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To Truth Seekers:
“I love how this reads as a legit letter.”—BigMikeSRT, Reddit fan of the CES Letter
Brought to the world eleven years ago, something called “the CES Letter” went viral in part due to its intriguing tale of a perplexed man seeking answers to questions about a faith he once loved. On his website dedicated to the essay’s dissemination, the author Jeremy Runnells describes it as “one Latter-day Saint’s honest quest to get official answers from the LDS Church on its troubling origins, history, and practices.”
This is how it was presented. And this is how it has been passed along and widely promoted over the last decade. From beginning to end, however, the essay sharply attacks and argues against the foundational truth claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This naturally led to many responses from devoted members of the Church defending the gospel of Christ.
This includes, in chronological order: FAIR (2013-2023), Dan Peterson (2014), Michael R. Ash (2015), Brian Hales (2016), Jim Bennett (2018), René Krywult (2019), Scott Gordon (2019), David Snell (2019), Sarah Allen (2021-2022), Gregory L. Smith (2023), and Mormonr (2023). There were also collections of videos addressing specific topics raised in the letter organized by Brian Hales, FAIR, and Saints Unscripted.
Most of these replies to the essay naturally focused on the many questions Runnells raised within its pages, with far less attention to the persuasive wrapping around those same questions—including the taken-for granted origin story and declared purpose of the letter, which were often presumed to be legitimate even among those issuing faithful rebuttals.
For instance, Michael Ash writes: “I don’t doubt that the author of the CES Letter is sincere…hurt by feelings of betrayal, and believing that the Church had lied.” Jonathan Cannon likewise said Mr. Runnells’ essay reflects his “real, lived experience” which he “came by…honestly.” Jim Bennett goes further, calling the author “honorable” and coming from a “place of integrity.”
Much of this is understandable. Generally speaking, believers like to trust people’s hearts and presume goodness. But when a veritable mountain of clear, contradictory evidence points beyond the arguments themselves to the larger storyline serving up those arguments to the world, it would seem shortsighted, even unwise, to overlook that evidence. This is especially true in this situation, given the sizable impact of the essay—with some describing it as playing a significant role in their life-altering decision to step away from the Church of Jesus Christ (though many continue to return).
Mass buy-in to the story
YouTube poster “Miss Syrinxie” is emblematic of so many of the reactions to the essay—with her near-reflexive acceptance in 2021 of Runnells’ public messaging, saying: “From my understanding, the letter wasn’t intended to be this big exposure of the church; Jeremy Runnells had legitimate questions that he was seeking answers to. Why couldn’t anyone just honestly answer his questions? Obviously, it’s because no one has the answers…”
Notice how this woman focuses on the author’s stated motive for writing his essay, and accepts it without question—which is consistent with so many comments about the CES Letter online. Another anonymous commentator on YouTube wrote about the letter in 2015: “It came from a place of sincere inquiry.” Jordan Schaffer similarly said on Quora in 2019: “The man who wrote it designed it as a list of questions that were concerning him while he was still a believing member of the church, when he was hoping a Church Educational System instructor might be able to provide a scholarly clarification.” There are hundreds of similar reactions on the web and social media illustrating how the essay’s poignant story went on to have its far reaching, persuasive effect among the uninformed and unwary—despite the many skilled responses to its internal arguments against the faith.
Each time another person accepted the essay's 'just-my-questions’ narrative, they effectively joined in helping promote Runnells’ story. So, the essay’s further spread, in large part, was due to others taken in by the heart tugging tale, who then volunteered their energies to pass it along to more and more people.
But was this background and origin story true?
A closer look at the evidence
In 2021, Sarah Allen began arguably the most comprehensive analysis and refutation of this voluminous essay. Over 16 months, in 70 Weekly Reddit postings (the equivalent of 800 pages), she brought close attention to each page and paragraph of Runnells’ oft-expanded, now 137-page text, with exhaustive citations, cross-references and links.
What caught our attention was her much-discussed initial posting, titled: “The Dishonest Origins of the CES Letter”—which prompted our own extensive investigation over the last year into the foundational storylines surrounding the letter. In addition to examining the various iterations of the document (which was expanded over the years), we studied all available evidence, including online interactions both before and after the essay’s release—to get a more comprehensive picture of where the letter came from, what prompted its creation, and how it was used over time.
We were motivated to start this inquiry because of the hurt and heartache we have seen among people we love—influenced directly by the contents of this essay. Our goal has been to find out the full truth surrounding its background story and stated purposes, so we can better support the many impacted by its messaging. Because this rhetorical packaging influenced so many precious brothers and sisters of faith to grant the document unique credibility—trusting it to influence their own views and feelings—we see this investigation as a necessity.
