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. 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. During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. Packer approved Quinns hiring, but he may have come to regret it five years later. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. 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. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. This made some church leaders uneasy. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 On March 23, 2018, Andersons husband, Paul, died of heart failure. Peggy Fletcher Stack | The Christian Century Hymns were sung. 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. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. There would be quite a number of people in the Mormon community who would look unfavorably on that. Later that year, Quinn was recommended for a one-year appointment at Arizona State. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. In a detailed confession, Hofmann said that he had secretly stopped believing in Mormonism as a teenager and had hatched a plan to embarrass the church by creating fake documents that exposed uncomfortable facts about early Mormon history. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances See Photos. 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. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. She is in the right family. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? He decided that only 16 of the changes were significant. By Peggy Fletcher Stack June 23, 2015 Many Mormon feminists experienced Kate Kelly's excommunication as a harsh slap felt around the world. It really hurt my feelings. 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 . Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. They never gave me one reason. 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. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Log In. Peggy Fletcher. She was also the only one whose disciplinary council was overseen by her bishop, rather than her stake president. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook 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. All rights reserved. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. In 1975, partly at Packers urging, Leonard Arringtons role at the church historians office was greatly diminished. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. A history full of benignly angelic church leaders apparently advocated by Elders Benson and Packer would, he said, border on idolatry.. Caffeinated Version: 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. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. 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. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. 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. The kindness of my ward members has been really important. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. 9:30AM EDT 8/29/2017 Peggy Fletcher Stack/RNS. All rights reserved. I love the gospel. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward I had never been treated as a liar before. "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. Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. 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. He was excommunicated in 1911. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. Looking back, it was a real blessing. 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.. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Taylor fled to Canada during the congressional hearings for Reed Smoot, a fellowbut monogamousapostle, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate. In May, my stake president called me in about it. 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. Those 15 men oversee the multiple Quorums of the Seventy, who in turn direct the stake presidents and bishops who minister to congregations on a part-time, voluntary basis. Sunstone The spiritual journey of Maxine Hanks, one of the "September Six,'" comes full circle. What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? McLean invited her, she said, to describe her faith in a letter, which includes her conviction that God cherishes everyone. JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK In October, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that a threatening phone call had been made to the home of a local man named Michael D. Quinn. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and . At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. . 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. Paul's mother was great. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". memeorandum: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General I love the church. I had received a blessing from a former stake president, assuring me that when the time was right, it would come very easily, so I could be at peace. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. But by the fall of 92 he had to return to Salt Lake City to finish research on the book, and he had grown tired of hiding from church authorities. "We pray that a spirit of clemency will guide the words and actions of everyone especially those who bear the heavy responsibility of ecclesiastical discipline of church members and that the words of President [Dieter F.] Uchtdorf [second counselor in faith's governing First Presidency] will hold sway: "Regardless of your circumstances, your personal history, or the strength of your testimony, there is room for you in this church. Whitesides says that Connie Chungs people asked her to take a hidden camera into her court. Salt Lake City Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the LDS Church for being a woman. [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. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. 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. A missionary who doesn't want to preach false doctrine A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. 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. He subsequently has . The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . We had stake [regional] conference in September. But he had a caring bishop that first year and decided on his own to serve a mission. She declined. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. 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. In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. They dont acquire these positions by filling out an application and sending in a rsum. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. 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. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . I had a spiritual prompting that summer staying at my cabin that I wasn't to go. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. Ill come get him. And the Tribune is changing with it. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. 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.. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. He wept as he read it aloud to others. 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. 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. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. 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. ", Kelly writes in London's Guardian newspaper "For me it is because of my faith and not in spite of it that I have a desire to stand up for myself and my sisters. . Bradley and Hanks are friends who trod a lot of common ground, Robertson said. He has occasionally attended other churches. I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. 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. After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading. 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. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. I could listen to the spirit there. . Disciplinary councils still happen, though they appear to be less frequent, particularly when it comes to apostasy. In an April 1968 talk about military service, he described the restless, unchallenged young people who are repudiating their citizenship responsibilities by avoiding and protesting the draft. They divorced soon after. 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. 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. Arrington). [5][7][8] From 1978 to 1986, she was the third editor of Sunstone. It will be published next year. He, the bishop, and the other counselor held the necessary courts, excommunicating those who wanted out. Gileadi, Toscano, Anderson, and Hanks were all excommunicated. I assured him I did not. Packer, the second-most senior among the 12, was the substitute president of the Quorum of the Twelve whenever Hunter was sidelined for medical reasons. It went back to his college years. While the simpler approach is handled by a bishop and his two counselors, the more elaborate version is run by a stake president, and it involves not only his two counselors but the stakes high council, a group of 12 men. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. 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. When his mother died in 2007, she left him the condo. The prophet at the time was Ezra Taft Benson, who, at age 94, was mostly incapacitated. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. By Chris Jorgensen and Peggy Fletcher Stack The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is purging hundreds of Mormon dissidents who church officials say are preoccupied unduly with Armageddon. He looked in the card catalog under pervert, which was the word his grandmother had used after he told her that another kid at church had been groping him. 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 . It was the papers second article in two weeks about a series of church courts held across 13 days in September and reported in media outlets across the country. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. Photo by George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. In Mormon history circles, this period is often called the Camelot years., After those 18 months, Quinn left for Yale to do a Ph.D. and finished it in just three years. Hanks had already held one church court in Quinns absence, in July, at which Quinn was disfellowshipped. I cannot be anything but a Mormon. [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. 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. 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. When something like [my excommunication] blows up, the first casualty is trust and that never comes back. (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) Find your friends on Facebook. 2012. In 1981, he produced a blessing allegedly given by Joseph Smith to his son Joseph Smith III, declaring him my successor in the Presidency of the High Priesthood. The document was partly inspired, it appears, by The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, which refers to such a blessing. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. 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) Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. He froze. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. In 1981, Quinn was asked by the colleges chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, a national honor society for history students, to respond to The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect. He did not pull his punches. 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. People named Peggy Fletcher. (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. Hed read the essay about women and the priesthood, and he asked Quinn to speak on the subject at an upcoming fireside, an informal evening meeting often held at Mormon meetinghouses. Hi, Peggy. 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It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. I don't think I could have done that graciously. If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. 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 . 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. The Bible and the Book of Mormon, which depict flawed, human prophets, are, Quinn said, an absolute refutation of the kind of history Packer advocated. Just go to . 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. But multiple faculty members argued that, in the words of one professor, Mike was not the right person to head up any kind of Mormon history or Mormonstudies program given the fact hes very publicly excommunicated.
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