Church discipline and intellectual freedom

The Church has used membership councils and a surveillance committee against historians, feminists and critics, and its handbook counts public opposition to leaders as apostasy.

What the Church claims

Church discipline exists to help members repent and to protect the Church; members are free to think and question.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. The record of disciplinary councils held over published scholarship, from the September Six onward, contradicts the second half of the claim directly: members are free to think, and the documented cost of saying so in print has been membership. The first half, that discipline is pastoral in intent, is not disproved, which is what keeps this from failing outright.

The record

  • On 1992-08-22 the First Presidency confirmed the existence of the Strengthening Church Members Committee, composed then of apostles James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson, citing D&C 123; a spokesman said it 'provides local church leadership with information' on members whose public criticism may 'hinder the progress of the church'. Oaks in 1993 called it a 'clipping service'.
  • In September-October 1993 six writers (Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, Avraham Gileadi, Paul Toscano, Maxine Hanks, Lavina Fielding Anderson, D. Michael Quinn) were excommunicated or disfellowshipped within weeks; Gileadi was rebaptized in 1996 and his discipline expunged.
  • Later cases: John Dehlin (Mormon Stories) was excommunicated in 2015 for apostasy after a council initiated in January 2015; his appeal was denied that summer. Jeremy Runnells (CES Letter) faced a disciplinary council in 2016 and resigned.
  • The General Handbook (32.6.3.2) defines apostasy to include 'repeatedly acting in clear and deliberate public opposition to the Church, its doctrine, its policies, or its leaders' and 'persisting in teaching as Church doctrine' what is not; 2020 terminology renamed disciplinary councils 'membership councils' and excommunication 'withdrawal of membership'.
  • Lavina Fielding Anderson's 1993 chronology documents decades of friction between leaders and historians, including Ezra Taft Benson's 1976 attacks on 'historical realism' and Packer's 1981 warning that some true things 'are not very useful'.

The moving target

  • 1981-08-22: Church historians should write faith-promoting history; 'some things that are true are not very useful'.
  • 1992-08-22: The committee is scriptural (D&C 123) and helps local leaders counsel members.
  • current: Apostasy includes public opposition to leaders and policies; councils are about repentance and protection.

The exchange

Oaks (1993, 2007); Handbook 32

Every voluntary organization may set membership terms; the Church disciplines conduct (public campaigns against leaders), not private doubt or scholarship. Many critical scholars remain members in good standing; Gileadi's case shows errors are corrected.

The answer: The handbook makes opposition to 'policies' and 'leaders', not just doctrine, grounds for expulsion, and the 1993 and 2014-2016 cases targeted people whose offence was publishing accurate history or asking leaders to seek revelation. A monitoring committee of apostles compiling files on members is not what 'free to question' looks like. Oaks's 2007 PBS statement that it is wrong to criticize leaders 'even if the criticism is true' (widely reported; not opened in this pass) states the standard candidly.

What they get right: The Church has become markedly more tolerant of published critical history since the 1990s (Joseph Smith Papers, Gospel Topics essays), and most vocal critics today are not disciplined.

Church spokesmen (1993); FAIR

The 1993 cases were local decisions by local leaders in four different states. The Church has no central heresy office and headquarters did not direct them.

The answer: The Strengthening Church Members Committee existed, was confirmed by the Church in 1992 after a member of the Seventy disclosed it, and collected members' published writing for transmission to their local leaders. Six actions in five weeks, against people whose work overlapped, is not the shape uncoordinated local judgment takes. That May, Boyd K. Packer had told the All-Church Coordinating Council that the three dangers to the Church were the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement, and 'the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals'. Local leaders were answering a question headquarters had already framed.

What they get right: Avraham Gileadi's excommunication was reversed and he was rebaptized, so the process is not one-directional.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

The institution's response to accurate but unwelcome information has been to manage the messenger: a committee of apostles compiling files, coordinated discipline of scholars in 1993, and 21st-century councils for a podcaster and a letter-writer. The handbook still makes public disagreement with leaders and policies an excommunicable offence. That matters for truth claims because it shapes what members hear and what insiders dare to publish.

The apologetic case

The Church disciplines a tiny number of members, almost always after years of warnings, for organized public campaigns rather than beliefs, and it now publishes far more of its difficult history than any critic in 1993 expected. Every church defines apostasy; this one's definition is public.

What would change this

Evidence that the disciplined scholars were sanctioned for demonstrable falsehoods rather than for publishing or advocacy; disbanding of the monitoring committee.

Sources

An independent project. Not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with any organization cited here. Summaries are written here; short quotations are attributed and linked. Every page names its sources so that it can be corrected, and every page can be challenged.