Do you have a link to your thoughts on the CES letter? Because I'm sure plenty of folk have asked you about it. I'm, struggling.
The CES letter has been mentioned to me a few times in asks, but I don’t recall being asked to respond directly to it.
Before getting into it, I want to make you aware of this post about Faith Transitions, I think it may be useful to you.
I read the CES letter many years ago, probably the original version, it’s changed a lot since then. I think the CES letter is sloppy, and twists quotes, uses some questionable sources, and frames things in the worst possible way. It’s basically an amalgamation of all the anti-Mormon literature. But many of the main points of the CES letter are important and correct, even if the supporting details aren’t.
In a way, the CES letter has done the Church a favor. For a long time, Elder Packer insisted that anything which isn’t faith-promoting shouldn’t be taught. As a result, most members of the Church were taught a simplified version of Church history, leaving out anything that is messy or difficult. Although those things could be found if someone was looking for them, I found many of them simply by reading Brigham Young Discourses or other works of the early church.
With the internet, Elder Packer’s approach to history turns out to be a bad one. This information is out there and now most members learn about it from sources seeking to destroy their faith. One response to this has been a series of essays where the Church talks about some difficult subjects.
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I’m not going to go through all the claims & challenges of the CES letter, but let me address some of the main ones.
1) There are errors in the Book of Mormon that are also contained in the 1769 edition of the Bible.
From the more faithful point-of-view, Joseph recognizes these passages, such as those from Isaiah, and knows they've already been translated into English and copies them from his family’s Bible. The non-faithful point-of-view is that Joseph copied these verses from his family Bible and tried to pass it off as his own translation.
2) DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but from Asia.
This is correct. The Church has an essay which admits this and then spends a lot of time explaining how genetics works and one day we might find some Middle East connection. I find the Church essay convoluted as it goes through many possible (and unlikely) reasons for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.
3) There are things in the Book of Mormon that didn’t exist during Book of Mormon times, or in Central America (assuming this is where the Book of Mormon takes place), such as horses, chariots, goats, elephants, wheat, and steel.
This is also correct. Maybe the translation process was using a common word in English for a common item in the Book of Mormon. Maybe these are errors. Maybe it’s made up.
4) No archeological evidence has been found for the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.
Correct. When it comes to archeological evidence, it's true that we haven't found any. For one thing, we don't know where the Nephite & Lamanite civilizations are supposed to have taken place. If you don't know where to look, it's easy to have no evidence. Perhaps Nephites & Lamanites didn’t actually exist and that’s why there’s no archeological evidence. The Book of Mormon does seem to do a decent job of describing geography of the Middle East before Lehi & his family boarded the boat for the Promised Land.
5) Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar (or identical) to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived in.
This seems like a funny thing to get hung up on. First of all, it’s not very many names that are similar. Secondly, many places in the US are named for Biblical places & people. If the Book of Mormon people came from Israel, it makes sense they did something similar. For example, the word Jordan is in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and in many places in America.
6) He points to obscure books or dime-novels that Joseph Smith might have read and the similarities between them and the Book of Mormon.
Those similarities are mostly at the surface level. To me it doesn't seem like Joseph plagiarized any particular book, and these specific books seem to not been very popular so difficult to say Joseph, who lived on the frontier, actually read them. Funny how no one from that time period thought the Book of Mormon resembled those books, probably because they hadn’t heard of them. But Joseph did hear and read a number of stories and some of that phrasing or whatever of the time influenced him. Think of songwriters, they create a new song then get accused of plagiarizing because it's similar to another popular song. Even without intending to, they were influenced by things they heard.
7) The Book of Mormon has had 100,000 changes.
Most of the "100,000" changes to the Book of Mormon were to break it into chapters & verses, to add chapter headings, or to add grammar such as commas and whatnot. There are some changes to fix errors that got printed but differed from the original manuscript. And there's been some clarifications made, but these are few in number. By claiming "100,000" he's trying to make it seem like there's a scam being done. It's easy to get a replication of the first Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ and read it side-by-side with today's version. I’ve done that and occasionally there’s a word or two here or there which differ, but overall it's mostly the same.
8) There were over 4 different First Vision accounts
True. Over the years, the way Joseph described the First Vision changed. I think different versions emphasize different aspects of the experience. I don’t find them to be contradictory. Oh, and the Church has an essay about this.
