Introduction and Overview of Chosen Path

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 13, 2024, the day before Valentine's Day for those of you who celebrate such things. And we are here for part two of a two part series on this amazing book. The book is chosen the memoir, I guess, originally authored by D. Michael Quinn, but edited and annotated by the Barbara,

Barbara Jones Brown [00:00:28] only authored by D. Michael Quinn. And we just did a simple copy edit and then myself and three other annotators annotated the entire book.

John Dehlin [00:00:38] Yeah. So that's Barbara Jones Brown, everybody. Barbara, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:00:42] Hi. Thanks for having me back.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] And if y' all haven't watched the previous episode we just released with Moshe Quinn, D. Michael Quinn's son. And, and Barbara, I really enjoyed it. And I. And the feedback so far has been really good. So go check that out. I thought it would be really fun to bring Sandra Tanner back. The Sandra Tanner. Hey, Sandra.

Sandra Tanner [00:01:05] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:01:06] Welcome back.

Sandra Tanner [00:01:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:01:08] Y' all know Sandra. She and her late husband, Gerald Tanner were the founders of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry. Is that what it was called? And for decades and decades, they not only sold books in Salt Lake City, but they did lots of important Mormon history and scholarship that upon whose shoulders we continue to stand. Is that fair to say, Barbara?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:01:33] Absolutely. They're pioneers in talking about Mormon history, that's for sure.

John Dehlin [00:01:38] And Sandra sold her bookstore and is retired. But I reached out to her and said, sandra, we still need you. So the other day I was just sitting here thinking, we need more Sandra. It's fine if she decides she needs to be retired, but we, we still need her light and her wisdom. So I reached out to her and said, sandra, do you want to come on Mormon Stories? And she said, okay. And so I gave her a reading assignment. I said, sandra, your first reading assignment is Chosen Path, the memoir, because it talks a lot about you. And Gerald and Barbara, you want to tell your quick story of you were doing a little event, right. And Sandra was there.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:02:22] Oh, sure. Yeah. So we were doing a book signing for this book, Chosen Path, at the amazing Benchmark Books here in Salt Lake City, and Sandra stood up and we were doing Q and A. And I just asked anyone who knew Mike Quinn or who had read the book to stand up and share a comment. And Sandra stood up. And of course, in life, Gerald and Sandra and D. Michael Quinn were, can I say, archenemy Sandra.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:46] Well, on the other side of the issues.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:02:50] But to hear Sandra stand up and say, I've been reading this memoir. And I'm actually starting to like D. Michael Quinn and discovering that we actually had so much in common that I never knew about, and learning things about him I didn't know and starting to like this person in spite of their differences when he was alive. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:07] And since Sandra's forgotten more than we'll probably ever know collectively, we want to. Want to wring every bit of knowledge out of her for as long as she's willing to share. So, Sandra, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Sandra Tanner [00:03:21] Yes. And I want everyone to know this is a 550 page book that I got assigned to read. And I've got all my little notes in it of all the different interesting pages, which I won't remember what they all mean without looking at them, but at least my book is marked, so I have. Well, you won't be able to see that, but there's red lines all over everything.

Sandra Tanner Reviews Quinn's Memoir

Sandra Tanner [00:03:59] It was a very interesting read, the first part of it before he gets really into his research. Deals a lot with his personal family stuff. And so it's not as applicable to my studies, but it was interesting getting to see more of Quinn as a person in the context of his whole life.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:24] So it was a challenge to get through it, but was interesting to see how he was down in the Glendale, California area. And I grew up in the San Fernando Valley area, which is just a few miles away.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:47] So it was kind of like old home week reading some of his early experience in Mormonism. Because I'm just a few years older than Mike, maybe three or four. Three or four.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:05:00] He was born in 44.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:01] Yeah, I was born in 41, so I'm three years older. So similar kinds of experiences growing up in Southern California in Mormonism, which were good years for me. I enjoyed my early years in Southern California as a Mormon and his mom and my family, all from pioneer stock. So we all grew up with a lot of base knowledge of Mormonism, much of which was the PR version or. No, the pg, the G version. And it wasn't until later we realized there was an R version of Mormonism. But so to see Mike as

John Dehlin [00:05:54] just

Sandra Tanner [00:05:55] a regular Mormon kid growing up was instructive for me in helping to fill him out as a person. And I thought it was interesting reading about his mission and then his service in. Was he in the Air Force or Army?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:06:11] He was in Germany and I think it was the Army. I'm getting a little rusty.

Sandra Tanner [00:06:15] Yeah. Anyways, he goes into.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:06:18] He was in intelligence in Germany in

Sandra Tanner [00:06:20] the intelligence community, which I thought was really interesting. Because he tells about how he wanted to go into the CIA and I guess, be super sleuth. And the guy is talking with him about what you have to do when you're an agent. And he says, you know, might be a time you're standing with somebody face to face and you have to shoot them. And Quinn's like, maybe I want a different department. So he goes into a little different area of intelligence work, the struggles that he has in his marriage. And I think most people that know anything about him or his work know that he was gay and how from a child he knows this about himself. And yet as a child, he is given this promise by. Was it his grandma?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:07:15] Well, his grandmother predicts that when he's nine years old, Mike Quinn is the kid, that every fast and testimony meeting is getting up and bearing his testimony. And so people in his ward start saying, oh, you're going to grow up to bring a. Be a church leader someday. I'll bet. And his grandmother, when he's nine, tells him, I'll bet you grow up to be an apostle. And Quentin takes that very seriously. And he spends the rest of his life believing he's going to be an apostle someday.

Sandra Tanner [00:07:40] Yeah, I mean, really serious. He comments through the book, through his life that he's. He had this reconfirmation of this through different blessings, through what different people said to him. You know, if someone just talks about, oh, you'll go far, you've got great things ahead of you in the church. And that all feeds into this belief he has that he's been chosen to be an apostle someday. So this drives him through his commitment to Mormonism, to be the ultimate Mormon. And he strives so hard to do everything required of him. So there's a certain tragedy in the story of his desire is to be the ultimate Mormon, to be worthy of being an apostle.

Sandra Tanner [00:08:30] And yet he has this inner struggle so that to be an apostle, you have to be married. You can't be divorced. I don't know, how high up can you be in the church and have a divorce? Do they let bishops get divorced?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:08:45] Sure. I mean, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:08:47] Will they call you with a divorced as a divorce?

John Dehlin [00:08:50] Yeah. You can be called a bishop, but

Barbara Jones Brown [00:08:53] I don't think you can be a general authority having been divorced. Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:08:57] Yeah. Well, I've never heard of anyone in higher church positions ever being a divorced person. I mean, you got widowers that end up marrying again and end up being spiritual polygamists, like the prophet leader of Mormonism today, but not divorced. And so he knows he has to keep his marriage together to fulfill this dream.

Sandra Tanner [00:09:22] And yet, as you read through his story, it's so sad. The one point in the book he talks about, he was so thrilled after years of struggle that they had just had the best period of their marriage ever.

Sandra Tanner [00:09:40] And then his wife tells him, no, it was the worst period of the marriage as far as I'm concerned. And they start talking of divorce. And it's just. Quinn struggles with this because he knows if he divorces, it will be the end of the dream of being an apostle someday.

