Profit Russell M. Nelson at a recent BYU devotional shared five “truths”. The second truth he shared was “Truth is truth.” He continued saying, “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.”

Some things are true. Some things are false. If “truth is truth”, it shouldn’t matter if you do happen to find it on your “favorite social media news feed, Google”, or from “those who are disaffected from the church”. If you limit what you accept as truth from only certain sources, then you don’t really care about Truth. You care about someone’s interpretation of truth, which is not always the same as Truth.

Perhaps what Nelson was trying to say, was more along the lines of his late friend Boyd K Packer who said in his talk “The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than The Intellect”:

What I believe Nelson is really saying, is that the truth you might find on social media, Google, or those pesky inactive/post Mormons isn’t useful to him, and it isn’t useful to tithing donations or attendance. Sometimes Truth results in more disaffected members who find out they’ve been fed someone’s interpretation of truth under the guise of Truth.

Just like Oaks’ suggestion that “research is not the answer”, Nelson is saying only God has the Truth, and he’s giving it to the church leaders, so only get truth from them. So trust Him to tell Rusty and the gang what you need to know. Mama knows best. Er, great-great-grandpa.

This is also another attempt to discredit, shame, and dehumanize exMormons. Mr. Nelson once again reinforces the us/them binary discrimination within the church. If you leave, you have no credibility. You don’t have the spirit, certainly you can’t know Truth. He applies the label “those disaffected with the church” to members who found out Truths that deeply hurt them. He reduces us to the impersonal pronoun “those”. We’re not fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, bishops, Elder’s quorum presidents, stake presidents, relief society presidents, mission presidents, nursery leaders, or ward librarians. We don’t have feelings, families, friends, jobs, or callings. We’re just “those”. Undesirable. Foolish. Others. Deceived. Them.

This attitude of us/them will only continue to tear otherwise happy families apart when Truths are discovered and “those” who leave are ostracized, pitied, condescended to, shamed, and discarded. Once again, the members are blamed for discovering Truths that they’re not responsible for, Truths that the church has tried to keep from getting out. Truths that the church has denied until it couldn’t any more. Sure, the church could claim it’s a mistake, but as Oaks has said, “I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them”. As someone once said, “When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest”. Since the church refuses to acknowledge its “mistakes” with Truth, it ceases to be honest. So I’d caution everyone to be weary about accepting truths from them.

I say these things in the name of Truth, Amen.

Brother Ghost