Dear Friend

Dear friend,

You don’t know me, and I want to be honest about that before I ask you for anything. My name is Brock. I’m a Christian, and I’m not a Latter-day Saint. I’ve never worn your name badge or sat in your sacrament meetings as one of you. So you have every right to wonder why a stranger would write you a letter this long.

Here is the plain answer. I’ve come to love Latter-day Saints. I’ve spent real time in your scriptures — not skimming for ammunition, but reading them the way you read them, slowly and with respect. I’ve sat with the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve read what your prophets and apostles have taught in General Conference and printed in your own manuals. I did that because the people I’ve met who carry those books are some of the most sincere, family-loving, hard-working people I know, and I wanted to understand what you believe from the inside instead of from a caricature.

I’m not an ex-Mormon with an old wound to reopen. I have no story of being hurt by the Church, no list of grievances, nothing to get even for. I’m just someone who thinks you deserve to be taken seriously — seriously enough to be written to as a friend rather than argued with as an opponent.

So let me tell you exactly what this letter is, and what it isn’t.

I’m not asking you to abandon faith in God. I’m asking you to trust the scriptures you already hold.

That’s the whole thing. I’m not going to hand you a book of my own and tell you to believe me. Everywhere I can, I’m going to build only on ground you already stand on: your own King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the official teachings your Church has published. If a claim in this letter can’t be shown from sources you already accept as true, then it doesn’t belong here and you should ignore it. My goal is not to move you off your foundation. It’s to walk with you across it and see where it actually leads.

Which brings me to something I want to promise you up front.

Check me. Please, check me. Every time I quote your scriptures or your leaders, I want you to look it up and make sure I’ve told you the truth. I’ve tried to be careful with every word, but you shouldn’t take my word for it — that would be the opposite of what this letter is about. If I’ve twisted a verse, or pulled a quote out of shape, or put words in someone’s mouth they never said, then I’ve failed, and you have my blessing to throw the whole letter away. All of it. I’ve gathered every citation in one place near the end so you can hold my feet to the fire without having to trust a single sentence on faith. A letter that asks you to verify your own scriptures has to be willing to be verified too.

I know there may be a part of you that feels uneasy even reading this far. Maybe a quiet voice is telling you that opening a letter like this is dangerous, that a faithful person shouldn’t let a stranger’s questions in the door. I understand that feeling, and I don’t take it lightly. But I’d gently ask you to consider where it comes from. An honest question is not a sin. Wanting to know whether something is true is not disloyalty to God — it’s one of the most reverent things a person can do.

There’s a moment in the New Testament I keep coming back to. When Paul preached in Berea, the people there didn’t just nod along, and they didn’t shut their ears either. They “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” — and Scripture calls them noble for it (Acts 17:11). They tested the message against the word of God, and God was pleased with them for testing it. That’s all I’m asking of you. Read with your scriptures open. Weigh everything. If it doesn’t hold up, you’ll have lost nothing but an afternoon.

I’m grateful you’ve read this far. Let’s walk through it together.

Your friend, Brock