(this letter was emailed to the High Councilmen and counselors in the Stake Presidency on 11.17.18 at 9:45 AM)
Hey Guys,
My name is Bill Reel. I joined the Church at 17, called and served honorably as a Bishop starting at age 29. The Church was everything to me and I loved it so much that I wanted to know everything about it. And like many others who dive into the history, I came across a lot of disturbing stuff ( You know the standard Joseph marrying and having sex w/ young girls 14 and 15 years old, married and sexual with other men’s wives, how the Book of Mormon contains a ton of 19th century material, how Joseph translated the Egyptian Papyri that became the Book of Abraham completely wrong (including those facsimiles) now that we know Egyptian, along with a million other things) . To the point that I had a faith crisis. During that crisis I started a podcast and it became quite popular. http://
Well, it is my Disciplinary Council being held on the 27th. And well because of me being a high profile persona, The Church handles my court very differently as well as the strings being pulled from the top. Every move now has our Stake President consulting Salt Lake and they have their imprint on every detail. How long I can speak, Extra Qualifications on the witnesses I can call, Not having an option to record the Council Meeting, etc….
The decision is already made. I will be excommunicated. There is nothing I can say that will change that. But I am writing each of you because I simply want to be treated with Human Decency and that isn’t happening and your responsibility in this court is to assure that I was treated fairly through the process.
I have 3 main issues that I am hoping that the 6 of you designated to be on my side will help me with.
#1 Your stake President has based his summons on 2 distinct lies
* One he claims that he was working with me to resolve my concerns. This simply isn’t true. He has admitted to my face and the face of others in my presence that my concerns can not be resolved. That the 1000 plus historical problems with our truth claims can not be reconciled. He also acknowledges that he has handed my questions up the chain and they too respond that they can not answer nor will not answer my questions and concerns. These questions don’t have good answers and these questions deal directly with our foundational truth claims. There are no good answers sadly. Check CES Letter or The Mormon Primer links below and then chase down the sources and study the issues yourself. It isn’t good. Sadly I have been studying Church history in depth for 20 years and the rabbit hole goes forever.
* Second is that he claimed I refused to meet with him any further. This is simply not true. You can read the summons I was sent below along with my email to him but here is the basic gist in an image ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/
As you can see I explained that I did not want to meet simply to check a box but was happy and willing to meet if there was a purpose.
#2 I have asked that the date be moved to a Saturday ( I work a lot of hours and Sundays are my only day off. This excommunication is going to be deeply hard on me. I will feel trauma being severed from my tribe and from the standpoint that I dedicated my life to this religion and have done nothing but be honest about the things I found. Nobody should be blamed when they look into their religion and discover the story their religion told about itself failed to match the historical data at every turn. ) Keep in mind nobody consulted me on what dates work for me. I am asking as an act of kindness for this to be moved to a Saturday so I can have a day to process and recover as much as possible from this. Imagine a disciplinary court for you at 8:30 pm and being severed from your tribe for being honest about what you found and then getting up at 6:30am the next the morning to go to your job. This isn’t healthy and it isn’t compassionate. Our Stake President responded to this request this way
Regarding your request to move the council to Dec 2nd: Unfortunately, we cannot move the council to this date. We spent a lot of time as a presidency looking at dates, and Nov. 27th is the only date that will work. So we will need to keep that date. There are travels and building conflicts that make moving this date really difficult.
It doesn’t matter to me which Saturday. Any Saturday from December 2 on will be fine. Notice the date is ran by each of you but seemingly no one cared about me enough to ask me what day might be best. Has he asked each of you? Has he tried to accommodate my request? Should not my emotional well-being have consideration and effort made to ensure such?
