Another Podcaster Bites the Dust

[JAHS]

Popular Mormon podcasters resign from LDS church, a step ahead of excommunication

"Valerie and Nathan Hamaker, co-hosts of ‘Latter Day Struggles,’ have resigned their LDS church membership rather than attend a church disciplinary council that was likely to result in their excommunication."

It seems like people like this start out with good intentions but then they go a little too far and get into trouble.
I thought if a member is slated to undergo a disciplinary council they can't avoid it by just resigning.

Edited March 18 by JAHS

[Peacefully]

20 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Popular Mormon podcasters resign from LDS church, a step ahead of excommunication

"Valerie and Nathan Hamaker, co-hosts of ‘Latter Day Struggles,’ have resigned their LDS church membership rather than attend a church disciplinary council that was likely to result in their excommunication."

It seems like people like this start out with good intentions but then they go a little too far and get into trouble.
I thought if a member is slated to undergo a disciplinary council they can't avoid it by just resigning.

Who would have the authority to force them to attend the council or are you saying it would go on without them? 

[The Mean Farmer]

"Popular"?

 

 

[JAHS]

16 minutes ago, Peacefully said:

Who would have the authority to force them to attend the council or are you saying it would go on without them? 

They do hold disciplinary councils even if the member does not show up and the member is informed of the decision.

[JustAnAustralian]

Quote

 “We had said in the podcast that we felt it was OK to pay tithing to outside entities — an honest 10% to any charity that would bless God’s children.” 

I doubt a one-off, pay tithing to outside entities comment on a podcast would be enough to get multiple complaints from ward members and going straight to membership council.

Does anyone know what other things that went against church teaching these guys were saying were ok? 

Edited March 18 by JustAnAustralian

[Duncan]

27 minutes ago, The Mean Farmer said:

"Popular"?

 

 

yeah, I was going to say who?

[Calm]

34 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Popular Mormon podcasters resign from LDS church, a step ahead of excommunication

"Valerie and Nathan Hamaker, co-hosts of ‘Latter Day Struggles,’ have resigned their LDS church membership rather than attend a church disciplinary council that was likely to result in their excommunication."

It seems like people like this start out with good intentions but then they go a little too far and get into trouble.
I thought if a member is slated to undergo a disciplinary council they can't avoid it by just resigning.

I think being in the public eye, having your beliefs and ideas constantly questioned seems to put additional pressures/stresses on relationships and that would include relationships with the Church, imo.  If you get into the field in part because of past or present struggles, you may already be vulnerable in those areas.  Plus, of course, you can have all sorts of unusual beliefs and if you don’t publicize them, no one will know to challenge you on them, so being public is going to raise the chance of discipline if you incline at all to heretical positions in the view of the Church. 
 

Reading the article, I am cautious as we are only getting one side of the story.  From their POV, it does seem a lack of understanding of what is required of mental health professionals and overly conservative leadership.  I also understand the need to go public so those going to them for help know what they are getting, so I don’t see them as automatically trying to turn those issues into a publicity stunt as I believe others have done.

But then the couple says this….

Quote

They chose to resign, they said, because they felt that a church court “did not make sense in the least.” They believe they are advocating for a healthy LDS church and improving the psychological and spiritual well-being of thousands of Latter-day Saints. They feel “no guilt or shame” about this work, and “completely confident” that God approves of what they’ve offered their listeners. 

Valerie called the disciplinary counsel process “fundamentally exploitative and spiritually abusive in nature.”

“They maintain complete control and make sure that no one is present who can push back on the fact that there is no due process, no ‘checks and balances’ and no way anyone can weaken their position of total control.”

Nathan stated: “To arrive at such a meeting would be to endorse the process itself.  It would be saying, ‘We give you the power to carry this out and to judge us.’ With all due respect, no thank you. We will not participate.” 

In my opinion, this is a misunderstanding of the process and authority.  The whole idea there should be due process involved as if it’s a legal function is incorrect, imo.  I am not saying they have to accept the role of the council no matter how they see it to be devout Saints, I am not even saying I completely agree with how such councils are run, but it does make me wonder how they understand authority in the Church.