Sandra Tanner [00:10:02] But he also. His other dream is to be the ultimate church historian. He wants to tell church history faithfully for Mormonism, but to answer the questions. And that's the other theme going through the book, is the struggle he has with trying to be faithful on retelling of church history and not get in trouble with the Brethren because the Brethren are always doing pushback. That you can't say that. You can't tell that much. You can't tell that part. You can't see that document. There are just all these times through his life that the leadership is interfering or trying to squelch the research he wants to do, making him edit some of the biography and writings that he does because they're too straightforward on telling problem areas.

Sandra Tanner [00:11:04] He does an inside look at church hierarchy and how the Brethren aren't all in agreement. And it bursts this bubble of the average Mormon that everything's done just the smoothest board meetings you could ever have where everyone's in agreement and yet Quinn's writing out, no, they have these big disagreements, they don't like each other. Different ones are saying behind their back, someone else. They don't like them, they don't like their policies, they don't like what they say publicly. And you have this infighting which gets him in trouble as he tries to write his different books. Do you have an observation on that part?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:11:49] I think you're right on. And as copy editor of the book, it's interesting. I know the themes that came out for me, going through this again and again and again and then hearing you pick up on the same themes, I'm like, oh, great. You know, it's coming out to readers.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:09] These.

John Dehlin [00:12:09] The Origins and Extensions of Power, which are both signature books. Yes, highly recommended.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:12:15] Mormon Hierarchy. Yeah, it's a three part series, Right.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] Because the financial one came third, right?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:12:21] That's right, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:22] Yeah. Those first two, I strongly recommend. They were a really formative part of my faith journey. They were written and published after he was Excommunicated, Correct.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:12:34] Oh, gosh, they were. They were published by Signature Books before I started, So I don't remember the exact years off the top of my

John Dehlin [00:12:40] head, but I'm guessing they came after.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:12:42] I think. I think all three of them came after his excommunication.

John Dehlin [00:12:45] Yes.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:12:46] And he was excommunicated as one of the September six in September of 1993.

John Dehlin [00:12:52] Yeah. Yeah. Those are fascinating. And they talk about, wasn't there the story of Hubie Brown when David O. McKay was getting up there in years, wanting to rescind the priesthood ban in the late 60s?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:13:09] Yeah, they'd been talking about it for years before it finally actually happened. The power dynamics between those who wanted it and those who didn't. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:17] And I think with the right people out of town, he almost got the vote necessary in the late 60s to overturn it. But then like Harold B. Lee or whoever, came back in town and scuttled the deal. Right. I mean, that's the type of stuff Quinn was writing about.

Sandra Tanner [00:13:34] Right. Give you an example here of the early on when he gets into his studies. So in 1966, he has a section in his memoirs called A Devout Freshman Shakes My Confidence. And he tells about how he had talked with Legrand Richards, who was an apostle back in 1961, and LeGrand Richards had answered his questions about post manifesto polygamy. And Quinn felt that he had adequately dealt with post manifesto polygamy as not being a problem, not being an issue. But then in 66, a student comes up to him and talks to him about the problem he has with post manifesto polygamy. Well, Quinn thought he had that all solved. But here comes this fellow, Stephen E. Robinson, who goes on later to become a professor at byu.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:14:41] I believe he wrote the very popular book Believing Christ.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:44] Yeah, well, this is back when Robinson's a young student, I believe, and he comes up to Quinn and he says, my grandfather was a mission president who married two plural wives in Salt Lake City 10 years after the manifesto. And my family has a recommend from one of the marriages signed by President Joseph F. Smith. And so this Robinson is struggling. How do you put this? In the history of the church when we were always taught that the polygamy stopped in 1890. And so this gets Quinn interested in this topic. And post manifesto polygamy then goes on to become a major issue for him. And he ends up writing later a huge article in dialogue on post manifesto polygamy. That's a classic.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] Didn't just list all the post manifesto

Barbara Jones Brown [00:15:47] polygamous marriages and on this story about Stephen, was it Stephen E. Robinson or Elle? Okay, Stephen E. Robinson. But he's upset because he's in a religion class and Mike Quinn is in the class with him and the professor is teaching at BYU. He says there were no polygamous marriages after 1890, and if they were, they were outside mainstream LDS approval.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:16:12] You would have been excommunicated after 1890, all of them on. And so the Stephen E. Robinson, he's like, that's just not true. My ancestors were mainstream, active, faithful LDS and they were married in 1900. And so that makes my Quinn start thinking, oh, what's going on with this post manifesto polygamy? Was it actually going on? Was it sanctioned by LDS Church leaders? As it was for quite some time. And he writes about that, and it's one of the subject that he kind of says, okay, we need to start talking about this taboo subject.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:49] So Quinn writes, I was deeply disturbed by what Steve told me about his grandfather's post manifesto polygamous marriages. This didn't fit the explanation of Apostle Richards and Traditional historians by B. H. Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith that people entered post manifesto polygamy without authorization of the First Presidency. I couldn't believe Steve's story. And without indicating my skepticism, I asked for his grandfather's name to look it up. So then he goes and looks it up at the genealogical library and finds the genealogy sheets and verifies, yeah, he took two wives after the manifesto. That all was true.

Sandra Tanner [00:17:35] So then Quinn says, this BYU student set me on a quest to understand post manifesto polygamy and every other historical claim about the LDS Church made by anti Mormons. Lala. In the process, I found that traditional Mormon historians were denying the existence of things that anti Mormons could demonstrate, even from Mormon sources.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:05] I felt that this was a great vulnerability for the average Mormon. I was determined to get to the bottom of every historical claim made by anti Mormons and do what traditional historians had not been doing, acknowledging all the evidence and still come up with an explanation that was both honest and reassuring for believers.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:18:31] And this was in 1960, I believe,

Sandra Tanner [00:18:34] which is right around the time you

John Dehlin [00:18:35] and Gerald were starting up your stuff. Right?

Sandra Tanner [00:18:37] We're doing all kinds of stuff at that point. Yeah, but the problem for the historians through my whole lifetime that the Mormon Church has faced is I don't see that they have good answers for the problems. They can give you an answer, but I don't see them as adequate. The problems are very deep and very complicated.

Sandra Tanner [00:19:02] So that all the way through Quinn and the different Mormon church historians have spent these last 60 years trying to write faith promoting history. And they've done a lot of good research along the way. Obviously, though, for many people, the answers still are not strong enough because we see so many people still leaving Mormonism even after all of the research has been done. And that's what the brethren why they have such a pushback with Quinn on his writing that. Okay, Quinn, you may think this is faith promoting when you tell all this, but most of the people read this don't end up thinking that's real faith promoting.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:19:50] Yeah, I think what's fascinating, you know, this, this tension that comes out through the memoir between Gerald and Sandra and Michael Quinn is they were both doing the same thing. They both believed that it's important to talk about all of these difficult aspects of Mormon history, but with different end goals in sight. So Michael Quinn believed until he died in 2021, he was a believer. He believed in Joseph Smith as a prophet of God. He believed in the Book of Mormon. He believed the truth claims of Mormonism until his death.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:20:27] And so for him, he. He thought it was important to share all these aspects of Mormon history in order to help Latter Day Saints stay in the church. You know, kind of inoculating them, if you will. You know, just, let's get it all out there, let everybody know it doesn't need to be faith destroying. And then, Sandra, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're in. You're in. Gerald's goal or mission with sharing all of these things in Mormon history was to help people out the church. Would you say that's accurate?

