Historical transparency and the Gospel Topics essays

For decades leaders told historians to suppress true but unhelpful facts; since 2013 the Church has quietly conceded much of what critics said, without announcing it.

What the Church claims

The Church has always been open about its history; members who are surprised by difficult facts simply had not studied.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. The Church's own historian and its own publications document the shift from suppression to reluctant disclosure; the remaining defense is that disclosure has now happened, which concedes the historical pattern.

The record

  • Boyd K. Packer, 1981-08-22, to CES educators: 'Some things that are true are not very useful'; historians who publish 'a weakness or mistake of a prominent historical figure' were criticized; the talk remains on the Church website as seminary pre-service reading.
  • Church Historian Steven E. Snow (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', adding that with the Internet 'we can't continue that pattern' and that 'being open about our history solves a whole lot more problems than it creates'.
  • The Gospel Topics essays (published 2013-2015 without press releases) now form a collection on the Church website covering the First Vision accounts, Book of Mormon translation and DNA, race, plural marriage in Kirtland/Nauvoo/Utah, the Manifesto, Becoming Like God, Mother in Heaven and peace and violence; the essays carry no author or date.
  • Saints, Volume 1: The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846 (2018) opened a four-volume narrative history that includes seer stones and plural marriage, presented as the Church's official history.
  • Within the same period the Church has continued information management: the 2020 curriculum incident, the Packer 2010 edit, the SEC-documented concealment of finances, and handbook rules against public opposition (see related topics).

The moving target

  • 1981-08-22: History should be faith-promoting; not all truth is useful.
  • 2013: Past tendency to close records; openness now serves the Church.
  • 2013-2015: Difficult topics addressed in official but unsigned, unannounced essays.
  • 2018: A candid, narrative official history for all members.

The exchange

Snow 2013; Church History Department; FAIR (CES Letter rebuttal series)

The Church is now the most transparent it has ever been: the Joseph Smith Papers, Gospel Topics essays, Saints and Church History Topics put the difficult material on the Church's own site. Critics recycle 'hidden' facts the Church itself published.

The answer: Much of this is true and the site should credit it. But the essays were released without announcement, unsigned and undated, are not part of Sunday curriculum, and were unknown to most members for years (Snow's own words describe why: the Internet made the old pattern untenable). Transparency arrived after exposure, not before, and the Church has never said that its prior teaching materials misled members. The 1981 Packer talk that licensed selective history is still assigned to seminary teachers.

What they get right: Since 2013 the Church has conceded more difficult facts than any critic in 1981 would have predicted, and the Joseph Smith Papers are a model of scholarly publication.

FAIR

The CES Letter has been answered point by point (FAIR's 2021-2023 series; Jim Bennett's reply), so its claims of concealment are stale.

The answer: FAIR's rebuttals engage the arguments, and a site like this one should do the same; but 'answered' usually means 'given an apologetic explanation', not 'shown to be false'. Most of the CES Letter's factual claims are now confirmed in the Church's own essays; what is contested is their significance.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

The trajectory is the argument. In 1981 an apostle told the Church's teachers that faith outranks accuracy; in 2013 the Church Historian conceded records had been kept closed and that the Internet forced a change; the resulting essays concede polygamy with teenagers and married women, the seer stone, the Book of Abraham's non-translation and the ban's human origins, but were published in a way designed not to be noticed. An institution that claims to be led by prophets of God has, on its own account, disclosed its history on the schedule set by Google. That pattern, information released under pressure and framed to minimize damage, is what the finances topic (SEC) shows in a different domain.

The apologetic case

The Church is a religious community, not a university; it teaches faith first and has nonetheless funded the most exhaustive documentary project in American religious history, published candid essays on every difficult subject, and written an official history that includes what earlier manuals omitted. Snow's remarks show leaders learning and changing, which is what an inspired but human institution looks like.

What would change this

Evidence that the essays were announced to members and integrated into curriculum at release; or an official acknowledgement that earlier manuals presented an incomplete history.

Sources

An independent project. Not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with any organization cited here. Summaries are written here; short quotations are attributed and linked. Every page names its sources so that it can be corrected, and every page can be challenged.