Lavina Fielding Anderson
Lavina Fielding Anderson (born 13 April 1944 in Shelley, Idaho) is a Latter-day Saint scholar, writer, editor, and feminist. Anderson holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington. Her editing credits include Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (1987) and Tending the Garden: Essays on Mormon Literature (1996), as well as the Ensign, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History, Mormon Women's Forum Quarterly, and Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance. In 2001, Anderson published a critical edition of Lucy Mack Smith's memoir: Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's family memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001).
Anderson is one of the original trustees of the Mormon Alliance, founded in 1992 to document allegations of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In 1993, Anderson published a chronology documenting cases of what she regarded as spiritual abuse by LDS Church leaders during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. This article became grounds[1] for her excommunication on charges of apostasy in September 1993, as one of the September Six. Anderson remains as active in the LDS Church as her excommunicant status allows; in 1996, she was described by Levi S. Peterson as exemplary of an emerging "church in exile" composed of faithful excommunicants. In 2019, her local stake leaders reconvened her court, and recommended her rebaptism to the First Presidency; this was rejected without a reason, nor conditions for reinstatement.[2] In 2020, Signature Books published an anthology of 18 of her essays reflecting on her 25 years attending church as an excommunicant.
She was married to Paul L. Anderson from 1977 until his death in 2018.
Selected works
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- Anderson, Lavina Fielding (Spring 1993). "The LDS intellectual community and church leadership: A contemporary chronology" (PDF). Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 26 (1): 7–64.
- "Freedom of Conscience: A Personal Statement". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 26 (4): 196–202. Winter 1993. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13.
- "A Decade on the Thin Edge" (PDF). Sunstone. 28 (5): 28–31. December 2003.
- Mercy without End: Toward a More Inclusive Church. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books. 2020. p. 288. ISBN 978-1560852834.
- Peterson, Levi S (Winter 1996). "Lavina Fielding Anderson and the power of a church in exile". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 29 (4): 169–78. Archived from the original on 2011-06-14.
- Moloney, Karen Marguerite (Fall 2003). "Saints for all seasons: Lavina Fielding Anderson and Bernard Shaw's Joan of Arc". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 36 (3): 27–39. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13.
- "Six intellectuals disciplined for apostasy" (PDF). Sunstone. 16 (6): 65–73. November 1993.
- Waterman, Bryan; Kagel, Brian (1998). The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. pp. 258–301.
See also
References
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Stack, Peggy Fletcher (5 Sep 2019). "Writer excommunicated during 'September Six' purge loses her bid to rejoin the LDS Church". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
External links
- The Mormon Alliance June 2014 (from April 2010 scrape by Archive.org)
- Lucy's Book edited by Lavina Fielding Anderson
- CS1 maint: archived copy as title
- Articles with short description
- Short description with empty Wikidata description
- AC with 0 elements
- 1944 births
- Living people
- People excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Editors of Latter Day Saint publications
- Historians of the Latter Day Saint movement
- People from Shelley, Idaho
- Historians from Idaho
- Mormon studies scholars
- Latter Day Saints from Idaho
- American Latter Day Saint writers
- University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni
- American women historians
- Critics of Mormonism
- 21st-century American historians
- Mormon feminists
- 21st-century American women