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The September Six and the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism
In the single month of September 1993, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated or disciplined six of its members. These six individuals–some of them intellectuals, some activists, and some both–were soon dubbed the “September Six.” In The September Six and the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism, Sara M. Patterson challenges readers to think more deeply about the events of that month and the era in which they unfolded. Patterson argues that the clever alliterative phrase “September Six” masks our ability to see that what happened that month was part of a much broader, decades-long cultural and theological debate over the nature of the church and its restoration narrative. During those decades the institutional church invested in and policed a purity system, expecting believers to practice doctrinal, familial, and bodily purity. Dissenters within the institution pushed back, imagining instead a vision of the Restoration that embraced personal conscience, truth-seeking and telling, and social egalitarianism at its core. Both sides were profoundly shaped by the cultural milieu that surrounded them. What happened in September 1993 continues to echo in the church today, having lasting effects on the institution, its believers, and the broader culture.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 25, 2023
17 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 8, 2024
Brilliant framing of institutional responses of restoration movements to those they consider threats And why. I thought Lavina’s story would be most gutting… but it was Quinn’s. Shocked an outside historian has this good of handle on internal dynamics tbh
January 9, 2024
Well-researched story about the background and culture which lead to the excommunication of several members from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in and around 1993. Interesting case study of organizational behavior in a religion that takes itself very seriously and believing members who are trying to follow the dictates of their own conscience. The main issues leading to these disciplinary actions include intellectualism, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, meaning of restoration, historical analysis, secrecy, obedience, and publicly airing grievances.
December 11, 2023
You may know the stories of the September Six. This book gives the context.
December 9, 2023
This book was fantastic. It covers the history of the 6 that were excommunicated. In its history, it provides new insights and perspectives that past histories have not included. It also expands the scope of the history to include more than the 6 from September, which made the reading more insightful and comprehensive. A must-read for anyone interested in Mormon studies.
August 1, 2024
Such a fantastic book. As an active LDS member, I think all LDS should read this. It tells the gutting stories of the September Six, six intellectuals (plus another who is rarely mentioned as his story takes place slightly after) who were excommunicated from the church, largely due to their progressive ideologies and refusal to toe the line. The line, in their cases, was the line of objective historical facts on one side and faith in the patriarchal, conservative, anti-intellectual “you don’t need to know the facts” responses that apostles such as Boyd K Packer fired down.
The conclusion was powerful. If you thought these issues were simply a product of the past, think again. Many of the church’s / CES’s / BYU’s stances have remained largely anti-intellectual inasmuch as those employed by the church are not allowed to publish objective histories but must publish in line with their endorsements as church employees now in the 2020s.
I hope that objective history and facts will come to see the light of day. Perhaps we are moving in a good direction (gospel topics essays, for example) but as long as stories such as the SAINTS “Faith promoting histories” are peddled as objective fact and not biased narratives chosen for an explicit purpose in promoting faith, then it shows the church is not serious about facts nor inquiry.
I believe, as some of the September Six did, that the church’s truth claims of the historicity and the truthfulness of the restoration and the core doctrine of the church CANNOT be refuted by historical inquiry. What the spirit has born witness of will not change. Is the church appealing to the least common denominator? Perhaps. But that also explains, in my mind, why so many people leave when they encounter difficult historical facts or events or opinions. It seems like the church is hiding the past to “promote faith” and encourages asking questions inasmuch as they aren’t too critical.
I took off a star because I’m not sure that I agree with the Purity System the author speaks of, and because it seemed to drag a bit (I listened to it). I think something like the purity system exists, but I’m not sure I like the term “purity” in this sense.
The conclusion was powerful. If you thought these issues were simply a product of the past, think again. Many of the church’s / CES’s / BYU’s stances have remained largely anti-intellectual inasmuch as those employed by the church are not allowed to publish objective histories but must publish in line with their endorsements as church employees now in the 2020s.
I hope that objective history and facts will come to see the light of day. Perhaps we are moving in a good direction (gospel topics essays, for example) but as long as stories such as the SAINTS “Faith promoting histories” are peddled as objective fact and not biased narratives chosen for an explicit purpose in promoting faith, then it shows the church is not serious about facts nor inquiry.
