I recently returned from the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and one of the most interesting things I learned there is that the next generation of temples of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is being prefabricated just down the road from me in Bessemer, Alabama!

Lisa Beyeler-Yvarra, a doctoral student in religious studies at Yale University, presented a facinating paper on Sunday, November 16, in a session organized by the Religion & Cities and Religion & Economy units of the AAR on the ways the LDS Church was utilizing prefabrication in order to quickly construct the large number of temples the current church president, Russell M. Nelson, has mandated. These temples are to be errected on sites throughout the world enabling the church to be more temple centered. These include Pacific island locations such as Tonga, American Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Savai’i Samoa.

To prefabricate these temples the church has partnered with Blox, a Birmigham, Alabama, company whose production facilities are in Bessemer, Alabama, on a site that was first developed by Pullman Standard in 1929 for the manufacture of railcars.

The Helena, Montana, temple was the first to be completed from these prefabricated units. The erection of the temple on site took only two weeks. Other prototypes are to be constructed Casper and Cody, Wyoming, before construction of oversees temples commences.

A YouTube video built by the church explains the process.

In class, I aim to reference the international significance of Birmignham in religious life through the Woman’s Missionary Union, the Eternal Word Television Network, and other entities. Now Blox will join this list.

While some may find humor in that a company specializing in prefabricated facilities for Walmart is now serving the LDS church, the logic of using effective technology to erect effective buildings for Christian activities is deeply rooted in American Christianity. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints look to their temples not merely (or perhaps not primarily) as emotionally inspiring specimens of architecture, but as places where “temple work” can be performed to ensure that the merits of Jesus Christ’s atoning death are available to the largest possible number of people. As in many other aspects of modern religion, mass production is a means to this end.