I couldn't help but wonder if I, too, would be excommunicated if my concerns were made public. I was removed from that situation. Today, LDS leaders seem more inclined to recognize, said Wotherspoon, now host of the "Mormon Matters" podcast, "that Zion is made up of people of all types. 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 . 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Peggy Fletcher Stack. The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. Quinn studied English literature in collegehe attended BYUbut during his three-year stint in the military he decided to become a historian, and make what had become a consuming pastime into his profession. 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. ", 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]. Peggy Fletcher Stack / Salt Lake Tribune: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General Conference, is excommunicated Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones. The book won an award from the American Historical Association, but it brought Quinn more grief in Utah. When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. The stake president, who oversees a number of congregations, remained optimistic, she said, zeroing in on the words, at this time., But the writer replied, Theres hope, and then theres experience., Besides, she said, it was a form letter.. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. 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. [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. 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. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. 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.. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . Hanks had already held one church court in Quinns absence, in July, at which Quinn was disfellowshipped. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". I had my answers.". There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. 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. By declining to talk with any priesthood leaders, he wrote, you are cutting yourself off from the blessings of the Temple and the blessings of the priesthood. He insinuated that the churchs problems with Quinn were not all theological. That came out in early 1993. That, in any case, was his thinking. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. News. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. 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. He was excommunicated in 1911.
Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 Quinn was shocked that it took that long. He froze. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. 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. 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. 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. He decided that only 16 of the changes were significant. It went back to his college years. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. We had stake [regional] conference in September. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 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. 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. 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. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. 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 church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) 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. Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. 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.
1511: Mormon Stories Transparency Q&A for Peggy Fletcher Stack and Tony According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. The men at his door were the local stake president and his two counselors, the men responsible for overseeing all the congregations in the area. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. (In 1985, an Arizona man filed an $18 million lawsuit against the LDS church for not allowing him to do so. Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church . By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. Anderson was excommunicated for an article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought that described episodes of what she called ecclesiastical abuse of Latter-day Saint intellectuals. Woodwards piece, headlined Apostles vs. Historians, called Quinns talk a stirring defense of intellectual integrity that had put Benson and Packer on the defensive. It was illustrated with a large photograph of Quinn up top, and a considerably smaller one of Packer. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? 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. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. He was troubled by the openness with which materials were being made available to certain individuals other than those authorized, according to Lucile C. Tates admiring 1995 biography, Boyd K. Packer: Watchman on the Tower. 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.. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . At least, that's how Hall sees it. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare.
Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" 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. 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. 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. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case.
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.
A missionary who doesn't want to preach false doctrine (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.
Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. It was already, in the minds of some, a dangerous pursuit, and it had now become a deadly one, marred by fraud and riddled with errors. The church declined to comment on the decision. Some did not know that they were. The regional council forwarded her request to church headquarters, with the recommendation that she be approved for rebaptism. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. A former BYU professor named David Wright was excommunicated in 1994 after publishing a paper arguing that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient text. It was, Quinn told me, an awful, awful year., When he had recovered enough to write, Quinn finished the sequel to The Mormon Hierarchy and revised Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. The kindness of my ward members has been really important. 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.
Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook These three shocks to Quinns testimonyabout the Book of Mormon, polygamy, and LDS theologyspurred a pursuit to unearth and understand those parts of his religions past that complicated the simpler story of the faith he had learned as a child. 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. 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.
Peggy Fletcher Stack - Wikipedia [5], The Stacks traveled in Africa for a year,[5] then settled in New York City for five years,[1] where she worked as the editor of the Hastings Center Report while her husband attended film school.
A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. "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. 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. One Sunday in February of 1993, Michael Quinn was home sick with a fever when his doorbell rang. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. At first, his timing appeared serendipitous: In 1972, while he was completing a masters in history at the University of Utah, an academic named Leonard Arrington was appointed church historian. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. 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. 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. I didn't have any doubts. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. . It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. 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. 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. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hanks worked for the Church Educational System, where Packer had long been an administrator, and Quinn heard that Loren C. Dunn, a friend of Packers and fellow general authority, had spoken to Hanks personally. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] Peggy Fletcher. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ.". Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. Stack has received and been nominated for multiple awards. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] 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.
LDS author disfellowshipped - Rick Alan Ross Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts.
", Hanks is a "genuinely spiritual person and quite insightful, who brings a type of spirituality with her that will resonate with lots of people," he said.
The Unholy Practice of Excommunication - Exponent II As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity..