Last month, for instance, the Daily Beast reported that a blogger named David Twede was facing excommunication because of critical pieces he had written about Mitt Romney. 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. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. He was excommunicated by the LDS Church in 2013 for refusing to cease publication of his 2011 book, Passing the Heavenly Gift which challenges many points of LDS orthodoxy. 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. Then she was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male LDS priesthood and women's relationship to it. [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. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two Stack has received and been nominated for multiple awards. 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. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. (In 1985, an Arizona man filed an $18 million lawsuit against the LDS church for not allowing him to do so. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. 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. 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. Experts authenticated the letter, and Christensen, a devout Mormon, bought it from Hofmann, with plans to donate it to the church. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. Once in a while such a case will hit the press. . The high council also heard from Andersons son, Christian, who offered his personal assessment. In 1997, the acclaimed historian Richard Bushman, who spent much of his career writing on non-LDS topics, began studying his religion again in earnest, and convened an annual seminar that helped attract young scholars who might have pursued other interests. The Salt Lake Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, a . 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. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN The prophet at the time was Ezra Taft Benson, who, at age 94, was mostly incapacitated. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. In 2004, after a series of fellowships and visiting appointments, he was the only finalist for a tenured position at the University of Utah. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. Would love to hear your stories about her. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. Even after that, a few high-ranking Mormons continued to authorize such marriages. Ill come get him. The bishops next comment was, Whats wrong with those people up in Salt Lake? He was thrilled to have Quinn in his ward. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. One Sunday in February of 1993, Michael Quinn was home sick with a fever when his doorbell rang. Feb 17. Packer approved Quinns hiring, but he may have come to regret it five years later. 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. Log In. 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. This new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. Those 15 men oversee the multiple Quorums of the Seventy, who in turn direct the stake presidents and bishops who minister to congregations on a part-time, voluntary basis. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) 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. 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 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. 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. 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. (Rick Bowmer/AP) This article is more than 8 years old. Mormon author Grant H. Palmer has been summoned to an LDS Church disciplinary hearing on Sunday, facing possible excommunication for apostasy. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. She was upset that he was not attending church, and so he drove 45 minutes to a singles ward, a Mormon congregation specifically for unmarried adults, near UCLA. 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. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. Peggy Fletcher-Stack. 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. 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. 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. "Mormon facing excommunication makes his living off his podcasts," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 2015 "On Attempts to Smear (i.e., Being 'Fair Gamed'") by John Dehlin ; Faith Transition episodes on Mormon Stories . They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. 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. Looking back, it was a real blessing. She embodies, more than anyone else I know, the ideal of a broken heart and contrite spirit, which has influenced me so strongly that I, the last time I checked, was one of only two of the 21 children of the September Six who is still an active member.. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. 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. I had never been treated as a liar before. Peggy Fletcher Stack - The Salt Lake Tribune I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. Where else would I be but in the church? A diligent historian, meanwhile, will come to see that the truth of the matter is complicated. Whitesides says that Connie Chungs people asked her to take a hidden camera into her court. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. A box of old photos belonging to Michael Quinn at his home. They were receptive. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) 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. [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. How is Peggy Fletcher Stack still Mormon? : r/exmormon - reddit Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. Packers notion that those writing church history should share only those things that are faith-promoting is not just intellectually offensive nowit has become quaint, the relic of a time when information was not so freely available. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. . 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. Nor does it read like one. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward He left it up to local leaders to come up with a reason. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. Until 23 years ago, one could not formally leave the church without being excommunicated. The handbook doesn't say you can't speak in class, just over the pulpit. That was my decision. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. She was struck by how frail he appeared, and found herself feeling nothing but compassion and love for a man who had once seemed like an enemy. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. 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. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) I could listen to the spirit there. 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. memeorandum: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. 2) I would very gladly swap my OSF compensation package with any member of the LDS First Presidency, Quorum of the 12 Apostles, or 1st Quorum of the Seventy. It really hurt my feelings. They dont acquire these positions by filling out an application and sending in a rsum. Few people had attended the talk itself, but an independent BYU newspaper ran a story about it, and copies of Quinns remarks, titled On Being a Mormon Historian, began to circulate. [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. ", 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]. The Mormon intellectual community far and wide is mourning the loss of Linda King Newell. Peggy Fletcher Stack: How I report on Utah's changing faith landscape . 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. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. But the Churchs case against Twede will never be known: After the Daily Beast story, the council was postponed, and a few weeks later, Twede resigned from the faith. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. Snuffer was excommunicated. My dad was a bishop twice. How have the members of your ward treated you? After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. Some, perhaps, simply regretted the bad press. Ive had more than one therapist Ive talked to about this issue say, Dont you see that you were purposely setting yourself up for this fall? he told me. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. 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. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. Excommunication Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. 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. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. 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. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. 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. These are very sensitive and highly confidential and this is why I have not mentioned them before in writing. Hanks alluded to these matters in subsequent letters, but never explicitly said that he had Quinns sexuality in mind. In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. For the faithful, the simplest narrative regarding LDS polygamy is that God wanted Mormons to practice it between 1843when He revealed the doctrine of plural marriage to Joseph Smithand 1890, when He informed one of Smiths successors, Wilford Woodruff, of a change in course. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. For her part, Anderson always has felt a great sense of peace that I made a moral decision, an ethical decision, a decision of integrity and conscience, she wrote. It's Judgment Day for Far Right: LDS Church Purges Survivalists Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. 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 I was removed from that situation. [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. 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. 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. Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. Then he made copies of his letter and Hanks' letter and dropped them off at the offices of Vern Anderson and Peggy Fletcher Stack, a former Sunstone editor who had become a religion reporter for . The 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. Supposedly Nelson, like Benson, was a supporter of the John Birch Society, a radically right-wing, conspiracy-mongering, anti-Communist group. I felt they were not going to drive me away. If he doesnt, I have his phone number and I know where he lives. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. 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. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman I love Jesus. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. Mormonism was as much an identity issue for them as it is for me. The nature of religion reporting in Utah is changing. This puzzled me because I had a lot to say, but the message was absolutely clear. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists -- with political action and theological pronouncements on one . In a detailed confession, Hofmann said that he had secretly stopped believing in Mormonism as a teenager and had hatched a plan to embarrass the church by creating fake documents that exposed uncomfortable facts about early Mormon history. Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. How did you find out about the impending disciplinary hearing? I assumed there was a way to work it out. Hanks had already held one church court in Quinns absence, in July, at which Quinn was disfellowshipped. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK All rights reserved. KRE/AMB END STACK She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. 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. 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. Saturday, February 22, 1997. 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 most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. I go over the temple ceremony and the covenants in my mind and remake them before the Lord often. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 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. That, in any case, was his thinking. Quinn refused. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. . He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. In May, my stake president called me in about it. Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. 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. What to him and others that is so threatening is that this [Ordain Women movement] is coming from a very faithful, devout perspective. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. 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. Nowadays, anyone can Google Mormon polygamy and learn more than theyd ever need to know about that practice, about its abandonment, the subsequent fallout, and so on. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". He was housesitting. See Photos. . His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return | Out of Obscurity The church declined to comment on the decision. There is a peace that comes with that kind of clarity. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. 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 hate him. 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. Many of the shifts in the church administration's position toward intellectuals recently has had to do with history and intellectual openness, while the issues driving Lavinas excommunication are still very much alive and unresolved today., It is possible, Bowman posits, there was fear that allowing for her rebaptism would send a signal on those issues that the First Presidency did not wish to send..
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