CASE REPORTS OF THE MORMON ALLIANCE
VOLUME 2, 1996

Devery S. Anderson

I was very enthusiastic about having a study group close to home. I selected the name, the Forum for Mormon Studies, because I wanted to emphasize that we were going to try to learn things. I made a list of everyone in the ward whom I thought would have an interest in a study group and mailed out fliers to them. I wanted to be sure that nobody got the idea that this was an official program, so I was careful never to pass out fliers at church except to a few people who had already expressed interest or to talk about the group at church except to answer a question in the hall or something like that. I asked Dialogue for a list of subscribers in Washington and Oregon and invited those within about a sixty-mile radius. Sometimes people drove two hours from Tacoma and Seattle to attend, which made me feel good—that this group was meeting their needs too.

The first meetings were held in our home; sometimes we rented a conference room at a hotel for later meetings. Those attending usually chipped in to pay the transportation costs of speakers from out of town, and I usually made up any difference out of my own pocket.

I spoke at the first meeting, which was held in late January 1991. About ten people were there for my presentation on the canonization of the New Testament, a small but enthusiastic group. In February 1991, Armand Mauss, a well-known Mormon sociologist who lives in Pullman, Washington, and teaches at Washington State University, was the second speaker. From that point on, we were more or less on a quarterly schedule, depending on the availability of our speakers.

During January 1991 when I started advertising the first meeting, a number of people told me, "Oh, the bishop was asking about this." Since I saw Bishop Blaine Nyberg regularly, I found it funny that he hadn’t talked to me directly. I found it even stranger when Bishop Nyberg called me in that same month "just to see how you’re doing." We talked for about an hour in an odd, wandering conversation that was neither a worthiness interview nor an exploration of the study group or issues discussed there.

I didn’t want anything I was doing to catch the bishopric or stake presidency by surprise, so I always kept them on my mailing list. In March 1992, during the second year of the Forum’s activities, the stake was divided and Terry T. Brandon, an executive with Longview Fibre Company, became president of the Longview Washington Stake. He had never attended any of the Forum’s meetings nor had his counselors. I had known President Brandon for more than twenty years, the entire time I had been in the Church. In fact, President Brandon had ordained me to be a deacon. I considered him an admirable person, hard-working and devoted to the Church. Maybe he transferred too many of his "hard-charging executive" characteristics to his calling as the stake president, but I respected him and considered his testimony of the gospel above question.

Bishop Nyberg also did not attend any of the Forums. I was truly shocked when I found out that he had asked Bob Daulton to attend the first two meetings and report back to him. Or maybe Bob had "volunteered" to attend the meetings and report back, and Bishop Nyberg had agreed. Bob was a member of my ward and a little bit of a scriptural hobbyist. I sort of got the impression that he saw the Forum as his personal stage and wanted to teach the group himself. When Armand Mauss came, Bob tried to interrupt and dominate the discussion. Bob seemed somewhat resentful, and he didn’t come back to any other meetings. Months later he criticized Armand’s presentation during a sacrament meeting talk.

Bob wrote out his reports to Bishop Nyberg, who called me in again. There were the letters on his desk with certain sentences underlined. The conversation was perfectly friendly, but it ended with Bishop Nyberg saying, "I won’t try to stop you, but I’m worried about people getting their faith shaken." This approach, I feel, was perfectly appropriate. He expressed his concerns in a way that made me think of it from his point of view, but he also respected my agency. It’s the only time we ever discussed the topic. Bishop Nyberg also asked me to speak in sacrament meeting soon afterwards, and I interpreted the invitation as a sign that he was basically comfortable with my activities and opinions.

But I was really upset about Bob. I considered his activities to be an abuse of our hospitality because he had come into our home under false pretenses. He sensed my displeasure and talked to me about it after a priesthood meeting a couple of weeks later. Bob admitted, "I should have told you the bishop asked me for a written report," but he refused to admit that there was anything ethically questionable about his masquerade. In my interview with the bishop, however, he said he’d asked Bob to go to the meeting and report on it but that the written report was Bob’s idea.

I later learned that Daulton had sent a similar letter to the stake president who had a bishop from another ward call in John Hays, a member of his ward who had attended all of the group meetings. The bishop was acting, reluctantly, at the stake president’s request and told John: "The stake president wanted me to call you in—so I called you in. Let’s talk about something else."

In September 1991, Calvin George became bishop of my ward. Bishop George, whom I considered to be a good friend, was always enthusiastic and positive about the Forum in conversations with me, attended the Forum once, and frequently told me that he planned to attend meetings. I took this enthusiasm with a grain of salt, since he only came twice—to the October 1991 meeting where Edward L. Kimball spoke and two years later when Sunstone editor Elbert Peck was the guest speaker.

In May 1992, I heard that President Brandon was banning study groups. The Kelso Ward, also in Longview Washington Stake, had a study group for approximately twelve years that was described by one participant as "Gospel Doctrine class with refreshments." There’s no way you could call it a dangerous group. The participants would read a chapter a month at home in books like Jesus the Christ, then discuss it at the meeting. In May 1992, President Brandon told them to stop meeting and they obeyed. Apparently he was motivated by a meeting with the Regional Representative earlier that spring in which several items were discussed, including the August 1991 statement by the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve warning members of the Church against participating in "symposia." We didn’t have any symposia in our area, but we had these study groups; and I guess President Brandon concluded that he would take the statement a step further. So he decided that none would exist within the boundaries of his stake. This is the background for the conflict between President Brandon and me.

