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September Six

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The so-called September Six were six noted intellectuals and feminists who were expelled from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the LDS Church, or Mormons) in September 1993. The alliterative term "September Six" was coined by the The Salt Lake Tribune, and the term was frequently used in the media and susequent discussion of the matter.

Church measures against the September Six

Except for Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, all of the September Six were excommunicated, meaning they were formally expelled. Whitesides was disfellowshipped, a less-severe sanction that restricts participation in some religious duties and privileges. According to LDS Church policy, Whitesides could return to full fellowship without re-baptism. Excommunicated members may be rebaptized and enjoy full fellowship after repentance is demonstrated. However, as of 2004, four of the September Six are not members of the LDS church—the exceptions are Avraham Gileadi, who was rebaptized, and Whitesides, who is still a disfellowshipped member.

While the LDS Church sometimes announces when a person of influence has been excommunicated, LDS leaders' policy is to refuse to publicly discuss details about the reasons for any excommunication, even if details of the proceedings are made public by that person. Such disciplinary proceedings are typically undertaken at the local levels, initiated by leaders in a ward (neighborhood congregation) or a stake (a collection of wards), but some of the September Six have suggested their excommunications were orchestrated by higher-ranking LDS leaders.

The LDS church's point of view is missing, therefore, as to why each of the September Six were excommunicated. Based on many of their own comments, and other sources, the following describes what is known or believed about the six individuals' reasons for excommunication, and their current relationship to Mormonism.

Short Biographies

Lynne Kanavel Whitesides

Lynne Kanavel Whitesides is a feminist noted for speaking on the "Mother in Heaven." Whitesides was the first of the group to experience church discipline. She was disfellowshipped September 14.

Whitesides has not returned to activity in the church again as of 2004. Reports state that she has pursued a personal spiritual growth by searching for a more feminine conception of God.

Avraham Gileadi

Avraham Gileadi is an Old Testament scholar who is generally considered theologically conservative. He authored a book about Isaiah and the last days which was published by LDS-owned Deseret Book but later pulled from the shelves. Details of why he was excommunicated on September 15 are not available.

Gileadi has been re-baptized, and is an active member of the Church. He has since written Isaiah Decoded, a book now carried by the church-owned Deseret Book chain.

Paul Toscano

Paul Toscano is a Salt Lake City attorney who co-authored a controversial book, Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (1990), and later wrote the book The Sanctity of Dissent (1994). He was excommunicated September 19.

Toscano has stated that he lost his faith and said he feels remorse only for being so angry at the LDS Church. His wife Margaret Merrill Toscano was excommunicated in November 2000; her story can be found on the Sunstone Magazine website Tidying Up Loose Ends?: The November 2000 Excommunication of Margaret Toscano 2001 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium.

Maxine Hanks

Maxine Hanks is a writer and feminist theologian who compiled and edited the book Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (1992). She was excommunicated September 19, ostensibly for this work (as was fellow contributor, D. Michael Quinn).

Hanks had been researching, writing and lecturing on Mormon history and women's topics since 1975. Mormon studies continued as her area of scholarly work after the excommunication, expanded by religious and liturgical studies. Privately, she pursued Gnostic worship, and was ordained minor clergy in the Ecclesia Gnostica in 1999.[1] She continues her work with women's studies in religion, particularly Mormon, Christian and Gnostic traditions.

Lavina Fielding Anderson

Lavina Fielding Anderson is a feminist writer who edited the books Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (1992), and Lucy's Book the definitive edition of the Lucy Mack narrative, a former editor for the Ensign and the current editor for the Journal of Mormon History. She was excommunicated September 23.

Anderson still attends LDS church services as a non-member. She continues to write on Mormon issues, including editing the multi-volume Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance, an ongoing collection of interviews with Mormons who believe they were unfairly disciplined by the Church.[2]

D. Michael Quinn

D. Michael Quinn is a Mormon historian. Among other studies, he documented LDS Church-sanctioned polygamy from 1890 until 1904, after the 1890 Manifesto when they claimed to officially abandoned the practice (see: "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Spring 1985) 9-105). He also authored the 1987 book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, which argues that early Mormon leaders were greatly influenced by superstitious beliefs and magic practices including stone looking, charms, and divining rods. He was excommunicated September 26.

Quinn has since published several critical studies of Mormon Hierarchy, including his two-volume work, that starts with his dissertation The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power and a companion volume The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, a third volume is forthcoming from Signature Books in 2008. He also authored the 1996 book Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, which argues that homosexuality was practiced among early Mormons.

Despite his excommunication and critical writings, Quinn still considers himself to be a Latter-day Saint. For further information on Quinn see, Lavina Fielding Anderson's article, "DNA Mormon: D. Michael Quinn." in Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, edited by John Sillitoe and Susan Staker, Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002, pp. 329-363.

