Russell M. Nelson's Five Truth Claims

I saw a lot of reaction online to Russell M. Nelson’s devotional at BYU on this day, even September 17, 2019, and thought I’d do some analysis.

TRUTH #1 - You are sons and daughters of God.

“You are the children whom God chose to be part of His battalion during this great climax in the longstanding battle between good and evil—between truth and error.  I would not be surprised if, when the veil is lifted in the next life, we learn that you actually pled with our Heavenly Father to be reserved for now.”

Between truth and error. A few things on this. Every generation since Joseph Smith has been taught that they are the chosen generation. Everyone is made to feel like these are the last days and they’ll probably be alive for the Second Coming. And if the opposite of truth is error, then WHY has been the church’s prophets and apostles been full of so many errors over the years?

TRUTH #2 - Truth is truth.

“Some things are simply true.  The arbiter of truth is God—not your favorite social media news feed, not Google, and certainly not those who are disaffected from the Church.”

This is the equivalent of Trump calling everything he doesn’t like “fake.” News isn’t the truth, Google’s not the truth and “certainly” not those people who were all in the church but left when they realized it wasn’t true. Believing in the church requires its members to believe several things that are scientifically, verifiably not true. And he knows that. He uses fear here. Since the days of Smith, the most dishonest evil people there are are ex-Mormons. The Sons of Perdition. Well, maybe those people just started looking at the truth. The real truth. The factual truth. The verifiable truth. Truth not based on feelings.

TRUTH #3 - God loves every one of us with perfect love.

“God knew that because of the adversary’s deceptive tactics and traps, the covenant path would not be easy to find or to stay on.  So, He sent His Only Begotten Son to atone for us and to show us the way. The godly power available to all who love and follow Jesus Christ is the power to heal us, strengthen us, cleanse us from sin, and magnify us to do things we could never do on our own.  Our Savior is the Divine Exemplar who marked the path that we are to follow.”

When I went back and re-researched everything about the church, I was amazed I’d never noticed how Satan is invoked all the time. All. The. Time. Satan is a constant boogeyman for everything. Belief in God requires belief in the adversary. Didn’t pray this morning? Victory for Satan. Have doubts about an angel commanding Smith to start practicing polygamy? Victory for Satan. Cognitive dissonance? You guessed it.

TRUTH #4 - The Lord Jesus Christ, whose church this is, appoints prophets and apostles to communicate His love and teach His laws.

“Sometimes we as leaders of the Church are criticized for holding firm to the laws of God, defending the Savior’s doctrine, and resisting the social pressures of our day.  But our commission as ordained Apostles is “to go into all the world to preach (His) gospel unto every creature.”  That means we are commanded to teach truth. 

"In doing so, sometimes we are accused of being uncaring as we teach the Father’s requirements for exaltation in the celestial kingdom.  But wouldn’t it be far more uncaring for us not to tell the truth—not to teach what God has revealed? 

"It is precisely because we do care deeply about all of God’s children that we proclaim His truth.  We may not always tell people what they want to hear. Prophets are rarely popular. But we will always teach the truth!… 

"Our commission as Apostles is to teach nothing but truth. That commission does not give us the authority to modify divine law. 

"For example, let’s consider the definition of marriage.  In recent years, many countries, including the United States, have legalized same-sex marriage.  As members of the Church, we respect the laws of the land and abide by them, including civil marriage.  The truth is, however, that in the beginning—in the beginning—marriage was ordained by God!  And to this day it is defined by Him as being between a man and a woman.  God has not changed His definition of marriage.”

Polygamy, anyone?

Let’s look at one sentence in there again.

“We will always teach the truth!”

No you won’t and no you haven’t. Even now, you’re finessing the November 2015 “policy” when you called it “revelation” in 2016. It wasn’t the truth when Smith taught it’s God's law for him to marry other men’s wives, when Brigham Young taught that the mixing of races should result in death on the spot, when John Taylor taught that polygamy would stay on Earth until the Second Coming, when Harold B. Lee taught that a person’s race and disability were penalties for behavior in the premortal life, when the temple ceremony contained the Law of Vengeance for 70 years.

Does Jesus really appoint these prophets and apostles? Because that would imply Jesus is a white supremacist. Why was the ban on blacks holding the priesthood there until 1978? Jesus was cool with the racist policy in 1977? He was cool with prophets like George Albert Smith calling it doctrine? He didn’t want to call any non-white apostles until the last apostle who’d been there before 1978 had died?