Sandra Tanner [00:20:54] Well, whether they left or not, we wanted them to have informed decisions.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:21:00] Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:01] And we felt the evidence would lead them out. But many of our friends stayed. But I wanted them to make an informed decision to stay, not just because their grandma told them the first vision story and they were sure it was all true and they didn't really know the problems with that story. It isn't that easy. Our very first struggles with the historians was over the first fission and led to extensive research by the historical community over that next 60 years after we started in 59 writing on first vision problems. And Michael Quinn later does his book Early Mormonism the Magic Worldview. Oh, that was an interesting thing, I thought in the book, and I don't remember which page it is, but he tells that early on he goes to hear Eldridge Smith, the church patriarch, show memorabilia from his. What would it be? Great grandpa, A great

Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview

Barbara Jones Brown [00:22:18] ancestor?

Sandra Tanner [00:22:19] Well, his ancestor, yeah. Because he would have come from Hyrum Smith, Joseph's brother, but he had inherited artifacts from the Smith family. And he had these magic talents, these magic papers that were owned by Hyrum Smith, evidently. And he would. This Eldridge Smith would show them at firesides and things.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:46] Mike saw those at one of these firesides and just tucked it away in the back of his mind. Oh, that's interesting. And didn't even think about it for years. He also was aware that Reed Durham, who was the institute director at University of Utah back in the early 70s, had given a famous talk on Joseph Smith's Jupiter's Talisman. But at the time, they thought it was a Masonic artifact, but it turns out to be a magic artifact.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:17] And Quinn was aware of that, but he had not put the pieces together that these were part of a bigger picture of the Smith family's involvement with the occult. And so it's not until you come up to the time of the Mark Hoffman documents.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:34] And Mark Hoffman starts his documents in 78, I think, is the earliest one I know. I think his earliest one, I think he brought to me on the second anointing, and supposedly a document from the Salt Lake Temple, which is complicated. So if you want to read it, read our biography on Lighthouse. I guess it's in there, but.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:05] So Mike Quinn starts seeing these different documents that Mark Hoffman is, we now know, inventing, but supposedly finding that show connections to magic. And this gets Mike Quinn interested in the whole magic question of the early Smith family. So he spent several years then researching all of that and eventually comes out with his book, Early Mormonism and the

Barbara Jones Brown [00:24:35] Magic Worldview, which, incidentally, won the Mormon History Association's Best book Award in 1988. And then you mentioned your biography, Sandra Lighthouse. It won about yout and Gerald, and it won the Mormon History Association's Best Biography award last year. So, incidentally, both books have won those awards.

John Dehlin [00:24:57] This episode brought to you by Signature Books.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:59] Yeah.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:25:00] Yes.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:03] Quinn's book, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, was just a monumental study, and the brethren were not thankful that he wrote it. So it just, I'm sure, caused them all kind of grief. But Quinn's philosophy was, if that's the way he lived it, then that's the way we tell it. And if the Church could get going and survive with that being its story, then we ought to be able to survive with it being our story now. So. But he was a little more accepting of some of that than a lot of the average people. But Quinn's book That was a really important study when he did the Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. And it still remains the starting point. I think anyone that's going to try to deal with that early period of Joseph Smith's life, it would be required reading.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:26:06] Sandra, I'm curious, what did you. So it came out in 1988, and that was a decade after you and Mike Quinn had had the conflict right over the secret pamphlet. But what did you and Gerald think when Early Mormonism Magic Worldview came out in 88?

Sandra Tanner [00:26:26] Oh, we just were fascinated by it. Now it had its first edition, came out during the Mark Hoffman. I can't remember just how the dates go on that, but the first edition had some. At least one of Hoffman's documents. Forgeries. Forgeries. And so there had to be a new edition done, a bigger and better version.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:54] But we were thrilled to see the research that he had done on it. Now we were troubled by his ability to marry magic with traditional Christianity. And so other than that angle, we were really impressed by the research he did. But that's the problem for the Mormon historian in dealing with Joseph's magic involvement is how do you put that together with the Christian position of traditionally of rejecting magic involvement and whether you make it white magic, black magic, you know, people make differences anyways.

Sandra Tanner [00:27:49] The outer Christian community generally outside of Mormonism would. Would find that problematic that someone was involved in soothsaying magic rocks, digging at night for buried treasure, binding spirits that would guard the treasure and doing incantations to get the treasure free from the spell and all.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:17] And Mike was able in his mind to meld it together and it didn't bother him. One of the problems, though, from looking at it from the outside is okay, if you can say he could have had some sort of power. And whether you say it's magic or God, the problem though, is that they never found a treasure.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:43] And so it isn't just that he's involved in the occult, but it's that he seems to be deceptive in using these things. And so how do we deal with that part of it? So I'm not sure how Quinn reconciled all that in his mind, but he did a great service in pulling together all of the references and sources on that topic so that, like I say, I think it's classic. If you're going to study the early years of the Smith family, you have to read that whether you agree with it or don't agree with it, it is a primary text that you just can't write on that early Period without reading them.

Sandra Tanner [00:29:27] And of course, along that way is Dan Vogel's books, another commercial for his signature books. But Dan Vogel's books, also dealing with the early period of Mormonism are just crucial. And I think when you put together Dan Vogel's works, Brent Metcalfe's works, Quinn's works, these are all just paramount for anyone going through those, the early years of Joseph Smith. Of course, Dan Vogel goes on to do that whole series, Early Mormon documents.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:30:07] That's right.

Sandra Tanner [00:30:08] And five volumes, six volumes of that. I don't, I think it's. Yeah, I should know, but it was a long time ago. It's half a bookshelf, you know.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:30:17] Yeah, I think it's, I want to

Sandra Tanner [00:30:19] say it's four, but it's a lot of volumes. It's a lot of volumes.

Quinn as an Insider Critic of the Church

John Dehlin [00:30:23] Sandra, I'm curious. You know, whenever you could say critic or apostate or honest history teller, however you want to choose it, it almost seems like whenever one of that type of person emerges in the public Mormon consciousness, at some point a faithful, oftentimes on the church's payroll person emerges to kind of be the foil. And so, you know, it's interesting to me that you and Michael, you and Gerald and Michael are, are of similar ages and you're, you're starting to study and ask questions about Mormon history, you know, within a two or three year period of each other. Now, I don't know exactly when Quinn goes to grad, you know, undergrad in Yale, exactly the years he would.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:31:15] So he goes to BYU for his undergrad, he goes to the University of Utah for master's, and then he goes to Yale for PhD and do we agree with this is all in that. So he starts BYU in the 60s, serves a mission, and then, yeah, so late 60s, early 70s, he's at the U. And then he goes to yale in the 70s.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] So I'm wondering when Quinn, for you Sandra, would have emerged as a potential foil. And it sounds like it's when this Dr. Clandestine pamphlet comes out and Gerald's just trying to figure out who wrote it, but he knew Gerald knew enough to go to Quinn's Yale dissertation to find the tells in the dissertation. So I'm wondering when Quinn came into your and Gerald's mind, your consciousness as sort of a church paid foil to your criticisms of the church. Was it before the pamphlet and like. And if so, when that started happening, when you started realizing he was trying to neutralize your work, basically.

