I attended the Sunstone Symposium this past summer, held on the University of Utah campus, and many people I spoke to there said that as Packers influence has waned, a more tolerant approach to dissent is taking hold. 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. I wrote an article for "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought" that summarized 133 cases of LDS ecclesiastical abuse, and my pleas to do better to care for the Mormon faithful. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. Nowadays, anyone can Google Mormon polygamy and learn more than theyd ever need to know about that practice, about its abandonment, the subsequent fallout, and so on. A second bomb that first day killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of one of Christensens former business partners. The most threatening thing about Ordain Women to people in the church is that it is coming from faithful, devout, courageous, wonderful women and that's more threatening than anything could be. It sent him down a rabbit hole. Jay Christian, left, and thousands of other people protest against the passage of Californias Proposition 8 outside the world headquarters of Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) | Sojourners I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. LDS author disfellowshipped - Rick Alan Ross As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. But nothing else has driven him to contribute to the lives of others the way the faith in which he was born and raised once did. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. Once in a while such a case will hit the press. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. All rights reserved. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Supposedly Nelson, like Benson, was a supporter of the John Birch Society, a radically right-wing, conspiracy-mongering, anti-Communist group. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. Excommunication is a complicated and multi-layered process for sexual minorities in the church who choose to marry in a way that the church considers a "same sex" marriage. The book, published a decade before, was written by Taylors son Samuel, best known today, perhaps, for writing the short story that became The Absent-Minded Professor. He was housesitting. He had, after all, believed for many years that he would someday be a leader of the church, knowing that if this were true he would have to forever suppress an essential part of himself. The movie was a live-action adaptation of the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. 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. That last comment became the caption for a Newsweek photo three months later, when the magazines religion reporter, Kenneth L. Woodward, wrote a 1,000-word story about Quinns talk and the controversy it prompted. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. He went to San Diego to give the keynote address for the annual conference held by Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons, and he stayed in California for several days afterward. Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. Denver Snuffer . No way. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. 2012. Would love to hear your stories about her. 1) I am very proud that, unlike the LDS Church, I have been transparent regarding OSF finances and my own compensation. 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. If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. The day before, a similar bomb had killed Steve Christensen, a friend and Mormon history enthusiast who had arranged for Quinn to speak at lunch and dinner engagements, paying him with generous gift cards to his fathers clothing store. High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code Nor does it read like one. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. My guess is she has to be to keep the doors open so people willing to talk to her. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. They cited a 19th-century revelation to Joseph Smith, in which he spoke of the saints gathering up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them, and said that perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat. The First Presidency did not mention that when Smith received this revelation he was in prison in Missouri, where a Mormon extermination order had been decreed by the governor not long before. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. Hanks was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male priesthood and womens relationship to it. Peggy Fletcher Stack - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. We had stake [regional] conference in September. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman I was removed from that situation. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. I love the gospel. Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. Just prior to reading Family Kingdom hed seen an anti-Mormon pamphlet called The Book of Mormon Examined, which highlighted hundreds of changes Joseph Smith made to the Mormon scripture in its first few printings. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. Hankswhose nephew Paul would show up on Quinns doorstep in 1993was himself a general authority, and he had overseen the two-year Mormon mission Quinn served in England after his freshman year at BYU. Two of the so-called "September Six" have found their way back into the LDS fold while Anderson though never rebaptized in some ways has never left. That's a good question. A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. 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. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. . They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. At least, that's how Hall sees it. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. The meaning of EXCOMMUNICATION is an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated Denver Snufferpersonalbordenver Carlos Snuffer Jr.Religion (Mormon Independent) Restoration Andsupra-Denominational Christian [1] Nationality Americanhome Townmountain House, Idahochildrensisx Daughters and Two Children [2] Alma Materdaniel Webster Junior Collegemcmurry UniversityBrigham Young University (JD, 1980) Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. His hiring was vetoed by the ASU administration, and many observers believe the administration caved to pressure from Ira Fulton, a Mormon donor who between 2003 and 2006 gave at least $155 million to the school. Packers involvement mattered because the Twelve Apostles are considered by devout Mormons to be prophets, seers, and revelators. If they directed the councils, then the excommunications were, essentially, a message from the churchs highest spiritual authorities about what Mormons were allowed to do andpublicly, at leastto say. They were receptive. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. 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. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. At Yale, while serving as one of two counselors to the local bishop, he found unanswered letters in the wards files from people who wished to leave the church. More painfully, as a high councilor in a Utah stake several years later, Quinn was part of courts prompted by personal sinsuch as engaging in homosexual acts. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. . When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. For the next year and a half, Quinn spent hours every week in the archives, taking detailed notes on diaries that belonged to 19th-century Mormon leaders, among other documents. She was upset that he was not attending church, and so he drove 45 minutes to a singles ward, a Mormon congregation specifically for unmarried adults, near UCLA. Peggy Fletcher Stack - The Salt Lake Tribune The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. 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. 2) I would very gladly swap my OSF compensation package with any member of the LDS First Presidency, Quorum of the 12 Apostles, or 1st Quorum of the Seventy. In 1989, Dallin H. Oaks, the onetime law professor and BYU president who was now an apostle, had given a talk called Alternate Voices at the churchs semiannual General Conference. Soon after, he happened to attend, with some friends, a meeting of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a splinter sect that believes Joseph Smiths son, not Brigham Young, was Smiths rightful successor as prophet. Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. In the early 90s, when he was living in New Orleans, Quinn, nearing his 50th birthday, tried his hand at fiction, going back to the literature he once studied as an undergraduate. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. Like Quinn, hed first become interested in Mormon history when he learned that polygamy had gone on for years after its public abandonmenthe knew about this because his mothers parents were among the secret polygamists. It did not happen overnight, but many LDS leaders seemed to regret the furor and the hurt that surrounded those excommunications. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. At least, that's how Hall sees it. When Benson asked why no one had stopped him, Oaks allegedly replied, You cant stage manage a grizzly bear. Benson resigned his Mormon membership shortly afterward and became a vocal opponent of the church his grandfather ostensibly led. I just feel such heartache that the church I love is doing this to people who are sincere and trying to find ways of being Mormon and express their love of the gospel. 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. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. memeorandum: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General I love the church. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. 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. On Tuesday morning, James J. Hamula was released from his position in the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after disciplinary Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. Hebrew scholar Avraham Gileadi has been rebaptized into the LDS Church after being excommunicated for apostasy along with five other writers and scholars in September 1993. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity.. And he continued to correspond with Paul Hanks, who had written to express his displeasure at seeing his words quoted in the newspaper. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) 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. Even after that, a few high-ranking Mormons continued to authorize such marriages. . The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. She has sat quietly in the same pew as the emblems of the sacrament, or communion, have passed by her more than 1,200 times without being able to partake. Peggy Fletcher Stack | The Christian Century SCHOLAR REBAPTIZED INTO LDS CHURCH - Deseret News Where a skeptic sees convenience, a believer may see Gods hand. By Peggy Fletcher Stack After an exhausting six-hour disciplinary hearing Sunday, Mormon leaders temporarily suspended Grant H. Palmer's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. [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. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. (Rick Bowmer/AP) This article is more than 8 years old. . He wept as he read it aloud to others. Arrington). West refused to do this, according to Quinn. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. It really hurt my feelings. 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. 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. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. Press J to jump to the feed. In 2001, a long-standing effort called the Joseph Smith Papers Project received additional funding and became a major draw to those who wished to study the early days of the church. In 1975, partly at Packers urging, Leonard Arringtons role at the church historians office was greatly diminished. They didn't say anything. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. My searching was complete. They had the responsibility to preserve the doctrinal purity of the church, they said, adding that, because Mormon leaders are constrained by confidentiality rules, the media have relied on information supplied by those disciplined or by their sympathizers. Similar councils occurred more sporadically over the next few years. Saturday, February 22, 1997. 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 . 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. Few people had attended the talk itself, but an independent BYU newspaper ran a story about it, and copies of Quinns remarks, titled On Being a Mormon Historian, began to circulate. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. (In 1985, an Arizona man filed an $18 million lawsuit against the LDS church for not allowing him to do so. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. When Hanks showed up on Quinns doorstep in Salt Lake City that February, he brought a letter citing two of Quinns articles and a statement Quinn made to a reporter in 1991 as evidence that he was an apostate. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return | Out of Obscurity She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) I cannot be anything but a Mormon. 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. 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. He left quietly and went to call the LDS Church Office Building to ask about this committee. The Salt Lake Tribune . Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. From an early age, he felt within himself the presence of God, this burning of the spirit, as he says. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. After organizing a massive campaign to pass Proposition 8 and make gay marriage illegal in California, for instance, the church suffered a massive backlash and has since appeared more tolerant toward gay rights activism. The regional council forwarded her request to church headquarters, with the recommendation that she be approved for rebaptism. 9:30AM EDT 8/29/2017 Peggy Fletcher Stack/RNS. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. 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. A forum for ex-mormons and others who have been affected by mormonism to get support and share news, commentary, and comedy about the Mormon church. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) 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. [Husband] Paul, Christian [their son] and I sang in the choir that day. He didn't seem to know what footnotes are so he thought I made the whole thing up. But he could no longer go to the temple. England said he knew about this espionage systemit was called the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and it compiled documents and highlighted statements considered critical of the church. The truth is not uplifting. Thats according to Quinnmy request to speak with Packer, whose health has badly deteriorated in recent years, was declined. He stinks.. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. D. Michael Quinn and Mormon excommunication: The complicated life of a While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . 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. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. Right next to Pauls was Lavinas description of her beliefs in Jesus Christ, Mormon founder Joseph Smith, the scriptural text he produced, The Book of Mormon, and the role of prophets. 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. 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. In the summer of 1952, the late Sterling McMurrin, an eminent philosopher and writer, met with two LDS apostles to defend his theological views.With complete candor, McMurrin laid out for Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold . While such a calling does not officially confer infallibility on the man who receives itand the general authorities are all malepublicly criticizing the men in these positions is strongly discouraged. The former LDS stake president, who oversaw a group of Mormon congregations in Tooele for eight years and worked as an architect on her faith's most sacred spaces, faced, in her mind, an impossible choice: Either return to living as a man or resign her . PDF Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. The Unholy Practice of Excommunication - Exponent II All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. . 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. Bradley and Hanks are friends who trod a lot of common ground, Robertson said. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack: How I report on Utah's changing faith landscape She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. The Mormon church holds two different kinds of disciplinary councils: a more elaborate process that is often reserved for those who hold the Melchizedek priesthoodgenerally speaking, all devout adult menand a simpler process mostly used for those who dontmeaning women and men who have not advanced far in the church. Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. 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. Ultimately, the events of September 1993 may have helped broaden those borderlands, encouraging other members of the faith to openly question Mormon orthodoxy without entirely leaving the religion behind. Maxine Hanks was held in the same stake center one week before, though she did not attend it. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The latter, a smaller school, offered less money, but BYU had its own drawbacks: It was and is a conservative place, politically as well as religiously. Mystery! That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful.