He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. 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. (KUTV) Peggy Fletcher Stack is the religion writer for the The Salt Lake Tribune.It's the best beat on the paper, she said.Stack fell into the job when she was hired in 1991.I have no degree in . We had been home about 20 minutes when two high counselors came to our house and delivered a letter, inviting me to a disciplinary hearing two weeks from that day. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. The Unholy Practice of Excommunication - Exponent II He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. Many religions have strictures that establish who is in and who is out, but the Mormon church draws a brighter line than most. Gileadi was not part of the Sunstone and Dialogue circles that the others moved in; he had been writing and teaching popular workshops about biblical and Book of Mormon prophecies, which appear to have been deemed false doctrine by LDS leaders. Vern Anderson, the AP reporter, wrote an 800-word story about the essay in January, just before Hanks showed up at Quinns apartment. The term "September Six" was coined by The Salt Lake Tribune and was used in the media and subsequent discussion. Many people do reside in the borderlands between Mormon and not. The suit was settled out of court and a process for voluntary withdrawal was established in 1989.). By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune. She declined. Robert Kirby does this also, but much more indirectly. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? "Mormon facing excommunication makes his living off his podcasts," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 2015 "On Attempts to Smear (i.e., Being 'Fair Gamed'") by John Dehlin ; Faith Transition episodes on Mormon Stories . Maxine Hanks was held in the same stake center one week before, though she did not attend it. I used to think Steve Benson was a bad person. A member of that sect told Quinn about a since renounced bit of theology once preached by Brigham Young, referred to as the Adam-God doctrine. Youngs notion, roughly speaking, was that God and Adam are one and the same. Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. He turned 65 two years later, making him eligible for Social Security and Medicare. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. This puzzled me because I had a lot to say, but the message was absolutely clear. 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. How have the members of your ward treated you? Find your friends on Facebook. The church reports a worldwide membership of 16 million. 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. Peggy Fletcher. 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. If the blessing really happened, then Brigham Young, who led the early Mormons to Utah, might have been wrong to seize control of the church after Smiths murder. The field has grown and appears to have moved on, even though the research that Quinn did, and the fights that he picked, were crucial to what has come in his wake. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) [5] She met Mike Stack when he volunteered as a photographer for Sunstone in 1984, and they married in October 1985. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. 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. I had never been treated as a liar before. They dont acquire these positions by filling out an application and sending in a rsum. 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. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. The second thing that happens is members learn to be afraid of leaders, and leaders learn to be afraid of members. Part of what I feel is a calling to be there. 1511: Mormon Stories Transparency Q&A for Peggy Fletcher Stack and Tony Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) | Sojourners 2) I would very gladly swap my OSF compensation package with any member of the LDS First Presidency, Quorum of the 12 Apostles, or 1st Quorum of the Seventy. However, I do not see that eternal equality reflected in the contemporary church.". He didn't seem to know what footnotes are so he thought I made the whole thing up. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) 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 TV and newspaper reporters came. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. 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. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. A beaming Bishop Madrigal said I should expect very soon to get a telephone call scheduling an interview with a general authority, she wrote. 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. He also criticized Ezra Taft Benson, then a senior apostle, who had made comments similar to Packers. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. But some simply baptized the boysa few without explaining what the baptisms were for. Snuffer was excommunicated. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Salt Lake City meetinghouse where it took place. Peggy Fletcher. Some church leaders continued to marry multiple wives, which is why there was a Second Manifesto in 1904, during the Reed Smoot congressional hearings. Photo by George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Many of the shifts in the church administration's position toward intellectuals recently has had to do with history and intellectual openness, while the issues driving Lavinas excommunication are still very much alive and unresolved today., It is possible, Bowman posits, there was fear that allowing for her rebaptism would send a signal on those issues that the First Presidency did not wish to send.. We were sitting in the front room of a house owned by a gay couple he knows in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Salt Lake City. 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. 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. [5] They moved to Utah in 1991 when she was hired to be the religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune, where much of her reporting has focused on the LDS Church. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. In both forms of LDS courts, the accused is typically allowed to bring in character witnesses. 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. Hanks rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February. It really hurt my feelings. They were receptive. This made some church leaders uneasy. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. 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. There are important aspects of Mormon life, such as temple ceremonies, that are open only to the truly faithful. He hopes that eventually hell manage to sell the condo and will get enough money for it that he could move back to New Orleans and live there for the last couple decades, God willing, of his life. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. I have been taught a vision of a truly cooperative future where men and women are complete equals. After 20 years, this excommunicated Mormon still attends her LDS ward 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. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack Senior religion reporter. Press J to jump to the feed. I didn't have to look at the councilmen and wonder what they said about me. 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. 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. The accused is called in, another prayer is offered, and the court proceeds. When he came to understand this aspect of himself, and learned a name for it, he did what was already typical of him at that age: He went to the library. 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. ", This page was last edited on 30 November 2022, at 04:21. Half of these men speak for the accused, and half for the church. Today my story was picked up by the Salt Lake Tribune in Peggy Fletcher Stack's thoughtful article about excommunication. To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. (Quinn attempted to reach this friend through a third party before my piece was finished, but declined to give me his name before speaking to him.) Quinn wrote back more harshly this time, listing all the things Hanks had done that troubled him. Peggy Fletcher Profiles | Facebook "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". It was not the last time he helped to excommunicate people, though. Ill come get him. 'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . All rights reserved. Maybe she wants to be, though. In order to have her blessings fully restored, she had to meet with a general authority at church headquarters. September Six - Wikipedia It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. 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 feel like I am going by proxy for others who feel too damaged, too hurt and afraid to go. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Author at Religion News Service - Page 5 of 6 Hanks officially came back into the fold in 2012. I felt they were not going to drive me away. Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, published in 1996, argues that same-sex intimacy was much more accepted by early Mormonsincluding Joseph Smiththan it is today. When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. Would love to hear your stories about her. He went to stay instead with an old college friend, Richard Lambert. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; Peggy Fletcher Stack is an American journalist, editor, and author. Though the letter from the current First Presidency made up of church President Russell M. Nelson and counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring offered no explanation for the rejection, Bowman speculates that there may be at least two possible answers history and dissent. Paul Toscano, a combative lawyer, showed up for his, at the Cottonwood Stake Center in the southern part of Salt Lake City. Packer approved Quinns hiring, but he may have come to regret it five years later. 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. Hed better start keeping it to himself. 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. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. She talks very vaguely when it comes to personal, specific spiritual beliefs and whether they align with doctrine, but she doesn't hesitate to call the church out on its shit at all. Crucially, much of that project is onlinemore than anything, the Internet has revolutionized the field. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for rebaptism into the LDS Church rejected by the faith's governing First Presidency after being approved by her local lay leaders. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. Re: Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" The Mormon church holds two different kinds of disciplinary councils: a more elaborate process that is often reserved for those who hold the Melchizedek priesthoodgenerally speaking, all devout adult menand a simpler process mostly used for those who dontmeaning women and men who have not advanced far in the church. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. Which has also, it seems, made Michael Quinns singular focus on the unspoken parts of the Mormon past less relevant to younger historians, who operate with more freedom and less pressureand who draw far more interest than their predecessors from the wider world, which has suddenly become fascinated by Mormonism. Once in a while such a case will hit the press. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. On the Sunday it was held, Quinn went to a movie theater in downtown Salt Lake and bought a ticket for the first screening he could find, to take his mind off the disciplinary council. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. This is all lies! he told the friend who showed it to him. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. . The main target of the statement, issued in August 1991, was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual gathering started by Sunstone magazine 12 years before. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. 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. ", "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. Peggy Fletcher Stack - Wikipedia Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. These are very sensitive and highly confidential and this is why I have not mentioned them before in writing. Hanks alluded to these matters in subsequent letters, but never explicitly said that he had Quinns sexuality in mind. LDS author disfellowshipped - Rick Alan Ross July 26, 2012 12:03 pm . In October, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that a threatening phone call had been made to the home of a local man named Michael D. Quinn. 