9) The papyri that Joseph translated into the Book of Abraham has been found and translated and it’s nothing like the Book of Abraham.
This is true. The Church has an essay about it. The Church now says that the papyri inspired Joseph to get the Book of Abraham via revelation, much like his translations of the Bible weren’t from studying the ancient Greek & Hebrew. It is a big change from what the Church used to teach, that this was a translation of the papyrus. The papyri has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham, and the explanations of the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price don’t match what the scholars say those pictures are about.
10) Joseph married 34+ women, many without Emma’s consent, some who had husbands, and even a teenager.
This all appears to be true. Emma knew about some of them, but not all. As for the married women, they were still married to their husbands but sealed to Joseph (I know this is strange to us, but this sort of thing was common until Wilford Woodruff standardized how sealings are done).
Polygamy was illegal in the United States. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. So of course there’s carefully-worded statements by Joseph and others denying they participate in polygamy.
The salacious question everyone wants to know is if Joseph slept with all these women. We don’t know, but a DNA search for descendants of Joseph has taken place among the descendants of the women he was ‘married’ to and none have been found. But still, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why is he hiding this from Emma?
11) The Church used to teach that polygamy was required for exaltation, even though the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy.
This is accurate. The Church says polygamy was part of ancient Israel and so as part of the restoration of all things, polygamy had to be restored, see D&C 132:34. Now we no longer say polygamy is required to get to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.
12) Brigham Young taught Adam-God theory, which is now disavowed by the Church.
True. Joseph Smith didn’t teach this and John Taylor & Wilford Woodruff don’t seem to have any time for this teaching. It’s a thing Brigham Young was hot about and taught, but seems a lot of the church didn’t buy it as it was discarded after his death.
13) Black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, despite Joseph having conferred it to a few Black people during his life.
Very true and very sad. This and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are the two biggest stains on the Church’s past. There is a Church essay on Race & the Priesthood. The ban appears to have begun with Brigham Young and he developed several theories to justify it, and these explanations expanded over the decades and bigotry was taught as doctrine. The Church now disavows all explanations that were taught in the past.
No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in the Church essay other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for Black people. There’s a big lesson in that for LGBTQ teachings of the Church.
14) The Church misrepresents how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon.
The accounts of Joseph Smith putting a seer stone in a hat and reading words from it, that's part of the historic record. Quotes about it don’t make it to our Sunday School lessons, but if you go back to the Joseph Smith papers and other accounts, it’s there to read. Joseph also used the Urim & Thummim, and wrote out characters and studied them, but he seems to have most favored the stone-in-hat method. I think the main problem here is the Church in its artwork and movies does not depict this, and therefore most members are unaware until they see anti-Mormon literature. Why does the Church not show Joseph looking into a hat? Because it seems magical and weird to modern people. But how much weirder is it than he put on the Urim & Thummim like glasses and could translate that way, or he wrote out these characters from some extinct language and was able to figure out what they mean?
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A number of the main points in the CES letter are true (even if explanations/supporting details in the CES are problematic). Some of the main points have simple explanations and don’t seem like a big deal. Others challenge what the Church has taught. To its credit, the Church put out essays by historians & scholars, with sources listed in the footnotes, addressing several of these controversial topics.
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Religion is meant to help humans make sense of their world and our place in it. Most religious stories are metaphorical but end up getting taught as literal history and, in my opinion, the same is true of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why the CES letter has power, it points out things aren’t literally true but were taught by the Church as factual, and the CES letter shows us part of our messy history that the Church tried to hide.
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The story of Adam and Eve can’t literally be true. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary past, but it’s meant to make our lives important, God created us and we have to account to Him for our choices, and it’s important to find someone to go through life with. We can say the same of Job and the Book of Ruth, fiction with a purpose.
While there are some real events included in the Bible, much of what’s written is there to teach lessons, culture, and give meaning to life. Jesus taught in parables so at least he was upfront that they were stories that contained morals.
Can I believe the same about the Book of Mormon, that it’s inspired fiction with meaning I can apply to my life, or must it be literally history to have value?
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I went through a massive faith crisis while attending BYU. I had access to materials that told a different story of this religion than I’d been taught (the sorts of things in the CES Letter) and it threw me for a loop.
It felt like the floor of faith I had stood on shattered and I fell with no way to stop myself. After I had a chance to process through the things I was feeling, I looked at my shattered faith and picked up the parts that were meaningful to me.
