A few weeks ago, my wife and I visited the open house for the Feather River California temple.

The temple was once one of my favorite places in the world. But since leaving the Church I have felt very differently about the temple.

But I was looking forward to the temple open house experience, as I had not been inside a temple since I left the Church in January. On the way to the temple, I prayed that God would help me to discern his truth and his spirit.

My wife and I went on a day that ended up being the day when members of our stake were volunteering. So it was an interesting and a bit of a surreal experience seeing so many people I knew there, and knowing that a year ago I would have been so eager to volunteer. So much has changed in my life in the last year.

We first watched the introductory video

What stood out to me very strongly with this video is how many times families are referred to compared to references to Jesus Christ.

I went back and counted later, generously counting the name of the Church and the phrase House of the Lord as references to Jesus Christ. There were 10 references. All but one reference to Jesus Christ was highly generic. There wasn’t a single reference to the atonement, death, or resurrection. Someone watching this video would know that Latter-day Saints follow Jesus’s example but know nothing of why Jesus came to earth and how he died on the cross to pay the price for our sins.

On the other hand there were 26 references to family or families. These were very detailed including several clips with individuals talking about how the temple connected them with deceased loved ones or gave them perspective at the death of loved ones. Children, grandchildren, ancestors, wives, and husbands were all mentioned. The quantity and specificity of references to families dwarfs references to Jesus which were rather perfunctory. In fact, one of the ten references to Jesus was really about ancestors who died without knowing about Jesus.

Elder Holland’s quote stood out to me because of the love and admiration that I have for that man. He says that he cannot imagine heaven without his wife. I used to find this poetic and beautiful. I now see it is as a reflection of false theology that diminishes the greatness and grandeur of God. God created us to worship him, and being in his presence will be enough to fill us with inexplicable eternal joy. Of course, we will also be eternally with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and that fills me with great joy. But that is a bonus, not the main attraction or purpose for my existence.

I also had a few other quick observations about the video

• The video mentioned that people who did not know Jesus need vicarious baptism. It did not however mention that LDS people consider that to include every Christian who ever lived from around 100 AD to the present whose baptisms are invalid and need to be performed in the temple.
• The video was very works-focused. It mentioned that we came to earth to do “all we can to one day return to live with him again.” When discussing covenants the video notes that we make and keep covenants, but does not emphasize God’s role as the fulfiller of our covenants by taking the penalty on himself on the cross. It is all about all that we must do to honor our covenants

Turning to the temple itself: On the positive side, I loved many of the paintings that were chosen. The Church has used a few really talented artists in the Sacramento, Oakland, and now Feather River temples that portray events from the life of the Savior in really powerful ways . There was also a bit more diversity represented in the paintings than usual, with one showing a person of color embracing the Savior, and with more variations of how Jesus looks than in the average chapel. (But I thought that the placement of a very large prominent painting of Noah sacrificing animals after the flood right outside of the doors to the Celestial Room was a bit of an odd touch).

On the other hand, the inside of the temple felt beautiful and ornate, but also lifeless and stilted. All of the elaborate furnishings that once struck me as beautiful now reminded me of a fancy hotel lobby. The meticulous cleanliness of the temple also felt stifling and created an environment that . lacked the vitality and energy and passion of worshiping God.

When I was there, I couldn’t help but thinkof all of the “date nights” that my wife and I had spent sitting on opposite sides of a room listening to a ceremony that promised to reveal the mysteries of God, but did not do so. I thought of all of the mental energy I spent arguing that the temple was about Christ, when he is really an after thought or a gloss on top of the focus on eternal families.

In the Celestial Room I sat and prayed to God for a few minutes. I felt a great gratitude for how my relationship with my creator has grown over the past year. I felt great gratitude for the peace and assurance that I have felt. I prayed for my Latter-day Saint friends and loved ones that they would likewise be led to know a God who does not need to be worshiped in temples built with hands.

My overall takeaway was that the beautiful and ornate temple was unnecessary. Christ fulfilled the need for temples. Baptisms and other ordinances do not need to be performed vicariously. Our time and efforts are better spent blessing people around us rather than focused on work for the dead.