He acknowledged to me that, of course, it is possible to find outlets for service outside of Mormonism. Bradley and Hanks are friends who trod a lot of common ground, Robertson said. It was the papers second article in two weeks about a series of church courts held across 13 days in September and reported in media outlets across the country. 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. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. He insisted that the September councils were local affairs, but church employees who reported to him had, it turned out, been keeping tabs on the six who were disciplined, and rumors swirled that Packer himself personally insisted that the courts take place. But the third bomb, which badly injured but did not kill Hofmann, hinted at a tie to the salamander letter, a disputed historical document that Christensen had purchased from Hofmann a year before and which had inspired Quinns latest research project, a book eventually titled Early Mormonism and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. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. Denver Snuffer . 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. I said I didn't think members believe general authorities don't make mistakes. 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. I love the gospel. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". 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. Leadership in Difficult Times: Critical Thinking and Wisdom (Part II) Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two On Sunday with similar church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin, Anderson discussed her spiritual journey: What triggered the LDS Church's disciplinary action against you? These dangers, Packer said, were the relatively new feminist and gay-lesbian movements, and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. 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. Many of the shifts in the church administration's position toward intellectuals recently has had to do with history and intellectual openness, while the issues driving Lavinas excommunication are still very much alive and unresolved today., It is possible, Bowman posits, there was fear that allowing for her rebaptism would send a signal on those issues that the First Presidency did not wish to send.. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. Woodwards piece, headlined Apostles vs. Historians, called Quinns talk a stirring defense of intellectual integrity that had put Benson and Packer on the defensive. It was illustrated with a large photograph of Quinn up top, and a considerably smaller one of Packer. The entry for perversion said See homosexuality, and he read all the available books in that categorynot a lot in a small public library in 1956, though fairly heady stuff for a 12-year-old: Kinseys Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, some Freud, some Havelock Ellis. 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. 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. 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. One of the articles came from an anthology called Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks, a distant relative of Pauland his uncle Marionand, soon, one of the September Six herself. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. It really hurt my feelings. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return | Out of Obscurity Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. How have the members of your ward treated you? If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. They dont acquire these positions by filling out an application and sending in a rsum. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . But it was a forgery. 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. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) Once in a while such a case will hit the press. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. 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. 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. One of the central questions in the aftermath of Septembers events was just how involved Packer himself had been in them. Ill come get him. Where else would I be but in the church? [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. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. (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.) 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 . Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . 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. In 1981, he gave an address to church educators called The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect, which was organized around four cautions. The second of them is this: There is a temptation for the writer or teacher of church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith-promoting or not. disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals, church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin. 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. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. [Husband] Paul, Christian [their son] and I sang in the choir that day. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. That came out in early 1993. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. 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. All rights reserved. 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. The church declined to comment on the decision. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. However, we believe that Latter-day Saints who are committed to the mission of their Church and the well-being of their fellow members will strive to be sensitive to those matters that are more appropriate for private conferring and correction than for public debate. There are times, they added, when public discussion of sacred or personal matters is inappropriate., The Statement on Symposia was another tear in the already fraying relationship between church leaders and scholars. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. 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. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. Hed been told it was an unusually accepting congregation. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. When I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. 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. Hundreds of other members joined him at gatherings and in small groups, and thus was born the "remnant movement ," which today touts 1000s of adherents. 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. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) 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. Person 2 Person: Peggy Fletcher Stack | KUTV A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. Peggy Fletcher. But that was not how he experienced it. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. PDF Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. Mystery! She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. There was no process for voluntary withdrawal from the Mormon Church in the 1960s, so each of these kids had to be excommunicatedtechnically, for apostasy. Peggy Fletcher Stack. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . 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 the spring, he had published LDS Authority and New Plural Marriages, 18901904, the culmination of his interest in post-1890 polygamy, first prompted a quarter-century before by Family Kingdom. I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. 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. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? 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. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings.