Dr. Gina Colvin, host of A Thoughtful Faith Podcast, is set to be excommunicated by the Mormon Church for apostasy on 12/20/2018 in her New Zealand ward by her bishop. The accusations against Gina include the following:

(a) Being baptized into the Anglican faith.
(b) Her continued profession of membership in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints;
(c) Active criticism of the Church and its leaders in public forums; and
(d) Public advocacy for positions which are contrary to core doctrines of the Church.

This is Gina’s pre-excommunication interview.

Links mentioned during the podcast:

____________________________________________

*****Update from Gina on 12/20/18*****

“Dear friends,

Firstly, I would like to thank you all so very much for your prayers. The strength and the sincerity of them have been felt and have buoyed me up during a difficult few days. Thank you for the candles, the blessings, the poetry and the waves of loving support.

As I had made clear, I hadn’t intended on going, but in the 11th hour, both my Bishop and my Stake President reached out and encouraged me to go to the council. After a very tender exchange, I was moved by the spirit and agreed to attend.

Could I say ‘thank you’ to all of those who sent letters. Each of those letters were read by my Bishop and their collective witness was taken very seriously.

Thank you to my friends who ditched prior plans and came with me and held vigil at the church. And thank you to my former Bishop, Pete Cammock whose presence and voice was wise and wonderful.

Much to my surprise, the council was a very sacred experience for all who attended. I found it profoundly moving.

The result of the council, Nathan and I are very pleased to announce, is ‘no action’.

I still don’t agree with Disciplinary Councils but under the circumstances, this was Mormonism (or whatever its supposed to be called these days) at its best.”

__________________________________________

Part 1 – Gina’s spiritual evolution:

Part 2 – Tension in her LDS community:

Part 3 – Baptized into the Anglican faith:

Part 4 – Targeted for excommunication:

Part 1

Download MP3

Part 2

Download MP3

Part 3

Download MP3

Part 4

Download MP3

25 Comments

  1. Dot December 14, 2018 at 11:05 am - Reply

    Gina, I feel so blessed to be in this world at the same time as you. A thousand kisses from the Southern tip of Africa! I ran out of the church screaming in 2015 at nearly 70 years old (a convert) and found so much solace in A Thoughtful Faith. Your journey, John’s, Sam’s, Bill’s, Lindsay’s, helped me to navigate what has been a wilderness of painful deconstruction and reconstruction.. I could have fallen off the edge of the world, and nobody in the Mormon church would have noticed. Thank you for your thoughtful faith that I was able to look at, be inspired by. 👵🏻

  2. Square Peg December 14, 2018 at 1:00 pm - Reply

    Thank you Gina! You are a delightful person! Best of wishes with all of this!

  3. Roger Taylor December 14, 2018 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    It’s interesting that women don’t merit a stake high council excommunication trial, as a man does, before the dastardly deed is done. This, by itself, demonstrates that a woman isn’t as important and doesn’t have as much worth as a man in the MORMON Church.

    • R. Dunlee December 21, 2018 at 6:56 pm - Reply

      When the original Revelation was received, authorizing a “High Council” trial for Elders, it was at a time when “Elder” was the exclusive title of an Apostle. So, excommunicating an Apostle was a HUGE deal. In the original Church of Christ, the Stake High Council presided over a Stake. One of the 12 Standing HIgh Council members “acted” as President, but he was chosen from the 12 members. The “Traveling High Council” has no authority in any “Sake of Zion” but only in areas where no Stake was organization (i.e. everywhere outside of Nauvoo and Kirkland Ohio). Gradually, the title of “Elder” was expanded to what we have today: any active Mormon male aged 18 or over.

  4. Maggie Rayner December 14, 2018 at 10:27 pm - Reply

    Wow! Words can’t express my awe and admiration for Gina’s unquenchable spirituality and authenticity. No wonder the Mormon Church wants to boot her out. I am thrilled at her refusal to bow in submission – in any way – to those who seek to extinguish her personhood.

  5. Elder Van Halen December 15, 2018 at 11:02 am - Reply

    Thank you Gina for your interview here, and the years of great messages and interviews on A Thoughtful Faith. It has been so helpful to me in my journey! Love and prayers to you as you move forward with your journey as well.

  6. Ocky Dilldock December 15, 2018 at 6:43 pm - Reply

    I am not able to play the vidio from your site. I am using a mac and called apple support, they checked all my settings and Ican ply vidios from other sites, so they think you may have a problem on your site.

