“Falling for Frauds”: What the Gift of Discernment Actually Claims, What Honest History Requires, and Where This Episode Gets It Right and Wrong
LDS Discussions Episode 73 examines several controversial episodes in Latter-day Saint history and argues that the LDS gift of discernment should have enabled Church leaders to identify fraud, deception, and misconduct before significant harm occurred.
About This Episode
LDS Discussions Episode 73 is hosted by Colby Reddish and features Julia Sanders and “Nemo the Mormon.” The episode argues that the LDS gift of discernment should have enabled church leaders to detect fraud, forgery, and evil motivation. It bases that claim on Doctrine and Covenants 46, Moroni 10:5, and several general conference addresses. They run through Utah’s fraud statistics, Josiah Stowell, the Book of Abraham, the Kinderhook plates, Mark Hofmann’s Salamander Letter, Paul H. Dunn’s fabricated war stories, Tim Ballard’s misconduct, and Jodi Hildebrandt’s child abuse. The central thesis: LDS epistemology trains members to trust feelings over evidence, leaving them and their leaders systematically exposed.
This article approaches the topic from a pro-LDS but objective perspective. It acknowledges what the historical record genuinely shows, challenges the theological argument where it is imprecise, and proposes what both an honest LDS response and a fair critique should look like.
What an Honest LDS Response Must Concede First
The episode presents historical facts that are substantially accurate. Mark Hofmann deceived LDS leaders with forgeries. Photographers captured two General Authorities examining those documents approvingly before investigators exposed Hofmann as a murderer. Paul H. Dunn did fabricate war stories over decades as a General Authority, and the Church did allow him to continue. The world’s Egyptologists overwhelmingly conclude that the Book of Abraham Facsimiles do not match their claimed translations. Forgers created the Kinderhook plates, and the Church later published contradictory official statements about them 19 years apart. Brad Wilcox met with Jodi Hildebrandt weeks before her arrest for child abuse. The historical record preserves these facts, and many readers find them uncomfortable.
A response that dismisses these cases, demands more charity for leaders than it demands of critics, or retreats immediately into unfalsifiable claims about eternal significance deserves exactly the skepticism the panel directs at it. The honest LDS response begins by saying: yes, these things happened; yes, they are troubling; now let us examine exactly what they prove and what they do not.
The Theological Argument — Where It Is Strong and Where It Misreads the Doctrine
Quick Answer:
The historical cases discussed in LDS Discussions Episode 73 demonstrate that Church leaders sometimes failed to identify fraud, deception, or misconduct. However, LDS scripture does not explicitly teach that the gift of discernment guarantees perfect detection of every fraudulent or evil act.
Core Theological Claim
The gift of discernment in D&C 46 promises bishops and church leaders the ability to detect fraud and evil — and the historical record shows they repeatedly failed to do so
The episode builds its central argument on D&C 46:27, which reads:
The episode interprets “discern all those gifts” as “detect all fraud and evil.” However, the verse addresses a narrower issue. It focuses on false spiritual gifts and prophetic manifestations. In context, it warns against people who claim divine authority without genuine spiritual guidance. This is the protection context of a new church where spiritual phenomena were common and false claims could mislead. It is not a blanket promise of omni-detection of all human deception.
More importantly, the episode does not engage D&C 10:37, which explicitly qualifies prophetic knowledge:
This is not a post-hoc apologetic invented to rescue leaders from the Hofmann case. It is in the scriptural canon and it directly addresses the limits of prophetic knowledge about human wickedness. A complete examination of the LDS doctrine of discernment requires engaging both scriptures, not only the expansive formulation.
