The idea of “lying for the Lord” has long been whispered among members and critics of the LDS Church alike. It reflects the sense that leaders and members sometimes feel justified in withholding, distorting, or even outright fabricating information in order to protect the church or further its goals. In other words, the ends are seen to justify the means—so long as the end is “building up the kingdom of God.”
Honesty in Principle
Church manuals are all clear about what dishonesty is. Here is a brief collection:
There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.
“Chapter 31: Honesty,” Gospel Principles, emphasis added
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng
What does it mean to be honest? (It is doing what we know is right. If we make promises, we keep them. If we have a debt, we pay it. Honesty is to speak the truth and act truthfully. It means that we do not lie, steal, or break the laws of the land. It means that we do not deceive in any way.) …
Being honest is necessary if we are to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we know the truth but do not live it, we are dishonest with ourselves and with God. To be honest with ourselves and the Lord, we must keep the covenants we have made. We must be honest to have the Holy Ghost as our companion. Being honest with ourselves and God means that we must also be honest with those around us…
An honest man has self-respect. He has nothing to hide and can look anyone straight in the eye. A dishonest man, however, feels cheap, ashamed, and often afraid. And he should, because dishonesty never goes unrecognized.
Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood: Basic Manual for Priesthood Holders, Part B: Lesson 31: Being Honest
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/duties-and-blessings-of-the-priesthood-basic-manual-for-priesthood-holders-part-b/gospel-principles-and-doctrines/lesson-31-being-honest?lang=eng
Honesty is a basic principle of the gospel and a commandment of God. To keep this commandment, it is important that we recognize dishonesty and shun it, and that we practice being honest in our thoughts, conversations, and actions. By demonstrating honest principles in our homes, with other Church members, and with our neighbors, we teach our children to be honest. When we are honest, we are blessed with a clear conscience, peace of mind, a feeling of self-worth, and the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, Part B: Lesson 7: Honesty
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/the-latter-day-saint-woman-basic-manual-for-women-part-b/gospel-principles-and-doctrine/lesson-7-honesty?lang=eng
God commands that we be honest in all things. When we lie, cheat, or steal, we open ourselves wide to Satan’s influence and close ourselves to God’s influence. If we want to have the Spirit to guide and comfort us, we must be honest with God, with ourselves, and with other people.
Family Home Evening Resource Book: Honesty
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/family-home-evening-resource-book/lesson-ideas/honesty?lang=eng
Church members are also taught about Honesty in talks from Apostles at General Conference and local leadership at Stake and Ward meetings. Here is a talk all about honesty and lies. If we didn’t know any better, it seems Marvin Ashton is speaking about the lies the church has been telling since the beginning.
Some former students recall with lasting appreciation the words one teacher had her class repeat at the beginning of each day. Every school morning this rather unpretentious, plain, wise lady implanted the meaning of honesty into our minds by having us recite “A lie is any communication given to another with the intent to deceive.”
When I compare this definition with that found in the dictionary, which states, “A lie is an untrue statement made with the intent of deceiving,” I greatly appreciate her definition. A lie can be effectively communicated without words ever being spoken. Sometimes a nod of the head or silence can deceive. Recommending a questionable business investment, making a false entry in a ledger, devious use of flattery, or failure to divulge all pertinent facts are a few other ways to communicate the lie…
It is a sin to lie. It is a tragedy to be the victim of lies. Being trapped in the snares of dishonesty and misrepresentation does not happen instantaneously. One little lie or dishonest act leads to another until the perpetrator is caught in the web of deceit. As Samuel Johnson wrote, “The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” (The International Dictionary of Thoughts) Those who become victims of this entrapment often struggle through life bearing their heavy burden because they are unwilling to acknowledge their problem and make the effort to change…
Perhaps if we analyze some of the reasons people lie, we can avoid or overcome this vicious snare… Sometimes we deceive and lie to avoid personal embarrassment… Financial setbacks may be explained to others with untruths… Consciously or unconsciously some people lie to destroy others. Jealousy or feelings of inferiority may cause us to degrade another’s habits or character… Lies are often excuses for lack of courage. Sometimes lies are nothing more than excuses for poor performance. Usually one lie or deception has to be covered by another. Lies cannot stand alone. Each one must continually be supported by more and more of its own kind.
