An investigation by Truth & Transparency into the landholdings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—commonly referred to as the Mormon Church or LDS Church—has shed light on how expansive and diverse their real estate portfolio is. While the church has never been listed among the largest private landowners in the US, this newly compiled data places them in the top five in terms of acreage and likely number one in terms of market value.

Truth & Transparency’s investigation reveals that, in July 2020, the LDS Church owned 1,754,633 acres across the country with a minimum market value of $15.7 billion. 15,963 parcels across the country have been linked to the Church through public records. Roughly 50 percent of the parcels consist of agricultural zoning. The other half is primarily made up of commercial or religious zoning.

While initially looking into a handful of properties known to be owned by the Utah-based church, a common data point was discovered: a single address that was associated with each property, regardless of the legal entity that owned it. Working under the hypothesis that this single address could be the key to mapping all—or at least a large portion—of the church’s landholdings, Truth & Transparency tapped into a database compiled by Reonomy. A New York City-based technology company, Reonomy is considered a “leading provider of [commercial real estate] insights, empowering top brokerages, financial institutions, and commercial services providers with actionable data and solutions”. Using this common data point, Truth & Transparency uncovered the parcels mentioned above through Reonomy.

In order to obtain the highest level of confidence in the integrity of the data, Truth & Transparency manually verified every property with a market value of at least $20 million and another 1,000 randomly selected samples from the remaining population.

Reonomy’s records do not include properties zoned for single family residences nor do they claim the data is completely comprehensive. For example, the Chicago LDS temple in Glenview, IL does not show up in the query. It is unclear what would preclude properties that share the same common data point to not be included in the query. Furthermore, it is possible that there are other properties in the US that are owned by the church that are not associated with the common address. Thus, the properties found should be considered the Mormon Church’s minimum landholdings in July 2020.

Over the years, there has been some reporting on large portions of the Church’s landholdings. For example, in 2013 Reuters reported that the Mormon Church was set to become the largest private landowner in Florida. In 2017 the Dallas Morning News reported on a commercial property that the Church purchased for $100 million. However, Truth & Transparency is unaware of any attempt to compile all LDS real estate assets across the US before now.

When the data is populated into an interactive map, the largess of the church’s real estate empire can be jarring.

The interactive map and its accompanying data—publicly searchable here— will prove to be  useful tools to those looking to further our reporting. Additionally, the information adds to the growing library of investigative reports that have shed light and knowledge on the church’s assets, something they have tried to keep as quiet as possible over the years according to The Wall Street Journal.

A representative from the LDS Church did not respond to our request for comment before the publication of this article.

_______________________________________________________________________

A few caveats to remember when reviewing the map and data:

• This data is based on county records as of July 21, 2020. There are properties purchased in early 2020 and after this date that are not present in the data. For absent properties purchased prior to July 21, 2020, it is likely due to the county records not yet reflecting the change in ownership. An example of this would be the 15,000 acre Texas ranch the Church purchased in early 2020.
• Any properties owned by the LDS Church with “Single Family Residence” zoning designation would be in addition to the properties in this dataset. There are a few properties on the list that would fit the traditional description of “Single Family Residence'', but they are not zoned as such.
• The "Asset Category" designation reflects what the official county records show. Not all counties are perfect in keeping those designations up to date. Some properties may have asset designations that do not accurately reflect their intended or actual use.
• Reonomy cannot guarantee that it captures every property. This means that there are properties (other than single family residences) owned by the LDS Church that don’t show up in the dataset. An example of this would be the Chicago temple. We were unable to determine what caused some properties to not show up in our query results.
• The numbers labeled “Total Assessed Value” and “Total Market Value” are reported by each county. Counties across the country use different methods when calculating these numbers. Furthermore, 2,291 properties have no value assigned to them by their county. These values should be considered a baseline when trying to evaluate the total value of these properties.
• These properties were able to be aggregated due to the common address we discovered that they all share. It is possible that there are properties owned by the LDS church that do not share this address.

Update, April 5, 2022 1:30 pm PST: The original data included an office building in Provo, Utah with a market value of $76 million. This building is next to the church’s City Center temple. When building the temple, the owner of this building, Nu Skin, donated a small portion of the property—0.2 acres—to the church in the form of an easement in order to accommodate construction. For unknown reasons, this caused the entire property to show up in the Reonomy query as being owned by the LDS church. We discovered this discrepancy early on in our investigation, but the property was inadvertently included in the final database and interactive map we published. It has been removed.

