Before the court, I had made two speaking commitments for
November—one was the closing address for the Counterpoint
Conference sponsored by the Mormon Women's Forum and another
was to the B. H. Roberts Society. Several people asked me if
I was going to give the talks as scheduled and
sympathetically indicated that everyone would understand if
I felt I couldn't do them—because of the way my life had
already been disrupted—or if I felt I shouldn't do them, to
show my bishop that I was making a good-faith effort to
comply. I was surprised at the question. The entire conflict
had been about my right to think, speak, write, and publish.
I would not silence myself. I felt only an unwavering
commitment to continue to represent my views as thoroughly
and as clearly as possible.
But I had some questions about my ability to do so. Brain
scans in late October showed an irregularity at the site of
the brain tumor I'd had removed in 1985. It wasn't clear
whether the tumor was growing again or whether improved
diagnostic techniques were showing scar tissue which hadn't
been detected before. The blurred vision persisted; when I
was tired—and it seemed that I was always tired—it got
worse. And just finding time to write was a problem.
Originally I had been going to speak about equality and
diversity at the Counterpoint Conference; but after the
court, the conference organizers had urged me to speak about
my experiences in being disciplined by the Church. I gladly
agreed to this change since it was hard for me to think
about anything else and I had very little time left.
I began writing this talk the week after the court, then
I had to take most of the next week to write my open letter
to Bishop Hammond. That left me only a week to write my
Counterpoint talk, which I called "My Controversy with
the Church."21 My writing time is always limited. I find
it very difficult to write when the children are around, so
I do most of my writing in the evenings at the BYU library
when David or the older children can take care of things at
home. I usually work until the library closes at midnight
then continue working at home if I need more time. I stayed
up until 3:00 a.m. quite a few nights and skipped a lot of
meals in order to finish my speech; but even working at this
exhausting schedule, I barely had time to print it out
before we needed to drive to Salt Lake City.
The opening session was on Friday night, 4 November 1994,
and I was scheduled to close the conference on Saturday
night. We were spending the night in Salt Lake City with the
Toscanos; Nephi, Ammon, and Miriam accompanied us. Not until
we were sitting in our chairs during the opening speech did
I realize how exhausted I was. It had been after three when
I'd gone to bed the night before, and I hadn't had a thing
to eat all day. I wondered if I would be able to keep myself
upright for the rest of the evening. I did get something to
eat after the session, a good night's sleep that night, and
food the next day; but by the afternoon, I was beginning to
feel exhausted again and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to
give my speech. I had never felt like this before. I had
always been able to push myself a little more and find
enough strength somewhere to do what I had to do. My head
hurt and my body felt heavy, too heavy to move. I felt as if
it would be very easy just to leave it behind. In fact, I
felt as if I were already outside it.
Just before the dinner break, I told David that I was
feeling really tired and needed to lie down for a while. He
quickly talked to a hotel clerk about my problem, and she
gave me a room to rest in. Before he went downstairs to have
dinner with our children and a few friends, I asked him to
give me a blessing. In this blessing I was told that I had
been borrowing too heavily from the future and that I needed
to take better care of myself or I would shorten my days.
But God knew of my desire to present the speech which I had
worked so hard on, and he would give me the strength
necessary. He would send angels to stand by me and hold me
up. Later, as I walked to the room where I would deliver my
speech and waited through the preliminaries, I did not feel
much stronger; but as I stood up and began to speak I felt
my strength returning. At one point early in the speech, I
thought someone had walked up and was standing behind me, so
I turned to see what he wanted. No one was visible. I
realized that it was the angel I had been promised. The
sense of gratitude and comfort was even more sustaining than
the generous and loving response to the paper itself.
On 17 November, I was one of four panelists who addressed
the B. H. Roberts Society before an audience of about two
hundred. We were surprised to see so many, since it was a
snowy night. Rod Decker, political reporter for KUTV, Jack
Newell, a professor of higher education at the University of
Utah, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and I spoke on "The
Purge: A Year Later."
I spoke first, framing the
disciplinary actions against dissidents and scholars
... as resulting from a clash between the official and
unofficial church as the General Authorities try to
resolve some difficult issues in authoritarian ways
while member critics demand that these issues remain
open to discussion. Involved in this struggle is an
attempt to define the boundaries between the
relationship of public and private, the individual and
her church, official and unofficial, and local and
general.
I systematically reviewed the chronology of the
increasingly controlling actions taken by my ecclesiastical
leaders since our first meeting over "Toward a Theology
of God the Mother." I pointed out, "I doubt if
either Bacon or Hammond were ever given any explicit
instructions of what to do. However, in an authoritarian
system, explicit instructions are not necessary. It is
enough that lower-level leaders understand what higher
ranking leaders want, what their concerns are, and what
their counsel is." I summarized the evidence that
General Authorities had been surreptitiously involved in my
case, adding:
I believe General Authorities meddle with cases of
apostasy which involve public speaking and publications
because they see them as affecting the whole Church.
[Their view] is a fair assessment, but it is dishonest
to assert that such cases are being handled entirely by
local leaders when these leaders are being sent material
by the Strengthening Church Members Committee and are
also being influenced by other communications from
General Authorities. One reason that such cases are
supposed to be handled by local leaders is that they
know the member and are thus better able to judge his
character, motives, worthiness, and commitment to the
Church; these things certainly have a bearing on whether
he is an apostate. My leaders, however, told me many
times that they thought I was a good person, that my
service in the Church was commendable, that they
respected the way I had raised my children, and that
they thought I was trying to serve God, but that all of
these things were irrelevant to the question of whether
or not I was an apostate.
Oaks stated that six people cannot constitute a
purge. But the purpose of the purge is not simply to get
rid of feminists, dissidents, and critics, but to make
Church members realize they cannot be feminists,
dissidents, or critics—to control the unofficial
Church. To purge the Church it is necessary only to pick
out a few of the most visible, most outspoken, most
annoying critics, excommunicate them, and trust that the
other members will get the message about what is
allowed, what the boundaries are. I believe that the
Church takes advantage of the media to get this message
to the members; it sees media coverage of these events
as mostly negative for the larger public but as quite
positive for Church members. Loyal members understand.
I also see media coverage of action against scholars
and writers as positive. It is the only way to bring the
issue of freedom of speech within the Church to the
attention of the mainstream Church. Members who would
never attend a symposium or read a Dialogue watch
TV news and read the newspaper. I told my leaders that I
considered my case to be a public issue and that I
waived my right to confidentiality. I told them that I
would speak publicly about what happened to me and the
issues involved. The free exchange of ideas is not only
necessary to personal growth but it is also essential to
the vitality and spiritual growth of the Church
community. When one person is silenced, the whole Church
suffers.
Lavina Fielding Anderson summarized events of the past
year, including the disciplining of Lynne Kanavel Whitesides,
Avraham Gileadi, Paul Toscano, Maxine Hanks, herself, D.
Michael Quinn, David P. Wright, Michael Barrett, me, and the
scheduling of a disciplinary council for Brent Metcalfe on
December 4. (He was excommunicated for editing and writing
an essay in New Approaches to the Book of Mormon
[Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993].) She also gave the
more encouraging report of "Brad" whose stake
president called him in over a Dialogue article and
Sunstone speech but "responded fully" when Brad,
who said he felt filled with love, did not respond with fear
or anger and refused to answer the stake president's
worthiness questions as not appropriate to the spirit of
their meeting.
Rod Decker reviewed the dynamics of opposition and
predicted that the hostilities would continue because
"both sides want the pain. Both sides need the pain ... as a reaffirmation of the seriousness of their
enterprise." Responding to my point about interference
with local action, Rod commented:
The process seems to have gone awry. You are supposed
be judged by your local leader without the benefit of
rules and lawyers, and that makes some sense. He's
supposed to feel responsible for you, he's supposed to
like you, he's supposed to know you, and he judges you.
But the way it seems to work ... the poor defendant ... never gets to face the true judge, the person who's
really making the decision. No one ends up feeling
fundamentally responsible for the decision. The people
at the top say it was made down below; the person down
below says, "I was directed by the people up at the
top." ... We speak out a lot these days against
lawyers, and we have cause, but if you want to think
well of lawyers, look at this system without them.
He and the fourth speaker, Jack Newell, both recommended
that people in conflict with the Church leave and put their
energies elsewhere. Newell also commented: Church leaders
"are not moved by appeals for reason, and we are not
moved by appeals for obedience. I have always accepted the
Church on its goodness, not its rightness."
During the question and answer session, which partially
focused on the question of leaving, the two men, both of
whom are members in name, acknowledged that they are no
longer believers and are not active; in contrast, Lavina and
I described ourselves as devout believers and active
participants to the extent that we were allowed to be.22 It
was an ironic juxtaposition.
I did not have any contact with Bishop Hammond for the
rest of November. My Counterpoint speech was reported in the
Provo Daily Herald and I thought that he had probably
seen the article or been given a copy of it, along with a
letter to the editor which I had written to correct some
misleading statements in it.23 I suspected that he would
believe that "My Controversy with the Church"
violated the conditions and would want to question me about
it. But again, there was only silence. Again, I surmised
that David's warning about my health was holding him back.
On Sunday, November 27, Bishop Hammond saw David in the
hall at Church and asked if he could talk to him during
priesthood meeting. They talked for over an hour. Bishop
Hammond wanted to know if I was well enough to meet with him
again; David said he thought I was. Bishop Hammond said he
needed to talk to me about my letter. There were some things
that weren't clear to him. "I need to hear it from her
own lips," he said. "I want to give her every
possible chance." He also asked about my Counterpoint
talk. "Can I get a copy of it?" David told him
that he thought I would give him one, but he would have to
ask me.
When David told me about this conversation, I was
surprised at how upset I was. I thought I was emotionally
prepared for whatever came and that I had foreseen what I
truly felt was inevitable. But I was not ready for another
court. What were the bishop's intentions? I wondered if he'd
been given any instructions. I expected him to call every
day, but it was over two weeks before I heard from him.
On Wednesday, 7 December, David flew to New York with our
friend, Bryant Rossiter, who was in the last stages of a
long fight with cancer. He was checking in to the Sloane-Kettering
Institute to see if they could do anything to help him.
Deborah Rossiter, also a dear friend, could not leave their
five sons indefinitely, so David volunteered to accompany
him and stay with him as long as he could. Before David
left, he called Bishop Hammond to explain why we would miss
our tithing settlement appointment.
Bishop Hammond asked, "Is Janice going to let me
have a copy of her paper?"
David said, "You'll have to talk to Janice about
it."
I had been considering his request. While I did not think
anything in the paper violated the conditions, I suspected
that there were several things Bishop Hammond might consider
to be violations. Was I morally obligated to give him a
copy? I had decided not to discuss my writings with him
before publication. I reasoned that, as long as I did not
believe that my work was apostate, I was under no obligation
to discuss it with him, regardless of what I suspected his
judgment would be. He had no more right to search my
prepublished writings for "false doctrine" or
"attacks" on the Church than he had to spy on
other ward members to make sure they did not break any
commandments. For the same reasons, I decided I would not
give him copies of my publications or speeches I had given.
Lavina quoted a saying current from her years as an
associate editor at the Ensign relative to the
Correlation Reading Committee: "If you hand someone a
manuscript and ask, `Do you see any problems with this?'
they'll think they're not doing their job until they find
some." I felt the same way about Bishop Hammond's
definition of his "job." However, I decided that
if someone gave him a copy of a speech or a publication or a
newspaper article quoting me (and he seemed to have a
reliable supplier), I would discuss any specific problems he
had with it at his request.
The principle upon which I made this decision was this: I
should try to resolve any offense someone brought to my
attention; but if I did not intend to offend, I was under no
obligation to hand over my work to be scrutinized for
possible offense.
Bishop Hammond had told David that, since I had written
about him in the paper, I should give him a copy. I thought
carefully about this. I had tried to be fair and truthful in
my portrayal of him, restricting my account to what he had
said and done and avoiding any judgments about him. I would
have been willing to provide him with a copy of what I had
written about him, but I didn't want to share my own
thoughts and feelings with him. It made me sad to realize
that I was more willing to share my thoughts and feelings
with a large audience than with my own bishop because I
truly did not trust him to try and understand me or to act
fairly.
On Saturday, three days after David's conversation with
the bishop, I gave "My Controversy with the
Church" again, this time to a public meeting held in
the Provo City Library sponsored by the Algie Ballif Forum.
The meeting was well publicized with a photograph and a
notice in the paper on Wednesday. Although the audience was
small, it was sympathetic and supportive. After I finished
speaking, there was a short question-and-answer session,
then some people stayed to discuss the issues further. Since
someone was providing Bishop Hammond with clippings, I
expected him to learn about it if, for some reason, he
missed seeing the notice himself.
On Tuesday morning, 13 December, Bishop Hammond called
and asked me to meet with him that evening at 6:30. He was
very busy with tithing settlement appointments, but he
"really needed to talk to me." He would schedule
forty-five minutes before his first appointment. I agreed,
not only because I am committed to the process of dialogue
in resolving problems, even when it seems hopeless, but also
because I wanted to know where I stood with Bishop Hammond.
The main issue Bishop Hammond wanted to discuss was my
open letter. This did not surprise me since I had guessed
that he would probably consider it a refusal to abide by the
conditions of my probation. The comments he had made to
David in the hall a few weeks earlier confirmed this but
also indicated he might be unsure how to interpret what I
had written.
"I need to know what you meant by your letter,"
he said. "Sometimes I read it and I think, `I guess
it's all right. She wants to cooperate.' But then I read it
again and I think, `She doesn't intend to do anything I want
her to.'" Basically Bishop Hammond wanted to find out
what my "attitude" was; would I obey him or not? I
have learned in talking to several men who have been bishops
that "attitude" is something of a code word that
means willingness to submit to the bishop's counsel. I do
not know if this concept is explicitly taught during any
training that bishops receive, but the idea seems to be
commonly held. After my excommunication, one local Church
leader told David that I deserved to be excommunicated
because I had a "bad attitude." When David
expressed surprise at this characterization of me, he
explained, "She refused to do what her bishop told
her."
I explained the ideas I had expressed in my letter, but
I'm afraid Bishop Hammond remained confused about my
attitude because we were really focused on different
concerns. I was talking about my commitment to serve God and
pursue truth; he was wondering about my willingness to
follow his counsel so that I could remain in the Church.
He again brought up the review process that he insisted I
cooperate with. He was upset that the media had
characterized this demand as censorship. "I don't want
to censor you," he protested. "What I had in mind
is that I, or someone else, could be a resource for you. If
you're really concerned about not crossing the line, about
staying safe, we could review your articles for you."
