For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Sundays are a day to spend with family, attend church meetings, study the gospel and other holy activities. On Sabbath, emphasis is put on the important values of alleviating suffering and standing up for what you believe in.



But lately, some members have found that following these tenets has put them on a path to excommunication.

On this coming Mormon sabbath day, Utah resident John Dehlin will face charges of apostasy and expects to be excommunicated – the second person to face such punishment from the church in as many years. He is a fifth-generation Mormon and said his family has been a part of the religion since its birth in the US in the 1800s.

Dehlin’s stake president – the regional leader of a collection of geographically determined congregations called wards – is holding a disciplinary hearing on Sunday because of statements Dehlin made online questioning the church.

“I feel like the church is trying to excommunicate me for alleviating suffering,” Dehlin told the Guardian. “I know that’s not how they see it, but that’s how it feels from my point of view.”

John Dehlin.

Dehlin, who is six months away from receiving his PhD in clinical and counseling psychology, created the Mormon Stories podcast in 2005 to talk about cultural and historical issues in the Mormon church. He had been grappling with church tenets like its opposition to same-sex marriage, but could not find a community to talk about these concerns openly with. Enter: the internet, where he found Mormons around the globe dealing with the same issues.

“If I have to choose between my conscience of standing up for the need for Mormons to be able to openly express themselves, if I have to choose between that and excommunication, I would gladly choose excommunication,” said Dehlin.

Dehlin was a student at Brigham Young University, a leading college choice for any good Mormon, in September 1993. That month, a group known as the “September Six” became a symbol for what happens when you question the church doctrine and its leadership. Five people were excommunicated and one person was disfellowshipped – which is when a church member temporarily loses privileges, like entering Temple or speaking at church meetings. “That was my adult introduction to how the LDS church handled difficult topics,” said Dehlin.

More than 10 years later, that memory did not stop him from creating an enterprise of websites and blogs challenging Mormon beliefs, and inviting others to join in. As the latest face of apostasy in the church, Dehlin has received considerable support online, while he says the in-person reception at his local ward is much more hostile, with very few exceptions.

He stopped attending his local church in June 2014. “The internet has changed everything, but it hasn’t changed the Sunday experience,” said Dehlin.

A group of Mormon women walk to Temple Square. Photograph: Jim Urqurat/Reuters

But he is optimistic that 10 or 20 years from now, that Sunday experience will be more open to such inquiries. And excommunication is not necessarily as permanent as it sounds: church doctrine says that the intent of excommunication or disfellowshipment is that the member will one day be reinstated – once they have atoned. Two members of the September Six were rebaptized, though two others have not indicated interest in coming back to the church.

“I still love my heritage and my culture, and my hope for Mormonism isn’t that it will become more insular and more backwards,” Dehlin said. “It’s that Mormonism will become bigger and stronger and more vibrant and more mature – that it basically will grow up.”

Part of that process involves responding to what the internet has created. People who cannot find support for their ideas in their local wards have plenty of websites to choose from beyond Dehlin’s. The movement to allow female leadership in the church was invigorated in March 2013, when human rights lawyer Kate Kelly founded the website Ordain Women.

She too was asked to stop promoting these beliefs online, and in June 2014, facing similar charges to Dehlin’s, Kelly was excommunicated. She said in an email: “It has simultaneously been an excruciating and liberating experience.” Liberating, because it showed her that the male church leaders could not affect her connection to God.

Kate Kelly, right, an international human rights lawyer, was told by email that she could be rebaptised if she were to ‘show true repentance’. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

The idea that Mormon men are superior to Mormon women is why she pursued her feminist fight even with the threat of excommunication. “I don’t want any female Mormon to ever have to feel like she is less-than in the future. It’s much bigger than me or my personal desires,” said Kelly.

She also thinks a change in how women are treated in the church will come much sooner than people expect because the younger generation of Mormon men is more used to women being their peers in other parts of their life. “It does not make sense to them why women are their equals during the week, but on Sundays they are treated as inferiors,” said Kelly.

Ordain Women said that in the week after Kelly’s excommunication, 200 women posted profiles on the site to show their support for the movement. But last month, Ordain Women board member April Young Bennett said her stake president forced her to resign from the board and remove blog posts questioning why women are not allowed in church leadership positions.

Her decision to remove herself from the movement is a testament to the kind of leverage the church has in stifling dissent. She said she acceded to the stake president’s demands because her brother’s wedding is coming up, and only Mormons can attend wedding ceremonies – known as “sealing” in the church.

It does not make sense to them why women are their equals during the week, but on Sundays they are treated as inferiors

Rules that keep outsiders away from weddings and limit Mormon interaction with outsiders on Sundays have long shrouded the church in secrecy, a surefire way of feeding rumors about special underwear and cult-like behavior. The internet, however, has changed that, and given the church power to promote its doctrine and extensive historical documents online.

In November 2014, the church posted an essay confirming that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the youngest of his wives was 14 when they married. This information was known before its release, but it was not a part of Sunday conversations.

The official Mormon historian and elder of the church Steven Snow told the New York Times: “There is so much out there on the internet that we felt we owed our members a safe place where they could go to get reliable, faith-promoting information that was true about some of these more difficult aspects of our history.”

While the internet has given Mormons more ways to spread their faith, and improved access to organizational tools for church members, many meetings and events and more resources to feed its interest in genealogy, it has also increased access to contentious bits of Mormon history, the world outside the church, and pornography – there is even a church-sponsored site specifically for overcoming this “addiction”.

This image of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr is a copy of a daguerreotype made circa 1843-1844 Photograph: AP

On the link-sharing website Reddit, under the cloak of anonymity, people ranging from ruthless opponents of the religion to unwavering defenders of it dance across different threads dedicated to those who want to leave the church, who are about to do so, or who want to celebrate its teachings.

When I took a dive into this online world, both defenders and opponents warned me that people parade around the site either claiming to be Mormons who are looking to spark dissent with false and inflammatory claims or acting as agents to talk people out of leaving the church.

Some said these online communities are a source of strength when having doubts about their dedication to the faith; others said being able to easily access challenges to the religion strengthened their faith.

“When I am confronted with something unsettling, I do research and engage in discussions on- and offline to determine whether it’s true, and if so, what that means for my personal faith,” said Reddit user Troy Flake. “Up to now, this has made my faith stronger, but it requires more effort.”

Reddit user Elizabeth, who asked to go by her middle name and provided proof of her church membership, said that as a feminist Mormon, she has found the internet provides a place to be herself while not creating trouble in her ward.

“The internet helped me connect and realize that while I am alone in my ward, there are other people out there who feel the same way and are facing the same issues,” Elizabeth said. “It helps me stay.”

Randall Balmer, a historian of American religion at Dartmouth University, said that the existential doubts Mormons have are normal for anyone who grows up in a religious household, but people in the Mormon faith tend to be part of a more sheltered subculture.

“People who are predisposed to dissent anyway, or to identify with the individual being disciplined, that [excommunication] might send them farther in that direction,” said Ballmer. “On the other hand, those who might be on the fence might take that as a warning shot and try to rein in their dissent lest they face the same problems, the same discipline.”

Ordain Women board member Kristy Money was with Kate Kelly and other Ordain Women members when the group’s founder learned that she had been excommunicated. While discussing the moment in a phone interview with the Guardian, Money became emotional remembering when her friend and fellow activist was kicked out of the church.

“It was heartbreaking, but at the same time, I knew that if we didn’t stand up for what we thought was right, who would?” said Money, who became more critical of the church after her bishop would not allow her to hold her baby during the naming and blessing ceremony.

She said being a part of Ordain Women can be emotionally draining because of how difficult it is to go against the status quo in the church. But she said members draw on lessons the church teaches about integrity and following your conscience to speak out against parts of its doctrine they disagree with.

“‘To stand for truth and righteousness’, that’s another phrase that we’re taught – ever since we’re little,” said Money. “We draw on that as a source of strength when we feel the pushback to conform.”