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Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. A year later, David J. McLean, president of the Salt Lake Liberty Stake, reconvened a high council, a body that had excommunicated her 25 years and six months earlier for apostasy, Anderson wrote in a summary of her experience for a forthcoming volume of her essays, Mercy Without End: Toward a More Inclusive Church.. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. LDS officials disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals in and around the fall of 1993. Quinn read fiction, too, including James Baldwins new book, Giovannis Room. 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. 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. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) But the cause didn't really matter because it was pretty clear that Elder [Boyd K.] Packer [of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles] was trying to send a message by targeting certain people, such as historians and feminists. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Mormons from around the world have gathered to listen to church leaders during the two-day conference. . The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. Maybe she wants to be, though. 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. What's happening is so wrong. 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 himself did not even stay in town. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. She embodies, more than anyone else I know, the ideal of a broken heart and contrite spirit, which has influenced me so strongly that I, the last time I checked, was one of only two of the 21 children of the September Six who is still an active member.. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. . This year he completed the third and final volume in his trilogy on the Mormon hierarchy, which examines the churchs business and financial activities from 1830 to 2010. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. But it also betrayed tensions within the church that may never entirely go away. 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. Saturday, February 22, 1997. But some simply baptized the boysa few without explaining what the baptisms were for. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . 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.. 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. 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. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. These three shocks to Quinns testimonyabout the Book of Mormon, polygamy, and LDS theologyspurred a pursuit to unearth and understand those parts of his religions past that complicated the simpler story of the faith he had learned as a child. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Arrington). That came out in early 1993. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated Denver Snufferpersonalbordenver Carlos Snuffer Jr.Religion (Mormon Independent) Restoration Andsupra-Denominational Christian [1] Nationality Americanhome Townmountain House, Idahochildrensisx Daughters and Two Children [2] Alma Materdaniel Webster Junior Collegemcmurry UniversityBrigham Young University (JD, 1980) 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. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. The nature of religion reporting in Utah is changing. 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. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Mystery! What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. 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. I have been doing that for 18 years. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. 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. 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. 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. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. My guess is she has to be to keep the doors open so people willing to talk to her. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. 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. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? Feb 17. 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. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. Many religions have strictures that establish who is in and who is out, but the Mormon church draws a brighter line than most. Quinn had been avoiding this confrontation for nearly five years. 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. In the summer of 1952, the late Sterling McMurrin, an eminent philosopher and writer, met with two LDS apostles to defend his theological views.With complete candor, McMurrin laid out for Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold . A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. One of the central questions in the aftermath of Septembers events was just how involved Packer himself had been in them. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. 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. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. When Hanks showed up on Quinns doorstep in Salt Lake City that February, he brought a letter citing two of Quinns articles and a statement Quinn made to a reporter in 1991 as evidence that he was an apostate. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. It was his death and funeral that prompted the couples current bishop to bring up the possibility of her rejoining the church. I hate him. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. 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. Believers in Denver Snuffer's Remnant movement gather in a Sandy, Utah, home for a fellowship meeting on Aug. 13, 2017, to sing songs and partake of the sacrament. Some did not know that they were. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. Though the letter from the current First Presidency made up of church President Russell M. Nelson and counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring offered no explanation for the rejection, Bowman speculates that there may be at least two possible answers history and dissent. 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. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. I accuse that committee, England declared, of undermining our Church.. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . 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. 1897 - First Presidency member George Q. Cannon used the media attention on the 1895 conviction and two-year imprisonment of famed Irish poet Oscar Wilde as an opportunity to pu 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. 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. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. During Sunday school, a man approached him and said, The bishop would like to talk to you. Quinn dreaded what was coming. He subsequently has . Later that evening, having dinner alone, he felt a new sense of relief about what had happened so far and what he believed was about to happen. As a Mormon, he also knew that same-sex attraction was considered unfortunate at bestsomething to be struggled with, and, if possible, overcome. 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. 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. She was also the only one whose disciplinary council was overseen by her bishop, rather than her stake president. In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. Fixed: Release in which this issue/RFE has been fixed.The release containing this fix may be available for download as an Early Access Release or a General Availability Release. Log In. It had been a difficult year. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . 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. [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. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. 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. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". 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. Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. 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. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. Today, its Nelson, with a new counselor, Oaks, instead of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. While the simpler approach is handled by a bishop and his two counselors, the more elaborate version is run by a stake president, and it involves not only his two counselors but the stakes high council, a group of 12 men. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; It is also worth noting that the church president in 1993 was an ailing Ezra Taft Benson. She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. 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. See Photos. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. (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 . Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. Quinn refused. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. I cannot be anything but a Mormon. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. 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.. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. There is a peace that comes with that kind of clarity. In it, Harris, who paid for the first printing of the Book of Mormon, tells a story of that books origins strikingly different from Smiths later, official account.