Again I explained why I couldn't work under such conditions.
"Are you going to publish "Him Shall Ye
Hear?" he asked me.
"I'm not going to tell you about my publishing
plans," I said.
"You were planning on publishing it before," he
said.
"I'm not going to tell you about my publishing
plans," I repeated.
He asked me for a copy of "My Controversy with the
Church." I told him I had decided not to give it to
him. "That's your privilege," he said. He had read
the article about it in the Daily Herald and my
letter to the editor, and he questioned me about a few
things that troubled him. I responded to his concerns. He
tried again to persuade me to give him a copy. "I just
want to read it to see if you've violated the conditions of
your probation," he said. "That's my
responsibility."
"I don't think I violated the conditions," I
said.
"Do you think I would think you did?"
"Perhaps."
"I couldn't promise that I wouldn't use something in
it against you," he admitted.
It seemed like an extraordinarily honest statement.
"I realize that," I replied. "Are you
planning to take any additional action against me?"
"Not right now," he told me.
Bishop Hammond volunteered the information that President
Bacon hadn't said anything to him about me "except to
ask a couple of times if there were any new
developments." He told me that he had given President
Bacon copies of the defense I had presented at my court and
the open letter. "I consider both documents possible
breaches of the conditions," Bishop Hammond said. I
wondered if he had he given President Bacon the documents to
confirm his opinion and authorize any further action.
I changed the subject: "Is there any chance of my
ever being taken off probation?"
"Yes," he said, visibly brightening,
"that's a real possibility. If I have the feeling that
you're working with me, making a real effort not to cross
over the line, then after a few months or a year of that,
I'll remove all the restrictions."
I felt very disheartened and thought, "Yes, you're
saying, `Change your beliefs, be like me, and then I'll let
you work in the nursery again.'"
I had planned to again question Bishop Hammond about his
accusation that I was taping the disciplinary council. He
hadn't answered my letter, and I felt that he owed me more
information. However, when I glanced at my watch, I saw that
we had already gone fifteen minutes into his tithing
settlement appointments and called this to his attention. He
said that there were other things he wanted to talk about
but agreed that he needed to start his interviews. He
thanked me for coming.
As I left his office, I walked past several people who
were waiting for their appointments. I didn't know them, but
they were looking at me so I smiled at them. No one smiled
back or greeted me. I imagined that they were reproaching me
for taking up so much of the bishop's time. Then I chided
myself for such thoughts. How did I know what they were
thinking? I was probably being overly sensitive, but it was
hard not to be when I received so many indications that ward
members really were thinking such things.
Bishop Hammond had told David that dealing with me had
hampered his ability to handle ward problems because ward
members perceived him as too busy with my case for them to
approach. People with legitimate needs were being
neglected had been the implication. One woman had apologized
for asking for an interview: she knew he was very busy with
the Allred case, but she really needed to talk to him. The
December testimony meeting had been dominated by praise for
his love and compassion and by expressions of gratitude for
the many hours he spent helping ward members. The subtext I
heard was that ward members supported the bishop and
considered him to be long-suffering in his dealings with me,
while they supposed that I had been inconsiderate in taking
up so much of his time. Although I had admonished myself not
to imagine that everyone was thinking of me, I continued to
feel that my suppositions were well-founded.
In the next six weeks my problems with the Church were
eclipsed by Christmas and then our grief as we watched
Bryant die and mourned with Deborah. David was able to bring
Bryant home for Christmas, but his condition had
deteriorated so much that he had to be flown back on a
private medical plane. We had hoped—even in the face of
almost certain knowledge—for a miracle; but by the end of
January, the only hope we had left was that Bryant would not
have to suffer much longer. He had few coherent days since
his return from New York, so Deborah was feeling very alone
and vulnerable, exhausted from the strain of caring for him,
and depleted by the emotional demands of their sons, who
were undergoing their own turmoil.
Bryant died on Sunday, 5 February 1995. Deborah had begun
planning his funeral a week earlier. She told me that she
wanted Paul Toscano to give the sermon because Bryant had
admired Paul's theological writings very much. They had been
acquainted for many years and had grown even closer as Paul
visited Bryant in the hospital many times. Deborah wanted
the funeral to be what Bryant would want and she felt that
Paul would be Bryant's choice. I agreed that Paul was the
perfect choice but I told her I doubted if he would be
allowed to speak since he was excommunicated.
"But a funeral isn't a Church meeting," she
said. "Can't the family do whatever it wants?"
"I think a funeral is considered a Church
meeting," I told her.
"Aren't nonmembers allowed to speak at
funerals?" she asked.
"I think so," I replied, "But I don't
think an excommunicated person is considered to be a
nonmember." I told her I would find out from the
handbook what the rules were. She told me that she would
also like me to give a five-minute reminiscence about
Bryant. I said, "I'll be glad to. But I'm afraid that I
might not be allowed to speak either. I'm not supposed to
speak in a Church meeting. But maybe since I would only be
talking about Bryant and not discussing doctrine, they might
let me. A person on probation isn't necessarily forbidden to
speak in Church meetings. That was Bishop Hammond's decision
and maybe he'll make an exception for Bryant's funeral. I'll
ask him and I'm sure Scott Runia [Deborah's bishop and also
ours, before the wards were divided] won't have any
objection if Bishop Hammond gives me permission."
I called Lavina and she checked her copy of the General
Handbook of Instructions on funerals and read it to me:
When a Church member dies, the bishop calls on the
family to offer comfort and solace and to offer
assistance with the funeral service and other matters. ... He should be prepared with suggestions for the
service. ...
A member of the bishopric should conduct the funeral
and graveside services if the family requests. ...
When a funeral service is held in a Church building
or is conducted by a Church officer, it is a Church
meeting. A member of the bishopric conducts the service
rather than the family or the mortician. ... The
priesthood officer who presides ... should be extended
the opportunity of offering closing remarks if he
desires. ...
If the grave is to be dedicated, the bishop, after
consulting with the family, should ask a Melchizedek
Priesthood holder to offer the prayer and dedicate the
grave. (General Handbook of Instructions, March
1989, 2-6, 2-7)
Nonmembers could participate—nonmember clergy could even
conduct funeral services in a ward meetinghouse—as long as
the service was "dignified and appropriate" (2-7).
I told Deborah what I had found out. "If you have
Bishop Runia conduct, the only way they'll let Paul speak is
if they decide they can consider him a nonmember," I
told her. "But I think Bishop Hammond will give me
permission if I ask him." Deborah had considered having
a non-Church funeral if that were the only way she could
carry out what she believed would be Bryant's wishes; but
realizing that this would probably alienate and offend some
ward and family members, she finally decided to have the
funeral at the church and ask Bishop Runia to conduct.
"But I have to ask, at least, if they'll let Paul
and you speak," she said. "If they say no, I'll
get someone else, but I have to ask." She decided to
write Bishop Runia a letter, and I told her I'd ask Bishop
Hammond. This conversation took place on Friday, 3 February,
two days before Bryant's death.
I intended to speak to Bishop Hammond that Sunday. Our
ward had switched to the early schedule in January, and our
meeting block began at 8:30 a.m. One "benefit" of
public humiliation is that it facilitates the abandonment of
conventional morality. Now that I was used to being a public
spectacle, it no longer bothered me very much to arrive late
to sacrament meeting. Since previously I had been the only
person in our family who cared about punctuality, my
backsliding meant that our family was usually among the last
to arrive. Consequently that Sunday we were forced to parade
up the aisle and sit on the second row, the only pew empty
enough to accommodate all of us.
After the meeting, as I was gathering up the items the
children had scattered at our feet, Bishop Hammond suddenly
appeared, inquired about my health, and asked if I could
meet with him that afternoon, between two and three o'clock.
I agreed and he said he'd call me when he knew exactly when
he was free. Although I was relieved that I would not have
to contact him to ask him about speaking at the funeral, I
also felt the usual tension grip me as I wondered what he
wanted to talk about.
By 2:30 he hadn't called, and I was upset. I was feeling
anxious about Bryant. David and I would have already gone
over to the house—we knew Bryant was close to his last
moments—but we were waiting for the bishop's call. At 2:50
I called Deborah to tell her we'd come over as soon as we
could. Her father-in-law said she was with the nurse and to
call back later. Then Bishop Hammond called and asked if I
could come to his office at 3:30. Although I really wanted
to go to see Bryant and Deborah instead, I agreed since I
wanted to ask him about speaking at the funeral.
At 3:15 the phone rang again, and David answered it. It
was Deborah. She told David that Bryant had just passed
away. He repeated her words aloud, and I asked quickly,
"Does Deborah want us to come over right now?" She
said to come in a couple of hours, so I decided to keep my
appointment with Bishop Hammond.
As I walked to the meetinghouse, I tried to remember how
Bryant had looked before he became so ill, but I couldn't.
After shaking my hand, thanking me for coming, and making
polite inquiries about my family, Bishop Hammond asked if I
was making any "progress."
I looked at him in some confusion. What kind of progress
was I supposed to be making?
"This is supposed to be a period of probation,"
he explained. "You're supposed to be working toward
some goal, making some progress toward full fellowship in
the Church. What have you been doing toward that goal?"
It was hard to be interrogated as if I were a confirmed,
blatant sinner reporting to a parole officer. "I come
to Church every week," I said. "I bring my family.
I live the principles of the gospel. I do what I can. You
know that I would do more but you've restricted what I can
do."
"But what about staying within the line?" he
asked. "Are you willing to work with me?"
Again we discussed the review process he wanted me to
follow. He accused me of being unwilling to accept
criticism. I said that I was willing to have my work
criticized but not to have it reviewed for conformity to
someone's notion of orthodoxy. I explained again why I
couldn't submit to the process he prescribed.
He had a pile of photocopied newspaper articles on his
desk. "I don't know what's happened since the court
except I've got all this stuff from the newspaper," he
said, leafing through the pile of articles. "If I had
to go by this stuff, I'd know exactly what to do; but since
I know you, it makes it more difficult. Do you think you've
kept the conditions?"
"According to my interpretation of them, I think I
have," I responded. "You might not agree with me.
I have given talks which are critical of Church policies,
but I think I have kept within the bounds of what's
acceptable for a Church member. You broadened the definition
of apostasy. I haven't criticized the Church in the sense of
trying to tear it down, but I have disagreed with
some things, pointed out some problems." I was being
very honest.
He was still concerned about "My Controversy with
the Church." "Why won't you give it to me?"
he asked.
"I didn't say anything bad about you, but there are
some things in it that I don't want to share with you,"
I said.
"Frankly, that's why I want a copy of it," he
pressed. "I think there are things in there that broke
the conditions. You gave the speech publicly so there's no
reason I can't have a copy of it. I could have sneaked
around and got a copy but I've tried to be open with
you."
I doubt whether he could have found a bootleg copy, since
I think, if he could have, he already would have. The speech
wasn't taped, and I gave copies only to two reporters and to
a few close friends and family members.
"Someone" —he wouldn't say who— "told me
that you've given a copy of it to Sunstone or Dialogue
and they're going to print it."
"No," I answered, "that's not true."
I had forgotten, in the give and take of the conversation,
that I had decided to refuse to discuss publication plans
with him. "They may have a copy but I didn't give it to
them, and they certainly wouldn't publish it without my
permission."
Bishop Hammond said, "I think there's enough
information here to show that you have gone against the
conditions or at least that you're not willing to work with
me. You've never said anything about your views on women and
the priesthood, but I know what they are. You've criticized
Church leaders. You've talked about abusive treatment in
general ways. You haven't accused me or President Bacon
specifically, but you've done it in general ways."
I had the feeling that Bishop Hammond was trying to get
me to agree that I had broken the conditions, that he wanted
my permission to reconvene the court. I was not going to
make it easier for him. I did not respond to these broad
accusations. Instead, I told him there were a couple of
things I wanted to talk about.
"Every week when I can't take the sacrament, it
really hurts me because I feel I'm worthy. I want to know
why you think I'm not."
"It's because you're not obedient," he
rejoined. "You lack commitment. It's the same reason
you're not worthy of a temple recommend."
"I see the sacrament as a symbol of my relationship
with Jesus Christ," I said. "I believe in him, I
trust in him, I look to him for my salvation, I try to
repent of my sins. Why do you think I'm not worthy?"
"I know you think that what you've done is
different from murder or adultery, but I feel differently
about it," he said.
I was stunned. I couldn't answer. Anger welled up in me,
and I felt a stab of pain in my heart; I wasn't sure whether
the pain was for him or me. How could Bishop Hammond think I
was the equivalent of a murderer or an adulterer because I
could not, in good conscience, obey him? Hadn't he ever
contemplated the nature of righteousness? Could he really
believe that my relationship with Christ depended on
compliance with his man-made rules?
He had spoken almost insolently, as if challenging me to
contradict him. When I didn't respond, he continued in a
gentler tone. "I know you think that what you've done
is mostly good." Bishop Hammond may have been trying to
soften his words. "But I think it's mostly
harmful."
"Whom have I harmed?" I managed to ask.
"I know of members of one family who have left the
Church because of the Mother in Heaven issue."
"Are you saying that they left because of what I
wrote?" I asked.
"Well, I don't know ..."
"Because it seems to me that if anyone has left the
Church because of this issue, it's because of the way the
Church is or isn't dealing with it. I've told you that if
anyone has any problems with what I've written or if I've
offended anyone, I'd be happy to talk to them. Tell me who
it is and I'll get in contact with them."
"I can't do that," he said. "I've told you
that you can have whatever private explorations you want,
but it's harmful to talk about these things in public. You
think you can say anything you want without any
responsibility or accountability."
"That's not true," I said. "I think very
carefully about what I write. I don't claim to be speaking
for anyone but myself. I've just told you that I'm willing
to talk to anyone who has a problem with what I've
said."
"It's impossible for you to speak to everyone who's
been harmed by what you wrote," he said.
"Some people have told me that what I've written has
helped them," I said. "I see a lot of people
having problems with the Church. One thing I've tried to do
in my writing is show that there's a broader range of views
possible within Mormonism. I've tried to help people in
their search for truth." Even as I tried once more to
explain, I felt the weariness of despair, but I continued,
"I've tried to help them have more faith in God."
"It looks like pride to me," Bishop Hammond
said. "The problem I have with you is that you really
seem to believe in what you're writing. You see yourself as
somebody who is going to change the whole Church."
Again, I was stunned. Did he think that I would write
about things I didn't really believe? Did he think I
would jeopardize my membership over something of only
academic importance? "I don't want to change anybody
who doesn't want to be changed," I tried again.