I believe, as some of the September Six did, that the church’s truth claims of the historicity and the truthfulness of the restoration and the core doctrine of the church CANNOT be refuted by historical inquiry. What the spirit has born witness of will not change. Is the church appealing to the least common denominator? Perhaps. But that also explains, in my mind, why so many people leave when they encounter difficult historical facts or events or opinions. It seems like the church is hiding the past to “promote faith” and encourages asking questions inasmuch as they aren’t too critical.
I took off a star because I’m not sure that I agree with the Purity System the author speaks of, and because it seemed to drag a bit (I listened to it). I think something like the purity system exists, but I’m not sure I like the term “purity” in this sense.
August 25, 2024
From our blog:
I was surprised when the book opened with the story of David Wright, a former BYU professor who was excommunicated in 1994 while living in Boston for publishing unorthodox perspectives on the Book of Mormon. It soon became clear that Patterson was setting the stage to discuss not only the individuals who faced church discipline in September 1993, but the larger story of an era of intellectual retrenchment in the LDS church where church leaders and members clashed over which narratives of the Restoration were okay to publish.
Patterson does indeed discuss each of the six—their work that led to the disciplinary councils, the results of the councils, and the intellectual and spiritual paths that each followed in the decades to come. Patterson uses a variety of sources for the book, including personal interviews or correspondence with several of the key participants. I was moved to hear more about the experience of Margaret Toscano, who was excommunicated in 2000, seven years after her husband Paul was excommunicated as part of the Six. Patterson writes, “It should have been Margaret Toscano. She was the primary focus of the church authorities’ attention until her husband, Paul, stepped in. She did not need to be rescued” (213). It was an interesting manifestation of the church’s sexism that infantilizes women and considers their priesthood-holding husbands as spiritually responsible for them.
Come for the stories of the September Six, stay for Patterson’s in-depth analysis of the church’s purity system that placed some ideas and bodies inside a circle of acceptability and pushed others out.
I was surprised when the book opened with the story of David Wright, a former BYU professor who was excommunicated in 1994 while living in Boston for publishing unorthodox perspectives on the Book of Mormon. It soon became clear that Patterson was setting the stage to discuss not only the individuals who faced church discipline in September 1993, but the larger story of an era of intellectual retrenchment in the LDS church where church leaders and members clashed over which narratives of the Restoration were okay to publish.
Patterson does indeed discuss each of the six—their work that led to the disciplinary councils, the results of the councils, and the intellectual and spiritual paths that each followed in the decades to come. Patterson uses a variety of sources for the book, including personal interviews or correspondence with several of the key participants. I was moved to hear more about the experience of Margaret Toscano, who was excommunicated in 2000, seven years after her husband Paul was excommunicated as part of the Six. Patterson writes, “It should have been Margaret Toscano. She was the primary focus of the church authorities’ attention until her husband, Paul, stepped in. She did not need to be rescued” (213). It was an interesting manifestation of the church’s sexism that infantilizes women and considers their priesthood-holding husbands as spiritually responsible for them.
Come for the stories of the September Six, stay for Patterson’s in-depth analysis of the church’s purity system that placed some ideas and bodies inside a circle of acceptability and pushed others out.
September 17, 2023
Published September 2023, 314 pages
An amazing work providing an effective analytical framework for a cogent review of some troubling events in LDS church history over the last 40 years. I am familiar with all of these events, as they took place during my adult life, and impacted my feelings about the institutional church.
Beginning in 1971, with Correlation program, changing the whole church structure into everything based on Priesthood hierarchy authority. More patriarchal, centralized position of orthodoxy.
Construction of Purity System
1) Doctrinal Purity—importance of orthodoxy (only faith-promoting history)
2) Familial Purity—heterosexual, monogamous, patriarchal (feminism as enemy)
3) Bodily and Sexual Purity—
A vision of God as a being who was primarily concerned with living a “life of requirement,” following the rules and rewarding those who bound themselves to the hierarchies of the system.
In the late twentieth century, the institutional church worked hard to align itself with the Religious Right. Its anti-intellectualism, emphasis on the historicity of scriptures, its political activism and theological arguments against anything other than heterosexual monogamy, and it’s claims about women, the family and the home, worked to cement the church’s social and political bonds with conservative evangelical social and political forces. page xxx
In 2023, this seems to me to have been a poor choice of allies, as rising white christian nationalism is an ugly thing.
