What happened to the Latter Day Saint movement after it fractured? We discuss the fascination history on RLDS & Bickertonite views about temples. While Brigham Young led his followers West to build physical temples in Utah, multiple restoration branches took a completely different path—formally rejecting Nauvoo theology, secret endowments, and polygamy.

We dive into the fascinating, competitive, and highly diverse world of non-LDS temples. Discover how the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) built the massive Auditorium in Independence, Missouri—which historian John Hamer argues was secretly designed as a Kirtland-style temple—before dedicating their famous spiral temple in 1984 under Wallace B. Smith.

We also explore:

RLDS & Bickertonite Views About Temples

  • The Battle for the Temple Lot: How Granville Hedrick’s followers returned to Jackson County in 1867 and purchased the original plot where 24 temples were once planned.
  • The Great Depression’s Forgotten Temple: Why Otto Fetting’s attempt to construct a Greek-style temple on the Temple Lot in the 1930s left a massive excavation hole—and why former President Harry Truman asked to have it filled in.
  • The Bickertonite Chasm: Why William Bickerton abandoned Brigham Young’s church after polygamy was announced in 1852, choosing to reject physical temples entirely while embracing radical inclusivity—including ordaining deaconesses in the 1860s and calling an African-American apostle.
  • Tongues and the “Smith Corpus”: A fascinating discussion on why groups that rejected Joseph Smith’s later revelations (like the Doctrine and Covenants) successfully preserved early Kirtland Pentecostal gifts like speaking in tongues, while the mainstream LDS Church largely phased them out.

We’re taking a deep dive into Virtual, Vodou, and Fundy Temples. It’s a fascinating look at secret and highly controversial world of divergent temples and modern groups of the Restoration. Following the assassination of Joseph Smith, the temple liturgy fractured like a prism, scattering the sacred rites of the Restoration in vastly different directions.

Lost Rites of Mormonism:

Discover early temple ordinances that the mainstream LDS Church left behind, including the Law of Adoption (sealing members to prominent church leaders rather than biological parents), baptisms for health (ritual immersion for physical healing), and the controversial Oath of Vengeance.

The 1978 Breaking Point: Understand how early 20th-century alterations to the endowment and the 1978 revelation lifting the racial ban on Black members became the “last straw” for fundamentalists, who believed mainstream temples were defiled and set out to build their own sacred spaces.

Inside Secret Sanctuaries of Fundy Temples:

Go behind the scenes of Warren Jeffs’ isolated YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and the dramatic 2008 paramilitary raid sparked by a hoax call. Plus, hear about an exclusive interview conducted inside the temple of Christ’s Church (the Righteous Branch) in Nevada, where they still practice the multi-hour 1877 St. George endowment and perform second anointings.

Decentralized and Progressive Temples:

Explore Missouri Independents who reject the traditional fundamentalist racial ban to allow Black members to receive full temple ordinances, and the progressive Church of Jesus Christ in Christian Fellowship (CJCCF) & Reform Mormons. Both churches conduct virtual temple worship over Zoom using “home temples” and ordain women to the priesthood.

Mormonism Meets Haitian Vodou:

Learn how Haitian Latter-day Saints engage in “bricolage,” beautifully blending Mormon temple theology about the thin veil between the living and the dead with indigenous Vodou ancestral veneration.

What are your impressions of these non-LDS temple practices?