Truth & Transparency has been quite silent the past two years, but not because there wasn’t interest in our work. Our mailing list has grown steadily and our page views stayed fairly constant during that time. We’re sure our readers and followers are wondering why they haven’t heard from us.

We had big plans going into 2020. We were working on several large investigations, had plans to put together a board of directors, announced the start of a podcast, and hoped to secure funding to ensure our long term success.

But, in Spring 2020, along with the challenges a global pandemic brings, we were sued by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the governing organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We were unable to raise sufficient funds to defend ourselves and were forced to settle. Mere days later, Ethan’s wife was in a major cycling accident, almost dying as a result. Shortly thereafter, Ryan’s family endured unforeseen financial hardships as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While both of our families are now back on their feet—both figuratively and literally—we have collectively made the decision to cease the operations of Truth & Transparency. Like everyone, our lives have changed greatly in the past two years and we both feel this is the best decision moving forward for our personal and family lives.

What’s next?

In the coming days, Truth & Transparency will be releasing the results of an investigation that began in early 2020. It will be the last story published under the Truth & Transparency name. But that won’t necessarily be the end of our work.

In the past year, Ethan has started freelancing as a journalist in San Jose, CA covering culture, policing, and social justice. Ryan has also begun to do some freelancing.

As such, while our efforts in holding religious institutions accountable through our investigative journalism may not happen at the same pace as in our early days, they will not necessarily end, either. Any future efforts will be done on a freelance basis with established, reputable news publications.

All of our original posts from both MormonLeaks and FaithLeaks have been migrated to this site. All links to documents on the MormonLeaks Wiki are currently redirected to those pages as preserved Internet Archive. In the coming months, we will work towards a more permanent solution to ensure perpetual access at minimal cost, potentially partnering with a willing nonprofit organization. Our social media accounts will also be archived, soon.

Finances

Currently, we have $7,670.98 in funds. During the investigation behind the forthcoming story, a small debt was incurred with a reasonable payoff plan. Truth & Transparency’s financial situation was made even more complicated after the settlement of the lawsuit and several expenditures were paid for out of our personal funds. The remaining funds will be used for any costs incurred during the website migration mentioned above and then to pay back that debt.

If you were a recurring donor to Truth & Transparency, those were all canceled on April 1, 2022. If you have reason to believe that is not the case, please reach out to us via email.

Our complete financial records can be found on our financial disclosures page.

Thank you

We thank all of our supporters—and even some of our critics—for being part of one of the most amazing journeys either of us have had the privilege to be a part of. You watched us grow as individuals more than either of us ever expected.

We have documented a short history highlighting some of our most impactful moments on our about page.

To the next chapter,

Ryan McKnight

Ethan Gregory Dodge

In late April 2020, Watch Tower, the governing organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, filed a lawsuit against Truth & Transparency for copyright infringement. After securing legal counsel, we announced our intention to fight the suit on the basis of the First Amendment. It is with great difficulty that we announce that our fundraising efforts have come up short and we were forced to settle the suit.

As can be seen from publicly filed documentation with the court, the following were the basis of the settlement agreement in exchange for the case to be dropped:

• Truth & Transparency would remove all documents owned by Watch Tower from all our websites.
• Truth & Transparency, and it’s founders, Ryan McKnight and Ethan Gregory Dodge, will never again publish copyrighted material owned by Watch Tower.
• Truth & Transparency will pay Watch Tower a total of $15,000 in damages.

The result is absolutely agonizing and has been emotionally, mentally, and physically taxing on us, as it goes against our core values. Additionally, the irony that we have not been able to say anything publicly until now, causing tremendous frustration for our supporters, is not lost on us. We simply were not at liberty to do so while the settlement was being negotiated, which added to the stress and agony of the situation.

We deeply appreciate the generosity of our supporters who helped us raise over $13,000 to fight this legal battle. But, as stated in our original press release, we realistically could not fight this with anything short of $40,000. The result of not meeting this goal was that we had to engage in settlement negotiations with the extremely well-funded Watch Tower. The majority of the funds raised were used to pay our attorney for representation during the settlement process, thus far amounting to $10,000. These discussions can be lengthy and representation is not cheap.

