On the Origins of the CES Letter

[Nofear]

https://publicsquaremag.org/faith/gospel-fare/ces-letter-calculated-deception-2/

I don't think that the article attempts to dismiss the arguments ad-hominem. There is plenty that's been discussed on this board before that can rationally dismiss most of the letter; please don't rehash that here. Nonetheless, context and intent sometimes can be relevant.

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Nonetheless, context and intent sometimes can be relevant.

It informs on his methodology in this case, imo. 

[Devobah]

I feel really tempted to be snarky about this. This has been talked about before by a few other apologists. Mainly that the narrative that Jeremy was some regular guy looking for answers to his questions. An honest truth seeker. As I mentioned in the thread I started a few weeks ago, there are some things where apologetics is lacking (IMHO) but some where it is very well done (again IMHO). 

People like Jeremy, John Dehlin, and a few other notable ex-members parade out this statement that they were exed for "just asking questions" and love to act as some kind of martyr for the cause. Why? Because that feeds into the idea that the Church is trying to silence people. If I had to guess, the next big one would be Nemo the Mormon (Youtube Handle). 

Ultimately and ironically, "the dominant narrative is not true" (to paraphrase Richard Bushman's fireside that John Dehlin loves to come back to every year) and Jeremy was antagonistic for well over a year before he was approached by his grandfather about his concerns. The letter was crowdsourced from Reddit users, rather than a personal matter (even going through the exmormon subreddit one last time for review before being sent).

But we already knew this. Like many things, this making the rounds again is much like the anti arguments. Jeremy's letter won't be the end all when it comes to Anti-LDS arguments and responses to apologetics. I'm sure we'll get something in the future (I'm going to guess at most 25 years).

Forward brethren and sisters!

 

[Dario_M]

Man. I hope i will never recieve a CES letter. Oh my. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

https://publicsquaremag.org/faith/gospel-fare/ces-letter-calculated-deception-2/

I don't think that the article attempts to dismiss the arguments ad-hominem. There is plenty that's been discussed on this board before that can rationally dismiss most of the letter; please don't rehash that here. Nonetheless, context and intent sometimes can be relevant.

Jeremy's narrative: https://cesletter.org/faqs-common-attacks/#fake

Quote

The CES Director is fake and Jeremy crowdsourced the letter on Reddit.

One of the more insidious and recent smears leveled against me and the CES Letter is the lie that the CES Director is not a real person and that my claims about the CES Letter's origins is one big elaborate hoax.

Mormon apologists (specifically FairMormon - John Lynch, Scott Gordon, etc. - and the TITS guys) claim that instead of being approached by a CES Director, I basically twirled my evil mustache one day and decided to create a new anti-Mormon empire by collaborating with Reddit Ex Mormon to write the CES Letter.

This is all false. The truth is that I really was approached by a CES Director in March 2013 and I wrote a document that would later become known as the CES Letter between March 22 - April 13, 2013.

I shared my draft of the document on Reddit around this time after I had completed it for feedback to ensure that I wasn't wasting the Director's time but the feedback that I got was superficial and minimal and wasn't anywhere enough to create the document as apologists try to deceive their readers on. I wrote the entire document myself from beginning to end in the span of 3 weeks between March 22 and April 13, 2013.

The key bit: "I wrote the entire document myself from beginning to end in the span of 3 weeks between March 22 and April 13, 2013."

From the article provided by Nofear:

Quote

In fact, in July of 2012—many months prior to the letter being published—Runnells created a new Reddit account with the username u/kolobot that openly attacked the faith. The engagement of this user over the nine months before the first publication of the CES Letter tells a very different story about the origin of the letter.

By October 2012, Runnells was attempting through this anonymous profile to generate viral content with a letter to to a senior church leader. This letter, published on October 10, 2012, was titled “An Open Letter to Quentin L. Cook.” However, it was not widely read. In it, however, he runs down many of the matters he addresses in his future CES Letter. But in this letter, he stated the issues as assertions rather than questions. 

He also stated in this letter that by this point, he considered himself an “apostate soul” and that this came about because of what he had “found on the evil internet.”According to his own account, Runnells’ disaffection from his faith began back in February 2012, when he began to read the Church-hostile apologetics of Grant Palmer, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, and material on the website MormonThink—all influential critics of Latter-day Saint beliefs.
...
Only days after sending the letter, Runnells personally coordinated with Tom Phillips to publish the letter on Phillips’ Church-antagonistic website, MormonThink.

Despite this, Runnells later claimed, both in public and private, that he had nothing to do with the dissemination of the letter. “It just happened,” he claimed, “independent of my involvement.”

• Jeremy Runnells, on his own website, states:

Quote

The following is what Elder Cook said in his October 2012 General Conference talk, “Can Ye Feel So Now?”

“Some have immersed themselves in internet materials that magnify, exaggerate, and in some cases invent shortcomings of early Church leaders. Then they draw incorrect conclusions that can affect testimony. Any who have made these choices can repent and be spiritually renewed.”

