Introduction

The LDS Church Discipline Database is an effort to promote understanding of LDS church disciplinary practices by compiling all publicly documented instances of formal discipline by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as its predecessors, the Church of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (no hyphen).

This database is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church). The title “LDS Church Discipline Database” is meant to accurately reflect the contents and focus of the database, but does not in any way imply that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints approves of or is in any way responsible for the contents of the database.

Scope

This database concerns events of formal discipline by the LDS church documented as part of the public record. Events of formal discipline are defined as any occurrence of a disciplinary council either occurring or having been scheduled, or of disciplinary actions being carried out unilaterally by decision of a leader.

Additionally, individuals who have resigned their membership from the church—even without threat of disciplinary action—will be included.

Call for Contributions

This database is far from complete. We’re calling for any publicly documented instances of formal church discipline not represented here, especially:

acquittals / “no action” results

positive interactions with church discipline

unusual penalties or outcomes (e.g. revocation of authority to exercise the priesthood)

Please send additions and corrections to ldschurchdata@gmail.com or make edits directly in GitHub. See Contributing for more information.

The Database

Strictly speaking the database is contained in discipline.json and discipline.tsv, but we also present it for your perusal here:

19th Century

Mass Excommunications at Quincy, Illinois Church Conference

The Followers of Isaac Russell

Late Joseph Smith Era

Interregnum

Brigham Young Era

20th Century

The September Six

20th Century

Post-September-Six

21st Century

Sources Consulted

Contributing

The scope of this project is too large for one human being to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. I am hoping to do what I can and also to lay a groundwork for others to build on.

The Inbox lists individuals who need to be investigated and documented. That’s a great place to start.

Sources To Consult lists sources that are known to contain records of church disciplinary action, but which need to be combed through for specific individuals, which could go to the Inbox.

If you know of additional individuals please add them to the Inbox.

If you know of additional sources please add them to Sources To Consult.

When you have a contribution to make, here’s how to get it into the database:

Email

Tips, additions, corrections, or any other feedback are welcome at ldschurchdata@gmail.com. This is the route to take if you wish to remain anonymous.

Contributing Directly on GitHub

The database is hosted on the GitHub code sharing site. This makes it easy for contributors to directly edit the files involved, as follows:

Click “View on GitHub” above If you have a GitHub account, log in; otherwise, create a new account and log in. Open the file within the project that you wish to edit by clicking on its filename. For example, this file is README.md, and the main data file is discipline_base.json. When the file opens in your browser, click the pencil icon to edit the file. Make the desired changes, then add a description of the changes and click “Propose file change”. This will make your changes available for me to review and (if accepted) incorporate into the database.

Format

The database is stored in JSON format in discipline_base.json. The build script scripts/build.sh transforms this into an expanded form, discipline.json as well as discipline.tsv and the Markdown document discipline.md.

An entry in discipline.json looks like this:

{ "name" : "Jesse Gause" , "wikipedia_url" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gause" , "jsp_url" : "https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/jesse-gause" , "birth_date" : "1785" , "death_date" : "1836?" , "sections" : [ "19th Century" ], "date_md" : "prob. 3 Dec 1832" , "tagline_md" : "First Presidency member and missionary" , "notes_md" : "[Apparently excommunicated](https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/jesse-gause), for reasons unknown. A former Quaker and Shaker, his conversion to Mormonism introduced strain on his marriage that may have been a factor in his estrangement from the church." , "outcome" : "excommunicated" , "date_txt" : "prob. 3 Dec 1832" , "best_date_txt" : "3 Dec 1832" , "best_year" : 1832 , "best_month" : "Dec" , "best_day" : 3 , "tagline_txt" : "First Presidency member and missionary" , "notes_txt" : "Apparently excommunicated, for reasons unknown. A former Quaker and Shaker, his conversion to Mormonism introduced strain on his marriage that may have been a factor in his estrangement from the church." }

If that looks daunting, you’re in luck—a lot of that was automatically generated by scripts/build.sh from a simpler entry in discipline_base.json , which looks like this:

{ "name" : "Jesse Gause" , "wikipedia_url" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gause" , "jsp_url" : "https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/jesse-gause" , "birth_date" : "1785" , "death_date" : "1836?" , "sections" : [ "19th Century" ], "date_md" : "prob. 3 Dec 1832" , "tagline_md" : "First Presidency member and missionary" , "notes_md" : "[Apparently excommunicated](https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/jesse-gause), for reasons unknown. A former Quaker and Shaker, his conversion to Mormonism introduced strain on his marriage that may have been a factor in his estrangement from the church." , "outcome" : "excommunicated" }

name , date_md , and outcome are required. Other fields should be included if possible, but can be omitted. The fields are documented in more detail here.

Fields ending with _md are in a format called Markdown which lets us link to sources in the notes, italicize titles, and otherwise make things more useful and presentable. It might look strange at first but it’s fairly easy to learn, which you can do using this guide. If you don’t want to bother with it, you can just type plain text instead.

Entries must link to primary or secondary resources documenting all factual claims in the entry. These links can be provided within notes_md and other fields. There are also two special fields for Wikipedia articles and Joseph Smith Papers biographies respectively: wikipedia_url and jsp_url . It is acceptable to rely on Wikipedia if the Wikipedia article itself seems to justify its claims well; otherwise, you need to dig deeper to find more trustworthy sources.

Inbox

The following are believed to have undergone formal church discipline but this needs to be investigated and documented:

Art Bulla

Marisa and Carson Calderwood

Frank J. Cannon

John Q. Cannon

Albert Carrington

Benjamin L. Clapp

Alpheus Cutler

Ed Decker

Steven Fales

Antonio A. Feliz

John Fitzgerald—1973

John E. Forsgren

Walter M. Gibson

Matthew P. Gill

William S. Godbe

Gudmund Gudmundson

Isaac C. Haight

James D. Harmston

Elias L. T. Harrison

Glenn Helzer

Leroy S. Johnson

Charles W. Kingston

John Hyrum Koyle

Alma Dayer LeBaron Sr.

Joel LeBaron

Verlan M. LeBaron

John D. Lee

Amasa Lyman

Amy and Jake Malouf

Leonard Matlovich

William McCary

Richard Miller (agent)

Brian David Mitchell

Joseph Morris (Latter Day Saints)

Joseph White Musser

John E. Page

W. W. Phelps 1847 excommunication (#3)

Sidney Rigdon

William Smith

Third Convention

Edward Tullidge

Douglas A. Wallace—1976

Lyman Wight

Anne Wilde

John W. Woolley

Lorin C. Woolley

“a bunch of the people who were early mormon fundamentalists and after the second manifesto”

“the recent men convicted of child sexual abuse who were bishops or church leaders or part of scandals”

Revision Needed

Entries which (potentially) are not up to current standards:

Byron Merchant

Sonia Johnson

David Wright

Brent Metcalfe

Janice Merrill Allred

Margaret Toscano

Shane Whelan

Rhonda Whelan

Kate Kelly

John Dehlin

Jeremy Runnells

Sam Young

Bill Reel

James Strang (wordsmithing needed)

Sources To Consult

Sources from which church discipline actions should be gleaned:

When a source has been fully combed through, move it to Sources Consulted.

Unconfirmed

Individuals for whom church discipline has been claimed but for which sufficient evidence has not been found.