To be clear, Truth & Transparency maintains that we did not violate any of Watch Tower’s copyright, however, without the funds to make our arguments in court, we had no choice but to settle.

In truth,

Ryan McKnight
Ethan Gregory Dodge
Co-founders Truth & Transparency

Update: The original press release did not state the exact amount paid for representation. It has been updated to reflect accordingly.

In May 2019, Truth & Transparency published videos produced by Watch Tower, the governing body of the religion commonly known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. These videos are shown for free to their religious constituents every year, and then never published again.

In May 2020, Watch Tower filed a lawsuit against Truth & Transparency for infringing on their copyright of these videos. To ask the court to effectively censor this content is a clear cut, abusive assault on the First Amendment right to report matters of public interest under the guise of a copyright claim.

When a large multi-million dollar institution like the Jehovah’s Witnesses engages in this kind of legal action against a small, independent media outlet like Truth & Transparency there is more at stake than just the survival of our small organization. We must not allow Watch Tower to successfully establish a roadmap for silencing unwanted voices.

A Dangerous Precedent

Truth & Transparency — formerly known as FaithLeaks and MormonLeaks — is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to religious accountability through impact journalism. The videos were published because they provide important insight into a powerful religious institution whose dealings are clearly in the public interest.

Watch Tower has been known to cover up multiple cases of child sex abuse within their own ranks. Content like these videos are instrumental in understanding the environment and culture where such abuses occur.

The censorship of these videos would set a dangerous precedent for journalists and media everywhere, especially those engaged in criticizing and exposing corruption within religious institutions.

Donate Now

We need your help. The only way to put a stop to this bullying is to beat them in court. In order to do so, we need to raise at least $40,000 in the next two weeks. Will you stand with press freedom and the First Amendment by supporting religious accountability through impact journalism?

Make a tax deductible donation now.

In truth,

Ryan McKnight
Executive Editor

Ethan Gregory Dodge
Technical Executive Editor

Introducing Accountable, a new podcast from Truth & Transparency. Hosted by Tracie Harris. Episodes coming soon.

This morning, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Ensign Peak Advisors, the investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reported a total of $38.7 billion of holdings in the U.S. stock market.

Truth & Transparency first reported on this topic in May 2018 by uncovering $32 billion traded by 13 shell companies connected to the Church, and again last month when revealing the increased value of those shell companies as well as venture capital investments made by another shell company connected to the Church.

Last month, in another unprecedented move, the Church gave an exclusive interview to the Wall Street Journal discussing the portfolio, admitting to having intentionally obfuscated the paper trail with the shell companies discovered by Truth & Transparency. They feared that members would reduce their tithing donations to the Church.

Today’s story from the Tribune implies that this $38 billion is in addition to the money already reported by Truth & Transparency saying that Ensign Peak’s portfolio is “more diversified than any of those smaller funds.” However, closer analysis of the data suggests otherwise.

While it is true that Ensign Peak filed a report with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, none of the other 13 shell companies did, a fact the Tribune originally failed to report. This suggests that the shares were moved under the known corporate umbrella of the Church, another unprecedented and surprising move.

This hypothesis is supported by comparing the data from Ensign Peak’s most recent filing and the previous quarter’s filings from the shell companies. The number of entities the Church had invested only grew from 1,646 to 1,650 and the amount of shares traded between the two quarters is largely negligible.

Additionally, the difference in shares between the two reports could be a result of consolidating other shell companies than the ones currently known. An entity only has to file these public reports if over $100 million is held at the end of the quarter. It is completely possible that the Church has other entities under its corporate umbrella that were not trading at that threshold.

Such may be the case with Clifton Park Capital Management, an LLC known to be owned by the Church, yet one that hasn’t filed a report with the SEC since the final quarter of 2015. That does not necessarily mean that they are not still actively trading, simply that they may be doing so below $100 million.

The Church has also previously engaged in venture capital endeavors, investing in private companies before they are publicly traded. One of those companies Truth & Transparency reported on last month was the tech company Fastly. When comparing the data, the church had not reported any public shares held in Fastly until this most recent quarter in Ensign Peak’s filing. There are likely several other instances of similar activity.

This money is obviously a fraction of the $100 billion known to be controlled by the Church, as originally reported by the Washington Post, and simply the only amount discovered through public records.

While it’s likely that only a small portion of the $38 billion reported by the Salt Lake Tribune wasn’t already known, the Church is obviously making strides in becoming more financially transparent. Time will tell if the behavior is the new norm or a one-time attempt to silence critics.

