At 200 River Terrace, Kangaroo Point, from where you get a glorious view of the city skyline across the river, there stands an immaculately tended Mormon temple. The modern classically styled flat-roofed buildings are clad in plush polished grey granite. A short palm tree-lined boulevard splits the two main buildings.
Atop a high central spire stands a gleaming statue of a man in gold blowing a trumpet, strikingly turning his back on the view of the city centre to look to the coast off in the distance.
It is a statue of the angel Moroni. In the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints, as the main Mormon religion is officially known, he is the prophet from the Book of Mormon who spreads the modern gospel. He is the angel who appeared to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, in the 1820s in the U.S. state of New York. Essentially Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was called upon by the God to re-establish the Christian Church that had lost its way over the past millennium. Here’s the Wikipedia description of the Church.
Moroni faces east because it is believed that is the direction from which Jesus Christ will emerge when he returns to the physical world. Moroni statues appear all over the world atop Mormon temples. This one in Brisbane is understood to be made of fiberglass and covered with gold leaf.
Passersby can admire the temple from the street but can’t enter it, like they can a Catholic or Anglican cathedral, for example. Only practicing Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints, may enter. They must be up to date with their tithe, the requirement to pay 10% of their income to the Church HQ in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Church says it has 146,000 members in Australia, and about 15 million worldwide. Now the traditional family is the linchpin of the Mormon faith, so maybe we could say there are 36,500 families in Australia, each paying in 10% of their annual income. That could mean the $255 million is paid annually into the Salt Lake treasury. That is presumably among the reasons why Mormon Head Office pays for the construction of temples across the globe.
The Brisbane temple was dedicated in June 2003. Construction was delayed by negotiations over the height of the buildings, flood lighting, and traffic. The Church complied with requests to reduce the roof pitch of the meetinghouse and to lower the temple platform.
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