Sandra Tanner [00:32:25] Well, Gerald was aware of Quinn's dissertation, but I'm not Sure. Just what brought that to his attention, and it may be through early issues of BYU Studies or Dialogue or something. I don't remember when Quinn's earliest articles would have started appearing.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:32:49] Do you know, I think that Quinn. So when this pamphlet came out, challenging your work, Mormonism Shadow a Reality, Quinn was working for the Church History Division for Leonard Arrington. My guess is Gerald probably was looking at all the historians working there to try and figure out who had written this anonymous pamphlet and then started reading their works. So it mentions this in your biography, Lighthouse, how Gerald sees these really weird Latin phrases in that anonymous pamphlet. So I think he probably started going through all the historians working at the Church History Division, reading their works, and then when he saw that really weird

John Dehlin [00:33:29] Latin phrase, virgo propter hoc post, something

Barbara Jones Brown [00:33:32] like that, well, that's when he figured it out. It was Quinn.

Sandra Tanner [00:33:36] Well, we know from both Quinn's memoirs and from our biography that Ron Huggins wrote about us, the Lighthouse. I think Gerald was already aware of Quinn, and he may have even already read his dissertation. But the guess that it was Quinn came the year before, when Gerald was friends with Reed Durham, the institute director that did the paper on the Jupiter Talisman. But Gerald had got to be friends with Reed Durham, and they had talked at different times, sharing about different areas that they each were researching.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:32] I don't want to give the impression that Reed was sympathetic to our point of view, but it's just like Gerald's friendship with Ogden Kraut, the polygamist. Gerald was always interested in talking with anyone who was doing factual history, no matter what side they were coming from. They all want to see the same documents, even if they come to different conclusions.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:57] So Reid had already mentioned to Gerald that the Church Historian's office was thinking of doing a rebuttal, and the name of Michael Quinn had come up at that time as a possible person to do such a thing. And Gerald had just made notes about it and put them away in a file and hadn't really thought about it until the anonymous historian's response to Shadow Reality came out. And so that then drove Gerald back to going through his files, trying to find that note he'd made. And. And when he saw that the name Mike Quinn was on his little notes, he thought, oh, I better look into him, because he may be the one that did this.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:40] But at the time of the rebuttal to us, I think there were other people trying to figure out who it was as well. And. And they had some thought that it might have been. Was it Bush Or Bushman. Bushman. Richard Bushman. Bushman might have been one of the authors.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:36:00] Yeah, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:01] And Arrington had been suspected. But because Gerald had this clue that maybe Mike might be involved, he went back and looked at his thesis again and saw all these Latin phrases in it. But the one that stood out was the post hoc ergo proctor hawk.

John Dehlin [00:36:21] We got to remember that.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:22] I will never remember that.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:36:24] Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:36:25] It's a logical fallacy, I think.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:28] So Gerald's reading through the anonymous historian. Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. And so Gerald's like, ah, okay, there's a clue. Even reading his memoirs, he doesn't put in the post hoc ergo one. I don't think.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:36:43] Yeah, he never figures out how Gerald figured it out, that he knew it was Mike. He's just shocked that Gerald calls him

Sandra Tanner [00:36:50] and says that Mike does use the Latin phrases several times in his memoirs. Oh yeah, not that particular one throughout here. But he does, he loves you. Read along here. Every once in a while I'll hit one. And I thought, oh, that's a Quinnism.

The Confrontation with Gerald Tanner

John Dehlin [00:37:08] What'd you think about the confrontation as related by D. Michael Quinn in his book with Gerald? Did it feel accurate? Did it feel embellished? Did it feel one sided to you

Sandra Tanner [00:37:21] of what Quinn writes about?

John Dehlin [00:37:23] Yeah, Quinn recounting his confrontations with Gerald?

Sandra Tanner [00:37:28] Well, I think he sees Gerald as having more sinister motives than I see Gerald as having. But like when Gerald later Prince Quinn's talk he gave at BYU on being a Mormon historian, that got Quinn in trouble. Quinn comments that he thought Gerald was just retaliating against him for Quinn writing the rebuttal against us. And I don't think Gerald thought that way.

Sandra Tanner [00:37:58] I think in Gerald's mind it was two different incidences. Quinn had done the pamphlet, but then on this talk Gerald thought it was important. He was afraid the talk would be squelched and people wouldn't see that their own historians felt there was a problem with the way the church handled history, that their own historians were calling for an open history and the church was pushing back. So his idea was that this talk needs to go out to a broader audience. And I don't think in his mind it was really a retaliation, a revenge, a revenge kind of thing. Cheryl didn't really think that way.

Sandra Tanner [00:38:41] That's why he could be friends with different people that had different beliefs. Believers, unbelievers. I mean we were friends through the years with atheist historians, polygamist historians, you know, the, the whole gamut. I mean I was kind of friends with T. Edgar Lyon. Who did the research on the. A lot of the work on the Nauvoo restoration stuff, but. And he used to stop into the bookstore.

John Dehlin [00:39:09] Really?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:39:09] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:39:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:10] That's cool.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:39:11] My dad, who was very devout, would. He had three haunts. When he came into Utah, he'd visit Benchmark Books, Ken Sanders, and Utah Lighthouse Ministry. He loved to hang out with the Tanner.

Sandra Tanner [00:39:25] Right. So, I mean, we. Although we're painted as, you know, these ogres, we actually can sit down and have a good discussion and talk with people from different points of view. Gerald was kind of like a kid in a candy store talking to different historians. These are my people. These are people that know the documents I'm looking at. It's someone to talk to that, you know, most of our friends think we're crazy, and I can't. When you get deep into Mormon history, it narrows the field of how many people.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:40:01] How many nerds are interesting, Nerds are there.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:04] Then we can talk about all the nitty gritty of. Did you read this page? You know, exactly.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:40:11] And my dad used to say the same thing. He used to say, these are my people. These are my fellow nerds.

John Dehlin [00:40:18] So do you remember once Gerald had. Once Gerald discovered D. Michael Quinn was the author of Dr. Clandestine, had the confrontation. Oh, and by the way, Quinn lies to Gerald and says he's not the guy. Did Gerald buy it? Did Gerald not buy it? Do you remember?

Sandra Tanner [00:40:36] Oh, no. Gerald was sure he was lying. When Arrington lies to him as well and says he doesn't know anything about it, Gerald felt they both were lying to him, but he had no way to prove otherwise. But no, he wasn't persuaded by either of their comments that they had nothing to do with it. He realized the game was, you know, these guys, jobs are probably on the line, they have to lie. And so he's disappointed in them. And I think they were disappointed in themselves. I think Arrington and Quinn both were remorseful that they had to lie to Gerald because there's a certain irony in this whole thing. We're the big liars, but now that

Barbara Jones Brown [00:41:21] we're more mistaken, we're like, telling the truth. We're the truth tellers, but we're lying about truth telling. Yeah. I mean, and Quinn mentions that in his memoir. He talks about his regret in lying about it.

John Dehlin [00:41:32] And he mentions lying for the Lord, basically.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:34] Yeah, that's the start of the line.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:41:35] For the Lord. I mean, he doesn't use that term. Not exactly, but he does express regret. But especially Leonard Arrington. In Leonard Arrington's diaries that we've also published. He writes there that he regrets having to lie, but he says it's something I had to do for the church or the king. He doesn't use the term lying for the Lord, but yeah, he says he

John Dehlin [00:41:57] uses a similar term.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:41:58] A similar term. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So they both regret it. But then I asked Sandra, did they ever apologize to you? And she said, no, no, it never

Sandra Tanner [00:42:09] came up in conversation.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:42:11] Yeah, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:15] But it is kind of ironic that that situation came about.

