[Micah McAllister made this point on Facebook this evening and it speaks to the frustration many of us feel about the church's handling of what is supposed to just be truth. --BG]

Elder Packer himself is in part at fault for people being blindsided. I don't know how the LDS church can claim they haven't intended to hide or withhold information when they specifically instructed CES staff to do just that. In a 1981 CES conference at BYU, Elder Packer gave the following instruction:

"Church history can be so interesting and so inspiring as to be a powerful tool indeed for building faith. If not properly written or properly taught, it may be a faith destroyer."

“There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful."

"The writer or teacher who has an exaggerated loyalty to the theory that everything must be told is laying a foundation for his own judgment. The Lord made it clear that some things are to be taught selectively and some things are to be given only to those who are worthy.”

"That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith - particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith - places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. Do not spread disease germs!" (Boyd K. Packer, 1981, BYU Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 259-271)

Can anyone explain to me how the above is not purposefully withholding history?

[Can anyone explain why the church mews and preens about being misunderstood on the Internet when their own leaders have advocated glossing and pitching LDS church history in a way that is only "faith promoting"? As President Hinkley himself said it's either truth or it isn't: "It's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world. Now, that's the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or true."
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Interview "The Mormons"; PBS Documentary, April 2007

Packer thinks that the whole truth is just for the "worthy." I say truth is for every investigator of the LDS church. That is why the Internet scares the hell out of the LDS who just want to massage investigators into the faith by only LDS approved lights. That's not fair. It may be "lying for the Lord," "milk before meat," or any other euphemism the LDS use to convince themselves that lying about their faith's history or doctrine is okay, but it would be called deceit anywhere else where freely choosing adults are concerned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/mormons-confront-epidemic-on-online-misinformation/2012/02/01/gIQApULJiQ_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#weighIn