There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. 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. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was not. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. The other five people who were by then being referred to as the September Six had already faced their courts. It will be published next year. She is in the right family. 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. 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. I hate him. I heard she's not Mormon at all. 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 . The demographics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints include statistical data relating to the church's population and particular groups within it.. 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. 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. This is maybe where John and I are very different. Two decades ago, Maxine Hanks could not have imagined where her spiritual journey would take her, but she knew this much: She would not likely be walking into the waters of Mormon baptism. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. 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. In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church's three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. Those 15 men oversee the multiple Quorums of the Seventy, who in turn direct the stake presidents and bishops who minister to congregations on a part-time, voluntary basis. 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. 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. 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. There is a peace that comes with that kind of clarity. 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. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) He has not been since. [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. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) While such a calling does not officially confer infallibility on the man who receives itand the general authorities are all malepublicly criticizing the men in these positions is strongly discouraged. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. When his mother died in 2007, she left him the condo. What's it like going to church for two decades as an excommunicated member? The former LDS stake president, who oversaw a group of congregations in Tooele for eight years and worked as an architect on her faith's most sacred spaces, faced, in her mind, an . That's a good question. ", 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]. 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 Former Mormon leader is building a new life -- as a woman - Rick Alan Ross Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, nearly fainted waiting for the Dalai Lama, fasted with Muslims during Ramadan and has reported on 50 consecutive semiannual LDS General Conferences. He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. Denver Snuffer . Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. But he could no longer go to the temple. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. The book, published a decade before, was written by Taylors son Samuel, best known today, perhaps, for writing the short story that became The Absent-Minded Professor. 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. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". Packer approved Quinns hiring, but he may have come to regret it five years later. (In 1985, an Arizona man filed an $18 million lawsuit against the LDS church for not allowing him to do so. Article type . Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating, the worldwide effort to bring salvation to all of Gods children, Some things that are true are not very useful, LDS Authority and New Plural Marriages, 18901904, this growing conflict between leaders and intellectuals, Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843, Quinns paper about the Baseball Baptism Program, the responsibility to preserve the doctrinal purity of the church, critical pieces he had written about Mitt Romney, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism, the administration caved to pressure from Ira Fulton. Sunstone The spiritual journey of Maxine Hanks, one of the "September Six,'" comes full circle. And the Tribune is changing with it. [5], The Stacks traveled in Africa for a year,[5] then settled in New York City for five years,[1] where she worked as the editor of the Hastings Center Report while her husband attended film school. 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. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu . She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) I assumed there was a way to work it out. 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. 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. High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code That, in any case, was his thinking. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. 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. 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. With no regular income to speak of, Quinn moved into his mothers condo in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. Quinn had been avoiding this confrontation for nearly five years. 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. An interview from January 1983: Sterling M. McMurrin : mormon It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. 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 . 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. I was removed from that situation. Where else would I be but in the church? Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Saturday, February 22, 1997. 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. 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. They never gave me one reason. . The high council also heard from Andersons son, Christian, who offered his personal assessment. 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. My searching was complete. 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. [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. The meaning of EXCOMMUNICATION is an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. I have been doing that for 18 years. (Quinn is known professionally as D. Michael Quinn; the first name on his birth certificate is Dennis.) He hopes that eventually hell manage to sell the condo and will get enough money for it that he could move back to New Orleans and live there for the last couple decades, God willing, of his life. Even in the novels, he noticed, the gay characters came to terrible ends. Mystery! Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, and one of the founders of Sunstone. I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. Hanks became less diplomatic. Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. They didn't say anything. 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. 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. It took several hoursa vigil was held outside for the first few, with candles and hymns and hot chocolate. Caffeinated Version: ", 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. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. I didn't have any doubts. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. 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. At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. An Excommunication, And The Future Of The Church Of Jesus Christ - WBUR I said I didn't think members believe general authorities don't make mistakes. Log In. "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. All rights reserved. He loves cities, and when he lived in New Orleans in the early 90s, he made friends in bars and in an informal group of gay professionals who gathered once a month. Quinn read fiction, too, including James Baldwins new book, Giovannis Room. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. Supposedly Nelson, like Benson, was a supporter of the John Birch Society, a radically right-wing, conspiracy-mongering, anti-Communist group. These are very sensitive and highly confidential and this is why I have not mentioned them before in writing. Hanks alluded to these matters in subsequent letters, but never explicitly said that he had Quinns sexuality in mind. 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. September Six - Wikipedia In May, my stake president called me in about it. 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. 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. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. Hi, Peggy. 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. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. Just go to . Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. LDS author disfellowshipped - Rick Alan Ross 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 also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. McLean invited her, she said, to describe her faith in a letter, which includes her conviction that God cherishes everyone. False Prophet Gaining Steam Among a 'Remnant' Church The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. See Photos. The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. After it was published, Hugh West, the president of his stake in Salt Lake CityQuinn never moved to Provo, finding the hourlong commute worth it to live in Utahs one metropolisasked to see him. 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. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. . The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. I had my answers.". He was excommunicated by the LDS Church in 2013 for refusing to cease publication of his 2011 book, Passing the Heavenly Gift which challenges many points of LDS orthodoxy. Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. 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. This made some church leaders uneasy. As a Mormon, he also knew that same-sex attraction was considered unfortunate at bestsomething to be struggled with, and, if possible, overcome. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. 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. 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 . Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. That was my decision. He subsequently has . 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. Peggy Fletcher. Peggy Fletcher Stack: How I report on Utah's changing faith landscape Once in a while such a case will hit the press. What's happening is so wrong. 1) I am very proud that, unlike the LDS Church, I have been transparent regarding OSF finances and my own compensation. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. (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. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. But multiple faculty members argued that, in the words of one professor, Mike was not the right person to head up any kind of Mormon history or Mormonstudies program given the fact hes very publicly excommunicated.