Line upon Line

This article is a response to Jeremy Runnells and a few others who have raised questions about our investigative report on the CES Letter.

It was especially rich to witness a few weeks ago someone whose energy has been poured into a decades-long assault on the faith of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, young and old, claim to be a victim when his own words and actions came under additional scrutiny.

That wasn’t necessarily a surprise, since this is how the author of the CES Letter has reacted to other past critiques. It’s also how Americans these days tend to respond anytime they are uncomfortably challenged about almost anything (including terrible wrongs). There’s tremendous cultural currency right now in being seen as a victim.

But Jeremy Runnells is no victim. He’s an active agent in the faith dissolution of many people in our religious community—especially young adults and teenagers. And his very-public words and actions merit all the public scrutiny they have received—and more.

Our investigative report has received a strong, positive response since it was published. In what follows, we address a handful of critical reactions in the days since its release, responding with clarifications for those who are open to hearing and understanding more.

1. ‘Runnells was up front from the beginning—so what’s the big deal?’ 

When Runnells’ professed intent behind the CES letter was challenged previously by Sarah Allen and others, he pointed to part of his original 2013 essay’s introduction:

“I’m just going to be straightforward and blunt in sharing my concerns. Obviously I’m a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it’s no secret which side I’m on at the moment.”

Runnells says he is grateful for the director being willing take time to “answer my concerns and questions,” continuing: “You may have new information and/or a new perspective that I may not have heard or considered before. This is why I’m genuinely interested in what your answers and thoughts are to these troubling problems.”

As more and more people are now realizing, the author’s words in this short introduction are directly contradicted by what he did before writing the essay, his actions behind the scenes when he was composing it, the over-the-top aggression of the essay text itself, and a whole set of other actions after sending his letter off to the CES director that continued for years.

Beginning with this introduction, Runnells camouflaged the bigger picture of what he was really up to, through the rhetorical-promotional wrapping he placed around his essay. He wanted readers to think that he was authentic, curious, and interested in answers to his concerns.

But something very different was happening all along, as demonstrated in our report. Still, Runnells has stayed “on message” now for a decade.

So, it’s no surprise that in his August 14th response to our study, he referenced again the above paragraph, while repeating his longtime claim about his prior state of mind and specific purposes:

“I was a distraught and very frustrated member trying to get official answers when I wrote the CES Letter in hopes of restoring my testimony.”

In hopes of restoring his testimony? You mean, after repeatedly attacking the Church in the 6 months prior to writing? And while simultaneously distributing this “letter” to ask “feedback/advice” from Church-hostile social media about its already faith-hostile content?1

Incredibly, this has remained his story for a decade. And even in the face of ten different lines of evidence demonstrating otherwise, it’s still his story today. I was really just looking for answers.

Despite all this, the letter’s original introduction continues to lead some of his sympathizers to say, “hey, Jeremy wasn’t deceiving anyone here. He was honest about who he was from the beginning.”

To view these introductory paragraphs in this way—as somehow demonstrating authenticity and transparency—suggests a superficial reading of the original essay. An English teacher reading the introduction of the original CES Letter would feel compelled to say, “Wow, the rest of your paper doesn’t really match what you say here about being interested in the thoughts of the other person. Can you help me understand that discrepancy?”

In a plain reading of the original text, you can’t escape the jarring clash between Runnells’ introduction and hundreds of subsequent paragraphs tightly organized into 175 faith-hostile “questions” repeatedly attacking the Church, denouncing God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost and sharply arguing against the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For instance, he writes:

• “To believe in the scriptures, I have to believe in a god who endorsed murder, genocide, infanticide, rape, slavery” (pg. 63).
• “Christ is the crazy God of the Old Testament….Again, I’m asked to believe in not only a part-time racist god…but a part-time psychopathic schizophrenic one as well.” (pg. 64).
• And about the Holy Ghost: “This is the best God could come up with in revealing His truth to His children[?]…How can I trust such an inconsistent and contradictory source?” (pg. 44).

Not exactly how someone talks when they’re “genuinely interested” in additional thoughts and sincerely motivated by “hopes of restoring my testimony.”

