Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS 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 . In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church's three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward 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. Paul's mother was great. A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. I couldn't help but wonder if I, too, would be excommunicated if my concerns were made public. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. Whitesides says that Connie Chungs people asked her to take a hidden camera into her court. He rejected the idea that his writings and his comments to reporters about Mormon history warranted disciplinary action, and he had come to a kind of peace about what he was sure awaited him. In what dissidents have described as a purge, church leaders took severe disciplinary action in September against six Mormon scholars and feminists, the New York Times reported on Oct. 2, 1993. 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. When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. At the time, he was grieving the death of his son, who had gone missing and was found weeks later hanging from a tree by an extension cord. Gileadi was not part of the Sunstone and Dialogue circles that the others moved in; he had been writing and teaching popular workshops about biblical and Book of Mormon prophecies, which appear to have been deemed false doctrine by LDS leaders. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. The church's definition of "membership" includes all persons who were ever baptized, or whose parents were members while the person was under the age of eight (called "members . I accuse that committee, England declared, of undermining our Church.. From an early age, he felt within himself the presence of God, this burning of the spirit, as he says. If those top leaders did not know where he lived, then they could not assign him to a particular stake, and his church membership could not be threatened. He visited these homes with his missionary companion and asked the boys if they still wanted to be Mormons. He found me outside and was kind and helpful. Elder Packer, he told Quinn, will never get over this.. 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. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. It really hurt my feelings. 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. (In 1985, an Arizona man filed an $18 million lawsuit against the LDS church for not allowing him to do so. In September, Hanks wrote Quinn another letter, saying that he had listened, twice, to a recording of Quinns paper about the Baseball Baptism Program, delivered at the Sunstone Symposium that summer. But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. These dangers, Packer said, were the relatively new feminist and gay-lesbian movements, and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) 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. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. 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. Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? In the late 60s, he was called to preside over the churchs missionary efforts in New England, and moved with his family to Cambridge, Mass. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) 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. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. 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. She has been visited by all her ward and stake leaders since 1993, she said, but this was the first time anyone had ever proposed it. [Husband] Paul, Christian [their son] and I sang in the choir that day. [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. 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.. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. Timeline of teachings on homosexuality in the Church of Jesus Christ of 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. See Photos. Hed better start keeping it to himself. Then he made copies of his letter and Hanks letter and dropped them off at the offices of Vern Anderson and Peggy Fletcher Stack, a former Sunstone editor who had become a religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN ", Kelly goes on KUER's Radio West "A lot of people are asking me why I came forward [with the news of my disciplinary hearing]. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. [5] She then received a fellowship to work in the Church History Division of the LDS Church (then run by Leonard J. Where else would I be but in the church? LDS bloggers issue statement of support More than 70 Mormon bloggers, representing a dozen or more websites, have signed a document, "Room for All in This Church," calling for "clemency" in the upcoming disciplinary councils for Kate Kelly and John Dehlin. A member of that sect told Quinn about a since renounced bit of theology once preached by Brigham Young, referred to as the Adam-God doctrine. Youngs notion, roughly speaking, was that God and Adam are one and the same. He stinks.. One theory on that first day of panic was that the bombings were connected with the business, an investment company called CFS. 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. [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. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land, it says. I had a spiritual prompting that summer staying at my cabin that I wasn't to go. However, we believe that Latter-day Saints who are committed to the mission of their Church and the well-being of their fellow members will strive to be sensitive to those matters that are more appropriate for private conferring and correction than for public debate. There are times, they added, when public discussion of sacred or personal matters is inappropriate., The Statement on Symposia was another tear in the already fraying relationship between church leaders and scholars. In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . 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. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. or. After it was published, Hugh West, the president of his stake in Salt Lake CityQuinn never moved to Provo, finding the hourlong commute worth it to live in Utahs one metropolisasked to see him. Person 2 Person: Peggy Fletcher Stack | KUTV Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals, church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. . Supposedly Nelson, like Benson, was a supporter of the John Birch Society, a radically right-wing, conspiracy-mongering, anti-Communist group. When he went into his office, the bishop, a man named Tom Andersen, said hed read this article in the L.A. Times, Quinn told me. I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Today, its Nelson, with a new counselor, Oaks, instead of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. 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. sltrib.com. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. There is a peace that comes with that kind of clarity. Feb 17. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ.". Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. 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. But the Churchs case against Twede will never be known: After the Daily Beast story, the council was postponed, and a few weeks later, Twede resigned from the faith. He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. On March 23, 2018, Andersons husband, Paul, died of heart failure. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. My own name remains on the rolls of the church, and I plan to leave it there, though I stopped believing in the Mormon gospel 15 years ago. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. She did, however, tell her leaders her concerns about church exclusion policies: barring worthy LGBTQ couples who are legally married from full participation; blocking worthy and righteous women from the male-only priesthood; and keeping Mother in Heaven from her place in our understanding.. Mystery! 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. What I heard was that I would be excommunicated and that I shouldn't go. 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.. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) 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 had been a difficult year. Threat of Excommunication They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. It was his death and funeral that prompted the couples current bishop to bring up the possibility of her rejoining the church. He never wrote another work of fiction. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) The LDS church does not remove any name from the list unless the person is excommunicated, asks to be removed or is dead. Later that evening, having dinner alone, he felt a new sense of relief about what had happened so far and what he believed was about to happen. But it was a forgery. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. 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. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. 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. The handbook doesn't say you can't speak in class, just over the pulpit. 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. Two decades ago, Maxine Hanks could not have imagined where her spiritual journey would take her, but she knew this much: She would not likely be walking into the waters of Mormon baptism. There are three areas where members of the church, influenced by social and political unrest, are being caught up and led away, declared Boyd K. Packer, one of the churchs Twelve Apostles, in May 1993. 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. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. A diligent historian, meanwhile, will come to see that the truth of the matter is complicated. There were stretches of time when he was the only deacon, and he and I would exchange glances as he passed the sacrament to our row. He froze. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. We had stake [regional] conference in September. ", "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. . In her paper, she mentioned an internal espionage system that creates and maintains secret files on members of the church. A BYU literature professor named Eugene England rose to speak as soon as Anderson finished. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. . My parents never blamed me, but they were heartbroken. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. When his mother died in 2007, she left him the condo. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack was born and raised in New Jersey; studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California; traveled through Africa for two years with her news-photographer husband; and worked at Books and Religion in Manhattan before settling down as a religion writer at The Salt Lake Tribune. Denver Snuffer . In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. 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. However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 Peggy Fletcher Stack - Wikipedia Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. He was excommunicated in 1911. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. Ill come get him. 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. The truth is not uplifting. Thats according to Quinnmy request to speak with Packer, whose health has badly deteriorated in recent years, was declined. . [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. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. KRE/AMB END STACK BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. I prayed every article I wrote into print, he said, continually asking God what he should do. 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. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and . My stake president said in an email, if I [didn't] come forward and tell people that I am not a member in good standing, he would. [14] Along with five other reporters, she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 in the Local Reporting category for a series of stories about sexual assault victims at BYU. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. But he had a caring bishop that first year and decided on his own to serve a mission. On Friday , during a popular evening session of next week's Sunstone Symposium, an annual meeting for Mormon intellectuals and observers, Hanks will detail her 20-year spiritual sojourn as a feminist theologian and chaplain, which brought her full circle back into Mormonism. Press J to jump to the feed. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. 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. The regional council forwarded her request to church headquarters, with the recommendation that she be approved for rebaptism. 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. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. 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. I admire her. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. What's happening is so wrong. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. She embodies, more than anyone else I know, the ideal of a broken heart and contrite spirit, which has influenced me so strongly that I, the last time I checked, was one of only two of the 21 children of the September Six who is still an active member.. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. 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. Nor does it read like one. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. She is in the right family. Just before his excommunication, in the spring of 1993, Quinn bore his testimony at the singles ward he was attending each week in Westwood, near UCLA. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. In May, my stake president called me in about it. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward 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.