They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Michael Quinns final disciplinary council was held on Sept. 26, 1993, in the Salt Lake Stake Center, the headquarters for the oldest stake in Utah, founded by Brigham Young in 1847. Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. Why didn't you go to the hearing to defend yourself? My parents never blamed me, but they were heartbroken. He froze. The Salt Lake Tribune . Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN All rights reserved. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. Maybe she wants to be, though. 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. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. We appreciate the search for knowledge and the discussion of gospel subjects, the First Presidency said. Ultimately, the events of September 1993 may have helped broaden those borderlands, encouraging other members of the faith to openly question Mormon orthodoxy without entirely leaving the religion behind. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ.". He left quietly and went to call the LDS Church Office Building to ask about this committee. 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. ", 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]. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. [5][6], Fletcher initially attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, for a year,[1] then transferred to the University of Utah, where she earned a BA in English literature. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. The LDS archives became more open to scholars than ever before, and Arrington oversaw research and writing by fellow academics and graduate studentsincluding Quinn, then 28, whom he hired as an assistant. 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. I admire her. Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. This is not entirely uncommon in Mormon culture, but Quinn took it sincerely to heart. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Speaking Tubes in the Household of Faith", "A Light Unto the World: Image Building Is Anathema to Christian Living", "From the Editors: Stretching Toward the Light", "From the Editors: A Failure to Communicate", "Church Historian: Evolution of a Calling", "Tales of a true believer: picking up faith along the way", "Books: Mormon Novels Entertain While Teaching Lessons", "Twenty Years Ago in Sunstone: Symbol and Promise", "Peggy Fletcher Stack: Happy 100th to my physicist father, who remains a truth seeker in science and faith", "Utahn who pioneered synthesized stereo sound will receive posthumous Grammy", "Despite Growth, Mormons Find New Hurdles", "Nobody Knows Religion Quite Like Peggy Fletcher Stack", "Religion Newswriters Association honors top religion reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2017 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Winners named in 2018 RNA Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence", "Journalism Awards - Winners and Articles", "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff", "Religion Newswriters Association announces 2008 contest winners", "Religion Newswriters Association names winners of 2015 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2016 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "SL Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack wins top religion reporting prize for fifth year", "Dreams, Dollars, and Dr. Pepper: Allen Roberts & Peggy Fletcher Years (19781980)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peggy_Fletcher_Stack&oldid=1124718303, "Nation's Founders: How Religious Were They? Dave: We remind our listeners about a new way to support Mormon Land. While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. The Mormon church holds two different kinds of disciplinary councils: a more elaborate process that is often reserved for those who hold the Melchizedek priesthoodgenerally speaking, all devout adult menand a simpler process mostly used for those who dontmeaning women and men who have not advanced far in the church. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. Two years later, he was called as an apostle. By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. The truth is not uplifting. Thats according to Quinnmy request to speak with Packer, whose health has badly deteriorated in recent years, was declined. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. I love the gospel. 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. Most memorably, Harris says that the spirit who appeared to Smith and directed him to the golden platesfrom which Smith claimed to have translated Mormonisms founding scriptureappeared as a white salamander and struck Smith three times. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. 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 . Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. I didn't have any doubts. . This made some church leaders uneasy. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. The field has grown and appears to have moved on, even though the research that Quinn did, and the fights that he picked, were crucial to what has come in his wake. 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. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. Hanks became less diplomatic. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. Instead, he simply took away Quinns temple recommend. Temples, distinct from regular meetinghouses, are reserved for sacred rituals, and require a recommend, a small card indicating ones worthiness, to enter. That's a good question. 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. They had the responsibility to preserve the doctrinal purity of the church, they said, adding that, because Mormon leaders are constrained by confidentiality rules, the media have relied on information supplied by those disciplined or by their sympathizers. Similar councils occurred more sporadically over the next few years. He found me outside and was kind and helpful. 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. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two activists. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Hed better start keeping it to himself. The Mormon intellectual community far and wide is mourning the loss of Linda King Newell. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. 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. By then, Quinn had more or less moved on. 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 . 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. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. She currently serves on the . In 1988 he resigned his position at Brigham Young University, the private college owned and operated by the Mormon church, having decided that his interest in the problem areas of the religions past jeopardized not only his position on the history faculty but his membership in the church itself. The church declined to comment on the decision. 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.. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. 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. 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. He himself did not even stay in town. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. Arrington). 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. 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. . Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. In 1981, he gave an address to church educators called The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect, which was organized around four cautions. The second of them is this: There is a temptation for the writer or teacher of church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith-promoting or not. My stake president said in an email, if I [didn't] come forward and tell people that I am not a member in good standing, he would. [Husband] Paul, Christian [their son] and I sang in the choir that day. 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 . Even after that, a few high-ranking Mormons continued to authorize such marriages. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. I don't think I could have done that graciously. I had never been treated as a liar before. 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. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. 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. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. Quinn had been avoiding this confrontation for nearly five years. I had my answers.". Peggy Fletcher. 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. 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. A member of that sect told Quinn about a since renounced bit of theology once preached by Brigham Young, referred to as the Adam-God doctrine. Youngs notion, roughly speaking, was that God and Adam are one and the same. 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. The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. (There is no conclusive evidence it took place, Quinn writes, but he does not dismiss the idea of one outright.) On March 23, 2018, Andersons husband, Paul, died of heart failure. He was excommunicated in 1911. But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. Log In. "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. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading. PDF Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated - World Tile There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to Excommunicated Mormon to tell how she came back to the faith This is maybe where John and I are very different. He never wrote another work of fiction. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. Nor does it read like one. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". After it was published, Hugh West, the president of his stake in Salt Lake CityQuinn never moved to Provo, finding the hourlong commute worth it to live in Utahs one metropolisasked to see him. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. Believers in Denver Snuffer's Remnant movement gather in a Sandy, Utah, home for a fellowship meeting on Aug. 13, 2017, to sing songs and partake of the sacrament. A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. [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. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] I felt they were not going to drive me away. [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. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be.
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