LDS Discussions — A Faithful Response

Doubts Are Not Dangerous

A Scholarly Response to LDS Discussions' Claim That the Church Suppresses Honest Inquiry

The Claim Under Examination

On September 17, 2019, LDS Discussions published a blog post titled Doubts Are Not Dangerous — They're Necessary, triggered by a comment made by Elder Craig C. Christensen during a youth Face to Face event. Elder Christensen, responding to a question about how to help friends who have encountered troubling information online, stated: “Doubts are dangerous. The question is the way that we receive revelation.”

LDS Discussions argues that this statement — and a broader pattern of talks from Church leaders — reveals an institution that systemically suppresses honest intellectual inquiry to protect membership numbers, tithing revenue, and control. The post concludes: “Doubts are not dangerous to you — they are dangerous to the church.”

This response examines each major claim in that post against the actual theological record of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What the evidence reveals is nearly the opposite of what LDS Discussions asserts: Latter-day Saint theology not only permits but structurally demands intellectual inquiry, and the real distinction the Church draws — between honest doubt and settled suspicion — is both philosophically coherent and spiritually essential.

Claim 1: The Church Tells Members That Doubts Are Dangerous

LDS Discussions treats Elder Christensen's brief, imprecisely worded statement — delivered in a mixed-language youth devotional — as the authoritative doctrinal position of the entire Church. This is a fundamental methodological error. A single impromptu remark at a youth event does not constitute official doctrine, and it stands in direct tension with decades of formal teaching from the highest levels of Church leadership.

In October 2013, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf — then Second Counselor in the First Presidency and among the most senior voices in the Church — devoted an entire General Conference address to the subject of doubt. His words were unambiguous:

Dieter F. Uchtdorf — “Come, Join with Us” (October 2013)

“It's natural to have questions — the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding. We openly acknowledge that in nearly 200 years of Church history — along with an uninterrupted line of inspired, honorable, and divine events — there have been some things said and done that could cause people to question. . . . Therefore, please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”

Notice what Uchtdorf does and does not say. He does not say doubts are forbidden or that those who question are rebellious. He invites those who have left to “come, join with us,” explicitly welcoming people who bring their doubts and questions back into community. His phrase “doubt your doubts” is not a suppression of inquiry; it is an epistemological discipline — the same discipline a good scientist applies when examining her own hypotheses before discarding a theory.

LDS Discussions quotes the phrase “doubts are dangerous” from a youth devotional but makes no mention of Uchtdorf's 2013 address, which was the most prominent General Conference treatment of doubt in recent memory and which directly contradicts the narrative being constructed. This selective use of evidence is not scholarship; it is advocacy.

Claim 2: The Church Demands That Members Seek Answers Only from Church-Approved Sources

LDS Discussions argues that the Church draws a deceptive line between questions (acceptable) and doubts (unacceptable), and that even questions are only permitted when the answers come exclusively from correlated Church sources. This argument collapses under examination of the Church's own canonical epistemology.

The Doctrine and Covenants — canonized scripture, not a correlated manual — commands the following process for arriving at truth:

Doctrine & Covenants 9:8

“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.”

The operative command is “study it out in your mind” before seeking divine confirmation. LDS epistemology, as encoded in scripture, is explicitly a two-stage process: rigorous rational investigation first, then spiritual confirmation. The Lord does not tell Oliver Cowdery to accept what he is told on authority. He instructs him to work the problem intellectually before approaching God. This is the structural opposite of what LDS Discussions claims the Church teaches.

Furthermore, the Church's own Gospel Topics Essays — published on its official website beginning in 2013 — proactively address the very historical issues LDS Discussions treats as concealed secrets: polygamy, the Book of Abraham, the translation process of the Book of Mormon, race and the priesthood, and multiple First Vision accounts. An institution determined to keep members from outside information does not voluntarily publish detailed essays on its most contested historical topics.

The institutional record here flatly contradicts the narrative of suppression. The Church has moved consistently in the direction of greater transparency, not less, precisely because it is confident that honest inquiry, properly conducted, supports rather than undermines its truth claims.

Claim 3: Joseph Smith's Own Inquiry Proves the Church Should Welcome Doubt

Ironically, LDS Discussions makes one argument that Latter-day Saint apologists can readily affirm: that Joseph Smith's founding prayer arose from genuine intellectual and spiritual doubt. “The entire premise of that argument is flawed,” the post says of Elder Christensen's position, “and really cuts against the very reason Joseph Smith claimed to seek an answer from God in the first place due to having doubts.”

