The questions themselves · Mormon Faith Crisis

This site does not argue the truth claims. Other people have done that thoroughly, on both sides, and you should read them rather than us. What this page does is tell you where to look, how to tell a good source from a bad one, and how to research the most important question of your life without wrecking your sleep, your marriage and your sense of proportion.

The sister site for the evidence

Our other site, Why Mormons Leave, is built for exactly this question: twenty reason pages, each with what members were taught, what the record shows, and what the Church now says, plus the survey numbers behind them. This page tells you how to read; that site is where to read.

Start with what is not in dispute

Read the Gospel Topics Essays first. They are the Church’s own account of the hard history, written by its historians and approved by the First Presidency. Whatever else you read afterward, you will know which facts the institution itself concedes: plural marriage including polyandry and teenage brides, the stone in the hat, the priesthood and temple ban and its disavowed explanations, the Book of Abraham papyri, the changing accounts of the First Vision. That settles a great deal, and it protects you from being told you got it from “anti-Mormon sources”.

Then read the primary sources

The The Joseph Smith Papers are the documents themselves, published by the Church. When a critic and an apologist disagree about what a source says, open the source.

Then read both sides, deliberately

Critical	Faithful
Mormon Stories Truth Claims, our own organised walk-through	FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response), the main apologetic organisation
LDS Discussions, sourced essays and a podcast series	Mormonr, a calmer faithful presentation of sources
The CES Letter, the blunt list that started many people’s crisis	The Crucible of Doubt and Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt, the best case for faith with doubt
An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, a CES director’s short summary	Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, a believing scholar’s honest biography

Read one topic on each side before moving to the next. Notice how each side treats evidence it does not like: does it engage with it, or change the subject? That habit will serve you for the rest of your life, not just here.

The issues people say mattered most

From our survey, in order: the Book of Abraham, polygamy and polyandry, and the priesthood ban; then the Book of Mormon (DNA, anachronisms, the translation), the First Vision accounts, the treatment of women and of LGBTQ people, and science. Women rated the Church’s treatment of women and LGBTQ people higher; men rated the Book of Abraham and science higher. The issues rising fastest among people who left recently were LGBTQ treatment, polygamy and general history. If your list looks like that, you are in good company.

How to research without losing your mind

Write down your actual questions. Five, not fifty. Research those. Everyone else’s questions can wait.
Set hours. Reading until 3 a.m. is not scholarship; it is anxiety. The sources will be there tomorrow.
Do not debate believers who did not ask. Especially your spouse. See Your marriage, and the mixed-faith marriage.
Expect to feel worse before you feel better. The research stage is where anger arrives. That is normal and it passes; Grief explains why.
Separate two questions. “Is it true?” and “What am I going to do?” are different questions with different timelines. You can answer the first and take years over the second. Stay, step back, or leave is about the second.