They never gave me one reason. Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. I hate him. Peggy Fletcher. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. These dangers, Packer said, were the relatively new feminist and gay-lesbian movements, and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.. 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 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. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. LDS officials disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals in and around the fall of 1993. 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. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. 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. July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . 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 was housesitting. Her sincere belief in Jesus and determination to follow him no matter the adversity faced within or without the church should be commended, and this good and faithful servant should be rewarded, he wrote. People named Peggy Fletcher. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. 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. [14] Along with five other reporters, she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 in the Local Reporting category for a series of stories about sexual assault victims at BYU. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. 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. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. One of the articles came from an anthology called Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks, a distant relative of Pauland his uncle Marionand, soon, one of the September Six herself. 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. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. Peggy Fletcher. Many religions have strictures that establish who is in and who is out, but the Mormon church draws a brighter line than most. How did you find out about the impending disciplinary hearing? My searching was complete. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) 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 . ", 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. Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. He decided that only 16 of the changes were significant. 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. 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. Running almost 100 pages and including nearly 400 footnotes, the essay was the fruit of decades of thought and research. I had my answers.". Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. 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. All rights reserved. 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. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. 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 . 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. Until 23 years ago, one could not formally leave the church without being excommunicated. I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land, it says. Peggy Fletcher Stack. Quinn had spent three years in the military in the late 60s, working in counterintelligence. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. 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. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). I felt they were not going to drive me away. On Friday , during a popular evening session of next week's Sunstone Symposium, an annual meeting for Mormon intellectuals and observers, Hanks will detail her 20-year spiritual sojourn as a feminist theologian and chaplain, which brought her full circle back into Mormonism. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was not. The demographics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints include statistical data relating to the church's population and particular groups within it.. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. 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. 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. But that was not how he experienced it. He developed a fervent testimony not only that God exists but that God spoke to Joseph Smith face to face and that the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are, like the Old and New Testaments, divinely inspired. The prophet at the time was Ezra Taft Benson, who, at age 94, was mostly incapacitated. 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. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and writing about the biblical oracle Isaiah's prophecies about our time has been rebaptized into the faith. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. Kelly was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. I have been doing that for 18 years. A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. 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. 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. 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. In his Yale dissertation, Quinn examined the highest leadership of the LDS church as a social elite, focusing on the extensive family ties within the hierarchy, the considerable wealth of Mormon authorities, and their long-standing involvement in politics. 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. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. The Bible and the Book of Mormon, which depict flawed, human prophets, are, Quinn said, an absolute refutation of the kind of history Packer advocated. The stake president, a man named Paul Hanks, tried to step into the apartment as he said hello, Quinn recalls. It is always harder on the loved one who has to stand by and see someone they love being hurt. He had become a father figure of sorts, even officiating at Quinns marriage ceremony. It struck him as an old missionarys trick. Looking back, it was a real blessing. Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Nov. 2022 To that end, the power that Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger bring is their personal stories of defiance and excommunication. I don't think I could have done that graciously. 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. In 2004, after a series of fellowships and visiting appointments, he was the only finalist for a tenured position at the University of Utah. I didn't have any doubts. by Peggy Fletcher Stack. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. All rights reserved. At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. He contends that a former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had openly romantic feelings for men, and highlights a once hushed-up gay affair from the 1940s between a prominent church leader and a 21-year-old Mormon serving in the Navy. The biggest thing that got me was the excommunication of bill reel segment of the Mormon stories podcast. 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. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. 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. "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. Hed been told it was an unusually accepting congregation. was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. "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. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. I love Jesus. Just go to . Quinns religious status wouldofficially, at leastbe decided by his own stake president, not by the higher-ups in Salt Lake City. He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance. Fixed: Release in which this issue/RFE has been fixed.The release containing this fix may be available for download as an Early Access Release or a General Availability Release. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. 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 . 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. 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. Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. Nor does it read like one. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. The intellectual climate had improved under Oaks, people said. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. 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. Stack is an advisor on religion to the Public Broadcasting Service,[2] and has written two books. It was really important to Paul and me that Christian grow up in a religious community, and the church was the one we chose. Press J to jump to the feed. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. As the historian Ross Peterson said at the time, Comparing Sunstone and Dialogue folks to people who were shooting Mormons in 1839 Missouri is unfair. Peterson, after speaking about Mormon temple rites in the press, had been shown his own file during a conversation with local church leaders. He took a fellowship at the Huntington Library, near his hometown of Pasadena, Calif., and began indexing his enormous collection of notes on old Mormon documents, in preparation for his next book. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. On Oct. 16, 1985, Quinn was having a late lunch at a BYU food court when he heard a news report that Mark Hofmann had been blown up by a pipe bomb in Salt Lake City. ", "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. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . . There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. 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. 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. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. 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. In 1981, he produced a blessing allegedly given by Joseph Smith to his son Joseph Smith III, declaring him my successor in the Presidency of the High Priesthood. The document was partly inspired, it appears, by The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, which refers to such a blessing. Article type . BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. What's happening is so wrong. He stinks.. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. Quinns parents were divorced when he was 4, and he was raised largely by his mothers parents, who frequently fought. He found me outside and was kind and helpful. 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. Quinn got hate mail. When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Where a skeptic sees convenience, a believer may see Gods hand. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. That was my decision. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. The church declined to comment on the decision. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) If there is unfinished business, its the First Presidencys, not mine.. I had never been treated as a liar before. 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. But the third bomb, which badly injured but did not kill Hofmann, hinted at a tie to the salamander letter, a disputed historical document that Christensen had purchased from Hofmann a year before and which had inspired Quinns latest research project, a book eventually titled Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. Late last year, a friend approached LDS officials to say that Hanks was ready to return to the fold. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. The symposium's "Pillars of My Faith" session will showcase a similar path, said Mary Ellen Robertson, Sunstone's interim executive director. 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. Born in 1924 in Brigham City, Utah, the 10th of 11 children, Packer worked for years as a teacher and administrator in the Church Educational System. Peggy Fletcher Stack. Quinn attended that ward in Westwood every week while he was in California. Like Quinn, hed first become interested in Mormon history when he learned that polygamy had gone on for years after its public abandonmenthe knew about this because his mothers parents were among the secret polygamists. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. 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. 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 . This is not entirely uncommon in Mormon culture, but Quinn took it sincerely to heart.
Dizzy Spells After Stopping Birth Control, What Happened To The Gatlinburg Arsonists?, Fenty Beauty Executive Summary, Bryant Funeral Home Franklin Nc, Articles P