Where the episode is nonetheless right
General conference speakers, including Elder Bednar in the examples cited by the episode, have often taught discernment more expansively than D&C 10:37 permits. When leaders stand at the pulpit and speak of detecting “hidden error and evil in others,” they are making a claim that the Hofmann case, the Kinderhook plates, and Paul Dunn all directly test. The gap between what has been taught from the pulpit and what the scriptures actually claim is a legitimate tension that believing members and the Church itself need to engage honestly. The episode is right to draw attention to it — but the resolution is to return to what the scriptures actually say, not to accept the maximalist version as definitive.
The gap between what has been promised from the pulpit and what the historical record shows is real and deserves honest acknowledgement from the Church. The resolution is not to accept the maximalist version as the authoritative LDS teaching and then judge the doctrine by it — it is to return to what the canonical scriptures actually say, and hold the pulpit rhetoric accountable to that more modest standard.
The Historical Cases — Evaluated Honestly
Case 1 — Mark Hofmann and the Salamander Letter
The world’s leading document experts also accepted the forgeries as authentic, but the church’s handling of the documents raises separate integrity concerns
The Discernment Argument Fails Here — But an Integrity Argument Survives
Mark Hofmann successfully deceived some of the world’s leading document experts. Those experts included specialists associated with the Library of Congress and the British Museum. Because secular experts also accepted his forgeries as authentic, critics face a challenge when arguing that LDS leaders should have detected the fraud through spiritual discernment alone.
Nevertheless, the episode raises a separate concern that deserves serious attention. Church leaders actively acquired certain Hofmann documents and limited public access to them. As a result, the debate shifts from discernment to institutional transparency and accountability.
Where the integrity argument survives regardless of discernment: What the episode correctly notes — and what Turley’s own history acknowledges — is that church leaders including Gordon B. Hinckley were active in acquiring Hofmann documents partly to keep them from public view. Church leaders purchased the Salamander Letter and managed its existence in ways that prioritized institutional narrative over transparency. Hinckley’s own journal entry calling doubters “enemies” while noting he had “nothing to hide” reveals an institutional posture of managing perception rather than simply seeking truth. This is not a discernment failure — it is an institutional integrity question that stands independently of any supernatural claims.
No one detected Hofmann because no one could with the tools available. That clears the specific discernment claim. The separate question of why documents were being acquired and managed rather than simply shared remains a fair integrity concern.
Case 2 — The Kinderhook Plates
The church published contradictory official statements 19 years apart — and this is one of the episode’s strongest points
This One Deserves Full Concession — Historical sources document the contradiction, and no official resolution currently exists.
Several men forged the Kinderhook plates in 1843 and later confessed the hoax in writing 36 years later — confirmed and independently vindicated by the Chicago Historical Society’s 1981 destructive testing. This is settled history. The LDS Church published an 1962 Improvement Era article declaring the plates “genuine” and citing Joseph Smith as “a true prophet and translator of ancient records.” Nineteen years later, Ensign published an article stating that “Joseph Smith needs no defense. He simply did not fall for the scheme.” William Clayton’s contemporaneous journal records Joseph Smith translating “a portion” of the plates. The Church’s correlation committee reviewed both official publications. They directly contradict each other.
The episode is right that this contradiction is unresolved and that an honest LDS response requires acknowledging it directly rather than papering over it. The apologist move of saying “well, Clayton’s journal may not have been written on that exact date” does not answer the contradiction between two official church publications. The most honest LDS response is straightforward. Joseph Smith appears to have translated a portion of forged plates. The translation is not recoverable. Furthermore, the Church’s 1981 claim that “he didn’t fall for it” does not align with Clayton’s contemporaneous account. This does not require accepting the episode’s broader epistemological conclusions — but it requires honest acknowledgement of the problem.
Key Takeaway
Among all the cases discussed in the episode, the Kinderhook Plates remain one of the strongest historical challenges because the documentary record contains an unresolved contradiction between official Church publications.
The Kinderhook plates case is the episode’s strongest historical argument and it deserves honest engagement rather than defensive dismissal. An LDS response that acknowledges the problem while examining what it actually implies for Joseph Smith’s broader claims is more intellectually credible than a response that pretends the problem away.
