3 Mormon Dissidents Expelled : Faith: The three were among several independent scholars and feminists charged with abandoning their faith and facing censure before church disciplinary councils.

Three Mormon dissidents summoned before church courts to answer charges of abandoning their faith were excommunicated this week.

Paul Toscano, founder of the Mormon Alliance, a group that investigates cases of alleged spiritual abuse by church leaders, and feminist writer Maxine Hanks, said they were excommunicated after a hearing last Sunday. Lavina Fielding Anderson, a feminist who charged that Mormon “ecclesiastical abuse” is a problem throughout the church, said she was ousted after a disciplinary council meeting late Thursday before her stake president and 14 counselors, all men.

They are among six scholars and feminists to face church disciplinary proceedings in a 10-day span. All contend the wave of hearings amounts to a purge of members who publicly differ from church leaders on matters of doctrine, history, women’s roles and intimidation by authoritarian church leaders.

“They said I wasn’t a bad person,” Toscano said. “They said I had done apostate acts. I had done actions and said words that . . . gave them no choice but to excommunicate me.”

Church spokesman Bruce Olsen said the hearings do not represent a concerted effort by the church’s central leadership. Instead, various local churches are moving to discipline members who have made public statements seemingly contrary to church teachings, Olsen said.

During his hearing, Toscano said, the stake president and 14 others played a tape of a talk he gave at a symposium last month. He said the officials were particularly upset when he mocked a governing church general authority.

The actions came months after Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles identified feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals as the three dangers facing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The others facing hearings are D. Michael Quinn, a former professor at Brigham Young University who has written about admitting women to the Mormon priesthood; Lynne Whitesides, president of the Mormon Women’s Forum, and Avraham Gileadi, who has published books raising doctrinal questions.

Quinn faces an excommunication hearing Sunday.