I took extensive notes on each of the meetings I had with President Brandon. The narrative which follows, including direct quotations from interviews, are from my notes. I want to stress that these are my perceptions and my perspective. I sincerely believe that this negative series of encounters with President Brandon represents only a small moment in an over-all positive ministry.

President Brandon’s executive secretary, Gordon L. Rich, made an appointment for me to see him on 18 May 1992. At this point, Armand L. Mauss (twice), Edward L. Kimball, and D. Michael Quinn had spoken at the Forum to the apparent interest and pleasure of all who had attended, and Lavina Fielding Anderson (no relation) was scheduled for October. I felt that these gatherings were wonderful, meeting every expectation. The first time I went to a Sunstone Symposium, I felt as if I had taken an ice-cold drink of water after being thirsty for years. Contrary to President Brandon’s views (and those of others like him), I found my faith strengthened and my love for the gospel increased at Sunstone. I realized that I needed that renewal more than just once a year. Giving up this source of personal learning after I knew about it would have left a hurting void in my life. I was just getting used to having that void filled, and it didn’t seem fair to sacrifice something that was so important to me spiritually because my stake president didn’t have the same needs and had no interest in trying to see why my needs were valid.

Knowing about the order given in Kelso Ward, I thought through the possibilities of receiving a similar order. Did I feel I could obey it? If not, what reasons could I give? I had had always been obedient and had never been put in a position where I felt I had to make a choice between my conscience and the instructions of a priesthood leader. I still wanted to be that way. But I felt keenly that I had a right to sponsor the Forum—that it was one of the "good causes" which require neither permission nor commandment but which may exist in the independent sector. So I went to the meeting with my mind made up but with a lot of trepidation.

I was surprised to find Brandon’s counselors present at the meeting. It was clear that President Ed Ivey and President Bill Davis were there strictly to support President Brandon. With a few preliminaries, President Brandon reviewed the statement by the Regional Representative and announced: "Therefore, as your priesthood leaders, we are telling you to not to hold any more meetings."

The meeting that followed lasted about two hours and fifteen minutes. The counselors, neither of whom had ever attended a Forum, seemed to vie with each other to show support for President Brandon and joined freely in the discussion, making it difficult for me to follow an argument systematically because of the interruptions.

I told them: "I alone am responsible for my testimony. I know what strengthens my testimony and helps it grow. Sunstone, Dialogue, and study groups are wonderful supplements to our religion. They should be just that—supplements. They should not be our religion.¹

I asserted my rights as a member, which the stake presidency was unwilling to concede. So I asked, "What principle of the gospel am I violating by holding these meetings?"

"The principle of obedience."

I rejoined, "Obedience isn’t a principle in the abstract. We are to be obedient to principles."

I also pointed out that people elsewhere in the Church were holding study groups and no one I knew had been disciplined for holding them; thus the demand was arbitrary. "For example, at least one bishop and counselor in a stake presidency, to my certain knowledge, attend the Society for Independent Mormon Studies (SIMS) in Seattle. Why am I being chastised in Longview for something that leaders were enthusiastic about elsewhere?"

"I can’t account for the mistakes they’re making up north," said President Brandon. He compared any leader who would attend a study group to certain bishops he knew who had been "sucked into" joining the Aryan Nation.

The meeting, which began calmly, became more heated, as the night wore on. All three of them reminded me repeatedly of President Brandon’s calling. His superior priesthood office, it was clear, should settle the issue. After half an hour’s insistence on this point, I began to wonder if President Brandon saw any limits at all on his authority. I suggested an analogy to illustrate my argument that some leaders’ requests are legitimate and some aren’t. For instance, if President Brandon were to visit my house, didn’t like its color, and ordered me to paint it green, would I be disobedient if I refused to do it?

President Brandon chuckled, but the first counselor, President Ivey, interjected: "You may call this blind obedience; but President Brandon is my priesthood leader. If he told me to paint my house green, I would do it. That may be too simple for you, but that’s the way it is."

President Brandon picked up the point: "You know, the thing that bothers me the most about this is that you aren’t sustaining your priesthood leaders." To convince me of the legitimacy of his demand, Brandon cited the Old Testament. In Exodus 12, the children of Israel were asked to put the blood of the paschal lamb on their door frames at Passover. "A lot of them thought Moses was crazy," said President Brandon. "You’re one of those who wouldn’t have done it, and you wouldn’t have been protected from the angel of death."

I was a little upset that he judged me as being rebellious and disobedient—it just didn’t match my history or my lifestyle—but I again responded: "Once again, God is clearly the origin of that commandment. It wasn’t a case of Moses having one idea while Aaron had another. And at least the order was consistently applied. The whole people were supposed to do it." In other words, it was "Church policy," not the whim of a local leader.

President Brandon counseled me to "research the scriptures on obedience and you will see things my way." I already had and reported that everything I could find talked about obedience to God. Yes, occasionally they talked about obedience to the mouthpiece of the Lord, but once again in circumstances that made it clear the prophet was speaking under the direction of the Spirit. Armand Mauss, aware of the situation, had researched the scriptures as well and called me with the same conclusion.

In support of Brandon, President Ivey insisted: "Unless there’s something different in your heart, you’ll accept whatever counsel he gives you in the same spirit."

I protested, "That’s just the point. There is something different in my heart. I have some intellectual needs that you may not have, but meeting them is important to me."

