CES Letter Answers

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Transparency & Censorship ​

The claim:

The Church is dishonest with its history. It censors, hides, and whitewashes the past — punishing scholars and members who discover inconvenient truths.[1]

The CES Letter's "Other Concerns" section builds a case that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints systematically suppressed its own history: hiding the seer stone, concealing multiple First Vision accounts, whitewashing polygamy in manuals, disciplining scholars who publish unflattering findings, and fostering a culture where questions are treated as disloyalty.

Some of this is fair. Some of it is outdated. And the overall framing ignores a transformation so dramatic that it would be difficult to find a parallel among major religious institutions.

The real question: Is the Church more transparent now than it was, and does the current trajectory matter?

What the CES Letter actually claims ​

The transparency-related claims span several pages and can be grouped into three categories:

  1. Whitewashing in official materials — The 2013 Official Declaration 2 header said "Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice" regarding the priesthood and temple ban, when the Church's own 1949 First Presidency statement clearly attributed it to doctrine. Church manuals changed Brigham Young's "wives" to "[wife]." Zina Huntington Young's biographical page on lds.org omitted her polyandrous marriages.[2]

  2. Anti-intellectualism — Boyd K. Packer's 1981 talk declared "some things that are true are not very useful." Dallin H. Oaks said in 1985, "The fact that something is true is not always a justification for communicating it." Oaks later said, "It is wrong to criticize the leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true."[3]

  3. Disciplining dissent — The September Six were excommunicated or disfellowshipped in 1993 for publishing scholarly work or critiquing Church doctrine. The Strengthening Church Members Committee allegedly monitors members. Elder Packer identified "the so-called scholars or intellectuals" as one of three dangers to the Church.[4]

These are real quotes. Real events. The question is what story they tell when you include what happened next.

The honest concession ​

There were genuine periods of institutional caution about historical complexity. This isn't a critic's invention.

Elder Steven E. Snow, Church Historian and Recorder, said it directly in 2013:

"I think in the past there was a tendency to keep a lot of the records closed or at least not give access to information. But the world has changed in the last generation — with the access to information on the Internet, we can't continue that pattern; I think we need to continue to be more open."[5]

He also said: "Being open about our history solves a whole lot more problems than it creates."[5:1]

Leonard Arrington, the first professionally trained historian to serve as Church Historian (1972-1982), opened the archives and professionalized the Church History Division. But his tenure ended when the division was transferred to BYU in 1982, and archival access tightened for the next two decades.[6]

This happened. Acknowledging it matters.

But the CES Letter was published in 2013 — the same year the Church launched what would become the most comprehensive transparency initiative in its history. The letter describes a problem that the Church was already solving.

The transparency revolution ​

The institutional shift that began around 2008 is not subtle. It's massive, systematic, and ongoing.

Timeline of major transparency milestones ​

YearInitiativeWhat it did
2001Joseph Smith Papers Project beginsComprehensive scholarly edition of all Joseph Smith documents, endorsed by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission[7]
2008First JSP volume publishedJournals, Vol. 1: 1832-1839 — raw, unedited journal entries, fully annotated[7:1]
2009Church History Library opensNew facility in Salt Lake City; public reading rooms open June 22, 2009[8]
2013Gospel Topics Essays beginChurch publishes in-depth essays on its most sensitive historical topics on its own website[9]
2013Race and the Priesthood essayDisavows past racial theories as "not in line with our present-day understanding"[10]
2014Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo essayPublicly acknowledges Joseph Smith's plural marriages, including to teenagers and married women[11]
2014Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham essayAcknowledges the papyri don't match the text of the Book of Abraham[12]
2015Seer stone photograph publishedThe Ensign and From Darkness unto Light publish the first photograph of Joseph Smith's brown seer stone[13]
2018Saints, Vol. 1 publishedFirst official multi-volume Church history in nearly 90 years — discusses seer stones, polygamy, treasure digging[14]
2020-2024Saints, Vols. 2-4 publishedCovers polygamy, Mountain Meadows, the priesthood ban, and the ban's end[14:1]
2024Joseph Smith Papers nears completionFinal volumes released, completing the most comprehensive documentary edition of any religious leader's papers[7:2]

This is not a reluctant trickle of admissions. It is a coordinated, multi-decade, multi-million-dollar institutional commitment to publishing its own difficult history.

The Gospel Topics Essays ​

Between 2013 and 2015, the Church published thirteen essays on its most controversial topics — on its own website, under its own name:[9:1]

  • First Vision Accounts (November 2013)
  • Race and the Priesthood (December 2013)
  • Book of Mormon Translation (December 2013)
  • The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage (December 2013)
  • Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah (December 2013)
  • Book of Mormon and DNA Studies (January 2014)
  • Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints (May 2014)
  • Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham (July 2014)
  • Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (October 2014)
  • Becoming Like God
  • Are Mormons Christian?
  • Joseph Smith's Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women (October 2015)
  • Mother in Heaven (October 2015)

The essays don't sugarcoat. Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo acknowledges Joseph married "between 30 and 40 wives," including a 14-year-old and women already married to other men. Race and the Priesthood disavows every racial theory ever offered by Church leaders as justification for the ban. Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham states plainly that the surviving papyri don't contain Abraham's writings.

These are not buried in a footnote. They are published on the Church's official website, linked from the scriptures, and referenced in seminary and institute curricula.

"Hidden" history that wasn't hidden ​

The CES Letter's framing depends on the premise that the Church systematically concealed its history from members. But many of the allegedly suppressed facts were published in Church-owned or Church-adjacent sources decades before the CES Letter existed.

The seer stone ​

YearSourceWhat it said
1974Friend (children's magazine)Described Joseph's use of "an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone"[15]
1977Ensign (Richard Lloyd Anderson)"Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light"[15:1]
1988Ensign (Kenneth Godfrey)Martin Harris found "a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters"[15:2]
1993Ensign (Russell M. Nelson)Quoted David Whitmer's detailed account of the stone-in-hat translation method[15:3]
2013Ensign (Gerrit Dirkmaat)Full discussion of Joseph using "seer stones" as revelatory aids[15:4]

An apostle described the stone-in-hat translation in the Ensign — the Church's flagship magazine — in 1993. Twenty years before the CES Letter.

Multiple First Vision accounts ​

Paul Cheesman included the 1832 First Vision account in his 1965 BYU master's thesis, with authorized access from the Church Historian's office.[16] Dean Jessee published a detailed comparison of four First Vision texts in BYU Studies in 1969. James B. Allen published a comparison chart of eight contemporary accounts in the Improvement Era in 1970. Milton Backman explained Joseph's "four surviving recitals" in the Ensign in 1985. Richard Lloyd Anderson documented nine contemporary accounts in the Ensign in 1996.[16:1]

The idea that the Church concealed alternate First Vision accounts ignores a 50-year trail of Church-published scholarship on exactly this topic.

Joseph Smith's polygamy ​

The Improvement Era explained Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage in 1946.[17] Multiple Ensign articles between 1977 and 2012 discussed Joseph's plural marriages. A 2007 Church lesson manual stated that "plural marriage was revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831" with "marriages performed during his lifetime."[17:1]

The distinction that matters ​

"The Church hid its history" often means "I didn't know about it." Those are different things — but the gap between them is real and worth taking seriously.

Information published in BYU Studies or a single Ensign article reaches a different audience than a Sunday School lesson or a missionary discussion. A fact can be technically available in a Church-owned journal and still effectively invisible to a typical member who never read that issue. The Church can be faulted for not building these details into its core curriculum sooner.

The Gospel Topics Essays and Saints represent a direct correction of that fault — moving difficult history from footnotes and academic journals into materials designed for a general audience. The question is whether the correction counts, or whether the original gap is the whole story.

The September Six — with context ​

The CES Letter presents the September Six as proof that the Church punishes honest scholarship. The full picture is more complicated.

In September 1993, six members were excommunicated or disfellowshipped: D. Michael Quinn, Maxine Hanks, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Paul Toscano, Lynne Whitesides, and Avraham Gileadi.[18]

A few facts the CES Letter doesn't mention:

Avraham Gileadi was rebaptized in 1996. His excommunication was reversed, facilitated by Elder Neal A. Maxwell. Gileadi later said: "In my case — not a single charge was true or supported by evidence — and all mention of it was expunged from the church's records."[19]

Maxine Hanks was rebaptized in 2012. She rejoined the Church without repudiating her feminism, describing her return as a personal spiritual journey.[20]

The six cases were different from each other. Gileadi's case involved unorthodox scriptural interpretations. Quinn's involved historical research. Toscano's involved direct public criticism of Church leadership. Whitesides was disfellowshipped — a lesser action — for writings on Heavenly Mother. Lumping them together as "six scholars punished for scholarship" collapses important distinctions.[18:1]

None of this makes the September Six a comfortable chapter. The disciplinary actions had a real chilling effect on Mormon intellectual life in the 1990s. But presenting them as representative of the Church's permanent posture toward scholarship ignores everything that followed — including the Church's own publication of the very historical findings that made some of these scholars controversial.

