After listening to Bill Reel’s story in the podcast, a common thread emerged that many other LDS who went through excommunication also experienced. These are in most cases faithful LDS who desperately wanted to stay in the church, but their research into the history of the church presented so many problems with regards to LDS truth claims that they could no longer just put it on the shelf. And when they went to get help from LDS leadership to answer their tough questions, no answers ever came. And as Mr. Reel said in his interview, though he now faces serious charges from the church, no one in the leadership along the way ever disputed any of his concerns about the serious problems about the truth claims of the church and other issues as well. They don’t dispute the facts. So this is not about the truth–it’s about silencing individuals who threaten the credibility of the church’s leadership. It’s become quite obvious that the leadership of the LDS church is unable to answer the tough questions that are causing so many LDS to question the foundational claims of the church.