An amazing work providing an effective analytical framework for a cogent review of some troubling events in LDS church history over the last 40 years. I am familiar with all of these events, as they took place during my adult life, and impacted my feelings about the institutional church.
Beginning in 1971, with Correlation program, changing the whole church structure into everything based on Priesthood hierarchy authority. More patriarchal, centralized position of orthodoxy.
Construction of Purity System
1) Doctrinal Purity—importance of orthodoxy (only faith-promoting history)
2) Familial Purity—heterosexual, monogamous, patriarchal (feminism as enemy)
3) Bodily and Sexual Purity—
A vision of God as a being who was primarily concerned with living a “life of requirement,” following the rules and rewarding those who bound themselves to the hierarchies of the system.
In the late twentieth century, the institutional church worked hard to align itself with the Religious Right. Its anti-intellectualism, emphasis on the historicity of scriptures, its political activism and theological arguments against anything other than heterosexual monogamy, and it’s claims about women, the family and the home, worked to cement the church’s social and political bonds with conservative evangelical social and political forces. page xxx
In 2023, this seems to me to have been a poor choice of allies, as rising white christian nationalism is an ugly thing.
October 14, 2023
A biography of the six individuals excommunicated or disfellowshipped from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in September 1993. The book also tells of others receiving discipline (usually excommunication) from the Church. The author discusses the disciplinary actions in the context of the Church's "purity system": doctrinal purity, familial purity, and bodily purity. After 30-years of perspective, this is a story that needs be to told, and I and mostly agree with the theme of purity monitoring/guarding by the institutional Church. The book was, however, perhaps a bit parochial, not attempting to fit the September Six into the broader context of prosocial religion in general. While the September Six are "special" to those affiliated with the LDS Church, their stories are not unique to religion or other institutionalized social communities. Further, I had hoped to hear the story also told (or attempted to be told) from the perspective of the Church leaders. The book makes all Church leaders out to be the villains, deliberately lying and knowingly obfuscating the truth. I find this a little short-sighted as I believe religious leaders (not just in the LDS Church) and political leaders usually have a sincere belief that they are defending truth and in the right. The problem is truth and "right" are seen so differently by so many. "Faith" requires a follower to accept and defend certain claims without concrete evidence or despite evidence to the contrary. In such a system rationality means little.
September 27, 2024
"I am inescapably a Mormon. I am not on the outside looking in. I just have another way of being inside."
-David P. Wright
Every Mormon, or former Mormon should read this book. In a religion that is struggling with the deluge of information, an ever changing and evolving membership, and major historical/doctrinal issues, Patterson explains this push and pull between intellectualism and the purity system in the LDS church. As a student at BYU, I found out most of the "Mormon myths" and the blatant way the church shows you ONLY the history that fits their narrative. BYU history professors always seemed terrified to be intellectually honest with students because hey, they didn't want us to go out into the world uninformed about our own faith, but also they didn't want to get fired for not following Mormon orthodoxy. Attending BYU was like attending a "white LDS utopia", but underneath you could feel the tension and fear as academia collided with religion (as I'm sure it does in many church run universities). As I read this, I had so many aha moments. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate this book. Mormon scholars are disappearing and we need these voices!
-David P. Wright
Every Mormon, or former Mormon should read this book. In a religion that is struggling with the deluge of information, an ever changing and evolving membership, and major historical/doctrinal issues, Patterson explains this push and pull between intellectualism and the purity system in the LDS church. As a student at BYU, I found out most of the "Mormon myths" and the blatant way the church shows you ONLY the history that fits their narrative. BYU history professors always seemed terrified to be intellectually honest with students because hey, they didn't want us to go out into the world uninformed about our own faith, but also they didn't want to get fired for not following Mormon orthodoxy. Attending BYU was like attending a "white LDS utopia", but underneath you could feel the tension and fear as academia collided with religion (as I'm sure it does in many church run universities). As I read this, I had so many aha moments. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate this book. Mormon scholars are disappearing and we need these voices!
October 13, 2023
This was an excellent book that goes beyond the month of September 1993 to instead place the “September Six” within a much broader history of the church’s attempt to enforce its system of purity on members of the church. As the author argues, these efforts predated the 1990s and even continue to this day, impacting far more than just six individuals in 1993. Several thoughts that I enjoyed:
1. History is vital to establishing a purity system as solidifying the “one” history of a movement allows the system to outlive any given individual. Given the nature of the restoration tradition, calls for change also need to be rooted in the past.
2. The “middle-road” narrative doesn’t really hold up for several reasons, and we should think about the purpose that this narrative serves for those in power. Gileadi’s inclusion in the September Six perhaps has more to due with a cleaver alliteration than anything else. The other members of the September Six were more focused on proposing an alternative to the existing purity system whereas more “conservative” critiques such as Gileadi were focused on “returning” to a former purity system.
Overall, this was a fascinating book that built on a wealth of existing scholarship to place the September Six in its proper context - one that was less about a single month in 1993 and more about broader tensions and changes taking place in the church over the past 50+ years.
1. History is vital to establishing a purity system as solidifying the “one” history of a movement allows the system to outlive any given individual. Given the nature of the restoration tradition, calls for change also need to be rooted in the past.
2. The “middle-road” narrative doesn’t really hold up for several reasons, and we should think about the purpose that this narrative serves for those in power. Gileadi’s inclusion in the September Six perhaps has more to due with a cleaver alliteration than anything else. The other members of the September Six were more focused on proposing an alternative to the existing purity system whereas more “conservative” critiques such as Gileadi were focused on “returning” to a former purity system.
Overall, this was a fascinating book that built on a wealth of existing scholarship to place the September Six in its proper context - one that was less about a single month in 1993 and more about broader tensions and changes taking place in the church over the past 50+ years.
May 30, 2024
A Professional Endeavor Done Well
Truth. The search for truth. God. The search for God.
One might think these are highly overlapping
if not identical endeavors.
Ironically they seem not to be identical. Why?
Professionally acknowledged historians accept as postulate proscription of divine influence. Thus are the search for truth and the search for God necessarily different … by definition.
Hence the title of this review. The history impresses me as professional, accurate, insightful, delightfully challenging, and mind-expanding. Truly it speaks to my mind and heart.
By adhering to professional postulates, it cannot / will not depict, divine influence. Though it may and does report individual tellings of such. And, I would not want the book to do otherwise.
And I am free to choose how to see God and how to see as He sees. I am enabled to consider how God may have influenced humankind in decades past and how He may may yet influence humankind.
THAT is a well written professional history.
Truth. The search for truth. God. The search for God.
One might think these are highly overlapping
if not identical endeavors.
Ironically they seem not to be identical. Why?
Professionally acknowledged historians accept as postulate proscription of divine influence. Thus are the search for truth and the search for God necessarily different … by definition.
Hence the title of this review. The history impresses me as professional, accurate, insightful, delightfully challenging, and mind-expanding. Truly it speaks to my mind and heart.
By adhering to professional postulates, it cannot / will not depict, divine influence. Though it may and does report individual tellings of such. And, I would not want the book to do otherwise.
And I am free to choose how to see God and how to see as He sees. I am enabled to consider how God may have influenced humankind in decades past and how He may may yet influence humankind.
THAT is a well written professional history.
October 13, 2023
all in one place
Though I am very familiar with most of what Sara Patterson wrote about, it was nice to have it so well researched and chronicled. This book provided me with a more organized and greater depth of understanding to a few of the current mantras, personalities and idioms that can provoke struggle and discouragement in the institutional LDS church. I applaud the many that were and are willing to question and express their independent thoughts. In addition to those that respect their own moral compass combined with the bravery in their actions. Very, very well done, Thank you!
Though I am very familiar with most of what Sara Patterson wrote about, it was nice to have it so well researched and chronicled. This book provided me with a more organized and greater depth of understanding to a few of the current mantras, personalities and idioms that can provoke struggle and discouragement in the institutional LDS church. I applaud the many that were and are willing to question and express their independent thoughts. In addition to those that respect their own moral compass combined with the bravery in their actions. Very, very well done, Thank you!
Read
October 15, 2023Finished just in time for book club. Gotta let this one simmer for a bit …
August 5, 2024
Wow! Definitely some history I hadn’t heard before in this one.
September 7, 2025
I had only a vague notion of the events
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews