Audio of Bill Reel's Disciplinary Council

[_I have a question]

The Church is only a Goliath if you actively choose to give it Goliath status in your life.

That depends on your own relationships, too, and what status they give the church in their life and your relationship with them. So, no, you cannot always control the institution's impact on your life just by refusing to give it your personal power.

I didn’t say you wouldn’t pay a consequential price that is outwith your control, should you choose to not give the Church status in your life. But if there is a consequential price, it’s one of finding out who your true friends are, and perhaps that’s perhaps a price worth paying.

[_Kishkumen]

Leaving is a direct evidence one really has lost faith in it. FIghting it tooth and nail demonstrates the faith still intact, yet disaffected. That's how I grasp it a bit. I honestly see no point in continually arguing against it anymore, let alone paying much attention to it. There is much more to do in life that bawl for 20 years about losing 20 years in the church. That totals 40 years, yet people do not grasp that astonishing fact.

Yes, well, it’s more difficult to let go of a community than it is to change beliefs. My take anyway. We find community here around our shared interactions with the LDS community. We’re really here to wrestle with our demons together and find a measure of friendship.

I agree, though, that it looks bonkers to relive the trauma over and over again.

[_Kishkumen]

It depends on what your fight is about. For example, if you are Sam Young it doesn't matter if you fight from within or from outside the church, if you fight for a year, 5 years or 20. And, just for the written record here, I don't give a damn crap who recorded what, how or with whose permission or no permission at all.

If someone hears about Bill Reel's excommunication or gets wind of Norton's involvement and that's what draws them to the excommunication video and they see Sam Young taking the mic outside the building, get curious about what Sam Young is about and that draws them over to the Protect Facebook page and/or the website itself, that's a pathway I fully support.

Look at the two updates that Shulem and I have both posted on the Sam Young excommunication thread. The needle is moving. The church is caving from within on the issue of Worthiness Interviews one Ward, one Stake at a time. Whether that is sanctioned by SLC or not, again, I don't give a damn.

The church's position regarding unrelated males making inquiry about the sexual lives/practices of unrelated minors is going to stop. And, if the church doesn't roll over on the current policy, the Protect movement is going to snowball all over it anyway and that's not because people have given up their fight or because the fight is "pointless".

Anyone with half a brain can see the connection between a Bill Reel excommunication incident, the use of social media and how it IS impacting the church. To discourage these people from publicizing their excommunications is basically a call to shut down on exposure when in the case of the Protect movement, exposure and the use of social media is exactly what is driving the success of the movement.

The LDS Church's policy on Worthiness Interviews is tantamount to child abuse. Leaving LDS minors twisting in the wind isn't un-Christian, it's inhumane.

I have no reason to believe that the November policy won't be next.

There is a difference, I think, between fighting for a good cause, like protecting children, and fighting against the LDS Church. Mike Norton is someone who has fought against the LDS Church and Mormonism, and has found validation and support when his work has had ancillary (but important) benefits for some people. But his primary motivation is his hatred of Mormonism.

I think Sam Young started out fighting for a good cause. Likewise with Bill Reel. Involving Mike Norton was a mistake because that muddied motivations and aims. I deeply disagree with the idea that the ends justify the means. If Mike Norton gets attention, the attention does not whitewash his religious bigotry. If one can achieve similar results without resorting to bigots and bigotry, then that is what one should do. If one must use Norton to get attention, then forego the attention, because buddying up to bigots is not worth the perceived benefit.

[_Sanctorian]

So if you could remove Norton from the equation, does that alter your opinion on Bill recording the DC and lying about it? Because it seems like your beef is with Norton.

[_Kishkumen]

So if you could remove Norton from the equation, does that alter your opinion on Bill recording the DC and lying about it? Because it seems like your beef is with Norton.

