Article content continued

His involvement made him a go-to person for other interested leakers. In October, McKnight posted a series of 15 videos on a “Mormon Leaks” Youtube channel during the church’s annual General Conference meetings. The videos showed senior leaders of the church in private meetings being briefed on issues ranging from cybersecurity to medical marijuana.

In one 2012 meeting, former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt met with the elders and talked about building and funding strong coalitions to fight same-sex marriage and abortion in state legislatures.

For someone in the middle of a faith transition, such information is more fuel for the fire

McKnight said he got “bombarded with messages” after those videos were posted, so he decided to ramp up the effort to build a web site and assembled a team, including a web designer, two cyber security experts, and a social media person. He said the site will be operated by a non-profit organization and nobody will be paid a salary for their work with it.

In a forum for ex-Mormons on Reddit, McKnight posted recently that three people approached him and said a secure site would make them feel more comfortable sharing files, and that he hopes the site “tips that scale for them.”

“Other than that, this is an ‘if you build it they will come’ project,” he said.

He said he expects many of the leaks will be mundane, simply showing that every move in the church is not divinely ordained, as members are led to believe, but that in fact the church runs “very much like a business.”

Ryan Cragun, an associate professor of sociology who studies Mormonism at the University of Tampa, said many religious scholars are eager to learn more about the finances of the church which are “a black box.” The church owns many businesses and properties, but there is little public information available about them. Church members are expected to tithe 10 percent of their income.

Still, he said, many in-the-pews Mormons are “highly insulated” and unlikely to see any of the documents.

There is a hungry audience, though, among people who have left or are thinking of leaving the church. “For someone in the middle of a faith transition, such information is more fuel for the fire,” he said.