Dr. D. Michael quinn has passed away

[rongo]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I wonder if we should expect to see, some time down the road, a restoration of his membership and priesthood blessings.  

I am curious as to how common such posthumous restorations are.  Amasa Lyman.  Helmuth Hubener.  John D. Lee.  

Was Amasa Lyman reinstated? That's surprising to me, given his complete rejection of the atonement. 

Helmut Hübener's was simply overturned, like Avraham Gileadi. He didn't have anything restored to him. Whatever the bishop's motives in his excommunication (which was illegal and irregular on its face), it did protect the branch, which was under super-scrutiny from the Gestapo (the three boys were branch members). 

John D. Lee's was favoritism, pure and simple, I think. 

On what grounds would/should Quinn be reinstated, I wonder? If he is at some point, doesn't that make it look like prominent people receive that, repentant or not? Most others who die unresolved don't get that. One can petition the First Presidency about a dead parent or other close family member, but it's rare (and it also isn't unheard of). 

[Duncan]

6 minutes ago, rongo said:

Was Amasa Lyman reinstated? That's surprising to me, given his complete rejection of the atonement. 

Helmut Hübener's was simply overturned, like Avraham Gileadi. He didn't have anything restored to him. Whatever the bishop's motives in his excommunication (which was illegal and irregular on its face), it did protect the branch, which was under super-scrutiny from the Gestapo (the three boys were branch members). 

John D. Lee's was favoritism, pure and simple, I think. 

On what grounds would/should Quinn be reinstated, I wonder? If he is at some point, doesn't that make it look like prominent people receive that, repentant or not? Most others who die unresolved don't get that. One can petition the First Presidency about a dead parent or other close family member, but it's rare (and it also isn't unheard of). 

Apparently Elder Lyman was reinstated in 1909. That's the thing these people could be reinstated, whether or not they are repentant is another thing and maybe nobody on this side of the veil would ever know. Also  maybe time passing? like however and whatever happens for the 1st Presidency to think about maybe the figure ah, 35 years is long enough! One thing I thought was weird about Elder Lyman was his son was also an Apostle, Elder Francis M. Lyman but his son was Elder Richard R. Lyman-who was also exed, like grandfather like grandson I guess

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

He made waves in the study and writing of Church history, but I think it overwrought to say he “changed the course of Mormonism.” Changing how you personally view the Church is not changing the Church itself.

The Church isn't Mormonism.  He didn't change the course of the Church, but he did change the study of Mormonism.

And the trickle down effect eventually contributed to the Church changing itself.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

Elder John W. Taylor had his blessing restored as well, he-according to Pres. Grant had more visions and than any of the then current Twelve Apostles put together

Well since his excommunication was for PR reasons that's hardly surprising.

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, rongo said:

Was Amasa Lyman reinstated? That's surprising to me, given his complete rejection of the atonement. 

From Wikipedia: "Lyman died at Fillmore, Utah Territory on February 4th, 1877. He and seven of his eight wives were the parents of 38 children. On January 12, 1909, by direction of church president Joseph F. Smith, Lyman was posthumously reinstated as a church member and an apostle."  More here:

Quote

In 1909, partly persuaded by assertions of mental illness, President Joseph F. Smith consented to a full posthumous restoration of all ordinances and blessings.  As recently as 1954, Joseph Fielding Smith, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and Church Historian, explained to two members of the Lyman family that "Amasa M. Lyman, while serving as an apostle, was stricken with an unexplainable blight of unsteadiness that caused him to waiver into setting forth doctrine foreign to the true precepts of the Gospel."

Interesting stuff.

11 minutes ago, rongo said:

Helmut Hübener's was simply overturned, like Avraham Gileadi. He didn't have anything restored to him. Whatever the bishop's motives in his excommunication (which was illegal and irregular on its face), it did protect the branch, which was under super-scrutiny from the Gestapo (the three boys were branch members). 

I agree in differentiating an improper excommunication (like Hübener and Gileadi) from restoring blessings following a presumptively procedurally appropriate excommunication (Lyman, Lee).

11 minutes ago, rongo said:

John D. Lee's was favoritism, pure and simple, I think. 

From Wikipedia: "On April 20, 1961, the LDS Church posthumously reinstated Lee's membership in the church."

From this discussion:

Quote

John D. Lee has a very prominent group of descendants—and, as befits a man who had multiple wives and 56 children, his posterity is large. In his case it is also exceptionally well-organized. One descendant, Rex E. Lee, was a famously successful United States Solicitor General—the lawyer who argues cases for the Department of Justice before the United States Supreme Court and later a president of Brigham Young University. Rex’s son, Mike Lee is now one of Utah’s Senators.

Thus the family has powerful influence.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that God will be the ultimate judge of our actions. Church judgment on this Earth is designed to help the sinner repent and to protect the good name of the Church.

Given the evidentiary complexities of the case, it appears that the family prevailed upon Church leaders to restore John D. Lee’s status and blessings given the real doubts as to whether the man was indeed a scapegoat for a much more complex set of events and decisions.

However, this does not mean that John D. Lee has been judged—only that his status was changed on the extant records of the Church. Judgment belongs to God and ultimately all will face judgment—forgiveness is available through faith in Christ for all but the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost. See, e.g. Matthew 12.

And here:

Quote

The descendants of John D. Lee forever maintain that their forebear — the only one ever tried and executed for Mountain Meadows — was not the prime mover and personally killed no one. They received a measure of vindication when the LDS Church posthumously restored Lee's membership in 1961.

