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Q. You see the events of September 1993 in a larger context of a “purity system” within Mormonism. Can you explain, in a nutshell, that system, as it applied/applies to late- twentieth and early twenty-first-century Mormonism?
A. My argument is that the 1993 disciplinary courts and the other disciplinary actions in the surrounding years were tied to a struggle over imagining what the Restoration was and how it should be understood. I argue that the institutional church shaped its understanding of the Restoration around the idea of purity or worthiness, seeing roots for this in the nineteenth-century church. The institutional church imagined Heavenly Father as a being who was primarily concerned with believers following the rules and committing themselves to the hierarchical structure that had the male priesthood at its core.
In the last half of the twentieth century, the institution was growing rapidly around the world. In response some church leaders wanted to ensure that the institution could maintain the purity of its membership—to create a centripetal force toward the institutional hierarchy. I argue that there were three pillars of the purity system—doctrinal purity, familial purity, and bodily purity. This meant that at the institutional, home, and bodily levels, members were taught that they should be concerned about whether or not they were maintaining purity or worthiness.
Q. What, or who, is responsible for that purity culture? Are there certain individuals who stand out as pushing for it?
A. I think there are individuals who stand out—Spencer W. Kimball often spoke about the importance of bodily purity. Ezra Taft Benson is often remembered for his “To the Mothers in Zion” talk that celebrated a complementary gender system with women as mothers and nurturers and men as priesthood holders and providers; those ideas were at the heart of familial purity. And when we remember 1993, Boyd K. Packer is usually the person most people recall first because he was concerned with the doctrinal purity of the church.
It's important to remember, though, that Packer was not working in a vacuum and that others in the hierarchy could have pushed back harder against what he was doing. For that reason, I think that at the same time we remember key individuals, we also need to remember that the institution publicly portrayed a unified stance. While some may have dissented behind closed doors, the effect of the church hierarchy’s public words and actions was the only thing that many believers experienced.
Q. Long before the September 1993 events, Sonia Johnson’s very public excommunication took place, the battle over the ERA both preceded and followed it, and protests at general conference occurred both inside and outside the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Was the 1979 mindset among church leaders already established and thus, was 1993 just a continuation of business as usual? Or did this early response to feminism form a deeper fear of dissent than before?
A. Both. I think Sonia Johnson’s excommunication cemented the idea in a lot of church leaders’ minds that feminism was a movement that was foreign to the church that was trying to infiltrate an otherwise stable community. From church leaders’ perspective, Johnson’s work for the Equal Rights Amendment threatened to upset the familial structure—rooted in gender complementarianism and heterosexual monogamy—that had played and was continuing to play an important role in the church gaining broader mainstream acceptance and in its attempts to align itself with the Religious Right.
Q. In the early 1990s some ultraconservatives were ousted from the church for different reasons than the progressive thinkers of 1993. What was similar and what was different in how church leaders dealt with these two very different groups? Were they trying to send the same message?
A. My book challenges the idea that church leaders were attempting to chart a middle course and therefore felt they had to excommunicate people on both extremes.That has been a common narrative told about this time, both by historians and by people at the time. Instead I argue that this “middle-of-the-road” narrative masks the work that the church hierarchy was doing to align the institution with conservative Christianity.
The excommunications of ultraconservatives at the time, I argue, were about debates between the church hierarchy and ultraconservatives about what the purity system should look like and how it should work. On the other hand, the September Six and other dissenters were challenging the nature of the purity system itself and so represent a different impulse on the part of the church hierarchy. They had a vision of the Restoration that was rooted in egalitarianism, the active pursuit of the truth wherever it might lead, and personal experience as an important site of religious authority. They argued that this vision was the true vision of the Restoration.
Q. People sometimes refer to the September 1993 disciplinary actions as a darker time and say that these excommunications––which occurred by writers and thinkers highlighting historical controversies, women’s issues, theological issues, and spiritual abuse––would never happen today. Do you agree?
A. I think a lot has changed and much has stayed the same. I would challenge the idea that these things are not happening today. They are. They may not be as concentrated chronologically. And the methods may be different. But there is certainly evidence of attempts by the institution to remove people from BYU campuses who might disagree with the doctrinal, familial, and bodily teachings of the church.
The final chapter of my book talks about where things stand thirty years later. There are two institutional traits that I would lift up that are still present in the institution today that make it prone to similar, if not identical, activities: 1) While individuals receive the message that they may disagree or dissent, they also receive the message that to publicly do so is an act of betrayal of the church family; 2) the institution still demonstrates a commitment to the purity system.
What has changed is that people on all sides have learned the power of the media to help enhance their position. Most certainly, the institutional church has learned that excommunications can create backlash—and, depending on the who, why, and how, can also generate support. If nothing else, the church as an institution is more savvy in terms of public relations. And so are its dissenters.
Q. What do you believe is the healthiest approach the church could take in sharing space with members whom they deem unorthodox at best, or dissenters at worst? Or can that space even be shared?
A. It seems to me that it is important for any religious institution to have avenues and spaces where people can express questions, concerns, dissent, and creative approaches to faith life. If an institution does not make space for those kinds of activities within its borders, people will make space for them outside. In the words of Lynne Whitesides, who was disfellowshipped on September 14, 1993, and who was president of the Mormon Women’s Forum and a leader in the B.H. Roberts Society, “If the Church had just left all of [these groups] alone, then most of [the people] would have worked through these issues and, mostly, been able to stay in the Church” (Whitesides interview, Latter-day Dissent, 16).
Criticism, questions, and dissent can initially feel scary and destabilizing, but, as many of the dissenters in the 1990s said, they end up making an institution healthy, flexible, and able to address new situations and contexts.
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