"But for those who see problems, I'm offering some
ideas that might be helpful."
"If you see so many problems, maybe you should just
go somewhere ..." he stopped and looked at me.
"There's nowhere else I want to go," I said.
He looked down at his desk. "I know," he said
softly. After a few moments he said, "This is really
comfortable for both of us."
"Comfortable?" I thought. Had I misheard him?
What did he mean? He did not look very comfortable, and I
certainly wasn't. The harshness of his accusations had left
me in turmoil. "I don't want to think about it and you
don't want to think about it, but I have a responsibility to
act," he said with new briskness. Apparently he meant
that it was comfortable for both of us to ignore my
probation. Perhaps this was possible for him, but I
certainly was not able to ignore it. "Probation is
supposed to be about progress. Are you making any
progress?"
This was where we had begun. I didn't answer. Again I
felt that he was asking for my permission to excommunicate
me. He wanted me to validate his perspective—to agree that
I deserved excommunication.
"Is there anything else you want to discuss?"
he asked.
I pulled myself together to ask once again about the
alleged taping at the October court. At this point I had not
yet received the information from my friend at the women's
retreat, so I still believed that Bishop Hammond's
accusations were somehow connected to my conversation with
Lynne. "I'm still troubled about the fact that someone
tried to trap me during the disciplinary council," I
said. "You've been unwilling to explain what happened.
Someone lied about me and tried to trap me. Why won't you
tell me who it is? Why are you trying to protect him?"
"I'm not trying to protect him," Bishop Hammond
said.
"Will you explain to me what happened?"
"What happened is that someone at the news station
overheard that you were planning to tape and was concerned
about it so he passed it on to Church headquarters and they
passed it on to me."
"So this person contacted Church headquarters?"
I asked. "Did you speak to someone from Church
headquarters?"
"No, I shouldn't have said that," he said
hastily. "I don't know what happened. They contacted
someone in our stake."
"Why are they going through all these intermediate
people?" I asked.
"They didn't know who to go to," Bishop Hammond
said. "If I overheard something like that I wouldn't
know who to go to. The person who told it to the person in
our stake told it like a rumor. He said, `I hear she's
planning to tape the session.'"
"Why didn't you ask me about it?"
"I didn't think you'd do it. I didn't hear about it
until about five minutes before the court."
"You could have taken me aside and asked me about
it. You didn't say you believed me until the fourth time you
asked me. It looks to me as if you were trying to trap
me."
"There were two people," Bishop Hammond said.
"The person who called during the court was another
person. When I talked to him afterwards, he said he
misunderstood."
"Nobody could have watched that program and thought
they said I was planning to tape," I insisted. "I
watched the videotape of it myself very carefully. Tell me
who these people are. I could talk to them and we could
clear this up. This really bothers me."
"I don't think it would be right for me to tell you
who they are," he said. "But I could ask them if
they would get in contact with you."
I refused to drop it. "I think it's really wrong
that people are coming to you and making accusations against
me but you refuse to tell me who they are. The scriptures
tell you what to do. If someone offends you, you are
supposed to go to him and tell him. If someone accuses me of
an offense, you should send them to me or tell me who they
are so I can go to them. I've made myself very public.
Anyone who wants to feels free to attack me. I realize that
I put myself in this position, but that doesn't make the
attacks right."
"I've been made a figure of public criticism
too," Bishop Hammond said. "I've received all
these letters and anonymous threats, but I've never
complained to you."
"I've never seen anything negative about you in the
news or letters to the editor," I responded. "Some
people have sent me copies of the letters they sent you.
They all seemed polite to me and they were all signed. I
certainly don't have any idea who might have sent you
anonymous letters."
"Is there anything else you want to talk
about?" Bishop Hammond asked.
"My friend Bryant just died," I said.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. Bishop Hammond knew
Bryant and Deborah as he'd also been in their ward before
the split. His wife was a close friend of Deborah's.
"When did he die?"
"Deborah called just before I came over here,"
I said.
"If I'd known that I wouldn't have had this
meeting."
"I know, but I didn't want to wait another month to
find out what you wanted to talk about, and I have a
question I need to ask you. Deborah wants me to speak at his
funeral, just a five-minute reminiscence of Bryant with no
doctrinal content. Would that be all right?" I asked.
"I understand that she also wants Paul Toscano to
speak," he said. Apparently Bishop Runia had received
Deborah's letter and talked to Bishop Hammond about it.
"Yes," I said. "She realizes that he might
not be able to, but she wanted to ask."
Bishop Hammond seemed incensed by Deborah's request.
"Funerals are supposed to bring families
together," he said. He seemed to feel that Deborah was
trying to make some kind of divisive statement by asking
Paul and me to speak and he seemed to feel that it was my
fault.
I tried to explain why Deborah wanted Paul to speak.
"She will respect Bishop Runia's decision," I told
him. "Will it be all right if I speak?"
"You should have refused," he said.
Once again I was stunned. "I love Deborah," I
said. "I'm not going to tell her `no.' I told her I
would ask you."
"So I have to go to the funeral and Deborah will be
mad at me for not letting you speak!" he shot back.
"I'm sorry," I said. I was honestly bewildered
by his reaction. Wasn't he thinking at all of Deborah and
her wishes?
"I knew you were going to try to speak," he
said. "Bishop Runia got Deborah's letter on Saturday
and he called me to ask about you. My feeling was `No, you
can't do it,' but since you've asked me, I'll think about
it."
This surprised me. Did he really believe I'd try to speak
at a Church meeting without asking him? I respected his
ecclesiastical authority even when I didn't think he was
using it wisely. Because I wouldn't grant him authority he
didn't have, he seemed to think that I wouldn't acknowledge
his office at all. Why did he think I was sitting across the
desk from him at that moment?
President Bacon was recuperating from heart surgery, but
Bishop Hammond said he would ask President McDonald.
David and I spent the rest of the evening with Deborah.
Bishop Runia came by to offer his support and to see what
the ward could do to help. I was sitting by her and he
hesitantly brought up the funeral program; I got the feeling
that he expected me to leave, but to me it was more
important that Deborah wanted me there. He asked about
everything but the speakers. Finally Deborah helped him out.
"Do you have an answer for me about my letter?"
she asked.
"I don't have to conduct," he said. "I
want it to be what you want. I'll help you in any way I can,
even if you have the funeral somewhere else." He was
very sweet. I wanted to hug him.
"You're saying that Paul can't speak, aren't
you?" Deborah said.
"I talked to President McDonald about it; and he
said that since he's been excommunicated, he can't
speak."
"What about Janice?" she asked.
He looked uncomfortable.
"I've asked Bishop Hammond for permission and he's
thinking about it," I said.
"If Bishop Hammond says she can speak, then it's all
right with me," Bishop Runia said.
Deborah told him she wanted to have the funeral at the
church, she wanted him to conduct, and she would find
someone else to give the sermon.
After we returned home, I got the message that Bishop
Hammond had called. I called him back and he told me that we
had to abide by the conditions that had been set up. A
funeral was a Church meeting so I couldn't speak. He said we
needed to talk some more and that he would call me in a
couple of weeks. I was not surprised by his answer, but I
was surprised by how much it hurt. When Deborah had first
asked me to speak, I had thought that he would agree, if
only for Deborah's sake. But after the interview that
afternoon, I knew it was hopeless. Since there is no rule
prohibiting a person on probation from speaking at Church
meetings and since he had set the restriction himself, he
could temporarily lift the restriction without breaking any
rules. That would be the compassionate thing to do. Why did
Bishop Hammond feel that it would be wrong for me to speak?
Was I such a bad person that it would be harmful to Church
members to listen to me speak no matter what subject I was
discussing? Would allowing me to speak imply that I was
acceptable, approved of?
To help Deborah feel better about the funeral, we held a
memorial service at our house the night before to celebrate
Bryant's life and mourn his death. We invited a few of
Deborah's and Bryant's close friends and family members to
come, bring some food, share a meal, and talk about Bryant.
Paul gave the sermon he was not allowed to give at the
funeral, I shared the reminiscences I would have given if I
had not been forbidden, and others also spoke about their
experiences with Bryant and their feelings for him, Deborah,
and their boys. We sang a few hymns (including "Silent
Night"—Billy Rossiter wanted to accompany us and that
was the only hymn he could play) and felt comforted in God's
love and the love of friends. The next morning, my sister
Margaret Toscano gave the sermon at the funeral. David spoke
about his friendship with Bryant and some of Bryant's
spiritual experiences and ideas about God.
Bishop Hammond waited two months before attempting to
contact me again. Then on 28 March 1995, while we were
eating a late dinner, Brett Francis, Bishop Hammond's
executive secretary, called and said the bishop wanted to
talk to me that night. I hesitated. Quickly he said,
"It's pretty late. How about next Tuesday?" I
agreed.
I had hesitated because I had had surgery on my foot the
day before and was still in a lot of pain. General
conference was on Saturday and Sunday, and I was scheduled
to be a panelist on the conference critique that the Mormon
Alliance sponsored on the Monday right after conference. I
wondered if this might be what he wanted to talk about.
Saturday and Sunday I listened intently to all of the
conference sessions and took copious notes. I had given up
trying to persuade my children to listen to conference; but
possibly because I was so serious about it, they all
congregated around the television during all the sessions,
which stimulated some lively discussions as well as other
lively behavior which had nothing to do with conference. The
panel on Monday night was also lively and interesting.
On Tuesday night, 4 April, I had my interview with Bishop
Hammond. He seemed surprised when I hopped into his office
on crutches. "You always have another surprise for
me," he said. He had a photocopy of a news article that
had recently appeared in Sunstone reporting the
disciplinary action taken against me in October.24 It quoted
extensively from my defense and open letter. "I
received this," he said, holding it up.
"Do you know where you got it from?" I asked.
"Did it just come in the mail or what?"
"A friend of mine at BYU got it from a friend of his
in Boston, and he gave me a copy because he thought I ought
to know about it."
I smiled inwardly because I knew who had given it to him,
but I didn't tell him. The Sunday before general conference,
Craig Merrill (no relation to me), a ward clerk and a
faculty member at BYU, had been sitting behind me in
sacrament meeting. He leaned over and told me that he'd read
the article about me in Sunstone. A friend of his in
Boston had sent him a copy, he'd said.
Bishop Hammond said defensively, "I didn't get it
from the Church." I thought that the Church might have
also sent him a copy, but I didn't say anything.
"Did you know they were going to publish this?"
he asked.
"Yes."
"Did you give them permission?"
"No, but they didn't need my permission. That's a
news article and I made both those documents public."
"Did you ask them not to publish it?"
"No, I wouldn't do that. It was public; I made it
public. They had a perfect right to publish it."
"After all the publicity was over, I thought you and
I could come to some kind of understanding. You're not
trying to abide by our understanding."
He seemed to believe that the reason I had refused to
submit to him was to maintain my image as a dissenter.
"I'm doing exactly what I said I would," I said.
"I don't see what the problem is. You knew I had made
those documents public."
"You don't think there's a problem with this?"
He was astonished, and I was astonished at his astonishment.
"I don't understand why it was public in the first
place!"
I wondered how many times I had tried to explain how I
saw the issue. Would trying once more do any good?
"Because it's about an important issue that concerns
all members, the freedoms they have as members of Christ's
Church. It's about freedom of speech."
"This is not about freedom of speech!" He asked
me if I had sustained President Hinckley in general
conference. I said I had. Had I sustained him and President
Bacon in ward conference? Yes. I got the impression that, if
I hadn't, it might be an actionable offense.
"What do you mean by `sustain'?" he asked.
"I mean that I accept you as my ecclesiastical
leader, that I accept that you've been chosen in the
regularly appointed way. If you ask me to do something and I
can accept it in good conscience, I'll do it. It doesn't
mean that I'll do everything you ask or agree with
everything you say."
He asked me again for the text of my Counterpoint talk.
"You said last time that you thought I might think
there were some things in it against the Church and its
leaders," he said.
"I said that, not because I think there is
anything apostate in it, but because I thought you
might," I replied. "You surprise me by what you
think is in opposition."
He looked surprised and then pleased that he had
succeeded in surprising me. "How have I surprised
you?" he asked.
"You surprised me by how bad you thought `Him Shall
Ye Hear' was. You told me there were dozens of errors on
every page."
"Well, it was because the main idea was so
wrong."
"You surprised me by not letting me speak at
Bryant's funeral."
He didn't say anything.
"You surprised me when you said I wasn't worthy to
partake of the sacrament. You know I believe in Christ. I
keep all the standards of the Church. I just don't
understand it."
"In some areas, you've crossed the line. You've gone
too far; you're going in dangerous ways."
"Do you feel that the restrictions you've put on me
are a punishment?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Then are you using them to control me?"
"No, I'm not trying to control you," he said.
"I just feel that you've gone too far. You're not doing
what you should; you're going outside the Church."
"Then you're using them to label me an unacceptable
member?"
"No," he said. "That's your fault. There
are other people in our ward who can't take the sacrament or
go to the temple. Nobody knows it, because they haven't made
it public. It's your fault if people think you are
unacceptable." I had asked him these questions because
I wanted to understand his reasons for imposing the
restrictions and what he hoped to accomplish by them. But he
seemed to be saying that they had no purpose or
consequences. He seemed to believe that they were simply a
natural result of my actions. Bishop Hammond's harsh
accusations at our last interview and his refusal to let me
speak at Bryant's funeral had left me feeling that he saw me
as a bad person, unworthy of any privileges and probably
dangerous to worthy members.
"I don't understand why you want me to come to
church if you think I'm such a bad person," I said. I
could hear the hurt in my voice.
"I don't really see you as a bad person."
"Then why can't I take the sacrament?" I asked.
"I've told you already."
"How do you see your responsibility as a
bishop?" I asked him. "Caring for the flock or
protecting the Church?"
"Well, I think I do both," he said. "It's
my duty to protect the Church—not just the Church, but
innocent members."
"Do you think they need protection from me?" I
asked him. "Last night someone told me that she was
still in the Church because of some of my writings. Do you
have any examples of someone I've harmed or do you just
think I'm a danger? Has someone left the Church because of
me?"
"No, but you have confused and upset people. I know
of several people."
"Being confused and upset isn't necessarily bad.
Sometimes it's the first step in learning something new. But
I have no desire to hurt anyone's faith. If you know someone
who is confused or upset, why don't you tell them to come
and talk to me?"
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"They're afraid of you."
"Why?"
"Because they haven't studied as much. They have to
take things on faith. You're a lot smarter."
