Timeline
The conversation about why Mormons leave has changed a great deal since this project began in 2011. These are the moments that changed it, with a source for each. Entries marked in red are Church discipline: the excommunications and disfellowshipments of the scholars, feminists, podcasters, and ordinary members who asked the questions on this site out loud. Each links to the Mormon Stories interview that covered it.
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1946 Church discipline
Fawn Brodie is excommunicated
The Life of Historian Fawn McKay Brodie with Newell Bringhurst | Ep. 1498 A year after publishing "No Man Knows My History," the first critical biography of Joseph Smith, the historian and niece of David O. McKay is excommunicated for apostasy. Her book remained the standard biography for sixty years.
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December 1979 Church discipline
Sonia Johnson is excommunicated
Women in the LDS Church Part 10 – The LDS Church’s Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment | Ep. 66 The co-founder of Mormons for ERA is excommunicated after campaigning against the Church's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.
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September 1993 Church discipline
The September Six
The September Six and the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism w/ Dr. Sara Patterson | Ep. 1824 In two weeks, five scholars and writers are excommunicated and one disfellowshipped: Lavina Fielding Anderson, Avraham Gileadi, Maxine Hanks, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano, and Lynne Kanavel Whitesides. Four months earlier Elder Boyd K. Packer had named feminists, homosexuals, and intellectuals as the Church's three great dangers. The purge defined a generation of Mormon intellectual life.
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1994 Church discipline
Brent Metcalfe and David Wright are excommunicated
Brent Metcalfe – Early Years, Mark Hofmann, the Salamander Letter, the Bombings, the Book of Abraham, and Life After Mormonism | Ep. 493-494, 497-499 The editor and a contributor to "New Approaches to the Book of Mormon" (1993), the first scholarly collection to treat the book as a nineteenth-century text, are excommunicated the following year. Metcalfe had earlier worked as a researcher for Mark Hofmann.
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December 2002 Church discipline
Thomas Murphy's council is cancelled
Dr. Thomas Murphy on the Book of Mormon, DNA, His Cancelled Disciplinary Council, and Native American Anthropology Ep. 638-639 The anthropologist is summoned to a disciplinary council for an essay concluding that DNA evidence does not support the Book of Mormon's account of Native American origins. After national press coverage and a candlelight vigil, the council is postponed indefinitely.
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December 2004 Church discipline
Grant Palmer is disfellowshipped
697-699: Celebrating the Life of Grant Palmer A thirty-four-year veteran of the Church Educational System, Palmer is disfellowshipped for "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" (2002), which laid out the problems with the founding narrative for a lay audience. He resigned his membership in 2010.
Mormon Stories 697 to 699, celebrating his life; see also 324 to 326
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July 2005 Church discipline
Simon Southerton is excommunicated
348-349: Simon Southerton, DNA, Lamanites and the Book of Mormon The Australian molecular biologist, author of "Losing a Lost Tribe" (2004) on DNA and the Book of Mormon, is excommunicated. His council declined to discuss the book and tried him instead on a charge about his personal life.
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2005
Mormon Stories Podcast begins
Gregory Prince, David O. McKay and the Blacks/Priesthood Issue | Ep. 4 John Dehlin starts interviewing members, scholars, and former members about the difficult questions. The fourth episode, with Gregory Prince, is about the priesthood ban.
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2010
"Why People Leave the LDS Church and How We Can Help"
Why People Leave the LDS Church and How We Can Help | Ep. 111 The talk that became this project, given by John Dehlin and released as Mormon Stories 111.
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Fall 2011
The Understanding Mormon Disbelief survey is fielded
400: Top 5 Myths and Truths about Why Committed Mormons Leave the Church 3,388 people who once believed the Church was "the only true and living church" and no longer did answer a detailed online survey about why.
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January 30, 2012
"Not since Kirtland"
Reuters reports Elder Marlin K. Jensen, the Church Historian, telling a Utah State University class that the Church has not seen a period of apostasy like the present one since 1837. It is the first public acknowledgment by a General Authority of the scale of the departures.
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March 2012
Understanding Mormon Disbelief is published
400: Top 5 Myths and Truths about Why Committed Mormons Leave the Church The 27-page report ranks the reasons and finds that doctrine, history, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon lead, while offense and desire to sin come last.
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April 2013
The faith crisis report reaches the Twelve
A report built on the 2011 survey data, "LDS Personal Faith Crisis," is delivered to Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf by Elder Jensen. It recommends candor about the history.
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November 20, 2013
The Gospel Topics essays begin
The LDS Gospel Topics Essays – A History by Dr. Matt Harris | Ep. 1365 The Church quietly posts "First Vision Accounts" and "Are Mormons Christian?" Over the next two years it publishes thirteen essays that confirm, in its own voice, most of the facts the survey respondents had been punished for repeating: "Race and the Priesthood" (December 6, 2013), "Book of Mormon Translation" (December 30, 2013), "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies" (January 31, 2014), "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham" (July 8, 2014), "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo" (October 22, 2014), and "Mother in Heaven" and "Joseph Smith's Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women" (October 23, 2015).