Case 3 — Paul H. Dunn
The episode correctly documents the fabrications, but the more disturbing implication is that leaders may have known about them and allowed them to continue
The Facts Are Correct — The Most Serious Implication Is Actually Worse Than the Discernment Claim
Investigative reporting documents Paul H. Dunn’s fabricated war stories, baseball claims, and faith-promoting narratives. Also, the Church’s own October 1991 Church News published his formal apology confirming he had been “censured.” Lynn Packer (nephew of Apostle Boyd K. Packer) documented the false stories, was reportedly pressured not to publish, and had his BYU teaching contract terminated after pursuing the story. This institutional pattern — punishing the truth-teller and protecting the fabricator — is more seriously troubling than the discernment question.
The episode reads this as a failure of the gift of discernment. The more uncomfortable reading is that the Church may have known Dunn’s stories were embellished or false and chose to allow them because they built faith. This is an institutional integrity failure that does not require any supernatural framework at all — it is simply about whether an organization that claims to value truth actually holds its representatives to truthfulness standards. An LDS response that reduces this to “well, discernment doesn’t mean omniscience” sidesteps the more serious question.
Investigative reporting documents the fabrications. Contemporary reporting documents the pressure on Packer and the termination of his contract. An honest LDS response acknowledges both as institutional failures and does not deflect onto definitions of discernment.
Case 4 — Tim Ballard and Jodi Hildebrandt/Brad Wilcox
The episode documents the association, but its framing of these cases as discernment failures conflates pastoral proximity with prophetic endorsement
The Associations Are Real — The Framing Requires More Precision
Historical records show the following facts: Tim Ballard described M. Russell Ballard as “like a grandfather to me” in public talks and travelled with him; the Church subsequently called Ballard’s activities “morally unacceptable” when allegations of sexual misconduct and misleading fundraising practices emerged. Brad Wilcox met with Jodi Hildebrandt in June 2023, approximately 11 weeks before her arrest for aggravated child abuse. These associations are real and the episode correctly documents them.
Where the framing requires precision
Meeting with someone — even a church leader meeting with a counselor seeking advice or involvement in good works — is not a prophetic endorsement of that person’s hidden character. The gift of discernment as described in D&C 46 is about detecting false spiritual gifts within the Church, not about providing leaders with comprehensive knowledge of everyone they meet professionally. Brad Wilcox meeting with Jodi Hildebrandt is not a failed prophecy any more than a law enforcement officer meeting with a yet-undetected criminal constitutes a failure of law enforcement epistemology.
One concern remains genuinely troubling in the Tim Ballard case and the episode correctly identifies it. Elder Ballard publicly associated his apostolic authority with Ballard’s work. As a result, he extended institutional credibility to a man who allegedly misrepresented his operations and engaged in misconduct. That is an endorsement that carries institutional weight, and the subsequent reversal (“morally unacceptable”) created real harm to members who had donated based on that endorsement. The discernment framing is imprecise; the institutional accountability framing is legitimate.
Pastoral proximity to a fraud or abuser is not a prophetic failure. Public apostolic endorsement of someone who turns out to be fraudulent or abusive is a different matter and deserves the accountability the episode calls for.
The Epistemological Argument — Its Genuine Strength and Its Overreach
The Broader Argument
Data confirm Utah’s fraud statistics and support the affinity-fraud dynamic, but attributing it specifically to LDS epistemology overstates the evidence
Multiple sources confirm the fraud statistics — The Causal Attribution Is Overstated
Utah’s fraud statistics are not in dispute. PonziTracker data and the Deseret News confirm 1.35 Ponzi schemes per 100,000 residents — the highest per capita in the United States. The FBI has named Salt Lake City one of the top five Ponzi scheme hotspots in the country. The Wall Street Journal called it the “Fraud Capital of America” in 2015. The Utah Attorney General’s office created the nation’s first White Collar Crime Offender Registry precisely because of the scale of the problem. Secular sources, including the FBI, unambiguously confirm these facts.