What the Church now publishes openly ​

The Gospel Topics Essays discuss the seer stone, polygamy, polyandry, the priesthood ban's origins, and multiple First Vision accounts — the same topics that contributed to the September Six's notoriety. The Church is now actively publishing what it once treated with institutional caution.

D. Michael Quinn's historical work on early Mormon polygamy and post-Manifesto marriages is substantially corroborated by the Church's own Plural Marriage essays. The Church didn't just stop restricting this information. It published it under its own name.

"Some things that are true are not very useful" ​

The CES Letter highlights Elder Packer's 1981 CES talk, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect," and Elder Oaks's 1985 statement that "the fact that something is true is not always a justification for communicating it."[3:1]

These are real quotes. Here's the context.

Packer's audience. The 1981 talk was addressed to Church Educational System instructors — people whose professional role was to build faith in students. Packer was distinguishing between the historian's task (documenting everything) and the teacher's task (building faith). You can disagree with the distinction, but it's not a blanket ban on historical truth. It's a claim about pedagogical priorities.[21]

Oaks's point. The 1985 remark was made at a CES symposium about what belongs in a classroom. The full context addressed whether every true fact is appropriate for every audience — a principle that operates in every institution. A medical school professor teaches differently than a family doctor explains a diagnosis. Oaks was not saying true things should never be communicated.[22]

What both men were not addressing. Neither statement was about suppressing published historical research. Neither said the Church should lie. Neither prevented the Church from subsequently publishing the Gospel Topics Essays, the Joseph Smith Papers, or Saints — all of which communicate difficult truths to a general audience.

The quotes sound damning in isolation. In context, they're arguments about how to teach — not arguments against knowing.

Comparison with other institutions ​

The CES Letter implies the Church is uniquely secretive. A broader comparison tells a different story.

The Catholic Church's Vatican Secret Archives were not opened to outside scholars until 1881, and major collections remain restricted to this day. Most Protestant denominations maintain no centralized historical archive at all. There is no Baptist or Methodist equivalent of the Joseph Smith Papers.[23]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has:

  • Published a peer-reviewed scholarly edition of its founder's complete papers
  • Released photographs of its most controversial artifacts
  • Published thirteen essays on its most sensitive historical topics
  • Produced a four-volume narrative history that openly discusses seer stones, polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the priesthood ban
  • Opened a public research library available to any researcher
  • Made thousands of primary documents freely available online

Name another religious institution that has done anything comparable with its own difficult history.

The Bushman quote in context ​

The CES Letter opens its "Other Concerns" section with Richard Bushman: "The dominant narrative is not true. It can't be sustained."[1:1]

This is framed as a devastating admission. But Bushman — a faithful, active Latter-day Saint and author of Rough Stone Rolling, the most respected scholarly biography of Joseph Smith — was not saying the Church's truth claims are false. He was saying the simplified Sunday School version of Church history doesn't hold up under scrutiny and needs to be replaced with a more honest, more complete narrative.[24]

That's exactly what the Gospel Topics Essays, the Joseph Smith Papers, and Saints have done. Bushman was diagnosing the problem. The Church has spent the last decade building the solution.

What the CES Letter gets backwards ​

The CES Letter's transparency section was published in 2013. Its claims about censorship and whitewashing describe a real pattern — but one the Church was already actively correcting at the exact moment the letter went viral.

The letter treats the Church's past institutional caution as a permanent feature. It presents Elder Snow's 2013 candid admission about past record restrictions as evidence of ongoing dishonesty, when Snow was actually announcing the policy change.

Every year since 2013, the Church has published more historical material, made more archives accessible, and addressed more difficult topics in official channels. The trend line points in one direction.

The CES Letter captured a snapshot of a Church in transition and froze it as a permanent indictment.

Bottom line: There were real periods of institutional caution about historical complexity — the Church's own historian admitted it. But since 2008, the Church has launched the Joseph Smith Papers, published thirteen Gospel Topics Essays on its own website, released Saints in four volumes, opened a public research library, and photographed the seer stone for the Ensign. The CES Letter describes a problem the Church was already solving — and has continued solving every year since.

