All Essays
Published essays
The Greek Graft
A companion to Part 2: a visual, chronological map of every major non-biblical philosophical import into Christian orthodoxy since the death of the apostles, alongside the biblical doctrines those same philosophies pushed out - with the underlying concepts explained in full.
The History of Christ's Church, Part 2
A closer look at the specific theological tensions the Great Apostasy produced - the incorporeal God, the two natures of Christ, divine simplicity, the loss of deification, and the unresolved question of how an unknowable God can be known well enough to be saved.
The History of Christ's Church, Part 1
How the cycle of theological tension, Greek philosophical importation, and violent enforcement of dogma over centuries shows that apostolic authority left the earth with the death of the last apostle - and why the Restoration was necessary.
The Freedom of Logic
How studying formal logic cleared the grey cloud: why archaeological and scriptural tensions are non-sequiturs to the church's truth claim, and why science is philosophically incapable of touching it.
Heresy and Religious Freedom
Heresy was once an accusation backed by fire; today it is an empty threat that begs the question. A look at how Sebastian Castellio disarmed it, who has still paid the price since, and why the same mechanism is reappearing today.
Online Trinitarianism
An argument that online Trinitarian attacks on LDS theology violate the philosophical bounds of the Trinity itself, and that the LDS conception of the Godhead is more biblical - not less - than the Neoplatonic doctrines used to condemn it.
Structural Proximity
A case that Latter-day Saint theology is structurally closer to Catholicism than Protestantism is to Catholicism, and that the Catholic-Protestant alliance against the Latter-day Saints is socio-political self-preservation, not a doctrinal or structural verdict.
There Is No Popular Christianity
A case that the "mainstream Christianity" used to exclude Latter-day Saints is not a real, unified body, and that its own members do not agree on salvation, the Trinity, or even which creeds bind them.
Modern Christianity Is Myopic
An argument that mainstream Christianity, bound to a single static text with no living authority, is structurally myopic about scale, geography, the unreached, and the afterlife - and that LDS theology resolves each.
Your Interpretation Isn't Authoritative
A logical case that scriptural-interpretation arguments against the LDS claim beg the question, and that the real debate must be had on whether the Restoration is real.
The Trinity, Its Origins, and the Case for Restoration
A historical and scriptural case that the Nicene Trinity is a philosophical construct -- not a revealed doctrine -- and that the LDS Godhead more faithfully represents what the scriptures actually say.
The CES Letter and the Failure of Logic
A structural critique of the rhetorical strategies underlying the CES Letter, restoring the reader's ability to evaluate its arguments on their actual merits.
Saved by Grace
A defense of Latter-day Saint teachings on grace, works, agency, and what salvation actually means.
The Question of Race and the Priesthood
The first published essay in the LDS Defense collection, focused on history, theology, and criticism.