The code used to perform the data analysis for this article can be found here.

In the coming days, Truth & Transparency will be publishing interactive graphs illustrating the known worth of the Mormon Church’s portfolio over time. This is a tremendous effort with many features planned. If you want to support this work, please consider making a donation today.

In May 2018, Truth & Transparency compiled public information connecting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church, to 13 LLCs holding assets in the U.S. stock market worth over $32 billion. The public filings for the third quarter of 2019 for 12 of these LLCs show they are now worth a combined total of $34.9 billion. New filings for the final quarter of 2019 are expected to be made public in the coming weeks.

In addition to these companies, Truth & Transparency has connected two other LLCs to the Church: Morgan Hills Group and Marshfield Advisers. Of the two, Marshfield Advisers, was listed in 3 separate filings publicly available via the United States Security and Exchange Commission. However, unlike the reports regarding the previous 13 discovered in 2018, these reports did not deal with trading in the U.S. stock markets, but rather as a venture capital investor.

When transitioning from being privately held to publicly traded in the U.S., companies may or may not be required to publicly file documents with the SEC outlining voter and investor rights for all parties who hold financial stake in the organization. If filed, these documents are  approved and signed by a representative from each stakeholder. Marshfield Advisers is identified in such filings for Gossamer Bio, aTyr Pharma, and Fastly.

The amount Marshfield Advisers holds in each organization, the price paid for their shares, as well as the point in time the investments were made are not disclosed in the reports and, therefore, publicly unknown. All three documents were signed by the same representative of the Church whose employment Truth & Transparency was able to independently verify.

Gossamer Bio, a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company, announced its first round of private fundraising in January 2018 and filed for their initial public offering in July of the same year. Since going public, the company has enjoyed spikes in its stock price, but has ultimately decreased approximately 28% from opening price at the time of publication.

aTyr Pharma’s website states its mission is “to translate newly discovered biological pathways to develop innovative therapeutics with improved outcomes for patients.” According to Crunchbase, a website dedicated to tracking venture capitalist investments in a crowdfunding fashion, aTyr began fundraising as far back as 2007. The company went public in 2015 and its stock price has since dropped 97% in value.

Fastly specializes in web content delivery, providing their customers with fast hosting solutions. It was founded in 2011 and went public in 2019. It has since risen in public value approximately 42%.

Marshfield Advisers and Morgan Hills Group were discovered as part of a deeper investigation into the original 13 LLCs discovered in 2018. Those organizations’ ties to the Mormon Church were uncovered by observing that the Church was listed publicly as the owner of their internet domain names, such as elkforkpartners.com. The ownership of the domains was corroborated by the fact that the Church controlled the IP addresses of those  domains.

The control of all domain names is done via the internet's domain name system or DNS. The function of DNS is perhaps easiest to understand when compared to a phone book. When a user enters a domain, such as truthandtransparency.org, into an internet browser, the computer queries the DNS to receive the IP address where the website is hosted, such as 198.185.159.145. This is similar to looking up a phone number in a phone book. Upon Truth & Transparency’s reporting in 2018, the Mormon Church’s DNS servers were hosting the authoritative records to the domains for all 13 of the LLCs.

However, in April 2019 the control of those records was relinquished to a third party known as Brand Shelter, a company that helps protect organizations trademarks online. The Church, owning thousands of domain names, appeared to only have moved the 13 LLCs' domains to the third party.

In an attempt to find any additional domains moved from the Church’s control to Brand Shelter’s, Truth & Transparency leveraged a database of historical domain ownership and DNS records maintained by Security Trails. By checking the tens of thousands of domains with records hosted with Brand Shelter, only 17 were once hosted by the Mormon Church. 15 were already known domains, the others belonged to Morgan Hills Group and Marshfield Advisers.

The code used to conduct this investigation can be found here.

At this time, the function of Morgan Hills Group is unclear. Business licenses were found in both Delaware and California for the company.

In December 2019, the Washington Post reported on a complaint filed by a whistleblower to the United States Internal Revenue Service. The whistleblower, a former employee of Ensign Peak Advisers, the subsidiary of the Church that oversees all investments, claimed the Church manages more than $100 billion for the Mormon Church.

