Writer excommunicated during LDS Church’s ‘September Six’ purge is ‘rebaptized’ — with a twist

Five years after top Latter-day Saint leaders refused to readmit excommunicated member Lavina Fielding Anderson to the fold, she finally got her wish.

The faith’s governing First Presidency now has granted Anderson, one of the famed “September Six,” a rebaptism and restoration of her temple “blessings” and membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

No telling how it will affect her, though, because, well, she died a year ago.

Latter-day Saints believe in doing vicarious rituals for the dead, including for those who were no longer members when alive — but only with approval from the top.

“If persons either had their church membership withdrawn or had resigned membership before they died,” the General Handbook explains, “First Presidency approval is required before temple ordinances, including restoration of blessings when applicable, can be performed for them.”

A family member may seek this approval, the handbook instructs, “after one year has passed since the person’s death.”

As the first anniversary of Anderson’s Oct. 29, 2023, death at age 79 approached, her son, Christian Anderson, wished to see her be rebaptized by a living participant.

“I, naturally, wanted to be involved in (or at least aware of) my own mother’s restored blessings,” he says. “So, on Oct. 29, I logged into FamilySearch.org [the church’s genealogical arm] to try to register to perform baptisms for the dead. There was a lock on the record, and I was told to contact their help desk. ... I filled out a brief form that included my FamilySearch ID and hers and a bit of contact information.”

Christian also added a brief note: “I would like to fulfill her wish to be rebaptized in a holy temple. I would like to emphasize that though she was excommunicated in 1993, she continued to attend her ward faithfully for nearly 30 years until prevented by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent declining health.”

Instead, the First Presidency authorized others to do the rituals, known as “ordinances,” without inviting him to be included in any way or informing him it was happening until eight days after it was a fait accompli.

The good word comes

“We are pleased to inform you,” a temple department director wrote to Christian, “that the following ordinances were completed under the direction of the First Presidency, in the Jordan River Utah Temple, on behalf of Sister Lavina Anderson:

• Readmission by baptism: November 12, 2024.

• Restoration of temple blessings: Nov. 12, 2024.”

The son received the letter, dated Nov. 19, in an email, notifying him that his mother’s long-sought restoration, including her temple sealing to her husband, Paul, were back in place. In addition, the previous restriction would be removed from her records.

“We are grateful for your diligent efforts,” the letter states, “in making temple blessings available for your deceased mother.”

Christian wanted to do it himself, he says ruefully, “but I’m going to take the win.”

Still, he holds “deeply ambivalent feelings about this.”

“On the one hand, the outcome is exactly what I think she would have wanted (the original ordinances are restored as if the last three decades were just one big misunderstanding),” Christian says. “On the other hand, I feel like I was denied the chance to be part of the reconciliation process, and somehow the restoration feels like something that happened to her (and, secondarily to me), just like the excommunication was something that happened to her.”

A faithful life

Lavina Anderson was excommunicated in September 1993 for an article she wrote in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought that described episodes of what she called “ecclesiastical abuse” of Latter-day Saint intellectuals.

That same month, five other Latter-day Saint writers and scholars, who became known as the September Six, were disciplined. The other five were Avraham Gileadi, Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano and Maxine Hanks.

In the decades since her ouster, Anderson consistently attended weekly services at her Latter-day Saint congregation, the Whittier Ward. She sat quietly in the same pew as the emblems of the sacrament, or Communion, passed by her more than a thousand times without being able to partake. She participated as much as she was able — playing the piano and singing in the choir — and watched as lay bishops came and went.

After her husband, Paul, died in 2018, their then-bishop asked if Anderson wanted to be rebaptized. She was open to it and to sharing her faith — and questions — with the stake (regional) high council, which read one of her recent essays.

Christian, too, spoke with the council about her case.

“Her sincere belief in Jesus and determination to follow him no matter the adversity faced within or without the church should be commended, and this good and faithful servant should be rewarded,” he argued. “She embodies, more than anyone else I know, the ideal of a ‘broken heart and contrite spirit,’ which has influenced me so strongly that I, the last time I checked, was one of only two of the 21 children of the ‘September Six’ who is still an active member.”

The regional council forwarded her request to church headquarters, with the recommendation that she be approved for rebaptism.

The First Presidency denied it.

“I was not surprised or angry about the outcome,” Lavina Anderson said at the time, and had no plans to try to open that door again.

“I have kept my covenants, remained close to the church and have felt that what I have done is accepted by the Lord,” the Salt Lake City editor and writer said. “If there is unfinished business, it’s the First Presidency’s, not mine.”

‘Ritual of welcome back’

Anderson once wrote about the contrast “between the poetic Catholic excommunication rite of stilling a ringing bell, closing a book, and blowing out a candle,” her son notes, “and the sterile transaction of Mormon excommunication, where a stake councilor brings an envelope to you and wishes you a nice day.”

Similarly, Christian believes a restoration “should have some ritual of welcome back to the community, not an email a week after the fact,” he says. “For something that should be such an intimate part of her spiritual life, both feel curiously impersonal, ham-fisted and bureaucratic.”

Since 1993, two of the September Six have been baptized (Gileadi and Hanks), two have not sought reconnection (Whitesides and Toscano) and one other, D. Michael Quinn, has died.

On the outside, though, Quinn remained a believer to the end.

Under Latter-day Saint theology, as Anderson and Quinn venture into the eternities, could the historian be the next one welcomed vicariously back into the tent?

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