Dr Sara Patterson knew Michael Quinn, one of the Sept 6, and is the author of “The Sept 6 & the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism.” She thinks we should think about more people than just the 6 excommunicated in September of 1993. We’ll look back at Michael Quinn’s life and ask if he is a hero or a tragedy. Check out our conversation…
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Michael Quinn: Tragedy or Triumph?
Interview
GT 00:41 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have an amazing, at least new to me, historian, could you go ahead and tell us who you are and where you teach?
Sara 00:50 Sure. I’m Sara Patterson. And I teach at Hanover College in Southern Indiana.
GT 00:55 Southern Indiana. Are you a Hoosier?
Sara 00:58 I guess so. {both laughing}
GT 01:02 Well, one of the things I always like to do is, I like to get people’s backgrounds. Where did you get your Bachelor’s and master’s and Ph.D. and all that stuff?
Sara 01:10 I received my undergraduate degree from Denison University in Ohio. And then I went to Claremont Graduate School for my doctorate.
GT 01:20 Oh, was that with Patrick Mason?
Sara 01:23 I was there before Patrick.
GT 01:25 Oh, so Dr. Bushman?
Sara 01:27 No, I studied with Ann Taves. And on my dissertation committee, Jan Shipps was a member.
GT 01:34 Oh, wow. That’s cool.
Sara 01:36 Yeah.
GT 01:36 I just thought it was Bushman and then Patrick Mason, I didn’t know Ann Taves was in there.
Sara 01:41 I was there when they were fundraising for that chair.
GT 01:43 Okay. Was Ann before Richard Bushman, then?
Sara 01:52 I want to say she overlapped with him one year, and then she went to UC Santa Barbara.
GT 01:57 Oh, wow. I did not know that. Wow. So, you’re an old timer then in Mormon studies, right?
Sara 02:02 Yeah, I guess so.
GT 02:03 Except for, did you major in Mormon studies, or was it just religious studies? Tell us more about your studies.
Sara 02:11 My degree is in history, but I specialized in religious history in the United States. And so, Mormonism has always been an interest of mine.
GT 02:19 Okay, because you’re not Mormon.
Sara 02:22 I’m not.
GT 02:23 And so how did you get interested in Mormon studies?
Sara 02:26 It was just through the study of religion in the United States. And in reading about the early church, I was just captivated by the story.
GT 02:37 Okay.
Sara 02:38 Yeah.
GT 02:38 I talked to Cristina Rosetti. Do you know, Cristina?
Sara 02:41 Yeah.
GT 02:41 She said that, kind of like Parley P. Pratt, she opened up Rough Stone Rolling, and she read it all night. {both chuckling} Did you have any experiences like that?
Sara 02:50 I don’t think I would characterize it that way. That’s great. {both laughing} It was more of a slow growing interest in me.
GT 02:59 Okay. When you were six years old, you probably didn’t say I’m going to grow up as a religious studies scholar?
Sara 03:08 I did not.
GT 03:08 How did that development happen?
Sara 03:14 In college, I took a required religion class. And it just opened my eyes. I’ve always been interested, I think, in why people do and act, the ways that they do. And so, the religion class just helped me see religion as a motivator for people. And I was just hooked at that point.
GT 03:39 Okay.
Sara 03:39 Yeah.
GT 03:40 And so, do you have any other interests besides Mormonism?
Sara 03:46 Yeah, I’m interested more broadly in gender and sexuality in religion, and then also in material culture and sacred spaces. One of my first major projects was about a piece of outsider art in Southern California. I did a project it’s out in the middle of the desert. So, I interviewed people who are coming to visit that space called Salvation Mountain. And I was just interested in how the artists and the people who visited created sacred space together.
GT 04:23 Okay. Well, very good. And so, then you got your first job in Indiana, and that’s why you’re there now. Is that right?
Sara 04:30 Yeah, it was my first tenure track job.
GT 04:33 Okay.
Sara 04:33 Yeah.
GT 04:34 All right.
Sara 04:35 So that’s why I’m there now.
GT 04:36 All right. Well, it’s interesting. You’ve written a new book, why don’t you go ahead and show everybody the book and tell us how you got involved in this book?
Sara 04:48 Am I holding it up correctly?
GT 04:49 You’re doing a very good job.
Sara 04:50 Okay, I’ll tell you how I got involved. For those who aren’t watching, what’s it called?
Sara 04:55 The September Six and the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism.
GT 04:58 Okay.
Sara 05:03 I would say a couple of things. Perhaps most recently, I was asked to be part of a conference, maybe two years ago now that Ben Park helped put together that was honoring the life and contributions of Mike Quinn.
GT 05:21 Oh, that was here at University of Utah. Right?
Sara 05:24 Yes, it was.
GT 05:25 I was at that conference.
Sara 05:26 Okay. Well, I gave a paper there. {both chuckling} And studying more about Quinn, who is somebody that I met in graduate school, because he was a friend of one of my professors. That just really drew me into this time period in new ways. And so when Barbara Jones Brown at Signature [Books] talked to me about doing a book more broadly about the September Six, I was really excited for that opportunity.
GT 05:58 Okay. Michael Quinn drew you in, and then you’ve expanded it to the others.
Sara 06:02 That’s right. I’d known about the September Six for a long time, but, yeah, reading more about Quinn’s life just really drew me in.
GT 06:12 Well, it must be interesting. Mormons are often very insular. And so, when you first heard about the September Six, I mean, I don’t know, if you have a religious background, like if, you’re Orthodox, Baptist or whatever. Does it look really strange that this church out here in Utah is excommunicating a bunch of intellectuals? How did you come across that story? What were your reactions?
Sara 06:41 I think that I had been studying the history of Christianity for long enough that it wasn’t shocking to me that a church would do that. I mean, I think that religious institutions, that’s one of the ways that they can manage the boundaries in their communities. And so, I think it was intriguing to me that it’s something that was happening so recently, because you tend to think of excommunications as a method of the past, though they certainly do.
GT 07:11 Galileo. {both laughing}
Sara 07:11 I wasn’t even thinking that far back. But yeah, so I think that excommunications, that story draws people in, I think, because it’s such a severe measure.
GT 07:30 Yeah, I would agree with that.
Sara 07:31 Yeah.
GT 07:32 I have a Jewish friend, and he told me you cannot be excommunicated from Judaism, even for murder. Because under their rule, or logic, I guess, God is to be your judge. And so, Christianity hasn’t followed that same tact. I mean the Catholic Church. But you familiar with other churches that excommunicate people for not following the pure doctrine or whatever?
Sara 08:05 I think most of the examples I know of are within Christianity.
GT 08:08 Okay.
Sara 08:08 Yeah.
GT 08:09 But, I mean, the Catholic Church, I guess, is big. And I guess that we’ve got the Salem witch trials, maybe.
Sara 08:15 Yeah.
GT 08:15 Are there other examples besides those even more recent?
Sara 08:18 Oh sure. There’s a Catholic theologian, whose name I will probably butcher because I’ve only ever read it. I haven’t heard it. But his last name is Soraya M Bella. And he wrote a book about Mary that’s really fascinating, and [he] was disciplined and I think excommunicated for it.
GT 08:42 Okay.
Sara 08:43 Yeah.
GT 08:44 But that’s another Catholic example. Right?
Sara 08:46 Yeah, relatively recently. {both chuckling}
GT 08:50 All right. Yeah, I just wish excommunication would go away, personally, but it doesn’t seem like it has, at least in the LDS church. Can you talk a little bit more about how Michael Quinn drew you in and then how it expanded into the September Six?
Sara 09:11 Sure, I was able to read portions of his journal and memoir when I was working on my presentation for the Quinn conference. That ultimately wasn’t what I focused on in my presentation. What I focused on was how we today narrate Quinn’s life, and what I think is a problematic way of telling his life story, that talks about him as a rising star. Then after his excommunication, frames his life as a series of losses. I was pushing back against that narrative because I think it uses the Church’s lens to read his life story.
GT 10:01 Okay.
Sara 10:03 And so part of what I was looking at was how Quinn reconstructed his family and restructured his family, how he created community in places like Affirmation. And how, while we may think that his life didn’t live up to understandings of family that might be ideal, and he didn’t ever find a long-term partner, that his life wasn’t a series of losses I was saying. We don’t need to read him as a tragic figure. We can certainly see that there were hardships and tragedies in his life, but also acknowledge that he continued to live a rich life after his excommunication.
GT 10:55 You know, I’m glad you went there. Because that’s something that I think those of us who are still in the LDS Church, look at. Here he is. He’s one of the most popular teachers at BYU. Everything’s going really well. He’s had some experiences with President Kimball. And then he gets excommunicated. And then he loses his job at BYU. He’s never able to get another tenure track position, anywhere. It seems like he’s forced out of some positions. I think he taught at Yale for a year or two. I think [he taught at] Arizona State maybe as well. But it does look from an inside perspective, that he has had a series of losses, it was pretty devastating to him. And so, it’s interesting to hear from you to say we need to look at this from another way. I know that in some respects, among the more critical crowd, he’s seen as a hero. A lot of his writings have kind of triumphed in a way. And so, he’s kind of, I hate to use the word ex-Mormon hero in a way, but he’s still a believer, up through his death, a very, very strong believer. So, tell us more about why you’re pushing back against that narrative that I just gave.
Sara 12:24 Well, I think, as I said briefly, that it uses the Church’s measuring stick of what a life is supposed to be. And so, I think that we need to expand our understanding of what rich life can be, beyond that set of expectations. Because he continued to have faith. He talked about having a fulfilling life. He talked about himself as a mystic, and as a member of a church of one. But he talked about how he continued to have a very close relationship with God and continued to feel connected to the Spirit. I think that we have to include that in the story, even when his relationship with the institution was so painful, because it’s a mixed bag. Right? And, I think too often, sometimes to try to get him into the category of martyr.
GT 13:41 Right.
Sara 13:44 The last part of his life.
GT 13:45 He does seem like a martyr.
Sara 13:46 Yeah, I think a lot of people do see him as a martyr. But I think too often to get him into that narrative, people talk about his life as a series of losses, and things that he lost because he was willing to stand up and speak the truth. But one of the things I talked about was, once he left the church, he was able to ask research questions that he wanted to ask. Right? There’s a freedom that he had in his intellectual life that opened up. And so, I just think that there’s complexity that gets lost sometimes in forcing him into that martyr story.
GT 14:31 Okay. Could we call his life a life of abundance? And if so, what would be some of those abundant things? I mean, you did mention he could study more freely. Are there other things besides that?
Sara 14:44 I think his spiritual life, I think people tend to focus on the disintegration of his family. When years after he came out to his wife, and [people] don’t talk about the fact that they restructured their family and so he spent his holidays with his ex-wife and his children. So, I think a broader understanding of family is necessary, for thinking about his relationships.
GT 15:20 So even though his marriage went away, he was still able to embrace his ex-wife and family and have a good life with them.
Sara 15:27 Yeah.
GT 15:28 Which is pretty unusual.
Sara 15:30 Yeah, she wanted him to be part of his children’s lives. And he was.
GT 15:37 Very good.
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