LDS Discussions — A Faithful Response

The Rasband Face-to-Face: Pastoral Care, Not Manipulation

A scholarly response to ldsdiscussions.com’s analysis of the September 2020 devotional with Elder and Sister Rasband

Overview of the Critique

On September 13, 2020, Elder Ronald A. Rasband and his wife Sister Rasband hosted a worldwide Face-to-Face devotional for young adults. During the event, a youth named Harry from California asked why he should remain in the Church given serious problems he had with its truth claims. Elder Rasband responded pastorally, reframed the question toward positive reasons to stay, and Sister Rasband introduced a video testimony from a young man named Dominic who had overcome suicidal ideation through his faith.

The website ldsdiscussions.com published a critique of this exchange, arguing that: (1) Elder Rasband deliberately avoided Harry’s truth-claims question; (2) the Dominic video was emotionally manipulative “HeartSell” advertising; (3) the juxtaposition of the suicide video with leaving the Church was offensive and drew a deliberate equivalence; and (4) subsequent remarks about eternal families constituted psychological coercion. This response addresses each claim in turn.

The core problem with the ldsdiscussions.com analysis is that it systematically misidentifies the genre, purpose, and appropriate standards for a Face-to-Face devotional — then faults it for failing to be something it was never designed to be.

Claim 1: Elder Rasband “Deliberately Avoided” Harry’s Question

The critique’s first foundational error is demanding that a youth devotional function as a formal academic debate or apologist seminar. A Face-to-Face event is explicitly a pastoral and devotional format — a spiritual gathering broadcast to hundreds of thousands of youth worldwide — not a theology colloquium. To fault Elder Rasband for not delivering a point-by-point refutation of the CES Letter during a live youth broadcast is to misapply a standard that has no bearing on what the event was or what it was designed to accomplish.

Consider the ldsdiscussions.com argument that Elder Rasband “could have told Harry to read the Gospel Topics Essays” but didn’t, presumably because doing so would alert other youth to historical problems. This reasoning is circular: the critic demands the Apostle publicly broadcast a list of the Church’s most difficult historical questions to an audience of hundreds of thousands of young people who did not come to the devotional seeking a faith crisis — and then interprets the Apostle’s failure to do so as evidence of institutional cowardice. This is an unfalsifiable trap: referencing the essays would be branded as manipulation; not referencing them is branded as evasion.

In reality, Elder Rasband did answer Harry’s question — he answered it on its own proper terms. Harry asked “Can you give me a reason why I should stay?” Elder Rasband’s response was: reframe from deficit thinking to positive reasons; consider the testimonies of hundreds of thousands who also choose to stay; and reflect on the covenants and family ties that give belonging and eternal purpose. These are not evasions. They are the oldest and most tested responses in pastoral theology: point not to argumentative victories, but to the living witnesses of transformed lives and sustained community.

The critique further implies that because Harry asked about truth claims, any answer that does not address those specific claims is dishonest. But this assumes that the purpose of the devotional was to resolve Harry’s personal doctrinal investigation, rather than to offer him genuine care, perspective, and a reason to pause before a permanent decision. An apostle speaking to hundreds of thousands of youth worldwide is not a personal theologian-on-demand, and it is unreasonable to demand otherwise.

Claim 2: The Dominic Video Was “HeartSell” Manipulation

The ldsdiscussions.com critique devotes significant space to Bonneville Communications’ “HeartSell” program — a description of the company’s commercial advertising philosophy circa 2008–2015 — and uses it to argue that the emotional impact of Dominic’s video was engineered manipulation rather than genuine testimony. This argument has several serious problems.

First, Bonneville International is a commercial media company that produces content for many organizations and clients, not a secret arm of Church psychological operations. The HeartSell description was a marketing tagline on a corporate website — the kind of language any media company might use to attract clients. Using it to characterize a personal video testimony from a convert about overcoming suicidal crisis is an extraordinary category error.