    • Mormon Stories December 15, 2018 at 7:04 pm - Reply

      Hi Ocky,

      We refreshed the link to the video, so perhaps it may work for you now. Thanks!

  7. VFanRJ December 15, 2018 at 9:28 pm - Reply

    Not sure why some interviews aren’t available as mp3 downloads

  8. Mormon Stories December 15, 2018 at 9:36 pm - Reply

    They have not been produced yet. They will be in the coming days.

    • VFanRJ December 16, 2018 at 8:52 pm - Reply

      Thanks Mormon Stories. I’ll be more patient next time. :-)

  9. JASH December 16, 2018 at 1:48 pm - Reply

    Gina… What a wonderful attitude about this terrible situation… Ex-communication is a violent act devoid of anything remotely Christ-like. The LDS church will be made less without your important presence and your many contributions.It boggles the mind that the church continues down this unsustainable path – sooner or later the church organization will pay a great price for these decisions. May you have peace and contentment with the outcome of this event. You are admired by many!!!

  10. John December 16, 2018 at 4:25 pm - Reply

    Such a charismatic wise woman

  11. clh December 18, 2018 at 5:51 am - Reply

    I love your voice. God’s blessings to you, dear Gina. So glad I got to meet you last summer.

  12. ECHG December 18, 2018 at 2:06 pm - Reply

    Question: If the LDS Church is not true, do temple ordinances then have any real meaning? Seems like some members who get exed are concerned about losing their eternal marriages and sealings.

  13. James December 19, 2018 at 4:02 am - Reply

    When ever Gina is doing a broadcast I just wait to see how long till she uses herminetics. I don’t think she can make it through a full podcast without using it. Clearly her favorite word.

  14. The real Clint December 19, 2018 at 12:17 pm - Reply

    I could listen to Gina talk all day

  15. Israel Miller December 19, 2018 at 1:46 pm - Reply

    Hello Gina and John,
    Thanks so much to you both for your wonderful courage and strength. I am eager to read some work from a couple authors you mentioned. One, Rob Bell, you mentioned as having written about God as a sacred hum and another, Henry Nouwan, you mentioned writing about spiritual development and an articulate un-knowing. I would love any references to the works that contain these thoughts/writings if you can provide them.
    Thanks!

  16. Elle December 20, 2018 at 12:56 am - Reply

    The Mormon church excommunicates people to delegitimize them. That’s the whole point. It’s a lot easier for the church, and more effective (from their point of view), than debating the issues.

    I’m glad Gina has found another church where she can be happy and continue on her spiritual journey! Much love to you, Gina!!

  17. Armand December 20, 2018 at 10:17 am - Reply

    Would you please include a link in the show notes for the documentary about the September 6 that Gina and John discuss in Part 1? Thank you very much.

  18. Ramona Linville December 20, 2018 at 1:06 pm - Reply

    You referenced a documentary by Helen Whitney. What is that video? Do you have a source reference?

  19. clh December 22, 2018 at 9:30 am - Reply

    So happy to read briefly the outcome of Gina’s disciplinary council. We should embrace the reminder that we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in all of the controversial and difficult places and act like it. That is what I want to be a part of.

  20. Sss December 31, 2018 at 2:53 pm - Reply

    Is it possible to be Anglican and Mormon at the same time?

  21. Anne January 3, 2019 at 6:00 am - Reply

    SSS,
    I would ask, is it possible to be Human and Mormon at the same time? What I mean is;

    the root claim of the Mormon faith, that it is the only “true” source of Truth, sets up a dualism that leaves members gyrating to disinclude from their experience all that is not Mormon. That includes the rest of humanity, and any experience that doesn’t correlate with official church narrative.

    If you stop and hold that idea for a long moment, it might become apparent that this includes a large swath of human feelings and thoughts; bodily experiences are rendered untrustworthy, the ideas and experiences of nonmember persons are held to be highly suspect and essentially invalid unless they can be “correlated”, one’s intuition and emotional sense of things is only valid if it serves to support the official view, and even the rational mind is relegated to the role of reshaping experience to the official narrative of reality. In other words, you cannot be a believing Mormon and also truly validate the totality of either your own, or other humans’ experiences. To do so would necessitate a reexamination of the fundamental truth claim of the Church. It’s like Tevye’s neighbor says in “Fiddler on the Roof”, “…he is right, and he is also right? They can’t both be right!” The Church’s claim of Ultimate Rightness doesn’t allow for the organic untidiness that is human experience. In fact, one could make a strong case that the Church’s position is that our goal as children of God, is to deny ourselves of all human untidiness.

Leave A Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.