It sent him down a rabbit hole. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. 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. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. Hanks had already held one church court in Quinns absence, in July, at which Quinn was disfellowshipped. I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. In 1975 Stack helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies, and steered it for its first eleven years. Two years later, he was called as an apostle. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. Mystery! All rights reserved. Peggy Fletcher. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. It struck him as an old missionarys trick. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . How have the members of your ward treated you? . . A second bomb that first day killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of one of Christensens former business partners. Last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Speaking Tubes in the Household of Faith", "A Light Unto the World: Image Building Is Anathema to Christian Living", "From the Editors: Stretching Toward the Light", "From the Editors: A Failure to Communicate", "Church Historian: Evolution of a Calling", "Tales of a true believer: picking up faith along the way", "Books: Mormon Novels Entertain While Teaching Lessons", "Twenty Years Ago in Sunstone: Symbol and Promise", "Peggy Fletcher Stack: Happy 100th to my physicist father, who remains a truth seeker in science and faith", "Utahn who pioneered synthesized stereo sound will receive posthumous Grammy", "Despite Growth, Mormons Find New Hurdles", "Nobody Knows Religion Quite Like Peggy Fletcher Stack", "Religion Newswriters Association honors top religion reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2017 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Winners named in 2018 RNA Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence", "Journalism Awards - Winners and Articles", "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff", "Religion Newswriters Association announces 2008 contest winners", "Religion Newswriters Association names winners of 2015 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2016 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "SL Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack wins top religion reporting prize for fifth year", "Dreams, Dollars, and Dr. Pepper: Allen Roberts & Peggy Fletcher Years (19781980)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peggy_Fletcher_Stack&oldid=1124718303, "Nation's Founders: How Religious Were They? 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. Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. West did not formally revoke the recommend, he just put it in his drawer. . Or a great one, if possible: Since childhood, Quinn had been told by his grandmother that someday he would be an apostle of the church. In 1981, he gave an address to church educators called The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect, which was organized around four cautions. The second of them is this: There is a temptation for the writer or teacher of church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith-promoting or not. I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. I hate him. On the Sunday it was held, Quinn went to a movie theater in downtown Salt Lake and bought a ticket for the first screening he could find, to take his mind off the disciplinary council. In the spring, he had published LDS Authority and New Plural Marriages, 18901904, the culmination of his interest in post-1890 polygamy, first prompted a quarter-century before by Family Kingdom. This has been intentional. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. She was the editor of Hastings Center Report from 1986 until 1991, when she was hired to start the "Faith" column in the Salt Lake Tribune. 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 subsequently has . 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. . Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. By Peggy Fletcher Stack By David Noyce For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Mormon church has excommunicated one of its top leaders. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Gileadi, a Hebrew scholar who got into trouble for unorthodox writings about the biblical Isaiah, was rebaptized within several years. The Salt Lake Tribune . Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. West refused to do this, according to Quinn. But he had a caring bishop that first year and decided on his own to serve a mission. "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. Ive had more than one therapist Ive talked to about this issue say, Dont you see that you were purposely setting yourself up for this fall? he told me. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Anderson wrote another piece that was again picked up by multiple papers, including the Los Angeles Times, which ran it under the headline Mormons Investigating Him, Critic Says.. What I heard was that I would be excommunicated and that I shouldn't go. The other five people who were by then being referred to as the September Six had already faced their courts. 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. At least, that's how Hall sees it. Snuffer was excommunicated. 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 . Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. But he could no longer go to the temple. I did. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. The accused is called in, another prayer is offered, and the court proceeds. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. 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. 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. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. 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. 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. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. What's happening is so wrong. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. Then she was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male LDS priesthood and women's relationship to it. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church . 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. When he came to understand this aspect of himself, and learned a name for it, he did what was already typical of him at that age: He went to the library. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. 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. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. He contends that a former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had openly romantic feelings for men, and highlights a once hushed-up gay affair from the 1940s between a prominent church leader and a 21-year-old Mormon serving in the Navy. He normalized what many call "sinful" behavior, by admitting to looking at nudie mags, drinking, smoking, and intimated other transgressions, yet still going on a mission. 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. The stake president, a man named Paul Hanks, tried to step into the apartment as he said hello, Quinn recalls. This made some church leaders uneasy. By Peggy Fletcher Stack January 16, 2015 SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) John Dehlin, known to support same-sex marriage and the Ordain Women movement, said he expects "either disfellowshipment (i.e . Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. Using the familiar Christian metaphor of a lost sheep who listens for the one voice that can guide it back home, Oaks said Mormons should beware of alternate voices whose avowed or secret object is to deceive and devour the flock. Among the voices Oaks warned about were the ones heard in magazines, journals, and newspapers and at lectures, symposia, and conferences. At the same General Conference, another apostle said that a true stalwart of the church would not lend his or her good name to periodicals, programs, or forums that feature offenders who do sow discord among brethren. , When the Sunstone Symposium next convened, in the summer of 92, Lavina Fielding Anderson presented a paper on this growing conflict between leaders and intellectuals. He left it up to local leaders to come up with a reason. Many of the shifts in the church administration's position toward intellectuals recently has had to do with history and intellectual openness, while the issues driving Lavinas excommunication are still very much alive and unresolved today., It is possible, Bowman posits, there was fear that allowing for her rebaptism would send a signal on those issues that the First Presidency did not wish to send.. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. 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. (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. 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. Believers in Denver Snuffer's Remnant movement gather in a Sandy, Utah, home for a fellowship meeting on Aug. 13, 2017, to sing songs and partake of the sacrament. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. . After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. 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. He referred to the pathos that I felt in your private letters to mea plea to not be discarded from something that you love. I want to help resolve that pathos, he added, and a sadness that seems to pervade your private writing to me.. Paul usually sits on the outside of the pew, so when the sacrament comes, he shakes his head toward me so we don't have any socially embarrassing moments. McLean invited her, she said, to describe her faith in a letter, which includes her conviction that God cherishes everyone. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. 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. TV and newspaper reporters came. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". 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. Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. Even in the novels, he noticed, the gay characters came to terrible ends. SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists -- with political action and theological pronouncements on one . In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church's three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". Where else would I be but in the church? Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. ", "Guilt, pain, help and hope when Mormon missionaries come home early", "For a string of vivid reports revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University, one of Utah's most powerful institutions. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. Salt Lake City Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the LDS Church for being a woman. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. 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. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. 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. He loves cities, and when he lived in New Orleans in the early 90s, he made friends in bars and in an informal group of gay professionals who gathered once a month. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. 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. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) My searching was complete. He got up in front of the congregation and declared his belief in the Mormon gospel, in Joseph Smiths status as a prophet of God, and in the Book of Mormon as divine scripture. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . 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. What do you think about these potential actions against Kate Kelly and John Dehlin? 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. 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. 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. She talks very vaguely when it comes to personal, specific spiritual beliefs and whether they align with doctrine, but she doesn't hesitate to call the church out on its shit at all. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. Log In. There was no process for voluntary withdrawal from the Mormon Church in the 1960s, so each of these kids had to be excommunicatedtechnically, for apostasy. This was almost certainly wrong: Romney has plenty of LDS critics, most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.