This is correct — and it is precisely what the Church teaches. Joseph Smith's own account records his state of mind: “I knew not who was right or who was wrong and I considered it of the first importance that I should be right, in matters that involve eternal consequences.” His doubt did not lead him to cynicism or settled unbelief. It propelled him to action — to the grove, to prayer, to the very inquiry that LDS theology holds up as paradigmatic for all truth-seekers.

James 1:5 — The Scripture That Prompted Joseph Smith's Prayer

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

The founding act of the Restoration was, by Joseph Smith's own account, an honest inquiry arising from genuine confusion. LDS theology does not suppress this narrative — it enshrines it as the template for spiritual epistemology. The Church celebrates doubt-as-catalyst precisely because that is how the whole movement began. The question is not whether to doubt, but what one does with doubt once it arises.

Claim 4: Moroni's Promise Is a Closed Epistemic Loop

LDS Discussions argues elsewhere that Moroni 10:3–5 is a circular trap: pray, feel good, conclude it's true. But this misreads both the text and the process it prescribes. Moroni does not short-circuit investigation — he begins by requiring it:

Moroni 10:3–5

“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

The sequence is: (1) read, (2) remember and reflect historically, (3) ponder, (4) then ask. Steps one through three are intellectual acts. Moroni demands that the reader engage the historical and textual content before appealing to spiritual confirmation. The process is not “believe first, then confirm” — it is “investigate seriously, then seek divine witness.”

The conditions “sincere heart” and “real intent” are not restrictions on who may inquire; they are epistemic prerequisites that any honest investigator should already meet. A person who approaches the question having already decided the answer is false is not conducting inquiry — they are confirming a prior commitment. Moroni's promise is extended to genuine seekers, not to those who have already determined what they will conclude.

The Critical Distinction: Honest Doubt vs. Settled Suspicion

LDS Discussions treats “doubt” as a monolithic category and argues that all doubt is epistemically virtuous and must be followed wherever it leads. This is philosophically naive. The distinction that matters is not between questions and doubts, but between doubt as a dynamic catalyst for inquiry and doubt as a static posture of settled suspicion.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, one of the most intellectually rigorous members of the Quorum of the Twelve in the modern era, drew precisely this distinction in language that repays careful reading:

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

“Doubt, unless transmuted into inquiry, has no value or worth in the world. Doubt which immediately leads to honest inquiry, and thereby removes itself, is wholesome. Meanwhile, doubt which feeds and grows upon itself, and with stubborn indolence, breeds more doubt, is evil.”

Maxwell's framework is rigorously correct. A scientist who doubts a hypothesis does not declare all hypotheses suspect and stop working — she designs an experiment. A doubter who uses uncertainty as the occasion for deeper investigation is doing exactly what Latter-day Saint theology commends. A doubter who has settled into an adversarial posture — reading all evidence against faith and none for it, approaching every Church claim with the presumption of guilt — is no longer engaged in inquiry. They have reached a verdict.

Terryl Givens, professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond and one of the most respected LDS scholars writing today, frames this with precision in The Crucible of Doubt (co-authored with Fiona Givens, Deseret Book, 2014):

Terryl and Fiona Givens — The Crucible of Doubt (2014)

“The greatest benefit that can be derived from an honest doubt is the recognition that in the final analysis, we choose to believe. Faith is not compelled by evidence; faith is enacted in the face of uncertainty.”

This is not a counsel to suppress inquiry. It is a counsel to recognize what inquiry can and cannot accomplish. Evidence can narrow the space of reasonable interpretations; it cannot mechanically produce faith. Faith is an act of will in response to evidence — a point that applies equally to the secular and the religious. Every human being chooses which framework to inhabit when interpreting ambiguous data. The Latter-day Saint claim is simply that when one investigates honestly and follows the epistemological process outlined in Moroni 10 and D&C 9, the evidence supports the truth claims of the Restoration.

Claim 5: The Church Suppresses Doubt to Protect Revenue and Control

LDS Discussions concludes that the Church's position on doubt is ultimately cynical — an institutional survival strategy driven by fear of what honest inquiry will produce. “Those doubts will negatively impact the church's membership numbers, tithing revenues, and control over its members,” the post states.

This argument assumes its conclusion. It begins with the premise that honest inquiry leads inevitably to the conclusion that the Church is false, and then explains any Church counsel against premature skepticism as institutional self-preservation. But this is not an argument — it is a conspiracy framework that immunizes itself against refutation. If a leader encourages inquiry, it can be dismissed as performative. If a leader cautions against doubt-as-identity, it is cited as suppression. No evidence could, on this framework, count in favor of the Church's good faith.