John Dehlin [00:42:19] I always felt, okay, wait, I'm sorry. He says, life for God. Yeah, right.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:23] Life for God.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Life for God, not life of the Lord. So that's pretty close.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:27] Oh, it's very close. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] Okay.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:42:28] And did Quinn say that you maybe read that sentence? Does he say that?

John Dehlin [00:42:32] He. It says, as advocates of the new Mormon history, we were caught in the. I didn't need my glasses. We were caught in the tangled web of our best intentions of faith. I feel embarrassed empathy for LDS headquarters and its generations of compromising defenders. In his plan account, in his plain account of Christian perfection, Methodist founder John Wesley had described such compromise as the quote, life for God.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:43:10] Right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:11] Anyway, that's not like that.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:43:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's quoting John Wesley.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:43:19] Another interesting thing on that Quinn pamphlet is when all this stuff comes out, then you have in 1978, he gets. Quinn gets a death threat because from one of our fans, I guess, Quinn writes, I became terrified for myself and family when a man phoned our house tonight asking about the anonymous response. He threatened to blood atone me for this attack on the Tanner.

Sandra Tanner [00:43:55] I quickly changed our number, kept it out of future phone books and left it unlisted at 411 information. So he was, he goes on, he says, I couldn't do anything about the publicity and felt really anxious about being murdered by some anti Mormon crackpot.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:23] Well, let's talk about the other side of that. We were always in the phone book. We were always, you could always find our address or phone number. And we were always worried about some Mormon crackpot that might decide they're going to help God out by getting rid of the opposition.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] When people have come to me and said, john, aren't you afraid to do Mormon stories that, you know, someone might hurt you? I'm like, well, Michael Quinn and Sandra Tanner are still alive.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:44:51] They survived it.

John Dehlin [00:44:56] What's those canaries? Did the coal mine drop? Then I'll start to get worried is what I would say.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:45:01] And I would just recommend. So we had just published Lighthouse this biography of the Tanner as I'm editing Chosen Path. And it was so fun to read what Mike is writing, his side of the story, and then the Tanner side of the story. So if people want to just really get into this intrigue and this conflict of what's going on in the 70s and 80s in Mormon history, read those two books together. It's fascinating.

John Dehlin [00:45:23] So, Sandra, after. After Gerald and, you know, confronted D. Michael and D. Michael lied, and Gerald knew that D. Michael had lied. From that point forward, did you and Gerald think of him as a foil to what you were trying to do? Was he a nemesis? Did he even rise to that level of prominence and continue at that sort of level of prominence in your minds or not?

Sandra Tanner [00:45:50] Well, we kind of viewed him as a little more fair than the true opposition. I mean, the other side would have been Apostle Packer, who was Quinn's arch nemesis. They were.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:46:11] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:46:12] Yeah. So that's all the way through the book, too, is Quinn's struggle with Apostle Packer is always on a witch hunt to subvert his research some way or stop his career or something. Just quite a different look of general authorities than the average person would have of the men at the top. And Quinn saw him as someone different than the rest of the men. He had fond memories and associations with different church leaders, but not Packer. He had a real struggle.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:46:53] That's understating it, Sandra.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] Yeah.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:46:57] Quinn's, as you mentioned, there were some leaders he really looked up to and had a great relationship with. One of them is President Spencer W. Kimball. Very close with him, saw him almost as a father figure. And then also Marion D. Hanks, who was a general authority in the LDS Church for 40 years.

John Dehlin [00:47:16] I think Hanks succeeded Woodbury as mission president.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:47:21] Yes. He comes in. Yeah. So he was D. Michael Quinn's mission president in the British mission. Incidentally, Mary D. Hanks was also Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's mission president, the young Jeffrey R. Holland's mission president, and Quentin L. Cook, who both of those two men went on to become LDS apostles they are today. But Quinn was also in that same mission. So Mary D. Hanks was hugely influential in their lives and in Quinn's life. And incidentally, we are going to be publishing the biography of Mary D. Hanks very soon, this spring by signature, so.

Sandra Tanner [00:47:56] Wow.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:47:57] Yeah.

Leonard Arrington, the Church History Department, and Demotion

Sandra Tanner [00:47:58] I thought it was interesting in the book when it talks about Quinn, not Quinn, but Arrington being demoted and then is sent down to BYU to run history department things down there. And Mike Quinn talks about how Arrington felt about being taken out of the historians department and sent to byu. And Arrington makes some comment to the effect that, well, that now we can just be concerned about writing real history and we don't have to worry about being under the gun as the official church answer on everything. That when you're the church historian, everyone's looking to you for the church official answer. And I think he felt a sense of relief of not carrying that burden because that implies with it that you give more faith promoting slants to things than he felt comfortable doing.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:04] And by going to BYU to do further history, I think he felt he was more free to tell it like it is and to although he still was trying to be faithful to Mormonism, but to be more frank about the warts and wrinkles in Mormonism and not gloss them all over as though everything was 100% beautiful.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:49:31] Quinn also says about that incident. He says Leonard's optimism just broke my heart, just made me want to cry, ever the optimist. And I did. I'm friends with Leonard's daughter, Susan Arrington Matson, and she told me actually her father was just devastated by that. But Leonard did tend to be. I've read through much of his diaries. He did tend to be really optimistic, always about things, almost boyish in his optimism.

John Dehlin [00:50:01] Sandra, did D. Michael Quinn ever come to your store or did y' all ever meet at MHAs or did you have any direct conversations after that phone call with Gerald throughout your life and his that you remember?

Sandra Tanner [00:50:17] Well, there were some different times when he'd give a paper at Sunstone or Mormon history or something that where I might have asked a question and not questions to trip him up, just questions about historical items, for instance.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:38] And I don't remember if this was Mormon history or what, but he was talking on post manifesto polygamy at one of these symposiums or conferences. And I asked the question of him and I'm sure he knew who I was.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:55] Most people recognize me when I'm around at Mormon history. I asked him if he had carried his research beyond that first generation of people that practice polygamy. After the manifesto, did you do any research on the next generation? Did their children continue with. Did any of them continue with polygamy? And he said no, he hadn't been able to get into taking it another generation down.

