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. And he continued to correspond with Paul Hanks, who had written to express his displeasure at seeing his words quoted in the newspaper. He stinks.. He himself did not even stay in town. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. "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. 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. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and . Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. ``It was like `We're here to support you, Brother Gileadi,' '' he said of the atmosphere at the . 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. Anderson was excommunicated for an article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought that described episodes of what she called ecclesiastical abuse of Latter-day Saint intellectuals. Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. 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. Photo by George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Snuffer was excommunicated. . Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. 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 I make comments in Sunday school and Relief Society, they are accepted as anyone else's. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. His father was never Mormon: The son of Mexican immigrants, he changed his namethough never legallyfrom Daniel Pea to Donald Quinn, apparently wanting to escape his heritage as well as his poverty. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. Neither Paul nor I nor Christian had to field a single negative comment the next week, when we went to church in our ward. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. He, the bishop, and the other counselor held the necessary courts, excommunicating those who wanted out. No way. 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. In the late 60s, he was called to preside over the churchs missionary efforts in New England, and moved with his family to Cambridge, Mass. Especially considering that in a lot of cases she's the one doing the exposing My guess is she's a let's-reform-this-baby-from-within progressive. Once in a while such a case will hit the press. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Mormons from around the world have gathered to listen to church leaders during the two-day conference. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. 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. He moved back to Utah and began receiving mail at his actual address. 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. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. In May 1993, apostle Boyd K. Packer said the church's three greatest threats came from feminists, gays and intellectuals. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. 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. Hed better start keeping it to himself. It had been a difficult year. The former LDS stake president, who oversaw a group of congregations in Tooele for eight years and worked as an architect on her faith's most sacred spaces, faced, in her mind, an . He found me outside and was kind and helpful. He was in a wheelchair. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. I love Jesus. It was his death and funeral that prompted the couples current bishop to bring up the possibility of her rejoining the church. Elder Packer, he told Quinn, will never get over this.. 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. Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. I had never been treated as a liar before. I could listen to the spirit there. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. He has occasionally attended other churches. If those top leaders did not know where he lived, then they could not assign him to a particular stake, and his church membership could not be threatened. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. 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. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. I admire her. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. 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. My parents never blamed me, but they were heartbroken. 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. They didn't say anything. 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. (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 . Quinn is no longer actively seeking an academic job. 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. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. 9:30AM EDT 8/29/2017 Peggy Fletcher Stack/RNS. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; 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. And the Tribune is changing with it. All rights reserved. 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. After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. I prayed every article I wrote into print, he said, continually asking God what he should do. "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. 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. I had received a blessing from a former stake president, assuring me that when the time was right, it would come very easily, so I could be at peace. [3][4][5] She was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), with her father traveling and speaking as a member of the stake high council. 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. A history full of benignly angelic church leaders apparently advocated by Elders Benson and Packer would, he said, border on idolatry.. 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. 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. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated Denver Snufferpersonalbordenver Carlos Snuffer Jr.Religion (Mormon Independent) Restoration Andsupra-Denominational Christian [1] Nationality Americanhome Townmountain House, Idahochildrensisx Daughters and Two Children [2] Alma Materdaniel Webster Junior Collegemcmurry UniversityBrigham Young University (JD, 1980) It really hurt my feelings. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. 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. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) 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. Ill come get him. But some simply baptized the boysa few without explaining what the baptisms were for. I see her articles on here all the time and the Tribune has never really been a friend to the TSCC. 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. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for rebaptism into the LDS Church rejected by the faith's governing First Presidency after being approved by her local lay leaders. 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. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. But Packer certainly said similar things before larger audiences. Until 23 years ago, one could not formally leave the church without being excommunicated. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. 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. A second bomb that first day killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of one of Christensens former business partners. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". 2012. I had a spiritual prompting that summer staying at my cabin that I wasn't to go. Hofmann eventually became, in the words of one expert, the most skilled forger this country has ever seen. For LDS leaders nervous about church history, he was a nightmare personified: a lying, murderous man hell-bent on embarrassing the religion while glorifying and enriching himself. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. See Photos. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. 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. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. . "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. Hanks was excommunicated in 1993, one of the "September Six," Mormon writers and scholars who were disciplined by their local LDS officials in the same month. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. 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. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. 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 . Groundbreaking Emma Smith biographer, a 'giant' in Mormon scholarship, dies at 82. 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. The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. I feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. He subsequently has . Arrington). In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. Late last year, a friend approached LDS officials to say that Hanks was ready to return to the fold. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. He visited these homes with his missionary companion and asked the boys if they still wanted to be Mormons. The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. The book, published a decade before, was written by Taylors son Samuel, best known today, perhaps, for writing the short story that became The Absent-Minded Professor. [Husband] Paul, Christian [their son] and I sang in the choir that day. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. Peggy Fletcher. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. 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. 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. 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. The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. She has sat quietly in the same pew as the emblems of the sacrament, or communion, have passed by her more than 1,200 times without being able to partake. With his background in education, he became interested in how the church taught its own past, and decided he did not like what was going on at the church historians office. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. News. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) During Sunday school, a man approached him and said, The bishop would like to talk to you. Quinn dreaded what was coming. My searching was complete. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. I have been doing that for 18 years. It did not happen overnight, but many LDS leaders seemed to regret the furor and the hurt that surrounded those excommunications. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. Hi, Peggy. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Quinn studied English literature in collegehe attended BYUbut during his three-year stint in the military he decided to become a historian, and make what had become a consuming pastime into his profession. [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. There he told a story about the time Packer embarrassed him in front of fellow church leaders as apparent payback for a slight from six years before. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. 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 . 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 . The stake president, who oversees a number of congregations, remained optimistic, she said, zeroing in on the words, at this time., But the writer replied, Theres hope, and then theres experience., Besides, she said, it was a form letter.. The movie was a live-action adaptation of the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. 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 He didn't seem to know what footnotes are so he thought I made the whole thing up. The day before, a similar bomb had killed Steve Christensen, a friend and Mormon history enthusiast who had arranged for Quinn to speak at lunch and dinner engagements, paying him with generous gift cards to his fathers clothing store. [5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. ", This page was last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21. 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. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. The four-day symposium, which begins Wednesday evening, also will include dozens of sessions about Mormonism and politics, about how members grapple with contemporary issues such as gay rights and feminism, building online LDS communities, Mormon Latino views of the church's immigration stance and how the Utah-based faith has developed its "brand" in the past several decades. That came out in early 1993. After the church court, when I walked into the chapel, it took about three times longer to get to my seat because so many people hugged me. 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. He went to San Diego to give the keynote address for the annual conference held by Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons, and he stayed in California for several days afterward. Paul's mother was great. She was the editor of Hastings Center Report from 1986 until 1991, when she was hired to start the "Faith" column in the Salt Lake Tribune. 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. This has been intentional. Quinn read fiction, too, including James Baldwins new book, Giovannis Room. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. There, he tried other kinds of writing, thinking maybe hed put Mormon history behind him. I did. That higher-ranking leader, James Paramore, had further instructed West to say that the decision was Wests own, and had not come from above. Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. 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. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. 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. Hundreds of other members joined him at gatherings and in small groups, and thus was born the "remnant movement ," which today touts 1000s of adherents. 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. 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. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. 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. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. 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. She declined. 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. 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. Where else would I be but in the church? They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. At least, that's how Hall sees it. 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 . It will be published next year. See Photos. I accuse that committee, England declared, of undermining our Church.. One theory on that first day of panic was that the bombings were connected with the business, an investment company called CFS. disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals, church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin. 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. TV and newspaper reporters came. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. Before the first court, Whitesides and Anderson alerted friends and the press, and word spread quickly. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. And he based at least one of his forgeries on the work of Michael Quinn. How have the members of your ward treated you? 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. [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. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance.
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