But the official consensus was clear: I had no "right" as a human being or as a member of the Church to these "needs." I should, as an act of obedience, "sacrifice" them, no matter what they were. President Brandon acknowledged that, if he was wrong, he would have to account for it one day, but my obligation was to obey him anyway—and be blessed for it. For the next eight months, the real issue was never again whether study groups were harmful or helpful, good or bad, but only whether I had the right to refuse a direct order from a priesthood leader, even though that order was neither a scriptural commandment nor Church policy.

President Brandon stated that he had received complaints about the meeting, that the Church "didn’t like" study groups, and that I should not hold any more. He made it clear that this was not a suggestion but a requirement.

I felt knocked off balance by President Brandon’s feeling that he had a perfect right to make this demand. I also felt ganged up on because there were three of them and only one of me. But to the best of my ability, I tried to deal systematically and reasonably with their "reasons."

So I tried to discuss the complaint that the Forum was damaging the faith of attendees. One of the "complaints," as I pinned it down, came from Daulton’s solicited report. When I expressed resentment that Daulton had come into my home, ostensibly as a guest, but actually in search of negative information about me, President Brandon didn’t even take me seriously. He said there was nothing wrong with that. The meetings were open to anyone, weren’t they, so Bob Daulton’s motive for attending was legitimate.

Another of the complaints was from Lisa and Bryan Saunderson (pseudonyms), who had told him that their faith had been "shaken." I felt that Lisa and Bryan had always had a lot of questions about the Church and usually took an intellectual approach in classes and scriptural discussions. Lisa had particularly been troubled over a long period of time by the Church’s attitudes and historical practices involving polygamy. They were Dialogue subscribers, came to all the meetings, and, by the time of this interview, were telling me how much the Forum meetings were helping them. When I pinned President Brandon down, he admitted that he’d heard about their "shaken faith," not from them but from our former bishop, Blaine Nyberg, who was now on the high council.

President Brandon dropped the Saundersons and said, third, that "someone from the stake," whose name he refused to disclose, told him that listening to Michael Quinn’s presentation on post-Manifesto and contemporary plural marriage had "shaken their faith." I later contacted every person from the stake who attended (only thirteen of the fifty present). To a person, each individual said, "No, I enjoyed it. It helped me understand how to deal with complex historical questions." They also praised Quinn’s warm appreciation of the Church and his lack of sensationalism. In sum, President Brandon’s "pastoral" concern about the shaken faith of members boiled down to Daulton, who very possibly had an axe of his own to grind, the Saundersons, whose current position he just plain misrepresented, and an anonymous report that would fail to stand up to investigation. These feeble examples made me wonder if he was making up evidence; and after checking out the third report, I felt pretty sure of it.

At one point during this meeting, I offered a compromise. Since a significant number of attendees came from the Portland area, forty-five miles from the stake boundaries, I could hold the meetings in Portland. President Brandon said no. He didn’t want me organizing any more meetings. Period. The location didn’t matter. He expressed concern that I "would be seen as a guru and the possibility that a schismatic group would form." This opinion seemed totally ludicrous. Who did he think I was?

The meeting had lasted more than two hours. I was literally exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Finally, I gave up and gave in. I said I would go along with President Brandon’s demands for now, but I insisted that we meet again soon. President Brandon agreed.

I left the meeting in a state of near-shock. The meeting had been a dark experience. The mood has been so virulently adversarial that I told Kandy it was "just hateful. There was so much anger and fear and mistrust." Worse, by the time I reached home fifteen minutes away, I felt that I had made a terrible mistake. Kandy had been waiting for me, growing steadily more anxious and worried as the time had passed. I told her what had happened and summarized how I felt: By agreeing to any kind of cooperation, I had given legitimacy to unrighteous dominion and left the door open for it to happen again and again. I felt more firmly than ever before that I was right, but I was in turmoil. I drifted off to an anxious and anguished sleep; but I woke up in the middle of the night with a beautifully calm feeling that I should obey my conscience and all would be well. I felt so calm that I slept like baby. This feeling and its memory was a powerful comfort in the months to come.

On 7 June 1992, President Brandon and I met again at my request. The counselors were not present. Brandon began the interview by chastising me for speaking with the Saundersons. Angrily, President Brandon said, "You know that everything that is said in here is confidential. It isn’t to go outside this room."

He then told me that Lisa Saunderson had met with him just a few days before a ward conference to set him straight for saying that her faith was weak or shaken. She told him that the group benefited her. "But by the end of our interview, she was in tears," President Brandon told me, "just hysterical. She’s very unstable. She needs counseling but won’t get it because you’re her guru, solving her problem with Dialogue and Sunstone."

I cynically thought that if President Brandon had used the same browbeating tactics on Lisa that he had on me, no wonder he had reduced her to tears by the meeting’s end. But more important than that, I was flabbergasted and shocked that President Brandon would tell me information that a member had related to him in an interview, especially after his angry lecture on confidentiality. I wondered if President Brandon would be equally free about discussing the subject of my own interviews with others and thought the answer was probably yes.

Again, the lengthy meeting focused on obedience. President Brandon quoted from several photocopied talks by General Authorities—mainly those of Elder Boyd K. Packer—which he used to support his position. He also read a letter that a friend of mine from outside the stake had written to him, expressing support for me and the Forum. President Brandon had written back a curt response, setting the friend straight, and again focusing on obedience.

For this meeting, President Brandon had come up with another argument against the Forum, other than their content and the "damage" they were potentially causing to faith. Now he accused me of neglecting my family, Church assignments, and personal scripture study by dabbling in these intellectual interests.

I strongly denied that I neglected any of these duties, then pointed out, "A study group isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. I’m spending two hours every quarter, which totals eight hours a year. How can that be excessive?" I tried an analogy: "If I subscribed to Sports Illustrated and organized a party to watch one televised game per quarter, no one would say I was neglecting my family. If you can be convinced of that, would you back off?"

