In 2022, sensing a need among her fellow Latter-day Saints, Valerie Hamaker started the “Latter Day Struggles” podcast to address the faith crisis many Mormons were experiencing.
A mental health counselor serving a mainly Latter-day Saint clientele in Kansas City, Missouri, Hamaker began airing conversations with active members about challenges they were facing with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her husband, Nathan, an ophthalmologist, soon became her co-host.
More than a million downloads later, it seems Hamaker was right. Besides the podcast and its accompanying virtual community where current and former church members talk openly about hard things, the couple now offer related classes and virtual support groups. The people they’ve helped love them and their work.
I’ve seen this firsthand. Since September 2024, I have been embedded as a researcher in one of their weekly support groups. With the permission of the group members, I sit in on the virtual meetings as part of my work studying Mormon faith crises. I’ve been impressed by Valerie’s ability to quietly affirm each meeting’s two dozen participants, helping them process their Latter-day Saint faith journey.
Valerie and Nathan’s local church leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, don’t see their work that way, though it took a while before their concerns came to light.
“For the first year to year and a half, we didn’t hear a word from anybody in leadership in the church,” Valerie said in a Religion News Service interview with the couple.
The first hint came in August 2023, as she and Nathan went to see their lay bishop for a routine renewal of their temple recommends. Both were active members with callings — she in the Primary; he with the Young Men — and both were raising their four children in the faith, holding regular Family Home Evenings and scripture study. They didn’t imagine there might be a problem.
Not only would the bishop not renew their recommends, but he wouldn’t take them through the church’s prescribed recommend interview questions at all.
A low point came in early January 2024, when Valerie shared her testimony on fast Sunday and expressed to her ward of 20 years that she was trying to create safety for all members, no matter where they were in their faith journey. She was followed by the bishop, who, she said, “publicly shamed me and Nathan.” The bishop told the congregation that he loved the Hamakers, who had been in his office “many times” to speak with him, but that in response to ward members’ complaints about them and their podcast, he had gone to the stake president for advice.
Nathan reported that the bishop followed that by telling the congregants they all “just needed to love” the Hamakers, adding, “Just remember: Even your bad kids are invited to Christmas dinner.”
The final strike came Feb. 24, when a text message notified them that a church disciplinary council would be held for them to “consider your actions and statements relative to the doctrines of the church.” They would not be permitted to bring legal counsel, and any witnesses had to be approved in advance.
The letter did not make any particular charge that would be grounds for excommunication (which the church now calls “withdrawal of membership”). However, it closed with the line, “it is our hope and prayer that this membership council will lead you to a greater trust in the Lord and his designated prophets.”
Exhausted and disheartened, the Hamakers quietly resigned their memberships. On Monday, they went public with their story on the podcast and through
this interview.
This is what Oaks was talking about when he demanded more excommunications. It would be interesting to know who the Bishop and Stake President reached out to for advice on this.
