The Center Place, and the Churches That Claim It

In the summer of 1831 Joseph Smith announced a revelation designating Independence, then a frontier town at the edge of settled Missouri, as the centre place of Zion, and identified a spot west of the courthouse as the site for a temple. Land was bought and dedicated. Within two years the Saints had been driven out of Jackson County by their neighbours, and no temple was built.

The consequence is one of the strangest religious geographies in the United States. The Temple Lot itself is owned by the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), a small body formed in the fragmentation after Joseph Smith's death, which returned in the 1860s, bought the ground and has held it through litigation ever since. Across the street stands the headquarters of Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with a domed auditorium and a temple completed in 1994 whose spiral form rises over the lot and which is dedicated to the pursuit of peace and reconciliation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much the largest of the movement's branches, maintains a visitors' centre nearby. Several smaller Restoration bodies keep offices within the same few blocks.

One revealed location has therefore produced multiple institutions, each with a defensible claim to be the heir of the same revelation, all of them on adjacent lots. Unity's headquarters lies a short drive away, so two distinct American religious foundings sit within one metropolitan area.