"I've never put anybody down because they haven't
studied as much."
"Well, okay. They just don't want to."
"What am I supposed to do about it then?"
"This is why you shouldn't have done it in the first
place. If you put yourself out as an authority ... "
"I've never put myself out as an authority. I have
no position, no degree. I'm simply trying to share what I've
learned, not in a coercive way."
"You say you believe what you write. You're trying
to get other people to believe it. What you're doing is
harmful and I have to protect people. I'm also trying to
help you and your family."
"I don't think you understand my needs, my family's
needs, or the Church's needs," I said.
"I didn't ask for this authority," he said.
"But now that I have it I have to do my duty."
"I've talked to several former bishops," I told
him. "They've said that they can't believe what you're
doing." He looked shocked. "Some bishops do
exactly what you've done when Salt Lake sends them something
and asks them to investigate someone. They punish him. Other
bishops talk to the person and realize he has a testimony
and lives Church standards so they drop it."
He said it was hard for him to have to deal with the pain
he was causing me and my family. I accepted his sincerity,
yet it seemed to me that he hadn't done anything to
understand it or share it or especially to alleviate it. But
perhaps he didn't understand how to do any of these things.
He asked me if I thought these talks were doing any good.
"If you mean, `Are they changing the way either of us
views the issues?', then, no, they're not doing any
good," I said. "I think you should give up the
idea of supervising my writing." I explained again why
I couldn't submit to the process he required of me. He
insisted again that it was necessary because I had not
showed wisdom in my writing. His proof that I lacked
judgment was the fact that I hadn't recognized the doctrinal
defects of "Him Shall Ye Hear" and promised not to
publish it.
"I think it's wrong for you to sit there in a
position of authority and tell me I'm wrong and you're right
simply on the basis of your position and authority," I
said. "I've told you many times how I intend to make my
decisions. I will think about them, pray about them,
consider any advice I've been given, and then act according
to my conscience as well as I'm able. I've always told you
this, so why don't you believe me? You seem to feel that if
you threaten me enough and punish me enough, I'll change my
mind. But I won't."
"You've gone beyond taking risks. You're defying
me," he said.
"I'm not defying you," I said. "I've done
everything you asked me to that doesn't violate my
conscience, that doesn't require me to go against who I am
and what I feel God wants me to do. You've made it very
clear that you consider certain things to be excommunicable
offenses. I disagree with you. If I go ahead and do one of
them it's because I believe it's the right thing for me to
do. I wouldn't do it to defy you. I wouldn't do it to force
you to excommunicate me. I hope you won't."
"I've had other courts where there has been a really
good spirit," he told me. "The person has a good
attitude; he's willing to repent and work with me. Under
those circumstances, Church discipline can be a really
spiritual experience. Probation is about making progress,
getting somewhere. Are you making progress? It's wrong for
me to keep you in limbo for five years."
"If the choice is between limbo and excommunication,
I prefer limbo," I said.
As I left the building, a feeling of hopelessness
enveloped me. It was unmistakably clear that Bishop Hammond
thought he should excommunicate me. Less clear was
why he was waiting. I felt that he would wait until he had
what he considered clear proof that I had broken the
conditions or until he got additional pressure to do
something about me. My being on crutches might also cause
Bishop Hammond to delay another court. Appearances were
important to him, and he would probably consider how it
might look on TV.
I asked myself why I continued to defend myself when I
knew my excommunication was inevitable. "It's because
you believe in freedom," I told myself. "It's
because you believe in love and persuasion and
long-suffering. It's because you believe it's the right
thing to do. It would be wrong to excommunicate you. It
would be an abuse of priesthood power and you have to try to
help Bishop Hammond see that. You have to care about his
soul."
But the contradictory voice I always carry objected:
"Perhaps you are making it worse for him by attempting
to overcome his blindness and prejudice. Perhaps it would be
better for him if you let him sin in ignorance."
This voice sounded cynical. "No," I told it.
"I have to give the power of love and truth every
opportunity to prevail. I believe in freedom, so I won't
judge Bishop Hammond."
On Sunday night, 7 May, I returned home late from a
Mormon Alliance meeting. One of my young sons told me that a
man had come twice to see me. He had something he wanted to
give me, but he wouldn't leave it.
"Do you know who it was?" I asked him. He
didn't. "Was it someone from the ward?" I asked.
He wasn't sure. "Was he wearing a suit?" I asked,
hoping to get some information that might indicate he wasn't
bringing a summons to a court.
"No," my son said. "He was wearing regular
clothes. He said he'd come back in the morning."
Somehow this didn't reassure me.
The next morning around 7:30 the doorbell rang. I was
getting dressed in my room upstairs. A man's voice asked for
me and then I heard him say he could come back later. I
panicked, thinking I would have to wait hours for him to
come back. But my son said, "No, she's up. I'll get
her."
Our front stairs are by the front door; and because of my
foot surgery, I had quickly learned that the best way to go
down the stairs was on my seat. I didn't want to do that in
front of him, so I crutched around to the back stairs.
It was Brett Francis, the ward executive secretary. He
looked sad. He said he had a letter from the bishop for me.
"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry you had to
come three times."
After he left I read the letter:
The bishopric has decided to
reconsider the status of your membership in relation to
matters of the disciplinary council held on October 12,
1994.
The disciplinary council will review
the matter and possibly take further action because of
your failure to make the specified progress and meet the
prescribed conditions of formal probation given at that
time. Possible outcomes could include continued
probation, disfellowshipment or excommunication.
You are invited to attend this
reconsideration by the court which will be held on 9 May
1995 at 6:30 p.m. at the Edgemont Stake Offices. Please
contact Brett Francis ... to confirm your attendance.
You may also choose to provide a written statement in
lieu of attending in person.
I had fewer than thirty-six hours to prepare. Even if
Brett had delivered the letter the night before, I would
still have had only forty-eight hours. My presence was
"invited" but not required. Did that mean it was
not desired? I could submit a prepared statement instead.
When did he think I'd have time to write it? And what charge
was I defending myself against? The letter made it clear
that Bishop Hammond had already decided that I had broken
the conditions. He did not invite me to bring witnesses.
Apparently he wanted to get this over as quickly as
possible.
The next day was not a good day for me. My son Nephi was
scheduled to have surgery on his jaws that morning and I was
planning to spend the day at the hospital in Salt Lake City
with him. My mother, who lives in Arizona, was also having
surgery that day. I thought about calling Bishop Hammond and
asking him to reschedule the court. But I didn't want to. I
was hurt that he hadn't told me what he was planning to do,
that he had made no effort to find out if the date was
convenient for me. Since my presence wasn't required, he
probably thought it didn't matter. I could attend the court,
so I would.
I called my sister Margaret to tell her what had happened
and then Lavina. She wanted to know if I wanted a vigil. I
told her no, I didn't want to put my friends through another
ordeal like that. She said that she would come anyway, and
she would call the media and a few friends for me. I talked
to two reporters and a few friends that day and tried to
prepare myself mentally and spiritually.
I knew that I would be excommunicated the next day.
Bishop Hammond would not have reconvened the court if he did
not intend to excommunicate me. As his letter stated and as
he had told me in our interviews, he believed that I had
broken the conditions and that this constituted apostasy.
Perhaps if I promised to submit to him, promised not to
publish or speak without his permission, then he might leave
me on probation.
But I had made my choice in the first court when Bishop
Hammond had threatened me with excommunication if I did not
promise to never publish "Him Shall Ye Hear." That
essay is a declaration and defense of my belief that Jesus
Christ is the way to salvation, that through faith in him
and repentance we can receive the Holy Spirit, which puts us
in direct contact with God. For me, to promise not to
publish that essay in obedience to Church leaders would be
equivalent to denying my testimony of Jesus Christ in word
and in deed. That would be apostasy. More, it would
be blasphemy. It would be following man instead of God; it
would be putting my faith in the arm of flesh rather than in
the arm of the Lord. It would be a confession that I trusted
the Church, rather than the Lord, to save me, a confession
that my membership in the Church was more important than my
relationship with the Lord. I believe that we must seek to
discover God within us and then be true to what we find.
"Him Shall Ye Hear" also discusses why we need
a Church, a community of believers. God also speaks to us
through other human beings and we need to look for God in
them. I believe in the importance and the efficacy of the
ordinances which the priesthood transmits, and I value my
membership in the community of believers. But these things
come through faith in Jesus Christ. My relationship to him
is primary. Should I have more faith in the ordinances than
in him who gave them? Should I value the approval of my
fellow Saints more than I value the approval of Jesus
Christ? How can we call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ
if we demand that others follow our ideas of what is right?
Should we not rather honor the relationship of each person
with him?
After I had told Bishop Hammond that I would not promise
to never publish "Him Shall Ye Hear," I had felt
and seen my heart break and seen the white bird fly out of
it. I had heard it cry, "I must be free." I had
thought about the meaning of this vision many times since
then. Jesus says that the sacrifice he requires of us is a
broken heart and a contrite spirit. My heart broke as I
sacrificed my membership in the Church and the approval and
acceptance of many people. But breaking my heart for Jesus,
sacrificing for him, had not broken my spirit. It freed the
Holy Spirit within me, but the bird did not leave me; it
hovered about me. A broken heart is an open heart and I had
found myself more open to others, more open to share myself
and to receive from others.
I had a great desire to forgive Bishop Hammond and the
other men of the court as they pronounced the judgment of
excommunication upon me, but I didn't know if I would be
able to. That night as I prayed with David, I implored Jesus
to grant me the blessing of being able to forgive those who
judged me unrighteously while believing that they were doing
God's work. After our prayers, I asked David to give me a
blessing. This blessing gave me great comfort. The vision I
had received in my first court along with this blessing and
the impressions I received while praying showed me clearly
that Jesus had accepted my sacrifice and would not leave me
comfortless.
The next morning Nephi and I arose early and went to Salt
Lake for his surgery. I brought a copy of the defense I had
presented at the October court to review while I was
waiting. I had decided to present parts of it again. The
surgery took longer than anticipated and I found it hard to
concentrate on preparing for the court. I tried to write a
letter to Joel in Chile, but instead found myself simply
sitting, lost in many thoughts. Because Sunday was Mother's
Day, Joel would be permitted to call me and I would tell him
about my excommunication. (But when he called on Sunday, he
already knew. His mission president had told him on
Thursday, assuring him that the "Brethren" sent
him their love.)
While I was waiting, Lavina brought me some food and a
transcript of what I had said in April at the Mormon
Alliance post-conference critique. I thought Bishop Hammond
might have been given a tape, and I wanted to be prepared to
defend myself. The surgeon appeared and said that, because
the surgery had been more complicated than he had thought it
would be, Nephi would have to have his jaw wired shut for
four weeks instead of two, as he had previously told us. He
would be awake in forty-five minutes, and I could see him
then. Someone would come and get me.
Almost two hours passed. No one came. Worried, I was
gathering up my things and trying to figure out how to
manage everything on crutches when Lavina reappeared. She
went to find out what had happened to Nephi for me. The
receptionist tried to tell her that Nephi had checked out.
Lavina made her find him, appropriated a wheelchair in the
corridor, and took me to his room. At first I didn't
recognize Nephi; his face was so swollen. He was feeling
pretty bad and wanted to sleep so I didn't stay long. I
kissed him and told him not to worry about the court. I
would be all right and his uncle Paul would stay with him
that evening. It was getting late, and I needed to get back
for the court.
I had planned to drive myself, using my left foot, but
Lavina thought this was a bad idea. She drove me home after
arranging for Lynne Whitesides to drive my car down
separately. She fixed dinner for us, so I had a chance to be
with the children for a while and rest a little. I couldn't
eat much, but I read and explained the scriptures to the
children as we do every night. David didn't get home from
work until we were almost finished eating. Margaret and her
daughters arrived; and other people were starting to show up
so I hurriedly changed clothes just in time to do an
interview with Channel 4 before going to the court.
Our house was very close to the church. Usually we just
walked; but since I was on crutches, Margaret drove me in
her van. Lavina and David walked with me as I hopped to the
door. The first door we tried was, ironically, locked.
Channel 13 got it on film. Again the court was being held in
the stake president's office. Brett Francis had called to
tell me that it would be held there since it was larger and
more private than the bishop's office.
Brett and Craig Merrill, one of the ward clerks, were in
the waiting area of the stake offices. They said that Bishop
Hammond had asked them to monitor the halls during the
court. While we were waiting for Bishop Hammond to call me
in, Craig asked if I remembered his testimony from the
previous Sunday. I did. He had said that although God has
given us our freedom, he has also given us laws to follow,
and that if we obey God's laws we will be happy. He had
testified that he had found this to be true in his personal
life. While listening to him, I had the distinct impression
that his remarks were a response to my situation, but I had
dismissed the thought as being too egotistical. But my
impression had, in fact, been true. Craig told me that he
had been reading and thinking about the parts of my defense
that had been quoted in the Sunstone news report. He
thought I had made some good points, but his Church
membership was so important to him and had brought him so
many blessings that he would never do anything to jeopardize
it. He regarded any choice which would lead to
excommunication as incorrect.
I responded that I had not broken any Church law which
warranted my excommunication. I told him that I thought he
was thinking too deterministically, that he seemed to think
that the consequences of our actions were determined by some
kind of natural law, but most of our choices involve our
interactions with other people. They respond to what we say
and do, so that the consequences of our choices are usually
other people's choices. If I were excommunicated, it would
not be the inevitable result of my choices; other people's
choices were involved too.
Craig didn't respond directly. A few moments later, he
asked, "I hope you don't mind that I brought up the
topic?"
I said, "No. In fact, I want to talk to people about
it. Most people in the ward simply ignore it. Thank you for
your willingness to talk to me." Craig was the father
who had thanked me for helping his little girl in the
nursery the first Sunday after the first court.
The door to the stake president's office opened, and
Keith Halls invited me in. David picked up my papers and the
bottle of water someone had given me and carried them into
the office for me. As we walked into the office, Bishop
Hammond and his two counselors rose and offered their hands.
I said, "I'd better sit down first or I might fall
over." I sat down and they all shook hands with me and
then with David. As David started to sit down, Bishop
Hammond said hesitantly, "We'd really like to have just
Janice here for the questioning. You can stay while she
gives her statement, but then we'd like you to leave."
David responded, "I'd really like to be with her.
I'll just sit here and not say anything." I repeated
his request, emphasizing that he had promised not to say
anything. Finally I added, "And he promises not to yell
at anybody."