Second, the critique’s implicit premise is that emotional impact equals manipulation. This is philosophically untenable. Classical rhetoric has always recognized three legitimate modes of persuasion: logos (reason), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotional engagement). Aristotle himself, the fountainhead of Western rationalism, affirmed that emotional appeals are not inherently manipulative but are a necessary component of honest persuasion when grounded in truth. The relevant question is not “did this make people feel something?” but “was the emotional content true and proportionate?”

Dominic’s testimony was not fabricated. He was a real person describing a real experience of faith sustaining him through suicidal crisis. That testimony is moving because it is true — not because production techniques engineered a false response. The ldsdiscussions.com logic, carried to its conclusion, would require that all personal testimony be delivered in monotone without music, lighting, or narrative arc lest it constitute “manipulation.” This standard would disqualify nearly every form of human communication, including the ldsdiscussions.com website itself, which uses emotional framing, rhetorical questions, and indignant language throughout.

The critic also argues that emotional spiritual experiences are epistemically unreliable because people across many religions report similar feelings. This is a well-worn argument, but it proves too much. Cross-cultural religious experience does not invalidate any particular experience any more than the fact that people across many cultures experience grief proves that no particular grief is real. The universality of an experience-type does not eliminate the validity of individual instances.

Furthermore, the ldsdiscussions.com critique of emotional evidence is selectively applied. The same site regularly features testimonials from former members describing spiritual emptiness after leaving the Church — testimonies that are presumably considered reliable and non-manipulative. The standard being applied is asymmetric: emotional evidence for belief is manipulation; emotional evidence for unbelief is authentic.

Claim 3: The Video Drew a Deliberate Equivalence Between Leaving the Church and Suicide

This is the most emotionally charged and rhetorically forceful claim in the critique, and it deserves careful examination. The argument is: Elder Rasband used the phrase “on the edge” knowing a suicide video was coming, Sister Rasband introduced it as part of the answer to Harry’s question, and therefore the Rasbands deliberately implied that leaving the Church is equivalent to taking one’s life.

This interpretation requires an extremely uncharitable reading that assumes deliberate malice. The phrase “on the edge” is an ordinary English idiom for being undecided or at a turning point — not a clinical term for suicidal ideation. The ldsdiscussions.com critique provides no evidence that Elder Rasband intended this phrase as a calculated double meaning, yet treats the interpretation as established fact.

As for the video itself: Dominic’s story is one of a person whose faith in Jesus Christ gave him reason to live. It is a story about what the gospel does in a person’s life — about the existential weight and significance of conversion and covenant. The Rasbands introduced it as a witness to the transformative power of the gospel, not as a clinical comparison of two categories of behavior. The connection being drawn was: “The gospel gives people reasons to live, to stay, to endure” — not “leaving the Church is the same as dying.”

It is worth noting the profound irony in this line of criticism. The ldsdiscussions.com author acknowledges being “very sensitive to the incredibly serious problems of depression and suicide” and states explicitly: “I am not trying to make any criticism of the content of the video or Dominic’s journey.” Yet the entire argument in this section depends on characterizing Dominic’s testimony as an offensive weapon deliberately deployed against Harry. One cannot both honor Dominic’s experience and weaponize the circumstances of its sharing in the same breath without contradiction.

Moreover, Elder Rasband has a well-documented and entirely consistent record of treating suicide prevention as a serious pastoral priority. In February 2019 — well before the September 2020 Face-to-Face — he addressed approximately 50,000 Church educators globally about the worldwide crisis of teen suicide, urging them to serve as “first responders” to at-risk youth. The ldsdiscussions.com narrative of the suicide video as a cynical rhetorical device is flatly inconsistent with this record of genuine pastoral concern for those struggling with suicidal thoughts.

Claim 4: The Eternal Family Remarks Were Psychological Coercion

The critique characterizes Elder Rasband’s closing remarks about the sealing power and eternal family as a coercive tactic — holding exaltation “over members’ heads” in order to manipulate compliance. This framing fundamentally misrepresents what the doctrine of eternal families is and how it functions.