And here:

Quote

Question

Gramps,

As we know,  J.D. Lee was excommunicated and executed for his role in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. He was then posthumously reinstated in the 1960’s. Doesn’t that mean that he has been forgiven all his sins and eligible for the Celestial Kingdom?

vandydad

Answer

Vandydad,

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not have, nor has it ever claimed to have, the power to forgive sins.  That belongs solely to the Lord Jesus Christ.  The scriptures are very clear that the Lord will forgive whom He will forgive, but we are required to forgive all men.  So forgiving sins belongs to the Lord, but forgiving all those who wrong us in some way belongs to us.  The Church can forgive those who transgress against it, just like all people can and should forgive those who hurt them.

For those readers unfamiliar with the Mountain Meadows Massacre the Church has addressed it officially here.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was wrong and should never have happened.  But it did, and the Church has been dealing with the fallout ever since.  All those responsible will have to face God and account for their actions.

The Church also has a commandment to provide the ordinance work for everyone who has ever lived.  We can’t know if these people will accept it. We can’t know if they are worthy. We can’t know if the Lord has chosen to forgive them.  We can only provide the ordinances.

We do not know how the Lord views J.D. Lee.  We do know that his descendants, in doing their family history like they have been instructed to do, found that he needed to have work done and worked to make it happen.  The effort of the Lee family is very much parallel with what each of us has been asked to do.

Apparently Juanita Brooks wrote a bit about the reinstatement.  I can't find it online, tho.  I did find this (in the context of blowback Brooks experienced because she wrote about MMM) :

Quote

Juanita’s search for vindication came to a climax while she and Will temporarily resided in Salt Lake City. In April, 1961, the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles authorized the posthumous reinstatement in the Church of John D. Lee, who had been excommunicated without trial several years before his execution. In May, 1961, a Lee descendent was baptized in proxy for his grandfather, and Elder Ezra Taft Benson officiated in endowment and sealing ceremonies for the rehabilitated pioneer. Juanita was delighted beyond measure, for the Church had in effect accepted her interpretation of the massacre. The reinstatement was “a thing that I have not expected to live to see,” she wrote Arthur H. Clark, the California publisher who at that moment was preparing to set the type for her biography of Lee. She enclosed a brief announcement to be added to the end of the biography, which she asked dark to hold while she attempted to gain approval, for she did “not dare to use it without official consent.”

Juanita’s hope for consent proved naive. Because the reinstatement was a tacit admission that Brigham Young had treated Lee unjustly, the Church understandably desired to minimize publicity. The aged Mormon prophet, David O. McKay, dourly warned that he would rescind the reinstatement should any notice of it appear in print and assigned Elder Delbert L. Stapley to dissuade Juanita. It is possible that had Stapley proceeded with tact, he could have achieved his goal. Instead, he commanded Juanita to desist, and Juanita was not a person to be commanded.

Stapley summoned Juanita to a private interview in June, 1961. When she expressed her conviction that God had purposely delayed the printing of her biography so that news of the reinstatement could be included, the apostle, in her words, “just slapped the table and said, ‘IT IS FROM THE DEVIL.’” By way of compromise a subdued Juanita promised to omit the announcement from the first edition of the biography. Members of the Lee family, taking President McKay’s threat seriously, congratulated her for her compliance. She responded with particular anger to a letter from Jesse Udall, a justice of the Arizona state supreme court and husband of a Lee granddaughter. “I do think,” Juanita wrote, “that as an honest historian—as I have tried to be—I owe it to myself and to my readers to tell all the truth, for truth suppressed is its own kind of a lie. So to protect your integrity and to help you keep your word, I must act the part of a prevaricator myself in that I fail to use important and pertinent information or deliberately pretend that I do not have it. This is a role which I do not enjoy playing.”

Elder Stapley and his confederates among the Lees now suspected that Juanita planned to publish a second edition of the biography simultaneously with the first. Her strategy, it appeared, was to provide a small first edition without the announcement for the Lee family, who would thereby be free from the onus of violating President McKay’s order. Consequently, in early July Jesse Udall invited Juanita to a meeting in his home in Phoenix with some twenty-five members of the Lee family, most of whom were prominent in church and business affairs. According to Juanita, Udall spoke first, “bearing his testimony to the fact that Pres. McKay was God’s mouth-piece on earth, and that if we did not obey his demands, he would rescind the earlier action.” One by one the others bore a similar testimony. When at last it was her turn to speak, Juanita stubbornly maintained her righteousness. “I told them that I could bear as fervent a testimony as any there, that I had seen instances of healing, of answer to prayer; that I had worked in every organization of the Church where women work, from organist in Primary to Stake President of Relief Society; that I always carried a Temple Recommend in my purse, though I did not often use it.”

It was altogether, as Juanita later wrote, a “horrible, horrible afternoon.” The next day she returned by air to Salt Lake and on the following day wrote final instructions to her publisher. Within a few weeks Clark printed 200 copies of a first edition of the biography, dated 1961. Upon completing this run, Clark immediately proceeded to a large printing of a second edition, dated 1962, which ended with the announcement of the reinstatement.

