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. 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. 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 wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. With no regular income to speak of, Quinn moved into his mothers condo in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. I assured him I did not. 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. 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. All rights reserved. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. 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. In 1981, Quinn was asked by the colleges chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, a national honor society for history students, to respond to The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect. He did not pull his punches. The stake president, a man named Paul Hanks, tried to step into the apartment as he said hello, Quinn recalls. "Mormon facing excommunication makes his living off his podcasts," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 2015 "On Attempts to Smear (i.e., Being 'Fair Gamed'") by John Dehlin ; Faith Transition episodes on Mormon Stories . 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. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. In May, my stake president called me in about it. 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. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. 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. What to him and others that is so threatening is that this [Ordain Women movement] is coming from a very faithful, devout perspective. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. ", This page was last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. 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. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. My searching was complete. 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. Feb 17. 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. 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. sltrib.com. And the Tribune is changing with it. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. This has been intentional. Maybe she wants to be, though. Peggy Fletcher. All rights reserved. Peggy Fletcher was raised in New Jersey, daughter of physicist Robert Chipman Fletcher and Rosemary Bennett, one of five girls and three boys. 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 the Salt Lake Tribune. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Whitesides says that Connie Chungs people asked her to take a hidden camera into her court. The former LDS stake president, who oversaw a group of Mormon congregations in Tooele for eight years and worked as an architect on her faith's most sacred spaces, faced, in her mind, an impossible choice: Either return to living as a man or resign her . Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. A diligent historian, meanwhile, will come to see that the truth of the matter is complicated. 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. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. 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. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. 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. Just go to . By Chris Jorgensen and Peggy Fletcher Stack The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is purging hundreds of Mormon dissidents who church officials say are preoccupied unduly with Armageddon. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack June 23, 2015 Many Mormon feminists experienced Kate Kelly's excommunication as a harsh slap felt around the world. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". 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. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. 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. 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.. News. 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. All rights reserved. He, the bishop, and the other counselor held the necessary courts, excommunicating those who wanted out. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. At least, that's how Hall sees it. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. That was my decision. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. Log In. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. As the historian Ross Peterson said at the time, Comparing Sunstone and Dialogue folks to people who were shooting Mormons in 1839 Missouri is unfair. Peterson, after speaking about Mormon temple rites in the press, had been shown his own file during a conversation with local church leaders. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. Wilkinson was reprimanded, though, and in 1970 he was replaced by Dallin H. Oaks, a law professor at the University of Chicago who had clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court. 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. 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 . A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. 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. 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. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. I didn't have any doubts. There are three areas where members of the church, influenced by social and political unrest, are being caught up and led away, declared Boyd K. Packer, one of the churchs Twelve Apostles, in May 1993. . I hate him. What do you think about these potential actions against Kate Kelly and John Dehlin? Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. The biggest thing that got me was the excommunication of bill reel segment of the Mormon stories podcast. TV and newspaper reporters came. This was almost certainly wrong: Romney has plenty of LDS critics, most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He went to San Diego to give the keynote address for the annual conference held by Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons, and he stayed in California for several days afterward. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. He was 32; he and his wife, Jan, were expecting their fourth child. The most threatening thing about Ordain Women to people in the church is that it is coming from faithful, devout, courageous, wonderful women and that's more threatening than anything could be. I love the church. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. I did. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. On Friday , during a popular evening session of next week's Sunstone Symposium, an annual meeting for Mormon intellectuals and observers, Hanks will detail her 20-year spiritual sojourn as a feminist theologian and chaplain, which brought her full circle back into Mormonism. He had also just published an article titled The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, which detailed the confusion about who should succeed Joseph Smith after his assassination. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . 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. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. or. Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) 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. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. On Tuesday morning, James J. Hamula was released from his position in the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after disciplinary Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. See Photos. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. [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. Before the first court, Whitesides and Anderson alerted friends and the press, and word spread quickly. 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.. 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.
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