by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. 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. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 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. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. [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. [10][11][12][13] The American Academy of Religion awarded her a first place Journalism Award in 2014 for her reporting on LDS missionaries who return home early from their volunteer missions. 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. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. He visited these homes with his missionary companion and asked the boys if they still wanted to be Mormons. 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. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . For the next year and a half, Quinn spent hours every week in the archives, taking detailed notes on diaries that belonged to 19th-century Mormon leaders, among other documents. Hi, Peggy. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. 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. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. 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. 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. When Benson asked why no one had stopped him, Oaks allegedly replied, You cant stage manage a grizzly bear. Benson resigned his Mormon membership shortly afterward and became a vocal opponent of the church his grandfather ostensibly led. 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 . http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. 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. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. Which has also, it seems, made Michael Quinns singular focus on the unspoken parts of the Mormon past less relevant to younger historians, who operate with more freedom and less pressureand who draw far more interest than their predecessors from the wider world, which has suddenly become fascinated by Mormonism. He rejected the idea that his writings and his comments to reporters about Mormon history warranted disciplinary action, and he had come to a kind of peace about what he was sure awaited him. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. Then I went away to my cabin for the summer and he called all the temples in Utah, saying he was canceling my recommend. 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. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? He was in a wheelchair. 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. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. 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. 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. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. Bad marriages had women running to and away from . In what dissidents have described as a purge, church leaders took severe disciplinary action in September against six Mormon scholars and feminists, the New York Times reported on Oct. 2, 1993. Press J to jump to the feed. 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. It was his death and funeral that prompted the couples current bishop to bring up the possibility of her rejoining the church. 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. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. Until 23 years ago, one could not formally leave the church without being excommunicated. She did, however, tell her leaders her concerns about church exclusion policies: barring worthy LGBTQ couples who are legally married from full participation; blocking worthy and righteous women from the male-only priesthood; and keeping Mother in Heaven from her place in our understanding.. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the Mormon church for being a woman. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. 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. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. 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. They cited a 19th-century revelation to Joseph Smith, in which he spoke of the saints gathering up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them, and said that perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat. The First Presidency did not mention that when Smith received this revelation he was in prison in Missouri, where a Mormon extermination order had been decreed by the governor not long before. News. I admire her. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, and one of the founders of Sunstone. 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. Just before his excommunication, in the spring of 1993, Quinn bore his testimony at the singles ward he was attending each week in Westwood, near UCLA. He has occasionally attended other churches. At least, that's how Hall sees it. 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. Two years later, he was called as an apostle. I had my answers.". The essay, Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843, cites writings by Joseph Smith and other early church documents to argue that women already possess much of the spiritual authority granted to men, and that todays LDS leaders simply fail to recognize this. 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. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. ", 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]. Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. In hindsight, the purge of September 1993 looks like the last big push for a kind of control that LDS leaders will probably never have again. It took several hoursa vigil was held outside for the first few, with candles and hymns and hot chocolate. TV and newspaper reporters came. [5][7][8] From 1978 to 1986, she was the third editor of Sunstone. I wrote an article for "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought" that summarized 133 cases of LDS ecclesiastical abuse, and my pleas to do better to care for the Mormon faithful. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. He referred to the pathos that I felt in your private letters to mea plea to not be discarded from something that you love. I want to help resolve that pathos, he added, and a sadness that seems to pervade your private writing to me.. [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. In September, Hanks wrote Quinn another letter, saying that he had listened, twice, to a recording of Quinns paper about the Baseball Baptism Program, delivered at the Sunstone Symposium that summer. Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. Paul's mother was great. 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. Though he maintained a solemn belief in the Mormon gospel and in the sacrament partaken of by the faithful at Sunday services, he stopped attending church altogether. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. . (They draw numbers to pick sides.) She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the 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. It was really important to Paul and me that Christian grow up in a religious community, and the church was the one we chose. The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. (Benson died in 94, Hunter in 95.) [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. . [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. 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. The church keeps fairly careful records of its membership, for one thing, records that play a part in the worldwide effort to bring salvation to all of Gods children. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. We had been home about 20 minutes when two high counselors came to our house and delivered a letter, inviting me to a disciplinary hearing two weeks from that day. 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. Some things that are true are not very useful. Its not clear whether Packer read Quinns work before interviewing him, but if he did, it probably would have struck him as less than useful. She has participated as much as she was able playing the piano and singing in the choir and watched as seven lay bishops have come and gone. 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. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . 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. Whats more, all Mormons are supposed to have a calling in the church, which makes for a wonderfully participatory religion but also discourages casual membership. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. 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 . Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. 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. Stack has received and been nominated for multiple awards. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. They were receptive. The church's definition of "membership" includes all persons who were ever baptized, or whose parents were members while the person was under the age of eight (called "members . They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Nor does it read like one. c. 2014 Salt Lake Tribune(RNS) The Mormon Church insists that excommunication threats targeting activists Kate Kelly and John Dehlin were generated by their respective LDS leaders in Virginia and northern Utah.Others see the timing as evidence that the two disciplinary hearings are being coordinated from the faith's Salt Lake City headquarters.But this much is certain: If Mormon higher-ups . While Packers precise involvement remains a matter of dispute, what little is known hints at his interference. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the 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. 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. The movie was a live-action adaptation of the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. That's a good question. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. Today, LDS leaders seem more inclined to recognize, said Wotherspoon, now host of the "Mormon Matters" podcast, "that Zion is made up of people of all types. I did the very best I knew how to do, the thing that I felt was the right thing to do., Donate to the newsroom now. I was removed from that situation. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. The prophet at the time was Ezra Taft Benson, who, at age 94, was mostly incapacitated. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. I felt they were not going to drive me away. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He never wrote another work of fiction. Salt Lake City Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the LDS Church for being a woman. On March 23, 2018, Andersons husband, Paul, died of heart failure. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. ", Hanks' rebaptism suggests a difference in LDS leadership from then to now, said Dan Wotherspoon, Sunstone's editor from 2001 to 2008. A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. Some, perhaps, simply regretted the bad press. Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. 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. LDS officials disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals in and around the fall of 1993. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. By then, Quinn had more or less moved on. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists -- with political action and theological pronouncements on one . "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. Nowadays, anyone can Google Mormon polygamy and learn more than theyd ever need to know about that practice, about its abandonment, the subsequent fallout, and so on. I cannot be anything but a Mormon. 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. If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. When the men from the stake presidency came to his door in February, Quinn was living three blocks from the Salt Lake Temple and the worldwide headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.