The biography of John D. Lee was Juanita’s most skillfully written book and, next to her history of the massacre, her most famous, being widely reviewed in scholarly journals and big city newspapers. Numerous reviewers congratulated the Church for Lee’s reinstatement, which perhaps had a bearing upon the fact that President McKay neither rescinded the reinstatement nor excommunicated Juanita. Nonetheless, Juanita never had greater reason to fear excommunication than during the summer and fall of 1961. Undoubtedly she incessantly weighed the dubious advantages of announcing the reinstatement against the drastic changes which would enter her life should she be excommunicated. Again a variety of motives contributed to her perseverance. Among them, unquestionably, was her rancor against the over-bearing male personalities of Delbert Stapley and Jesse Udall. Ultimately the most telling and the most admirable—the most clearly heroic—was her veneration for truth in the abstract. I for one believe the clause Juanita wrote in her angry letter to Udall, that “truth suppressed is its own kind of a lie,” gives a masterful, unexcelled expression to a timeless verity. 

Interesting stuff.

11 minutes ago, rongo said:

On what grounds would/should Quinn be reinstated, I wonder? If he is at some point, doesn't that make it look like prominent people receive that, repentant or not? Most others who die unresolved don't get that. One can petition the First Presidency about a dead parent or other close family member, but it's rare (and it also isn't unheard of). 

I don't know much about the process, or about how common it is sought, or how often a request for reinstatement is granted.

Thanks,

-Smac

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, rongo said:

He was actually excommunicated for homosexuality. 

We may never know the technical reasons used on the official paperwork.

But the fact that he was dropped with the other September Six  would indicate a group issue.  They may have all had different reasons listed but dropping them together wasn't a coincidence.

[Duncan]

Just now, JLHPROF said:

Well since his excommunication was for PR reasons that's hardly surprising.

He was dropped first from the the Twelve and later exed-long after the Smoot hearings.

[JLHPROF]

Just now, Duncan said:

He was dropped first from the the Twelve and later exed-long after the Smoot hearings.

PR didn't refer to the Smoot hearings.

[Duncan]

1 minute ago, JLHPROF said:

PR didn't refer to the Smoot hearings.

what did they refer to then?

[JLHPROF]

20 minutes ago, Duncan said:

what did they refer to then?

Actually my mistake.  It was his "resignation" from the Quorum that was the PR stunt.

His excommunication came after because he became bitter against the Quorum as a result.

Fortunately Pres. McKay restored his blessings posthumously.  Reasonable since that was part of the resignation deal that started the thing.  You can hardly blame Taylor for being bitter after being used.

[Tacenda]

Read the below from the Trib, surprised it came up without my paying for it. I didn't know he got married and had four children, but then divorced when he came out gay: 

D. Michael Quinn was once among Mormonism’s most celebrated historians, lauded for his memory, work ethic and charisma — even prompting predictions that he would become the official historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or one of the faith’s governing apostles.

Quinn, who was discovered dead Wednesday of unspecified causes at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., saw no conflict between the church’s history and his faith.

Still, his compulsion to understand every detail of the Latter-day Saint past, starting in his teen years in the 1960s, put him on a collision course with his church. It would culminate in September 1993, when the Yale-trained scholar was drummed out of Utah-based church for apostasy based on his historical writings about women and the priesthood, along with polygamy.

That same month, four other writers and feminists were excommunicated and one was disfellowshipped, a less-severe punishment. Together, they became known as the “September Six.”

The 77-year-old Quinn became the first of them to die and arguably the most tragic. He published critical contradictions in church history, but the historian was no critic.

He appeared to have the most literal faith of the group (believing in angelic visits, miracles, divine intervention, gold plates, Christ in America), the greatest church ambition and an impressive scholarly pedigree.

Yet Quinn did not have an appointment or steady income for more than two decades, and, though he considered himself a believing Mormon until his death, he had no community of faith.

“He may know more about the Mormon past than anybody alive,” Jan Shipps, a Methodist and a preeminent scholar of Mormon history, said in 2013. “He could have had a successful career at Brigham Young University if he had been willing to give up his research in LDS Church history and just teach.”

Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, echoed that sentiment Thursday.

“I’m not sure any person, other than maybe Leonard Arrington, will take more knowledge of Mormon history to the grave than did Michael Quinn today,” Mason tweeted. “In addition to his prodigious scholarship, he was genuinely kind and generous to all of us in the field. He’ll be sorely missed.”

For many, the independent historian “personified the new Mormon history,” said Gary James Bergera, company director of Signature Books, which published much of Quinn’s work. “He was thorough, probing, insightful. He believed fervently that historical truth and religious faith are not enemies, but are partners.”

Quinn’s study of the late apostle J. Reuben Clark, Bergera said, “may be the finest biography ever written by a Mormon about a Mormon.”

His death, Bergera said, “is a great loss.”

Raised in a Mormon cocoon

The only child of his Mexican Catholic father and his Anglo-Swiss, sixth-generation Mormon mother, he was reared by his mom in the Los Angeles area after the couple divorced when Quinn was 5. Mormonism was his cocoon.

He dazzled fellow believers with his tales of being cured of polio after a priesthood blessing and being spared from a deadly drop off a ledge by a voice, saying “stop,” which he interpreted as the Holy Spirit.

When the young Quinn began to experience stirrings of attraction for other boys at age 12, he did what he knew best: Read everything on the topic.

Under “perversion” in the library card catalog, it read “see homosexuality.”

So Quinn decided to confide in no one but God.

“I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me,” he said, “so I decided to live a straight life.”

At 19, Quinn left for his two-year church mission, serving in Britain under President Marion D. Hanks, who later became an LDS general authority and a lifelong mentor to Quinn.

“He was a spiritually gifted friend,” Richard Lambert, who was a fellow missionary in England, wrote Thursday in an email. “He was known [in the mission] as one who was able to help others in the understanding of scripture. ...He had heard the audible voice of the Lord as a child protecting him from danger and believed in and exercised the gifts of the spirit.”