If a lie is any communication given to another with the intent to deceive, we will all do well to seek God’s constant help in understanding and finding the truth. People of integrity will neither foster, nourish, embrace, nor share the lie. People of wisdom will not let greed, fear, or the desire for quick riches lead them into the snares of the dishonest and unscrupulous who prey on the gullible in order to maneuver from them valuable possessions.
Marvin J. Ashton, LDS Apostle, “This Is No Harm,” General Conference April 1982
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1982/04/this-is-no-harm?lang=eng
By this standard, dishonesty is broader than simply speaking a falsehood. It includes misleading by omission, gestures, or selective silence. Members are taught that partial truths, silence, or framing that deceives others still count as lies. Yet, ironically, this very standard has not consistently been applied by church leadership.
Oaks and the Sophisticated Lie
Dallin H. Oaks, in a 1993 BYU fireside, argued that while lying is never acceptable, withholding information is not the same thing. He cited Joseph Smith’s own counsel that it is “not always wise to recount such truths” and explained that silence, even if interpreted as dishonesty, is justified when protecting the work of God. Oaks went as far as to say that Joseph was “commanded” to withhold things.
Oaks reframes dishonesty as a matter of circumstance, conscience, and “sophisticated analysis.” But this conveniently contradicts the simplicity of the church’s own teaching: whenever we lead people to believe something untrue, we are not being honest. Oaks’ logic makes room for leaders to obscure facts, selectively disclose, and shield uncomfortable truths—all while insisting they are not technically lying.
About ten years after the event, a friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith recalled a statement Joseph made on the morning of the day he was murdered. According to Cyrus Wheelock, the Prophet said their lives had been jeopardized by revealing the wicked purposes of their enemies He counseled that they not make such complete disclosures in the future. Joseph affirmed that all they had said was true, but he observed that it was not always wise to recount such truths.
When I read this suggestion of the prophet, I thought of the Savior’s teaching his disciples: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matt. 7:6 )…
These scriptural instructions establish that the obligation to tell the truth does not require one to tell everything he or she knows in all circumstances. The scriptures teach that there is “a time to speak,” and “a time to keep silence” (Eccl 3:7). Indeed, we have a positive duty to keep many things secret or confidential. But this principle does not condone violating the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Ex 20:16). When the truth is constrained by other obligations, the outcome is not falsehood but silence for a season… when there is no duty to reveal all and when one has not made an affirmative statement implying that all has been revealed, it is simply incorrect to equate silence with lying…
Although a man is not justified in lying to detect a liar, he is justified (indeed, Joseph Smith was commanded!) to withhold things from the world in order to preserve himself and safeguard the work in which he is involved In other words, we must not lie, but we are free to tell less than we know when we have no duty to disclose… One is not a liar when one remains silent in a circumstance in which there is no duty to disclose.
Be unqualified in your commitment to the truth. Be unqualified in your determination to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But also be prepared for circumstances that may be painful and contrary to your personal interest and comfort where you must keep confidences, even if someone calls you a liar. It requires a sophisticated analysis of the circumstances and a finely tuned conscience to distinguish between the situation where you are obliged by duty to speak and the situation where you are obliged by duty, commandment, or covenant to remain silent.
Dallin H. Oaks, “Gospel Teachings About Lying,” Fireside address to faculty, students, and alumni, September 12, 1993 – J. Reuben Clark Law School, The Clark Memorandum: Spring 1994, Book 15
https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=clarkmemorandum#page=15
https://archive.org/details/oaksgospelteachingsaboutlyingclarkmemorandumspring1994/page/n5/mode/1up
Nibley and the Sacred Secret
Hugh Nibley also defends concealment by appealing to early Christian traditions. He writes that it is “permitted… to conceal whatever appears to need concealing” for the sake of religion, though not “to lie.” He invokes, among other historical Christians, the Clementine literature, where Peter allegedly commanded believers to “guard those secret things” that were not for all to know.
This framing places secrecy at the center of religious pedagogy: not everyone is “ready” for the truth, so truths must be withheld until the right time. But in practice, this has meant that inconvenient or destabilizing information—about history, doctrine, or leadership—has been suppressed or massaged in order to preserve faith. The so-called “milk before meat” approach becomes a tool for justifying concealment.
Jerome admits to employing “a sometimes useful deception, “and admires others for the same practice: “how cunning, how shrewd, what a dissimulator!” And he cites Origen as teaching that “lying is improper and unnecessary for God, but is to be esteemed sometimes useful for men, provided it is intended that some good should come of it.”…
A subtle and very effective form of censorship is the silent treatment. “It is permitted,” writes St. Augustine, “for the purpose of building up religion in things pertaining to piety, when necessary, to conceal whatever appears to need concealing; but it is not permitted to lie, of course, and so one may not conceal by way of lying.”…
Peter the Lombard, more bound by literal mindedness, when he finds the Bible in conflict with his science, falls back on the principle propounded by Hilary: “The thing must not be subject to the word, but the word to the thing.” That sounds reasonableenough: but when the word is the scripture and the thing is one’s own limited experience, then to subject the word to the thing is to interpret any line of scripture in whatever way suits one’s predilections–and as such the Lombard makes full use of it. It is an unlimited license to control the past. It is the boast of the Catholic scholar Schindler that the scholastic philosophers always denounced lying. Of course they did; the purpose of their art was to make it unnecessary to lie. If one can prove that black is white by a syllogism, why should one be guilty of blurting it out, unproven, as a lie?
A well attested Logion preserved in the Clementine writings quotes Peter as saying, “Let us remember that the Lord commanded us saying, ‘Guard those secret things [mysteria] which belong to me and the sons of my house.’” “The Mysteries of the Faith,” says Clement of Alexandria, “are not to be disclosed indiscriminately to everyone, since not all are ready to receive the truth.”
There is a sound pedagogical principle involved here: “The teaching of all doctrine,” says Peter in the Recognitions, “has a certain order, and there are some things which must be delivered first, others in the second place, and others in the third, and so all in their order; and if these things be delivered in their order, they become plain; but if they he brought forward out of order, they will seem to be spoken against reason.” That is why he rebuked the youthful Clement for wanting “to know everything ahead of time.”
Hugh Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 4, Page 228+
Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 7, Pages 96-97
The Ends Justify the Means?
Taken together, these teachings promote a pattern:
- Leaders affirm honesty in principle.
- They redefine honesty when transparency threatens the church.
- They claim scriptural or historical precedent for withholding truths.
The result is a culture where lying by omission or half-truth is normalized so long as it “protects” the faith. But if honesty means ensuring that others are not misled, then this kind of selective disclosure is dishonesty—plain and simple.
The church should not be a place where leaders feel justified in hiding truths in order to make the institution look good. It should not be acceptable to obscure difficult history, change the narrative retroactively, or suppress information under the guise of “safeguarding the work.” The moment leaders believe the church’s survival depends on dishonesty, they have admitted that the truth itself cannot sustain it.
The Hypocrisy of “Lying for the Lord”
D. Michael Quinn was excommunicated in 1993, largely for publishing the truth about church history, but already made the same point in 1981. Church leadership is not telling the truth about church history, in the name of presenting a faith-promoting version of church history, which conceals and ignores controversial topics.
The tragic reality is that there have been occasions when Church leaders, teachers, and writers have not told the truth they knew about difficulties of the Mormon past, but have offered to the Saints instead a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible denials. Elder Packer and others would justify this because “we are at war with the adversary” and must also protect any Latter-day Saint whose “testimony [is] in seedling stage.” But such a public-relations defense of the Church is actually a Maginot Line of sandy fortifications which “the enemy” can easily breach and which has been built up by digging lethal pits into which the Saints will stumble. A so-called “faith-promoting” Church history which conceals controversies and difficulties of the Mormon past actually undermines the faith of Latter-day Saints who eventually learn about the problems from other sources.
D. Michael Quinn, On Being a Mormon Historian, 1981
https://wasmormon.org/on-being-a-mormon-historian-from-michael-quinn/
Ironic that the church today integrates quotes from Quinn in the Gospel Topics Essays. Thus, they use the truth he published, and was excommunicated for publishing, to reframe the church history while still not being fully transparent or truthful about their history.
The hypocrisy here is glaring: church members are taught that even a look, a gesture, or an omission can constitute dishonesty. Yet church leaders excuse themselves with finely tuned justifications, claiming that concealment in the name of God is not deception. This double standard erodes trust and reveals a deeper problem—if the church needs lies or half-truths to preserve itself, then it is not built on truth.
At wasmormon.org, we invite those who have wrestled with these issues to share their thoughts and stories. Have you felt misled by selective truths or concealed history? Have you experienced the tension between what the church says about honesty and what it practices? Add your voice and story to the growing community of those who have stepped away after realizing that “lying for the Lord” is still lying.
More reading: