CES Letter Responses
What is the CES Letter? | Q&A with Sarah Allen
"How I handle things when I have questions is I do my own studying and I look at things from different sides, but I always lean on Heavenly Father, I always keep Him in the loop. I always tell Him what I am questioning, what I am struggling with and He always points me to sources that help. Sometimes it takes a while, the answers don't always come right away. But He always points me to something that helps me understand things or helps me feel at peace about it even if I don't fully understand it." Sarah Allen
After a 10 year faith Crisis, Austin wrote his own response to the CES Letter | Light and Truth (1 hr)
https://www.lightandtruthletter.org. Great resource discussing the content of the Light and Truth Letter.
"There's very logical reasons to be members of the church, and very logical reasons to believe in a higher power --something beyond that's bigger than us, that has a spiritual aspect. This isn't irrational, this is rational. And so once you can get back into realizing that belief is reasonable, then you can ask the questions that will truly give you a testimony through prayer and study and pondering those primary answers we hear all the time. I talk about the heart and the head. I believe that we can, and should, have knowledge in our heart, feeling emotion, yearning for God, along with rationality and reason. For me, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints is God's true and living church on the earth. I know that in my heart and I know it in my head. I have both of those. I think critics have had their way for a long time trying to convince people that there's no reason to have a rational testimony. But the 'Light and Truth Letter,' it's showing that it is reasonable -- and rational to believe, there's a lot of space for belief. My hope is that if you're struggling and you're a believing member, but having doubts -- If that's the case for you and you're telling yourself, there's no way the church could be true. That's not you talking. That's the critic parroting. You're parroting a critic, because there's lots of reasons to believe. I try to lay it all out in the 'Light and Truth Letter.' To show all of the positive evidences that there are for the church and that it's actually really rational and reasonable to believe. There is a preponderance of evidence that is more for us than against us. And for me -- that's enough to believe. And once I made that decision, then God could do something with me."
The "CES Letter" - Latest version of an old trick (1 hr)
Greg Smith speaking at a YSA event. The speaker addresses (somewhat cynically) the tired old tricks the CES letter regurgitates in an effort to destroy people’s faith. An important discussion on how to understand attacks on your faith, the tricks the adversary employs to overwhelm and destroy the faith of those unprepared to handle the many criticisms in the world. Make no mistake, Satan is an incredibly skilled debater, researcher and thinker. He will use any tool at his disposal, and this presentation attempts to expose the common tactics used by those attacking the restored gospel and the Savior’s work.
Sarah Allen's detailed and documented reply to every section of the CES Letter (Reddit publication)
An incredibly detailed response to every claim in the CES Letter. 800 pages of excellent rebuttals to the tired old list of anti-Christ rhetoric that has been making the rounds for many years in many forms. You can spend hours perusing the very well annotated and explained responses to the many claims made against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One of the best resources you will find to debunk anything found in the CES Letter.
A massive website providing answers to almost every challenging question that has ever been presented by those attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
You could spend endless hours on this website searching through the vast treasure trove of responses and resources collected to answer almost any challenging question thrown at the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored by Joseph Smith.
The TRUTH about the CES Letter (30 min)
"CES Letters - What do you know and how do you know it?" by Steven Harper at the 2024 FAIR Conference presentation. An interesting presentation on how to understand the CES letter and those behind it.