In 1969, Quinn earned a degree in English at church-owned BYU, where he met and married his wife, Jan, and fathered four children — three of whom are living. The couple later would divorce amicably after Quinn came out as gay.

The historian was always on hand for holidays and family traditions, said his son Moshe Quinn, the youngest, said Thursday. “My dad was part of every Christmas. He was a great listener and always present for me.”

His father was “one of the greatest sources of unconditional love and support,” said the son, an art teacher in San Francisco. “He didn’t raise me but was very much around, always available for moments when I reached out to him.”

Mary Quinn, the eldest child, who now lives in Bountiful, recalled that her dad read “The Hobbit” aloud to the kids — twice.

She and her dad shared a love of “quality ice cream,” she said. “I remember many happy trips to Snelgrove during my childhood,”

The family also had a love of movies and movie theaters, Mary Quinn said. “We would sometimes plot out a way to view four movies in a single day, though not all in the same theater. … Usually with a great meal in the mix.”

The second child, Utahn Lisa Quinn Harrison, recalled her dad as a man of his word.

“If he said he would be somewhere at a particular time, he would be there,” Harrison said. “He always kept his promises.”

The father also was a stickler for honesty.

“I remember him saying if we lied to him, our punishment would be worse than if we told the truth,” she said. “He was always teaching me that honesty and integrity were so important.”

Harrison didn’t realize how well known her dad was until she was in her 20s, and friends her age would tell her how his work had changed their lives.

“He wasn’t seeking fame or fortune; he just always followed his heart,” she said. “I felt honored to be related to him.”

Throughout his life, Quinn was obsessed with church history and confident in his ability to ferret out truth, no matter where the quest might lead him.

In 1975, he wrote his dissertation for Yale about the dynamics of power among the Mormon hierarchy. He then took a job at BYU, where he got into an intellectual wrangle with then-apostle Boyd K. Packer about the role of history in the faith.

Quinn and others were trying to humanize, not lionize, early Latter-day Saints and provide context for the religion’s troubling episodes. They hoped to legitimize the field to other scholars.

For Quinn, the tipping point was his exhaustive 1985 article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, documenting post-Manifesto polygamy and how church leaders tried to cover it up.

Three years after the Dialogue article, BYU administrators were making his academic life tough, denying him sabbaticals and research time. The message seemed clear: Stop your work on Mormon history or lose your job.

In response, he resigned.

But he continued to believe he had a dual mission and so maintained a rigorous research schedule.

He wrote several books, including a second volume on LDS hierarchy, one on Mormonism and the “magic worldview,” and a look at same-sex dynamics in church history.

In the past five years, Quinn completed an exploration of LDS Church finances from its humble beginnings to its current global empire.

He found himself defending the church and its approach to economics.

“It is an American success story without parallel,” the longtime historian told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2017. “No institution, no church, no business, no nonprofit organization in America has had this kind of history…[It is] an enormously faith-promoting story.”

If everyday Mormons could grasp “the larger picture,” he said, they would “breathe a sigh of relief and see the church is not a profit-making business.”

Ironically, many of today’s Mormon historians have again delved into the church’s controversial past — this time with the faith’s blessing — to counter critics who take to the Internet to expose early LDS authorities’ foibles. Post-Manifesto polygamy has even been discussed in a church-sponsored essay.

For his part, Quinn did not regret the path he took.

“I don’t believe that the ‘Holy Spirit of Promise’ ratified my excommunication, but I do believe it ratified all the other ordinances I received,” he told The Tribune in 2013. “The Spirit is still part of my life.”

Edited April 23, 2021 by Tacenda

[rongo]

39 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

We may never know the technical reasons used on the official paperwork.

But the fact that he was dropped with the other September Six  would indicate a group issue.  They may have all had different reasons listed but dropping them together wasn't a coincidence.

Gileadi is one of the "September Six," although he had nothing in common with or to do with the others. I forget which one, but a Seventy pushed that one. Like I said, I could never find anything in his book that was apostate. 

I don't think they were a set "group;" I think there were several people percolating on several fronts at the time that came to a head. Has there ever been any evidence of an "omnibus" purge order?

[JLHPROF]

10 minutes ago, rongo said:

.Has there ever been any evidence of an "omnibus" purge order?

You're not nearly naive enough to believe any evidence would be allowed to exist publicly.

Six well known Mormon academics in the same month?  Just all happened to receive disciplinary hearings?  All of whom had published things not exactly on party lines.  Nah, I don't believe in coincidences.

Edited April 23, 2021 by JLHPROF

[Duncan]

10 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

You're not nearly naive enough to believe any evidence would be allowed to exist publicly.

Six well known Mormon academics in the same month?  Just all happened to receive disciplinary hearings?  All of whom had published things not exactly on party lines.  Nah, I don't believe in coincidences.

didn't one them not want to be associated with that group? Quinn or Gileadi?

[Hamba Tuhan]

23 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Nah, I don't believe in coincidences.

I’m a trained historian. I do!

[InCognitus]

57 minutes ago, Duncan said:

didn't one them not want to be associated with that group? Quinn or Gileadi?

