The Best of the CES Letter

“If we have truth, [it] cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”

— J. Reuben Clark, quoted in D. Michael Quinn, J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years (1983)

If you’re a believing member, there’s a good chance you’ve been warned about the CES Letter. Maybe you were told it’s anti-Mormon literature, full of half-truths, written to destroy testimonies.

Please, don’t be afraid of me. I’m not going to hand it to you and walk away. I’ll be honest about what I think of it, both the good and the hard, and I’ll give you a short list of the points I find strongest. Here’s the twist: my list is built mostly from things the church itself now acknowledges.

What it is

In April 2013, a young Latter-day Saint named Jeremy Runnells, who was losing his faith, wrote a long letter of questions to a director in the Church Educational System (CES) after his grandfather arranged for them to talk. He titled it My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts. He later published it, it spread widely, and it’s still available at cesletter.org.

I’ll say plainly what I think. Material like this, while often very true, can be corrosive to faith. It is written from the side of someone who had already lost his testimony, and it reads that way. I generally don’t care for content that simply tries to tear down faith. I prefer material that helps us understand the origins of our faith and community more openly and honestly. The CES Letter does some of both.

There are also faithful responses to it. Apologists, most notably at FAIR, have answered it point by point. If you read the letter, it’s fair to read them too.

The common ground

Here’s what I find most interesting. In 2013, the same year the letter was written, the church began publishing a series of “straightforward, in-depth essays” on difficult topics, approved by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Several of those essays confirm facts that the CES Letter raised and that many members had never been taught.

That’s my short list. Call it the common ground: things a critic and the church now agree are true. We can still disagree about what they mean. But we no longer have to argue about whether they happened.

1. There are several First Vision accounts

The earliest account, from 1832, is “the only account written in Joseph Smith’s own hand.” It was written roughly twelve years after the vision, and in it Joseph says, “I saw the Lord.” It doesn’t describe two separate personages, the Father and the Son (First Vision Accounts).

The essay says that “The various accounts of the First Vision tell a consistent story, though naturally they differ in emphasis and detail.” I respectfully disagree. To me, it looks like the story grew over time, alongside the church’s developing teaching about the nature of God.

2. The Book of Mormon came through a stone in a hat

Joseph “placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat” and “pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light.” As a young man he had “used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure” (Book of Mormon Translation). Most of us grew up with paintings of Joseph studying the plates. The church’s own account is quite different.

3. The Book of Abraham papyri don’t match the translation

The surviving papyrus fragments “date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.” They are “parts of standard funerary texts,” and “Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham” (Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham). The essay offers faithful explanations, but the core facts are no longer in dispute.

4. Polygamy was more than we were told

“Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.” Helen Mar Kimball was “sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday.” And “Emma likely did not know about all of Joseph’s sealings” (Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo). For a long time these facts were simply left out of the story most members learned.

5. The Kinderhook plates were a hoax

In 1843 some men in Illinois forged a set of small brass plates, buried them, “discovered” them, and brought them to Joseph Smith. According to his clerk William Clayton, Joseph remarked that they contained the history of a descendant of Ham. The church’s history topic now confirms the plates were forged (Kinderhook Plates). The same page says Joseph doesn’t appear to have attempted a revelatory translation, which is the faithful reading of the episode.

6. A revelation to sell the copyright failed

In early 1830, a revelation directed several men to secure the Book of Mormon’s copyright and to travel to Canada to sell it. They went, and found no buyer (Joseph Smith Papers). The CES Letter asks a fair question: why would God direct a sale that didn’t happen?

7. The Lamanites are not the principal ancestors

The introduction to the Book of Mormon once said the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” In 2006 it was changed to “among the ancestors” (Deseret News). The church’s DNA essay now says “the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA” (Book of Mormon and DNA Studies). I write more about this in Plates of Gold.

What I left off

The CES Letter covers far more than this. I’ve left off points I find weaker, more speculative, or more a matter of tone than fact. I’ve also left off the parts that read to me as mockery. They don’t help anyone.

Why I’d still call myself a friend to the church

Some will say you can’t be a friend to the church while arguing against its claims. I disagree.

To its credit, the church published those essays. It didn’t have to. That was a step toward honesty, and I want to acknowledge it. My complaint, from reading them closely, is that they sometimes leave out the part that matters most. The First Vision essay, for example, never really addresses why we hear nothing of the vision until about twelve years after it happened, after the church had already been organized. The church will tell you that you should ask questions, but too often it hands you a list of approved ones.

None of this list proves the church false by itself, and I’m not asking anyone to leave. It is not my purview to decide who is ready to leave the church. What I am asking is simpler: that the members who do read these things, and find their faith shaken, be allowed to say so without being shamed for it.

That’s the point of J. Reuben Clark’s line. If the church has the truth, it can’t be harmed by a careful look at its own essays. And if a member looks carefully and comes to a different conclusion, they ought to be able to leave with their dignity intact.

For how I hold all of this with my own family, read To My Mormon Family and Friends.