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. Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) | Sojourners Every morning he worked there was Christmas morning, Quinn says. 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. 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 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 . After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. False Prophet Gaining Steam Among a 'Remnant' Church They didn't say anything. Knowing that our Heavenly Parents are both male and female teaches me that our potential as women is limitless. I love Jesus. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. Bad marriages had women running to and away from . Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. 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. Quinns polygamy essay, meanwhile, produced more trouble for him with LDS leaders. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity.. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN I said I didn't think members believe general authorities don't make mistakes. "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. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. 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. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. It was the papers second article in two weeks about a series of church courts held across 13 days in September and reported in media outlets across the country. 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. It was run by William O. Nelson, he said, once an assistant to Ezra Taft Benson who now reported to Boyd K. Packer. The Strengthening Church Members Committee almost certainly passed along notes about Quinn to his new stake president, Paul Hanks, in early 1993. by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. Peggy Fletcher Stack. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . When something like [my excommunication] blows up, the first casualty is trust and that never comes back. 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 . 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 president in 2012, when Hanks was readmitted, was Thomas S. Monson. She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. She did, however, tell her leaders her concerns about church exclusion policies: barring worthy LGBTQ couples who are legally married from full participation; blocking worthy and righteous women from the male-only priesthood; and keeping Mother in Heaven from her place in our understanding.. 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. Excommunication Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster The other five people who were by then being referred to as the September Six had already faced their courts. PDF Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated - World Tile LDS officials disciplined Anderson and five other Mormon intellectuals in and around the fall of 1993. But he had a caring bishop that first year and decided on his own to serve a mission. At the conference, he spoke about the history of same-sex relationships in the church and the shifting attitudes toward them on the part of Mormon leaders. 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. 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. 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. What do you think about these potential actions against Kate Kelly and John Dehlin? All rights reserved. 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. 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. I felt they were not going to drive me away. I love the church. But nothing else has driven him to contribute to the lives of others the way the faith in which he was born and raised once did. "But when I got to the point of priestly ordination, I pulled back. The LDS archives became more open to scholars than ever before, and Arrington oversaw research and writing by fellow academics and graduate studentsincluding Quinn, then 28, whom he hired as an assistant. The book opened Quinns teenage eyes to dissent within the highest echelons of LDS leadership, and to the apostles debateand apparent dissemblingabout plural marriage after 1890. In her paper, she mentioned an internal espionage system that creates and maintains secret files on members of the church. A BYU literature professor named Eugene England rose to speak as soon as Anderson finished. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. But he could no longer go to the temple. The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). 1511: Mormon Stories Transparency Q&A for Peggy Fletcher Stack and Tony The nature of religion reporting in Utah is changing. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . Then I went away to my cabin for the summer and he called all the temples in Utah, saying he was canceling my recommend. By: Peggy Fletcher Stack. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. Supposedly Nelson, like Benson, was a supporter of the John Birch Society, a radically right-wing, conspiracy-mongering, anti-Communist group. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. 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. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. [5] She then received a fellowship to work in the Church History Division of the LDS Church (then run by Leonard J. JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK 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. My searching was complete. The accused is called in, another prayer is offered, and the court proceeds. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. 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. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. We embedded him as thoroughly in the church as we ourselves had been. She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. That's a good question. Oaks said Packer had met with Toscanos stake president, and acknowledged that this was a mistake. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) Would love to hear your stories about her. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home with the work of her late husband, Paul L. Anderson, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. 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. There would be quite a number of people in the Mormon community who would look unfavorably on that. Later that year, Quinn was recommended for a one-year appointment at Arizona State. 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. An interview from January 1983: Sterling M. McMurrin : mormon Anderson wrote another piece that was again picked up by multiple papers, including the Los Angeles Times, which ran it under the headline Mormons Investigating Him, Critic Says.. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. The latter, a smaller school, offered less money, but BYU had its own drawbacks: It was and is a conservative place, politically as well as religiously. 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. ", Kelly writes in London's Guardian newspaper "For me it is because of my faith and not in spite of it that I have a desire to stand up for myself and my sisters. Though he maintained a solemn belief in the Mormon gospel and in the sacrament partaken of by the faithful at Sunday services, he stopped attending church altogether. Person 2 Person: Peggy Fletcher Stack | KUTV 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. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. Peggy Fletcher. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. 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. 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. 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. That has been a blessing truly fulfilled. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. What I heard was that I would be excommunicated and that I shouldn't go. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. 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. In the past, many Mormon officials had a sense, he said, that the church must protect its members from "wolves among them.". West did not formally revoke the recommend, he just put it in his drawer. Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . 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. If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. 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. He acknowledged to me that, of course, it is possible to find outlets for service outside of Mormonism. I accuse that committee, England declared, of undermining our Church.. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. News. 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. 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. Lavina Fielding Anderson decided not to appear at her court, either, which took place at another Salt Lake meetinghouse a few days afterward. In the spring, he had published LDS Authority and New Plural Marriages, 18901904, the culmination of his interest in post-1890 polygamy, first prompted a quarter-century before by Family Kingdom. 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. It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. 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 . Not long after that, the bishop met with Anderson and asked her ever so gently if she would like to discuss reinstatement. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. Mormons from around the world have gathered to listen to church leaders during the two-day conference. He got up in front of the congregation and declared his belief in the Mormon gospel, in Joseph Smiths status as a prophet of God, and in the Book of Mormon as divine scripture. 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. 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. 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. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman It will be published next year. 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. 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 Salt Lake Tribune . But that was not how he experienced it. Grant, an LDS Church president, a granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah, Wallace F. Bennett, and a granddaughter of American physicist Harvey Fletcher. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. 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. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. Timeline of teachings on homosexuality in the Church of Jesus Christ of A former BYU professor named David Wright was excommunicated in 1994 after publishing a paper arguing that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient text. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. Hanks became less diplomatic. He himself did not even stay in town. I heard she's not Mormon at all. 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. . >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. 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. Hymns were sung. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. 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 temple president tried to make it as good an experience as he could for my parents, Paul, Christian and Marina [his bride] and me. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. At the time, he was grieving the death of his son, who had gone missing and was found weeks later hanging from a tree by an extension cord. I admire her. Threat of Excommunication He subsequently has . 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. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward Peggy Fletcher Stack / Salt Lake Tribune: High-ranking Mormon official, who twice spoke in General Conference, is excommunicated Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones. [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 moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. Last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Speaking Tubes in the Household of Faith", "A Light Unto the World: Image Building Is Anathema to Christian Living", "From the Editors: Stretching Toward the Light", "From the Editors: A Failure to Communicate", "Church Historian: Evolution of a Calling", "Tales of a true believer: picking up faith along the way", "Books: Mormon Novels Entertain While Teaching Lessons", "Twenty Years Ago in Sunstone: Symbol and Promise", "Peggy Fletcher Stack: Happy 100th to my physicist father, who remains a truth seeker in science and faith", "Utahn who pioneered synthesized stereo sound will receive posthumous Grammy", "Despite Growth, Mormons Find New Hurdles", "Nobody Knows Religion Quite Like Peggy Fletcher Stack", "Religion Newswriters Association honors top religion reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2017 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Winners named in 2018 RNA Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence", "Journalism Awards - Winners and Articles", "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff", "Religion Newswriters Association announces 2008 contest winners", "Religion Newswriters Association names winners of 2015 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "Religion News Association names winners of 2016 Awards for Excellence in Religion Reporting", "SL Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack wins top religion reporting prize for fifth year", "Dreams, Dollars, and Dr. Pepper: Allen Roberts & Peggy Fletcher Years (19781980)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peggy_Fletcher_Stack&oldid=1124718303, "Nation's Founders: How Religious Were They? 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. I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. [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. Dear Reader: When I began this series of essays on leadership, I never anticipated the final installment would chronicle recent events that have triggered the biggest spiritual struggle of my life. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. 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 . She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. Wearing a bathrobe, he answered after several rings and found three men in suits and ties on his doorstep. The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. She declined. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. This puzzled me because I had a lot to say, but the message was absolutely clear. Nor does it read like one. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. [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.
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peggy fletcher stack excommunicated