Latter-day Saint theology holds that family relationships can be sealed and perpetuated beyond death through covenants made in the temple. For a believing Latter-day Saint — which Harry apparently still identified as at the time of his question — informing him of the potential eternal consequences of his decision is not manipulation. It is honest disclosure of what the doctrine teaches. A financial adviser who failed to inform a client of the long-term consequences of a major financial decision before the client acted would be guilty of negligence. Elder Rasband was being pastorally responsible, not coercive.

The ldsdiscussions.com critique draws a parallel to Joseph Smith using polygamy to coerce young women — a comparison so disproportionate it undermines the credibility of the argument. Reminding someone of their religious covenants and their meaning is not in any category with coercive marriage proposals. The comparison is a rhetorical escalation that substitutes outrage for analysis.

It is also worth noting that articulating eternal consequences is standard pastoral practice across Christianity. Catholics who remind a member that leaving the sacraments has eternal implications, Evangelicals who warn of the spiritual stakes of apostasy, Eastern Orthodox priests who counsel a departing parishioner about the gravity of their choice — none of these are considered coercive simply because they articulate the stakes their theology identifies. The standard being applied to Elder Rasband is not applied consistently across the religious landscape.

Claim 5: The “Shelf” Metaphor Proves the Church Has No Answers

The critique treats Elder Andersen’s “put it on the shelf” counsel as evidence that the Church lacks answers. But this profoundly misunderstands the epistemological situation of religious faith and its relationship to unresolved questions. No world religion — and no serious worldview of any kind — resolves all questions before asking for commitment. The question is never “can you answer everything?” but “is the weight of evidence and experience sufficient to warrant continued trust?”

Intellectual humility about unresolved questions is not the same as having no answers. Physicists operate for decades with unresolved paradoxes between quantum mechanics and general relativity, yet continue to function and make progress within the framework that best accounts for available data. Scientists “put questions on the shelf” routinely as a matter of working methodology. Historians operate with incomplete and contradictory sources yet reach defensible conclusions. The “shelf” counsel is epistemically normal, not epistemically fraudulent.

The ldsdiscussions.com site includes quotes from Apostle James E. Talmage and President J. Reuben Clark affirming open inquiry — implying these represent a more honest, older tradition that has now been abandoned. But the Church has not abandoned open inquiry: it published the Gospel Topics Essays, opened the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and has substantially increased transparency about its history in the 21st century. The claim that the Church refuses to acknowledge difficult history is increasingly difficult to sustain against the documentary record.

Furthermore, the Talmage and Clark quotations prove too much for the critic’s purposes: if “truth cannot be harmed by investigation,” then the Church’s invitation to investigate — including the Gospel Topics Essays — should be welcomed rather than used as evidence against the institution. The critic cannot simultaneously demand more transparency and then use the transparency that exists as a weapon.

Claim 6: Dismissing “Anti-Church Literature” Is Intellectually Dishonest

The critique argues that Sister Rasband’s counsel to avoid “anti-church literature on the Internet” is untenable because many such sources cite primary documents and the Church’s own materials. This point has some legitimate force — wholesale dismissal of all outside sources is not intellectually responsible. However, the ldsdiscussions.com critique overstates its case in several ways.

First, the internet landscape of LDS criticism includes a wide spectrum — from rigorous documentary analysis to demonstrably false claims and emotionally manipulative former-member narratives. Advising a youth to exercise caution with online content is not intellectually dishonest; it is prudent media literacy counsel applicable to nearly every controversial topic online. The fact that some critical sources are rigorous does not mean all deserve equal weight.

Second, the ldsdiscussions.com site’s self-description as a neutral, evidence-based resource that presents “both sides” should be evaluated critically. The site is constructed on the premise that the Church’s truth claims are false, and its framing, selection of evidence, and rhetorical choices all serve that conclusion. That does not make its sources wrong, but it does mean it is not a dispassionate reference; it is advocacy — as is this response. Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging that all parties in this conversation have a perspective.