#3 is that I will be addressing the point that while the Leaders of our Church do not like what I have said, there is nobody saying that what I have said is inaccurate or untruthful. In other words I am being punished for telling the truth. Sadly though none of you likely know our history well enough to know if I am telling the truth or simply sharing false propaganda. The episode that got me in trouble is a podcast episode where I show that on 5 demonstrable occasions Elder Holland has lied ( here is the episode ). notice in the show notes that I source each lie and show that there is little room but to sense that Elder Holland has a problem with dishonesty.
I get over a million downloads a year and I am seen as one of the most honest and authentic voices discussing Mormonism. but in that room that night I will be seen as untrustable and sharing “anti-Mormon” lies. The only way for any of you to see me objectively is to get to know me and to get to know the things I speak on. Below are links where you can see the data yourself and hear my story. Please never take anything I say as truth without chasing down original sources and documents. Do the work. Ask yourself if the Church has told you the full story and if it has told its story honestly. I know we bought it. I know we felt really good about it and have had special experiences inside of it. Me too. but so do members of other faiths. The real question is does it add up once the facts are all laid on the table. Every Person has a right to have the information
Links to chase down the data
The Mormon Primer (I am the author of this and tried to be as objective as possible)
Letter For My Wife (well written and by a husband who simply wanted his wife to understand why he experienced a loss of faith
CES Letter (this one is slightly more aggressive but is full of the data and the data is forthright and real)
Links to hear my story and to get to know me as a human being
I gave this interview while serving as a Bishop
This interview was three years later The more I read the more I discovered two things #1 The rabbit hole of deep problematic contradictions that run counter to our truth claims goes forever. And That the Church intentionally designed their curriculum and narrative as to avoid you and I discovering the real story.
I was interviewed here less than a year ago
My being excommunicated is already a foregone conclusion. But will you please help to reduce the trauma my family is going to feel and I am going to feel that night? I welcome questions. If you read something and you want sources, just ask. I want you to read both sides. So please feel free to interact and ask anything personal or about my work.
Sincerely,
Bill Reel
🤡
I have never heard of you. But thank you for all the work that you have done. Regardless of the outcome. You are helping (and have helped) many. I am listening to your podcast now.
Request that you meet in a room without a table in it, that’s what I did an it totally threw off their mantle of power over me and they never quite recovered. A table or large desk represents their authority, their crown so to speak. Don’t shake hands, they are not your friends and do not have good intentions towards you. Excommunication is a violent act, shaking hands like you’re this nice man, then deciding to cut you off from eternal salvation with your family. There is viciousness in the band shake, a covering up with feigned kindness the violence being done to you. Don’t let them act that out on you!!
RECORD the Meeting!! Even if you do not share it, it will help you process what happened, and reprogram yourself.
Appears to me that when the Church PR Dept. says that church discipline is a local matter, ie: Bishop/Stake President they are lying.
Let me summarize this for people:
i am smarter than all of you. No one answered all my questions specifically to my satisfaction. Read the CES letter and To know the church is false. 10000000 problems that I specifically counted. I have a podcast and everyone who isn’t a complete idiot(ex of complete idiots- anyone who believes in the truth claims of the church) knows me for my complete honesty, integrity, and 100% knowledge on church scholarship. Again,m your church is false and you don’t know that bc the church hid it from you and you’re too big of a sheep to know it. This excommunication will be really hard on me since I Will be separated from my tribe of dumb lazy superstitious sheep that don’t know the 1000 things that prove the church truth claims false. Here is a link to the CES letter.
(World I will post this everywhere and let everyone know down to the minute when I sent it to my SP)
I think with the username Last Danite, you actually help my case.
Your rant and mocking of another human’s attempt to help others with the mormon church’s past and current issues shows immaturity and insecurity in yourself. Bill never has said he’s the best or knows everything and you would know that if you listened to him at all. I wouldn’t have spent time to reply except I don’t want you get away with vomiting unsupported ugly without being called on it. The danites murdered, asaulted, enabled tyrant leaders, destroyed journals and documents containing memories, dates, and events that would expose the leadership. The evil acts and role the danites played in history is so repulsive, you can’t possibly know of and still use that name for yourself. I stand by Bill and anyone else who is trying, despite being imperfect, to make the world a better, more loving place for those who are currently living and those will come after us.
I have never seen anyone else but the stake president use the High Counsel Room. So, it is another lie that there are building conflicts.
Bill
Why do this to yourself? Unless you want to be added to the long list of excommunicated personalities with a story to tell. There is a simple way to request a divorce but YOU initiate it. Of course you know that! Why then go through the kangaroo court?
This is the first time I ever wished I was on a High Council. I would love to see one of the putative accusers take the roll of Alma in the Frigerg painting of the court of King Noah.
Thats great. Ask which one of you will be stronger than Alma the younger. Certainly, there is one that is an Alma – but which one will speak up?
When I was a young boy, there was a dog in the neighborhood. He was a fairly docile dog, but my older brother used to antagonize him at every turn. He pelted him with rocks, poked him with sticks, and other annoying acts. One day, I assume, the dog had had enough of him and bit him. My brother came home crying claiming that the dog attacked without provocation. My brother acted the part of the victim. The moral of the story is, if you keep poking a dog with a stick, you shouldn’t be surprised if the dog bites you. John Dehlin and Sam Young are a couple of dog pokers and they got bit also.
I know a Story too. there was an institution that told its story inaccurately in order to have people believe in it so strongly that they would carry out its unhealthy mechanisms and inflict trauma and shame on those who did not fit cleanly into their defined boxes. They grasped that just being fully honest and open would not capture the belief of the people to the degree they wanted. along came people who spoke up and shined a light on such mechanisms and false narratives…. The Institution wasn’t happy with them and it sought to silence them and to remove them once silencing was recognized as not going to happen. Was that as good as your story… ?
Are you saying that you believe the Church is true but the leaders are corrupt or are you saying that the Church and leadership are false and corrupt? If you are implying the former, you have a point, if the latter, thou dost protest too much.
Sure, Bill has been kicking the hornets’ nest. What I find disturbing, however, is that people who actually believe that they are literally taking away his eternal exaltation, priesthood, the saving ordinances of Christ, his eternal family, and giving his wife to another man for eternity (the very worst things they can imagine doing to someone), can callously do so for the crime of calling BS on things that are ACTUALLY BS, and for which they admit they have no good answers. Of course they are going to kick him out, but they could at least try to take the high road and respect their own protocol. Jesus must be very proud of his agents on earth.
Do you and Bill Reel actually believe that the leaders of the Church can actually take away his exaltation and his wife and give her to someone else? If you do, you may have a point to make. If you don’t, what does it matter what they believe. Why are you making their delusions your delusions?
Bill,
This is brother Ned. We worked together at FairMormon. Please email direct. We might be able to stop this train from going off the rails.
-Ned
This is an interesting comment. By what power do you think you could possibly stop this proceeding? Do you really think there is anyway someone who has called one of the 12 apostles a liar (rightly so, too) can get out of this? Do you think Bill would go back on that accusation, and renounce all the evidence he has presented to his listeners? Do you think this isn’t driven from the highest levels of the church? I’m very curious, Brother Ned…
You know the church motto, “Lie upon lie, decpet upon decept.”
Liars and Tithers and False Bearers, OH, MY!
Hey, why do the top leaders get a super VIP free pass from Jesus to be dishonest in their dealings, etc., to be Bullies and Pharisees for Christ?
Glad ya’ll waking up to this, I’ve been on this journey for a while now and it’s awesome that people are realizing the truth. However, as an “ex-mormon” I hold no grudge against the current members. I was hurt, mad and basically p**ed off at the lies. After a lot of meditation and healing I’ve realized that the best thing for me to do is to let it all go. Once I released the anger and hurt and basically the baggage that was weighing me down, I felt lighter than a feather. I hope ya’ll find your own path.