They all laughed nervously, but Bishop Hammond insisted
that David would have to leave. David had brought a pile of
scientific papers with him. He'd told me that he needed them
to help him stay calm. He had been nervously tracing and
retracing a geometrical figure on one of the pages while we
had been waiting for them to call us in. As we sat down, he
began tracing it again. Without looking at the bishop he
said, "Bishop, I'll do what you say even though I think
you should let me stay with Janice."
Those attending the court were Bishop Hammond, Mark
Dayton, his first counselor, Paul MacKay, who had been
called as second counselor since my last court, and Keith
Halls, a member of the stake high council. Mark Dayton had
been out of town during the October court and Keith Halls
had substituted for him. Although Paul MacKay had not been
the second counselor when my first court was held, he had
been present as the substitute for Brett Francis, who had
also been out of town. Bishop Hammond said that he had asked
Keith Halls to act as secretary in order to have as much
continuity as possible. He asked for my consent to the
constitution of the court, and I gave it. He then said that
although the secretary usually did not participate in the
proceedings but only recorded them, since Keith Halls had
asked questions in the first council, he would like him to
be able to ask questions again. He asked me if that would be
all right. I said that it would.
Bishop Hammond then read the statement from the General
Handbook of Instructions requiring confidentiality of
all those involved in the disciplinary council:
"Bishops, stake presidents, and counselors in a stake
presidency have a solemn duty to keep confidential all
information members give to them in confessions and
interviews. The same duty of confidentiality applies to all
who take part in Church disciplinary councils, including
what is said in the presentation of evidence and
deliberations. Confidential information must not be shared
with anyone except authorized ecclesiastical leaders" (General
Handbook of Instructions, March 1989, p. 10-2).
He said that he and all the other men were under a solemn
promise not to discuss anything that occurred in the
council. "We will keep this promise," he said.
"I hope that you will also keep the proceedings
confidential, but I know you haven't in the past."
I said, "I have explained my views regarding
confidentiality to you several times, but I will repeat them
for the record: The purpose of the rule regarding
confidentiality is to protect the member. This is true of
all privileged relationships: therapist-client,
priest-penitent, doctor-patient, attorney-client. The person
providing the service is required to keep the information
his client supplies him confidential to protect the privacy
of the client. The client, however, is not required to keep
what transpires between him and the provider confidential.
Since it is about his life, he is free to discuss it. I am
under no legal or moral obligation to keep these proceedings
confidential. I have made it clear since our first meeting
that I intended to talk about what happened and I have.
There were a couple of things that I said I would keep
confidential and I have."
Bishop Hammond then said that he wanted to confine the
disciplinary council to what I had done since the October
council. He believed that I had broken the conditions that
were given to me and he wanted to ask me questions about
some of the things I had done. He opened a folder on the
desk and read the three conditions he had given me, which
required me to meet with him often, to not oppose the
doctrines of the Church as given in the scriptures or
official statements of the First Presidency, and to refrain
from opposing or criticizing the Church or its leaders. He
then picked up another sheet and read some further
conditions. I remembered that he had read this second list
aloud to me when he had given me the conditions just after
the October court. He had told me that the second list was
to clarify the first so that there would be no
misunderstanding about what he required of me. He had never
given me a copy of this second list, I had been struggling
with illness, and I had forgotten most of the points. I did
remember that Bishop Hammond had attempted to spell out his
interpretation of every point we had disputed concerning
what constituted apostasy. The second list represented the
authoritarian approach to solving difficult problems:
whatever the authority says is right, is right.
The first item on the list was, "You will meet with
your bishop as often as once a week in a relationship of
love and trust." Another point stipulated that
publishing "Him Shall Ye Hear" would constitute a
violation of the condition forbidding me to oppose Church
leaders. I was also told not to make a public criticism of
any General Authority or anything any of them said. I think
this list also contained something about Bishop Hammond's
expectation that I would submit my writing to be reviewed
for orthodoxy and acceptability before presenting it
publicly or publishing it.
After reading this list, Bishop Hammond said that he had
reviewed these things with me so that I would know how to
respond to the questions he would ask me. He then questioned
me briefly about several quotations from me in newspaper
articles and three documents: my open letter, the speech I
gave at Counterpoint, and the Sunstone news article
about the October court.
He asked, "Have you violated the conditions in any
of these?"
I responded, "That's a matter of interpretation and
judgment."
Bishop Hammond took out several newspaper articles and
read the titles: "Feminist Spurns LDS
Restrictions," "Allred Says She Won't
Comply," and "LDS Feminist Rejects Bishop's
Conditions." "You said yourself that you wouldn't
comply with the conditions," he concluded.
"Those aren't direct quotations from me. Those are
the interpretations of the headline writers and reporters of
what I said in my open letter to you," I pointed out.
Bishop Hammond admitted that he'd never been sure how to
interpret my letter. "Sometimes I think it's okay, but
then I read it again and it seems like what you're saying
violates the conditions," he said.
Paul MacKay had been looking over a copy of my letter.
"You say right here that you won't comply," he
interjected and then read: "`Since you get to decide
what opposes the doctrine of the Church, complying with this
condition to your satisfaction would require me to accept
close supervision and control of my writing and speaking
which would seriously infringe upon my freedom of speech. I
will not accept this.'"
"I also said that I have no intention of opposing
the doctrine of the Church as given in the scriptures,"
I responded. "What is doctrine and what isn't is a
matter of interpretation. My whole purpose in writing is to
find the truth. I love the truth. I said that I refused to
have my writing supervised or censored. That is not a
violation of any condition."
Paul MacKay then said that I had also refused to comply
with the condition requiring me to refrain from opposing and
criticizing the Church and its leaders. "You say, `I
claim and will use my right to disagree with ideas and
dissent from policies and practices.' That's opposing the
Church," he said.
I defended myself by arguing that Bishop Hammond had
unfairly expanded the definition of apostasy concerning
opposition given in the handbook. "The handbook defines
an apostate as someone who `repeatedly acts in clear, open
and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its
leaders,'" I pointed out. "In my opinion, this
means someone who wants to harm or destroy the Church.
Whenever I have pointed out a problem, my purpose has been
to help solve it. I have never made a personal attack on any
leader or spoken of the Church in a derogatory way. You
added the part about not criticizing the Church or its
leaders," I said to Bishop Hammond. "What do you
mean by criticism? If you mean pointing out any kind of
problem, that is not the definition of apostasy. You're
using a definition that goes beyond that in the handbook so
that you can make it easier to define me as an
apostate."
Bishop Hammond said that he was only trying to prevent
misunderstandings, that I had said that I did not know I
would be punished if I did certain things, so he wanted to
make the definition of apostasy perfectly clear.
"But what really is apostasy?" I asked.
"Why should you get to define it? An act isn't apostasy
just because you disagree with it or because you think it
should be called apostasy. Yes, I did argue that President
Bacon hadn't told me that I would be punished if I published
my article, but the more important point was that he had no
right to punish me for publishing it."
At this point Keith Halls interrupted. "I'm supposed
to write down your answer about whether you've broken the
conditions or not. Was that `yes' or `no'?"
I answered, "I don't think a `yes' or `no' will
suffice; but if I have to answer yes or no, I'll answer no
because in my judgment I haven't broken the
conditions."
Bishop Hammond then asked me for my statement. I told him
that I had not had time to write a statement. "You gave
me less than two days," I said. "Also I didn't
know what charges you were going to be bringing against me.
I think it is unfair that I have to defend myself without
knowing what you think I did wrong." I added that I had
brought the defense which I wrote for the last court and I
would read parts of it since it constituted my defense
against the general charge of apostasy. (See Appendix
A.)
I had not decided beforehand what I would read. Silently
I turned to God and asked for help. I felt a spirit of peace
and love fill my heart, enabling me to speak with power and
conviction. I skipped the whole first section which detailed
the events leading up to my first court. I read almost the
whole section answering the question, "Am I
disobedient?" In this section, I argue that there is no
Church law which requires members to obey the counsel of
their leaders and that leaders do not have the right to
compel obedience by imposing Church discipline upon them.
The next section, entitled "Am I guilty of
apostasy?," contains a paragraph which gives my
testimony of Jesus Christ and his gospel and my belief that
the scriptures contain the word of God, that Joseph Smith is
a prophet who received revelations from God and power from
Jesus Christ to establish his Church, and that the power of
the priesthood continues in the Church today. I read all of
this paragraph and the one following it which tells of my
desire and efforts to follow Jesus Christ and my service in
the Church and to my family.
My defense next addresses the question of whether I am
guilty of apostasy because of teaching false doctrine. I
read the part that argues that I was not guilty according to
the handbook definition of apostasy for teaching false
doctrine. Since I made it clear that my writings were my own
interpretations and since I never claimed to be propounding
Church doctrine, I was not guilty.
The next section of my defense attempts to answer the
question, "How is Church doctrine defined?" I had
included this section because Bishop Hammond had told me
many times that, because my articles contained false
doctrine which I believed and taught, I was guilty of
apostasy for teaching false doctrine. Since this section is
long and difficult, I summarized the main point. Jesus
taught the Nephites what the doctrine of his Church is: it
is that God commands all people to have faith in Jesus
Christ, to repent, to be baptized, and to receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost (3 Ne. 11:32-33, 35). He told them that
they should not attempt to establish more or less than this
as doctrine because it would lead to contention. In Doctrine
and Covenants 10:62-68, 33:11-13, 39:6, 76:50-52, Jesus
repeated this definition of his doctrine. Contention is more
than disagreement; it implies a struggle for preeminence.
When we contend about doctrine, we attempt to have our ideas
acknowledged or established as the final, undisputed truth.
Jesus says that "contention is not of me," because
his way is never to coerce but rather to influence by
"persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and
meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness and pure
knowledge" (D&C 121:41-42).
I read the last part of this section: "By having
very few points of doctrine and giving space for a wide
range of interpretation within these doctrines, Jesus
establishes an inclusive Church which allows many
beliefs" and welcomes "different people" with
"different gifts" who are "at different
stages in their spiritual journeys." These differences
"need not lead to contention if members understand what
Jesus taught about the doctrine of his Church." I
explained that "Toward a Mormon Theology of God the
Mother" is based on a detailed analysis of the Book of
Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Although my
interpretation of the Godhead is different from the official
interpretation, it "is firmly based on the scriptures
and offers a possible, well-supported interpretation of the
nature of God which in no way contradicts the doctrine of
Christ." I concluded: "My ideas may be untrue, but
they fall within the range of possible interpretations
allowed by the scripture."
I next read the entire section which addresses the
question, "What liberties do Church members have in
regard to their beliefs?" The main points are: (1)
Freedom of belief cannot be separated from freedom of
speech. (2) Since no one can believe anything by an act of
will, it is futile as well as wrong to coerce belief. Love
and persuasion are the righteous means to influence beliefs.
(3) Using coercion to compel belief encourages lying and
discourages the free exercise of thought and speech required
for the pursuit of intellectual and spiritual development.
(4) To assume, as the handbook does, that the Church leader
is always right whenever there is a doctrinal disagreement
between a member and a leader shows contempt for truth and
the processes for understanding it. (5) Every person has the
God-given right to think for himself or herself. (6) Every
person has the right to teach false ideas as well as true
ones. (7) The way to deal with false doctrine is not to
punish those who teach it but to teach true doctrine.
I next reaffirmed my conviction that my faith in Jesus
Christ requires me to follow my conscience. I acknowledged
that I could be mistaken, "But I believe that if I put
my trust in Jesus Christ and remain open to the criticism
and counsel of others and am willing to repent when I see my
sins and errors, ... his grace is sufficient to save
me."
And finally, I reread my entire conclusion, affirming
that I was not an apostate, that I was innocent of breaking
any law of the Church, and that if they punished me,
"it will be because I refused to give up my freedom to
believe, speak, and act according to my conscience"
which demands that I not "deny my testimony of Jesus
Christ."
As I finished reading, I felt the power of the Spirit
affirming the truth of what I had said. Silently, I thanked
God for being with me. No one made any response to my
statement or asked me any questions about it. Bishop Hammond
waited until it was clear that I was through, then asked
David to leave. Again David asked for permission to remain.
"I want to stay," he said. "There's no reason
why I shouldn't be here."
Bishop Hammond again insisted that David leave.
Reluctantly, he did so. Out in the hall, Brett Francis said
to him, "If my wife were in there, I would want to be
with her."
After David left, I said, "You didn't invite me to
bring witnesses as you did at the last court and you didn't
give me time to ask anyone to prepare anything, but I
brought the witness statements from the last court and I
would like to read them."
Bishop Hammond said that the witness statements were
unnecessary. "We want to confine the court to what has
happened since the first one," he said. "We're not
concerned about your character or whether you're a good
person or not. We're here to determine whether you've broken
the conditions."
Bishop Hammond's statement blatantly revealed the
fundamental injustice of the court. The purpose of the court
should have been to determine whether I was guilty or
innocent of apostasy. Bishop Hammond equated breaking the
conditions with being guilty of apostasy, yet, as I had
pointed out in my open letter, the conditions Bishop Hammond
imposed on me were broader than the definitions of apostasy
given in the handbook. Since the conditions were Bishop
Hammond's directives to me, not the law of the Church, his
strategy of equating breaking the conditions with being
guilty of apostasy amounted to defining apostasy as not
following the counsel or directives of one's bishop. By this
definition, anyone who refused a Church calling would be an
apostate.
My character and motives were highly relevant to the
question of whether I am an apostate. They were even
relevant to the question of whether I had violated the
conditions. By excluding character witnesses and testimony
about my service to God and the Church and by refusing to
consider my motives, Bishop Hammond made it almost
impossible for the council to reach a just decision. I did
not protest Bishop Hammond's decision to not allow
witnesses, although I did protest it in my appeal. I had
several reasons for acquiescing on this point. I had
expected Bishop Hammond to refuse to allow me to read the
witness statements. I remembered that, after hearing them in
the October court, he had declared them irrelevant, and I
doubted that he would change his mind on this point. I had
brought them because I wanted to defend myself as best I
could and give Bishop Hammond every chance to conduct a fair
court, but it was obvious that they would make no difference
in the judgment of the court, and I did not want to prolong
the proceedings unnecessarily. If I had insisted, Bishop
Hammond would probably have allowed me to read them; but I
am not naturally inclined to assert my rights, so I did not
protest his decision.
Bishop Hammond next proceeded to present his evidence
that I had violated the conditions. His first piece of
evidence was my speech at the Counterpoint Conference:
"My Controversy with the Church." Bishop Hammond
based his judgment on the only information he had about it:
the report in the Daily Herald and my clarifying
letter to the editor. After describing how the stake
presidency tried to persuade David to control me by giving
me a blessing telling me to obey my leaders, I stated that
such a blessing would be an abuse of priesthood power.
"Claiming we speak for God when our words are not
really inspired by his spirit is what it means to take the
Lord's name in vain," I wrote.
Bishop Hammond felt that in saying this I was criticizing
my Church leaders, and he strongly suspected that I had
criticized the Church or its leaders in other parts of the
speech. He asked me if I had violated his conditions
anywhere in the talk. I replied that that depended on how
you interpreted the conditions and the talk. "I don't
think I violated the conditions and giving the speech was
certainly not an act of apostasy, " I said.
Bishop Hammond countered, "But refusing to give me a
copy of your speech was a violation of the condition that we
should meet together in a relationship of love and trust.
You gave this speech twice in public, yet you refused to
give a copy to me."
Paul MacKay then accused me of refusing in my open letter
to comply with the condition of meeting regularly and
counseling with my bishop. He read:
Now I must set some limits as to what
I am able to do. I am no longer able physically and
emotionally to defend myself and my ideas in an unequal
arena where you have the power to judge and punish but
are unwilling or unable to engage in an honest and open
discussion of the ideas and issues. I will not take the
responsibility to stay in regular contact with you.
"I have three things to say about that," I
said. "First, you know, Bishop Hammond, that I came
every time you asked me to come. I never refused even though
it was hard for me. I didn't initiate any meetings because
they were just too difficult for me to want to meet with
you. Second, I did not assert any of the rights I reserved
in my letter. I never made you say what the meeting would be
about or required you to communicate with me in writing. And
third, I could not trust you to view my writing fairly
because you were never willing to take my motives into
consideration, to discuss the issues I raised, or to concede
the possibility that there could be legitimate differences
about doctrinal matters. Before the October court I gave you
everything you asked for. I gave you `Him Shall Ye
Hear.'"
"President Bacon asked me for it," Bishop
Hammond interrupted.
"In any case, you used that speech to decide I was
an apostate. You used it to threaten me. How could I trust
you when you had already used my words, not to understand me
or my ideas, but to threaten and punish me? How could I
trust you when you didn't trust me to speak at my son's
farewell or Bryant's funeral?"
"It was a public speech so you should have given me
a copy," Bishop Hammond said.
"Yes, it was a public speech," I replied.
"You knew I was going to give it, and I gave it twice.
The second time it was announced in the paper. If you wanted
to hear it you could have come."
"I wouldn't put myself or you through that," he
said.
"It would have been hard for me to have you in the
audience, but I would have had no objection," I
answered.
He looked at me in obvious disbelief, but I was sincere.
Only a few people would have known him, and I certainly
wouldn't have called anyone's attention to him.
Bishop Hammond then said I should have given him the
speech because he needed it to judge me.
"Part of my defense has always been that there are
different forums and different audiences with different
standards and expectations," I responded. "I've
never done anything unacceptable at Church. I've taught many
lessons and given talks, and I've always received a positive
response. People have thanked me for what I've said. It's
possible that I may have offended someone, but no one ever
told me if I did. My more scholarly and critical speeches
and publications were always in a forum that expected that
approach. If you want to have access to those kinds of
speeches, then you'll have to go to those kinds of forums. I
knew the Counterpoint audience would consist of people who
accept divergent viewpoints and who value freedom of speech
or they wouldn't be there. I knew that many people who cared
about me would be there and I shared some of my innermost
thoughts and feelings. I don't want to share those with
you."
Bishop Hammond then asked me again if I would be willing
to give them a copy of the speech.
"Look," I said, "that speech took an hour
and a half to deliver. How can you use it in this
council?"
Bishop Hammond insisted that he really wanted a copy.
I thought about it. I was sure that a lack of evidence
would not stop them from excommunicating me. Bishop Hammond
already believed that the speech contained violations of the
conditions. "All right," I said. "David could
go home and bring back a copy." One of them got up to
call David; when he opened the door, David was already
walking toward it. He had come to see if I needed anything.
When David returned with the paper, Bishop Hammond put it
down on the desk. He did not read it or refer to it. I don't
know whether they used it in their deliberations.
After David left to get the paper, Bishop Hammond began
questioning me about their next area of concern: the
newspaper articles about me. Their contention was that this
publicity damaged the Church and that talking to the press
was equivalent to being in opposition to the Church.
Keith Halls said, "You know, you got a letter
yesterday morning telling you about this council and today
there's an article in the newspaper about it. There's no way
the press could have gotten this information if you didn't
call them. These kinds of articles damage the Church.
Doesn't this show that you don't care if you damage the
Church?"
I answered that I had always been very frank with the
bishop about my intention to make my case public and to talk
with reporters. And I had told him why. "What is
happening to me is not simply a private matter," I
said. "My article on the Mother in Heaven was called to
President Bacon's attention by Church headquarters. That
makes it a Church issue, to my way of thinking. And they've
sent you other things."
"Yes, they send us things," Bishop Hammond
said. "But what's wrong with that? You gave the speech.
It's true that you said what's in it. We need the
information to do our job."
This was the only time Bishop Hammond ever acknowledged
to me that he'd received anything from the Strengthening
Church Members Committee. Usually he told me that he'd
gotten things from "someone in the stake." This
may have been technically accurate since they probably came
through President Bacon, but I was relieved to have Bishop
Hammond confirm that he knew where they came from.
I continued, "Another reason I've made my case
public is that the issues of freedom of speech and abuse of
priesthood power concern every member. But there is no forum
in the Church for members to discuss these problems. Talking
to the media is one way of making these issues public."
"Then you admit you called the reporters,"
Bishop Hammond said.
"I didn't call them," I replied. "I called
a friend and she called them."
"We don't see any difference."
"There's no difference in one way—which is that the
news gets out and I agree to talk to reporters. I've never
denied that. In fact, I told you beforehand that I intended
to. But there is an important difference in another way.
It's not me trying to get the media to publicize what
happened. Initially, they did come to me. After our first
meeting last May when President Bacon said that he would
have to punish me for disobeying him, I got a call from a
news reporter who was interested in writing a story. I told
her that I hoped to avoid a court, so I wanted to wait until
one was actually scheduled before I gave an interview."
"But she would never have known about it if you
hadn't told someone," Bishop Hammond interrupted.
"Of course not," I said, "But I'm under no
obligation to keep silent. I have friends who care about me
and they asked me about it. I'm not going to lie to them.
When Vern Anderson called me about my paper, `Him Shall Ye
Hear,' even before I presented it, I was really surprised. I
had no idea that Sunstone distributed the papers to the
press before the symposium. Vern had read my paper and
thought it was really powerful. He wanted to do a story on
it. He told me that in talking to another reporter about it
he'd learned that I was facing a possible court because of
an article I'd written about the Mother in Heaven and he
wanted to do the whole story. You had already told me that
you intended to hold a court, Bishop Hammond. You said you
had no choice. I had written the paper because I thought the
ideas were important. So I felt I should disseminate them as
widely as possible."
Mark Dayton spoke for the first time. "You're using
the press for your own purposes," he said. "You're
trying to change the Church. But how is going to the press
going to help solve the problems you're concerned
about?"
"People can't solve problems unless they have some
knowledge about them," I said. "Once people have
the problem called to their attention, they can think about
it, become concerned about it, see similar situations in
their own lives, and try to use whatever power they have
righteously."
"But why should you try to make
changes?" Mark asked. "Any changes made in the
Church have to be made by the General Authorities. How are
these things going to come to their attention?"
"They read newspapers," I said, "Or at
least have someone read them for them. But you sound as if
you think I have some sort of detailed, complicated plan to
impose changes on the Church. That's simply not true. I
talked to the press because I know that you can't solve
problems if you don't talk about them. I don't know what the
consequences of telling my story to the press will be. I
hope they'll be good. So far the main result seems to be
that a lot of people have become convinced that I'm a bad
person. Look, you want to know if I've `gone to the media.'
I have never initiated any interview. I've agreed to talk to
anyone who has asked me. The only time I've called a
reporter is to return a call or give him information I've
promised him."
I then turned to Keith Halls. "There's an ironic
twist to what you're saying. You say that I've damaged the
Church by going to the media. But if the Church can be
damaged by what I'm making public, doesn't that suggest that
the Church is doing something wrong? If the Church wants to
protect itself from being damaged in the press, why doesn't
it stop doing what the public perceives as bad? Blaming me
for the bad publicity is blaming the victim; it's blaming
the messenger. Do you think the Church is doing something
bad that it needs to cover up?"
"No, of course not," he responded.
"Then why does it damage the Church to have it
reported?" I asked.
"The media twist things."
"What have you found to be inaccurate in these
articles?"
"They give the wrong impression."
"The Church is a powerful institution," I said.
"It tries to control all speech within its boundaries.
Sometimes it needs to be called to account in a public forum
that it can't control."
Bishop Hammond again brought up the point that I was
responsible for the news articles about me. "The second
time you gave your talk, the time you gave it at the
library, there was advance publicity about it in the paper
including your picture. Doesn't that prove that you gave it
to them?" he asked.
I wasn't sure what point he was trying to make. Hadn't I
explained the degree of my involvement adequately? "The
organization sponsoring the talk gave the newspaper the
article," I said. "They asked me for the
photograph. I didn't volunteer it. I'm not promoting myself.
If the media didn't perceive my case as important, there is
no way I could interest them in it. It's not pleasant for me
to appear on TV. But if someone asks me for an interview, I
feel it is my duty to talk to him."
Bishop Hammond moved on to the third piece of evidence,
the news report in Sunstone about the first court. He
was very upset that it had quoted extensively from my
defense statement and open letter. "You shouldn't have
allowed Sunstone to publish them," he insisted.
"They didn't need my permission to publish
them," I explained. "I gave both documents to the
press. They were public."
"You could have tried to stop them," Bishop
Hammond said. "Did you know they were going to publish
them?"
"They told me they were going to quote extensively
from both documents. I didn't object because I wanted them
made public," I said.
"You handed out your defense even before you
presented it," Bishop Hammond said accusingly.
"Why not?" I replied. "I wrote it. It was my
version of what had happened, my defense of what I
had done. I wrote it for the court, but not exclusively for
the court. I wanted people to have copies of it. I wrote it
for the press and for the public understanding."
Bishop Hammond seemed to feel that my defense was part of
the sacred proceedings of the court which I had violated by
making it public. He was equally upset that I had made my
open letter public. "Even before I get the letter
there's a reporter calling me about it," he complained.
"I'm sorry about that," I said, "But the
letter wasn't just for you. It was to give my response to
the decision of the council and my intentions regarding the
conditions you imposed on me. I wrote it for the press and
for everyone interested in my story as well as for you.
That's what an open letter is. I'll tell you what happened.
After writing it, I mailed it to you and then I gave it to a
friend who faxed it to the media. Within a couple of hours,
Sheila Sanchez of the Provo Herald called me for an
interview. After I talked to her she said she was going to
call you. I realized that you couldn't have received the
letter yet, so I quickly made another copy and took it over
to your house and gave it to your wife. But the reporter
called you at work and you hadn't gotten it yet. I'm sorry,
but there was no malicious intent."
Bishop Hammond felt that my defense and open letter
contained criticism of the Church and its leaders,
especially of him. He also believed that in publishing
something he didn't want published or that he disapproved
of, I was acting in opposition to him and opposing the
Church because the things I published made the Church look
bad.
The fourth and final piece of evidence Bishop Hammond had
against me was a photocopy of By Common Consent, the
newsletter of the Mormon Alliance. He was under the
impression that I had written large portions of it. I told
him I hadn't written any of it. He pointed out the article
on spiritual abuse. "Didn't you write this?" he
asked.
"No, I didn't write it," I said. "I agree
with it but I didn't write it."
"What do you mean by spiritual abuse?" Bishop
Hammond asked.
"The word abuse makes some people
uncomfortable because they think of abuse as some kind of
attack," I said, "But we define spiritual abuse as
the unrighteous use of ecclesiastical power. When a
priesthood leader or Church leader uses his power in a way
that hurts a member or that goes beyond the power he really
has, he is abusing the member and his power."
Paul MacKay suddenly launched into an unsupported attack
on me and my associates. "You and your friends in these
organizations you belong to have an agenda. Your agenda is
to change the Church to make it the way you want it. The
first thing you're going to do is change the doctrine of the
Godhead. Then you're going to convince people they shouldn't
follow the prophet unless they agree with what he says. I
don't know what the other items on your agenda are, but you
want to change the priesthood and take away the power of the
bishop."
I was flabbergasted. Where had he come up with this? Did
they think my writing was part of some conspiracy to
overthrow the Church? I wondered if they'd gotten together
and tried to figure out why speaking and writing were so
important to me. Was this grandiose scenario what they'd
come up with? Obviously they had a completely inaccurate
perception of the organizations I was involved with.
"You perceive these groups as more organized than
they really are," I said. "You don't `belong' to
Sunstone. You attend the symposium or subscribe to the
magazine. It doesn't have an agenda. Its purpose is to
provide a forum for the discussion of Mormon issues. The
purpose of the Mormon Alliance is to identify spiritual
abuse, educate people about it, and try to prevent it. Its
only agenda is that the Church should not abuse its members.
The Mormon Alliance is not trying to take away bishops'
power. We acknowledge that they have power. We acknowledge
that the Church has rules, and we think the members should
obey the rules. If members commit certain sins, they should
be tried for them. We recognize that. We are saying
that Church leaders should not abuse their power. They
shouldn't intimidate or threaten members; they shouldn't
coerce members into following their personal ideas or
directives. Let me give you an example of spiritual abuse. A
bishop refuses to give a temple recommend to any woman who
doesn't attend Relief Society regularly. This actually
happened in a ward I attended." I addressed Paul.
"Do you consider that wrong?"
"Well, yes, I think so," he replied hesitantly.
"Well, that's what we mean by spiritual abuse. A
Church leader uses his power in an unrighteous way."
Paul then said, "In our councils, when we do things,
we try not to promote preferences but only principles."
His point seemed to be that they didn't abuse their
power. I didn't respond but I thought, "How then do you
differentiate between preference and principle? I'm sure my
former bishop thought it was a principle that women
should attend Relief Society. Which principles do you
prefer? Which apply in which situation? A lot of abuse is
carried out in the name of principle."
"Do you feel you have been abused?" Paul asked
me.