It was Gileadi, from his own statement (correcting Wikipedia articles):

Quote

Responses to Wikipedia Article Dated 12^th June 2012

Having attempted over the years to correct erroneous statements about me that others have made under my name on Wikipedia—only to have them intentionally or non-intentionally replaced by the same ones as before—I feel constrained to clarify several things in regard to myself for the benefit of those who might otherwise be prejudiced toward my life’s work on the Book of Isaiah. First, although I am a Hebrew scholar and literary analyst, I was never a “Mormon historian” or “researcher of Mormonism,” considering the literary analysis of the writings of Isaiah and their scriptural connections of themselves worthy of a life’s commitment. Second, as I taught college at Brigham Young University by way of supporting my family only during my academic years (1973–1981), I was never “terminated” as either a teacher or professor. I thus can’t be considered to have a “post-termination career.” Third, although I was excommunicated in 1993 from the LDS church in a disciplinary council that began a wave of several thousand excommunications on the Wasatch Front in the 1990s, in my case—as not a single charge was true or supported by evidence—all record of it was expunged from the church’s records nearly a decade ago in a tacit admission that the church had made a mistake. In other words, as my excommunication from the church was a non-event so far as the church is concerned, it doesn’t define me as a person. Yet there are those who take it on themselves to define me as such throughout the current Wikipedia article, attaching it even to my listed name. Fourth, while several prominent writers who were excommunicated in 1993 pleaded their cause in the media at that time and thus embarrassed the church, I never did so, even though my family, reputation, work, etc. were adversely affected by the church’s action. Yet those same prominent writers were evidently glad to see me among their number and to ascribe to me the very same questioning of the church’s authority and “speaking against church doctrine or leadership” in which they engaged, as the current Wikipedia write-up asserts. As I have never been asked to change my conclusions that derive from applying several methodologies of literary analysis to researching scriptural texts, my supposedly “challenging the exclusive right of leaders to define doctrine” is a non sequitur. In short, the above writers have no evidence of any such spurious claims and I ask them to desist from their calumnies. As in this instance, the abject practice of citing anti-Mormon sources to supply the “truth” or of defaming the messenger whose findings happen not to coincide with your opinion is further unbecoming of Wikipedia, whose goal is to convey information to the world, not misinformation.

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by InCognitus

[Nevo]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Very sorry to see him go at age 77, but I believe that he will find a good deal of mercy and love on the other side.

I hope you're right.

I spent the last half hour looking for a letter of Quinn's that I remember reading in Sunstone. I finally found it. He closed with this:

Quote

Jesus said: "In my Father's house are many mansions." Then he added, "I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2.) The Savior did not teach us to dread that we might not get the "highest" mansion possible. Any mansion is a mansion. If there is a "least" of God's kingdoms, it is still a divine kingdom where any of us would be happy to dwell with others who are really "our kind." Forever.

I've never forgotten this.

In one of his books he wrote the following dedication: "To my mother, a sixth-generation Mormon, whose love for Mormonism and her faith in its essentials continue strong despite the difficulties of her own experience and her awareness of the 'weaknesses of men.' Thank you for nurturing that love and faith in me." 

D. Michael Quinn's love and faith also continued strong despite the difficulties of his own experience—to the end, it seems. May he be welcomed home with open arms.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Nevo

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Read the below from the Trib, surprised it came up without my paying for it. I didn't know he got married and had four children, but then divorced when he came out gay: 

D. Michael Quinn was once among Mormonism’s most celebrated historians, lauded for his memory, work ethic and charisma — even prompting predictions that he would become the official historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or one of the faith’s governing apostles.

Quinn, who was discovered dead Wednesday of unspecified causes at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., saw no conflict between the church’s history and his faith.

Still, his compulsion to understand every detail of the Latter-day Saint past, starting in his teen years in the 1960s, put him on a collision course with his church. It would culminate in September 1993, when the Yale-trained scholar was drummed out of Utah-based church for apostasy based on his historical writings about women and the priesthood, along with polygamy.

That same month, four other writers and feminists were excommunicated and one was disfellowshipped, a less-severe punishment. Together, they became known as the “September Six.”

The 77-year-old Quinn became the first of them to die and arguably the most tragic. He published critical contradictions in church history, but the historian was no critic.

He appeared to have the most literal faith of the group (believing in angelic visits, miracles, divine intervention, gold plates, Christ in America), the greatest church ambition and an impressive scholarly pedigree.

Yet Quinn did not have an appointment or steady income for more than two decades, and, though he considered himself a believing Mormon until his death, he had no community of faith.

“He may know more about the Mormon past than anybody alive,” Jan Shipps, a Methodist and a preeminent scholar of Mormon history, said in 2013. “He could have had a successful career at Brigham Young University if he had been willing to give up his research in LDS Church history and just teach.”

Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, echoed that sentiment Thursday.

“I’m not sure any person, other than maybe Leonard Arrington, will take more knowledge of Mormon history to the grave than did Michael Quinn today,” Mason tweeted. “In addition to his prodigious scholarship, he was genuinely kind and generous to all of us in the field. He’ll be sorely missed.”

For many, the independent historian “personified the new Mormon history,” said Gary James Bergera, company director of Signature Books, which published much of Quinn’s work. “He was thorough, probing, insightful. He believed fervently that historical truth and religious faith are not enemies, but are partners.”

Quinn’s study of the late apostle J. Reuben Clark, Bergera said, “may be the finest biography ever written by a Mormon about a Mormon.”

His death, Bergera said, “is a great loss.”

Raised in a Mormon cocoon

The only child of his Mexican Catholic father and his Anglo-Swiss, sixth-generation Mormon mother, he was reared by his mom in the Los Angeles area after the couple divorced when Quinn was 5. Mormonism was his cocoon.

He dazzled fellow believers with his tales of being cured of polio after a priesthood blessing and being spared from a deadly drop off a ledge by a voice, saying “stop,” which he interpreted as the Holy Spirit.

When the young Quinn began to experience stirrings of attraction for other boys at age 12, he did what he knew best: Read everything on the topic.

Under “perversion” in the library card catalog, it read “see homosexuality.”

So Quinn decided to confide in no one but God.

“I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me,” he said, “so I decided to live a straight life.”

At 19, Quinn left for his two-year church mission, serving in Britain under President Marion D. Hanks, who later became an LDS general authority and a lifelong mentor to Quinn.

“He was a spiritually gifted friend,” Richard Lambert, who was a fellow missionary in England, wrote Thursday in an email. “He was known [in the mission] as one who was able to help others in the understanding of scripture. ...He had heard the audible voice of the Lord as a child protecting him from danger and believed in and exercised the gifts of the spirit.”

In 1969, Quinn earned a degree in English at church-owned BYU, where he met and married his wife, Jan, and fathered four children — three of whom are living. The couple later would divorce amicably after Quinn came out as gay.

The historian was always on hand for holidays and family traditions, said his son Moshe Quinn, the youngest, said Thursday. “My dad was part of every Christmas. He was a great listener and always present for me.”

His father was “one of the greatest sources of unconditional love and support,” said the son, an art teacher in San Francisco. “He didn’t raise me but was very much around, always available for moments when I reached out to him.”

Mary Quinn, the eldest child, who now lives in Bountiful, recalled that her dad read “The Hobbit” aloud to the kids — twice.

She and her dad shared a love of “quality ice cream,” she said. “I remember many happy trips to Snelgrove during my childhood,”

The family also had a love of movies and movie theaters, Mary Quinn said. “We would sometimes plot out a way to view four movies in a single day, though not all in the same theater. … Usually with a great meal in the mix.”

The second child, Utahn Lisa Quinn Harrison, recalled her dad as a man of his word.

“If he said he would be somewhere at a particular time, he would be there,” Harrison said. “He always kept his promises.”

The father also was a stickler for honesty.

“I remember him saying if we lied to him, our punishment would be worse than if we told the truth,” she said. “He was always teaching me that honesty and integrity were so important.”

Harrison didn’t realize how well known her dad was until she was in her 20s, and friends her age would tell her how his work had changed their lives.

“He wasn’t seeking fame or fortune; he just always followed his heart,” she said. “I felt honored to be related to him.”

Throughout his life, Quinn was obsessed with church history and confident in his ability to ferret out truth, no matter where the quest might lead him.

In 1975, he wrote his dissertation for Yale about the dynamics of power among the Mormon hierarchy. He then took a job at BYU, where he got into an intellectual wrangle with then-apostle Boyd K. Packer about the role of history in the faith.

Quinn and others were trying to humanize, not lionize, early Latter-day Saints and provide context for the religion’s troubling episodes. They hoped to legitimize the field to other scholars.

For Quinn, the tipping point was his exhaustive 1985 article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, documenting post-Manifesto polygamy and how church leaders tried to cover it up.

Three years after the Dialogue article, BYU administrators were making his academic life tough, denying him sabbaticals and research time. The message seemed clear: Stop your work on Mormon history or lose your job.

In response, he resigned.

But he continued to believe he had a dual mission and so maintained a rigorous research schedule.

He wrote several books, including a second volume on LDS hierarchy, one on Mormonism and the “magic worldview,” and a look at same-sex dynamics in church history.

In the past five years, Quinn completed an exploration of LDS Church finances from its humble beginnings to its current global empire.

He found himself defending the church and its approach to economics.

“It is an American success story without parallel,” the longtime historian told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2017. “No institution, no church, no business, no nonprofit organization in America has had this kind of history…[It is] an enormously faith-promoting story.”

If everyday Mormons could grasp “the larger picture,” he said, they would “breathe a sigh of relief and see the church is not a profit-making business.”

Ironically, many of today’s Mormon historians have again delved into the church’s controversial past — this time with the faith’s blessing — to counter critics who take to the Internet to expose early LDS authorities’ foibles. Post-Manifesto polygamy has even been discussed in a church-sponsored essay.

For his part, Quinn did not regret the path he took.

“I don’t believe that the ‘Holy Spirit of Promise’ ratified my excommunication, but I do believe it ratified all the other ordinances I received,” he told The Tribune in 2013. “The Spirit is still part of my life.”

Thank you for posting this. I had never heard of him but now I am interested in his writings. 

[Calm]

I personally don’t see a problem with posthumous reinstatement of blessings for anyone because it would work like proxy temple work, only if confirmed by the Holy Spirit of Promise.  We do temple proxy work for plenty of non repentant at death individuals already, so why not this set as well?
 

The only reasons not to I can currently think of would be with a notorious individual where if listed publicly, members and nonmembers would be offended or if they had resigned or desired to be excommunicated, there might be some family members that wanted to respect the expressed wish not to be associated with the Church. Both cases could be dealt pretty much with by keeping records of those with posthumous reinstatement out of public viewing. 

[Robert F. Smith]

41 minutes ago, Nevo said:

................

Quote

Jesus said: "In my Father's house are many mansions." Then he added, "I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2.) The Savior did not teach us to dread that we might not get the "highest" mansion possible. Any mansion is a mansion. If there is a "least" of God's kingdoms, it is still a divine kingdom where any of us would be happy to dwell with others who are really "our kind." Forever.

 

 

41 minutes ago, Nevo said:

In one of his books he wrote the following dedication: "To my mother, a sixth-generation Mormon, whose love for Mormonism and her faith in its essentials continue strong despite the difficulties of her own experience and her awareness of the 'weaknesses of men.' Thank you for nurturing that love and faith in me." 

D. Michael Quinn's love and faith also continued strong despite the difficulties of his own experience—to the end, it seems. May he be welcomed home with open arms.

Thanks for that saying of his.  Another of his eloquent sayings:  "The unexamined faith is not worth having."

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

................................

The only child of his Mexican Catholic father and his Anglo-Swiss, sixth-generation Mormon mother, he was reared by his mom in the Los Angeles area after the couple divorced when Quinn was 5. Mormonism was his cocoon.

...........................

When the young Quinn began to experience stirrings of attraction for other boys at age 12, he did what he knew best: Read everything on the topic.

Under “perversion” in the library card catalog, it read “see homosexuality.”

So Quinn decided to confide in no one but God.

“I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me,” he said, “so I decided to live a straight life.”

At 19, Quinn left for his two-year church mission, serving in Britain under President Marion D. Hanks, who later became an LDS general authority and a lifelong mentor to Quinn.

His missionary companion in England told me that he knew that Mike was gay.

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

..............................

He wrote several books, including a second volume on LDS hierarchy, one on Mormonism and the “magic worldview,” and a look at same-sex dynamics in church history.

In the past five years, Quinn completed an exploration of LDS Church finances from its humble beginnings to its current global empire.

He found himself defending the church and its approach to economics.

“It is an American success story without parallel,” the longtime historian told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2017. “No institution, no church, no business, no nonprofit organization in America has had this kind of history…[It is] an enormously faith-promoting story.”

If everyday Mormons could grasp “the larger picture,” he said, they would “breathe a sigh of relief and see the church is not a profit-making business.”

Ironically, many of today’s Mormon historians have again delved into the church’s controversial past — this time with the faith’s blessing — to counter critics who take to the Internet to expose early LDS authorities’ foibles. Post-Manifesto polygamy has even been discussed in a church-sponsored essay.

For his part, Quinn did not regret the path he took.

“I don’t believe that the ‘Holy Spirit of Promise’ ratified my excommunication, but I do believe it ratified all the other ordinances I received,” he told The Tribune in 2013. “The Spirit is still part of my life.”

Thanks for copying that for us, Tacenda.

One paper of his I would like to see is his very personal "Crossing the Mexican-American Line," which is apparently unpublished.  I hope his will allows that to be published.

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

The Church isn't Mormonism.  He didn't change the course of the Church, but he did change the study of Mormonism.

And the trickle down effect eventually contributed to the Church changing itself.

I’m dubious about any “trickle-down effect.” I dare say most of the rank-and-file have not heard of him and fewer still have read any of his writings. I still say “changed the course of the Church” is bloated rhetoric. 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[Meadowchik]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Read the below from the Trib, surprised it came up without my paying for it. I didn't know he got married and had four children, but then divorced when he came out gay: 

D. Michael Quinn was once among Mormonism’s most celebrated historians, lauded for his memory, work ethic and charisma — even prompting predictions that he would become the official historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or one of the faith’s governing apostles.

Quinn, who was discovered dead Wednesday of unspecified causes at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., saw no conflict between the church’s history and his faith.

Still, his compulsion to understand every detail of the Latter-day Saint past, starting in his teen years in the 1960s, put him on a collision course with his church. It would culminate in September 1993, when the Yale-trained scholar was drummed out of Utah-based church for apostasy based on his historical writings about women and the priesthood, along with polygamy.

That same month, four other writers and feminists were excommunicated and one was disfellowshipped, a less-severe punishment. Together, they became known as the “September Six.”

The 77-year-old Quinn became the first of them to die and arguably the most tragic. He published critical contradictions in church history, but the historian was no critic.

He appeared to have the most literal faith of the group (believing in angelic visits, miracles, divine intervention, gold plates, Christ in America), the greatest church ambition and an impressive scholarly pedigree.

Yet Quinn did not have an appointment or steady income for more than two decades, and, though he considered himself a believing Mormon until his death, he had no community of faith.

“He may know more about the Mormon past than anybody alive,” Jan Shipps, a Methodist and a preeminent scholar of Mormon history, said in 2013. “He could have had a successful career at Brigham Young University if he had been willing to give up his research in LDS Church history and just teach.”

Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, echoed that sentiment Thursday.

“I’m not sure any person, other than maybe Leonard Arrington, will take more knowledge of Mormon history to the grave than did Michael Quinn today,” Mason tweeted. “In addition to his prodigious scholarship, he was genuinely kind and generous to all of us in the field. He’ll be sorely missed.”

For many, the independent historian “personified the new Mormon history,” said Gary James Bergera, company director of Signature Books, which published much of Quinn’s work. “He was thorough, probing, insightful. He believed fervently that historical truth and religious faith are not enemies, but are partners.”

Quinn’s study of the late apostle J. Reuben Clark, Bergera said, “may be the finest biography ever written by a Mormon about a Mormon.”

His death, Bergera said, “is a great loss.”

Raised in a Mormon cocoon

The only child of his Mexican Catholic father and his Anglo-Swiss, sixth-generation Mormon mother, he was reared by his mom in the Los Angeles area after the couple divorced when Quinn was 5. Mormonism was his cocoon.

He dazzled fellow believers with his tales of being cured of polio after a priesthood blessing and being spared from a deadly drop off a ledge by a voice, saying “stop,” which he interpreted as the Holy Spirit.

When the young Quinn began to experience stirrings of attraction for other boys at age 12, he did what he knew best: Read everything on the topic.

Under “perversion” in the library card catalog, it read “see homosexuality.”

So Quinn decided to confide in no one but God.

“I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me,” he said, “so I decided to live a straight life.”

At 19, Quinn left for his two-year church mission, serving in Britain under President Marion D. Hanks, who later became an LDS general authority and a lifelong mentor to Quinn.

“He was a spiritually gifted friend,” Richard Lambert, who was a fellow missionary in England, wrote Thursday in an email. “He was known [in the mission] as one who was able to help others in the understanding of scripture. ...He had heard the audible voice of the Lord as a child protecting him from danger and believed in and exercised the gifts of the spirit.”

In 1969, Quinn earned a degree in English at church-owned BYU, where he met and married his wife, Jan, and fathered four children — three of whom are living. The couple later would divorce amicably after Quinn came out as gay.

The historian was always on hand for holidays and family traditions, said his son Moshe Quinn, the youngest, said Thursday. “My dad was part of every Christmas. He was a great listener and always present for me.”

His father was “one of the greatest sources of unconditional love and support,” said the son, an art teacher in San Francisco. “He didn’t raise me but was very much around, always available for moments when I reached out to him.”

Mary Quinn, the eldest child, who now lives in Bountiful, recalled that her dad read “The Hobbit” aloud to the kids — twice.

She and her dad shared a love of “quality ice cream,” she said. “I remember many happy trips to Snelgrove during my childhood,”

The family also had a love of movies and movie theaters, Mary Quinn said. “We would sometimes plot out a way to view four movies in a single day, though not all in the same theater. … Usually with a great meal in the mix.”

The second child, Utahn Lisa Quinn Harrison, recalled her dad as a man of his word.

“If he said he would be somewhere at a particular time, he would be there,” Harrison said. “He always kept his promises.”

The father also was a stickler for honesty.

“I remember him saying if we lied to him, our punishment would be worse than if we told the truth,” she said. “He was always teaching me that honesty and integrity were so important.”

Harrison didn’t realize how well known her dad was until she was in her 20s, and friends her age would tell her how his work had changed their lives.

“He wasn’t seeking fame or fortune; he just always followed his heart,” she said. “I felt honored to be related to him.”

Throughout his life, Quinn was obsessed with church history and confident in his ability to ferret out truth, no matter where the quest might lead him.

In 1975, he wrote his dissertation for Yale about the dynamics of power among the Mormon hierarchy. He then took a job at BYU, where he got into an intellectual wrangle with then-apostle Boyd K. Packer about the role of history in the faith.

Quinn and others were trying to humanize, not lionize, early Latter-day Saints and provide context for the religion’s troubling episodes. They hoped to legitimize the field to other scholars.

For Quinn, the tipping point was his exhaustive 1985 article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, documenting post-Manifesto polygamy and how church leaders tried to cover it up.

Three years after the Dialogue article, BYU administrators were making his academic life tough, denying him sabbaticals and research time. The message seemed clear: Stop your work on Mormon history or lose your job.

In response, he resigned.

But he continued to believe he had a dual mission and so maintained a rigorous research schedule.

He wrote several books, including a second volume on LDS hierarchy, one on Mormonism and the “magic worldview,” and a look at same-sex dynamics in church history.

In the past five years, Quinn completed an exploration of LDS Church finances from its humble beginnings to its current global empire.

He found himself defending the church and its approach to economics.

“It is an American success story without parallel,” the longtime historian told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2017. “No institution, no church, no business, no nonprofit organization in America has had this kind of history…[It is] an enormously faith-promoting story.”

If everyday Mormons could grasp “the larger picture,” he said, they would “breathe a sigh of relief and see the church is not a profit-making business.”

Ironically, many of today’s Mormon historians have again delved into the church’s controversial past — this time with the faith’s blessing — to counter critics who take to the Internet to expose early LDS authorities’ foibles. Post-Manifesto polygamy has even been discussed in a church-sponsored essay.

For his part, Quinn did not regret the path he took.

“I don’t believe that the ‘Holy Spirit of Promise’ ratified my excommunication, but I do believe it ratified all the other ordinances I received,” he told The Tribune in 2013. “The Spirit is still part of my life.”

Thanks, Tacenda!

[JLHPROF]

6 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’m dubious about any “trickle-down effect.” I dare say most of the rank-and-file have not heard of him and fewer still have read any of his writings. I still say “changed the course of the Church” is bloated rhetoric. 

You don't think better scholarship and a more open approach to Church history had anything to do with the Church becoming more open and publishing things like the essays, the Joseph Smith papers?  Even the much more honest Church History museum redesign and Beehive House tours I have applauded here before.

More availability online and in print has definitely led to the Church being more willing to embrace it's history. I think they're moving strongly in the right direction (still more to come hopefully).  And I think academics like Quinn making history available to anyone who cared to look was definitely one factor.

Edited April 23, 2021 by JLHPROF

[teddyaware]

11 hours ago, Duncan said:

Apparently Elder Lyman was reinstated in 1909. That's the thing these people could be reinstated, whether or not they are repentant is another thing and maybe nobody on this side of the veil would ever know. Also  maybe time passing? like however and whatever happens for the 1st Presidency to think about maybe the figure ah, 35 years is long enough! One thing I thought was weird about Elder Lyman was his son was also an Apostle, Elder Francis M. Lyman but his son was Elder Richard R. Lyman-who was also exed, like grandfather like grandson I guess

Richard R Lyman was excommunicated for adultery, not heresy.