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. But Robertson is especially pleased with the "Pillars" session. The president in 2012, when Hanks was readmitted, was Thomas S. Monson. Kate Kelly Shreds Peggy Fletcher Stack for Using Her as "Clickbait" Again, I'm reminded of a scene in "Schindler's List" where the It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. 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. was pressured to resign from Brigham Young University and subsequently excommunicated from the faith in 1993 as part of the famed "September Six . 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. After Quinn finished his lunch at BYU, he decided not to go home. Person 2 Person: Peggy Fletcher Stack | KUTV Born in 1924 in Brigham City, Utah, the 10th of 11 children, Packer worked for years as a teacher and administrator in the Church Educational System. 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. Just before his excommunication, in the spring of 1993, Quinn bore his testimony at the singles ward he was attending each week in Westwood, near UCLA. And he was the most strident of the group when it came to denouncing internal critics of Mormon leaders and teachings. He was in a wheelchair. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. 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. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. Where a skeptic sees convenience, a believer may see Gods hand. June 17, 2014 8:59 pm . A year later, David J. McLean, president of the Salt Lake Liberty Stake, reconvened a high council, a body that had excommunicated her 25 years and six months earlier for apostasy, Anderson wrote in a summary of her experience for a forthcoming volume of her essays, Mercy Without End: Toward a More Inclusive Church.. Looking back, it was a real blessing. Peggy fletcher stack excommunicated Denver Snufferpersonalbordenver Carlos Snuffer Jr.Religion (Mormon Independent) Restoration Andsupra-Denominational Christian [1] Nationality Americanhome Townmountain House, Idahochildrensisx Daughters and Two Children [2] Alma Materdaniel Webster Junior Collegemcmurry UniversityBrigham Young University (JD, 1980) by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. And the Tribune is changing with it. That higher-ranking leader, James Paramore, had further instructed West to say that the decision was Wests own, and had not come from above. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) He moved back to Utah and began receiving mail at his actual address. She studied "traditional, sacramental Christianity and priesthood," Hanks said this week. The nature of religion reporting in Utah is changing. ", Hanks' rebaptism suggests a difference in LDS leadership from then to now, said Dan Wotherspoon, Sunstone's editor from 2001 to 2008. The stake president said I was "exed" for apostasy but I didn't really fit the handbook definition. 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. Timeline of teachings on homosexuality in the Church of Jesus Christ of The same month that his essay about post-Manifesto polygamy was published, in April 1985, Quinn and his wife separated. It was run by William O. Nelson, he said, once an assistant to Ezra Taft Benson who now reported to Boyd K. Packer. See Photos. . At its worst, such talk is sometimes called speaking evil of the Lords anointed.. 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. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Still, he sought out the scriptures first edition himself, and did his own comparison. The Salt Lake Tribune/June 16, 2014. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading. The most senior apostle, Howard W. Hunter, also suffered from serious health problems. [5] She then received a fellowship to work in the Church History Division of the LDS Church (then run by Leonard J. 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. While Packers precise involvement remains a matter of dispute, what little is known hints at his interference. He also mentioned reading Quinns long Dialogue article about the politics of Ezra Taft Benson. By Peggy Fletcher Stack | Sep. 5, 2019, 1:20 p.m. | Updated: 11:59 p.m. . The Mormon church is organized into congregations called wards; a group of these is called a stake. 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. 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. But multiple faculty members argued that, in the words of one professor, Mike was not the right person to head up any kind of Mormon history or Mormonstudies program given the fact hes very publicly excommunicated. The book he was finishing, which would be published in 1994, was called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a . 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. . 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. McLean invited her, she said, to describe her faith in a letter, which includes her conviction that God cherishes everyone. 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. Mike Quinn in his Rancho Cucamonga home in California this summer. The bombings and subsequent murder trial cast a pall over the practice of Mormon history. 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? I heard she's not Mormon at all. He was housesitting. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home with the work of her late husband, Paul L. Anderson, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. I might have lost my soul, but at least I still have my mind. 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. He had become a father figure of sorts, even officiating at Quinns marriage ceremony. 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. Maybe, I suggested, he was trying to bring his full self out into the open. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. Then he made copies of his letter and Hanks' letter and dropped them off at the offices of Vern Anderson and Peggy Fletcher Stack, a former Sunstone editor who had become a religion reporter for . SCHOLAR REBAPTIZED INTO LDS CHURCH - Deseret News All rights reserved. (He also, as it happens, officiated at the wedding of my parents.) 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 . Following the wave of media attention that greeted the September excommunications, the First Presidency defended what had taken place. But gradually, pressure on Mormon scholars eased, and today many write and publish without any obvious concern for what their stake presidents might think. [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.
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