The Faith Crisis Starter Pack
This is one of a series social media posts that I wrote in 2021 during the height of my Faith Transition. Because I was publicly deconstructing in front of an entirely faithful network of friends and followers, I received a lot reactions, questions, and backlash from people I loved regarding my journey. Many of them were dismissive or hostile towards me because they had been trained to me as a “defector.”
Since an overly long response in a comment or personal message would have been seen as aggressive, I took quotes from these reactions to write these public posts in response. I never attributed the person who asked the question since I didn’t want anyone to feel specifically blamed or called out for having the response. The questions are also not unique. They are part of the scripted response we were taught to have as members of the “in-group.” Still, each post begins with a quotation because it is a question I personally received during my Transition.
Q: “Where do you even start to learn about this?”
Oh, yessssss. Speak nerdy to me. I love this question.
These Three Books
As a good starter pack, it’s a good idea to read these three books. They give an overview of the overall history and the overall problems:
The CES Letter by Jeremy Runnells (free and online)
📔Rough Stone Rolling by Richard L. Bushman (2005)
📙No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie (1942)
After that, you get to choose your own adventure. If you find that an issue came up for you from those three books, dig deeper–learn everything about it.
The Church is like a giant fraying sweater. You can pull on any thread and it will lead to every other issue eventually.
Gospel Topics Essays:
Notes:
🔎These essays were released first in 2014, seemingly in response to the storm of confusion that followed the CES Letter bringing up all these issues in 2013. They have been edited at intervals, since that release, mostly, it seems to soften them up and make them less likely to communicate the gravity of the problems.
🔎All Gospel Topics Essays are on the Church’s website, as of March 18, 2022. The footnote resources are difficult to use and they have been known to change or disappear without explanation. So, if you want to read them, but don’t have time right now, go screenshot them or learn to use the Wayback machine to view the previous versions.
🔎Another option for low-time are these panel-responses to the original Gospel Topics Essays. They are very accessible and offer other research options for each topic:
https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/tag/gospel-topic-essay
Okay, on to the Main Event!
Egyptology and Book of Abraham
🪔Gospel Topics Essay: “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham” (Online)
🪔Egyptologist Robert Ritner discussing the historicity of the Book of Abraham (Online)
https://mormonstories.org/podcast/robert-ritner
Polygamy
👨👩👧👧👩👩👦👦👩👩👧👦👩👩👧👧Gospel Topics Essay: “Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (Online)
👩👦👦 Wife no. 19 by Ann Eliza Young (Book)
🤫Gospel Topics Essay: “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” (Online)
🤫 In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton (Book)
😵💫Gospel Topics Essay: “Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah” (Online)
😵💫Tokens and Signs: “The 267 Hidden Brides of Wilford Woodruff” (Online)
🥴Gospel Topics Essay: “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage” (Online)
🤯Mormon Think: Polygamy (Online)
http://www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm
Race and Racism
✋🏾Gospel Topics Essay: “Race and the Priesthood” (Online)
✋🏾Religion News Service: “Forty years on, most US Mormons still believe the racist priesthood/temple ban was God’s will” by Jana Riess
✋🏾Stuff you Missed in Sunday school: “Race”
https://missedinsunday.com/category/memes/race
🧬Gospel Topics Essay: “Book of Mormon and DNA Evidence” (Online)
🧬Geneticist Simon Southerton and former Bishop on DNA and the Book of Mormon:
(Book) “Losing a Lost Tribe” https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Lost-Tribe-Native-Americans/dp/1560851813/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1647611069&refinements=p_27%3ASimon+Southerton&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Simon+Southerton
🧬Simon Southerton Interview (Online)
https://mormonstories.org/podcast/simon-southerton-dna-lamanites-and-the-book-of-mormon
Aggression and Violence
🗡Gospel Topics Essay: Peace and Violence among 19th Century Latter-day Saints
🗡(Book) Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Will Bagley
🗡“Mountain Meadows Massacre” by Will Bagley (Online)
🗡 “Blood Atonement” (Online)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_atonement
The Temple
🚺Gospel Topics Essay: Joseph’s Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women (Online)
🚺Missed in Sunday School quotes on “Temple” (Online)
https://missedinsunday.com/category/memes/temple
–This is a site of memes, which would definitely not be considered a “scholarly source” by my BYU ENG 120 standards. However, each quote on this site is cited and linked, when possible and those sources (at least as many as I have checked) are credible.
🚺Missed in Sunday school quotes on Women (Online):
https://missedinsunday.com/category/memes/sexism
The Book of Mormon
🪨Gospel Topics Essay: Book of Mormon Translation(Online)
🪨Mormon Stories: “Translation Process” (Online)
*There are tons of other good sources on this. I also liked reading B.H. Roberts analyses.
The First Vision & Witnesses
☀️Gospel Topics Essay: First Vision Accounts (Online)
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng
☀️Mormon Stories: “First Vision” (Online)
https://mormonstories.org/truth-claims/joseph-smith/first-vision
–Detailed examination of the Similarities and differences between all known extant visions and copious references at the end for more info.
☀️“The Restoration and the Sacred Mushroom” by Robert T. Backstead
http://www.mormonthink.com/files/restoration-sacred-mushroom.pdf
–Fascinating theory as to the pentecostal origins of many of the zany visions described in early Church history.
☀️Also look up the later statements of the witnesses and the analysis of their handwriting.
OTHER
📎These are not pivotal issues, to me, but they are to many people, which is why Gospel Topics Essay have been written about them. I’ve included an alternative view, just for the sake of inquiry.
✝️Gospel Topics Essay: Are Mormons Christian?
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/christians?lang=eng
✝️Christianity Today: “Mormons and Christians: So Close, Yet So Far Away” by Joseph McDermott
✝️My answer: Mormons are often Christian, but Mormonism is not.
⛪️Gospel Topics Essay: Becoming Like God
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng
⛪️My take: I don’t know how general this knowledge is, but, apparently we don’t get our own planet any more, even if we do make it to the C-kingdom. Nuts.
🧝♀️Gospel Topics Essay: Mother in Heaven
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/mother-in-heaven?lang=eng
🧝♀️Mormon Wiki “Mother in Heaven”:
https://www.mormonwiki.com/Mother_in_Heaven
Conclusion
I have met members who get worried about reading the “right” stuff–wanting to vet their sources to the extreme in order to not be tricked into believing Anti-Mormon lies about the Church. My policy is that you never have to be afraid of reading. Read everything. Compare it, contrast it. Learn how to evaluate sources. Let things be nuanced. You will probably get a more accurate view of history from reading 15 sources that are all biased in different ways than you will from just reading one source, and certainly if you are reading “correlated” sources. Trust your God-given intelligence to let you interact directly with as many sources as possible. I don’t think God is afraid of history. 🙂
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