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Mormon Alliance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mormon Alliance (originally the Mormon Defense League,[1][2] but not to be conflated with a later organization of that name) was founded on July 4, 1992 by Paul Toscano to counter perceived spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to protect the Church against defamatory actions.[3] During the next few months, the trustees established a broad range of supporting purposes: providing a comprehensive definition of spiritual abuse, working to reconcile leaders and members who were out of harmony, establishing a Members’ Bill of Rights,[4] providing a forum for a reasonable and tempered discussion of governance in the Church, critiquing general conference, and identifying and documenting cases of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse. Janice Merrill Allred and Lavina Fielding Anderson, two of the trustees, became co-chairs of the Case Reports Committee in the fall of 1992 and still serve in those positions. Toscano and Fielding Anderson were excommunicated by the Church following their actions.[5][6]

The Alliance published a quarterly newsletter from Fall 1993 to January 2006,[7] as well as three volumes of case reports online and in print.[8][9] The Alliance also sponsored quarterly meetings,[10] two of which would follow Church General Conferences and one in conjunction with the Sunstone symposium held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

References

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  1. ^ Baer, Hans A. (September 1996). "Do Mormonism and the Former German Democratic Republic Have Anything in Common?: An Examination of Marx's Concept of the Asiatic Mode of Production". Dialectical Anthropology. 21 (3/4). Springer: 345–362. doi:10.1007/BF00245773. JSTOR 29790435. S2CID 143756219.
  2. ^ "Mormon church said to be keeping files on dissenters". Times-News. August 15, 1992. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  3. ^ Peggy Fletcher Stack (1993-05-08). "Alliance Counters 'Spiritual Abuse'". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
  4. ^ Peggy Fletcher Stack (1992-10-03). "Mormon Faction Discusses 'Bill of Rights'". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
  5. ^ "Two Excommunicated by Mormon Church". The Boston Globe. 1993-09-21. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
  6. ^ Lynn Smith (1993-12-30). "Whatever Happened to... 1993". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-03-17.[dead link]
  7. ^ "Item Display - By common consent". Harold B. Lee Library. Retrieved 2014-07-08. Numbering started over in 1995.
  8. ^ Ostling, Richard; Ostling, Joan K. (2007-10-09). Mormon America - Revised and Updated Edition: The Power and the Promise. HarperCollins. pp. 359–. ISBN 9780061432958. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  9. ^ Case reports of the Mormon Alliance. Mormon Alliance. 1996.
  10. ^ "Faith in Action". Salt Lake Tribune. January 12, 2002. p. C2. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
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