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Letter: Excommunication is a spiritual death sentence

Sam Young speaks during a press conference Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018, in Salt Lake City. Young, a Mormon man who led a campaign criticizing the church's practice of allowing closed-door, one-on-one interviews of youth by lay leaders has been kicked out of the faith. Young read a verdict letter for the first time Sunday that had been delivered to him following an earlier disciplinary hearing with local church leaders in Houston. Young, a 65-year-old lifelong Mormon, becomes the third high-profile member of the faith who led protests about church policy to be excommunicated in recent years. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

The punishment of excommunication for a man who wanted to improve on the LDS Church’s possible harmful interviews with young teenagers is an eternal spiritual "death sentence." His baptism, priesthood ordinances and his outlook to reach the highest glory with God in the eternities are all stripped away from him.

It's like someone protesting against something that's wrong or unreasonable and getting the death penalty for it. Oh, the power of churches through the ages.

Ria van Lent, Woods Cross

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