(Quinn attempted to reach this friend through a third party before my piece was finished, but declined to give me his name before speaking to him.) Peggy Fletcher Stack. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. The entry for perversion said See homosexuality, and he read all the available books in that categorynot a lot in a small public library in 1956, though fairly heady stuff for a 12-year-old: Kinseys Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, some Freud, some Havelock Ellis. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. It sent him down a rabbit hole. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. But it also betrayed tensions within the church that may never entirely go away. He subsequently has . "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. 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 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. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. The Mormon church, he said, drew him out of his largely monastic life and compelled him to help the men and women he saw every Sunday. LDS bloggers issue statement of support More than 70 Mormon bloggers, representing a dozen or more websites, have signed a document, "Room for All in This Church," calling for "clemency" in the upcoming disciplinary councils for Kate Kelly and John Dehlin. I have been doing that for 18 years. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. 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. He was troubled by the openness with which materials were being made available to certain individuals other than those authorized, according to Lucile C. Tates admiring 1995 biography, Boyd K. Packer: Watchman on the Tower. By Peggy Fletcher Stack and David Noyce Sep. 7, 2022 What this sociologist (Darron Smith) and Peggy Fletcher Stack fail to recognize is that Mormon racism isn't in the past, it's in the present. Whether Quinns fate had truly been sealed is hard to say. During Sunday school, a man approached him and said, The bishop would like to talk to you. Quinn dreaded what was coming. I couldn't help but wonder if I, too, would be excommunicated if my concerns were made public. The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. On Sunday with similar church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin, Anderson discussed her spiritual journey: What triggered the LDS Church's disciplinary action against you? 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.. 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. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. 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. 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. Denver Snuffer . 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. In the summer of 1952, the late Sterling McMurrin, an eminent philosopher and writer, met with two LDS apostles to defend his theological views.With complete candor, McMurrin laid out for Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold . Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. 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. 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. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. 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 Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the The Salt Lake Tribune . I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. During Quinns New Orleans years, the First Presidency put out a statement discouraging Mormons from participating in academic conferences and other independent forums devoted to the discussion of their faith. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. In 1975, partly at Packers urging, Leonard Arringtons role at the church historians office was greatly diminished. 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. Hed been told it was an unusually accepting congregation. When Hanks showed up on Quinns doorstep in Salt Lake City that February, he brought a letter citing two of Quinns articles and a statement Quinn made to a reporter in 1991 as evidence that he was an apostate. Excommunication Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) It is also worth noting that the church president in 1993 was an ailing Ezra Taft Benson. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. The high council also heard from Andersons son, Christian, who offered his personal assessment. I could listen to the spirit there. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. He normalized what many call "sinful" behavior, by admitting to looking at nudie mags, drinking, smoking, and intimated other transgressions, yet still going on a mission. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists -- with political action and theological pronouncements on one . He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. And the Tribune is changing with it. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. 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. Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. Disciplinary councils still happen, though they appear to be less frequent, particularly when it comes to apostasy. Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. The meaning of EXCOMMUNICATION is an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code [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. These men are often referred to by Mormon faithful as the Brethren. Unlike local lay leaders, who hold secular day jobs and perform their ecclesiastical duties on a voluntary basis, they are full-time employees who oversee the global operations of the church. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax He got up in front of the congregation and declared his belief in the Mormon gospel, in Joseph Smiths status as a prophet of God, and in the Book of Mormon as divine scripture. How did you find out about the impending disciplinary hearing? I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service 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. 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. 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. At least, that's how Hall sees it. From that point on, she explored various Christian teachings and practices, assisted clergy with religious services and served as volunteer chaplain at Holy Cross Chapel for 13 years. But that was not how he experienced it. 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. I love the church. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman 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 it, Harris, who paid for the first printing of the Book of Mormon, tells a story of that books origins strikingly different from Smiths later, official account. He himself did not even stay in town. The president in 2012, when Hanks was readmitted, was Thomas S. Monson. As a Mormon, he also knew that same-sex attraction was considered unfortunate at bestsomething to be struggled with, and, if possible, overcome. Anderson wrote another piece that was again picked up by multiple papers, including the Los Angeles Times, which ran it under the headline Mormons Investigating Him, Critic Says.. The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. By Peggy Fletcher Stack After an exhausting six-hour disciplinary hearing Sunday, Mormon leaders temporarily suspended Grant H. Palmer's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. The LDS church does not remove any name from the list unless the person is excommunicated, asks to be removed or is dead. I used to think Steve Benson was a bad person. All rights reserved. ", "Guilt, pain, help and hope when Mormon missionaries come home early", "For a string of vivid reports revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University, one of Utah's most powerful institutions. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] 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. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. This puzzled me because I had a lot to say, but the message was absolutely clear. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. 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. In 1975 Stack helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies, and steered it for its first eleven years. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. There was no process for voluntary withdrawal from the Mormon Church in the 1960s, so each of these kids had to be excommunicatedtechnically, for apostasy. [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. 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. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. West did not formally revoke the recommend, he just put it in his drawer. 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. 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. 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. A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. Sign Up. JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK Within the past few years, Bradley had a change of heart and was rebaptized. 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 I assured him I did not. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . "We pray that a spirit of clemency will guide the words and actions of everyone especially those who bear the heavy responsibility of ecclesiastical discipline of church members and that the words of President [Dieter F.] Uchtdorf [second counselor in faith's governing First Presidency] will hold sway: "Regardless of your circumstances, your personal history, or the strength of your testimony, there is room for you in this church. My searching was complete. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". Taylor fled to Canada during the congressional hearings for Reed Smoot, a fellowbut monogamousapostle, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. All rights reserved. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. He, the bishop, and the other counselor held the necessary courts, excommunicating those who wanted out. More painfully, as a high councilor in a Utah stake several years later, Quinn was part of courts prompted by personal sinsuch as engaging in homosexual acts. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. 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. deductible, 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. 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. 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 said she was really angry at the church, not at me. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. The book won an award from the American Historical Association, but it brought Quinn more grief in Utah. With no regular income to speak of, Quinn moved into his mothers condo in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. They never gave me one reason. I felt they were not going to drive me away. ``It was like `We're here to support you, Brother Gileadi,' '' he said of the atmosphere at the . It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. Hanks was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male priesthood and womens relationship to it. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack - Wikipedia It really hurt my feelings. Quinn was convinced, in any case, that his fate in any disciplinary council was predetermined, that Boyd K. Packer wanted him out of the church and Hanks was going to make it happen. She is in the right family. Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was not. Dear Reader: When I began this series of essays on leadership, I never anticipated the final installment would chronicle recent events that have triggered the biggest spiritual struggle of my life. 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. 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.