I had lined up my faith similar to a line of dominoes. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a prophet. If Joseph was a prophet, then this is the true church. If this is the true church, then...
This works until it doesn’t. Once a domino topples over, it starts a chain event.
Now I look at principles and concepts and decide if they’re meaningful to me.
I love the idea that we can spend eternity with the people we love most.
I believe we should be charitable and loving to others.
People on the margins need to be looked after and helped and lifted.
Poor people deserve dignity and the rich to be challenged.
We have a commitment to our community and we all serve to make it better.
All are alike to God, we’re all loved and God has a grand plan for us.
Those who passed away can still be saved through the atonement of Christ.
Those are all principles I find in the Bible and Book of Mormon or at church and I find Love flows through all of those.
This new approach works for me. I don’t have to believe or hold onto problematic teachings. I can drop them and still hold the parts that I find valuable. I can reject the teachings and statements which are bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic. Prophets can make mistakes and still have taught some useful things.
That little voice of the spirit and what it teaches and guides me to do, I trust it over what Church leaders say. Overarching principles are more important to me than specific details for how this gets applied in the 1800′s or 1950′s or Biblical times.
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I truly hope some of what I’ve written is helpful.
There’s no use pretending that the CES letter doesn’t get some things correct. It’s also helpful to understand it’s not just trying to share truth, but has an agenda to make the Church look as bad as possible.
What about the things the CES letter is correct about?
Has this church helped you learn to connect with the Divine?
The Church has some very big flaws, but also has some big things in its favor. Some of its unique teachings are very appealing and feel hopeful and right.
Can you leave the Church and be a good person and have a relationship with God? Absolutely.
I also know this church is a community and it’s hard to walk away cold-turkey with nothing to replace it, without another network to belong to. It’s as much a religion as it is a lifestyle and circle of friends.
Are there parts you can hold onto? Parts you can let go of?
You have a lot to think about and work through.
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It may be the most honest self analysis I’ve ever seen from a political operative. Cowardice. Pride. Shameless ambition. He owns it all. You must admit, he’s much more candid than most. It’s a point of view, especially considering the recency of his tenure, that is worth reading.
I'm not at all sure WHY people with guilty consciences submit to be questioned by @IChotiner , but readers must be grateful that they do 😊
Cliff Sims Is Proud to Have Served Trump
By Isaac Chotiner | Published 6:30 P.M., January 29, 2019 | New Yorker Magazine |
Posted January 29, 2019 |
In August, 2016, Cliff Sims, the C.E.O. of an Alabama-based conservative news site, joined the Trump campaign. He then followed Trump to the White House, where he worked as the special assistant to the President and as the director of White House message strategy, before resigning last year. On Tuesday, Sims published a book that is already a best-seller, called “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House.” It’s a gossipy tell-all, sprinkled with stories of Trump yelling at Paul Ryan, Sims battling John Kelly, and a West Wing full of unseemly people looking out for their own interests. Predictably, after the White House declined to comment on the book, Trump himself lashed out at Sims over Twitter on Tuesday morning, writing, “A low level staffer that I hardly knew named Cliff Sims wrote yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer. He signed a non-disclosure agreement. He is a mess!” (The chief operating officer of the Trump campaign tweeted that the campaign will file a lawsuit against Sims.)
In fact, the President comes across better in the book than most of the people around him do—and better than he has in most of the other books written about this White House. Sims has doubts about Trump’s management style and occasionally about his rhetoric, but he remains fundamentally a believer. I spoke with Sims on the phone on Tuesday afternoon. During our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed whether Trump is responsible for the people around him, how Sims views Trump’s approach to governance, and why he refuses to believe that the President might be a racist.
Are you proud to have served in the Trump Administration?
Yeah, it’s one of the last things I say in the book. I am proud to have worked for the American people, proud to have worked in the White House. And proud to have worked in the Donald Trump White House, in spite of a lot of the misgivings that I had, and I lay them all out in the book. It is an opportunity of a lifetime, and I am glad I did it.
By misgivings, do you mean serving this President specifically, or do you mean the people surrounding him?
Yeah, so, man, there is a lot to unpack there. There are certainly things that the President has done or said that I disagreed with at various times. And some of the things even prior to him being in the White House, things in the campaign obviously would make any Southern, Christian boy from Alabama a little squeamish at times. And then the people around him—I think I am pretty clear in the title, “Team of Vipers,” that it is a tough place to work. But, you know, I include myself in the team of vipers, and certainly there were things I did there that I wish I had done differently at various times.
