History

Gospel Topic Essays, Saints: The Standard of Truth Volume 1, Face to Face Temple side chats with Apostles, Mormon Channel YouTube videos… The Church is making an exhaustive effort to desperately retain waves of members leaving over disconcerting facts about Church history. The internet has sparked the rapid information age. All the collective intelligence of the world within a search bar. Begrudgingly for the Church this also includes information beyond what’s Church approved. The Church has tried to avoid and cover up historical issues for years, but the recent questions have burst the floodgates and now they’re forced to formulate apologetic excuses.

In September of 2018, the Church broadcasted a live Q&A with the apostle Quentin Cook about troubling history. They tried to present it as a hip and modern unscripted discussion. A couple young millennials read supposedly impromptu social media questions from a tablet. However, these questions were prescreened, checked, verified by the legal department, Church approved, and possibly scripted. All questions were very benign and only 3 out of 9 had anything to do with troubling history. The other 6 questions were a roundabout way of self promotion and delusion reassurance. The answers were rehearsed, shallow, biased, and based on faith not facts. It’s the same Church approved apologetic excuses every time. Joseph Smith only “spiritually” married multiple wives, the different first vision accounts only slightly vary in detail but not content, Joseph use a rock he found as a kid to later translate the Book of Mormon, and you can know by the holy ghost. That’s the gist of the Q&A.

On July 12th of 2018, the Mormon Channel published a video titled “How to Answer Questions about Church History”. In summary, there are many disconcerting questions and concerns about Mormon church history, BUT you can pray and console your doubts with the comfort of the holy ghost. The problem with this logic is that feelings of the holy ghost are NOT unique to Mormonism. The moment you accept a personal spiritual revelation as true you must also dismiss billions of other people’s personal spiritual revelations about their particular religion as false. I dare not be so arrogant.

I’ve mentioned the Gospel Topic Essays before and I haven’t read the new “Saints” book about Church history, however, the main issue with these publications is that they are presented and approved by the perspective of the Church. It’s biased information. Imagine if you asked a Scientologist if Scientology was legit; they’ll emphatically claim absolute truth, but outsiders know it’s a load of cult crap.

To honestly and unbiasedly study the Mormon history one must study beyond only biased Church approved information. Study from both perspectives. Yes, there is nonfactual and hateful Anti-Mormon information, but there is also unbiased and neutral historical facts that present a most complete history. Of the Wikipedia pages I’ve read so far, they have all been very fair and honest to the true Church history. Don’t be a Scientologist; study beyond the doors of the Church. Be Courageous and Think For Yourself.