Mike Norton is a big sticking point, definitely. He constitutes pretty good evidence that Bill's motivations changed at some point. Whether Norton recorded it, or Bill recorded it, however, is not important. Recording the DC for purposes of publishing it is, in itself, problematic. I have no problem with recording it in the event that the LDS Church misrepresents what happens. That is sensible self-protection, in my view. I do not think that it is good to publish such recordings for the sake of publicity, self-promotion, or anything of the kind.

[_Fence Sitter]

Mike Norton is a big sticking point, definitely. He constitutes pretty good evidence that Bill's motivations changed at some point. Whether Norton recorded it, or Bill recorded it, however, is not important. Recording the DC for purposes of publishing it is, in itself, problematic. I have no problem with recording it[b] in the event that the LDS Church misrepresents what happens. That is sensible self-protection, in my view. I do not think that it is good to publish such recordings for the sake of publicity, self-promotion, or anything of the kind.[/b]

Kishkumen,

I also think involving Norton was a mistake but I have to disagree with the underlined portion above somewhat. I believe that in the case of courts like Bill's that deal with leadership conflicts, not publishing the event is, in itself, misrepresenting the event. For most of my faithful life, like most members I still know, I believed that someone who was exed for apostasy was being thrown out for teaching false doctrine or making false claims about the church. The reality is that Bill, and others like him in the past (think September 6) are thrown out for disobeying leadership and were for the most part not allowed to present a defense of what they had said at their trials or like in Bill's case no response is offered to refute what he said. I don't think most members know that someone like Bill is not being throw out of the church for saying something false, but for refusing to stop saying it. That is why recording trails like Bill's and making them public is important. When a member dismisses Bill as just another apostate, that recording can be used to ask the member how Bill is an apostate if what he was saying was true. Members need to realize that this kind of event isn't a court or a trail, it is a sentencing hearing, Bill's guilt was decided before the court ever began.

We need this kind of stuff to bring to light to the average member that what they are worshiping isn't God, but leadership. Will Bill's case in and of itself have much impact? Hard to say right now, but it does add another straw to the already overladen camel's back of an unregulated church leadership that answers to no one . So I think the recording was justified and publishing it was important regardless of Bill's personal motives.

[_Meadowchik]

Kishkumen,

I also think involving Norton was a mistake but I have to disagree with the underlined portion above somewhat. I believe that in the case of courts like Bill's that deal with leadership conflicts, not publishing the event is, in itself, misrepresenting the event. For most of my faithful life, like most members I still know, I believed that someone who was exed for apostasy was being thrown out for teaching false doctrine or making false claims about the church. The reality is that Bill, and others like him in the past (think September 6) are thrown out for disobeying leadership and were for the most part not allowed to present a defense of what they had said at their trials or like in Bill's case no response is offered to refute what he said. I don't think most members know that someone like Bill is not being throw out of the church for saying something false, but for refusing to stop saying it. That is why recording trails like Bill's and making them public is important. When a member dismisses Bill as just another apostate, that recording can be used to ask the member how Bill is an apostate if what he was saying was true. Members need to realize that this kind of event isn't a court or a trail, it is a sentencing hearing, Bill's guilt was decided before the court ever began.

We need this kind of stuff to bring to light to the average member that what they are worshiping isn't God, but leadership. Will Bill's case in and of itself have much impact? Hard to say right now, but it does add another straw to the already overladen camel's back of an unregulated church leadership that answers to no one . So I think the recording was justified and publishing it was important regardless of Bill's personal motives.

Good points. Whatever smaller perceived missteps, there is a much bigger issue the abuse of power by the church and its lack of transparency, allowing the believing onlooker to assume the best possible motives and procedure in the church and any number of flaws in the judged member. More transparency is an overall good.

[_Equality]

I see Kish's point. If we who oppose the unethical practices employed by the Restoredchurchofjesuschristians in their "courts of love," how can we claim any moral high ground? People will justifiably dismiss our message out of hand if we stoop to the church's level.