What was the biggest flaw of the people who surrounded Trump?
I think there is an inherent selfishness that is deeply ingrained in some corners of that building. There are various times in the book where I point out my own selfishness—maneuvering to push this staffer out, or to undermine this other colleague, or whatever it might be—and I justified those by saying it would be better for the President if this person were not doing this, that, or the other, but in reality, in retrospect, it was better for me. Those were selfish moves by me. And I think a lot of what I saw in there came from a very selfish place, and one of the criticisms I have of myself is that I didn’t have a servant’s heart a lot of the time while I was there. And that’s a criticism I would apply to a lot of people there.
Do you think there is something about the President that attracts people with these traits, or do you think this is true in every Administration?
I am not sure.
You are not sure?
It is the only White House I have ever worked in. I would have to imagine that any White House is going to be a very competitive environment, attract certain types of people who are clawing for those types of jobs. I bet a lot of it is not abnormal. I do think that the atmosphere that was created there—the work culture—bred that, exacerbated that. And, in any workplace, the culture is driven from the top down. And so I think there probably is something about the way the President leads his team that results in that kind of atmosphere. What exactly that is, I am not sure.
We can all agree that the President is not the most honest person on earth, and many people close to him have been indicted for lying to investigators. You have a President who has not completely separated himself from his business, and you have a lot of people close to him who seem like they are out to make a buck. Do you think there is a connection?
I don’t know. I have never really considered it in that context, man.
You have never considered it?
No, not in that way, exactly. I would like to give that thought a little more consideration before giving a response to it.
Consider it now. You know the President is not always honest with words, and many of his associates have gotten into trouble for lying to investigators. I am curious where you think that culture comes from.
I kind of think I just answered that question. Every culture starts from the top down. I think that you are hitting on something there, and I get where you are coming from, I just don’t know how to articulate how I feel. I think you have a point, but I am not sure how to add to it.
In the book, you write, “The Charlottesville response did not cause me to reconsider working in the White House, the way it seemed to with others. Part of it may have been that I was battle-hardened after a year in the foxhole. But I also just flat-out did not think he was racist. . . . I personally never witnessed a single thing behind closed doors that gave me any reason to believe Trump was consciously, overtly racist. If I had, I could not have possibly worked for him.” Do you want to expand upon that?
Yeah, yeah. I think there is another scene in the book that is illustrative of— Well, so, like, the Congressional Black Caucus meeting in the book, where they came in kind of loaded for bear and ready to really give it to him, and then they sit down with him and realize the same thing a lot of people do, which is: Man, you kinda just can’t help like the guy when you get in the room with him. He is very gregarious and a great host. I really don’t think there is a racist bone in his body. I can keep going on this, though, because I have thought a lot about this.
So when you hear things like birtherism, “shithole countries,” or that someone with Mexican heritage can’t be a fair judge, none of that stuff fazes you?
I think my take on that is very similar to Senator Tim Scott, the only black [Republican] United States senator’s take on it, which is that he can definitely be racially insensitive at times, and the Charlottesville issue really is a picture of something that I think is maybe unique to the Trump Presidency, where we are all watching the same movie, and yet we are seeing completely different things on the screen. If you give Trump the benefit of the doubt on Charlottesville, if you like Trump, when he says there are good people on both sides, what you think is, There are good people who say, “We should not have these monuments because they are monuments to slavery and racism.” And then there are also good people who say—
Jews will not replace us?
“Slavery and racism are abhorrent, but we shouldn’t get rid of those monuments, because it is our history, even our bad history.” If you give him the benefit of the doubt, that’s what you think. If you think he is a racist, if you don’t like him, you hear that, you say, “Well, this guy is saying there is such a thing as a good white supremacist.”
The crowd was chanting “Jews will not replace us,” just to be clear. It wasn’t people just concerned with monuments.
I am not trying to relitigate the whole Charlottesville thing. The thing I would have liked to have seen done differently is that the issue of race is such a divisive one, such a hurtful one, something that’s been a problem in our country for so long, that someone having the bully pulpit of the Presidency has an opportunity to bring racial healing and reconciliation in a way that maybe no one else does. I would love to see the President use his bully pulpit for that more effectively.
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