As soon as one starts labeling major church functions as “fundamentally abusive”, not just having potential for misuse (I believe there is potential for misuse in any human endeavor and I have no doubt there have been spiritually harmful councils, etc), but they are inherently harmful (which I do not believe), I see conflict arising between personal views and church standards, so if this perception was coming out in some of their talks with leaders or publicly or if there was advocacy for change, it is less surprising to me that a council was called.  

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Duncan said:

yeah, I was going to say who?

Sounds like it’s popular in the region.  Is a million downloads unusual?

[JAHS]

25 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

I doubt a one-off, pay tithing to outside entities comment on a podcast would be enough to get multiple complaints from ward members and going straight to membership council.

Does anyone know what other things that went against church teaching these guys were saying were ok? 

The tithing thing is a big one that goes directly against church principles, but apparently there are other things according to the ward members:
“Both the bishop and the stake president kind of spilled to us that a large percentage of our ward had already come to them privately to complain about us and asked the bishop to initiate discipline against us,”
 

[helix]

The following is from BySpyAgent from a Reddit community (one that is deeply critical of the church):

---

While I feel bad that they were called in to a disciplinary council, I know them personally form being in one of their Latter Day Struggles therapy groups, and I have a hard time believing how much of what they describe as reality or their own personal perception of persecution. On more than one occasion, when group members challenged the opinions of Nathan and Valerie, those members were criticized in front of the group, and pushed out.

The first time it happened was when a new person joined the Marco Pollo group and there was some arguments between the new members opinion on masking during covid and refusing to wear a mask when her bishop asked her to. When a fellow group member and I clapped back that her bishop was in the right and we had family members who were immunocompromised and died from COVID, Valarie and Nathen sided with the anti mask person, shamed me and the other group member for sharing our personal experience and then Valarie sent an email letting everyone know that we were going to be called out in our next group zoom. Me and my fellow group member tried to plead and settle things privately between a group Marco Pollo with Valarie and us, it was seen, ignored and later she lied that she had ever seen it. We got called out in front of everyone and my fellow group member was shoved out and told maybe the group wasn’t for her and she should leave, when my fellow group member asked a honest question of how to avoid potential conflicts going forward and was left with no real answers. Many of the other members had the same question which I ended up answering for everyone how we move forward in a more satisfying manner. My fellow group member who was pushed out left the group because she no longer felt comfortable or safe in group therapy with Valarie and Nathen. When I confronted Valerie via emailed about her poor behavior I got a small response back and a general sorry to the group for misgivings but nothing specific and she was happy to hide out and drop it beyond that.

The second time this happened was when Valarie announced that she was going to start charging people and putting half of her multiple part episodes behind a paywall instead of just making payed bonus content, adding advertisements, or slowing down and concentrating on her therapy practice and make the podcast a side gig instead of her full time job. Many of the group members from multiple groups were concerned about Valarie’s health and warned her to slow down because she was complaining about giving herself stress migraines. She wouldn’t have it. Some of the group members tried to see if we could get the paywall episodes for free since we were already paying members. That email was championed by one of our group members. That was shot down. I also wrote an email as a concerned paying member that I didn’t think her idea to put half her regular content behind a paywall was a good idea, and gave all the above alternate examples. My email was met with another email that was very defensive and I figured she was unable to take constructive criticism from a paying client and that was the end of it. That was not the end of it. Our Marco Pollo group was met with a defensive tirade from Nathen saying that telling Valarie to give up her more lucrative practice and start doing the podcast full time putting half of it behind a paywall was his idea. He called us ungrateful for not wanting to pay the new fee for the podcast and how dare we even ask such a thing. He told us with the worst frat boy “come at me bro” posturing to talk to him instead of Valerie if we had any problems. He said that they had received a bunch of “scathing” emails “attacking” Valerie from some of the therapy groups. He then quoted my email without saying my name in a Marco Pollo and insinuated that he would “cut my head off” in the middle of our zoom meet up. During all this Valerie did not pull Nathen back once in Zoom meet up or Pollos nor did she apologize for him attacking her clients and making them feel unsafe. When pressed about how many emails there really were, “a lot” turned out to be just 5. I outed myself in the zoom meet up, and made a statement in Marco Pollo two days later addressing the toxic environment that their codependent relationship had created in our group where she had made it ok for Nathen to berate the group while she hides behind him, and the fact that they complain so much how the Q15 punishes people that disagree with them, but they do the exact same thing to their paying clients when they disagree with them.

After delivering my speech and announcing I would be leaving the group at the end of the week I got booted from the Pollo group before the week was up. Valarie told the group members not to talk to each other and say anything bad about here behind her back because her skin is so thin she had to use her power as a therapist to try and controle the narrative. I had a lot of support from other group members. When I did a final Zoom call confronting Nathen and Valarie about what happened Valarie accused me of “attacking” her twice in email, I told her I was just trying to tell her how I felt each time about both situations and I wasn’t attacking. She said that my feelings were an attack on her. A therapist who can’t handle someone else’s feelings about her and calls them a personal attack shouldn’t be a therapist. I told them they needed to stop repeating the same toxic stuff because it’s going to hurt the remaining people in the group, who refuse to talk because they were scared of Nathen attacking them. Most of the folks in those groups are there because they have a hard time communicating with family and spouses and are conflict avoiders. I heard that Nathen apologized to the group for his “tone” but not what he did. Many said it felt like a non apology. And Valarie gave me a non apology that was more “I’m sorry it didn’t work out” than she was actually sorry for anything she did wrong.

That was two years ago, and I personally doubt they changed any. I was with that group for a year and they never really learned in that timeframe, I don’t see them changing any. I read the article by Jana Reiss, and I would love to know the other side that their ward had to say about them. Like the so many scathing emails, that only turned out to be 5 and not scathing at all, just confrontational, I’ll bet there were like 5 folks who mildly disagreed and expressed such to them. Were they really so kind in their interactions with the bishop, or just thought they were being such? Did the bishop apologize meekly for what he said over the pulpit because he was sorry and embarrassed, or because Nathen loomed over him and threatened him like he did our group? Did their old stake president not call them back because maybe the bishop and ward members felt threatened by the Hamaker’s lashing out at their heightened amount of perceived persecution? Knowing what I know about these folks, I would like to hear how the ward members and the bishop felt about them. The fact that they resigned instead of having the balls to go to their own excommunication and force those folks to look them in the face like Nemo and Natasha Helfer did, and Nathen and Valarie saying they “won’t give the discipline council the satisfaction” is code for too afraid to face consequences head on and face their accusers with pride, dignity, and defiance, is pretty consistent with the cowardice I have experienced from them personally. I feel bad for them, for a short time they did help me, and I make a lot of likeminded friends, but their story raises alot of questions for me about details they are skewing or leaving out to make themselves look better.

Edited March 18 by helix

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

I thought if a member is slated to undergo a disciplinary council they can't avoid it by just resigning.

What authority does the church have over non-members? The first amendment enshrines the right of all citizens to resign their memberships at will. 

Edited March 18 by SeekingUnderstanding

[JAHS]

23 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

What authority does the church have over non-members?

None.

23 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The first amendment enshrines the right of all citizens to resign their memberships at will.

Right. This may be an old policy I was thinking of that if a member is already going through a disciplinary process where they are told they will be excommunicated, they can't just say they resign instead. 
That may have changed.
 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

3 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Right. This may be an old policy I was thinking of that if a member is already going through a disciplinary process where they are told they will be excommunicated, they can't just say they resign instead. 
That may have changed.

The first amendment changed?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

“Both the bishop and the stake president kind of spilled to us that a large percentage of our ward had already come to them privately to complain about us and asked the bishop to initiate discipline against us,”
 

This does seem unusual to me, but I am not grapevine person and my husband never gossiped when he was in leadership positions, so I don’t know if complaining members is atypical as it seems to me or I am just uninformed there.

[Peacefully]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

They do hold disciplinary councils even if the member does not show up and the member is informed of the decision.

Makes sense. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

It's like quitting before you get fired- I guess. It still doesn't mitigate the fact that you were going to get fired.

[Rain]

27 minutes ago, Calm said:

This does seem unusual to me, but I am not grapevine person and my husband never gossiped when he was in leadership positions, so I don’t know if complaining members is atypical as it seems to me or I am just uninformed there.

