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. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. It had been a difficult year. Today, LDS leaders seem more inclined to recognize, said Wotherspoon, now host of the "Mormon Matters" podcast, "that Zion is made up of people of all types. 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. There was no process for voluntary withdrawal from the Mormon Church in the 1960s, so each of these kids had to be excommunicatedtechnically, for apostasy. As a Mormon, he also knew that same-sex attraction was considered unfortunate at bestsomething to be struggled with, and, if possible, overcome. While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. He looked in the card catalog under pervert, which was the word his grandmother had used after he told her that another kid at church had been groping him. Saturday, February 22, 1997. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. It struck him as an old missionarys trick. 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 . 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. I love the gospel. 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. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. 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. Hanks became less diplomatic. Quinn and four othersLavina Fielding Anderson, Maxine Hanks (a distant relative of Paul Hanks, the stake president who showed up at Quinns apartment), Paul Toscano, and Avraham Gileadiwere excommunicated by stake presidents in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah; a sixth, Lynn Whitesides, was disfellowshipped, meaning that she remained a member of the church but could not fully participate in its rites and activities. Today, its Nelson, with a new counselor, Oaks, instead of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The fact that we keep going to church is a blessing. Excommunication has played a significant role throughout the churchs history. 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. 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. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. While preparing for the retired Brigham Young University artists memorial service, Bishop Mahonri Madrigal read Pauls written testimony, or statements of faith, that the ward had compiled in 2000. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. He asked Quinn to come see him in his office after work one day, Quinn says. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case. No way. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. A second bomb that first day killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of one of Christensens former business partners. 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. 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 . 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. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. Using the familiar Christian metaphor of a lost sheep who listens for the one voice that can guide it back home, Oaks said Mormons should beware of alternate voices whose avowed or secret object is to deceive and devour the flock. Among the voices Oaks warned about were the ones heard in magazines, journals, and newspapers and at lectures, symposia, and conferences. At the same General Conference, another apostle said that a true stalwart of the church would not lend his or her good name to periodicals, programs, or forums that feature offenders who do sow discord among brethren. , When the Sunstone Symposium next convened, in the summer of 92, Lavina Fielding Anderson presented a paper on this growing conflict between leaders and intellectuals. sltrib.com. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. I was not surprised or angry about the outcome, Anderson said Wednesday, and she has no plans to try to open that door again. A view of the Salt Lake Temple outside Olympic Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah. The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. or. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. 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. 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. But it was a forgery. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. He subsequently has . The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. I assumed there was a way to work it out. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. ``It was like `We're here to support you, Brother Gileadi,' '' he said of the atmosphere at the . "Given who I was, there was no place to go but out," Hanks said in 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the excommunications. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. It was already, in the minds of some, a dangerous pursuit, and it had now become a deadly one, marred by fraud and riddled with errors. 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. I imagine she walks a careful, thin line to avoid being exed. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. 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. Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. 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. Gileadi, Toscano, Anderson, and Hanks were all excommunicated. 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. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". Paul's mother was great. Log In. The regional council forwarded her request to church headquarters, with the recommendation that she be approved for rebaptism. 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. I admire her. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? There were stretches of time when he was the only deacon, and he and I would exchange glances as he passed the sacrament to our row. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. England said he knew about this espionage systemit was called the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and it compiled documents and highlighted statements considered critical of the church. 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. 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. 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. 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.. It took several hoursa vigil was held outside for the first few, with candles and hymns and hot chocolate. He was in a wheelchair. The Mormon intellectual community far and wide is mourning the loss of Linda King Newell. ", "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. This other Quinn was not home when the call came, and a baby-sitter answered the phone. Peggy Fletcher Stack, David Noyce 3/23/2022. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. 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. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. I had a spiritual prompting that summer staying at my cabin that I wasn't to go. 2012. I don't think I could have done that graciously. The handbook doesn't say you can't speak in class, just over the pulpit. Maxine Hanks was held in the same stake center one week before, though she did not attend it. A diligent historian, meanwhile, will come to see that the truth of the matter is complicated. After high school, Christian went to Stanford, and we thought, "This may be where we hear bad news." But he could no longer go to the temple. 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. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. That last comment became the caption for a Newsweek photo three months later, when the magazines religion reporter, Kenneth L. Woodward, wrote a 1,000-word story about Quinns talk and the controversy it prompted. (They draw numbers to pick sides.) The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. I did. Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. She declined. I did the very best I knew how to do, the thing that I felt was the right thing to do., Donate to the newsroom now. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. Boyd Packer, left, and Dallin Oaks, right, Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wait for the start of the first session of the 181st Semiannual General Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City .