On Monday, a Utah Mormon who has hosted and produced a podcast about his faith for ten years was excommunicated from the Mormon Church due to his podcast and its associated forums. Mormon Stories host John Dehlin took to his site on Tuesday to post letters he had received about his one-year excommunication, along with a rebuttal—including accusations that the Mormon Church wanted Dehlin to censor past and future episodes of his show.

In a statement, Dehlin quoted an August conversation he had with North Utah church leader Bryan King that stated the Mormon church wanted any "controversial" episodes of the podcast to be "taken down." He also included quotes confirming that such controversy included advocacy for the ordination of women with the church and support for same-sex marriage.

"If Mormon Stories podcast has ever had a purpose, it is to assert that the open discussion of difficult topics within the LDS Church needs to be better supported, without eliciting shame or fear on the part of church members," Dehlin wrote in a statement. "Consequently, I cannot in good conscience comply with the request to censor Mormon Stories podcast."

King's letter to Dehlin did not reference those specific accusations, instead calling out issues such as "statements that the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham are fraudulent and works of fiction" and that Dehlin "spread these teachings widely via the Internet to hundreds of people." A Mormon Church spokesperson told the Associated News that Dehlin's views on gay marriage "were not the reasons for his discipline;" that report also noted that the last major Mormon excommunication, in June 2014, was over the Ordain Women website, which also advocated for women to be ordained within the church.

Former political radio show host and practicing Mormon Tom Grover offered criticism ahead of Dehlin's expected excommunication last week, particularly about the Mormon Church's handling of online discussions about scientific and historical discrepancies. "Though the Internet has been commercially available to the masses for twenty years now, until very recently, the Church essentially ignored this growing phenomenon," Grover wrote. "These issues raise the possibility that the sacred narrative we have been taught isn’t entirely accurate. That scares some people. So instead of engaging the issues, they project their spiritual fears and anxieties onto and against John Dehlin, the very man who has put himself out there to help people work through their faith crisis."