Lesley Butterfield is back again to discuss her recent Commentary published in the Salt Lake Tribune entitled “LDS Church Officials are Practicing Spiritual Extortion.” Lesley speaks from a place of personal heartache as she describes how the Policies and Doctrine elicited by LDS Officials are indeed abusive. Her experiences are all too common. Lesley ends with a powerful declaration of what her Heaven will be full of, in contrast to the Mormon Heaven spoke of by Prophet and President Russel M. Nelson in the most recent LDS General Conference. This was previously Exclusive Patreon content and is now released public. Check out the video of this episode on Patreon today!
Links mentioned in this episode:
- VIDEO of this episode on Patreon
- SLTrib: Commentary: LDS Church officials are practicing spiritual extortion
- Pres Rusty Nelson’s Recent “Sad Heaven” talk in Conference
- VENMO for Mormon Happy Hour one time donations
- Music by bensound.com and by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 - Transition pieces found here
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Today, 3 Mormons are back to call the Strengthening Church Members Committee. This Committee serves the church leadership as an Orwellian group of dutiful spies who track down the activities of members who have been deemed apostate. These files contain screenshots of online activities and other evidence of apostasy. Once a member gains the level of public attention that is deemed problematic to the LDS highest authority, the member’s local leaders, Bishops and Stake Presidents, are given the go-ahead to begin disciplinary action. As you may remember from MHH Ep57, myself, Lesley Butterfield and Bryce Blankenagel are still members of record and have not yet resigned for unique reasons. So we decided to call Elder Dyches this morning to obtain what information was found in our prospective SCMC member files. Listen in to see how it went and what new information we gained! Lesley asks specifically about what recourse members have who are abused by the very local ecclesiastical leaders that Church HQ refers us back to when we raise concern. Don’t miss Part 2 where we discuss this call and all the new information and its significance later today.
The Angels on Fire have strong feelings regarding the LDS First Presidency’s World Tour message to the people of Kenya. Colleen and Miranda are joined by a friend of the show, Julian Jesse, who shares his experiences, research, and feelings regarding Nelson’s remarks in Africa. Last week, Lesley Butterfield wrote an Op-Ed published in the Sunday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune. In it, she powerfully calls the LDS Patriarchy out for their lack of appropriate response to the pervasive spiritual abuses within The Church. She joins the Angels on Fire once again to discuss her activism to bring awareness to ecclesiastical abuse, especially through her own website, Unrighteous Dominion. Miranda brings a marvelous new Post-Mormon Life Pro-Tip topic to the show, SEX! We have opened a can of misguided worms, so consider this Part 1 of a lively discussion regarding Mormon Sex Myths! Bonus material is up on our Patreon page!