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Talking to Someone Still In
What actually works, from people who have done it, and what costs you the relationship.
Read this before you use anything else here
Everything else on this site is evidence. This page is about delivery, and delivery decides whether the evidence gets heard at all.
The single most consistent piece of advice from people who have actually done this: a debate-style fact dump does not work and frequently costs you the relationship.
Lead with the Church’s own materials, not the CES Letter
This is the most repeated tactical advice, and it is the reason this entire site is sourced the way it is.
Introduce a concern through the Gospel Topics Essays before the CES Letter ever comes up. It is largely the same content, and it cannot be waved away as anti-Mormon material. The moment a critic’s name is attached, a believing member has permission to stop listening.
Same principle for news: if you can cite Deseret News, cite Deseret News. It is Church-owned. A Salt Lake Tribune or AP story on the identical facts gets dismissed as hostile press; the same story in Deseret News does not.
Go slow. One thing.
"Have the conversation soon and start small. Say you are struggling and do not dump it all out at once."
Pick one topic. Go deep enough that they can check it themselves. Then stop and let it sit. The research on persuasion puts one good conversation at roughly a twenty percent shift, and that is the ceiling, not the average.
Frame it as conviction, not as a case
"I do not believe and cannot support a church that condones polygamy" lands very differently from a list of citations. The first is a person telling you who they are. The second is a prosecution, and people defend themselves against prosecutions.
The thing that works better than arguing
"People do not respond well when you try to deconstruct their beliefs. It seems to work better if you add good things to their life that compete with less good things."
This is the most useful sentence in this entire section. You are not going to argue someone out. What moves people is watching someone they love be visibly, durably happier, and having that be undeniable.
That is also why the story on this site spends as much time on Sundays and rest and guilt-free happiness as it does on the Book of Abraham.
What it actually costs
Be clear-eyed. Documented outcomes people report:
- Parents refusing to attend a wedding.
- Being cut off from younger siblings.
- Family group chats that exclude you.
- "Hard shunning" versus "soft shunning," a distinction people who have lived it use: total cutoff versus quiet exclusion from holidays and gatherings.
A lot of that traces to parents being taught they are eternally accountable for their children’s standing. Understanding that makes the reaction easier to absorb without absorbing it as hatred.
The consistent advice from people who have been through it: if you are still financially dependent, sit tight until you have graduated and can support yourself before disclosing. Eviction is a real and documented outcome, not a hypothetical.
Nothing on this site is worth losing your housing over. It will still be here.
The shelf, and where it came from
Most people in this conversation use the shelf metaphor: you set unanswered questions aside, and one day it holds too much and breaks.
The metaphor did not come from critics. It is traced to Camilla Kimball, wife of President Spencer W. Kimball, teaching members to put hard questions on a shelf and wait.
That detail is worth knowing, because it means the concept was handed to members from inside. Nobody had to invent a way to describe the experience. The Church already had one.
What not to do
- Do not open with Joseph Smith’s character. It reads as an attack on someone they love.
- Do not use an argument you cannot source. Several pages here have a "do not use" box for exactly this reason. One bad fact makes every good one suspect.
- Do not do this to someone in crisis. Not at a funeral, not during a divorce, not to someone whose entire social world is the ward and who has nowhere to land.
- Do not expect a result. If you need them to change to feel okay, you will push too hard.
The one question worth more than any fact
What would it take to change your mind?
Ask it genuinely and then be quiet. If they name something specific, you are having a real conversation and this site probably has it. If nothing would, you have both learned what kind of belief this is, and that is more valuable than winning the point.
Then be willing to answer it yourself. If your answer is also "nothing," you are doing the same thing they are.