A note, as you read this if you believe in the church you will feel dark not because the spirit is warning you it's bad, rather because you will experience cognitive dissonance. When you believe something strongly, like for example that the earth is flat, if someone presents you evidence that contradicts that belief, like a picture of a globe earth, your brain naturally will fight against that information by making you feel sick, sad, dark, angry or other negative emotions. Read more here
What do the leaders of the church and the scriptures teach us about lying?
Proverbs 6:16-19 - These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
John 8:44 - Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Revelation 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Proverbs 12:22 - Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.
2 Nephi 9:34 - Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell
Spencer Kimbal - conference "I would say: Never lie and never cheat. A liar is a weakling. A cheat is both a weakling and a thief."
Those are just a few examples from the scriptures of how God feels about liars. These are people that are an abomination to him, children of Satan, a weakling, numbered among adulterers, murders and sorcerers, and will be thrust down to hell.
In D&C 20, Joseph said that God told him how the church should be organized. Anyone who holds the office of Teacher, has the following command: 54 - And see that there is no iniquity in the church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking;
God specifically says in D&C 68:19 "as a high priest of the Melchizedek Priesthood has authority to officiate in all the lesser offices" so people called to the higher priesthoods still can act in the lower levels. So an apostle still has the duty to make sure lying isn't happening in the church.
So by the above we know that God thinks liars are an abomination and Apostles still have the duty to make sure no one in the church is lying.
Finally, how does the church define lying? "Lying is intentionally deceiving others." (among many other things described here)
So lets look at some examples of Prophets and apostles that are liars.
Gordon Hinckley -
In this video he claims that members have access to budgets and financial information and that the church feels only the people who make contributions should have access to that information. There is no where that any member can see the budgets or financial information of the church. I've looked and can't find anything, many others have looked and only find information from public companies owned by the church, no financial information can be found for the church.
Jeffery Holland -
In this video Holland is deceptive about what used to happen in the temple. He could have led with "we used to have penalties" but instead led with "we don't have penalties"
Russel Nelson -
Has told the story about being on an airplane that was going down for 20+ years now, here's a recent video where he relates the story. In the book "Russell M. Nelson: Father, Surgeon, Apostle" he relates the following details, it was November 12th, 1976 on a flight between SLC and St. George for a Inauguration at Dixie College. It is federal law that pilots report problems with their flights. So with the details provided in the book it's possible to verify this story. On page 1090 of the Civil Aeronautics Board reports it says "Second incidence occurred Nov. 11, 1976 involving Piper PA 31 N74985. Pilot experienced rough engine on scheduled flight between Salt Lake City and St. George. 3 passengers on board. Engine was feathered and precautionary landing made at Delta, Utah, per instructions in company manual. Investigation revealed cylinder base studs sheered. As result of occurrence Sky West change maintenance procedures by checking torque studs at each 100 hour inspection. No damage to aircraft. No injuries to crew or passengers." (the day is one day off but nothing was reported for the 12th or for a few weeks after, so maybe Nelson just forgot the day by one day) a "rough engine" is not an exploded engine or a death dive. Also the report indicates that a "precautionary landing" was made, if you have a failed engine you don't make a "precautionary" landing you make an "emergency" landing.
This article tells of a time Elder Nelson was attacked, he says the bad guys broke in and tried to kill him but the gun failed to fire, and were going to kidnap Wendy Nelson, but then disappeared as quickly as they came. But then in this article it says someone called for help and help came, also it says it was a robbery and abduction, nothing about a gun or killing Elder Nelson. Finally this article simply says it was a robbery
This tells of how President Nelson fabricated details to a "miracle" story he's shared a few times. The family of the woman in the story contacted the publisher and told them most of it was made up. They removed the story from the online article they published and may or may not have removed it from the book.
Joseph F Smith -
Some portion of a letter book that contained the description of the first vision that was written in 1832, was cut out of the book. It was later stored in the vault of the first president who was Joseph F Smith. Whether or not he cut it out, he eventually became the president and would have had access to the vault and likely would have looked at everything in there, since he was the church historian prior to becoming an apostle. Keeping the first vision account hidden was dishonest, if he was the one that cut it out so that he could hide it, that's even more dishonest. FAIR is the churches apologetics group, so finding an answer on that site is like finding it on LDS.org. Here's an answer that corroborates my above statements.