At one point, Runnells ironically alleges that Joseph Smith’s actions over several years “are not congruent with honest behavior” (pg. 30). After attempting to use questions to denounce living prophets by name (pg. 32), he also denigrates the character of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon (pg. 52), while eventually accusing the Church of Jesus Christ of being a cult.

Even then, many thoughtful members sought to respond. Yet when their detailed responses were provided over the years,2 the author would most often minimize, ignore or outright attack them in some way.3 And in the same moment he pretended to be actively pursuing “official” answers from this single director of a Church Education System program, there’s no evidence Runnells ever seriously engaged his own local leaders to seek resolution of these same concerns.4

As you can see, it’s not only the essay’s contents which collides with that introduction, but everything he did before, during, and after sending the letter. Our report documents in great detail how:

• Over the previous nine months before writing his letter, from July 2012 to April 2013, the author was repeatedly bashing the faith online in eleven separate postings5 and at least two documented incidents of attempting to lead some members out of the faith.6
• During this same period when he was composing his essay, Runnells was simultaneously seeking out feedback from a Church-antagonistic subreddit, while encouraging its participants to send his hostile draft to “TBM loved ones” (active members of the Church).7

This took place at the same moment he wrote those lines to the CES Director:8 “You may have new information/or a new perspective that I may not have considered before. This is why I’m genuinely interested in what your answers and thoughts are to these troubling problems.”

Within days of sending the letter, Runnells accelerated its distribution and branded these false storylines about his intent—eventually creating a website and adding significantly to the letter’s contents, and prodigiously promoting it over several years.9

This jarring, duplicitous disconnect between what he was doing and his essay’s introduction is telling:

“Here again, we observe two different personas,” we write in our report. “To the general public, a purported seeker of religious answers; to his disaffected comrades in the online world, a clever compiler of an anti-Church hit piece, continuously looking for more ammo.”

From the entirety of this evidence, what actually took place is clear: These introductory paragraphs of Runnells’ original letter were added to disarm readers and provide an appearance of reasonableness—implying a curiosity and openness that never actually existed, but which was valuable to persuade others this truth-seeking was motivating his inquiry.

That pretense was yet another deception—and is no defense at all. Instead, it represents even more evidence of the author’s fraud that damaged so many people’s faith.

2. ‘This is really just an ad hominem hit piece that attacks him personally.’

One especially strange feature of American discourse today is its fragility. Even at universities where open grappling about truth ought to be most welcome, any inquiry or argument that makes someone else feel even slightly uncomfortable about how they choose to act can be cause for a report or sanction.

“I’ve been attacked” the person alleges. That’s the world we live in today.

So it’s truly the least surprising thing imaginable to hear the author characterize our report investigating his own words and actions as really just “personal attacks from Mormon apologists,” “ad hominems,” and “slanders.”

How dare we Latter-day Saints who have watched our brothers and sisters’ faith repeatedly wounded and hollowed out by past libel and slander repackaged as new “honest questions”—how dare we raise our voices to thoroughly investigate the source of this sophisticated smear?

Let’s be clear: The author’s many claims about the background and purposes of the essay were made publicly, heavily promoted, and energetically distributed over many years. That’s why a more direct investigation and public report of his own claims and storylines is vital.

Even so, some Church critics have predictably portrayed our analysis as a “shoot the messenger” effort.

Some of these try to broaden the definition of “ad hominem” beyond its precise, historical meaning as a way of prejudicing the audience against any effort that exposes deceptive speech and actions directly related to the Church and gospel.

Philosopher Douglas N. Walton, a highly respected scholar in the field of argumentation, gives a more complete, accurate definition by pointing out that questions of personal conduct, character, and motives can be very legitimate and relevant in evaluating truth—especially when there are “actions contradicting the subject’s words.”10 It is only when criticism of the person “is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making” that it’s truly ad hominem, clarifies Dr. Bo Bennett, another expert on critical thinking.

Are the personal and autobiographical details brought up in our analysis relevant to Runnells’ arguments about the Church of Jesus Christ?

Of course they are. They are central. Readers’ initial reactions to Runnells’ essay almost universally focus on its “just-my-honest-questions” storyline and rhetorical packaging—what we’ve called “the shiny wrapper.”