It is believed that the LLCs discovered by Truth & Transparency in May 2018, and the additional two reported here, are part of that sum. However, this cannot be confirmed. Ensign Peak redirected comment to the Church who did not respond before the publication of this article.

This investigation cost Truth & Transparency over $1000, a significant amount of our budget, and dozens of hours of work. If you found it valuable, please consider making a recurring or one time donation here. Thank you for your generosity.

The following lists the LLCs originally reported on in May 2018 and links to their most recent SEC filings:

• Ashmore Wealth Management
• Argyll Research
• Cortland Advisers
• Elkfork Partners
• Flinton Capital Management
• Glen Harbor Capital Management
• Green Valley Investors
• Meadow Creek Investment Management
• Neuburgh Advisers
• Riverhead Capital Management
• Tiverton Asset Management
• Tyers Asset Management

The Truth & Transparency Foundation is excited to announce the addition of a new, seven-member volunteer advisory board of the following individuals:

• Kimberly Anderson, AMFT, a marriage and family therapist in California specializing in LGBTQ+ issues
• Timmy Chou, an entrepreneur and founding partner of Spectra Consulting Group
• Tracie Harris, a project manager, secular and social justice activist, and well known speaker and presenter in the secular community
• Jennifer Helsby, lead developer of SecureDrop from the Freedom of the Press Foundation
• Leigh Honeywell, technologist, survivor-advocate, coiner of the Al Capone Theory of Sexual Harassment, and founder of Tall Poppy, a tech startup aimed to combat online harassment
• Trevor Timm, co-founder and Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation
• Jason Wynne, founder of AvoidJW.org and source to the TTF

Update: In April 2020, Brianna Malcolmson was also added to the Advisory Board.

Update: Jason Wynne was amicably removed from the Advisory Board in July 2020 in wake of a settlement between TTF and Watch Tower.

These advisors will provide the TTF with valuable input as our reporting and operations intersect with their individual areas of expertise. In fact, several of them have been fulfilling their role privately for some time and the relationships are simply being made public, such as those of Honeywell, Timm, and Wynne. More information can be read about each advisor here.

The demand for impact journalism promoting transparency within religious communities and institutions is higher than ever. In the eyes of McKnight and Dodge, the addition of the new advisory board further demonstrates the organization’s long-term commitment for starting and expanding news reporting, public commentary, and criticism related to religious institutions.

“We started out as a scrappy website releasing pay stubs and manuals with little to no context or commentary,” says Dodge of the TTF’s first incarnation, MormonLeaks. “Now we’re digging deeper and breaking stories that have real world affects. Sterling Van Wagenen is in prison because our reporting empowered a survivor to report his misconduct to the police. We want to seize this momentum and feel that these advisors can help us do that.”

Harris expresses her excitement of the TTF’s future, saying, “I first became aware of MormonLeaks when Ethan was a guest on a social justice podcast I co-hosted. It struck me as a fascinating project with stories to tell. When I learned Ethan and Ryan were broadening their effort as ‘Truth & Transparency’, I was excited. When I was asked to participate, I was humbled. I believe in this mission and look forward to supporting their future success.”

Additionally, many readers will likely recall a November 2019 petition launched by the TTF asking Utah lawmakers to remove the States’s clergy exemption from their laws dictating the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. Later, in December 2019, they traveled to California to speak with legislators about the State’s similar exemption and announced a bill proposed by Senator Jerry Hill the following month. Such work will no longer be pursued by the TTF.

“So much of our reporting touches on abuse, an issue where activism is much needed,” says McKnight. “Initially, we felt we could lend a strong voice to help make changes to state laws that would further protect victims of abuse, but after further consideration, we decided that we best serve the public focusing on investigative reporting. We hope that activists everywhere find our content useful as they seek to make communities safer for victims of abuse.”

Finally, in an effort to absolve confusion, the TTF would like to reiterate that the names, brands, and projects MormonLeaks and FaithLeaks will always be an important part of the organization’s history, but they are not actively being used. The change comes in the wake of a decision made in late 2018 by McKnight and Dodge to engage in investigative reporting.

The MormonLeaks and FaithLeaks sites will continue to live as document archives for releases from the TTF until a more sustainable and permanent solution is implemented later in 2020. For more information, please read our FAQ and about pages.