We ended up uncovering 10 key takeaways providing unambiguous, conclusive evidence that the “sincere questions from a searching heart” story was far from the truth. These include:
Adversarial Church-bashing long before the letter was written. Over a six month period prior to the essay ever being created, Runnells consistently attacked the Church of Jesus Christ repeatedly from an online persona he has since confirmed and openly acknowledged was him.
Disinterest in available and established channels for member questions. Neither before nor after the letter was created, is there any indication (in extensive documentation of all interactions with leadership) of sincere interest in receiving answers from his own local leaders to the questions he publicly posed and promoted.
Seeking feedback from church antagonists prior to publication. In the weeks and months prior to publishing the essay, Runnels actively solicited feedback and suggestions from some of the most hardened and hostile critics of the Church anywhere.
Public statements revealing a much broader intended audience. In various interviews and online interactions, the author’s own words reveal a clear intent extending beyond merely “getting answers to my own questions.”
Textual similarities mirroring other published dissidents. Significant portions of the original CES Letter text show evidence of being lifted from well-known anti-Latter-day Saint writings.
Taking a hostile, disparaging tone in the original essay. Compared with the curiosity and interest in truth one might expect in a list of questions, the essay displays a plain and unmistakable contempt towards the faith.
Immediately promoting and personally disseminating the letter online. Instead of anticipating a response through a period of waiting, the author quickly began marketing his letter to a broad audience.
Disparaging attitudes and manipulative actions toward local Church leaders. Once the author was called to account for his attempts to persuade other members to leave the faith, he used these occasions with pastoral leaders not to seek resolution of any personal religious concerns, but to further attack the Church and promote his I’ve-got-these-questions-no-one-will-answer brand of fraudulent victimhood.
Extensive and ongoing branding expansion efforts over subsequent years. The marketing and promotion of his essay didn’t ever stop—continuing with an enormous investment over the years afterwards and still continuing to this day.
Malicious personal attacks upon anyone who dared to disagree. When people raised concerns or objections to what the author was doing, Runnells employed mean-spirited attacks on the messengers (including those not of the faith), rather than focusing on the perspective being raised.
The referenced and detailed summaries of all these themes are available in the linked PDF above, representing the culmination of an estimated 7000 hours of work between the two of us, on our personal time and expense.
The whys of the project
This inquiry was motivated by the hurt and heartache we have seen among people we love—influenced directly by this essay. Our goal has been to find out the full truth surrounding its background story and stated purposes (what we refer to as “the shiny wrapper”), to better support the many impacted by its messaging. This rhetorical packaging influenced many precious brothers and sisters of faith to grant the letter unique credibility—trusting it to influence their own views and feelings.
If this essay sparked some kind of crisis in your own faith in the restored gospel, the Church of Jesus Christ, and the Prophet Joseph Smith, we hope this will be the beginning of a rethinking and reimagining of everything that hijacked your testimony.
The entire front-to-back story of the CES letter has never been detailed in this way before. In compiling this chronicle, we learned that in recent years a flood of Latter-day Saints who were negatively influenced by Runnells’ essay have returned to the faith, and that the faith community as a whole is more than ready to move on from this deceitful saga (many have already done so).
We sincerely appreciate those who effectively addressed the essay’s incendiary questions. But we believe the many innocent seekers who have encountered this heavily-promoted letter in the past, and who may in the future, need to understand something more than these specific responses. They deserve to know the full story surrounding the essay’s origin and background—the complete facts.
This in-depth inquiry is our work alone, wholly and completely independent - our own perspectives based on our own work. The investigation and writing is not that of our employers or of The Church of Jesus Christ. The bulk of the project was done prior to Jacob joining the Deseret News full-time, and always proceeded on our own time.
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Michael Peterson is an entrepreneur, writer, and lyricist living in Saratoga Springs, Utah. He has written for Public Square Magazine and is the author of “To Call Us By Our Name (A Reasonable Request in the Age of Authenticity)” and “Why a Belief Crisis Need Never Be Fatal to Faith.” Michael works in financial services—he attended both the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.
Jacob Hess is a writer, researcher and mindfulness teacher, who recently joined the Deseret News as a staff writer. He has worked to promote liberal-conservative understanding since his book with Phil Neisser, "You're Not As Crazy As I Thought (But You're Still Wrong)." His most recent book with Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson, and Ty Mansfield, is "The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints."
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