Review
======

Title: Temple Worship
Author: Andrew C. Skinner
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: doctrinal
Year Published: 2007
Number of Pages: 206 plus notes, sources, photo credits and index
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 13: 978-1-59038-805-1
Price:

Reviewed by Andrea Stacy

Before turning to Andrew Skinner’s book, I must thank him for a lovely quote from C.S. Lewis I believe should be recited at the start of every church meeting: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”

I was struggling with this review, trying to figure out how to say “Temple Worship” is a good book and worth reading, when most of my notes on it were-grumbles. It *is* a good book, and it *is* worth reading (although I’m not sure there would be a lot of benefit to those who have never been through the temple for themselves.) But it wasn’t until I sat down to write, flipping back through the pages, rereading all the passages I’d underlined, that I understood the faulty premise behind my disappointment.

I had been hoping (should one fault an author for failing to produce what one desires?) this book would indeed be about worship, filled perhaps with personal experiences-not necessarily the author’s-that would inspire and reinvigorate my commitment to temple service. But while I read with interest, because I enjoy Brother Skinner’s clear style of writing, his command of scripture, and his enormous fund of intriguing and informative sources (splendid quotations), I also read with a degree of disengagement. The path to worship I was seeking was absent. (This might be due partly to the nature of writing about what happens in temples, and the author’s reluctance to tread too firmly on sacred ground. At times this author skirts around temple activity so effectively that a reader might well believe the “secret rather than sacred” line.) But back to my absent path. There was indeed, a path to worship, not paved in personal stories, but in the glorious, powerful doctrines found in scripture and prophetic utterance.

Brother Skinner slowly and effectively (for the most part) lays out the wide-ranging doctrines and concepts (Adam & Eve, sealings, atonement, personal revelation, sacrifice, God’s plans, etc.) that lead to an understanding of the eternal why of temples. His ideas are often expansions of common gospel threads that give the reader much to explore.

In his chapter, “Priesthood Power and Priesthood Organization”, he quotes Alma 13:13, finding 3 important facts therein, the third being:

“…all things in our premortal existence were done in accord with a preparatory redemption. That is to say, the atonement of Jesus Christ already operated on our behalf in premortality in preparation for our mortal sojourn. His infinite and eternal atonement-meaning it was effective both before and after mortality-made it possible for us to enter mortality without stain or guilt, unmarred, born with a clean slate, so to speak.” (p.39)

He returns to this theme in the next chapter, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ,” quoting Orson Pratt writing similarly, and then speculates that the reason those cast out of the Father’s presence after the rebellion is “that they ultimately and finally refused to accept not just the role of Jesus as our Redeemer but also the means by which their rebellion could have been forgiven, namely the atonement of Jesus Christ, which was operative in our premortal existence.” (pp. 51,52)

In his chapter, “The Sealing Ordinances”, the author writes:

“Some aspects inherent in the sealing power of the priesthood are more perceptible and obvious than others. One dramatic and visible aspect is control over the elements: the sealing and unsealing of the heavens and the invocation and revocation of famine (see 1 Kings 17:1; 18:41-45; Helaman 10:7; 11:5). Thus, the sealing power gives its possessor power over all things on earth and the right and ability to have his actions recognized and ratified in heaven by the Father. It is stunning to realize that the sealing together of husbands, wives, and children is done by the same power that seals shut the heavens or changes the elements of the earth.” (p. 72)

After quoting Joseph Smith regarding the physical effect of the Holy Ghost on people not literally descended from Abraham, he writes:

“In parallel fashion, if the various powers and forces employed by the Holy Ghost can change the nature or characteristics of physical matter, including blood or the elements, surely the effects of the sealing powers upon members of a specific family is more than just metaphorical.” (p. 73,74)

This is one of the few instances where the author advances the kind of argument-assumption of fact without evidence-I expect to find “on the livingroom couch”, but not in a doctrinal book. It is a conclusion, possibly, even probably, true, but offered with only personal faith as support.

(He does make me desire to return soon to the temple, to see if I can find what he finds there-and hope I will not be left feeling as discouraged as I did after hearing that President McKay said he always learned something new whenever he went to the temple!)

Apart from the writing, one of the delights of this book are the photographs. Each chapter begins with a black and white close up of an architectural detail from a temple (all identified in the back of the book). These are intriguing, offering views most of us will never otherwise see, and open more doors for reflection.

As always, I have more passages marked than is suitable for quoting in a review, but I would like to close with these-and a strong recommendation to read “Temple Worship”.

“I am sobered and humbled to think (and it is no exaggeration to say) that not only am I sealed to kings and queens, gods and goddesses, but I was born to be a king, to become royalty in the eternities-and so were you. All those who gain exaltation in the celestial kingdom ‘receive the fullness of the power, might, and dominion of that kingdom. They overcome all things. They are crowned as priests and kings [priestesses and queens] and become like [God]. (Smith, “Doctrines of Salvation” 2:24) That is the essence of everything we learn in the Lord’s temples.” (p. 105)

“Can we even begin to imagine what rejoicing occurs, what tears of joy are shed, when those in the spirit world who died without the gospel, perhaps even believing that God has forgotten them, hear their names spoken for the irst time in hundreds or even thousands of years when we stand as proxies in their stead in the Lord’s house? Some of them probably were forgotten or ignored while in mortality, living hard, impoverished, pedestrian existences. But in God’s holy house, we help to show to those spirits in prison that he has not forgotten them. He has not forsaken them. He knows them by name!” (pp. 148, 149)