Each year, thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses flood into football and soccer stadiums across the globe to prepare for enlightenment and direction from their global leaders, the Governing Body. The Governing Body is comprised of eight men, all living and working in upstate New York in a compound affectionately referred to as “Bethel”. These eight men, according to Jehovah’s Witness doctrine, are God’s chosen.

These conventions are held on an annual basis as the men of the Governing Body tour the world to give the same addresses to the institution’s 8 million members. The instruction happens through both speech and video. The general public is welcome to these meetings, the content is not distributed beyond the event itself.

One particularly active user of the Reddit’s r/exjw, redditing_again, told Truth & Transparency that Watch Tower claims “to be open and not secretive about its beliefs.”

“Congregations are provided thousands of invitation to each convention which are intended for distribution to the public,” he stated. “If the organization is so interested in sharing these videos with the public, making them freely available seems to only further the organization's goals.”

But, Watch Tower, the institution’s governing organization, does not agree. Or if they do, their actions suggest otherwise.

Each convention’s content is leaked online every year, almost always before the tour is finished. Each time, Watch Tower swiftly files for its removal. In January 2019, Truth & Transparency refused to comply with four such requests asking to remove content from the 2016 and 2017 conventions published to the FaithLeaks. Truth & Transparency also released the 2018 convention’s content.

In early May, this year’s videos were leaked via a TransferXL link. The videos were promptly uploaded to Rutube, a Russian competitor to YouTube. The videos have since been removed from both TransferXL and Rutube. Rutube states that the content was removed by request of the copyright holder.

Today, Truth & Transparency has made these videos available for public viewing once again.

Before their removal, the videos received much analysis from ex-Witnesses on various forums across the Internet. Redditing_again, who published their own lengthy analysis of one video, argues that the videos simply deserve to be made public for the sake of criticism.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses have thrived on controlling their own narrative for many years, discouraging outside research and discussion, said redditing_again.” He further stated that, “while a speaker’s ideas could be dismissed as personal thoughts, the videos are known by attendees to be directly form the organization.”. Further, “by making these videos publicly available, opportunity is given for open and unbiased discussion and criticism.”

The Watchtower did not respond to request for comment before the publication of this piece.

In a letter leaked online dated May 13, 2019, it was revealed that the Jehovah’s Witnesses made sweeping changes to the practice they are best known for: proselytizing. Addressed “to all congregations in Britain and Ireland”, the letter notes that Witnesses are “accustomed to collecting personal data” on the recipients of their teachings. However, in the next paragraph, proselyting Witnesses, or publishers, are directed to “not collect personal data in connection with the field ministry”.

The letter and its Spanish and Irish translations have been published by Truth & Transparency. They come in response to “recent court decisions and the enactment of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)”, a far-reaching law in the European Union dictating what data organizations can collect and retain on European citizens.

The referenced court decision likely refers to the decision from the Court of the Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg in July 2018. As reported by Reuter’s, the court ruled that the religious institution must also comply with European privacy laws in regards to their door-to-door data collection.

When asked why the cessation of the collection of this data was significant, a self-described “faded ex-JW”, Jan, said that the way Jehovah’s Witnesses preach is “what defines them as religious organization” and therefore the implications of the change are “huge”. Jan asked that his full name not be published.

“We were always told to report if we found someone in the territory that spoke another language, were from a different ethnic group, were deaf, etc,“ he continued. “All this so they could be reached with our preaching from those who could speak their language, knew sign language and so on.”

But, the letters explicitly prohibit such behavior now stating that a “person’s name, address, language, ethnicity, and so forth” are not to be recorded.

As recently as February 2014, publishers were publicly instructed to “have tools in your witnessing case for recording interest” and to make records “neat, well-organized, and up-to-date”.

Jan recognizes that “it may seem trivial for an outsider,” but that Jehovah’s Witnesses see secular laws, such as GDPR, as “Satan’s system of things”.

In April 2018, Truth & Transparency also published ten other documents inspired by GDPR, including a form which publishers signed signifying their “consent to the use of [their] personal data” in order to “participate in some religious activities” and “receive spiritual support”. The form also acknowledges that their data may be shared with organizations outside of their home country.

The changes in procedure mandated in the most recent letters do appear to only apply to countries within the European Union. The same letter was sent to all congregations in Zimbabwe only to be retracted two days later.

This past Sunday, May 5, 2019, Truth & Transparency published hundreds of letters written in Portuguese by the highest leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The vast majority of the letters, dating back to the 1970s, are addressed and intended only for the eyes of those possessing the title of Elder.