There are many complaining members. I don't know anything about this situation, but complaining is common.  

[MrShorty]

3 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Does anyone know what other things that went against church teaching these guys were saying were ok? 

I haven't been an avid listener of the Hamaker's podcast, but I have been following their podcast for a long time. What were they saying that was against church teachings? Nothing worse than so many others:

They tended to lean into egalitarian over complementarian marriages.
The last month they spent a lot talking about "patriarchy" and feminism.
Late last year, they did a series on mixed faith marriages (focused on still believing LDS married to ex-LDS or LDS in faith crisis).
I recall Valerie doing an episode with Julie Hanks where, in response to something related to Sister Camille Johnson and her professional career + mother, they talked about coming of age about the same time Sr. Johnson came of age and how differently women understood the prevailing views on working women and differing interpretations of Elder Benson's talk to the Mothers in Zion.
She did an episode with the women of At Last She Said It.
She did several episodes with some people from Faith Matters.

If I could distill what I hear from them down to a nutshell, she focuses a lot on "faith journeys" complete with different ideas on stages of faith. She often emphasizes developing your own sense of self, which is common in many faith crisis communities.

If I had to guess what got her called into a membership council, it was that she leaned into personal authority that doesn't necessarily defer to institutional or prophetic authority. Of course, she is not the only one talking about how to decide when to stand on your own two moral feet and when to defer to the institution, but, for some reason or another, her priesthood leadership decided she had gone too far with it.

The most interesting thing I am seeing in the faith crisis circles I run in -- how many are feeling that, if the church doesn't have room for people like the Hamakers, then maybe the church doesn't have room for us.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The first amendment changed?

There was a lawsuit won against a church that made public an excommunication for morality reasons, iirc, but my memory is just as members have the right to resign, the Church has the right to annotate their records and add requirements for rebaptism beyond the usual, but I could be easily wrong.  Memories are vague.  There might be old threads discussing this as it was a big thing a number of years ago.  A lawyer was offering his services free to send a letter on anyone’s behalf threatening the Church if they weren’t dropped of the records immediately and without contact iirc (the Church was to contact the lawyer, not the member iirc).  My memory was we were wondering if he was verifying the requests were sent by the actual person or not.

Resigning used to be treated the same way, a court was held even if there hadn’t be a plan for one, iirc.  There was a lawsuit on that and the Church changed its policy to allow resignations without a council being required, just a letter (there is some way required of verifying it, iirc, otherwise people could be resigning friends and neighbors without permission).  Again iirc.  I may do some searching for old threads if no one with a better memory shows up or better info.

Anyone know if rebaptism is the same for resigning as excommunication/membership withdrawal?  I would assume there would be notes on a membership council being called to be held even if it wasn’t held and therefore the rebaptism process in those cases would be the same whether the person resigned after they were told about it or got excommunicated.  Of course, such a council doesn’t always end up in excommunication.

Edited March 19 by Calm

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

I think being in the public eye, having your beliefs and ideas constantly questioned seems to put additional pressures/stresses on relationships and that would include relationships with the Church, imo.  

I have no idea who these people are and I've never listened to anything they've said (so I'm just speaking generally), but I think one risk for members in putting out critical podcasts about the church is that you gain a following of people who tend to also be on the critical side of things, which means you have to stay critical to keep the followers happy.

I don't think that any sincere member with honest concerns goes into such an endeavor with the idea that they are going to compromise their beliefs for likes or money, but I think it's an easy hill to slide down without really noticing.  When you get people agreeing with you and reposting your stuff and telling you how wise you are when you say critical things about the church, that's an ego boost that would be hard for anyone not to find flattering.  Then you get a few followers who are there specifically for the critical stuff and I can imagine it would get harder to want to step into the other side of the pool and risk alienating those people.

Plus, echo chambers are just dangerous.  You surround yourself with people telling you how awesome you are for speaking up against the church or pointing how the things the leaders are doing wrong and that's incredibly validating.  I think it would be easy to really start to believe you are as amazing and everyone says you are under those circumstances.

Quote

 

But then the couple says this….

In my opinion, this is a misunderstanding of the process and authority.  The whole idea there should be due process involved as if it’s a legal function is incorrect, imo.  I am not saying they have to accept the role of the council no matter how they see it to be devout Saints, I am not even saying I completely agree with how such councils are run, but it does make me wonder how they understand authority in the Church.

 

That strikes me as putting themselves above the prophets and apostles in terms of authority, so it makes sense they are getting pushback for that.  Looking at it from the outside, the red flags don't get any bigger in my opinion.  I'm sure from the inside, they are feeling attacked.  That statement does come off as very defensive.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

There was a lawsuit won against a church that made public an excommunication for morality reasons, iirc, but my memory is just as members have the right to resign, the Church has the right to annotate their records and add requirements for rebaptism beyond the usual, but I could be easily wrong.  Memories are vague.  There might be old threads discussing this as it was a big thing a number of years ago.  A lawyer was offering his services free to send a letter on anyone’s behalf threatening the Church if they weren’t dropped of the records immediately and without contact iirc (the Church was to contact the lawyer, not the member iirc).  My memory was we were wondering if he was verifying the requests were sent by the actual person or not.

Resigning used to be treated the same way, a court was held even if there hadn’t be a plan for one, iirc.  There was a lawsuit on that and the Church changed its policy to allow resignations without a council being required, just a letter (there is some way required of verifying it, iirc, otherwise people could be resigning friends and neighbors without permission).  Again iirc.  I may do some searching for old threads if no one with a better memory shows up or better info.

Anyone know if rebaptism is the same for resigning as excommunication/membership withdrawal?  I would assume there would be notes on a membership council being called to be held even if it wasn’t held and therefore the rebaptism process in those cases would be the same whether the person resigned after they were told about it or got excommunicated.  Of course, such a council doesn’t always end up in excommunication.

There have been a few settlements against churches for defamation back in the 1980’s. Guinn vs church of Christ in Oklahoma was one. Members have a constitutional right to resign their membership. Church have pretty much unquestionable ability to issue public discipline against members but may be subject to civil litigation for actions taken against non members (just like any other organization would be). 

Edited March 19 by SeekingUnderstanding

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

There was a lawsuit won against a church that made public an excommunication for morality reasons, iirc, but my memory is just as members have the right to resign, the Church has the right to annotate their records and add requirements for rebaptism beyond the usual, but I could be easily wrong.  Memories are vague.  There might be old threads discussing this as it was a big thing a number of years ago.  A lawyer was offering his services free to send a letter on anyone’s behalf threatening the Church if they weren’t dropped of the records immediately and without contact iirc (the Church was to contact the lawyer, not the member iirc).  My memory was we were wondering if he was verifying the requests were sent by the actual person or not.

Resigning used to be treated the same way, a court was held even if there hadn’t be a plan for one, iirc.  There was a lawsuit on that and the Church changed its policy to allow resignations without a council being required, just a letter (there is some way required of verifying it, iirc, otherwise people could be resigning friends and neighbors without permission).  Again iirc.  I may do some searching for old threads if no one with a better memory shows up or better info.

Anyone know if rebaptism is the same for resigning as excommunication/membership withdrawal?  I would assume there would be notes on a membership council being called to be held even if it wasn’t held and therefore the rebaptism process in those cases would be the same whether the person resigned after they were told about it or got excommunicated.  Of course, such a council doesn’t always end up in excommunication.

Perhaps you were thinking of this case that changed the church policy? https://mormon-alliance.org/casereports/volume3/part1/v3p1c05.htm

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, JAHS said:

They do hold disciplinary councils even if the member does not show up and the member is informed of the decision.

This is true.  Once a court is scheduled, the decision has already been made.  This will happen with or without the accused being present.

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

Once a court is scheduled, the decision has already been made.

What makes you think the decision has already been made?  Not all courts/councils end in excommunication.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Perhaps you were thinking of this case that changed the church policy? https://mormon-alliance.org/casereports/volume3/part1/v3p1c05.htm

another thread on the subject if anyone wants to walk down memory lane or learn past POVs.  Some of the info will be outdated with policy changes in the past ten years

 

Edited March 19 by Calm