Fort Collins, CO — In a desperate act of spiritual triage, local LDS parents Kent and Sharla Densley have reportedly granted their 17-year-old daughter, Elise, permission to read “anti-Mormon literature,” stating that “literally anything is safer than exposing her to the writings of Joseph Fielding Smith.”
“Yeah, some of this stuff says the church made up the Book of Abraham,” Kent admitted while nervously scrolling through a PDF of The CES Letter. “But at least it doesn’t say dinosaurs lived with humans 6,000 years ago or that Black people were fence-sitters in the pre-existence.”
The Densleys’ decision came after Elise, during a seminary assignment on church history, encountered a chapter in Joseph Fielding Smith’s seminal work Doctrines of Salvation that caused her to stare blankly at the wall for six full minutes. The passage in question read:
I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory [of evolution] of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God.
Actual Quote by Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation v. 1, pp. 141
“She just sat there whispering, ‘But…BYU has a science department, right?’ over and over again,” Sharla said. “We had to snap her out of it with an old Donny Osmond cassette.”
After a family council, the Densleys decided that if Elise was going to be confused about church history, it might as well come from someone with a functioning understanding of anthropology. The new rule: No Joseph Fielding Smith until after a basic foundation of reality has been established.
Brother Densley has also struggled with his belief in evolution his whole life, until one day Elise casually brought up the observable evolution of COVID-19, completely shattering his neat and tidy world view, proving vaccines really are dangerous.
Other quotes the Densleys hope to protect Elise from include:
There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, p. 61
When the Lamanites [Native Americans] fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 3, p. 123, 1953
Does it not appear to you that it is a foolish and ridiculous notion that when God created this earth he had to begin with a speck of protoplasm, and take millions of years, if not billions, to bring conditions to pass by which his sons and daughters might obtain bodies made in his image? Why not the shorter route and transplant them from another earth as we are taught in the scriptures?
Joseph Fielding Smith, in his book: Man, His Origin and Destiny, pp 276‑277
“Honestly, we can walk her back from the CES Letter,” said Kent. “We can explain away the Kinderhook Plates and we think we might have a strategy around Joseph marrying a 14-year-old. But I cannot have her walking around believing humans used to ride triceratops and that God punished Africa.”
At press time, Elise was seen reading No Man Knows My History with a look of cautious optimism, whispering, “Okay, Fawn Brodie’s got footnotes and everything.”
