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CES Letter is one Latter-Day Saint's honest quest to get official answers from the LDS Church (Mormon) on its troubling origins, history, and practices. Jeremy Runnells was offered an opportunity to discuss his own doubts with a director of the Church Educational System (CES) and was assured that his doubts could be resolved. After reading Jeremy's letter, the director promised him a response.No response ever came.
In April 2013 Jeremy T. Runnells published a PDF booklet entitled, "Letter to a CES Director." This booklet, which is now typically referred to as the "CES Letter," catalogs Runnells' concerns and reason why he left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Runnells has worked hard to make his booklet available to people everywhere (and in several languages) and has, unfortunately, been the agent for leading at least a few other believers out of Mormonism. Sadly, most of those who have been bamboozled by the "CES Letter" are Latter-day Saints who were blind-sided by scholarly-sounding interpretations of challenging data. In my opinion, however, the "CES Letter" creates a car...
The Mormon church today is led by an elite group of older men, nearly three-quarters of whom are related to current or past general church authorities. This dynastic hierarchy meets in private; neither its minutes nor the church's finances are available for public review. Members are reassured by public relations spokesmen that all is well and that harmony prevails among these brethren. But by interviewing former church aides, examining hundreds of diaries, and drawing from his own past experience as an insider within the Latter-day Saint historical department, D. Michael Quinn presents a fuller view. His extensive research documents how the governing apostles, seventies, and presiding bisho...
This is volume 17 of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture published by The Interpreter Foundation. It contains articles on a variety of topics including: "Making Visible the Beauty and Goodness of the Gospel," "You More than Owe Me This Benefit: Onomastic Rhetoric in Philemon," "Zarahemla Revisted: Neville’s Newest Novel," "The Temple: A Multi-Faceted Center and Its Problems," "'How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place' – A Review of Danel W. Bachman, 'A Temple Studies Bibliography'," "The Return of Rhetorical Analysis to Bible Studies," "Image is Everything: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain," "Was Joseph Smith Smarter Than the Average Fourth Year Hebrew Student? Finding a Restoration-Significant Hebraism in Book of Mormon Isaiah," "A Vital Resource for Understanding LDS Perspectives on War," "'He Is a Good Man': The Fulfillment of Helaman 5:6-7 in Helaman 8:7 and 11:18-19," "Vanquishing the Mormon Menace," "A Modern View of Ancient Temple Worship," "Nephi’s Good Inclusio," "Understanding Genesis and the Temple," "The Old Testament and Presuppositions."
This is the biography of a contested memory, how it was born, grew, changed the world, and was changed by it. It's the story of the story of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began. Steven C. Harper tell the story of how Latter-day Saints forgot and then remembered several accounts of Joseph Smith's experience of his first vision and how Smith's 1838 account was redacted and canonized. He explores the dissonance many saints experienced after discovering multiple accounts of Smith's experience. He describes how, for many, the dissonance has been resolved by a reshaped collective memory.
Paul H. Dunn's meteoric rise in the leadership ranks of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) was propelled by stories he told about his World War II combat experiences and professional baseball career. Stories like the one about his Army buddy dying in his arms during the invasion of Okinawa, or how he won the first game he pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals at the outset of a five-year pro career. The stories Dunn told, however, were not born out of his actual experiences, but out of his vivid imagination. They were complete fabrications that were repeated over and over, from the pulpit, in books, and on audiocassettes. Dunn's self-generated stardom placed him in the circl...
Fourth-generation fundamentalist Carlton Pearson, a Christian megastar and host, takes a courageous and controversial stand on religion that proposes a hell-less Christianity and a gospel of inclusion that calls for an end to local and worldwide conflicts and divisions along religious lines. In The Gospel of Inclusion, Bishop Carlton Pearson explores the exclusionary doctrines in mainstream religion and concludes that, according to the evidence of the Bible and irrefutable logic, they cannot be true. Bishop Pearson argues that the controlling dogmas of religion are the source of much of the world's ills and that we should turn our backs on proselytizing and holy wars and focus on the real go...
After working with thousands of struggling members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over many years, the authors decided to write a book offering hope and answers for those struggling with faith crisis. Unbeknownst to the general Church membership, the 20th century would witness an organized effort to rewrite Latter-day Saint history from within its own ranks. In a head-to-head, behind-the-scenes-battle, traditional leaders resisted intellectual progressives working in the Church History Department and at BYU, who claimed some forty years ago that it would take a generation to re-educate the Church membership. Where are we in this attempted re-education? What is the New Mor...
In the nineteenth century, it was a common belief that Native Americans were the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Ethan Smith wrote on this topic, and in so doing, challenged the dismissal of the Indigenous Americans by European settlers. Smith used biblical scripture, similarities in the Hebrew and Native American languages and their name for God, and other points of evidence to prove the connection between Israel and the First Nations. From there he showed how the reunited Hebrew tribes would be restored to Zion before the end of the world. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Smith's book is that it is said to have influenced the Book of Mormon, which was published about seven years after later. As a child, Smith moved away from religion after his parents died but found his way back before he turned 20 and worked in the ministry until his death. Smith wrote several books while serving in the ministry in which he explored prophecies and baptism, among other subjects. But this book remains one of the most controversial of all his publications.
This is volume 10 (2014) of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture published by The Interpreter Foundation. It contains articles on a variety of topics including some notes on faith and reason, dating Christ's birth, Mary Whitmer's witness of the gold plates, the LDS Church's polygamous past, dissenters, Book of Mormon anachronisms, the comma in the Word of Wisdom, Enos's adaptations of the onomastic wordplay of Genesis, Mormonism and intellectual freedom, differing investigative approaches of Jeremy Runnells and Jeff Lindsay, a theological poem in the Book of Mormon, and reading the scriptures geographically.