It's for this same reason that I have always been critical of the family that hid Anne Frank from the Nazis in their attic. They broke the law--the law!--and engaged in lies and deception to hide her from the authorities. Sure, their cause was just; the Nazis were bad. But breaking the law and engaging in deception is wrong, too. The ends don't justify the means, after all. A proper martyr does things on the up and up, to ensure they are free from criticism that they are hypocritical.

[_Fence Sitter]

I see Kish's point. If we who oppose the unethical practices employed by the Restoredchurchofjesuschristians in their "courts of love," how can we claim any moral high ground? People will justifiably dismiss our message out of hand if we stoop to the church's level.

It's for this same reason that I have always been critical of the family that hid Anne Frank from the Nazis in their attic. They broke the law--the law!--and engaged in lies and deception to hide her from the authorities. Sure, their cause was just; the Nazis were bad. But breaking the law and engaging in deception is wrong, too. The ends don't justify the means, after all. A proper martyr does things on the up and up, to ensure they are free from criticism that they are hypocritical.

The ironic thing here is that however absurd the Nazi comparisons seem to Reel's case, members themselves would tell you that they would prefer their child got murdered by whomever rather than apostatize from Christ's one and only true church. Better to die an early death here than loose your eternal birthright. Members need to be made aware that apostacy in the LDS church is defined as disobedience to any church leadership regardless of how wrong that leader is.

[_Kishkumen]

Kishkumen,

I also think involving Norton was a mistake but I have to disagree with the underlined portion above somewhat. I believe that in the case of courts like Bill's that deal with leadership conflicts, not publishing the event is, in itself, misrepresenting the event. For most of my faithful life, like most members I still know, I believed that someone who was exed for apostasy was being thrown out for teaching false doctrine or making false claims about the church. The reality is that Bill, and others like him in the past (think September 6) are thrown out for disobeying leadership and were for the most part not allowed to present a defense of what they had said at their trials or like in Bill's case no response is offered to refute what he said. I don't think most members know that someone like Bill is not being throw out of the church for saying something false, but for refusing to stop saying it. That is why recording trails like Bill's and making them public is important. When a member dismisses Bill as just another apostate, that recording can be used to ask the member how Bill is an apostate if what he was saying was true. Members need to realize that this kind of event isn't a court or a trail, it is a sentencing hearing, Bill's guilt was decided before the court ever began.

We need this kind of stuff to bring to light to the average member that what they are worshiping isn't God, but leadership. Will Bill's case in and of itself have much impact? Hard to say right now, but it does add another straw to the already overladen camel's back of an unregulated church leadership that answers to no one . So I think the recording was justified and publishing it was important regardless of Bill's personal motives.

Maybe it is not clear to members that authority is central to LDS theology (such that there is) and that persisting in disobedience to Church leaders constitutes apostasy. I don't know, honestly. It did take me a while to come to that realization, I admit. But I don't think that things are so clear cut with Bill Reel. I really do think he was ex'ed, in part, for the grossly uncharitable way he characterized Elder Holland.

Now, to your point about worshipping leadership instead of God: that is a theological position. You would argue that this is the case. Many other people would too. Certainly I am sympathetic to that view. But this is not truth telling, really. It is making a theological argument, about which people can reasonably disagree. If you publicly and persistently promote a theological, or ecclesiological, view that the leadership of the Church is deeply opposed to as the truth, then I don't think it is at all surprising that your intransigence on the issue should end in your excommunication.

And isn't Bill Reel an apostate? I would say he is. I don't view the term as an insult, personally, but I can understand why an apostate does not want to be branded an apostate. He doesn't support the LDS Church's narrative, to be sure. If there are certain expectations regarding a degree of loyalty in members, then Bill seems not to have met those expectations. Does the LDS Church change on a dime for Bill? Or does Bill leave the LDS Church when he realizes it may not, after all, be the place for him?

I see this as being quite different from Sam Young's fight to protect LDS kids from inappropriate sexual interrogations by adult male priesthood leaders.