  1. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," pp. 112-113. The section opens with a Richard Bushman quote and frames its concerns under "Church's Dishonesty, Censorship, and Whitewashing Over Its History." ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," pp. 112-116. Specific examples include the Official Declaration 2 header, the Brigham Young manual changing "wives" to "[wife]," and Zina Huntington Young's biographical page omitting polyandrous marriages. ↩︎

  3. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," pp. 120-122. Quotes Boyd K. Packer's "some things that are true are not very useful," Dallin H. Oaks's "the fact that something is true is not always a justification for communicating it," and Oaks's "it is wrong to criticize the leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true." ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," p. 124. Describes the September Six as "six members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were excommunicated or disfellowshipped by the Church in September 1993, allegedly for publishing scholarly work on Mormonism or critiquing Church doctrine or leadership." ↩︎

  5. Steven E. Snow, "Start With Faith: A Conversation with Elder Steven E. Snow," Religious Educator 14, no. 3 (2013). https://mi.byu.edu/truth-in-church-history-excerpts-from-the-religious-educators-qa-with-elder-steven-snow/ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. Gregory A. Prince, Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016). Arrington served as Church Historian from 1972 to 1982. His History Division was transferred to BYU's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute in 1982, and archival access tightened. ↩︎

  7. "Church Launches Joseph Smith Papers Project," Church Newsroom. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/additional-resource/church-launches-joseph-smith-papers-project. The project received endorsement from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (a division of the U.S. National Archives) in June 2004. The first volume was published in 2008; the final volume in 2024. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  8. "Church History Library," The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/landing/church-history-library. The library opened its public research facilities on June 22, 2009, and provides access to anyone interested in exploring Church history. ↩︎

  9. Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/essays. Thirteen essays published between November 2013 and October 2015. ↩︎ ↩︎

  10. "Race and the Priesthood," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (December 2013). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood. ↩︎

  11. "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (October 2014). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo. ↩︎

  12. "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (July 2014). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham. ↩︎

  13. Richard E. Turley Jr., Robin S. Jensen, and Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Joseph the Seer," Ensign (October 2015). See also Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, BYU; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015). ↩︎

  14. Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2018-2024). Volume 1: The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846 (2018); Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand, 1846-1893 (2020); Volume 3: Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893-1955 (2022); Volume 4: Sounded in Every Ear, 1955-2020 (2024). First official multi-volume Church history since 1930. Free in 14 languages. ↩︎ ↩︎

  15. "Alleged hiding of facts in Church history," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Alleged_hiding_of_facts_in_Church_history. Documents seer stone references in the Friend (1974), Ensign (Anderson, 1977; Godfrey, 1988; Nelson, 1993; Dirkmaat, 2013), and other Church publications spanning four decades before the CES Letter. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  16. Paul R. Cheesman, "An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith's Early Visions" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1965). Dean C. Jessee, "The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision," BYU Studies 9, no. 3 (1969): 275-294. James B. Allen, "Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision," Improvement Era 73 (April 1970): 4-13. Milton V. Backman Jr., "Joseph Smith's Recitals of the First Vision," Ensign (January 1985). Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith's Testimony of the First Vision," Ensign (April 1996). ↩︎ ↩︎

  17. Multiple Church-published references to Joseph Smith's plural marriages spanning 1946-2012. The Improvement Era discussed Joseph's practice of plural marriage in 1946. A 2007 Church lesson manual stated "plural marriage was revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831." See "Alleged hiding of facts in Church history," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Alleged_hiding_of_facts_in_Church_history. ↩︎ ↩︎

  18. "September Six," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Six. See also "History scholars and Church discipline," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/History_scholars_and_Church_discipline. ↩︎ ↩︎

  19. "Scholar Rebaptized into LDS Church," Deseret News (March 8, 1996). https://www.deseret.com/1996/3/8/19229461/scholar-rebaptized-into-lds-church/. Gileadi stated: "In my case — not a single charge was true or supported by evidence — and all mention of it was expunged from the church's records." ↩︎

  20. "Excommunicated Mormon to tell how she came back to the faith," The Salt Lake Tribune (2012). Hanks was rebaptized in February 2012 without repudiating her feminist work. ↩︎

  21. Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect," address to CES Religious Educators, August 22, 1981. Published in BYU Studies 21, no. 3 (1981): 259-278. The talk was addressed specifically to Church Educational System instructors about their professional responsibilities. ↩︎

  22. Dallin H. Oaks, "Reading Church History," CES Symposium, August 16, 1985. The remark addressed what is appropriate in a classroom setting for building faith, not a general prohibition on historical research. ↩︎

  23. The Vatican Secret Archives (renamed the Vatican Apostolic Archives in 2019) were first opened to outside researchers by Pope Leo XIII in 1881. Major collections remain restricted. See Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William G. Rosenberg, Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). ↩︎

  24. Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Bushman is an active Latter-day Saint and Columbia University emeritus professor. His "dominant narrative" comment refers to oversimplified Church history, not to the Church's truth claims. He has repeatedly affirmed his testimony. ↩︎

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