Lucifer's Lantern

Ezra Booth was a Methodist minister who joined Joseph Smith’s church in 1831 and abandoned it only a few months later. His time inside the movement was brief, but the nine letters he published after leaving became one of the earliest detailed critiques written by a former Mormon participant. A Methodist Minister Joins Mormonism Booth was born in Newtown, Connecticut, on February 14, 1792. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1816, became a deacon in 1818, and was ordained an elder in 1820. By 1831, he was serving as a Methodist minister in Mantua, Ohio. He had years of preaching experience and a reputation that gave weight to his sudden conversion to the new church. [1] Latter-day Saint accounts connect Booth’s conversion to a reported healing. Booth accompanied John and Elsa Johnson to meet Joseph Smith. Elsa had limited movement in one arm, and Smith was said to have restored it. Booth accepted the healing as miraculous and was baptized. He was ordained a high priest on June 4, 1831,...

Young women are leaving Mormonism at a rate the church cannot dismiss as ordinary generational drift. A 2025 report placed retention among 18-year-old women raised Latter-day Saint just below 40 percent, compared with nearly 60 percent among men the same age. A separate national study found that 49 percent of women ages 18 to 49 who were raised in the church still identified with it, compared with 66 percent of women 50 and older. [1] [3] The headline figures establish the problem, but they do not explain it. The first survey used an online, opt-in panel, and its single-age estimates deserve caution. [2] Neither study followed every woman who left or asked her to name one controlling reason. The evidence supports a gendered retention problem, not a simple verdict about its cause. The better question is what young women encounter when they compare the church's claims of female value with the institution they actually inhabit. Three pressures stand out: a patriarchal system that res...

Christianity does not just claim that a god exists somewhere beyond the universe. It describes a God who knows us, loves us, wants to be known, and invites us into a relationship. Jesus tells people to ask, seek, and knock. James says that those who draw near to God will find God drawing near to them. Yet many people sincerely search and find no clear response. They pray, study scripture, attend church, and ask for guidance. Some spend years trying to hold on to a faith they do not want to lose. Still, what they were taught to recognize as God never becomes clearly distinguishable from their own thoughts, emotions, hopes, or coincidences. This is the problem of divine hiddenness: If a perfectly loving God wants a relationship with people, why do sincere and willing people so often fail to find him? [1][2] What Christianity Says God Wants The argument starts with Christianity’s own claims, not with an atheist demanding constant miracles. The Bible repeatedly says that God wants to be kn...

  On July 30, 2026, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that two bishops of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were not legally required to report a member’s admissions of child sexual abuse. [1] The ruling did not dispute that the bishops knew about the abuse. It did not dispute that no report was made. It also did not dispute that the abuse continued for years before law enforcement began investigating a video that the abuser had posted online. [1] [3] Instead, the court focused on a narrower legal question: Was it legally acceptable for the two bishops NOT to report the abuse? What the LDS Bishops Knew Around 2011, Paul Adams privately told Bishop John Herrod of the Bisbee Ward in Arizona that he had sexually abused one of his children. Herrod then arranged another meeting with Adams and his wife, Leizza, during which Adams repeated the disclosure. [1] [3] When Robert “Kim” Mauzy replaced Herrod as bishop in 2012, Herrod told him about the abuse. Mauzy convened a for...

     Discussion of changes to the Book of Mormon often settles into two opposing claims: either the book has remained essentially unchanged since 1830, or later editors rewrote it beyond recognition. The reality is that both positions carry a bit of truth. Although the main narrative remains recognizable, the book has changed in several distinct ways. Its wording and grammar were revised in the early editions.⁶ , ⁷ The chapter and verse system was reorganized in 1879, while chapter summaries were added in 1920.¹⁹ Those summaries and other study aids were revised again in 2013 and 2025.²⁰ , ²¹ Following these changes in chronological order makes their differences easier to see. The history begins with dictation in 1829 and continues through the original and printer’s manuscripts, the 1830 printing, Joseph Smith’s revisions, and the later editorial committees that produced the modern edition. Tracing that sequence also makes it possible to distinguish changes to the script...