 

In response to Elder Cook’s above comment and claim, I wrote the following open letter to Elder Cook shortly after his October 2012 General Conference address:

 

Open Letter to Elder Quentin L. Cook

October 9, 2012

Dear Elder Cook,
...
Your brother in combating online falsehood,
Kolobot

• Ryan McKnight, of "MormonLeaks" fame, has previously posted here under the online handle of "FearlessFixxer."  See, e.g., here.  Many years ago, on the Ex-Mormon SubReddit, a "FearlessFixxer" (presumably Mr. McKnight, clearly no friend to the Latter-day Saints) posted "An Open letter to Jeremy Runnells" and addressed it to "Jeremy (u/kolobot)."  Later in the above thread, "Kolobot" directly responds to "FearlessFixxer" and several other posters, making it pretty clear that "Kolobot" is Jeremy Runnells.
• Several years ago, "Kolobot" posted the following in the Ex-Mormon Subreddit: Jeremy's update on CES Letter paperback book orders delay
• A few months ago "Kolobot" posted the following in the Ex-Mormon Subreddit: CES Letter Jeremy here. How awesome is this? People can change and apologies can be given.
• This website also includes several links which, I think, demonstrate that Kolobot = Jeremy Runnells.

Nofear's article lays out the following rough sequence of events:

• "According to his own account, Runnells’ disaffection from his faith began back in February 2012, when he began to read the Church-hostile apologetics of Grant Palmer, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, and material on the website MormonThink—all influential critics of Latter-day Saint beliefs."
• "{I}n July of 2012—many months prior to the letter being published—Runnells created a new Reddit account with the username u/kolobot that openly attacked the faith."
• "By October 2012, Runnells was attempting through this anonymous profile to generate viral content with a letter to to a senior church leader. This letter, published on October 10, 2012, was titled 'An Open Letter to Quentin L. Cook.' ... He also stated in this letter that by this point, he considered himself an 'apostate soul.'"
• "{I}n November of 2012, Runnells’s anonymous u/kolobot username admitted that he had 'left the church a few months ago.'"
• "After being out of the Church for at least six months, Runnells reached out to the r/exmormon community, asking for rebuttals to an argument that The Book of Abraham, a volume of Latter-day Saint scripture, was historical,"
• "In January 2013, Runnells began advocating for people to leave his former faith on Reddit."
• "{T}he CES letter {which Runnells claims was a sincere effort to address his then-ongoing faith crisis} was first published in April 2013."
• "Runnells knew the CES director would read it, but just days after release, he admitted to friendly sources that he 'didn’t write this for the CES guy.'"

So it looks like Runnells spent some months writing the CES Letter, that he wrote it under false pretenses, that he has not been honest regarding whether he was involved with its dissemination, and so on.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

33 minutes ago, smac97 said:

[Runnells] wrote it under false pretenses, that he has not been honest regarding whether he was involved with its dissemination, and so on.

Shocking. Just shocking.   

[smac97]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Quote

[Runnells] wrote it under false pretenses, that he has not been honest regarding whether he was involved with its dissemination, and so on.

Shocking. Just shocking.   

It kind of is (non-ironically) shocking, or may come across to those who took Runnells at face value.

Per this article, Runnells described his tome as "one Latter-day Saint's honest quest to get official answers from the LDS Church."

It looks like a lot of people construed the letter that way.  From this article:

Quote

YouTube poster “Miss Syrinxie” is emblematic of so many of the reactions to the essay—with her near-reflexive acceptance of Runnells’ key storylines in 2021: 

“From my understanding, the letter wasn’t intended to be this big exposure of the church; Jeremy Runnells had legitimate questions that he was seeking answers to. Why couldn’t anyone just honestly answer his questions? Obviously, it’s because no one has the answers…”

Notice how “Miss Syrinxie” focuses on the author’s stated motive for writing his essay, and accepts it without question— which is consistent with so many comments about the CES Letter online. Over and over, we see how readers’ trust in the essay’s content was directly related to the surrounding storylines and rhetorical packaging they accepted from Runnells as true.

Another anonymous commentator on YouTube in 2015 said about the letter: “It came from a place of sincere inquiry.”

Jordan Schaffer similarly said on Quora in 2019:

“The man who wrote it designed it as a list of questions that were concerning him while he was still a believing member of the church, when he was hoping a Church Educational System instructor might be able to provide a scholarly clarification.”

There are hundreds of such comments on the web and social media illustrating how the poignant story went on to have its far- reaching, persuasive effect among the unwary. ... Each time another person accepted this “just-my-questions” narrative, they effectively joined in helping promote Runnells’ story. So in large part, the essay’s further spread was due to others taken in by the heart-tugging tale, who then passed his writing on to more and more people.

Thanks,

-Smac

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, bluebell said:

Shocking. Just shocking.   

With this new information, it is obvious that the original creation narrative is problematic.  Now the question is, does this invalidate the book?   Somehow, this all seems oddly familiar.