(Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) Peggy Fletcher Fletcher (Peggy Bennett Fletcher) See Photos. 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 new knowledge sent Quinn to the Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume collection of Mormon sermons. 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. 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. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. ", "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. Like Robert Kirby, it would be a shit storm to ex her. Hymns were sung. Quinn argued against excommunication, he told me, but he did not have the final say. What's happening is so wrong. For her part, Anderson always has felt a great sense of peace that I made a moral decision, an ethical decision, a decision of integrity and conscience, she wrote. What I heard was that I would be excommunicated and that I shouldn't go. When interviewing Quinn in 76, Packer said, I have a hard time with historians, because they idolize the truth. 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. TV and newspaper reporters came. Once the kids were interested, the missionaries were supposed to contact their parents, with the aim of converting whole families. He visited these homes with his missionary companion and asked the boys if they still wanted to be Mormons. Quinn had been avoiding this confrontation for nearly five years. Quinn, who later assisted the police in their investigation, did not go home for several days. That came out in early 1993. 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. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J. . sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. c. 2014 Salt Lake Tribune(RNS) The Mormon Church insists that excommunication threats targeting activists Kate Kelly and John Dehlin were generated by their respective LDS leaders in Virginia and northern Utah.Others see the timing as evidence that the two disciplinary hearings are being coordinated from the faith's Salt Lake City headquarters.But this much is certain: If Mormon higher-ups . Religion Two decades after she was "exed," Utah writer still attends her LDS ward. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack | The Christian Century Quinns parents were divorced when he was 4, and he was raised largely by his mothers parents, who frequently fought. 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. Ive had more than one therapist Ive talked to about this issue say, Dont you see that you were purposely setting yourself up for this fall? he told me. 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. 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. Quinn told friends that he did not want anyone to lobby on his behalf. Peggy Fletcher. In 2004, after a series of fellowships and visiting appointments, he was the only finalist for a tenured position at the University of Utah. 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 . Ironically, this testimony only ever deserted him on his Mormon mission. 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. 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. To this day, I would have made exactly the same decision. But it was a forgery. At Sunstone, Hanks described her path back to Mormonism as a heros journey, la Joseph Campbell. 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. 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. No way. The essay, Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843, cites writings by Joseph Smith and other early church documents to argue that women already possess much of the spiritual authority granted to men, and that todays LDS leaders simply fail to recognize this. When Benson asked why no one had stopped him, Oaks allegedly replied, You cant stage manage a grizzly bear. Benson resigned his Mormon membership shortly afterward and became a vocal opponent of the church his grandfather ostensibly led. Nor does it read like one. And he continued to correspond with Paul Hanks, who had written to express his displeasure at seeing his words quoted in the newspaper. Where else would I be but in the church? They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. All rights reserved. Mormon higher-ups hold keys to excommunication process against two Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Excommunication opened the door to a larger cosmos, inside and outside myself.". 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. 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 Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. West refused to do this, according to Quinn. 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. The accused is called in, another prayer is offered, and the court proceeds. Peggy Fletcher Stack has been reporting on faith and religion since 1991. Stack has been the lead religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune since 1991. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. 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. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? By Peggy Fletcher Stack. He decided that only 16 of the changes were significant. One theory on that first day of panic was that the bombings were connected with the business, an investment company called CFS. It was held by the stake high council, and so my bishop and ward members took the position that that was their doing. Hired in 1991 to cover Utah's various faiths, particularly Mormonism, Peggy has talked forgiveness with Archbishop Desmond Tutu . She said she was really angry at the church, not at me. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. I prayed every article I wrote into print, he said, continually asking God what he should do. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. The book won an award from the American Historical Association, but it brought Quinn more grief in Utah. They can't ex someone with that king of lineage. My own name remains on the rolls of the church, and I plan to leave it there, though I stopped believing in the Mormon gospel 15 years ago. Lavina Fielding Anderson, who was excommunicated in 1993 as part of the so-called September Six, has had her request for . 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. A history full of benignly angelic church leaders apparently advocated by Elders Benson and Packer would, he said, border on idolatry.. Threat of Excommunication 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. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. He froze. Gileadi, Toscano, Anderson, and Hanks were all excommunicated. In the summer of 1952, the late Sterling McMurrin, an eminent philosopher and writer, met with two LDS apostles to defend his theological views.With complete candor, McMurrin laid out for Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold . Since I'm there every Sunday, I don't fit their model of an excommunicated member. SCHOLAR REBAPTIZED INTO LDS CHURCH - Deseret News 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. Daryl Peveto/Luceo Images for Slate. The timing of his career, which once appeared serendipitous, now seems almost cruel. But 90 percent of the ward has changed since my court. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. Before the first court, Whitesides and Anderson alerted friends and the press, and word spread quickly. The movie was a live-action adaptation of the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. The kindness of my ward members has been really important. She said hello, but he did not recognize her. I had never been treated as a liar before. JDK-8141210 : Very slow loading of JavaScript file with recent JDK Peggy Fletcher-Stack. It was run by William O. Nelson, he said, once an assistant to Ezra Taft Benson who now reported to Boyd K. Packer. This friend, Quinn says, told him that the men on the council disagreed about whether Quinn was an apostate, and that President Hanks finally declared that Boyd K. Packer was pressing him to take action, and they needed to do something. 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. A World of Faith: Stack, Peggy F., Peterson, Kathleen B.: 9781560851622 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. June 19, 2014 ; 1 of 9; 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. That night, we went over to our neighbors' house and watched "A Man for All Seasons" and ate popcorn. High-Ranking Mormon Official, is Excommunicated - Coercion Code During Sunday school, a man approached him and said, The bishop would like to talk to you. Quinn dreaded what was coming.