Absolute truth comes from God; everything else is narrative.

Narrative is almost always compromised.

There are a million ways, reasons, and motivations for compromise when expressing narrative. Often enough, the compromised aspect of narrative is unintentional and even unavoidable; but, more often than not, the truth in any given narrative is compromised quite intentionally. So, beware the narrative!

Even the holy scriptures present narrative after narrative in an effort to convey definitive truth. The limitations of written languages, together with the limitations of human expressions and perceptions, unavoidably tend to undermine even the truthfulness of the inspired words of God.

Absolute truth (in its perfection and fulness) is not often communicated by words in print, but it can be stimulated by it. Even then, it still requires faith, diligence, spiritual discernment, inspiration, and revelation to receive the pure truth directly from God; but even then, we are still often limited by our false beliefs, and by our individual capacities and limitations. As potential sons and daughters of God, our objective is to eventually receive a fullness of truth.

Narrative is nothing new. The art of spinning narrative is more ancient than time.

All churches feel it is their prerogative duty to produce and promote narratives authenticated by themselves. Almost without exception, these narratives are calculated and designed to authenticate their claims of authenticity, reliability, and authority. They endeavor to engineer narratives that will reflect well on them. Additionally, it has been found that the more truth, and the more truthful narratives taught, the easier it is to disguise or conceal what is false within the landscape.

Establishment narratives are invariably statements designed to minimize risks and damage to their institutions. They are calculated to increase profits and fulfill predetermined objectives. They are never designed to communicate punitive truth, or the whole truth—such an idea would make any establishment leader shudder and ask for a drink. For these reasons, the facts are often changed, taken out of context, streamlined, simplified, marginalized, skewed, and deleted—whatever it takes to spin the narrative in the most favorable light.

But what happens when religious adherents discover that they have been effectually lied to? Very often they reject the entire thing and become atheist or agnostic, which is a huge tragedy.

Many years ago, the Lord showed me how the Waters of Life, when diluted, mixed, or altered, become the Waters of Hell. Only truth saves and exalts. Lies and half-truths corrupt, destroy faith, and extinguish hope.

It is difficult to impossible to have faith or confidence in a God, or religious institution, whose integrity is compromised or rendered untrustworthy or unreliable. Satan knows this. And so, he seeks to destroy faith and confidence in God by compromising the truth, by spinning narratives that mix truth with error in ways calculated to destroy faith and confidence in religious institutions, and ergo, God.

Even true servants of God cannot help but use narrative as they seek to teach, explain, and share their histories, in public and in private. And so, what does Satan do? He highlights their deficiencies and inconsistencies. He calls corrupt witnesses who spin counternarratives that distort and condemn God’s messengers in the worst ways. And as C.S. Lewis once said, “By mixing their lies with the truth, they can make their lies far stronger.”

Many people argue that the Bible is perfect, which is ridiculous. The Bible has many contradictions and quotes many prophets and scriptures which are not included in the Bible. At the end of the day, the Bible is the product of six millennia of historians, translators, and transcribers who have mangled the text again and again. And the fact remains that the Bible and all scriptures are written by fallible people and therefore have many inconsistencies. Cry heresy if you want, but that will not change the punitive truth.

This is all part of the test. God tests us by giving us as many reasons to not believe as there are to believe.

All of God’s servants, messengers, and prophets are fallible and imperfect and have their inconsistencies. Again, that is part of the test. They are only human and what they teach is just narrative. Your job, and your responsibility, is to extract the truth from the narrative by processes of study, spiritual discernment, and analytical deduction.

As we seek to study and parse the scriptures, we must keep in mind that God is not inconsistent, is not compromised, and is not the problem—we are. It is not honest or fair to blame God or to abandon faith in God just because the scriptures are not perfect and most of those who claim His authority are unworthy of it.

We have been given ample tools to decipher and discern the truth.

And so, at the end of the day, we each get to choose which narratives to believe. And we get to offer understanding and forgiveness when faithfully related narratives are not as perfect or consistent as perhaps, they could be. In seeking discernment in knowing which narratives to believe, my advice is that you seek for the Holy Spirit to guide you. Seek the intelligence and inspiration conveyed by the holy scriptures to guide you. Seek for righteous and faithful teachers to guide you. And seek to be guided by those foundational principles and truths that are eternal and do not change, that enable discernment and wise decision-making.

Do not be dismayed when the religious institution you adhere to is discovered to be spreading less than honest narratives. That is what institutions do. Golfers play golf. Institutions promote iffy narratives. Just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

It has always been true that Jesus Christ is the only one you can completely trust. That has always been the case. So do not be shocked or heartbroken when you find that this really is true.

And for all you Mormons, your “testimony” is not going to save you. Your testimony is not going to give you discernment. Your testimony is not going to prevent you from falling for the lies and deceptions of Satan. Your trust and faith in Jesus Christ and the pure intelligence conveyed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit will save you, give you discernment, and keep you from falling for the lies and snares of the Adversary. Mormons like to talk a lot about testimony. Testimony is only a beginning. Receiving a spiritual witness is only the beginning. What we need most is correct knowledge, faith in Christ, repentance, and the living manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

“Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.”[1]

When we are filled with the light of truth and the Spirit of God, we cannot be deceived by the sophistry and lies of Satan. Without the light of truth and the Spirit of God, we are vulnerable and exposed.

And if your faith in Christ is effectual, you will be receiving the regular revelations and manifestations of the Spirit. With all these witnesses, why should you doubt?

I have a friend who has left the LDS Church because He found out that the LDS narrative has some big problems with it. He calls Joseph Smith a fraud and now has serious doubts about the divinity of Jesus Christ. In effect, he has replaced one iffy narrative with another even more iffy narrative. So now he rejects the Book of Mormon, he rejects Joseph Smith, he rejects the Bible, and He rejects Jesus Christ, all based on a carefully crafted counter-narrative of dubious authenticity.

But he forgets that narratives can be whatever you want them to be. Narratives often include facts and accounts taken out of context, promoting logical fallacies, and manipulated content. And so, when reviewing any given narrative, you should ask yourself, “What is the agenda of those spinning the narrative? Are they honest? Are they objective? Are they really interested in discovering or promoting an unbiased, dispassionate, reflection of truth? Or are they merely seeking to promote their own slanted agenda?

Personally, I get really suspicious when I see people trying to sell me something, trying to get notoriety, trying to get power, or trying to use sensationalism or smear tactics to promote their worldview. What I am interested in is clear, dispassionate, objective truth. I am interested in truth that makes sense.

I have reviewed the narratives which seek to disprove Christianity. In every case, they are attacks against Christians and Christian churches that do not reflect or exemplify the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus is not responsible for all the thousands and even millions of Christians who misrepresent and abuse His name.

I have also reviewed the narratives which seek to discredit Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. All these narratives, again and again, distort the truth, take things way out of context, quote the narratives of the enemies of Joseph that have been proven to be false, and quote the narratives of Mormon churches and leaders who claim the authority of Joseph but who do not manifest the teachings or works of Joseph. Like secular Christianity, modern Mormonism has been hijacked by would-be prophets who do not reflect the counsels or teachings of Joseph Smith.

Honestly, I do not blame anyone for disbelieving Christianity, or the Bible, or Joseph Smith, or the Book of Mormon. There has been so much in the way of fallacious narrative calculated to discredit all of these. But let’s step aside from the narrative for a while and look at the actual product of what Jesus Christ and His prophets have given us. And let’s look at the promises which have been given whereby we can test the authenticity of Christ’s gospel. So please keep reading.

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[1] Book of Mormon | Jacob 4:6

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