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. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. Excommunication Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land, it says. 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. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. 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. How is Peggy Fletcher Stack still Mormon? : r/exmormon - reddit 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? "The issues in Mormon doctrine, history and practice highlighted by those facing church discipline are much larger than any one individual," the statement reads. deductible, Report a missed paper by [email protected] calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or [email protected]. 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. [3] She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. As Quinn writes, the Manifesto inherited ambiguity, was created in ambiguity, and produced ambiguity.. He does not have friends in Rancho Cucamonga. A diligent historian, meanwhile, will come to see that the truth of the matter is complicated. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, nearly fainted waiting for the Dalai Lama, fasted with Muslims during Ramadan and has reported on 50 consecutive semiannual LDS General Conferences. The men at his door were the local stake president and his two counselors, the men responsible for overseeing all the congregations in the area. This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. I love John and I support him, but I have never made any claim against truth claims of the church. 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. Packer, the second-most senior among the 12, was the substitute president of the Quorum of the Twelve whenever Hunter was sidelined for medical reasons. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. I could imagine the First Presidency thinking that this is not an episode worth revisiting, Bowman wrote in an email. >Two years after an excommunicated Kate Kelly sought a giant leap, Mormon feminists keep making small steps toward equity . It is always harder on the loved one who has to stand by and see someone they love being hurt. If Peggy wanted to do some groundbreaking . One theory on that first day of panic was that the bombings were connected with the business, an investment company called CFS. It had since become the premier event for the so-called scholars and intellectuals of Mormonism to gather and exchange ideas. 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. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. 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. A page of the so-called Salamander Letter, forged by Mark Hofmann. Peggy Fletcher Stack: How I report on Utah's changing faith landscape Lavina Fielding Anderson, one of the famed September Six writers and scholars disciplined by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1993, got a big no last week to her request for rebaptism from the men who matter most: the faiths governing First Presidency. Quinn was shocked that it took that long. My dad was a bishop twice. 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. 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. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. If her reentry had been approved, Anderson would have been the third of the six the other five are Avraham Gileadi, Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano and Maxine Hanks to be welcomed back into full fellowship with the Utah-based faith. 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. 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. He insisted that the September councils were local affairs, but church employees who reported to him had, it turned out, been keeping tabs on the six who were disciplined, and rumors swirled that Packer himself personally insisted that the courts take place. On Sept. 30 he called Hanks to ask what the court had decided. 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. Down in Provo, Avraham Gileadi met more quietly with his local leaders. This is not entirely uncommon in Mormon culture, but Quinn took it sincerely to heart. Two years later, he was called as an apostle. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. Vern Anderson wrote an AP story about the book, and several Utah papers carried reviews. 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. On Oct. 16, 1985, Quinn was having a late lunch at a BYU food court when he heard a news report that Mark Hofmann had been blown up by a pipe bomb in Salt Lake City. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. By Peggy Fletcher Stack June 23, 2015 Many Mormon feminists experienced Kate Kelly's excommunication as a harsh slap felt around the world. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 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. 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. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. (He took the surname from actor Anthony Quinn, whom he knew growing up in the Los Angeles barrio.) 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. Her sincere belief in Jesus and determination to follow him no matter the adversity faced within or without the church should be commended, and this good and faithful servant should be rewarded, he wrote. Box 15 miles from where he was staying, and in New Orleans he had it delivered to a receiving center a little ways from his apartment. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. In 2001, a long-standing effort called the Joseph Smith Papers Project received additional funding and became a major draw to those who wished to study the early days of the church. By Peggy Fletcher Stack 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. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . That's a good question. P The Sunstone Symposium runs July 25-28 at the University of Utah's Olpin Student Union. 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. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. Nor does it read like one. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. Peggy Fletcher Stack. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was not. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. 1) I am very proud that, unlike the LDS Church, I have been transparent regarding OSF finances and my own compensation. Devout Mormons consider these callings divinely inspired. During Quinns New Orleans years, the First Presidency put out a statement discouraging Mormons from participating in academic conferences and other independent forums devoted to the discussion of their faith. Truth is, she has never stopped attending her Mormon ward. An Excommunication, And The Future Of The Church Of Jesus Christ - WBUR . Peggy Fletcher Fletcher (Peggy Bennett Fletcher) See Photos. 