President Brandon admitted, "That would help."

He also told me something, apparently unrelated, that deepened my disquiet. The former stake president, Steven H. Pond had, nearly a year and a half earlier, written me a letter that he had never sent. President Pond had given a copy to Bishop Nyberg and left it in his own files, where President Brandon had found it and showed it to his counselors. "But I can’t let you see it," he said. "If President Pond had wanted you to see it, he would have sent it to you." The letter, he said, touched on my intellectual interests and was therefore evidence that I had a long-term "problem" that my priesthood leaders could be legitimately concerned about. I felt keenly the unfairness of the situation and resolved that I would get this letter out of my file.

President Brandon again cited the Old Testament example found in Exodus. At the end, he again asked, "Will you sustain us as your priesthood leaders in this and not hold any more meetings?"

I replied, "I’ll be glad to listen to your advice and your concerns. I’ll be willing to consider moving the meetings out of the stake boundaries. But I can’t submit to a blanket prohibition."

"Then I’ll need your temple recommend," said President Brandon.

I felt sick inside, but I obediently handed it over. President Brandon said he would hold on to it for sixty days and schedule another interview to see if my feelings had changed on the matter.

Our interview went more than an hour and a half and ended only when President Brandon realized that he had kept his next appointment waiting for half an hour.

When I returned home after the interview, I found Lisa Saunderson visiting with Kandy. I told her what President Brandon had said and said frankly, "I’m worried. He thinks you’re not getting the therapy you need because of the study group. He says that you see me as your guru."

"What?" she exclaimed. "That is ridiculous! I’ve already started seeing an LDS Social Services counselor."

This episode further diminished my trust in President Brandon’s fairness and increased my worry that he might actually manufacture evidence.

On 22 July 1992, we met again at President Brandon’s request. I had earlier written President Pond asking that he authorize President Brandon to give me the original letter and keep no copies. President Brandon had called this meeting in part to tell me that President Pond had made the request. "But I am keeping a copy for myself," President Brandon said. He had me read President Pond’s unsent letter before we went any further. It was mainly advice from President Pond, written after he’d seen my first flier announcing the formation of the study group. He said that two of his personal heroes had always been Eugene England and Reed Durham, but he basically cautioned me about getting "too involved" with intellectual hobbies.

Then President Brandon focused on the issue of obedience. Citing the Old Testament again, he referred to Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. "Abraham was asked by his priesthood leader to do something that he didn’t understand" and his blind obedience was righteous, said President Brandon.

Considerably alarmed by this parallel, I responded that "a fallible human being who happens to be my priesthood leader can’t be compared to the infallible God speaking to a prophet. You’re not comparing yourself to God, are you?" President Brandon dropped the point, without conceding it, and then referred to Joseph Smith’s asking members to do things that they didn’t understand. I assumed he was referring to the incident in which Joseph Smith asked Heber C. Kimball to give him his wife, Vilate, then, when Kimball reluctantly obeyed, said he was just testing him. Again, I expressed strong exception to the parallel President Brandon was setting up.

I also confronted President Brandon about the discrepancies between the accusations in the first meeting that members’ faith was being "shaken" and what my own investigation had found. President Brandon had admitted in our second meeting that no one had talked to him except Lisa Saunderson, and then in a different context. He acted as though what he was saying now was consistent with what he had told me earlier—which wasn’t true.

This third meeting was also a long one. It was less heated, but we were both entrenched in our positions. We didn’t fight, but neither one of us was budging on the issue. I again tried to bring perspective and reasonableness to the discussion. I said that I felt I should be putting my efforts into the elders’ quorum presidency instead of these upsetting meetings with him. However, rather than pursuing this more moderate perspective, President Brandon kept trying to parallel my situation to scriptural examples in ways that I found very alarming.

I also proposed directly, "Why don’t you come out to the Forum? Stop getting these reports second and third hand." President Brandon agreed that this would be a good idea and promised to attend the upcoming meeting with Lavina Fielding Anderson in October—provided he wasn’t in Salt Lake City for general conference. (President Brandon did not go to conference, but he did not attend the Forum either. He never offered an explanation.)

When I offered to let him watch a videotape of Michael Quinn’s presentation, he agreed to do so. I dropped the tape and photocopies of several articles from Dialogue and Sunstone at President Brandon’s house a few days later. I was anxious to see what he thought and hoped he would stop feeling that the sessions were negative. President Brandon never mentioned these materials to me again and returned the tape three months later at our final meeting without comment.

President Brandon assured me that he had been praying about "your situation." One of his counselors felt I should be released from my calling, he told me, but the idea had "never crossed my mind." I couldn’t honestly say that I felt reassured. Obviously the idea had crossed his mind, since he was reporting it.

I felt pretty discouraged after this meeting and privately wrote my conclusions: "It’s all boiled down to not sustaining priesthood authority. Well, I can honestly say yes to ‘sustaining’ them, but submitting to unrighteous dominion is another matter. Unless President Brandon has a change of heart, I’ll be going for the next ten years without a recommend. I don’t handle guilt very well. I keep trying to find where I’m wrong, but I’ve never felt more at peace about anything than I do about this. That gives me some comfort."

Soon after this meeting, I had lunch with President Pond. Though careful not to say anything to contradict President Brandon’s position, President Pond seemed understanding of many of my points and suggested naively that I tell President Brandon the same things I was telling him.

