She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. All rights reserved. See Photos. I always felt that I had Gods sanction and encouragement, so I went ahead following that path. Even early on, a fellow Mormon historian started telling Quinn he must have a death wish regarding his membership in the church. 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. 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. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. 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. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. 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. He was in a wheelchair. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. . That was my decision. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. . disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals, church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". When something like [my excommunication] blows up, the first casualty is trust and that never comes back. Neither Paul nor I nor Christian had to field a single negative comment the next week, when we went to church in our ward. 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. 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. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. 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. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) At its worst, such talk is sometimes called speaking evil of the Lords anointed.. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. All rights reserved. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. At least, that's how Hall sees it. [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. 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. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. By then, Quinn had more or less moved on. (Quinn attempted to reach this friend through a third party before my piece was finished, but declined to give me his name before speaking to him.) How have the members of your ward treated you? The president in 2012, when Hanks was readmitted, was Thomas S. Monson. Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. 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. 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. 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. It will be published next year. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; 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. 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. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) 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. Sign Up. Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . 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. But Packer certainly said similar things before larger audiences. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. 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. 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. All rights reserved. Last month, for instance, the Daily Beast reported that a blogger named David Twede was facing excommunication because of critical pieces he had written about Mitt Romney. 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.. When the men from the stake presidency came to his door in February, Quinn was living three blocks from the Salt Lake Temple and the worldwide headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is also worth noting that the church president in 1993 was an ailing Ezra Taft Benson. On Sunday with similar church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin, Anderson discussed her spiritual journey: What triggered the LDS Church's disciplinary action against you? . 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. . . Hundreds of other members joined him at gatherings and in small groups, and thus was born the "remnant movement ," which today touts 1000s of adherents. 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. He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. I did the very best I knew how to do, the thing that I felt was the right thing to do., Donate to the newsroom now. Elder Packer, he told Quinn, will never get over this.. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. Denver Snuffer . Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . 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. Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. But some simply baptized the boysa few without explaining what the baptisms were for. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. In 1961, when Michael Quinn was a devout Mormon of 17, his best friends girlfriend gave him a copy of Family Kingdom, a biography of the one-time apostle John W. Taylor. 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. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. 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. Peggy Fletcher. From an early age, he felt within himself the presence of God, this burning of the spirit, as he says. He was excommunicated by the LDS Church in 2013 for refusing to cease publication of his 2011 book, Passing the Heavenly Gift which challenges many points of LDS orthodoxy. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. It had been a difficult year. (KUTV) Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion writer for the The Salt Lake Tribune.It's the best beat on the paper, she said.Stack fell into the job when she was hired in 1991.I have no degree in . . In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. 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. 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.. 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. 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. What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? And he based at least one of his forgeries on the work of Michael Quinn. 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. His father was never Mormon: The son of Mexican immigrants, he changed his namethough never legallyfrom Daniel Pea to Donald Quinn, apparently wanting to escape his heritage as well as his poverty. 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. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. Part of what I feel is a calling to be there. I love Jesus. Feb 17. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. That higher-ranking leader, James Paramore, had further instructed West to say that the decision was Wests own, and had not come from above. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . That came out in early 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. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. After reading Peggy Fletcher Stack's article (linked in April's post), I realized that many of us share Lavina's ongoing concerns, including the exclusion of women from institutional authority and the side-stepping of the Heavenly Mother doctrine. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. The Mormon intellectual community far and wide is mourning the loss of Linda King Newell. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. It is always harder on the loved one who has to stand by and see someone they love being hurt. I did. Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, and one of the founders of Sunstone. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. Arrington). I was removed from that situation. . He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 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. If her reentry had been approved, Anderson would have been the third of the six the other five are Avraham Gileadi, Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano and Maxine Hanks to be welcomed back into full fellowship with the Utah-based faith. ", 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. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. Wilkinson was reprimanded, though, and in 1970 he was replaced by Dallin H. Oaks, a law professor at the University of Chicago who had clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. 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. 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. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. One of the central questions in the aftermath of Septembers events was just how involved Packer himself had been in them. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. During Quinns New Orleans years, the First Presidency put out a statement discouraging Mormons from participating in academic conferences and other independent forums devoted to the discussion of their faith. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. It did not happen overnight, but many LDS leaders seemed to regret the furor and the hurt that surrounded those excommunications. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. While Packers precise involvement remains a matter of dispute, what little is known hints at his interference. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Quinn had been avoiding this confrontation for nearly five years. Gileadi, a Hebrew scholar who got into trouble for unorthodox writings about the biblical Isaiah, was rebaptized within several years. Press J to jump to the feed. 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. See Photos. Taylor fled to Canada during the congressional hearings for Reed Smoot, a fellowbut monogamousapostle, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate. Bad marriages had women running to and away from . Maybe she wants to be, though. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. At the conference, he spoke about the history of same-sex relationships in the church and the shifting attitudes toward them on the part of Mormon leaders. 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.. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. 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. I asked Quinn this past summer if he thought the provocations he penned as a historian might have been fueled on some level by his own inner conflict with Mormon teachingsif perhaps, unconsciously, he wanted to force a showdown with church authorities. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. 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.. Quinns parents were divorced when he was 4, and he was raised largely by his mothers parents, who frequently fought. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. 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.
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