Each congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses is lead by a body of elders, typically comprised of six to eight men. They are the spiritual leaders for the few hundred people attending services at a specific Kingdom Hall location.

It is a regular occurrence that Watch Tower, the governing organization of the religious institution, sends letters to every body of elders in order to dictate, reiterate, or clarify policy. Occasionally, the letters direct the leaders on sensitive topics that could have a negative effect on their religious constituents.

Perhaps the most controversial of such direction came on August 1, 2016, in a letter titled “Protecting Minors From Abuse.” In this letter, elders were instructed to call Watch Tower’s legal department immediately after becoming aware of child sex abuse allegations, rather than law enforcement.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a history of not reporting child abuse and neglect. In January 2018, Truth & Transparency released a series of 33 letters between a body of elders in Massachusetts and Watch Tower discussing the sexual abuse of three young girls at the hands of another member of the congregation. The elders never reported the instances to law enforcement.

In other religions, the knowledge of otherwise concealed policies has often empowered its membership to act. In November 2015, the New York Times reported that thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints resigned their membership upon learning that children of LGBTQ parents could not be baptized into the faith. The church has since rescinded the policy.

Many of these same letters were quickly made available in English days after they were given to elders. This is the first time they are widely available to Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brazil and Portugal in their native tongue. Also published is the “Elders Manual” in Portuguese, the English version of which was published by Truth & Transparency in February 2019.

All these letters may be accessed here and here. The elders manual for those Jehovah’s Witnesses residing in Brazil is here, and for those in Portugal, here.

Also recently published are talks given by the leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses in portuguese that were originally on AvoidJW.org.

On April 2, 2019, Sterling Van Wagenen, noted film director and producer, was indicted in Utah on a single count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. An arrest warrant  was issued on April 4 and Van Wagenen posted bail of $75,000 on April 8. The charge is a first degree felony which, according to the charging document, carries a 15 year minimum sentence and up to life imprisonment if he is convicted.

Van Wagenen has had a long and successful career in film, starting with the co-founding of the Sundance Film Festival with Robert Redford in 1978. In more recent years, Van Wagenen worked on many high profile projects for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church.

In February, Truth & Transparency published an audio recording in which Van Wagenen admits to sexually molesting a 13 year old boy in 1993. In the audio, Van Wagenen states that he has never engaged in sexual activity with any other minor. The news of this admision led to Van Wagenen resigning from his current position as a film professor at the University of Utah.

Earlier this month, the Truth & Transparency reported that Van Wagenen was under investigation for an instance of sexual abuse. At the time, few details were known. With this new charge, we now know that he was being investigated for sexually abusing a child under 14.

According to the probable cause statement contained in the charging document, Van Wagenen “rubbed” the genital area of a female between the ages of 7 and 9 on two occasions between 2013 and 2015.

Subsequent to the two instances of abuse, Van Wagenen was alone with the child and asked her if the touching made her feel uncomfortable. According to the victim, during this conversation he told her that this was same way he touched his wife. The victim expressed that the touching made her uncomfortable and he told her that he would stop.

According to the court docket, which has been viewed by Truth & Transparency, Van Wagenen made his initial appearance after the warrant was issued on April 8, the day he posted the $75,000 bail. The next scheduled court date is May 2, 2019.

David (not his real name), the young man Van Wagenen molested in 1993 informed Truth & Transparency that he was surprised by the charge. When he met with Van Wagenen last year and discussed his own molestation with him, David left that conversation convinced that Van Wagenen was being honest and sincere in his declaration that he had never had sexual contact with any other minor.

David goes on to say, “More than anything, my heart breaks for the victim in this case and I sincerely hope there are no other victims out there.”

Requests for comment have been sent to Van Wagenen, his attorney, Steven Shapiro, and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office. Shapiro declined to comment.

If you are a survivor a abuse, below are a list of resources that can be utilized in the United  States. If you are not a resident of the US, we encourage you to search  for resources near you.

National Sexual Assault Hotline

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

Last Thursday, President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church, took to the stand and rescinded a policy that caused a massive uproar in Mormonism.

Leaked with the help of Truth & Transparency co-founder, Ryan McKnight, in November 2015, the policy in question has since been referred to as the “November policy” and sometimes as the “policy of exclusion”.