After almost four months of reflection, I wrote President Brandon in November and said I wanted to appeal his confiscation of my temple recommend to Elder Joe J. Christensen of the First Quorum of the Seventy, then serving as president of the North America Northwest Area.

On Tuesday, 17 November 1992, the stake executive secretary called to set up another appointment with President Brandon the next day. I was somewhat wary going into the meeting, prepared to leave if the counselors were present. But President Brandon was alone. The visit started out with fifteen minutes of small talk, which seemed cordial. However, knowing that it was anything but a social visit, I found the cordiality insincere.

President Brandon said he would "honor my request in arranging something with the area president," but added, "By the way, you can’t appeal this action. The only thing you can appeal is a court trial." President Pond, during our lunch, had told me that the Church’s appeal procedure worked for any kind of discipline or problem and advised me on the proper steps to take if I wanted to use it, so I was surprised by this information and wondered who was right.

President Brandon had sent my letter to him on to Elder Christensen with an accompanying letter in which President Brandon summarized the situation from his perspective.

I was again surprised. I had not expected my request to be forwarded to the area president. I had also not expected President Brandon to act as the mediator and interpreter and was hardly comfortable with that arrangement. So I was relieved when President Brandon said, "President Christensen would like you to tell him everything from your side. He didn’t give me any indication of what he would decide. You’re to send it directly to him. I won’t see it."

I got the feeling that President Brandon had expected President Christensen to agree with him that no appeal was possible and that he should handle it. President Brandon seemed anxious and humbler now that it would be taken to a higher authority, telling me several times, "If he wants me to give you your recommend back I will, even if I disagree. I’ll do what they tell me to do."

To me, this shift in mood was conspicuous. Before, he’d always just said: "This is how it is." But during this meeting he was much less aggressive. He was using language like, "My opinion is . . . I got the impression that you said . . . I may have been wrong, but I thought . ..." At one point, he said, "Now, I like to compare obedience to Moses crossing the Red Sea. I believe that it happened literally—I don’t know if you do-- ..." It was a refreshing willingness to acknowledge that I might have a different opinion. I sensed in it a new spirit of love and tolerance.

However, at one point in the conversation where President Brandon repeated his willingness to obey President Christensen, he then said accusingly, "And that’s all right with you; but if it goes in the opposite direction, you won’t be willing to do what they say." Then, growing more combative, President Brandon charged, "You have such hard feelings against Brethren."

Floored, I asked, "How can you say something like that?"

President Brandon’s "evidence" was that I had expressed reservations to him about some material in Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine and had also criticized some of the reasoning in a book by Glenn Pace, then a Seventy, which had contained a chapter warning against intellectuals. "If an intellectual said anything that disagreed with the Brethren, you’d side with the intellectual," President Brandon accused.

I protested that neither book was scripture or Church doctrine and that being a member didn’t obligate me to agree with them just because they were General Authorities. I explained, "If I’m reading an article on Church history, I want to hear it from a historian. If I want to hear a testimony of the divinity of Christ, I’ll go to someone who’s been called to be a special witness of Christ. I don’t agree with everything I read in Sunstone and Dialogue. I listen and make up my own mind. But I listen more carefully to people who have facts and study and reason to back up what they say."

President Brandon backed down and said, in a more conciliatory tone, "That helps me a lot. I got the impression you just didn’t like the Brethren. I took your recommend away because you weren’t sustaining the Brethren."

"Who do you mean by ‘the Brethren’?" I asked, stunned all over again.

"The General Authorities."

I felt disoriented. President Brandon’s exact words during the first meeting had been: "Will you sustain your priesthood leaders in this by not holding any more meetings?" It was clear that he meant "the stake presidency."

"Wait a minute," I queried. "Did you take my temple recommend away because you felt I wasn’t sustaining you or because you thought I wasn’t sustaining the General Authorities?"

President Brandon replied, "It was because I felt you weren’t sustaining the General Authorities."

So the grounds had shifted a third time—not the Forum’s content, not damage to members’ faith, not my neglect of my duties, not disobeying my stake president but now not sustaining the General Authorities. I bore a firm testimony to President Brandon that I accepted the General Authorities as prophets, seers, and revelators. I also pointed out that this conclusion had never come up before this meeting.

Ignoring my point about the chronology, President Brandon expressed approval of my testimony.

Again, I left the meeting with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was hopeful that involving another person would provide a different and more reasonable perspective; but on the other hand, I was alarmed at the new direction the conversation had taken. I felt that President Brandon had a pattern of taking things I said and turning them into things I didn’t say—even changing things he’d said.

I thought carefully about the letter to President Christensen, mentally reviewing the objections President Brandon had raised and trying to guess whether President Christensen would have the same objections. I did not want to appear either defensive or aggressive. I wanted to express my feelings accurately and strongly. But how do you talk to a General Authority? What had President Brandon already told him? What kinds of rights did members have? Should I send President Christensen the sheaves of notes I had taken about the meetings with President Brandon? Should I ask for a face-to-face meeting?

I prepared draft after draft. On 29 December 1992, I wrote my final version, beginning my letter by expressing appreciation for meeting President Christensen in the Missionary Training Center in 1979 when I arrived for training in July. President Christensen had been named to head the MTC only a few weeks earlier. I had read his book, To Grow in Spirit, and had found it helpful. I summarized the organization of the Forum for Mormon Studies, the meetings that had been held, who had spoken, and President Brandon’s confiscation of my temple recommend on 7 June 1992. I then continued:

What I would like to stress is that the [Forum] meetings do meet some of the needs of me and people like me who love the Church, are committed to it, but need more than just Sunday School class. I have tried to protect the Church and myself by being careful to state that the meetings are not sponsored or endorsed by any of the local wards or stake. I have never tried to use a Church building to meet in, have never advertised in church, nor proselyted amongst the general membership for attendees. With the exception of a few close friends who have expressed interest, the people on my mailing list are Dialogue subscribers and already lean toward this type of study.

