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. How did you find out about the impending disciplinary hearing? The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. 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. 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. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. The biggest thing that got me was the excommunication of bill reel segment of the Mormon stories podcast. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. Right next to Pauls was Lavinas description of her beliefs in Jesus Christ, Mormon founder Joseph Smith, the scriptural text he produced, The Book of Mormon, and the role of prophets. 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. [5] They moved to Utah in 1991 when she was hired to be the religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune, where much of her reporting has focused on the LDS Church. Snuffer was excommunicated. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and . Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . This is maybe where John and I are very different. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] (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. But the third bomb, which badly injured but did not kill Hofmann, hinted at a tie to the salamander letter, a disputed historical document that Christensen had purchased from Hofmann a year before and which had inspired Quinns latest research project, a book eventually titled Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. Excommunication is a complicated and multi-layered process for sexual minorities in the church who choose to marry in a way that the church considers a "same sex" marriage. While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. 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. LDS bloggers issue statement of support More than 70 Mormon bloggers, representing a dozen or more websites, have signed a document, "Room for All in This Church," calling for "clemency" in the upcoming disciplinary councils for Kate Kelly and John Dehlin. When Benson asked why no one had stopped him, Oaks allegedly replied, You cant stage manage a grizzly bear. Benson resigned his Mormon membership shortly afterward and became a vocal opponent of the church his grandfather ostensibly led. Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. ", This page was last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21. The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. . Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. In 1975, partly at Packers urging, Leonard Arringtons role at the church historians office was greatly diminished. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. But it also betrayed tensions within the church that may never entirely go away. My dad was a bishop twice. The church declined to comment on the decision. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church's three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. I love Jesus. ", 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. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. I assumed there was a way to work it out. 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. Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu . Peggy Fletcher. With no regular income to speak of, Quinn moved into his mothers condo in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. At least, that's how Hall sees it. Ill come get him. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? She said hello, but he did not recognize her. One Sunday in February of 1993, Michael Quinn was home sick with a fever when his doorbell rang. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. 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. While preparing for the retired Brigham Young University artists memorial service, Bishop Mahonri Madrigal read Pauls written testimony, or statements of faith, that the ward had compiled in 2000. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. 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.. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Nor does it read like one. 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. When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. 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. Maxine Hanks was held in the same stake center one week before, though she did not attend it. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. Some did not know that they were. Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. 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. Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paul's mother was great. He never wrote another work of fiction. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. Nowadays, anyone can Google Mormon polygamy and learn more than theyd ever need to know about that practice, about its abandonment, the subsequent fallout, and so on. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. 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. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . 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. I had my answers.". After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. 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. 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. Kelly was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June. What's happening is so wrong. No way. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. My guess is she has to be to keep the doors open so people willing to talk to her. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". 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. 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. 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. Lavina Fielding Anderson may have been excommunicated from the LDS Church for apostasy more than 20 years ago, but don't think for a minute that this Utah writer is now an outsider to her faith. Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. 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. That, in any case, was his thinking. 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. Then she was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male LDS priesthood and women's relationship to it. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. The charge stems from Palmer's 2002 book, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which challenges the traditional explanations of the faith's founding . 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. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. 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. She declined. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. 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. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. 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. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. sltrib.com. 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. Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. In October, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that a threatening phone call had been made to the home of a local man named Michael D. Quinn. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. 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. 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. 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. (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 . The meaning of EXCOMMUNICATION is an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". For her part, Anderson always has felt a great sense of peace that I made a moral decision, an ethical decision, a decision of integrity and conscience, she wrote. (Rick Bowmer/AP) This article is more than 8 years old. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. TV and newspaper reporters came. If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. They never gave me one reason. Peggy Fletcher was raised in New Jersey, daughter of physicist Robert Chipman Fletcher and Rosemary Bennett, one of five girls and three boys. That night, we went over to our neighbors' house and watched "A Man for All Seasons" and ate popcorn. My strong hunch is that she is a cultural Mormon who no longer believes, pays tithing or observes the WoW, and that she's loosey-goosey with her attendance. See Photos. All rights reserved. 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. Hymns were sung. Peggy Fletcher Stack, David Noyce 3/23/2022. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. 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. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. Last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Speaking Tubes in the Household of Faith", "A Light Unto the World: Image Building Is Anathema to Christian Living", "From the Editors: Stretching Toward the Light", "From the Editors: A Failure to Communicate", "Church Historian: Evolution of a Calling", "Tales of a true believer: picking up faith along the way", "Books: Mormon Novels Entertain While Teaching Lessons", "Twenty Years Ago in Sunstone: Symbol and Promise", "Peggy Fletcher Stack: Happy 100th to my physicist father, who remains a truth seeker in science and faith", "Utahn who pioneered synthesized stereo sound will receive posthumous Grammy", "Despite Growth, Mormons Find New Hurdles", "Nobody Knows Religion Quite Like Peggy Fletcher Stack", "Religion Newswriters Association honors top religion reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2017 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Winners named in 2018 RNA Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence", "Journalism Awards - Winners and Articles", "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff", "Religion Newswriters Association announces 2008 contest winners", "Religion Newswriters Association names winners of 2015 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2016 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "SL Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack wins top religion reporting prize for fifth year", "Dreams, Dollars, and Dr. Pepper: Allen Roberts & Peggy Fletcher Years (19781980)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peggy_Fletcher_Stack&oldid=1124718303, "Nation's Founders: How Religious Were They? 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. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. He stinks.. By Peggy Fletcher Stack By David Noyce For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Mormon church has excommunicated one of its top leaders. The LDS church does not remove any name from the list unless the person is excommunicated, asks to be removed or is dead. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. I don't think I could have done that graciously. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Boyd Packer, left, and Dallin Oaks, right, Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wait for the start of the first session of the 181st Semiannual General Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church .