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February 2014
The comprehensive list
Readers of this site are asked what the survey missed. Their answers become a sixteen-category list of reasons.
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February 9, 2015 Church discipline
John Dehlin is excommunicated
523: Interview with Radiowest’s Doug Fabrizio about My Excommunication The founder of Mormon Stories is excommunicated for apostasy by the North Logan, Utah stake. The stated grounds included his public statements about the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham and his support for same-sex marriage and the ordination of women.
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November 5, 2015
The exclusion policy
1091-1094: Discussing the Mormon Church’s Reversal of the November 2015 LGBTQ Policy A leaked handbook change declares members in same-sex marriages apostates and bars their children from blessing and baptism until age eighteen. Attorney Mark Naugle later says he received two thousand resignation requests in seventy-two hours.
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April 2016 Church discipline
Jeremy Runnells resigns during his council
The Man Behind the CES Letter – Jeremy Runnells (Rebroadcast) | Ep. 2034 The author of the CES Letter, summoned for apostasy, asks his stake president to answer the questions in the letter and resigns his membership in the hearing room when he will not.
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April 21, 2017
The Next Mormons Survey publishes its reasons
Navigating Progressive Mormonism with Carol Lynn Pearson, Jana Riess, and Jana Johnson Spangler | Ep. 767-768 Jana Riess and Benjamin Knoll report that former members most often cite a conflict of values, disbelief in one true church, and distrust of leaders on historical questions. Riess's book "The Next Mormons" follows in 2019.
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September 2018 Church discipline
Sam Young is excommunicated
973: Sam Young Set to be Excommunicated for Protecting LDS Children from Sexual Abuse A former bishop who gathered thousands of accounts of children questioned about sex in worthiness interviews, marched on Church headquarters, and went on a hunger strike, is excommunicated for apostasy.
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December 2018 Church discipline
Bill Reel is excommunicated; Gina Colvin faces a council
The Excommunication of Mormon Bishop and Podcaster Bill Reel | Ep. 1025-1028 The former bishop and host of Mormon Discussion Podcast is excommunicated after an episode arguing that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland had misrepresented facts. The same month, New Zealand academic and podcaster Gina Colvin is called before a council for apostasy.
Mormon Stories 1025 to 1028; Gina Colvin, 1029 to 1032; Bill Reel before the council, 1017 to 1018
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April 4, 2019
The exclusion policy is reversed
1091-1094: Discussing the Mormon Church’s Reversal of the November 2015 LGBTQ Policy President Dallin H. Oaks announces that children of LGBT parents may be baptized and that same-sex marriage will no longer be treated as apostasy, three and a half years after the policy was announced as revelation.
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December 2019
The hundred-billion-dollar fund
Mormon Church Finances Revealed – The Widow’s Mite Project w/ Radio Free Mormon | Ep. 1736 A whistleblower complaint to the IRS discloses that Ensign Peak Advisors, the Church's investment arm, holds about $100 billion accumulated from tithing surplus.
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April 21, 2021 Church discipline
Natasha Helfer is excommunicated
1420: Natasha Helfer’s Apostasy Trial for Sexual Health Advocacy A certified sex therapist is excommunicated for apostasy over her public positions on masturbation, pornography, and LGBTQ sexuality. Her council was held in a stake she had not lived in for years, and her supporters were removed from the building.
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October 2021 Church discipline
Marc Oslund is excommunicated
1490: Marc Oslund’s Excommunication and BYU Soaking? Mormon Questions on Air A former seminary teacher who described losing his faith on Mormon Stories is excommunicated six months later.
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February 21, 2023
The SEC fines the Church
LDS Church Fined $5 Million for Hiding Money w/ Mark Pugsley | Ep. 1732 The Securities and Exchange Commission orders Ensign Peak Advisors and the Church to pay $5 million for concealing the size of the Church's equity portfolio behind thirteen shell companies from 1997 to 2019.
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2024
A faithful foundation confirms the ranking
The B. H. Roberts Foundation publishes its 2023 survey of 3,865 current and former members. Former members rank Joseph Smith's history, the Book of Mormon, and race as their leading reasons, and local leaders and the Word of Wisdom last: the same order as the 2011 survey.
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September 2024 Church discipline
Nemo the Mormon is excommunicated
Excommunication of British YouTuber Nemo the Mormon: A Global Vigil | Ep. 1947 Douglas Stilgoe, the British YouTuber who cast an opposing vote in general conference and analyses Church statements as Nemo the Mormon, is excommunicated in the United Kingdom. Supporters held a vigil online and outside the stake center.
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December 15, 2025
Pew: retention falls to 54%
40% of Mormons Raised in the U.S. Have Left the Church – Mormon News 5.22.26 | Ep. 2151 Pew Research Center reports that 54% of Americans raised Latter-day Saint still identify that way, down from at least 70% in 2007 and 64% in 2014.
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April 4, 2026
Membership of record passes 17.8 million
The Church Can’t Keep Hold of its Members – Mormon News | Ep. 2184 The Church's statistical report for 2025 lists 17,887,212 members of record and 385,490 convert baptisms, the highest in years. Membership of record counts everyone who has not formally resigned.