Mormons to build first temple in Pa.

The Philadelphia site will be the northeast corner of Broad and Noble streets across from the Philadelphia School District headquarters.

According to the church, no design for the temple has been completed, but it's expected to be similar in concept to other urban temples, such as the Manhattan New York Temple and Hong Kong China Temple, which are multipurpose, high-rise buildings.

Construction will be supervised through church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, and paid for from tithing monies, so local members will not be raising additional money for the construction, according to Sylvia H. Sonneborn, a local church spokeswoman.

Last year, our sister paper the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the LDS church was requiring all members to turn in their temple recommends for new ones with bar codes that can be scanned at the door. The concern was for security.

According to the story, the church does not release statistics on what percentage of its 13 million members hold a current recommend. Reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack tells the history of the recommends and their requirements. Protecting the sanctity of temples from unworthy participants has long been among church goals, she says:

Starting in the so-called Mormon Reformation of 1856, LDS leaders began asking members about their adherence to religious principles. They were asked about their faith and commitment but also about whether they'd committed murder or adultery.

At that time, such questions were not necessarily used to determine whether a Mormon could go to the temple -- in fact, the St. George Temple, Utah's first, wasn't dedicated until 1877.

For years thereafter, a Latter-day Saint had to be invited by the church leaders to enter a temple, wrote Brigham Young University law professor Edward Kimball in the spring 1998 Journal of Mormon History. Local leaders, relying on "broad categories of worthiness," recommended members to the church president, who issued approval.

"Letters of recommendation had to be countersigned by the church president until 1891 when Wilford Woodruff, who had signed over 3,000 that year, delegated responsibility for determining worthiness to bishops and stake presidents," Kimball wrote.

The first set of standard questions was issued about 1922 and included matters of belief in God and Jesus Christ, the LDS Church as a restoration of pure Christianity, loyalty to church leaders and willingness to live Mormon principles.

Payment of tithing was always important for a temple recommend, but adherence to the faith's prohibition against coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco varied in strictness.

The 1940 and 1944 versions settled for a "willingness to undertake" to observe the health code known as the Word of Wisdom. The 1968 version specified that keeping the Word of Wisdom meant abstaining from "alcoholic beverages" rather than "liquor" to "make sure that even light beer and wine were included," Kimball wrote.

While some LDS bishops and stake presidents have tried to make caffeinated drinks one of the prohibited substances, he wrote, "cola drinks have never been included."

Nor has the use of birth control.

For the past few decades, people have been asked whether they "support, affiliate with or agree with" any opposition groups, which is often seen as code for polygamists.

Worried about Mormon involvement in the thrift-and-loan scandals of the 1970s, church leaders added the question: "Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow men?"

In 1979, a new question aimed at the problem of domestic and sexual abuse asked applicants to consider whether anything in their conduct within the family was "not in harmony with the teachings of the Church."

The church began to ask about child support in the 1980s and in 1999 began asking specifically if candidates were up to date in their financial obligations to children and former spouses.

"Such interviews have always been conducted with the intent of encouraging members to live Christlike lives," Mormon officials said in a statement this week. "As we see increasing strains on families everywhere, church leaders have felt it necessary to place additional emphasis on meeting all family responsibilities and obligations."