![FairMormon Logo](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021_fair_logo_primary.png)
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
DavidSmith (talk | contribs) m (header fix) |
DavidSmith (talk | contribs) m (DavidSmith moved page CES Letter detailed response, Introduction to Detailed response to CES Letter, Introduction: clarifying title) |
(No difference)
|
CES Letter Response Main Page | A FAIR Analysis of: [[../|Letter to a CES Director]], a work by author: Jeremy Runnells
|
[[../Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions|Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions]] |
Summary: The author bizarrely dismisses FAIR and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute as "unofficial" (and, by Runnells' implication, unacceptable) sources of answers. He also broaches a quote from Elder Marlin K. Jensen that is commonly misinterpreted to mean that the Church is losing members left and right. He makes claims that might be taken to mean that Richard Bushman's book Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling unavoidably leads someone to losing their faith in Joseph Smith.
Jump to details:
I’m interested in your thoughts and answers as I have been unable to find official answers from the Church for most of these issues. It is my hope that you’re going to have better answers than many of those given by unofficial apologists such as FairMormon and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS).
Longer response(s) to criticism:
In February of 2012, I was reading the news online when I came across the following news article: Mormonism Besieged by the Modern Age 1. In the article was information about a Q&A meeting at Utah State University that LDS Church Historian and General Authority, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, gave in late 2011. He was asked his thoughts regarding the effects of Google on membership and people who are "leaving in droves" over Church history.
Elder Marlin K. Jensen’s response:
This truly shocked me. I didn’t understand what was going on or why people would leave “over history.”
- “Maybe since Kirtland, we’ve never had a period of – I’ll call it apostasy, like we’re having now; largely over these issues...”
This alleged quote from Elder Jensen often gets erroneously interpreted to mean that the Church is losing members left and right. For full context and commentary, see Stephen Smoot's commentary on it for the FAIR Blog.
I started doing research and reading books like LDS historian and scholar Richard Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling and many others to try to better understand what was happening.
CES Letter Response Main Page | A FAIR Analysis of: [[../|Letter to a CES Director]] A work by author: Jeremy Runnells
|
[[../Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions|Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions]] |
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.
Donate Now