[5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. He didn't seem to know what footnotes are so he thought I made the whole thing up. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. He was 32; he and his wife, Jan, were expecting their fourth child. In 1999, she joined the Interfaith Roundtable for the 2002 Winter Olympics, where she enjoyed the association of representatives from various faiths and led the annual Interfaith Week. Former Mormon leader is building a new life -- as a woman - Rick Alan Ross During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. Peggy Fletcher Stack (@religiongal) / Twitter Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. Peggy Fletcher Stack - The Salt Lake Tribune Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Nov. 2022 To that end, the power that Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger bring is their personal stories of defiance and excommunication. These men are often referred to by Mormon faithful as the Brethren. Unlike local lay leaders, who hold secular day jobs and perform their ecclesiastical duties on a voluntary basis, they are full-time employees who oversee the global operations of the church. However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". All rights reserved. Earlier this year, Maxine Hanks became the first of the September Six to fully return to the Mormon Church since the conservative outlier Avraham Gileadi was quietly rebaptized almost two decades ago. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . In May, my stake president called me in about it. Box 15 miles from where he was staying, and in New Orleans he had it delivered to a receiving center a little ways from his apartment. [9] She started the "Faith" column after a discussion with Tribune editor Jay Shelledy. The entry for perversion said See homosexuality, and he read all the available books in that categorynot a lot in a small public library in 1956, though fairly heady stuff for a 12-year-old: Kinseys Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, some Freud, some Havelock Ellis. Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to Feb 17. By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. That bright line is one of the reasons Mormons still sometimes seem separate from the mainstream of American life even after a century of assimilation. She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. After the church court, when I walked into the chapel, it took about three times longer to get to my seat because so many people hugged me. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. At least, that's how Hall sees it. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ.". The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward Today, LDS leaders seem more inclined to recognize, said Wotherspoon, now host of the "Mormon Matters" podcast, "that Zion is made up of people of all types. The September Six were six members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who were excommunicated or disfellowshipped by the church in September 1993, allegedly for publishing scholarly work against or criticizing church doctrine or leadership. The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. He has occasionally attended other churches. "It will be a chance for a larger audience to hear this story," she said, and to hear how people can wrestle with their faith and then live it out. News. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. I have kept my covenants, remained close to the church and have felt that what I have done is accepted by the Lord, the Salt Lake City editor and writer said. After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case. He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Mystery! After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. Born in 1924 in Brigham City, Utah, the 10th of 11 children, Packer worked for years as a teacher and administrator in the Church Educational System. That was established definitively in 1986 after Hofmann confessed to the murders of Christensen and Sheets as part of a plea to avoid the death penalty. Packer approved Quinns hiring, but he may have come to regret it five years later. She declined. Last month, for instance, the Daily Beast reported that a blogger named David Twede was facing excommunication because of critical pieces he had written about Mitt Romney. Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church . All rights reserved. He took a fellowship at the Huntington Library, near his hometown of Pasadena, Calif., and began indexing his enormous collection of notes on old Mormon documents, in preparation for his next book. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He insisted that the September councils were local affairs, but church employees who reported to him had, it turned out, been keeping tabs on the six who were disciplined, and rumors swirled that Packer himself personally insisted that the courts take place. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. In 1988 he resigned his position at Brigham Young University, the private college owned and operated by the Mormon church, having decided that his interest in the problem areas of the religions past jeopardized not only his position on the history faculty but his membership in the church itself. Quinns mother, on the other hand, was a sixth-generation Mormon: She had an ancestor who converted when the Mormons were still in Nauvoo, Ill., and who is mentioned in Joseph Smiths journals. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. Quinn got hate mail. He froze. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 But the cause didn't really matter because it was pretty clear that Elder [Boyd K.] Packer [of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles] was trying to send a message by targeting certain people, such as historians and feminists. Stack has received and been nominated for multiple awards. Dubbed the September Six, the group were mostly left-leaning writers and scholars who had published articles or given talks about the role of women in Mormonism and the way the churchs leaders handle dissent. September Six - Wikipedia From that point on, she explored various Christian teachings and practices, assisted clergy with religious services and served as volunteer chaplain at Holy Cross Chapel for 13 years. In 2004, after a series of fellowships and visiting appointments, he was the only finalist for a tenured position at the University of Utah. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. This friend, Quinn says, told him that the men on the council disagreed about whether Quinn was an apostate, and that President Hanks finally declared that Boyd K. Packer was pressing him to take action, and they needed to do something. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) Going to the temple, but I feel that it's more important to have the temple in me than for me to be in the temple. Hed better start keeping it to himself. Lavina Fielding Anderson may have been excommunicated from the LDS Church for apostasy more than 20 years ago, but don't think for a minute that this Utah writer is now an outsider to her faith. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. The church keeps fairly careful records of its membership, for one thing, records that play a part in the worldwide effort to bring salvation to all of Gods children. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. And he continued to correspond with Paul Hanks, who had written to express his displeasure at seeing his words quoted in the newspaper. But he had a caring bishop that first year and decided on his own to serve a mission. Anderson was excommunicated for an article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought that described episodes of what she called ecclesiastical abuse of Latter-day Saint intellectuals. Quinn and four othersLavina Fielding Anderson, Maxine Hanks (a distant relative of Paul Hanks, the stake president who showed up at Quinns apartment), Paul Toscano, and Avraham Gileadiwere excommunicated by stake presidents in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah; a sixth, Lynn Whitesides, was disfellowshipped, meaning that she remained a member of the church but could not fully participate in its rites and activities. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017 . . Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. Woodwards piece, headlined Apostles vs. Historians, called Quinns talk a stirring defense of intellectual integrity that had put Benson and Packer on the defensive. It was illustrated with a large photograph of Quinn up top, and a considerably smaller one of Packer. As the historian Ross Peterson said at the time, Comparing Sunstone and Dialogue folks to people who were shooting Mormons in 1839 Missouri is unfair. Peterson, after speaking about Mormon temple rites in the press, had been shown his own file during a conversation with local church leaders. This was almost certainly wrong: Romney has plenty of LDS critics, most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Her sincere belief in Jesus and determination to follow him no matter the adversity faced within or without the church should be commended, and this good and faithful servant should be rewarded, he wrote. A church spokesman told him that it did exist, and the First Presidency issued a formal statement about it the following week. The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. He left quietly and went to call the LDS Church Office Building to ask about this committee. With his background in education, he became interested in how the church taught its own past, and decided he did not like what was going on at the church historians office. The modern Mormon church has become a fairly top-down organization, but most responsibility for attending to its members still resides in local lay leaders. The charge stems from Palmer's 2002 book, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which challenges the traditional explanations of the faith's founding . If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. memeorandum: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General If the blessing really happened, then Brigham Young, who led the early Mormons to Utah, might have been wrong to seize control of the church after Smiths murder. Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return | Out of Obscurity He was the first academic to occupy the post, previously held only by high-ranking LDS leaders, and his appointment signaled a broader effort to reorganize the historians office along professional lines. How did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grow so fast Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. KRE/AMB END STACK Would love to hear your stories about her. . It had been a difficult year. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lavina Fielding Anderson, one of the famed September Six writers and scholars disciplined by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1993, got a big no last week to her request for rebaptism from the men who matter most: the faiths governing First Presidency. A year later, David J. McLean, president of the Salt Lake Liberty Stake, reconvened a high council, a body that had excommunicated her 25 years and six months earlier for apostasy, Anderson wrote in a summary of her experience for a forthcoming volume of her essays, Mercy Without End: Toward a More Inclusive Church.. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. The Mormon church, he said, drew him out of his largely monastic life and compelled him to help the men and women he saw every Sunday. Peggy Fletcher Stack - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. No way. ", Hanks' rebaptism suggests a difference in LDS leadership from then to now, said Dan Wotherspoon, Sunstone's editor from 2001 to 2008. Whats more, all Mormons are supposed to have a calling in the church, which makes for a wonderfully participatory religion but also discourages casual membership. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. Find your friends on Facebook. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. One of the articles came from an anthology called Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks, a distant relative of Pauland his uncle Marionand, soon, one of the September Six herself. . [4], She won the 2004 Cornell Award for 'Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers' from the Religion Newswriters Association in 2004, an award she also received in 2012, 2017, and 2018. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . The essay, Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843, cites writings by Joseph Smith and other early church documents to argue that women already possess much of the spiritual authority granted to men, and that todays LDS leaders simply fail to recognize this. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. The field has grown and appears to have moved on, even though the research that Quinn did, and the fights that he picked, were crucial to what has come in his wake. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". Excommunication Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster The book opened Quinns teenage eyes to dissent within the highest echelons of LDS leadership, and to the apostles debateand apparent dissemblingabout plural marriage after 1890. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. Packers notion that those writing church history should share only those things that are faith-promoting is not just intellectually offensive nowit has become quaint, the relic of a time when information was not so freely available. I admire her. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and writing about the biblical oracle Isaiah's prophecies about our time has been rebaptized into the faith. He was troubled by the openness with which materials were being made available to certain individuals other than those authorized, according to Lucile C. Tates admiring 1995 biography, Boyd K. Packer: Watchman on the Tower. It struck him as an old missionarys trick. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. In it, Harris, who paid for the first printing of the Book of Mormon, tells a story of that books origins strikingly different from Smiths later, official account. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. Hundreds of other members joined him at gatherings and in small groups, and thus was born the "remnant movement ," which today touts 1000s of adherents. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Most memorably, Harris says that the spirit who appeared to Smith and directed him to the golden platesfrom which Smith claimed to have translated Mormonisms founding scriptureappeared as a white salamander and struck Smith three times. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. I had my answers.". The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax While preparing for the retired Brigham Young University artists memorial service, Bishop Mahonri Madrigal read Pauls written testimony, or statements of faith, that the ward had compiled in 2000. How have the members of your ward treated you? What to him and others that is so threatening is that this [Ordain Women movement] is coming from a very faithful, devout perspective. On Oct. 16, 1985, Quinn was having a late lunch at a BYU food court when he heard a news report that Mark Hofmann had been blown up by a pipe bomb in Salt Lake City. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for rebaptism into the LDS Church rejected by the faith's governing First Presidency after being approved by her local lay leaders. Nor does it read like one. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. (They draw numbers to pick sides.) "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. They never gave me one reason. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. The fact that we keep going to church is a blessing. Hofmann eventually became, in the words of one expert, the most skilled forger this country has ever seen. For LDS leaders nervous about church history, he was a nightmare personified: a lying, murderous man hell-bent on embarrassing the religion while glorifying and enriching himself. Hanks became conciliatory, reading On Being a Mormon Historian, and writing to say hed gotten from it deeper insight into your devotion and your dedication to history and the Church. He asked again to meet when Quinn came back to Utah. [3][4][5] She was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), with her father traveling and speaking as a member of the stake high council. In 1997, the acclaimed historian Richard Bushman, who spent much of his career writing on non-LDS topics, began studying his religion again in earnest, and convened an annual seminar that helped attract young scholars who might have pursued other interests. Lavina Fielding Anderson may have been excommunicated from the LDS Church for apostasy more than 20 years ago, but don't think for a minute that this Utah writer is now an outsider to her faith. [5][6], Fletcher initially attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, for a year,[1] then transferred to the University of Utah, where she earned a BA in English literature. I didn't have any doubts. My searching was complete. While serving it in England, he was tasked with cleaning up the results of the Baseball Baptism Program, in which missionaries used sports to attract young converts. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. Boyd Packer, left, and Dallin Oaks, right, Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wait for the start of the first session of the 181st Semiannual General Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011. Local TV reporters were filming the session, and the AP reporter Vern Anderson was sitting at the far side of the room about halfway back. [10][11][12][13] The American Academy of Religion awarded her a first place Journalism Award in 2014 for her reporting on LDS missionaries who return home early from their volunteer missions. The temple president tried to make it as good an experience as he could for my parents, Paul, Christian and Marina [his bride] and me. For her part, Anderson always has felt a great sense of peace that I made a moral decision, an ethical decision, a decision of integrity and conscience, she wrote. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. Where else would I be but in the church? Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. The truth is not uplifting. Thats according to Quinnmy request to speak with Packer, whose health has badly deteriorated in recent years, was declined. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. Article type . Though he maintained a solemn belief in the Mormon gospel and in the sacrament partaken of by the faithful at Sunday services, he stopped attending church altogether. On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. Hanks was excommunicated in 1993, one of the "September Six," Mormon writers and scholars who were disciplined by their local LDS officials in the same month. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. Some things that are true are not very useful. Its not clear whether Packer read Quinns work before interviewing him, but if he did, it probably would have struck him as less than useful. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. She has participated as much as she was able playing the piano and singing in the choir and watched as seven lay bishops have come and gone. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". Especially considering that in a lot of cases she's the one doing the exposing My guess is she's a let's-reform-this-baby-from-within progressive. West refused to do this, according to Quinn. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. Peggy Fletcher Stack has been reporting on faith and religion since 1991. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. They divorced soon after. During Quinns New Orleans years, the First Presidency put out a statement discouraging Mormons from participating in academic conferences and other independent forums devoted to the discussion of their faith. or. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. During the hiring process, a college dean offered to protect him, Quinn says, from those peoplethe LDS leadersup in Salt Lake., Before he could be hired, though, he had to visit LDS headquarters at 47 East South Temple in downtown Salt Lake and sit for an interview with one of those peoplespecifically, a general authority, one of the 100 or so men who run the church.
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