Third, the critique’s dismissal of the spiritual witness as an epistemic tool is too swift. The site argues that because people across religions report similar spiritual feelings, those feelings cannot be trusted. But this argument, if taken seriously, also eliminates the critic’s own confident assertions about historical truth, since the human cognitive apparatus that evaluates evidence is the same apparatus that produces religious experience. The claim that rational-empirical methods are reliable while spiritual epistemology is not requires a philosophical argument the site never provides.

The Car Salesman Analogy Turned on Its Head

The ldsdiscussions.com critique concludes with the following analogy: “If you were looking to purchase a new car, home, or other large commitment and the salesperson answered you in this manner, you would run out the door and never look back.” This analogy is instructive, but not in the way the author intends.

The analogy assumes the Church-member relationship is fundamentally a commercial transaction — that Harry is a consumer evaluating a product and Elder Rasband is a salesperson obligated to answer product defect inquiries. But this is precisely the paradigm that Latter-day Saint theology rejects. The Church is not selling Harry a product; it is inviting him into a covenant community with God. The pastoral response to a person considering leaving that community is not a product warranty review — it is compassion, witness, and an invitation to remain.

A better analogy would be a marriage counselor who, when told “I have serious problems with my marriage and am considering divorce,” responds not with a legal brief on spousal defects but with an invitation to consider what the marriage has meant, who the spouses have become together, and what might be lost if the relationship ends. That is not evasion. That is wisdom.

The Rasbands were not trying to win a debate. They were trying to reach a human being on the edge of a significant decision and give him a reason to stay in a community they believe has eternal significance. To fault them for succeeding at that — rather than failing at being an academic symposium — is to misread the entire event.

Conclusion: The Genre Problem at the Heart of the Critique

The ldsdiscussions.com critique of the Rasband Face-to-Face is ultimately a genre mistake elevated to a moral accusation. The critique demands that a pastoral devotional broadcast perform as a rigorous academic apologetics seminar, then condemns it for not doing so. It characterizes genuine pastoral care as manipulation, honest emotional testimony as propaganda, and the articulation of covenant theology as coercion.

None of these characterizations withstand careful scrutiny:

Summary of Findings

  • Genre Mismatch — A youth devotional is not an academic debate; faulting it for not being one is a category error.
  • Emotional Evidence — Emotional testimony is not inherently manipulative; Aristotle, rhetoric, and basic epistemology all recognize pathos as a legitimate mode of honest persuasion.
  • Suicide Equivalence — The ldsdiscussions.com reading requires an uncharitable and unsupported assumption of deliberate malice; no such equivalence was stated by either Rasband.
  • Pastoral Record — Elder Rasband’s consistent pre-2020 record on suicide prevention contradicts the narrative of the video as cynical rhetorical weapon.
  • Covenant Disclosure — Articulating theological consequences is honest pastoral care, not coercion, and is standard practice across all Christian traditions.
  • Asymmetric Standards — The critique applies emotional and epistemic standards to the Church that it does not apply to its own rhetoric or to former-member testimonials.
  • Shelf Epistemology — Operating with unresolved questions is a feature of all serious intellectual endeavors, not evidence of institutional bad faith.
  • Transparency Record — The Church’s Gospel Topics Essays and Joseph Smith Papers Project directly contradict the claim that the institution hides its history.

The September 2020 Face-to-Face was what it presented itself as: a devotional gathering in which two experienced Latter-day Saint leaders offered a struggling young adult compassion, perspective, and a living witness of what the gospel does in a person’s life. It was not a formal response to the CES Letter. It was not designed to be. Holding it to that standard and then pronouncing it a failure is not scholarship. It is a rhetorical shell game.

Those who find the devotional unsatisfying because it did not resolve Harry’s specific historical questions are entitled to that view. But the leap from “this devotional did not do what I wished it would do” to “the Rasbands deliberately implied leaving the Church equals suicide and used engineered emotional propaganda to psychologically coerce youth” is a leap that the evidence does not support and that intellectual honesty cannot endorse.

Dominic’s testimony stands. The gospel he received gave him reason to live. That is a true thing, and no amount of sophistication about production values changes its truth.