Joseph Smith -
- Polygamy - Was married to Eliza and Emily Patridge without telling his wife. When Emma finally agreed to practice polygamy she picked them as plural wives. Instead of confessing his lies to Emma, Eliza and Emily were married to Joseph a second time. (bottom of the 6th section here) (this website is run by faithful members and even they have found evidence of polygamy teachings going back to 1831)
- Is a failed prophecy the same as a lie? If God told him to say it then it should have happened, if it didn't happen then I think it's fair to think he lied about the fact God told him to say something. This wikipedia page has a list of fulfilled and failed prophecies, the fact there are any failed prophecies means he must have lied at least about some of them if not all of them.
- There are 4 distinctly different versions of the first vision. Either Joseph saw God and Jesus or he saw an angel. One of these is a lie otherwise the most important details of why he went into the grove and who he saw in the grove would be consistent.
- He was a known conman in his area practicing something called glass looking. This confirms he was known as a glass looker and was tried for it, it says it's not conclusive whether he was convicted or not. The fact he was known for glass looking though tells you that he was known for telling people where to find treasure using the same seer stone he used to translate the book of mormon, which seems deceptive to me. Here (Isaac Hale testimony, should be the first one on the page) he told his father in law he would stop, why stop if it was honest work, why not convince his father in law it wasn't something he needed to stop?
- Joseph started a bank and was deceptive about the funding they had. When the bank failed lots of people left the church. Here and here are more info, at the end of the second one it asks the question why people didn't disclose the fraud before the bank failed, while that is an interesting question it ignores the possibility that they were in on the fraud and were going to make money until the bank failed and once it failed they no longer were going to gain anything so their best option was to make sure Joseph also didn't gain anything.
In the temple recommend questions it asks if you are honest with your fellow men and clearly these men haven't been honest about these things. None of them have ever issued apologies which means they also haven't repented.
This website and this website have dozens more examples of leaders of the church lying or at least being deceptive.
Wilford Woodruff and President Nelson (around 1:58) have said that God wouldn't allow the prophet to lead the church into error. Is setting an example of lying or deceiving not leading the church into error?
If God doesn't like liars, which I think we established, then why would he tolerate prophets and apostles who are dishonest? Wouldn't God be holding the leader of his church to a higher standard than the members of his church? We are told that as members of the church we have to live a higher standard than people who aren't members (just one example), so it seems reasonable that God would hold someone like a prophet or apostle to an even higher standard than a member. If I answer the temple question about honesty in the negative then I don't get a temple recommend. How can a prophet or apostle get revelation for the church if they aren't completely honest or at least repenting when they do lie? Reason would suggest they can't. President Nelson has been lying about the various miracle stories for 20+ years. That means his message last Thanksgiving, which he said was revelation, wasn't. God wouldn't have woken him up in the night to tell him to give that message since he's been dishonest and hasn't repented. This also means that dropping the use of the word Mormon wasn't revelation from God. This also means that Come Follow Me wasn't revelation from God. Shorter church wasn't revelation. It means the policy banning children of Gays wasn't a revelation. It means the church has been in apostasy since shortly after it was formed or it means the church never was God's church.
Jesus said that by your fruits will you know them. Lying is not a good fruit so how can LDS leaders be God's chosen leaders when their fruits are bitter?
Counter arguments:
Some might want to argue that apostles and prophets have had the second anointing, like this former stake president, and thus the apostles can lie all they want and God will still communicate with them. Based on my own study I don't believe God would give someone the second anointing if he wasn't sure they would live a Christ like life despite having no further consequence for sin.
Some also might want to argue that Judas was deceptive but Christ called him as an apostle. While I agree that is a potential hole in my argument, there is this which discusses old documents found that suggest Judas was commanded by Christ to betray him. There is also the fact that the gospels weren't written until 50 to 100 years after Christ died, the stories were likely embellished and changed, so perhaps Judas either wasn't real or what actually happened morphed. It's almost impossible to know at this point.