Former Mormon bishop reaches out to Stake President concerning troubling church history #lds #mormon

A former Mormon bishop recently documented a faith crisis that began not with anti-Mormon literature, but with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' own official website. His account, detailed on the Mormon Stories Podcast, captures a growing phenomenon among longtime members. They start with a simple question about troubling church history and end up confronting an institution that now admits facts it once dismissed as hostile propaganda.

This is not the deconversion narrative of the 1990s. The bishop expected the church to withstand scrutiny. He believed that if the institution were true, it could stand on its own against criticism. What he found instead was a record that required no external attack to destabilize his belief.

Background: From Anti-Mormon to Official Doctrine

The 1990s marked a different era of Mormon apologetics. Church members were taught to avoid "anti-Mormon" material, a category that included claims about Joseph Smith's polygamy, the Book of Abraham translation methods, and the multiple versions of the First Vision. These topics were framed as attacks from enemies of the church.

Today, those same facts appear in the Gospel Topics Essays, published on lds.org between 2013 and 2015. The church now acknowledges that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy including with women already married to other men. It admits that the Book of Abraham translation does