I mentioned the above because President Brandon’s initial concern was that the meetings might damage the faith of certain people. My response is that I agree that discussing tough issues isn’t for everyone, but that there is a place for it. I don’t believe that Church is ever the place to discuss these things, but in settings where people are free to either come or not come. Those who don’t like them shouldn’t come. I don’t think that a blanket prohibition is the answer, nor that the stake president has the right to demand that. Leonard Arrington, speaking in Dialogue about the contributions the journal has made, touched on what I see as the same benefits of independent gatherings like mine:

President Christensen responded only a week later:

Thank you very much for your detailed letter and the explanation of your feelings.

At Church Headquarters, we rely heavily on the perspective of the stake president, who has the direct and awesome responsibility of assisting with the spiritual welfare of all the members within the stake. He is in a position to judge the impact of activities which occur within the stake. There must be something that causes him concern. I suggest that you be sure you become fully aware of what those concerns are. I feel confident that it is not President Brandon’s intent to exercise "unrighteous dominion."

I like the statement that "it is a mighty thin pancake that doesn’t have two sides." Hopefully, you, Bishop George, and President Brandon will be able to come to a meeting of the minds, and that out of it all, testimonies and understanding may be increased among all concerned.

May the Lord’s choicest blessings continue to be with you, your family, and your success as a worthy and responsible member of the Church.

Sincerely your brother,
Joe J. Christensen

President Christensen had sent a copy to President Brandon but not to Bishop George.

I searched this letter in vain for any sign that President Christensen had actually read my letter. The allusion to "unrighteous dominion" was the only connection I saw. President Christensen had not dealt with a single issue that I had brought up. He hadn’t even acknowledged that there was an issue to bring up.

I felt confused and depressed. Was the invitation to include the bishop in further discussions a good thing? Bishop George had always been cheerful and warm to me, but he had been very careful not to get involved. Except in an interview I myself had scheduled, he had never asked me how I was doing, whether I was grieving or angry over the confiscation of my temple recommend, whether he could help, or even whether talking about it would do any good. When I asked if he’d received a copy of my letter, he commented briefly that mine was well written and to the point.

But more importantly, how would President Brandon interpret these instructions? With a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach, I realized from the questions I was asking myself how much trust had already been lost. How could I ever feel the same way about my Church leaders or about the Church itself?

President Brandon did not contact me. On 10 January 1993, only a couple of days after I received my copy of President Christensen’s letter, John Hays, an attorney, a high councilor, and a good friend for years, telephoned me. He began the conversation by saying, "President Brandon wanted me to talk to you for him. They’re going to hold a court."

I gasped audibly.

"Just kidding," said John cheerfully. He thought it was hilarious but it was several minutes before my heart slowed down.

Then John told me that, after the regularly scheduled high council meeting the night before, President Brandon had pulled him aside and told him, "I’d like to show you a couple of letters about Devery."

John said, "I already know about them. I helped Devery edit his and he read me the other."

"What do you think about this?" President Brandon asked.

John responded candidly: "Devery and I both felt that President Christensen didn’t really read his letter."

"That’s not the case," rejoined President Brandon. "He and his counselors read it and then took it to their higher-up and he read it also. They called me. Elder Christensen wanted to know more about Devery. He asked me if anybody was being led astray by this."

"What did you tell him?" asked John.

"I said, ‘Oh, no. Nothing like that.’ Then President Christensen asked, ‘Is there any stuff going on that could be damaging?’ I told him no again."

John interpreted President Brandon’s comments as a request for an opinion and said frankly, "I can promise you that Devery has no intentions of backing down."

President Brandon sighed: "I really don’t want to either." John had the impression that President Brandon was concerned and that the situation had been weighing heavily on his mind. Finally, he told John, "Suggest to Devery that he make an appointment with Bishop George for a temple recommend. If he passes, then tell him to make an appointment with the stake executive secretary with me—just like a normal recommend renewal."

John and I discussed the situation. We speculated on the conversation with President Christensen that President Brandon had reported. In a way, I felt, I could take heart. "President Christensen couldn’t have encouraged President Brandon too seriously or else he wouldn’t be even this conciliatory," I argued. But I was upset that Elder Christensen had dealt with the matter through President Brandon rather than contacting me directly.

Still, the bottom line was wariness and the continuing sense of mistrust. "I’m not getting my hopes up," I recorded privately. "President Brandon may think that if he’s sitting there with the pen in his hand and says, ‘Now, about this study group ...’, I may cave in. I just don’t even want to be in that position. I usually like to evaluate myself before going in for my temple recommend. It’s been part of my spiritual preparation for a long time. Before, when I’ve asked myself the questions, there’s never been any discrepancy between the way I feel about the answers and the way I imagine my priesthood leader feeling. And now there’s this horrible split. I would think I was worthy, but my priesthood leader wouldn’t. It makes me realize how discouraged I am. I hadn’t realized how heavily oppressed I have been by this whole thing. What’s the incentive in being righteous if nothing I can do will let me go to the temple? It just hurts too much to even think about. Even though I’ve had a lot of questions over the years, this is the first time I’ve felt like an inside-outsider. On the surface, everything looks the same. We’re trying to keep commandments. Our family life is the same. But things are different inside for me."

