I should mention that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints aka, Mormon and lately in the News I've heard rumors about a number of church disciplinary courts which are being held for some semi prominent Mormon members. They are John Dehlin, who puts together the Mormon Stories Podcasts, Kate Kelly of Ordain Women and Rock Waterman, the blogger behind 'Pure Mormonism'.
First, John Dehlin. I'm actually quite familiar with him. I used to be a follower and be a participant of LDS message boards. I belonged to two of them, FAIR, which is now called Mormon Dialogue and Discussion and another board, Mormon Discussions. Both can be rough, nasty places--Mormon Discussions is the worst because many of the posters are angry hostile individuals, especially when it comes to the Mormon Faith. Mormon Dialogue and Discussions can be a nasty place because the atmosphere is angry, sarcastic and mean spirited and the moderators, who you'd think might want to avoid that sort of thing, at times, joined in with the general angry atmosphere. I decided to leave them. MD, because I got sick of the offensive attacks and MD&D, because I realized I was learning nothing from my participation there, except to dislike other members of my faith! However while participating, I was introduced to John Dehlin.
My impression of John is limited to what I've read from him, not from meeting him in person. He struggles with many doctrinal concepts in the church as well as the social culture of Mormonism on the Wasatch front. He makes podcasts, interviewing many disaffected and ex LDS (also aka Mormon) members. His claim for doing this is to get their stories out and I've read him claim many times that he's helping people stay in the church. I've even read posters back up his statements that his podcasts keep them in the church. I have no complaints about that.
Kate Kelly is the leader of a movement called Ordain women which wants to pressure the LDS church into giving women the Priesthood (we have a lay priesthood of males over the age of 12 only). She and her followers have been staging protests (non violent but pushy by church mores) and she's been trying to drum up support among members for her cause.
Rock Waterman is a blogger who writes about the church. He's a member but he's critical, but couches that criticism in humor and sarcasm. He likes to hearken back to the church's past history to criticize how things are run today.
What these three have in common is that they are being threatened with church discipline. I use the word 'threatened' because it is a real threat--to their cause. When an LDS person loses their church membership, they also lose their influence with mainstream members and so each of these people will lose a great deal of their influence with their targeted audience. Just look at any of the other high profile excommunicants and you will see that it severely limits their ability to gain followers to their way of thinking or their cause.
My own feeling is that the church is justified in threatening them, using the only real power they have to silence detractors. All three of these people have a 'following'; they are the leaders of 'movements' and they preach their own 'doctrine' in opposition to what the church teaches. That makes them what the early Christian church called "Heretics". And so, the church must protect the 'flock', it's members, from the heresies and from the Heretics who would draw people away from what they deem the true gospel to believe in false teachings.
The church does not discuss these proceedings, but I believe that each of them was given the opportunity to stop their teaching, pull down their websites and cease their activities, in order to remain a member in good standing. And if they refuse, they will be considered 'out of harmony' with the church and must be removed from being able to use their position within the church to draw others to their cause.
If you feel I am dispassionate and harsh, I'm sorry, but one must look at this frankly. The early church had to deal with the same kind of problems and when they allowed the heretics to proselyte within the church branches, they lost members to these break off groups. The church has an obligation to keep the doctrine pure and protect the membership.
As members of the church we each have the freedom to believe as we choose, but we do not have the freedom to teach our beliefs to others in order to foment dissatisfaction and disaffection. Our church is unique also in that we believe in one Prophet at the head of our church who receives ongoing revelation for how the church is run. This means no one else can receive revelation for the church as a whole and we don't take kindly to agitators.
Personally, I hope and pray that these three will let go of the pride that binds them and submit to the instructions of their church leaders and keep their membership. Humility is one of the best teachers for intellectually bright, talented people. It is also one of the best ways to become more like the Savior in a way that they will never know, if they continue down the path of putting their pride in their positions and accolades of their followers before accepting censure from those they claim to uphold. It doesn't matter if you are right. It matters if you can accept upbraiding for your weaknesses because I can guarantee, you have them, I have them. We all can bear a little chastising.
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