I did not want to accuse them, but I felt I had to speak
the truth. "Yes, I do," I answered. "I know
you've tried to do what you thought was right. You've been
polite, considerate, and solicitous of my feelings, but you
have punished me and taken away some spiritual privileges
that are important to me. You've done this even though I
haven't disobeyed any law of the Church and when I was
within my rights as a member. You've used compulsion to try
to get me to accept your opinions about what is right and to
obey your counsel. It's been very difficult to be told again
and again that my beliefs are false doctrines, especially
when you're not willing to discuss them. You simply assume
that I'm wrong and you're right."
Bishop Hammond took this opportunity to air one of his
grievances. He had been offended by the statement in my open
letter that he had been unwilling or unable to discuss the
doctrinal issues. He pointed out that this statement had
been quoted in the newspaper. "I think it was really
unfair of you to say that," he said.
"But it was true," I replied with some heat.
"You were never willing to discuss the issues my papers
were about. I was trying to explain why I could no longer
discuss my writing with you. I tried to state it fairly. You
were unwilling or unable to discuss my ideas; you would only
condemn them and threaten me."
"I'll freely admit I'm not a theologian,"
Bishop Hammond said. "I don't know the scriptures that
well. In any doctrinal discussion you could run rings around
me and beat me under the table. But I don't see that we need
to discuss the doctrinal issues at all in either of your
papers because it's so obvious that what you're saying goes
against Church doctrine."
"It's not obvious at all," I replied.
"That's your opinion. I've told you a number of times
that my interpretation of the Godhead is based on the
scriptures and it does not contradict what Jesus says the
doctrine of his Church is, so how does it go against Church
doctrine? You tell me that `Him Shall Ye Hear' contains
false doctrine, but I don't think it does. You won't even
say what you think the false doctrine is other than
the main idea. I think that the idea that the prophet will
never lead the Church astray is false doctrine. There is no
scriptural basis for this idea. There is no revelation
supporting it. It is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and it contradicts the principle of free agency.
There is no historical precedent for it. There's no reason
at all for claiming that Church leaders can't or won't lead
the Church astray except that some leaders said so."
"That's good enough for me," Bishop Hammond
said.
"But that's circular reasoning," I pointed out.
I doubted if it would daunt them to be shown that the only
argument supporting one of their most cherished beliefs was
based on a logical fallacy, but I went ahead. "You say
that the reason Church leaders can't lead the Church astray
is because they say they can't and what they say must be
true because our leaders will never lead us astray, but that
was the very point you were trying to prove."
"Logic isn't important. You have to have
faith," Bishop Hammond affirmed.
"Faith in God, not faith in leaders," I
objected.
"It's enough that our leaders have said it," he
replied.
Keith Halls then solemnly declared, "For me also.
Whatever they say is true. That's the doctrine of the Church
and that's what I believe." The other two men indicated
their agreement.
Bishop Hammond returned to the Mormon Alliance
newsletter. He wanted to know about the panel I had been on
which discussed general conference. What was its purpose?
"We talk about the addresses given in conference,
their content, their themes, their implications," I
said.
"Why do you do that?" Bishop Hammond asked.
"We take conference seriously," I replied.
"We find it interesting to discuss what is said and
what it means. We think that leaders should be accountable
to members for what they teach; that means we need to
discuss it."
"Members of the Church don't need to do that,"
Bishop Hammond said. The others nodded in agreement. Bishop
Hammond pointed to the last page of the newsletter. "I
see you have your name, phone number, and address here for
people to contact," he said. "What's the purpose
of this?" He was referring to the invitation for people
to report cases of spiritual abuse to the Mormon Alliance.
"It's to help people who've experienced spiritual
abuse," I explained, "to give them someone to talk
to and help them resolve their problems. We're also
collecting stories so we can publish them."
"What's the purpose of that?" Bishop Hammond
asked.
"To show that these problems really do occur in the
Church, that spiritual abuse is not just a hypothetical
problem, to help members understand the things that are
wrong and why they are wrong, and finally to prevent
spiritual abuse from happening again."
"Why is that your place? Why do you think you have
the right to change the Church?" Bishop Hammond
demanded.
It was a rhetorical question so I didn't answer. We had
discussed this issue before. If I had no right to change the
Church, then I had no power in the Church, nothing to give
the Church. "Everyone wants to change something about
the Church," I had told Bishop Hammond earlier.
"Can't you think of some way to improve it?" I'd
asked him. "I'm not trying to coerce change, but I
would like to improve the Church by love and persuasion, by
pointing out righteous principles and helping others make
changes."
Having presented his evidence, Bishop Hammond was now
ready to sum up. I was guilty of apostasy because I had
written in opposition to Church doctrine and opposed and
criticized the Church and its leaders. I tried to bring him
back to the definitions of apostasy given in the handbook.
"I am not guilty of apostasy for teaching false
doctrine according to the definition given in the
handbook," I said. "The handbook defines apostasy
as teaching as Church doctrine that which is not Church
doctrine. When I disagree with a generally accepted Church
teaching, I always try to make it clear that I am offering
my own interpretation. I say, `The Church teaches
such-and-such, and here is another way of looking at
it.'"
"But you believe what you write. You've told me you
do," Bishop Hammond objected.
"Yes, but that doesn't make me an apostate," I
said.
"You want other people to believe it too."
"In a broad sense, yes, of course, but I'm not
trying to force people to believe it. I don't have any
authority beyond the persuasiveness of the ideas themselves.
I don't want them to believe something they don't really
believe. I'm not trying to make them believe like me. I've
received a lot of help from things I've read and I feel I
owe something to others in return. If someone finds
something I've written helpful, then I'm pleased."
"But if you persuade someone to believe the way you
do then you've led them astray," Bishop Hammond said.
"You're assuming that it's not acceptable to hold
certain beliefs in the Church," I said. "Doesn't
that deny members freedom of belief?"
"I've never said you couldn't believe these things
and stay in the Church," Bishop Hammond defended
himself. "You just can't talk about them."
"Look," I answered, "you can't separate
freedom of belief from freedom of speech. We don't form our
ideas in isolation but in a context of many disparate
things: our own ideas in dialogue with others' ideas, our
understanding of the scriptures, our experiences and others'
experiences that they share with us. If we can't express our
ideas, then we can't use others' insights to help us correct
our errors. If only certain beliefs are acceptable, if only
certain beliefs are allowed to be expressed, it's very
difficult to have other beliefs. If people feel that they
will be punished if they express their beliefs, then they
feel alienated and hypocritical in believing them. You can't
say that you're allowing someone freedom of belief if you
take away their freedom of speech. When you punish someone
for expressing a divergent opinion, you infringe on his or
her freedom of belief as well as speech."
Someone objected to my use of the word "punish"
and insisted that they allowed me the freedom to believe
anything I wanted. All of them expressed belief in the
importance of freedom of belief and freedom of speech.
"If you believe in freedom of speech, why do you
want to censor or edit what I write?" I asked Bishop
Hammond.
"I've never told you I wanted to censor or edit what
you write," Bishop Hammond said.
"I know you've never liked me to use those
words," I replied, "But it seems to me that what
you wanted me to do amounted to censorship."
"I wanted you to be safe, and it seemed to me that
if you cared about your membership you would be glad to have
someone point out potential problems," he said.
"But your views are so different from mine that it
would be torture for us to try to come to an agreement. It
would end with you threatening to punish me if I published
something you didn't like."
"I didn't necessarily want to review your papers
myself. I thought maybe you could get someone at BYU to go
over them with you or even someone in our stake," he
said.
"I wouldn't ask someone else to take the
responsibility for my work," I said. "His judgment
about what is acceptable might not match yours or that of
the Strengthening Church Members Committee. No one would
want to take the responsibility of guaranteeing the
orthodoxy of what I say."
"I called FARMS and they said they would be glad to
review your manuscripts," he told me.
"But it would be dishonest for me to ask someone to
review my manuscripts for orthodoxy and acceptability unless
I intended to change whatever they found unacceptable,"
I said. "But my concern isn't whether what I say might
make someone in authority mad. It's whether it's true,
whether it makes sense."
"If what you're doing is a scholarly endeavor, why
don't you want a scholarly review?" Bishop Hammond
asked.
"I don't have any objection to a scholarly review;
I'm glad to have my work scrutinized for such things as
sound evidence, cogent reasoning, and clarity. I accept
criticism from editors, readers, family, and friends. The
other reason why I don't think the process you've asked me
to submit to would work is that I'm always working under
time constraints. I don't like that and I try not to let it
interfere with the quality of my work, but I'm usually not
able to finish a paper until shortly before I deliver it. I
don't like that—it's very stressful, but it's the best I
can do. I finished my Counterpoint speech about an hour
before we left to attend the conference. I'm always
receptive to comments and criticism after I've delivered
something, and, of course, anything I publish is reviewed by
an editor."
"You've made that argument before," Bishop
Hammond responded. "I just don't understand how you can
let something like that put your membership at risk."
"I will not promise to do something I can't do. I
would like to be able to finish my papers well in advance,
but I know from experience that I won't," I said.
"My writing is part of my personal search for truth. I
don't know where it is going to lead me. I have to be free.
It's my work and I have to do it my way. I can't in good
faith enter into a process that requires me to submit my
judgment to someone else. The honest exploration of ideas
which I clearly represent as my own should not put my
membership at risk. The process you require of me would
severely infringe on my freedom of speech."
"You have freedom of speech," Bishop Hammond
said, "But there are some ideas you can't express if
you want to be a member of the Church."
I tried once more: "When you take away or restrict
privileges for expressing certain beliefs, you are saying
that certain ideas are not acceptable, that we can't express
them as members of the Church. When you do this, you're
pressuring and compelling people to believe a certain way.
Your way. I can't see this as anything other than coercion.
It doesn't mean that people can't resist your pressure. They
can. I'm resisting it right now. We have differences of
opinion; but because you have power you can stick a label of
`true doctrine' on your ideas and `false doctrine' on my
ideas without regard to the truth. It's not a matter of
truth but of power."
Paul MacKay indignantly replied, "It's not a matter
of power. It's a matter of love and pure motives."
I think he was saying that they were not trying to
exercise power over me but rather that they were acting out
of love and pure motives. I will not judge their motives,
but it was clear to me that they were unwilling to admit how
much power they really do have over the lives of ward
members. They were also unwilling to consider the
possibility that they might be abusing that power. Bishop
Hammond had told me several times that he didn't ask for the
position and power, and he said it as if that exonerated him
for any misuse of it.
Bishop Hammond responded to my charge that he was abusing
his power when he used his position to declare my ideas
false by affirming the very misconception that caused him to
abuse it. "I am a judge in Israel," he said.
"I have to decide what is true doctrine and what is
false doctrine. It is my responsibility to keep the doctrine
of the Church pure." He seemed unaware that nowhere in
the scriptures does Christ give Church leaders the
responsibility of keeping doctrine pure or making
pronouncements on Church doctrine. Jesus himself declared
what his doctrine is and told his people that anyone who
attempted to teach more or less than this as his doctrine
was not of him. Every individual has the responsibility of
judging between good and evil and discerning between truth
and error for herself.
Our discussion of the charge that I was guilty of
apostasy for teaching false doctrine kept foundering. I
would return to my main defense—"But I didn't teach my
ideas as Church doctrine. I always identified them as my own
ideas"—and Bishop Hammond would counter with what
seemed to me an irrelevant argument, "But you believe
it and tried to persuade others to believe it."
Apparently Bishop Hammond didn't understand my argument and
I didn't understand his.
His argument seemed to be: You taught false doctrine in
your article. Because you believe it yourself and because
you tried to persuade others to believe it, you taught it as
Church doctrine. I couldn't understand why Bishop Hammond
thought this was a good argument. Finally I got it. I was
pointing out that the Church has not always interpreted the
Godhead the way it does now and that even now there is a
range of opinions.
I said, "You're saying I'd do real damage to someone
if I convinced him that this was a legitimate way of looking
at the Godhead; but if the scriptures allow a range of
opinions, then how does it harm him to accept an alternate
interpretation?"
"Because then he's believing false doctrine,"
Bishop Hammond responded.
Suddenly it clicked. If I convinced someone that
"false doctrine" was not demonstrably false after
all but was an acceptable belief for Mormons, then I was
teaching "false doctrine" as Church doctrine.
Bishop Hammond did not make the distinction between
"true doctrine" and "Church doctrine."
He was also unwilling or unable to make the distinction
between "Church doctrine" and "my
understanding of Church doctrine."
Bishop Hammond returned to the charge that I had broken
the condition requiring me to refrain from opposing or
criticizing the Church or its leaders. The four pieces of
evidence Bishop Hammond had presented—"My Controversy
with the Church," the newspaper articles about me, the Sunstone
news report, and my Mormon Alliance activities—constituted
violations of this condition, in his view.
"None of these things is a case of opposition to the
Church or its doctrine," I said. "Since our
interpretations of these things differ, why do you have to
punish me?"
Bishop Hammond declared, "I'm a judge in
Israel." Picking up the General Handbook of
Instructions, he exclaimed, "This is revelation
from God, and I have to follow what it says."
"No, the handbook is not revelation," I said.
"It's a text that requires interpretation. And your
interpretation of what it says about apostasy is different
from mine. All of this is a judgment call. You think I'm
acting in opposition; I don't. You say that I've preached
false doctrine. I say that I haven't because I haven't
advanced my ideas as doctrine at all. I say they're my
interpretations, my beliefs. So given this disagreement, why
do you have to take any action at all?"
No one said anything for a few moments, then Bishop
Hammond said, "That's all I have to bring up. Do any of
you have something else you'd like to ask her?" he
asked the other men.
Mark Dayton brought up an issue that we'd discussed
extensively at the first court, unconditional obedience to
leaders. He recounted the incident in the Book of Mormon
where the people didn't want to practice the law of Moses
because they had been given the law of Christ, but their
prophet told them to keep the law of Moses until the coming
of Christ.25 His point was that you should do what you're told
even if you think you have superior reasoning or revelation.
I didn't challenge his interpretation of this incident, but
I did say that the text didn't say whether the people
received a witness that their prophet's counsel was from
God. "Certainly it does not say that they went against
their own spiritual feelings in continuing to obey the law
of Moses," I said. "My way, which I've always been
frank about, is that I will listen to my leaders' counsel,
think about it and pray about it, and then I will try to do
what the spirit within me tells me to do."
Bishop Hammond then said something that surprised me.
"You want your personal revelation, but you're denying
it to others." My bewilderment must have shown in my
face because he continued with a convoluted argument that
didn't make sense to me, but seemed to be based on a
coercive idea of revelation. The gist of his argument seemed
to be that I based my papers on my revelation; and since I
tried to get others to believe my ideas, I was denying them
their own revelation.