The post's analogy to a dishonest car salesman who warns you not to take the car to a mechanic is rhetorically vivid but logically inapplicable. A more accurate analogy would be a master craftsman who warns an apprentice: “Before you conclude this tool is defective, make sure you are using it correctly.” The warning is not born of institutional self-interest but of experience with the process. The Church's counsel to ground questions in prayer, scripture study, and community is precisely that kind of counsel — not a prohibition on investigation but a framework within which investigation is most likely to be honest and productive.

Furthermore, LDS Discussions undermines its own argument within the very same post. In its closing paragraphs, the blog quotes the female host of the Face to Face event, who said: “We need to love people enough so that we can wait until they're ready. . . . And they also deserve to receive their own testimony.” LDS Discussions calls this “a beautiful way to say” what they are arguing. But this is a leader of the Church — at the same event where Elder Christensen made his contested remark — expressing patient, non-coercive love toward those who doubt. The Church's voice in that room was not monolithic suppression; it was a complexity that LDS Discussions' narrative cannot accommodate.

What the Evidence Actually Shows

The argument of LDS Discussions rests on a set of rhetorical moves that, examined carefully, do not survive scrutiny:

LDS Discussions' Methodological Errors

  • Selective citation — One imprecise remark at a youth devotional is treated as authoritative doctrine; Uchtdorf's 2013 General Conference address on doubt is entirely absent.
  • Strawmanning the distinction — The Church's nuanced distinction between honest inquiry and settled suspicion is reduced to “questions good, doubts bad.”
  • Ignoring contrary evidence within the same source — The female host's compassionate, non-coercive remarks at the very same event are quoted approvingly, contradicting the suppression narrative without acknowledgment.
  • Unfalsifiable framing — Any Church counsel is interpreted as institutional self-protection, leaving no possible evidence that could support the Church's good faith.
  • Conflating doubt with predetermined conclusions — The post treats “doubts lead to research and research leads to truth” as if the conclusion of that research is already known, when that presumption is precisely what is under question.

What the actual theological record shows is a Church whose canonical scriptures mandate intellectual investigation before spiritual confirmation; whose most senior leaders have publicly welcomed those who struggle with doubt; whose formal published essays engage proactively with contested historical topics; and whose scholars — from Neal A. Maxwell to Terryl Givens — have produced a sophisticated body of work precisely on the interplay between doubt, inquiry, and mature faith.

The Church's actual position, consistently articulated across its most authoritative forums, is not that doubts are dangerous but that doubt without inquiry is spiritually unproductive, and that inquiry conducted with genuine openness — including openness to the possibility that the Church is true — leads not to crisis but to greater understanding.

Conclusion: Doubt as a Threshold, Not a Destination

LDS Discussions is correct that doubt can be a catalyst for truth-seeking. Where it errs is in treating doubt as the destination rather than the threshold. The Latter-day Saint theological tradition, from Joseph Smith's founding inquiry to Uchtdorf's 2013 invitation, consistently holds that honest doubt is not the enemy of faith — it is often the beginning of it.

What the Church resists — and what any honest epistemology must resist — is the elevation of doubt itself into a permanent posture of settled disbelief, where one has ceased to inquire and begun instead to prosecute. That is not intellectual courage. It is intellectual closure wearing intellectual courage's clothing.

The invitation of the Restoration remains exactly what it has always been — the invitation Joseph Smith accepted in the spring of 1820 when his doubt became the occasion for the most important inquiry of his life:

James 1:5

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

God, in Latter-day Saint theology, does not upbraid the sincere doubter. He answers them. The Church's counsel is simply that to receive that answer, one must ask — honestly, with real intent, willing to act on what one receives. That is not the counsel of an institution afraid of honest inquiry. It is the counsel of one supremely confident in what honest inquiry, fully and faithfully conducted, will ultimately confirm.

Key Sources and Further Reading

  • Uchtdorf, Dieter F. — “Come, Join with Us,” General Conference, October 2013
  • Maxwell, Neal A. — Multiple addresses on faith, doubt, and intellectual inquiry (BYU Speeches archive)
  • Givens, Terryl and Fiona — The Crucible of Doubt (Deseret Book, 2014)
  • Givens, Terryl L. — Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought (Oxford University Press, 2015)
  • Doctrine & Covenants 9:8 — Canonical mandate for intellectual investigation preceding spiritual confirmation
  • Moroni 10:3–5 — The canonical investigative process: read, remember, ponder, then ask
  • Gospel Topics Essays — Official Church engagement with contested historical questions, churchofjesuschrist.org (2013–present)