Q: Isn't this just an anti-Mormon smear?
A: No. We do not want the Church discredited. We want the archive opened.
The committee has no interest in discrediting the LDS Church, its members, or its theology. The committee’s full-time investigators include two practising Latter-day Saints, one former member, and four people with no prior connection to the Church.
We are not arguing that the Church is hiding the truth because the truth is harmful to its theology. We are arguing that the Church is hiding the truth because the truth is enormously expensive — financially, legally, and diplomatically — to disclose. The Church has, in our view, made a rational institutional decision to defer disclosure indefinitely, on the reasonable theory that any other course of action would force the Church into a posture of public explanation it has no desire to enter.
We believe the Church is wrong about this. We believe the cost of continued suppression is now higher than the cost of disclosure. We believe that disclosure would, in fact, strengthen the Church’s standing rather than weaken it, by demonstrating that the Church has been trusted with material of extraordinary historical significance and has handled that trust responsibly.
We have extended this argument to the Church’s leadership directly, in writing, on three occasions. We have received no response.