Editor; co-founder, Mormon Alliance
Lavina Fielding Anderson
1944–2023
Birth year: b. 13 Apr 1944; d. 29 Oct 2023. CORRECTION: previously recorded as living. (Dialogue's memorial headline '1944-2022' is an error.) Posthumously readmitted to the church Nov 2024. Salt Lake Tribune obituary, 30 Oct 2023 — https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/10/30/september-six-writer-editor-who/
3 topics · 8 dated events · 3 sources
Their part in each topic
The September Six
Editor and chronicler
A former Ensign editor and editor of the Journal of Mormon History, Anderson compiled the dated, named record of ecclesiastical pressure on Latter-day Saint intellectuals that she read at the 1992 Sunstone symposium and published in Dialogue in Spring 1993. That article, and the Mormon Alliance she co-founded to document what she called ecclesiastical and spiritual abuse, were the stated grounds of her stake president's concern. She was excommunicated on 23 September 1993, appealed at length, was denied, and has attended her ward continuously ever since.
Sexual Abuse and the Institutional Response
Editor; co-founder, Mormon Alliance
Anderson's 1993 Dialogue article on ecclesiastical abuse and the Mormon Alliance's Case Reports, which she co-edited with Janice Merrill Allred, established the vocabulary of institutional harm that later advocates use. She was excommunicated in 1993. She is also the source of one of the only figures ever attached to the help line's volume: her 2003 report that a stake high councilor let slip that the line took roughly 20,000 calls from priesthood leaders in 2001.
Speaking Truth to Power
Kept the list
Anderson did the thing this topic is about in its purest form: she wrote down what was being done to other people and published it. Her Dialogue chronology of Spring 1993 gave dates and names and used the word abuse. Her stake president told her that her membership was in jeopardy if she continued collecting and publicising incidents of ecclesiastical abuse; she said she could not stop. Excommunicated 23 September 1993, she attended her ward continuously for the next thirty years. Her request to be rebaptized was denied by the First Presidency in 2019. She was readmitted posthumously in November 2024.
In the timeline
8 events across 2 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Anderson reads the chronology at Sunstonehinge
Anderson presented her chronology to the thirteenth annual Sunstone symposium, alleging an internal system that maintained secret files on members. In the question period BYU professor Eugene England named the Strengthening Church Members Committee and said, 'I accuse that committee of undermining our Church.' An Associated Press bureau chief in the audience walked out and filed the story.
Eugene England names the committee from the floor
After Lavina Fielding Anderson read her chronology at the Sunstone symposium, England rose first in the question period and denounced the Strengthening Church Members Committee — an organisation most of the room had never heard of. The Associated Press bureau chief walked out to file. The church confirmed the committee's existence the next morning. In the same year the BYU Board of Trustees rejected Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, as a speaker at the university's own Women's Conference.
Dialogue publishes the chronology and the Mormon Alliance announcement
Dialogue 26:1 carried Anderson's chronology, Richard D. Poll's supporting response, Paul Toscano's 'A Plea to the Leadership of the Church: Choose Love not Power,' and a letter co-signed by Anderson and Janice Allred announcing the Mormon Alliance, an organisation to document what it called spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse. The issue won Dialogue's Lowell L. Bennion Essay Award for the year.
Lavina Fielding Anderson is excommunicated
Anderson did not attend, holding that the problem was not at stake level and so could not be solved there. Her stake president had told her in May that her membership was in jeopardy if she continued collecting and publicising incidents of ecclesiastical abuse; she said she could not stop. The letter she received on 24 September gave no reason; when she asked, she was told the grounds were apostasy. About two hundred people had gathered for a prayer meeting the night before.
The September Sixhinge
Between 14 and 26 September, Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was disfellowshipped and Paul Toscano, Maxine Hanks, Avraham Gileadi, Lavina Fielding Anderson and D. Michael Quinn were excommunicated. Anderson's stake president had told her that her membership was in jeopardy if she continued collecting and publicising incidents of ecclesiastical abuse; she said she could not stop. Whitesides's bishop forbade even her husband to attend her council. Anderson attended her ward for thirty more years; her request for rebaptism was denied in 2019 and she was readmitted posthumously in November 2024.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports the outcomeshinge
'Three men and three women have been charged with apostasy for their writing and speaking about Mormon subjects. Paul Toscano, Avraham Gileadi, D. Michael Quinn, Maxine Hanks and Lavina Fielding Anderson were excommunicated. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was disfellowshiped.' The story ran on the eve of general conference; the New York Times put the affair on its front page and National Public Radio carried comments from Dallin H. Oaks.
The appeals are denied; more councils follow
The appeals of Anderson, Whitesides and Toscano were all denied. Anderson's stake president wrote that Church leaders had 'deliberated and pondered carefully and concluded that there was no reason to alter the decision.' She told the Tribune: 'I read the words. I believed they were written sincerely. But somehow, it doesn't feel like love.' David P. Wright declined to attend his council in February and was excommunicated; Brent Metcalfe and Michael Barrett were also expelled.
Anderson's request for rebaptism is denied
Twenty-six years after her excommunication, having attended her ward continuously throughout, Anderson petitioned for rebaptism. The request was denied by the First Presidency. She had told her local leaders of her concerns about the Church barring legally married LGBTQ couples from full participation, about women and priesthood, and about Mother in Heaven's place in Latter-day Saint understanding.
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology
Lavina Fielding Anderson
The dated, named record of two decades of ecclesiastical pressure on Latter-day Saint historians and feminists, assembled by a participant and published four months before her own excommunication.
Spiritual Paths After September 1993
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, Paul James Toscano, Maxine Hanks, D. Michael Quinn and Lavina Fielding Anderson
Five of the six speaking together ten years afterward about what they decided, what it cost and where it took them.
Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir
Lucy Mack Smith; Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed.
The household narrative — Moroni's visits, the hiding of the plates, Martin Harris's return without the manuscript, and the chronology of the Grandin contract.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Lavina Fielding Anderson.
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