Slowly, giving myself plenty of time to consider the options, I decided I would not initiate the temple recommend procedure. "The temple has always been part of my personal spirituality," I recorded. "Now there’s this political barrier that has dropped across the way. Even if it’s lifted, it could drop again at any time. The temple’s been taken away from me. It belongs to ‘them,’ not to me any more. I don’t want to go back until I feel I can handle that emotionally. I think it will just hurt too much."

I had another reason: I had reported my experience to Lavina Fielding Anderson as part of the pattern of stressful tensions between the Church and its scholars and intellectuals, and my account, with my permission, was scheduled to appear in the spring 1993 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.² I did not want to invest in the emotional work of regaining my temple recommend if President Brandon, seeing the article, lost his temper and confiscated it again.

In my more philosophical moments, I could look at the conflict as a learning experience for President Brandon, too. He just liked to run things in a high-handed way. One of my friends was the executive secretary of another bishop in Longview Stake when President Brandon was also a bishop. He said that his bishop, who was "the most laid-back guy in the world," had somehow irritated Bishop Brandon, who had reacted by losing his temper and just screaming in this bishop’s face. So being domineering is a problem he’s had for a long time. Maybe this experience is having a small effect on President Brandon to help him learn that he can’t be in control of everything and everybody all of the time. The story was also comforting to me in that it provided a sort of reality check about who was being reasonable and who was being unreasonable.

In early 1993 the elders quorum presidency was released. I was asked to substitute-teach the Gospel Doctrine class for a teacher who was away on numerous weekends. The class seemed lively and interested when I taught the first lesson in the Doctrine and Covenants about how the Lord gives revelations in the language people are accustomed to. I passed around my facsimile copy of the Book of Commandments; most class members had never seen one before.

In January 1993, I sent President Brandon and Bishop George a schedule of the 1993 Forum for Mormon Issues, which announced as speakers John Sorensen, James B. Allen, and Elbert Peck. Bishop George was again enthusiastic and said he’d "like to come to some of them." There was no response from President Brandon. I was not trying to be provocative, but I wanted to separate the issue of the study group from the issue of my temple recommend. A few days later, President Joe J. Christensen attended the stake conference.

I recognize that I might have been hypersensitive but I received mixed messages from the conference. President Christensen was actually one of the speakers I enjoyed most. "I don’t know if you know what intellectuals are saying about Joseph Smith," he began, and I braced myself, but he then quoted Harold Bloom’s praise of Joseph Smith as a "religious genius" in his recently published The New American Religion. Christensen also made a strong statement in support of gaining knowledge. He impressed me as being really open and understanding, not dogmatic.

On the negative side, the stake executive secretary, Gordon L. Rich, who was a founder of the other study group that had been meeting for twelve years and a former bishop of mine, was being released. Asked to speak, he said: "I want you to know that the stake presidency is called of God and loves each one of you very much. Sure they make mistakes, but if you’ll follow Brethren, you’ll be doing what the Savior would have you do." I was unable to think of any scriptures to back that position up. Since he was aware of my situation with President Brandon, I was sure the counsel was directed towards me.

Furthermore, it seemed that President Brandon was trying to avoid me. He was shaking hands with people; and at one point right after leadership meeting, I was standing in a circle with Bishop George and his first counselor. President Brandon shook their hands but not mine. Later, right before the next meeting started, I was sitting on the end of the row in the chapel. President Brandon was going down the aisle shaking hands with everybody, but he quit the row before mine and went back to the stand.

Elder Christensen was thronged after every meeting, and I made no effort to introduce myself or try to get more details about my situation.

That was in March 1993. I remained in the Longview Washington Stake for another year and a half before we moved away. I served for six months as a counselor in the Young Men’s Presidency; but after I was released, I spent the remaining eleven months in the ward without a calling. Bishop George and one of his counselors assured me several times that one was forthcoming. Kandy maintained her calling as the Primary secretary during this time, and I was keenly aware of being isolated from the "normal" life of the ward by my lack.

I wasn’t aspiring to any certain calling, nor did I want one for the sake of prestige. But I wanted to serve, and I was used to having callings that fulfilled that need. Also, in a typical Mormon ward where organizations are chronically shorthanded, to have someone who is active and pretty conspicuously eligible for a calling—but who doesn’t have one—makes a guy conspicuous. It doesn’t mean you’re paranoid when that happens and you assume that there’s some negative discussion about you going on behind closed doors. It erodes your self-esteem and increases the feeling that you’re expendable. It got harder and harder to go to church for both of us.

Fortunately, the "Dialoguers" within the ward always had something positive and supportive to say, and that helped more than anyone will ever know. I baptized Mandy near her birthday in December 1985. The question of my worthiness didn’t even come up with Bishop George. The Forum continued to meet but more sporadically. In March 1994, Michael Quinn returned for a discussion on the Mormon hierarchy, and Armand Mauss returned for a third time on Mother’s Day. Between these two forums, my mother, Cecile Anderson, died six days after her sixty-third birthday on 30 March. The meeting with Armand Mauss was our last one.

President Brandon and I said "hello" to each other at the April 1993 priesthood session of general conference, and thirteen months later shook hands after a Longview Second Ward sacrament meeting. That was all the contact we had during this time period. It was also all I wanted. Part of me still hoped that he would just pick up the phone, apologize, and tell me I could have my temple recommend back; but part of me also knew that he was determined to maintain his authority.