Causes

The excommunications of September 1993 were a historic move by the LDS Church to remove high-profile dissenters from its membership. This was a climax of tensions within Mormon culture that had been escalating for years, regarding Mormon history, doctrine, theology, scholarship, feminism, and fundamentalism. The LDS Church had encountered a series of challenges to its historical claims and its theological or doctrinal practices, from scholars and feminists within the faith, including some BYU professors, moderates and conservative members, as well as outside critics, and increasing LDS fundamentalists on the fringes.

This climate produced a rising Church concern about defining and maintaining orthodoxy. The Church attempted to quell dissent by warning those whom it saw as testing the boundaries -- scholars, feminists and ultraconservatives -- to abandon their dissent or face church discipline. This approach was seen by dissenters as coercive and repressive, and resulted in criticism and defensiveness on all sides.

Dissenters were unwilling to back down, bringing an institutional reaction that reverberated through all segments of Mormonism, as some BYU professors lost their jobs and LDS stake presidents began holding disiplinary councils for selected scholars and femininsts. Rather than quiet the dissent as intended, the case of the September Six earned much publicty and debate in Utah, LDS culture, and even as part of a broader discussion of academic freedom.[1]

In addition to the "Six," a larger number of scholars and feminists were questioned or threatened with discipline at that time. Some were successful in renegotiating their church memberships or delaying discipline, while others were excommunicated less visibly, after the initial shock wave. Those excommunicated after September included Brent Metcalfe, David Wright, Janice Merrill Allred and eventually her sister, Margaret Merrill Toscano.

Feminists were typically challenging the male dominant theology in the LDS Church, which focuses on male deity and male priesthood. Some feminists suggested that Mormon women have an historical access to priesthood, and that Mormonism's inherent feminine theology needs expression and practice. Feminist scholars, such as Quinn, Hanks, the Toscanos, Allred, Anderson, and Whitesides, challenged sexist beliefs and assumptions, arguing for a more democratic approach to Mormon worship.

Feminists point out that a Heavenly Mother is implicit in Mormon theology, as seen in the 1845 hymn O My Father by Eliza R. Snow which mentions her briefly. Even the 1995 LDS Church statement The Family: A Proclamation to the World makes explicit reference to the existence of the human race's "heavenly parents."

Worship of the "Heavenly Mother" is generally eschewed on the grounds that scriptural sources (ranging from the Bible, to the Book of Mormon, to statements by official Church leadership) mention worship only of the Heavenly Father. Some Mormons believe that the role and nature of the Heavenly Mother will be expanded or revealed later, while others are content to leave her in a protected, unelaborated place.

LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley explicity acknowleged a heavenly mother in a Nov. 9, 1997, interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program "Compass":

ABC: And God. How do you envisage God? GBH: Absolutely as an individual being. The first Article of our faith states we believe in God the eternal Father and in His Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost. That’s a basic doctrine with us. ABC: So with you, God has a physical body? GBH: He’s an individual -- as is His Son, Jesus Christ. ABC: And God has a wife? GBH: I don’t know, but I suppose so. As we have a Father I assume we have a mother. ABC: I understood your teachings said that God has a wife? GBH: Yes. Well we ... Yes we have a mother in heaven. We believe so. We’re sons and daughters of God. ABC: And at the end of our lives ... GBH: If you’re a child you have to have a mother.

Quinn, Anderson and Gileadi seemed to challenge official church positions, by publishing research that questioned official views of Mormon history. Toscano directly challenged church leadership, to change.

Most of the September Six, especially Quinn, Toscano and Anderson believe that a handful of General Authorities, notably LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer, orchestrated the excommunications. Anecdotes from individuals who attended excommunication council hearings suggest that stake presidents received directives from leaders above them to discipline theologically liberal individuals and intellectuals as if it were a local decision. Some speculate that the apparently synchronized buildup of warnings and councils over the summer of 1993 suggested that LDS Apostles conceived of and oversaw the disciplinary measures.

Reaction

Reactions to the September Six event within mainstream Mormon circles ranged from apathy to approval to confusion to sympathy. Many were not even aware of the expulsions;[citation needed] the event was a confrontation between the church leadership and a small scholarly subculture of which most Mormons were entirely unaware. The event took some church members by surprise, and is still not well understood by many mainstream Latter-day Saints.[citation needed] To date, many are not even aware that such an event took place or regard it as of little importance.

However, this event had repercussions for liberal scholarship and feminism in the contemporary LDS community, greatly discouraging liberals, feminists and "critical" scholarship, while spurring conservative apologetics. Church leaders viewed it as an opportunity to maintain the doctrinal integrity of the Church and safeguarding it from degeneration and apostasy.

The September Six event echoed the 1979 excommunication of feminist and ERA activist, Sonia Johnson and appeared to deliver a message about how the Church views feminist critics within the Church. Members were advised by the Church in 1989 to exercise caution in reading publications or attending symposia not sponsored by the Church itself.[3]

More recently, however, dialogue has increased between liberal, conservative, moderate, apologetic and critical views on the Internet, as well as at academic and independent conferences.citation needed

See also

Bibliography

  1. ^ see the Frontline two episode special The Mormons.
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