The CES Letter, and 13 essays conceding the facts

Contested

LDS scholars have a real answer here. Say so before your friend does.

What the CES Letter is

In 2013 Jeremy Runnells compiled a list of historical problems and sent it to a director in the Church Educational System. He never got an answer.

The document became the most widely circulated exit letter in modern Mormonism. Runnells was summoned to a disciplinary council and resigned in 2016.

What the church published at the same time

Thirteen Gospel Topics Essays, between 2013 and 2015. They concede facts that had long been denied.

Multiple First Vision accounts. Translation by seer stone.

Joseph Smith's polygamy.

How they were released

With no announcement. Unsigned.

Buried in the topics database of the website. Elder Steven E.

Snow, then Church Historian, acknowledged the deliberate "soft roll out." In some wards, members who taught from the essays were rebuked by local leaders.

Their answer, at full strength

The church did the thing critics had asked for. It published frank, scholar-checked essays on its hardest topics, on its own site, and later folded that history into the Saints volumes and the curriculum.

Snow's explanation of the quiet release was pastoral rather than secretive. Most members were not troubled by these issues, and the essays were placed where a searching member would find them.

FAIR argues the CES Letter is a shotgun list of recycled claims, most of which the essays and apologetic work answer.

How strong is this argument?

Genuinely arguable. The timeline is established, including Snow's own recorded explanation.

Whether it was information control or pastoral prudence is a judgement call. The church did publish the material, and that counts.

Runnells being disciplined for compiling questions sits awkwardly beside the transparency claim.

What to say

"When did you first read the Gospel Topics Essays? How did you come across them?"

Provo, Utah, home of the Church Educational System offices the CES Letter was addressed to

The Conference Center in Salt Lake City; the essays appeared without a conference announcement

How they answer this — at its strongest

The church did what critics asked, publishing frank essays on its hardest topics.

The church did the thing critics had long demanded. It published frank, scholar-checked essays on its hardest topics, on its own website. It later folded that history into the official Saints volumes and the curriculum. No church had done that before.

Elder Snow's account of the quiet rollout was pastoral, not secretive. Most members were not troubled by these issues. The essays were placed where a searching member would find them, without alarming those who were not asking.

FAIR argues that the CES Letter is a shotgun list of recycled claims. Most of them, it says, are answered in the essays and in the apologetic literature.

The verdict

Arguable both ways. The essays are real, but they still put Runnells on trial.

The timeline is settled. Elder Snow himself described the quiet rollout, and it is on the record.

Was that guarding people, or holding back? That is a judgement call, and the church did put the material out in the end. It counts for something.

Runnells was put on trial for a list of questions. That is on record too, and it sits badly beside the claim of openness.

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