to us are both have that sacred historic nature, but then are still linked to the modern beliefs of the returning of the ceiling power and of the gathering of Israel and of all of these things that are pretty special. And I will say one other thing, Gerrit, that will be fun, is we have tours in both places. We had reserved times through the community of Christ Church to be able to go through many of these places. And it will be a fun mad dash as we try now to book these things with our church and see how that goes.

Gerrit We had appointments for all of them. And I'm assuming we no longer do. But since they don't have any information that will go up until March 25th, there's a chance we'll be standing in a queue line outside, pretending to be non-Mormons so that they'll let us in.

Richard That is really key to getting ahead. It's the genie pass for Disneyland in anything LDS. Oh, this is new and strange to me.

Gerrit I'm a Presbyterian. What is it that you Mormons believe? And the next thing you know, you're being whisked away to the temple. But it will be interesting to see how these fit in with the current Kirtland side. For those of you who haven't been to Kirtland, we have a robust presence there already, but it's primarily centered around the Newell K. Whitney store, the Newell K. Whitney home, because Joseph, of course, lives in both places. And of course, there's many revelations there. And then, of course, there's the John Johnson home, which is in Hiram, Ohio, which is an hour away or so if you're on a bus, where Joseph Smith received doctrine in Covenant Section 76. That's also where he was tarred and feathered and mobbed. Having both the Joseph Smith home in Kirtland, which we already had but now is open, and then the Kirtland Temple, I really think will help complete all of this.

Gerrit Already, when we lead tours there, we always try to end with the temple. Because it's kind of symbolic in a way, right? Because we start out on the East Coast. We're not even doing Latter-day Saint history. We're talking about whether or not Armistead was able to hold Fort McHenry against British ships that are bombarding it. It's fun, nice American history. Go to Gettysburg and on down the line. But then you get to Palmyra, and you start with the story of Joseph, and you move to the translation of the Book of Mormon. And then you move to the printing of the Book of Mormon. And then you move to Joseph's arrival in Kirtland, following the revelations. And the culmination of everything Joseph had done up to that point in his life was giving that dedicatory prayer, the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

Gerrit It represents so much sacrifice. I mean, as you might imagine, people who have just been driven out of their homes aren't exactly the ones who have a whole lot of money to put up to build a religious structure. And yet you see average Latter-day Saints giving of their time, giving of their money, desperately trying to complete the Kirtland Temple. And when it's completed, you have an outpouring of the Spirit that is like the day of Pentecost in Acts. It is angels appearing. It is visions of the Father and the Son. It is people feeling raised up with power in ways they hadn't felt before. It is cloven tongues of fire. It is revelations. It's the Lord Jesus appearing to people. It is an incredible holy place.

Gerrit And it is special to know that the church that Jesus still presides over now has stewardship over the place where Jesus walked, there in the Kirtland Temple. For the Nauvoo holdings, the Joseph Smith, like I said, the red brick store is not original, but it's the airspace. It is the place where the Relief Society was founded. This massive, incredible women's organization that is changing the lives of people all over the world, founded right there. The initial endowment given by Joseph Smith right there. The home that Joseph lived in, the mansion house, the Nauvoo house, these are all holy, sacred places.

Gerrit And there's other pretty cool documents too. There's the Joseph Smith letters that were transferred. One of the ones that's near and dear to my heart is the Book of Mormon Characters document. That document is one that we worked on early on when we were working on the Joseph Smith Papers. And it's a document that has a whole bunch of reformed Egyptian characters essentially on it with no explanation of what they are except for the top being characters. It is certainly the most extensive characters document, has the most characters on it, but is believed to be copied from something copied directly from the plates. And so you have this connection to the gold plates in that document. I can't see the gold plates because I'm not Mary Whitmer and I don't have enough faith, I guess, but I can see and look at the characters document with the characters that were drawn off of the gold plates.

