Jeremy Runnells — whose 2013 "Letter to a CES [Church Educational System] Director" gained widespread attention on the Internet by outlining numerous questions about Mormon theology and history — has resigned from the LDS Church.
A YouTube video shows Runnells making the announcement Sunday night while speaking to supporters from the back of a pickup truck outside a Mormon meetinghouse in American Fork.
"I have excommunicated the LDS Church … from my life," he told the small crowd, which had gathered while Runnells was inside the building, huddling with his local lay leaders for a disciplinary council to determine his membership status in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "I handed in my resignation letter just a few minutes ago."
Runnells complained that his church leaders failed to answer any of his questions Sunday night or in the past three-plus years. "It has become very clear to me," he added, "that the church does not have answers to its truth crisis."
The Utah-based LDS Church had no comment.
David Noyce
FILE - In this Feb. 6, 2013, file photo, the angel Moroni statue, silhouetted against a cloud-covered sky, sits atop the Salt Lake Temple, at Temple Square, in Salt Lake City. A new Mormon church policy targeting gay members and their children has triggered a firestorm of backlash from church members of all political backgrounds. The new rules bar children living with gay parents from being baptized until they're 18. After that, they can be baptized only if they disavow same-sex relationships. The rules also make gay marriages a sin worthy of expulsion. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