It’s this narrative around the CES Letter that led to its potency in people’s lives—including the author’s professed storyline about the timeline of his original faith crisis, his state of mind when he wrote his essay, his purposes in doing so, the true makeup of his target audience, and his claims about the Church’s supposed silence in response.

Therefore, it’s impossible to do a comprehensive analysis of the essay’s actual impact without examining the author and his story—which are inseparable. As our colleague Carol Rice put it: “He is the story; he is the brand.”

3. ‘They’re being dishonest about Jeremy and not telling the whole story.’ 

At the same moment the author of the CES letter has accused us of “ad homimens,” in a statement of breathtaking irony he describes the two of us as “dishonest authors” who have “created a false narrative while ignoring key evidences that contradict their false slander and narrative.”

Over the last decade, this has become a go-to rhetorical strategy of some critics of the Church—openly accusing leaders and other members of being simply “dishonest” and outright “lying.” Yet what evidence do they have of this deceit?

Their own words and dark interpretations only. After Jacob wrote an in-depth piece highlighting the many errors in a mainstream article alleging the Church had covered up child abuse, a lawyer in Idaho reached out presumedly with factual concerns about one of the ten elements.

Wanting to see if there was something he had missed, Jacob corresponded with this lawyer and consulted with several other experts to make sure the point was made in a completely accurate way. At the end of their correspondence, this lawyer went online and posted shockingly on Reddit: “Jacob Z. Hess is dishonest.”

This is more or less how you can expect to be represented publicly if you try to defend the full truth about faith today. Never mind engaging the substance. Never mind exploring some of the many meaningful differences in interpretation concerning certain historical details or doctrinal matters. And never mind providing actual evidence of deception (as we have).

So much simpler to just assert, without a shred of genuine evidence, “they’re just lying!”

What you read in this comprehensive report is based on gathering all the evidence we could about what took place—demonstrating in detail the full picture of what actually took place. We’ve also updated the report from new feedback which we took seriously —making a number of adjustments and updates, including two additional pages (28 and 29) that address the author’s introductory paragraphs more in-depth, elaborating on something previously touched on in the footnotes.11

Even then, there was much evidence we didn’t find the space to include in the original report. For instance, there is more to say about Runnells’ online targeting of young adults and teenagers tender in the faith. As posted on Reddit on May 8, 2015:

“The only people I ever consider sharing info with are younger folks who ask questions and they’re young enough to do something about it and enjoy a good part of their lives if they stop believing.”

We also didn’t mention this comment from his second Stake President’s interview on November 9, 2014,12 when he stretched even farther his claim about his frame of mind when he wrote the CES Letter:

“It was not in the spirit of debate or trying to prove him wrong, it was in the spirit of ‘Help me. Help me understand where I’m wrong. Help me, help me fix this…’”

As should be abundantly clear by now, there is nothing in Runnells’ essay or his history that would indicate any such a desire or spirit.

4. ‘They’re really just distracting from—and intentionally avoiding—the questions posed in the letter itself.’

None of the points raised in the CES Letter have been unaddressed, ignored or avoided in the last decade. Every single one of the accusations-masquerading-as-questions has received effective responses, as we list above in footnote 3 and also in our report.

About the letter’s contents, Luke Driscoll summarizes, “Most of these arguments have been debunked for years even before the CES came forth” and “any quote from church leaders are just out of context.”

If these specific contents in the letter are all we focus on—if we become so engrossed in them that we miss the larger picture of what’s happening in the CES Letter—then we’ve taken the bait, and fallen into exactly the “oh-my-goodness-look-at-all-these-troubling-questions-from-a-curious-member-that-no-one-has-been-willing-to-simply-answer” experience the author designed.

Attention to the “wrapper” is the critical awareness that’s too often been missing. And our investigative report illuminates and brings all that into the foreground—revealing the deceptive intentions and designs of the author that should have taken center stage from the beginning.

5. ‘It doesn’t really matter the false approach he took, which is really quite understandable given the circumstances.’

We’ve been surprised by one other comment we’ve heard, which starts by conceding the deception involved, before telling us in essence, “Sure Runnells played a fast one here, but it doesn’t matter if he lied about his story or purposes. The content of his essay is what matters.”

