Peggy Fletcher Stack (@religiongal) / Twitter Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. The church has control of my membership; I decide whether I'm Mormon or not. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 After it was published, Hugh West, the president of his stake in Salt Lake CityQuinn never moved to Provo, finding the hourlong commute worth it to live in Utahs one metropolisasked to see him. He subsequently has . 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. 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. 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. I don't think I could have done that graciously. 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. In 1981, Quinn was asked by the colleges chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, a national honor society for history students, to respond to The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect. He did not pull his punches. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake City Laurie Lee Hall was excommunicated from the LDS Church for being a woman. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . A forum for ex-mormons and others who have been affected by mormonism to get support and share news, commentary, and comedy about the Mormon church. But Packer certainly said similar things before larger audiences. Since then, only one Avraham Gileadi, an Old Testament scholar who has spent his life researching and . Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 2 of 6 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. [15], Stack wrote a children's book about religion with artist Kathleen B. Petersen, entitled A World of Faith, published in 1998.[4][16]. I asked Quinn this past summer if he thought the provocations he penned as a historian might have been fueled on some level by his own inner conflict with Mormon teachingsif perhaps, unconsciously, he wanted to force a showdown with church authorities. Bad marriages had women running to and away from . 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. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. Peggy Fletcher Stack, David Noyce 3/23/2022. In many respects, Andersons affirmations mirror those of other members. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. It did not happen overnight, but many LDS leaders seemed to regret the furor and the hurt that surrounded those excommunications. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. I could listen to the spirit there. 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. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, and one of the founders of Sunstone. When his mother died in 2007, she left him the condo. 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 . Ordain Women's Kate Kelly loses last appeal; husband to resign from Mormon church . Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". I cannot be anything but a Mormon. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader 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. The church declined to comment on the decision. 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. That higher-ranking leader, James Paramore, had further instructed West to say that the decision was Wests own, and had not come from above. 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. 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 A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. Quinn read fiction, too, including James Baldwins new book, Giovannis Room. 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. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. 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. Men only become gay in prison, or sometimes in the Navy. ", 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. After a prayer, the stake president explains to them the details of the case. A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances I know how to avoid people I didnt want to be in contact with, he says. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) When they left, they said, "Have a nice day," to which I replied, "You have just assured that I will not.". He had also just published an article titled The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, which detailed the confusion about who should succeed Joseph Smith after his assassination. 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. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. He slept on her futon and had no Internet access or health insurance. In 1975, partly at Packers urging, Leonard Arringtons role at the church historians office was greatly diminished. I assumed there was a way to work it out. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. After the Newsweek article ran, Quinn got a phone call from Marion D. Hanks. All rights reserved. Hanks became less diplomatic. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks told The Salt Lake Tribune that year. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward 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. That came out in early 1993. Ill come get him. Woodruff himself said in his journal that he was acting for the temporal salvation of the church, and the 1890 Manifestoas his official statement is knownwas not immediately taken to be a divine revelation. He never wrote another work of fiction. He himself did not even stay in town. On Sunday with similar church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin, Anderson discussed her spiritual journey: What triggered the LDS Church's disciplinary action against you? How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. I always felt that I had Gods sanction and encouragement, so I went ahead following that path. Even early on, a fellow Mormon historian started telling Quinn he must have a death wish regarding his membership in the church. All rights reserved. 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. Knowing her personally (not closely, but we're acquainted) I get the feeling that she is much more culturally LDS than actually LDS. Gileadi, a Hebrew scholar who got into trouble for unorthodox writings about the biblical Isaiah, was rebaptized within several years. Mystery! Or a great one, if possible: Since childhood, Quinn had been told by his grandmother that someday he would be an apostle of the church. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. He froze. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. He decided that only 16 of the changes were significant. More painfully, as a high councilor in a Utah stake several years later, Quinn was part of courts prompted by personal sinsuch as engaging in homosexual acts. 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. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. 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 . (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) [4] During her time there, she has met and interviewed the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Gordon B. Hinckley, among others. Peggy Fletcher Fletcher (Peggy Bennett Fletcher) See Photos. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. "Mormonism was limiting to me, so I needed to test the limits to see who I and the church really might be. At least, that's how Hall sees it. It had been a difficult year. At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. 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. Find your friends on Facebook. There is a peace that comes with that kind of clarity. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. By Peggy Fletcher Stack January 16, 2015 SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) John Dehlin, known to support same-sex marriage and the Ordain Women movement, said he expects "either disfellowshipment (i.e . Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. He had, after all, believed for many years that he would someday be a leader of the church, knowing that if this were true he would have to forever suppress an essential part of himself. "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. They were eventually published, without Quinns permission, by two prominent anti-Mormon activists, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. That bright line is one of the reasons Mormons still sometimes seem separate from the mainstream of American life even after a century of assimilation. High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code Quinn refused. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman Neither Paul nor I nor Christian had to field a single negative comment the next week, when we went to church in our ward. 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. It will be published next year. Looking back, it was a real blessing. 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. 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. During Sunday school, a man approached him and said, The bishop would like to talk to you. Quinn dreaded what was coming. This is not entirely uncommon in Mormon culture, but Quinn took it sincerely to heart. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. He was 32; he and his wife, Jan, were expecting their fourth child. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. Quinn was an ordinance worker, meaning he went to the temple regularly and helped others perform those rites. I wouldn't give it up, but promised him I wouldn't use it. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. She has been visited by all her ward and stake leaders since 1993, she said, but this was the first time anyone had ever proposed it. I love the gospel. He then announced that I was not a member in good standing and could not use my temple recommend. 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. In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home with the work of her late husband, Paul L. Anderson, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. 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. Going to the temple, but I feel that it's more important to have the temple in me than for me to be in the temple. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. The men at his door were the local stake president and his two counselors, the men responsible for overseeing all the congregations in the area. I heard she's not Mormon at all. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. The book won an award from the American Historical Association, but it brought Quinn more grief in Utah. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. I used to think Steve Benson was a bad person. Caffeinated Version: Would love to hear your stories about her. http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. It was run by William O. Nelson, he said, once an assistant to Ezra Taft Benson who now reported to Boyd K. Packer. By the time Quinn arrived, the program had been disavowed, and many of these baptisms needed to be undone. Dallin Oaks speaking at the General Conference in April 1989. My searching was complete. He was in a wheelchair. Being treated like an ordinary person is a gift a ward can give. . Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. 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. Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. Most people don't know I've been excommunicated. [10][11][12][13] The American Academy of Religion awarded her a first place Journalism Award in 2014 for her reporting on LDS missionaries who return home early from their volunteer missions. 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. [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. I just feel such heartache that the church I love is doing this to people who are sincere and trying to find ways of being Mormon and express their love of the gospel. PDF Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. I assured him I did not. 9:30AM EDT 8/29/2017 Peggy Fletcher Stack/RNS. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. 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. 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. Some, perhaps, simply regretted the bad press. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. It's Judgment Day for Far Right: LDS Church Purges Survivalists These three shocks to Quinns testimonyabout the Book of Mormon, polygamy, and LDS theologyspurred a pursuit to unearth and understand those parts of his religions past that complicated the simpler story of the faith he had learned as a child. Look at Steve Benson, I suspect that there was no way they were going to ex him so he exed himself. Just go to . I attended the Sunstone Symposium this past summer, held on the University of Utah campus, and many people I spoke to there said that as Packers influence has waned, a more tolerant approach to dissent is taking hold. The Salt Lake Tribune . Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. Her explorations gave Hanks a new level of understanding and "testimony" of Mormonism. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? ", This page was last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21. disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals, church disciplinary actions threatening Mormon feminist Kate Kelly and blogger John Dehlin. Instead, he simply took away Quinns temple recommend. Temples, distinct from regular meetinghouses, are reserved for sacred rituals, and require a recommend, a small card indicating ones worthiness, to enter. By then an assistant district attorney, Lambert later helped prosecute the case against Hofmann. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. See Photos. 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. I could imagine the First Presidency thinking that this is not an episode worth revisiting, Bowman wrote in an email. From that point on, she explored various Christian teachings and practices, assisted clergy with religious services and served as volunteer chaplain at Holy Cross Chapel for 13 years. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. She and five other journalists at the Salt Lake Tribune won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. In the early 90s, when he was living in New Orleans, Quinn, nearing his 50th birthday, tried his hand at fiction, going back to the literature he once studied as an undergraduate. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . 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. As she entered the building at 47 East South Temple, she happened to pass Boyd K. Packer on his way out. They were receptive. 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. Two years later, he was called as an apostle. Peggy Fletcher Stack: How I report on Utah's changing faith landscape During the hiring process, a college dean offered to protect him, Quinn says, from those peoplethe LDS leadersup in Salt Lake., Before he could be hired, though, he had to visit LDS headquarters at 47 East South Temple in downtown Salt Lake and sit for an interview with one of those peoplespecifically, a general authority, one of the 100 or so men who run the church. When he went into his office, the bishop, a man named Tom Andersen, said hed read this article in the L.A. Times, Quinn told me. TV and newspaper reporters came. or. By Peggy Fletcher Stack June 23, 2015 Many Mormon feminists experienced Kate Kelly's excommunication as a harsh slap felt around the world. In 1999, she joined the Interfaith Roundtable for the 2002 Winter Olympics, where she enjoyed the association of representatives from various faiths and led the annual Interfaith Week. False Prophet Gaining Steam Among a 'Remnant' Church He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. The Unholy Practice of Excommunication - Exponent II What to him and others that is so threatening is that this [Ordain Women movement] is coming from a very faithful, devout perspective. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. I was removed from that situation. He revised the story occasionally over the next decade, submitting it unsuccessfully to the Paris Review and the Atlantic. Her testimony was that of a believer, Madrigal later told her. 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. The handbook doesn't say you can't speak in class, just over the pulpit. The [women's] Relief Society president found a way to involve me as a "permanent substitute" for Relief Society pianist. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. ", 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]. Paul's mother was great. 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. West refused to do this, according to Quinn. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. Peggy Fletcher was raised in New Jersey, daughter of physicist Robert Chipman Fletcher and Rosemary Bennett, one of five girls and three boys. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. Dubbed the September Six, the group were mostly left-leaning writers and scholars who had published articles or given talks about the role of women in Mormonism and the way the churchs leaders handle dissent. 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.. West did not formally revoke the recommend, he just put it in his drawer. I couldn't help but wonder if I, too, would be excommunicated if my concerns were made public. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. They didn't say anything. That was established definitively in 1986 after Hofmann confessed to the murders of Christensen and Sheets as part of a plea to avoid the death penalty. She said she was really angry at the church, not at me. . Quinn went over local church rolls and found addresses of kids who didnt come to Sunday services. Sign Up. 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. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN 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.
Porter Service At Chicago O'hare Airport, Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers Net Worth, Henry Mckenna Bourbon Bottled In Bond 10 Year, Articles P