Gerrit The very fact that document exists is a testament to the reality of the gold plates. The Book of Mormon's centrality to our religion, Joseph Smith's centrality to our religion. Now again, both, they're both central because of Jesus, but what we believe about Jesus, what we believe about the purpose of this life, what we believe about what will come after this life, well, they come from the Book of Mormon that comes from Joseph Smith. They come from the revelations of the Lord given to Joseph Smith. They come from the other translations given by the Lord to Joseph Smith. And so these documents and these buildings, they start to become more than just some old brick and mortar or some old paper that wasn't yet destroyed.

Gerrit They start to take on a power in and of themselves because I really, really believe. And when I look at the character's document, when I see the New Testament translation, when I read that letter to Emma from Joseph, I feel the Holy Spirit testified to me that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the revelations he received are from God. I mean, you could spend all kinds of time going through everything that's part of this. I mean, some of the items that were in the museums and the archives of the Community of Christ have also been transferred. Some things like original parts of the Kirtland Temple that you could see usually when you went there. Two Nauvoo Temple Moonstones, part of the original Nauvoo Temple.

Gerrit The cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. I mean, there's a lot of things that are there, including these homes, but of course the one everyone's going to focus on, and rightly so, is the first temple built in the dispensation of the Fullness of Times. And the place where the Lord appeared multiple times to prepare Joseph, not only to prepare him doctrinally, but to prepare him spiritually for the further light and knowledge he's going to receive. Now, we talk a lot about the endowment, but of course in the Kirtland Temple, there was an initial endowment, the first stages of the endowment, where Joseph performs the washing of the feet of many of the apostles and other leaders and their wives in the church. That is later understood once the fullness of the endowment is revealed. So I mean, I don't know really how to fully describe how special this is to me.

Gerrit It's certainly special to my brother, Dallin, who he's been wanting the Kirtland Temple to be back in the hands of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a very long time. In fact, he at one point was planning to try to create his own charity to have people donate money towards trying to buy it. So he was very stoked and very excited. I know there's lots of members who feel the same way. And because it is such a key part of our history. I mean, it's in the Kirtland Temple that Joseph learns that Alvin can still go to the Celestial Kingdom. I mean, talk about an expansion of who can be exalted. That comes there. So the Kirtland properties, the Nauvoo properties, these documents, they really are priceless.

Gerrit Someone said to me, how long do you think it will be before the first person criticizes the fact that the church spent money to buy buildings when they could have just fed all of the poor in the world? Well, luckily, that's what the mission of the Community of Christ is, actually. Their plan is to, you know, they do outreach and charity work. But in all seriousness, it's not like the church took this money and gave it to a group of venture capitalists who are planning to try to, you know, bring in a major league soccer team, okay? The Community of Christ is, that's the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's their name now. They are desperately engaged in trying to promote peace around the world and trying to do charitable acts. Our church does them as well, but my point is this is not a transfer of money to some corporation that is now going to use it as part of their buyout package for their executives.

Gerrit This is a holy organization dedicated to Jesus that maybe no longer stresses some of the same great things that we all do now, but still are an incredibly positive impact in the world. And as Richard said, over the course of time, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon have become less and less central to their mission. They have adopted things like a Trinitarian creed. The Book of Mormon is still considered scripture, but it is secondary to the Bible. And in fact, many of the congregations of the Community of Christ don't use the Book of Mormon at all, especially the international congregations.

Gerrit Many of them don't even know that Joseph Smith was their founder. Richard can tell you, you can go to a Baptist college, and none of them know that Roger Williams was their founder.

Richard Yes, no, it was a well-placed joke. I mentioned it before, I went to the Baylor-BYU game. The folks in Waco were lovely. I had Roger Williams shaking hands with Brigham Young on a screen-printed shirt, and Roger Williams saying, Welcome to the Big 12. And no one at Baylor knew who Roger Williams was.

Gerrit They probably knew who Brigham Young was, though.

Richard They all knew who Brigham Young was.

Gerrit Right, so they even recognized the picture of Brigham Young.

Richard 100%, they're like, who's he shaking hands with?