Sandra Tanner [00:51:31] And I commented that the reason I brought it up is that my great grandpa was. What was his name? Walter Young. My grandpa was Walter Young. He was the son of Brigham Young Jr. And although Brigham Young Jr. Married my grandma, great grandma before the manifesto, it was in 1887, but it was during the period when the church was all the leaders were in hiding for living polygamy. It wasn't a time when it was okay with the government to be taking more plural wives. But he went ahead and took this plural wife in 1887. But what we didn't know until after my grandma died, going through her papers, is that he had married at least one or two women post manifesto in polygamy.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:35] And then my great grandma evidently was asked to go into polygamy. And my grandma was asked to go into polygamy by Walter, who was the son of this apostle who was raised in a home that was a product of post manifesto polygamy in the family. And so my grandpa had asked my grandma if he could take a plural wife.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:11] And so she has this great story of having a vision where God shows her that they're not to go into polygamy. And so she tells Walter this, and she thinks this puts an end to it. Well, then when we go through my grandma's papers after she died, we find this postcard that's addressed, it's to my beloved husband Walter, and blah, blah, blah, and hope you can see the kid, the boys want to see you, blah, blah, blah. And then it's got this name. It's not anybody we know. This is a postcard for some woman writing to Walter about hope you can come see the boys.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:49] And we have no idea who this person is. It's postmarked in the town we know they lived in. It's a postmark where my uncle was born in the same area, so we know they lived there. So who's this woman that sends Walter this postcard about coming to see the boys?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:11] So the assumption is that it was a post manifesto polygamy. This would have had to have been after 1900. And so I'd asked Quinn about, did you do the next generation down? And he said, no. But my reason for asking was it looked like my family, where you have a general authority son, had continued polygamy after the manifesto, after 1900, to continue it down, which I think is still an interesting thing. I don't know how well anyone could research it, but I would be curious how many of the people's next generation felt they had to live polygamy after the second manifesto even.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:54:56] Yeah. So as you mentioned, Mike did this dialogue article on that. And he also. His magnum opus was supposed to be two books on postmodern manifesto polygamy. And if you'll recall, that was the first thing as a teen, and then as a student at byu, he's. That makes him start questioning things like in church history that aren't talked about. But anyway, so his magnum opus was going to be these two volumes on post manifesto polygamy. He writes about it in his memoir. And I will just share that his children found what he had done on those two volumes. And I've been in talks with them about taking those, editing them and publishing them. So we may have one more or two more books from D. Michael Quinn on his work on post manifesto polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:55:42] That's fun. Yeah. And I asked that question, Sandra, because it just seems like y' all would have been natural collaborators, not collaborators.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:55:51] Yeah. Because you had different end goals.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:54] Yeah.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:55:54] Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:55] Well, I think there would have both

John Dehlin [00:55:56] wanted to discern the truth about the history.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:55:59] Right. But with different ends in mind. Mike, to keep people in the church. Sandra and Gerald to say, well, maybe help you out.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:07] No, no, I'm sorry, but I guess

John Dehlin [00:56:09] I'm saying Sandra just got through telling us 30 minutes ago that she and Gerald didn't care. She would have friends of believers, non believers. Atheists.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:56:16] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:56:17] Christians, Non Christians. Just because. At least for Sandra and Gerald, it didn't matter what the faith politics were. But I guess we're saying maybe for Michael, it would have.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:28] Well, it would have been a little more awkward because it had been such a personal issue between Gerald and Mike.

John Dehlin [00:56:39] Maybe Mike was embarrassed.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:41] No, I think Gerald would have felt uncomfortable with. With

John Dehlin [00:56:47] hanging around Mike, with

Sandra Tanner [00:56:51] being able to view him that neutrally, like he did with Ogden Kraut, the polygamist, or talking with Reed Durham, because they had not taken any written stand to denounce us or call us out.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:57:07] And throughout Quinn's memoir, he says, throughout the memoir, he does not like the Tanner. Yeah, yeah, he does not like the Tanner. And that never changes.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:16] Yeah. So I think it would have been too awkward. But I think that he and Gerald, had there not been the pamphlet, would have had a lot of common ground in their research.

John Dehlin [00:57:31] Like you said, the early Mormonism, the Magic Worldview and the Origins and Extensions of Power. Y' all were cheering him on, I'm sure. Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:40] Well, we carried his books in the bookstore, which got us in trouble with the faithful Mormons. Lou Mitchley came in. And wasn't it Lou Mitchley that came in and castigated me one day for carrying Quinn's books?

Barbara Jones Brown [00:57:58] Lou Mitchley was an LDS apologist. And Quinn couldn't stand him either.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:03] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:58:03] I took Classes from Lou Midgley.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:58:05] Oh, really?

John Dehlin [00:58:05] Yeah. So I knew him.

Barbara Jones Brown [00:58:07] Interesting.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:08] Yeah, he's all through the book.

John Dehlin [00:58:09] Oh, he is? Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:10] He came in one day and really carried on with, how could I handle those books by that gay man? And it was much more vulgar than that. Or I shouldn't say vulgar necessarily, but more caustic. And I just said, look, I don't know the family situation of most of the authors of the books in my store.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:36] That's not my issue of what their family dynamics is. I go by the research, and he's got a lot of good research. So that's what I'm looking at, even though we don't have the same conclusions. But that was true of many of the Mormon historians that we sold in our bookstore, that I could deal with the fact that they came to their different conclusion at the end because they had valid historical research in the book.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:05] So we, in a sense, were champions of Quinn's after his little pamphlet against us in that we sold his books and recommended his books to people. If they asked me about, like, Mormon hierarchy stuff, I tell them, look, here's the books you need. Mormon hierarchy origins, extensions of power, you know, and so it was a awkward friendship, but we didn't know each other personally, so Makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:59:43] What a weird thing for Midgley to. I mean, the fact that you were well known apostates, that he would come in your bookstore and tell you not to sell, to tell you what books you should and shouldn't publish.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:53] It's like he came in with a deliberate motive of trying to get me angry. He wanted a confrontation that he could go boast about how belligerent and mean the Tanner are. He went around to different critical sources and would. I mean, he was famous for this, of trying to get a rise out of people.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:22] And so he was just being very rude to me and very dismissive and just snide. But this is when Gerald was going into his Alzheimer's, and I think this is in our Lighthouse book. Dear sweet Gerald, he was in the back and heard Midgley ragging on me and thought he was being rude to me. And so he comes in to save the day and opens the door to the bookstore and tells him, I think we've heard enough. I think it's time for you to go home. And he opens the door for Lou to leave. And so he later writes this up on the Internet. It's still up on the Internet, I'm sure, the day that Gerald Tanner threw him out of the bookstore.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:09] And it just was so funny. When I read that, I thought, you know, here's milquetoast Gerald opening the door and saying, we're done, you're leaving.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:01:19] That's so interesting, your relationship with Midgley, because. Yeah. Quinn White's in the memoir about how he could not stand Lou Midgley. Yeah. Interesting.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:28] Well, he was the. I think he saw himself as the champion of the true cause, and anyone that was a fraction off from what he perceived to be the truth was his enemy, and he would just set out to deride or dismiss or start talk about the person to diminish them in other people's eyes. But he had quite a bad reputation in that regard.

John Dehlin [01:02:00] Yeah, it was like, hunibly, then Midgley, then Daniel Peterson. Like, there's a long. That'd be a fun book is the History of Mormon Apologists. Kind of prominent, sharp elbowed Mormon apologists. That'd be.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:02:13] Do you want to write it, John?

John Dehlin [01:02:16] Maybe. Maybe. Okay.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:20] So.

John Dehlin [01:02:21] Well, that's classy that y' all were willing to recognize his value as a scholar and help him sell books even though he had done y' all a dirty. Yeah, that's nice. So any other important reflections? Like, so Arrington and the Church history department gets kind of shut down. Quinn goes to byu. There's the Hoffman stuff.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:02:45] Harrington goes to byu, not Quinn.

John Dehlin [01:02:47] Didn't they both.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:02:49] No, Quinn.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:51] Well, Quinn went to byu, but not at the time that Arrington went down.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:02:54] He didn't go with Arrington's.

John Dehlin [01:02:55] He went way.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:02:56] I think he was at Yale. Quinn later becomes a professor of history at byu. He's tired.

John Dehlin [01:03:03] Oh, sorry.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:03:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:04] That was a different time. That was a different time.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:03:06] Okay. Yeah. But he ends up being a professor there later.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] Okay.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:03:10] Yeah, professor of history.