The policy named all gay Mormon couples apostates and forbade their children from being baptized until the age of 18. The announcement garnered national media attention and caused many to resign from the Church

On April 4, 2019, President Oaks altered the policy. In a statement released by the Church’s Newsroom, Oaks stated that that “children of parents who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender may be baptized without First Presidency approval.”

He added that, while gay marriage is still viewed as a “serious transgression” those that are married are no longer apostates. According to the Church’s handbook, the label of apostasy warrants excommunication.

The rescission of the policy created as large a shock as its implementation. Hundreds of Mormons took to social media to express their surprise, praise, and excitement. However, the reaction in the LGBT community did not express the same sentiments.

Weston Clark, board member of Equality Utah compared the Church's actions to gardening in a statement made to ABC4 News. He stated, “You can't plant weeds in your own backyard and then pick them and expect everybody to congratulate you for doing so.”

Similarly, dozens shared a quote from Malcolm X saying that progress is not “[sticking] a knife in a man's back nine inches and then [pulling] it out six inches”.

But, perhaps the most powerful statements since Thursday were the various forms of protest that happened at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City during the Church’s world-wide 189th Annual General Conference.

Dozens of LGBT individuals and allies took the street corner and stood in solidarity with gay and transgender pride flags in hand. River Jude August, an agender individual and one of the protesters, said they participated out of “solidarity with our queer family whose lives we lost because of the 2015 policy”.

August continued by saying, “Some of the most beautiful people are queer, like Bertita,” referring to Berta Marquez, a popular LGBT activist whose suicide in June 2018 sent shockwaves through both the Mormon and LGBT communities.

August says that leaving Mormonism saved their life and that the pain they and so many other LGBT individuals experienced is “irreconcilable”. They feel the Church rescinded the policy to “stop the hemorrhaging form the amount of members that have left the Church”.

June Hiatt, a queer woman who resigned from the Church shortly after the November policy, said it is time to have an honest and frank discussion about how the Church has historically treated the LGBT community. “The Church has always been anti-gay,” she said. “This policy does not change that.”

She added, “I think that’s the conversation we need to start having in open spaces, that the Church does not support the queer community.”

Hiatt says she has lost two LGBT friends to suicide “because of how the Church treated them”. One of these friends endured conversion therapy after, according to Hiatt, his bishop suggested it.

Another group of LGBT persons, identifying as active Mormons, held signs encouraging others to put differences aside and “hug a Latter Gay Saint” or a “transgender Mormon”. Peter Moosman, a gay Mormon, has been participating in this action since April 2016, the first General Conference following the November policy.

In a public Facebook post, Moosman said he started these actions because he “wanted queer members to have a glimmer of hope that they weren't alone.” Adding that “representation and visibility [matter]” and that he knows that life is “dark, lonely, and defeating” for LGBT Mormons still “in the closet.”

When asked if this action carried particular weight, Moosman told Truth & Transparency that it did because his face was featured in a picture published by Buzzfeed News covering the policy change. He noted that the “atmosphere” felt different. He explained that saying “people would occasionally approach us and ask us how we’re feeling about the policy rescission.”

Moosman also noted that they received “considerably less hugs” on Sunday morning during the silent protest that happened adjacent to Moosman’s action.

While the reactions from passersby were mixed, Blaire Ostler, a queer Mormon woman who participated in the hug campaign, reports that most were positive. She shared several such reactions on Facebook.

Ostler recounted a favorite incident when a man and his son approached and embraced her. The father then said “These things take time. Try to be patient with the knuckleheads who just don’t get it yet.”

Moosman reported that his first positive reaction came when a young woman approached him and confided in him that she was pansexual. He felt he was able to help her in that moment after speaking with her about “having hope, building confidence, and the power of authenticity”.

Moosman says he has since given thousands of hugs at these events and that this was the first instance in which he didn’t have any “negative or hostile face-to-face interactions”. Rather, he received a “flood of vitriolic attacks”, including a death threat, from anonymous persons online.

The two LGBT groups have certainly responded differently to their religion’s teachings regarding their sexuality, some having left the Church and others hoping to promote change from within. Those decisions were made apparent in the different ways they chose to protest this past weekend. However, both groups agree that this adjustment in policy is not enough.

Header photo: silent protesters outside the Conference Center in Salt Lake City wield transgender and gay pride flags on April 7, 2019. Photo courtesy of June Hiatt.