MormonLeaks has put out information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the church did not release publicly. That includes findings within the past couple of months about the church’s finances and sexual assault have popped up in headlines. For their work, MormonLeaks has been in the news.
However, Ryan McKnight, the creator of MormonLeaks, said it isn’t accurate to say that his organization wants to disparage the church, KUER reported.
“With the exception of one or two leaks, everything we’ve published could be easily viewed from a faithful perspective,” he told reporter Lee Hale. “I think a lot of active Mormons don’t realize that – they think that it’s just a big ‘testimony-breaking’ website. But it’s really not. A lot of the stuff reflects well on the church.”
(Ryan McKnight)
MormonLeaks put out content that could beg questions of believers. Among it is a recording of a McKenna Denson talking with Joseph Bishop, who was a president of the church’s Missionary Training Center. Denson faults Bishop in the recording of forcibly sexually assaulting her in 1984.
One of McKnight’s goals with MormonLeaks is to provide revelations on the church’s handling of reports of abuse, he said.
“The Church obviously can’t stop sexual abuse from happening completely,” McKnight told KUER.
However, he wants the church to be more proactive regarding sex-abuse cases pertaining to it by putting out information about concurrences like fee installments in conclusion of the cases, Hale reported.
However, most of the content on MormonLeaks, (an email, he has previously noted) has not been in the media, McKnight said.
“We are not interested necessarily in the shock value,” he told KUER. “Some of the stuff we publish inherently has shock value, but if something provides insight into an aspect of the church that we believe should be open to the public we’re going to publish it no matter how boring and mundane it is.”
McKnight’s point: church members paying tithing should be able to know about the church’s expenditures and how it is managing its reserves, disclosures that non-profit organizations are expected to make. However, McKnight recognizes that the church, as a religion, does not need to.
“I’m not optimistic that the church is going is going to listen to us and make any material changes,” he told Hale.
Across the board, the church does not communicate with McKnight, though that is fine with him. He said he is seeking is to move the typical Mormon to take more interest in how their church operates, KUER reported.