Appearance
Prophets
The CES Letter's Prophets section opens with Wilford Woodruff's promise that the Lord would never let the prophet lead the Church astray. Then it spends nine pages cataloguing every time a Church leader got something wrong -- Adam-God, blood atonement, polygamy, the priesthood ban, Mark Hofmann.[1]
Each episode ends with the same refrain:
"Yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine. Yesterday's prophet is today's heretic."[2]
And it closes with this:
"Why would I want my kids chanting 'Follow the Prophet' with such a ridiculous and inconsistent 187-year track record?"[3]
The argument runs on a hidden premise: prophets must be infallible, or they can't be trusted at all. The Church has never claimed infallibility. Not once.
The framing is a trap
The CES Letter constructs an unfalsifiable argument. If prophets never change course, they're rigid and out of touch. If they do change course, they were wrong before -- so why trust them now?
No outcome counts as evidence for the Church. That isn't honest reasoning. It's a rigged test.
The real question isn't whether prophets have been wrong. It's whether the system has a mechanism for getting it right eventually.
None of these were binding doctrine
The Church's standard for binding doctrine is specific: taught unanimously by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, canonized in scripture, sustained by common consent.[4][5]
Adam-God was never canonized. Orson Pratt publicly opposed it while Brigham Young was still alive. Blood atonement was confined to a handful of sermons during the 1856-57 Mormon Reformation and walked back within months. The priesthood ban was never added to scripture or sustained as revelation.[1:1]
Every teaching the CES Letter calls "yesterday's doctrine" failed every test the Church's own system requires.
The biblical pattern works the same way
Peter's vision in Acts 10 reversed the restriction against preaching to Gentiles -- a dramatic reversal driven by revelation. Paul rebuked Peter to his face for continuing exclusionary practices afterward (Galatians 2:11-14). Nathan told David to build the temple, then reversed himself after receiving further light (2 Samuel 7).[6][7]
"Yesterday's doctrine became today's superseded practice" is not a uniquely Latter-day Saint problem. It is the biblical pattern.
The system self-corrected every time
Adam-God was contested in real time, rejected by subsequent prophets, removed from the temple endowment, and formally repudiated in 1916 -- signed by all fifteen senior leaders.[8]
Blood atonement rhetoric subsided within months, was publicly disavowed by 1884, and formally repudiated by 2010.[9]
The priesthood ban was reversed in 1978 by a revelation that multiple witnesses compared to Pentecost, accompanied by Official Declaration 2 -- sustained unanimously by the entire Church.[10]
Mark Hofmann fooled the FBI, the Library of Congress, the American Antiquarian Society, and the world's leading forensic document experts. The CES Letter treats Church leaders' failure to detect his forgeries as a unique spiritual indictment -- while ignoring the secular institutions equally deceived.[11]
In every case, the system corrected.
Progressive revelation is the claim -- not perfection
The ninth Article of Faith doesn't promise prophets who never err. It promises a God who "will yet reveal many great and important things." D&C 1:24 states the Lord gives commandments to servants "in their weakness, after the manner of their language."[12][13]
A church built on ongoing revelation should be expected to update, refine, and correct. The CES Letter treats change as evidence of fraud. The Restoration framework treats it as evidence the system is working.
The strongest cases all prove the point
The CES Letter's best examples involve Brigham Young -- the most powerful nineteenth-century Church leader. And yet Adam-God was contested by an apostle in real time, never canonized, and formally rejected. Blood atonement rhetoric was walked back within a generation. The priesthood ban was reversed by a revelation powerful enough that seasoned apostles described it in Pentecostal terms.
The system corrected errors introduced by its most influential leader. That is not a system failing. That is a system with functioning safeguards.
Bottom line: The CES Letter's argument reduces to: prophets are imperfect, therefore they can't be trusted. But the Church has never claimed perfection -- it has claimed ongoing revelation. Every episode the CES Letter cites ended the same way: the system self-corrected. That's not the track record of a broken institution. That's the track record of one that works.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," p. 63. The refrain is repeated on pp. 64, 66, and 69. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," p. 69. ↩︎
D. Todd Christofferson, "The Doctrine of Christ," Ensign, May 2012. Christofferson stated that binding doctrine is "consistently proclaimed by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles" and is not found "in an obscure paragraph of one talk." ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 107:27 requires unanimity among the presiding quorums for their decisions to carry "the same power and authority" as the full body of the Church. ↩︎
Acts 10:9-35. Peter's vision declared all foods clean and opened preaching to the Gentiles -- reversing a practice the early Church had maintained from its founding. ↩︎
Galatians 2:11-14. Paul "opposed [Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned" for withdrawing from Gentile converts. ↩︎
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve issued "The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition" in 1916, which defined the Godhead in terms incompatible with Adam-God. See James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1899), which had already rejected the teaching. ↩︎
Charles W. Penrose, "Blood Atonement, As Taught by Leading Elders of the Church," Deseret News, October 1884. The Church's official 2010 Newsroom statement confirmed: "So-called 'blood atonement,' the theory that the sins of some are so serious that the Atonement of Christ does not apply to them, is not and never was a doctrine of the Church." ↩︎
Official Declaration 2, Doctrine and Covenants (1978). Bruce R. McConkie described the experience: "It was a day of Pentecost, similar to what happened on the day of Pentecost in the meridian of time." ↩︎
The FBI, the Library of Congress, and the American Antiquarian Society all authenticated Hofmann documents. See Richard E. Turley Jr., Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). ↩︎
Articles of Faith 1:9. "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 1:24. "These commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding." ↩︎