Gerrit And I'm like, who's this clown shaking Brigham Young's hand? It's like literally the founder of your religion. Oh, go figure. Go Bears. But I mean, so look, we are unique in the sense that among Protestants, we don't call ourselves Protestants, among non-Catholics, right, that history really, really, really matters to us. History matters to a lot of Christians. I'm not saying it doesn't. But history is essential to us because we're making claims about doctrine that all other Christians reject, and those doctrines come from the Prophet Joseph Smith and from the revelations he received. The Book of Mormon is declaring doctrines that other Christians don't believe. Its very existence is something that other Christians don't believe. And you will find thousands of people inside the Community of Christ who absolutely still reverence Joseph Smith, who absolutely believe him to be a prophet, who reverence the Book of Mormon, but it's no longer a central part of their mission.

Gerrit And so while it's very difficult for the people for whom Joseph Smith is still very much central to their beliefs, I think that it was a practical decision for the community of Christ as a whole, because their mission is something different now. It's something that they are trying to pursue as they try to pursue peace and charity and love and do all the wonderful work they're doing in the world. Those sites are no longer as essential to them telling their story. It doesn't matter that much if you have the place where the first temple endowments were given, if the temple endowment is not a part of your theology. If the temple endowment is a part of your theology, where those took place is a pretty big deal.

Gerrit And it's that way for a lot of things surrounding that. That for us, we reverence and treasure and hold as Scripture the revelations and teachings of Joseph Smith, even the unpopular ones, even the ones that people don't want to talk about, even the ones that people hide around, even the ones that make other Christians look at us sideways. We hold them to be the Word of God. And I think as it relates to those Nauvoo properties, I wasn't terribly surprised that they eventually were sold because of that, because so much of the worldwide community of Christ has moved away from Nauvoo being a central part of their story. In fact, one of the apostles who gave us our tour the last time we went, one of the apostles of the Community of Christ, who gave us our tour of the Joseph Smith home and the mansion home the last time we were there, his name's Locke Mackay, and he's an amazing man, direct descendant of Joseph Smith, a more Christian man I don't know that I've ever met in my life.

Gerrit I mean, whatever it is a Latter-day Saint has to think about people that are, you know, members of the reorganized movement. The words of Christ are sunk deep into Locke's soul, because you can feel the love of Jesus from him every time he speaks. You feel it. You know it. And when we last toured there, someone asked the inevitable question. When you take people there on a tour, right, you try to prep them, because you don't want them to be rude. You know, you don't want them to be like, hey, so like, how come you guys like, don't like believe in the Book of Mormon? I mean, of course they do. You know what I mean? Like, I heard that you guys were just trying to get money from the National Council of Churches, and that's the reason why. I mean, like there's all kinds of things that people will say that, you know, you wouldn't say in polite company if you spent more time thinking about it. Like, oh, maybe I won't ask that.

Gerrit And so someone asked, so, you know, what is it that you believe that's different than us? And Locke had the most tender response to a question that he could. I mean, look, he could take that question in a lot of ways. He could take that question and be like, well, for starters, we don't believe in polygamy. I mean, you know, I mean, like he could have, he could have rolled out hard, you know, like, well, unlike all you adulterers who went to Utah, you know, I mean, he could have done that. Instead, he smiled and he said, you know, I think many members of the Community of Christ, we feel ourselves more connected to the mission of the Church when it was in Kirtland, to the idea of building Zion and spreading love and peace throughout the world. And you, you members from Utah, from the West, you're more like Nauvoo Mormons, where you're focused on the doctrines and teachings that Joseph Smith reveals in Nauvoo.

Gerrit It was one of the kindest and accurate ways that you could have described the difference between the two faiths that honored both of them and that everyone standing there, whether they were the Community of Christ intern that was with him or our church, everyone there was like, yeah, that's exactly what we think. I mean, yep, you're right. That's where we're at. And so it is, it's an incredible thing. I think Richard is going to drop as a bonus a previous episode that we've done on the Hosanna Shout because it talks all about the Kirtland Temple dedication. Is that right, Richard?

