 The concept of a Council of Friends or Priesthood Council was central to the Mormon fundamentalist theology developed by Lorin C. Woolley and others in the Short Creek Community.The Short Creek Community
was home to this council starting in the late 1920s.Since the authority of the Council of Friends pertained to the Priesthood and not to the Church, early Mormon fundamentalists, most of the residents of Short Creek Community had been excommunicated from the LDS Church.