John Dehlin [01:03:12] Got it. Okay. And Arrington didn't become a professor of history when he went to be.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:03:17] No, he. No, he did as well, but it was like the whole. What was called Camelot, but the church history division at the time is shut down. And it's in 1981, which, incidentally, is when Signature Books was started. And that was intentional by the owner. And they're sent down to byu, kind of demoted, if you will. And they're with. I think it's called the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute or the Joseph F. Smith Institute. I always forget which F. I think it's Fielding, but yes, Joseph Fielding Smith Institute. And I think Quinn is either at Yale or. Anyways, when Quinn finishes his PhD at Yale, then he starts at applying for professorships and he's hired by BYU to be a professor of History. So it's not with like.

John Dehlin [01:04:02] So there was a gap between him leaving the Church History department and him joining byu.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:04:07] Yes, exactly.

Quinn's Excommunication and Legacy

John Dehlin [01:04:09] Sandra, did you notice that, And I think we talked about this with Moshe Barbara, that Quinn sort of attributes the whole Dr. Clandestine fiasco as the first final undoing of the Arrington administration.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:04:25] Yeah. Quinn says he believes that in his memoir. So I looked at Arrington's diary for the same time, and Arrington's writing about being sent to byu. He doesn't say anything about the pamphlet. He writes about the pamphlet. He writes about being figured out and discovered by Gerald and how he's embarrassed that he lies about it and so forth. But Arrington doesn't say that that incident is the reason why he's demoted. And if you look in Arrington's diaries and also in this memoir, there's all kinds of conflicts going on between Leonard Arrington and G. Homer Durham, who was the General authority adviser over the Church History Division. So I think there were a lot of things, but in Quinn's mind, it's him. He's the reason why Leonard's demoted.

John Dehlin [01:05:07] What did you think about. Did you. Did that strike you as interesting, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [01:05:12] Yeah, I noticed that, but I. With Quinn all along in reading his story, there's so much other stuff going on around him that there's a bigger story to view. The Camelot years and what's going on through Arrington's period covers a lot more events than just what Quinn's life covers.

Sandra Tanner [01:05:43] And so if you wanted to get a real view of that time period, there's several books you'd have to read to flesh that out. Arrington's diary, biography, whatever, would be one of the things you'd have to add to Quinn. But I think you also would need something like Our Lighthouse to give you some of the conflicts that they don't talk about. So there were a lot of conflicts going on. I mean, we had our lawsuit with Andrew Ehat over the Clayton diary thing, and then the Church sued us in 1999, 2000 time period over the Church handbook stuff. There you have the September 6th teascop, which Quinn touches on, but very briefly, I felt, in his memoirs.

Sandra Tanner [01:06:44] That's a more complicated story than just what he dealt with of all the different people that were involved. Well, he gives a little bit of a run through of the different people. But there was so much going on in that time period on so many fronts. The Church must have just been leader, must have been tearing their hair out of these little fires that are Popping up all the time, all over the place on different aspects of church history, different aspects of theology, on feminism, gay rights. It isn't just history. There's the black issue, the priesthood issue, the just general different scholarship, scholarship on their scriptures, challenges to the Book of Mormon, challenges to the Book of Abraham, challenges to the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:45] There were just so many different areas that were being challenged. It was like you could just put all the topics of Mormonism on a dartboard, put on a blindfold and throw the dart, and you had hit something that was being written about or people were worked up about, or people getting fired over through that whole time period. So I think Quinn has a little bit of tunnel vision on seeing his participation as a heavier weight, that there were. He was a factor, but there were many other factors. And like the September 6th thing, there was, each of those people had their own struggles with the brethren and the Church and with research and history and all.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:40] So that Quinn might have felt that his dealings with us were the final blow. But I would say it's one of them. There was a whole ream of papers you could have written on other problem areas that were facing the church at that time that brought things to the conclusion of we got to shut down the church historians department.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:09:09] I think that kind of comes out throughout the memoir. Quinn. See, and of course, it's him telling him his own story. Right. And each one of us, if we were to write a memoir, an autobiography, we would be the center of that story. Right. But he does tend to see himself as the center of everything that's going on. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] So what was it like, Sandra, to have been on the receiving end of Michael Quinn's apologetics, you being a target, you seeing him as a faithful historian that you were cheering on only, you know, 20 years later, to see him on the receiving end of an excommunication? What was that like for you to witness the guy who had been attacking you as a believer to see him get excommunicated?

Sandra Tanner [01:09:57] Well, I felt sorry for Quinn. I didn't feel to rejoice over that. It was just part of that whole sad story of how everyone. It seemed like that the faithful historians for the last 30 years had been systematically cut off some way because they were too frank. And we.

Sandra Tanner [01:10:33] We felt it was a great disservice to the community to stop all these people's research. So we didn't rejoice over his excommunication. We felt for him that his own people had turned on him. I mean, here's and reading through the book, when I got through, I thought, this poor guy, he wanted to be the greatest Mormon historian and the greatest defender of the faith.

Sandra Tanner [01:10:58] And that very effort is the one thing he was cut off from really fulfilling. He did his best to tell history the way he saw it. And even though I disagree with some of his conclusions, he was being true to himself on trying to write up the church history, and I can respect that in him. And I felt for him that his own church didn't value him more as someone who wanted so much to be accepted by that community and have them not see his value.

Sandra Tanner [01:11:38] So I thought, it's a very sad ending to his life. I felt bad for his whole family that it just. He accomplished so much, and yet to end up alone in his apartment at the end. It was just, to me, very sad.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:12:01] Yeah. And I would just add, talking to his children. And I agree that all of the things you said, Sandra, the only thing I might disagree with is his children said, no, dad wasn't alone. Yeah, he lived in California, but we were in constant contact, and, you know, we saw him at holidays, and so they've never thought of their dad as being alone. That was comforting for me to hear, too, because.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:12:24] Yeah. You know, just to know that he did have his very much the love and the contact with his family, and he was communicating with the historical community, too. He was mentoring people. You know, Sarah Patterson, who wrote the September 6th and the struggle for the Soul of Mormonism? She talked about being a graduate student at Claremont Graduate University, and D. Michael Quinn coming and lecturing to them and how kind he was to her and encouraging he was to her. So I do think we. We can, as a community, take comfort in. He actually didn't necessarily see himself as alone, so that's comforting. But, yeah, the way he was rejected by the church and excommunicated by the church that he loved so dearly, and he wanted to help by telling the truth about his history. That part is very tragic, and it comes out throughout the memoir. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] Did you ever find yourself puzzled, Sandra, by his continued belief after all he learned, and if so, how you make sense of that?

Sandra Tanner [01:13:27] Well, I guess people look at me the same way, but the spiritual side of him was a very big part of his life, and he put great confidence in his spiritual experiences and prayer times when he felt confirmation of his goals and direction for his life.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:13:57] So

Sandra Tanner [01:14:00] I puzzled how he could write what he did and come out the other side and say, joseph's a prophet of God. I mean, I Go through early Mormonism and the magic worldview, and I don't end up with someone that's a prophet of God.

Sandra Tanner [01:14:22] I go through Mormon hierarchy, origins of power, and extensions of power. I didn't read volume three, so I can't comment on that one. But I get through those and it doesn't raise confidence for me and in the leadership. In the leadership. So I don't know, how do you explain faith? How do you explain spiritual commitment?

Sandra Tanner [01:14:50] I find it very puzzling. But then I know a lot of people say that about me. I don't know how you could be a Christian and be researching and doing history. How can you still end up believing? So I guess Mike and I both end up with the same question to a lot of people. Why

Barbara Jones Brown [01:15:12] both of you with your faith intent?

Sandra Tanner [01:15:14] Because we both still maintained our faith in God and in Christ.

John Dehlin [01:15:18] And that's a fun parallel between you and D. Michael is you both will have maintained your faith in Christ until the very end.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:15:26] I keep thinking of this empty chair right here and wishing that Mike was still alive and that this conversation was going on with him here. Unfortunately, all we have is his book to refer to. But I think it would be. Be fascinating if Mike was with us and could. Could have this conversation with Sandra now.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:45] Yeah, but that's the way history goes. You can read the same documents and come up with different answers.

John Dehlin [01:15:51] So. Well, any other. You wrote down some stuff in that.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:55] No, that's. That's good.

John Dehlin [01:15:57] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:58] Yeah.

Closing Reflections and Book Recommendation

John Dehlin [01:15:58] So any. If you had to give a summary take on the book and a recommendation and anything else you want to share about D. Michael, what would your closing thoughts or comments be? Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [01:16:13] Well, I think if you're interested in the history of Mormonism, the last 60 years have been an important period of Mormonism, and maybe you could say that about every period, I don't know. But the awakening of. Of church history and the formation of professional historians dealing with Mormonism has been that story of the last 60 years. The same 60 years I went through deconverting. They went through trying to resolve all those problems so people wouldn't walk away like we did.

Sandra Tanner [01:16:57] And I think that Quinn's book is part of the story of that. The struggle of the church historians to tell the story the way they saw it, the way the documents led them, in spite of tremendous pressure from their own church leadership to squelch that very detailed history and give a smooth view that makes it seem that everyone always agreed with everyone.

Sandra Tanner [01:17:36] And one thing you find in Quinn's book is how Much of the different church leaders disagreed with each other, and I thought that was quite interesting. So I think if you're interested in how Quinn wrote all those fantastic research books that he did, if you've got his books, you'll want to read his story. I think it fills out the picture of Mike Quinn that you don't get from just reading his research books. So I thought it was fascinating. It helped me have a.

Sandra Tanner [01:18:17] A fuller appreciation of Mike and a greater understanding of him and his efforts at writing. Even though we don't end up at the same spot at the end,

John Dehlin [01:18:29] all the same spots, but you end up in some of the same.

Sandra Tanner [01:18:33] We all end up still believing in Christ and. And wanting people to join us in serving God. So in that sense, and loving his. And love Inspiring history. Interesting, Right?

John Dehlin [01:18:46] Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:18:47] Yeah, but. But the details end up a little different.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:18:50] Yeah. You know, there's two. There's two themes that come out in this memoir. One is Quinn's life as a devout and for much of his life, closeted gay Latter Day Saint man and what it was like to. To be that person in the second half of the 20th century.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:19:13] And I love that yesterday, you just released Yesterday the interview with Moshe Quinn, Mike's son, in which we delved into that aspect of Mike's life and that part of this memoir. And then I love that today Sandra's here and we're talking about the other major theme in this book, which is Mike as a historian, who's a pioneering scholar of Mormon history in the latter part of the 20th century and into the 21st century. He's a pioneer in both these areas. And so today's episode, of course, focused on that historical side. And then anyone who wants to look at his life as a devout gay Latter Day Saint man can listen to the interview with Moshe Quinn. So we covered both aspects, those two huge parts of Mike's life.

John Dehlin [01:20:01] So, viewers and listeners, here's your homework. Pull up Amazon right now and fill up your cart with the following Early Mormonism in the Magic Worldview

Barbara Jones Brown [01:20:13] Mormon Hierarchy

John Dehlin [01:20:14] Series, Mormon Hierarchy, Origins of Power, and Mormon Hierarchy Extensions of Power. And then round that out with Chosen the Memoir D. Michael Quinn and Lighthouse,

Sandra Tanner [01:20:26] Help Me Out, Lighthouse, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, despised, Beloved critics of Mormonism.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:20:34] The biography of the Tanner is fantastic, too.

John Dehlin [01:20:37] And if you want to throw something else in, throw in the Leonard Arrington biography.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:20:40] The Leonard Arrington Diaries is the best one, which is his Annotated Diaries by Gary Bergera.

John Dehlin [01:20:47] That'd be a good read. That's a good reading. List.

Sandra Tanner [01:20:49] Oh.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:20:49] If you want to dig deep. Yeah. It's fascinating.

John Dehlin [01:20:53] And then hold out for the Post manifesto polygamy book. Yet to come.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:20:59] Yet to come by quiz. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:21:03] All right. Well, Barbara, thanks for all you and your team are doing from George Smith on down at Signature Books, because, you know, we wouldn't be able to be having all these conversations without the great work of you and Signature Books and

Barbara Jones Brown [01:21:19] our great authors and great subjects in these books.

John Dehlin [01:21:22] And, Sandra, it's so fun to get you out of retirement. How does it feel to be out

Barbara Jones Brown [01:21:26] of retirement to have a homework assignment?

Sandra Tanner [01:21:28] Yes.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:21:28] From John Bowen.

Sandra Tanner [01:21:32] Yeah, it's good.

John Dehlin [01:21:33] So what's it like being retired? Have you enjoyed it? Has it met your expectations?

Sandra Tanner [01:21:38] I love it. Yeah? Yes.

John Dehlin [01:21:40] Do you want me to leave you alone? Would you like me to leave you alone?

Sandra Tanner [01:21:42] No, I don't mind popping in once in a while. It's just nice not to be required to pop in all the time. I get to choose.

John Dehlin [01:21:53] So our are you ready for your next assignment or not yet?

Sandra Tanner [01:21:56] Well, depend on how big the book is.

John Dehlin [01:21:59] Okay. All right, Barbara, we'll put our heads together. We'll come up with Sandra's next assignment.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:22:04] Fantastic.

John Dehlin [01:22:05] And it's full and conformed consent. Sandra, you can either accept or reject the assignment. Is that all right?

Sandra Tanner [01:22:11] All right.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] Well, it's lovely to have you, Sandra. Thank you so much. You're welcome back anytime in our studio. We love you.

Sandra Tanner [01:22:18] All right, thank you.

John Dehlin [01:22:20] And Barbara, same for you. This is like fourth or fifth time. Like, fourth time we got to keep meeting. Like, stop and keep meeting like this. Thanks so much.

Barbara Jones Brown [01:22:27] Too many good books to talk about.

John Dehlin [01:22:29] Yeah. Well, let's have you back as soon as we have another book.

Sandra Tanner [01:22:33] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:22:34] All right. And thanks forever for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. This was fun. Hope you liked it. Please comment. Please subscribe. Please, like, please share. If you want to become a donor, please go to to MormonStories.org, become a monthly donor. We appreciate it. Thanks to Julia and Maven and Gerardo and Brooklyn and our board for keeping all the wheels on the wagon. And please check out Benchmark Books and all the other great bookstores around town. Support Mormon scholarship. Support Mormon bookstores. What's the one in Provo?

Barbara Jones Brown [01:23:10] Brad Kramer, so written vision and pioneer book in Provo. I know that Pioneer book has signed copies of Chosen Path right now signed by Moshe, myself and annotators. And then also Ken Sanders is another great local bookstore in Salt Lake City. Benchmark, I know has signed copies. So please support local bookstores when you can.

John Dehlin [01:23:33] All right. Thanks, everyone. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.