They didn't say anything. Paul Toscanos sister-in-law was excommunicated for her writings about the Heavenly Mother, a controversial aspect of Mormon theology. The stake president shook our hands and was cordial. McLean invited her, she said, to describe her faith in a letter, which includes her conviction that God cherishes everyone. (Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.) "Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks 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. I accuse that committee, England declared, of undermining our Church.. He later got married in the temple, while I sat outside with friends. No way. I love the gospel. She declined. West said hed been told by a higher authority to take further action to remedy the situation, Quinn says. 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. He wrote a short story about two male missionaries in Louisiana who become attracted to each other and are stalked by a religious psychopath. 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. The churchs critics find the timing convenient: By 1890, the U.S. government had threatened to seize LDS property if polygamy wasnt renounced. 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. This is not entirely uncommon in Mormon culture, but Quinn took it sincerely to heart. This has been intentional. 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. 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. 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. West refused to do this, according to Quinn. Something similar, if more protracted, took place after September 1993. It was a long time coming: Quinn had known he was gay since he was 12 years old. Would love to hear your stories about her. She said she was really angry at the church, not at me. Local TV reporters were filming the session, and the AP reporter Vern Anderson was sitting at the far side of the room about halfway back. Hanks became less diplomatic. She was also the only one whose disciplinary council was overseen by her bishop, rather than her stake president. While such a calling does not officially confer infallibility on the man who receives itand the general authorities are all malepublicly criticizing the men in these positions is strongly discouraged. It was his death and funeral that prompted the couples current bishop to bring up the possibility of her rejoining the church. By Peggy Fletcher Stack. 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. So she met with local and high Mormon leaders and, after several months, they set a baptismal date. Now I see that he just didn't appreciate the dishonesty associated with his grandpa. The noisy nonsense on-screen felt to Quinn like a rough equivalent of what the church was doing to him. Quinn got hate mail. Peggy Fletcher-Stack: Hi Dave. One of Ordain Womens founders, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in June 2014. ", Kelly goes on KUER's Radio West "A lot of people are asking me why I came forward [with the news of my disciplinary hearing]. 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. Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated in 2014 for her views on gender inequality in the Mormon Church . 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. Then I went away to my cabin for the summer and he called all the temples in Utah, saying he was canceling my recommend. Maybe she wants to be, though. 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. It is also worth noting that the church president in 1993 was an ailing Ezra Taft Benson. 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. In California, Quinn had picked up his mail at a P.O. I hate him. McMurrin Differed in Gentler Times. [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. There are other matters that I need to talk with you about that are not related to your historical writings. Following his excommunication, he finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and turned his attention to another scholarly book with deep personal meaning. And the Tribune is changing with it. 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. He put down in words his sincere testimony in the Mormon gospel and in Ezra Taft Bensons status as a true prophet of God. Mystery! She won the Cornell Award for Excellence in Religion ReportingMid-sized Newspapers from the Religious News Association in 2004, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022. They are called to them by the men at the very top of the hierarchy. By then, Quinn had more or less moved on. Find your friends on Facebook. The Quarum of 12 Apostles wanted to ex her, but the Quarum of Public Relations blocked their move. Fawn Brodie was related to David O. McKay. 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. 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. She is in the right family. 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. "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. I had my answers.". Hed better start keeping it to himself. Though a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. At the pinnacle of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidencythe churchs prophet and his two counselorsand the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They don't feel safe enough to keep going it's such a terrible, terrible loss. I moved into recognizing the value and power of a lay priesthood in the body of Christ and Christian community. That bright line is one of the reasons Mormons still sometimes seem separate from the mainstream of American life even after a century of assimilation. But it also betrayed tensions within the church that may never entirely go away. I am confident that my desire to be worthy of the temple is acceptable of the Lord. For details, go to http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium. Quinn and four othersLavina Fielding Anderson, Maxine Hanks (a distant relative of Paul Hanks, the stake president who showed up at Quinns apartment), Paul Toscano, and Avraham Gileadiwere excommunicated by stake presidents in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah; a sixth, Lynn Whitesides, was disfellowshipped, meaning that she remained a member of the church but could not fully participate in its rites and activities. [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. Where a skeptic sees convenience, a believer may see Gods hand. He then expressed his gratitude to the church for providing, throughout his life, a vehicle for service. 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.. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. The bearded dad, a father of 11 who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 2015 for apostasy, suggests they sing hymns . I could listen to the spirit there. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. . Mormons devote one sacrament meeting each month to personal testimonies, and Quinn was sure this would be his last opportunity to offer his in church. I was removed from that situation. And it was not popular with those of the brethren that Quinn had already angered with his talk on Mormon history four years before. Quinn was already on the alert for such wrinkles in the churchs history. For the faithful, the simplest narrative regarding LDS polygamy is that God wanted Mormons to practice it between 1843when He revealed the doctrine of plural marriage to Joseph Smithand 1890, when He informed one of Smiths successors, Wilford Woodruff, of a change in course. Quinn read Hanks letter that night and wrote a detailed response. Many religions have strictures that establish who is in and who is out, but the Mormon church draws a brighter line than most. News. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. Most memorably, Harris says that the spirit who appeared to Smith and directed him to the golden platesfrom which Smith claimed to have translated Mormonisms founding scriptureappeared as a white salamander and struck Smith three times. The biggest thing that got me was the excommunication of bill reel segment of the Mormon stories podcast. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Not long before Hofmann sold that forged document, he approached Quinn in the church archives, and asked about the succession crisis and the article. Jay Christian, left, and thousands of other people protest against the passage of Californias Proposition 8 outside the world headquarters of Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune . (He was delivering the third bombto whom it is not entirely clearwhen it blew up accidentally.) 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. "She might be a model for others who have been missing their Mormon community.". Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. I don't think I could have done that graciously. We had a family devotional every night with prayer, singing and scripture reading.