At Yale, while serving as one of two counselors to the local bishop, he found unanswered letters in the wards files from people who wished to leave the church. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. 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. (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 . In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. 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. [14] Along with five other reporters, she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 in the Local Reporting category for a series of stories about sexual assault victims at BYU. 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. The book opened Quinns teenage eyes to dissent within the highest echelons of LDS leadership, and to the apostles debateand apparent dissemblingabout plural marriage after 1890. 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. Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. Kelly was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. At least, that's how Hall sees it. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. 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 not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. Quinns mother, on the other hand, was a sixth-generation Mormon: She had an ancestor who converted when the Mormons were still in Nauvoo, Ill., and who is mentioned in Joseph Smiths journals. By Peggy Fletcher Stack By David Noyce For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Mormon church has excommunicated one of its top leaders. Paul usually sits on the outside of the pew, so when the sacrament comes, he shakes his head toward me so we don't have any socially embarrassing moments. Excommunication is a complicated and multi-layered process for sexual minorities in the church who choose to marry in a way that the church considers a "same sex" marriage. To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. See Photos. 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. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. 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. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. Gileadi, Toscano, Anderson, and Hanks were all excommunicated. ``It was like `We're here to support you, Brother Gileadi,' '' he said of the atmosphere at the . Two years later, he was called as an apostle. They didn't say anything. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. For the faithful, the simplest narrative regarding LDS polygamy is that God wanted Mormons to practice it between 1843when He revealed the doctrine of plural marriage to Joseph Smithand 1890, when He informed one of Smiths successors, Wilford Woodruff, of a change in course. 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. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. 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. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. . Elder Packer, he told Quinn, will never get over this.. [9] She started the "Faith" column after a discussion with Tribune editor Jay Shelledy. ", 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. 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. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) 2012. Hi, Peggy. Even after that, a few high-ranking Mormons continued to authorize such marriages. She was upset that he was not attending church, and so he drove 45 minutes to a singles ward, a Mormon congregation specifically for unmarried adults, near UCLA. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. He was the first academic to occupy the post, previously held only by high-ranking LDS leaders, and his appointment signaled a broader effort to reorganize the historians office along professional lines. 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. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. When he came to understand this aspect of himself, and learned a name for it, he did what was already typical of him at that age: He went to the library. Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. All rights reserved. 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. [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. Hanks had already held one church court in Quinns absence, in July, at which Quinn was disfellowshipped. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. 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. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. Denver Snuffer . 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. 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. 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. When he went into his office, the bishop, a man named Tom Andersen, said hed read this article in the L.A. Times, Quinn told me. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. Photo by George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . Late last year, a friend approached LDS officials to say that Hanks was ready to return to the fold. Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. 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. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. 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. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. 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. England said he knew about this espionage systemit was called the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and it compiled documents and highlighted statements considered critical of the church. Quinn refused. 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. 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. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance. "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. Peggy Fletcher was raised in New Jersey, daughter of physicist Robert Chipman Fletcher and Rosemary Bennett, one of five girls and three boys. Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. Earlier this year, Maxine Hanks became the first of the September Six to fully return to the Mormon Church since the conservative outlier Avraham Gileadi was quietly rebaptized almost two decades ago. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. 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. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. 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 . Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. I had my answers.". Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. Hankswhose nephew Paul would show up on Quinns doorstep in 1993was himself a general authority, and he had overseen the two-year Mormon mission Quinn served in England after his freshman year at BYU. In 2004, after a series of fellowships and visiting appointments, he was the only finalist for a tenured position at the University of Utah. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Just go to . I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. She is in the right family. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . Disciplinary councils still happen, though they appear to be less frequent, particularly when it comes to apostasy. 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. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. [4], She won the 2004 Cornell Award for 'Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers' from the Religion Newswriters Association in 2004, an award she also received in 2012, 2017, and 2018.