Kandy and I thought seriously about moving; but my job, Mandy’s school, our friends, and the presence of our families in town all worked against it. Then two events at Reynolds Aluminum made a move away seem easier. The company had long offered a program of partial tuition subsidy for employees who wanted to further their education—and it didn’t need to be in a work-related major. In summer 1993, the company announced the lay-off of 125 people. I was scheduled for lay-off in the fall. Why not take advantage of the education program—which would still be available to me as a union benefit through the government and go back to school? I could have remained in Longview and completed my education at a near-by university; but by that point, I felt I had to get out of Longview. Being there was squeezing the life out of me. I wanted to serve in the Church and just be myself; but because of the conflict with President Brandon, I learned that I couldn’t do it in Longview. I felt branded. I knew I was teetering on the brink of going inactive.

So I decided to move to Salt Lake City and finish my history degree at the University of Utah. Kandy was willing to sell our home and make the move, too. During the summer of 1994, I wrote to President Brandon in an attempt to bury the hatchet and get some closure on the situation before the move. It didn’t help at all. In fact, it seemed to set President Brandon off all over again. He called me in for another meeting after my first letter, but I refused. And I think that was the smartest decision I ever made in my life. He fired off a letter to me, which I answered; but judging by the tone of our letters, we would have just fought if I’d met with him. I just couldn’t face a repeat of 1992.

I was grateful for one concession. I asked President Brandon to destroy his file on me. President Brandon responded that he would and would shred the recent letters also. I promised to keep the content of President Brandon’s recent letters to me confidential. I destroyed them before the move.

We moved to Salt Lake City in September 1994. The move brought both good changes and bad to the family. I enjoyed my studies, served as a stake missionary, and began research on a biography of Willard Richards. I felt a renewed love for the gospel and for the Church and felt more optimism about the future. We had another baby, Jordan Spencer, born in November 1994. I could tell that there was a new reserve somewhere deep inside though. I didn’t try to renew my temple recommend; Kandy’s had lapsed, of course. She didn’t renew hers either.

I could see Kandy growing, too. She had been given up for adoption at birth and had been adopted by a family in which she had been sexually abused by an older brother. She did not seem traumatized by it, apparently accepting it as just one of those bad things that happen to some people, but I’d always been concerned about how anxious to please she was and how hesitant she was to make independent decisions. Now, through a series of very fortuitous events, she found her birth-mother in California on 30 August 1994, the day before we left for Utah. They promptly established an affectionate and affirming relationship. I thought that was great.

But in late 1995, I was caught completely off guard when Kandy announced that she wanted a divorce. The issues were not related to the Church or to my intellectual interests. We have not yet finalized the decision about a divorce, but we’re still (winter 1997) separated. Mandy lives with me, and the two boys live with Kandy. We see each other frequently, and we still have a friendly and helpful relationship. During the emotional and physical disruption caused by this decision, we stopped going to church but are now both attending church regularly in our respective wards and taking the children.

Change came to President Brandon’s life, too. His wife died of cancer in January 1996. Within six weeks he was dating; he had remarried by June, scandalizing some members of the stake, according to reports from friends still in the area. There is also some speculation that he remarried quickly so that he wouldn’t be released as stake president. I don’t know. I’m sorry for his wife’s death, wish him well in his new marriage, but mostly just feel relieved that I don’t have to deal with him.

I’m very grateful that Kandy was supportive of me during the ordeal with President Brandon. In thinking back on the whole experience, I have to call it a trial of my faith. Publishing this account lets me put closure on this whole ordeal—something that a simple apology from President Brandon would have accomplished at any point. As it is, I have had to struggle with many difficult feelings over a long period of time.

The thing that has bothered me the most about this ordeal is the total lack of respect that President Brandon and his counselors showed me. They had made up their minds to demand that my study group be shut down. They made this demand without ever having attended any of the meetings themselves. They were not interested in hearing my reasons for holding it. They branded my individual search for truth as illegitimate and weren’t interested in finding out why I felt that it was not only a legitimate quest, but a necessary one for me and others. The only thing they were interested in or concerned with was that I obey them, and the only reason they had for demanding my obedience was that they were my priesthood leaders.

Since this time, I have talked with many friends, some of whom have served in bishoprics and stake presidencies. They have helped me realize that President Brandon’s tactics are the exception to the rule and that most stake presidents would not even have brought the subject up, let alone acted in such an authoritarian way. These assurances give me hope, but my feelings of distrust for authority still linger.

Something has changed inside me forever. I have mixed feelings about that. First, I regret the loss of that innocent trust. Second, I realize that having learned in such a painful way that some people will abuse authority probably is valuable in making me less vulnerable. Third, I feel very keenly the responsibility not to betray the trust of those who depend on me in my various roles as a father, husband, student, employee, Church member, and friend. And fourth, I believe I have a responsibility to try and see the good in even flawed leaders and accept their humanness with patience and compassion.

In one of his last letters to me, written a year after our move to Salt Lake City, President Brandon told me I had no integrity. On the contrary, the fact that I stood up to him, despite my training in obedience and despite my fear, tells me that I do have integrity. I chose my conscience over conformity, and I will always do so. If nothing else, I’ve learned the value of Shakespeare’s statement: "To thine own self be true." Despite all of the pain that followed from my decision, the continual peace of mind and the inner assurance that I was doing the right thing have been worth it.

Endnotes: (Click on the Back button to return to the reference.)

¹Speaking at the Pacific Northwest Sunstone Symposium in 1993, I acknowledged that Elbert Peck was the source of this idea. I also added what I strongly felt: "Our leaders need to know the strength of our testimonies, and we need to share that with them; but we also need to state what our rights are and defend them."