"Yes, I've prayed about the ideas in my papers and I
feel I've received many answers and inspiration and I've
tried never to go against the answers I've received," I
acknowledged. "But I rarely talk about my personal
spiritual experiences in my papers, and I've never suggested
that anyone should agree with my beliefs because I've had
spiritual confirmation about them. I don't think anyone,
even a prophet, should coerce other people with revelation.
I do feel that I've had revelation that some ideas are true,
but I've never used that as a reason why someone else should
believe them. I base my arguments on theological reasoning
or scriptural interpretation. Even if I told a close friend
in a private conversation about a revelation, I wouldn't
say, `So that's why you have to believe it too.' I talk
about this principle in `Him Shall Ye Hear,' and I feel very
strongly about it. I would never try to coerce someone into
believing my revelations."
Bishop Hammond did not respond. I couldn't tell if he was
satisfied with my explanation. Then he asked again if there
was anything else the other men wanted to bring up. None of
them had any further questions, so he asked me if I had
anything else to say.
Realizing that this would be my final defense, I said
that I did. "One reason that cases like mine are
handled by local leaders is that presumably they know the
person and his or her testimony and service in the Church
and can thus make a better judgment of character and motive.
These things are fundamental in judging a charge of
apostasy. You know that I believe in Jesus Christ. My two
papers that you have read attest of this. You know that I
try to be truthful and honest and try to follow what I
believe is right. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. You know
I've always been faithful in carrying out my
responsibilities in the Church. I've told you what my
motives are. I recognize that motives are complex, but my
conscious purpose in writing and speaking was to help people
understand the doctrine of Christ. I love the Church. I
believe in the Book of Mormon. I believe that Joseph Smith
was a prophet. I want to be a member of the Church. You know
all of this about me. You've charged me with teaching false
doctrine and opposing the Church, but you haven't proven
that the ideas I've presented are false or that I'm in
opposition to the Church. To know whether or not I'm in
opposition to the Church, you have to know my motives.
Opposition is based on motives. To be an apostate I have to
desire to hurt or destroy the Church, but my motive in
writing was to help the Church. You may believe that I have
hurt the Church or damaged people's testimonies; but if my
motive was to help, then it's wrong to say I'm in opposition
to the Church."
"No," Bishop Hammond declared, "the
important thing is outcome. If you've really damaged
people's testimonies and hurt the Church, that's what's
important."
"You keep saying that I've damaged people's
testimonies, but you've never given me even one
example!" I exclaimed. "If I've hurt people, why
aren't they here to testify of it? You don't know what the
outcome of my work is. You don't have all the evidence. You
can't see into the future. The outcome doesn't even exist
yet. Just because people may be confused doesn't mean
they're damaged. I could have brought people to this court
who would have testified that my writing has helped them
stay in the Church."
Bishop Hammond simply repeated that he thought what I had
done was damaging to people's testimonies. I didn't point it
out, but this whole line of argument was irrelevant because
damaging people's testimonies is not a definition of
apostasy. Are Church leaders willing to stand trial for all
the testimonies they have damaged?
I continued my final plea for exoneration.
"Believing what you do about what it would mean to
excommunicate me—that it would invalidate my baptismal
covenant, that it would take away the sealing with my
husband and children, that it would mean that I couldn't
participate or serve in the Church or be with my children at
important times in their lives—believing all this, how
could you do this to me? You know of my belief in God and my
desire and efforts to do what is right. How can you punish
me in this way just because you think I have broken these
rules, these rules which are not from God but which you made
up?"
Bishop Hammond was obviously angry with me. Up to this
point he had usually spoken quietly and slowly. Now he spoke
quickly, with more energy, and there was a hard edge to his
voice. "You have to take some of the responsibility.
You can't lay it all on us. You knew you were going over the
line. You knew you were doing what we didn't want you to do.
We told you what the consequences would be."
I didn't respond. It seemed so hopeless. I just didn't
have the energy to point out one more time that they had
drawn the line, that it could be drawn in another way, or
that, better yet, it didn't have to be drawn at all. Later,
in explaining this to my children, I compared the bishop to
a terrorist who says, "If you don't do such-and-such,
I'll shoot you; and if I shoot you, it will be your fault
because I told you what the consequences would be," or
"If you don't give into my demands, I'll blow up the
building and it will be your fault."
"Do you have anything else to say?" Bishop
Hammond asked me.
"No," I replied.
Before I left the room he said that they wouldn't make a
decision unless it was unanimous and unless they had a
confirmation of the Spirit that it was right.
David was in the waiting room, so I sat by him and we
talked for about half an hour. I told him a little of what
had happened—that it was hopeless. I felt that they had
already decided before the court that I had broken Bishop
Hammond's conditions, that I was an apostate. Some things
Paul MacKay had said made me believe that they had discussed
my case at length. He had said things like, "This is
our approach," and "This is how we look at what
you've done in terms of your opposition to the Church,"
and "We're doing it according to the handbook."
After awhile someone came out of the stake president's
office and asked us to go somewhere else. They didn't want
us to overhear their deliberations. Their concern was
unjustified because we hadn't heard a thing although we were
speaking very quietly or just sitting there holding hands.
Were they afraid we might hear the telephone ring?
We went into the foyer where quite few people had
gathered while I was in the court. Besides David, my
children, Margaret and her four daughters (Paul was with
Nephi), and Lavina, another ten or twelve friends had come
to be with me. I found out later that others would have come
if they'd known the court was taking place. I was very
touched by their concern. My friends gathered around me and
held my hands. I told them some of what had happened in the
court and my interpretation of it.
Then about 11:00 p.m. I was summoned back to hear the
court's decision. Once again, the bishop and his counselors
had spent about two hours in deliberation. I had not
expected them to take so long. They let David come with me.
They were all sitting in the same chairs they had been in
during the court. Every one of them looked devastated. Their
faces were averted and downcast. No one looked at me. Bishop
Hammond read a statement. "It is the decision of this
disciplinary council that you be excommunicated from the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
The words pierced my heart, but then a warm sensation,
beginning in my breast, suffused my entire body, filling me
and surrounding me with a perfect spirit of peace and love.
God had comforted me and granted me my desire. Through the
power of his spirit, I was able to forgive and love the men
who had unrighteously judged me and whose judgment would
cause many others to similarly judge me. I saw them as lost
sheep who had been led astray; I wanted to gather them into
the fold of God's love where they could be healed of their
blindness and soothed of their fear.
"You are no longer a member of the Church,"
Bishop Hammond read and then went on to read all the
restrictions on an excommunicated person. When he finished
he said, looking at me for the first time, "I would
like your permission to keep your membership record; and if
you move, to pass it on with the records of the rest of your
family."
"I will be happy to have you do that because my
family will be in your ward." I spoke quite calmly and
sincerely. "I plan on attending church with them, and I
hope I will be welcome."
"Yes, you will be welcome," Bishop Hammond
said. "One of the things I've given a lot of thought to
during this time of thinking about excommunicating you is
how I can continue to serve your family. I want to help your
children. I want to be a good bishop to them. I've really
thought and thought about how I can do that. We think you're
a good neighbor, a good person. We don't think you're a bad
person. You have a lot of integrity. We recognize your
desire to do what is right and follow your principles. We
want you to know that we love you and welcome you to come to
church and we'll help you in any way we can."
If I had not been so filled with the Spirit, these words
would have angered me; but because I had moved from anger to
forgiveness, they simply grieved me. Didn't they understand
the meaning of excommunication—that if it were a just
judgment ratified by the Holy Spirit, it would invalidate my
baptism and take away the gift of the Holy Ghost? That it
would send a person to hell? If they thought I was a good
person with integrity and the desire to do what is right,
how could they sentence me to hell?
I told them that I forgave them. "I won't say that I
haven't felt any anger or hurt at what's been done, because
I have," I added. "Your judgment over this last
seven months has hurt me; not to be able to partake of the
sacrament has hurt me. I believe that your judgment is
unjust, but I have no desire to hurt you. I know that you've
tried to do what is right according to your understanding
and according to your ability to receive revelation. I
forgive you and I love you."
They told David that they loved him too. He did not
answer; and for a person as responsive as David, his silence
was a powerful message. I could tell by the look on his face
that he wanted to punch them. He told me later that he had
thought, "They're talking about love, but it doesn't
seem like love to me. It's only words. The only person in
this room who is radiating love is Janice."
I had felt the same way many times, since the stake
president and bishop often repeated that they loved me. I
had often reflected that, since they would treat me the same
way if they hated me, I didn't see any difference. It was as
if they had said to David, "We've just raped and killed
your wife, but we did it because we love you both. We hope
you don't mind."
As David and I entered the foyer, it became very quiet.
No one moved. "Excommunication," I said. Unlike
the first court, there was no immediate response. People
seemed frozen. Some of them started to cry quietly. Then
people started coming up and embracing me. I felt a lot of
love, and I wanted to comfort them. It was very quiet, and I
heard Margaret cry out, "I don't feel like hugging
anyone. I want to hit someone. I'm so angry." She burst
into tears and sobbed, "I hate them. I hate them. I
hate them all!" She pushed through the double glass
doors, still weeping. The hall monitors didn't ask us to
leave this time, but there was nothing else to say or do. In
a few minutes, everyone quietly left.
Margaret drove up in her minivan; and most of the
children climbed in while I was maneuvering myself and my
crutches inside. As we drove home, I thanked Margaret for
being angry. They had done an evil thing and it was right to
be angry. Margaret and I are very close, and I felt she was
experiencing for me what I couldn't experience myself that
night. Anger is part of forgiveness and hate is not
antithetical to love. Being finite and desiring to forgive
that night, I could not experience the anger and hate at the
same time, but I knew they were subsumed in what I felt. The
hatred Margaret felt was not for them personally—she didn't
even know them—but for the self-righteousness, obsession
with rules and obedience, authoritarianism, blindness, and
fear which caused them to bring so much suffering upon
others. She knew the pain of excommunication; she had
experienced it with Paul.
In anger there is a judgment that someone did something
wrong. Like Margaret, I have that judgment. Anger also
possesses an energy to right the wrong. Part of the reason I
was able to give up my anger that night was that I had done
everything I could to help them understand what they were
doing and make a different decision. I had explained the
principles I saw at the heart of the gospel as clearly as I
could. I had tried to understand them and respect the good I
saw. I had come with love and a true desire to open up my
heart and help them understand things in a different way,
but they were too full of fear and prejudice to have the
faith to bridge the stark contrast between their worldview
and mine.
Though my anger reflects my judgment that they did an
evil thing, my forgiveness means that I do not judge them. I
recognize my own sins. I acknowledge that the four men who
judged me unrighteously are more than this evil deed. They
live in freedom, and the desires of their hearts are not
known to me. The Lord tells us that to forgive we must say
in our hearts, "Let God judge between me and thee and
reward thee according to thy deeds" (D&C 64:11). I
will say the first part—"Let God judge between me and
thee"—but I choose not to ask God to reward them
according to their deeds. I do not want them to be punished
and I have no desire to hurt them, but I do want them to
understand clearly the nature of their sin. Of course, this
would cause them pain, a pain that, in fact, is greater than
any other pain, but it is the only way to redemption. I hope
that it will be a pain that leads to redemption. I hope that
they will repent and have faith in Jesus Christ and, through
his love, have their sins washed away.
When we got home, a few of us sat in our living room for
a while. Some of my children gathered around me, sitting on
my lap and leaning against me. They were very hurt by the
judgment against me. I told them that I knew that God still
loved me and them. "Jesus has made it known to me very
clearly that I am acceptable to him," I told them.
"I am still part of his Church."
The next night nine-year-old Jared came and flung himself
onto my lap. He was angry. "They excommunicated you for
your whole life," he said. "You can't be in Church
things for your whole life. You can't go to the temple for
your whole life."
"It is hard," I told him. "They did
a very bad thing, but I know that God loves us and he'll
take care of us and we'll find a way to live with it."
21American
Puritan literature and sermons frequently used "God
hath a controversy with this people" as a structuring
phrase in exhortation and argumentation. It appears
variously in Jeremiah 25:31: "The Lord hath a
controversy with the nations"; Hosea 4:1: "The
Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the
land"; Hosea 12:2: "The Lord hath also a
controversy with Judah"; and Micah 6:2: "The Lord
hath a controversy with his people."
22"The
Purge: A Year Later," B. H. Roberts Society, 17 Nov.
1994, University of Utah, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. Panel: Fred Voros,
moderator, Janice Allred, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Rod
Decker, and L. Jackson Newell, audiotape in Anderson's
possession; see also "Panel Weighs Free Speech, LDS
Church," Deseret News, 18 November 1994, B-3;
Sheila Sanchez, "Panel Members Claim Purge
Continues," Provo Daily Herald, 21 Nov. 1994;
the Salt Lake Tribune did not cover this meeting.
23The reporter,
who was working from my written text since she had to file
her story before Saturday night, had misunderstood my
reaction to David when he told about the stake presidency's
instruction to give me a blessing ordering me to obey them.
The story read: "Her reaction to his comment was to
threaten her husband with ending their marriage."
Sheila Sanchez, "Women's Concerns Aired at Counterpoint
Conference," (Provo) Daily Herald, 6 Nov. 1995.
I had added a clarifying sentence in my oral presentation.
In my letter to the editor, I tried to describe the
conference so that it did not sound as if it focused only on
controversial topics and to balance some of the statements I
had made, which were correctly quoted, with omitted
statements that I hoped would reflect the compassion and
respect I felt for the Church and its leaders. But I was
most concerned about the idea that I had threatened to end
our marriage. I wrote: "It was not my husband's idea to
give me such a blessing and I did not threaten to end our
marriage. ... David did not think I was saying this. ...
Our Church leaders were trying to get him to control me by
abusing his priesthood. I was saying that if he ever did
this, it would violate the love, trust, equality, and mutual
respect that have always characterized our marriage. I did
not believe that he would do this and he assured me that he
would not. He has given me many blessings, and he has never
said anything that he did not believe came from the spirit
of God." "Allred Clarifies Report" (letter), (Provo)
Daily Herald, 11 Nov. 1994.
24"Mormon
Feminist Disciplined," Sunstone 18, no. 1 (April
1995): 80-84.
25"And
there were no contentions, save it were a few that began to
preach, endeavoring to prove by the scriptures that it was
no more expedient to observe the law of Moses. Now in this
thing they did err, having not understood the scriptures.
"But it came to pass
that they soon became converted, and were convinced of the
error which they were in, for it was made known unto them
that the law was not yet fulfilled, and that it must be
fulfilled in every whit" (3 Ne. 1:24-25).