If Jesus communicated with them in any way, why did no one in the FP/Q12 know that Richard Lyman had been having an affair for almost 20 years? Where was the communication, the discernment? Why did the church fall for the salamander letter for so long? What evidence is there that the church is lead by revelation? What “revelations” have there really been?

The rampant dishonesty from the leaders is so frustrating.

TRUTH #5 - You may know for yourself what is true and what is not by learning to discern the whisperings of the Spirit.

“The Spirit” is what is known as elevated emotions. Everyone feels it, and they feel it for things that aren’t true. People feel it as confirmation that the FLDS church is true, that Islam is true, that Heaven’s Gate is true. Many LDS members are conservative, and they listen to Ben Shapiro, and Shapiro’s motto is “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Well, the church teaches to listen to your feelings and ignore the facts. Unless your feelings contradict church teachings, in which case it’s probably Satan deceiving you.

Other quotes:

“The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have continued to seek the Lord’s guidance and to plead with Him in behalf of His children who were affected by the 2015 policy. We knew that this policy created concern and confusion for some and heartache for others. That grieved us.”

Jesus sounds pretty heartless to implement this policy in the first place then.

“As a result of our continued supplication, we recently felt directed to adjust the policy such that the baptism of children of LGBT parents may be authorized by bishops without First Presidency approval, if the custodial parents request the baptism and understand that a child will be taught about sacred covenants to be made at baptism.”

Felt directed = confirmation bias. I can't imagine still trying to raise my LGBT kid in this church.

“Though it may not have looked this way to some, the 2015 and 2019 policy adjustments on this matter were both motivated by love—the love of our Heavenly Father for His children and the love of the Brethren for those whom we serve.”

So you admit it was from you and not from God? Let’s look at what you said in January 2016:

“When the Lord inspired His prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as Apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson. Revelation from the Lord to His servants is a sacred process, and so is your privilege of receiving personal revelation.” 

The gaslighting is unbelievable.

“Ask your Heavenly Father if we truly are the Lord’s Apostles and prophets.  Ask if we have received revelation on this and other matters. Ask if these five truths are—in fact—true.”

I’ve been a faithful member for over 40 years. A returned missionary. Callings ranging from quorum presidencies to nursery. I did a lot of praying when my shelf broke. I did a lot of praying and reading and studying and meditating, searching and pondering, and it lead me to one conclusion. The LDS church is not and has never been what it claims to be. Like most religions it’s full of good people doing the best they can, but to believe it fully, you have to believe in things that are just not true. 

LDS Church Growth Slows for 6th Straight Year

I wondered why they removed announcing church statistics during General Conference last year, but they left it the Audit report, which is exactly the same talk every year. My suspicion is because the numbers have been demonstrating a slowing of growth for many years now. That doesn't mean the church isn't still growing, but at this rate, the church is 7-8 years away from seeing its numbers actually shrink.

Total Membership - 16,313,735 represents a 1.21% increase from last year, but this is the fifth year in a row the church has failed to see at least 2% growth. This has never happened in the history of the church, even in the 1850's where the numbers shrank two years in a row. This is also the sixth year in a row where growth is lower than it was the year before. Compare this to the average growth rate of 2.47% in the 2000's or 3.61% in the 1990's. The 2010's so far average 1.81%. 2018 was the slowest growth rate for the church since 1937. It's also the first time since 1982 that total membership didn't jump by at least 200,000 members.

Children of Record - This is where the church is seeing steady decline. This is the fifth year in a row where the number of children of record has gone down. 2008 was the year where this number hits its all-time high of 123,502. The church had a natural fountain for growth with increasingly large families, but with more and more young people waiting for marriage and have fewer children, this can no longer be counted on.

Converts - The spike in the amount of missionaries had zero effect on the annual convert baptism number. 1999 is the last year the church saw over 300,000 convert baptisms.

Dead/Names Removed - This is not a number the church releases. I calculate this based on the other numbers by adding the converts/children numbers and subtracting from the total membership number of the year before. This year that number would be 140,868, a record high. Now granted, there's no way to really know the accuracy of this numbers based on all other reported numbers. Because when you look at them over the year, 1999 was a year where the numbers suggested that no one died or had their names removed, and another 8456 members materialized out of nowhere. We've seen some high profile excommunications lead to mass resignation movements lately. I think it shows that more people who leave the church aren't just not attending; they're actively taking the steps to have their names removed from the records.