I think it's safe to say that there are a number of things going on in the Church that members don't know about: the general membership has only the vaguest of ideas about what's going on with Church finances, most members have never heard of the Second Anointing, the majority of members do not have access to the first volume of the Church's Handbook of Instruction, and very few members have ever heard of the Strengthening Church Members Committee. I'll let Jake over at Wheat & Tares explain it to you.
Recently the topic was brought to public attention by John Sweeney's interviews in the sensationalist BBC documentary The Mormon Candidate, in which Jeffrey Holland makes a total jerk of himself on camera. But Holland does manage to fain ignorance and provide only the most vague of explanations as to what the SCMC is or does. Instead Lynne Whitesides, one of the September Six, offers a much clearer (but no less sensationalistic) explanation in the book Latter-Day Dissent describing the SCMC as "a Gestapo-like group which press-clipped everything anyone said who might be considered an enemy of the Church, meaning one who disagreed with Church policy"
Sensationalism aside, let's face the fact that the Church has an unpublicized, undiscussed program dedicated to rounding up dirt on potential "enemies" to assist in the process of excommunication. Isn't that wild?
I have to doubt that Jesus would be into this sort of thing. I could be wrong, but the only time he had the opportunity to excommunicate someone (Judas, who was about to betray him) his reaction was something along the lines of "knock yourself out!" or "get 'er done!" No spying, no collecting evidence, no "court of love," no defensiveness, no blaming, no fear tactics.
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