The episode’s causal theory captures part of the picture. It argues that LDS epistemology encourages members to trust feelings and leaders. However, that explanation likely overstates the evidence. The FBI’s own documentation of affinity fraud acknowledges this is a pattern across high-trust communities of all kinds: evangelical communities, Orthodox Jewish communities in New York, Jehovah’s Witness communities, and immigrant community networks all show elevated affinity fraud rates. The pattern is community trust plus financial trust in co-religionists — not specifically LDS epistemology. Utah’s rate is higher because Utah’s LDS concentration is unusual, not because LDS epistemology is uniquely fraud-enabling compared to all other faith communities.
What Makes Utah Different?
That said, the episode correctly identifies a specific mechanism within LDS culture — the combination of MLM culture, gender role pressures on women to generate income without formal employment, and the hierarchical trust structure — that is more specific to the LDS context than the general affinity fraud dynamic. These cultural factors are genuinely worth addressing. The Church has published multiple warnings about affinity fraud and Axios documents that the Church and FBI have jointly warned members of this pattern. That the warnings exist confirms the Church is aware of the problem; that the rate remains highest in the nation confirms the warnings have not been sufficient.
The fraud problem is genuine, documented, and disproportionate. The specific causal mechanism is high-trust community dynamics, not uniquely LDS epistemology. The Church’s own warnings to members confirm institutional awareness — and the continuing disproportionate rate raises the honest question of whether those warnings have been adequate.
Utah Business — Utah leads nation in Ponzi schemes per capita (PonziTracker data) ·
Axios — LDS affinity fraud pattern and FBI/Church joint warnings ·
Utah Attorney General — White Collar Crime Offender Registry
What Does This Episode Actually Prove?
The evidence shows that Church leaders, like other institutional leaders, have sometimes failed to recognize fraud, misconduct, or deception. The historical record clearly documents those failures. However, whether those failures invalidate LDS claims about discernment depends largely on how broadly a person defines the doctrine in the first place.
Consequently, the central debate is theological. The key question is whether LDS scripture promises perfect detection of evil or whether later interpretations expanded the doctrine beyond what the canon originally claimed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the LDS gift of discernment actually claim?
The LDS gift of discernment is described in Doctrine and Covenants 46:27 as a spiritual gift that helps Church leaders identify genuine spiritual manifestations and recognize false ones. The doctrine does not explicitly promise the ability to detect every fraud, deception, or hidden sin. Critics argue that modern Church teachings sometimes present the gift more broadly than the scriptural text itself.
Why does Utah have so much fraud and is it because of the LDS Church?
Utah consistently ranks among the highest states for affinity fraud and Ponzi schemes. Experts attribute this pattern primarily to high-trust community networks, which can make fraud easier to spread. While LDS culture may contribute to these dynamics in certain cases, similar fraud patterns also appear in many other religious and close-knit communities.
Why didn’t LDS leaders detect Mark Hofmann’s forgeries?
Mark Hofmann was the most sophisticated document forger in American history. His forgeries fooled the Library of Congress, the British Museum, and the world’s leading rare documents experts, all without supernatural gifts of any kind. The LDS leaders who were deceived were deceived alongside secular experts using every technical method then available.
However, a separate concern survives the discernment question: church leaders were actively acquiring Hofmann documents partly to manage institutional narrative and prevent public access to potentially damaging materials. Gordon B. Hinckley’s contemporaneous journal calling questioners “enemies” while claiming “we have nothing to hide” reveals an institutional posture of perception management rather than transparent truth-seeking. This is an integrity concern that stands independently of whether discernment was expected to detect forgery.
Was the Book of Abraham a genuine translation?
