Though technically still a member, Whitesides claims that she "exploded" out of the church and her marriage in 1993, and she now considers herself a practitioner of Native American philosophies.
Mormon scholars, including Hugh Nibley, Truman G. Madsen and Ellis Rasmussen, praised his work, but his argument that the Isaiah prophecies pointed to a human "Davidic king" who would emerge in the Last Days, apart from Jesus Christ, was controversial, and his second book was pulled from the shelves by its publisher, church-owned Deseret Book.
According to Toscano, the actual reason was insubordination in refusing to curb his sharp criticism of Church leaders' preference for legalism, ecclesiastical tyranny, white-washed Mormon history, and hierarchical authoritarianism, which privilege the image of the corporate church above its commitment to its members, to the teachings and the revelations of founder Joseph Smith, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[13] Toscano's wife, Margaret, faced her own disciplinary council for her doctrinal and feminist views and was excommunicated on November 30, 2000.
Some view her excommunication as constituting a "seventh" member of the September Six, as she was summoned in 1993, but ecclesiastical focus shifted to her husband.
[14] Margaret later wrote "The Missing Rib: The Forgotten Place of Queens and Priestesses in the Establishment of Zion" as well as the tenth chapter of Transforming the Faiths of our Fathers: Women who Changed American Religion (2004), edited by Ann Braude.
She was excommunicated September 23 for apostasy, allegedly because of her article "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology" in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
[19] After her husband's death in 2018, Anderson's bishop approached her about reinstatement, the first ecclesiastical leader in the twenty-four years since she was excommunicated to do so.
[18] In 2019, her local stake leaders reconvened her disciplinary council, in which she affirmed her faith but also expressed multiple views contrary to church teachings.
Quinn was summoned to a disciplinary council to answer charges of "conduct unbecoming a member of the Church and apostasy," including "'very sensitive and highly confidential' matters that were not related to Michael's historical writings.
To date, three of the September Six have retained or regained church membership: Avraham Gileadi[25] and Maxine Hanks,[26] who were rebaptized, and Lynne Whitesides, who remains a disfellowshipped member.
[28] Procedures pertaining to the organization of these disciplinary councils are found in the church's scriptural Doctrine and Covenants section 102 as well as in its administrative handbook.