Some of these point to the Church itself, insisting that the level of “deception” and “lying” there is great enough to justify whatever is required to expose it—“gotta fight fire with fire!”

As a professional online marketer—his daytime occupation—Runnells was well suited to do just that, ensuring his letter had a dissemination far beyond what it ever deserved. Runnells’ own deception matters a great deal in this regard, because that foundational storyline persuaded others to grant his essay unique credibility—opening themselves up to “machine-gunned” questions designed to overwhelm people emotionally and resulting in lasting wounds to some people’s faith.

Yet aware that every question has an answer, many others have been unaffected by the attempted barrage. We are among the millions confident in our belief that the prophets and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are truthful and good. The fruits of taking their words seriously go on in every direction in our lives that are sweet, abundant and rich.

Needless to say, we do not believe the Church has perpetrated grand deceptions, as hardened critics charge—seeing other valid explanations for some complex matters involving Church history and doctrine. As Jacob wrote several years ago, this idea that leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ have orchestrated elaborate, deliberate lies over the years is the most fabulous lie of all (see, “Have You Heard the Biggest Church Lie?”).

To those who have chosen to trust cynical, dissembling, grievance-driven dissidents with ultimate questions of the soul—happiness, love, life and eternity—instead of being willing to follow the loving, peaceful, truthful and beautiful men and women leading the Church of Jesus Christ, our hearts honestly hurt for you.

Why it all matters

Don’t tell us for a moment this conversation doesn’t matter.  “My brothers were deceived by that person,” writes one person in response to our study. “They tried to get me to leave because of these letters.”

There are far too many similar stories directly connected with the letter. “As I personally read the CES letter, I was terrified,” posts another responder on Instagram. “I was bewildered. It was shaking me up. It came at a time when I was vulnerable and already on shaky ground.”

“However, I kept praying to God. I was looking for answers from God. Not my spouse, not the prophet, not my friends, not my siblings, or from strangers on TikTok or podcasters. Only God.”

“In these times we are living, there are voices everywhere clamoring for our time and attention,” this person continues. “The voice I trust most is my Heavenly Father. I’ve seen too many lose faith, and ultimately lose Christ.”

What more awareness could mean

“If more members of the Church understood the facts you so eloquently provide,” Ron Rhodes wrote to us after our investigation was released, “they would be less likely to fall victim to the misleading information in the letter”—with Ralph Hancock noting the “dominant tendency” among believers to assume “the author is sincere and is just speaking from his experience.”

Historian Dr. Steven C. Harper was one of them. “I was one of many, who knows how many thousands, who read the CES letter and wanted to wrap my arms around Jeremy Runnells and say, ‘man that sucks, I wish that stupid CES guy had been better to you.’”

“And that’s just not what happened. That’s not the truth…The author was not an honest truth seeker. As many, many people have done, I took for granted that he was who he said he was.”

“It was never really a letter from an honest truth-seeker asking questions” said Stephen Done, summarizing our own analysis. “Instead, it was an essay specifically designed to attack people’s faith and pull them away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

“The level of deception Jeremy Runnells engaged in during his promotion of the letter is shocking,” he added.

The evidence couldn’t be more clear. And more and more people are realizing what this letter was from the beginning—including the many precious families who were personally impacted by it.

Every tear from every eye 

Despite the overwhelming evidence documented in our report, the author could still choose to continue portraying himself as the victim of a “character attack.” In doing so, Runnells would be attempting to seize control of the narrative—making this about others rather than himself. 

But that’s not going to work anymore. Because truth has a way of coming out in the end. It’s also this same search for truth, the refusal to water it down, and the rejection of deception that often leads people back to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The growing number of stories of individuals and families returning to the faith include many people once impacted by this letter.13 Even Jeremy himself could surprise us and one day return.

Please pray for the numerous individuals, marriages, and families whose love for and confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ has been wounded by the CES Letter over the last decade. The God who can wipe every tear from every eye can find ways to heal every single one of these brothers and sisters as they turn back to the Savior and allow Him to heal their battered faith.

We’re rooting for you all and won’t ever stop hoping!

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