He didn't seem to know what footnotes are so he thought I made the whole thing up. 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. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. Peggy Fletcher Stack (@religiongal) / Twitter He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. He has not been since. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. 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. I love the church. A missionary who doesn't want to preach false doctrine Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return | Out of Obscurity After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward . Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. I didn't have any doubts. 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. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. The accused is called in, another prayer is offered, and the court proceeds. Box 15 miles from where he was staying, and in New Orleans he had it delivered to a receiving center a little ways from his apartment. That came out in early 1993. 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 . All rights reserved. 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. In May, my stake president called me in about it. See Photos. 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 love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. There were stretches of time when he was the only deacon, and he and I would exchange glances as he passed the sacrament to our row. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. By declining to talk with any priesthood leaders, he wrote, you are cutting yourself off from the blessings of the Temple and the blessings of the priesthood. He insinuated that the churchs problems with Quinn were not all theological. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was not. That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. Hanks worked for the Church Educational System, where Packer had long been an administrator, and Quinn heard that Loren C. Dunn, a friend of Packers and fellow general authority, had spoken to Hanks personally. ", Hanks is a "genuinely spiritual person and quite insightful, who brings a type of spirituality with her that will resonate with lots of people," he said. . Lavina Fielding Anderson may have been excommunicated from the LDS Church for apostasy more than 20 years ago, but don't think for a minute that this Utah writer is now an outsider to her faith. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 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. He said it was apostasy because I believed that general authorities had done something wrong. 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. 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. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. It's Judgment Day for Far Right: LDS Church Purges Survivalists But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. In 1999, she joined the Interfaith Roundtable for the 2002 Winter Olympics, where she enjoyed the association of representatives from various faiths and led the annual Interfaith Week. 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. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. Packers involvement mattered because the Twelve Apostles are considered by devout Mormons to be prophets, seers, and revelators. If they directed the councils, then the excommunications were, essentially, a message from the churchs highest spiritual authorities about what Mormons were allowed to do andpublicly, at leastto say. This friend, Quinn says, told him that the men on the council disagreed about whether Quinn was an apostate, and that President Hanks finally declared that Boyd K. Packer was pressing him to take action, and they needed to do something. One Sunday in February of 1993, Michael Quinn was home sick with a fever when his doorbell rang. 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. The Unholy Practice of Excommunication - Exponent II 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. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Log In. 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 Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church . Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. 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. I love the gospel. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. Two of the so-called "September Six" have found their way back into the LDS fold while Anderson though never rebaptized in some ways has never left. However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . It sent him down a rabbit hole. Bradley and Hanks are friends who trod a lot of common ground, Robertson said. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. Soon after, he happened to attend, with some friends, a meeting of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a splinter sect that believes Joseph Smiths son, not Brigham Young, was Smiths rightful successor as prophet. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. How is Peggy Fletcher Stack still Mormon? : r/exmormon - reddit [5][7][8] From 1978 to 1986, she was the third editor of Sunstone. 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. All rights reserved. 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 assumed there was a way to work it out. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. 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. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. 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. The book won an award from the American Historical Association, but it brought Quinn more grief in Utah. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. The intellectual climate had improved under Oaks, people said. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. How have the members of your ward treated you? Hed been told it was an unusually accepting congregation. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. Salt Lake City Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the LDS Church for being a woman. Peggy Fletcher. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. News. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. 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. (They draw numbers to pick sides.) Lavina Fielding Anderson, one of the famed September Six writers and scholars disciplined by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1993, got a big no last week to her request for rebaptism from the men who matter most: the faiths governing First Presidency. He found me outside and was kind and helpful. 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. This is maybe where John and I are very different. 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. ", 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]. 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 . She talks very vaguely when it comes to personal, specific spiritual beliefs and whether they align with doctrine, but she doesn't hesitate to call the church out on its shit at all. "It will be a chance for a larger audience to hear this story," she said, and to hear how people can wrestle with their faith and then live it out. The men at his door were the local stake president and his two counselors, the men responsible for overseeing all the congregations in the area. I cannot be anything but a Mormon. But he could no longer go to the temple. Nobody Knows Religion Quite Like Peggy Fletcher Stack At the conference, he spoke about the history of same-sex relationships in the church and the shifting attitudes toward them on the part of Mormon leaders. 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.

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