Egyptologists have reached the same conclusion since 1912. The LDS Church’s 2014 Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges it. The Book of Abraham Facsimiles do not correspond to their claimed translations. Scholars date the papyri to between the 3rd century BCE and 1st century CE, long after Abraham lived. Facsimile 3 contains actual Egyptian characters that have been independently translated, and none match Joseph Smith’s stated translations. The Church’s Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges that none of the characters mention Abraham’s name.
The ‘missing scrolls’ apologetic — that the translation may have come from scrolls no longer extant — is partially addressed in the Essay itself. However, Facsimile 3’s on-image characters are directly within the canonized scripture and have been translated incorrectly, which the missing scrolls theory cannot address. The episode makes this point correctly. Believing members engage several frameworks (catalyst for revelation, Egyptian as medium rather than source) through which they maintain faith; those frameworks are available to explore in the Gospel Topics Essay.
What should an honest LDS response to this episode sound like?
An honest LDS response acknowledges several things directly: the Kinderhook plates present a genuine documented problem — Clayton’s journal records a translation, and two official Church publications contradict each other about whether Joseph “fell for it.” The Book of Abraham Facsimiles genuinely do not match their translations according to the world’s Egyptologists, as the Church’s own Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges. Paul Dunn’s fabrications were real, and the institutional response (protecting him for decades while punishing the journalist who exposed him) was an integrity failure. The Hofmann case, while not a failure of discernment specifically, involved problematic document acquisition designed partly to manage public perception.
What an honest LDS response also notes: canonized scripture presents a more modest view of discernment than many pulpit presentations do. D&C 10:37 explicitly qualifies prophetic knowledge about human wickedness. People can better understand the cases as institutional integrity failures, not proofs that prophetic gifts do not exist at all. And the fraud statistics, while genuine and alarming, reflect a pattern of high-trust community dynamics found across multiple religious communities — not evidence of a uniquely broken LDS epistemology.
The Honest Summary
LDS Discussions Episode 73 presents a genuine and serious challenge to one of the LDS Church’s most often-invoked institutional claims. Church leaders have often taught the gift of discernment in expansive terms. Under that interpretation, leaders ought to have detected Mark Hofmann’s forgeries, Paul Dunn’s fabrications, Tim Ballard’s misconduct, and Jodi Hildebrandt’s abuse. The historical record shows they did not. These are documented facts that an honest LDS response must acknowledge rather than dismiss.
Where the episode overstates its case: the canonized doctrine of discernment is more modest than its pulpit presentations, and D&C 10:37 explicitly limits prophetic knowledge about human wickedness — a scripture the episode does not engage. Mark Hofmann deceived the world’s leading secular experts alongside LDS leaders; holding LDS leaders to a supernatural standard that no secular expert could meet applies an unequal evidential standard. The Utah fraud statistics reflect a high-trust community dynamic present across multiple faiths, not evidence of a uniquely dysfunctional LDS epistemology. And meeting with someone — even an abusive or fraudulent person — is not a failed prophecy any more than a police officer meeting with an undetected criminal constitutes law enforcement failure.
Where the episode identifies genuine concerns that LDS members, leaders, and institutions should take seriously: the gap between what the pulpit has promised and what D&C 10:37 actually claims deserves honest addressing. The Kinderhook plates represent a documented contradiction between two official Church publications that remains unresolved. The Paul Dunn case raises serious questions about whether the Church prioritized faith-building narratives over truthfulness — and whether the man who exposed the deception was punished for it. Utah’s fraud problem is real, documented by secular sources, and disproportionate enough that the Church’s existing warnings to members have demonstrably been insufficient.
What an Honest LDS Response Should Concede
The faithful Latter-day Saint who engages this episode honestly is not forced to choose between dismissing it entirely and abandoning faith. They are, however, asked to hold their institutional claims to the same evidentiary standards they apply to other things they claim to care about: what does the canonical scripture actually say, what does the historical record actually show, and what does an institution committed to truth actually owe the people who trust it?