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. [5] She then received a fellowship to work in the Church History Division of the LDS Church (then run by Leonard J. 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. 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. or. Article type . Caffeinated Version: If you've picked up a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune in the last 26 years, you know Peggy Fletcher Stack's name. Hymns were sung. Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. She said she was really angry at the church, not at me. 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. The stake president, a man named Paul Hanks, tried to step into the apartment as he said hello, Quinn recalls. Excommunicated Mormon to tell how she came back to the faith I cannot be anything but a Mormon. A missionary who doesn't want to preach false doctrine He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. The general authority assigned to interview Quinn in the spring of 1976 was Boyd K. Packer. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. The demographics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints include statistical data relating to the church's population and particular groups within it.. It was, Quinn told me, an awful, awful year., When he had recovered enough to write, Quinn finished the sequel to The Mormon Hierarchy and revised Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. But it was a forgery. Quinn got hate mail. Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the 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. Saturday, February 22, 1997. 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. He referred to the pathos that I felt in your private letters to mea plea to not be discarded from something that you love. I want to help resolve that pathos, he added, and a sadness that seems to pervade your private writing to me.. Former Mormon leader is building a new life _ as a woman Peggy Fletcher. Before the first court, Whitesides and Anderson alerted friends and the press, and word spread quickly. 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. 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. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. 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. News. When they did, Quinn, an only child, would go to his room, put on a classical record, and turn the volume up. Right next to Pauls was Lavinas description of her beliefs in Jesus Christ, Mormon founder Joseph Smith, the scriptural text he produced, The Book of Mormon, and the role of prophets. 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. 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. 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. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream, article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. 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. BYU and Utah State both wanted to hire him. The entry for perversion said See homosexuality, and he read all the available books in that categorynot a lot in a small public library in 1956, though fairly heady stuff for a 12-year-old: Kinseys Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, some Freud, some Havelock Ellis. The same group of local church leaders who participated in Gileadi's excommunication were present at the baptism service. 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. 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. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . She was told to pass along this message: Im tired of hearing him criticize the church. Gileadi, Toscano, Anderson, and Hanks were all excommunicated. [Excommunicated Mormons are not supposed to take communion.] While LDS leaders can be defensive about media attention, sustained criticism from the outside world seems to have an effect. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN 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 assured him I did not. 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.. [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. I hate him. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. Sometimes Stack refers to Salt Lake City . Taking the sacrament because it's an exclusion I feel every single week. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. . 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. In 1975 Stack helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies, and steered it for its first eleven years. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. ", 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. Quinns status in the church remained unchanged. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. They were receptive. 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. Hed better start keeping it to himself. Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. It took several hoursa vigil was held outside for the first few, with candles and hymns and hot chocolate. 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 . That was my decision. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours. This made some church leaders uneasy. The intellectual climate had improved under Oaks, people said. Despite his productivity, though, hes never broken back into academia. 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. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. A Response to Peggy Fletcher Stack about OSF Finances I had my answers.". Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two "All they asked me about was my relationship to Jesus Christ. 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. During Quinns college years, BYUs president, Ernest Wilkinson, organized a student spy ring intended to catch out professors with communist leanings. I couldn't help but wonder if I, too, would be excommunicated if my concerns were made public. Peggy Fletcher Stack | The Christian Century At least, that's how Hall sees it. Quinn showed that Brigham Young had a legitimate claim to the calling, though he was not the only one who did. 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. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. 1511: Mormon Stories Transparency Q&A for Peggy Fletcher Stack and Tony [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. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. We appreciate the search for knowledge and the discussion of gospel subjects, the First Presidency said. 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. Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu . (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.)