So, I want to do a thread about the LDS Church announcing a temple in Shanghai, China.

So, let's start with how religion is managed in the PRC. There are five officially sanctioned religions: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestant Christianity, and Catholic Christianity. The LDS Church is neither one of these, nor part of one. That hasn't changed.

The PRC allows Latter-day Saints to meet, with significant restrictions. Chinese citizen members and foreign members cannot even be in the same building at the same time. I went to LDS Church for 9 years in China, and met two Chinese LDS total (and never at church).

There's no proselyting at all (in fact, we're specifically warned against it over the pulpit every Sunday). The church doesn't own any of its own buildings there (it meets in rented space-that it sometimes gets kicked out of-or homes). Tithing & donations don't leave the country.

I was quite surprised when the LDS Church announced it was building a temple in China. How is this possible, I thought? While many online were elated and were sure that a miracle had happened, and expected to soon see China opened for missionary work, those who knew didn't.

Why? Well, let's talk about the Catholic Church and China for some context. Not only is the Catholic Church *much* bigger than the LDS Church, but it has a country. The Vatican City recognizes Taiwan, and not the PRC. Flipping countries like that is a big deal for China.

The fact that the Vatican wants to choose its own church leaders in China (China does so now) is the main obstacle to Vatican recognition of the PRC. But the Vatican hasn't been able to move China off of this line for years, *even though they can offer China something big*

In that context (and since the LDS Church would also insist on choosing its own leaders), if a larger church with much more to offer China can't get what they want, how could the LDS Church? Many have guessed that it's because the LDS Church has been singularly shrewd or blessed.

Let me quickly disabuse you of some of the things I've seen lots of people write that they think has led to this "success":

Nelson doesn't speak Chinese (and it wouldn't matter much if he did).
Nelson isn't well-known at all in China, and nor is the church.

In addition, the LDS Church, while it has a better image with officialdom in the PRC than many other churches because it says it doesn't proselyte in China, and then actually doesn't, it does not have any relationship to speak of with top levels of the Chinese state.

So, to what then can we attribute this "historic" breatkthrough? Well, nothing, because one didn't happen. Not only would a "temple" in Shanghai not even slightly resemble what we'd expect, but it involves the LDS Church totally re-imagining what could be called a temple.

Don't believe me? Well, the LDS Church's FAQ website on it won't even call it a temple (they opt for "multi-use meeting space", which is arguably what current meeting space could be called). It would be by appointment only for only Chinese LDS who currently live in China.

The FAQ website (which I'll link to at the end) doesn't even explicitly say one could perform what LDS think of as temple ordinances there; instead, it says "activities in such a facility strengthen families, bless marriages, and honor ancestors."

Now, that could be an attempt to hint at temple ordinances for an unfamiliar and perhaps even suspicious audience (whether un-endowed Chinese LDS, or non-LDS Chinese). Or, it could be an attempt to lay out a regime of "temple ordinances-lite" for local Chinese LDS.

But let's say they'd offer full temple ordinances at this potential temple. Best guess from those who know: it'll be either existing church space (used during the week since temples are closed on Sundays anyway), or new rented space adjacent to space the church already rents.

So, if you're hoping to do a session there, or even see it clearly marked as a temple from the outside, I'm sorry, but you're out of luck. Imagine something that if it ever happens is temporary, and put up before and put after use like tables in the gym.

I will say, it's a very interesting concept, and I give the LDS Church kudos for tying to adapt its temple worship to a context that forbids it (the Chinese weren't going to agree to something they couldn't enter and inspect whenever they wanted to) in the way it's normally done.

Now for my last point, and this is why I keep describing it in terms of "if" rather than "when": there's still considerable doubt as to whether it'll happen at all. Whereas the UAE government immediately confirmed the announced temple in Dubai, it was much different in China.

On 7 April (less than two days after the announcement), the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs (the body that regulates religion/churches in Shanghai) released a statement on their website about the matter. It's short, and there's a lot to parse,

but among other things, it says this: "The American Mormon Church announced its plans to build a so-called 'temple' in Shanghai, but our bureau has heard nothing whatsoever of this. This is the American Mormon Church's own wishful thinking, and is purely fictitious."

Note the name they call the church (it's not even the most current Chinese transliteration of "Mormon"), and how they link it explicitly to the USA. Note that it's still up on the website a week later (I'll link it below, but it's in Chinese; what I wrote is my own translation).

These aren't the marks of all the approvals already in the bag, or good relations with the PRC official organs. I would take the church's announcement of a temple in Shanghai with buckets full of salt.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/China 

http://mzzj.sh.gov.cn/hygq/20200411/630779280bae4e93a781c2bfe216bbe9.html