Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. I just feel such heartache that the church I love is doing this to people who are sincere and trying to find ways of being Mormon and express their love of the gospel. Feb 17. People named Peggy Fletcher. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. 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. Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. 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. During the hiring process, a college dean offered to protect him, Quinn says, from those peoplethe LDS leadersup in Salt Lake., Before he could be hired, though, he had to visit LDS headquarters at 47 East South Temple in downtown Salt Lake and sit for an interview with one of those peoplespecifically, a general authority, one of the 100 or so men who run the church. Photo by George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. 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 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. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. 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. News. 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. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. From an early age, he felt within himself the presence of God, this burning of the spirit, as he says. . It will be published next year. 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. After the church court, when I walked into the chapel, it took about three times longer to get to my seat because so many people hugged me. [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. 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. It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. He has occasionally attended other churches. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. 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. 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. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. 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. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. 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. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. Snuffer was excommunicated. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) 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 . If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. (Benson died in 94, Hunter in 95.) Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. This was almost certainly wrong: Romney has plenty of LDS critics, most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. . As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity.. 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. ", 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]. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. In 1975 Stack helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies, and steered it for its first eleven years. 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.. 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. The seventh son of Taylors third wife, Samuel sympathetically portrays his notorious father, who continued to marry multiple wives well after the LDS church officially renounced polygamy in 1890. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. 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. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. 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. While Packers precise involvement remains a matter of dispute, what little is known hints at his interference. 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. [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. 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. He found me outside and was kind and helpful. A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. 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. 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. He wept as he read it aloud to others. 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. That was my decision. 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. 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. 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. [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. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. With his background in education, he became interested in how the church taught its own past, and decided he did not like what was going on at the church historians office. 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. Peggy Fletcher. 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. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. 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. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. I don't think I could have done that graciously. But it was a forgery. The biggest thing that got me was the excommunication of bill reel segment of the Mormon stories podcast. To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. Many religions have strictures that establish who is in and who is out, but the Mormon church draws a brighter line than most. The movie was a live-action adaptation of the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. 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. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. Today, its Nelson, with a new counselor, Oaks, instead of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. The Salt Lake Tribune . Looking back, it was a real blessing. In his Yale dissertation, Quinn examined the highest leadership of the LDS church as a social elite, focusing on the extensive family ties within the hierarchy, the considerable wealth of Mormon authorities, and their long-standing involvement in politics. My parents never blamed me, but they were heartbroken. When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. TV and newspaper reporters came. On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . One theory on that first day of panic was that the bombings were connected with the business, an investment company called CFS. Kelly was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June. That, in any case, was his thinking. I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. [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. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. 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 himself did not even stay in town. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. It is also worth noting that the church president in 1993 was an ailing Ezra Taft Benson. was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . 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. [5] She then received a fellowship to work in the Church History Division of the LDS Church (then run by Leonard J. Just go to . What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? In 1999, she joined the Interfaith Roundtable for the 2002 Winter Olympics, where she enjoyed the association of representatives from various faiths and led the annual Interfaith Week. 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. On Oct. 16, 1985, Quinn was having a late lunch at a BYU food court when he heard a news report that Mark Hofmann had been blown up by a pipe bomb in Salt Lake City. I assumed there was a way to work it out. Her sincere belief in Jesus and determination to follow him no matter the adversity faced within or without the church should be commended, and this good and faithful servant should be rewarded, he wrote. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) Few people had attended the talk itself, but an independent BYU newspaper ran a story about it, and copies of Quinns remarks, titled On Being a Mormon Historian, began to circulate. In hindsight, the purge of September 1993 looks like the last big push for a kind of control that LDS leaders will probably never have again. Article type . 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. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . Peggy Fletcher Stack. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. They dont acquire these positions by filling out an application and sending in a rsum. He acknowledged to me that, of course, it is possible to find outlets for service outside of Mormonism. Quinns parents were divorced when he was 4, and he was raised largely by his mothers parents, who frequently fought. Disciplinary councils still happen, though they appear to be less frequent, particularly when it comes to apostasy. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. 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. She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. 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. Ill come get him. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. 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. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. 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. Maybe she wants to be, though. 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. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. 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. 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. 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. Sunstone The spiritual journey of Maxine Hanks, one of the "September Six,'" comes full circle. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? It really hurt my feelings. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. 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. The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. After organizing a massive campaign to pass Proposition 8 and make gay marriage illegal in California, for instance, the church suffered a massive backlash and has since appeared more tolerant toward gay rights activism. Hanks was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male priesthood and womens relationship to it. When something like [my excommunication] blows up, the first casualty is trust and that never comes back. sltrib.com. On Tuesday morning, James J. Hamula was released from his position in the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after disciplinary Gileadi, a Hebrew scholar who got into trouble for unorthodox writings about the biblical Isaiah, was rebaptized within several years. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. 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. 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. [5][7][8] From 1978 to 1986, she was the third editor of Sunstone. By Peggy Fletcher Stack January 3, 2013. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and writing about the biblical oracle Isaiah's prophecies about our time has been rebaptized into the faith. 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. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. 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. Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. I didn't have any doubts. Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . Log In. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. 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.. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. Hi, Peggy. Peggy Fletcher. But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. 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. Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. He was housesitting. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) At Yale, while serving as one of two counselors to the local bishop, he found unanswered letters in the wards files from people who wished to leave the church. Where a skeptic sees convenience, a believer may see Gods hand. . They never gave me one reason. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. My searching was complete. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. "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. He moved back to Utah and began receiving mail at his actual address. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. Quinn got hate mail. Before the first court, Whitesides and Anderson alerted friends and the press, and word spread quickly. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". 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. 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. 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. We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. 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. 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. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated.