January 1972
Leonard Arrington is appointed Church Historianhinge
Arrington became the first professionally trained historian to hold the office since the 1840s, appointed under the direction of apostle Howard W. Hunter. The Church Historian's Office was reorganised as the Historical Department, with Arrington heading a new History Division. He hired a staff of young professional historians, opened the archives to them, and launched a sixteen-volume sesquicentennial history.
Why this is a hingeIt is the moment the institution deliberately handed its own past to professional historians — the experiment whose failure everything after 1982 refers back to.
1980–1982
The History Division is moved to Brigham Young University
The sixteen-volume history was cancelled. Arrington and a core of historians were administratively transferred to BYU as the newly created Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History; by 1982 the physical move was complete. Access to the Church archives was restricted at the same time, and steps were taken to control publication of research already done there.
Disputed Church president Spencer W. Kimball framed the move as enhancing the historians' stature and effectiveness; Bitton and Arrington described it as the scuttling of the division.
22 August 1981
Packer delivers 'The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect'hinge
Speaking to Church Educational System religious educators, Packer warned that there is no accurate, objective history of the Church without consideration of the spiritual powers attending the work, that there is a temptation to want to tell everything 'whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not,' and that 'some things that are true are not very useful.' The address was reprinted in BYU Studies that summer.
Why this is a hingeIt supplied both camps with their permanent text: for the Church a charge to religious educators, for the scholars the proof that candour itself had become suspect.
Disputed FAIR argues Packer was instructing CES employees, not professional historians; critics read it as a general instruction to Mormon historians.
25 January 1982
Arrington is released; there is no announcementhinge
Arrington received a letter from the First Presidency extending an 'honorable release' from his ecclesiastical and bureaucratic positions. G. Homer Durham was set apart as Church Historian in a private session on 8 February. Neither the release nor the new calling was mentioned in general conference or the Church News, and no portrait of Arrington was hung in the historians' gallery.
Why this is a hingeCamelot ended not in a controversy but in a silence, and the silence became the scholars' standing example of how the institution handles what it would rather not have said.
11 January 1983
The Seventh East Press publishes the McMurrin interviewhinge
The independent BYU student weekly ran Blake Ostler's interview with philosopher Sterling M. McMurrin, in which McMurrin expressed disbelief in the First Vision and in ancient origins for the Book of Mormon, and called the title of Packer's address 'a betrayal of a very important Mormon idea, that the mantle and the intellect should not be set over against each other.'
Why this is a hingeIt was the first time a nationally known Latter-day Saint intellectual said all of that in a paper students bought on campus — and the university's answer set the pattern.
9 February 1983
BYU bans the Seventh East Press from campus
The paper's editor was told by BYU's public relations director that the university was 'withdrawing permission for the Seventh East Press to sell or distribute issues on campus.' The staff asked who had made the decision; the paper reported that the question remained officially unanswered. The Seventh East Press ceased publication on 12 April 1983.
Spring 1985
Quinn publishes on post-Manifesto plural marriage
'LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890–1904' appeared in Dialogue 18:1, documenting that plural marriages after the 1890 Manifesto had been performed by and for members of the First Presidency, apostles and mission presidents. Quinn had told Gordon B. Hinckley the substance of it in 1982; access to the First Presidency's vault was refused.
15–16 October 1985
The Hofmann bombings
Homemade bombs killed Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets in Salt Lake City; a third bomb injured document dealer Mark Hofmann the next day. Hofmann had sold the Church and private collectors documents — among them the 'salamander letter' attributed to Martin Harris — that appeared to complicate the founding narrative. He pleaded guilty in January 1987 and confessed the letter was a forgery.
Disputed Critics say the Church acquired the documents to suppress them; the Church and FAIR say it acquired them as other collectors did, was defrauded like everyone else, and did not hide the salamander letter.
April 1989
Oaks preaches 'Alternate Voices'
In general conference Oaks distinguished between alternate voices that are 'well-motivated men and women who are merely trying to serve their brothers and sisters and further the cause of Zion' and those with less laudable motives, and cautioned members and leaders accordingly. Sunstone later judged that the address expanded the argument beyond historiography to all independent Mormon discourse and to the forums that carried it.
Disputed Richard D. Poll read the sermon as recognising a legitimate space for Mormon intellectuals; Sunstone read it as drawing a line in the sand.
1989
The Handbook redefines apostasy
The 1989 General Handbook of Instructions moved apostasy into the category of transgressions for which a disciplinary council must be held, and supplied a three-part definition: repeatedly acting in clear, open and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its leaders; persisting in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after correction; or continuing to follow the teachings of apostate cults after correction.
Disputed Dialogue contributors note that the written definition omits the traditional meaning — activity aimed at destroying the Church; FAIR replies that the definition targets advocacy, not inquiry.
23 August 1991
The Statement on Symposiahinge
Following the 1991 Sunstone symposium, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve issued a joint statement criticising presentations at recent symposia that treated sacred matters inappropriately or could injure the Church, and cautioning members about participating. No organisation was named. A March 1992 poll found 42 per cent of BYU faculty would not participate in that summer's symposium.
Why this is a hingeThe institution moved from criticising what scholars wrote to discouraging the forums where they said it, and the forums became the issue.
Disputed Interpreter contributors argue the statement expressed narrow concerns about temple-related and offensive presentations; Sunstone and Dialogue writers describe its practical effect as a general chill.
6 August 1992
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.
Why this is a hingeOne hour in a hotel ballroom turned a rumour into a national news story and set the collision course for the following year.
13 August 1992
The First Presidency confirms the Strengthening Church Members Committee
Responding to 'extensive publicity recently given to false accusations of so-called secret Church committees and files,' the First Presidency cited Doctrine and Covenants 123:1–5 and stated that the committee had been appointed to serve as a resource to priesthood leaders, that it was then composed of James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson, and that it 'neither impose[s] nor direct[s] Church disciplinary action.'
Disputed The Church calls it a resource for local leaders; historian F. Ross Peterson called comparing Sunstone and Dialogue people to those shooting Mormons in 1839 Missouri 'unfair,' and the files 'a strange carryover from a paranoia that resembles McCarthyism.'
7 February 1993
Quinn's stake president arrives with a written accusation
Salt Lake Stake president Paul A. Hanks and his counsellors came to Quinn's door on a Sunday morning holding a typewritten list of publications said to constitute apostasy. At the top was Quinn's essay 'Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843,' published the previous year in Maxine Hanks's Women and Authority.
Spring 1993
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.
18 May 1993
Packer names three dangershinge
Speaking to the All-Church Coordinating Council, Packer said the dangers facing members 'come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals,' and added that local leaders must deal with all three with increasing frequency.
Why this is a hingeFour months before the councils, an apostle publicly grouped scholars with two other movements and assigned the problem to local leaders — the exact level at which the discipline then happened.
Disputed Critics read the talk as the instruction that produced September; FAIR and the Church maintain general authorities did not direct the local decisions.
14 September 1993
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides is disfellowshipped
Hers was the first council and the only one held at ward level, before her bishop, his two counsellors, a clerk and the ward executive secretary. Her bishop had said she could bring a friend and her husband; on the night he barred her husband as well. Her friend Martha Pierce objected: 'You are thinking of dissolving this woman's temple marriage. Don't you think he has a vested interest in participating in this council?'
19 September 1993
Paul Toscano and Maxine Hanks are excommunicated
About a hundred people kept vigil in the Cottonwood stake centre parking lot from six in the morning. Toscano asked that the proceedings be public, that his witnesses and his wife be present throughout, and that an independent party take notes; all four requests were denied. The council worked from a transcript it had made of a cassette of his Sunstone address. Hanks, who had edited Women and Authority, was excommunicated the same day.
September 1993
Avraham Gileadi is excommunicated
Gileadi's excommunication for apostasy was announced in sacrament meetings in his Santaquin Utah stake. He declined to comment publicly then and has never discussed the reasons since. Sunstone reported that he was told he was excommunicated for teaching false doctrine, for being predatory in teaching his theology, and for believing dead prophets over living ones.
Disputed Gileadi is the theological conservative of the six, published by the Church's own Deseret Book, and had complied when told to stop promoting his views — which is why observers across camps have found his case the hardest to explain.
23–24 September 1993
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.
September 1993
D. Michael Quinn is excommunicated
Quinn refused to attend, writing that the process 'was designed to punish me for being the messenger of unwanted historical evidence and to intimidate me from further work in Mormon history.' His stake president had written on 11 May that there were other matters, 'very sensitive and highly confidential,' not related to his historical writings. Quinn's memoir reports the stake president telling the high council that Packer had been phoning weekly about the importance of taking action.
Disputed Quinn said he was disciplined for his history; his stake president wrote that other confidential matters were involved, which Anderson believed referred to Quinn's sexual orientation. Because Quinn did not attend, no agreed record of the grounds exists.
2 October 1993
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.
Why this is a hingeThis is the day the six became 'the September Six' — six private ecclesiastical decisions turned into one national story about a church and its thinkers.
October 1993
General conference answers without naming
James E. Faust told the priesthood session that those who persist in publicly challenging basic doctrines, practices and the establishment of the Church sever themselves from the Spirit of the Lord, and taught that while free discussion and expression are encouraged, 'the privilege of free expression should operate within limits.' He added: 'In some legislative assemblies of the world, there are some groups termed the "loyal opposition." I find no such principle in the gospel of Jesus Christ.'
January 1994
The First Presidency and the Twelve state the position
'In light of extensive publicity given to six recent Church disciplinary councils in Utah,' the statement said the leaders deeply regretted the loss of Church membership by anyone, that general authorities have an obligation to teach principles and provide information helpful to local leaders, that 'in matters of Church discipline, the General Authorities do not direct the decisions of local disciplinary councils,' and that the right of appeal is open to anyone.
Disputed The statement says local councils decide; Quinn, Anderson and others report their local leaders telling them otherwise in the room.
1994
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.
1995
Janice Allred is excommunicated
Allred, a freelance theologian and co-signer of the Mormon Alliance announcement, was excommunicated after a five-hour council that examined her recent speeches and articles in independent Mormon periodicals, including a 1992 Sunstone paper toward a Mormon theology of God the Mother. Sunstone counted her the eighth high-profile Mormon intellectual excommunicated since September 1993, and the first under Gordon B. Hinckley's presidency.
February 1996
Avraham Gileadi is rebaptized
Gileadi's nineteen-year-old son performed the ordinance; he was confirmed by Leaun Otten, the stake president who had excommunicated him, with the entire group of leaders who had participated in that council present. 'In my heart, I've never felt like I've had an apostate spirit,' he told the Deseret News. 'Excommunicated or not, everyone needs to repent — and forgive.'
2000
Margaret Toscano is excommunicated
Margaret Toscano, a classicist and theologian who had contributed to Women and Authority and written publicly on Heavenly Mother and the ordination of women, was excommunicated seven years after her husband. Her stake president had instructed her in July 1993 to stop speaking, writing or making media appearances on subjects involving Church theology.
December 2002
Thomas W. Murphy's council is called off
Murphy, an anthropologist, had published 'Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics,' concluding that no genetic link had been found between ancient Israelites and indigenous Americans. Someone sent the essay to his stake president, who summoned him on charges of apostasy. He was granted a reprieve one day before the scheduled council, after national press coverage. Murphy had written that a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon should not be confused with scientific evidence.
Disputed Murphy's defenders called it a Galileo event; FARMS-affiliated critics attacked the essay's scholarship, and the Church's later Gospel Topics essay concluded that DNA studies cannot be used decisively either way.
13 December 2004
Grant Palmer is disfellowshipped
Palmer, a retired Church Educational System institute director of thirty-plus years, was disfellowshipped after a six-hour council for An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which argued the Book of Mormon is better explained as a nineteenth-century document. 'I regard myself as heretical regarding some of the Church's teachings, but I don't view myself as an apostate,' he said. He was later told he would have to repudiate essentially every chapter to remain on the records; he eventually resigned.
February 2012
Maxine Hanks is rebaptized
Hanks returned to the Church nineteen years after her excommunication, invited by Church leadership. 'I didn't recant anything I'd said or written in the past or change my feminist views or work,' she said. 'I simply wanted to restore my membership, as I am.' She has continued to publish on Mormon women's history and theology.
23 June 2014
Kate Kelly is excommunicated
Kelly, who founded Ordain Women, was excommunicated in absentia by her Virginia bishop for conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church, the letter stating that she had persisted in an aggressive effort to persuade other members to her point of view and that her course of action threatened to erode the faith of others. Days later the First Presidency issued a public statement affirming that priesthood offices are held by men.
February 2015
John Dehlin is excommunicated
Dehlin, founder of the Mormon Stories podcast, was excommunicated by his Logan, Utah stake president. Press reports of the decision letter attributed it to his spreading of what the letter called false concepts; commentators in Dialogue link his case to his support for Ordain Women and for same-sex marriage, and note that he, Kate Kelly and Denver Snuffer all founded organisations the Church treated as rival institutions rather than merely publishing criticism.
Disputed The Church has not published its reasons; Dehlin says the podcast and his advocacy were the cause, and the corpus holds no document from the council itself.
2019
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.
Disputed The Church does not explain such decisions; FAIR speculates nothing had changed in her position, while historian Matthew Bowman suggested the feminist and dissent dimensions of her case were the obstacle.
