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. Elder Packer, he told Quinn, will never get over this.. 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 . In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. In 1997, the acclaimed historian Richard Bushman, who spent much of his career writing on non-LDS topics, began studying his religion again in earnest, and convened an annual seminar that helped attract young scholars who might have pursued other interests. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. He froze. I hate him. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. 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. "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 have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. 9:30AM EDT 8/29/2017 Peggy Fletcher Stack/RNS. 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 . Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. 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. 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. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. 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. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. 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. That was my decision. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. 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. Hofmann eventually became, in the words of one expert, the most skilled forger this country has ever seen. For LDS leaders nervous about church history, he was a nightmare personified: a lying, murderous man hell-bent on embarrassing the religion while glorifying and enriching himself. Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. "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. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) He took a fellowship at the Huntington Library, near his hometown of Pasadena, Calif., and began indexing his enormous collection of notes on old Mormon documents, in preparation for his next book. The other five people who were by then being referred to as the September Six had already faced their courts. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. . 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 . When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. 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. I love the gospel. I had my answers.". Log In. 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. 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. What I heard was that I would be excommunicated and that I shouldn't go. But that was not how he experienced it. Bad marriages had women running to and away from . Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. 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. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Paul's mother was great. Peggy Fletcher. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. 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. At its worst, such talk is sometimes called speaking evil of the Lords anointed.. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. They cited a 19th-century revelation to Joseph Smith, in which he spoke of the saints gathering up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them, and said that perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat. The First Presidency did not mention that when Smith received this revelation he was in prison in Missouri, where a Mormon extermination order had been decreed by the governor not long before. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. 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. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". Peggy Fletcher was raised in New Jersey, daughter of physicist Robert Chipman Fletcher and Rosemary Bennett, one of five girls and three boys. 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. What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? A second bomb that first day killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of one of Christensens former business partners. Part of what I feel is a calling to be there. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. He was in a wheelchair. Hi, Peggy. Peggy Fletcher Stack was born and raised in New Jersey; studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California; traveled through Africa for two years with her news-photographer husband; and worked at Books and Religion in Manhattan before settling down as a religion writer at The Salt Lake Tribune. He had become a father figure of sorts, even officiating at Quinns marriage ceremony. . Kelly was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June. 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. [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. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". He left quietly and went to call the LDS Church Office Building to ask about this committee. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. The September Six were six members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who were excommunicated or disfellowshipped by the church in September 1993, allegedly for publishing scholarly work against or criticizing church doctrine or leadership. Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, published in 1996, argues that same-sex intimacy was much more accepted by early Mormonsincluding Joseph Smiththan it is today. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. 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. I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. ", Hanks' rebaptism suggests a difference in LDS leadership from then to now, said Dan Wotherspoon, Sunstone's editor from 2001 to 2008. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . . He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. 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. 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. Article type . Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. The field has grown and appears to have moved on, even though the research that Quinn did, and the fights that he picked, were crucial to what has come in his wake. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. After Paul Toscano was excommunicated, Steve Benson, grandson of the then Mormon prophet, met privately with the apostles Dallin H. Oaks and Neal A. Maxwell, and asked them aboutamong many other thingsthe rumor that Packer had something to do with it. That night, we went over to our neighbors' house and watched "A Man for All Seasons" and ate popcorn. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. 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. 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. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. 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. The intellectual climate had improved under Oaks, people said. 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack After an exhausting six-hour disciplinary hearing Sunday, Mormon leaders temporarily suspended Grant H. Palmer's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 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. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. Hed better start keeping it to himself. That, in any case, was his thinking. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. We appreciate the search for knowledge and the discussion of gospel subjects, the First Presidency said. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. At least, that's how Hall sees it. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. But by the fall of 92 he had to return to Salt Lake City to finish research on the book, and he had grown tired of hiding from church authorities. Her testimony was that of a believer, Madrigal later told her. See Photos. That higher-ranking leader, James Paramore, had further instructed West to say that the decision was Wests own, and had not come from above. 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. I don't think I could have done that graciously. 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. As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity.. 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. I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land, it says. But some simply baptized the boysa few without explaining what the baptisms were for. And the Tribune is changing with it. It struck him as an old missionarys trick. She is in the right family. By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. This is maybe where John and I are very different. I felt they were not going to drive me away. 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. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. 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. 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. They didn't say anything. Some did not know that they were. 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.. While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. I could listen to the spirit there. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. Peggy Fletcher Stack, David Noyce 3/23/2022. [5][6], Fletcher initially attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, for a year,[1] then transferred to the University of Utah, where she earned a BA in English literature. or. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." In 1975 Stack helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies, and steered it for its first eleven years.
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