Has Anyone Read This? Thoughts on “The Light and Truth Letter”

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/16/2025 at 6:56 AM, The Nehor said:

No, not really happening.

Oh yes.   Go ask Alice.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 3/11/2025 at 4:37 PM, Devobah said:

From what I have learned (I haven’t read it yet) this is a personal endeavor from someone who left the church and then returned. The letter, from my understanding, isn’t a debunking of the CES Letter, but more a reflection on their spiritual journey and trying to answer the more modern concerns with the church. 

Here is the challenge for me with something like this letter.

Larry Hurtado wrote a great deal about the history of early Christianity. A lot of what he wrote challenged some of the more traditional views about the early Church. Part of this, he noted, was caused because there are in our traditional views some really problematic assumptions. In his book Lord Jesus Christ, he notes this:

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Before we proceed further towards analyzing Christ-devotion as a historical phenomenon, however, it may be helpful to note a relevant (and in my view misguided) assumption shared by both the pre/anticritical and the history-of-religion approaches. It is worth identifying because it continues to be influential in both popular and scholarly circles. This is the notion that the validity of a religious belief or practice is called into question if it can be shown to be a truly historical phenomenon, and the product of historical factors and forces that we can attempt to identify and analyze…. Wishing to preserve the religious and theological validity of traditional christological claims, the anticritical view attempted to deny or minimize as far as possible the historically conditioned nature of early Christ-devotion. On the other hand, the history-of-religion scholars were convinced that their demonstration of the historically conditioned nature of early Christ-devotion proved that it was no longer to be treated as theologically valid or binding for modern Christians. In both views the assumption is the same: if something can be shown to have arisen through a historical process, then it cannot be divine “revelation” or have continuing theological validity.

This is the sort of problem that we get in these kinds of responses (and attacks). I think that this was the most evident for me in the section on linguistics (partly because of my familiarity with the ideas being described). We have critical arguments and apologetics arguments being presented. But here was one that stuck out to me:

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Chiasmus was not consciously used in American writing until the 1850s.

There is a reason for this. It was simply that it wasn't called "chiasmus." "Ring Forms" were a much more common thing, and we see them in literature and other media forms (Vagner uses musical chiasmus in his aptly named "The Ring of the Nibelung." I have found entire volumes written in chiastic form in the 1700s. The challenge has been that of the three groups who investigate these forms and structures - those who study literature, ancient studies, and religious studies - those that study literature generally sit in their own silo, and so their work hasn't found its way into the work of the others (and really, for good reason). The problem is that for LDS apologists, traditionally, with their desire to connect the Book of Mormon to ancient studies and religious studies but not generally to modern literary theory, this set of material simply gets ignored. So the argument that a text published in 1830 could only come to its chiastic forms and structures through revelation is problematic. And we can see from what Hurtado points out, how this sort of evidence becomes problematic. The argument that chiasmus wasn't used consciously until 1850 only works until you find it in an earlier contexts - and if you can find it in a pre-1830 context, it suddenly becomes a liability. Why? Because both sides of the argument accept the same premise - that there needs to be something/nothing unique about the Book of Mormon that allows us to demonstrate it authenticity (or its lack of it). These evidentiary arguments become proxies for the arguments about revelation.

This sort of thing holds true through the entire letter. I think that we run into a couple of issues here - and these are long term issues that are challenges for belief. The problem is that none of this is particularly helpful in understanding either the LDS Church or the Book of Mormon. The idea that if it is revealed that it should be something entirely other - the sort of belief that is often held by both sides here (the believers holding that Mormonism is in fact something entirely other, and the critics suggesting that it is entirely anything but other), and the challenge is that those who buy into this flawed paradigm are too easily shifted. This letter presents itself as just being this - 

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It has been ten years. I have read the CES Letter several times and dug deep into the sources. I’ve listened to many interviews on Mormon Stories. I spent countless hours hearing and reading from ex-Mormons and other critical Christians. I have learned a lot in my honest and extensive 10-year search. Over time, I felt unsettled about atheism or agnosticism, and I discovered things that forced me to reexamine my unbelief.

But the real basis for belief and unbelief in this model is the issue of evidence. It is the issue of how that evidence can be used to argue for belief and unbelief. And all that it really acknowledges is that the side that we should go with is the side that appears more convincing in its argument - the side that can argue better that the religious movement and the texts can only have come from a revelatory process (and are thus unique) or that they are so ordinary we should only have expected all of this to occur within that environment. As I wrote back in 2013:

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There is no question that Mormonism arises from a historical setting (one that can be studied). Its beginnings involved real people with real histories—all of whom started out as something other than a follower of the movement that would eventually be called Mormonism. But, in contrast to the idea that “most of Mormonism’s splendid elements and combinations” were there, in Joseph’s natural environment—and perhaps by extension that Mormonism’s language and thought wasn’t just produced from that environment, but that its existence was inevitable (and so it is utterly ordinary—and to some extent even irrelevant), my position mirrors that of Hurtado’s—early Mormonism was “an utterly remarkable phenomenon” at the same time that it was “also the result of a complex of historical forces and factors.” In other words, the historical phenomenon certainly cannot be seen as unique in any sense of the word, and should not be seen as unique. But, ontologically, Mormonism presents us with something that is not ordinary, and is not commonplace.

This is the frustration for me in all of this. If we want to understand what it is that is remarkable about the Book of Mormon, for example, we aren't going to find it in the collection of alleged chiastic structures. We aren't going to find it in the word-print studies. We won't really discover it in the EME proposals. We will discover it by reading the text and understanding its message. All of these other things are interesting, but ultimately are incapable of ever having the final say about its authenticity. The fact that Mormonism as a whole grows out of a historical context, and that this context drives much of its theology, shouldn't surprise us - it can be both a historical evolution as well as a revelation (as was early Christianity).

[The Nehor]

10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Oh yes.   Go ask Alice.

I would but she died of an LSD overdose or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice

Oh, and her whole life is a fraud made up by an LDS con-artist.

[manol]

25 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

If we want to understand what it is that is remarkable about the Book of Mormon, for example, we aren't going to find it in the collection of alleged chiastic structures. We aren't going to find it in the word-print studies. We won't really discover it in the EME proposals. We will discover it by reading the text and understanding its message. All of these other things are interesting, but ultimately are incapable of ever having the final say about its authenticity.  [emphasis manol's]

From my perch outside the LDS Church, the utility of the Book of Mormon is independent of its historicity (<- I don't think that word is necessarily synonymous with "authenticity" in this context).  Imo the book contains great teachings which remain great teachings regardless of how they got there.  That these great teachings are canonized is imo a feature rather than a bug regardless of historicity. 

Edited March 17, 2025 by manol

[ZealouslyStriving]

37 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Oh yes.   Go ask Alice.

🎶 When she's ten feet tall .... 🎶

[Kevin Christensen]

22 hours ago, Teancum said:

I think this is hardly fair. You have no idea what Reel or Runnells went through in their personal spiritual journey and what introspection, prayers, searching, pondering, agonizing over where they end up and it was likely not where they planned to end up. But I should be used to it. It is easier to marginalize someone who left the church as not serious. Keeps your testimony safe.

I interacted with Bill Reel on many occasions for several years on this board.  On several occasions he thanked me for saying things that gave him something to ponder, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately.  He took the trouble to interview me on the topic of Biblical Keys for Discerning True and False prophets (he recently reposted that interview on his YouTube channel, with a cautionary note that he has moved on since then) and he has been very vocal about his personal spiritual journey and the key turning point came when he decided to adopt the view that the LDS Church is most tellingly viewed as "an abusive parent."  I disagree with that choice of metaphor and have published a great deal on the importance of being self-critical of the implications of our choice of organizing metaphors.  Every lens also turns out to be  filter, and that particular lens filters out a great deal that I think is decisively important.  That map is not the territory, and one's having one's map is focused on seeing an abusive parent everywhere, that will inevitably affect the steps taken and sites viewed on the subsequent journey.

As to Runnells, I responded at length to his public declaration of his spiritual journey in a pair of Interpreter essays.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/eye-of-the-beholder-law-of-the-harvest-observations-on-the-inevitable-consequences-of-the-different-investigative-approaches-of-jeremy-runnells-and-jeff-lindsay/

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/image-is-everything-pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain/

I have noticed, even if I did not respond directly in my essays, that the public record of his spiritual journey before he published the CES letter is quite different than his public statement of that journey in the CES letter.   Steve Smoot documented that tellingly on his website.

If you read the response from Johnny Stephenson that Runnells published in response to my first essay, you may detect some notable marginalizing language directed my way.  I was not trying to marginalize anyone, but to respond directly to specific arguments they raised.  For instance, I made this observation not to marginalize but to face demonstrable facts.

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Stephenson says, of my use of language regarding Runnells, that “He is ‘brittle’ (seventeen times) and ‘bitter’ because he does not accept Mormon apologetic spin and obfuscation.”

I searched my essay and I find the word brittle five times, which by my count, is not seventeen, and in context not always directed at Runnells in particular.⁹ Apparently Stephenson searched the online version of my article but did not check the instances individually to see the context nor notice that twelve instances of brittle happened in the online discussion of my essay,¹⁰ not the essay itself.

I use the word “brittle” in my essay not because Runnells rejects “Mormon apologetic spin and obfuscation,” but because in my view Runnells demonstrates mental brittleness in dealing with non-traditional readings and the contextual reframing that invites such readings. He does not consider the implications of my Ian Barbour quotation that “a network of hypothesis and observations is always tested together. Any particular hypothesis can be maintained by rejecting or adjusting other auxiliary hypothesis.”¹¹ Runnells puts new wine in old bottles, and complains that the bottle shatters and the wine spills.¹² He rejects our offer of more durable and appropriate new wine bottles on grounds they are not old wine bottles. I quoted Joseph Smith on the nature of some saints to “shatter like glass”¹³ upon encountering anything contrary to their traditional thinking, another image that applies to the Runnells’s account and suggests the word brittle to my mind.

 As people who have made careers from publicizing their personal spiritual journeys, if my knowledge is dangerously removed from reality, their public statements bear a significant portion of the responsibility.

And the bulk of the 43 essays I have published over the years have been directed to increasing understanding of why different people perceive faith issues so differently.   Not to label and marginalize, but analyze with care that can  enlarge understanding and expand the mind on such issues.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited March 17, 2025 by Kevin Christensen

[Teancum]

20 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I interacted with Bill Reel on many occasions for several years on this board.  On several occasions he thanked me for saying things that gave him something to ponder, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately.  He took the trouble to interview me on the topic of Biblical Keys for Discerning True and False prophets (he recently reposted that interview on his YouTube channel, with a cautionary note that he has moved on since then) and he has been very vocal about his personal spiritual journey and the key turning point came when he decided to adopt the view that the LDS Church is most tellingly viewed as "an abusive parent."  I disagree with that choice of metaphor and have published a great deal on the importance of being self-critical of the implications of our choice of organizing metaphors.  Every lens also turns out to be  filter, and that particular lens filters out a great deal that I think is decisively important.  That map is not the territory, and one's having one's map is focused on seeing an abusive parent everywhere, that will inevitably affect the steps taken and sites viewed on the subsequent journey.

As to Runnells, I responded at length to his public declaration of his spiritual journey in a pair of Interpreter essays.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/eye-of-the-beholder-law-of-the-harvest-observations-on-the-inevitable-consequences-of-the-different-investigative-approaches-of-jeremy-runnells-and-jeff-lindsay/

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/image-is-everything-pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain/

I have noticed, even if I did not respond directly in my essays, that the public record of his spiritual journey before he published the CES letter is quite different than his public statement of that journey in the CES letter.   Steve Smoot documented that tellingly on his website.

If you read the response from Johnny Stephenson that Runnells published in response to my first essay, you may detect some notable marginalizing language directed my way.  I was not trying to marginalize anyone, but to respond directly to specific arguments they raised.  For instance, I made this observation not to marginalize but to face demonstrable facts.

 As people who have made careers from publicizing their personal spiritual journeys, if my knowledge is dangerously removed from reality, their public statements bear a significant portion of the responsibility.

And the bulk of the 43 essays I have published over the years have been directed to increasing understanding of why different people perceive faith issues so differently.   Not to label and marginalize, but analyze with care that can  enlarge understanding and expand the mind on such issues.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

So you fill fine marginalizing Bill Reel because of his metaphor?  While I am not sure I agree with his abusive parent analogy I understand why he may have come to that conclusion. Does that metaphor justify your comment earlier?  And so what if you don't like it. Does that make his journey can conclusions less valid?  Does it mean that he did not give significant energy to arriving where he is at?  And if you receive marginalizing and flippant comments as to your journey and your conclusions I would be just as vocal unless I found reason to suspect that you had not been serious in your inquiries and such into your own faith.

[Kevin Christensen]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

So you fill fine marginalizing Bill Reel because of his metaphor?  While I am not sure I agree with his abusive parent analogy I understand why he may have come to that conclusion. Does that metaphor justify your comment earlier?  And so what if you don't like it. Does that make his journey can conclusions less valid?  Does it mean that he did not give significant energy to arriving where he is at?  And if you receive marginalizing and flippant comments as to your journey and your conclusions I would be just as vocal unless I found reason to suspect that you had not been serious in your inquiries and such into your own faith.

Let's be clear on definitions.

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• Definition:

  Marginalization, also known as social exclusion, occurs when a person or group experiences discrimination and exclusion from society, politics, or the economy. 

   
• Characteristics:

  Marginalized individuals or groups are often relegated to the fringes of society, treated as insignificant, and denied equal access to opportunities, resources, and rights. 

   
• Causes:

  Marginalization can stem from various factors, including historical biases, discrimination based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, or religion, and unequal power dynamics. 

   
• Examples:

  Marginalized groups can include racial, cultural, and religious minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, the elderly, and those experiencing poverty. 

   
• Consequences:

  Marginalization can lead to a range of negative outcomes, including limited access to education, healthcare, employment, and other essential services, as well as increased vulnerability and discrimination. 

By these definitions, I have not marginalized Bill Reel.   I have disagreed with his conclusions, and have enough personal exchanges to have some reasonable basis for my own interpretation and opinions.  I feel comfortable in saying so out loud.  I don't try to silence him or call him names or mock him or interfere with his decisions.   He seems to have gathered a supporting and encouraging society around him.  I merely try to exist as myself, as one insignificant being on this tiny speck of a planet in an immense universe.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[Teancum]

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Let's be clear on definitions.

By these definitions, I have not marginalized Bill Reel.   I have disagreed with his conclusions, and have enough personal exchanges to have some reasonable basis for my own interpretation and opinions.  I feel comfortable in saying so out loud.  I don't try to silence him or call him names or mock him or interfere with his decisions.   He seems to have gathered a supporting and encouraging society around him.  I merely try to exist as myself, as one insignificant being on this tiny speck of a planet in an immense universe.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Let's look again at what you said:

Quote

It is more of a personal journey than a direct response to things like the CES letter, though as I say, he does show that he made serious inquiries, considerably more serious and telling, IMHO, than those demonstrated by the likes of Runnells and Reel.

I think the statement is marginalizing or maybe better put, disparaging of Reel and Runnells faith journey and exit from Mormonism. What would you call it then?  Perhaps I bristle because I have experienced similar remarks on this board and elsewhere about my own journey. Somehow I was not a serious investigator of things Mormon. Or that I really never had a testimony in all those years of devoting adherence and participation in all things Mormon.  I find such comments snarky and mean spirited since you nor anybody else knows what Reel, Runnells or what anybody went through in their exit.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/17/2025 at 9:22 AM, ZealouslyStriving said:

🎶 When she's ten feet tall .... 🎶

Yep.  She O.D.'d on LDS or something.  Go ask Nehor.