Richard Yeah, it does. Well, so Gerrit, I mean, the thing is when we dropped it, it was October 5th of last year. There was so much going on in the news. Kaiser Permanente had just gone on strike.

Gerrit Yes.

Richard We just hit a big heat record in September. Sand Bankman Fried was on trial with opening arguments. I don't know that people really were able to capture the full vision of what you talked about with the Kirtland Temple, its dedication and the Hosanna Shout. So we wanted to re-release that. It's a more traditional Standard of Truth episode that is very timely. So we'll release that as a bonus.

Gerrit Would it be hilarious if when people come to the live in-person event, it's just we just put an old one on repeat? Like they come in, they sit down. I'm not even there. It's just Richard and he goes up to the podium and he pushes play and then just walks out, says nothing, walks out. It's not even a good one. I don't even know if there are any good episodes, but it's not even a good one.

Richard The martyrdom ones are good. So I'd play that one.

Gerrit Right. But then there's multiple parts. So then you're like, no, you're tapping your watch. It's time. It's time. We thought we were going to do questions. Well, you thought wrong. We'll see you later.

Other That would be great.

Gerrit I already have some questions that I plan to answer at the live event. And just a taste of this, I'm going to mention the word polygamy.

Richard Oh my gosh.

Gerrit I'm going to be answering a question that has to do with plural marriage.

Richard Oh my gosh.

Gerrit I'm going to be answering a question that has to do with plural marriage.

Richard We have about 10 tickets still available, something like that.

Gerrit We're not trying to sell any more tickets, I don't think.

Richard No, it's pretty exciting. It should be a lot of fun as I go up there and push play and Gerrit's at home watching college basketball.

Gerrit Yeah, because it's going to be the Pac-12 championship right at the exact same time. So is Arizona going to be able to get that one seed? That's the real question. Thank you so much for joining us. I know this wasn't a normal episode, but it was trying to be a timely episode. I just want to express again how grateful I am to the church for securing these sites and these documents because they are holy and they are sacred to me and they mean a lot to me and are a part of my testimony. And so I'm glad to know that they will be forever safe, that they'll be protected, and that people have access to go to these holy, sacred places. So thanks so much for joining us.

Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

The Church Acquires the Kirtland Temple and Nauvoo Properties

Chapters

Transcript

Quote board

Source shelf

Joint statement of the Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, March 5, 2024

Stephen M. Veazey, president of Community of Christ, in the joint statement

Russell M. Nelson, in the joint statement

Church Newsroom, "Responsibility and Ownership of Sacred Sites" frequently asked questions

Revelation commanding the Saints to build the Nauvoo House

1842 index map of Nauvoo, by lot and block

Printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith Translation (Bible) manuscripts

Inspired Version of the Bible (Reorganized Church)

Joseph Smith—Matthew

Seven letters from Joseph Smith to Emma Smith

"Characters" document (Book of Mormon characters)

Acts 2

D&C 137

D&C 76

Episode quiz

About how many text messages did Gerrit get the day the acquisition was announced?

Fun with Numbers

From 1842 to 1847

Money said on air

Percentages said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words

More from this episode

Claim check

Take it to class

Banter bin

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

In General Conference

Go deeper

The Church Acquires the Kirtland Temple and Nauvoo Properties

Breaking news, 150 years late

Joint statement of the Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, March 5, 2024

Stephen M. Veazey, president of Community of Christ, in the joint statement

Russell M. Nelson, in the joint statement

Church Newsroom, "Responsibility and Ownership of Sacred Sites" frequently asked questions

Revelation commanding the Saints to build the Nauvoo House

1842 index map of Nauvoo, by lot and block

Printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith Translation (Bible) manuscripts

Inspired Version of the Bible (Reorganized Church)

Joseph Smith—Matthew

Seven letters from Joseph Smith to Emma Smith

"Characters" document (Book of Mormon characters)

Acts 2

D&C 137

D&C 76

About how many text messages did Gerrit get the day the acquisition was announced?

From 1842 to 1847

Money said on air

Percentages said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words