was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. He developed a fervent testimony not only that God exists but that God spoke to Joseph Smith face to face and that the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are, like the Old and New Testaments, divinely inspired. Mormon author Grant H. Palmer has been summoned to an LDS Church disciplinary hearing on Sunday, facing possible excommunication for apostasy. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. Stack has received and been nominated for multiple awards. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax 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. 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 . 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. That came out in early 1993. I have kept my covenants, remained close to the church and have felt that what I have done is accepted by the Lord, the Salt Lake City editor and writer said. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. Taylor fled to Canada during the congressional hearings for Reed Smoot, a fellowbut monogamousapostle, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate. I prayed every article I wrote into print, he said, continually asking God what he should do. Peggy Fletcher Stack (@religiongal) / Twitter This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. But that was not how he experienced it. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Hebrew scholar Avraham Gileadi has been rebaptized into the LDS Church after being excommunicated for apostasy along with five other writers and scholars in September 1993. He was the first academic to occupy the post, previously held only by high-ranking LDS leaders, and his appointment signaled a broader effort to reorganize the historians office along professional lines. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. 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.. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ.". A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances 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. Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. He never wrote another work of fiction. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. 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. I have been doing that for 18 years. How did you find out about the impending disciplinary hearing? 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. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. That's a good question. A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. We had been home about 20 minutes when two high counselors came to our house and delivered a letter, inviting me to a disciplinary hearing two weeks from that day. ", 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. Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, nearly fainted waiting for the Dalai Lama, fasted with Muslims during Ramadan and has reported on 50 consecutive semiannual LDS General Conferences. 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. Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to It struck him as an old missionarys trick. I cannot be anything but a Mormon. He moved back to Utah and began receiving mail at his actual address. 1511: Mormon Stories Transparency Q&A for Peggy Fletcher Stack and Tony (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. Today, its Nelson, with a new counselor, Oaks, instead of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. 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. 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? We were sitting in the front room of a house owned by a gay couple he knows in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Salt Lake City. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. What's happening is so wrong. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. 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. She has sat quietly in the same pew as the emblems of the sacrament, or communion, have passed by her more than 1,200 times without being able to partake. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. "Mormon facing excommunication makes his living off his podcasts," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 2015 "On Attempts to Smear (i.e., Being 'Fair Gamed'") by John Dehlin ; Faith Transition episodes on Mormon Stories . http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Whitesides says that Connie Chungs people asked her to take a hidden camera into her court. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. Late last year, a friend approached LDS officials to say that Hanks was ready to return to the fold. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. A forum for ex-mormons and others who have been affected by mormonism to get support and share news, commentary, and comedy about the Mormon church. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. But it was a forgery. The four-day symposium, which begins Wednesday evening, also will include dozens of sessions about Mormonism and politics, about how members grapple with contemporary issues such as gay rights and feminism, building online LDS communities, Mormon Latino views of the church's immigration stance and how the Utah-based faith has developed its "brand" in the past several decades. I could imagine the First Presidency thinking that this is not an episode worth revisiting, Bowman wrote in an email. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. Ill come get him. She was struck by how frail he appeared, and found herself feeling nothing but compassion and love for a man who had once seemed like an enemy. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. Quinn read fiction, too, including James Baldwins new book, Giovannis Room. 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. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . Feb 17. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Would love to hear your stories about her. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading. A history full of benignly angelic church leaders apparently advocated by Elders Benson and Packer would, he said, border on idolatry.. 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. 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. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . Later he was told that despite his request that no one speak for him, a friend had attended and done just that, playing recordings of Quinns presentations at past Sunstone Symposia and reading excerpts from his writings. There have always been dissidents in the Mormon ranksthe religion itself is one particularly dramatic dissent from the rest of Christian traditionbut a new community of Mormon intellectuals had coalesced in the 1960s and 70s. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. 1) I am very proud that, unlike the LDS Church, I have been transparent regarding OSF finances and my own compensation. . The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. 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. LDS author disfellowshipped - Rick Alan Ross PDF Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated - World Tile The latter, a smaller school, offered less money, but BYU had its own drawbacks: It was and is a conservative place, politically as well as religiously. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. 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. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. Hanks return predated the Ordain Women movement, which pushed for women to join the faiths priesthood, said Latter-day Saint scholar Matthew Bowman, who heads the Mormon studies program at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. Dubbed the September Six, the group were mostly left-leaning writers and scholars who had published articles or given talks about the role of women in Mormonism and the way the churchs leaders handle dissent. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. Person 2 Person: Peggy Fletcher Stack | KUTV How is Peggy Fletcher Stack still Mormon? : r/exmormon - reddit 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. In the early 90s, when he was living in New Orleans, Quinn, nearing his 50th birthday, tried his hand at fiction, going back to the literature he once studied as an undergraduate. But he could no longer go to the temple. He also criticized Ezra Taft Benson, then a senior apostle, who had made comments similar to Packers. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. 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. 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 am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. He left quietly and went to call the LDS Church Office Building to ask about this committee. Where else would I be but in the church? Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. 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. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. (Benson died in 94, Hunter in 95.) Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. From an early age, he felt within himself the presence of God, this burning of the spirit, as he says. Quinn refused. Mormons devote one sacrament meeting each month to personal testimonies, and Quinn was sure this would be his last opportunity to offer his in church. After 18 months, he moved to New Orleans, where it was less expensive to live. At least, that's how Hall sees it. ``It was like `We're here to support you, Brother Gileadi,' '' he said of the atmosphere at the . Sign Up. She has participated as much as she was able playing the piano and singing in the choir and watched as seven lay bishops have come and gone. 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. 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. While Packers precise involvement remains a matter of dispute, what little is known hints at his interference. Bradley and Hanks are friends who trod a lot of common ground, Robertson said. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017 . There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. [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. It did not happen overnight, but many LDS leaders seemed to regret the furor and the hurt that surrounded those excommunications. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. 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. 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 Mormon church, he said, drew him out of his largely monastic life and compelled him to help the men and women he saw every Sunday. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. 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. [5][7][8] From 1978 to 1986, she was the third editor of Sunstone. He visited these homes with his missionary companion and asked the boys if they still wanted to be Mormons. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) Sunstone The spiritual journey of Maxine Hanks, one of the "September Six,'" comes full circle. He had also just published an article titled The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, which detailed the confusion about who should succeed Joseph Smith after his assassination. Some, perhaps, simply regretted the bad press. I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. 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. The former LDS stake president, who oversaw a group of congregations in Tooele for eight years and worked as an architect on her faith's most sacred spaces, faced, in her mind, an . Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu . by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. The intellectual climate had improved under Oaks, people said. The institutional churchs position toward its intellectual community has shifted slowly and subtly but in real ways in the past 30 years; it is possible that there is a worry that allowing for her rebaptism would unearth battles the present First Presidency would like to let lie buried and spur a public relitigation of the issue., Secondly, the controversies surrounding Anderson had a great deal to do with feminism in the church and with ecclesiastical dissent, he said. 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. I love the gospel. Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. I could listen to the spirit there. It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack has been reporting on faith and religion since 1991. Until 23 years ago, one could not formally leave the church without being excommunicated. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. 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. 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.. They didn't say anything. My dad was a bishop twice. 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 was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. 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. He subsequently has . JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK He was housesitting. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Quinn was convinced, in any case, that his fate in any disciplinary council was predetermined, that Boyd K. Packer wanted him out of the church and Hanks was going to make it happen. 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. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. 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 . 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. Which has also, it seems, made Michael Quinns singular focus on the unspoken parts of the Mormon past less relevant to younger historians, who operate with more freedom and less pressureand who draw far more interest than their predecessors from the wider world, which has suddenly become fascinated by Mormonism. His hiring was vetoed by the ASU administration, and many observers believe the administration caved to pressure from Ira Fulton, a Mormon donor who between 2003 and 2006 gave at least $155 million to the school. Woodruff himself said in his journal that he was acting for the temporal salvation of the church, and the 1890 Manifestoas his official statement is knownwas not immediately taken to be a divine revelation. 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. 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. 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. Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. She declined. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. (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.) I heard she's not Mormon at all. 2) I would very gladly swap my OSF compensation package with any member of the LDS First Presidency, Quorum of the 12 Apostles, or 1st Quorum of the Seventy. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? [9] She started the "Faith" column after a discussion with Tribune editor Jay Shelledy. After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. 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. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. 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.. "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. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. The stake president, a man named Paul Hanks, tried to step into the apartment as he said hello, Quinn recalls.