"Nobody asked me to disavow my book or stop writing," Hanks said. Hanks told him he had been excommunicated, and said that the court lasted six hours.
'Mormon Land': A scholar who was excommunicated for his - MSN How is she still a practicing member after all this exposure to the truth? by Peggy Fletcher Stack (Salt Lake Tribune) 06-23-2015. It was run by William O. Nelson, he said, once an assistant to Ezra Taft Benson who now reported to Boyd K. Packer. ", Hanks' rebaptism suggests a difference in LDS leadership from then to now, said Dan Wotherspoon, Sunstone's editor from 2001 to 2008. He compared Packers treatment of Church leaders to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which is anathema to Mormons. I always felt that I had Gods sanction and encouragement, so I went ahead following that path. Even early on, a fellow Mormon historian started telling Quinn he must have a death wish regarding his membership in the church. Independent publicationsmost notably Dialogue (founded in 1966) and Sunstone (1974)provided forums for scholarship and reflection about Mormon history and theology. She's been covering religion for the paper since 1991 taking on a variety of topics, but mostly the LDS Church. 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. 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. 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. 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) 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. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. The handbook doesn't say you can't speak in class, just over the pulpit. According the her Wikipedia page: She is a great-granddaughter of Heber J.
[5] She then attended the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for two years, where she studied religious history. 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. In 1988 he resigned his position at Brigham Young University, the private college owned and operated by the Mormon church, having decided that his interest in the problem areas of the religions past jeopardized not only his position on the history faculty but his membership in the church itself. Sunstone The spiritual journey of Maxine Hanks, one of the "September Six,'" comes full circle. 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. 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. Fulton has called Quinn a nothing person.. In the quarter-century since her ouster, Anderson consistently has attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. Packers involvement mattered because the Twelve Apostles are considered by devout Mormons to be prophets, seers, and revelators. If they directed the councils, then the excommunications were, essentially, a message from the churchs highest spiritual authorities about what Mormons were allowed to do andpublicly, at leastto say. Quinn went to Californiahe had another fellowship at the Huntington Librarystaying this time with his mother. [5], In 1975, following discussions with Scott Kenney and others, she helped found Sunstone, an independent magazine of Mormon studies. All rights reserved. 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. 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 also criticized Ezra Taft Benson, then a senior apostle, who had made comments similar to Packers. Dated Oct. 23, 1830, the letter was addressed to an early Mormon convert named W.W. Phelps and signed Martin Harris. 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. ", 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. 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. Years ago, Don Bradley, a longtime scholar of Mormon history, asked to have his name removed from LDS membership rolls when participation became uncomfortable. 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. 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. 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 could imagine the First Presidency thinking that this is not an episode worth revisiting, Bowman wrote in an email. 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 . Within the past few years, Bradley had a change of heart and was rebaptized. He has continued to publish articles about Mormon history and to participate in the Sunstone Symposium. Anderson was photographed at her Salt Lake City home with the work of her late husband, Paul L. Anderson, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. In the first few days after the bombings, several people who had come into contact with Hofmann feared for their lives. [5][8] During her time with the magazine, she helped turn around its finances, saving it from closing. His wife Margaret, an English professor and feminist who attracted attention from church leaders before her husband did, was excommunicated in 2000. But it also betrayed tensions within the church that may never entirely go away. 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. That's like solving obesity by turning MacDonald's into a gym. 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. It sent him down a rabbit hole. 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. Quinn was so depressed by the experience that for a few weeks he lost his belief in God completely.
An Excommunication, And The Future Of The Church Of Jesus Christ - WBUR My parents never blamed me, but they were heartbroken. Hed better start keeping it to himself. In the field of Mormon history the changes are particularly pronounced. No telephone call came., On Aug. 27, McLean delivered the First Presidency denial. He decided he would suppress that part of himself and be a good Mormon. 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. He makes fun of the church by making fun of himself and stodgy rank and file, as well as cultural absurdities. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 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. He recounted what his former stake president, Hugh West, had done when he received what Quinn saw as similar orders from above. 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. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists -- with political action and theological pronouncements on one . Press J to jump to the feed. I found this tl/dr written by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune:. 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. 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. When Hanks showed up on Quinns doorstep in Salt Lake City that February, he brought a letter citing two of Quinns articles and a statement Quinn made to a reporter in 1991 as evidence that he was an apostate. 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. At its worst, such talk is sometimes called speaking evil of the Lords anointed.. I cannot be anything but a Mormon.
Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to It's a way for me to participate and contribute, almost like having a calling. (These soon-to-be former Mormons were not required to attend.) 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. The cabin has no phone access, so I had months [after her initial conversation with the stake president] to think about it. 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. Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for the Salt Lake Tribune. 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.. Grant, a President of the LDS Church and is the granddaughter of United States Senator from Utah Wallace F. Bennett. 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. This was hard on Paul [who works at Brigham Young University]. He developed a fervent testimony not only that God exists but that God spoke to Joseph Smith face to face and that the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are, like the Old and New Testaments, divinely inspired.